Yelly Reads

New book alert!

Yelly

This book has sat in my Kindle for a while.  I loved the title and I loved what it professed to teach me.  BUT I’ve not had the courage to read it.  It will take a lot of courage to read a book that will probably suggest I do things that are completely alien to me.

I have always known that I am a person who cared too much about everything.  I’ve mostly ever really cared about other people more than myself (let’s face it, when you’re the eldest child you’re taught to consider other people, take care of other people, be a shining example and paragon of virtue for other people, be perfect for other people to look up to…etc., etc.!).  Mostly because during the times when I’ve actually put myself first, the resulting situations were disastrous and I ended up hurting so many other people.  So I usually steer clear from what I think are actions that might be construed as “selfish” and “putting myself first.”  Which is, in hindsight, probably why I feel like I’m in a state of arrested development.  It’s because I’ve put others first before wanting to do what I want to do.

In the last 18 months, I’ve come to realise that I do have to put myself first.  No one, not even the people who profess to love me (save a handful of people), have actually done what I’ve done for them: consider me before themselves.

I’ve read reviews about Sarah Knight’s book and I find my interest extremely piqued.  One review says it’s Oprah-esque wisdom with Amy Schumer swearing.  Now that sounds hilarious.

So…without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, the book that will be accompanying me on the train journey for the next few days.  See y’all on the other side!

tlcmofngafck

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Yelly Eats

Craving Korean comfort food

Yelly

Alan will be making feijoada tonight so that is an absolute treat and completely comforting.  But I find that because of the weather I am craving a lot of Asian food at the moment.  I am particularly wishing we lived in London so that I can order Korean food from Deliveroo!

I would love, at the moment, to be able to indulge in a large half soy half spicy platter of On The Bab’s yang yeum Korean fried chicken.

yang yeum fried chickenPairing that with their spicy pork buns

OTB Spicy pork buns…and just to be completely stuffed, I’d like to finish it with a warm and comforting bowl of bibimbap!

OTB Bibimbap

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Yelly Writes

Of cold calls and hard sells

Yelly

I know that when we receive cold calls at work, it’s people trying to sell the firm all sorts of services (from cleaning services to tax software products, you name it, we’ve probably received a sales call about it!). So today, I take one such cold call for my director from a Sam from DataTracks (I have his contact number).  He wanted to know if we had an iXBRL reporting service provider.  I had to make sure I gave the right so I had to check with our admin head.  We did and I know we’d just renewed the contract because of the merger.  So I said we did. He asked (not very politely) who it was so I said CCH.  He started getting aggressive wanting to talk to my director (who was honestly on the phone) and asked me if I knew what it was, how important it was for corporation tax reporting to HMRC.

Of course by this time, I knew he was going to try to get me to transfer him to one of the directors so that he could try and sell him their services.  It was a Friday afternoon, and all of our directors had better things to do with their time.  I politely told Sam that we didn’t require services from a new provider yet because we had just renewed our contract.  I suggested that if he could send over information about the services his company provided, he could send it to our enquiries email address so their services could be reviewed and the appropriate person could get in touch.  Somehow I could feel Sam getting agitated (his English started changing from an American accent to an Australian accent and some transatlantic call centre accent)  and he asked me if I was admin or an accountant because it’s possible I didn’t understand what he was talking about.  It ruffled my feathers because the implication was that because I was just admin staff that I knew nothing about what our office did.  So I said I understood that he had sales targets to reach but that we already had a provider we were happy with and to have a nice day and I hung up.

boilerroomI wish I could be rude to him but as I still had my PA hat on, I had to be polite and professional, and it wouldn’t reflect well on the firm if I was rude back. I get the sales target thing, that it can get all boiler-roomy and that they’re under a lot of pressure to sell. But if you provide a service (a professional service at that), the hard sell isn’t always the best way to get your foot in.  I hope Sam gets more soft skills training. He definitely needs it!

Thank goodness it’s the weekend!

Yelly Writes

My Duckie

Yelly

So this little girl is celebrating her birthday today…well at least it is still her birthday here today.  I wish I could hug her and say how proud I am of her, of how she has taken on so much responsibility.  I wish I could tell her that I so believe in her capabilities and that I believe she can do anything she puts her mind to.

talulayI hope you had the most amazing birthday Duckie!  I know that William being well and truly married and Harry not really finished looking for himself is a huge disappointment, but remember this:

littlesister

 

Yelly Writes

No is really okay

Yelly

No is such a difficult thing to say…at least for people like me who are people pleasers.  To me saying no meant I was letting people down, I was being selfish, I was being mean and I was being unhelpful.

I’ve had a lot of time to think about work, and learn about my weaknesses and how I can improve my performance at work.  It’s not necessarily a new epiphany, but it has actually hit home that I have to stop saying yes to everyone asking me to do something for them.  I have to choose the situations where I say yes.  Steve Jobs said it best when he said that “It’s only by saying no that you can concentrate on things that are more important.”

For a while, I lost sight of what I should have thought was important to me.  In my deep desire to be helpful to everyone, I allowed myself to take on too much.  I stopped taking care of me because I was too busy trying to be everything to everyone.  But the universe does look after you.  I realised, in the nick of time, that this was a habit that I had to stop.  I had to concentrate on me, what I thought was important.  I realised that if I took care of myself, and what I needed to do first, I would be in a better position to help others.

I also learned that saying no can also be a wonderful teaching mechanism, especially at work.  I find it hard to refuse anyone who asks for help, especially in circumstances where I know I can.  I’ve learned, though, that sometimes, it’s not always up to you to help.  Sometimes you have to step aside so that you allow people to do their job.  Sometimes, even if it takes longer to teach people than to do the job yourself, it is still best to teach them how to do the task instead of taking the task away from them.  If you take the task away, you take away the learning opportunity.

It still pains me to say no.  But I’m working on putting myself first.  I wasn’t raised to think that it was okay to take care of Number One first – Number One being myself.  But now I’m beginning to realise that there is wisdom in putting oneself first.

Saying no is good.  It gives you the opportunity to say yes to something even better.

sayno-stephencovey

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Yelly Writes

Sunday night thoughts

Yelly

So tomorrow is another Monday, one that is likely to be manic.  I know I should make sure I look forward to things, and I am.  Honestly.  But I am also being realistic.

I am (very truly) thankful for each morning.  I am thankful for each workday because I can meet my step goal for the day.  I have a few things already on my to-do list but that’s okay.  Every morning is new and filled with exciting possibilities!

Waterloo mosaics to the trains

Yelly Reads

#readinggoals this week!

Yelly

So this is my book pile.  I’m not entirely sure how long this is going to take me to finish all these books but here goes nothing!

book stackIn my to-read list (from top to bottom and not in any order of importance):

  • Our Kind Of Traitor by John Le Carré
  • Get Started On Food Writing by Kerstin Rodgers (aka @MsMarmiteLover)
  • The Girl On The Train by Paula Hawkins (reading it for the nth time!)
  • Brave Enough by Cheryl Strayed
  • Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss
  • Get Rich Blogging by Zoe Griffin
  • Girl Friday by Jane Green
  • Voracious by Cara Nicoletti (attempting a second read without munching on anything!)

Lord knows when I’m going to finish it, but I’m going to try!

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Yelly Snaps

Tickled pink fan girl

Yelly

The past few months have been challenging and painful (quite literally, as I’ve been experiencing severe muscle pain.  Signs of old age, maybe?).  But this week has been amazing because I’ve been learning.  I’ve been absorbing a lot; I’ve been reading a lot, posts on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, WordPress, reading books, listening to podcasts.

All throughout though, there were several women who inspired me to keep writing and taking photos because eventually, somehow, I will be able to turn my passion into something else.

I’ve been following these two amazing ladies on social media for a while now and I can truly say their insights are awe-inspiring.  I got a little dazzled today because I found out that they followed me on Twitter!  Apologies if you think I’m being the sycophantic (I love that word for some odd reason!) fan girl, but I am tickled pink and thrilled to bits that they followed me!

Ha!  I’ll be smiling the entire day now…probably even when I’m napping!

sara-tasker-twitterSara Tasker of Me and Orla fame followed me on Twitter.  Gaaaaaaah!

emma-gannon-twitterI saw this a few minutes ago from Emma Gannon on Twitter.  Oh. My. Gosh.

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Yelly Writes

Writing it out

Yelly

Emma Gannon is my favourite millenial (let me just say that I’m not entirely sure I am using this term correctly, I think I am but if you disagree leave a comment and let’s discuss!).  Mostly because she has done what I’ve always wanted to do.  She has taken a passion for writing and communicating on all possible media (print and social media and now she has this killer podcast and amazing book!) and has turned that passion into a career.

emmagannon-ctrlaltdeleteShe is one of a handful of superwomen that I follow on social media, mostly because they inspire me.  I mean hello, they’ve accomplished what I wanted to do ages ago (when I was bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and less disappointed with the world) and they are so much younger than me!  I know people always say 40 is the new 30, and I am right there, just over the threshold (I turned 40 this year) but there are days when I think about what I need to learn, what I have to do and I wonder if I’ll ever get this particular ship out of this harbour.  I know the inertia that I’m feeling is something that only I can overcome.  I’ve got to light that firecracker under my backside and I’ve got to start moving (literally and figuratively!) if I want to get to where I want to get to.  I have a plan in my head but a plan isn’t really worth anything if I don’t attach any things to do and action points to it.

First thing to do is to create an environment where I am doing things that will get me to where I want to be.  I have to create a positive go-getter frame of mind.  I know that the day job is important at the moment because the day job will help me fund the activities that I need to participate in to get to where I want to get to.  I am reminded of Emma Gannon’s podcast episode with Paulette Perhach who talked about the importance of the side-hustle and how important it is to keep hustling.  I have allowed myself to wallow in the wishing stage of this whole endeavor so really, I haven’t been hustling as yet.  But hustle I will and hustle I should!

I have been wondering about my blog, why it hasn’t really taken off in the way my previous blog did.  I had people reading my blog, commenting on my blog, actually following my blog.  I lost that when I moved into a different blog hosting platform (Blogdrive did have a community and people actually read other people in Blogdrive) – this is not to throw shade on all the people following my blog; to you lovely lot, I am forever grateful.  I’m not assigning blame.  I just think my blog was stuck in a particular kind of blog theme where people shared their feelings to try and find validation.  We all want that all important thing: validation.  But it’s also important to know that people also want to read inspirational stuff, aspirational stuff.  Because if you boohoo and rant all the time, you bring your readers down with you.  It’s okay to vent, but I think it’s also important not to overshare your emotional and psychological baggage.  I think the audience isn’t as receptive to that anymore.  There has to be a balance between saying it like it is and depressing the heck out of your readers!

The quote below is a screen grab from Emma’s blog entry about Sharing Less.  It resonated so much.  And yes, I am going to write because I have something to say and I have a great story to share, not because I need validation.

emma-gannon-quoteOh and I know that I’ve started to view my writing differently because every time Alan asks me “are you sure you want to blog about that?” these days, I no longer feel like I am being attacked.  I stop and think about what I really want to say.  I don’t say this enough but thanks Alan♥

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Yelly Writes

Something? Nothing?

Yelly

I started writing…then deleted the draft.

I would love to write something witty or something smart or useful or write up a recipe for something yummy today.  But I’m coming up with a blank.  I am driven to type because I feel the need to write…something.  But I know that none of the words I actually type can be threaded together into something life-changingly brilliant.  So this post is all about the nothingness that I feel compelled to share with you.

It’s a Thursday and…well, it’s nearly the weekend.  I am on my couch watching Pointless and wishing I had bought myself a lottery ticket for tomorrow’s roll over.  Maybe I will.

Tomorrow is Friday and tomorrow is market day.  Maybe I’ll find something to write about tomorrow!

Oh, did you know that today is National Coffee Day…somewhere in the world?

Coffee

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