Being a Girl Boss

I have been more active i Linked In recently, and just like Facebook, Linked In has articles, and i'd read these articles from time to time.

The difference between Facebook and Linked In are these :  Facebook can show you which of your friends who are actually shallow and racist, Linked In can show you who are the most boastful of their achievements and opinions plus you get a sense of how many chauvinist swine that are still alive and well in this world.

Sample : Whenever i declare my self as a feminist, in Facebook i'd be unfollowed and some (may have) branded me bad. Just as bad as communist. In Linked In, I'd be high-fived, or will get in-mail that say things like, " just another girl-power dumb lass"

People still have these rules about being powerful women. They don't even know what feminist means, and a lot associated that word with bad, immature, uncontrollable, wild, disrespectful women. This is just as bad as not knowing Islam and branded them as terrorist,  or not know knowing Christianity and give them derogatory names. the term "Powerful Women" is still associated with cold, ambitious, heartless, political, back-stabber, lonely home, lonely children, etc. The feeling that radiated from you getting the tittle "Powerful Woman" are often contempt, anger, disgust, jealousy, and then you'll hear all these nonsense assumptions about your inability to keep a happy life and a happy home.

Being a "Girl Boss" is no different. In my early days being a boss, i faced so many hatred from lots of vendors that i dealt with. I was given so many names simply for demanding what i have paid for. Though, we all have come a long way in 13 years, but i still get stupid questions whenever i'm seen too busy, go travel, or on business trips. The dumbest yet the most F.A.Q that i get is this, "Your kids, who are they with right now?" or in Bahasa, "Anaknya sama siapa, mba?" Normally i smiled and elaborate where they are and who is taking care of them at the moment (as if that's any of their business), but sometimes, just sometimes i'd like to reply by saying, "yeah, i left them alone, no, actually i neglected them. They are now alone, in the house, without anyone taking care of them, no food, and just let them fend for themselves."

Whenever i give the short version of my child-care-plan-while-mommy-is-busy, i'd still get asked so many questions. So i have to explain, all the time, That, at the moment, their dad/grandparents armed with nannies (plural) and maid and driver are there with them. I have left them with menus, and meal plans, and money too. I've also wrote down emergencies number of each kid's pediatricians, not to mention all kinds of what to do's when kids get a mild fever, or fell sick, or vomiting, or whatever illness that can happen whenever i'm out. Oh btw, i've also left enough entertainment options, study guides, worksheets to study and to play with. I also call my kids from time to time, that even they feel their mommy calls too often.

You'd think people will shut up after hearing this, but alas, no. The next question will be, "Is your husband okay with you being successful?" Zzzz. Snore. People need to come up with other questions. Seriously. My answer would be short, "We attract what we are. If we are insecure women, then we'll attract insecure men. I am an Empress, i attract Kings and Emperors. They like who i am, and they need a partner in life like myself to  build an Empire with. I married a King, and he's proud of his Queen."

I am a girl boss and i am proud of who i am. I don't care about the rules that people try to make me follow. Like the rules that says,
"A women should never be ambitious." (whatever)
"A women should not be too strong, or too gentle. " (huh?)
"A woman should wear power dress or power suit." (i wear what i want, i'll wear that dress because i want to, not because people told me too)
"A professional woman should never look too hot, or too cold." (Baby, I'm just too hot to handle, and too cool care)

I don't care what people think of me. Whenever people say baseless hurtful things, and have this excuse to justify their comments, "Hey, we have the right to say whatever we want." I'd just rolled my eyes and scroll away. None of us has the right to other people's lives and the way they choose to live them. So people look down on you? The only people who will do that, are the insecure ones. The ones that needed other people's admiration. That's why they measure us against their standard. Because within the perimeter of that standard, they feel that they are better than us, and they need people to agree with them.

Seriously, who has time to deal with these people? Remember what Eleanor Roosevelt said :

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."

Do what you feel in your heart to be right - for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't.


Plus i strongly believe in these saying too :

"Those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind”


So, pardon me when i say, "Off course people have the right to say whatever they want, but i also the right, to not give a shit."

I'm just too busy building my own life, and power ladies, don't we all?

Being an entrepreneur is easier than being an employee? -From Angky Yudi...

Transformation

I've had so many low points in my entrepreneurial journey, but these past 2 years has been the most challenging by far.  Things just don't seem like it will get better. Sometimes, many times, i feel like i can't see the way, and merely lead with gut and faith.

Most of my friends tell me, repeatedly, that i will, once again lead the company out of the impossible. I said my thanks, but truthfully, it was getting harder and harder to believe what they believe. 

Yet today, i was awaken, literally by thunderstorm and lighting. I got up, and as i was looking out the window, at 4.28 a.m from my 24th floor room in Hong Kong, i became aware that I woke up with the clearest head i've had in months. 

Yeah, this is the day of transformation. This is the day that i believe, i can and i will lead us through. 

How to become a successful Introvert? By Nina Moran and Vera Shiska

I'm a weird introvert. My Jungian type is INTJ, but my DISC is High D and High S. Yeah, i'm complex to say the least :)



Anyway, in this video we talk about my weirdness, please watch, like, and comment ya. Thank you so much!

What do you think about about ambitious women?

Is ambition bad? Ambition and being ambitious is seen as a negative trait. In my video, i share my thoughts about ambitious women. Please watch, comment, share and subscribe ya
thank you!

Strength

I don't tell people the story of my childhood often. Whenever we get to this point of conversation, i always skip, or i would tell a little of surface stories but then i'd quickly deflect or direct the story to something else. Sometimes i fast forward to the point where every thing is okay.

The reason why i do this is, not because i'm sad or ashamed. On the contrary. I think that my childhood was pretty normal. I thought most urban kids had the same problems. After all, i was never abused, never really really poor, never physically or emotionally hurt in ways that it should be traumatic. It's just a childhood.

Later in life, i found out, that my childhood was pretty hard. I'm not sure if i should start telling the stories now, because, i still feel that, my childhood was similar to 7 series of telenovela, but, pretty boring nonetheless. 

Maybe to put some background, i can tell you that my parents used to be rich. I remember living in a huge house. My mother said that the house we used to own was more than 1000m2. When my father lost it all because of a bad business call, we went from that rich to have nothing. We rented a 100m2 house, which to my parents must be pretty traumatic. It took a toll on their marriage, and not long after that, they got divorced. To be honest, as the eldest in the family, it was not the lack of money that stressed me out. It is the the fact that at the time, parents were so absorbed with their problems, that they sort of forgotten to take care of us. I pretended for a long time, that i was okay. It's my parent's divorce, it has nothing to do with me. They can mess up their life, i don't have to mess up mine. Around the same time, i was bullied a lot at school. My bullies used to tell me they hated my attitude. In their perception, i acted like i was the prettiest girl at school. Little did they know that i was just trying to make friends, and i'm pretty sure i wasn't flirty. It's just that i'm a mix blood, i have brown eyes, freckles, and that makes me, by Indonesian standard, a good looking girl. The truth is, i really don't feel good inside. It's hard to feel happy and beautiful, when you have so much problems at home. My mind and my focus have always been about protecting my sisters. I was and still am very protective and maternal towards them. Now that my sisters are married and have kids, i feel protective towards my brothers in law and my nieces and nephew too. It's just a force of habit i guess.

A few years later, my father can't afford to pay rent anymore and we lived with our grandparents. My mother sometimes made gemblong and ask people to sell her gemblong at the local market. There was a time when she tried to sell fried rice too, but it didn't work out. My mother sold sembako to pay for my school tuition. At night i would try to make a little bit of money by working as a waitress in my uncle's warung, i worked from 9 pm to 1 am and then go to school in the morning. When i was in high school my mom sent me to live with my aunt. I did lived there for 2 years. After that, dad rented us a house at a family's friend's place who needed a little cash. Things slowly got better after that. By 2002 Dad managed to buy an old and damaged mini market and built it to become a house. The house that 2 years later, became the first office of Gogirl! magazine. 

So i was bullied, i was called many names, people made up all kinds of fictions about me. I had to work but i wanted to. I didn't feel like that was a burden. I used to manage house hold money since i was in high school, because at the time my mother got really sick for a number of years. I took care of my sisters, i made them study hard. I lied to Anita, i said if she wanted to get into ITB and take Design, she has to come from IPA, otherwise ITB wouldn't even consider her application. I didn't know that, that was not true, but i was just making sure that she has a much better options when she finished high school. At the time, if you graduated from IPA, you can apply for any subject in University. But if you graduated from IPS, you can not apply for many studies that required IPA based. I made Githa go to SMU Tarakanita 1, because that's the most discipline school that i know of, and i wanted the best school for her. Internet was not yet known, so i have very limited information, options, and money. You see, i do all this with no burden. I feel like it's my duty. But sometimes, it did got hard when my parents were not being fair to me. My mother, became bitter, and father relied on me too much. They were hurt, and in so much pain, that sometimes they projected their pain towards me. I don't want to go into details about this. Because, i have forgiven them a long time ago, and right now, they are not the same bitter people that they were. I think they are two of the strongest people that i know of, and at the time, they were just going through so much pain dan disappointments. 

Do you know the story of Gogirl? Maybe a lot of you already know the story, since i wrote them in my book, From No One to Someone. If i write down my life story like this, suddenly, i see a connection. I was bullied, i was called a lot of names, and people used to made up stories about me. All that, was to prepare me. Because that's what happened when we started Gogirl! You know when we first started, there were blogs and forum that talked about me, my sisters, but in a hurtful way. I used to get emails that was just so rude and so harsh. People made assumptions about us, and then discussed it in a forum. What's even weirder, they talked about our marriages, bashed our husbands, make stories and joked about it. I was shocked when i found them, but i never replied or said anything to them. I didn't know any of them, and i never tried to found out. 

So much happened during the time we build Gogirl. So much hurt, and pain, and disappointments. But, it seems that, God had prepared us to face this, a long time ago. About a decade earlier. We were being prepared to be able to handle the problems we are going to face. We were being honed and strengthened, so that we can face these problems a decade later. Isn't that amazing? It made me filled with tears now. Because it has been crazy hard this past 2 years, and it made me think, "God, are you just preparing me now? so that i'm better equipped, stronger, smarter, much more resilient later?" 

Let me just pause for a second.

//

In that case, Thank You, God. Thank you for these lessons, thank you for the hardships, haha, i'm ready to take on even more challenge now. Bring it on! Because i know, 10 years down the road, You have a plan for us, so big, that we need to be prepared for it. We need to be tougher and also wiser. I'm believing in Your ways. Thank You.

//

Strength, is a muscle. We become strong, because we hone our skill to be strong every day with every struggle and pain that we encounter. Strength's best friend is will power. Both, we need to practice everyday. Our strength determined our will power, Our will power build our strength. Strength and will power are results. They are the results of faith, patience, and discipline. 

We are never strong on our own. We can be strong by choosing to be strong, by choosing to believe, by dealing with our trials and challenges in faith. By walking the walk, one step a time. One day at a time.

Kindred Spirit

Today is about meeting people.

I met a friend, Maya. Who i've known for a long time. All this time, i have never realized that we are kindred spirit. But i guess that's what happen if we are introverts. We kinda absorb life inward, living in our own little world. When we were young, these weirdness is just... weird. It kinda disconnect you from people.

As we grow older and came to know how to navigate through our noisy mind and quirky feelings, i found out, we still crave for human connection. Just in our own quiet ways. I enjoyed our talk. It was heartwarming, enlightening, and somehow my heart longs for the next time i would feel this connection again. Yet, being a true introvert, even though i was stirred with the meeting, and so looking forward to do it again, i still feel exhausted. Weird. even i think it's weird. It doesn't matter if i like the person or not, meeting people always drain me. No matter if enjoy meeting them or not, i will always feel very tired afterwards. I guess, the longer i know the person, the more at ease i become when i'm around them. But, it does not change the after effect. I still need alone time to recharge.

Btw, i've been going to JPCC for the last 6 weeks. In JPCC they have small communities called D.A.T.E. We just joined 2 weeks ago and today is our second meeting in this group gathering. It's funny how i'm not anxious around them by this second meeting. I don't know if it's because i have been pushing my boundaries lately, or really because of something else. Or maybe it is both.

It is so not me to make a youtube channel. It's very very scary for me. I think i look so hostile or tired in the videos, but i just make my self thinking, "It's ok. just keep at it, you'll get better at it." So even though i feel anxious all the time, i try to chill. You know, even as i'm typing this, i kept thinking that i should take down the videos. They suck, i suck. They don't matter. That's what i kept thinking to my self.

But, i'm giving my self my own advice to Maya. Nothing we do is ever wasteful. We just have to do our part. Just do our part. we never know if what we do is being used by God to create miracles. We might never know it too. But we just need to do our part.

So this post is for the other introverts out there. My kindred spirits. My soul sisters. Sometimes, we got to push our boundaries. Get uncomfortable. Get to be someone we are not. Someone better. Someone stronger. Because, that's our calling in this life. To be God's tool to create miracles. Miracles we might never see, miracles we might never know, miracles we might never get any credit for. I can't tell you what's in it for you, when we do all these. But i do know one thing, our lives will never be a wasted life.