Are u better than me?

sometimes I think about the dullest of subjects. Some silly, some political others philosophical – all born off a shear desire I have to answer a burning question or inquiry I have in that moment or one I have been pondering for a while but have yet found the answer to.  After watching my favorite show Power, a preview of the next Survivors Remorse appeared and showed the protagonist going through a bit of a pre-mid-life crisis of conscience of sorts where his next set of endorsements led him to feel the need to preach the word of hope and change for a better tomorrow. Of course in predictable fashion his friends, family members, agent and others began to warn him incessantly about the dangers of having a moral compass and the unintended consequences of carrying one positive moment into a lifetime of “do gooding”.  The lead character is the typical star athlete that comes into superstardom and fame suffering through the agony of adjusting to a millionaires lifestyle while still attempting to be a normal person.
In one scene, he challenges his corporate sponsors to do more than ask him to validate their product with his face but to show real and tangible proof of their loyalty to his brand by committing their time and effort to helping kids.  This comes after a major blunder where he misspoke after describing how “messed up” it was for a group of kids with a debilitating disease in the best way he knew how by using an explicative.
Its true this character is rough around the edges and it was clear that his admittidly “rough edges” proved to be tougher than he could ever imagine when the mothers of the “messed up” (ok, ok he said the f bomb it was more like …”that situation was F’d up”).  His handlers spoke to him of the perils of being a star and limiting nature of their free speech rights no matter how well intentioned yet poorly communicated.
This of course greatly confused and perplexed the “rough-around-the-edges” basketball star as he knew his intentions were completely misunderstood yet never mind because as he devised a strategy for mitigating the obvious “shit-storm-a-brewing”, it seemed the storm hit cataclysmic proportions where by the leader of the mothers group he had offended, made it her business to quickly take to the “instant-ur-A-star-now” YouTube like streaming video service to denounce him not only as a player and his entire organization but also as a human being (or in her eyes less than that).  By the time all was said and done, airwaves were flooded with misinformation & US Congressman were called to bring the battalion to take care of and neutralize this out of control loose stallion (no pun or inadvertent offense intended).
As aforementioned, this sparked a thought of why we get so outraged over misinformation without the vilidity of facts beside it and furthermore once a person does the right thing by vowing to change their ill gotten misstep, why do we then vilify them for being fake? We often label them, dispose of them castigating them to a fate of possibly not being capable of modification or being given the consideration to receive a thoughtful, more insightful forgiving perspective?

It got me to wondering why we don’t credit to the do-gooders for at least trying to effectuate change in their own small yet impactful way. Why do we admonish those attempting to be positive all the time? When l look back there were always ppl who Broke every last rule possible but never gets caught yet the poor schlep that so happened to be their victim of the moment, must gently move out the way or risk getting steamed over more and more brutally than he may have ever in his schlepy lifetime.

Case in point: my story – I always wondered how homeless people became homeless. I thought to myself, why did they give up on life to wander around aimlessly without a goal in life or a dream to pursue. After time I realized that there are a mirade of reasons why ppl fall on hard times & believe it or not, no matter how smart they are, how much emotional intelligence they exude, there can be that one event or series thereof, that sets them on an auderous path. I have such a story. To keep it short, I have always pursued life against all odds even though as an African American single mother, the 3 strikes your out rule has applied for years and some are not brash about expressing their distain for African Americans, Women or Single mothers. Sometimes it’s not even the usual suspects, you know the white angry guys that work in middle mgmt at your company that have no real sustainable power over most things much less the unit they work in, but one thing is for sure the have power over u if you have any of the deadly 3 traits I spoke of above. Nope, it was even ppl in my own community that were often the biggest naysayers – your a mother you can’t work in corporate America at this level, or your black! Black ppl aren’t that smart or organized – get outta here. And God forbid I say that I questioned ever getting married and that I might just want to date for a while or not at all, the howls of shame would decend upon me like vultures to newly deceased prey.

over time I began to fight back speaking truth to power, defending initially what was right for me not necessarily others yet over time I stood up for others being unjustly treated as well advocating for their rights as if it was my own.  Again no self inflated sense of righteousness just principled measured thought or push back in the hopes to effectuate change for someone that really needed it even if that somebody was me.  Yet this type of advocacy comes at a price and a pretty steep one at that.  The pressure to conform, just do what they others do, being blind-deaf-dumb to the madness of it all, was enormous and quiet as keep near impose for someone like me to do.  I read this quote on day that said: “Based on your treatment of others will dictate how they treat you.  If you treat ppl good they will go out of their way to make you feel wanted, special & loved” however if you treat them bad they will go out of their way to treat you horribly.

Well, while there is a morsal of truth there, I’ve found that the quote should really define what treat means.  Does treat mean blindly kissing someone’s ass until the pinkness of your lipstick becomes indullably marked on the cheeks of their maximus? Or does it mean showing someone kindness via the “golden rule”, doing unto others as you would have them do unto you.  I quickly came to realize it was both. And in large percentages, option 1 was most widely used along with buckets of self loathing and fear.

 

Volunteering….best decision I ever made (besides the birth of my daughter of course :))

 

My favorite moment in this long life of mine was serving as a volunteer for Barack Obama’s political campaign for President of the United States.  I have never really been political before this 8 year presidency of Barack Obama to be honest.  The last president I made a concerted effort to vote for much less volunteer for was Bill Clinton.  I made it my business to get to the polls post my 18th birthday as I knew voting for Bush, Sr. was not a viable option.  My grandmother was an election judge for years so there was always a backdrop of election year madness in the house.  When either presidential, state or down ticket elections came around, my grandmother would always grump and moan about having to get up at an ungodly hour to drag herself to the polling station to ensure she was on time well before the mad rush at 6am on election day.  No matter how much she complained about the process and the election judge pay, she was committed and she never let the team down.

This lasted with me, her level of commitment and willingness to continue going even when she was tired.  When I began volunteering for the Obama campaign, I remember seeing ppl just like my grandmother. Even though by the time Barack Obama was elected my grandmother had since passed (almost 7 years before) I know in my heart she must have been proud of me for continuing our little informal tradition of supporting major campaigns and volunteering my time to support a family that some believed had zero chance of winning.  We all believed, day in and day out – and while my numbers were not always award winning, it was a pleasure to take time out of work and while unemployed to give service to my community in this way to support what has proven to be one of the greatest presidents of our time.

It was my honor to serve then and to continue to serve now supporting the candidacy of Hillary Clinton.  Thanks Obama for America, Organizing for Action & Barack Obama, Michelle Obama and the entire 8 year staff under both, for giving me a chance to support our candidate and President – besides the birth of my child, this indeed was the greatest honor of my lifetime.

All the best & Happy Birthday Barack 🙂

 

Wanting Something New

In life we confront a crossroad of sorts. That moment when our heart desires something new. Whether it is a new job, a new boyfriend or a new way of thinking, we are confronted with this insatiable desire to turn a page. The thoughts well up and compose into a long string of the desire that encapsulates itself into momentous action and for some of us enormous fear.

Fear in all accounts immobilizes us to inaction or complacency, troubling our hearts in the form of endless nights of insomnia and tempers our spirits to the mundane. We tackle the bills, the obstacles and the entrapments of normal life (whatever that may be). Yet we often lay by the waist side the things that drive us and inspire us to the greater post of our best potential. Sure we all fail at reaching that pinnacle of supreme achievement that we believe will set us a blaze at the envy of those who once doubted us. Yet as the annotation states, it is often the journey not the destination which is the greatest pleasure in this life. As I sit at my crossroad, I see the tragedy on the TV screen, that idiot box that often tells me if only I bought that pair of jeans, that perfect black dress or modeled my life after that great one, I too would taste the fruit of life’s greatest pleasures. There are wars and rumors of war as many biblical text prophesied about, there are racial tensions in otherwise quiet neighborhoods, and hyper-socialized politics with fever pitch rhetoric in abundance for anyone to consume. Yet I am a dream defender. A defender of your dreams, my dreams and the positive dreams of a future with less friction and divisive strife and more creativity, ingenuity and laughter. A girl can dream right? Some may ask, “why bother?” The world has been and will forever be in turmoil, doesn’t it just make sense to just accept it and learn to live with it? To this of course I say no.

We are inherently wired for peace just as some believe we are inherently wired for war and dissent. Yet I dream and have to believe in the best of our potential to free ourselves ever so often from the chains that confine us from time to time in history. Our country is no stranger to pain. We are no stranger to heartache but we are also no stranger to having a strong belief in the will of the people to be better than we were the day before. I cling to my right to be happy and not depressed, I cling to the right to be free and I cling to my right to have wonderful thoughts of a brighter future. A future that promises me some semblance of peace and the notion of safety. A future that makes a way for my children to soar and fly as high as their eyes, hearts and minds can take them. Yes, for many this is pollyannish or naive but I would much rather be naive than hardened by pain or seek my own demise due to the overwhelming pain of the world. I pray for this generation of dreamers that you will find you inspiration wherever it may come to dream and dream big. And as for that crossroad, shall you traverse this minor detail in your life and find the peace and accomplishment you seek.

In the memory of Lauren Bacall, Robin Williams and countless other dreamers, I shall seek my chance to do, to be, to dare to be me. Free of worry, free of fear, free of the unknown and the distractions that keep many of us from our greatest glory in this albeit short and flash in an instant life of ours. I pray the same for all of you.

God speed as JFK often said, Godspeed to your next “new” – May it bring you the peace you seek and the dreams fulfilled as you envisioned them.

Fear – No More (speak out?)

When you are silent nothing gets done, right? My granny used to say the squeakiest wheel gets the oil, yet in today’s hyper-social media frenzied society, I am not so sure anymore. This principle of “speaking out” is often viewed as a bad attribute. From no snitching, to smart political moves verses “you failed” mentality, do we really support those that speak out against injustice or do we simply castigate them and ostracized them to a reality of impunity of silence?

Food for thought. We need to caution our willingness to offer up our innocent to speak out against injustices they feel are happening, yes for fear they are too vulnerable to the onslaught of those who committed the violation of justice in the first place. Just look at Roe vs. Wade. Women spoke out, demanded in the 70’s that decisions about their bodies be left to them and them alone. The nation agreed and then for the next 30 years or longer, protected women and their rights to protect and make decisions about their own bodies, alone. Men have never had someone regulate their Johnson’s but here we have today 2014, a Supreme Court that is on the precipitous of chipping away at women’s right to choose by going through their means of employment. Bosses being able to say, we don’t believe in contraception so we won’t pay for it. Next thing you know, the only entity that will be able to pay for contraception will be corporations, then what? There is a conservative advocate that has recently suggested on the Chris Hayes show that maybe female contraception should be sold over the counter, yet there is a reason due to potency as to why these types of contraceptives are provided as prescriptions, right? How many corporations will you find small, medium and large that will choose to deem themselves, “closely-held”? How many small businesses will say, “well I believe in your right to choose but those contraceptives are half the total cost of our companies entire healthcare budget so therefore, we can’t offer it to you lady, I’m sorry”. A political figure this week said, well, I am not sure this issue (sic: of women’s contraception) is the greatest issue we should be dealing with at this time Or how about the “nickel between the knee” guy.

Women’s issues (as usual) have been reduced to a joke, a late night skit, a laughable “women’s issue” not to be considered, wow. What have we done for gay rights, African American injustices, or the right of tortured immigrants from South America to avoid prosecution by gangs and drug lords? Has the good done, done much good? Or have the filthy greedy rich (not the conscientious socially responsible wealthy) the racists, the women haters, the homophobes, the crazy religious zealots won? Idk, but their arch towards injustice seems to be long, far and wide.

Oh well so much for speaking out. It only takes about 30 to 40 years to make something we thought was a human right to become the laughing stock of social media fodder.

The injustice of one is the injustice of all. Well not so fast, maybe not. Maybe its just your issue. Hang tough.

P.s I still can’t believe its 2014, smh. I still ask are we really doing this? Is this real, cause it sure ain’t memorex. Or reality either.

Peace.

The Power of the Enterprise PM

Chapter Blog #1: In a world of great demand, great success and in some cases great tragedy, where is order found?  In the olden days, leadership and effective planning have been the mainstays of the achievement of order, innovation of all human efforts and ultimately the negotiation between war and peace.  There are many levels to which our society as a whole attempts to establish, maintain and regulate all forms of order to which can be seen in the multiplicity of diverse social, geo-political formations of global communities and governments.  Corporate, military and university based education structures have been the resting place for the evolution of business and our new wave technology has emerged as the mainstay of human elevation, ascension as sources of intelligence and economic growth world-wide.

 

Which brings me to the topic of my blog, How does business and technology (engineering, development, UX, etc.) process order to define the work and product structures we sell today? When I think of this evolution or technical revolution if you will, I think how did this platform of innovation, economic growth and that which pays our bills everyday come to be?  How did we think or dream our way here, to this day where everything we do has been boiled down to a simple science of clicks, swipes and selections of smart technology based tasks which some of us cannot live without?  It dawned on me that the basic tenement of facilitation was at play.  The organization of ordered tasks, deliverables, cost and scope analysis which is the very body of effective programmatic business development and wait for it….program management.  Of course there is a bevy of other roles defined in the body of an organization to make this system of market ready performance and product development, yet there is glue, a tie to it all that whether we know it or not is there and breathing, living and facilitating the order we sometimes don’t readily acknowledge.

 

As a Developer, Consultant and Program Manager, I live and breathe deliverables, milestones, budgets, estimates and as age old as age old can be, time.  Some would be surprised to know that the art of true project management has been around for 4,500 years or longer as documented by history. 

 

 

Mark Kozak-Holland, PMP, IPMA-Dwrites in his book The History of Project Management (Lessons from History)

 

“The Pyramid of Giza, the Colosseum, and the Transcontinental Railroad are all great historical projects from the past four millennia. When we look back, we tend to look at these as great architectural or engineering works. Project management tends to be overlooked, and yet its core principles were used extensively in these projects. This book takes a hard look at the history of project management and how it evolved over the past 4,500 years. It shows that “modern” project management practices did not just appear in the past 100 years but have been used – often with a lot of sophistication – for thousands of years. Examining archaeological evidence, artwork, and surviving manuscripts, this book provides evidence of how each of the nine knowledge areas of project management (as shown in PMI’s PMBoK® Guide) have been practiced throughout the ages. The book covers the period from the construction of the ancient pyramids up to the 1940s. A future companion volume will cover more recent developments during the war years and the technology boom leading up to the present. As readers explore the many case studies in this book, they will discover fascinating details of innovative projects that produced many of our most famous landmarks and voyages of discovery.”

 

More to come on this PM evolution so to speak and how structured, yet agile program management can vastly help us in ways we can’t yet imagine, achieve and take DNB centric hill transformation goals for the future.

 

Reference: Project Management Blunders: Lessons from the Project That Built, Launched, and Sank Titanic by Mark Kozak-Holland (Apr 15, 2012) | ISBN-10: 1554890969 | ISBN-13: 978-1554890965

 

 

 

 

 

 

Flash back reference: I have been in technology since the dawn of Y2K, 1999 was my first official entrance – yet the acknowledgement of the emerging capability of technology was first shown to me in a class in HS based on programming a tram basic word processing machine.  Back then DOS was the command and big clunky desktop mammoths represented our laptop of today.  Nowadays, a person’s glasses or their watch represents the new laptop, the new platform to which one would could work, play and educate oneself all in one simple click.  Our standard laptop for business, school or otherwise is much lighter, faster and capable of amazing things that we wish to do each day to make our lives better.

 All Rights Reserved, Camille M. Mitchell – Mijon Consulting 2014

 

Why PMs, IT and Enterprise Transformations Suck: Ok Not Really But Why do we think they do?: Introspection on Gartner Conference – National Harbor, Washington, DC 2014

Just recently, I had the unique opportunity to attend this year’s Gartner Conference – PPM Symposium 2014 at National Harbor in Washington, DC.  The central focus of the session was around how Project Platform Management can transform the way business does business no matter what business it is.  My reaction to the event was WOW…can I say WOW again? Twice maybe three times without being weird?  For a PM attending this type of symposium was similar to the candy store or FAO Swartz effect on children, it was mind-blowing, truly transforming (a high not easily described effectively without sounding weird – “totsweirdo” as my 13yr old would say). 

 For many professionals, the attendance to an industry specific conference or symposium is something I believe we often take for granted, especially if we are conference “pros” or road-warriors looking for the latest conference to meet, greet, network (i.e. wine and dine) with those we choose to rub elbows with in our respective discipline.  Check out this all-encompassing Do’s and Don’ts article on the right way (and wrong way) to attend a conference.

 Yet for me, it was dreamy, like the name we used to give to celebrities like Patrick Dempsey (even though the McDermott guy is dreamy too) after we re-discovered his glory on the show Grey’s Anatomy.  Like Patrick, it’s not that I never learned true PMO value centric applications or that I had somehow forgotten how to work the PM magic we PMs all profess we have, it was more of a epiphany based revelation so to speak.  I realized when I first saw the pamphlet last year in December, that I must attend and true to form once I did it was extremely revealing in ways that are hard to explain.  Let’s just say, for me, the conference provided that secret special sauce missing from our pursuit of true program management excellence.

From topics on “Governance being a leadership discipline” by French Caldwell, VP and Gartner Fellow who discussed his involvement with the Rover to Mars Program for NASA to advice on how Project and Program Managers, IT Professionals and CIOs alike can better manage the fastly emerging “Globalization Force Multipliers” and Mega Trend Contradictions spoken from the sage wisdom of Madeleine Albright, our former US Secretary of State under the Clinton administration – it was obvious there were some serious brains in the room and knowledge was abound and present for all to consume.  One of the speakers had me at hello so to speak, with a specific interest and focus on business + personal personality matching (and yes amongst all of cool PPM strategies and BI based analytic advancements).  Tina Nunno, VP and Gartner Fellow in Gartner’s Research Group spoke about her book “Machiavelli’s Guide to IT”, where in her book she describes how extreme political tactics and warfare disciplines within enterprise corporate structures can often cause what she calls “political land minds of … power politics”.  

So why do PMs Suck?  Well, they don’t really if used properly in the strategic vision of the enterprise roadmap.  The conference speakers as well as Tina focused on the fact that either 1) the enterprise does not recognize the PM, their skillset or the need for a certain type of enterprise centric PM OR leadership (middle or otherwise) did not recognize the type of Enterprise needs of the organization transformation in direct correlation to the PM skill set required for desired end results.  Ultimately there is a mismatch in stated goals of the organization between what they are attempting to do and their expected results are plus mismatches in resources (well beyond a PM) to effectively carry out said goals therefore being in position to execute in a timely manner to drive certain expected results.

In today’s market no matter what the LOB or strategic vertical, there seems to be company after company stating “we are transforming IT”, “we are transitioning from or what we used to do to what customers want us to do” and the ever present “we are no more what we once were”.  Don’t get me wrong, transformation is a very good thing indeed.  Yet the political fallout from most transformation processes can leave as Tina describes “a lot of blood in the water”.  In her keynote speech, “The Wolf in CIO’s Clothing” Tina speaks on personality management beyond the typical C-Level Exec, more than the dynamic individual VP or any high or low position within the enterprise org chart (from top to bottom) but more on how culture shapes us as business leaders, professionals, etc.. This shaping redefines our roles indefinitely and recalibrates our outlook for the future ever so subtly on who we are as people and our relation to the enterprise change we seek.

 Key takeaways from the Wolf in CIO Clothing:

•  Men (and women alike) decide upon a middle course which is most hazardous for they know neither how to be entirely good or entirely bad
•  Understand the Extreme Animal Ecosystem via the power discipline. 
•  What Animal are you – Machiavelli said to think like an animal: Are you lunch or liability, light or dark? Prey or Predator, Leader or follower? Do you seek power, manipulation, warfare or peace?  Hint: Manage Agreement…peacefully without becoming prey J
•  Machiavellians know there is no safe middle ground in leadership.

•  A Wolf learns the difference between calculated risk taking and recklessness.

• Master the three extreme Machiavellian disciplines of power, manipulation, and warfare.

• Recognize that by going to extremes, your Wolf can help bring a dark enterprise to the light side.

I specifically would like to see if we can ask Mark Langley, President and CEO of the Project Management Institute and Richard Hunter, Gartner VP and by far the most interesting man on this planet (ok besides the Pope and others of course) to come and speak not only with our senior leadership but our company as a whole if I can be so bold.  Richard’s view on delivering change in the digital era was by far the most succinct and enriching presentation sets focusing squarely on the wave of new digital technologies and how one day we will not create, sell or market one single product without understanding the digital discipline deep to the core.  Richard cannot be described adequately – there’s simply too much there, all I can say – life is good and I mean really good when this man speaks.  Check out his profile on Gartner and take a look or read shall I say of his work online, he won’t disappoint – if you are paying attention to what he has to say (no denial allowed).

 Key takeaways from Richard’s Presentation:

•  Your Enterprise Will Spend More on IT, Whether or Not It’s Spent in the IT Budget … And Whether That Spending Systematically Advances Strategy Is Anybody’s Guess

•  Demand Governance is Today

• Governance Is Really About Executing Business Model Change That Is Inevitable With Digitalization

• Success (for the Enterprise) Is an IT Portfolio That Equals Coherent Execution of Enterprise Strategy

• Take every measure within your power to support increased clarity for enterprise strategy, and to ensure that the portfolio of initiatives involving IT support directly addresses strategic goals.

• Support experimentation aimed at testable hypotheses whenever and wherever possible.

• Address the key leverage points within the virtuous cycle of IT value to maximize yields and increase the visibility of value delivered by IT.

• Above all, remember: IT is the engine for coherent execution of enterprise strategy.

 Over the next few months, I will share more insights from the conference because really one blog won’t do it justice.  Yet instead of chiming on and on about one conference (which was pretty awesome by the way – do you think?? Hah J), I will parse data on specific subjects from the conference that could be very and I mean very relevant to things we are doing today, tomorrow and beyond tomorrow. 

Let the police handle it please…..

The madness needs to stop. This life is too short for all of this true craziness. My heart and prayers go out to the families in Santa Barbara, CA. People need to slow down.

Pray.

PeacePlease.

Is it possible to clear your name?

When confronted with a world where data is pervasive, is it possible to clear your name? When people have a certain view of you and the minutia of rumor and truth blur, can a person who has been secretly been discredited come to light alone and clear what has been slandered? Can you change the victim voice as Oprah says and become a champion? Can you truly be free ? I believe yes but it is a work in progress everyday, no rest for the weary, yes? no good deed goes unturned some believe but I also believe this too shall pass. I believe in me 2 be as I am. Peace. Always. Forever. Deep….lolol!!

I’ve been slandered and I have done much to fight back the minutia of rumor. Yet no one has claimed responsibility for back dooring the possibilities of my future. In 2007, I was labeled a few things quietly and told by a very hateful person that they would ruin my life. The exact quote was, “we will make you poor, desolate and incapable of moving forward”. They were what could be called rich, wealthy and diplomatically immune from the crimes they committed against the poor. So little by little, time after time, they surfaced to take what had been worked so hard for. They had a lot of practice within their own family. So coming out and trying their tirade of hatred on an innocent by stander was par for the course. I have helped as well. Being fearful and honest to a fault, I gave them power they had not quite attained yet. So they waited, softly, quietly until the moment in which they could strike and once again destroy all that I had built. Yet I realize yet another failing on my part. I gave away the power first.

Remember the story line of Dracula, where he told unsuspecting victims that he could not enter unless he had been invited? Often times in life art imitates life and in those most opportune times, life imitates art. In an effort to define the scary monsters, called some people, we create these fictional representations of evil to mask and rationalize the truly irrational behaviors of people that simply could not written by the best writers in Hollywood. Screenplays could not be drafted with such precision and effectuated truth as life as it evolves and strums it’s way into our conscious lives.

This power we possess if often ignored because unlike a good horror film, the pain of the surreal representation of life can be death defying to the mind’s eye. Many have written books, articles and time after time prose of this very subject but somehow we miss it every time, the meaning of their writings, the connection to our lives, the symbolism in their wording misses us by leaps and bounds and without realizing it we flounder. Even in these words I write now, I may flounder, yet is the beauty and the rock of life. The brain is hard wired for a great deal, yet the complexity of certain horrific things are insidious and like air, illusive and deceptively invisible by nature. If that wasn’t enough psychobabble for you, then just watch a crime special or caught on camera series to see the heights the deceptively creative criminal mind can really take if not tempered, regulated or just plain stopped.

So when the creatively evil have decided you are their target, what is one to do? How can one clear one’s name when these shadows of deception have taken hold of their existence, their lives or in some instances their souls? In my case, there is no soul taking and my life has not been commandeered, yet there is a pursuit. A very desperate pursuit by very desperate people. People who have won all the time. People who have lived in the aura of hatred so long they no longer see their lives as livable unless they taunt this desire, this need to penetrate people who would otherwise be normal everyday law abiding people. I was walking down the street one day (lol no for real, lol) and I was looking at the infrastructure of a very beautiful or seemingly beautiful town. The architecture was absolutely stunning, details immaculate, with not a layer of design out of place. I was awed by the beauty, when I heard a guy say, “yeah I’m looking for a free spirit!!!”. His buddies laughed saying “dude what they h.e.double.hockeysticks are you talking about?!” And he then calming states, “you know a unsuspecting head in the clouds Vic”. He then goes past with the most sinister look in his eyes to which I frowned, he then laughed and kept going. Vic where I come from means victim. I disconnected from his conversation and keep it moving. He wasn’t talking to me anyway and when our eyes connected he knew I was no victim, at least not anymore. Every once and a while I remember what it is to be a victim though and sometimes, just sometimes, I slip back into that skin. You see all of us do once we learn to traverse a trial or obstacle we may face in this life. We remember what it was to be protected by our parents and not have a care in the world or for those of us who grew up poor we remember that even when we didn’t have everything we wanted we have just what we needed. Love, someone who cared for us, someone or many ones who stood for what we stood for and defended us to the end.

Bad and good people have this sense of community, this protective layer that makes life simpler to deal with. I have found myself on the side of good most of my life and yes I was what they called a free spirit. Aimlessly wondering into the lions den not aware of the danger that lay ahead. Once you become aware, you are less of a target or should I say a different one. You represent the truth that which can ruin the best laid plans of those who wish to deceive. Now I sound like someone’s spiritual guide, orator or reverend. Yet the message is still the same. Bad and good, positive and negative, evils and non-evils exist and balance each other on their own axis. So what does this have to do with clearing your name? Well. For me it meant many things but it was often in realizing that all things said in the dark are not necessarily meant to come to the light and that all things that are bright are not necessarily good if you know what I mean.

So my first answer is yes. The people who speak badly of you in the dark, can sometimes be left there, in the dark to fester over the bad things they say because their intentions were never good to begin with. If your intentions were and are good, you will be able to survive the onslaught of viciousness that lurks beyond. Rumors are sometimes good tools for telling the truth, they reveal cracks in the frame. A frame that is placed to destroy a character even though that character has produced nothing but good. In my case, I work hard, tirelessly for my child, my dreams, her dreams the good ones you know. When I was 7 years old my mom hit me in the face with a glass because it was dirty, at 12 my stepdad sliced my moms stomach open while she was pregnant with my little sister and beat her unmercifully while kicking me as I tried to protect her, at 20 I was hanging out with the wrong crowd and got in trouble, at 23 I met a guy who hated women because he hated his mom, at 32 he swung a crowbar at my face permanently scarring me, at 34 he tampered with a vehicle I owned and waited until my daughter got in the car with the hopes that we both would get hurt, at 36 I got the strength to leave and not be a victim of his anymore and at 38 I lived my dream of being me for the first time in many years. Now at 40, he still lurks in real life, waiting for a chance to ruin what I have built for myself and my child yet I believe we will remain safe and sound. We all in some ways are seeking freedom and it too is ever evolving, changing with the wind in some instances, yet if you walk, run and stroll with it you find in the end, it will align its self with you and you can just stand there and receive it. The truth is the truth and in time it will reveal.

More to come.

Stay tuned.

All rights reserved. 2014 Mijon Consulting
Photo: 3-DNamedWallPapers.com

Bridges…..

Give me some rubies, so we can do business, then I can build bridges and we all can live with this.

2 gether, world community for good. 2dobetter, 2bebetter, 2gether. One.

All rights reserved, 2014, Mijon Consulting, Inc.
Photographer: Noupe

The Lengths – A sinister story of revenge

In 1997, I met a young man who as one would say there was a twinkle in his eyes when I met him. Others would say it was love at first sight. Upon reflection and serious contemplation of all events that transpired after the day we met, it was the beginning of a nightmare. Today, he has reached new heights. He has hired a private investigator to stalk me and my daughter as if him stalking us when we were in the same city wasn’t enough. He has reached out to family and friends to contact social media sites and stalk linkedin, twitter, my job, my life, attempting to totally consume and utterly ruin my existence. It is not his intent to be a father or apologize for almost succeeding in severely hurting my daughter and I, no it is more insidious than that. He has an insatiable thirst to punish women. This is a more narcissistic, psychopathically perverse payment of retribution to his mother.

To be continued……