The care and feeding (and shunning) of vampires

**Note** this blog was originally posted on Seth Godin's blog, but I think it is SO spot on that I wanted to include it in here.  Please visit Seth's blog for more amazing insight into marketing and life in general. 

The care and feeding (and shunning) of vampires 

Vampires, of course, feed on something that we desperately need but also can't imagine being a source of food. 

You have metaphorical vampires in your life. These are people that feed on negativity, on shooting down ideas and most of all, on extinguishing your desire to make things better.
Why would someone do that? Why would they rush to respond to a heartfelt and generous blog post with a snide comment about a typo in the third line? Why would they go out of their way to fold their arms, make a grimace and destroy any hope you had for changing the status quo? 

Vampires cannot be cured. They cannot be taught, they cannot learn the error of their ways. Most of all, vampires will never understand how much damage they're doing to you and your work. Pity the vampires, they are doomed to this life. 

Your garlic is simple: shun them. Delete their email, turn off comments, don't read your one-star reviews. Don't attend meetings where they show up. Don't buy into the false expectation that in an organizational democracy, every voice matters. Every voice doesn't matter--only the voices that move your idea forward, that make it better, that make you better, that make it more likely you will ship work that benefits your tribe. 

It's so tempting to evangelize to the vampires, to prove them wrong, to help them see how destructive they are. This is food for them, merely encouragement. 

Shun the ones who feed on your failures.

Loss

One of my mentors was terminated from her job a little over a year ago, and she's been a great resource to me during the last week.

She reminded me that it's important for me to get clear on my goals and what I want out of a job and career before I start applying to positions.  Oops.  I already sent my resume out a few times to various people who had me recommended to them via mutual colleagues.

Anyway, the other thing I was told, is that being let go from a job is a loss that has stages similar to grieving.  She told me that it's important to feel the emotions and embrace them and then move on from them.

And she's right.  It's an emotionally devastating thing to "lose" a job.  And really, I didn't lose it, my responsibilities were divided up and spread around the remaining coworkers at the office.  I know exactly where my job is, it's with M, A & D.  And they cannot do even half of the things I was able to do, so I wish them the very best of luck trying to fill my shoes.

I am so upset that I feel as though I did something wrong.  I'm upset my boss told me that he didn't want me to feel like I was being thrown out the front door, because that wasn't what he was doing... but that's exactly what he did.  I'm irritated that four people were hired after me and yet I am the one without a job.

I am so frustrated.

Our Officiant is Official!

One of the biggest things stressing me out about wedding planning was that we hadn't found an officiant.

Thankfully that ended on Tuesday night at Starbucks in San Juan Capistrano!

Sam had found a couple of additional officiants for us to interview on The Knot and Tom was quick to respond and easy to set up an appointment with.

We were really impressed with how professional Tom looked and how he carried himself.  He was pretty much exactly what we were looking for!

Tom's an elementary school principal, but he has been doing weddings on the side for 6 years starting when his cousin asked him to perform their ceremony on a family vacation in Mexico.  Tom pursued a career in marriage and family therapy before he went into education, which was an unexpected bonus because he definitely gave us a little mini counseling session and didn't seem preachy or judgmental.

He also shared a lot about his own family and assured us that it's totally normal for couples to struggle setting boundaries with parents and in-laws as they enter into marriage.  He told us that from his own personal experience he cannot impress upon us enough the importance of setting boundaries with our parents and families from the very beginning of our married life.

He reinforced the crappy truth that people's feelings are going to get hurt by us setting boundaries whether we do it now or we do it when we have our own kids.  He said there was so much unnecessary drama with his parents based on his own inability to set boundaries with them and it really hurt his wife and his relationship with his parents.

That totally hit home for Sam and I, because we have two AMAZING families that would love to spend every second with us.  Unfortunately, we haven't been able to master the fine art of being in two places at once, so we're trying to split our holidays and time between our families.

If it were just a matter of our parents and siblings, that would be less difficult, but we have three extended families to fit in as well.  Sam's mom's side of the family spends almost every holiday all together, which is a bit daunting for me because I worry about the expectations they will have for Sam and I.  My parents split holidays between my mom's family (grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins) and my dad's family (grandparents, aunt, uncle and cousins).  We spent Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve with one side, Christmas Day and Easter with the other, and split up Mother's Day and Father's Day.

I think my family is prepared to have Sam and I MIA at family functions and holiday events now that they have to share me (more formally) with the Galles.  It's tough for me though, because I realize that I'm going to miss out on a lot.  We'll only be spending 50% of the holidays with my side of our family.  Of that 50%, probably 33% will be with the Santis, 33% with the Hunters and 33% with just my immediate family.

I am really, really excited about getting married, and I'm sure Sam and I are lucky to have been working on this whole family integration thing over the last 10+ years.  I just wish it was easier.

Sage Advice from Ashton Kutcher!

Had to share this... good job Chris!


And to think I thought I couldn't like Ashton Kutcher more than I already did!

Parenting Styles

Recently we've been having some trouble with Hunter's nocturnal binge eating.  Mostly, the problem is that he's eating the buttons and zippers off Sam's clothes which is pretty much destroying them.

Sam is not happy about this situation.

We've tried to walk him more, make his chew toys available to him while he's in bed, and pretty much every other thing imaginable to no avail.  

It strikes without warning too... he will be fine for a few months and then he goes on these rampages where he's just absolutely unable to control himself.  

Sam wants to punish him, he says that Hunter sleeping in bed with us is a privilege that he is not deserving lately... he thinks Hunter should be relegated to the crate at night this week.  

I can't say I disagree with Sam, but I really enjoy my time with Hunter snuggling.  I am more used to having him in bed than I am Sam after 2nd year!  I also think Sam is being a little drastic.  I think Sam should focus on picking up his clothes so they are not such a target for Hunter in the first place.  

This has really made me realize that Sam and I have very different styles of parenting.  Not that I don't think that Hunter (or kids) should be held accountable for their actions, but I think some of the responsibility lies with the adult who let the pet or child get into that situation in the first place.

As soon as I saw what Hunter was doing last night, I immediately stopped him and put him in his crate.  He whined and was upset, sure.  Sam wanted him to shut up and was half asleep telling me he couldn't put up with much more of the crying, but I stayed firm.  I would not reinforce the idea that crying would get Hunter out of the crate on my life.   And sure enough, he eventually quieted down and I drifted off to sleep.  After a few hours, I woke up, let him out, and brought him back up into bed. 

Seth says "Lead Up"

Here's a passage from Seth Godin's blog post Lead Up:

"A successful middle manager gets promoted when she takes the right amount of initiative, defers the right amount of credit and orchestrates success. That success might happen despite (not because) of who her bosses are, and that's just fine, because she's leading up."

Easier said than done, Seth. Still good advice.  Too often I hear people blaming external circumstances for their failure and inability to succeed.  The truth is we have more control of our situations than we like to think.  

I can eat doughnuts or I can work out- those choices are going to affect my weight loss.  I can blame the office's stockpile of sweets or I can blame my own poor self control.  Obviously it's less fun to take accountability for the things that aren't perfect in life, but that's part of being an adult.