Each of us package ourselves into little boxes based on our perceptions.  Boxes we often don’t even realize confine us because we’ve worn them for so long.   These perceptions become  boundaries and sign posts of our own making;  invisible markers that we use to guide us, never realizing that others follow their own sign posts that are just as invisible.

But something happened the other day that’s probably changed my life.

Damaged Relationships

I have a family member I’ve never been close to, and my mother has tried to get us to open up to each other for a couple years.  Both of us have felt a bit of a wall most of our lives.  Not sure why, as there was no precipitating event, but it’s as if we’re simply acquaintances who visit once or twice a year.  With a nagging feeling I think, that there could be more.  But we didn’t know if the other felt the same.

The other day my mom and I went to the book store, and I chanced upon a book by Thich Nhat Hanh and opened it to a random page and started reading.

This is the story I read.

“A man once had to leave home for a long time. Before he left, his wife got pregnant, but he didn’t know it. When he returned, his wife had given birth to a child. He suspected that the little boy was not his, and believed that he was the son of a neighbor who used to come and work for the family. He looked at the little boy with suspicion. He hated him. He saw the neighbor’s face in the little boy’s face. Then one day the man’s brother came to visit for the first time. When he saw the little boy, he said to the father, “He looks just like you. He’s your exact duplicate.” The brother’s visit was a happy event, because it helped the father to get rid of his wrong perception. But the wrong perception had controlled this man’s life for 12 years. It made the father suffer deeply. It made his wife suffer deeply, and, of course, the little boy suffered from that kind of hatred.

“We act on the basis of wrong perceptions all the time. We should not be sure of any perception we have. When you look at the beautiful sunset, you may be quite sure that you are seeing the sun as it is in that moment, but a scientist will tell you that the image of the sun that you see is the image of the sun from eight minutes ago. Sunlight takes eight minutes to reach the earth from such a long distance. Also, when you see a star, you think that the star is there, but the star may have disappeared already, one, two, or ten thousand years before.

“We have to be very careful with our perceptions, otherwise we will suffer. It is very helpful to write on a piece of paper, “Are you sure?” and hang it up in your room. In medical clinics and hospitals, they are beginning to hang up these kinds of signs: “Even if you are sure, check again.” It is a caution that if a disease is not detected early, then it will be very difficult to heal. The medical doctors are not thinking in terms of mental formations. They are thinking in terms of a hidden disease. But we can also make use of this slogan – “Even if you are sure, check again.” We have made ourselves suffer, we made a hell for ourselves and our beloved ones because of our perceptions. Are you sure of your perception?

“There are people who suffer from a wrong perception for ten or twenty years. They are sure the other person has betrayed them or hates them, even though the other person has only good intentions. A person who is the victim of a wrong perception makes himself and the people around him suffer a lot.

“When you are angry and you suffer, please go back and inspect very deeply the content, the nature of your perceptions. If you are capable of removing the wrong perception, peace an happiness will be restored in you, and you will be able to love the other person again.”

Leaning against a book shelf, I read this story aloud to my mother, trying not to cry.   Without a word, she knew to whom and what it referred.

Getting the nerve and taking a chance

The reading seemed like fate.  She bought me the book.  The next morning I gathered my nerve and transcribed the story, sending it to him with a note that we really didn’t know each other well.  He replied back in agreement. I was relieved he felt the same, but I didn’t want a meeting between us to have the weight of expectation so I joked in return:

“And just to clarify, I am not pregnant with any of your staff, light takes closer to 8.3 minutes to reach the earth, and I don’t hate you.”

He replied in kind, ice broken, and we spent hours at dinner the next night talking about our perceptions and why our relationship had drifted apart over the years.  Turns out each of our perceptions was a little off, and some down-right wrong.

Ouch.

We may end up being very close friends.  It’s surely possible now, since decades of (mis)perceptions have been brought to light.  Some set aside, some rotated 90°, and some new (and shared) ones created.

Should we always seek to fix the damage?

So, would this affect my relationship with my two co-workers from the past?  One had behaved abominably but shortly after offered a sincere apology which I’d refused.  Maybe now I should consider that his and my interactions hadn’t existed in a vacuum, but were influenced by outside events.  And I hope I would offer a handshake if I saw him again.

The other?  Well, I’m not perfect and some events haven’t lost their cruel bite.  I don’t know if I could initiate that handshake.  But who knows.

However, I hope to take this lesson forward, and recognize possible errors in perception within shorter time intervals than years or decades.

Compass Point – Are you sure of your perception? “We act on the basis of wrong perceptions all the time. We should not be sure of any perception we have …  If you are capable of removing the wrong perception, peace an happiness will be restored in you.” – Thich Nhat Hanh

19 down, 341 to go.

And they don’t seem to realize that writing style and presentation radically affect how grant proposals are received.  REGARDLESS of the actual content and ideas.

Grant writing is telling a story.  You’ve got to set the hook immediately.  Draw the reader in.  Then keep them interested and excited.  While grants aren’t fiction, many aspects of writing fiction can be applied.

My idea – help grant submitters tell a better story.  Or tell their story better.

I talked to my best friend and colleague yesterday, and I relayed my idea about consulting to do assessments and “pre-reviews” for organizations who are submitting grants.  She’s a researcher and grant writer as well.

“Would this fly?” I asked her.  “I know organizations that ask for money probably don’t have the money to pay for a service to improve their grants in the first place.’

I’d already bounced the idea off my father before and he was surprised at my concern. “Why wouldn’t a company spend a little money to improve their chances of receiving funding?”

I asked my friend, “Would you hire someone to do this for your grant submissions?”

She said she probably wouldn’t.  She’s already proven through her funding record that she knows how to tell the compelling story.  I suspected she wasn’t in my target audience, but … what about those who write Ulysses-style grants?  Those who repeatedly get turned down?

But while she wouldn’t need my service, she told me that companies do exist who offer start-to-finish assistance.  Who outline, write, review, guide … everything.

“I don’t want to do the whole thing.  I want to offer what I do best – be a separate set of eyes to assess how it would be received.  To provide a comprehensive pre-review.  To restructure.  To rewrite sections or edit if needed.“  After all,  the audience is larger than just scientists – the panel also includes consumers and government officials.  Those who *can’t* assess the gory details, but for whom the proposal needs to be more accessible.

My idea isn’t new, but maybe needs to be executed differently

Kinda like I want grant submitters to execute THEIR submissions differently.

Then she gave me a great idea.  She said, “Don’t make the pitch directly to the organizations writing the grants, make it to the companies who ASSIST the organizations writing the grants.”

Wow.  I never knew such a thing existed.  I wrote all my grants myself.  But, I know how to tell a story and my track record for funding is very good.

Her suggestion made a lot of sense.  I originally viewed my idea as carving out my niche because what I offered was different.  But with that comes all the new marketing, business case development, etc.  Which I don’t want.  She saw me offering my expertise to a soup-to-nuts organization.  A consultant rather than a business owner.  Which is what I really do want.

I want to concentrate on what I do best – the technology assessments. The translation from technical-ese to accessible writing.  Assessing writing, editing, mentoring, etc.  An impartial but technical and research savvy sounding board.

I would never have thought of this idea and it seems perfect.

So I asked her to send me the names of some companies she knows about, and I will research the idea.

Compass Point – Float your idea and test the waters.  While hoping to catch that fish, you might also land the hook remover, filet knife and bucket to get the fish home more easily.  I asked a potential customer if she would use my service.  While she wouldn’t, she knew who others who would.  And she went one step further – she told me how to reach the audience – not directly, but through companies I never knew existed.

18 down, 342 to go.

But while the airport drama isn’t relevant, the message is.

The Readers’ Digest Condensed Version: As I was about to hand my boarding pass to the gate agent, Faux Fur Diva cut in front of me, and then in the crowded jet way, demanded to know what row I was in, and proceeded to explain to me (in front of everyone) why she was entitled to board first.  And that actually *I* had cut in front of *her*.

While part of me wanted to respond in kind, I didn’t take the bait.  Which stirred her pot even more.  It ended well because I just stopped responding to her. (Actually, I turned around in the crowded jet way and let her vent at my backpack instead.)

But to why Rudyard Kipling and “If” popped into my head.  I’d had to memorize the poem and recite it in 6th grade, and I still remember much of it.  The first few lines are keepers:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you

You can rattle off a few of the obvious morals to this story.   As poet John Dryden said,

Better to shun the bait, than struggle in the snare.

Compass Point – When dealing with difficult people, recognize that while you may not be the cause, you’re often in the trail of debris.

17 down, 343 to go.

I went scuba diving in the Solomon Islands about 10 years ago in a boat for 16.  We visited a few very remote villages and bartered with the folks there for beautiful carvings.

Children came up to us in awe and we taught them to do High-5′s.  The boys showed off their hunting prowess by shooting arrows into trees.  It was amazing to see life so simple.

I have an incredible scrimshaw that I got for a small bit of cash and 4 D cell batteries.  While a few small islands had running water, many kept a radio for communications, so batteries were a common barter.

After a good haggle for another item, I hemmed and hawed, and the carver just blurted out, “Hey – you snooze you lose!”  We all burst out laughing – where had he heard that term?  Another said, “Opportunity knocks.”  Then we realized that what they learned of the outside world came from visitors like us stopping by every few weeks to barter for carvings and fresh vegetables.  Just like we’d taught the kids to do High-5s.

Hope you didn’t forget about those grants

But I thought about those guys today as I pondered with great dread about picking up yet another train wreck grant from yesterday.  It took me nearly 4 hours to make it through the 50-or-so pages of narrative.  All day yesterday, my mood flipped from apathy and annoyance to frustrated incredulity!  I saw a relevant patent and the PATENT ABSTRACT was easier to read.

My poor husband had to listen to my ranting as I wandered through the house (disturbing the football games of course).   “There are 14 different capitalized names of what seem to be research and/or commercial projects, somehow all related, and I had to draw a DIAGRAM to figure out which chickens came from which eggs!”  Frankly, I had to put it aside last night and start another one to keep from losing my mind.

The carvers on that island figured out how to help seal the deal.  They’d leveraged what they’d learned in a way their offworld teachers hadn’t imagined.

What if I did the same?

I had started a list during the review of my first train wreck proposal.  I could call it “Things You Should and Should NOT Do When Writing A Grant Proposal.”  A quick Google search reveals many guides to writing the proposal, but they focus on *content*.  Someone should write a short treatise on grant proposal guidance on *presentation*.

I’ve helped a few collaborators improve their grant proposal presentations and some went on to win awards.  I’ve written grants and received several awards.  I’ve reviewed grants and see the other side of the fence.  I could also offer this service for a fee.

I ought to take advantage of the situation.  Because Opportunity Knocks.

Compass Point – Keep your ears open in case opportunity knocks.  I’m going to update my social media webpage to include this service I can provide, and maybe do a little more research on a short book.

16 down, 344 to go.

I’ve written grants myself, and I know how hard it is to develop a good plan, good hypotheses, and then explain exactly what you’re going to do if you get the money.  It’s not like the government hands over $3M for a fishing expedition – a research term for “we’re gonna look at a lot of different stuff that we haven’t identified yet and hope we figure out something useful.”  Those types of proposals don’t (usually) make it too far.

Other proposals are a joy to read!  Heavy scientific terms broken down into descriptive language that can teach a non-expert while simultaneously describing the work.  Flow is logical, the ideas are neat.  And if the grant writers do their jobs well, I can get really excited about the proposed project!  Clarity + readability + neat project = GOOD SCORE = $$$$$$.

You’d think they’d figure that out.

Good grant proposals vs. bad grant proposals

And then there are those train wrecks where you’d just like to say, “Hey – this ain’t gonna make it.  Why do I have to spend the time writing a formal review?”

(My grant submission-award rate is 100%.  I pre-review grants for researchers to help them get that clarity-readability thing right.  I’m for hire – believe me, as a reviewer, I know what the agencies want to see.)

Legitimate research fishing expedition!

Anyway, I slogged through one of those train wrecks yesterday and I wanted to shoot myself to put myself out of my own self-imposed misery.  It was meandering, used vague terms that were defined differently throughout the grant, didn’t really describe exactly what they proposed to do, and gave me a headache.

In other words, one of those fishing-expedition thingies.  A bowl of ice cream worked a little, but it was a big push to get the review written before bedtime.  Gaaaaak.

Next week I’m taking a trip to see my parents and my brother’s family, and I wanted to get all these grants reviewed before I left. Which is why on a Sunday morning I’m At Work.  I woke up knowing the day would be a slog of hopefully 2 complete reviews.  But the first is the best one so far!  Whew – please oh Powers That Be, let the rest be so pleasantly constructed (I have 4 more to go after this one).

I’m just gonna die today

It’s a dreary Sunday in the chilly northeast – days that make you yearn for a roaring fire, a couple good DVDs and the Godiva hot chocolate Mom sent.  And a big pot of Mom’s Beef and Vegetable Stew.  Ahhhh.

So I made my husband a deal – if he goes to the store to get the ingredients (try to explain “stew beef” to a man (sorry, “non-cook”), I’ll make the stew.  It’s an all-day thing, and since I’m clearly going nowhere today, bopping back and forth between the kitchen and the computer accomplishes the following:

1) Forces me to get up and take little breaks.

2) Gives me some cooking therapy (yes, some of us like cooking good stuff on the weekends).

3) Allows me to EAT a great stew as a reward for all my brain strain today.

(Don’t have to ask a man twice about home-cooked stew on a crappy day – he’s at the store now.) 

Compass Point – Breaking pain into smaller chunks. Visualizing all the pain you need to overcome before a vacation can be morally defeating.  Instead, take it day by day with a reward – ideally one that lasts longer than a big bowl of ice cream.   (Oh, and sorry for the “smaller chunks” cooking pun.)

15 down, 345 to go.

Well, I spent some “quality” time with my computer, discussing exactly why increases in RAM result in the inability to go into hibernate mode.  Turns out that even if you don’t NEED to save all your RAM to hibernate, Windows NEEDS that much *contiguous* memory on your hard drive, just in case.

Now, my little old workhorse of a laptop is nearly squished to the gills with writing and pictures and work stuff and other joys of electronic life, despite my regular backups, cleanings, defraggings, etc.  (Hmmm, there’s that little red squiggle.  Seems “defraggings” isn’t a word. And neither is “defragging.”)

So sad.

Anyway, I increased my hard drive free space about 10% or so, AND defragged (also not a word), clearly creating a nice chunk of free space with a nicely comfortable margin beyond Windows’s demand for 2 GB.  And the test – to attempt the hibernate. (With a Degree of Difficulty of about 1000 according to Microsoft, as they have an entire service bulletin on it.)

It didn’t.  No hibernate.  No dear user, Thou Shalt Reboot.  Grrrr.

Compass Point – Maintenance is progress.  Just like organizing the garage and throwing stuff out, giving your computer some TLC is still a Good Thing To Do.  (Although the clean hard drive TLC was significantly more successful than the upgrade RAM TLC.)

14 down, 346 to go.

[Ed. note] The next two hibernates went smooth as silk.  The last crashed and burned.  Sounds like another post for my Real Life blog.  Sigh.

So my trainer sent me over to RoadRunner to get new ones.  Turns out they have a neat system called Shoe Dog to check out your feet, your ankles, your darn near everything related to running so you get the right shoes.

The *great* staff first made me take off my shoes and walk across a pressure pad that showed my footprint, and the pressure points where my heel hits the floor and where I toe off (the red areas).

Then I had to run barefoot on the treadmill while she videotaped the back of my feet as each touched the treadmill and went through the full foot-strike cycle.

After all this, I got the bad news.  My running gait is pretty crappy (not my fault!) and my current shoes the wrong ones.  So I got new shoes and it was pretty cool!

The pressure picture up there isn’t my foot but you get the idea.  (Man, I wished I’d taken a USB stick!) All this info is critical to find the right type of shoes.  Not sure if this is the exact brand they’re using, but Tekscan makes several shoe and gait measurement systems like this.

From this, Katie told me my arch was about normal (at least some part of me is, heh heh), and that I needed a “stability” type shoe using the chart below:

Next, I did the barefoot dash on videotape.  When we looked at the slo-mo and still pictures,  I could see badness abound before she even said a word. My feet come down nicely on heel-strike, but with full weight on my foot, the medial area (ankle area) rotates in (over pronates) and then recovers on toe-off.  This means I need more support at the arch when I run.

This is different from the type of arch we figured out above. I have a normal to high arch, but tend to overpronate as I run.  Hmmm, never woulda figured that out at the local shoe store, eh?

Here’s a video that’s similar to how I’ve been running.  Got Injuries?

Not good .

Jacking up the arches

Hey, who hasn’t stuffed Dr. Scholls gels in their shoes for some comfort?  So, I agreed to try some standard insoles.  We checked me again on the treadmill and viola!  Great gait and no pronation problems!  Except the damn insoles hurt like hell right in front of my heel.  Not squishy at all.  Grrr.

No pain no gain?

Nope.  So, let’s try different shoes.  Ohhhh, then she brought out a pair that were like running on marshmallows!  I loved them!  No insoles and still decent stability.  But back on the treadmill, alas, no good.  Still some overpronation.

Rats.

I ended up with two different shoes that both felt pretty good, and we decided to make custom insoles since the standard ones were OUCHIE!

So, a very nice guy spent about 15 minutes heating flat insoles, then having me stand on nice squishy blocks like those thermo beds you can jump on without spilling wine out of the glass.  (Which is excellent marketing by the way – what couple would be lounging in bed with a couple diet cokes?)

Anyway, he had me stand, lean forward, lean backward, do the tango – and after those wonderful slow stretching exercises, he had an insole the exact shape of the bottom of each foot.

I popped on the shoes after he slipped in the custom insoles, and ohhhhhh, what comfort and joy!  After my spontaneous cry of pedo-ecstasy, he said he’d like to use my reaction as an advertisement for the store.  (A guy in the store was debating spending the bucks on the custom work, but I noticed him on the squishy blocks by the time I left the store!)  I said I do live performances at $50 bucks a pop.  Could be a nice side job

It was amazing to see my foot pressures and my different running patterns wearing different shoes and insoles.  Can’t wait to get to the gym and try them out!

Compass Point – Identify and fix your sources of distraction.  Pain and frustration come from difference sources, but end up affecting a whole buncha other aspects of your life.

13 down, 347 to go.

Now I’m a wimp.

Three hours in the car every day and a stressful job being the center of attack of a couple different groups, I was mentally and physically dead every night.  My trainer works in the opposite direction from my job and I wasn’t paying for a second gym membership.

My awesome win at the pool bar obstacle course in Cozumel last year – which included my sopping wet 50 pushups buzzed, and against a guy!  All that shot to hell.

It’s depressing.  I weigh exactly the same, but alas, muscle has turned to fat.  (I know, one can’t be turned into the other, etc etc etc, but you know what I mean).  It’s that relative density thing.  Muscle is about 20% denser than fat.  So your body’s “packaging” has to get a little bigger when the muscle mass is saying adieu.

The experts of the world endlessly repeat mindlessly that exercise helps depression, health, self-esteem, etc.  True dat.  But getting back into the workouts THEMSELVES is depressing!

But, since I’m supposed to be positive about my searching, I did start training again and will try to get to the gym at least 4 times a week.  Now I’m limiting myself to a mile or 1.5 to avoid start-up injuries.  I can do 50 push-ups, but in about 4 or 5 sets.  I won’t even attempt pull-up for fear of killing all my motivation.  Sigh.

It’s gonna be depressing for a while until I can see any type of progress to where I was before.  Hopefully a big dose of those endorphin thingies will help me bridge the gap.

Compass Point – there’s too much blathering self-help on the Internet.  Put it back down and walk away. The zillion internet sites with nearly identical expert canned advice with happy little “simple tips to get started” for any topic can actually make you to feel worse.  Don’t take it personally.

12 down, 348 to go.

This has caused a backlash against Facebook, who attempts to justify the changes with inane arguments that mean nothing for privacy and everything to allow increased ad revenues, increased ability to mine for more email addresses, increased misunderstanding regarding default privacy settings, and the brand new feature that your information (profile, posts, etc.) can be searchable by search engines.

Wow.

And I’m sharing all this deep and meaningful stuff about my next move in life with 6.8 billion people?

I talked earlier about Social Media Resumes and often wonder just how much information on the internet is too much.  My feelings on the subject change day to day.  Am I sharing too much on this blog about how I search for a job, my motivations, and my attitudes?  Will potential employers find me on Facebook and pass me over because of the pages I am a fan of?  (BTW – Facebook does not provide a method to hide your fan pages from the entire world.)

I’m a fan of an animal rescue site … am I therefore an extremist tree-hugger?  I’m a fan of House MD … am I therefore a racist, misanthrope and supportive of drug addiction in the work place?

Does the picture painted by my online presence match who I really am?  Do I care?  Would an employer care?

Well, an employer might be swayed by Facebook’s Unplanned Advertising.

But 1 in 5 employers report they use social networks to screen candidates, that the information on social networking sites can help a candidate land the job.

Compass Point – don’t say it or do it if you don’t want it showing up on the 7 o’clock news. No one’s online persona can truly reflect who they are.  We have to make some considered decisions about every single nugget we dangle to the faceless world.  How will it affect who we are, who we want to be perceived as, and who we’re actually perceived as.

11 down, 349 to go.

Don't be afraid to scream, "I rock!"

I’ve had a strange problem with my email the last couple weeks and yesterday I finally solved it.  My “productivity ” of the day was to blog about it on my other blog.  That blog explores the basics of  solving Real Life problems. With, one might assume, actual Real Life problems.

So, to my problem. (Go ahead, make a smartass remark.  In a comment below.  I dare you. Heh heh.)

Anyway, I sent email from Gmail-address-A to a Yahoo group where I had registered with Gmail-address-A.  Yahoo rejected it back to me because IT ALLEGED I’d started sending emails to it from Gmail-address-B. But I hadn’t.

No matter what I tried, it *insisted* was sending from the wrong email address.  Grrrr.

But I had *proof* from my sent box and the messages’ headers!  But somehow, the Interwebs were screwing with me.

I started my “official” blog couple years ago to complement a book I published about solving Real Life Problems.  You know, for publicity, etc.  And since I had a Real Life Problem whacking me in the face, I considered it was quite legitimate fodder for that blog.

Anyway, here’s my blog entry – Personality Disorder – Using Two Gmail Accounts in Thunderbird.

Compass Point – Tooting your own horn.  Use that adage – “Show me, don’t tell me.”  If your resume says you know how to solve problems, then show ‘em the money.

10 down, 350 to go.