Difficult conversations confront us every day. Sometimes we wake up at night thinking about a conversation we need to have but put it off. MindTools web site gives some practical guidance to prepare – good ole role play! Check it out, do it and let me know how it went! http://www.mindtools.com/CommSkll/RolePlaying.htm#np
Bob
Happy New Year from Bob Anderson!
New Years Eve – 2012 is but hours away now and it struck me that one way to approach the new year is using my own personal success strategy – Practicing Gratitude. There is nothing new about this practice except the practice part!
Gratitude we seem to fumble around on an inconsistent basis… that’s my story, anyway. Consider this coaching perspective from own coaching – when you practice gratitude blessing and abundance will flow over into all areas of your life and relationships. Here are some ideas…
• Keep a gratitude journal in which you list things for which you are thankful. You can make daily, weekly or monthly lists. Greater frequency may be better for creating a new habit, but just keeping that journal where you can see it will remind you to think in a grateful way.
• Make a gratitude collage by drawing or pasting pictures.
• Practice gratitude around the dinner table or make it part of your nighttime routine.
• Make a game of finding the hidden blessing in a challenging situation.
• When you feel like complaining, make a gratitude list instead. You may be amazed by how much better you feel.
• Notice how gratitude is impacting your life. Write about it, sing about it, express thanks for gratitude.
• create a “vision board” of what you want life to be like in 2012 (pictures, poems, etc) and begin to give thanks that they are already beginning to emerge through your creative thoughts.
Some of this content is used under license, © 2011 Claire Communications
January is named for the Roman two-faced god, Janus. She has one face looking to the past and the other to the future – Janus is the god of beginnings, endings and the transitions they create. Life is full of these rhythms – personal, family and congregational. Here are some simple ways I plan to make this new year a time of powerful transformation. I invite you to connect the dots for your life and reflect on your own new year endings and beginning (these are “I” statements and you may want to try them as “we” statements, e.g. family, church, partners, marriage, etc). A disclaimer is needed here. These ideas originated with Kevin Eikenberry of Indianapolis (www.kevineikenberrycom). I adapted and modified Kevin’s much larger list of questions.
Celebrate!
Create Your Best Year Ever!
These reflections can become the basic building components for a plan this year. At the core of our thinking is that, Janus notwithstanding, our God is the “I AM”, life and existence. Our God is the beginning, the ending and the in between. Now, here’s my second invitation. If you would like to enter a conversation with me about my answers to these questions, let me know! We can grow together.
The old “Pog0″ comic strip said it best, “we have bet the enemy and they is us”. For us to get out in front of a situation, a challenge, a temptation that will ultimately hurt us, we need to step up and embrace our role in how things got this way. Clarity and wisdom will follow. Kevin Eikenberry says it best in his blog – check it out!
Whose Responsibility is it, Anyway?.
With Prickly Growing Edges,
Bob
This Christmas season is again a fast paced, consumer driven, high pressure system that drives me a bit batty at times. It is so easy to lose the simple wonder of … well, wonder! Check out the video…
http://blog.kevineikenberry.com/leadership/everyone-wins-with-gratitude/
It’s Thanksgiving morning and I’m entranced with the wild birds fluttering at our feeders outside the kitchen window. They make a mess and Squirrel Nutkin picks up the scattershot of sunflower seeds below. Let me explain about Squirrel Nutkin.
Squirrel Nutkin became our friend because he found a home on the third floor when we moved into this big Victorian house last winter. He tried to escape but ended up being trapped in a crevice behind the kitchen cabinets. The landlord and I got the cupboards loose enough to free Nutikin who dropped into a box I prepared. I set him loose in the backyard and he proceeded to visit. He usually sat in
a tree next to the pack porch and chattered away at us in the morning. Susie named him Nutkin after the very naughty squirrel in the children’s book of that name.
But Nutkin also liked the bird feeder food and was constantly climbing up (how, I’ll never know) the metal pole and feasting on bird food. This is where I learned my coaching lesson. I coated the pole with Vaseline and poor Nutkin became a comical sight leaping onto the pole and sliding down the slick surface. That’s when I realized that my action kept him frustrated in his vision of a fully tummy.
On this Thanksgiving Day, I began to wonder how often I frustrate others in their vision by coating their path in Vaseline (that’s a metaphor, right?). My coaches were always in the process of finding ways to help me succeed on the path to my goals. I determined this morning that I would always try to help others find their path and no matter how “squirrelly” a client you might be, I will not, no never, coat your path in Vaseline and then laugh as you slide down. And that’s not a bad lesson for a holiday we call Thanksgiving!
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For personal coaching that helps you create your own success strategies give me a call. Most of my clients meet with me by phone at least twice monthly and most are ministers but not all. Brilliance is not confined to clergy and I love coaching people who desire to learn and grow! Write me using the link above or 412-926-5106. Coming soon, the InScape Publishing DiSC 363 profile – use it leadership effectiveness on the job and for those dreaded annual reviews. This re-creation of the 360 degree review is based on DiSC, focused on leadership, and includes a coaching module built on the results that I will provide as a coaching partner in the process. The first two clients who register for this during December get the profile for free. Call me now!
Seeing the world with a sense of mystery and wonder can be a success strategy that makes all the difference. When we shift our perspective on a problem or an obstacle by approaching it as a mysterious, wonderfilled moment, we just may discover possibilities we never considered. But we have to allow the moment of wonder to occur on its own and embrace it when it comes.
In one of the congregations I served as the transitional minister, we decided that the theme for the Christmas season would be “wonder”. It seemed to us that that culture was trying to manufacture “wonder” through Santas, elaborate gifts, and plain ol’ consumerism. We did pretty well fulfilling the vision, that is, we did until God did one better.
The kids were doing their dramatic presentation which we had purposely moved to a night when we believe we would have a great attendance. We did. Artificial Christmas trees lined the platform and glowed with light. The youth and children went through their lines with the usual doses of “cute”… I was having fun. Then the sparkling lights on the trees suddenly went out leaving everything in darkness. No one moved. I could hear the technies trying to figure out what went wrong. The kids kept on singing in the dark. Then they got to the place where Jesus was about to be born into the world. The lights on the trees were still dark and no amount of circuit breaker searching seemed to help. The song moved to a quiet mood as the angels entered and stood by as Mary held the baby for all to see… and you could hear a pin drop it was so quiet. Somehow the dark lights created a moment of high expectation and the baby was now seen in a new way… a mystery, not able to be understood, perhaps not meant to be understood – just mystery. At that moment of intense, quiet wonder, the tree lights came on. A collective gasp filled the room, the hairs on my neck stood on end, and everywhere you looked faces were full of … well, they were full of … wonder. In that unplanned, mistake filled setting, God said, I am with you. What wonder.
Wonder can’t be planned. Wonder is always caught unawares, in the moment. These moments of wonder, whether a Christmas pageant, a a dark night sky with a shooting star, or the complex beauty of a bee taking nourishment from a flower, are all moments that remind us that there is more to life than meets the eye. They remind us of infinite possibilities that surround us – that are simply waiting to be discovered as “wonder full”.
With our busy schedules, taking time to think is probably the furthest thing from your mind. One of my personal success strategies is simply, “take time to think”. Get away from the noise and the stressors that push you. Relax your body and your mind. Clear the clutter (keep some notepaper nearby so you can jot down the stuff you recall and need to let go. You can then write down your great ideas when you take time to think.
I read a story about Henry Ford’s early days of mass production. He hired a consultant in the new field of time and motion study. His job was to help Ford find ways to save money by more efficient use of their human resources. On their way to the factory floor the duo passed an open office door and they saw a man sprawled at his desk, legs up, eyes closed and obviously being “unproductive”. The consultant told Ford, “this is what I am talking about – he has to go”. Ford replied, “problem is, he is my top engineer and this is how he creates his ideas. Last year he made me 5 million dollars by doing exactly what he is doing now”.
Wow – I’m off to think! Here are some ideas from my neighbor when I lived in Indianapolis, Kevin Eikenberry. I never went over to visit him and I regret that.. here are his ideas about taking time to think:
If you want to be a more effective leader (and human being), schedule time with yourself to . . .
. . . think about challenges.
. . . think about how to improve your processes.
. . . think about your priorities.
. . . think about your current results.
. . . think about how you can reach your goals.
. . . think about your next goals.
The work will be hard and just like hard physical work, it will be productive and very rewarding.
Thanks, Kevin! Here’s Kevin’s link: http://blog.kevineikenberry.com/
Check out this site frequently – I’m updating every couple days and have lots of links to tools and ideas for personal growth. Personal coaching is available to anyone – I love coaching people who love to learn or are learning to love to learn! Send me an email using the link above and we can begin immediately. First session is always free, no strings!
Bob Anderson
One of the powerful questions I use with my coaching clients when they are confronting a conflict or problem is, “what was your part in bringing this about”.
I just discovered that I signed up a client for a conference using the wrong name but correct email, phone number, and address. That had to be the registrar’s error, right? I wouldn’t make that kind of mistake! That’s called “shift the burden” (read, “blame”). Actually, I did do it – it was my bad. And I’ve learned that I have to own up to and clean up my own mess.
However, the temptation is always there to shift the blame, dodge the responsibility, avoid “cleaning up”.
When we stop to think about the ways we might be complicit in a conflict, broken relationship, marital stress or (fill in your own “blank” here), we began to realize the interconnectedness of the humans systems in which we live and work.
We also begin to realize our own frailties and our need to learn and grow. So what have I learned? You don’t really want to know, do you? Ok, I do sometimes make matters worse – my silence, guilt, embarrassment – all add up to complicating the situation. Admitting my contribution opens the door to collaborative peacemaking and resolution. Sometimes the other will take me up on the invitation and sometimes not. And sometimes that make me see a blind spot that I missed altogether.
The answer to the title question, Who, Me? is “yes, me”. Humbling as it may be, recognizing our role is the first step to wholeness.
