STORIES FROM THE FIELD
We got together with a handful of our Floricane friends last week to celebrate eight years of making change, and dream about tomorrow's possibilities. No one brought us a pony for our birthday, but we left the party rejuvenated by the support of so many friends, clients and partners. Thanks for 8 great years! (Click the photos to scroll few the images above.)
You can go home again.
When I was young, my dad and stepmother dragged me along with them for regular visits to her family's homestead in rural North Carolina. After a few years, they abandoned city life and settled into a comfortable house on 30 acres of fields, streams and woods in a small Quaker farming community in Alamance County.
I spent important slices of my adolescence there. I learned to bale hay (and learned that I was allergic to hay). I helped slaughter hogs (and quit bacon for several years). I hunted (mostly without success) frogs, squirrels, deer and raccoons. I dug potatoes, strung barbed wire, swam in ponds, got stung by bees. I learned a bit about God, pinto beans and Tarheel basketball. I learned to understand my father more honestly because of who he became in that house, and in that small community.
My dad died at that house on Greenhill Road in 1997, and my stepmother passed away just a few short years later. The property was sold, and we found fewer reasons to visit.
Nikole and I went back to Greenhill Road last weekend on our way home from visiting family in Charlotte. My dad and stepmother's neighbors still live in their farmhouse across the road, where I played constantly with their son when I was growing up. Treva and Leonidas haven't changed one bit, and we immediately felt at home. Again.
Watching Jack and Thea delight in a passel of barn cats, moo at nearby cows, and throw straw at each other in the back of an old wagon made the detour so worthwhile. Leonidas had pulled his tractor out to give the kids a hayride, and so all of us piled into the back of the wagon as he meandered down the gravel road, across the hay field, along the creek and past the barn. It was too short a visit, but it was packed with memory and meaning.
Creating a sense of place for our children -- visiting their grandparents, spending time at Nikole's family place on the Chesapeake Bay, walking our neighborhood, exploring our city -- is important. It roots them in story, and in relationship. And I believe it will give them an anchor as they grow and stretch into themselves.
I've always valued the anchor of my stepmother's home in North Carolina. And my infrequent visits are visceral reminders that memories, stories and relationships always matter.
Over the next few months, we'll be spending time with the IT team at the Virginia Credit Union. They've been long-time fans of Insights® Discovery, and leverage the personality assessment to help their teams communicate and collaborate. Kathy and John are currently taking the entire team through our new Insights Refresh workshop -- a fast and easy way to reintroduce teams to the basics of Insights, get everyone on the same page around ways to leverage it well, and introduce some best practice ideas from our other clients
Birthdays get more calm as you get older, but I'd like to think that two things never change. The first is that secret dream that someone you care about will hand you small, neatly wrapped package that contains the best gift ever. The second is the quiet appreciation for such people that lingers after the candles have been blown out, and the party has come to a close.
Floricane turns 8 this November.
I could not have imagined this during my early morning drive from Luck Stone that first November morning. It was a week after Barack Obama had been elected, and regardless of your politics change was in the air. There was the residual change of the previous administration -- more than a million people a month were losing their jobs that winter in America, and there was tremendous anxiety. There was the promise of transformation, as well. The promise that somehow we could erase the wounds of our nations past; that purple -- not red or blue -- is the true color of America; that we could, in fact, overcome.
That November in 2008, surrounded by anxiety and hope, as a newly unemployed American and a new dad, I stepped into Floricane and into my future. It has been a marvelous, difficult journey.
My desire with Floricane has always been to build, and to build with other people. I've been fortunate beyond belief to have employed or contracted with smart and wonderful people who have contributed in genuine ways. Many of them have transitioned to new chapters of their own lives. (Thanks, Sally and Juliet and Cara and Tina! And Beth and Sarah and Jessica and Jim. And Matthew, Eleanor, Kristen, Carey, and Peter. And Josh, Caroline, Theran, Anne, and Julie!)
Several of them -- Debra, Lesley and Kathy -- remain at the heart of what Floricane is today, and what we are becoming as we grow and evolve.
In so many ways, like our nation, I find myself (eight years later) back where I started, and different. There are different anxieties, different hopes. The problems I thought my new business would erase have taken a new form. Excitement continues to surface with each opportunity to solve a problem, build a relationship, discover new insights into our community. The sense of possibility continues to outweigh the moments of doubt, of second-guessing.
Every day is work. Every day brings worry. Every day brings a new opportunity for renewal, and investment, and for curiosity, relationships and growth. Growing up is hard work -- for people, for communities, and for organizations.
At home, I still wake some nights and tiptoe into my eight-year-old daughter's room to make sure she's still there, and warm in her blankets. I've added an extra stop to my two-year-old son's room. I pause, watch their quiet slumber, place my hand on their heads, and reflect. Sometimes I whisper words of thanks. That these two kids have slipped into my life remains the bright spot of the past eight years, and creates a foundation for optimism about the next eight years, and beyond.
As for each of you, this letter represents a thank you, too. You have -- my clients, friends, partners, coworkers and acquaintances -- contributed in such significant ways to Floricane's continued success. You have been, and remain, bright spots for me, and for the Floricane team. We value our work with you.
We love what we do. Our work is the small, neatly wrapped packages. And the communities we engage are what we appreciate most long after the candles have been blown out. We are better because of you.
Happy birthday!
Please welcome back to the Floricane blog: Ross Catrow! Check out where Ross tweets, here, and what things he likes, here. Ross has been a big Insights® fan from the beginning, so we thought we'd ask him what he learned at our latest Insights® Explorations workshop.
I've always heard that most folks are either visual or auditory learners, and I've always thought of myself as very visual. I can remember lectures in college (well, not really, because I mostly fell asleep) where entire classes would slip by as the professor droned on and not a single thing would stick in my brain.
So color me surprised when Kathy dropped this study in front of me at the most recent Insights Explorations. The long and short of it is: Not only are people probably not stuck to just one specific type of learning for their entire lives, but they really can't tell you how they best learn. This blew my mind! You can present a person with information in a way that they prefer (visual, audio, whatever), give them a test on that information, and when they perform poorly on that test they'll tell you—right to your face—that the preferred-yet-not-as-effective method of learning was better! Even though it was clearly not!
Brains, man. Never trust them.
This is all very fascinating, but how does it apply to the magical Insights color wheel? As a group of us talked about the ways in which we learn and which ways are more comfortable, we started to realize that—who would have guessed—learning strategies correspond to Insights types. For example, "role playing," which, for me, sounds terrible, is way across the Insights wheel from where I live. The unreliable narrator part of my brain says that I should never attempt to use role playing as a learning strategy, because "that's just not my style." Well, au contraire, brain! We just learned that you cannot be trusted when it comes to matters of what is and is not effective learning. It's probably best, and the research shows this too, to mix up learning activities—and even push yourself into places that make you feel uncomfortable. Even things like...role playing.
So as I prepare to tackle my next new task (which is probably something boring like, "how to effectively administer surveys to humans"), I'm going to take a look around the Insights wheel and see if there are some techniques that would have (and still do) give me pause. Maybe some of my immediate family will help me role play through asking a total stranger to fill out a survey about buses?
One of our favorite conversations is when we get to discuss the impact of stress on our behavioral styles -- as our personality slowly cracks live a calving iceberg before dropping into the ocean waters below. Okay, so it's usually not that dramatic, but understanding how stress impacts your performance (and what to do about it) is important stuff. Check out the dominant color energy guides from Insights® below.
Please welcome back to the Floricane blog: Rick Jarvis, co-founder of One South Realty! Rick blogs constantly about Richmond here, here, and here. Rick has been a big Insights® fan from the beginning, so we thought we'd ask him what he learned at our fourth Insights® Explorations workshop.
I almost didn't make it to Floricane's latest Insights® Explorations session.
I took the youngest child to camp in Williamsburg and several of my biggest clients needed my time. The inbox was full and the number of ‘un-responded’ to texts approached double digits.
Oh, and it was a Friday morning.
But, I did make it (albeit a bit late) and I am glad I did. Had I let the pull of unanswered inquires dominate my day, I would have violated one of my personal values — commitment. How ironic, given that this latest Insights® Explorations installment was about (yes, you guessed it) personal values.
And, as you would expect (if you have been a regular at Insights® workshops), what you thought you were thinking at the start of the session may not actually be exactly what you end up thinking once the Floricane folks are done asking you questions and provoking far deeper analysis.
You see, throughout my formative years I spent a large part of my time sweating through a shirt that had a number on the back (and no, I was not in prison). I like to tell people who ask where I am from that I was born in Richmond and raised in a locker room. From the earliest age imaginable, I remember hitting, kicking, throwing, or otherwise interacting with an inflatable leather wrapped ball of various shapes, sizes, or colors on about every sun-baked field from Ashland to Petersburg and beyond while wearing the most hideously colored polyester uniforms of the 70’s and 80’s imaginable (Monacan High School color palate anyone?).
Having spent so much of my life being yelled... errrr... ‘encouraged’ by coaches and watching others experience the same, I began to hone my predictive skills about who would become successful and who would not. I have played with and against players who found great athletic success in all of the major sports and without a doubt, the ones who made it furthest were the ones who worked the hardest. For that reason, values like commitment, perseverance, effort, consistency, and work ethic will always resonate greatly with me.
This year’s Major League Baseball Hall of Fame (HoF) class is a great example. Ken Griffey, Jr. was the number one overall pick in the 1987 draft and he became the highest pick to ever be inducted into the HoF whereas Mike Piazza, drafted in the 62nd round (#1,390 overall) in 1988, was the lowest pick ever to make the HoF.
I think that both statistics are incredible because when you think of all of the number one overall picks in the history of baseball, Ken Griffey, Jr. is the only one out of them in the Hall of Fame?? Really?!? And, when Ken Griffey, Jr. is enshrined along side what was certainly an afterthought draft pick (1,389 players were picked in front of Mike Piazza!) the value of commitment could not be illustrated better. Both of their values to commitment distinguished them and landed them in the HoF.
As I may have mentioned in an earlier post, I am a multiple time attendee of Floricane sessions. I’ve had my profile done (twice) and sat through some form of Insights® roughly 10 times. I am kind of a junkie, I guess,. I have found this series of mini-sessions especially useful because we have not just been painting each other in shades of red, blue, green, and yellow. More importantly, we have been touching on topics that are similar to personal coaching.
As I walk away from the latest two-hour investment in self, courtesy of Floricane, I have a new understanding of why commitment is so important to me. It's why I have the friends and colleagues around me that I do and why some people have stayed in my life as long as they have.
See everyone on August 16!
Please welcome to the Floricane blog: Laura Waite of One South Realty! Laura has participated in Insights® Explorations since the start of the series this Spring, so we thought we’d ask her what she learned at our third workshop.
Thank you Floricane for another engaging Insights® Explorations session! I found myself, for the first time in my life, considering a tattoo. How could an afternoon session at Floricane inspire a tattoo?
This workshop’s topic was goal setting, something I have never really prioritized nor considered myself good at. I’ve always thought: I am too busy to set goals; who has time to think about such frivolous things as goals when there is so much else to do? (Who has not felt that way?) I have my daily list of to-dos that I check off - are those not goals? (Turns out they’re tasks that can help me achieve big goals.)
Goal setting sounded selfish to me, and like a cliché (like something you’d “put on” for a job interview). Instead, I usually would focus on what’s simple and realistic, like paying the mortgage (I love checking that box; that's my big goal every month). Other goals have been spending quality time with family (I count my blessings when achieving that one) or doing a good job at work, and making people laugh.
At the Insights® Explorations session, we discussed the different traits associated with each color and the challenges those with each dominant energy may face. My green/yellow self was worried that my goals would center around making others happy rather than focusing on myself, and how to commit to goals. (If I do not commit to goals then I won't be disappointed, right?) The dominant blue energy people in my group were worried about too many details getting in the way of clear goals. The reds were concerned with being unrealistic and unreasonable.
We quickly decided that, for most, life goals would focus around these broad topics:
-Health
-Family/Relationships
-Job/Career/Community Service
-Self/Lifelong Learning
-Faith
-Social/Recreation
-Finances
I wanted to come up with a goal that would resonate with my priority topics from that list, that would resonate with personal mantra, my big picture, my singular sensation: my "tattoo" if you will. As someone who may be the last person in Richmond, VA with no ink, I often think: If I were to get a tattoo what would it be?
Most folks prioritized family and health being number one and two priorities, interchangeably. I proudly decided to go where no green/yellow people pleaser has gone before: I prioritized Self/Faith/Lifelong Learning as my number one goal area. If I am not able to set my main goal in life as myself, and learn to realize the importance of my own intentional contentment, satisfaction, and inner peace on a daily basis, then what good am I to any of the other areas? Does mental health not affect physical health and cause sickness? If I am relying on others for happiness, won't I always be disappointed? Is it not the simple things in life that we look back on with the fondest memories that warm our spirit?
We were asked a series of questions that were all meant to inspire goal setting—each phrased differently so as to appease all of us on the color wheel, including:
-How would you spend your time if you won $10 million in the lottery?
-What would you do if you found out today that you had six months to live?
-Looking back on your life what activities have given you the best feelings of fulfillment or importance?
-What activities are you able to lose yourself and time doing?
We ended by working through how our goals needed to be “SMART” to be useful: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Results Oriented, and Time Bound.
So here is my goal: My goal is to have the ability to be aware of my gifts in the present moment and to feel happiness and contentment that I am able to draw on to inspire joy in my life and the lives of others. A bit lofty, and a bit long for a tattoo.
But thank you, Floricane, for the opportunity to focus on myself for a couple of hours and feel better about my life. It’s that simple and that satisfying. If that is not tattoo worthy, that a tattoo should be all about “you” (I thought of "Tattoo You," a nod to my favorite band of all time the Stones - BONUS!), then I don't know what is.
So, I may be getting a lips tattoo as a shorthand for my goal?? The green/yellow in me needs to build some consensus first.
