Permission to Tell

I’m gonna tell on you! Those dreaded words of the playground; when you had done something that you knew was going to land you in trouble.

These were immediately followed by profuse apologies. If my daughters at around age 7 were anything to go by, then you would be aiming for an SPS of about 4. SPS stands for Sorries Per Second! Your SPS would increase based on who you were going to be reported to. For, me it was my dad who would illicit the highest SPS. Not because I would receive a hiding, but because he expected the world of me and to disappoint him would be to sully my reputation in his sight.

Beyond a high SPS, you would also make amends. Promises of better behaviour and if you knew that the tattler was likely to actually tell, then amends flowed fast and furious. Amazingly the threat of telling did not lose us friends, but rather helped us form better relationships. We understood boundaries better and we knew there were consequences to our action

As adults, we seem to have forgotten the importance of setting these boundaries; of forming, storming, norming and performing.

Why did we stop telling?

My guess is that we became hung up on optics. It became more important to look happy than to be happy; more important to look successful than be successful; more important to seem than to be.

It has been a lot harder to keep up the optics in this season. Relationships have been tested in so many different ways.

Families have been forced to be together more than ever before. There are some for whom this has been the proverbial straw and things snapped. For others, it has been a time of discovery and learning. For all, it has been a time of adjusting to a new order. We are forced to be in closer proximity and some of the things we are discovering are disturbing. Before the camel’s back breaks, who can you tell?

Work relationships that were seemingly okay have been tested by distance. Once loyal employees are now having to struggle between work and the pull of duvets, time with the kids, Netflix and experimenting a new recipe. You have noticed some deadlines slipping, some sloppiness enter the fray. Who do you call?

The stresses of life seem to be taking a toll and you see a friend drinking a little too much, driving under the influence, swallowing some pills or smoking something more potent than tobacco. How do you raise this? 

Nobody wants to be considered a snitch; we do not want to hurt our family, friends and colleague’s feelings by sounding accusatory. Even worse if the relationship is not solid as a rock, for this may just break it. So as the Ghost-busters song goes, "Who you gonna call?"

We had a discussion with my hubby around this subject and I suggested that we should have a Tattle Buddy. Somebody who I give him permission to call if he thinks I am out of line and he has reached the end of his tether on what to do. This has to be someone I trust implicitly and someone who has an acute BS-metre and a low BS-threshold. Someone whose values are aligned to mine. After much discussion, we each came up with a name.

What this does for me is that it heightens my awareness, it lets me know that whereas our relationship is private, I cannot be silly and get away with it because he has an authorised Tattle Buddy.

When we took on a new tenant recently, I also asked her for a Tattle Buddy. I asked her for the contact of someone I can call if her rent is in arrears and she refuses to communicate with us. This means that she is aware that if she defaults, she must communicate or else her designated Tattle Buddy gets to hear about it.

When families start to feel the pressure of abuse, whether psychological, emotional or physical, how much better if all parties have the name of a person that they have been expressly told that they can call and report the perpetrator.

How cool would it be if we can tell our children that they can call so-and-so if they sense something is not right in the home? Take the guess work out of who to call in case of emergency.

Think about it. Who should I call if I see you misbehaving and you will not listen to me? Who will listen to me and confront you without judging you?

Who is your Tattle Buddy?

Confidence: The Secret Sauce for Action

My Review of “The Confidence Code: 

The Science and Art of Self-Assurance – 

What Women Should Know”

by Katty Kay and Claire Shipman

Being a confident woman, the title of this book enthralled me. Also, because I am surrounded by several women: 2 daughters, 2 sisters, 2 mothers, 2 nieces and several friends and other relations who are female. I was curious about how women viewed confidence and how the world viewed them in light of their confidence or ‘lack-of’.

I must say that I was slightly disappointed by the book and felt that it went round in circles quite a bit; it would have been better as a Paper or a 3-Part article. That said, I did garner some great take-outs from the book.

The book is aimed at the woman, but I took it as a general course in confidence as the tips shared can be useful to men and women alike. What then is the Confidence Code; how does one crack it? Ultimately, the authors break it down into 3 phrases: 

Think Less. Take Action. Be Authentic.

Think Less

This is not a call for thoughtlessness, but rather, a warning not to overthink things as this generally ends up looking like hesitation or not being sure … loosely translating into perceived lack of confidence.  Overthinking also leads us to rehash our past failures and make us doubt our future performance.

Take Action

Nike’s catch phrase, Just Do It, seems to capture the sentiment here. When you "Just Do It", several things happen: If you succeed, you now know you can; if you fail, you either know where your limitations lie and how to improve or where you cannot go and therefore can authoritatively decline to go in that direction in the future.

I like to ask, “What’s the worst that can happen?” Usually, failure. If you can live with failure, then you can try almost anything. The authors put it this way, “Confidence is the stuff that turns thoughts into action.”

This also supports the general management maxim that a bad decision is better than no decision.

Be Authentic

Authenticity is all about being true to yourself.  However, we are sometimes asked to fake it till we make it. Where then, does the balance lie? 

I take great issue with one of the sentiments expressed in the book, that confidence matters more than competence. Possibly because I believe that competence should trump confidence. However, I cannot deny that confidence does get you the opportunity to showcase your competence. The ability to sit straight, walk with purpose and speak clearly will get you the spotlight; your competence will thereafter determine if it shines on you for only 5 seconds or a lifetime.

When a person is authentic, “…they are brave enough to be not only different, but to be themselves.” To be confident, you therefore must be authentic.

Parting Shot

As we bring up our children and mentor those around us, we must provide opportunity and support for them to make decisions and take action. Let them make mistakes and learn from them so that they can be more confident. The book urges us to let go of perfection … “If perfection is your standard, of course you will never be fully confident, because the bar is always impossibly high, and you will inevitably and routinely feel inadequate.”

The authors spoke to one lady who had this to say, that “…she took risks, she was persistent, she worked hard, and even failed. And it worked. Whatever she hadn’t inherited, or soaked up as a child, she created.” We must therefore let those around us know that confidence can be learnt and built.

In doing so, we must be aware of the different personalities we are dealing with. The book terms them as ‘orchids and dandelions’ (exotic flowers versus wild flowers). Some will be able to show their confidence in almost any situation (the dandelion) while others need to be encouraged and supported a lot more (the orchids), but when they bloom their confidence is beautiful to behold.

Ultimately it looks like confidence is a snowball of actions and decisions, the more decisions you make, the more action you take, the more your confidence grows; the more your confidence grows, the more decisions you make and actions you take and so on.

So, go ahead! Do something! Build your confidence!