I was excited because a colleague of mine was hosting a Tweet Chat with Barbara Corcoran, a self-made billionaire real estate investor who began as a waitress. Being an active Twitter fan I was looking forward to sharing comments and thoughts and meeting fellow entrepreneurs online.
Fifteen minutes into the chat, Barbara tweeted that she was going to turn it over to another host. I thought she was leaving so tweeted, "Enjoyed chatting." Whoops, she wasn't leaving, just stepping out of the spotlight, still active in the chat. That wasn't clear to me.
As the questions flew by, fast and furiously, and answers were coming equally fast, Barbara mentioned work-life balance and commented that she put a wall between her work and her family life. I chimed in with my philosophy that there is no work-life balance, only work-life fusion.
A tweet is only 140 characters; it can make explanations a bit challenging and forces a unique succinctness and clarity of communication. When I added to that stream of conversation that it's about dropping the masks and costumes most people wear to work and instead showing up as your authentic self in all you do, Barbara tweeted, "I need a translator."
Oops, I wasn't clear. It was a valuable lesson and push for me to clarify my philosophy (based on current research), and helped me realize that without clarity Barbara wasn't the only one who wasn't understanding me.
