Lessons Learned from Atlas

We all know the mythology of Atlas and have seen images of the lonely figure with the weight of the world on his shoulders.  Until last night Atlas was just just an image for me, but I had an experience that made that image come to life.  I realized that I am Atlas in a sense.  I assume that everyone who reads this is aware that I'm a stutterer and have been since I was a child.  As a kid, my dad would always tell me that he outgrew it and that I would likely outgrow it as well.  My entire childhood and teenage years were spent waiting for that day to come when I would wake up and be able to speak normally.  That day still hasn't come.  

Because I was waiting for some switch to flip with my speech, I never dealt with emotional ramifications of having a speech impediment.  I just thought if it was going to dissipate over time that there was no reason to delve into that part of the problem.  Before I go any further, I need to explain what emotions I'm referring to.  The best analogy for stuttering is probably an iceberg.  What people hear is the speech problem and think that's entirety of the problem, but there is so much more that you don't see beneath the surface.  The emotional baggage that a stutterer develops as a result of having difficulty finding their voice can be overwhelming.  This is the full picture of a stutterer.

Unless you are someone who has gained the intimate trust of stutterer, you may not ever hear the emotions that lie beneath the speech problem get addressed.  It may come as a shock that a stutter can cause so much turmoil, but it does.  Facing it alone can compound that turmoil exponentially.  This brings me back to Atlas.  The burden on my shoulders that I chose to face alone is my stutter.  I have always felt out of step with world around me as a result of it and felt isolated because there was no one who understood my experience.  

Now this part is my fault because I have always avoided support groups and organizations dedicated to stutterers due to my reluctance to confront the emotional toll that it had taken on me.  I basically never wanted to see the struggle in others that I face within myself.  If I dared to do that, it became real and I couldn't ignore it.  That also meant facing the reality that being a stutterer could possibly be a permanent part of my life.  Well last night I attended my first support group and it was every bit as emotional for me as I anticipated.  I saw the struggle of others and knew exactly how they felt.  The therapeutic part of the experience is that they knew exactly how I felt too, without me having to explain.  The power is empathy is truly amazing!

My current sessions with a speech therapist is what led me to finally facing the reality that part of my identity as a person is that I am a stutterer and that will NEVER change.  This week I sat in front of my therapist and realized that I would have rather been anywhere else in the world than there.  I reminisced about my childhood therapy sessions and I would have never guessed that 20 years later I would be sitting with therapist struggling with the same problem.  I thought ahead another 20 years and saw myself as a middle-aged man still dealing with life as stutterer and I felt exhausted by that prospect.  It hit me that I had to make a choice to accept this part of my life as it is or continue to be in denial.  I'm choosing to accept it, confront it and get it under control.

The conclusion that I have come to is that it's always better to face reality than ignore it.  If you can face it with a support system, then take advantage of it because it's not only for your benefit, but the benefit of others.  My pride has been pushing me to face the world alone, but my commonsense is beginning to take over and make me realize that I don't need to.  I am no longer Atlas.

Burying the Past

Life’s a journey…Surrender

The past few months have made it very clear to me that life is indeed a journey and once you reach a milestone in your life, it's immediately time to look ahead to the next.  My biggest mistake after making it through the life-altering adventure I had last year was treating it as a plateau as opposed to a growth spurt.  I conquered quite a bit of fear and doubt during the Global Partners experience only to find that festering beneath the tip I melted away was an iceberg of fear waiting to sabotage my efforts to begin building a new life for myself.  I guess you can’t cure 20 years of conditioning that easily, but if it was easy then everyone would be willing to confront their flaws and attempt to correct them.  I have been able to identify one thing that has been a major contributor to this hard fought transition and that is reluctance.  My reluctance to let go has been a major obstacle to becoming a brand new me because I can’t seem to part with the baggage of my former self.  This brings me to the crux of this post which is the necessity of burying the past.

R.I.P.

I have become quite a fan of the OWN network recently, especially any program featuring Iyanla Vanzant.  I recently learned that Iyanla was born Ronda Harris.  She changed her name in her late 20’s, as she put it, because she no longer had a need for Ronda due to her transformation into a new person.  Iyanla realized that she was carrying the burdens, pain, scars and habits of Ronda into her new life of success.  Regardless of how great a situation may look, if you bring old habits and an antiquated mentality into a new environment nothing really changes.  You will do in present as well as future circumstances what you have done in the past unless you shed certain aspects your former self that simply don’t fit into the life you want to live.  Iyanla said that she essentially buried Ronda Harris, not out of anger or spite, but out of necessity.  She was living a life that she was no longer meant to live and the only way to breakout of the cycle was to let go of Ronda and embrace Iyanla. 

Derek 4.0

While I’m not going as far as to change my name, I have realized that this is what I need to do.  In retrospect, I see that this transformation has been an iterative process for me and now it’s time for the next phase.  The way I see it, I have had three pivotal transitions in life and heading into a fourth.  Those transitions are:

Graduating from high school

Going back to school to finish my undergraduate degree

Graduating with an MBA and seeing more of the world than I ever expected

DEREK 4.0!!!!!!!!!

Now I figure it’s time to start making some arrangements because the experiences of my distant past don’t fit the life that I’m hurdling towards.  It’s time to make peace with and bury the past in order to move forward into the person I’m meant to become.

There's No Traffic on the Extra Mile

"Always give people more than they expect" 

-Rickey Minor

This is Rickey Minor's (American Idol musical director) simple formula for success and while it's so simple, it's also very challenging.  A friend of mine quoted the title of Minor's book to me a few years ago and while it had a nice ring to it and seemed pretty intuitive, I really didn't comprehend it until now.  That extra mile and exceeding of expectations has become so clear to me now because I understand the determination it takes to achieve a goal as well as the obstacles that stand in the way.  I do think that no one formula for success fits everyone and I think in my case it all comes down to skill and fear.  I believe that my success will hinge on my discipline and gratitude to use my innate ability as well as face down my fear while developing new skills.  For me facing fear is the starting point to getting to that extra mile.

Blue Ocean Strategy

                                                             

I believe that my childhood experiences are what partly kept the extra mile shrouded from me for so long. As a kid certain things came very easily for me and what may have looked like an above and beyond effort to others was really only a minimal effort on my part.  I think that spoiled me to a certain extent because I never had to leave my comfort zone in order to made the grade I wanted, get into my the school I dreamed of attending as a child and get accolades as well as a thumbs up from my parents.  The problem with that is staying secluded and safe in your comfort zone while trying to do something extraordinary with your life may work for a time depending on your natural ability, but will eventually hamper your efforts.  What I have learned is that I must always push yourself to my full potential and be willing to try things I have never done in order to reach goals I have never attained.      

This past year was a great initial step towards leaving my comfort zone behind me, but I didn't really how much of a first it actually was.  It's very hard to break habits that have taken over 20 years to create.  I have two degrees, some travel experience under my belt and a steep uphill climb to make towards my dreams.  Now I see that my conventional methods just won't be sufficient for the challenges that face me today and the extra mile is my only path to success.  Now I have to be willing to delve further into facing my fears and putting my comfort zone to rest for good.  While I don't really believe there's no traffic on the extra mile, I do look forward to meeting the select company that is waiting for me there.

The Power of the Network

For various reasons I have been a little bit of a loner for the majority of my life.  It's not that I never valued the company of others or thought others had no value to add to my life.  I just grew up a shy kid that often went my own way and had a very different perspective on life than those around me.  What I now realize is that I denied myself the opportunity to more sufficiently develop relationship building skills as a result.  All of my experiences this past year have made it more apparent how important it is to be able to relate to a diverse range of people and to find commonalities that allow them to relate to me as well.  It has also become crystal clear that relationship building and networking can have a profound impact on my professional life as well as personal.  Forging a new career path takes a lot of dedicated time and effort as well as connections.  Skills alone, unless they are incredibly rare and extraordinary, can't build a successful career.  

In the past I have been very guarded and to some extent hid myself, skills and talent included, away from the world.  Now I have begun to reverse life long social habits and expose myself to different social situations in order to have the best chance possible of reaching my goals.  It has been an uncomfortable process that continues to expose my vulnerabilities and challenge me to face my social fears, but the growth I'm experiencing is priceless.  It's also been enjoyable to get acclimated to new social circles and widen the makeup of my network.  Of course the professional opportunities associated with networking is a primary reason for this social endeavor, but growing into a more socially well-rounded person is an added benefit that makes meeting this challenge well worth it.  I have finally realized the power of a strong network and I'm building mine piece by piece in hopes that my long term career path will benefit as well as one day benefit others.

The Year in Review and the Year to Come!

My travels of 2012

The best year of my LIFE...so far is what I will remember about 2012.  This is the breakthrough year that I have prayed for and to see it unfold was an incredible experience.  It was quite surreal to experience things firsthand that I have only seen in pictures like:

• Seeing the twinkling lights of the Eiffle Tower at night

• Standing in St. Peter's Square with my lovey

• Taking a deep breath inside the Sistine Chapel
• Burning my feet in the sand of Ipanema Beach
• Looking up at the Pearl Tower

• Looking down at Rio from Christ the Redeemer
• Posing on the Great Wall
• Taking a picture on bridge with two of the best friends I made this year in an Eastern European city (Prague) that I never thought I would visit

What a breakthrough indeed, especially since I have never been outside of the country before the beginning of this year.  However, this year wasn't all excitement and adventure.  I did have to perform in graduate school during all this traveling.  Education was always a top priority in my life and one that I excelled in, but doing it in the midst of travel and living in unfamiliar territory was a new challenge for me.  A challenge that taught me some valuable lessons and made me a much tougher person.  Lessons on work/life balance and relationships also made this year as much about becoming a better man as getting an education and traveling.  

So now what? How do you follow up a year like this one?  By having another breakthrough year!!!  I was tempted to end this year and experience by being a little let down that the whirlwind Global Partners MBA experience was over.  Then I realized that this is just the beginning. I just turned 32, have multiple degrees and a world in front of me waiting to be explored.  I still believe as most do when they are kids that the sky is the limit...with the proper amount of hard work and determination of course.  This isn't the end of something, but the beginning.  That is the attitude I will take into the new year.  Of course there will be hard and broke times, but hard times and financial hardship just make me stronger, wiser and more grateful so BRING IT!  On the other side I hope to find myself a stronger, more intelligent, disciplined and ambitious man.

 But for now Happy New Year and may what I come to remember about 2012 is that it is 2nd only to what I experienced in this coming year. 

A Week to Remember

It's hard to believe that it is has been 14 months, 3 continents, 6 countries and countless assignments since I started the Global Partners program.  The first day that I walked into the Buckhead Center full of excitement and anxiety seems like yesterday.  The world looked a lot bigger and more intimidating that first day than it does now; one year older and on the verge of graduation in a few hours.  This past year has truly been the best of my life and this week is a culmination of more than 14 months of work and perseverance.  

This year has been one of the most unique experiences anyone can have filled with highs, lows, the brightest nights and darkest days that I have ever had.  The memories that I have of all the good times with my Global Partners family  will be cherished for the rest of my life.  Now a new phase of my life is beginning and while it may not include weekend excursions to Brazilian beach towns, I do have a lot to be enthusiastic about.  So today I will walk across the stage, reminisce with my friends, enjoy this time with my family and next week it's time to go create my destiny and embrace the future.    

Blame it on Rio!!!!

I understand what people mean when they say traveling abroad changes you.  I feel that I will never be the same after my experiences in Rio.  I've been challenged on many levels and I'm grateful for each one because that's where growth takes place.  Critical thinking is always important with challenge you take on, but true value of critical thought was really put into a different perspective for me.  Maybe that's the difference in handling challenges in developed country versus a developing country.  When your future is uncertain the thought process used to solve problems is completely different when decisions are made from a position of stability and comfort. Having my thinking challenged in this way is one of the best experiences I could've had in Rio.  This country and city has a lot to offer and I'm extremely blessed to have been able to enjoy multiple facets of Brazilian culture.  And this is just the beginning.  I get excited when I think of the person I will at graduation and how different the world will look to me.  I'm sure every subsequent place I travel to will have an impact on me, but Rio will always have a special place with me.  I guess you can say Rio popped my traveling cherry and it's all downhill from here.  So if you notice any changes with me in the near future, you say it was the wine and art in Paris, you may say it was scenery in Shanghai but you can really just BLAME IT ON RIO!

Fun times in Lapa

     

 Cristo Redentor

Complexo do Alemao favela

Sunrise & Sunset on Ipanema Beach

Weekend in Buzios