{Post written last Friday}
Bill and I received an email on Kali's 23rd birthday.
He, before I, because I was getting ready for her birthday dinner.
He said "Hun, did you see that email from Kali's boss"?
I glanced down to his phone and there in an email were words about our daughter.
The girl who dove headfirst into this interview a couple of months ago.
An interview that rolled into 3.
An interview that offered compliments of how well spoken she is.
An interview of how well put together she is at her age.
A job offer that held her hostage with feelings.
Should she take it, was it too much, too big, too high and mighty.
Her mama whispered in her ear that everything would work out the way it was supposed to.
Life is just that way.
Her mama's bestfriend Maria would stare at her across from dinner proclaiming "Give it a shot Kali, you never know until you try and you do have what it takes".
She took it.
She wrestled with sheets just like her mom those couple nights before this big job started.
Back on the 405 freeway.
Down to a new position.
New colleagues.
New bosses.
New clothes.
New training.
All of it.
And guess what you guys?
They asked for our emails to send praise to us.
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Good afternoon Lisa and Bill,
I am excited to be writing this email to introduce myself. My name is Kyla Kalinin and I am the Account Manager that Kali directly reports into at Insight Global!
I feel so fortunate to have had Kali join my team! In the months ahead, I will be mentoring her and ensuring she has all of the tools necessary to be successful at our company.
In just her first two weeks here she has already hit so many milestones and I am extremely proud of her. Kali is a fast learner and has picked up on our business processes very quickly - she’s a
natural. She is sharp, charismatic, positive and truly embodies all of Insight Global’s core values, which include: work ethic second to none and customer service oriented.
I can see Kali advancing in her sales career here at a fast-pace, and getting promoted into Account Management. She’s already won my vote and continues to impress her colleagues and management team.
If you ever have any questions or concerns you may reach me at any time.
My best regards,
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Biased to a certain degree because she's ours. She is sharp. She's punctual and she's a hard nosed learner. She will never look back and she will always make the best of what she can.
I've left her bosses names out of the email, along with the few that went back and forth to the bosses above hers.
They adore her.
And just like their words, she will advance.
What a compliment to her parents.
On her birthday.
Ain't no hiding now, they know the parents. HAHA!
And then I sent this picture to them after going back and forth on some emails....
I ducked for cover that Kali would soon text me... MOM, STOP.
But she didn't.
They just mentioned it to her this week. LOL.
They loved it-- whew
One thing they'll soon find out about Kali's mom is she's a silly goose blogger and my world is all about
PRAISE ALL THE KIND WORDS AND DON'T EVER EVER STOP...
Tell the kids just how great thy are!
You can never boast enough about a child.
Most importantly TO A CHILD.
To a human.
To whomever is in need.
A true definition of relaying kind words. Emails.
Encouragement.
Love.
You guys, pure pure love.
Even if it's a corporateschmorporate world, you can still share kind words.
You can NEVER EVER say enough praise to a human, in front of a human and around a human.
Do it.
It's what makes us better people.
Thank you Lord!
(cake presented by her colleagues)
This Mama Lisa
----------------------------------------------------
Fast forward to today. She's overwhelmed. Her long days of tenacity will for sure pay off.
It's getting through the first months, with wet feet, and tired eyes, and hands that guide her.
She can do it.
I read this today and I'll share with her...
The Learning/Doing Gap
Our society separates them. Somewhere along the way, we decided that one interfered with the other.
Go to school for 8 years to become a doctor–most of that time, you’re learning about doctoring, not actually doing doctoring.
Go to work as a copywriter. Most of the time, you’re doing writing, not learning about new ways to write.
The thing we usually seek to label as ‘learning’ is actually more about ‘education’. It revolves around compliance, rankings and “will this be on the test?”
Being good at school is not the same as learning something.
One reason that we don’t incorporate doing into education is that it takes the authority away from those that would seek to lecture and instruct.
There are 56 million people in K-12 (compulsory education) in the US right now. Most of them do nothing all day but school, failing to bring real-life activity, experimentation and interaction into the things that they are being taught.
And there are more than a hundred million people going to their jobs every day in the US, but few of them read books or take lessons regularly about how to do their work better. That’s considered a distraction or, at best, inconvenient or simply wasted time.
The gap is real. It often takes a decade or more for a profession to accept and learn a new approach. It took gastroenterologists a generation before they fully accepted that most ulcers were caused by bacteria and changed their approach. It has taken our justice system more than thirty years to take a hard look at sentencing and corrections.
It could be because we’re confusing learning with education. That education (someone else is in charge and I might fail) is a power shift from doing, so I’d rather be doing, thank you very much.
What happens if the learning we do is accomplished by always engaging in it in conjunction with our doing?
And what happens if we take a hard look at our doing and spend the time to actually learn something from it?
When police departments invest time in studying their numbers and investigating new approaches, they discover that efficacy and productivity goes up, safety improves and so does job satisfaction.
When science students devise and operate their own lab tests, their understanding of the work dramatically improves.
Education (the compliance-based system that all of us went through) is undergoing a massive shift, as big as the ones that have hit the other industries that have been rebuilt by the connection and leverage the internet brings. And yet, too much of the new work is simply coming up with a slightly more efficient way to deliver lectures plus tests.
I see this every day. People show up at Akimbo expecting lifetime access to secret videos, instead of the hard but useful work of engagement.
The alternative? Learning. Learning that embraces doing. The doing of speaking up, reviewing and be reviewed. The learning of relevant projects and peer engagement. Learning and doing together, at the same time, each producing the other.
That same symmetric property applies to just about everything we care about.
To quote the ancient rockers, “We don’t need no… education.”
But we could probably benefit from some learning.
In the middle of all this doing, this constant doing, we might benefit from learning to do it better.
I hope you can all take something from it too.
Learning and doing.
Tis is true in life, right?
Life's a dance we learn as we go?
Sometimes we lead and sometimes we follow...
And sometimes it's messy and scary.
(Senior year of High School - BEST FRIENDS)
Sometimes it's filled with beautiful emails from humans that know your worth and are willing to give YOU a try.
Because YOU are worth it.
Happy Taco Tuesday my friends...
Are you fanning your faces telling everyone around you just how hot it is now?
LOL!!
This Mama Lisa
ps. Sometimes you're the bug and sometimes you're the windshield...lol
Keep going? nah.
Laterrrrrr
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