Comparing your backstory

To others' highlight reels.

What a convicting statement. All of our new media, technology tantalizing, selfie saturated self promotion is a problem.

While watching a great online video shared on facebook today, I realized that I am guilty and charged of feeding both my pride and insecurities on the same banquet of bitterness.

http://www.godtube.com/watch/?v=W6GZ6LNX

How often do I scroll through countless photos of others' great lives, their highlighted, instagram filtered perfection, and think, "I want a life like that." Now certainly, mild social media envy of your Caribbean vacation isn't a sin. But day after day of wanting someone else's anything, well that points to a deeper longing in me than I knew I had. And because I am a personal responsibility nut, surely I must be doing something wrong if I can't be in Disney World as often as you are.

I have a great life. I love my life. But your highlights look AMAZINGLY BETTER than my everyday average. My long Mondays, late for carpool, forgetting to take my vitamins, messing up my paperwork (that I even have to do paperwork!), all seem far darker compared to your azure blue skies. Why?

For all of my happiness, all of my blessings, I am insecure. I think there's a chance that I may not have worked hard enough to do everything God intended for me to do to find all of the blessings he's put in place for me. Or, simply, why don't I deserve to be on a tropical beach today? What's wrong with me that Space Mountain isn't on my to-do list this week?

To be perfectly honest, there's lots wrong with me. But none of it is keeping me from living a great life. I am smack dab in the middle of all of the blessings God promised me. I am walking his path to my purpose and even on the darkest days, I am blessed.

So I share my blessings as a testimony to grace and forgiveness. And therein lies the other side of this coin, my own endless stream of awesomeness.

I wholeheartedly admit that my facebook feed looks like an adventure novel. It is squeaky clean fun where my house is always clean, my kid is always witty and my husband always adores me.

Oh, by the way, none of that is true.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. So what does the picture painted by my public profile say? Does it speak of struggle, and the fight to overcome that struggle? Does it point to the realities of flat tires, messy pets, big arguments and too much homework? Does it show God's heart for all of his people?

I am afraid not. And I am challenged to change that.

Now I will be the first to say that I hate it when my feed fills up with pity party grandstanding. You know, the "I hate when people who pretend to be your friend...you know who you are." posts that make us all mildly uncomfortable wondering if they are talking about us.

So that's not how I see myself changing how you see me socially. Instead, I am going to publish and consume all social media from a different perspective.

"This snapshot of Marielle's life is just that, a highlight reel. There are dark, challenging and even less than honorable life moments not shown here. Please don't believe anyone's life is as squeaky clean as this page portrays. This life has been photoshopped for your entertainment and comfortable consumption."

Growth vs. Profit

I read an interesting article this morning. It looked at the interesting business perspective, and practice, of Amazon. Specifically, it examines Jeff Bezos' belief that Amazon must, "keep investing, because to take profit out of the business would be to waste the opportunity."

While this approach is clearly working for Amazon, with reports valuing the company upwards of $90 billion, it creates a conundrum for me. As a professional, as a parent and as a person, the struggle between growth and profit is a continual one. And it is one that I am always looking for new insights into.

In all aspects of my life, my success is directly measured in both growth and profit. In my sales driven professional world, the profit is actually the bottom line of my growth. However, I have grown to understand that my balance sheet shows a much more important accounting of life changing commitment and excellence through:

• Reading - I allow myself to read one fun non-fiction book (often a trashy sci-fi romance romp) in exchange for feeding my mind one positive, life-affirming, person-improving, career building non-fiction title each month. I know that reading makes me smarter and the smarter I read, the stronger I become.

• Networking - The more people I meet, the more perspectives I collect. It's easy to get along with people who see the world like me. Early on in my career and life, I surrounded myself with these affirming voices. However, now I enjoy meeting people way outside of my comfort zone even more, for they are the ones that most often challenge me to see the world in a different way. Because I focus on pouring back into my relationships at least as much as I get out of them, what began as professional networking to sell more, has grown into a diverse and exciting collection of dear friends I truly value.

• Empowering - My second calling, when I finally put down the sales professional baton, is teaching. I look forward to the day when I can give back to the next generation as much as my great teachers gave to me. In the meantime, I am cutting my teaching teeth on helping my clients, friends and colleagues better understand marketing, advertising, public relations and sales. By focusing on empowering those around me to make better decisions for their companies and organizations, I am growing my ability to teach.

By committing to these disciplines, I have been blessed to do good work. My commitment to growing myself has created profit for my company and my family.

Profit is important. I have to deliver value to my company. All of the personal growth in the world won't justify not hitting my goals or producing results for my team. I am responsible for the bottom line, as are we all in one way or another.

The reason that report cards, monthly goals and deadlines exist is so that we can account for our efforts. But they also give us the opportunity to mark our growth, or not, learn and move forward. They allow up to punctuate our lives with important markers that let us move forward to our next level of success.

My focus will always be on my growth, but I will always equally be responsible for the profit that my growth should produce. Unfortunately, my accounting isn't cushioned by a billion dollar cloud like Amazon. However, I argue that here on the ground, on the front line of sales and life, the stakes are even higher. My professional and personal legacy are at stake.

I'm not at all Psychic (but I've got rock star hindsight)

Ten years ago today, I was just 5 days short of my 30th birthday. And, being the intense A-Type that I am, I had my 5 and 10 year goals clearly laid out. They went something like:

• Be a patiently supportive mom as I watched my then almost-two-year-old son grow to sports and academic fame.
• Stay a humble and service focused leader as I served as an executive in a media or sales related company.
• Live in Utah - long story, but lack of hurricanes and tornadoes was one of the determining factors.
• Have led every professional and service organization directly related to my career to earn even more love and adoration from my colleagues.
• Win some awards and accolades for my hard work and awesomeness.
• Drive a Jaguar convertible.
• Live in a big house in the right zip code.
• Keep that house in Southern Living style all of the time so that I would be the envy of everyone who ever stepped inside.
• Have the perfect marriage that included romantic date nights once a month and the symphony most weekends.

You get the picture. In general, my plan was by now, heck by 5 years ago, to be prefect, oh, and live a perfect life while I was at it. Since I was going to be perfect, I would certainly have to train my son and husband into perfection with me, so we'd all be perfect together.

As you may have guessed, now ten years later, I was WAY OFF. In fact, I was so wrong about where I'd be right now, it appears I am the opposite of psychic.

My current reality proves I was not near as dedicated to achieving perfection as I once believed. But, before you or I beat me up too bad for abandoning my worthy ambitions, let me explain.

Life Happened.

It turns out, that as I sit here 5 days short of my 40th birthday, I am most happy about, most blessed by and most thankful for all of the things that happened instead of reaching those decade old goals.
Some of the highlights include:

• Being a patiently supportive mom as I watch my almost-twelve-year-old son struggle with ADHD and school. He's often socially awkward, personally irresponsible and way too easy going to ever be a sports star.
• I couldn't be more in love with him if I tried, in part, because he's not perfect, and I'm not perfect. We gave up on perfection, instead we're both working to be excellent for ourselves and each other.
• I've led, though not always as humbly as I would have liked. More than once in the last 10 years, I've bought into my own PR. I've been uncompassionate, inconsiderate, unsupportive and over-demanding. Not all of the time, but I've also not always been the servant leader I am committed to being.
• I've learned as much from the people I've been blessed to lead as I have from the ones who've trained me to lead. I've been knocked off of my high horse enough to enjoy the view from the ground as much as the one from the saddle.
• We stayed in Baton Rouge, LA. It turns out that being close to family, sharing my culture and history with my son, and helping to make the place I came from better was more important to me than any glamorous publishing career in Utah.
• When I got my cancer diagnosis, my mom immediately told the doctors to pack up my stuff, we were going to MD Anderson. This was the first time I knew, beyond any doubt, that this is my home. I responded, "I don't know if I'll beat this, but I know if I have to try to do it in Houston, away from my friends and family, away from my community, I don't really stand a chance. What is there for me to fight for in Houston?" Turns out all the world class care and inspiration I needed was right here in Baton Rouge.
• I have been blessed to work with some great groups of professionals, doing great work in our community. And while I did get some commendations here and there, it turns out it is the work I am most proud of. Seeing the impact that a group of dedicated volunteers can have on our community is why I now give and serve and couldn't care less if anyone notices.
• It's not a jaguar, but I do drive a convertible. A girl's got to have a dream, right?
• My home is a mess, we call it "domestic chic" and my marriage is equally. One day everything is tidy and romantic and the next there's clutter everywhere and everyone is cranky.
• Now sixteen year married and 20 years together, I don't want perfect. I love our flawed, full and fast-paced life. It isn't pretty, but it's a hell of a lot of fun.

So, I missed the mark. My goals, my hopes, my aspirations have changed. My reality is not nice and neat and it sure isn't perfect. It is however more fun and a bigger adventure than I could have ever imagined.

Life happened and I wouldn't trade or change one minute of it.