Slowly but surely.

I'm feeling some incredible warmth inside of my heart. Why? Because my girls are slowly starting to reach out to me for stuff that is not technical and/or professionnal. They're coming to me for some emotional stuff which makes me feel extremely lucky. I love these girls and I've really been hoping that they would come to me as a person, for support. I'm doing my best to help these girls dodge the catfights but sometimes, if catfight there must be, I try to make it smoother and help them find the solution themselves to this problem. My girls are slowly noticing that they've jumped onto a boat and that they've just left the shore for an awesomely challenging journey.

                                                                                                              

La passion et le sens de l’organisation (Le Soleil, 24 janv. 2010, Page 28)

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La passion et le sens de l’organisation
Yves Therrien ytherrien@lesoleil.com
Le Soleil
24 janv. 2010

Ce qui unit les étudiants engagés dans l’AIESEC, c’est la passion. La passion de l’international, mais surtout celle de dépasser ses propres limites, de sortir de sa zone de confort. L’Association organise des stages à l’étranger, et s’occupe également...lisez plus...

Étiquettes Tech: Le Soleil newspaper ACTUALITÉS

LCP Pride

Today, I've felt the true pride of a mom. I've been interviewed twice this week by journalists of local medias. Yep, we've been awarded the Lauréat Le Soleil-Radio-Canada award of the week which "recognizes incredible individuals". I've looked at my Local Committee like a mom looks at her children: with pride and perspective. Sometimes, having an external say "Good Job" can be the greatest thing.

Take a peak at the newspaper article:
http://www.cyberpresse.ca/le-soleil/actualites/le-laureat/201001/23/01-942372-la-passion-et-le-sens-de-lorganisation.php

And here's the link to the TV interview:

Some battles are worth it

This week, I learned that sometimes, no matter how much I hate confrontation, it will be necessary and it will be helpful. As the EB retreat was approaching, part of my team announced to me that they were gonna skip the first night. As they new that it was gonna be the night where we get to build our team spirit, I felt offended that they were deciding arbitrarily to put me in front of the fact. I felt like they didn't understand the value of that night and that they didn't value the bonding of our team. Instead of keeping my anger and my sadness inside, I decided to rely on friends and AIESECers to get their point of view. It helped me lower my reaction and made me ready to start my "battle" for the team spirit. That "battle" wasn't easy but it has had the effect of sending a message to the whole group: I'll be Warm&Fuzzy-Val when everything goes smoothly but I won't have a choice to put on the LCP hat when necessary. The first hat is wayyyyyyy prettier than the second one but sometimes, the second hat is wayyyyyyyyy more efficient and respected. The challenge here is to find the balance between the two hats and to make myself feel confortable in both.

And once again, the walls did NOT fall.

The magic LCP- rub my tummy for a solution... NOT

Tonight I am experiencing anger. No, it's more like a depressed feeling. No, frustration is the right word. I am deeply frustrated because that third letter in my position seemed to my team like the guarantee that I will always have the solution to unsolvable situations. I definitely don't. At least not yet. But still, as an LCP, people look up to you when shit happens.. And when that happens, you just do your best to keep your confident, happy and nice face that is obviously fake to those who know you best. I tried, did my best and I will definitely try to come up with the solution they're expecting from me. But tonight, that role was heavy. One thing I didn't mention is that I learned tonight that Rafael, our intern from Colombia that we've been expecting for 6 months, got his visa application refused. I'll have to figure this out too I guess....

*** In reference to "my EB meeting moment must be changed for the third time because all of our schedules do NOT match together at all". We checked and there is NO time during a 7 days week that all 8 of us are available. Looking up to the option of having our meetings at 6am. is not a nice thing when you live an hour away from the university.

About the picture: Imagine it's me yelling at my doodle chart....

This way or that way...

Being an LCP is a lot about guidance. Both professionally and personally, members and VPs come to me a lot more now. I could even say that this is one of my measurements of success (MoS): people feeling that they can trust me and knowing that I'll be there for them. Sometimes though, I end up having to give guidance I wish I didn't have to give. Realigning the strategy of a portfolio in order to get better results without hurting the creator of the proposed strategy = not so much fun.. It's all about making people understand you're doing it for them, for AIESEC and especially not to hurt/insult them...

More and more, I am starting to realize of have people make me realize that I became LCP. It's only one letter more than when I was a VP but that single letter makes a HUGE difference. Everyone's problems are mine too and everyone's joys are mine too. I'm just coming to the understanding that people go to their LCP a lot more when the situation is problematic than when everything's fine to spread the joy. Lesson of that story: you must go and spread the joy all over yourself instead of waiting for people to do it.

"JFDI"

A person full of wisdom once told me to apply the JFDI technique in my daily life in order to achieve either my dreams but mostly to complete tasks I don't feel like doing or I don't see the point doing. After thinking about it a lot, I felt like the JFDI management technique was a complex but essential thing to apply in my life but also in my team's habits/ethics. My term as LCP only has 396 days and my girls (my VPs) only have 396 days as well. The JFDI technique was and will remain the best way to get my team and myself to move mountains, change the world and impact others.


I find it really sad that management classes don't talk about that technique. It's complex and simple at the same time. Today, we applied the JFDI technique for the first time and cleaned the office for 8 hours (8 people full time) in order to provide a better working environment to the members and ourselves. The best thing is that we made it. It's clean and it smells kinda nice. The greatest thing: every single member of the team invested time and effort not because they felt like it but because they did it for the team.


Still wonder what the JFDI technique is? Wanna learn more?
Here's what the letters mean: Just Fucking Do It.
Trust me, it works.


Bottom line: I'm proud of my team.
I'll have to be there for them as the hurricane is starting: life begins next Monday.
"Seasickness"is starting to make its way around the team... Gotta make sure I drive that boat with confidence.

Walls did not collapse.

When I got elected, I thought that in order to succeed you had to be friends with everyone and have everyone love you and always 100%  happy with what you're doing and how you're doing it at all times. That implied that I wasn't telling people whenever something was making me feel bad / sad / mad. I started 2010 with the objective to be more honest with people whenever something's wrong. This involves that I accept that I will not always be smiling, warm and fuzzy. I now consider it a much more realistic objective to be smiling/warm/fuzzy when people treat me respectfully and care about me and others.

Today, I took action and claimed the respect someone had been lacking towards me and towards others.

Windows didn't break. Walls didn't collapse. Nobody died. I didn't die.

Even sounds like it was the right thing to do.

Let's hope there'll be more of those situations where I take ownership of how I feel and make sure I make things right.

Sometimes the greatest lesson to learn is from walls not collapsing. Weird eh?

As a new chapter is written

Sometimes, we wonder what waits for us in the future. Today is one of those days where I am standing on the doorstep of something totally new and unknow. No testimonies of previous LCPs have been able to make me understand fully what to expect, how to prepare myself and how to fight the challenges awaiting for me. As of now, I feel lucky, excited, scared, anxious, happy, proud and a bit overwhelmed.

Transition has been done, tools have been transfered but still, it feels like parts of it you just gotta learn the rough way. I've surrounded myself with a team of 7 people. You will hear a lot about those 7 smart and wonderful girls joining me on my boat. We'll go through some storms and some wonderful days but what matters to me is that everyone ends the trip on board and that we limit the seasickness along the way.  We're aiming not just to reach the island but to reach the best island and that objective comes with efforts and sacrifices to be made..

There's not much that I'm sure about.
But, I know it's my job to prevent that seasickness and to make sure no one leaves the boat.