Monday Morning Inspiration: Leap

Scobberlotch (v) to loaf around doing nothing in particular: Monday Morning Inspiration: Leap: 

“If we listened to our intellect we'd never have a love affair. We'd never have a friendship. We'd never go in business because we'd be cynical: "It's gonna go wrong." Or "She's going to hurt me." Or,"I've had a couple of bad love affairs, so therefore ..." 

Well, that's nonsense. You're going to miss life. You've got to jump off the cliff all the time and build your wings on the way down.” 

Ray Bradbury

Inspiration, photo and post of the day by Karen Harrington and scobberlotch.blogspot

What Is Fear and How to Overcome It

What is Fear? 

An unpleasant emotion caused by the threat of danger, pain, or harm:

1. A feeling of anxiety concerning the outcome of something or the safety of someone;
2. The likelihood of something unwelcome happening;

3. A mixed feeling of dread and reverence.

Fear is a series of reactions in the brain triggered by a stressful stimulus and ending with such physical reactions as tense muscles, rapid heartbeat and rushed breathing. This is the well-known fight, flight or freeze response.

Fear, triggered by the amygdala, is one of nature’s earliest survival mechanisms. During the early beginnings of life, nature developed the amygdalae as special purpose organs in the brain to remember and respond to danger signals.

What was purposed to help us survive, now has become a mechanism that often prevent us from living.

The most common acronym for fear is False Evidence Appearing Real and some of its side effects are:

-  Indecisiveness that results in stagnation

-  Anxiety and stress

-  Resistance to change

-  Lack of self-confidence

-  Life becomes centered on pessimism

-  Errors in judgement

-  Fight, flight, or freeze reactions

-  Doubt

-  Anger

-  Hate

How to overcome fear?

Although we assume it would be hard to break free from fear, it is not.

Here are some ideas and steps to help us overcome fear:

• Acknowledge it. Name the fear, write it down, measure it.
• Get control of your imagination. Visualize yourself in the situation you are dreading, but this time see yourself calm, confident and composed.
• Breathe. Focus on your breath. Take a deep breath and slowly breathe out.

The above will kickstart your thinking brain (neocortex). Once you start with these steps, the next ones will be easier:

• Don’t believe your thoughts. Challenge your assumptions and the false evidences that appear real.
• Make a list of the benefits you or others will get once you face your fear.
• Disengage from the outcome.
• Make a list of your strengths.
• Release control.
• Be comfortable with the unknown, the new, and the uncomfortable.
• Get busy. Focus on what needs to be done, just do it and focus your attention and energy on that.
• Exercise! (Yes, it does have a positive effect on fear too.)
• Expose yourself to your fear(s).
• Replace fear with curiosity and fun.
• Get a coach.

"What is needed, rather than running away or controlling or suppressing or any other resistance, is understanding fear; that means, watch it, learn about it, come directly into contact with it. We are to learn about fear, not how to escape from it." (Jiddu Krishnamurti)

The Truth about Winning (for things that matter)

Only if you fight are you likely to win. 

What are you hiding?

At some point in our lives we all live in closets. All a closet is, is a heart conversation. 
We are all hiding something. In this talk, Ash Beckham invites us to find the courage to open up, because the closet is no place for a person to truly live. 

Set Yourself Free

"Freedom began on the day the first sheep wandered away from the herd." 

(Marty Rubin)

Go for What You Need

During a meeting yesterday, I mentioned the problem with delivering services that the client wants, whereas we must help them explore what it is that they need.

Talking with a colleague again today, the same topic came up.

On more than one occasion, an organization is open to discussing what their current challenges are and which needs are emerging, but even with this awareness they prefer to stick with what is familiar – what has been done in the past, or what others are doing.

This also happens with individuals: having just spoken with a friend, he knows what needs to be changed in his team, he knows that they do not get the results they need, he still opts for doing the same. No alternative approach is considered.

And with more personal issues: how many people suffer in a specific area of their life? And they may have a very good idea that their suffering is the result of x reasons. How do they approach the solution? By consistently doing the same thing. Over and over again. Expecting that something will change.

“What got you here won’t get you there” is not only the name of a very popular book of Marshall Goldsmith; it’s also a fact. How do we expect to be doing the same thing and get different results?

In January, I wrote a very short post about the power of our thoughts. It’s our thoughts that will define our lives ultimately. Our behaviors are a result of our thoughts and beliefs.

Yesterday I wrote about Control.

What is it that we must let go of, abandon, how do we need to reframe control, so that we can gain the outcomes that we need?

Learning is about courage. Have the courage to disengage emotionally from what you want, to get what you actually need.

What Got You Here Won't Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful

Happiness and the Absence of Dichotomy

“Never permit a dichotomy to rule your life, a dichotomy in which you hate what you do so you can have pleasure in your spare time. Look for a situation in which your work will give you as much happiness as your spare time.” (Pablo Picasso)

I finished my work this evening with a huge smile on my face. I thought it was because of something new that I had created, plus the wonderful feedback from a student earlier today. Then I ran into this phrase and I realized the source of my daily smile.

I am not going to write that I am lucky, because it is not luck that has brought me here, to the absence of dichotomy in my life. It is perseverance, resilience, persistence and the determination not to compromise when it comes to my happiness.

According to Henri Matisse “creativity takes courage”. Leading our life is a creative process and if we want to experience happiness and fulfillment in it, the only thing we need is the commitment to be courageous. 

photo credit: http://stephanielevy.blogspot.gr/p/e-courses.html

Whose Business Is It Anyway?

“It’s none of our business”, was the reply I heard this afternoon when sharing my concerns about the ethics of a particular business situation.

“It’s none of your business”, I heard a couple of hours later when I voiced my concerns over a situation that was putting a child in danger.

Starting with the second case, it’s not my child; therefore that makes it “none of my business”. This invalid argument would imply that we should all witness parents’ troubling, or even abusive, acts and not react because we are not the parents of those children. How much sense does that make?

In the first case, everything that has to do with my profession is indeed my business. Who do we expect to safeguard the standards of our profession? There is a shared responsibility here and no one can deny that. We join professional bodies, we take oaths, we commit to ethics regulations and we honor all that. It is our business to voice anything unethical that comes to our notice, anything that violates those commitments, anything that harms the reputation of our profession, anything that affects the trust in what we do.

It is our business to watch our politicians, to demand that they perform to the standards for which they have been elected, with accountability, integrity and effectiveness.

It is our business to make sure our children get the education that they deserve.

It is our business to demand that our taxes be spent and invested wisely.

It is our business to protect the environment.

It is our business to expect that our data be protected.

It is our business to tell another customer that he/she is being rude to an employee and vice versa.

I could produce an endless list of the things that are our business, because everything is our business. Things do not just happen. Things are allowed to happen. And while we remain in our “peace bubble” of none-of-my-business, things – bad things – will continue to happen. Unless we speak up.

Who is the strongest person you know?

By strongest, I do not mean the person who can lift the most weight or pull trucks and airplanes. I mean the person whose strength you admire and consider that it exceeds common strength by far.

These past years I have come to the conclusion that I have been considerably privileged with my family. It provided me with many role models of strength, starting with my grand parents and following with my parents. There are stories that make me wonder at their courage and resilience. Among my family there is one member who has my admiration and awe: my mother.

My mother is the strongest person I know. It’s not just the fact that she overcomes any serious medical condition, much to the doctors’ surprise. It’s her spirit and her attitude. Despite living with pain, in and out of hospitals, undergoing painful procedures, with a body that has failed her, she never complains. She remains patient with remarkable endurance. I never heard her say she cannot stand it any more, I have never seen her quit or have a negative thought.

For me, this is strength. This is the kind of strength that I would like to have in my life.

How about you? Who is the strongest person you know? 

Time to Be Happy

Free Yourself

The hardest prison to escape is in your mind.

image credit: John Beckers

Your Greatest Obstacle

“What’s stopping you?” was a question I asked in my video for the Reaching Re-Birth project.

The same question comes up in almost every coaching conversation: the clients – coachees have a specific goal or know what they want to create. What is stopping them then?

During a presentation yesterday, I invited the audience to do an exercise. Towards the end of that exercise, I asked them to identify the obstacles in the way of their goal; internal and external. A few minutes later, the answer was clear: there are no obstacles.

The greatest challenge to overcome is always our self and what lies inside our head. It appears as our inner critic, our gremlins, limiting beliefs we are hooked on, the chatter inside our brain about the worst case scenario and the magnification of some potential unfavorable conditions; about anything that will prove how our limiting beliefs are right.

Happiness, success, fulfillment, it all originates in our own mind. Stop getting in your own way.

Staying True to My Vision

“If it’s such a good opportunity, why don’t you take advantage of it?” a friend and colleague asked me today. I had just shared with her news of what seemed an excellent career opportunity.

Well, everything did seem ideal and I had referred another colleague for the position. The company is great and the owner is a person who is delightful to work with. However, he has his own vision of what he is creating. Working with him would have meant giving up my vision of what I want to create.

The reply left my lips spontaneously and with confidence:

“I prefer to fail going after my dreams, than succeed achieving someone else’s dreams.”

© Eternal Optimists

On Learning and Courage

Today, some of Gianpiero Petriglieri's tweets were about learning and courage – and difficult conversations.

“Real learning takes and makes real courage”, he tweeted.

To follow up with “How much grown ups learn, how fast, depends on how much courage and permission we have to look at, and talk about, what’s easier to ignore.”

How do we define or perceive learning? For me learning is about improving, growing, evolving and developing. With this in mind, what is the role of courage?

I was thinking of the courage to detach ourselves from everything that we know, or we think we know. Once again the Bruce Lee story came to my mind and the cup we need to empty.

But the second tweet got me thinking. 

I am not sure what were the difficult (or delicate) conversations Gianpiero Petriglieri mentioned; I'll be waiting for his new article to find out. What I am sure of is that any kind of learning requires a great deal of self-awareness, at least from my perspective. Any knowledge starts with self-knowledge. From that perspective, what are the things that are easier to ignore?

If we gave ourselves permission and we had abundant courage, what would be the difficult conversations that we would be having with ourselves? 

Real learning takes and makes real courage.
— GianpieroPetriglieri (@gpetriglieri) March 18, 2014

Roosevelt's Note

This tiny piece of paper with Theodore Roosevelt's words always pops up every time I try to declutter my desk. And every time I put it back among the most important and urgent notes I have to take care of, as if I am afraid I am going to forget it one day.

The Freedom to Make Mistakes

Every week, in a class where the aim is to put learning into practice, I finish my introduction with an unorthodox call to action: “Now, let’s make some mistakes!”.

One day, I asked students why I invite them to make mistakes. The response was that mistakes are learning opportunity. 

Well, we have all heard that before, yet we still hesitate to create such an “opportunity”.

No, my call to action is actually saying dare to do things. It is about a different kind of opportunity, the kind that makes us more open when we allow ourselves not to be perfect and we feel ok with that.

photo credit: http://www.tienganhvui.com/2013/05/elbert-hubbard_13.html

Fight

Be the Hero

Yesterday, my social media timelines were filled with similar Greek posts applauding the Greek delegation's brave gesture at the Sochi Winter Olympics opening ceremony.

Observing the photos and knowing a little about sport politics, I remained skeptical. I thought that gesture that would make us proud was unlikely.

This morning, my scepticism was confirmed: the so-called gesture was nothing like what my friends  have wished for; it was just a coincidence.

Two things were very evident here: 

1. We desperately need something to raise our morale again. We need role models that stand up against unfairness and injustice.

2. We see only what we choose to see and we select the relevant perspective. If we want to see rainbows, rainbows there are. Just like when we look for the answers we want to hear.

Another thing that is also very evident it that, no matter how strong our desire to see what we desire to see, no matter what interpretation we give to the facts, the truth can only be one, even if it hurts us.

A friend, who was among those cheering yesterday, upon finding out the truth today she put it aptly: “it is in our heart to believe in the miracle. And that is why we believed. And for a moment we were what we had believed we were : all inclusive”. 

Finally, what is evident is that we are still waiting for someone else to be our hero, to do what is right. Time to realize that each one of us is fully capable to be that hero and do what we know it is right.

As a friend was posting today,

“I always wondered why somebody doesn't do something about that. Then I realized I was somebody.” (Lily Tomlin) 

We do not need to wait for any athlete, for any hero, to do something. We are the ones that can and should be doing something. 

Admit

ADMIT

Admit that once you have got up
from your chair and opened the door,
once you have walked out into the clean air
toward that edge and taken the path up high
beyond the ordinary, you have become
the privileged and the pilgrim,
the one who will tell the story
and the one, coming back
from the mountain,
who helped to make it.

From MAMEEN in RIVER FLOW: New and Selected Poems
© David Whyte and Many Rivers Press

Keeping the balance

Photo: Wolf/Corbis

Living in Greece we face one daily challenge: to balance.

Waking up this morning I was admiring the phenomenal photos of glowing phytoplankton lighting up an entire beach in the Maldives. Our spirit experiences the exaltation of the beautiful, the inspiring, the creative.

Just to crash moments later in harsh reality, this time following an article shared by a friend, another story of racism and misogyny in my beloved country.

Everyday seems like a constant battle to balance between the reasons that can make us hopeful, optimistic, smiling,  and the news that demoralize, exasperate, shame us.   

Everyday the same constant battle to keep calm, sane, focused and work hard to create the stories we will all feel proud to read.