{"id":1924,"date":"2017-03-27T19:32:11","date_gmt":"2017-03-28T02:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/easethemain.com\/?p=1924"},"modified":"2017-04-10T16:13:54","modified_gmt":"2017-04-10T23:13:54","slug":"employees-sailing-adventure-yields-13-life-and-career-lessons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/easethemain.com\/?p=1924","title":{"rendered":"Employee\u2019s Sailing Adventure Yields 13 Life (and Career) Lessons"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Originally featured on March 1, 2017 on the “Life at Cisco” blog series here: \u00a0http:\/\/blogs.cisco.com\/lifeatcisco\/employees-sailing-adventure-yields-13-life-and-career-lessons<\/p>\n

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Employee\u2019s Sailing Adventure Yields 13 Life (and Career) Lessons<\/h1>\n
<\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0Jennifer Massaro<\/a> – March 1, 2017 – 20 Comments <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u00a0Extended sailing is often described as \u201cdays of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror.\u201d As a sailor, I can tell you that those boring times give you a lot of time to think. In fact, if you ever find yourself crossing the Atlantic Ocean in your own 40-foot boat, you will have approximately 25 days of thinking. You\u2019ll even have time to reflect on those moments of terror that took you away from your blissful boredom.<\/div>\n
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\"Jennifer<\/p>\n

After presenting these tips to the Connected Women group in San Jose \u2013 #LoveWhereYouWork!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In 2014 and 2015 I took a 2-year sabbatical from Cisco and sailed 16,000 nautical miles<\/a>, or about halfway around the world, from San Francisco to Europe, on our sailboat with my husband and young son. And what I discovered in all of that time to think is that life at sea has a lot of lessons for life on land and back at your desk.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s set aside the obvious lessons, such that having washing machine is super awesome and your dermatologist will thank you for using SPF 30. The hard-won lessons I learned from my adventure are things I constantly remind myself about while back to work at Cisco:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The secret to achieving your dreams is through planning (spreadsheets!)<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    It\u2019s not like my husb and and I have a charmed life or are just lucky. We spent five years planning and preparing for our two-year voyage. We have spreadsheets outlining what medications we needed to take, what spare parts we had on board, our son\u2019s homeschool curriculum and about a dozen other plans. If you want something, make it happen. I recommend Excel.<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. A sailor\u2019s plans are written in the sand at low tide (a.k.a. things change)<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Always keep one eye on the conditions and adjust accordingly. As my husband likes to say, \u201cKeep your head out of the cockpit.\u201d Why not do this in life? Life is not meant to be navigated on auto pilot.<\/p>\n

        \n
      1. Adapt<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        Some of my friends were aghast that my \u201ccloset\u201d for two years consisted of two small shelves. It turns out I only needed one. Give me just a few fast-drying, water-wicking, sun-shielding, wrinkle-resistant outfits from Athleta and I will wear them over and over again. What I learned is that what you want isn\u2019t always what you actually need.<\/p>\n

          \n
        1. Don\u2019t always follow the instructions<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

          I had to homeschool my son for 4th<\/sup> and 5th<\/sup> grade. It\u2019s fair to say he may have taught me more than I taught him. One day we sat and played with Legos together. My creation was awful and his was amazing. I used to get angry when I\u2019d buy him a $100 Lego set and he\u2019d build it, then immediately take it apart. What he was actually doing was creating more amazing things, using the catalog of Lego parts in his brain. Ever since, I\u2019ve never given him grief for taking his Legos apart. Being creative takes effort; don\u2019t always do what you\u2019re told.<\/p>\n

          \n

          \"Massaro<\/p>\n

          Presenting my learnings.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

            \n
          1. You can get used to almost anything<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

            You might think that it would be awful to spend days at a time at a 15 degree angle, pitching up and down and always having to hold on to something with one hand lest you hurl across the boat and hurt yourself. And it is. But only for about the first three days. Things become normal after a while, even when they\u2019re not comfortable. You can handle a lot more than you think you can.<\/p>\n

             <\/p>\n

              \n
            1. Consider the source, trust yourself<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

              We got a lot of \u201cadvice\u201d from other sailors. \u201cYou can\u2019t sail from Panama to Jamaica at this time of year! The waves in the Caribbean are different from the ones in the Pacific!\u201d What we found is that people like to project their own fears on to you. Do your homework and know what you\u2019re capable of. Don\u2019t let anyone else tell you what you can\u2019t do. (For the record, waves are the same everywhere.)<\/p>\n

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              1. The only way to expand your comfort zone is to get outside of it<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

                Easier said than done. I know. I get it. The thing I was most afraid of before leaving on our trip was getting into bad weather. There were about a dozen situations that I would have been petrified had I known I was going to encounter them. But guess what? After having gone through some sketchy situations, they are the things I\u2019m most proud of dealing with.<\/p>\n

                  \n
                1. We often worry about the wrong things, so try not to worry<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

                  I spent about 493 hours worrying about crossing the Atlantic Ocean. Halfway across the Atlantic I sprouted the first gray hair on my head. True story. Yet our Atlantic crossing was mild and we had some amazing experiences. Now, I try not to worry about all the time I wasted worrying.<\/p>\n

                    \n
                  1. Courage is doing it anyway, even when you are scared<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

                    My husband would ask our son, \u201cWho\u2019s braver? Daddy who\u2019s not too scared? Or Mommy, who is scared and does it anyway? Mom.\u201d This was nice reassurance when I felt like the biggest scardey-cat in the world. Face your fears. Trust me, you will be proud of yourself. You may not feel brave, but you are.<\/p>\n

                      \n
                    1. Understand the difference between dangerous and uncomfortable<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

                      50+ mph winds and 15 foot seas? Sound dangerous? Actually, it depends. You need to be logical and evaluate: are we really in danger or does it just seem like we are? There were only a small handful of situations when we were potentially in danger. The rest was just uncomfortable. Don\u2019t let your limbic system rule you, use logic. In some uncomfortable moments I would tell myself that I\u2019d give anything to be sitting in an office and just dealing with politics. After all, I wouldn\u2019t feel like my life was in danger. And then I\u2019d remind myself that it just *seemed* like my life was in danger. Keep your perspective.<\/p>\n

                        \n
                      1. You appreciate more what you earn\u00a0<\/strong>\n
                        \n

                        \"Massaro<\/p>\n

                        Learning lessons at sea.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

                        We were crossing the Gulf of Genoa off the coast of Italy, and the forecast called for less than 10 mph of wind. We had 40. Fortunately the crossing was only 12 hours. After, we anchored off of the amazingly beautiful town of Portofino. The glass of wine in the cockpit that evening was delicious. Somehow, I don\u2019t think it would have tasted as good if the wind was less than 10 miles on our crossing.<\/p>\n

                          \n
                        1. Humor helps; panic doesn\u2019t<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

                          There is a saying that there are \u201ctwo kinds of sailors, those who have run aground and those who haven\u2019t yet.\u201d In the summer of 2015 we went from the first group to the second. It could have been catastrophic, but instead I\u2019m really proud of the way we handled this emergency because we didn\u2019t panic. I even tossed around a few jokes, even though I was stressed on the inside. We got floating again and we made friends in the process. And I\u2019m not embarrassed about how it all went down. Take a deep breath when you think disaster strikes and let stress bring out the best in you, not the worst.<\/p>\n

                            \n
                          1. YOU are never done<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

                            I thought I had learned all of these lessons from my trip and that they were part of me forever. It turns out that I need to constantly remind myself about them. It\u2019s so easy to get back into a routine. It\u2019s so easy to stop noticing and appreciating the world around you. It takes work. The minute you go on auto pilot is the minute you stop growing.<\/p>\n

                            I\u2019m still a little gob-smacked that Cisco let me take two years off to take a crazy sailing trip, and then hired me back<\/em> at the end of my trip. In the end I think Cisco is better off because I get to apply all these lessons I learned at work. Every day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

                            Originally featured on March 1, 2017 on the “Life at Cisco” blog series here: \u00a0http:\/\/blogs.cisco.com\/lifeatcisco\/employees-sailing-adventure-yields-13-life-and-career-lessons Employee\u2019s Sailing Adventure Yields 13 Life (and Career) Lessons \u00a0\u00a0Jennifer Massaro – March 1, 2017 – 20 Comments \u00a0Extended sailing is often described as \u201cdays of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror.\u201d As a sailor, I can tell you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-the-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/easethemain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/easethemain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/easethemain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/easethemain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/easethemain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1924"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/easethemain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1924\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1928,"href":"https:\/\/easethemain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1924\/revisions\/1928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/easethemain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/easethemain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/easethemain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}