Welcome to the sixth edition of Traveling Light, Selby Group's free newsletter.  Traveling Light© is a newsletter exploring how those blessed with the talent and opportunity to lead can be more effective and lighten the load inherent in their lives, based on the work of management consultant Jennifer Selby Long. Copyright 2007 Jennifer Selby Long. All rights reserved.

News

Since its inception 10 months ago, subscriptions to Traveling Light have grown an amazing 30%. Many thanks to each of you who forward this newsletter to others. Keep sharing the love…

Oops.  A correction from last month’s newsletter – I’ll be teaching Coaching for Performance in the UC-Berkeley Extension Management program, not the HR program, March 15 and 22.  If you want to be a better coach and manager of coaching resources, stay tuned for the link.  The classes will be held at the downtown San Francisco campus.  There will be very little theory and tons of practice. 

Those of you who’ve wanted to apply your Myers-Briggs learning at home will enjoy Opposites Attract -- And Live to Tell About It, a panel of Type-savvy couples sharing the secrets of how they use psychological Type in their relationships.  February 9, 2008, 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. at the Hilton Garden Inn, 2000 Bridgepointe Circle, San Mateo.  BAAPT charges a mere $25 per person, including a continental breakfast. More information is available at baapt.org.

Happy Holidays

Ah vinter!  När tankar vänder till…oh, wait a minute…this is the English-language newsletter.  I can’t help myself.  This time of year, my thoughts turn to Sweden, land of my maternal ancestors, and I spend two or three weeks going nuts over Swedish phrases, decorations, and food. 

One of my favorite Swedish holiday traditions is the celebration of the Italian Roman Catholic Saint Lucia.  I’ll spare you the gory details of Lucia’s martyrdom. What I love about the Swedish celebration is the charming quirkiness of a pagan-turned-agnostic Scandinavian nation becoming so enthralled with an Italian Catholic Saint – to such an extent that her holiday is now more closely associated with Sweden than with Italy, where she’s just one of a zillion saints, I assume.

Every year, young teens and girls dressed as Sankta Lucia sing cute, cheery songs and give out saffron-flavored buns in a figure-eight shape, inexplicably called luciakattor, meaning “Lucia cats.”

Lucia wears a crown of candles, symbolizing light and hope in the throes of a long, dark Nordic winter. The Sankta Lucia song is so lovely, I get tears in my eyes when I hear it. 

It’s been more than a dozen years since I struggled through an actual winter, but as I hear this song, I find myself imagining what it must have meant to people hundreds of years ago to see this heavenly image, vitklädd med ljus i hår (“white clad, with lights in her hair”) in the middle of what was truly a bleak mid-winter, with nothing but firelight and candles to get through much of the dark day and all of the freezing night.

Brrrr.  I’m glad may ancestors moved here.

On that note, I most heartily wish you “Lyckliga Ferier till min vänner!” (“Happy Holidays to my friends!”)