Your message? Your message, please??

Ever find yourself in a situation where others are listening to what you have to say, giving it credence? Yikes. It’s probably even strange for President Obama, and it is certainly strange for me. When I was a little girl, a teenager and an adult, it occurred to me more than once that LISTENING could be a valuable way to learn from others, and so I did, sometimes, figuratively tape my mouth shut and accept input. It sounded something like this: “MMMMMmmmmMMMMM.” Listening can be difficult, at least for me.

Now, I can be surprised when what I have to say is regarded as valuable. Wow!! Recently, I began accepting and then seeking speaking engagements. My initial topic promised to be a difficult one – how I successfully navigated this business through the death of its other dynamic partner. Somehow, after a few runs though, I learned to integrate the natural humor in the story (yes, even here there is very funny stuff) and make the speech useful and relatively pain-free for my audience.

Then a surprising thing happened. I found I was learning from these talks. I realized that I had taken the business past the catastrophe but that my work isn’t nearly done. A changing business climate awaits and I need to look at how we best come face-to-face with a new world and solve marketing problems. (More on this later, when we have something worthwhile fun to say!)

Another surprising thing happened, when I channeled my odd sense of learning through talking into my consulting work with clients. I began to listen closely to my answers and to challenge them. I started to realize I had new ideas for their work and mine.

Note to self! This has turned out to be a lot of work! I’m no longer nearly satisfied with what I already know. I don’t feel like I can skim over difficult questions that may require physics (oooh), learning about new technologies that involve words like “Jaccard coefficient” or involving myself in the types of financial analysis that allow a business to grow and a business owner to take to her bed in a fake swoon, wishing she HAD finished started that MBA.

So, surprise to all you old friends who wished I would JUST SHUSH! Talking has been good for me. Listening is nice, too, especially since I’ve developed a wicked sore throat.

(Okay, I’m ready to listen again, please get the duct tape…) I’m curious – what’s made you learn something when you were not expecting to learn, maybe expecting to teach? And how do you most enjoy learning?

History

Barack Obama’s inauguration was so moving. Not just because he’s broken one of our nation’s most ferocious barriers, the mental block of race, but also because he is highly intelligent. And assertive. And he appears to have a plan. Whooo-eee!

And he’s already working. He’s stopped for review Bush’s last “midnight regulations”, which included allowing carrying concealed weapons in some national parks. He’s moved to halt war crimes tribunals at Guantanamo, and is meeting with the national security team to determine direction in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama is already back to work on the much-needed economic stimulus plan, too.

Yikes

Then why can’t I stop my personal “yikes” factor from kicking in, even yesterday, on such a historic day?

Just a few reasons, small and large.

-The speech. It was grim. I was hoping our problems, particularly economic, wouldn’t sound so… grim yesterday. Obama is clearly taking the current not-so-hot state of this nation seriously, because that was not a soaring speech, but a get-our-hands-dirty-we’ve-got-urgent-problems call to action.

-The stock market. The Dow fell four percent to celebrate the day. Super.

-People. Take Timothy Geithner, vying to be Treasury Secretary. Look, even I know to pay all my self-employment tax, and nobody would consider me to be their bookkeeper, let alone Treasury Secretary. Self-employment tax is a no-brainer. And, once you’ve spotted an error in your taxes, going back a few years to see if you’ve made that same error multiple times is not rocket science either.  With Obama, we raised our expectations for excellence in leaders. Let’s not lower them for his appointees. Barack Obama can’t do his job alone, and the people who surround him need to be really smart and really honest.

History

In four years, we’ll remember this historic day. The “yikes” factors will, I hope, have faded. Hopefully our set of problems will have shifted somewhat. Your thoughts?