Category: Uncategorized

How do you get people to immediately stop what they’re doing and willingly help you do what ever you ask?

Just walk in with a crying baby or toddler.

Nothing demands attention more than the constant cries of a child in pain.

This is what they call in business, “a burning platform.”  In other words, it is something that everyone should be concerned about, something that everyone is willing to help resolve because it is in their best interest and the best interest of the group.

But if you don’t happen to have a crying baby handy, how do you communicate a ‘burning platform’ message to others who need to hear it?

photo by egg on stilts

After 21 days of posting, where do I go from here?

Start over.

Here’s a site where you can find all kinds of stuff – Mashable

Try one thing that looks interesting to you.  Spend some time learning how to use it…

and in no time…

you’re an expert! At least to some of your friends who have never seen that tool or website or widget.

There’s so much out there that it is easy to become a local expert at something.

Well, they say if you do something every day for 21 days it becomes a habit.

I’ve done it… but I still don’t believe it.

Some days I’ve wanted to just throw in the towel and give up on the whole thing, but for some reason I just couldn’t let down both of my readers.  It has been difficult coming up with material every day, which I know now why most people don’t write every day.  But somehow, I’ve stuck with it, and sacrificed a lot of sleep.

Everyone has different motivators, things that drive them to accomplishment.  For this, I think mine was public declaration, even though ‘public’ probably meant only a handful of people, if that.  And I don’t even consider this much of a success, yet. 

But 21 days does seem like some kind of milestone.  So here I am, talking about it.

What’s your motivator?  Find out. Use it freely.  Let it run your life, in the way you want it to be run.

photo by ecstaticist

Monday, January 19th is a National Day of Service. Yes, it’s Martin Luther King Jr. day also, but a day of service sounds like a great idea.

If we take a conceptual view of service, it is really the essence of the ideal human being.  Being unselfish and giving of yourself to benefit another person is the highest station of existence.  If everyone was perfectly unselfish and gave service to as many as they had the capacity for, then we would all have our needs met by others, and we would be the most fulfilled because we would have become useful in providing for the needs of others.

That may sound like some kind of utopian fantasy, but actually, we learn how to live in this manner in the greatest institution of all, the family.

To become a mother or father you are given the responsibility to take care of this strange creature who can not do anything for itself. An infant is completely dependent upon someone else to exist.  As time goes by, it gradually learns to do things for itself (if you’ve taught it).  Still, many years of dedicated service are required by the parents before this being can feed itself, dispose of its waste properly, effectively comunicate, and socially interact properly. 

It is then prepared to be trained by others.  You could say that this means entering pre-school, but you could also say that it means graduating from high school. 

Whatever your perspective, there is no doubt that many years of selfless service are required to produce the kind of being that is able to effectively contribute to society by serving others, and able to produce similar beings of service itself.  The more of these beings you produce, the more selfless service is required.

So on this National Day of Service, try to think of ways to increase the service to those fellow human beings who you have the deepest feelings for, either for those who still need your example and training, or as gratitude to those who gave so many years of service to you.

One of the most important traits for a leader is ” authenticity.”  There are so many books that give you the techniques, what you should do , or what you should say in certain situations.  But if you are using someone else’s phrase,  and don’t sincerely mean what you are saying, then others will pick up on it immedately (or eventually.)

Learning principles helps to avoid this problem, because you are not given the exact prescriptions.  Principles are core ideas or concepts, they contain the underlying reasons or truths that explain why things work the way they do.

If you live by principles that you believe in, then your attitude and actions towards others will be seen as who you really are.  This genuine authenticity gives you more credibility.  People can almost predict what you will do  in certain situations because they know your values (or what’s important to you.)  This develops trust.

And trust can propel a movement.

In this day of thousands of channels, radio stations, and millions of web sites what are they all trying to get you to pay?

Attention.

The old adage, “Time is Money” is more accurately “Time is Value,” especially when there are now so many more choices for how you spend your time.  And since a person can’t possibly experience every piece of information out there, the fact that they are paying attention to you must mean that what ever you have created for them is worth a valuable payment of their precious, limited resource.

When something is scarce, its value and worth are increased.  And does anybody think they have an abundance or a surplus of time?

It’s funny, we actually have the same amount of time we’ve always had, 24 hours in a day, 7 days a week.  But something is different.  Just like financial economies fluctuate due to a variety of dynamics and variables, the economy of time has changed.  And your attention has become a high priced commodity.

So if you’re reading this, I appreciate your payment.  Because I know that attention is hard to get.

Flickr photo by Steve Wampler

Such a fleeting thing, motivation.

When it is strong, we are on top of the world, free as a bird, nothing can stop us.

When it is weak, we become slugs, no initiative, no action.

How can we be like two opposite creatures, within a short period of time?  Within weeks, or days, or even hours?

It is because we are such superior creatures that we have the ability and power to change from one type to another by just using our mind.  And even though we don’t feel like it is true sometimes, we are the only ones who have control over our brains, our thoughts, and therefore our moods and feelings.  No one else can get inside our brain and ‘make’ us think or feel a certain way.

Just because something is difficult, doesn’t mean it can’t be done.

Therefore, if motivation is a mood or feeling that helps us expand, create, do good things, and become an effective, competent, contributing creature, then we ought to practice, strive, and mentally work hard on cultivating and sustaining the mood of motivation.

What’s your motive for motivation?

Well, I made it 11 days in a row, which I think is a pretty good start for any new habit.  They say it take 21 days for an official habit to form but I’m not sure how accurate that is.  There are probably a lot more variables involved.

I wanted to reserve the right to not post on Sunday for two reasons.  One, for religious reasons, Sunday should be different than all the others, and two, as a natural cycle of things, it’s good to take a break at least one day each week. 

With that being said, this post makes two Sunday’s in a row where I’ve said something.  But once I get my habit going, I might take a break on Sunday.  For me, it actually might be more appropriate to post about religious or faith-based themes on Sunday, but I’ve already posted previously about humility and faith, so I’m covered.

You can take a break too, if you choose.

Creativity.  When do you do it?  Is it hard for you?

It didn’t used to be.  All kids use creativity and imagination all the time.  Think of all the crayons, construction paper, glue, scissors, paint, cotton balls, milk carton projects they create.  They are doing this stuff on a daily basis sometimes.  When was the last time you used crayons and glue? (Scrap book Moms excluded.)

And when kids play, they are always imagining they are something else, acting out roles, and pretending to be in a magical fairy wonderland place.

This is true right brain thinking, and somehow, when we get older, we think it is kids’ stuff and so we repress our urge or desire or habits of creating and thinking differently.

The problem is that when we get older, we seem to have a lot more problems, and so we need creativity more than ever to think beyond the possibilities or outside the realm of how we are seeing our current situation or problem.  

There is a solution. 

To find it, we must break our assumptions of what is ‘true’ or ‘a fact’.  That takes imagination and ‘pretending’.

My favorite book on creativity is “Orbiting the Giant Hairball” by Gordon MacKenzie.  It is even written creatively like no other book I’ve seen.  There are pages with handwritten notes, he does his own artwork, and his stories are amazing.  I highly recommend it, even if you’re not a corporate person.

The next time you feel stuck with a problem you can’t solve, start activating your right brain – create some art, dance in the rain, imagine a fantastical place with unicorns and fairies – and maybe a solution will come to you.  If not, at least you’ll have fun and your problem won’t seem that important anymore.

What does it mean to be hungry? 

It means that you have a craving or desire for substance that your body naturally needs to exist.  You want to take something that is outside of your body that has nutrients or stuff your body needs, and then consume it within your body so that the substance becomes part of you (then you get rid of the part you don’t need, but we won’t talk about that.)  Our body needs substance to live.  So if we didn’t have hunger, we probably wouldn’t feed ourselves enough to survive.  Hunger then is a critical, natural sensation that is built in to our body.

Does our body or being need other things beside food?  If things like love, companionship, and accomplishment are necessary for us to be a thriving, purposeful, contributing human being then it stands to reason that we might have a natural drive for those things as well.  But it appears that our natural drive to obtain those things isn’t as strong as our basic drive to eat.

Yet I believe those other drives still exist, we just need a little encouragement in that area.  Which is why I think the phrase “Stay Hungry” is the perfect analogy for a lesson we need to always keep in mind.  We need to keep the desire for improvement, progression, and accomplishment always in our minds as we do what we do in life – whether that is being a lawyer, a musician, an engineer, a stay-at-home mother or whatever.

But to be truthful, I didn’t come up with that phrase.  It was created by my friend Becky Blanton, an incredibly talented writer, entreprenuer, motivator and creative thinker who submitted “Stay Hungry” as part of a contest to come up with Lesson 7, the next lesson after the 6 Career Lessons of Daniel Pink, author of “A Whole New Mind” and his latest “The Adventures of Johnny Bunko“. 

Actually,  she needs your vote to win.  Go to this web site and click on “Stay Hungry” (if you think it’s the best one) before Jan 15th 2009.

Then stay hungry for learning, achievement, growth, or whatever you want in life, and make it part of you.  Eat.