Imagine me as your leader.

Today instead of the regular grind at the office I spent the full day in a leadership workshop. It's one of those touchy feely programs that can be very hit or miss. There's some valuable information and things to think about in these workshops, but there's also a lot of self-indulgent business speak masquerading at logic. In this case, I'm going with it. There are a lot of things I could learn about being a leader.

First observation. These things are always run by bright chipper people who never stop smiling and encourage participation at all turns. They'll ask a question like, "What is your goal for next year?" And I feel like I could say, "Gee, Linda, I won't be happy unless I ax murder 300 people." And she'll say, "Oh that's wonderful!" We all neeed to be constantly validated.

Of course, everything is boiled down to a nice accronym or 5 step thing.
Lesson one can be summed up as find your values and align your actions with your values. I have a sense of my values, but it's hard to articulate them. Even harder to live by them. Something I'll have to work on.

One of the exerciese in coming up with values is writing your credo to live by in about 5 minutes. The message you'd like to leave behind. Here it is in its entirety, unedited:

Live life so you will have no regrets in the end. Live honest, live intelligently, live with courage. Ask why? And if no one gives you the answer, give THEM the answer. Learn to trust. Be the resource that others can trust. Work shared with others will usually be easier. Never forget to spend time with your friends and the ones you love. And share your stories and your life with them. There is always time for a good story.

Lesson two is about Inspiring Vision. What is your vision of the future? I worry about big picture things, but planning for the future is not one of my strengths. I tend to just worry about what I'm doing the next day or if I'm feeling especially ambitious, I might plan something for next week. I see obvious solutions to problems sometimes, and can even think about some of the details about how to fix them, but I don't have a theme. My work is important, but maybe it's just not that inspiring. And as for long term strategizing outside of work, fortunately, that's a strength of Wifey.

More lessons tomorrow. I've got another full day of this stuff coming up.