52 Weeks Challenge

Yes, she was my mother, but also a remarkable woman, that will not show up in the annals of history as having done anything significant, not even bearing me. And I think of so many other women, doing this and even more, every day, every year, in conditions so many times worse than my mother. And I ask myself, what else does the world need to recognize women for what they are, every day, everywhere, on every situation?

We only had about 15 attendees, in a 50-person auditorium (glad we didn’t pick the 500 seat one…). But the guests were at ease, no cameras, no computers and online platforms, just us and them. It felt real and intimate, you could feel the atmosphere, the guests themselves stated they loved the intimate format, and it makes you rethink criteria for success in these events. Could we have had more people in the room, sure. But you know what, those that showed up had a good time. Mission accomplished.

Learning by doing, learning by watching and listening, even without knowing how to read music, is a classic way to master many crafts, and music too. Practice, practice, practice, but do it with others as well as by yourself. Put in your 10.000 hours, if that is your goal, but do at least half of it with others, you will learn much more than whatever you are trying to learn in the first place.

Saying to yourself you had a day of meetings and got nothing done doesn’t help, believing that because you had so many meetings you didn’t get any work done might also be a fallacy. For me, doing a lot of meetings is hard work, before/ during/ after, and meetings are a part of getting things done.

I remind myself wineries and olive making farms have been doing this for a long time, and some pay a hefty price and wait for a long time to visit mythical factories like Porsche or Ferrari. So how different is this really, and though I doubt how much brand building for Portugal and for the visited factories this really amounts to, in this new era of so many different types of tourism, what is wrong with industrial tourism?

The presentation starts, a story anchored in process unravels, slide three of a compacted 10 slide presentation starts a conversation that keeps treading away into no man’s land like Alice in Wonderland, soon enough most of them go to the last two pages looking for a conclusion, which is not to-the-point as they expected. The poor presenter in the room, after receiving direction and rehearsing his presentation in detail feels powerless and frustrated. Sounds familiar?

This is precious, and rare, this is not a granted reality to many people, for a number of reasons, though we all deserve it. When we sit, touch each other as we access the levels we are invited into, share the journey of what is going on, experience the art of listening and speaking, it is truly special. But I also value these sort of passing by, next level, light, touch and go moments that tell us we are not alone, beyond friends and family, there are others we grant access to our nest level, and they do the same, even if for a brief glimpse.

For this poke my friend sent my way, I’d say I am more in the camp of asking the questions. As I age and supposedly know more, I find myself questioning what I know, the answers I have. I still talk too much, and may come across as someone that does have an answer for everything, but I aspire to be a question asking reflecting person.

We are all learning to prompt interfaces that will do the dirty work behind, connecting more and more touch points and interfacing with all the stations between us and the destination we asked for, all of it under the concept of simplicity, all access touch-less and friction-less. I think about Ruby again, her choices seem to fall under the “make it hard, make it slow, make it alone”, and I wonder what is the right design direction for such a lifestyle, for such a mindset.

The music changes, no one is looking at the TV anymore, we become the life of the party. No one else does the same, and thy all has swimsuits. We dance, celebrate, drink the champagne, and laugh out loud, on our swimsuits on the 31st of December in Seattle.