I am the limit of me

So it was a long week for me – and I have blogged individually on the IBM internal blog sphere on the 3 days of the course I was on, so if you are an IBMer take a look here (sorry folks an internal IBM link)

This blog is about how I feel and I suppose it goes to how I view myself & why.

I never realised how senior a position I had in IBM, well let me be clear – I knew, intellectually that I had a senior position, however I was very unaware of how others in Australia & New Zealand viewed me and that I have managed, somehow, to get to & pass my own expectations of myself, good news I suppose.

Well that’s not totally true either I have very high standards for myself, and the level of self criticism in my head can at time vary from the dull noise to a very loud roar, however because of those standards I actually have fairly low expectations & that dear reader is where the confusion in me lies, the dissonance that I generate between where I think I am from the inside & where I actually am on the outside.

Now I can see it I can work on it,

Now I can see it I can understand where it comes from

Now I can see it I can see how this limits the person I can be

Thanks for reading

Fatherhood – ep3 – the other perspective

I rang my father the other day – and for those of you outside Australia there is a federal election on at this time – he asked me “What do you think about  . . . .”, I naturally assumed that when he was asking the question, and considering that I work in the IT industry , he was after my opinion.

No so it seems – barely 3 words into the sentence he was overtaking me telling me his point of view, and despite some factual errors on his behalf, which he declined to concede, he continued on his way to explain the fallacy of my thinking. Which I hasten to mention he never actually heard so how would he know ?

After taking some time to compose myself I thought through this a bit and it made me realise & re-double my efforts to give my daughter as balanced a perspective, but more importantly listen.

Listening is the best thing I think that any parent can do – listen to what they have to say, and be measured in your response. That’s not the easiest thing in the world to do . . .

Thanks for reading