My TEDx talk

I did a TEDx talk in April this year and I just realised that I have been quietly hating it for a month now. I only told a few people about it, and when it was uploaded a month ago, I told nobody. I was filled with self loathing. In my TEDx profile, I am a self described ‘sociable introvert’. I am mostly comfortable being public through my writing (except for when I am not) but I feel intensely uncomfortable when I have to perform in any way.

I pulled out of doing the talk, but the organiser gave me time to rethink my decision – I appreciated this and it led me to change my mind. I was one of two women who spoke at the event – the rest were men who, as it seemed to me, proudly and comfortably took to the stage and performed. As I watched, I envied them terribly. Why couldn’t I command the stage like that? Somewhere inside, I just don’t feel entitled. But if I am ever asked to speak in public again, I will do it because I think it’s good for me to face the challenge and I know that far too many women share my feeling of not being entitled to command the attention of an audience. To say: listen to me.

The event was organised as an educational exercise by the students of The Blue Mountains International Hotel Management School (TEDxBMIHMS) with the theme:

"Mixology: Never call a mixologist a bartender. The difference between a mixologist and a bartender is that the mixologist has ‘stepped up his game’. Mixologists are creative and willing to take risks, and this allows them to develop and master new skills."

Anyway, here is the written form of my talk called 'Rewriting the Recipe' – it will take about ten minutes to read, but if you watch it here will take 16 or so minutes.


Rewriting the Recipe

Who uses recipes? For anything, cooking being the most obvious thing.

Who finds it hard to stick to recipes?

Who likes relying on a recipe?

When I agreed to do this talk and I was thinking about my topic, I investigated recipes for a good talk. Some of the ingredients I came across were:
-        you absolutely have to have your teeth whitened; and
-        wear a chicken suit – it will help break the ice.

So, I could have been standing up here with very white teeth in a chicken suit.
But I didn’t think that recipe suited me. And anyway, chickens don’t have teeth.
I also read that you should start with a joke. I followed that part of the recipe.
I used to write recipes as a job.

It was part of my job as a Food Editor at Murdoch Books, a publisher of cookbooks in Australia and internationally. Every recipe I wrote was tested in what was called, appropriately, The Test Kitchen.
The first time a recipe was prepared in the test kitchen, the results would be served up on a long bench and all the other food editors would gather around to taste the results. Each editor would offer their opinion about what adjustments were required. Sometimes the changes were dramatic and debated, sometimes they were minor. Either way, the recipe would be adjusted and the whole process would be repeated until the dish was deemed just right.

I found this whole process intimidating and exhausting, and I wasn’t very good at it. No matter how carefully I tried to capture what I had cooked, in words and precise measurements, it never quite worked out in the Test Kitchen the way it had when I cooked it. It didn’t matter how many times it was tested, or who cooked it.

You just can’t get standardised results when individuals are involved – no matter how closely they stick to the recipe – their oven will be different, their ingredients will vary in quality, their technique will be more or less refined – they might not have a 25 cm spring-form pan lined with baking paper and dusted with double sifted organic flour. They might not have any baking paper and the flour might not be sifted at all. Your pinch of Himalayan rock salt will be different to my pinch, and I might only have pink Himalayan rock salt.

Pre-packaged food that is made in a factory, in a controlled, standardised environment, has a much better chance of turning out the same every time. But when a human or individual’s touch is involved, I don’t believe the result can ever be exactly the same. And I love that.

So, no matter if you’re the type to stubbornly stick to a recipe – if you’re a person who believes that you can precisely measure a pinch, or if you are someone that just can’t help adding a dash of daring… We all have a secret ingredient. And that is ourselves.

People are not made in factories like packaged food. They are not made from standardised ingredients in controlled environments. They are not standard, in any way.

When I asked people whether they were recipe followers or not – it might have sounded like a leading question – some sort of test to separate the creative, innovative types from the rigid recipe followers. But it wasn’t. That wasn’t what I was seeking to uncover. What I wanted to understand was how people see themselves. And what I wanted to say was that it doesn’t matter if you are a recipe follower or not – the result will still have your personal stamp on it.

Often people spend a lot of effort trying to meet other people’s standards, but you can’t stamp out individuality and little differences are always going to come out. This can lead to innovation and we should encourage it.

During my time as a recipe writer – struggling to write recipes that turned out the same every time – I went away for the weekend with a bunch of people and I made a cake with one of them. Or rather, I watched in horror as my friend Peter invented a cake. At every step of the recipe, he found some way to tweak or innovate. As we were stirring the batter for our simple apple cake, Peter remembered there were leftover egg whites in the fridge.
 “Let’s make a meringue topping,” he said excitedly. He began beating the whites to soft peaks.
“Let’s mix some of this in to the batter,” he said, not giving me time to protest.
And on it went, every step of the way.
He had fun, but I didn’t.

In the end, the cake tasted awful. But all Peter said was: “Well, that didn’t really work out.” He didn’t seem bothered at all. I was very bothered. I thought:
a) you’ve traumatised me;
b) we’ve wasted a whole lot of perfectly good ingredients, and;
c) we don’t have a cake we can eat.

So, would this be classed as a success or a failure? I recently read a recipe for success that made sense to me. SUCCESS = a series of FAILURES. So, maybe this was step 1 in the invention of The Magnificent Apple Meringue Cake.

Ken Robinson, author of one of the most popular TED talks ever, says:
“If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never do anything original.”

Not following the recipe means you need to be prepared to be wrong. I know, from writing many recipes, that baking is an area where there is very little margin for error. But this didn’t deter Peter.
I thought about this in relation to this cake. I didn’t want an original cake. I just wanted a nice normal cake. Some people don’t want original. Original can be abrasive, unsettling and unsatisfying. What’s so great about original? Also, how many times are you prepared to be wrong before you get it right?
Once? twice? three times? Three hundred times? When do you quit? When do you qualify as simply stubborn, or worse, completely mad?

Recipes and formulas offer us guidance and sometimes answers, and we all want answers, right?  But my friend Peter made up his own recipe. And he usually does. And I think that’s exciting, even though it doesn’t always work.

Mixologists are up for being wrong. They are up for failure. If no one likes their egg and bacon martini, or their squid ink sour, they’ll keep trying – refining, reinventing, adding ingredients, taking them away, until they come up with something good.

I’m scared to fail. But I’m equally scared of not trying. To me, not trying classifies as a failure. There’s a book that I like called ‘Weird Ideas That Work’ by Bob Sutton. In it, he says:
“Don’t punish failure – punish inaction.”

This really rang true for me because I have worked in environments where action was actively discouraged, because it created risk, and the object of this particular workplace was to avoid risk at all costs. It was deemed better to do nothing. Inaction was rewarded, failure was punished. Any success was only grudgingly recognised lest it encourage action again in the future.

In my current work as a communications consultant I lead a small team, and it’s very important to me that they be allowed to make mistakes.But it’s even more important for ME to make mistakes; to admit failure – to demonstrate that it’s okay and it’s part of learning. In fact, in any future job interviews I have, when they ask me what my strengths are, I’ll say: “modelling failure”. Successful failure. The sort of failure you learn from.

So, if your career was a cocktail, what would it be?
Mine would be a Pina Colada or a Long Island Iced Tea. Lots of ingredients – maybe too many – but mostly enjoyable. Kind of fun. But I have been terribly worried about this for some time. So I booked a session with career coach Penelope Trunk. She writes a career blog (which I am addicted to), she has founded three start-ups and her career advice runs in more than 200 newspapers in the US.

She says on her website, that amongst the many things she can help you do is – “Rewrite your resume so you look like a star.” So I booked a session which we conducted by phone. Because I read Penelope’s blog I knew that she would be very honest, very direct, and possibly brutal with me.

Her first words to me were: “Your resume is terrible. AWFUL. A COMPLETE DISASTER.”
She said to refocus a resume, she usually recommends taking stuff out. I told her that’s what I had always done – edited things out to make myself look more focused and single minded. I took out things that I was worried made me look like a dilettante rather than a professional. I removed that I had co-written teenage romances which were sold in six countries; that I had worked on film sets; that I was a journalist for a luxury kitchen magazine. But then I gradually started putting some of these things back in. The unusual or unexpected ingredients that make me who I am. Also, in my work as a communications consultant, I am constantly drawing on all this experience. It is precisely because of this mixologist-like background that I can do what I do.

I also engaged Penelope because I wanted to ask my employer for permission to take extended leave (a sabbatical) for six months to travel with my family. I was worried about how to do this and wanted some advice about how to do it well. Penelope said:

 “Melita – your whole life is a sabbatical.”

I thought this was funny and she was glad that I was not insulted. Actually, I was pleased to hear it because to me a sabbatical is about growth and reflection and I do want my work to be about that. Just because I have had lots of different jobs, it doesn’t mean that I don’t work hard and apply myself. But I want to see more of the world and what’s in it, and I will bring this experience and knowledge to everything I do, including my professional life.

At that point, Penelope read my CV again and said: “I can see why you have put things back that you left out before. YOU JUST WANT TO BE YOU. That’s what this CV says to me.”

She was absolutely right. That was exactly why I did it. I just hadn’t realised until she pointed it out to me. At 42, I’ve decided I just want to be me. Penelope also said: “I can see that you always get work – you don’t have trouble getting work – is that right?” Yes, that’s right. And then she said: “You know what – there’s nothing wrong. Your CV is unusual, but it’s like that for a reason, and it has not stopped you from getting work.” She added: “And you don’t need another coaching session. In fact, you are UNCOACHABLE, because you are going to do what you want anyway, and that’s ok for you.” I said I wasn’t insulted and that I was very pleased with my session with her.

There are many recipes for a resume, and some of them might include some unexpected ingredients. It’s always difficult to find a resume recipe that is right for you – something that’s not too spicy but not too bland. And of course it really depends on what industry you’re in because they all have their own conventions. But I firmly believe that your individuality is the very best asset that you can offer any employer.  As an employer I hope to encourage people to express their individuality. I hope to allow “you to be you.”

It felt wrong to ask my employer for extended leave – I was terrified. But they received it well. And it has created space for new people to come into the company and I’m sure it will ignite new ideas and possibilities. I’m sure it will open up the space for innovation.

Speaking of letting “you be you”, I recently saw a talk given by the newly appointed CEO of Jetstar Group, Jayne Hrdlicka. When she was approached for the job, she was shocked. She said: “I have two kids and I can’t spend three months of every year in Asia” which is what the outgoing CEO (a man) used to do. Her Director (also a man) said “I don’t want you to do it how it was done before. I want you to do it in your way.” I turned out that spending three months of the year in Asia was not an essential ingredient for the job.

There are not many women CEOs – the world average of female top executives is 8% – they are unusual ingredients in the recipe for success for large corporations. I’m keen to see how innovation happens at Jetstar with someone at the helm who is not doing things the way they have always been done before.  

When I was thinking about how introducing unexpected ingredients can spark innovation, I was reading a children’s story about Beethoven which described how his 9th and final symphony was the first example of a major composer using voices in a symphony – a choir sang Ode to Joy in the fourth movement. Although this had never been done before, the crowd went wild. Except Beethoven was deaf by this time, so he couldn’t hear it.

Rules are like recipes; they are important – they create order and cohesion. But sometimes they are simply stifling. But how far do you push the boundaries before you end up with a cake that was interesting to make, but impossible, or at least unpleasant, to eat?

It’s an eternal question. My favourite kind. Happy thinking.

 

ChristMESS and how did Santa become more sacred than God?

If I say I don't believe in God, no one cares. If I say I don't believe in doing the Santa thing with my kids, I usually get a passionate response either for or against the idea. Very few people sit on the fence. I haven't met any Santa agnostics.

First of all I need to say that I am not sure if I believe in God. But I do know that I hate Christmas. I hate a lot of things about it, but one of them is Santa. No, these presents didn't magically appear by the hand of a fat dude in a red suit; they are here by virtue of me working my arse off, thinking hard about what to buy and spending hours shopping (even though I hate it). Men take the credit for enough in this world - I'll be damned if a fictional one gets the credit for all my hard work to make Christmas "magical". I have never found it to be so. Even as a child, I remember it as a time of stress, people pretending (and failing) to be happy, arguments and disappointments (yes, I mean crap presents that I don't want and feeling sad that someone spent their time choosing them and paying good money for them).

So, what's the point of it all? I think if you are  religious person, it's really significant, it matters, and it is sacred. But I am struggling to find the meaning.

I try not to let my lack of jolliness for the season show with my kids. Except for the Santa thing. I've been asked, "But aren't you worried about spoiling it for the other kids?" My first thought was 'let them debate it in the playground', but then I decided to tell my children to be respectful and sensitive to other people's beliefs. Some people believe in Santa, don't spoil it for them.

But one of my daughters couldn't resist. "Santa's not real," she announced to our three-year old neighbour while scooting with him in the back lane. "He's just someone dressed up." Our young neighbour looked at her quizzically; it was if she had spoken Greek. I jumped in, quite loudly, so the supervising parent could hear: "Darling, remember I told you that different people believe in different things, so you shouldn't spoil it for them?" The supervising parent grinned and said, "It's okay; I realised he wasn't real a while ago." We had a good laugh and his son genuinely seemed none the wiser.

It seems some people think that, by not having Santa, I'm taking a sword to the fabric of children's enchantment and gleefully shredding it to ribbons. But I think children will find their own enchantment no matter what we tell them. My daughter did this with the Tooth Fairy - for some reason, I went along with this tradition. I don't know why - it just seemed, well, easier. But then my daughter asked, earnestly, "Is there really a tooth fairy?" I told her the truth. She burst into tears and said "You shouldn't have told me something that wasn't true!"  I was quite surprised by her passionate response.  We comforted her and said she could still get a coin under her pillow. Then she said, "I wonder who will put it there...(*gleeful, wondering expression*) Mummy or Daddy?"

Like I said, children will find their own enchantment.  I don't want to crush it. But I think there is more than one way to nurture it. Characters in books can feel real - and of course the best ones feel REALLY real. But we mostly know they are not. This doesn't generally spoil it. We can still enjoy the story, the character, the experience, take pleasure in it, look into ourselves, or escape from ourselves. That's why it's called IMAGINATION. It's not real. But it can actually feel better than real. It can feel more true. This is the power of stories for me - to look within, or to escape. I can happily promote this to my kids without worrying that they are going to label me a liar.

Children's books about death and grief

In my fairly limited experience of child rearing so far (a five year old and a seven year old) I've found that death and grief can be very difficult things to explain. As with all 'big' things in life, stories help. Here are four books that have helped me to talk about death and grief with my children.

Michael Rosen's Sad Book

Michael Rosen wrote the famous book 'We're Going on a Bearhunt', amongst many others. His son Eddie died at 18 of meningococcal septicaemia. This book explores Rosen's feeling about the death of his son. It opens with a picture of him grinning and the words: "This is me being sad." Rosen explains how sometimes sad people hide their grief to make it acceptable to others. He also writes about being angry at his son for dying. I love the way this book talks about feelings that might seem unacceptable in such a candid way. The story gives the reader permission to have feelings which might not feel like the "right" feelings to have. For this reason, as well as the superb illustrations by Quentin Blake, I love it.


The Heart and the Bottle by Oliver Jeffers

The little girl in this story by Oliver Jeffers decides to protect herself from hurt and pain by putting her heart it in a bottle, but separating herself from her heart means that not only does she not feel grief, but she can't experience joy, either. So she needs to get her heart back. The story shows that life can go on after a great loss, and that mourning and grief is part of the path to learning to live happily again. Another story that tackles the difficulty of dealing with grief with imagination and sensitivity. I love the little anatomical heart with ventricles.

 

 

Dan's Grandpa, Sally Morgan and Bronwyn Bancroft

My girls really love this story. The illustrations beautifully express the depth and intensity of Dan's feelings about the loss of his grandfather. The intimacy and importance of the relationship is so well conveyed in all the things they share - fishing, storytelling, dancing, stargazing and learning the Naml language. Something I just noticed in revisting this book is that each illustration covers a double page, which creates a sense of sweeping and intense emotion, and also conveys the power and 'bigness' of the landscape. The story also explores how Dan continues to feel connected with his grandpa after he has died through memory, landcape and animals.


Beginnings and Endings with Lifetimes in Between

The description of this book on the Penguin Books Australia website (where I got this image) is better than the one I wrote, so I deleted it and replaced it with this:
"There is a beginning and an ending to everything that is alive. In between is a lifetime. Dying is a much a part of living as being born."

Lost things

 
This photo story comes courtesy of Judith Martinez who writes:

"This is from the little town in Asturias where my mum was born.

The blinds are from the abandoned family home (that was sold to someone else who doesn't use it).

With this composition I just had a play with repeat patterns and human routine."

 

 

The Theory of Available-ism

I really enjoy Caren McCaleb's YouTube channel, eagleowlcrow. She is a film editor and a dancer and I think she paints as well. Some of her videos are a bit obscure, but I like the one above, particularly part 3 describing the theory of 'available-ism', which is simply "using what you have" to make your ideas come to life, rather than putting them off because you don't have exactly what you think you need. I'm trying to work more like this - rather than thinking of a million and one reasons why I can't do something, I am going to think laterally, improvise and use what is at hand.

This is Blogtoberfest day 17, and I am feeling a bit fatigued. A bit like Grandma Mermaid below - Middle-aged Mermaid's mother. I don't have a name for her yet. She needs a proper name, not just 'Grandma Mermaid'. Any ideas?

 

Addicted to self improvement

I think I am addicted to self improvement books. Are these any different to self-help books, I hear you ask? I think it's the term used by people who think they are too good for self-help books. Self-help is generally looked down upon. Self help is for people who have big problems. Self improvement is for people who generally have good lives and want to make them better. You know, self obsessed, selfish, self absorbed, nothing-better-to-do narcissists. #Firstworldproblem people. People like bloggers. People like me. So, I have a good life and I want to make it better and I think that is worth investing in and thinking about. So shoot me. Is it such a crime? I should be saving the world or generally be more self sacrificing. I have enough money, a home, a job, two healthy children, a stable relationship, I'm generally happy. I should just shut up and get on with it, shouldn't I? But maybe I wouldn't have these things if I didn't read so many self improvement books. And the thing is, I want to save the world. And luckily, there is a book to help me do it! (See below) Oh, dear - does that makes me a bleeding heart do-gooder that should just leave well enough alone?

If you too wish to spend hours poring over books to help improve your already good life, and if you think the world is worth saving, here are some reading suggestions. (P.S. my interpretation of self improvement is quite broad, as you will see from this collection.)

Okay, first up;



















When I first started reading the School of Life Series edited by Alain De Botton (which includes the two books above),  I thought, hmmm - these are self improvement books written by people who have not read any self improvement books, and possibly even scorn the genre. They made me think of Emily Nussbaum's review of Alan Sorkin's new show 'The Newsroom' in the New Yorker: "Sorkin's shows are the type that people who never watch TV are always claiming are better than anything else on TV." Needless to say, I don't like Alan Sorkin shows (shoot me again, if you want - yes, even 'The West Wing'. Emily Nussbaum's review titled 'Artificial Intelligence' nails precisely why I don't like his shows - you can read it here.)

But, I was wrong about these books (believe or not, "I was wrong" is one of my favourite phrases).  I don't know if the authors have read any other self improvement books (Roman, John-Paul, care to comment?), but it doesn't matter, because both these books have helped me a lot. I have quoted Roman Krznaric a couple of times on the interwebs, and his comments have resonated with a lot of people - particularly his theory of "having some of it all" mentioned in this previous post about the whole 'having it all' discussion.

Jean-Paul Flintoff's book has reminded me that small actions to change the world matter and are worthwhile - it's important to try and think about ways you can make a difference to whatever it is you think is worth making a difference to, rather than finding it all too overwhelming and not bothering because it all seems too big and hard. He talks about the value of "mini-victories" and that each step towards this can be "enjoyable and valuable in its own right". He reminded me that changing the world can be enjoyable. But I can't help hearing this voice in my head: "That's all very well, but this is just a watered down, middle-to-upper class, self serving version of saving the world so rich people can feel better about themselves." This is the sort of stupid, pointless voice that stops me from doing potentially worthwhile things, when really, I should be drawing on all my advantages and resources to change the world. It's people like me who should be changing the world - people with enough food and money and a stable life.

I am going to just briefly mention some other self-help/self-improvement books here. I know I have mocked the whole '7 things' thing before, but I did find these books helpful:

• Seven Secrets of Successful Parenting or How to Achieve the Almost Impossible - from Toddlers to Teens by Karen Doherty and Georgia Coleridge
• The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Families by Stephen R.Covey (yes, he's the 7 Habits of Highly Successful People guy but I haven't read that book.) He does tend to go on a bit and I didn't read all sections in full, but I still found it useful.
• Weird Ideas That Work by Robert I. Sutton (This is a work-y, management book, but I think it is applicable to many contexts. It offers "counter intuitive strategies to unlock ideas you never knew you had."
• 7 Myths About Women and Work (yes, 7 again) by Catherine Fox, an Australian Financial Review columnist with a great Twitter handle: @corporatefox. I think I am operating better in the workplace after reading this book.
• Imagine by Jonah Lehrer - okay, okay, he got fired from The New Yorker for making up quotes by Bob Dylan in this book and he was criticised for serving up a bunch of  neuroscience babble (the new psycho-babble) but this book helped me. It reminded me that good ideas often come from strange and unexpected places and he gave me ideas about how to be more creative in my work (even when it's boring) and in my life. I haven't finished any of the other neuroscience babble books I've tried, so this is the one I recommend.

And finally, a warning. Do not buy this book! 'The Only Way to Win: How Building Character Drives Higher Achievement and Greater Fulfilment in Business and Life'. I am fairly embarrassed about buying a book with a title like this, but the contents are even worse than the title. It's full of stupid pyramid diagrams representing, well - all the stupid ideas in the book - and there are also silly charts and lists to help you "build character muscles" and "character score-cards." ACK! I also really dislike books that constantly refer to what you will think about your life on your deathbed, which this book does. I could talk about more books, but I think that will do. For now. I've got some self improving to do.

Middle-aged Mermaid matures a little

"They told me it was the 'Seahorse Style'."

"It's more like 'Dragon Lady', mum."

 
The Middle-aged Mermaid has changed a little - maybe a lot. This is her 11 year old daughter, Ingrid. I've drawn Grandma Mermaid too - she's grumpy about something, but I'm not quite sure what. I'll show you her soon. These are still at the sketch stage - as you can probably see, there is a lot of rubbing out of lines as I work out things like: is her waist wide enough?; should her boobs be droopier?; should she look worried or surprised? She will think about things other than hair in the future, but hair is a big issue for now.