A little bun in the oven

About a month ago i was going to meet my friends for dinner when i realized that i was "late".

At Pad 28, Vera noticed i didn't order wine, which of course made her ask, whether i want the usual wine and cheese platter. I smiled a little and said, "guess what?"

"What?" She asked normally, like i was just about to tell her a work story.

I said nothing and just stared at her. She stopped dipping her food in the sauce and looked at me. I just smiled at her. She said, "what??" More insistantly. Since she doesn't seem to be getting it, i said, "i'm 9 days late." Took about a second but then she shriek, "whaaat?!!! Well, have you checked? Wanna check now? Tell your driver to buy, there's a pharmacy near here." 

I laughed. I knew that's how she was going to react. The first time i found out i was pregnant with my first, it was the night before her wedding. We girls gathered for  her and help with whatever. She was exactly like this too. 

"Slow down, this time is different. I'm not sure i'm pregnant."

"What? Why?"

"Well, usually when i'm pregnant i can smell things only dogs can smell, and that's way before i was even late. This time i don't feel or smell anything."

"Well, get a test pack and find out. If you are not pregnant you can order this one, it's good!" She said pointing her drink.

Anyway, that night i didn't test my self and we didn't stay out late. On the way home i bought the test pack. 

I was not expecting it would be positive but the next day when i test my self, it did  show 2 bars instead of 1. 

To be honest, i did not feel that i'm ready for a 3rd baby. Noelle was only 16 months old. Too soon. 

When i told my husband, he was stunned too. I know how he felt. Exactly like me. We are not ready for this, especially financialy. 

So we sort of just live the next hours in a daze. Trying to process our feelings. It was the day before our trip to Macau-Hong Kong, so we just shuffle arround packing and barely notice much else. 

I brought Gogirl 9th anniversary issue to read on the plane. I read the article "Tribute to Mothers" that my sister wrote in the magazine. One paragraph stood out and got me thinking the whole plane ride to Hong Kong. It says, our mom is the perfect mom for us and we are the perfect child for her. 

It was in my room, in Macau when i had the epiphany. Our parents was chosen for us, we did not choose our parents. Therefore, there has to be a reason behind it. Parents actually can't choose what kind of children they are going to have and when their children will arrive in the family.  With every birth, there's a role for the child that God wanted them to be. With every birth there's a relationship that God wanted to happen. Between the parents and the child. The parent is suppose to be teaching the child about life, and the child is suppose to teach the parent how to be a better human being. There's love, pain, story, lessons and journey that God wanted to happen. So we shouldn't be affraid, of anything.

If it's God's will that this baby is meant to be in our family, then let His will be done. 

We are ready and happy for this blessing.  

Leadership is freaking hard!

I had the opportunity to interviewed 3 very admiring women. Mrs Yuanita Rohali, Mrs Lilis Setiadi, and Mrs Dini Makmun. Top leadership in their respective companies.

From these interviews i learned, A LOT.

First and foremost, they take the time to coach their people. *sigh* i hate it. My people skill is really really low. i don't like one on one conversations with other than my best friend, my sisters, and my husband. One-on-ones make me very uncomfortable, to the point that it brings anxiety at the mere prospect of it.

Second, don't give a shit about what people say about you, including what your staff thought of you. It's not your job to care, your job is to run a company. Get the company to have the right vision, policies, and moves that tolerate no-nonsense what so ever.

Third, Result is always the measurement. Mrs Dini Makmun, actually advised me to say this to employees that say, "but i've tried my best.", she told me to say, "well, (with very neutral tone, like discussing the weather), maybe you should start to reconsider whether you are talented enough for this job."

My jaw dropped.
I was silent and probably stared at her bewildered. So she added, "Look, the result is always what matters. If you want me to value your effort, I'm sorry, that can't be done. That's just the way it is"

I really don't know how to react to that. I mean, i know she was right. But, i can't imagine saying that to people. In my mind i said, "they (the employees) will hate me." But, is it part of the package for bosses to be hated by their employees? To be the topic of  lunches and dinners? Whatever we do, if our directions are difficult, employees will always say things behind our back.

So many real people and books by great leaders say the same thing. We can't be great by being nice. My coach even scolded once, NICE actually stands for Nothing Inside me Care Enough.

Being clear in direction, firm and no nonsense are the rule.

So, as leaders, we have to learn to say no to : "but I've tried" excuses, but at the same time we must know whether the employee is actually unclear of what they have to do, or simply don't have what it takes to do the job well.

How the hell do we do that?

They say, the knowledge come to us through that one-on-ones we have with the employee. After a while, they say, we will develop some sort of radar that can separate the bull from an actual systemic problem. *sigh*

All these inner monolog is giving me a major headache... and heartache too.

Leaders always aspire to be loved or admired or both. But, most of the time, it is a lonely position. Steve Job, was seen as an A**  by people who saw the JOBS movie. But i can totally see his point of view. He cared too much of what apple should be, what it (should) stands for. His attention to detail was seen as outrageous, but he only did what's best for the product, for the company. He was seen as someone so unrealistic, unappreciative of his original founders/partners. Again, he seemed cruel, but he was only thinking what's best for the company.

Leaders have to have the guts to demand quality, the strength to make extremely difficult decisions, to stick to those decisions, even when it's hated by a lot of their employees. Leaders must also have relentless will power to soldier on. Especially whenever their vision is seen as ridiculous or impractical. All for the betterment of the company. For that green fields they know existed, way beyond the horizon. Even when everyone else see only steep, dark, winding, endless, worthless, and hopeless road.

So Yeah, leadership is hard.

Mommies unite!

I wish all mommies read this and stop judging other mommies! 

http://www.circleofmoms.com/welcome-to-circle-of-moms/why-i-hate-breastfeeding-765627

Not all moms can or want to breastfeed. Not all moms want to give birth naturally, not all moms want to work or stay at home. 

It's freaking arrogant to feel superior to other moms for these choices. None of us is superior to the other, so stop making other moms feel guilty with her choices. No matter what we do, we young moms try our best, and no matter how hard we try, we always feel we haven't done enough. We feel guilty on a daily basis, we don't need other people to make it worse. We pretty much good at doing that ourselves.

We moms should just support each other. Cuz whats best for our circumstance is not always best for other people.

Semantics

For the past 2 weeks, i've been receiving quite a lot of life lessons. 

From reading several books, i've come to conclude Americans care too much about labels. They get offended by what they think is improper label. They read too much of everything. This conclusion had been forming in my head for several years, from watching movies, news, talkshows, reading books, magazines etc, but it became a solid conclusion when i read, "lean in."

To Americans, our jokes will sound incredibly rude, or racist. But, i think we Indonesian don't think much about it, because a joke is thought of as it is, a joke. It didn't come from a "bad" place. None of us meant to degrade any Solonese when we joke that, somebody walk too slow like Solonese princess. Or when we mimic Ambonese accent in certain jokes. I can imagine that all hell will break loose if an ethnic group make fun of another in the US. 

I thought about why this happen. I found it funny that western people think we asian are too serious and uptight, while we actually can laugh at each other and are more open to laugh at ourselves. Like i would just laugh whenever people mock my Indian heritage. 

I think when there are painful past, that's when the sensitivity came. Americans have dark history when it comes to the treatment of African-American people. But what i still can't understand is, hmm why the sensitivity in everything else? Does that come from fear of repeating history? Why do we have to call ourselves "work loving parent" instead of "working mom", "senior women" instead of "boss", making a fuss of what to say when we refer, "work-life ballance". Some people think saying work-life ballance is like calling work as something alien to our life, we have call it another way because work is life. 💤.

At first, i thought, "Don't we all have better things to do than re-phrasing every single thing that we say? They all sound and mean the same to me. They are just semantics."

But then, as always, God would put me in a position that made me somewhat understand the importance of choosing the right words.

The position was, well, the NTS book. I'm getting a little bit of attention because of the book, and umm, i'm not comfortable with it. I'm used to producing work where the work it self gets the credit, not the people behind it. That's when i started to withdraw, and declining some interviews and speaking opportunities. 

This is where my coach had to lure me out of my cave and try out my roar. As i was telling him about the new developments in the company, including the launch of the book and what opportunity it presented, i started to shrunk in my seat. I didn't notice it, until he pointed it out. 

He laugh and said, "Nin, how weird is that you are telling an exciting story, but made it sound to terrible." 

I said nothing, probably stared blankly. So he asked, "what is it that scares you so much?"

"Umm, a lot. But that's not the thing. The  thing is, i don't like drawing attention to my self. I don't like this self promoting thing. It makes me very uncomfortable and i had to always stop my self from panicking." 

"Well, why did you write the book?"

"Because i want people to learn from our mistakes, be inspired, motivated, enlightened by ours and other entrepreneurs' experiences."

"Then why don't you tell yourself that you are not promoting yourself, tell yourself that you are telling people that through Gogirl! you acquired these experiences and you hope people will learn, be inspired, motivated, and enlighten."

"Semantics."

"Yeah, but how does that make you feel?"

"Actually, if you put it that way, then yeah, i can do that."

"Bet, you start to get excited don't you? Cuz' you just sat up, and lean in. Before, you slouched and shrunked in your seat."

I just smiled. Cuz' he was absolutely right.

Now, i do understand the effect of the right words. They are quite powerful. 

That being said, i still think we should keep away from labels. Positive words are great, but we don't need labels and make a fuss of everything. We still got a lot to do, like, rising to the challenge of leaning in and save the world.

From No One to Someone

Ahhh finally! The wait is over. October 5th, 2013 marked a historic event. Aside from The Expo itself of course. The launch of "No One to Someone" was held. It was a humble gathering, probably only about 68 people attended, but we were so overwhelmed with joy that that number seemed like a lot.

Bentang Pustaka Booth

We started the session with a seminar of how to turn your passion into profession. We then came out later, as people who actualy did just that.

My sisters were all there with me, we all laugh, talk, cried, and signed the copies that people buy at that event.

Is it wrong that the first thought that popped in my mind was, "yay, i look thinner!"

On Stage

Notice the wet faces? We can't hold back tears after the playing of our journey's video.

Book signing line

Happily signing the books

The Power of Three :)

Us with dad, whom i mention quiet a lot in the book as well.

It was a beautiful day! I'm glad BentangPustaka  encouraged me to write our and other entrepreneur's stories.

Here's to becoming a meaningful somebody!

Book Update

2 days ago i went to the book printer's place to check on the progress of NTS book. I didn't plan to stay long but, to my dismay, the print quality was astonishingly bad. 

I protested off course, but as usual, the printer's reactions were blaming everything else but themselves. The quality of the paper, or how in their belief, the quality is acceptable.

*sigh* 

Almost 9 years in this business, problems with printers seems to have sequals almost as many as the fast and the furious movie franchise. And their responses were so predictable that it's starting to feel like a bad commercial line.

So, i pointed out that:

1. Yes quality of the paper is terrible, but their ink density is bad. They should know by now that this brand of book paper does not absorb ink well, worse after the ink dried out, the color fades. 

2. Yes there are nothing both i and the printer can do about the paper, because in our agreement that's the publisher's jurisdiction. Even so, there are ways to make sure that the ink, specially the black ink does not fade. 

3. The files were fine. The colors were block colors, not transparent, and they made the mistake while making the plates. 

4. When they start to blame the lack of sophistication of their machine and therefore not being able to meet my expectations, i pounted the sheet that had my signature on it. I left it there because it's suppossed to be the sample of color and quality benchmark for them to follow. That sheet came from their machine, a sample that i took out from the previous night work, and showed them how different in terms of color and sharpness. 

So yes, in the end, everyone went quiet. Because i was telling the truth and they know it. Everyone appologized, but that was really not what i wanted. I wanted solutions, and i don't like the solution in my mind. 

I thought, with printing this bad, they have to reprint everything! But, i hated that. Even though the books are printed on recycled papers, i still hated the thought of wasting papers and even more so, i hated wasting time.

So, at this point, i already know the drill. While everybody else made themselves scarce and pretended to be busy, i had a discussion with machine operators. We then tried several things so that we can fix the quality and salvage the papers. 

In the end there were some metal plates, ink placement and printing sequence changed. But when i left the printer that night, everything seemed to be in order. I plan to go back there today, depended on my children's mood. I wanted to take them out to play, but my kids are home kids, they like the comfort of their home. While their moms needed to go out, they don't. If they don't feel like going out today, then i'll go to the printers.

PS : The picture of me on top of this post was taken by Atjil (Thanks tjil!). She came with me to the printers because i offered her a ride home. But it turned out i had to stay, so i had my driver took her home. 

Expo!

I know i knowwww....! Why would a magazine make a passion expo anyway? That's what people have been asking me these days. 

I'm just bored with the same old thing that we do. Beauty pageant is good but it's been around for centuries. Passion expo on the other hand, is a new concept. So i wanted to do it. It's risky, and though i try to hide it, i'm freaking out!

You see, not many people will sponsor anything new. I'm branded crazy by lots of people now, because i'm doing a completely new concept just when sponsors are confident about Gogirl! Look. That means, this year i can reap big money from sponsors if i make another big Gogirl! Look event. Instead, i make Gogirl! Look smaller in size and making it part of something bigger, something we call Gogirl! Passion Expo.

So what does that mean? It means sponsors scatter, and leave. They don't like anything new, and that means we have to fund the whole event ourselves. The problem is, the money is so tight, that we are all in praying mode. 

Needless to say, i'm scared. 

I made crazy moves in the past, though most of my madness paid off, some didn't. My mistakes cost money, and they cost a lot! So yes, i'm scared.

But, you see, somehow, my mind is programmed to seek solutions. So in times like this, my mind tells me to counsel my own heart, cuz it's the strongest part of me. And my heart tells me, i should not worry, and that... I should eat more nutritious food. Ah ya, my heart rambles just like my mouth do.

I know, Gogirl! Is going to be somewhat elevated soon. Because, experience told me, whenever we were going to grow, there were just one hardship to another that was thrown our way. So, we are going to grow. I know that. I just need to keep going and have faith.

Yeah, i admit it. This is an ambitious project. But, i swear that i do it because i want more meaningful event that can help more people. The road is tough, but we've been through worse. No need to dramatize the minor challenges we are experiencing right now.

We can do this! With or without sponsors, we will manage, we will strive, we will be successful! We will make everyone who opens booths in expo successful and make tremendous profit! We will have inspiring speakers that makes our seminar and workshop attendees feel enriched, motivated, inspired, and enlightened. Every one will be happy, inspired, and successful! Gogirl! Passion Expo is A BIG SUCCESS! Amen! Amen! Ameeen!