The Start of a New Adventure

When I was a kid we learned about some places in Geography class that I thought I would never get to see. One of the was China. It was a sort of norm to reference China in our everyday lives, we pretended to dig to china knowing it was on the other side of the world, and pictured people hanging to the earth upside down, just like in the cartoons. I remember my mother saying "not for all the tea in China" on many occasions. Dad would talk about "a slow boat from China" whenever something didn't happen quick enough for him, and on the nights when he was late getting home, at times he would comment that he had been "Shanghaied".

Well, I did make it to China a couple of years ago for a quick two week trip sponsored by Disney to perform a Show Quality Review with our partners in Hong Kong. What a city, it is tucked between the South China Sea, and jungle covered mountains so it is quite compact and very vibrant. Being an English colony for years it was easy to navigate around and see what the city had to offer as most places catered to English speaking patrons. Betty and I took a few extra days and explored the islands and hiked along a ridge of mountains looking out to the vast open ocean called the Dragon's Back. We climbed the stairs to the top of the Big Booda and took a small skiff out to see pink dolphins in the harbor outside of Shek O, a small fishing village.

That was our first experience of China, then more recently I was "Shanghaied" and selected to be the Director of QA/QC for the Construction of Shanghai Disney. Currently I am doing business trips until we can fully relocated and become part of the community. So with Betty back in Florida and me doing double hours of work, I decided to start blogging again to provide an outlet and a diversion.

So my first thought is wondering how many of you have woken up one day and wondered how you got to where you are. Not so much physically, although in the first week or so of jet lag, I have had those moments. What I mean is how did my life experience end up where it is? I have been doing that every morning for the last month or so. I have no idea how this happened, I certainly didn't map my career to head toward this. Sure I have always loved travel and let my leaders know I was willing to take on any assignment they wanted. I did the assignment in Paris for six months, which by the way was a completely different experience in the work and the life style aspects of which I will do more contrasting and comparing between the two in future posts I am sure, but never thought I would have such a monumental role in such a huge project.

So now all I have to do is figure out how to do it!

I know I am not the only one that has woken up in this situation. I clearly remember one of my Community College instructors using this as one of his class lessons. He had his class meet him at his office for one session. Clearly an attempt to impress us. He sat on the edge of his desk, that took up most of the space of his office, and showed us how to preview his mail, and lectured us for an hour while we all stood in the cramped space about how he had gotten to where he was now by telling his boss' that he could do jobs he had no idea how to do. At the time I thought "what a looser".

On the Bright Side

Well there was a lesson I took away from that class, and that was to never mislead any of my boss' about what I knew how to do and what I thought I could do with a little guidance, but it also made it so I didn't fear a new job. Seeing him so confident made it possible for me to first realize, if he could do it, anyone can. I still firmly believe that we can do anything we put our minds to and fully believe we can do. This quote reminds me that life is a series of "yes I can" moments followed by a lot of work.

"Yes is how you get your first job, and your next job, and your spouse, and even your kids. Even if it's a bit edgy, a bit out of your comfort zone, saying yes means that you will do something new, meet someone new and make a difference."

Eric Schmidt

So I say yes to this, the start of my next adventure with some trepidation, some excitement and a lot of determination to make a difference. I hope that the next time you have the opportunity to say yes that you don't hesitated, and embrace the new adventure that awaits, and you remeber to......always look on the Bright Side!