Words of Bek: Resilience Leadership Confidence

By Becky Paroz

For the first time, a collection by international award winning author, Becky Paroz's writing is available in one book. Accomplished mentor, coach and senior manager in the male dominated world of construction, Becky has experienced all the highs and lows that come from being a driven, professional and passionate leader.
The author has also managed a severe critical illness for over 20 years while developing her successful career and these Words contain heartfelt lessons learnt on how to manage life and all its obstacles.
Growing up in a dysfunctional family with the challenge of domestic violence and abuse, this compilation is a how-to in overcoming the circumstances of one’s early environment and become a powerful leader in a demanding industry.
Containing content from anthologies developed with world leaders and also from a US based inspirational magazine, the style is hard hitting yet easily readable for those who wish to live their full potential.
Be inspired; laugh, cry, and be challenged by the Words of Bek.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Becky Paroz
• Release date: Oct 31, 2018
• ISBN: 9780648423621

Becky Paroz

BECKY PAROZ Author - Mentor - Leader QLD Project Management Achievement Award (Community Service) 2012 Professional Women’s Network International Literacy Award 2014 Professional Mentor 2010 - current Becky Paroz doesn’t fit in. She has worked for nearly 30 years in the construction industry, taking names and making one for herself. She loves her workboots, colours her hair purple and speaks loudly with a strong and confident voice. Bek makes her place in the world, she has never waited for a space to open for her. She wants to empower other high performers to reach their best and her book is filled with the wisdom she has learnt not only from her career, but her crazy life. The Words of Bek; is her first collection of non-fiction writing and captures her insights, journey, horror, and humour that encapsulates her life; including the solutions she found to live her life to the fullest. Her style is supportive, educational, conversational, practical, easy to read and designed to offer the lessons learnt throughout her tumultuous life for others to benefit from. Through childhood trauma, chronic pain due to a debilitating immuno- condition and the vast challenges of her career, Becky has never accepted anything less than achieving and surpassing her goals. She believes everyone needs the chance at a full life no matter the circumstances they were born into or grew up in. “I guess my writing is a way of hopefully reaching a much greater audience with knowledge than just that one-on-one. And that’s a way of bigger-picture mentoring; I like to think I’m contributing to the world” ~Becky Paroz, interview on Modern Mentoring with Australian Institute of Project Managers 2012 Having spent almost thirty years in the construction industry Becky Paroz has demonstrated her unique leadership abilities on some of the most demanding projects in the public and private sectors. As a successful Engineer and industry leading Project Manager she is a Director in three companies and a global professional mentor. With involvement in Graduate training programs and in-house workshops for many of her employers and clients; Becky’s formal training as a Performance Coach allows her to generate learning outcomes that create lasting change. Becky has been and continues to be a speaker at state and national industry conferences; she is a driving force for the development and integration of culture and systems for industry improvement. Delivering workshops that transcend lessons learnt and focus on the improvement of human capital in relation to project management and beyond. Becky is known for her use of humour to challenge status quo thinking and offering alternative views for consideration. She is motivated to pass on her lessons learnt to assist and educate the next generation of leaders to become high achievers like herself.

Book preview

Dedication

To the men who trained me, to the men who challenged me, to the men who supported me, the men who have no idea who I am, thanks for showing me the industry all those years ago. You had no idea of the consequences.

To the women I know who supported me, thanks for everything. Part of you exists within me and will always be a part of me for the influence, education. support and good times we have shared. Not to mention the plotting. And the drinking. While plotting. You all are my world.

To the women and men I don’t know, who struggle with their past and their future and themselves, this is for you.

PART I

This is a compilation of all my contributions to anthology books on leadership, resilience, confidence, and other such topics. An anthology of anthology parts as it were.

I have put them in a random order that (I think) makes more sense than the order I wrote them in. Feel free to taste at will and not read in any particular order. Be aware that some of the content may be confronting, even triggering, particularly if you have come from a dysfunctional family, or experience chronic illness or disability. I don’t go into details, but I don’t sugarcoat it. I also offer the way out – or at least my way out, which perhaps will help you find yours. A way out of your brain, your emotions; the traps that others have placed around your mind to make you think you deserve this.

You will find some repeats as the messages I relay (I think) have some merit in being repeated, depending on the nature of the book I was contributing to at the time. Some of the stories are anecdotal. I have perhaps includes something slightly different to what happened, altered the situation a little to maintain privacy, or remove some identifying comments. On the whole, they are generally true, in a based on a true story kind of way. I Have also made some slight grammar improvements since the first print.

I realised a while ago I have been writing all my life, journaling, poetry, and mostly in my work as a construction Project Manager - technical writing. It is a way of sharing practical ways of dealing with your shit, not just some trite phrase with a nice background that says just believe in yourself. If no one has ever shown you how that happens or what believing in yourself looks like, it is pretty hard to get it right the first thousand times.

I hope this helps you. Keep going. When no one else is around, I believe in you.

Are You A Superwoman?

A presentation for the PWN Conference 2014 held in Louisville, Kentucky, USA (by invitation)

This is the note set for my delivery, so they are a bit of a summary and may not read well. I recommend reading them, read the rest of the book, and then come back and read this chapter again – I promise it will make more sense then!

The image of superwoman has changed over the ages. In the 80’s era of emerging female power, the model was created in our minds of the first Supergirl from the movie of the same. She has appeared as early as the 1950’s in the comic version. Since then, we have used that trademark in various iteration to describe women.

We have the character Supergirl™ in the red and blue with that cute little flip skirt and boots.

We have supermom – the ultimate baker, maker, creator, cleaner, teacher, well kept housewife image that greets a new vacuum cleaner at Christmastime with joy. Also a product of 1950’s advertising and sadly still used today as the picture of the perfect mum.

We have the business power superwoman – she of the killer suit and heels, lipstick and stockings, career and family perfectly balanced to create a happy and fulfilling life. Her rise started fully in movies from around the 1980’s where women joined the boardroom in deadly but stylish shoulder-pads.

These are all fantasies created for us by advertisers, of both personnel and professional beauty standards, or standards of perfection that are not able to be achieved by anyone, least of all the man that dreamt up the images. If you are a mom, you use the best of baking equipment to whip up cupcakes any old time for your children and their friends because you always have time to do that, don’t you?

If you are a business women, you house is immaculate and clean, just waiting for that evening soiree that you cater for by cooking everything yourself in all your free time. Because you have so much of it of course.

Who here knows the real truth?

The one where the career woman has business paperwork, and maybe clothes scattered all over the place because she is always working and never has the time to get truly organized at home.

The mom that doesn’t bake because she can’t find the time between grocery shopping, cleaning, mending, ironing, schooling, delivery to numerous after school clubs, washing the dog; and is lucky to find anything other than a butter knife to ice those cupcakes because she is doing three other things at the same time.

These failures to live up to the dream, such as they are, consist of often small things that build until you want to scream… or cry….. or both…… We have this mental image that comes from asking can we have it all?, and knowing the answer is yes, but the solution isn’t anywhere as simple.

We measure ourselves by what we see in magazines and advertising against what we have. We often fall short of this glossy, immaculate image, because why? Because it is not real, any more than the superheroine of the movie is.

These pictures are carefully and artfully created and controlled to elicit these specific types of responses from us, but what if we stopped listening? What if we just stopped buying into the story that we are told, day in and day out, that we must have these things, achieve these measures, meet these standards, that provide our worth to society and we decided to create our own standards of measurement.

What if our image of the superwoman was taken back from the marketers and put in the hands of real women? If we nominated a figure of superwoman today, how would she appear to us?

What then would a superwoman look like? Act like? What would today’s superwomen truly be like – if real women created her?

Some of you might already have some samples of who you would nominate as a superwoman.

Categories for the Title of Superwoman

1. Clothing – Remember As Long as I Wear it With Style ….

Does superwoman really need a costume? Or is she just too busy being superwoman to worry too much about what she wears? Is she out there achieving her goals, or getting the costume to the dry cleaners before the next big crisis? We know which one is real.

If she is a superwoman in the construction industry, she doesn’t have time for dresses, she wears boots, jeans and high visibility clothing that does not look flattering on anyone. But she doesn’t care, because the role she succeeds in is more important than how she looks.

Does the superwoman at home always iron her outfit for the day, freshly pressed to ensure she can just whip it on when she gets a call on the mom-phone for an emergency pick-up and delivery somewhere that has just been remembered? Or does she just get in the car in whatever she happens to be wearing and get her children to safety, or the local choir, on time?

Either role, she doesn’t need killer heels every time, a briefcase over her shoulder; a baking pan and wooden spoon in her hand. She needs a few important things like attitude, confidence and stature; standing strong in her environment, whether it be armed with a cardi(gan) or a cape; facing the situation at hand no matter, her inner armour is assured in her own abilities.

2.Super Powers – Portfolio of Abilities

Make a list…. Take one minute to make a quick list of top 3 superpowers that you would love to have in your life right now. You can write more than 3, but for now, GO.

Examples include – organization, time management, cook extraordinaire, event manager, safe driver, the ability to put a straight crease in a garment with an iron!

3.Situations – Happen Every Day, and I mean, EVERY DAY

There is always something to have a drama about it. Especially if you look for it. Smile whenever possible. Because it makes a difference to you, not necessarily to everyone else, and that is okay. Not everyone will ever agree on the correct path at any given time if it is dramatic enough, however you are not stopping a building falling down, catching a train by flying to it and landing on the roof, you are not usually in life threatening situations. Many situations just need management and time, 2 things that don’t go hand in hand very well, no matter it children or board members; every women has the ability to make great decisions without realising it and needs to take the time out to enjoy her life in between the rest of her life.

4.Solutions – Trampolining is not for Everyone.

We know our superheroine could fly, but we also know, through the wonders of modern media delivery, how better we can create something that looks like flying. We all know the phrase fake it until you make it, but let’s face it, we know that behind the scenes our super lady used a trampoline to get some extra lift because she was pretty tired all the time in her busy, busy (crazy) life. Both the movie person and you know this to be true

You make instant decisions on the go while juggling a full time family, career, both, working towards a goal, a personal event in health that has become all consuming; a sudden change in circumstance; life happening every day in fact.

You reaches into your briefcase/nappy bag, grab a skill, one sharply honed from many uses and in finely tuned condition and make things happen because they need to happen. It may not be life changing every time, but all the smaller times, the ones you think don’t count, absolutely do make a difference. You make decisions all the time, so stop doubting yourself, every time. Please.

Practice in just knowing that you have that superpower, the power of decision, whether it is one you have put on your list from earlier or not and stop trampolining over your own sense of self, your decision making ability, and have a little faith in what you can (and have) achieved already in your life.

So when faced with a decision, just make it with the knowledge that you have then and there. Second guessing and third guessing and stressing and stressing, do not get you anywhere. You can stop dressing up for others and put something you want on, take off a costume or a label you don’t like; make a new decision based on new information, try an updated costume, change superpower gears and continue on your journey.

Decisions come up along the way. Don’t try and buy the time before hand with needless worry, because how you pay for it is with your comfort and your happiness.

5.Action – Flying Safely

You know that making decisions is only half the story. The other half is the action required to see it through. Whether wearing an apron for a BBQ, a business coat for the meeting, a flour covered housedress while baking; juggling a wooden spoon, mobile phone, mixing bowl and engineering plans; while organizing school camp, the next monthly budget report, creating a birthday cake, while setting up the latest science project due; herding dogs with your feet, children with your elbows; greeting a husband welcome home and sending that email; you are doing it.

It may not look elegant; it may not be pretty; it may seem ridiculous watching from afar to another being; it may hurt and it may not look like that all the time either; however it does feel like this, some of the time, for all of us, in whatever our situation is.

So today’s superwomen are the women in this audience; the women who helped put this conference together; the women who will work in the hotel and cater to us during our stay; the women who are nurturing and raising the next generation of leaders for our world; the women who are in hospital recovering from life-saving surgery and the women who are helping them to recover; women everywhere around our world are the picture we need to have of the ultimate Super-Woman, because it is all of us that will make our community truly global if we can but see the superpowers in others and work together.

Now go back to your list of superpowers and maybe think about what else you would like to add and go ahead and write it. You already have it, but sometimes it feels good to acknowledge it and be supported in that knowledge. Celebrate with someone today about what your powers are and how good it feels to tell yourself that you are a superwoman just as you are.

The Secret Language of Men

First Published in 2013: The Female Leader: Empowerment, Confidence & Passion.

Do you understand the men in your life and do they understand you? If you had access to their language, would you be able to work on a greater understanding between the two genders within your circle of influence? You might ask why should I learn their language? Why not? If you learn their language, you have a better ability to teach them the language of women.

Despite the fact that we make up more than 50% of the population (females, I mean), we seem to use that fact in a way that negates, somehow, the other nearly 50% are male. I am not about to go bashing on about some crusade for any particular side of a gender war. I have worked with men, in the male dominated world of construction, for nearly 30 years. I am a manager in that world, at an age where many man have not made it as far as I have. I have intimate experiences of managing men, speaking their language, and using my knowledge to challenge them in their world. It works. Let me share with you one of the secrets I have discovered.

This chapter title came about for two reasons. I was attending, and presenting, at a conference about women’s issues in the Pacific area and was completely outside of my usual audience both in conference topics for myself, and my industry relevant experience. My topic was an alternative to the heavily academic programme. As the keynote speaker delivered her introduction, she revealed a rather curious suggestion, to me anyway, apparently not so much a surprise to her audience (first clue), that men are taught a secret language – one that women are not privy to – and to the agreement showed by the nodding of the audience, she proceeded to enlarge on the idea that until women knew the language of the board room (the secret language) they would never get close to the equality that had been sought for years in the gender argument.

I am not going to discuss the idea of equality but rather language, the barrier, invisible though it may be, that effectively bars the way for exchange in many circumstances, particularly between men and women, that I have been uniquely placed to observe over the many years of my career.

The second reason is observation of my female friends around me, as I watch their relationship unfold and expand, and their reactions to an issue that is different to the way men react in the same circumstance.

What if we had a common language that we can discuss all the issues about life, the universe and everything (thank you Douglas Adams). If we had this, it could result in a common level of understanding about what it is to be a unique person (non gender relevant) in a common environment, how to develop the coping mechanisms to deal with the common environment, to become common in a unique environment.

Part of the language of men is the language of ‘risk’. As I work in a high risk environment, this is a basis that everyone around me works from. The intrinsic part of the language that men have is the risk management protocols that they follow, almost instinctively. It is a process that reduces unknowns to measurable outcomes and tracks the benefits realised. It starts with looking at a hazard – the possibility of something negative happening to you or your environment. It then measures the likelihood – how often will it happen – and the consequences – should it happen, how bad will be it be? This measurement then allows a distinction between dangerous (high risk) and acceptable (low risk).

Based on that distinction, it then guides the team to focus on what the big issues are, and let the smaller things be dealt with at a local level, or by a less rigorous process of risk mitigation. Visually, the information is represented similar to the figure below.

Figure 1: Sample Risk Matrix used to measure the combination of likelihood and consequence.

If I translate that into a meaning for you, instead of a project team, that might be useful to apply to your life, it would state that if we can reduce the level of drama (likelihood) to enhance the exchange of ideas, beliefs, concepts and experiences (consequence) in the work environment, home etc., we would have a common language to discuss, analyse and manage issues that occur in day to day lives.

In case you are wondering, I use this process every day in my decision making. In my experience, so do most men, even if they don’t use the same language of risk I am using, the thought process is similar.

Let me enlarge upon my background while setting up my story for you all to enjoy.

I studied engineering, being good at math and science, so began a long career, with many an adventure, in the male dominated world of construction, engineering, mining, etc. You know, man stuff. Really cool buildings and bridges, blowing up big piles of dirt and rock, build rooms to hold intense fires in order to melt coal and create electricity.