Want to know a secret about Syd? She makes white tea-stained jeans look good.
Maybe ten minutes after we sat down at the Vendome Cafe, in Kensington, with our food and drinks, Syd reaches for a sip of her Earl Grey Latte, and instead the whole cup spills all over her pants.
I grab a towel from the baristas up front and we try to soak up as much of the tea from the table, the floor, the booth, and, of course, her pants. How one single cup of tea can cover so much surface area is beyond me.
"I'm sorry. We can reschedule if you want to go home and change," I tell her over and over, as she wrings tea out of her shirt.
"No, no. It's okay. I'll be fine. This is so typical of me. I'm going to come home and Sean's going to see me and say 'Of course you did.' "
As much as I would never wish for anyone to sit through a coffee date while feeling like they're sitting in a puddle, I gained two pieces of insight about Syd at the Vendome that I probably would have learnt regardless, but the tea-stained pants really drive the metaphor home.
Syd is committed. Not only did she sit through an hour of answering my questions while secretly dreaming of a shower and dry clothes, she's made a commitment to her goals, as well.
"I'm sitting on the porch of my home in California, drinking a cup of tea, watching the sun set, and feeling content." While Syd talks about her vision I sit with my chin in my hands, gazing admiringly off into the distance where her life is going to be. "I know that there's music and laughter in my home. There's a feeling of love and connectedness. I'm fine with the close of the day."
I was so wrapped up in the perfection of her vision - I would not say no to beginning and ending my day in California - that I could have foregone the rest of my questions and just talked with her about our futures. But the questions remained. What goals will she achieve to land her in that tranquil spot on the porch of her Californian home?
"Well, my Master's, obviously." And, for those who don't know, Syd was recently accepted into the Master's of Leadership at Royal Roads University. "My goal is to finish at the top 5% of my class, which will be a challenge for me."
Hard to believe it now, but Syd claims not to have done well in school. What's easy to believe, though, is that she will finish her Master's at the top of her class; she will manage a lululemon in California; and she will run a Leadership Development Company.
"I want my company to contract out to other companies. The idea of sitting in a coffee shop anywhere in the world to work on my laptop, or to work from home, makes me very happy. Better than sitting in some stuffy office."
Syd has been with the company for a few years, now. She left and came back, switched stores a couple of times, settling in with us at Chinook, but while she may have jumped around a bit, her goal within the company has been the same. Store Manager. This is what I mean when I say she's committed. She saw what she wanted and did whatever she had to to make it happen.
"I surrounded myself with people who put me into action," Syd explained, "I spent a lot of time with the people whose role I wanted. Jill White and Lindsay White O'Neill, for example. These were the people who held me accountable for my development and integrity."
Aaah, yes. That's another thing. Insight #2. On Thursday, the day before I met with Syd, I went to Yoga with Anna and I confessed how nervous I was about the interview. "She's just so perfect, you know? She's so cool, and she's got it all figured out." When I professed this to Syd, she laughed and gestured to her soaking wet pants as if that proved she was the exact opposite of cool.
"I perceive you as a very confident person," I told her, "Where do you get it from?"
"I wasn't always confident," she admitted, to my surprise. "I flew under the radar at school. I wasn't so bad at school that I attracted attention, but I wasn't really good, either. I coasted. But I didn't think I was that smart. I didn't have a lot of conviction in what I had to say."
That's such a shift from how I think of Syd. To me, everything she says, she says with conviction. But it all goes back to who she surrounded herself with. She finds inspiration in everyone in her life: Sean, her mom, her co-workers. And all these people told her enough times, "You're smart. What you have to say is smart," that it finally brought the confidence out in her and it brought us the Syd we know and love. The Syd who is confident enough in herself to sit for an hour with soaking wet pants. The Syd who is confident enough to power through an uncomfortable situation.
When I told Anna about my nervousness, she nodded in agreement. "I know what you mean. She is cool, and she seems to have it all figured out. But don't you think that maybe the reason why she always passes that knowledge on to us is because she was in a position once where she had to learn it, too?"
It's interesting that Anna said that, because when I asked Syd how she considered herself an inspiration to others, she had it was her ability to share and connect with others what she'd learnt and her awareness of her life around her. The fact that her answer was so similar to Anna's means that she was right on the mark. It also means that Syd has as much to learn as the rest of us. I admired Syd because I thought she knew everything, but now I admire her more because she doesn't. But she still learns new things like a pro. She takes all her experiences in with a kind of grace and certainty that had me believe she knew it all before.
This is why she's a natural leader. This is why she will have that house filled with family and laughter and a porch facing sunset. She teaches us it doesn't matter if you spill tea all over you pants; what matters is the way you deal with it afterwards when you do.
"If you look close enough, there is inspiration in everything." - Syd G.
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