Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Placing Your Ideas In Between A Rock and A Hard Place


Have you met people who want to do the right thing?... They want to change the world or at least their world. But only on their own terms, no advice needed ...no conflict wanted.

They do not want to argue.





It is not healthy to argue out of habit or just to maintain control, but there are times where
debate in relationships is needed.

In making important decisions, it is wise to have constructive argument and differing points of view.

Referring to an example of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Robert Kennedy wrote about the importance of disagreement
in reaching the best decisions:

"The fact that we were able to talk, debate. argue, disagree and then debate some more was
essential in choosing our ultimate course....Opinions, even fact itself, can best be judged by conflict, by debate.
there is an important element missing when there is unanimity of viewpoint."

So new wisdom may come from sharpening your ideas against a person who sometimes rubs you the wrong way.


Friday, July 27, 2007

Better Thighs, Better Hair and Wisdom


I once had to write a paper on my three top personal goals.
It was a long time ago.






My paper began with.. I aspire to Better Thighs, Better Hair and Wisdom.
I followed with..I have obviously not been working on Wisdom for very long or it
would not be out-ranked by Thighs and Hair.

20 years later as I look in the mirror I see some Gray, more from
a need to get to my stylist than Wisdom.
My thighs are balanced well with my curves earned through my
new passion to cook.

Wisdom...ummm
I would say that it is time to move that one up on the list.
So here is a great quote from James Collins...


"You must learn to live with the fact that you will make
mistakes--lots of mistakes--and that you will learn from them.
Mistakes are in fact a great source of strength: making mistakes
is analogous to building muscle in athletic training.

Think about it for a minute: how does an athlete get stronger?
By pushing to the point of failure. You do, say three pull ups
and fail on the fourth. The body adapts and gets stronger
and the next time you can do four pull ups.

The body adapts and gets stronger and the next time you
can do four pull ups and you fail on the fifth.

The next time out you can do five pull ups, and fail on the sixth,
and so on.

The process of making decisions, some of which are "failures," and
learning from them is "building muscle."
If you don't ever make mistakes, you'll be forever stuck at three pull-ups.

Be proud of the fact that you periodically make mistakes. It shows that you're
not one of the timid souls who are so terrified of making a mistake that they don't
do anything worthwhile with their lives. As Paul Galvin, founder and architect of
Motorola, said, 'Do not fear mistakes. Wisdom is often born of such mistakes.' "

To be honest, I doubt I could do one full pull-up.
Those thighs have an amazing "grounding weight" to them.

I can chest press 25 pounds in each arm, but not pull up my full weight.
ummm- first I think I need to work on that one
Second there is probably a series of blogs on pulling your own weight.

So where is this going?
If you had a tough week and you made some mistakes, take heart.
If you had a great week and did everything right, think about taking it up a level.


Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Going First


When you are around a group of people going through extreme transitions you get to see patterns.
One of these patterns is the forging of new relationships.






There is one consistent element within a willingness to connect.
Someone makes the first move.

It may only be by a couple of seconds or sometimes...
The person who makes the first move is hanging out there, vulnerable for quite some time.
And of course, sometimes the person gets rejected and there is no positive connection.

I would have to say that most of the time I do not go first unless I am in sales, training or
a hospitality mode at home.

I wait
I watch
If I think there is something I may be able to help with, or if I think of something fun to add to the moment, only then do I jump in.

"Better To Appear Foolish Than Remove All Doubt"

There is wisdom here, but maybe...I can get too aloof.

Someone has to go first.
Maybe, it is a weak decision to not let the other person go first.
Maybe the other person is afraid I will reject them.
Seems incredible, but maybe.

So having this new thought under my conscious, I headed into a meeting today where I was the new person.

I thought to myself, how can I help the other people feel welcome.
Strange thought I know, but it made me relax.

Since it was my first time with these people in a meeting, I can not truly measure if they felt me sending them welcoming energy,
gentle smiles and encouraging words as a change or if this was how the meeting always went.

What is sweet about all this is that it really was not that hard to go first.
My husband has an evangelistic spirit and can not help but do this 90% of the time.
Maybe he is rubbing off on me.

Not a bad thing.

Monday, July 23, 2007

Take Me Home...Country Road


We had one of the sweetest most relaxing weekends this past weekend.
We got fresh air



We busted some moves...

...likely the twenty something's just thought we busted something


We laughed, held hands and moved closer as we
Drove over lots of hills,



Took our Super Bug through the woods and corn fields and yep


To Grandmother's house we went as well.


We saw breath taking views in unexpected places.

We ate well
We warmed up in a hot tub.

It was one of the best.

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Bird Houses

Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.
Albert Einstein



I had the opportunity to sit across the table from an inspiration yesterday. Someone who has sat down with Presidents. Someone who, even more impressive, still loves to sit down with children. Despite the history of who he knows, and who he has influenced, he is still very humble.

What stood out in the conversation was the unique way that he motivates one to let go of the past. Yes, if we do not educate ourselves on the history of the world, business, relationships and science we will be tempted to repeat our mistakes rather than learn from them.

At the same time we can become inert as we find comfort in our study of what has happened past the point of usefulness. We must be ready to embrace change, creatively adapt to where we are now.

I heard another man last week, who happens to be married to a congress woman say that he needed to take 2 minutes. The first minute was to admit that he had made a mistake. The second minute was to learn from that mistake. He protects that time from interruption and only gives that 2 minutes of his time for recovery and learning.

What is the point of all this. Simply... we (planners like myself) perhaps spend too much time regurgitating other people's ideas. We think that will protect us or enable us to solve the next problem we are faced with.

Because of this, we can be tempted to then spend way to much time trying to understand how our plans were not fulfilled perfectly.

Albert was likely surrounded by people who put their pride in what they could site from others ideas or creations. He was looking for new thoughts, creations and solutions.

Sadly, most of our nation can not be accused of reading too much. I am sure I could not either. But I am guilty of too much entertainment. TV, music, and movies likely rob our creativity to an even greater degree.

So, in keeping with doing nothing, I believe I will add time for doing unique creative projects.

We eat a lot of popsicles. It has been year's since I made a popsicle bird house. This maybe a fun place to start with stretching my creativity.

Saturday, July 14, 2007

Nothing From Nothing Ain't Nothing



The power of being able to do nothing.

To enjoy, doing nothing.

We run from nothing in this nation.

We activate our lives to the point of over-saturation and still...

We lack the ability to say we are satisfied.

Doing nothing is of course something.

It may be for Americans the most disciplined decision we could make.

When we get quiet with ourselves we are forced to really look at what we are when we are alone, not spending, not entertaining, not producing.

This time makes us feel vulnerable and so we run...
and we teach our children to run.

We attempt to elude the experience of understanding who we are without our things, our awards, our events that mark who we think we are.

We are a composite of memories housed in a fragile cell based shell.

We are souls cast into fluid motion.

We are not from here and will not always be here.

We are, I am ...in solid need of remembering all these things.

There is more to where I am and where I am going than the noise of my own activities.

It is the silence in between the notes of my time now that I struggle to find comfort in.

And maybe that is ok..

Maybe it is important to put ourselves into uncomfortable situations, rather than waiting for the lesson to be learned through another force of events.

Doing nothing...
an oxymoron perhaps...
a concept to dwell in....
an activity to master.

Tuesday, July 10, 2007




There are times when I listen to something and not notice the affect immediately.
We are easily imprinted.
Then there are times when I hear something and know that a cord was stuck within me.
That is how it was yesterday when I heard this song for the first time.
It is a good answer to the questions that Toby has been asked.
It is a good answer to some of the questions we all ask ourselves when we are in a battle.
In a nation of extremes, there is balance in the wisdom below.
What do we say to our children when they ask us what we believe?



I think that the words below are a start....

Sometimes I think that war is necessary.
Every night I pray for peace on Earth.
I hand out my dollars to the homeless.
But believe that every able soul should work.

My father gave me my shotgun that I'll hand down to my son, try to teach him everything it means.

(chorus)
I'm a man of my convictions. Call me wrong, call me right. But I bring my better angels to every fight. You may not like
where I'm going, but you sure know where I stand. Hate me if you want to, love me if you can.

I stand by my right to speak freely. But I worry 'bout what kids learn from TV. And before all of debatin' turns to angry
words and hate, sometimes we should just agree to disagree. And I believe that Jesus looks down here and sees us, and if you
ask him he would say

(chorus)
I'm a man of my convictions. Call me wrong, call me right. But I bring my better angels to every fight. You may not like
where I'm going, but you sure know where I stand. Hate me if you want to, love me if you can.

(chorus)
I'm a man of my convictions. Call me wrong, call me right. But I bring my better angels to every fight. You may not like
where I'm going, but you sure know where I stand. Hate me if you want to, love me if you can.


Thursday, July 05, 2007

Here Today- Been Gone To Maui



Taking Time To Re-Create

Recreation, a friend once told me...
Is intended to help you re-create yourself.
Micheal and I were blessed with a wonderful trip last week to Maui.

The last few weeks of over the top deadlines, amazing performances and heartfelt transitions as work was followed by....
bliss.
We had a blast.
It was so beautiful.
I can still feel the ocean breeze.
I can still picture my hunk of a hubby donning his motor cycle helmet with his giant magnetic smile before we trekked down the 32 miles to the bottom of our mountain ride.

This was the most time off we have take at one time in 6 years.
It was wonderful.

Even better than the trip was coming home and still wanting to do things with my hubby.

I heard a line in a movie once...the couple was talking about people who think that they will come to the island to find romance.
They usually leave disappointed.
The native to the island said that people find in the island what they have in them.
If they have passion in them before the trip, they will come back finding themselves remembering the trip as one of passion.
If they did not, they are likely not to come back closer just because they went away to an island.

This weekend after we got home, it was still so fun to have time off together.

We are so blessed.

The time away definitely reminded me of how very blessed we are.