This is a poster for the Information board at the airport.  How she looks: the heart symbol, the leg position, the smile, the age of the young woman all speaks to the typical look and feel that I get when interacting with younger Korean women.  They are generally very sweet, helpful, polite, and don’t take up much space (both with their physical body and energy).

What is lesser known is that these soft young girls grow up into soft demure looking women, until her strength is tested.  She is fierce, full of fire, and a force to be reckoned with.  Unlike her counter part in the West, she plays a stealth game.  It was explained to me by my Korean friends.  They don’t show their strength unless it is pushed and is the last resort.  Because as they said “it’s not smart or safe to be loud and confrontative in the negotiation.  It is better to come in soft, maneuver around gently and sweetly, until they have to pull out the big gun.”  Korean women run the household, control the bank account, buy and sell real estate, and manage the children.  Korean men, hand over the pay check, get an allowance, and try to stay out of their wives’ way.

This picture is of a customs counter at Incheon airport,.  It’s the last chance for people to fill out the immigration card before talking to the officers.  Look! they have magnifying reading glasses for elders.  It’s a culture that respects and takes care of older people.

Etiquette bell in every female toilet stall at the airport.

I think the name is funny: Etiquette Bell.  If you push this button, will someone brings you some etiquette?

The bell feels very comforting to me.  How often do we, women sit down and realize that there is no toilet paper, or worse….

But to be honest, I have not had the courage to push that button.  I keep imagining, red light flashing and loud speaker announcing “Woman in stall no. 3.  Stall number 3 needs help.  Needs some etiquette.  Send some etiquette to No. 3!!!”  Will someone really come running to bring me more toilet paper? Is it linked to some poor woman’s cell phone? or does it even work?

Either way, I don’t want to wreck the illusion, that there is help if I need it.

Thank you Fred for your brilliant words.

Alone, you can fight,
you can refuse, you can
take what revenge you can
but they roll over you.

But two people fighting
back to back can cut through
a mob, a snake-dancing file
can break a cordon, an army
can meet an army.

Two people can keep each other
sane, can give support, conviction,
love, massage, hope, sex.
Three people are a delegation,
a committee, a wedge. With four
you can play bridge and start
an organisation. With six
you can rent a whole house,
eat pie for dinner with no
seconds, and hold a fund raising party.
A dozen make a demonstration.
A hundred fill a hall.
A thousand have solidarity and your own newsletter;
ten thousand, power and your own paper;
a hundred thousand, your own media;
ten million, your own country.

Most people have a hard time saying nice and encouraging things (to themselves). For some reason they are fine saying “Gosh, I suck. I shouldn’t have done that. Don’t I know better by now? Geez, I am so hopeless. What an embarrassment!!!!”. But to say “I am so cool. I love myself. I am proud of myself.” People just wont say that. But this is where confident and trust in oneself come from.

Now, if you need a teacher to show you how to do this, watch this video. To date I think Jessica in this youTube video is the best teacher of how to affirm yourself!!!

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This is such an important article for any leader or executive to read. If you are going to have an impact, make a difference, or take a stand for an important ideal or way of being, you must pay close attention to what Tim is saying. In my work with executives all over the world, a common denominator that derails leaders is still their internal need for approval. I think it is important to pay attention to our impact and be intentional to what we want to create and responsible to clean up or redirect afterward. But that is hugely different than the need for external approval and avoiding doing things that might upset people, or have them think poorly of ourselves.

As I write this post, my 75 year old uncle is slowly extricating his spirit from his body, his family, and all of his earthly ties.  It has been a very full March for me.  My Grandmother passed away from old age at 102 and now my uncle.  It was a lot easier to say goodbye to my Grandma.  She was healthy till the end, and suddenly in the last two weeks of her life, her body shut down and wanted to rest.  Her memory was mostly gone, and she gently passed away on Friday March 5.

With my uncle it has been a lot harder to witness his dying process.  When we got the call that he was in crucial condition, my Dad, brother, 2 aunties, uncle and I got on a plane and headed for Detroit immediately, expecting to arrive just in time to bury him.  Well that didn’t happen so easily.  He had a rare form of cancer that has spread all over his organs.  The doctors did everything they could but they could do no more.  So the advise was to take him home and let him die.  But he was not ready to die!  He still wanted to fight.  His family wanted him to fight.  Because no one was ready to let go.

For one full week, I was immersed in witnessing love, life, death, dying, and humanity in action.  WOW!!!  I have never been so intimate with the dying process before.  The courage, strength, love, tenderness, messiness, confusion, clarity, leadership, that it took from all of us to BE in the moment with each other was immense.  I witnessed myself being impatient with the process at times, being arrogant and thought that “they”, “he” or “she” should behave in such a way or make such a decision.   Then only to admit to myself  “what the heck do I know?”  It wasn’t my dad, or my lover, or my husband, or my best friend who was dying.

I wonder what it was like to be him in those moments.  I can have a glimpse of what it was like to be her, his devoted wife caring for him till the end.  But him, I am a lot more baffled.  What’s it like to be alive and trapped in a failing body? To not want to leave because he knows how big of a hole he would be leaving in his wife’s life?  To be a husband till the end?  To still want to see his unborn grandson? to have been afraid of death all of these years and now having to lay there in a hospital bed, and watch death inched his way toward him one slow second at a time for 3 full weeks.

Well Uncle, here’s to you:  Thank you for sharing with me your ways of loving, of being a good husband and a dad, and of being a man (with flaws and perfections).  You led your life to the best of your ability.  I saw you being that proud and arrogant army general in the (Vietnam) war, as a humble immigrant working in a factory when you came to America, then rose to leadership on your own merit, as a protective father doing everything you could to provide for your two daughters, and as a wonderful husband to your wife.  I salut you and wish you a soft and gentle exit into the bosom of Buddha.  You can let go now.  WE are ready to let you go.

I guess the answers to my question “How do we say goodbye to people?” are very simple:

-  See them for all of who they are, for the glorious human that they have been to us (flaws and perfections)

-  Thank them.  Appreciate their intentions and what they gave to us

-  And finally bless them and let them go.

There’s more:  For ourselves, I believe that we need to:

-  Notice our own process in saying goodbye.

-  Be gentle and accepting of our humaness

-  Find ways to make peace, forgive, and let go.

I believe this applies to the work place, and to both personal and professional settings.  I want to champion us to lean in, to not be afraid of tears and intimacy.  I think we owe it to each other to honor the person and the relationship (no matter how hard or easy it has been).  And finally to let go and be complete with each other.  In leadership, the skill to say goodbye is equally important as everything else that we do.

Founder of One Taste

I want to tell you about Nicole Daedone, the owner, founder, and teacher of One Taste in San Francisco.  She is gutsy, bold, (wait till I tell you what One Taste does), BEAUTIFUL, sexy, alive, smart, and committed.  If she was a movie and I were a movie critic, my review of her would be that little picture where the guy is clapping and jumping out of his seat!!!

First about One Taste.  It is an urban center in San Francisco (and New York) where people can practice orgasmic meditation and mindful sexuality!  Woooooohooooo!!!  (Back to me.  Can you refocus?) They have a program training practitioners to become “Slow Sex Coaches”.  I have heard of them about 5 years ago, and have always admired what they stood for.  And now I got invited to help them train their coaches on life coaching skills.

Four weeks ago, I met Nicole (the owner) and Justine (the executive director) for the first time, for an interview (to make sure that I check out).  After the initial hello and how are you, they asked me to tell them about myself.  I took a deep breath, and intuitively told them something pertinent about myself.  In less than five minutes, Nicole interrupted me and said to Justine “if it’s alright with everyone, I would like to cut in here and let you know what I think.  She (referring to me) feels right.  My intuition tells me she is the right one.  I have one concern.  (directing her question to me) Can you take ownership of the room?” …and off we went.  A 45 min. meeting was done in 20min.   All pertinent information was covered and understood.  We even had time to share our personal journey on how we became the women that we are today.

I am not bragging about Nicole because she selected me.  I LOVED how she led.  She was grounded, unapologetic, highly intuitive, and completely trusting of herself.  She LED FROM HERSELF, instead of leading from being polite, following protocol, being nice, or “crossing all T’s” to avoid making mistakes.  She was self-authorized, yet she had room to rely on her friend/executive director, Justine.  She was absolutely loving yet rigorous, clear, and not gushy.  It was so refreshing to be in her presence.

When I left, I walked taller, had more bounce in my steps, and breathed deeper.  How she was being inspired me to take up more space and to to deepen the trust in myself.  I believe that is an impact of a great leader.  They leave us who came into their contact feeling taller and more grounded in our own sense of self.  I can also see from the other side, if I were not right for the job, by her being so clear with herself, I would have seen clearly where I didn’t fit and what I stood for.  She served as a mirror for me to see myself, definitively.

In my work with female executives, there are lots of time spent helping them defining who they are, learning to say yes and no with clear and healthy boundary, and replenishing their tank because they over worked themselves (trying to earn their worth).  Nicole gives us an image of what a female leader look like when she has done her personal work.  Check out this video of her talking about One Taste

Here’s to all of us female leaders, having clear boundary, trusting in ourselves, and operating from a balance of our feminine and masculine strengths (which is our beauty, smart, intuition, execution, and deep love).