Remembrance of a Remarkable Man

March 9, 2020

The very first post on this blog was inspired by a remarkable man, the one who first made me think about "leaving something behind of lasting value".  I have not done a good job of keeping up the purpose, the mission, that I originally established here.  I have been too busy devoting all of my energy, every waking moment to work.  (Mainly inspired by him - although he would often urge me to stop working so much and live my life.)

Exactly one week ago today, I learned that this remarkable man had passed away.  And now - now I feel compelled to write.

The man's name was Maged Atiya.

He was known to many as Twitter's @salamamoussa - a wise commentator and blogger on Egyptian, American and global politics and a well-respected voice of the Coptic community.


But this was not his only identity.  I knew him for 10 years as the brilliant CEO/CTO of ScholarChip, an incredibly inspiring mentor and a dear friend.




Along with my colleagues, I attended his funeral service this past weekend, heard some overwhelmingly beautiful eulogies from people who knew him in his "other life", and came to more fully appreciate just how blessed I was to have known him.

I have a lot of memories of Maged, but there are a few that stand out.

I'll start with the story of our very first meeting, back in late 2009, just after I started working at ScholarChip. Not many people know this, but I was not hired by Maged for a role in compliance. I was hired by a different department as a part-time administrative/marketing assistant. After a 10-year child-rearing gap in my previous technology career, I took the position as a way to get my foot in the door.

My original duties at ScholarChip included gathering administrators' contact information from school district websites, printing and mailing letters to them, and watering plants(!) About 3 days after I started, Maged asked to meet me, as he always liked to get to know his new employees. When I entered his office he had my resume in front of him. I sat down and he looked up and asked me, "What are you doing here?" I was honest and gave him the above explanation. His response: "We're going to find you something better to do - I don't want you getting bored." We then talked a bit about my previous experience and what kinds of things I might want to do. I will never forget this one thing he said to me: "I don't believe in filling a position - I believe in hiring a person." He explained that once he discovered someone's potential, his approach was to find out where their interests and abilities lie and then let the job description take care of itself.

Shortly after this first meeting, he asked for my help in figuring out how to get our payment applications certified for PCI compliance (which I knew nothing about, but immediately began to research.) We worked closely together for a while and my role evolved from there.

This story is not about me - it's about him, and about how he saw people. He didn't see me as a 40-something-year-old mother with a huge employment gap. Instead, he saw some sort of potential, and was willing to invest time and effort to help me develop it. In the 10 years that I've been here I've not only benefited from his mentoring but also watched him do the same with others. As a coworker beautifully stated this week, "Many of us had opportunities we wouldn't have had other places or at all if Maged hadn't seen our potential and believed in us...There's more diversity in our company than any place else I've worked. It's been that way for as long as I can remember. In a country that's becoming increasingly polarized over issues of race, etc, I'm proud to work for a company that's a shining example of how diversity is a strength. Our diversity is a window into the soul of a man who didn't place limits on us but instead encouraged us to exceed the limits we place on ourselves." His methods ranged from gentle encouragement, to whiteboard lessons and brainstorming, to throwing you in the deep end and standing back to watch and see if you could swim. These were his ways of bringing out the best in each of us. And I will be forever grateful to him for giving me the opportunity to learn and grow here as part of his team.

This is what has always made me want to give him - and ScholarChip - my very best.

Not everyone "gets" Maged.  Some people found him intimidating, and thus didn't get the chance to really know him.  I was intimidated at first by his reputation of extreme intelligence, as well as his position as head of the company.  But after just a few conversations, that all passed.  He had a way of making you feel comfortable enough to speak freely and open up to him. In all the time I have worked with him, as brilliant as he was, he never once made me feel stupid. 

(Though I did frequently have to go back to my desk and Google things after we spoke.  :)  )

Over the years, I've seen Maged the technologist, Maged the professor, Maged the salesman, Maged the storyteller, the master of the whiteboard, I've "cried on his shoulder" during several rough times in my personal life - and some in my professional life as well (when that deep-end stuff didn't work out as planned.) I've been amazed at how expertly he handled each of these different roles, how willing he was to assume each of them as needed, and how much he seemed to genuinely care about the thoughts and feelings of the people working with him.

I could go on and on about how profoundly he has affected my life. And I will, in later posts. There is a lot that I need to say. But I will leave it at this for now.

He may have been "larger than life", but he was also very human and never lost sight of that.

He was the reason I came to work every day, and in his memory I will do my best to help keep ScholarChip on the path that he envisioned.  Rest in peace, dear friend.

Tribe of Weirdos

I read an article earlier this week, posted on Twitter by a fellow introvert, that simultaneously made me feel like an outsider and like a member of a very exclusive club.

I will admit that to date I have never taken the Myers- Briggs personality test.  Never even gave it a serious thought.  But after reading this article, I feel that I don't even have to.  It was a list of 40+ things that INFJ personalities wish others knew about them.  And I agreed with Every.Single.One. of them.

The text of the Tweet that got my attention was simply this:

"I'm like an iceberg.  What I say out loud is the tip.  The mass lurking below the surface represents the crazy thoughts and feelings swimming in my head.  They're always there.  This results in me generally looking calm, although I rarely feel that way."

I read the article with the rest of the INFJ traits and found myself nodding in agreement with every statement.  And for the rest of the week, I have felt so much more at peace.

I am not posting this to get into the inner workings of my own mind - at least not today.  I am posting this to let others know that YOU ARE NOT ALONE.  I discovered this week that the INFJ personality type (notwithstanding any limitations of the classification criteria) is considered to be the *rarest* in the world - and therefore the most misunderstood - but even so, there are thousands upon thousands of others who think and feel the way I do.  This is useful for anyone who is trying to build mental resilience and learn how to cope with the inevitable stresses that life will throw at them.  Knowing that your reactions to specific events are not unique can help you to take a step back and say "This is not easy for me, but it is not impossible.  Others like me have handled it and so can I."

To know where you fit, to feel understood, and to know where you belong - this is a basic human need.  Finding your tribe is a crucial part of living a satisfying life.  For some of us who struggle to feel accepted, even learning that we actually *have* a tribe somewhere can be a huge step.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljjJawGDzGQ

You will be found.

** Please note that images, music and other materials referenced here are not my own.  I wish to give credit where credit is due.  Please contact me through the comments section of this blog if I have not properly acknowledged your creative/intellectual materials .  **

Mental Resilience - Thoughts on World Mental Health Day

This morning I woke up extra early - not intentionally, but due to some anxiety response that I have not yet learned to control.  Some days when that happens I will try to force myself back to sleep, but today I was determined to make productive use of the extra time, so first I tackled a couple of chapters of the latest book I've been reading, on "transformative resilience".  (I'll get into more details on that at a later date.)  Then I decided to take a few minutes to meditate and get my head on straight for a productive day ahead.  I use the "Calm" app to guide me in this pursuit of mental clarity, and when I opened it today, two notable things happened:

1) The "Daily Calm", my go-to morning meditation feature of the app, wouldn't function properly.  No matter how many times I tried to start it, or what else I did to my phone, I couldn't get it to play my trusty 10-minute guided meditation.  Needless to say, this did not do wonders for my mindset.
2) I noticed that the title of the day's guided meditation was "Invincible (World Mental Health Day)"

Motivated both by curiosity and by frustration at the irony that my meditation app would fail me on this specific day, I Googled "World Mental Health Day".  And the rest, as they say, is history.  (Or at least I hope that someday, someone besides me will say that.)

I found that October 10 has been a day devoted to mental health awareness since 1992, and that each year since then, the day has been given a specific focus or theme.  World Mental Health Day 2018 is primarily focused on the mental health struggles of young adults.

As I read the following article on the World Health Organization website http://www.who.int/mental_health/world-mental-health-day/2018/en/ , I knew that I had stumbled upon a way to tie many of my "random" thoughts together into something useful and meaningful.  The key phrase, one that I never heard before but that resonates with me all the same, is "mental resilience".  To me, that means developing whatever coping mechanisms you need to allow you to take unexpected events in stride, to learn and grow from them, and to keep your life moving forward in a way that makes sense for you.  It means constantly re-evaluating, adapting and re-framing your situation to turn negatives into positives, or at least mapping out a path to do so.

The following passages from the website struck me as being relevant not only to young adults, but to ANYONE who struggles, for whatever reason, to deal with change:

"YOUNG PEOPLE AND MENTAL HEALTH IN A CHANGING WORLD

Adolescence and the early years of adulthood are a time of life when many changes occur, for example changing schools, leaving home, and starting university or a new job. For many, these are exciting times. They can also be times of stress and apprehension however. In some cases, if not recognized and managed, these feelings can lead to mental illness. The expanding use of online technologies, while undoubtedly bringing many benefits, can also bring additional pressures, as connectivity to virtual networks at any time of the day and night grows. 

...

Fortunately, there is a growing recognition of the importance of helping [young] people build mental resilience, from the earliest ages, in order to cope with the challenges of today’s world. Evidence is growing that promoting and protecting adolescent health brings benefits not just to adolescents’ health, both in the short- and the long-term, but also to economies and society, with healthy [young] adults able to make greater contributions to the workforce, their families and communities and society as a whole."

So I sent them as a PSA to all of my coworkers.  I felt that strongly about the importance of the message.

I have 3 college-aged children (yes, you read that right), who are all struggling in their own way to make sense of overwhelming changes in their lives.  I work in a company that is going through its own "adolescence" and coming of age, and as Director of Risk and Compliance I have a responsibility to provide some sort of guidance through all of that.  And at the same time I am going through personal transitions of my own.

It occurred to me today, as I read about mental resilience, that I now know how to tie my roles in all of the above together, and to make sense of it all, one day at a time.  My responsibility and my mission - for my children, my company, and myself - is to learn how to build the "mental resilience" necessary to cope with ubiquitous, unsettling, and often overwhelming change...and to guide and teach while I learn.

- Donna J Harrigan

The important thing is to start

Original post (September 2, 2017):

Recently, I've devoted a lot of time and energy to "mentoring" someone at work.  She's had trouble adjusting to our unusual company culture, and comes to me daily for help in deciphering the projects she's assigned and advice on how to be more productive.  The most important point I've tried to make to her is that if you put off starting something until you have all the information you need, you'll never start.  Sometimes you have to just dive in, start swimming, and figure out your direction as you go along.

I woke up this morning and realized I haven't been taking my own advice.

The idea behind this blog was for me to write about things as they come to me, exploring ideas, making connections and figuring things out as I go.  I haven't been doing that.  I've jotted down many ideas of topics I want to write about, but I haven't actually written anything.  I've been waiting to be inspired by that "perfect" idea, an essay that writes itself.  That may happen sometimes, but I shouldn't sit around and wait for it.

I don't want my writings here to be just a glorified journal of my own feelings - I'm trying to broaden my view of the world and contribute something meaningful, even if I don't know what that is yet.

I have ideas.  They need to be explored.

It is September...my time for making New Year's resolutions.  (I suppose that comes from the notion of starting each new school year fresh, creating new habits for greater academic success.)

I will not resolve to write here every day - that is not my goal.  Instead, I resolve to define some long-term goals for myself - things I want to learn about, places I want to go, things I want to create.  And I resolve to spend some time each day working toward at least one of them.

Update (September 6, 2018):

I wrote this post a year ago, and then never posted on this blog again.  I've been gathering notes and half-writing posts, never finishing any of them to my perfectionist standards.  That ends today.  Another September, another resolution.  I'll frame it a little differently this time.

Learning that sometimes my thoughts really are worth sharing, with or without being polished to perfection.  Time to make my presence known, and let my voice be heard.

The importance of "The List"

I am a compliance officer.  I spend my professional life trying to make sense of the workings of a rather loosely structured organization.  More often than not, my job is to fit "our" way of doing things into some defined standard with which we are required to comply.  And more often than not, I manage to do it fairly well, without making my colleagues hate me.  I think this is because I always keep the existing company culture in mind, and don't try to force dramatic change.

The job can be stressful, as it involves interacting with every other department, asking them to define structures, roles, and processes, and then accepting responsibility for ensuring that what is defined becomes reality (or at least a reasonable and believable facsimile that I can "sell" to those who care about such things.)  But I've recently found a way to make it more manageable, by adopting an industry-accepted overall "master" security controls framework and mapping all the other standards to it.  I've hung a poster of this framework on the bulletin board in my office, and informed my team that it is my primary decision-making guide, and things are falling into place.  This may not make any individual task easier, but it helps me to fit all the puzzle pieces together, because I know what the picture is supposed to look like in the end, and I can see where the gaps are and look for the right pieces to fill them in.

Since the concept is working well for me on the job, I am now applying it to my life in general.  (Because that's how I roll.)

In my last post I mentioned defining some long-term goals for myself.  I'll be defining those in much the same way that my security controls framework is defined.  What are the critical things that I need to put in place in order to live a satisfying life?  In the past, I never mapped this out.  I just settled down after college, took a traditional life path and expected to stay on it and be reasonably happy, healthy, and comfortable.  But things change, people change, and I'm now in the unsettling situation of being involuntarily unsettled.  It has taken me a while to accept this, but the life I knew for so long does not exist anymore.  It is time to build a new one, and I am beginning to map out the specs.

I'm not going to force dramatic change on myself.  I have to keep my own "company culture" in mind, and ease myself into the framework once I have defined it.  And if I need to re-write some of the controls, so be it.  (Yeah, this compliance analogy is working for me at the moment.)

For that reason, I won't post "The List" here.  I'll find a way to make it visible and present in the background of my daily life (like the poster on my bulletin board) so I can refer to it when needed and keep my big picture in mind.

Defining Purpose...in more ways than one

A very wise man I know once said that fulfillment in life is not just about enjoying oneself or being happy, but about leaving behind something of lasting value. That led me to think about what my contribution to the world is, or will be.  I'm not presumptuous enough to say that this blog will be it.  Rather, I plan to use this blog as a venue for exploring that concept. 

I do like to think that my thoughts are occasionally worth sharing.  My writings in this space will be a combination of personal expression, philosophical reflection, and professional brainstorming.  Perhaps once in a while, someone will find some inspiration in them.  

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