Introducing Me

My Values

Key values of mine are empathy, creativity, integrity and connection. These help to shape the choices I make, the way I act and how I spend my time. My parenting journey has been a huge journey in learning about just who I am and what I stand for. Children are amazing mirrors helping to show us who we are, what has shaped us and where we fall short of our own values or understanding of ourselves in our actions. This journey has also led me to find groups with others with similar values which has helped me recognise and grown in the areas that are aligned with my values, such as La Leche League and Active Birth which both has a group ethos about supporting others where they are at with empathy and recognising that through connection and support people thrive. I grew up in an academic culture where a lot of value was placed on end products, where what you presented at the end and how you presented it was the most important thing. Yet over time have really come to value process over product when it comes to education, learning and creativity. There is so much to learn in the process of creating a thing and sometimes it gets nowhere but the magic really read what happened in the middle and how those involved learnt and grew.

My Strengths

According to All Rights Strength Finder (find it here) my top five strengths are kindness, humour, creativity, gratitude and fairness. I checked in with a couple of friends to see if they thought that these were a good fit and they also agreed which was helpful! These strengths could support me in my learning journey as I will be able to use humour and gratitude to help keep myself going when things get tough for me. Creativity will support me when looking for solutions to problems. Kindness and fairness will help with working alongside others on this journey, and ideally I will also manage to apply both of them to myself when I am finding things difficult.

My Limitations

When looking at the bottom of my Strength Finder list I scored lowest in the qualities of prudence, spirituality, perseverance, leadership, and self-regulation. I feel like the perseverance does not quite fit here and is because some of the questions asked about finishing what started, and there are definitely plenty of crafty pursuits that I have started and then they are waiting on me patiently. I feel that when it comes to sticking at things that are tough kind of perseverance I have that. The others however are very valid, which was backed up again when checking in with others in my life. Although it was pointed out that while I shy way from leadership, that I do plenty of leading from behind (see my testimonial from Hone here, just be aware he is a writer so it is quite lengthy!). Self-regulation and leadership are the limitations with the most likelihood of impacting on my learning journey as working with others in a peer to peer way it will be most beneficial for me to not always defer to others to lead or drive the process, but instead for it to be that sometimes I take the lead on things. Self-regulation can have an impact in that sometimes I can get carried away in activities and forget to stop and eat, or can sink more time into an activity than it really merits. Another way this can be a limitation is when it comes to emotional regulations, as sometimes I can have a tendency to feel things bigger than really need to be at first than wind it back as I work through those feelings, which could come into play when struggling with difficult work or challenging group dynamics.

Putting it in Action

Following my moral and ethical compass

An example of a time where I made an ethical decision was when I was boarding with a friend while looking for a new rental and they suggested that we tell WINZ I was paying one amount for board so they would pay me more accommodation supplement, but that in reality I only pay her half of that amount, so that my budget would be easier to manage. I considered her offer, but at the end of the day my value of integrity and my moral compass just did not sit right with their suggestion so I went back to them and said thank you for the offer but I do not feel comfortable doing that. Making that call did feel difficult as I did not want to feel like in saying no I was judging them or not appreciating their attempt to support me, but it would have felt worse doing anything else. Going back I would make the same decision.

When things get tricky

An example of when I was trying to work productively with others but there was resistance was in a savings pool I was part of where there were differing ideas about how to operate. Tension arose when some wanted to approve all loans if there was funds in the account at this moment without to much attention paid to the security of the loans, where as I and some others wanted to ensure that we were doing due diligence with security for the loans and looking forward to make sure that we were not going to be in a situation that we would not have money in the account for scheduled outgoings later on. At the time I tried looking at their perspective with curiosity to find out what was behind it and see if I could apply it to my perspective more, so I asked questions and also pondered in my own time to help with this. Through this I discovered that the others had a strong want to be focused on the present and to trust others as their baseline which I could really understand, but at the same time I realised that for me I felt a strong sense of responsibility for those who had put their savings in the account and safeguarding their money and also their right to access the money when they told us they would need to. There was a lot of discussion had around how we wanted to operate and what the values of the group were and why, trying to find a way that respected both positions as much as possible.

Image of an outline of a head created by strings

Testimonial for Laura Richards

I was going to write a standard testimonial, like “Hello, I’m writing in reference to Laura Richards, I’ve know Laura for many years, and she’s totally awesome. She’s totally good at all the things, and she’d be totally amazing at whatever it is you need her to do.” But I decided to do it a bit differently, because that’s what Laura would do. I first met Laura about 5 years ago? Is that right Laura? Something like that anyway. We’d known each other through a group of families we had in common. I knew her kids, she knew mine. But we never really got to know each other until a difficult event happened in Laura’s life. I wrote to her offering support, and she said yes. Not like “Thanks for the offer”, or “That’s kind of you”, or “Maybe” but “Yes”. Who does that? It turns out Laura does that. I was taken aback, and not really sure how to respond. Because, who does that? I should have known then that Laura was going to be different.

Laura is a complicated person, like a seafood chowder. Like full of lots of different flavours and ideas, that you wouldn’t think would work together, but that create something wonderful. 1 She gentle and strong, opinionated and open minded. Intelligent and caring. And I get that none of those parings are mutually exclusive, but I’ve found that they do not often go well together, and yet, Laura. I’ve seen her build and grow the connections she needed for her business in an individualised and considerate way. Adapting to the needs of her clients, and their children. Leveraging her experience, her training, and her intuition2 to create bespoke solutions to their problems. Always considering all the people involved, and their needs, so her solutions are equitable to all involved. I’ve seen her go out of her way to help people, friends, family, and strangers. I’ve watched her stand up to people who are not behaving as well as they could, holding them to the required standard. And I’ve seen her gently guide people, child and adult, through their crises. Offering support and advice as and when they needed. She gets people.

She sees things most don’t see and has a depth of experience beyond her years. She’s navigated through more growth and change in the 5 years I’ve known her than most people decades older. And has guided her growth and the growth of her children through all of it better than I thought possible. I’ve learned more from her and been guided more in my own growth than I could have imagined. Both by example and by gentle encouragement.

I think her greatest strengths are in her creativity and attention to detail. Her open mindedness and flexibility. And her caring. There are few people I’ve met who care as much, for as many, as Laura does. I have rarely felt as supported and seen as I have in her company. She communicates well and holds space for others. Her creativity is not just artistic, but also in problem solving. Leveraging her intelligence and experience to find solutions, and guide those around her to those solutions. I don’t know if she would call herself a leader, but I’ve seen her organise and take control of situations that the official leader is letting get out of hand. And I’ve seen experienced leaders put her in charge of critical responsibilities after knowing her for only a short time. It’s a quiet, supportive, gap filling kind of leadership from within.

Laura’s values are grounded in, but not constrained by the normal social cultural mores we all share. She has the usual good moral stuff, obey the laws, be nice to people etc. But they are not unconsidered, close minded, or slavish beliefs. But instead, a considered and reconsidered evaluation of the sense of these mores. And I’ve frequently witnessed her widening her horizons and adjusting her beliefs as required when evidence in her life proves re-evaluation is necessary. She is not afraid of change, or a challenge. She drives changes in her own life with determination and courage. She meets challenges head on and does not back down in the face of adversity. She is tenacious and committed in reaching her goals and the goals of those she is working with. In short, she’s super and I’m better for knowing her.

Hone Rata
1 In all honesty, I’m not really a fan of seafood chowder, but it’s a great metaphor. And I am a fan of a great metaphor.

2 I don’t mean intuition in a spiritual sense, more her ability to pull all her experience and observations together to leap to inspired solutions

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