Living with Perception

"Perception is reality" This is a phrase that can mark you quickly and cause you to create a filter to see the world in a way that that may be distorted. I have an acquaintance that whenever they talk about a family member they say, "You know how they are, a lot of talk but not much action." I have been guilty of looking at whole divisions on a business and saying, "The whole group just doesn't care and refuses to change." Or simply moving through traffic and your perception, "IDIOT, SLOW, CLUELESS!" creates a reality.

This is what I have found.

Perception creates a:
- Belief about someone that is usually negative
- Reality in me that may not be true
- Wall that allows me to stay frustrated and not attempt to find a solution
- Belief that I am right and others are very wrong

Perceptions need to be Private and never shared with the individual or group you have them about or you may be confronted with a fact that disrupts your fiction. On the other hand, perceptions can be shared with others all the time to promote your own perception and attract people to wallow with you in your negative feelings.

Blow your perceptions up! Confront them and you may find that a portion can be valid ted with reality but often very little is true and a way forward takes shape and you can become a problem solver not a perception maker.

Break down perceptions by:
- Building a closer relationship with the person or entity to better understand their motivations
- Confronting your own personal objective of why you built the perception in the first place (to feel superior, create a wall so you don't need to build a relationship, insecurity around the person)
- Look for reasons your perception is not correct and begin to break down the perception with fact
- Moving on from the need to set the perception by focusing your energy elsewhere in a positive direction

Being thankful, valuing relationships, being a problem solver and positive force leave very little time to create perceptions that bring you down.

Happiness

Great video worth pondering in our own lives:

Speed of Trust

The Covey consultant group is best known for their "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" book. I would encourage you to expand your reading into one of the newest titles called "The Speed of Trust" The idea is that when trust is high, few hands have to touch a project to get it done and approved. Decisions are taken at face value and trust goes a long way in managing a business at the speed by which it needs to move. Without trust a business slows down, tensions grow and the effectiveness of an organization diminishes.

High Trust = Increased Speed and Lower Cost





The speed of trust is crucial for long term success in a business.

Spaghetti Sauce and You

Malcom Gladwell has authored three books in the last 7 years "The Tipping Point", "Blink" and "Outliers" I think the Tipping Point was his best. Here is a video where MG is up to what he does best, seemingly taking disconnected ideas or moments in time and connecting them to show people how things work together to make something go.

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A Big Continent and Unforseen Blessing

When I was teaching in MN my wife and I were hired to go and teach at a boarding school in Kenya called Rift Valley Academy.( http://www.rva.org/ ) This school has a storied past, Teddy Roosevelt laid the corner stone for the main teaching house. We were going to live in Africa for 2 years and use it as a spring board into seeing the rest of the world!
We quit our jobs, sold our cars, updated passports, were leaving in 3 months so started the round of shots we needed to live in Sub-Sahara Africa. We went into the doctor and proceeded to get 3 shots each. Before the second round of shots that evening my wife had to take a pregnancy test and to our surprise came back with news of an unforseen blessing, she was pregnant which meant she could not take any more shots and would not be able to take any malaria medicine period.
Our trip was in peril, the 5 year plan in question. We were excited yet frustrated as you can imagine. So, like two good maximizing planners we forged ahead with our plans to go. We had a long list of all the reasons it could still work. The school was in a malaria "free" zone. We talked to 6 mothers who gave birth in Africa and on and on the planning went.
One day we had an appointment with my wife's doctor, a wise and well seasoned professional. The check up went great; we reviewed with her our plan to still go. At that point she looked up at us slapped her knees and said, "Kids, here's what I think. You only have one chance to bring an A+ baby into the world. After that, Africa will still be there." She stood up and walked us out of the appointment.
You know what? She was right. We stayed home, found jobs, bought new cars and had an A+ baby who turned 13 this year. Life still continued to happen and opportunities for adventure, for purpose, for wealth creation and using our gifts still presented themselves even though we let go of the big trip to the biggest continent.
By the way, I did go to Africa 5 years ago and you know what? The doctor was right, the continent was still there.

Do you have a big continent that is critical to you and your plan?
Has an unforseen blessing shook your big continent plan to it's foudation?
What will it take to get launch the blessing as an A+?
Will your continent still be there?

Top 100 List

The cover article in Fast Company this month lists the Top 100 Creative People in business. Most of the time these lists are suspect to me based on how many creative people there really are in the world contributing daily to good businesses (too many to guess) and somehow Fast Company has to choose 100. A better way of heading this article would be Top 100 Creative People (with a PR firm or Massive Company behind them) in Business. That could sound negative but it's not. I think tthis list is interesting and Fast Company does a nice job of saying in the article the the job of choosing 100 or anything is very difficult and a lot of randomness is in the list. Click the title Top 100 List to view and Enjoy

If you are in the spot...do the work

If you have the skill to be in the game in a position to make a difference make sure you are ready to play. Being in the game to make a difference is the goal of so many and so few actually get called up to play a position that puts you in the field of play. Can you write? Then write all that is in you. Can you motivate? Then motivate those around you to dig deep and make a difference. Can you plan for the future? Then choose a career that will allow you to make that a core part of what you do. Are you good with numbers? Teach, be strategic or financially support a family, group or company.

Choosing your field of play is important. When you get selected for the game don't forget to show up for every play! Know that you have been selected for such a time as this and you can make the difference.

Dangerous Can Grow Us

Take a look at this great video that reminds us that risk and danger avoided all togetehr can lead to less of life lived and a lack of ability to learn in life.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/gever_tulley_on_5_dangerous_things_for_kids.html

Trapeze Trajectory

When you are going through change there is one sure thing, nothing is sound. I have found going through a Major life change that even the most stable parts of life can feel a bit unstable. The metaphor I like to use is that of a trapeze acrobat. You are up above the floor of the big top tent with no net below you. You are on your stable platform with the bar in your hand looking across a vast empty space. You have a destination on the other side but it seems very far away. You know the only way to get to that next spot is to leave the solid platform and swing way out on the bar in your hands.

Step 1: Stepping off the platform
Step 2: Swinging out looking for the next bar to grab on to. You may have someone on that bar coaching you to let go, the bar may be empty waiting for you to grab on
Step 3: Before you can grab the next bar you have to let go of the bar that is carrying you, a big move
Step 4: You are now in what I call the middle ground. You are hanging in mid air having to let go of what you know before you can grab what will carry you forward. This is the scariest and most uncertain part of change and most people going through change will blink right now and miss the next bar coming to them. This middle ground feels like an eternity but having patience and going through the time in mid-air is crucial to make real change.
Step 5: Grabbing the next bar is a feeling of security and feeling that normalization is coming back. Grabbing the bar or having someone on that bar to catch you are both good because not the new goal comes clearly into view. You see your new spot of greater stability.
Step 6: The landing on the platform on the opposite pole of the big top bring an applause from your own inner voice as you look back at where you came from. You may not have wanted to leave your last platform yet the change you made has brought you to a new place to live your life and a new view to see the world.

Going through all the steps is important. Hanging in the middle place is the place where we can accept that change is happening and that I can move forward. Keep focused and know that there is always another bar to grab, you may not believe it yet that new bar will come.

Asking the right question...

I have been doing a lot of training lately around customer service. We have had group discussions around what kind of question is a good question when taking care of a business problem. When you ask questions starting with:
- Who
- Why
Typically these questions are difficult not to use to accuse or complain rather then fix and support.
When you ask a question starting with:
- What
- How
They create questions that bring you into the situation to own your part to fix and support.

Who did this?
Why does this always happen to me?

-or-

What can I do to stop this?
How can I make sure this doesn't happen to me?

Try the same exercise in your day and see if you don't instantly take control of your work, feel more energized and who knows, you may solve a problem.

Resources vs Resourceful

Most business has been hit with down size language and many (500,000 last month alone) hard working industrious people have lost their jobs. How then do we move forward? We move forward with less resources at work or looking for work we must make due with what we have as we look for more. Less resources most times, (I think all the time) does not feel great. We all want access to more yet we do not have those resources right now and that can lead to a feeling of "less then".

In the midst of that I have been spreading the word on my thought about this. Less resources brings with it a need to be more resourceful. No matter your situation this is a time of de-tox from "much" to "less" and with it a time to move from resources to resourceful. I have found that my team and I have had an amazing run with resourceful. More review and care goes into what we have because we may not be able to throw it away tomorrow and get a new one. A new idea, product or relationship. Resourceful is a word to appreciate. When the resources turn back on I am planning on holding onto resourceful.

Change In Your Life

When I speak on change I always start with the ending. I never read an ending to a book before I start. I don't like spoilers for a movie. Traditionally keeping the ending a suprise or secret is fine with me. I would rather not know the ending because I stay motivated to finish the task.

With change though, give me the ending first. The main reason for this is that with any change there must be an ending before a new beginning can truly start. For instance, you get married to the person of your dreams. Although there is a new beginning as a couple you must end the era of being single. Not making peace with that ending before a new beginning can cause unforeseen impacts on a new beginning. Recognizing the end of one era of your life before you begin a new era is how change can be incorporated into your life successfully.

With every dusk there is a dawn. There must be an ending before a beginning can get under way.

Change in your life is inevitable. How you deal with change can define your life.

The Arena is Yours

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

- Teddy Roosevelt "Citizenship in a Republic,"Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910

The Power to Transform

The power to Transform your life, your community and your world come from with in. What is the foundation that you stand on? Is that foundation strong enough to support you as you press into the world to exact the type of impact you want to make in the world?

Transforming the world does not happen on a plan. In a world that is saturated with data, news feeds and video we could feel that if an elaborate plan isn't laid out with a budget, PR people, advertising dollars and political backing then we can not make a difference.

Could it be that the largest difference is made in the world when a person stands strong on a belief that has turned into principle and been drawn up into a mission so in the midst of distress or that moment of truth they stand in the gap and cause change?

Just ask Rosa Parks in 1955 who got on a city bus in Montgomery, AL, tired after a long days work. Ask Chesley Sullenberger the pilot who safely crash landed the US Airways plan into the Hudson river saving all aboard. Ask Ryan White who contracted AIDS from a transfusion was barred from attending school and became a champion for kids with AIDS before his death in 1990.

A seemingly normal day unfolded before all of these people until the event happened and they either had or did not have the foundation under them to press against to stand for what they believed was right. In the midst of a challenge by an unfair law is a hard time to decide what you believe. It is hard to learn the skill you need to survive in the middle of an emergency. It is a hard place to decide that you will support others under the same challenge as you if the will is not forged by who you are. This constitution is built long before so that in the challenge you are ready to stand.

The power to transform is in you, build it for that moment that will make the difference.