“Until you value yourself, you won’t value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it.” M. Scott Peck

People call me the time whisperer. I am obsessed with the meaning, power, and magic of time. Each week in this space, I will give you something to learn, think about, and practice so that you could become a time whisperer, too!

I have a dear friend from my graduate school days who was born in Los Angeles but raised within a South American family culture. She talks with hands, punctuates every conversation with easy laughter, and has long glossy brown hair halfway down her back.

She invited my husband and me to dinner, to join her and her family for an outdoor BBQ in the final week of summer. She gave me the time to arrive, 7:00. My husband, the linear left-brained engineer, calculated the exact time we needed to leave our house to make it to her neighborhood by 7:10. We left…you guessed it…right on time.

At 7:00, I received a call. My friend asked me where we were. I told her that we were about ten minutes away and could we pick up anything on our way? There was an uneasy silence on the line.

“Look, I’m sorry,” she said. “But we’re nowhere ready for guests. Could you pull over and park and wait just a bit?”

“No problem, how long do you need?” I thought, maybe five minutes. I’m sure we could amuse ourselves for five minutes, right?

“Forty-five minutes,” she said. “We need forty-five minutes more. If you could come at 8:00 or even 8:15, that would be better.”

We got caught, all of us, in a cultural time warp.

My husband and I, with our mid-Western parents, were raised in a monochronic way of perceiving and valuing time where time is seen as a valuable commodity to be contained, scheduled, and well-managed. Do one thing at a time, get it checked off your list. Get where you need to go prepared…and on time (of course).

But other cultures, the Latin American culture, but also African, Asian, and some Arab cultures, view time very differently. Time is fluid with a polychronic perception. There is more emphasis on tradition and relationships than on following a strict structure of time. Do multiple things simultaneously and stop everything for a good conversation. You’ll get where you need to be…when you get there.

Here’s my question for you today. Think of your family of origin. What was the cultural time perception? Did it fit your natural in-born inclination? Have you ever worked in an environment where there was a mis-match (e.g., a monochronic boss trying to unsuccessfully wrangle a polychronic employee)? List three ways that your cultural time framework has impacted your life…