Surviving in a culture obsessed with emotions
 

Have you noticed that the ‘appropriate’ question to ask someone today about a proposal is, “How do you feel about that?” Not, “What do you think of that?” or “Do you have any ideas on that?”

At least on this, US, side of the Atlantic, we live in a culture that is increasingly driven by feelings and emotions. Feelings are everything; thoughts are relegated to the second rate, suitable only for those poor people who haven’t yet ‘got in touch with their feelings.’

In a culture that extols feelings as the central concern in life, the result is not just a roller-coaster of ups and downs. It becomes almost impossible to discuss anything rationally, since you cannot dispute how someone else feels—however irrational or neurotic you think those feelings are. “But that how I feel,” becomes a simple way to end any argument, leaving things unresolved. Suggesting that any feelings are inappropriate, even silly, is dismissed as ‘unfeeling’. Empathy is promoted over reason, logic and even truth.

It’s high time for a little relief and a practical guide to coping with feelings in ways that don’t turn them into mad tyrants, personally and within any group.

The truth about emotions

Emotions happen. They are natural and inevitable. Neither statement makes them correct or the thoughts they produce true. Paranoia is not thinking, rationally and with evidence, that people are out to get you. It’s feeling they are, regardless of likelihood or any evidence to the contrary.

• You can neither force yourself to have ‘suitable’ feelings nor prevent ‘unsuitable’ ones from arising. Feelings cannot be controlled directly by any act of will.
• Feelings do not last, unless you work at keeping them alive. They always fade over time unless they are constantly stimulated, usually by imagining the original event again and again.
• Feelings, in themselves, are morally and ethically neutral. They just arise, whether you want them to or not. Feeling guilty about them is pointless. Questions of right and wrong are involved only when you act on your feelings, seek to stimulate them or deliberately keep them alive.
• Feelings need to be accepted, but not automatically believed or followed. Since feelings are merely an inevitable part of life, the only rational response is acceptance of their existence, followed by rational consideration of whether to do anything they suggest.

Danger! Emotions at work.

I encountered a situation this week where someone I know almost caused severe damage to his business by giving in to a temporary burst of negative feelings about a supplier. It was all sorted out in the end, but the trust between them has been damaged for some time to come. Worst of all, there was no real basis for the emotional outburst, other than frustration with a bad economy and fear that someone might, in some unknown way, be making things worse than they need be.

How many working relationships are damaged, even destroyed, every day by emotional outbursts? How many people nurse hidden feelings of anger or resentment, allowing them to poison their actions and make their own lives miserable? In the typical workplace, how many problems are directly due to jealousy, malice, fear or personal feuds? Yet, far from considering how to minimize such a potent source of workplace disruption, people equate authenticity—being who you are—with giving full rein to almost every passing emotion.

“All you need is love,” sang The Beatles. Sadly, it’s not true. Love is another feeling. A few moments with any divorce lawyer, police officer or paramedic will provide more than enough bitter evidence of how easily and frequently it dies, then metamorphoses into hatred.

Handling emotions sensibly

Ultimately, you are responsible for your actions and words, matter how you feel. Why allow feelings to provoke you into saying things you will soon regret? Why let your feelings—temporary and irrational as they are—push you around or lead you into making unforced errors?

Why wait to do something necessary until you feel like it? If it needs to be done, do it, regardless of how you feel at the time. Waiting to ‘feel right’ is the cause of most procrastination. Commonsense should tell you that, since you can neither produce a feeing by an act of will, nor prevent one, how you feel has no relevance to what you should be doing at any point in time.

Feelings happen, just like the rain falls. Getting mad at the rain won’t make it stop. Feeling guilty about how you feel won’t do anything except add guilt to the feelings you already have. Feelings should be left alone to rise and fall naturally. What you should be looking at is whether that feeling is pointing to something you need to do.

If you feel bad about something you said, that feeling may be pointing to a need to apologize. Think about it. If you feel good about a result, maybe you should be thanking everyone who helped you. Think about that too. If you feel unhappy, consider what may be causing it. If you feel excited, think about how you might use that energy in a positive way while it lasts.

Psychologists warn against repressing feelings. That means trying to pretend they don’t exist. It doesn’t mean you should not suppress—refuse to act on or encourage—feelings that are unhelpful or inappropriate. You aren’t responsible for the feelings that come to you, but you are definitely accountable for how you respond to them.

That, I think, needs careful and ethical thought, not goo-ey slogans about love. Barely a hundred years ago, ‘sentiment’ was viewed with considerable skepticism and distrust. It almost became a term of abuse. Maybe that went a little too far, but we surely don’t need to go to the other extreme and glorify emotions for their own sake.

Technorati Tags: emotions, feelings, relationships, responsibility, accountability

Have you noticed how often people label themselves?
 

We all understand the problems caused by labeling others: stereotyping, racial profiling and all the evils of mindless prejudice. But what about self-stereotyping? What about the way people ‘profile’ themselves? “I’m just not that kind of person,” we say. “I’m not the thoughtful type.” “I’m not good at organizing.” “I have trouble with relationships.” “I’ve never been good at schoolwork.” “I’m not up to that. I’m more of a hands-on person.”

Yet, just as the labels we apply to others can prevent us from seeing them clearly or appreciating their strengths and value, so the labels you learn to apply to yourself will limit and block your understanding of your own strengths and potential. They will hold you back and limit your sense of what is possible for you.

All labels come with values and beliefs about what you can do and what you cannot—and need not even try. They prescribe the things you can do, say and develop in your life. Worst of all, they give instant reasons why you are different from the rest of us. Peeling off those labels, replacing them with words that create space for growth to opening your mind, is a powerful way to change your life for the better.

It’s worth looking at some typical self-applied labels and seeing what they might really mean and how hanging onto them could affect you.

• “I’m just not that kind of person.” What kind of person? A statement like this manages to combine self-stereotyping and stereotyping of others in a mere seven words. How can that be helpful to anyone? Suggesting that there are ‘kinds of people’ reduces us all to categories—including yourself. Surely there are just people? Why should there be types, except to save us from seeing them as individuals?
• “I’m not the thoughtful type.” Can you think? Then you are. This is mostly a feeble excuse for not making any effort to consider things carefully, while shifting the blame for all the consequent mistakes onto something convenient, like your genetic make-up.
• “I’m not good at organizing.” Another feeble excuse, usually for a combination of laziness and the pleasure that comes from letting someone else organize for you. Everyone can organize. All it takes is effort and care. If you claim to be a poor organizer, what you are really saying is that you cannot be bothered to make the effort and you don’t care anyway. If that’s true—and why not?—just be honest and say so.
• “I have trouble with relationships.” You and the rest of mankind. Is that any reason not to try and get better at them?
• “I’m not very good at tough decisions.” No one is. That’s why they’re tough.
• “I’ve never been good at schoolwork.” I have heard this excuse so often. What it really means is that the person cannot be bothered to try to learn anything new. The fact that you weren’t good at school—perhaps 20 or 30 years ago—has nothing to do with it. There could have been all kinds of reasons for that, from adolescent rebellion to lousy teachers. Why let it limit you today?
• “I’m not up to that. ”Afraid. Can’t be bothered to try. Dishonest too. If you don’t want to do it, say so. Don’t invent a catch-all excuse that implies you’re being prevent from trying by anything other than your own choice.

Even supposedly positive labels can be limiting. What about these?

• “I’m more of a hands-on person.” This usually means you would like someone to tell you what to do, explain exactly how to do it and then take the blame if it goes wrong. If you have hands, you’re a hands-on person. If you’re only a hands-on person, that must mean you don’t have a brain as well as hands. Come off it. It may be comforting to pretend you can’t think for yourself, but it’s never true.

• “I’m just a regular guy.” Define irregular. Does this mean you don’t have three legs, nine eyes and hail from the planet Zebran? We’re just about all ‘regular’ men and women. What this near-meaningless phrase usually represents is simply getting your excuses in first.
• “I’ve done pretty well, even though I never had any formal training.” Means: “I do as well as I can without trying to learn anything more, challenging my current ideas or working at getting better. Luckily for me, experience has taught me to do some kind of half-decent job without making any greater effort, so I leave it at that. This allows me to forget that I can find some training, improve my education or even read a few good books on the subject any time I want.”

It’s well worth taking time to sort through the automatic labels you apply to yourself without thinking. Are they true? Are they even helpful? What if you took off any label that’s limiting you and making you feel stuck?

A label is a kind of permission slip. With it, you can do some things, but are prohibited from others. Without it, you cannot even start. Let it go and the sense of burden it causes will fall away.

Taking away every self-applied label lets you find the room to experiment, to try things out and play with fresh ideas and wider possibilities. It also takes away some of your inner critic’s most effective fire-power—and that has to be worth a great deal.

Technorati Tags: stereotypes, self-limitation, inner critic, low self-esteem, holding yourself back

How ‘real’ is virtual reality?

According to CNN.com, Santiago Martinez, a 41 year-old accountant living in the Yucatan, Mexico does all his birthday present shopping on the Internet, using hi5 ‘virtual dollars’. When he wants to give his friends birthday presents, such as a cuddly bear or birthday cake, he orders them on-line, pays for them with virtual currency and sends them on-line too. The recipient receives a virtual gift; there’s no physical reality involved. As Santiago says, “They can’t eat the cake. It is an image [of] the thing that it represents. You send the feeling of the [cake] that you want to send.”
 
So you send the feeling. Really? How does that work?
 
I’m curious how much the five year-old recipient of a virtual teddy bear or birthday cake feels the love. How often do someone’s eyes well up with heart-felt tears at the sight of a virtual diamond bracelet, a virtually-expensive tie or the warmth of a virtual puppy? How long do the memories last from that type of emotional experience?

A fragmented world

In spite of the continuing growth of on-line networks, people are isolating themselves in increasing numbers, both emotionally and psychologically.

We have created tools that reinforce casual connections, all the while reducing the opportunity for close, personal contact. In our hectic lives, we can’t allocate the time it takes for real intimacy with another person. However many ‘friends’ you have on Facebook, the truth is that the size of your on-line network does not mean anything when it comes to real relationships.

All around us, relationships are disintegrating, replaced by superficial, fleeting contacts via impersonal channels. People swap direct, personal contact for electronic connections devoid of face-to-face interaction or tangible connectivity.
 
When relationships are replaced by electronic interactions, emotional connection—the human factor that creates true relationships—goes missing. Yet that’s what marriage researcher John Gottman says is the definitive foundation that determines the sustainability of relationships. Emotional connection does not work via transmission through the ether. You can’t “send the feeling of the cake.”
 

Connection is not relationship

 Within an electronic, transactional world, more people may be connecting, but fewer are relating. We live in an increasingly inter-connected world, but experience a far less inter-related one. When ­human contact is limited to a phone call, an e-mail or a quick “cu” or “luv u” text message—even a virtual teddy bear—where is the authentic connection with another live human being?

It’s questionable whether connecting like that represents any actual contact. Even as it becomes easier than ever to stay ‘in touch’, our capacity to touch one another, physically or emotionally, is slipping away. Is that what we want?
 
This week’s food-for-thought questions are:

• What face-to-face conversations are you avoiding? Are you spending more time on superficial contact and less on genuine personal relationships?
• Do you regularly send virtual cards and gifts in place of the real thing? Do you do that for your own convenience or for the one receiving the card or gift? Are you saving time at the expense of something that might convey genuine relatedness? Are you short-changing them emotionally?
• Are you addicted to Twitter, Facebook or other social networking tools? Can you do without these tools for a day or a week? If not, that’s addiction, whatever your denials and protestations.
• Do you automatically answer with your cellphone or Blackberry while you’re having a face-to-face conversation? What does that communicate to that person? Do you care?
• Are you on an electronic leash on weekends, days off and while on vacation? Can you truly make the disconnection (from the world) needed to make a real connection with someone else?

Technorati Tags: relationships, authenticity, connection, making time for others, isolated lives

(This is a guest article by Richard E. Goldman, Author of “Luck by Design: Certain Success in an Uncertain World”)

Do you want to decide right now that you’re going to be successful; and that you’re going to be able to handle that success when the time comes? “Ha!” you might say. “I should be so lucky! I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.” No. If you want to design your own luck and put yourself on the path to success, start planning for it now. The graveyard of successful people who didn’t know how to handle their success is already brimming over. There’s no need for you to join them.

Do you always seem to have a bad boss or never get a break at work? It may have something to do with what you are presenting to the world. Your outer working life has to reflect your inner organization. Make sure that you have your personal values and ethos in order, and then take them to the workplace.

The reality is that there are no bad bosses, there are no bad breaks and there are no victims—unless you choose to become one.

Take a moment to re-read that paragraph. It’s easy enough to read, but understanding the content can take a lifetime. Give yourself an advantage and contemplate it now: what you bring to your work makes all the difference.

Understanding true success

Maybe a good place to start is to articulate what success isn’t. It’s not a big house, a fancy car, or a bunch of bling. It’s not the American Express platinum card or the limousine. Success isn’t easy, and once you have it, there is no guarantee that you’ll keep it. So prepare for success by accepting that success does not equal significance or security. Success is, quite simply, peace. Peace of mind that you’ve done the best that you can. Peace of heart that you are part of something—perhaps a family—whose members support you, love you, and will always be there for you.

Is success giving your all? Is it doing your best? Is it getting the job done? Again, it’s none of the above. Success is much more about the journey than the end of the road. It’s about the experience of your passion. It’s the satisfaction you can get from planning and then doing, and then watching the seeds of your planning and doing take root and create something that wasn’t there before. Real success is the ability to embrace the discoveries and enlightenment you encounter along the journey in whatever it is that you do. Crossing the finish line is inconsequential.

The road up the corporate ladder can be so consuming that you miss your original goal. You push and push to get that next raise, that next promotion, and one day you turn around and you’ve lost touch with yourself—and in many cases, you’ve lost touch with your family and friends too. You don’t always need the next toy, that bigger house, or that office with the big window and great view. None of it is worth it if in the process you lose sight of who you are or lose your connection with the people most important to you. All of that is a danger if you subscribe to the theory that success equals money.

You probably aren’t going to be the Big Dog

Just as money doesn’t buy happiness, if you think being the Big Dog will bring you happiness, there’s another bubble to burst. All too many people want (or at least think they want) to get to the top.

The numbers are always against them. By definition, there is only one captain, one quarterback, or one CEO and a limited number of teams and companies. There are leaders and there are followers. For the vast majority, the question is, how can you be a good follower and still have that role be consistent with the rest of your life? How can it be consistent with your values and your dreams? If your values and your dreams are more important to you than a title, then it should be pretty easy to accept that you’re not going to be the CEO.

Here are some tips on being a great follower:

• Recognize that being a follower is not a failure—it’s a function. A necessary function, just as every other part of a team.
• One day, you probably are going to be a leader, just not the leader. If it’s your project, then you’re the leader.
• You can be a follower without abdicating yourself. It can even help you in defining yourself—a terrific lesson in learning how to put your ego in neutral.

Leadership is all about perspective

Leadership is mostly a matter of perspective. Are you always looking up the ladder to see who’s above? Do you look at the rung you’re on to see who else is there? Or are you looking at the rung below? Instead of worrying where everyone else is, try to reconcile yourself with the possibility that you are in the right place, making the absolute best of the resources you have available to you on that day.

It’s clear that the work part of your life is often going to take center stage. Once that you’ve entered that arena, the next hurdle is management—both management of yourself and yourself as a manager. One day, somehow, some way, you will be called upon to manage. There is no time like the present to start preparing.

If you truly want to experience the peace that comes from being a real success on your own terms, make better
decisions, trust your intuition and live with integrity, start today. Start designing your own luck, so you can lead the life you were meant to live.

When you sit down and think about your life, think about this: the question is not what or why, but how are you going to live? A fulfilling life is passion driven and a big part of that life derives from the work that you do. It doesn’t matter what the work is. What matters is the passion that you have behind it and that you put into it.

Richard E. Goldman, author of “Luck by Design: Certain Success in an Uncertain World”, started working on the sales floor of a small clothing store with annual sales of only a few hundred thousand dollars. Over the years he helped grow that one store into the emerging and now omnipresent Men’s Wearhouse. By the time Goldman retired, there were 680 Men’s Wearhouse-affiliated stores across the United States and Canada, with annual sales in excess of $1.27 billion.

Goldman has also been a quiet force in business, education, and volunteerism. His luck—luck that he has actively created—has expanded his life in ways and directions well beyond anything he might have imagined as a child in Hazleton, Pennsylvania. You can read more of his story at www.richiegoldman.com.

Technorati Tags: leadership, being a follower, integrity, authenticity, true success

Why are working relationships between bosses and subordinates such a problem?

I thought it would be a good idea to review some of the basics of management—topics that we take for granted because they are so familiar to us, or because we assume the last word on them has been spoken and there is nothing more to be said. Motivation is on my list, as is communication, but I am going to start with the topic of working relationships between bosses and their subordinates.

Establishing good working relationships with subordinates is something every manager has to attempt. That’s why it’s the subject of innumerable books, articles, training courses and blogs.

This bothers me. Since managers are obviously still struggling with establishing productive relationships with their team members, the advice being given has to be missing something essential.

I’m not going to claim that I know the answer, but I do have some suggestions for areas of questioning that might move us forward.

Is everyone ‘showing up’ and paying attention?

The most basic requirement for any relationship is that both parties should be ‘present’. By that I mean both should be involved in that relationship and give it their undivided attention, in person, whenever necessary. Yet, what I observe are managers proclaiming their wish to have productive relationships with their staff while avoiding actual contact with them whenever possible.

It’s a truism to point out that relationships have two sides. Have such managers yet to grasp this point? They expect their subordinates to be fully involved in establishing and maintaining a relationship with them, while they make little or no effort in return. Talking with them is like speaking to an answering machine. You get a pre-recorded message back and have no means of knowing whether the message you leave will ever be listened to.

What you give your attention to grows; what you ignore, or attend to only when forced, quickly withers away. No relationship can survive prolonged neglect by either party.

Are they being honest with one another?

Exactly the same point could be made about honesty in relationships. Managers demand that their subordinates be open and honest with them, yet feel no obligation to behave the same way in return.

If you are not honest about a relationship, the message you are giving is that you don’t value it. This is as true of the relationship between boss and subordinate as it is of the relationship between spouses or friends.

Dishonesty destroys a relationship because all are based on some degree of mutual trust. If deal with you only on a one-off, transactional basis, there’s little need for me to trust you. We do what we must do and there’s an end of it. But if you and I are to work together, I have to feel sure that you will do what you promise, tell me the truth and deal with anything that concerns me openly and honestly.

It’s a sad thing to have to say, but many bosses do none of these. It’s little wonder that their subordinates have come to expect duplicity and concealment as normal—or that they repay the boss in kind.

Who’s paying attention?

Another corrupting influence on working relationships is narcissism. Why should anyone enter into a relationship with me, if the focus of that relationship is always fixed on me and what I want?

In today’s rushed workplace, attention is at a premium. That’s all the more reason to direct it where it matters most. A great many bosses think that is on themselves and their own careers. The only time they have any attention left over for their subordinates is when they want to complain or criticize. While the subordinate is ignored for the rest of the time, he or she is expected to find as much attention for the boss as the boss demands—at whatever time and on whatever topic.

Would you stay friends with someone who never found time to give you any attention? Would you stay with a lover who demanded that you fulfill his or her smallest need, while ignoring yours in return? Why should you behave differently with the boss? The boss may indeed be able to demand that you jump as and when requested, but that is a matter of authority, not the basis for a relationship.

The relationship between a boss and a subordinate is always going to be affected by their relative positions in the hierarchy. You have to face this. That’s why so many are based more on the approach you would expect between master and servant than between colleagues pursuing the same goal. Subordinates are paid to carry out instructions from the boss and are expected to comply without resistance. To make the boss feel better, they are also expected to look as if they enjoy it.

Is that a relationship? Hardly. It looks more like prostitution. You pay. I give as little in return as I can get away with . . . and fake some pleasure to make you feel special.

Is the boss trying to change you?

If the boss wants a relationship, it has to be marked by acceptance. No relationship gives either party the right to change the other to fit their expectations or wishes better.

One of the commonest causes is for breakdown in marriage is when one spouse determines to change the other to fix some problem or match an ideal. At once, the relationship becomes manipulative. The one starts ‘doing things’ to the other, who resents it.

Doesn’t this sound like the typical boss dealing with a subordinate? Isn’t this the basis for performance management and similar techniques? I, the boss, assert the right to change you, the subordinate, into what I want. If you don’t accept me doing that, it means you’re ‘ not co-operative’, ‘not a team player’, or ‘lack commitment’. Your career will suffer accordingly. You may even have to be let go.

To accept someone as they are is the basis of all successful relationships. It doesn’t mean you don’t help them to improve, or that you don’t make clear what works for you and what doesn’t. It does mean you don’t try to ‘do things’ to them or manipulate them. Any changes they make must be of their own, free will. You can advise what might be best, help them find a way forward, and, most certainly, show your appreciation of positive results. What you cannot do is coerce them or use the relationship as a means of blackmail.

Time, attention, honesty and acceptance are the keys

Relationships take time. In the end, their success is what you make it. If you don’t take time to pay the other person adequate attention, accept them for who they are and deal with them honestly, the person to blame for any breakdown is you.

Why are relationships between bosses and subordinates such a problem? The answer is clear. They will remain a problem as long as they are seen as tools of authority and used for manipulation under the guise of co-operation. A relationship is not a technique to be applied to an object to produce a particular result. It must consist of open, willing contact between individuals who are equally committed to its success. Anything else is fake and will fail.

Technorati Tags: relations with the boss, dealing with the boss, working relationships, getting on at work

Why is being transparent so challenging to people?
 

All conscious, healthy relationships thrive on the basis of trust, integrity and transparency. Transparency itself is about truth-telling. That means being open, honest and sincere in putting yourself ‘out there‘. In many ways, the essence of truth-telling is being comfortable in your own skin.

Being transparent allows others to see you as you truly are. It collapses any gap between who you say you are—the face you show to the world—and your true self. The more you lack transparency, the wider that gap becomes. If this happens, other people will be suspicious and no longer trust you. They will only relate to you at arm’s length. You won’t be seen as trustworthy or credible.

Transparency seems simple, but it’s not easy for many.

If transparency has such benefits—and is so important to successful relationships—why do so many people resist it? To see further into the problem, we need an answer.

Children begin life behaving with complete transparency. They share their thoughts and express themselves without reserve. They are open about how they feel at all times. But before long, they encounter a strong message, first from their parents or immediate caregivers, then from the rest of their extended family, their teachers and other authority figures. The message is simple. Such openness is not acceptable.

“Don’t say such a thing,” adults tell them. “You’ll only cause trouble.”

The same message is repeated again and again. If you display your thoughts, feelings and beliefs openly, you risk being judged as ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’. To fit in, you must hide them behind a socially acceptable mask, like everyone else.

Over time, the belief becomes hardwired in your brain—a belief that transparency is too great a risk. That’s the belief most of us carry into adulthood. To be seen to have value and worth—to garner the recognition and approval we all want—you need to give up your individual voice and hide your truth, your ideas, your thoughts and your feelings. So you become quiet and passive. You tell ‘white’ lies to fit in. You try to deceive yourself and others by putting up a front to hide behind. In place of transparency, you learn to practice ’spin’.

Mired in this state of insecurity, people go through life afraid, playing the game to win approval; locked in the belief that you cannot do, think or act as yourself without risking being ridiculed and shamed.

Transparency at work.

In transactions at work, people are made to feel like children. They face policies whose actions remind them of those reactive, judgmental and critical parents who criticized them for their childish transparency. So they hold back. They give in to authority. They shut down.

Transparency becomes too scary a proposition. Most employees are reluctant to discuss their thoughts and feelings about the organization’s plans, policies or procedures. Even if what they could contribute might be important, they keep quiet. They know their input will not be welcome.

It doesn’t have to be like this.

Only by being transparent—allowing your true voice and feelings to come out—will you become authentically alive and secure in your own skin. Only by fostering transparent relationships—relationships that produce trust and lead to real connection—will you be able to find the courage and steadfastness to speak your truth without being caught up in fears about what others think about you.

Transparency is the only route to knowing who you truly are. If you aren’t transparent to others, you cannot be transparent to yourself. And if you are not open to yourself—to all of yourself—you cannot mature into the complete person it is in you to become.

“You are the lens in the beam,” said former UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold. “You can only receive, give, and possess the light as the lens does. If you seek yourself, you rob the lens of its transparency. You will know life and be acknowledged by it according to your degree of transparency; your capacity, that is, to vanish as an end and remain purely as a means.”

Here are this week’s questions for self reflection:

• Are people aware of the motives beneath your thoughts, words and actions. Are you?
• Can you admit it, openly, when you don’t have an answer, or feel afraid or uncomfortable?
• What stories do you use to rationalize and justify your lack of transparency?
• Does the standard of transparency by which you measure yourself differ from the standard of transparency by which you measure others?
• Do you demand openness and transparency from others, while remaining opaque yourself?
• Would you describe leaders and managers in your organization as open in their dealings with you and with one another? How does this make you feel?
• Can you envision a life where transparency is an everyday operating principle? What would that be like?

Technorati Tags: truth-telling, authenticity, transparency, being open, honesty, trust

An important part of change is understanding who you are and what you value.
 

(This is a guest post from Karen Senteio)

Getting to the point of understanding who you are and what matters to you most takes work—sometimes painful work and shocking moments of revelation. In traveling this road, we become stronger and clearer about what we want. In addition, we learn something else. We come to know what we do not want. That is powerful information. Knowing where we draw our line in the sand is a power play that is ours to use when the moment is right.

One of my favorite movies is The Joy Luck Clubbased on Amy Tan’s best selling novel. It chronicles the life of four women who come of age during wartime in China, their friendship as adults and their relationships with their Americanized daughters. It is heart wrenching as it takes you through the painful personal growth of the characters, and the perseverance they show to make the decisions that shape their lives. I have watched it at least seven times and I learn something new each time. I also cry every time.

“Know your worth”

In the movie, one of the older characters visits her daughter, There she witnesses her son-in-law abusing her daughter, emotionally and verbally. Her daughter somewhere along the way lost her ability to value her own heart, dreams and spirit. In an emotional scene, the mother confronts her daughter and gives her the gift of three soul-searching words: “Know your worth.” The movie does not show how it happens, but the daughter regained her voice and spirit and abandons that miserable marriage.

Not everything is as serious as deciding whether or not to leave a marriage, but the advice the mother gave to the daughter resonated with me and has a place in my permanent bank of wisdom.

It is a simple string of three words that can make you stand strong in formidable circumstances. To understand, and be confident in, the value you possess will allow you to be clear about when it is time to take a stand, draw a line in the sand or make a move.

“Know your worth” is power you already possess

If your worth is buried somewhere in your mind, and you have not looked for it in a while, dig for it. It is there. Keep digging. It is there.

“Know your worth” is a fantastic life screen that you can apply when deciding whether to ask for more money when negotiating salary. It is the logic you apply when you decide the person you are dating is not really worthy of you—and is using you. It should be the standard you apply when you evaluate if you are spending time with folks who do not share your value system.

There is a time to compromise, but this is not the time. If you know your worth and you step out of a situation or relationship that is not worthy of you, you have moved on in a way many people never manage.

“Know your worth.” Say it aloud—or shout it—if you need more power behind it. Put it in your permanent bank of wisdom. It is a keeper. I purchased The Joy Luck Clubfor less than twenty dollars, but it is priceless. I think I will watch it again tonight.

Karen Senteio is a business and life coach and president of VERVE. She has over 20 years experience in developing and coaching individuals and groups to achieve personal success and work-life balance. You can visit her web site at Verve and contact her at Karen@vimandverve.net

Technorati Tags: authenticity, self-worth, self-confidence, personal values, living the life you deserve

Do you know what’s bearing down on you? It’s time to step back and ask yourself tough questions.
 

For many today, the pressure is on: difficulties with careers, finances, relationships and everything else that comes with a bad economy. Dealing with this pressure will most likely demand a significant course correction, based on a shift in the way you think and how you live your life. Most of us have probably never needed more conscious inner inquiry, more trust in the outcome and better decisions.

It takes a lot to make us consider new options and risks, new ways of doing, being and thinking. That’s why such radical course corrections are driven mostly by experiencing pain. They call for ways to rebuild our lives from the bottom up, reviewing the foundations and removing faulty structures along the way. They demand an exploration into our ‘shadow side’, seeking out the root causes of our pain and suffering where they hide—in our beliefs, expectations, assumptions, and paradigms.

Taking an inventory is always an ‘inside job’.

The truth of our lives comes from within. What seems logical and rational too often results in pain and suffering. You need to discover that many once-necessary aspects of your life are no longer relevant, important or even interesting. It’s time to move on.

Here are some examples you will need to check out:

• Do past answers to problems and challenges no longer work as they once did?
• Do old attachments no longer have any power?
• Do the objects of your jealousy, envy, anger and grudges no longer have the hold over you they did?
• Are your visions and dreams no longer unfolding according to your plan?

You are almost certainly the major obstacle to change in your life.

Think about this: “If it’s to be, it’s up to me.” This no time for feelings of lack and inadequacy; no time to be striving for perfection, needing to be an “11” on a scale of 1-10. Doing this causes you to judge yourself harshly and engage in self-limiting, self-sabotaging and self-critical thinking. It produces a misplaced focus on personality rather than what is in your heart. It keeps you from conducting an honest inventory.

The good news is that each of us has the capacity to conduct the kind of inventory we need. We can stop belittling ourselves and find greater degrees of self-knowledge, self-love and self-respect. It will take courage to confront your limiting beliefs, assumptions and self-images. It will also require you to be honest when you look at yourself in the mirror of inner reflection and drop attempts to deceive yourself or others.

By letting go of your illusions and your ego’s needs to be perfect in every way, you will be free to experience who you really are and listen to the voice within.

What it’s like to talk with “me”

Experiencing an open and honest personal inventory requires you to take time to be with “me.” The greatest obstacle is always lying to yourself. You can find the truth about “how I am” and “who I am”—but only if you take time to listen, “outing” your ego-personality defenses, your “stories”, your self-limiting beliefs, fears, and defensiveness.

Only by listening deeply and freeing your curiosity to operate without judgment can you uncover what’s underneath all those ego-driven behaviors. The ones that separate you from your authentic self and keep you feeling deficient. In their place, you can establish a way of thinking that accepts you just as you are, points to your true needs and gives you the capacity to cope with life’s tests and trials.

As you learn to listen and trust yourself more, you will find yourself making better choices and navigating life with greater strength, courage, steadfastness and wisdom.

Here are some questions for self-reflection:

• What in your life weighs you down and keeps you from making progress? What propels you to take action?
• Do you ever feel you’ve been busier than ever but feel like you’re going nowhere? What accounts for this?
• How much of your life is engaged in “activity” (the illusion of being busy, and doing for the sake of doing) and how much is engaged in “action” (achievement and goal-oriented behavior)?
• Are you scurrying around trying to maintain a lifestyle that no longer serves you? Or moving consciously to create a new one that will?

Technorati Tags: change, purpose, correcting your course, inner work, introspection, finding answers within

Is it the real you—or just some make-believe to see you through the day?
 

I remember a Latin phrase we were taught in elementary school: ‘Age quod agis’. In essence, the phrase means, “do what you do”. Really do it; do it with all of yourself. When you act on this phrase and do what you do with your whole self, it means working from your center, your core—not only from the neck up.

When people work from the heart, we’re not talking about some airy-fairy, new-age, ‘soft’, religious, theological or subversive approach. We are, talking about a deeper approach—an approach that focuses on excellence, ethics and fairness and faces up to tough questions like these:

• What is a fair and just wage, compensation package or bonus?
• When are outsourcing, downsizing and layoff efforts justified?
• How can I find my true calling?
• How can we restore trust in the workplace?
• Can our workplaces be more ethical and humane?
• Can the ‘anti-Dilbert’ exist in the workplace?
• Can people do the right thing without management control?
• Why do so many, when they reach the top of the ladder, find it resting against the wrong building?

Warren Buffet said, “I’ve seen a lot of not-very-good human beings succeed in business; I wish it were otherwise.” There are probably many among us who would agree. With the downturn in the economy, people are discovering they are doing just fine with less, and feeling happier too. Why did they ever need more?

Can we do more with our whole selves?

More of us are seeking calm and well-being in the midst of the storm by re-evaluating our values and motivations; discovering in the process that when people come to work from a deeper place, they experience a greater sense of meaning than when driven by ego-based wants like greed and speed.

How does this look? Coming to work with your whole self probably means one or more of these actions:

• Focusing on who you really are (and how you truly want to be) within your team, your group, your organization and the wider community.
• Choosing to take the time to look up from the spreadsheets to focus on people and values; to speak out for what’s right and make an effort to act with compassion.
• Finding a perspective that engenders personal responsibility for—and self-management of—who you are and how you behave at work.
• Dealing with other people by first dealing with yourself. Getting a firm grasp of your core values. Developing the emotional maturity and courage needed to act with integrity.
• Playing an active role in creating a workplace where ethical behavior, trust, trustworthiness, respect and meaning inform all day-to-day activities.

Here are some questions for self-reflection to get you started:

• Are greed and speed the two major driving forces at your workplace? Why? Does it work?
• Do “not-very-good human beings” succeed in your workplace? How is this so? Does this work too?
• Do you check your values at the door when you show up at work? Why?
• Do you deal with the whole person in your relationships with others? If not, why not?
• Do you encourage others at work to see you as a whole person or simply as your function in the organization? What are you hiding?
• Do ‘anti-Dilberts’ exist in your workplace? Do people commonly do the right thing, even when no one is watching? What happens to them?

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” There’s no question people are becoming more introspective about who they are and how they are at work, given the cataclysmic storm of the unethical, immoral and illegal shenanigans we hear about daily. It’s up to all of us to decide whether to make this change permanent, or revert to business as usual, based on constant competition, fear, gossip, bullying and stress.

What will you do?

Technorati Tags: change, authenticity, being yourself, wholeness

This is a guest article by Robin Fisher-Roffer

In a crowded marketplace burdened by a sluggish economy, only the fearless can survive.
 

To become fearless, the first thing you need to think about is who is the real you. What do you do better than anyone else? How can you put that out there to your customers and prospects? You have to peel away all the layers that have made you a jack of all trades and hone your skills to become an expert at something that’s valuable right now.

Perhaps you own a boutique ad agency and you can design anything, but what you do best work is build ‘b-to-b’ websites. That’s your vein of gold, and where you can drive revenue to your customer’s bottom line.

I’m suggesting that you begin to use your differences as a ‘lure’ to attract work and business. In extraordinary economic times like these, the natural tendency is to hunker down, do the work, cut back on expenses and try not to lose whatever you still have. Sadly, that’s exactly the strategy that will probably hang you. If you’re not standing up, standing out, and standing for something important, your days may be numbered. You have to use the strengths of what makes you different to make a difference with your employers or your customers.

Maybe you’ll want to find a few fish like you.

An important step on the path to fearlessness is to build relationships so that you can anchor yourself in these rough seas.

Now is the time to re-establish old friendships, get on an airplane and go see you loyal customers, take them out to lunch (nothing fancy or you’ll look out of touch), and stay connected through social networking sites. This is the moment to deepen all your relationships to help protect both your own security and your business future.

You have to swim in their ocean, but you can do it your way.

Every time you start something new, make a new contact or pitch to a prospect, you are a fish out of water. Yet even when you finally get inside, it’s important to learn how to be part of the culture without getting lost in it. It can be deadly to get so entrenched with someone else’s culture or demands that you can’t find the real you.

Take time to look for what resonates with you and don’t buy into what doesn’t feel right. Stay true to your core values. If you don’t, at the end of this recession, you may not recognize yourself or your business.

You have to put yourself out on the line.

Businesses and people who shine a light on what’s different about them are perfectly positioned to make a difference. It’s not the wallflower who’s going to help their customers go green, or the conformist who will invent the new business model.

Getting behind a cause is good for business, good for your career and makes you look like a hero. Volunteer, join a board, make a major donation. You may be paralyzed by fear and feel like every minute you need to push that rock up the hill. Shake it off. Give to others instead and watch what you receive in return.

The best way to evolve is by casting a wide net.

Conformity is not distinguishing. To live deeply is to keep reinventing yourself, changing with the times and with your customers. Holding onto the essential you while updating your style, your outlook, your website, your approach and your thinking is the fastest way to the top.

Being a Fearless Fish means that you use your place outside the circle of the conformists to always be relevant. It’s about staying true to the essence of who you are, and then recasting your image to feel brand new.

Can you reel in your unique power?

Uncertainty makes everyone question their personal value—and the value of their business, if they have one. The fearless among us overcome these doubts by practicing their ABCs: action, belief, and courage. It’s time to stop wringing your hands and start raising your hand to make a difference.

Believing in yourself can either propel or hinder. The story that you tell about yourself and what you can offer is what others will believe. Use your unique power to make them believe that you are indispensable and that is exactly what you will be.

Robin Fisher Roffer is the author of “The Fearless Fish Out of Water: How to Succeed When You’re the Only One Like You.”She is an acclaimed speaker and CEO of Big Fish Marketing—one of the entertainment industry’s preeminent brand marketing and digital advertising agencies. from that position, she fearlessly advises clients like A&E, Bravo, CNN, Comedy Central, FX, MTV, NBC Universal, and Sony Pictures. You can get more information at her book’s web site fearlessfishoutofwater.com or her own site at www.robinfisherroffer.com

Technorati Tags: success, courage, individuality, authenticity, use your strengths