This list is a compilation of my favorite things that I consider to be must haves for any Calgary business woman. They will save you from being late, you’ll be more comfortable in the snow, commuting will be easier and your office will be so much more comfortable!
My romance with the beautiful sting of rejection has been going on for some time now. Rejection loves to play with my emotions, surprise me and turn my world upside down. Nonetheless, I find myself running back to it ever so often and running away from it all the same. I fall in and out of love with rejection because it means so much more than failure.
Rejection means that I was brave enough to put myself out there and try something new. I am suggesting that rejection is something to be proud of rather than shy away from. I don’t consider rejection as something lost but rather a lesson learned. Every time that someone tells me ‘no’, I realize that I haven’t lost anything instead I am just back where I started. These realizations have sparked my love for rejection.
The most tragic thing that could happen is if we stopped volunteering, asking and putting ourselves out there just because we have experienced rejection in the past. Nothing new or remarkable would ever come into our lives if we simply stopped putting ourselves in situations where rejection is a possibility. This is why I keep running back to rejection no matter how terrible it has made me feel in the past. My skin gets a little thicker, and it hurts a little bit less each time rejection visits. This makes me a stronger person.
This affection for rejection can be applied to many aspects of life whether it be career, personal relationships or other social engagements. Not everyone is going to like you or believe that you are the best fit, that simply wouldn’t be possible. We couldn’t all fall in love with the same person or it would be chaos. Poisonous thoughts that rejection should be taken personally will only crumble your ambition. The strength that comes from lessons learned in experiencing rejection will give you the courage to face rejection head on and maybe even fall in love with it the way that I have.
Once my broke student days were further behind me I started looking into budgeting tips. I insisted (to myself, of course) that I would not change my spending habits just because my income has changed assuming that this mindset would put me on the path to savings glory.
First thing was first, a reality check. There is nothing glorious about saving, taxes were taking a significant portion of my salary and I needed to get my own credit card moving forward. The credit card connected to my parents bill was being cut… both literally and figuratively speaking.
Since then I have learned the importance of quickly getting back on track after modifying your budget, tracking your credit card statements and most importantly, the lesson of liquidity.
My biggest mistake so far came with poor timing, fortunately it had no financial consequences, it just caused me a lot of additional stress when it wasn’t necessary. I moved my savings from my spending account into my TFSA (tax free savings account) with a high risk savings portfolio and left my spending account somewhat sparse but with enough to last me for two months of spending. Unfortunately, this was a mistake. That month the hot water tank leaked and needed to be replaced, I ended up with a flat tire that required all four tires to be replaced and on top of that I booked a trip. This is where the liquidity lesson comes in. I think that I was just really excited to have been saving as much as I had and moved my savings to soon.
Fortunately, I had just enough to cover my expenses without dipping back into my TFSA but I cut it closer than I felt comfortable. I think that patience is a key part of financial growth and even though I could have done without the stress I am glad to have learned the lessons that I have with little penalty.
I have also learned that there isn’t a universal budget that will lead to success, everyone’s spending and savings habits are different. Everyone’s budgets need adjusting over time as well. Below is a pie chart of my budget… for the time being..
I think that I am like most people and want to increase the saving portion and lower the entertainment expenses. What can I say, I like to have fun. I think that a realistic goal is for the unknown expense and some entertainment expense to both go into savings just to increase it to the 55% mark. I hope that reading about my experience has either helped to inspire you to stay focused or feel less bad if you’ve gone off the path in the past. Just remember to get back on track as soon as possible!
Sometimes I read books full of stories and ideas that are far from my concepts of reality including enchanted forests, detective fiction or mystical creatures. This time I am reading about real life events that feel a lot closer to home. “[Christine Bader, author of] When Girl Meets Oil: The Evolution of a Corporate Idealist goes beyond recounting [her] ups and downs in a decade at BP to offer deep insight into the central importance of morality in any job, company or life” – Dan Etsy, Hillhouse Professor, Yale University; author, Green to Gold.
During my time in University and to this day I struggle with my views on environmental, geopolitical and regulatory risk and their influence on the energy industry. Torn between optimism and pessimism I found myself asking more questions and changing my moral points of view each time a different speaker came to our lecture. I have become intrigued to expand my knowledge on Corporate Social Responsibility and keep an open mind while doing so. Since, I have come to the conclusion that CSR can only add value through proactive action inspired by company culture ingrained in core decision making. CSR does not add true value by simply meeting the standards set by industry peers.
Unfortunately, there is no step by step guide for managing environmental, geopolitical or regulatory risk because these are emerging risks forging a new landscape. Christine Bader, in When Girl Meets Oil: The Evolution of a Corporate Idealist, tells her personal story of working towards the management of these risks on behalf of BP. Stories of the risk management failures and successes of energy companies are so often told from a biased perspective. Christine Bader writes from the perspective of an insider motivated by corporate idealism. She rejects the notion of the “ostrich’s head in the sand approach to risk management” and promotes transparent and accountable corporate social responsibility. I find her journey of moral exploration as it relates to her work easy to relate to and highly insightful.
HBO’s GIRLS has captivated my attention entirely. The show provides commentary on the millennial generation in a unique way and surprises me with themes that often are not discussed in my world outside of close personal friendships. I choose to watch the show because it allows me to form my own opinions around the definition of reality, forcing me to think and draw conclusions. Too often I am finding that today’s television is mind numbing and does not force the viewer to think critically as they consume the entertainment. Now I find myself diving into GIRLS AND PHILOSOPHY which is comprised of several philosophical critiques of the show and would like to share some of my own thoughts on HBO’s GIRLS and GIRLS AND PHILOSOPHY because contrary to popular belief I don’t think that Hannah Horvath or Lena Dunham is the voice of our generation or even a generation.
Hannah Horvath is so consumed by her own personal experience that she believes that her experience could speak for the experiences of an entire generation. Yes, many of her experiences are easy to relate to, but I think that is it is so self absorbed for Hannah to believe that her individual experiences formed in her world could speak on behalf of the experiences of an entire generation. It does not sit well with me that Hannah does not consider individuality. I recently had a conversation with someone close to me and he
pointed out the necessity of respecting everyone’s problems no matter the size of their problem, as everything in this regard is relative. Hannah emphasizes how relative problems are when she exclaims, “you should be grateful I am not a drug dealer” to her parents when she doesn’t get her way. Sympathy should not be owed only to those whom you have deemed worthy of your sympathy. I believe that someone truly sympathetic is sympathetic to all and not only sympathetic to those who have struggles that relate to their world because they understand those struggles or those whom they have deemed worthy of their sympathy. There is no sympathy in Lena’s writing for others (only sympathy towards herself) and it bothers me that Hannah seems proud to portray the millennial generation as extremely entitled and self absorbed. I have been working really hard in my world in an attempt to fight these stereotypes.
I do however, appreciate Lena for her writing and her fearlessness to write shamelessly. As previously mentioned, I truly did enjoy both HBO’s GIRLS and GIRLS AND PHILOSOPHY. I just caution viewers to take the content in this show with a grain of salt and consider that Hannah’s experiences do not speak for an entire generation but are rather just a depiction of her personal experiences in her world.
There was a time when I thought that volunteering was for over achievers and people who desperately needed help making friends. Which sounds mean (because it is) but I simply didn’t see the value. This was during a time when my philosophy for how to spend my time and ultimately live my life was highly utilitarian and the things that did fill my time had to have something in it for me. Motivated solely by the generation of my own happiness, I found myself on the outside looking in on volunteering opportunities. My perspective seemed to be that volunteering appeared to be really hard work and you didn’t even get paid for performing. Therefore, volunteering wouldn’t directly benefit me in any way. So then, obviously I wasn’t that interested…at the time.
“The less they pay you, the more they will ask you to do”
The above quote was spoken by a female business leader in my company and there are no truer words around volunteering. The statement really doesn’t seem to exude optimism, initially anyways. It is true that once a volunteer group recognizes that you as a volunteer are competent and reliable the list of tasks requested of you will only grow. So you do need be assertive and learn how to say “no” if it becomes too much. However, this type of reaction from other volunteers truly emphasizes the value that you can bring as a volunteer.
It wasn’t until I started volunteering in positions that related to my passions and put me in scenarios where my skills could really add value to the lives of others that I began to understand how volunteering had the potential to become a highly meaningful part of my life. I began to recognize how volunteering truly was able to increase the quality of others lives as well as my own, aid in the development of my soft business skills and help me to shape my own personal identity beyond my job title.
My favorite volunteer experience thus far has been becoming involved in Junior Achievement. Junior Achievement is a non-profit organization that has been inspiring and preparing youth to succeed by providing opportunities to learn financial literacy, entrepreneurship and work readiness skills by engaging programs through the help of dedicated volunteers. I became involved as a Company Advisor. Five to six advisors were assigned to teams of 25 high school students to assist them in starting and 
liquidating their own business while competing for Company of the Year with other teams of students just like ours (the picture on the right features a few of our student team members). I get really excited about entrepreneurship and to see that the students were so eager to learn and involve themselves in the program got me excited to attend every week. I did find the experience highly time consuming (especially once I became Lead Company Advisor because our lead lost interest) but it was a sacrifice that was very worth while. Some say that being busy is relative and that once you are doing something that you love you develop time affluence because you are enjoying yourself and thriving in your work. It was simply fantastic to be involved in a team setting and really get to know the other advisors and students in such a meaningful way by sharing an experience. I could recognize that my efforts were making a difference and I was able to make powerful contributions to the group.
Volunteering has taught me networking skills, informal leadership skills, and has provided me with new opportunities and an expanded perspective of other individuals circumstances. For this I am forever grateful and I hope that along the way I have been able to inspire others to pursue community involvement through volunteering.
My little cousin was running around over Christmas trying to get everyone to play with his present, he got a new product called bean boozles where all of the jelly beans appear the same but some are gross flavors and other ones are enjoyable. His bean boozles reminded me of Harry Potter’s Bertie Bott’s flavor beans. I have a special appreciation for the Harry Potter series as many do, I even find myself randomly quoting the books. There is one magical concept in particular that managed to really grasp my attention above all of the other unique ideas found in the Harry Potter series. My life would change entirely if I owned a time turner. It is a necklace used by Hermione Granger that allows a wizard to turn back time and change the past. Hermione simply uses the time turner to attend additional classes but if I were to own a time turner I would probably use it a little differently.
In the past taking the time to try new things has tended to be a really positive experience for me. However, an excuses that always seem to come to mind are along the lines of “but will I have enough time for another commitment?”. It is extremely challenging to find the time for trying new things. The truth of the matter is that I am able to find the time to do things that are truly important to me.
This new year I resolved to spend more time at the gym as everyone has but more importantly I resolved to be less selfish with my time. While I was completing my degree I had a tendency to make excuses that I needed more time to study if I didn’t really wanna spend my time doing something. I realize that this habit wasn’t fair to those around me. I would love to spend more time with my family, volunteering with junior achievement, reading fiction novels and also spend time trying new things.
Hopefully the time turner is invented soon but until then I will just have to make an active effort to avoid making excuses. Hopefully my resolution to be less selfish with my time changes my life for the better.
I practiced day in and day out. Saying my parts of the presentation in the mirror over and over for the last three days didn’t matter now. I could feel my hands shaking around my cue cards and there was nothing that I could do about it. I told myself to breathe. Then I made a weird noise in between my sentences. My lines jumbled out of my mouth in a weird order. I took a moment to look at the PowerPoint screen behind me. I don’t think that I was supposed to do that. Hopefully I didn’t look for very long but I’m not sure what happened. “And now my partner will discuss the next few slides”. I’m done. I hated that.
Behold, the great mistake I ever made wasn’t turning around to look at the slides momentarily. The biggest mistake I ever made was caring about what other people think. It can be easy to become victim to our insecurities. However, letting insecurities take over and manipulate your choices only holds you back.
Public speaking remains the number one phobia. There are sharks, lions and bears in the world. I think that pin pointing exactly what makes public speaking so challenging is what will help us conquer our fear. It is our insecurities and not the act of public speaking itself that is challenging.
Then I realized that people do not actually care about what I am doing as much as I thought. Mind blowing. I can’t say that I have overcome my insecurities and now public speaking is a walk in the park…. but it gets easier every time I practice.
Eustress: occurs when the gap between what one has and what one wants is slightly pushed, but not overwhelmed. It is the positive cognitive response to stress that is healthy, or gives one a feeling of fulfillment or other positive feelings.
Ambitious people tend to busy their lives in order to consistently strive towards meeting goals. However, the consistent strive for success can grow wearisome on even the strongest and most determined people. The following three simple strategies have been proven to help manage stress and maintain eustress:
Goals can be achieved in a balanced lifestyle. Having other aspects of life to work on simultaneously can keep you from burning out if one aspect of your life is not working out that at the time. Work experience in a different field or different groups of friends can grow you in a way that you would not expect. Focusing on one area of life and not diverting your attention in any other activities can be risky because if that aspect is not working out it can lead to burn out when there is nothing else to fall back on.
Yes, staying up into the wee hours of the night to finish your favorite TV show series so that you can cry about it after is really fun but you will be paying for it for the next day… next week. After an 8+ hour night sleep you could conquer the world. Try it for a whole week and see what happens. If you have trouble sleeping at night try getting exercise during the day or not eating after 8. All of these suggestions are extremely radical and impossible but small improvements and making better choices every so often pays off. Step 1) Get a good sleep. Step 2) Conquer the world.
This one happens to come naturally to me but I know that it can be very challenging for many people. Planning ahead may not work for everybody but it is like having secret knowledge into the future. Scheduling and planning enables me to see when upcoming busy times will be and then I know how to schedule my time strategically in order to avoid extremely busy periods time as best as possible.
If the whole world was in a state of eustress imagine what we could accomplish. It is extremely exciting to be a dream chaser and maintaining a state of eustress is the best long term plan to make that happen!
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