Have you considered that conversations are a bit like yawning?

Have you ever notice that some conversations seem to run rampant in communities?


Take for instance, the conversation being shared all over the U.S.A. that goes like this:  "I'm SOOOO busy!"  Doesn't it seem as if almost everyone you meet is living inside of that conversation?  Doesn't it seem as if that conversation alone is contagious? Almost like the analogy I referred to in the title of this post... as contagious as a yawn.


As a matter of fact, I'm yawning right now and I even had a great night of sleep last night. Just the word, "yawn" brings to the forefront that there is a yawn waiting to be expressed. Woops!  Another one.. and I'm suppressing a third... nope.. no such luck.  I yawned.  Yawns are contagious and I bet you've had to stifle one just reading this post. Plus, if you are in a public place ans someone saw you yawn, I'll bet they too have yawned in the few minutes since seeing you .. then someone saw them yawn and there it goes!  A yawn caught around the world! 

As with a conversation. 

If we use the same rationale for how conversations run rampant like a contagious yawn, think of the conversation "I'm SO busy" and how it's showing up in the unlikeliest of places. People have been doing the same things over and over again, and people are going to work and returning from work very much around the same times they always have, and there have always been 'action items' around what needs to be completed next.
 
How about farmers who have tons of things to do from waking up before dawn, making breakfast, eating it, cleaning up, getting out to the barn, hitching up the animals, taking them out to the field, plowing the field, and on and on (I'm just making up that I know what happens on a farm). Oh yes! Don't forget about gathering the eggs, feeding the chickens, and whatever else there is to do like milking the cow and butchering…well, we don't have to go there. In all the shows I've seen where there are farmers who are getting their long lists of chores done, up until about two or three years ago, I never once heard anyone say on one of those shows, "I'm SO busy!" and especially with the contagious emphasis on that word “SO”! 


Perhaps we are not as busy as we make out that we are and that someone actually invented the conversation of being busy and we “caught” it as when we catch a yawn. Based on my earlier theory, the rest of us have caught that contagious conversation unaware of how it is affecting us or our well being.  

Even though we move from one chosen undertaking to the next, the conversation that was made up, "busyness," for which many of us have gotten caught up in not dissimilar to a yawn in fact, is perhaps distracting us from realizing that the emotions that go along with being "SO busy" may not be ones that are supporting us in having a fulfilled life. 

Think about it, and I request that you be detached from possible assessments such as how you can prove to me that, "yes, but with me I really AM busy! Let me tell you about what I'm doing in MY life!" This contagious conversation may be a clue that we might not be acknowledging ourselves and our ability to see that we are actually the ones who are choosing the conversation, or even the state of being, busy. 

The choices that we make of living in a perpetual state of assessment of "busyness" and "so much to do" and "not enough time," etc., seem to me to be the antithesis of living a life full of passion and fulfillment, and seem to distract us from the accomplishments in our lives, much like with a yawn distorting our faces and maybe our ability to see or hear while in the yawn. 

So, the next time you hear or say "I'm SO busy," step back, observe and see if there may be another more powerful conversation from which to choose to live. And then let me know what you find out!

"Words do not label things already there. Words are like the knife of the carver: they free the idea, the thing, from the general formlessness of the outside. As a man speaks, not only is his language in a state of birth, but also the very thing about which he is talking."

Eskimo Quote

It's choice not chance

Have you considered …

…that we live our lives as a matter of choice and not chance? That a future worth living into is something we actively pursue and not wait for?

Do you realize that extraordinary opportunities can be made from common occurrences? That we get to choose to view our lives from opportunity, or we can choose to view our lives from predicament.

Which will you choose?

Oh yes, and it all begins right now. And if you missed that moment to take action on your life 'then', that’s okay, because it can all begin right NOW. Or, right now. And right now.

Begin it now; the moment to boldly choose your life from opportunity.

Wants as compared to Commitments

How many times have you realized that you've just had an incredible insight that could make all the difference in the world for your life? Insights happen to us every single day, time and time again, and more often than not, we choose not to act on our insights for some reason or another. Many of these insights could actually alter our lives in ways that will support us in what we have been saying we want.


There is little surprise that we don't often act on insights no matter how incredible we think they are, especially when they are driven by what we "want." You see, when there is a commitment, there is something to pull you forward into your future from the present. Have you ever considered moving your wants into commitments?

Going after what we want is a challenge that we face every day. It might show up in the form of saying we want to lose weight or exercise more but when the alarm goes off in the morning, we opt to turn it off and stay in bed because we decide then that we want to be comfortable. Wants are fleeting and pull us around in the moment.

Being committed is another matter. When one is committed, when you have set something up that's bigger than your wants, your commitment will get you up in the morning.


What are you committed to in your life?

If you are committed to your "wants," then get used to it; your great insights will be just that and hopefully, one or two may lead to you being pleased with your life. There is no right or wrong in whether you move into action after having that insight; there is just the opportunity to discover something about yourself that you would not otherwise have had. What would your life be like if you did exercise regularly, or lost weight, or wrote that book, or even took that class on marketing or learning a new language or... or... or... ? When you are at the end of your life, might you look back and have a sense of accomplishment that you might not have had otherwise?

Would you have lived your life with boldness as per Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who said it this way,

"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness concerning all acts of initiative and creation.

There is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans; that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too, all sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred.

A whole stream of events issues from the decision raising in one's favor all manner of unforseen events, meetings and material assistance which no one could have dreamed would have come their way.


Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now!"

Boldness! Why not? What are you waiting for? Your life will turn out the way you choose it, right now... and now... and now...

What Goethe forgot to remind us about is that it is always much easier to reach your commitments with someone else in your court. It's not impossible to do on your own, and when you are supported by a committed listener, someone who will listen to you as if your life depends on your word, you will be driven forward by someone who stands with you for your accountability.

Observation/Exercise
Set aside some time for you to spend 'mind-mapping' on your life, maybe 30-60 minutes in one of your favorite and accessible locations. Make sure you have a piece of paper and a pen.

Determine what's next for you in your life. Start with something from a recent insight that you have had. What attracted you to that insight? What did it mean to you? What possibilities did you see for yourself that you hadn't seen before? What emotions did it call forth for you?

Stop for a moment, close your eyes and think about the 'yumminess' that your insight brought up.

Write it down. What do you see that would fit in to that perfect world for you; perhaps something grounded in your "wants" but more powerful would be something that will have you look back in your future and examine your life with pride and satisfaction?

In other words, what calls for you to commit to next? What will you "do or dream?" What will you begin? Will you live your life with boldness? Now is the time to discover the "genius, power and magic" of it.

Finally, find your committed listener to be there for you, someone who will listen from what is possible for you in living your life into your commitment.

A Personal Vision for your Future Pulls you Forward from the Present

What is a Vision? Have you put much thought into why businesses have visions? Many years ago (I don’t even remember when or how), I discovered the beauty of creating a Personal Vision for myself. I think I must have stolen the best of all I’ve heard or learned about visions because it is working for me.

Since my discovery, I now always have a roadmap in my life for where I am headed. When someone has asked me, “How are you?” rather than the perfunctory and uninteresting habit of voicing, “I’m fine,” I have had the ability to answer from the many different challenges that I am facing in my life as I move towards my vision.
Your Vision creates a future that pulls you forward from the present.

Hence, this is one reason why businesses have created 3-5 year visions, so that their stockholders, employees and lenders know the business has something at stake and is worth investing in.
A Personal Vision can be created for a shorter time period of 1-3 years. Questions I will ask you include: What do you see possible for yourself in 1-3 years? Who would you like people to “speak you to be” in 1-3 years? In other words, who are they saying you are? Are you willing to create your own future, or are you only going to allow yourself to drift into whatever takes you wherever it takes you? I call that “surviving.” I’m sure you have seen many people surviving in their lives. They wake up to the day with no purpose, no future, nothing to have them jump out of bed and hit the floor running; only a life of “waiting to see” what will happen. Yawn! BORing and fruitless.

Do you think Babe Ruth had a Personal Vision? From the http://www.baseball-almanac.com/:

“In 1927, Babe Ruth set the first truly long-term single season home run standard. However, his first Major League home run record was established during the 1919 season when he connected a then unbelievable twenty-nine (29) times with the Boston Red Sox. The 1919 plateau was considered at the time an "unreachable mark" until the following year when the Bambino smashed his own record by going deep fifty-four (54) times—then beat that record just one year later when he went deep fifty-nine (59) times. A few seasons passed and the 1920 record seemed safe until 1927, when the Sultan of Swat blasted sixty (60) long balls (details below) in just one-hundred fifty-five (155) games.”

It’s also worthy to note that Babe Ruth struck out 1,330 times; however, that is subject matter for another Laser Coaching Tip!

Creating a Personal Vision takes thought. To “think” as in consciously using your thought processes. Digging into your values, your beliefs, what gives you pleasure, what gives you pause in your life; real unadulterated and rewarding thought.

Exercise:
Begin with one word descriptions of what people will say about you in 1-3 years. For instance, one of mine is “contribution.” Another is “joyful.” Another is “integrity.”

Fill up one full page of one word descriptions by writing down anything that inspires you. Next, pick and choose the words that “call” to you the most and circle them. Finally, put them together in a short sentence. Now I say short because you want to create a vision that you will remember, one that if someone were to say, “Hi, how are you? What are you up to these days?” you will be able to answer immediately.

You will be able to answer from your Personal Vision, from what you have created in your future that is pulling you forward from right now, and right now, and right now, and finally, right now.

Are You Fully Self-Expressed or Are You Like a Trained Flea?

Did you know that we, as human beings, are a little bit like trained fleas?

Do you know about trained fleas? Here is what was discovered...taking an ordinary jar and placing a bunch of fleas into it, it was found that the fleas would wildly begin to jump in all directions, including out of the jar, no matter how high the sides of the jar. Try it someday if you are curious enough or just begin to observe yourself in your own life as a bit of a trained flea.

This could be likened to how we experience the world as children...with a "YAY!!! LET'S LIVE OUR LIVES FULLY!!! OUCH, I FELL DOWN AND IT HURT BUT SO WHAT? WHAT'S NEXT??!!" Remember those days full of vitality, joy and full self-expression?

Back to the jar of fleas; if one takes a lid and puts it on top of the jar, the fleas will continue to jump up against the lid until they realize that there is something in the way of their full self-expression of jumping. Perhaps their little heads begin to hurt, and they actually start to scale back slowly until they begin to regularly jump to just below the level of the lid.

At this point, it was found that one could remove the lid of the jar and the fleas would still only jump to those few millimeters below where the lid had been. The fleas were now trained and would not jump out of the jar.

What if...

Looking back into our own lives, we ask ourselves where we have been trained. Where might we have scaled back for the fear of hurting our 'heads' on a lid? This may be a situation that was real or imagined. Perhaps the lesson was well worth learning such as touching a hot stove was a bad mistake.

However, where might a lid might have been placed on your full self-expression that was for the convenience of another and not specifically for you. For example, rather than focus on what would happen to you, a caretaker was more fearful of what could happen. Or perhaps we made a mistake in one situation and automatically trained ourselves that we could never attempt that type of situation again.

We might begin to ask ourselves, where have we suppressed our own and others' full self- expression such that we have become trained fleas in our lives and accepted "this is the way it is" regardless of a different time, a different place, a different situation...?

Consider that...

We may not even realize the extent of how we are similar to trained fleas. When an opportunity presents itself to us, we may automatically answer with an "I could never do that," or "I don't like those," or "Oh, that's not for me," or even an answer such as "Are you kidding?" Consider how we may be so automatic that we are not even aware of having been trained. What would happen if with each opportunity we stopped our automatic way-of-being and really put some thought into what was being presented to us before we responded?


Observation/Exercise

The holidays are approaching quickly and many of us will have the opportunity to share time with family. This is perfect fertile territory for beginning to observe ourselves as the observer in our automatic 'trained fleas' way-of-being in life.

The first step to altering a way-of-being is to learn to observe you in your own life. In the next month, begin to observe your conversations to yourself and to others, and how your automatic 'trained flea" ways of responding show up in your thoughts or conversations.

If you don't catch yourself in the middle of it, look back on the conversations or moods that you have noticed were not the most beneficial to your full self-expression.

What happened? How were you stopped or suppressed? Where did you stop yourself? What stopped you? Was something said by someone else that triggered your suppression? When was the first time in your life that you noticed a similar situation? How old were you? What were you doing? Did someone say something to you? How is it similar to today? How is it not similar? Based on your age today, how long have you been living from a suppressed way-of-being rather than living into your full self-expression?
In taking on the exercise, where might you have now gained freedom to be fully self-expressed where you may not have been before? Do let me know what you find out practicing this exercise.

Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely...

A wonderful quote came to me by an anonymous author, and it goes like this...


"Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well- preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, "WOW!! What a ride!"

The quote reminds me to ask myself how I am living my own life.

I have not sent out a Laser Coaching Tip! since June because I had the opportunity to spend time with my 84-year-old father as he transited through the worst part of a serious illness.

My dad and I didn't get along in my younger years; he wasn't the best father I thought he "should" be. The vein of conversation I had about him was along the lines of, "if he had only helped me with my career choices, or if he had only attended all the father-daughter opportunities that were available to us, or if he hadn't traveled for work so much, or if he wasn't so gruff in his communications with me" and so on, "then my life would have been perfect."

It wasn't until I was able to notice that what was missing was my own commitment to be responsible for what I think that I began to have a fulfilling relationship with anyone else.

Yes, what I actually *thought* about my father (and others) led me to assume that it was his responsibility for me to be happy. With coaching at age 30, I began to observe my undermining internal conversations, and then I finally began to discover what my father had contributed to me. My 7 siblings and I always had clothes to wear, good healthy meals on our table, the experience of traveling the world and life in another country, and an education in good schools. This led me to the realization that I can take on anything and be as successful as I commit to be.

By learning to shift my way of thinking, in this case with my dad, I've been privileged to learn who my father has been in life.

He was born months after his 5 siblings and his parents immigrated to New York from Hungary in 1921. At 18, he joined the Army-Air Corps and became a fighter pilot, flying sorties on D-Day. During WWII, his plane crashed into a barn, and he broke his back. That didn't stop him; he got out of the hospital after having metal rods and clips placed along his backbone to keep his spine straight and went on to fly in Korea and Vietnam. In the early 60's, before the world knew it existed, my dad was a test pilot for the highly secretive long range strategic reconnaissance titanium plane called the SR-71, also known as the "Blackbird." He professes to have taken it to heights of 93,000 feet and to Mach 3.2. He shared with me that he flew "everything in the air" from 1940 to 1970, retiring from the Air Force after 30 years.

He took up skiing at age 60, and it was extremely difficult to catch him on the slopes. I could go on for pages! What I know is that my dad has contributed to me mostly by living the true meaning of "skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, "WOW!! What a ride!"

He's still recovering, and yet with my willingness to have given up who I thought he should be, I know if he is to pass away before I do, I will have truly earned the privilege of being loved by him.

What if...

We were to learn to consistently shift our thinking to what's right about or what works in our lives?

Consider that...

We will always be able to turn our mistakes and predicaments into opportunities for growth and relatedness.

Observation/Exercise:
In the next month, begin to observe how much your old ways of thinking about others have shaped how you are with them; the conversations, the actions you take on, the thoughts of who they *are* in life.

Next, begin to look from the perspective that you may really not know them as they are today, only who you determined they were years or even months ago.

Notice what begins to happen in your interactions with them. Is there room for discovery? Joyfulness? Compassion?

And, as always, do let me know what you find out practicing this exercise.