Sid's musings: Days Ten, Eleven and Twelve: Live life Kingsize!

Note: This post is going to be shorter than my usual ones or, at least, I think it's going to be shorter - we'll find out! I am still enjoying this opportunity tremendously even though I'm feeling a little homesick. I continue to feel blessed to have this remarkable opportunity as part of my life's journey.

Day Ten: Monday, May 16:

Day ten began with the usual scrumptious morning breakfast. The Pousada (Brazilian B&B) has a lavish spread for breakfast that includes fresh fruit juices (selection varies daily - mango, orange, acerola berry, pineapple, passion fruit) and both Brazilian and American breakfast items - scrambled eggs, Brazilian cheese rolls, bread, small guava pastries, fresh cut fruit (watermelon and papaya are staples) - the breakfast is really really good (I guess a lot of my blog posts have to do with food since I love it so much!). Anyways, after breakfast, we headed to the client site - our first deliverable was due today and it was a revised scope-of-work that outlined the exact details of the project and what our final deliverables to the client would be. We talked about our ideas around marketing/communications strategies, a high-level IT assessment and org management strategies - the revised scope was well received by the client and they expressed their appreciation for our working with them. One comment from their office manager stood out, he said that just by virtue of our being there and trying to learn about their organization and asking questions had triggered some very good ideas for him on how they can be more effective. Felt good to hear that! Kudos to Shane (my colleague) for putting together the revised scope-of-work.

For lunch on Day 10 (back to food!), we headed to a cooking school and restaurant combo - as opposed to the pay-by-weight concept, they had a open buffet with a fixed price. After sitting down (but thankfully before we ate), we asked about the price of the buffet and promptly left on finding out how expensive it was! :-) ... back to the "kilo" buffet that is more reasonable.

The afternoon was spent on consolidating our open questions for the client and also beginning the process of prioritizing and ranking our ideas/observations to-date. So much in life and in business has to do with how you prioritize your efforts - how do you make sure that your only true possession (your time) is spent on the most meaningful activities and how do you track and measure the RoI of your time in both personal and business settings. I know that I, for one, am guilty of sometimes focusing and spending time on activities that keep me busy but don't really have a meaningful or high-enough return - that takes me back to the title of this blog post - "Live Life Kingsize" - growing up in India, I remember this ad whose slogan was "Live Life Kingsize" - the fact that the ad was for a cigarette brand is not important, what is important is the notion of making the most of your life - you have one life to live, make it count and do what's right and what's important - pick up the phone and call a loved one, tell someone you care, shower your love and affection on those that you care about, make the most of every opportunity and "don't sweat the small stuff (and it's all small stuff!)" - as the book by that title says!

Ok, this is turning out to be longer than I thought it would be - ah well, if you're still reading, continue on or jump to the end for my key thoughts/takeaways.

We got back to the pousada relatively early since there was no traffic - it took us all of 15 minutes - our shortest ride in the cab so far. Since there was still some light, I decided to take out my big DSLR camera and take some pics around the neighborhood - it was fun and I enjoyed indulging in one of my biggest hobbies - it had been a while since my trusted Nikon D50 and I had been together! I've posted some pics at the end! The neighborhood is really pretty and we're a short walk away from the beach.

Dinner (yes, food again) was just across the street from our B&B - 7 of us ate together and ordered 2 chicken and 2 fish dishes - all very yummy and served with raisin rice!

Day Eleven: Tuesday, May 17

After a repeat of the daily scrumptious breakfast, most of Day eleven was spent consolidating all our ideas up to this point re: our client engagement and also brainstorming with one of my colleagues on an effective IT management strategy for our client. It continues to amaze me how much each of the NGO's we've interacted with is able to achieve with limited resources - passion totally trumps a lack of resources. I also began drafting one of our final presentation (we have a couple that we'll be giving) and fleshing out the MarComm strategy incl. tactics - one of the things we're collectively doing is to make sure that any recommendations that we make are actionable and that they are easy-to-understand - key takeaway being to ensure that you always tailor your message to the audience so that they can understand easily.

Skipped lunch on Day eleven and instead waited until the evening to get my fix of the famous Golden Arch (yes, I was missing my McDs!) - McD's here in Brazil is much bigger, cleaner and fancier than what I'm accustomed to back at home and the service is actually really good. Instead of eating a whole meal by myself, I split Chicken Mcnuggets and Fries with a colleague - as a quick side note, the Chicken here (called Frango) is really tasty and is mostly organic and farm-raised. You can definitely tell the difference in taste compared to commercially sourced chicken.

One of the other things I've been reflecting on is how accustomed one gets to a particular environment and how different cultures, countries and, for that matter, even different contexts may cause some discomfort initially but if you're open to learning new things, you'll get accustomed to the new environment fairly quickly!

Day Twelve: Wednesday, May 18

Day Twelve was similar to Day Eleven in many ways - breakfast in the morning, working on the final deliverables through the day and skipping lunch again. I also spent part of Day Twelve consolidating the video footage that I've taken up to this point - the intent is to have a video journal at the very end - I will post it once the video project is done!

Dinner on Day Twelve was back at the juice+sandwich shop - called "Suco 24" - Suco meaning juice and 24 for the fact that it's open all the time! :-) Had a great avocado milk shake (it's much much yummier than it sounds - check recipe in my reference links) and a grilled chicken sandwich. It's quite remarkable how we're able to navigate Brazil without speaking much Portuguese - that extends from ordering at the restaurants, to directing a cab, to having a conversation with a native Portuguese speaker - I guess if you truly listen and tune-in, you can understand - we have no choice but to remove and forget about all the typical distractions so the communication is very focused. What if we did that with every conversation we routinely have? Hmm... food for thought!

That's about it folks - at the risk of being extremely repetitive, just feel amazingly fortunate to be living through this experience!

Key Takeaways/Thoughts:

Live Life Kingsize: Do what matters; prioritize, prioritize, prioritize; tell someone you love them; make the most of every opportunity; life is short - make it count! Be grateful and give thanks for something every day - whatever it might be!

Passion trumps lack of resources: Where there is a will, there is usually a way - it may not be easy but if you stay the course, success will be yours!

Focused communication helps: Forget the distractions, give your full attention to any communication/conversation you may have be having!

Speak the language of your audience: Doesn't matter if it's business or personal, make your communication easy-to-understand and that will make it more effective

Be open to new experience: You may feel some discomfort initially but it's amazing how quickly one adapts provided you have the right attitude!

The food here is really very good:

Reference links:

Don't sweat the small stuff and it's all small stuff: A book by Richard Carlson - http://www.amazon.com/Sweat-Small-Stuff-small-stuff/dp/0786881852

Avocado milk shake: http://www.vietworldkitchen.com/blog/2007/07/avocado-shake.html