What's your surprise?

My favorite question to ask in a group is “What is something you do every day that would surprise us?” (My answer, by the way, is at the end. You can skip down there right now if you want, or if you’re good at delayed gratification, you can take the usual path and keep reading in the proper order.)

You’re still here? Terrific! Some might call me a strange bird. That used to bother me, but now it doesn’t.

We are all multi-dimensional, aren’t we? The more we learn about someone, the odder they probably seem. The more we see their many interests, complications, and contradictions, the more they surprise us, even as we feel closer to them.

My life is basically divided into three dimensions: My work (with a lot of travel), my family and friends, and experimenting with things that keep me learning, interested, and motivated in the first two dimensions.

DIMENSION 1: WORK. I have a weird job, but it all centers around what I call The Why Intersection – the place in business where Strategy Execution, Change Management, and Innovation come together. In each of those disciplines, you’re asking the question “Why?” a lot. Sounds kind of jargon-y, I know. That’s one of the things I want to do on Steemit – make it less jargon-y. Part of my work is traditional management consulting, and part is facilitating executive education with simulations on these topics. It never stops fascinating me, and I discover new tentacles of ways to think about it all the time, so I’ll do some posts on this. Sometimes I get paid to play with LEGO or magic markers!

DIMENSION 2: FAMILY. My family includes my husband; several dogs (the count changes as foster dogs come and go); good friends; and my sister, mother, and nieces. Hijinks ensue, plenty to think and write about.

DIMENSION 3: EXPERIMENTING. If I explore something very deeply for a short amount of time, I am re-energized for my work and my family, and I get lots of new ideas. So far this has included things like graphic recording, LEGO Serious Play facilitation, Japanese home cooking, hydroponics, raising chickens, and (starting this week!) cheesemaking. I find tidbits in each that serve me in other arenas. I’ll write about these experiments, and about how they later informed or influenced my work and my relationships.

In 2002, I became a foster parent for a dachshund rescue, and 2 years later, I founded a separate rescue with a group of folks in Atlanta. I also began fostering dachshunds with a spinal cord condition, IVDD, that is common to the breed. I’ve now fostered more than 20 of these dogs, and coached more than 100 people on how to care for them. This experience led me to co-author a book about home care for IVDD dogs.

While we are on the topic of books and writing, I have a semi-complete novel that I’m struggling to birth (and another that will never see the light of day). I also have ideas about a business book called The Why Intersection and another book on running a successful rescue for dogs (success in rescue means not losing your sanity or your life savings or your faith in humanity while you help as many dogs as you can). I also like to write about the oddities I encounter when I travel (like the giant escalator in Hong Kong or the way people order coffee in Australia). I have a wonderful Writers’ Workshopping group that meets each month.

Lightning round life history! Born in Western Pennsylvania, moved to rural East Tennessee as a wee girl, usual painful childhood/teen angst, University of Tennessee with an English degree (writing concentration), 3 years as a technical writer for the nearby Oak Ridge National Laboratory, wanted grad school & applied to business schools,* got into Wharton, made it through Philadelphia ice storms with the new self-knowledge that I needed a warm climate, came to Atlanta for a management consulting job with Ernst & Young and warm climate, helped build their new methodology for the new Change Management practice, became a Unitarian Universalist, bought a bungalow, met and married my lovely husband, got into the rescue fostering, adopted my heart dog, left E&Y after 7 years to start a freelance practice, and here we are.

Oh yes – the question. What is something I do every day that might surprise you? Multiple times a day, I squat in front of the toilet and squeeze at least two paraplegic dachshunds to make them pee and poop. (If you’re curious about this and didn’t click on my book link above, scroll back up there and take a looksee, you can also see it here on Amazon.)

My favorite part of Steemit is very likely to be the conversations I will have with you, sparked by your thoughts on all of the above. So…what are your dimensions? (It seems like a long way up the page that I talked about dimensions. Remember?) What is your surprise? How do they all fit together?

Tell me.

*Why business school? I tried an advanced English degree and hated it. I thought the only other options were law and business, and I knew I didn’t want to be a lawyer. As it turns out, I can make the combination of a writing degree and a business degree work pretty well.