{"id":5279,"date":"2010-11-19T13:31:53","date_gmt":"2010-11-19T20:31:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/?p=5279"},"modified":"2010-11-20T09:35:36","modified_gmt":"2010-11-20T16:35:36","slug":"5-thai-ke-thyme-keeping-the-carrot-in-mind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/?p=5279","title":{"rendered":"5). Thai..ke Thyme: Keeping the Carrot in mind!"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>\"\"<\/a>From my earlier blogs you will know that tuk-tuks and I were not necessarily on the same page, book or even\u00a0library! I wasn\u2019t certain that we would get to the airport as we needed to, but as per Anton\u2019s diagram –\u00a0the right sized taxi arrived at the right time and we headed off to the airport for our flight out to Phukett.<\/p>\n

We were discussing our exploits in Bangkok and having a good ole laugh about some of the expeditions we had been on. We then discussed this blog, how I had decided to use these experiences and what I may write when I got back to the \u201creal world\u201d. We laughed about some of our moments and how we had so often overlooked cultural differences when we had made assumptions. We agreed this was often the case with work, overlooking the differences between people, their outlooks and\u00a0backgrounds (amongst others).<\/p>\n

The Thai’s innate \/ inbuilt work ethic was one of sacrifice to some degree, instilled from birth. The mantra of \u201cyou gonna just work real hard giving your best at all times<\/em>!\u201d We often felt we had been clear about our needs, but the meaning or rather our eengrish<\/em> to eengrish<\/em> got scrambled in the translation for our Thai hosts. They understood something quite different.<\/p>\n

We moved onto discussion what we would be doing once we landed at Phukett and how we would handle what was going to be another taxi negotiation\u00a0(our hotel was approximately 50 minutes away from the airport, groan~).\u00a0 I still had an allergy to taxi\u2019s, although this drive to the airport was very pleasant and had run precisely to plan.<\/p>\n

My mom was fiddling with her digital camera and turned to us saying \u201csmile<\/em>\u201d then proceeded to take a picture of us – or something in our vague vicinity judging from the angle she was pointing her camera.<\/p>\n

I looked at her and realized she was aiming out the window and asked casually if she was sure that we were both in the picture, she confirmed we were (I doubted it~).<\/p>\n

Lauren and I looked at each other, shook our heads.\u00a0 We are both keen photographers and realized the trajectory of the camera lens and where we were sitting were not on a par. We started to have a chat about what we believed was a declining eyesight syndrome with my mom. More than once we had observed her swinging that camera about, taking a snap of who knew what! When we had confirmed with her what she was intending to take the picture of (we were certain that it would be something short of a miracle if she got the shot),\u00a0we took a picture with our own cameras for just in case.<\/p>\n

We continued to have a discussion about her possible declining eyesight and agreed we clearly needed to get her a more stable digital with a bigger LCD screen – possibly a hybrid where the lens was not interchangeable but it was easier to hold, handle, shoot and verify the shot afterward.<\/p>\n

Then Lauren casually said \u201clet\u2019s get her that for her birthday<\/em>!\u201d<\/p>\n

Holy Canoli\u2026 We both stared at each other. We have always been able to have conversations across a crowded room with just a look. We stared at each other in shock and horror realizing that the day before, the dreadful tuk-tuk wet day \u2013 that had been my mother\u2019s birthday<\/strong>!<\/p>\n

We turned around and did what any good \u2018n guilty party does, immediately blaming my mom for not reminding us!!!! We asked her in rather an incriminating tone \u2026 \u201cmom did you remember yesterday was your birthday<\/em>\u201d?<\/p>\n

She said yes of course she had, but it had never seemed to be the right<\/strong> moment to remind us; during breakfast\u00a0we were focused on what we wanted to see, then getting the negotiation sorted, then the entire fuss we had during our loopy drive.<\/p>\n

We were shattered \u2013 our special goal had been to spoil our mom who we saw so seldom. To make her feel loved and precious and fabulous the entire holiday – but\u00a0especially celebrate her birthday! We had so much else on our minds that we had totally forgotten her\u00a0birthday entirely, disgraceful.<\/p>\n

I wish that this wasn\u2019t the truth \u2013 but that was exactly what happened, we didn\u2019t have enough words to say sorry.<\/p>\n

How often do we set down a bunch of goals and objectives\u00a0we have every intention of doing or achieving, but we allow ourselves to be distracted.\u00a0 In the final analysis we find that we have done a whole horde of other stuff totally missing our \u201cbig\u201d goal.<\/p>\n

How do we prevent this from happening?\u00a0 Scorecards.\u00a0 For us this could have looked like\u00a0regular \/ daily stock takes of what we had done and being\u00a0pleased about our accomplishment, the sights that we had seen! Instead we were\u00a0absorbed about what we had not yet<\/strong> seen and focused attention ot doing those.\u00a0 Great in project mode, but our holiday thoughts were to relax have fun.<\/p>\n

We would have been better served to have\u00a0reminded ourselves each day of our small and big\u00a0goals,\u00a0especially our mom\u2019s birthday and keep to that plan. In our frantic need and scramble to do it “all”, we\u00a0had lumped many things together and “recalculated, recalculated<\/em>” loosing the plot by not\u00a0keeping focus on our\u00a0big carrot to\u00a0ensure\u00a0we achieved that.<\/p>\n

From that sobering moment onward, we determined that the rest of the holiday would unfold without\u00a0the desperate frenzy of doing it all or\u00a0at once.\u00a0 That we would hold close to our hearts and keep in focus that each day was a precious day for us to be together, connect, relax and LAUGH!\u00a0 That is precisely what we did, goal accomplished.<\/p>\n

(funny thing, once we became less earnest about doing it all but focusing on our goals,\u00a0we managed to see and do more than we had expected<\/em>)!\u00a0\u00a0Planning the next holiday now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From my earlier blogs you will know that tuk-tuks and I were not necessarily on the same page, book or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1509,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,852,7,8,6,857],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-5279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leadership","category-pmbok-process","category-goals","category-priorities-2","category-communications","category-pmbok-process-closing","tag-lessons-learned"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1509"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5279\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}