Endings: What Does the Way Something Ends Say About What It Was?
Last modified on 2012-01-30 19:11:42 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
The way something ends says a lot about it’s deepest qualities.
Some divorces end peacefully – usually these marriages were peaceful. Many divorces end with resentment and battles over money and kids to ensure the pain continues well after the marriage is over. In such cases the unexpressed hurt and conflict was lurking just beneath the surface all along.
Business partnerships can be the same way. Lives can be the same way. Often someone who dies peacefully, accepting death as inevitable with no one to blame (yes this is loaded with a belief about the serendipity and synchronicity of life) reflects the way a person lived their life.
I am thinking about Joe Paterno. I hope he is remembered for his care and inspiration to his players and for his amazing success as a coach. I also hope he is remembered for the grief he felt about boys Sandusky allegedly took advantage of. And for his willingness to be interviewed, practically on his deathbed, in order to express his remorse.
I think it’s interesting that the Paterno era at Penn State ended with an event that brought a focus on the business of college football and how the machine had such a huge blind spot.
It is useful exercise to think about how you want things that you are in the middle of now, to end. What do you want to make sure is preserved? What do you want to celebrate in terms of what the relationship or team or organization stood for?
Use this vision for the end to determine what you need to do now to ensure the ending is what you want it to be?
Limitless
Last modified on 2012-01-17 15:08:29 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
Someone asked me the other day if there was a pill like the one that was the topic of the movie Limitless, would I take it. Science shows that we all use a limited amount of the computing power of our brain. The pill would allow one to tap into all of the brain’s capability.
My answer was “no”. Of course, it would be great to be more focused, have full access to memories, and learn how to play golf and the piano with mastery without all the hours of practice. I just wonder how long the satisfaction would last.
The mind is overrated. With as much emphasis as has been placed on the mind since the Enlightenment or whenever Descartes said, “I think, therefore I am”, has not necessarily led to a consistent level of ideas that sustain the human race or Earth. Sure, the mind has resulted in the computer, Internet, and the iPhone but it has not prevented conflict and environmental blind spots.
A pill that puts my grey matter on steroids might just feed the beast that gets me over-thinking things. I can see some real downside to such a pill.
I told my friend that my idea of an attractive Limitless Pill is one that would allow me to tap into the full capacity of my heart. How could you go wrong with full access to your capacity to love? How could you go wrong with infinite love and acceptance? I don’t think I would get bored with that. I don’t think I could get in trouble with that.
Now that I think about it, why do I need a pill to fully access my heart? Is it that we come into this world with unlimited access to our heart and that access decreases with time?
Short of a pill, how do we access more of our heart–or should I say, how can remove the accumulated blocks to our native state?
Can You Hate What You Do and Still Be World Class?
Last modified on 2012-01-04 18:09:37 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
The answer is yes. Two examples are tennis pros Andre Agassi and Serena Williams. In his biography, Open, Agassi describes with deep honesty how he hated the game of tennis since the time he started playing it. But he couldn’t stop playing. His book lets you in on his thinking and emotional roller coaster ride both on an off the court. It appears that joy came when he met Stephie Graf (meeting his need for connection) and established a school for underprivileged kids (meeting his need for service).
For Williams, she not only hates tennis, she hates anything physical,–especially working out. Her favorite activities: “Anything that involves sitting down or shopping.” She says she is excellent at these things and doesn’t understand how she ever became an athlete. She says exactly what Agassi used to say, “I can’t live without [tennis].”
No doubt deeper patterns are driving the people in these examples. A lot is understood about them when you understand their relationship with their fathers.
We will all face existential crises at some point in our lives. One of the hardest of such binds is the dilemma: A) do I want to be happy or B) do I want to stay in the game? Do you want to be happy or stay in a bad marriage? Do you want to be happy or keep a well-paying job? Do you want to be happy or risk being rejected for choosing the road less travelled?
Happiness and fulfillment are choices but these choice sometimes involve letting go of something.
Do you really want to be happy? It’s ok to say “no.” If you say “yes”, then follow your heart. By this I mean align your life with your core values. These vary from person to person but they include things like connection, service, truth, adventure, and respect.
This alignment can mean changing what you are doing. Often it can mean changing who you are being. The first being an external change, the other an internal change.
I’d love to hear others’ take on this dilemma.
Set Yourself Up for Fulfillment in 2012 Using the Power of Intention
Last modified on 2011-12-28 21:24:34 GMT. 2 comments. Top.
Just a few weeks ago I was asked to lead a retreat for a group of Central American executives who were meeting in Cartagena, Colombia. This invitation was notable for two reasons. First, although I love these regions, Central and South America aren’t markets I work in very often. Second, I really want to visit Columbia–I have been thinking and talking about this for the past few years. The combination of an unlikely event and a vision (aka intention) for the future is not unusual for me.
Here’s another example. This summer, while backpacking in Yosemite National Park with my family, I really wanted to see a bear. Bear sightings had been on the decline for years due to park ranger rules and education such as the requirement for backpackers to use bear canisters to store food and the many warning signs about fines for improper food storage in campgrounds. Yet, sure enough, there I am opening my tent flap at 1:30 in the morning and seeing an 800 pound bear twenty feet away. The next morning, my wife said, “Stop thinking about and saying you want to see a bear; or say you want to see one from at least a few hundred yards away!”
Whether it has to do with money, career, speaking engagements, or relationships, my ability to manifest what I want is confirmed all the time. So much so that I take my intentions and my thinking seriously. I notice that when I don’t have a vision for my day I fall into old thinking and behavior patterns that often don’t serve me well. In the absence of a conscious vision, unconscious ones take over and fear-based or limiting thoughts shape my day.
Take my weekend visions or example. I like my weekends less scheduled and a lot slower then my weekdays. I also want a few quality connections with my family on the weekends because I don’t get a lot of this during the week. If I don’t hold a clear intention and start my Saturdays and Sundays visualizing my day my weekends are less fulfilling. Not only do I need to have a clear intention, I need to share it with my family. If I don’t hold and express my intention, the weekend flies by, everyone goes in their separate direction, and I am in a funk by Sunday night saying to myself, “Where did all that time go?”
I think our intentions are powerful but don’t take my word for it. Start looking at events and trace their roots back to what has been on your mind. I think you’ll find a direct connection.
Intentions help manifest your future because they encompasses three things: clarity, commitment, and faith. Intentions draw your attention to the clear and specific outcomes you seek. Your physical, emotional and mental energy then follows your mind’s attention. Your commitment to anything will attract supporting resources – this has a metaphysical or spiritual component to it that Goethe wrote about. Faith that your intention is powerful (and you may have to do a little-fake-it-til-you-make-it trials at first until you believe this process works) removes skeptical or cynical thinking that can sabotage your vision.
What are your intentions for 2012? What kind of year is going to be? As you do your planning for the year, be specific. What do you want in all four quadrants? Meaning, what do you want to accomplish, what do you want to learn, what relationships do you want to invest in, what kind of man or woman do you want to be? Creating categories for your desired accomplishments will help jog your thinking about what you want to change in the year ahead. Examples of categories include vocational, financial, health, and service. You can use this process for various aspects of your business and leadership.
If you want to put your intentions on steroids, here are four steps that will make your vision for 2012 a reality:
- Commit your intentions to writing.
- Visualize yourself having realized your intentions. Like an athlete preparing for a event, picture, hear and feel in your body what it’s like to experience what you want – make the intention for the future a present-tense experience.
- Share your intentions with others (this is a great New Year Day’s tradition to have with your family–or to do at your first staff meeting in 2012).
- Have faith. This means catching yourself in the act of thinking about what could go wrong, how everything is random, why your intention isn’t going to happen, or the downside risks if you actually get what you say you want.
Blessings on your intention-setting process and on a powerful 2012!
Tebow’s Top Team Teaching: How to Say Thank You
Last modified on 2011-12-19 20:38:02 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
Every Tim Tebow press conference or interview begins with three thank yous:
I want to thank Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior.
I want to thank my teammates, they make me look better than I am.
I want to thank the fans for supporting me.
Remember, I don’t watch much news so I many only have the gist of this but you get the idea.
This talented athlete (yes I know he doesn’t throw like Elway) is humble.
And don’t get distracted by the Jesus thing. You insert your words for referring to something bigger than yourself. For the synchronicity of life that makes things happen the way they do – things could be so different (I mean like, a lot worse) and you are not in control.
This Broncos thing is a great metaphor for CEOs to try to get their heads around. Results are not coming because of the skills of the leader or the personality of the top guy. John who? Fox is getting little attention. Before it was all about Shanahan and people wondering if Josh McDaniel would be wearing his hoodie on game day.
Tebow is having an impact because everyone is stepping up their game. He works so hard it is hard for that not to be contagious.
The truth is Tebow is making others look better than they are or as good as they are because teammates are pushing themselves harder and taking his lead to focus on something bigger than themselves.
