I want to tell you a story about a miracle—a miracle of acting NOW to tell a loved one how much you care. During my women’s retreat two weeks ago, a woman who is together and bright and successful realized that one of the most important things missing from her life was her relationship with her sister. We talked for a while about what had caused them to drift apart and then envisioned a re-connection with meaning and depth.
This woman, we’ll call her Susan, had been busy raising her two boys (who are now grown), focusing on her career, and going about life as we all do, getting through each week intact. What she hadn’t done is to take a moment to step back and really look at her whole life and take stock of what was missing. Given time for reflection and the space to really check in with herself, Susan realized how deeply she cared about her sister and having a relationship her. So I challenged her to call her sister that moment and reach out. Her response was, “Now? You mean right now?” “Yes, right now”, was my reply.
Susan called her sister and had a conversation with her, sharing her hopes that they could re-establish the closeness that they had experienced in the past and they set a date in the near future to spend a day together. A sense of relief and hope was immediately apparent in Susan. It was obvious that she felt personally powerful for taking a stand for what is important to her.
Five days later Susan called me early in the morning with tears in her voice to tell me that her sister, who was fifty-nine, had died during the night of a massive heart attack. She had been at the hospital all night and was in shock and overwhelmed by grief, but Susan was also feeling a profound sense of gratitude that she had reached out before it was too late. They never got to spend their day together, but they had re-connected and that’s a memory Susan will always have. And she will not have the regret of wishing she had taken action and didn’t do it.
If you have someone whom you care about and with whom you have lost a meaningful relationship, don’t wait. Pick up the phone right now, yes, right now! Tell them you miss them and that you want to find a way to be close again. If they don’t respond positively, at least you will have done your part to reconnect and rebuild and you can live regret-free.
Reflection Questions:
1. Who do you care about, but have lost a meaningful connection with?
2. What is preventing you from reaching out?
3. If you knew that person was going to die tomorrow, would it give you the impetus to call?
This may sound macabre, but now imagine being at that person’s funeral, never having made the effort to reconnect. How do you feel? Don’t waste another minute. Take action now.
It took courage for Susan to pick up the phone and call her sister, but the miracle is that she did.How to Avoid Making the Biggest Mistake of Your Life
May 12th, 2012
I want to tell you a story about a miracle—a miracle of acting NOW to tell a loved one how much you care. During my women’s retreat two weeks ago, a woman who is together and bright and successful realized that one of the most important things missing from her life was her relationship with her sister. We talked for a while about what had caused them to drift apart and then envisioned a re-connection with meaning and depth.
This woman, we’ll call her Susan, had been busy raising her two boys (who are now grown), focusing on her career, and going about life as we all do, getting through each week intact. What she hadn’t done is to take a moment to step back and really look at her whole life and take stock of what was missing. Given time for reflection and the space to really check in with herself, Susan realized how deeply she cared about her sister and having a relationship her. So I challenged her to call her sister that moment and reach out. Her response was, “Now? You mean right now?” “Yes, right now”, was my reply.
Susan called her sister and had a conversation with her, sharing her hopes that they could re-establish the closeness that they had experienced in the past and they set a date in the near future to spend a day together. A sense of relief and hope was immediately apparent in Susan. It was obvious that she felt personally powerful for taking a stand for what is important to her.
Five days later Susan called me early in the morning with tears in her voice to tell me that her sister, who was fifty-nine, had died during the night of a massive heart attack. She had been at the hospital all night and was in shock and overwhelmed by grief, but Susan was also feeling a profound sense of gratitude that she had reached out before it was too late. They never got to spend their day together, but they had re-connected and that’s a memory Susan will always have. And she will not have the regret of wishing she had taken action and didn’t do it.
If you have someone whom you care about and with whom you have lost a meaningful relationship, don’t wait. Pick up the phone right now, yes, right now! Tell them you miss them and that you want to find a way to be close again. If they don’t respond positively, at least you will have done your part to reconnect and rebuild and you can live regret-free.
Reflection Questions:
1. Who do you care about, but have lost a meaningful connection with?
2. What is preventing you from reaching out?
3. If you knew that person was going to die tomorrow, would it give you the impetus to call?
This may sound macabre, but now imagine being at that person’s funeral, never having made the effort to reconnect. How do you feel? Don’t waste another minute. Take action now.
It took courage for Susan to pick up the phone and call her sister, but the miracle is that she did.Are You Ignoring These 5 Signs of Burnout?
April 28th, 2012
You are the only you there is. These are tough times in which your co-workers may be being eliminated even as we speak. You may now be doing two and a half jobs and you’re worried that you may be next. And, to coin a popular buzz word, you need to have renewable energy, not be a burned out husk, totally depleted and unable to muster the resilience to get through the next crisis at the office or home. You need to protect the resource that is you—for your family, your career, and your long term health.
Most of us have experienced short term sprints where we just have to gut it out until the project is finished or we’ve completed a personal transition like moving. But what happens when we’ve been sprinting so long that its become a pattern, a habit; yes, even an addiction (definition: anything we are powerless to stop). When that happens we may be in denial or simply too numb to notice. Are you approaching burn out? Here are the burn-out warning signs:
1. Fatigue—the continuous kind that causes you to wake up tired and crave caffeine
2. Tunnel vision—you are so focused on just getting the next task done, that you miss seeing the big picture, the systems view, or opportunities to creatively solve problems
3. Low fulfillment—there is no sense of reward or meaning even when you have significant accomplishments
4. Depersonalization—you have lost empathy for others and completely miss cues regarding their needs, feelings, and humanity
5. Lack of enjoyment—you are MIA even when you have time off and find it difficult to be truly present an
d enjoy leisure activities
If you are experiencing even two of the five warning signs listed above, you are flirting with burn out and the possibility of damaging relationships, your job, or your health.
So how do you protect the resource that is you? The first step is to take a look in the mirror and acknowledge the slippery slope you’re on. If you’re feeling like this guy, trust me, you’re there.
The second step is designing a recovery plan. Please click here to refer to my previous post, "Do You Know Where Your Reset Buttons Are", for suggestions to get started.
Prevention is obviously the best medicine, so identify your reset buttons and make them a part of your regular routine. You have everything to gain and only your “self” to lose.
Reflection Questions
1. On a scale of 1-10, what is your level of renewable energy? (1-you wake up exhausted, 10-you wake up rested and looking forward to your day)
2. What is your current level of life fulfillment? Enjoyment?
3. What one thing could you do differently today that would permanently interrupt the pattern toward burnout? What is your level of commitment (1-10) to taking that action? Eat the Biggest Frog First!
April 14th, 2012
"An average person who develops the habit of setting clear priorities and getting important tasks completed quickly will run circles around a genius who talks a lot and makes wonderful plans, but gets very little done."
Brian Tracy
Eat That Frog!
In his simple yet powerful book, Eat That Frog!, Brian Tracy shares the wisdom of unstoppable success with us. His formula is one you are familiar with:
In his simple yet powerful book, Eat That Frog!, Brian Tracy shares the wisdom of unstoppable success with us. His formula is one you are familiar with:
- Be a hundred percent clear about your goals—the things you care most deeply about accomplishing.
- Write them down—only about three percent of adults have written goals and they accomplish five to ten times as much as their equally educated and talented peers who don’t bother to write their goals.
- Set timelines—if you don’t they are still just ideas.
- Make a plan with prioritized actions—this prevents indecision and wasting time later.
- Take action—do something right now, today. Actions can be adjusted as you go along, but, if you don’t start, your plan is just a wish list.
- What is your habitual level of procrastination? (1-10)
- What is the level of clarity of your goals? (1-10)
- What is the resistance you have to writing your goals and how might you overcome it?
- What is your biggest, ugliest frog? Will you eat it today?
“The Problem with Communication is…
March 30th, 2012
the illusion that it has occurred.”
This is a favorite quote of a friend of mine. This week I must have had ten occasions to say it to myself or others. Why is it that we think we have made ourselves clear, or we think the other person/s have heard and understood, and that simply isn’t the case? Here is my hypothesis.
Much of the time we operate in ADD (attention deficit disorder) mode. If you look at the totality of your attention on the speaker and her message as a pie chart, it’s easy to graphically portray how your concentration is split most of the time. It might look something like this. 
When we’re really busy or in overwhelm, there could be many more pieces in the pie, all just slivers of concentration.
It appears here that during this conversation, the speaker gets about 55-60% of the listener’s attention. That doesn’t sound too bad, right? But here’s what actually happens. As the speaker is talking, the listener’s mind jumps to the meeting with the boss or the sick child for ten, twenty, or even thirty seconds. In that time, the listener blanks out the words and meaning being transmitted. Most listeners do not say, “Sorry, my mind wandered, can you please repeat what you just said”. Instead, we nod, smile or give some signal that we are listening. We actually pretend to listen. In that moment, the illusion referred to in the quote above occurs.
What’s the antidote? It’s obvious, just not easy. We can all develop the habit/discipline of increasing our attention on the speaker and the meaning of their words by truly focusing. By paying attention the message, body language, facial expressions, pauses, tone of voice and what’s not being said, we can ramp up our concentration. When other thoughts come in and our mind wanders, we simply re-focus on what the person is saying and what they are trying to convey. And if we do wander, the remedy is there. Be truthful and say, “I’m sorry, I missed that last piece, could you repeat it please?”
Reflection questions:
When we’re really busy or in overwhelm, there could be many more pieces in the pie, all just slivers of concentration.
It appears here that during this conversation, the speaker gets about 55-60% of the listener’s attention. That doesn’t sound too bad, right? But here’s what actually happens. As the speaker is talking, the listener’s mind jumps to the meeting with the boss or the sick child for ten, twenty, or even thirty seconds. In that time, the listener blanks out the words and meaning being transmitted. Most listeners do not say, “Sorry, my mind wandered, can you please repeat what you just said”. Instead, we nod, smile or give some signal that we are listening. We actually pretend to listen. In that moment, the illusion referred to in the quote above occurs.
What’s the antidote? It’s obvious, just not easy. We can all develop the habit/discipline of increasing our attention on the speaker and the meaning of their words by truly focusing. By paying attention the message, body language, facial expressions, pauses, tone of voice and what’s not being said, we can ramp up our concentration. When other thoughts come in and our mind wanders, we simply re-focus on what the person is saying and what they are trying to convey. And if we do wander, the remedy is there. Be truthful and say, “I’m sorry, I missed that last piece, could you repeat it please?”
Reflection questions:
- What is your normal percentage of attention on your speaker and their meaning? What happens to it when you are stressed, tired, or in overwhelm?
- How many times a day do you pretend to listen?
- What is the one thing you could do this week to increase your level of attention on your speaker and the message he is trying to convey?
Do You Know Where Your Reset Buttons Are?
March 20th, 2012
Yesterday my Mother, who has multiple health issues and is blind in one eye, called and left a message that the screen of her beloved Kindle was frozen. When I returned her call later in the day, bracing myself for the frustration of trouble-shooting long distance, she said, “Oh it’s fixed. I read the book, took off the back, found the reset button and reset it. No problem!”
Wouldn’t it be great if every time we got frozen or stuck, we could just hit the reset button? The truth is, we can. We all have reset buttons, if we remember to use them and they come in small, medium, and large. Here are some of mine.
Small Reset Buttons:
- Take three deep breaths from your diaphragm. It makes me smile to place my hand on my tummy and literally push my navel with my thumb (my own personal reset button) after I do this. Repeat throughout the day as needed.
- Phone a friend and ask for a funny story and avoid talking about work, your challenges, or anything stressful.
- Stand up, walk around, and have a delicious cup of chai while looking out at the mountains.
- Talking with my husband as I prepare dinner, sharing the ups and downs of the day (our download time).
- Spending an hour reading really good fiction before bed.
- Taking a hike in the woods with my dog Winston.
- Having a massage.
- Having our grown children and grandchildren visit for the weekend.
- Spending a week at the beach.
- Indulging in a spa day with a girlfriend.
- Going into the city for the weekend to visit the museum and have dinner at a special restaurant.
Reflection Questions:
- What are your reset buttons?
- To what degree do your remember to use them to get yourself unstuck, or better still, prevent getting yourself from getting there in the first place?
- If you don’t have any, or don’t use the ones you have, what will you do to make your reset buttons easy to find and push?
Lucky Is As Lucky Does
March 5th, 2012
Do you know someone who is just lucky? She is lucky in love, always in the right place at the right time for business opportunities, and able to find the perfect parking spot right up front. And conversely, there’s the friend we all have who has the ubiquitous black cloud that follows him everywhere. He never seems to get a break—his car gets broken into, he has one bad relationship after another, and he falls and breaks a leg just crossing the street.
Do you believe that we make our own luck? Actually research shows that only a small percentage of what happens to us in life is random. Richard Wiseman, Ph. D., who has been studying the luck phenomenon for at least ten years, says that 90% of what happens to us is determined by the way we think and act (“How to Get Lucky”, Ben Sherwood, Oprah Magazine, February 2009). If we expect positive outcomes, opportunities, and chance encounters they are more likely to happen. If we are open and relaxed, we are more likely to strike up a conversation with the stranger on a plane who may lead to a new connection or opportunity. If we are hunkered down, living in caution and worry, we won’t even notice openings that could change our circumstances for the better.
Here’s a luck experiment. For a week plan/expect to be lucky each day. Imagine the events of your day unfolding in ways that would be described as lucky. Look and listen for synchronicity in all endeavors that could be enriched by a serendipitous connection or chance encounter. Slow your pace down just a little and allow your intuitive hunches to talk to you. Act as if you are lucky.—yes, fake it ‘til you make it!
Here are some questions to ponder.
- Where are you on the luck scale? (0 = It’s black-cloudsville, 10 = Amazing positive coincidences and unexpected opportunities show up all the time)
- What is your level of willingness to experiment with increasing the luck factor in your life? (1-10)
- If it's over a 5, what will you do for the next ten days to increase your chances of being lucky? (If you're below a 5, don't bother, you'll only prove to yourself that you're as unlucky as you thought).
I Read it on a Bathroom Wall…
February 21st, 2012
I had the pleasure of attending a lovely netweaving event at a cool place called Roam Atlanta (www.roamatlanta.com) last Tuesday night. In case you don’t know, netweaving is a concept developed by Bob Littell that means approaching any networking opportunity with the frame of mind that you will “be a 'connector' OF others, as well as a no-strings-attached 'resource-provider' FOR others, and doing both simply because you genuinely believe that, what goes around, does come back around.” It’s a ‘pay it forward’ approach. Check out Bob at www.netweaving.com.
We each had thirty seconds to introduce ourselves to the entire group of fifty people and promote our unique product or service. Then we broke into table groups of six to discuss a book summary for thirty minutes, took a break and had round two with a different table group. It was very evident that, while people were interested in the subject of the book, successful branding, they were more interested in learning about each other and how they might offer support, connections, and resources. Each person’s dream was shared and nurtured by ten people that they had never met before.
Between rounds I happened to go to the ladies room and see this message on the wall. In case you can’t read the
words, it says, “It’ll cost nothing to dream & everything not to”. I was struck by how everyone I had just met had the courage, energy, drive, and tenacity to go to a meeting where they may not have known another soul and dare to share their dream out loud. And, of course, they had to dare to dream in the first place.
Here are my reflection questions for you:
1. What is your dream? (Have you dared to dream one?)
2. When is the last time you shared it out loud publicly?
3. What would it cost you to do that?
4. What will it cost you not too?
It'll cost nothing to dream...
Laugh Your Belly Off!!!
February 6th, 2012
Did you know that a good belly laugh dumps enough endorphins into your system to enable you to have greater clarity of thought, raise your immune response, and increase your creativity tenfold? Norman Cousins’ wonderful book, The Healing Force: How laughter, love and positive thinking can save your life, poignantly describes his successful battle against cancer and the major role that laughter played. In the book he shares his strategy to deliberately bring laughter into his day—every day. Laughter truly is the elixir of life and my guess is that none of us really get enough. C’mon—how many belly laughs have you had today? This week? This month?
“Before” Questions:
1. What is your current mood?
2. To what degree is stress affecting you right now?
3. What is the level of clarity of your thinking? (1-10)
4. What is your level of creativity right now? (1-10)
Now, watch this hilarious video of new exercise workout (click on the little screen in the lower right hand corner for a full screen view). I hope it makes you laugh yourself silly. If this is not your kind of humor, find something else that makes you belly laugh and then answer the following questions.
“After” Questions:
1. What is your mood now?
2. To what degree is stress affecting you right now?
3. What is the level of clarity of your thinking now? (1-10)
4. What is your level of creativity right now? (1-10)
Final Questions:
1. What could you do to have more belly laughs every day?
2. Why do people say, “I laughed my ass off”?
Are You a Worrywart?
January 23rd, 2012
Definition of worry: living in fear about a future that doesn’t exist yet.
Worry is the most energy-zapping, mind-numbing, time-wasting downward spiral we humans engage in. I specifically referred to us (homo sapiens) because we are the only species known to participate in this non-productive and many times debilitating activity. Can you imagine a cow worrying that the grass in the pasture might not grow back, or the cat worrying about whether she’ll get Fancy Feast tonight?
It seems that worrying has become our national pastime. We worry about everything: losing our financial security, getting sick, our kids not turning out okay, gas prices skyrocketing again… the list goes on and on. When we worry, we not only lose our creativity and resourcefulness, but we also actually diminish our resilience by dumping harmful chemicals like adrenaline (the fight or flee hormone) and cortisol into our bodies. Worry actually lowers our immune response, making us more susceptible to the illnesses we fear.
So what’s the antidote? It’s simple, but it isn’t easy. We can’t live in fear if we are truly experiencing gratitude. So grab a pen and paper and start writing down three things you’re grateful for every morning and every night. If you make this a practice for forty consecutive days, an amazing thing happens. You actually start looking for things to write about during your day, experiencing the calming presence of gratitude in your life. You begin to feel your resilience and resourcefulness returning. And you make choices and decisions that empower you, working within your sphere of influence to do the things that will make a difference in your life… the things you actually have control over. The things you can’t control occupy less space. You begin to feel optimism.
Take the forty-day Gratitude Challenge and see what happens. What do you have to lose?
What in the World is Going On?
January 12th, 2012Every blog I read, every radio broadcast I hear, every news program I see, and almost every personal or business conversation I have is focused on what is happening in our world right now. Every day brings wild fluctuations in the stock market or higher unemployment numbers. And the numbers seem to be the most alarming part. They seem so impersonal, black-and-white, and terrifying. How are any of us to make sense of all this? How are we to remain positive? If we are positive, will those around us think we are naïve or stupid?
And yet I look around me, and people are still falling in love and planning their futures, still looking hopefully for that first great job opportunity as a college graduate, and still optimistically starting new businesses. Life is going on in all its richness and glory. The sunset tonight was spectacular, and the jonquils will soon push their way out of the cold ground. Spring will come, no matter what.
So what do we do? How do we feel? How do we act? How do we move forward? The only way I know is to stop, look, and listen. Not to the external messages from the world, but to the rich internal resources we all possess. Ask yourself the following questions:
- What really matters in my life?
- What do I care deeply about creating?
- What resources do I need?
- What is my most powerful next step?
Then take three deep breaths, focus, and move toward your heart’s desires. After all, tough times go away, and when they do, we are left with the sure knowledge that we have what it takes to survive them.
“Courage is being scared as hell and saddling up anyway.”
John Wayne
