Getting started

Time to introduce seventeen managers to our version of leadership development. Ready to go!

Chocolate attracts

That is true for the almost two year old too. After careful removing of all other cereal boxes, pasta and what have you from the cupboard, he found what he was looking for. Nestles cereals - the chocolate balls. All by himself. Obviously chocolate gets most of us to do that little extra.

A la maison

As lovely as it is being away meeting family and friends, cooking delicious food, drinking wine and enjoying the company and conversations without time limits, there is nothing like coming home.

Opening the fridge to cook exactly what you feel like eating. Taking a long, hot bath just because you can. Relaxing in a warm flat, on the couch, listening to some soft music.

My home makes me happy. This is where I really relax. Sometimes it's good to be reminded, not to take it for granted. Small moments of everyday luxury.

Procrastination morning

Anything is better than doing the one piece of work that I have on my to do list today. So this morning I found out which site offers the best deal for Décleor products. I read the reviews of the site and of course couldn't help myself from putting in a "test order". Then it was time to find desirable tickets for upcoming birthday. The siblings-evening-out. Tick. Then what? Ah! Favourite podcast weekly release. The perfect background entertainment while continuing with procrastination tasks like baking a cake, ironing pillowcases and watering plants.

Now I'm done and have about twenty minutes before I need to pack up to go to a class (not a procrastination task but rather a well planned). May be hyper efficient work time?? 

Working from home

Love my boss. She knows when to get you a shrovetide bun.

Stop fighting and be patient

A weekend marked by sickness and the initial reaction to refuse that was the case. If you can argue that every experience is a learning possibility, then this was a lesson in patience, acceptance and surrender. It's not favourite lesson, but it still inspired me to a full yoga class on the topic. Patience to work in balancing positions. Stop fighting, work step by step, back off, start again. Accept that certain days are bad balance days. Perhaps without explanation, perhaps connected to a stressed mind. No matter how strong you are, no matter how flexible you are, balance can be good or bad. Joy to get the message across to a group of twenty five yogis who defied minus fourteen degrees and came to class this morning.

Now they are two

Drinking tea in a Spode is devine. My collection is growing one by one.

My new friend

Time to introduce my latest bargain to the girls. Long wine lunch coming up!

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Apparently one of the more common answers today is "blog writer". A profession (you can argue whether this is a profession) that didn't exist ten years ago.

In the late eighties when commercial television was introduced in Sweden one of the most wanted professions was television presenter. Today the profession is dying as some channels have stopped using presenters full stop.

So what is so attractive about being a blog writer? It can't be the writing only as then the answer to the question would be without the "blog". There is something with the communication channel itself whereby we indulge in the perceived lifestyle of a blogger:

The look and feel of their home (when the fireplace is lit, the wine bottle is opened and a plate of charcuteries is laid out), their outfits (always the latest fashion, always high heels), their love life (romantic of course), all the great restaurants they frequent and all the perfectly made coffees they drink. Then there is the relaxing holiday to somewhere exotic followed by the long weekend to a posh skiing resort or a couple of days in NY. 

The "in betweens" don't seem to exist. We happily play along, although we know the "in betweens" have a place in everybody's lives. We just don't want to be reminded of them. 

Sometimes I wonder whether blog writers create situations to have something to write about. The purpose of what they do stop being genuine as there is always a search for the next blog post.

The punchline? At some point the profession will die, I'm sure. Just like the television presenters are soon a rare breed. However, the good old professions like accountant, lawyer, doctor, shop keeper, hairdresser and chef will always be around. And they all need to blog more to market their professions, visualise their lifestyles and demonstrate that a day in an accountant's life also include high heels, trendy restaurants, a beautiful home and long weekends to Verbier. May be then we can get eighteen year olds attention.

Stockholm Ice Bar

Cross country skiing

It still amazes me what is available just around the corner from the city center. Golf in the summer, cross country skiing in the winter. A Sunday filled with feel good activities. Skiing and sun on the nose followed by warm soup and a couple of hours in front of the fireplace with a book, knowing that a ninety minute yoga class is waiting. A Sunday at its best? It doesn't stop here... A possible rendez-vous after class has awakened my curiousity.

One of those things

May be I didn't really need a bracelet hanger. On the other hand I now enjoy my bracelets even more as I can see them every time I step into the bathroom.

All I want for dinner is...

After a week of hotel lunches and restaurant dinners, I have worked up a craving for soya beans and avocado. And proper tea in favourite teacup.

Today's googling

After being in a week's process with fifteen leadership consultants to develop concepts and ideas, I'm quite at my leisure. Not that it hasn't been a good monster meeting; it's been surprisingly rewarding. I just miss my time. Which includes googling and pottering.

Spending some time with my good friend, who I have neglected all week, Miss MacBook Pro, I can finally google things like "happy being unhappy and why we like negative feelings". I always thought the reason for negative feelings were to feed our motivation to change. To do something new, to move on. Now, there seems to be research indicating that in our unhappy moments, we are actually quite happy. We have the ability to experience positive and negative affect at the samt time. Is this an explanation why we sometimes expose ourselves to situations where we know unhappiness and discomfort will occur?

Human beings are complicated.

Target audience?

Fortyfive minutes of me-time, the only me-time this week. I sense I'm not the average customer at this bakery. Or may be the time of the day makes a difference.

Not a nice meeting room

But a good meeting.

January sales

At the Posh shop dogs and babies are most welcome. As long as their mums are buying.

Flashback

Getting ready, packing the bag, mentally preparing for a week filled with meetings and demands. After almost three weeks of total flexibility, the feeling is similar to the first day back at school after the summer holidays. It's not that I don't enjoy my job, it's the fixed times and adapting to other people's time schedules that my whole system is opposing to. And of course the monster meetings, i.e. meetings with too many people going for too long without enough output. Which pretty much fits the description of most meetings in my mind.

But right now I have an evening of total freedom. No demands and no have-tos.

Ganesha

Sometimes you need a little bit of Ganesha, the Lord of success and destroyer of evils and obstacles. He also represents education, knowledge, wisdom and wealth. Everybody should have a Ganesha in their home.

Right now he is working hard to remove some stubborn obstacles that have hovered around me for far too long.

Social media etc.

A day out with Adoarble and Baby M which included beautiful textiles, want-to-buy-shoes, luscious food and never ending discussions about social media and our obsession to follow certain semi-famous people on Instagram and Blogger. Who needs OK!, Hello and Look?

Time off to do nothing and everything

No alarm clock, the possibility of being outdoors in daylight, no meetings, time to see friends, time to cook, time to read. There is also time to think and to set out the directions for the coming year. I believe in having clear goals. I also believe in healthy routines, as long as they don't turn into manic principles.

When I'm doing nothing (which for me equals pottering), my mind is digesting the impressions and reflections from the last year, mixing them with my aspirations for the coming year to then shape it all into visions and goals.

This seems to be a theme in the blogospere right now and it's inspiring to read how other people scrutinise their lives to realise which changes are necessary to take them in the desired direction. No surprise, but I think health is the overriding common theme for everybody.

As always, the gym will be crowded in January, may be a week in February, and then it will be back to normal again. A "white month" in January will turn into "a glass of wine during the weekends" and all of a sudden Thursdays are also included in the weekend. No meat will translate into "chicken is alright". And so on.

But we still like to believe that in a new year absolutely everything is possible. And I believe it is. As long as your goals are clear and your motives are solid.

What you do today...

... will set you up for the rest of the year. Someone said or wrote, can't remember who. It makes sense though. To set the intentions at the beginning of something new. Enjoy the start of a new year, filled with anything you decide to fill it with.

"May we all have a vision now and then, of a world where every neighbour is a friend. May we all have our hopes, our will to try. If we don't we might as well lay down and die."

ABBA knew how to phrase it. Happy New Year 2013.