Start with Lucky

Living the long-time dream of standing on top of Machu Picchu, August 15,2013. How did I get so lucky?

Louis Pastuer said it like this: "Fortune favors the prepared mind." And as I observed in my travels across the Peruvian high plains, being prepared is just a start - it doesn't hurt to be born in the USA. 

 

Here are the gifts I brought back from my 8 day journey in Peru.

 

1. People are the same in more ways than we are different. We all value family and loved ones, we need to have adequate work for housing and food, and we enjoy smiles and laughter. Our group was served dinner in the home of a village taxi driver. The house was built by the grandmother's father - stone walls, dirt floor, cooking fire in the corner, one weak light bulb, and a table long enough to seat 12 filled the room. We ate lavishly their typical celebration foods: corn and potato in several forms, stuffed peppers, quinoa, and cuy/guinea pig. There was such a warmth and hospitality as the 18 year old son spoke with us about their family life.

2. The foreign country I've seen in books and video is so much more than flat images and simplified stereotypical ideas. The air, the mountains, the earth; the people, animals, and plants; the history, culture, and political landscape are more complex and fascinating than I could have imagined. Travel reminds me that every country is more than a different color area on the map - countries are alive. Knowing that fact intellectually is one thing, being there is quite another.

3. Comparing my worst day living as an American with the best day of a Peruvian farmer or moto-taxi driver, I am incredibly blessed. It is more than I can describe here, but it includes peace and safety, healthcare and abundance of life's basic needs, clean air, good transportation, running water and flush toilets, and an incredible amount of independence, interdependence, and opportunity for anyone willing to go for it. And social caring and awareness for those unable to do it alone.

Again I ask myself, how did I get so lucky? 

 

No excuses for me. Take Charge -- Get Moving! Anything is possible.

Love and light,

Diane

Motivational Direction - Part 2

In the last post, I listed the principle of direction in how we motivate ourselves. You may have wondered how to know your built-in direction. Think about an unpleasant task - mowing an overgrown lawn or washing a week's worth of dirty dishes by hand - put yourself into the scene as vividly as possible in the moment just before you get started on the task. What thought and feeling do you have in that moment? Do you feel so uncomfortable that you just say something like "let me get this over with," or is it a sense of how good it will look and you will feel when the lawn or kitchen are shining back in their glory? Do this quickly without pondering and you may recognize your pattern.

Example
For Sales Pros: Away from pattern gets moving when the discomfort of NOT making quota becomes strong enough - so rev up that feeling right away to get moving. Toward pattern sees the prize and feels that feeling of achievement right away and motivation is easy. Here's a word of advice for the Away from pattern people - it's easy to lose motivation when you've made a little progress and your discomfort is lessened unless you turn to the Toward pattern's process to keep you moving forward.

For Fitness: Pay attention to your motivational direction and use the same process listed above. 

Making significant change in your life can be much easier when you look at your internal programming and work with it to Take Charge -- Get Moving!

Want to know more about how this works? Contact me for a free coaching session.
Love and light,
Diane

"If you keep on doing what you've always done ... Part 1

... You'll keep on getting what you've always got." And yet, how many of us actually CHANGE what we're doing, even when we know the change that could make a difference? Whether the topic is health, wealth, relationship, or business, there is plenty of information telling us how to achieve any objective. So there must be something besides Knowing that keeps us stuck in the status quo. Most people call it "Motivation".

Over my 60+ years I have been a teacher, trainer, consultant, sales pro, and for the last 15 years a coach helping people make changes in their life and career. I have studied the works of personal development gurus for most of my life: Jim Rohn, John C Maxwell, Stephen Covey, Kenneth Blanchard, Tony Robbins, Wayne Dyer, and Dr. Phil to name a few. There is a wealth of information about how to motivate ourselves to change what's not working.

There are two key principles that have worked for me and for my clients. 
1) Motivation is based on what we value most. If we value comfort (freedom from discomfort), change will seem very difficult. If we value safety/security (the known vs. the unknown), we will see change as very risky. The potential rewards will seem impossible and dangerous. 
2) Each of us is "wired" to motivate ourselves from one of two directions: Toward what we do want, or Away From what we don't want. Knowing which direction is our natural perspective can be very powerful in getting through the inertia associated with making a major change.

In my next blog entry, I'll say more about how to work with the two motivational principles so you have a choice about making change.

Meanwhile, Take Charge -- Get Moving!
Love and light,
Diane

Playing to Win

How do you succeed in anything - career, sport, relationships, life in general? Why do some people seem to move more quickly toward their goals and higher accomplishments?

A key factor is knowing the rules of the game AND the strategies that others have used to achieve success. Let's take chess. When I was in grade school, my older brother taught me how to play. I learned what each piece could do and the objectives of the game. I tried very hard to make "smart moves" with that information. But alas, he always won! What he omitted from his instruction was strategy, or what constituted a plan of action and truly smart moves. He liked to win.

I see people in great jobs in different industries playing the game of work with the same level of "not knowing what they don't know" doing their job very well, but without much attention to the bigger picture strategy of that game. And I completely understand that the last five years have continued to demand more production from smaller numbers of workers on the team. People get burned out just doing what has to be done, let alone manage their career strategically.

It's important to clarify what you want out of work - a job to get done, or a career with progressively more responsibility and superior rewards. If the latter is the goal, you may benefit from the objective support of a professional career coach. Someone who can see your game of work from a meta level and support strategic behaviors and opportunities. 
Checkmate! Now that's a lot more fun!
Let's Take Charge ... Get Moving
Love and light,
Diane

New Year of Purpose

Big questions have come to me as the New Year 2013 begins. Who am I now, at this time in my life? What value or significance can I leave as a legacy or a mark that I was here? How can I balance BE-ing in a spiritual sense with my call to DO-ing on the human level? Big questions ... and thank goodness I am at a point when I have some time and energy to do something with the questions on a personal and professional level.

Let me start with the BE-ing. I have given up the idea that my worth and value are based on anything I have to do - same for every other human being. We have worth and value because we exist. Without putting any religious context around it, we are pure energy, we are loved, we are love.  What a wonderful thing to feel peace and acceptance in that state of being.

At the same time, my life would be pretty dull without a purpose that allows me to touch other people in positive, healing, and joyful ways. For me the activities of coaching and working with people who are dealing with changes and challenges in life have given me a purpose and expansion. If I'm going to be busy, I choose to be busy in meaningful work - meaningful to me and for others.

This year I am going to volunteer in support of a cause that is much bigger than myself. This project will inspire passion and purpose in ways I can't even imagine at the beginning, but I know that will happen. 

This year I am Taking Charge - and Getting a Move on in a totally different way. Why not? It's a brand new year. Anyone care to join me?

Love and light to all,
Diane

The Case for Pollyanna

I'm an optimist. In the midst of whatever challenge or unfortunate situation, after an initial automatic reactive "ouch", I go for the positive and the possible. People around me who call themselves "realists" tell me I'm a crazy Pollyanna who just doesn't get it. "Interesting", I say.

What I've learned in every area of my life, is that I can't control circumstances, only my response to them. If I experience weather, traffic, taxes, or a stubbed toe, I can choose what to focus on and what kind of thoughts and feelings I take forward from that situation. Does it color my day or my life in shades of gray and tension in my body? Can I do what needs to be done and feel positive just knowing that stuff happens? My life experience will take the shape and form of the feelings I have about what happens. 

"What you focus on expands" is an old maxim. So telling and retelling the negative story to myself and others serves to continue the negative thoughts, feelings, and results. Now there's a happy thought. That also means that choosing to see the positive and possible also brings more of the same. The only question here is "What do I really want?" My optimistic answer is to be happy, to be whole, to be willing and able to serve a higher good.

So that's my case for Pollyanna. If you are in the midst of a career change, switch to a more positive feeling state by asking yourself a few questions:

• What am I learning in this experience?
• What benefits are possible?'
• What do I need to do right now to move in the direction that will bring more of what I want in my life?
• Who is showing up for me as friend, supporter, or resource? Who needs me to show up as these same things for them?
• Who am I called to be in this situation?
• In spite of the challenges, how am I experiencing blessings right now? 

A recent movie, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, has a classic line. "''Everything will be all right in the end. If it's not all right, then it's not yet the end''.  Sounds pretty good to me! 

I often lead workshops and coach clients on the topic of Irresistible Attraction that has a foundation on choosing to find the positive and focusing on that. Let's chat if you'd like to know more. One of my clients came up with his affirmation on this: "Life is Good and Every Day is Christmas!". I couldn't have said it better.

Ready? Take Charge -- Get Moving

Love and light,
Diane

What's the Question?

We're trained early to go for an answer and that there is a right answer to most questions. As a result we often focus on mundane, ordinary, and wimpy questions in our networking, job seeking, and interviewing processes.

 

The truth is that a more successful strategy for influencing others and building relationships is to ask a great question ... and then to listen carefully. Seems simple, doesn't it? And yet it's the one skill that career transition-ers, managers, and sales professionals often under-utilize in the face of time and energy limitations. It seems faster and easier to ask information-oriented questions and just get it done. We assume the relationship before building it.

What makes a question a great question? A simple answer is that it is "open"; it can't be answered with one-word or a simple information stream, like "what is your name?" An excellent open question causes the other person to pause, think for a moment, and go into their own experience for a response. Here are some good open questions that can become great in the right context:

• Besides the expectation of making/exceeding quota, what does it take to be successful on this sales team?
• How does the culture of this organization/team show up or affect this position?
• What advice would you give to someone in my situation?
• How can I best serve you? 
•  What do you like best about your current ________?

 

When you are going for an information interview, job interview, prospecting appointment, project management meeting, etc., take the time to craft a list of great questions that will engage the other person. The trust/relationship bridge is strengthened when we give them a chance to be heard. The real issues, strengths, opportunities will unfold in the process.

Just another way to  - Take Charge - Get Moving!

Love and light,

Diane

 

PS: * the photo is a time-lapse of moths flying in the light