Conversations that matter

I have always struggled with small talk.  

I love big groups, and large parties, and will easily dance the night away.  But, once in a while, when I meet someone who to me, is unique, interesting or intriguing, I don't want to talk about superficial things.  I want to delve into what makes them tick. What are their dreams?  What is the best thing that has ever happened to them, and where do they struggle?  Of course, this is not appropriate party conversation.  Then again, I really don't care about the weather, or what celebrities are up to.  Sure, I'll engage in those conversations once in a while, but at my core, they aren't fulfilling.  Of course, I don't want every conversation I have to be deep and meaningful, I too have a playful side.  I just notice how I will go to 'appropriate party conversations' rather than what I would far rather talk about.

At some level, I admire people who are good at small talk.  It means, I guess, that they are rarely uncomfortable in new situations.  That being said, I am not uncomfortable in new situations, I love them.  However, sometimes I want to jump to the 'good stuff' before people have had a chance to get to know me.

I remember a friend telling me about how charismatic President Clinton is and how he makes everyone he meets feel special.  I like that idea.  I am not sure how to do it, and I certainly wouldn't want to come off as fake, but I certainly like the idea.  I think she said he takes a genuine interest in what people do.  I do too, but at times I feel at a loss as to the appropriate question to ask them to open them up and learn about them.

One thing if for sure, I am most interested in having conversations that really matter.  How about you?

eWomen Glow Event

I have just come back from the eWomen Glow Project in Campbell, CA and I feel inspired.

The speakers were funny, poignant and candid about their lives, their pasts, their failures, their hardships and their successes.

These are the things I took from the three speakers, Sandra Yancey, Barbara Rubin, and Marilyn Tam:

1.  Evaluate who in my life is serving my dream(s) and who is taking me away

2.  Create space in my life so that something new can show up.  If I am always so booked or busy, there is no room for the Universe to deliver something new

3.  Show up expecting success

4.  My fortune and future will be created by and with those I am yet to meet

5.  Lighting someone else's candle does not diminish my own light

6.  The Universe never gives us something early...nor for that matter does it give us something late, it is always right on time

7.  'Fine' is one of the most destructive words in the English language, because most often when we answer we are 'fine' we are anything but fine

8.  JUMP!

9.  Embrace money

Sandra spoke of the importance of having good girlfriends in her life that she can lean on, and I left today's event feeling all filled up - the same way I feel when I have spent time with my best girlfriends.  I didn't know more than 3-4 people at the event, but there was something about the energy in the room that has left me inspired.

Here's to the power and importance of having great girlfriends in our lives!

Favorite quote

This is one of my all time favorite quotes.  I think because it resonates so deeply within me and there have been times in my life where I have sought desperately to fulfill a dream where everything around me had moved on, and I was trying to complete the last 10%.  Of course, with hindsight, everything worked out as it was meant to and this particular piece always reminds me of that.  

Enjoy!

We plan our lives according to a dream that came to us in our childhood, and we find that life alters our plans.  And yet, at the end, from a rare height, we also see that our dream was our fate.  It's just that providence had other ideas as to how we would get there.  Destiny plans a different route, or turns the dream around, as if it were a riddle, and fulfills the dream in ways we couldn't have expected.

~ Ben Okri