Dec 2022 | Month in Review
Storyworth & other experiential gift ideas; Updating our operating systems & our internal representations of ourselves and others is out of date.
So I’m cheating and launching my December review….before December is over! :) #formermarketer But don’t worry, I’m positive my 2022 year in review will be VERY late as I’m headed to LA, Marrakesh and London for the next few weeks!
Things I’ve launched:
What can managers do to reduce the trauma of layoffs? And what can you do after? (Linkedin Article) I laid off 20% of my 45+ person teams in 2011 - and that early experience shaped how I approach leadership now. TLDR: Change is always coming. So use the time you have with your teams wisely - invest in them early because they (or you) will move on before you expect it!
Things I’m working on
The class! The startup! And trying to sleep and stay healthy before holiday travel!
The class is capped at 35 and we’re over 2/3rd full! If you’ve been interested in taking the class and wanting to sign up, go do it now!
PSA: If you’re tempted to gift the class to a partner or family member, don’t. They won’t take it well. Just take it yourself instead as a personal investment in your interpersonal relationship skills - which they will benefit from!
If you manage a team and would like me to come speak to your team for 10 minutes (5 min to talk about the class and 5 min to teach the COIN model for giving feedback), I have some timeslots on Jan 10th & 11th before the class starts on the 12th!
Last Minute Experiential & Digital Gift Ideas.
Need a gift that’ll arrive in time for Christmas and doesn’t require shipping? Here’s my list!
For the person who love stories & people: Tickets to a local theater production! Or find a local production of the Moth, where real people tell real stories, live!
For the person who wants to start the habit of writing: Storyworth! (Read more below for my whole-hearted endorsement!)
For the person who complains they have no time to read: An Audible subscription!
Things I’m thinking about:
We need to periodically update our operating systems. And our internal pictures of ourselves and others.
From software, we’re comfortable with the idea of periodic updates to our devices’ operating system: Every so often, you need to shut down your device, reboot and install updates that include new features, bug fixes and security patches.
Why? Because the world continues to change.
In adulthood, I’ve realized I need to do this too. On a personal level, I go on silent retreats each quarter to literally shut off my phone, be still, reflect and set goals for the next quarter. That’s my version of “shut down & reboot.” I love reading books and taking classes to learn new skills, which is my version of “new features” to my operating system. “Bug fixes” take the form of feedback from trusted friends and longtime mentors/advisors.
Our mental models of ourselves (and others) are out of sync.
Imagine the set of folders, files and applications that live within your operating system. Perhaps there’s a folder labelled “the Self”. Or a file labelled “humor.exe” which is a script that runs when you’re on a first date or meeting someone for the first time.
Now imagine that there’s a folder or set of files within your operating system for your partner. Your best friend. Your mother. It represents the total set of interactions and data points you’ve ever had to date and all the interconnected associations and relationships that form your mental model of them. (Caveat: This isn’t exactly how your brain works. And it’s not exactly how software works; it’s all dramatically simplified for this metaphor.)
But what happens if your model is out of date? What happens when the original source evolves but your internal representation of them is out of sync and a year old? Two years old? 5 years? A decade? (Not unlike when you have a file locally saved and work on that version, which means the cloud version is out of date.)
This happened to me recently. In the last 4 years, I went to business school (massive feature upgrade/new OS) and moved to London for two of those years (new features: love for European travel, museums, and an unfortunate side effect of finance jargon in everyday life).
Because of time zone constraints and busy lives, when I came back to California - the same person but distinctly different in new ways - I found that some of my friends and family (ie: those who I hadn’t texted on a daily basis) had a picture of me that was outdated, out of sync, and needed updating.
First, there was the close friend who asked me if I was ok with a “normal” breakfast. Puzzled, I asked them what they meant and they said, “Well, your instagram feed is all these amazing food places - I wasn’t sure that you’d be okay with a normal eggs/bacon kind of place!” Me: “Oh, I DEFINITELY don’t care what we eat - I’ll eat anything! I’m here to catch up with you!” (This was also a real-life lesson on how “IG reality” shapes current, real life perceptions of you…)
Then there was the conversation with a family member where they, frustrated and angry with me, said a series of things about me that were more accurate before business school/London, but were things I’d actively worked on since! It was a surreal moment of encountering someone’s past emotions (and judgment) about who I was in the past, in the present. The specific examples they brought up ranged from things that happened a decade ago to 5 years ago. In this particular case, they’re someone I see regularly when I live in California - like once a month, at least! But because of our life changes - another child in their life, business school and living abroad in my life - we hadn’t had time for deep conversations, where we would’ve surfaced these conflicts earlier and/or re-synced our internal pictures of each other. The quality of our interactions was lacking.
My picture of myself is out of date.
Hilariously, this has also happened TO me, ABOUT myself! When I went back to school at the age of 33, despite having a successful career and feeling mostly content with myself & my life, I still found myself incredibly anxious about social interactions: “Will they like me?” “Am I good enough?” “What will I say?”
On one hand, these are common feelings to have, but what’s ironic is that if you knew 33 yr old me, you’d know that I was gregarious, social, warm, and able to holdup a conversation in most circumstances. So what was I afraid of?
I remember processing this with my therapist, this disconnect between what I knew I was capable of and how I felt going into social interactions, and I realized that I hadn’t updated my mental picture of myself since age 18, where I WAS socially awkward, unskilled at making meaningful small talk, and generally, deeply insecure about my own worth which made it hard to connect with others. I had to remind myself that I am actually more socially adept now, good enough, and generally likable to most people!
Why does this matter? Why expend the effort to reconcile past and current versions?
We need to periodically update our internal pictures of ourselves, our internal pictures of the people in our lives that matter to us, and make sure that their internal conceptions of us reflect our current reality because we continue to change.
We continue to grow and evolve. And we all want to be deeply known for who we are in the present.
So how do we do this? I’ll leave the “software” analogy behind and focus on the imagery of a picture/painting. For seeing ourselves more clearly, I recommend coaching, therapy, journaling and self-reflection.
I realized that my friends and family’s perception of me had faded in some way, or lost fidelity, had become a black/white photograph or a caricature; bold lines that lacked nuance or details. Similarly, as I rekindled friendships, I needed new information on who they are now (and what they care about) to recolor my picture of them; like transforming a black and white photo to full color.
Here’s what helped for me:
Getting intentional 1:1 or quality time. Especially for close friends who have recently become parents, getting time together without their child is key. It’s likely that it’ll be way less frequent than before, but aiming for an uninterrupted, 60-min lunch once a quarter is my new go-to suggestion for maintaining relationship.
Proactive updating on the big things in your life using voice notes and summary texts. I realized that if I want to be known, I had to be willing to do the work of proactively communicating what I want to be known for, in a format that works for that friend. I’ve started leaving 2-3 minute voicenotes on WhatsApp, that friends can listen to asynchronously, whenever they have a free moment. In another case, I’ve started a weekly summary of highlights from the week by text. (This substack was another attempt to broadcast what I’m doing/thinking more broadly)
Getting new data points by being curious and asking questions. I realized I needed to ask better questions. Instead of “What did you do this week?”, I’m asking, “What was the highlight and lowlight from this week?” Instead of “What’s going on in your life?”, I’m asking “What’s bringing you joy?” or “What’s keeping you up at night these days? Instead of a recitation of facts and events, I’m looking for emotions: anger, sadness, surprise, delight, despair.
Storyworth: A way to get a full-color picture of an aging relative
If you’re looking for last-minute, digital gifts for Christmas for elderly relatives, I HIGHLY recommend Storyworth, which emails your recipient a question each Monday. (If you use my link, you get $10 off the $99 price and I get a free book. :) https://www.storyworth.com/friend/tiffany-teng) And at the end of the year, your $99 purchase also includes a hardcopy of the answers! So that’s next year’s gift also sorted!
I gave this gift to my dad last Christmas, and it’s been a joy to get his mini-essays each week and to see his writing evolve over time! And to see a more nuanced and detailed picture of his life from age 5 to his teen years, to his early twenties and forties and to the present -
In his writings, I came to understand how meaningful it was for him to get picked to be on the basketball team in high school, his journey to faith, his amazement that my smart & pretty mom chose him, a “normal man”, his despair when he couldn’t get a job because he lacked a green card, and his elation when he did! And now, in his seventies, to hear his reflections on his life is an incredible gift.
His first essays were simple and straightforward, and by July, his writing had become more poetic, using repetition as a structure, and utilizing metaphors that brought me to tears. I’m grateful to have the compilation of his writing for the time when he’s no longer with me.
Thank you & happy new year!
As this is probably my final substack of 2022 -
Thank you for subscribing, for reading these and for your comments/emails/replies. It means more than you know to hear that my writing resonates, that you can relate, or that you found value from my writing.
If I can be helpful to you in your goals for 2023, hit reply! I’d be delighted to help.
As we head into 2023, my final parting gift to you is the question I’ve been asking at holiday parties, to the delight and sometimes chagrin of my friends:
What are you grateful for about 2022? What do you want to be different in 2023?
Whatever your answer, I hope you know that you are enough, just as you are. And if that doesn’t feel true yet, maybe 2023 is leaning into being ok with with who you are.