“I learned about waves when I was little, swimming in Lake Michigan in navy blue water under a clear sky, and the most important thing I learned was this: if you try to stand and face the wave, it will smash you to bits, but if you trust the water and let it carry you, there’s nothing sweeter.”
—Shauna Niequist, Bittersweet
As a kid who grew up near the ocean, I can totally vouch for this. As a landlocked adult, it’s even more true now.
When I was starting my family research paper for my Mexican American history class so many years ago, my professor told us to start with what we know — to start with the living.
Continuing to learn and tell my family’s history means a lot to me. I’m a dots connector, so when I see the past and present woven together through story, it puts me in awe of time, of history, of my own life and how I got here.
In fact it fills me with, I don’t know, a confidence in knowing and understanding a little more about who I am. It helps me feel like I belong. For someone who grew up as a minority in most situations, that is saying a lot.
And I can only imagine what it could mean to more of my loved ones.
I feel a family history project coming on
So I’m feeling another family history “project” coming on, but this one’s gonna need some help from my familia. They just don’t know it yet.
It’s time again to follow Dr. Zamora’s advice and capitalize on the time we have with those of us who are still here. I mean, each of us can come up with at least one story or memory to share, right?
There’s always a party pooper, but they can stay home from the party*. I just think it would be great to honor senior family members, as well as those who have gone ahead of us.
I can’t wait to see how this turns out.
* You’ll learn soon enough that I have a special fondness for música tropical, namely salsa. It’s not uncommon in some songs to label party-poopers — the ones who never enter the dance floor — as los aburridos (the bored ones). So sad.
So it’s the morning after (OK, the day after…my morning got away) completing #YourTurnChallenge.
I’m kind of numb, kind of relieved, pretty tired but overall really energized by the experience.
I’ve tried something similar before, and I mentioned NaNoWriMo in a separate post. That’s about cranking out the crap that wants to grow up to be a novel. And I do mean crap. A minimum of 1500 words, every day, for 30 days. Doesn’t have to be good. Just needs to be written.
Wasn’t quite for me, although it did generate the foundation for documenting my family’s history through story. That has been very rewarding. But it mostly stayed in my journal, until now. So yay for that.
Surprisingly, I came closer to hitting NaNoWriMo’s word count during YTC than I could have imagined. Today, I’m keeping it short – mostly because this time feels sacred somehow.
I’m still processing what all of it means in the grand scheme and how I can apply it more professionally, as well as personally.
What I’m really getting my head around is that finding your voice just requires using it. That’s it. Just ship.
Build it so they will come
I have a post coming soon for the professional comms audience: “Build It So They Will Come.” It’s still about the same stuff – using what you know to help others build their knowledge base. We just need to remember, they might not learn it in a way that resonates with them unless we share.
Here’s to the wheels being greased and turning again. Clink! Clink!
This is my #Day7 and final post for #YourTurnChallenge.
It is not, however, my last post. For once, I can finally say that with confidence and believe it.
It seems silly, but in today’s peer-pressured world of social media, it’s hard – even if you have a voice and want to use it – to let it out, for fear of feeling shunned upon sharing. Or of feeling roasted by others who find shelter in crowdsourced opinion.
And I’m one who typically has pretty thick skin.
Anyway, I’m over it. I’m over the fear and over the lurking, as Nick Kellet calls it. I, ladies and gentlemen, am going in.
The big surprise
I have always been a big cheerleader of others following their dreams. So when I encourage friends or colleagues who are afraid to try something new or ask for something, my line is: “It won’t kill you. What’s the worst that can happen – someone tells you ‘No’? or you have to try again?” Pffff!
It’s not clear yet what my posting schedule will be, but I am going to go for 30 days straight like another YTC challenger suggested and find my rhythm that way. I’m just excited to blog again and to my new commitment to just ship. In fact, this commitment means more than I ever expected it could.
The big lesson
What used to feel like urgency and pressure – in a negative kind of way – now feels like total liberation and a burning desire to say my piece. I hope more people do it, because it’s really not that hard. The hardest part is getting over ourselves and what we think others might think of us — assuming it’s negative. How often do we consider the opposite could be true?
So now, when I have something to share or say, I’m going to say it. It will be partly for me, but the way I’m wired – I really hope it will be for you, too.
#YourTurnChallenge has definitely made the last seven days a challenge. It’s been hard to ship during a really busy time. And if I – no, if we – can take on a challenge like this at the “worst possible time,” we can do it at our best possible times, right?
Mad props
None of this would have been possible, of course, unless Winnie had failed first and been so transparent about it — rounding all of us up to commit together to shipping.
So thank you, Winnie, Seth, the post approvals team and so many others for building and supporting a community with a powerful, new purpose — finding our voices and making them heard.
It’s been such a great week. I look forward to seeing many more of you on the trail.
Welcome to my #Day6 post for the #YourTurnChallenge.
You’ve got a Big Idea. Maybe it’s for a new business or product. Perhaps a response to a disaster half a world away. Or, it could be an update to your resume.
Whatever it is, you’ve got to figure out how to get it out of your head and into some kind of document. It needs to make sense.
Who knows? You may need to show it to someone at some point, either for approval to get the budget for it, or a recruiter if you’re job hunting. Eventually, it’ll need to make sense to someone else.
Only, how do you get started? Where do you start? Sometimes there’s a clear beginning, but in most cases, there isn’t. It’s just an idea that needs clarity.
How I get clarity on a new idea – fast
When I have a complex idea I need to make sense of, I start with a mind map. It’s like white boarding but on your computer. Or slapping up a whole mess of Post-Its on a wall, only for them to get unsettled and lose their sticky identity.
Unlike most white boards and Post-It-based brainstorming, a mind map is easy to share, edit and collaborate on over and over again, even as the Big Idea matures and evolves.
This map was a brainstorm after a job layoff. I wasn’t quite at the point of taking a “skills inventory” yet, but I did know a few things I wanted in my life going forward.
How to get started mind mapping
I can’t live without mind mapping when I have a new idea, something to build or organize. It’s where I dump all related information, in no particular order. Just slap it up there, like this.
Let’s say you have a new product to brainstorm:
You get the gist. The ideas are related, but their relationships may not be simple or linear.
Still, you might not know that until you lay them out next to each other, fleshing them out more fully. In fact, only once you’ve done that are you likely to see new relationships you may not have considered before.
Turning ideas ’round and ’round
One of the best parts of mind-mapping is turning your idea on its side, its back or completely turning it upside down. It forces you to look at in different ways. Most mind mapping tools let you move around the chunks of text, regroup them, whatever.
When you do this, I believe chances go way up that an even better idea will come out of this experience, because the rearrangement of your thoughts only challenges your initial thinking. It’s worth the time to play with your information and see what it looks like when you move it around.
By the way, I’ve had more than a few “aha” moments this way. But one thing you really learn: How much work or resources your Big Idea requires.
For example, one content development project I worked on required mapping out web pages and related copy needs for the project. Once we mapped it out, it was clear the job was bigger than I’d thought. Good to know ahead of time, right?
For the product launch example above, it might be the timing is such that certain key questions can’t be answered yet. Maybe the product isn’t ready for development under current conditions.
Mind mapping tools for budgets big, small or none at all
There are a bunch of tools out there – many of which I’ve tried at one point or another – that will help you document your Big Idea and put all its parts and pieces in order. Or reorder.
That’s the beauty of mind mapping – how much you want it to stretch your thinking is entirely up to you.
Here are some fairly current lists of mind-mapping tools – one general, the other with a design focus. I hope they help you find clarity as you pursue your own big ideas.
Welcome to my #Day4 post of #YourTurnChallenge with Seth Godin.
I was just hours from being shipped off to NYC as my base. Undoubtedly, I’d be flying international flights, primarily. Most of us newbies would.
We were Pan Am Flight Attendant Class #21, and we’d just completed six weeks of “Barbie Doll Boot Camp” (well, that’s what we called it) in Miami, living out of suitcases the whole time — you know, to get the hang of it.
We trained together, ate together, exercised together and qualified for our new posts together — including that huge, inflatable emergency slide.
The Q Flight
My qualification flight to Mexico City took place a few days before I would head to NYC. All I can remember was working First Class on the outbound flight – a large but mostly empty cabin upfront. Incredibly uneventful.
And then there was the return flight, which I nearly missed. (Now, after having flown to Mexico City for work a few times since then, I completely understand why.)
I worked Economy on the way back — a distinct difference from the trip to Mexico’s capital. We had about 400 passengers — all hungry, probably except for the guy whose Kosher meal I forgot. Another passenger was so thirsty, I poured coffee all over his lap.
Back to the night of graduation. My mom had flown in to see me off, I had done really well in training and had been promised many opportunities, and it was my turn to receive my certificate.
I showed up “dead-heading” – in street clothes, rather than uniform. And I bailed. I withdrew from employment with one of the “sexiest” airlines around (no pun intended, but whatever).
And it had nothing to do with the job.
Over the last six weeks, I’d been running from grief. My father had died of lymphoma nine months earlier, and I now realized I hadn’t really grieved his passing or how much I missed him. Or how much my mom and I needed each other.
I’d been going too fast, with multiple attempts to return to college, a big breakup and now Pan Am.
Pan Am was fun, but not all that fun when my mind was on family. It was time to go home.
It’s not like I have never “what if’d” that decision, but the fantasy can’t beat my reality. My career took me around the world in a whole other context, for which I will be forever grateful and changed.
And you know what? I finally learned how to live out of a suitcase.
Welcome to my #Day4 post for #YourTurnChallenge.
I am a product of my parents’ generation, but I’m also a product of a government program that dates back to JFK’s successor, President Lyndon B. Johnson — LBJ.
It will soon be my privilege to work on a project involving this program that helped shape me.
Memories of Head Start
My memories of Head Start, an early childhood development program for low-income families, are mostly about my mom and the First Methodist Church in South Bend, In. It’s a Montessori school now. Head start provides disadvantaged families with essentials for children ages 3-5 and a place to develop socially, socially and cognitively.
Partnering with Parents
Not sure I knew this at the time, but I think Mom was a teacher’s aid. Or maybe parents had to volunteer time if their kids were enrolled.
Anyway, she was there a lot. To my surprise, I may have been a picky eater during my early years, because I can remember at lunch or snack time, my mom trying to make eating fun (sound familiar to you parents out there?):
“Mama Mia, Papa Pia – eat your lunch!”
— My mom
I fell for it – every time. Maybe I wasn’t a picky eater…
Then there was nap time.
My spot, just under the window near the middle of the room, was where I would lay my head for, oh, maybe 20 minutes. (Probably while my mom and the teacher took some aspirin and naps of their own.)
The only thing between me and that cold, asbestos-laden, marbly floor tile was a bath-towel-sized swath of white seersucker with tiny red hearts and a white ribbon border. It was like sleeping on Saran Wrap.
Still, I loved that blanket. My grandma had made it just for me.
My 4th birthday. Mom was proud; my brother just wanted cake.
In child development, little things go a long way
It may not seem like much, but Head Start gave my family a much-needed boost while preparing me for school and giving me a love for learning. After all, we were a family of six on a minister’s income, which wasn’t much.
I’m not a child development expert, but for nearly 10 years I worked for a child development organization and communicated its mission and impact to donors.
For years, I traveled extensively to gather stories or coach others on it, and I witnessed first-hand how important it is to give children a healthy, strong start to life. It is often the difference between living a future of hardship and poverty – or not.
Like many programs from the Great Society era, Head Start is due for an update. It will be exciting to see how it evolves to serve the modern family and continue giving kids a strong start to a healthy and productive life.
Welcome to my #3 post for the #YourTurnChallenge – the best kick in the pants ever.
I’ve spent a good chunk of my career in nonprofit communications — building, scaling and realigning content programs for rapid growth. Later in this blog, I hope to outline some ways to build and improve comms for nonprofits large and small, taking a deeper look on occasion at Hispanic philanthropy and causes.
In this post, I want to focus on a new journaling technique called the Surprise Journal (great Pinterest post and the original Fast Company article) and how this approach is the perfect tool for nonprofit storytelling.
Surprise Journal basics
The point of the Surprise Journal is to write down and record the things that, well, surprise you – and then examine the reason for it. It gets to the heart of assumptions and expectations, helping us reset our thinking accordingly.
It works great in brainstorming or team building settings. For Julia Galef, CEO of the Center for Applied Rationality: “I started thinking about surprise as a cue that my expectations were wrong.”
“I started thinking about surprise as a cue that my expectations were wrong.” — Julia Galef, CEO, Center for Applied Rationality
So what does this have to do with nonprofit storytelling?
To show how they make a difference in the world and in people’s lives, nonprofits use storytelling to paint a picture of what that change looks like — with skin on. Ideally, it accompanies good data the story embodies. (That’s a different post.)
If you’re a nonprofit communications person tasked with story gathering and storytelling, sometimes it can be hard to recognize the change when you witness it in gradual steps, day in and day out.
Frankly, it can feel like you have blinders on and are powerless to take them off at will.
However, there’s one set of tools every nonprofit should have: Volunteers, donors, board members – other people who share our passion for the cause but who may not see it every single day .
They notice the differences over a period of time, so let’s ask them. Here’s how.
Observing up-close and personal
At one organization I worked at, our donors and sponsors often visited the international work they supported, and even the children they sponsored through sponsor tours, where sponsors of individual children could meet them and their families in person.
That was a prime opportunity for our field writing team to learn from the first-hand experience of the visitor who didn’t often get to see the work they were enabling us to do and the difference they were making.
Our comms people were nationals, many of whom had grown up facing the circumstances of poverty the children we served dealt with. So, at first, it was hard for them to see how we could tell stories about change and contrast – the proverbial “before and after.” How could they tell a story of how the donor was making a difference? Different from what?
To train on the “surprise” element, we would send a comms person on those trips and ask them to observe visitors, capturing their surprise and what they were reacting to. Maybe they’d never witnessed extreme poverty conditions like lack of sanitation or access to clean water, or child labor.
Visitors’ reactions ranged from gasps, hands over mouths, sudden quiet, silent tears. It ran the gamut. There was no doubting their surprise. In fact, surprise was kind of an understatement for what they were experiencing.
It’s the journalist in me, but that’s where the gold is, folks. In our case, we would ask people, respectfully and via casual conversation, what they were thinking or feeling at that moment.
The rule applies here, too
The same works whether your work is across an ocean or in your own back yard.
To know the things you need to tell stories about to help others understand your mission and its impact, capture the reactions of your organization’s stakeholders as they experience your program’s work first-hand. This is especially effective of more newly engaged donors, volunteers or board members who are invested in the cause but still learning about it.
Their reactions will speak volumes while providing plenty of insights and material to work from.
I’d love to know some of your tips on telling a strong story that shows change and how you gather content to produce it. It’s hard, rewarding work whose impact – thankfully – has the power to leave an impression that lasts a lifetime.
Welcome to my #2 post for the #YourTurnChallenge.
Pura Familia (Pure Family)
So it seems like forever since I wrote a term paper on my family’s history. Actually, it seems like another life entirely – my college years.
The paper was a requirement for a history elective I took as a way to weasle out of one of those mass-audience sleeper classes.
My escape route came in the form of Chicano History from 1900 to the Civil Rights Movement. And wow, did it ever open my eyes — just not in the way I’d expected.
The assigned paper required us going back into our family history – to trace our genealogy – for as far back as we could validate. But we had to try to go at least four generations back.
For my family, U.S. Census records would only take me so far. I would be dipping into Catholic parish records from Mexico within about, oh, two generations. Ay, Dios mio.
Note: The background image on my blog is one of those documents. This one is, too.
To be sucked into the past like that was not just full of pressure because I needed the class to graduate. The time investment this paper required was on a level I’d not known before. Little did I know the reward would far outweigh the work.
Pedacitos (Pieces)
The content was a piece of postre. Just interview people and ask them lots of questions. I was a journalism major, so that was easy. Then, compile them into a history of my family.
OK. Done.
But the genealogical research opened up a cultural curiosity in me beyond my wildest dreams. Our family tree that began with the living soon wound its way back to some of the founders of the city of San Antonio, Texas.
Figuring out these disjointed parts wasn’t what took all my time. Actually, what will take all my remaining time on this earth, I think, will be connecting those dots and adding still more.
Enamorada (In Love)
But for the first time – really – I was getting in touch with my heritage, and I loved it. I still love it and I still romanticize about retirement so I can do genealogical research. All. Day. Long.
Just understanding how my ancestors made a living was illuminating. Entrepreneurs, left and right: grocery store owner, gas station owner, seamstress, musician, bootlegger, molino de nixtamal owner … you name it! And in more recent generations, pastors. The irony. But it takes all types to make up familia, doesn’t it?
It really is all about ánimo (motivation)
So here’s my challenge to you. If you have never looked into your past – into your family’s origins – you should, regardless what your background is.
And if, like many, you are Latino/a but not quite “Latino enough,” definitely dedicate some time to this rich experience. It will make you feel more Latino/a than you knew you could feel, and give you roots you can identify with.
They’re all yours, and no one can take that away.
Note: Does this #YourTurnChallenge week feel a little like NaNoWriMo to anyone else? NaNoWriMo is a growing movement designed to get writers just to dump out crap and crank out the contents of a book – in its most raw form. If you love #YourTurnChallenge, you should try NaNoWriMo sometime.
Sometimes you just have to get off your duff, quit talking or thinking about it and just do it. Talking, imagining, ideating, envisioning – it’s all great. Shipping is better.
After my last post, I didn’t know which direction I wanted to take with my new blog. I mean, if I hadn’t posted regularly in over two years – and certainly not on a focused topic – did I really think I could manage two or three blogs — one on culture/family and another on communications?
Nope. So I’m going to combine them, mostly because they’re all related.
Poor Mexican Gone isn’t just a title. It’s a future state. It’s going to require that second- and third-generation Americans like me muster up some cojones to help future generations with better access to education and make sure they are able to push through to the other side, to success.
That’s why I’m shipping. This week, that means posting every day, seven days in a row. Why? Well, for one thing, Seth and Winnie said so.
Honestly, it’s the kick in the pants I’ve needed after a busy year (or three) of major transition. I’m excited for a chance to join a community of people who are committed to starting (or restarting) their blogs.
Fellow #YourTurnChallenge bloggers, let’s do this!
poor mexican gone 
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