"You know mom, I think she's a lot like a self cleaning oven," Angie says sipping her tea.
Angie (aka Pelangi) is our “far-away daughter” from Indonesia. We hosted her as an exchange student 11 years ago and now she is back visiting us for a month.
Angie arrived last week and we are enjoying catching up on the little things that we’ve missed in each other’s lives over the last decade.
“How is your friend Chika doing these days?” I ask.
I sip my tea as she brings me up to speed.
To summarize, Angie’s dear friend went through a series of bad events in a short period of time:
1. She found out her boyfriend of 6 years was cheating on her.
2. She was miserable in her job and left.
3. She was on a small island-hopping cruise with friends (it’s a thing in Indonesia) when the boat hit a coral reef and she was thrown overboard and watched as the boat sank along with her passport, phone, computer, clothes, money. Thankfully, everyone survived!
It turns out that previous to these events, Chika had signed up for a coffee barista course. Professionally, Chika is a brand manager, but in an effort to add more joy to her life, she decided to follow her passion and get a coffee barista certification.
So when she got back to safety after the boat incident, she immediately went into self-cleaning oven mode.
According to Angie:
- Chika “contained the explosion” and started to methodically start checking things off her list. She got a new phone, computer, applied for a passport and reached out to friends.
- She showed up a few days late to her barista course but rolled up her sleeves and got down to business catching up.
Chika is now certified as a coffee barista, has a new job she enjoys, and is back on the dating scene.
She didn’t complain but instead got to work making things happen.
In the words of Angie, "A big explosion happened and Chika contained it, started to self-clean without any drama, and just got down to business doing what needed to be done to achieve her goals".
It’s quite a story and I must admit that the part I found most dazzling was the oven analogy.
So many times I get caught up in the emotional part of things and forget to self-clean.
Personally, I’m using this story to encourage myself to focus on the issue at hand and get busy cleaning up the mess and moving forward.
My question for you is:
What do you need to contain and clean?
Is it your:
- Presentation skills
- Self- confidence
- Ability to genuinely connect with others
- Influence
- Charisma
- Communication skills
Whatever your people skill challenge may be, start focusing your energy towards what can be done to move forward. Body language is a great place to start as it breaks down soft skills into learnable and manageable skills.
And if I can be of help in this process, let me know as I’m happy to assist.
Let's get into self-cleaning mode!
Your co-pilot (who is working on self-cleaning a legal issue that has taken up a lot of time and caused emotional distress),
