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The Greatness in Us All

By Silver Rose

The Greatness in Us All

The Olympics are over for 2004. The benefits will linger for years to come. Would you like to help make sure they do?

It’s easy to think of the Olympics as a colossal sporting event. To do so would be to miss the impact the Games have on the spirit of the world at large and the individual spirits of those of us who watched.

In his amazing book, Power vs. Force, Dr. David Hawkins describes it this way:
It is what they have become that inspires.
As they become more, so do we.

The power of the Olympics to transform first came to my attention through my father. I remember, as a small child, sitting with my family watching the figure skating competition during the Winter Olympics. Imagine my astonishment when I looked over and saw my father, a gruff and severe man, with tears running down his face. “Daddy!” I cried, “What’s wrong?!?” He turned to ALL OF us and said, “It’s just so beautiful.”

Greatness always stirred my father. Greatness stirs us all. Perhaps it’s because, at the precise moment we are moved by greatness, we become aware of the greatness that lies within us. And that awareness connects us to everyone else in a profound way.

The Olympics are full of competition. What’s unique about that competition is that the athletes are competing less with their “opponents” and more with their own personal best. This competition with self is available to each of us every single day if we take the opportunity.

The Law of Attraction says, “You attract more of what you focus on.” As we sat, mesmerized by the quality of the Olympic competition, we were attracting into our own lives a higher level of quality with regard to our own particular talents. The more we focus on the greatness of others, the more our own greatness finds expression.

More than anything, the Olympics cause us to experience profound hope for this planet. When we see the athletes of all those nations marching together, living together, and competing together we see the possibility of a future that includes more of that. Yes, we want our nation to win but that doesn’t preclude feeling awe and respect when an athlete from a different nation breaks a world record or performs flawlessly.

What if we were to bring the spirit of the Olympics into our work every day? What would that look like?
§ Each of us striving to be the very best we can be;
§ Cheering the achievements of our co-workers, even if they surpass our own
§ Commitment to achieving better results today than we did yesterday
§ Instead of thinking, “I have to go to work today,” understanding what a gift it is to be able to use your talents as you “get to go to work today.”

Don’t let the Olympics stay in Athens. Keep them alive through what they’ve inspired in you. You may never get your face on a Wheaties box but you’ll earn your own medal forged of self-respect. And that is worth its weight in gold.

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Seeking Approval

By Silver Rose

Seeking Approval

This weekend, I spent some time reviewing notes from courses I’ve taken over the past year. One of them struck me as a wonderful topic for this week’s column. It said:

No one knows better than you what will fulfill and make you happy. The problem is, your mind often gets in the way. That is why every one of us was born with an inner guide to help us sort things out. Some call it “intuition;” others “gut feeling;” many call is “soul;” Whatever the name, we all have this guidance system within us. Unfortunately, we have trained ourselves to ignore it, often looking to others to tell us what to do.

You cannot depend upon your thoughts to guide you well. First of all, there are far too many of them to sort through. Secondly, science hasn’t yet proven that the thoughts you have are even yours. Your brain is a sophisticated radio transmitter/receiver and some of the thoughts that flash through may have come from your next door neighbor! (Haven’t you ever had a bizarre thought and said to yourself, “Where did THAT come from?!?” Well, it could have come from your co-worker one cubicle over!)

Your guidance system uses your emotions to lead you toward your path. Fortunately, it is a much easier system to follow than it would be if you were guided by all those complicated thoughts.

There may be a strong temptation for you to resist the idea that it could actually be this simple. But think of animals and how effectively they use their own simple guidance systems (aka: instincts). They move toward what feels good and away from what feels bad or dangerous.

If you study dogs, for example, you will observe that they always seek out what will make them the most comfortable. They never settle for the first position when they lie down. They move around and get as comfortable as possible. They sniff food before they gulp it down. If it doesn’t smell pleasing, they will walk away.

Human beings, on the other hand, have been systematically taught to ignore their instincts. We read books entitled, “Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway.” NO!!!! The fear is there for a reason. It is your inner guidance telling you (VERY STRONGLY) that “If you stay focused on what you are paying attention to, you are not going to like the results.”

If your dog were standing in front of a large bush with his hair standing on end and growling, would you grab him by the nape of the neck, throw him INTO the bush yelling, “Get in there, you coward!”?? Of course not. You understand that his instincts are telling him that something is wrong.

And yet, when we seek approval from others instead of paying attention to our inner guide, it is the same thing. We are setting aside our instincts and relying on others to tell us what to do. As Dr. Phil would say, “How’s that workin’ for you?”
Your inner guidance system will ALWAYS steer you toward what’s best for you. That is precisely why negative emotions feel so bad. If they didn’t, you wouldn’t be motivated to take a different direction!

So, instead of asking friends and relatives for what you should do, ask your inner guide, “Is this the best way for me to handle this?” You will know the answer is “yes” if you experience a good feeling. If your stomach is sinking, the answer is clearly “no.”

The easiest way to fully leverage your guidance system? Do EVERYTHING in your power to get happy and stay there. When you can do that, you will find life becomes the joy it was meant to be.

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Action Cancels Fear

By Silver Rose

Overcoming Procrastination & Worry

Somewhere between the ages of 8 and 12, I suffered from chronic School Night Insomnia. Statistics show that 8 out of 10 school age children contract this dreaded disease at least once in their school career. Many are never cured and carry it into adulthood.

Everyone’s symptoms are a little different. For example, this terrible affliction caused me to lie awake until 2, 3, and 4 in the morning, staring at the ceiling, terrified by the sure knowledge of what would happen to me in the morning when my teacher discovered I hadn’t done my homework.

In an effort to distract myself (and to overcome the endless tedium of staring at the ceiling which had no interesting qualities whatsoever), I would sneak into the bathroom and do one of several entertaining things: (1) I would read Nancy Drew books and become convinced that, because Nancy was so amazingly clever, her teacher never yelled at her; (2) I would rearrange the medicine cabinet alphabetically, thereby causing my father to curse and holler in the morning, “For cryin’ out loud, where IS my shaver?!? (see “r” for razor) or (3) like some sort of mad facial anthropologist, I would gaze upon my countenance in the mirror, making horrible discoveries. I came to understand, with depressing clarity, that I was destined to go through life with a lopsided face, a crooked mouth and a chorus line of blackheads dancing around the corners of my nose.

Now, here’s the embarrassing part of the story. Not once – in the three or four years I suffered from chronic School Night Insomnia – not ONCE did it occur to me to sneak into the bathroom AND JUST DO MY HOMEWORK!!!!

Lo! Many years later, I looked back at the years of suffering and realized that the reason I couldn’t sleep was due to fear. And I discovered a very important principle that has helped me to overcome procrastination and worry:

Now, I am not, for one minute, suggesting that you “feel the fear and do it anyway.” I think fear is there for a reason and it is imperative that we pay attention to it. What I AM suggesting is that, when you are worried about something or procrastinating, that you determine what small action step you can take that will bring you closer to where you want to be.

Without a doubt, obsessing about it will produce no positive results at all and may, in fact, make you sick.

In the hit movie, What About Bob? the psychiatrist, played by Richard Dreyfuss has written a book in which he advocates overcoming any kind of problem in your life by taking “baby steps” toward the end goal. This wonderful movie, designed to make us laugh, has inadvertently helped many who suffer from worry and procrastination.
Bob, the patient played so brilliantly by Bill Murray, takes the “baby steps” advice to heart and slowly overcomes his varied and numerous neuroses and psychoses (while literally driving his psychiatrist crazy!) My favorite scene is when he decides to overcome his fear of the water by having his new friends tie him tightly to the masthead on a sailboat so there is no possibility of falling in. As he sails by Dreyfuss, he happily yells something like, “Look, Doc! I’m sailing! I’m sailing! Ain’t it GREAT!?!”

Small steps, even taken at 3 or 4 in the morning, can go a long way toward reducing anxiety and ensuring success. If, at the age of 8, I knew about the Law of Attraction, I would have realized that, by focusing on how my teacher was going to punish me, I was virtually guaranteeing that it would come to pass. Not only that but I was attracting the same sort of relationship in other areas of my life (with my parents, for example).

You attract what you focus on. When it comes to worry and procrastination, think of Bill Murray tied to the masthead and take just one baby step of action. I promise you, your fear and anxiety will start to dissolve immediately.

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Motivating Feedback

By Silver Rose

Motivating Feedback

In a recent workshop for managers, I taught a feedback technique that has been very useful in my work. Since that workshop, I have been pondering the whole concept of feedback and how we use it on ourselves, both to motivate and as a way to crush our own spirits.

Feedback, in its purest essence is neither positive nor negative. It is merely data. How it is received cannot be controlled by the person providing the data; how it is received is controlled completely by the data’s recipient. When the provider and the recipient are one and the same, it can get very interesting.

I often lament that, if we talked to a small child the way we sometimes talk to ourselves, we would be arrested for verbal child abuse. I doubt that any readers of this column would say to a child, “How could you be so stupid? What on EARTH were you thinking, you idiot? You never get anything right!” And yet, we feel perfectly comfortable talking to ourselves this way, sometimes even sharing it with others. “I can’t believe I was so stupid. Wait until I tell you what I did!” or, “I’m such an idiot. This won’t happen again, I promise.”

I am using this week’s column to teach a feedback process that will assist enormously in removing the sting of the whip from your internal feedback process.

THE NT/LB FEEDBACK PROCESS
When completing a project or a task, ask yourself the following two questions:
1. If you would do anything differently next time, what would it be?
2. What did you like best about what you did?

This is called the NT/LB process (“Next Time/Liked Best”). When it was taught to me, the process was reversed (LB/NT). However, since I began using it in my coaching, I’ve noticed two things that caused me to change the order:
1. Nearly everyone first thinks of what they’d like to do differently next time, even when asked what they liked best.
2. Because the Law of Attraction says, “You attract what you focus on,” it is important that the afterglow of the feedback is focused on what went well so that more things that go well will come your way.

The NT/LB Feedback Process accomplishes several very important things; it
1. Helps you take an objective look at your work so that you can improve it;
2. Encourages a feeling of satisfaction for what you did well;
3. Makes you more productive. When you employ the NT/LB process you are, in effect, acknowledging completion of a task or project. Completion generates energy and we are infinitely more productive when energetic.

In a perfect world, your immediate supervisor would use this sort of technique as a development tool. Because we are so intensely busy these days, even good managers who DO use these tools cannot use them on everything you do. It’s up to you to provide your own job satisfaction.

When you decide to be your own manager, you get to choose the kind of manager you will be. You know all those complaints you’ve had (and have) about supervisors?

Examine those complaints and, when it comes to being your own manager, DO THE OPPOSITE. If you never received enough acknowledgement from past supervisors, make sure you acknowledge yourself. If you never got enough information for the work you need to do, go out and gather the information yourself. If you never got rewarded for a job well done, reward yourself.

The NT/LB Feedback Process will go a long way toward helping you to have the best supervisor you’ve ever had – YOU! Try it out for a few weeks. Watch for how much more interesting work gets (and how much better you get at your work!)

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Motivating Feedback

In a recent workshop for managers, I taught a feedback technique that has been very useful in my work. Since that workshop, I have been pondering the whole concept of feedback and how we use it on ourselves, both to motivate and as a way to crush our own spirits.

Feedback, in its purest essence is neither positive nor negative. It is merely data. How it is received cannot be controlled by the person providing the data; how it is received is controlled completely by the data’s recipient. When the provider and the recipient are one and the same, it can get very interesting.

I often lament that, if we talked to a small child the way we sometimes talk to ourselves, we would be arrested for verbal child abuse. I doubt that any readers of this column would say to a child, “How could you be so stupid? What on EARTH were you thinking, you idiot? You never get anything right!” And yet, we feel perfectly comfortable talking to ourselves this way, sometimes even sharing it with others. “I can’t believe I was so stupid. Wait until I tell you what I did!” or, “I’m such an idiot. This won’t happen again, I promise.”

I am using this week’s column to teach a feedback process that will assist enormously in removing the sting of the whip from your internal feedback process.

THE NT/LB FEEDBACK PROCESS
When completing a project or a task, ask yourself the following two questions:
1. If you would do anything differently next time, what would it be?
2. What did you like best about what you did?

This is called the NT/LB process (“Next Time/Liked Best”). When it was taught to me, the process was reversed (LB/NT). However, since I began using it in my coaching, I’ve noticed two things that caused me to change the order:
1. Nearly everyone first thinks of what they’d like to do differently next time, even when asked what they liked best.
2. Because the Law of Attraction says, “You attract what you focus on,” it is important that the afterglow of the feedback is focused on what went well so that more things that go well will come your way.

The NT/LB Feedback Process accomplishes several very important things; it
1. Helps you take an objective look at your work so that you can improve it;
2. Encourages a feeling of satisfaction for what you did well;
3. Makes you more productive. When you employ the NT/LB process you are, in effect, acknowledging completion of a task or project. Completion generates energy and we are infinitely more productive when energetic.

In a perfect world, your immediate supervisor would use this sort of technique as a development tool. Because we are so intensely busy these days, even good managers who DO use these tools cannot use them on everything you do. It’s up to you to provide your own job satisfaction.

When you decide to be your own manager, you get to choose the kind of manager you will be. You know all those complaints you’ve had (and have) about supervisors? Examine those complaints and, when it comes to being your own manager, DO THE OPPOSITE. If you never received enough acknowledgement from past supervisors, make sure you acknowledge yourself. If you never got enough information for the work you need to do, go out and gather the information yourself. If you never got rewarded for a job well done, reward yourself.

The NT/LB Feedback Process will go a long way toward helping you to have the best supervisor you’ve ever had – YOU! Try it out for a few weeks. Watch for how much more interesting work gets (and how much better you get at your work!)