I have been pondering something that has been really bothering me. I have diagnosed it 90% accurately, but I have no idea how to change it.
And that is the cultural shift towards avoiding work.
I first woke up to it when my favorite teacher, Robert Plank, called it a four letter word, and avoided using it.
The weird and disorienting fact was this: Robert loved getting things done. Actually really loved it. So it was the word, somehow, that appalled him. He lives in California… I thought maybe it had something to do with it.
Yes. Mind movies and vision boards are a mental representation of some fancy that you have… creative or not so creative visualization. Low vibration, low consciousness, wishful thinking stuff. ((It is created for people and bought by people who have no business to use it, because it only increases their misery, their sense of inferiority. Why? Because mind movies and vision boards are based on a false theory, that if you really really really want something, then it will move towards you. But as an empath, I can tell you with certainty, that exactly the opposite is true. The really wanting is actual
I have a student whose company moves earth. That is their business. Parking lots, roads, leveling the ground.
Unless you have a clear picture, a clear and accurate mental representation of what a job entails, you can’t bid successfully on it: you may lose your shirt if your mental representation was off. ((The doctor’s mental representation of the state of my injured ear was neither clear nor accurate, and therefore his suggestions to me were way off the mark. This was the topic of my article yesterday…))
Life is like being in a train: you can look out on the left side, the right side, the back, the front… but it won’t change that you are on a train that will arrive to its destination, no matter where you look.
Most of us live this way most of the time.
We do our jobs, we do our relationships, we do our projects, we do our lives this way.
Fulfilling? No. Enjoyable? It depends…
Ultimately we are plagued by a nagging sense that we are out of control, that no matter what we do won’t change anything. Some of us feel doomed. Some of
One of the most useful things I have ever done is this:
I would find a mentor. I offered my services to do whatever needed done. More often than not I learned useful skills through the doing. Skills that I needed for myself. And while I was around the mentor, I could learn from him.
Life needs a lot of skills to do life successfully. The opportunities to learn those skills is sparse… Because skills are not knowledge, even if they are mental, intellectual skills: they are the ability to do, to perform a skill… not to understand it.
To learn skills on your own stuff is very difficult. Why? Because you are too invested, you
What is the easiest method to shift someone’s state of being?
We already know. Children, when they cry because they hurt themselves, can be brought out of crying by directing their attention to something more interesting, more engaging.
I use it in almost every coaching conversation I have with people who are stuck in some unproductive state of being, like sadness, despair, maybe even resistance.
I wrote this article five years ago. Sometimes the way to get ahead is to go back five years and start from there.
Recently the readership of this blog has changed, not to my liking. I’d like to return to how it was five years ago, when people with sincere desire to change visited, and asked for help.
OK, here is the old article… hopefully all typos are corrected.
Thanksgiving: a time to give thanks. But to who? For What? Mundane or Significant? Habit and Duty or Privilege?
In searching what I am really thankful for, I went through all the things I could be thankful for.
Some ten years ago I learned a valuable way of looking at making life meaningful, or living a meaningful life. The teacher suggested that we pick a horizon, a direction, and then look what’s blocking the way of getting there.
Since then I saw that even seeing the horizon is blocked… Blocked by seven boulders, lined up one behind the other, blocking your view, blocking your movement.
So, in my coaching practice, when I ask people to set a direction, and they can’t see any, I am inclined to suggest that they choose the direction: living a meaningful live, or a fulfilled life… without specifying what it is.
We are all special, if special means, as special as our thumbprint… But that is not special enough for you, is it?
You want to be SPECIAL… so you can be treated special… a special talent, outstanding, mind boggling, awesome, the best.
In this article I will shed light to an important phenomenon that we are all experiencing… the ITCH, that keeps us miserable, and the HORIZON that keeps us on track, sane, happy and always well.
As you may know, I am doing my second round of the 67 steps. In step 13 Tai says something like this: if you are not happy, don’t throw everything away. It is possible that the unhappiness is due to a mismatch of your current lifestyle with your social needs…
Huh?
So I went back in my memory to different stages of my business, or the different businesses I had. And lo and behold, I found something totally freaky: I was happiest when I had at least one person cooperating with me in my business. Even if the cooperation was minor, and we didn’t interact much. Just knowing