Just Say "Yeah!"

While rocking Yaelle before bed, if I'm not catching up on social media and disrupting the peaceful darkness with my glaring screen, I usually try to use that time to pray, meditate and recenter my energy from the day.

Tonight, my thoughts kept bringing me back to the same theme: Words.

I've been witnessing the growing struggle of Yaelle trying to express herself through her limited vocabulary. Yet, she has somewhat successfully been able to communicate much of what she wants through one word; the cutest and most animated, "Yeah!"

If she's yelling about something, I'll just start asking her questions like, "What do you want?", "Do you want to play the piano?", "Do you want to go downstairs?", although she says "Yeah" to almost everything, it's not until you hit the right question she wants you to ask that she responds with several and much more enthusiastic, "Yeah's!" while bouncing up and down. Her freakin cute little "Yeah's" give me so much joy, I'd ask her a million questions just to hear her say it.

Which led me to my next thought...how happy are people around me with my words?

In my work, and specifically content marketing, words are everything. It can make a campaign successful or flop. It can open a conversation, lead to a partnership, or glossed over and dismissed.

My words exchanged in my relationships-- how I talk about others, how I talk about myself, how we talk to each other-- will either build up or tear down. I'm learning that there are truly no "neutral" words.

And it's just not what I say, but how I say them. I know I can be pretty offensive without realizing it...until I see a look on someone's face...or I just feel kind of yuck afterward, like I should just keep my mouth shut some times.

There's these verses in James 3 that liken our tongue to the rudder of a ship, where something so small can actually direct the course of something as great as the Titanic.

If I really reflect on things I say, I'll see that it can guide my thinking, which can sway my heart, and in turn influence my actions. I want to be someone who has a positive impact on my environment and those around me. The most challenging is at home, when when my guard is down and efforts to control my words are much lazier.

If we are as only as good as our words, then I should be on a diet of what comes out of my mouth rather than what goes in. Maybe I'll take a page from my daughter's playbook and metaphorically bounce up and down and say "Yeah!" to everything and see what happens.

More Blogs, Write Better, Mental Shifts

Ok, so maybe I lied in my last post...the Shaghai part of my China blog never came. I had every intention to post, but you know how it goes once you get back home and into the grind of things.

With that said...my goal for 2016 is to write more, and write better. I have a running list of blog topics I keep on my iPhone that I have yet to dip in to. Everything from, "My Top 3 most useful Apps" to "What I've learned as a mother".

For me, the biggest challenge is brevity. How do I condense everything I want to say into something someone will actually want to read? Where do I cut the fat and what's interesting and what's not?

I read something today from a content strategist at Facebook, "Start with empathy. Continue with utility. Improve with analysis. Optimize with love."

I mean, this principle can be applied even to my instagram captions.

Since I've moved into my new role as Director of Marketing, a few mental shifts have begun to happen.

Personal growth doesn't stop when you're an adult. When I was a kid I thought that adults have it figured out. Obviously, we actually never quite "figure it out". Actually, we realize how much we don't have it figured out. There are opportunities to learn all around us, especially with the kind of technology we have today. Specifically for me, when networking with women, I am now interested, more than ever, about their personal journey in their professional life. I've started making enrichment through reading and podcasts a part of my daily routine. And most importantly, I'm (slowly) learning what it means to make personal growth be in line with growth in a marriage.

Building at 2x the Mentality. Meaning, whatever I'm building, to factor in growth so that I prevent the feeling of becoming "overwhelmed". (Home example: learning how to cook more dishes in volume so I don't have to "prepare" for more guests. Work example: build a brand strategy as if I'm Apple.)

Schedule, Schedule, Schedule! OMG, if any knows me, I've always hated a schedule and I dislike routine. Well, that was when I was single and my company functioned like a start-up where structure was only a dream and I purposely didn't choose an office because I wasn't going to be in there anyway. NOW, if I don't schedule out my days, I might miss time with my daughter before she goes to bed, or let several days go by before reconnecting with my husband.

The Power of a Plan. I'm sure you've heard that annoying overly-used quote, "Failing to plan is a plan to fail." I'm finally starting to get it and how much truth there is to it. I've also experienced that with a plan comes the freedom of feeling overly-stressed and overwhelmed. A plan is simply to break up some huge intimidating project into smaller, totally do-able tasks, with a timeline.

So there's my impromptu brain flush of my thoughts going into this new year. If I've got to get better at writing content, I guess I'll just have to write more :)

Here's to more blogs in 2016!

Oh, and here's the latest pic of my sweet, hilarious and totally awesome girl:

Day 6-8: Hons take Beijing

Day 6

4am wake up call. We're like a pack of zombies boarding our bus for the 1.5 hr drive to the airport to catch our 3hr flight to Beijing. 

It's seems like the traveling from one place to another should have been miserable. Actually, it's become part of the great experience. We've been using all the down time to play games, tell stories, listen to the kids get on the mic, tell jokes and riddles and catch up on sleep. It's been pretty awesome to be shuffled from place to place with everyone you love being around and surprisingly easy. The kids are traveling super stars and have found ways to keep each other entertained in every circumstance.

Day 5: Guilin Part II

7:45am, took a moment to enjoy this ridiculous view from our balcony and Thank the Lord we're all safe and well. Traveling with this many Hons (and kids) can get pretty crazy. We've already had a few close calls and I swear angels are looking after us. So thank you all for your prayers :)

The scenery here is unbelievable, unlike any other panoramas I've seen. 

There are SO many activities packed into our days that it's hard to even digest what I've just seen/learned/experienced. For today's activities in Guilin we went to the Silver Cave, lunch at the Moonlight Resort, bamboo rafting down the Li Jong River, dinner, then the night market.

Day 4: Guilin Part I

Wake up call was at 7am. On the 47th floor, I parted the curtains to this sprawling city view. 

Guang Zhou is also one of the bigger cities in China. I'm sure there is tons of interesting history about this place too...but I zoned out the entire time our guide talked during our ride here (Her chinglish was so melodic.) I will say, having 2 tour guides taking us through China is the BEST. They have set up everything from our meals to the top hotels. We don't have to worry about checking in, buying tickets/fares, they just guide us like happy little sheep with iPhones glued to our faces. The 3 most asked questions this trip: Are we there yet? When are we eating? and What's the wifi code?

Day 3: To Guang Zhou We Go

The pace of this trip is definitely unlike any other Hon reunion. Instead of leisure mornings nursing late nights and debating the day's activities, we're on a strict, can't-be-late schedule where if we miss one departure, it's a chain effect of missing everything else. 

This day started off with a heavy knock on the door and a panicked Shobab waking up out of his much needed slumber. "Almost ready!" He yells. We throw everything in our bags and wait to wake Yaelle up until the last minute. 

Today is one of the more meaningful days. We're busing to a small, poor village in the eastern part of Guang Zhou to our Hon family ancestral temple. It was destroyed during the cultural revolution in the 1940's and has been in the process of being rebuilt over the last 10 years. 

Boarding our bus for the 1.5 hr drive to the village.

Day 2: Shen Zhen

First of all, China is so much more beautiful than I expected. I'm sure I'll be visiting the overcrowded, smog-filled, stank-ass areas I envisioned in my head, but here in Shen Zhen? Feels like a tropical paradise. I'm most impressed with the beautifully manicured landscaping and how well-maintained it is. Every hedge is even, every tree pruned, I even spotted workers along the freeway pulling dead fronds off plants.

So, this day started with a tour of Dahon's factory. From raw material to finished product. And though I'm sure safety standards exist here in China...let's just say, OSHA would have had a field day. Lol. I didn't spot any children though, good job guys ;)

Walking from breakfast to the factory floor. The Dahon campus houses and feeds about 900 workers, many of which come from far away villages and go home only a few times a year.