Blended Memories

This morning at work I attended a seminar on feedback.  It's a topic I'm immensely passionate about and those who've worked with me know I often seek feedback.  It's also one of the things that I find people are most reluctant to give.  One thing that struck me in the seminar is that feedback need not always be entirely positive or completely negative... er, "constructive."  When I give a presentation or put together documentation, I genuinely want  feedback.  Instinctively I tend to know if I did something well or if it could have been better, but I like to get other people's perspective.  No one is going to hurt my feelings by telling me ways I could have done something better.  It's all about perspective and what each person in the audience needs.  No one will ever hit the mark 100% of the time, so having that input only serves to improve growth.  When I got my Master's degree in Industrial/Organizational Psychology I had an emphas...

Sometimes I look around and think, "How am I an adult right now?" or, "How am I older than my Mom was when I was 10?"  It's an interesting thing to think that we shed our skin every so often, but sometimes get stuck in place in other areas of our lives.  We carry so much baggage around that we get weighed down by things that have been gone for ages.  Some days I look up and think, "Holy crap, I'm killin' it!" where other days I proclaim, "Can't I just be a cat and sleep all day?"  Life is a roller coaster full of mountains and valleys and it's up to us how we intend to enjoy the ride. Twenty years ago I was preparing for my senior year of high school.  I took the picture below on a hot summer day in Chula Vista, California with a group of my friends who were also having the exact same picture taken.  Everything was planned out for me until then, but I hadn't decided on college yet, I only knew I had so much future ahead...

Back when I started my career, I was fearful of every new opportunity.  The unknown can be scary and I didn't have the confidence in myself that I would succeed.  Thankfully I had a manager back then who reminded me that I had what it takes and gratefully I listened and pushed myself even when I was scared.  I can think of very specific milestones where I was terrified to fail and I can also think of a turning point where I knew through experience that even if I failed, I needed to give myself a chance to try anyway. I never intended to wind up in business.  I wanted to be a psychologist when I started college and was certain I'd never step foot in a traditional organization.  The reality was I needed a job to support myself and wound up as a temp at Jack in the Box back in 2002.  The day I started at Jack was the same day my then-best friend left for college (and I was watching her younger siblings so her mom could join her in dropping her off at scho...