Dream Huge!

This was a crazy week of work so I welcomed the chance to sit down to read and watch this week's lesson materials.  Here are some of the things I learned from this week's lesson materials:

"Think Big"  Taylor Richards

Don't underestimate yourself.
Involve the Lord & you can do the impossible.

"It's a whloe lot more fun to do great things than to just be good or just be mediocre."
It's not harder to be great than to be good.
Pursue your goals & dreams.
Don't let anybody tell you that you can't do it.
Dream huge!

I really like the last statement of "Dream huge!"  As children this is not difficult, but as adults we often let life and responsibilities get in the way of our dreams.  This was a good reminder to keep dreaming. 

"Action Hero Kathy Huber"

It was interesting to listen to Ms. Huber describe her schooling, early career and struggles with being in a male dominated field.  The thing I enjoyed learning the most was how she described what she learned from her setbacks.  I can only imagine the turmoil she must have gone through when her company, Iron Bridge Networks, folded in the dot-com crash.  Rather than let it destroy her or her ambitions, she chose to look at that experience as the Iron Bridge University and considered it to be better than any MBA program available.  It provided her with new opportunities and the ability to mentor others and share her experiences.

Turn your setback into your university.  I like that!

"License to Pursue Dreams"  Marissa Mayer

At the time of this recording, Google offered "20% Time" to their employees.  This meant that they could dedicate 20% of their time working on whatever they wanted to work on outside of their regular jobs for something that might potentially benefit the company.  This allowed employees to be creative and innovative as Google trusted them to use their time wisely.  Ms. Mayer stated that in 2005, approximately 50% of the products Google launched came through the 20% Time pipeline.

This sounds like a great way to to foster work creativity and I wondered if it was a program still in practice at Google.  Upon doing a little bit of searching (on Google, of course!) I couldn't find anything dfinitive to indicate if the program was still being used.  I did find this article from Business Insider written in 2015 that suggests that it may no longer be an active program.

The article also quotes Ms. Mayer, who later went on to become the CEO of Yahoo, as saying, "I've got to tell you the dirty little secret of Google's 20% time.  It's really 120% time."  This is definitely something that I wondered about.  I know that if I wanted to work on something at my job outside of my normal scope of responsibilities (even with permission) I would end up doing it outside of my normal work time.  Whether her statement from this article is correct or not, I do like the idea of 20% Time and the creativity it could encourage.