Become all you can become with Sophie
He that won't be counselled, can't be helped
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When you decide on a new direction for your life, you suddenly find yourself with obstacles blocking you, even your view of the horizon, let alone your path.
Your reaction to it will be one of two kinds… in my experience. Continue reading “The Seven Boulders that you need to concquer”
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The brilliance in the movie, It’s a wonderful life is that the angel creates a thought experiment: what the world would be like if our hero hadn’t been born.
Thought experiments are uniquely human: animals can’t do thought experiments. Continue reading “Learning lessons the hard way or the easy way, choose 2”
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What’s special about the roller coaster is the height it takes you and the depth it takes you… The experience is aliveness.
When your life has no highs and maybe no deep lows, what you are, instead of being alive, is a walking dead. Resigned, and settled for the scraps at life’s table.
You see others at the table, seemingly happy, seemingly alive, and you feel regret, shame, and envy. Continue reading “How dead are you? If your life is not a roller coaster…”
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The drama triangle… switch up the roles!
The drama triangle is a useful model inside which you can examine, re-live, and heal any conflict.
Conflict is a nice name where what one person/ one company/ one group/ one country’s point of view, self-interest doesn’t agree with some other person’s or group’s self-interest.
It’s normal. But it is doubly normal for children. Small children. A conflict with the parents. Continue reading “An upset 3 year old is running your life?”
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yeah, power tools… or power skills?
But beware… these tools are not for everybody. If you are not up to anything, if you have no ambition, nothing to need power tools for, then power tools are not for you. Complacency and power tools don’t go together… OK, I said it.
What is the difference between an article that has ‘ten things to do to have a happy life‘ and another article that has ‘power tools for a powerful life‘?
Tricky question…
In the hand of a MacGyver a paper clip is a power tool to get out of a jam, or to open a handcuff. But it is not a power tool for a powerful life. Continue reading “Power Tools for living a life you love & live it powerfully”
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We all know this, it is too common to think that you don’t have it.
You find yourself attracted to some kind of project. Maybe a new habit, or an exercise regimen.
It feels like a done deal: it is all yours. Done deal, it is in the bag… and then you wake up one morning, maybe as soon as next day, and all the inspiration is gone, and you are back to being pedestrian. Plus feelings, like shame, confusion, of puzzlement. Continue reading “Carrot or Stick? How to win at promises you make to yourself”
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Without listening you don’t hear. You don’t have good questions to ask.
I could be saying I have a billion dollars for you, and you would not hear it.
But listening is staying with what you are listening to, and is not over-talking it, or allowing something to grab your attention and move it to what you are thinking about.
Listening is also allowing what is said to remain what was said… Continue reading “Without listening you won’t hear what is said”
It’s been stormy here. Lots of rain. The other night a warning went out: a tornado was poised to touch down in Central New York: not a tornado area.
Nothing is wrong: as long as reality works the way reality works, all is well… even if it rains on your parade, even if you hate doing your morning walk trudging through mud, even if you are not prepared like I wasn’t. Continue reading “The Inner Authority that you don’t have but could…”
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Office hours… a blissful two way conversation… NOT.ALWAYS!
Yesterday a one-time student came on the call, and asked a question that imitated me. Or better said: I got irritated.
When a question lacks context, the answer either going to be totally unrelated… or not forthcoming.
I have a coach who doesn’t demand that the questioner sets the stage, shows the big picture, inside which the question makes sense. He guesses and quickly answers, I can feel, from whatever he made up… not what the real question would be.
I.HATE.THAT!
So my irritation was mainly due to considering the question a setup, to make me look foolish. Continue reading “Public answer to a question I didn’t answer in my recent office hours”
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Henry Ford once said, “If I’d asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me, ‘A faster horse!'” People don’t know what they want until you show it to them.
I am reading/listening to a book, The Remembering Process. It supports my Future Self series very nicely. In fact I would have to make it a required read for people who want to do the Future Self process.
The biggest difference is the difference I haven’t quite explored in my previous articles. Some people are visionary and others, like myself, are turtles.
Even turtles have a ‘trajectory’… Continue reading “Do you even know what you really really want?”
