Hijacking Dreams

I am somewhat comforted by the fact that January 24 is the worst day of the year. I guess I didn’t get the memo about the actual date, because my worst day was January 26. Maybe my “rhythms” were off by a couple of days. But then the article says that the peak worst day was “Monday”. January 26 was Monday; so I am left confused but delighted that maybe I did get it right after all. So, if I faced the worst day I will have this year, things can only look up from today forward.

But that’s not what I wanted to write about today. I wanted to tell you about several conversations that led me to wonder why people are hijacking our dreams.

I am teaching this year (amazing!) and my students were recounting their stories of the “worst professors”. One told me the story of the prof who walked into the first class and said “Look to your left, look to your right; by the mid-term half of you will not be here anymore.” [meaning: half of you will be failures]. Wow, what a way to motivate success! The other students told me that stories like this are quite common.

Fast forward to Sunday. I am talking to my team of students that I am coaching for the Osgoode Law School National Undergrad Moot. One is telling me about a pre-law professor who regularly terrorizes them about what it will be like to be a lawyer. Long days filled with unhappy people; billable hour pressures; partners who delight in ruining your weekend by giving you an assignment at 5:00 on Friday that is due Monday; clients who think they are the only client of the law firm and demand immediate attention no matter the issue; babysitting a photocopy machine at 2 in the morning because you are the most junior in the firm and someone has to copy that brief for tomorrow; etc. etc. And don’t even think about love or children. You won’t have time for that! It is no wonder that people in the class are feeling like failures before they even get admitted to law school. It is no wonder that most would question whether the pursuit of their goal is even worth it, well before even they take the first step.

Others are telling me that their professors say, “Don’t even think about going to graduate school. You’ll spend six years of your life only to reach 30 and not be able to get a job. And if you don’t have three major papers published, forget about even applying.”

The approach that these people take with the students reminded me of managers who think that they can motivate their staff by fear. They forget that the “fight or flight” response is supposed to only happen when one is in clear and present danger, not when one is seeking out accomplishments of their goals. They forget that you don’t motivate people to achieve their potential by telling them that they are failures. You do that by constantly reminding them that they can be the best they can be. You recognize the positive; you teach them to learn through their failures; you help them to overcome the challenges; you give them opportunities to shine; you thank them for their contributions. You seek out the best in everyone and you help them to capitalize on that best. That is your job as a leader, whether you are a manager or a professor.

A friend of mine sent me a quote that she said reminded her of me: “To not dare is to have already lost. We should seek out ambitious, even unrealistic projects…because things only happen when we dream.”

If that is true, and I believe it to be so, why do people think they have the right to highjack the dreams of others? They tell them “better not to dare”; “you lose before you begin”; “you are being unrealistic”; ergo, you will fail. Don’t begin.

I don’t believe that those who have the power of influence over others have the right to highjack their dreams. They are only coming off as very bitter themselves and I would say to them “look in the mirror; are you merely reflecting back your unhappiness on me?”

The power of that influence could be better used to say to them, “I believe in you. Because who you are could make a difference in the world. Dare to dare; follow that dream; make that difference; and I will be standing with two hands clapping in the background if I had a smidgen of influence on that. Even if I didn’t make any difference, I’d celebrate that I even knew you."

After hearing all of this, I decided that I wanted to be (continue to be) the one who delights in the positive and believes in dreaming with our eyes open.

[The cynics out there might say, “but what about those people who are filling our prison system?” To those I would say: watch my husband as he goes in and makes a difference every Monday night in the prison system by believing in the dreams of those who want to start all over again with a successful life. I am not so naive to believe that everyone is good, but there is – but a very few people – good in everyone.]

If you have time, watch this short clip: http://www.inspiringthots.net/movie/i-made-diff.php

And if ever you are in a situation where your dreams are being hijacked, please come and talk to me. I have a blue ribbon for you.

Because I believe that who you are does make a difference in my life.

Pork Chops and Applesauce

I decided I am not going to rant about my medical experience because it is not useful. After all, as Kelly would say about allowing yourself to hold on to resentment against an individual: “Why are you allowing them to live rent-free in your mind?” Having said that, if anyone knows a competent, compassionate, efficient, and preferably female doctor in the west end of Toronto who is taking on patients, I’d love to hear!


The rib(s) if not broken or hairline fractured, are severely bruised. Because I have low bone density that means that my bones are fragile. Because I have not been able to sleep since I hurt myself (fourth night running – to wit blogging at 2:30 in the morning when I am usually well into dreamland), my spirit is fragile too. This is totally unlike me and so I am living in a weird space right now.


To boot, the heavy meds I am on are supposed to make me drowsy. But after lying in bed staring at the ceiling and envying Jim and Suzie for their deep sleep, I gave up trying to count the number of green vegetables I know (about six) and got up. Seems I can’t even do side effects well this week ;-)


However, I pick myself up by learning about others who are a much worse position but who stay so completely positive.


A huge thank you today to my friend, Carol, who consulted with her nutritionist daughter about how I can get my calcium levels up to counteract the bone density loss. Although some of the advice was not palatable (quit smoking and coffee?????), it will really help a lot. Send green vegetables my way and tell me if you will drag my butt to pilates for me. And to Janine to called to ask if she could do anything, anything at all for me. And to my cousin/sister-by-the-soul, Colleen, who asked if she should book a flight from Montreal to Toronto to come and look after me. To my academic advisor who made me feel so much better about the failure I felt for having to cancel a class in my first year of teaching. And to all of the others who called or e-mailed today to offer support.



I have an academy award roster of people in my life.


But I miss my mom most of all. Why is it that at our lowest times, we need our mothers? Today when I got home from another frustrating doctor’s appointment, I said to Jim that I missed my mom so much. That right now she would make me pork chops and applesauce. Jim responds that I don’t even like pork. I told him that as a child if I were sick or injured or sad that mom would make me my most special meal – pork chops and applesauce. (Jim did the next best thing – made me Kraft Dinner!)

There are moments in your life
When you miss someone so much
That you want to pick them from your dreams
And hug them for real.

Mom, if you really are up there watching over me. Can you help me get to a place where I can fall asleep to dream of the hugs you’d be giving me right now?

Tomorrow is a New Day

I have had an absolutely horrible week, and it is only Tuesday! But, ever the optimist, I can see that my glass has been more half full than half empty this week.

I was doing some volunteer work on Sunday and on my way home I slipped on a patch of black ice (no, I was not wearing stiletto heels). Not wanting to fall on the side of my body that had the still healing broken arm (and carrying my new laptop on my shoulder of that arm); I fell on my right side. There is probably no doubt that I have broken at least one or two ribs. The Mayo Clinic website, one of the internet “bible” sites for all things health related, confirms that it is a break.

As is my pattern (I hate going to doctors, hospitals, pills), I do nothing about it. After all, I have to appear in court on Monday, the next day, on an important matter for a client. So, I suck it up and keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Jim drives me to court on the Monday morning. I can’t even put the tabs on my legal garb and I ask someone in the lawyer’s robing room to help me. She says I might want to consider asking for an adjournment since I am in obvious pain. I can see the concern in this complete stranger’s face that I might be putting myself in harm’s way. For reasons important only to me and my client, I don’t want to do that.

To put it succinctly, I am negatively and absolutely and without doubt creamed and devastated before the judge. I’m not going to go into the whole story of my very public tongue lashing in front of the court. Just trust me that it was not an entirely pleasant experience.

I leave the court, tail between my legs (I didn’t lose the case; the judge did give me an opening to come back and convince him that I am right and he is wrong). I call Jim, my harbour for my soul, but I can’t get in touch with him (my fault, not his). I try to walk to the subway, but I am carrying a purse, my bulky robes and tabs, and a full briefcase of legal documents. I’m not sure I can make it home given those weighty burdens, the pain in my body, and the fresh psychological scars.

A taxi driver out of nowhere stops and asks me if I am okay. He is not asking for the fare; he says he sees something that he was genuinely concerned about, about me. I tell him that I don’t have enough cash for the fare back home; he says it doesn’t matter: he will only charge me what I have. We end up talking about me and my physical and emotional pain and he is so empathetic that I want to just weep on his shoulder (I think cab drivers are sometimes the most interesting and angelic people we meet in Toronto).

I don’t weep; I hold the tears in my throat. I have to wait until I get home to Jim. Jim is my life’s solace.

I make a plan to call people who will help me to get beyond the psychological pain that I was subjected to that morning. Jim supports the plan. I call one of the greatest people in the world, Stefan (Steven) Bojeczko who is one of the most brilliant and compassionate lawyers I know. He talks me down off the ledge. He tells me stories that help me to understand that the experience is not about “me”; it is all about the particular culture of the litigation world. He offers help; he offers suggestions; but most of all he reminds me of lessons that get us through life. I tell him I am hanging up my robes (the equivalent of throwing in the litigation towel). Not right, Brenda, he says: because I believe in you.

In his analogy, you will try to learn how to ride a bike and you will fall off of the bike sometimes. Not because you don’t know how to ride the bike. It is always because there is an obstacle in front of you that wasn’t there yesterday. And so you hurt. Okay. Okay. It is okay to hurt. But get back on the bike. It is not because you can’t ride a bike; it’s just that you have to accept the obstacles that come completely out of nowhere, out of your control, but within your ability to face them the next time.

I speak to my special law school friend who went to Osgoode with me and is extraordinarily intelligent. We decide that the judge is wrong. However, that’s not the point; the point is that I have to figure out how to get from today to when I appear back in front of the judge and how I can fortify myself with the armour that I need. She offers to put her life on hold to help me source out whatever I need to shield myself from those bullying tactics.

Completely out of the universe then comes a flurry of calls and e-mails from people who have no idea what my last two days had been like. Friends and family who “just happened to reach out”. I know that there is nothing random about those phone calls. Those friends and family were delivered to me through some life force that I will never completely understand. Each one of them helped me in their own special and unique way. At the end of the night, I felt blessed. I am not healed, but I am blessed with people who come to my corner and wipe away the blood, and the sweat, and the tears. And they tell me that I can get back into the ring for another round.

My eldest daughter, Lynn, was the one who, metaphorically, put me back on the bike and ran along beside me. “Call the doctor tomorrow, Mom. Promise me. And I will hold you accountable because I’ll check back with you before noon tomorrow to make sure you have done that” (She did check back). “I’m driving down to Toronto tomorrow to be there for you; tell me what you need; tell me how I can give back to you what you have given to me. Help me to help you to heal, because you so rarely ask for help.” Let me run alongside you and keep you safe and put a smile back on your face. And, today, she did. My beautiful daughter taught me that life always gives back to you what you have put into it.

There are so many other people who called or emailed me out of nowhere that I could write a book about this one small experience and how people pay it back and pay it forward. I am awed at the amazing ability we have to reach out and heal each other. I am grateful that I have been given the grace that was delivered to me by whatever caused my phone to ring off the hook last night and by the flood of completely random e-mails that were like a band aid on my soul.

I will blog about what happened today when I did get my health checked out. It will be a rant about uncompassionate doctors who didn’t really understand the Hippocratic Oath. But, tonight I don’t want to rant. I just want to feel blessed and healed by the love that surrounds my life.

Notwithstanding the potholes, and bumps, and bullies, and hurts, I do lead a Wonderful Life.


And as Kelly summed it up so well in an email quote of Ralph Waldo Emerson, which was designed to remind me of who I am and how I can heal at a time of immense ache:

"Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could.Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense."

Tomorrow is a new day for you and for me.

If I can be as blessed with the love that has surrounded me this week, I will begin it well.

For all of you who were there for me over the past two days – and for those who wished that you could have been if only the randomness of life had tapped you on the shoulder – I am ever so grateful. It reminds me of the power of love that we all have within us.

If I can ask you to do one thing after reading my story, I would ask you this.

The very next moment that you are in the presence of someone who is hurting: reach out and give them a hug or a pat. A caveat, though, you may have to do it gently: they could have broken ribs.

You will, nevertheless, be healing their heart. And you alone hold that power because of who you are.

You wouldn’t be reading this if I didn’t believe that about you.

The Future Belongs to the Rabbit

I am definitely a goal-oriented person. Most of my life, I have had goals about where I want to be in the next five years – family, career, money, life. I had a list eight years ago that was really important:

Have no debts - check
Buy a mustang – check
Go to Ireland – check
Play the Piano – check
Learn how to sail – check
Go horseback riding - check
Get a law degree – check
Learn how to ride a motorcycle – nope, prohibited activity by vote of my family
Build relationships with my three “children” – check

So, all of those things checked off – but one – and where do I go now? Apart from having grandchildren, which Corey and Natasha expediently checked off for me, I thought of other things I might want to do with my life:

Having grandchildren – check: Ayden
Start my own practice – check
Volunteer – check and check
Start a blog – check
Build a website – check
Teach:

Teach. So I wrote an e-mail to my contacts in the academic world. No sooner had I hit send, I got a reply from a former colleague who is head of the Human Resources program at the Chang School of Business, Ryerson University. A few months later, and now I will be TEACHING AT RYERSON! How cool is that?

One of the really amazing things is that, for the first time in my life, I am now a member of a union!!! Me, who has always sat on the management side of the bargaining table. Some of the union presidents that I used to negotiate with will absolutely love the idea that Brenda Glover is now a card carrying member of a union. How they would delight.

I’ll be happy to switch positions to the other side of the table if it helps me to achieve my dreams, though. I’m just hoping we never go on strike – I simply cannot imagine myself on the picket line. I’d have to wear the hopping mad bunny suit.

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. Even if they do end up looking like a silly rabbit.

Beauty All Around Us

My design consultant (she designed the cool “bg” logo at the top of my blog) sent me the following story. It reminded me of Kelly – and I’ll tell you why at the end of the piece...

A man sat at a metro station in Washington, DC and started to play the violin. It was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousands of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.

Three minutes went by and a middle aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule. A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip; a woman threw the money in the till and, without stopping, continued to walk. A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work.

The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother prodded him along, hurried, but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk, turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.

In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money but still continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, no one gave him any recognition.

No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars.Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theatre in Boston and the seats averaged $100.

This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and priorities of people.

The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour: Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?

One of the possible conclusions from this experience could be: If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?

This reminded me of Kelly because she once told us a story of rushing through a subway station on the way to school. Feeling stressed out and hurried, she was barely paying attention to what was happening around her. As she went down the subway steps, she heard a busker playing an Eagles song that her Dad always played. It might have been “Take it Easy”, or “Hotel California”. Her heart was warmed thinking of the love of her Dad. This poor (literally), stressed out student gave the busker one of her last dollars to thank him for bringing joy into her day.

If only we were like the children, or Kelly, in these stories and took time to notice the beauty around us and the random events that warm our heart. May you take those moments in 2009.

Dance with Optimism

Had a wonderful Christmas and New Year! What a great time of year to be with family and friends. And we are still celebrating; we have dinner with good friends tonight and a party for Kelly’s going-back-to-Berkeley on the 10th of January. Whoo, hooo! and Boo! Hoo!

Wanted to wish you all a spectacular 2009. This will be the year, given all the doom and gloom in the papers, where it is important to lower your expectations but stay optimist. It seems like pessimism abounds these days. Don’t let it get you! If you need an optimism boost, call me – a team I used to lead gave me a special perfume one day that they said reminded them of me – it’s called “positivity cologne”. If nothing else, I can share a squirt of it with you. Remember:

If you're going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance.

And so, I offer you a few suggestions on how to stay optimistic in 2009: