Keep your foot out of your mouth, sweetie

The chairman looked at the only woman in the meeting room. She was the expert in these types of questions.

“This assignment will fit like a glove for you, sweetie. Can you start tomorrow?”

Manda looked straight at him but didn’t respond.He tried again.

“Sweetie? Manda?”

“Oh, you mean me? I thought you were referring to Victor.”

The chairman frowned.

“Victor? This is not his area of expertise.”

Manda cocked her head to the side.

“No, no it isn’t. But since he is such a sweetie, I thought you were referring to him.”

Victor tried to keep quiet, but his chuckling grew steadily louder.

The chairman looked confused and Manda was not offering any more explanation. Victor intervened.

“I think what Manda is saying, is that if you call me Victor, she wants to be called Manda. But I guess if you call me sweetie, you can call her sweetie too.”

Be aware of how you use language. Or rather, be aware of your thoughts.

As long as you truly see the individual behind every face, be it a woman or a man, a person with light skin or dark skin, a young person or an old person, you will be truly inclusive and you will automatically keep your foot out of your mouth.

Honesty is no excuse

”Well, at least I am honest about it, I tell it like it is!”

The senior project manager Victor raised his chest and chin, staring at the colleagues around the table. The junior developer who had just been told he was useless and not good enough to stay in the project, walked out of the conference room, head down. The atmosphere in the conference room was tense, cold.

Photo by Craig Adderley from Pexels

After a few seconds of silence, Manda sighed deeply.

“Really Victor? Since when is honesty about telling people they are useless?”

“Well, he is! Have you seen his code? What was I supposed to say, that he is doing well? He isn’t!”

Manda stood up.

“Don’t use honesty as an excuse to be a bully.”

Victor also stood up, looking closely at Manda. She was one of the best ones in his team. He could not afford losing her, or her trust.

“Hey, I don’t have time to be a teacher to that kid.”

Manda put her hand on his elbow, lead him out of the room, away from the colleagues who all felt awkward. 

“I know that you want the best for the project Victor. When you calm down a bit you will remember what honesty is really about.”

Victor stopped and put his hands in his pockets.

“Well, since I am not calm yet, why don’t you remind me.”

“An honest leader would have seen his own mistake of promoting this developer too soon. And he would have handled the consequences without making someone else look bad. Honesty creates trust, Victor. Not fear.”

Victor lowered his head.

“I behaved like an asshole, didn’t I?”

Manda smiled.

“Are you sure you want an honest reply to that?”

The Beauty of Art part 18 - the answers

She will turn 99 this year. The painter of Untitled (1969) that I showed in The Beauty of Art part 18.

She has plans for her 100th birtday and when she was young she was friends with the artist Frida Kahlo.

Extract from a photo in TIME April 29-May 6, 2019

Her name is Luchita Hurtado and she was born in Caracas, Veneuela, in 1920. She has had her share of tragedies in life, including losing a child to polio, but she is optimistic by nature:

"I never said no to life. I have a responsibility to the world, to my planet."

Her paintings were discovered when a curator went through her late husband's (Lee Mullican) paintings and some of hers were in the same studio. She had had exhibitions before, but they didn't get as much attention as she has gotten lately. 

Luchita has a vision of the human body as part of the world, which can be seen in her paintings.

"My thoughts have always been that my body is just on loan to me, that I better take care of it because I have to give it back.”

Luchita is articistic in many ways. In addition to painting she has also worked with photography, designing her own clothes and writing poetry.

I find her paintings intriguing and her way of being inspiring.

The Beauty of Art part 18

Have you missed the Beauty of Art in this blog?
Wait no more, here comes...

The Beauty of Art part 18


Some artists become known early on in life.

Some late, like the artist in this Beauty of Art post.

“Because I never felt before that I needed to share. It was the other way around: I worked to please myself.”

Photo credit: Jeff Mclane

I hope the work of this artist pleases you too, and that you want to think about the following questions: 

• Who is the artist?
• What is the painting called?
• How does the painting make you feel?

Keep your eyes on this blog for the answers!

It’s not the circumstances. It’s you.

Her hands were sweaty. Even her thighs were sweaty under the light blue skirt suit.

“Oh, I am so nervous”, she whispered to her assistant. He was also formally dressed with his rented dark suit. Looking up from his notepad, his mouth fell open. After a few seconds he said, hesitantly:

“You? Insecure? You are the CEO!”

“I know, and they are the board.”

“Yes, but… I am nervous whenever we go into these meetings, but I never imagined you were.”

She looked at her Armani watch. They should have already asked her to come in. Apparently, they were running late.

“Yes”, she said with a sigh. “I didn’t imagine I would be either. I used to be nervous when I was going to report in the project meetings. I thought I would no longer be nervous when I become a project manager myself. But then I was nervous whenever I had to present at a steering group meeting. When I became the program office manager, I thought I would never be nervous again, but then I had to report to the Leadership Team. And here I am, CEO and nervous to talk to the board.”

The door opened before he had a chance to say anything. As they walked into the room where the board members were sitting around the oval table, she whispered:

“You know what? They are probably nervous too. Different circumstances, same insecurity.”

Photo by Moose Photos from Pexels

In an interview in TIME March 4 2019, Ray Romano from Everybody loves Raymond said:

“Insecurity is relative. Before I thought my cabdriver hated me, and now I think my limo driver hates me. “

If you want to get rid of insecurity, don’t expect it to go away just because the circumstances change. Feelings and behaviours only change when you do.

Where there is a will, there is a way

The journalist put her microphone just a few millimeters from the seasoned minister’s mouth. He hoped the sweat he felt on his forehead didn’t make him glisten on TV. The question was about the homeless. What he planned to do about the growing number of people who had nowhere to live, not enough to eat.  He put on his serious face, nodded slowly and said that it was unfortunate that the economy had put many people on the street. Then he mentioned how much money the government had already invested in different initiatives, and he said that unfortunately there were no more resources available. The taxpayers were already under too much pressure.  

Lack of money.  Lack of time. Lack of resources in general. There are many reasons - or shall we be direct and call them excuses? - for not being compassionate. For not even trying to find a way.

Massimo Bottura didn’t hide behind any excuses when he decided to serve creative meals for those in need. He didn’t let “lack of resources” stop him.

He uses food that would otherwise go to waste.

He agreed with the church La Madeleine in Paris that he could borrow their basement.

And so many were inspired by his initiative that he has thousands of people volunteering to be part of the staff that serves food to homeless people and refugees.

Part of a Photo by Valentina Sommariva – published in TIME April 29 - May 6, 2019.

Whenever you are about to say “I don’t have time / I don’t have the money / we don’t have enough resources”; stop yourself.
Think again.If you really want it, if it is important enough, you will find a way.  

Just like Massimo Bottura.

How to become as wise as a dwarf

Is life too short to learn how to live?

Not if you are a dwarf.

In Honey-Bee by Anatole France, a dwarf explains that the shortness of life for humans, is the cause of our ignorance and cruelty.

 “Their life is too short for them to learn how to live.”

One of my friends once said:

”Det är svårt att leva. Tur att vi har hela livet på oss att lära oss det.”(“It is hard to live. Luckily we have our whole lives to learn how to do it.”)

When I was twenty, I had figured it all out. I had learned a lot in school and even more during the sabbatical year before university. I had travelled the world, met a lot of interesting people, widened my perspectives. I knew how this thing called life worked.

It has only gone downhill since then in that regard.

The more I understand, the more I understand how little I know. The youthful certainty has made way for humble wisdom, with an awe about everything left to learn.

Is old age a guarantee of wisdom and knowledge?

Unfortunately not. I have met old people with minds so narrow they have not learned anything new in decades. You probably have too.

As Indiana Jones said in the Raiders of the lost ark:

 “It’s not the years honey, it’s the mileage.”

If you want to learn how to live, long before you die, make good use of every day of your life. Increase the mileage - your experience – instead of letting the years just go by.

Turn off the auto pilot.

Do something you don't do everyday. 

Take another road than the one you normally travel.

Dare to deviate, to explore.

Then you may become just as wise as a dwarf, despite your shorter life.