They say life is what happens when you make other plans…
Sadly, my Dad had open heart surgery and our trip to India had to be postponed.
Dad is improving very slowly, but moving in the right direction
Thanks to all of you for your thoughts, support, prayers and love!
Is a Weekly Dose of Soul Food Meaningful?
Heidi, who helps me with the administration of the Soul Food Friday WordPress blog got this at the end of 2012:
600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 6,400 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 11 years to get that many views.
In 2012, there were 49 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 65 posts. There were 111 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 173 MB. That’s about 2 pictures per week.
As this is my final Soul Food for 2012, here are 12 Stories, one for each month of the year:
It is so hard to not to have your soul hurt deeply from the tragedy in Sandy Hook last week…
While the country reels from the event and hopefully makes systemic changes for the future as President Obama’s speech on Wednesday passionately portends, here are some resources to help us get through this enormously difficult time:
How to talk to youth about the shooting in Connecticut
By way of Margaret Iwanaga-Penrose, President & CEO of Union of Pan Asian Communities (UPAC) and a fellow member of the San Diego Non Profits Board
We have assembled a brief listing of excellent resources you can use to help in your efforts to talk with youth and families about the shooting that took place in Connecticut on Friday. Special thanks to the following people for rallying quickly and consulting with experts to identify a few key resources (There are a multitude of resources available but we think at this point in time less is more).
Our gratitude to Alfredo Aguirre, Director of Mental Health Services, San Diego County & Network Advisory Council Member, Wayne Lindstrom, President & CEO, Mental Health America, and Robert Abramovitz, Co-Director National Center for Social Work, Trauma Education and Workforce Development, Hunter College.
Following yesterday’s tragic events at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT, the thoughts of all of us at Save the Children are with our neighbors in this community that is only about 20 miles from our headquarters.
Even as adults try to come to terms with this unspeakable tragedy, we know many parents, teachers, grandparents and caregivers are concerned about how the media’s dramatic images and heartbreaking stories might affect the emotional well-being of the children in their lives.
To help you know what to say and do to support children at this difficult time, we want to share 10 tips for helping children cope, suggestions based on our extensive experience working with children in times of crises.
Limit television time.
Listen to your children carefully.
Give reassurance.
Be alert for significant changes in behavior.
Understand children’s unique needs.
Give your children extra time and attention.
Be a model for your children — they will learn from your behavior.
Watch your own behavior and make a point of being sensitive to the crisis.
Help children return to a normal routine.
Encourage volunteer work — doing something for others.
If you know anyone who might be helped by these tips, I urge you to please share the link www.savethechildren.org/cope.
As for our own efforts to be of service, we have already established a Child Friendly Space in a Newtown middle school — a safe haven where children can play, socialize with their peers and regain a sense of normalcy. We will, of course, offer any help we can in the weeks to come.
As I hugged my own 11-year-old daughter last night, I realized that the most important thing for all of us right now is to remember that children of any age can be affected by a disaster — and that they look to us to provide them with love, understanding and support.
Carolyn Miles
President & CEO
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While Gun Laws are one thing, our entire approach to and support for treating Mental Illness in this country is quite another.
With No Child Left Behind and Budget cuts, socialization skills as a core output of an excellent educational system, and social services as a necessary ingredient in the school team composition have taken a back seat to scores and grades.
Here is one article on what mental illness looks like from the parents point of view?
Hard to believe that since Soul Food Friday’s inception there have been more than 60 blogs on this site and nearly a year’s worth prior to that via direct emails that eventually got too cumbersome to manage through large email attachments.
I do hope at least a few of them touched your soul…
As I leave on vacation today, this will be my last eMissive until the New Year which technically by nature’s calendar would be today on the Winter Solstice, after which the days get longer…
The Gift of Friendship:
If holiday season is about gift giving, one of the greatest gifts I received this year was the gift of support getting a travel Visa for India. After being shocked and devastated for being denied for an India Visa because I could not procure my Naturalization Certificate from 24 years ago- even though I have a US Passport and have travelled on that to India several times since- I called on my social network and asked for help. The outpouring of help from people that in some cases I have had virtually no contact with since I was 15 years old was inspiring & heartwarming. I thanked and salute them through a redux of our school song for the Cathedral and John Connon school- one of the oldest schools in India.
This tells the story in verse…
Prima in Indis Redux Prima in Indis, Gateway of India Door of the East with its face to the West, Here is San Diego my Indian Visa I was yearning So I called on my network to help with this test
Friends forged on maidans playing hockey or cricket Throwing spit balls, in drama, or hiding my pen Came to the rescue with contacts galore that Lent me a hand; both women and men
School School Play up School I found where my lot has been cast Family first, Friends next, Self last.
External Affair Ministers, Ambassadors, Diplomats Military Attaché’s and Staff on the scene All were extracted, contacted, exacted All were so sweet not a one was a mean
None of these knew me from Adam or Evie But they knew You, and you knew them Next thing I know, just missing one paper No longer meant that my holiday was kutumb
Geographic distance or time filled spaces Seemed not to matter to these Cathedralites They’d trained and they’d strengthen that which really mattered And for a friend they would put up a fight!
Now as I plan my family trip to Mumbai They’ve taught me what matters, after all through I’ve been Friends are our greatest gift, ours to defend them Ours now to follow these heroes that seem To have learned and practiced, not taken for gratis That which is most important in life It’s People that Matter, Living your Values, Lending a Hand with Other Folk’s Lives
I am no poet but I am so grateful I hope that I see you when I am in town If you’re around at the Club or at Sea Lounge Take a few moments and do come on down
Now as our lives and the palm shadows lengthen I know what it means to re-echo that old stirring cry PLAY UP SCHOOL! Let it rip! Let it thunder! Let it resound to the whole dunya’s sky School School Play up School I found where my lot has been cast Family first, friends next, self last.
Love,
Neville
—
While there is a lot of negativity in the News today, here is a striking counterexample, along with another uplifting story and innovative idea I thought you’d appreciate.
Security Cameras can help keep us safe, but sometimes they capture stuff you don’t expect:
Give a little bit…
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As we wind up the year, do PACE yourself over the holidays…
Pace =
Pleasure Accomplishment Contentment Enthusiasm
Some like it fast- check out this link
Others souls are lifted when they take it slow…
S L O W D A N C E
Have you ever watched kids on a merry-go-round
Or listened to the rain slapping on the ground?
Ever followed a butterfly’s erratic flight
Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?
You better slow down
Don’t dance so fast
Time is short
The music won’t last
Do you run through each day on the fly
When you ask “How are you?”
do you hear the reply?
When the day is done, do you lie in your bed
With the next hundred chores running through your head?
You’d better slow down
Don’t dance so fast
Time is short
The music won’t last
Ever told your child,
We’ll do it tomorrow
And in your haste, not see his sorrow?
Ever lost touch,
Let a good friendship die
‘Cause you never had time to call and say “Hi”?
You’d better slow down
Don’t dance so fast
Time is short
The music won’t last
When you run so fast to get somewhere
You miss half the fun of getting there.
When you worry and hurry through your day,
It is like an unopened gift….
Thrown away…
Life is not a race.
Do take it slower
Hear the music
Before the song is over.
Special thanks to all this Year’s contributors including this week’s that include: Margaret, the Cathedralites, Dana, Janet, Arman, Larry, Robin, Heidi and the Mission Fed team.
Blessings for the Holidays, and Love to you and Yours!
“Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do… But how much love we put in that action”
–Mother Teresa
Happy Soul Food Friday!
As I reflect back on the year and look forward to new beginnings on this unique day 12/12/12, three emerging topics continue to rise to the surface; Leadership, Happiness and Resilience.
I am not sure where you stand on these, but for me growth in all three seem to call me and might actually shape the next leg of my life ad venture.
Why these three?
Leadership because without it most groups, organizations, communities and cultures cannot actualize their true potential
Happiness because without it why are we working and growing and yearning and earning so hard?
Resilience because this competency rightly understood and well-practiced can help us survive and even thrive when life throws us a curveball
In the last week, I had the privilege to engage with the Vista Unified School District and all its entire Leadership team engaging in the important work of building a framework for the future as they shape their vision, mission and values.
Their Superintendent Devin defined them as:
Vision: Where do we want to go? Vision is Aspirational
Mission: What is our purpose? Mission is Inspirational
Values: What are our commitments? Values are “Perspirational”
Our work together was about the perspirational aspect of identifying what operationalizing our values looks like so we can behave into them and make them part of our organizational DNA.
Coincidentally, we are working on the same essential topics at Mission Fed as well, and it is always interesting to separate core or noble values from competencies…
At a recent high level belt test in our karate group, one of our Sensei Charles shared this example which I thought was exemplary:
“Integrity First, Service before Self, Excellence in all we do”- United States Air Force Core Values
This classic First Follower: Leadership Lessons from Dancing Guy, that Devin shared with the Vista team, and that I was first introduced to by Jack Abbott and Sonia Rhodes of TEDx San Diego and TEDx Youth, might change your perspective on Leadership and who is the most important person…
What are Your Noble Values?
How do you operationalize them for yourself and build a culture where you and those around you can behave into them?
If Happiness is a key outcome you might want to check out:
The Unusual Pairing touched my heart. Enjoy Tara and Bella
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Went Fishing, Caught 4 Deer:
Interspecies Kindness continues…
A once in the history of mankind kind of thing.
The Best Day Of Fishing Ever!
Some fishing stories are a little hard to believe, but this guy has pictures to prove his story…
I’ve heard of salmon jumping into boats, but never anything quite like this… Tom Satre told the Sitka Gazette that he was out with a charter group on his 62-foot fishing vessel when four juvenile black-tailed deer swam directly toward his boat.
“Once the deer reached the boat, the four began to circle the boat, looking directly at us. We could tell right away that the young bucks were distressed. I opened up my back gate and we helped the typically skittish and absolutely wild animals onto the boat. In all my years fishing, I’ve never seen anything quite like it! Once onboard, they collapsed with exhaustion, shivering.”
“This is a picture I took of the rescued bucks on the back of my boat, the Alaska Quest. We headed for Taku Harbour . Once we reached the dock, the first buck that we had been pulled from the water hopped onto the dock, looked back as if to say ‘thank you’ and disappeared into the forest. After a bit of prodding and assistance, two more followed, but the smallest deer needed a little more help.”
This is me carrying the little guy.
My daughter, Anna, and son, Tim, helped the last buck to its feet. We didn’t know how long they had been in the icy waters or if there had been others who did not survive. My daughter later told me that the experience was something that she would never forget, and I suspect the deer felt the same way as well!” I told you! Awesome… huh?
Thanks this week go to Vista USD, Charles, Jack, Sonia, Will and Larry.
Pay it forward… You can’t take it with you!
LOVE is all you need, while my sitar gently weeps…
We will miss you Ravi Shankar!
Neville
“Kindness is the language the blind can see and the deaf can hear.” – Mark Twain
PONDER THIS: It turns out that money does really buy happiness…but not in the way you might think!
RESEARCH SAYS: Charitable giving is scientifically proven to benefit the giver as much as the receiver.
It works just like a positive feedback loop: giving makes people happier, and happier people give more. And it’s not just about money. Any time you give—whether it’s your time, your affection, or your creative resources—your brain rewards you with a shot of feel-good hormones, and a bright new outlook on life and love.
YOUR CHALLENGE: Think about what your greatest talent is. Do you excel at a particular skill—creative, athletic, mental, relational?
Identify a person or group who could really use the resource you have to give. Give it and tell us how you feel and what you learned.
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Motivational Moments with Zig Ziglar from Nightingale/Conant:
“It’s not what you’ve got, it’s what you use that makes a difference.”
—Zig Ziglar (1926-2012):Esteemed author and beloved motivational speaker
The world lost one of its brightest lights last week with the passing of the great Zig Ziglar – master motivator, world-renowned speaker and author, and one of the most genuine, positive, inspiring people I have ever met.For more than 40 years, Zig dedicated himself to teaching people the art of living. Countless individuals attribute their success in life to having heard Zig at one of his legendary seminars or on one of his incomparable audio programs.Yet one thing Zig understood, perhaps better than anyone else I’ve known, is that achieving “success” is really only part of life’s challenge. He knew that success, as most people define it, often turns out to be a short-lived high.Many times, people achieve a certain amount of what they consider success, but are left with the feeling, Is this all there is? They arrive at their goals in life and find that while they have many of the things money will buy, they have very little of what money won’t buy.Zig held the view that while success is definitely worth it, it’s not enough. The next step – the most essential step – is to move from success into significance.Do that, he said, and you’ll be able to easily get the eight things everyone wants in life. All the good things money can’t buy.Let me share a quick story Zig loved to tell that perfectly illustrates what he meant. This story answers the question: How do you get beyond the “money is top priority” mindset and enjoy greater financial prosperity and fulfillment as a result?
The Secret to Having It All
A young man named Steve Walker walked into Zig’s office years ago. A friend of his had flown him down from Toronto because he wanted Steve to see Zig. He thought Steve needed a change.
Turns out Steve left for work at six in the morning, and he got home every night between ten and eleven. That was six days a week. On Sundays he was so exhausted he slept all day.
He had no family life. He was so tired he had run off the road two or three times driving back and forth the 20 or 30 miles he had to go to his job. His wife was threatening to divorce him. Everything in this guy’s life was falling apart – the whole nine yards.
Steve’s friend had forewarned Zig of all this, and when Zig met with Steve, he discovered his boss was the person he looked up to the most.
“Why is that?” Zig asked him.
“Most successful man I’ve ever seen.”
“Okay,” Zig said, “let’s look at your boss. Here’s what I want you to do. I want you to give your boss a plus or a minus grade on all the questions I’m going to ask you.”
“Okay.”
He asked, “Steve, how happy is your boss?”
Steve thought a minute. “I never really thought about it until now, but I don’t think he’s happy at all.”
“Well, we’ll give him a minus on that, right?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Why do you say you don’t think he’s happy?”
“Well, uh, number one, I’ve never heard him laugh. He seldom smiles, and besides that he has ulcers.”
“Well, let’s see now, that tells me something about his health. Do we give him a plus or minus on that?”
“Oh, that looks like a minus.”
Zig said, “If he’s got ulcers, that tells me something about his peace of mind. Do we give him a plus or a minus?”
“I’d say another minus.”
“Okay,” Zig continued. “How prosperous is your boss?”
He said, “Man, he’s got money running out of his ears. That’s why he’s my role model.”
“I guess we give him a big old plus on that one.”
“Absolutely!” said Steve.
Zig said, “How secure is he?”
“Well, he’s as secure as money can make you.”
“We had some billionaire brothers here in Dallas who went bankrupt. How does your boss compare?”
“He doesn’t have that kind of money.”
“We had an industrialist here who was worth half a billion. Does he have that kind of money?”
“No way.”
“We had another one, a former governor worth a hundred million at one time. He’s bankrupt. How does your boss compare?”
Steve said, “Oh, man, he doesn’t have that kind of money.”
“Well, I don’t want to give him a plus, I don’t want to give him a minus. What about a question mark? Would that be fair?”
“I never thought I would say this,” he said, “but that would be more than fair.”
“How many friends does your boss have?”
Steve pondered for a moment. “Really, I don’t think he has any. I’m not his friend; I just admire him because he’s so successful. To tell you the truth, the guy’s somewhat of a jerk.”
“Well, we’re sure going to give him a minus on that, aren’t we?”
He sighed, “Once again, yes.”
Zig said, “Tell me about his family.”
“Well, his wife’s divorcing him.”
“Then we have to give him a minus for that.”
“Yes we do. I can’t believe it! He’s getting a minus on everything.”
“How much hope does he have for the future?”
“Well, before I started talking to you, I thought he had lots. But now I don’t think he has any real hope.”
“Well,” Zig said, “another minus.”
“Yep.”
“Steve, let me ask you a question. Of the eight things everybody wants, your boss gets a minus on six, a plus on one, and a question mark on one. Knowing what you know, would you swap places with him?”
What about you?Would you swap places with Steve’s boss? Regardless of how much money you don’t have. Regardless of where you are on the totem pole. The answer would emphatically be “no” wouldn’t it?
Steve’s answer was also “no.”
Zig said, “What your boss is missing, Steve, is the one thing money can’t buy. If he had this one thing, he would be able to turn every minus to a plus.”
“What is it?” Steve asked.
“I’ll show you what it is, and I’ll show you how to get it,” Zig said, and he spent the next several minutes explaining it to him.
Three or four years later, Zig was speaking in Baltimore, Maryland. A young man came up to him and said, “Do you remember me? I’m the young man from Toronto who sat in your office.”
Zig remembered him. “You’re Steve Walker.”
“That’s right, and I want to show you some real growth. I took your advice and I dumped my job and my 80-hour workweek. I now have a better job with far fewer hours and much better pay. I was able to go back and court my wife and spend time with my family again. And now we have a new member of the family – take a look! That secret you told me worked.”
Zig had all kind of stories just like that one. He always said, “I’m not in the speaking business. I’m not in the training business. I’m not in the book and recording business. I’m in the life-changing business.” And he was right: he changed people’s lives.
The secret Zig shared with Steve that day in Toronto that enabled him to do so much more, he also revealed in his acclaimed Nightingale-Conant audio program A View from the Top.
In a nutshell, A View from the Top is about synergy – that state of affairs in which every part of your life interlocks seamlessly with every other part, with the net effect of enhancing your experience and boosting your performance higher than it’s ever been before.
When you work on the secret that Zig told Steve (and many others who came to see him over the years), you develop a perfect balance.
The reality is that your personal life affects your family life, which affects your business life, which affects you physically, which affects you financially, which affects you emotionally. Everything in your life affects everything else.
When you know how to get the good things that money can’t buy and you use Zig’s secret for establishing synergy in your life, you will actually find yourself making more money. But along with it, you will:
Have more freedom to do the things in life that really matter to you.
Find that your relationships with friends, family, and associates improve and you will experience more love in your life.
Have more peace of mind, which will enhance your health and make you happier and more content.
And all these things together will create a strong feeling of optimism about the future.
I do love the JFK quote: “As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.”
It reminds me that love and gratitude are verbs and constant and repeated practice means “behaving into them” regularly so they become habits not just fleeting feelings or seasonal rituals.
Practice makes permanent. Perfect practice makes perfect as my karate teacher used to love to say…
This week’s posts share some common themes:
The law of reciprocity– where largesse begets largesse
The abundance principle which contradicts the scarcity principle and trusts there is enough for everyone
Attention as the currency of the new economy
The Law of Concentrated Attention– where what you focus on manifests
It is Better to Give than to Receive-The only things you keep in life are the things you give away
Post-Thanksgiving thanks giving…
First, my friend and bestselling author Steve Farber is doing something outrageously cool. He is sharing his greatest gift.
Steve’s bestselling book has inspired leaders, business people and educators alike.
Here is what one kindred spirit had to say about it. “The power of the principles within LEAP to change lives, organizations and communities is irrefutable. These principles are timeless and will work in any situation where hearts and minds are willing and unselfish. They will continue to transform me, my building and my community.” –David Pinter, Principal, Ft Caroline Elementary School, Jacksonville, Florida
I was with Steve recently at the California School Library Association’s Annual Conference Leadership Day in San Jose, where Steve generously offered a digital copy of this bestselling book FREE to every educator in the United States!
Here is what he has to say…
Personally, I’m deeply thankful for the educators in our world–those teachers, principals, superintendents, admins, librarians, and support staff who every day devote themselves to the nurturing and development of our next generations of leaders. I believe that’s what educators really do; they’re leadership developers in the most profound way. That’s why I’m happy to announce that my publisher and I have made my book, The Radical Leap Re-Energized, free to any and all educators. Some of my biz associates think this is…um…unwise–they can’t see the “business validation” in my doing such a thing. But that’s never stopped me before 🙂 So…If you’re an educator, or if you know an educator (you MUST fit in one of those categories, right?) please go and/or send your educator friends to www.LeapForEducation.comto download a free copy of the book. We have around 5 million K-12 educators to reach here in the US alone (Audacity!), so I invite you to spread the word far and wide. Until next time with Love, Energy, Audacity, and Proof. Steve Farber
In the same spirit, can you help me spread the word and get this into the hands of as many educators as you care about?
If it is easy to do, it is easy not to do so don’t wait- ADVOCATE!
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There are No Coincidences- New Discoveries About Happiness
Ok as I am writing this, I get the following message from Will Marre who graciously keynoted at our Annual Martial Arts Mini-Camp at UCSD earlier this month…
New discoveries about the nature of happiness tell us that happiness is not just the pleasant outcomes of fortunate circumstances. Indeed, we can all create deeper and longer lasting feelings of happiness whenever we want to. In fact our actual circumstances have a much smaller impact on our sense of well-being than our inner life and our outer actions. Happiness is actually something to be directly pursued rather than something to wait for. Here are the three top ways science says make us feel happy.
1. Thanksgiving, or actually gratitude: We can learn to be world class at feeling grateful for good things in our lives. This is not as easy as it sounds. Our default thinking takes the good things of our lives for granted while we focus our attention on what’s unpleasant. A tip to increase your feelings of gratitude is to focus on one specific thing at a time. You could focus on your health and energy, your children, a warm home, a loving friend, or a comfortable pair of shoes or the taste of chocolate. Whatever it is, you only feel grateful when you focus on that one thing. Now imagine your life without it. The contrast of feeling loss deepens our appreciation for what we have right now. Next, tell someone what you’re grateful for and why. Going public with inner feelings increases positive brain chemicals and brightens happy emotions.
2. Give: We now can observe brain activity of givers and receivers and it’s clear that it is the giver who feels more happiness through giving than the “getter.” I remember at age 5 receiving a red fire engine for Christmas. I wanted this fire engine so badly that I begged Santa for it. Repeatedly. Endlessly. Sixty years later my mother told me she still remembered that Christmas because I had been so elated. She told me I could not have possibly been happier in receiving the fire engine than the joy she felt giving it. Turns out that science backs her up. Givers have more positive brain activity than receivers.
3. Growth: Our sense of our personal power arises when we are confident we can select meaningful goals and achieve them. This is called self-effectiveness or self-efficacy. Self-effectiveness gives us confidence and generates self-respect which are directly associated with happiness. If you can imagine being a better, more capable person, take steps to advance yourself. Just starting on a more positive course will trigger optimism, inner resolve, and confidence — all happiness builders.
So now you have three things you can do intentionally to increase your happiness; gratitude, giving, and growth are the rocket fuel that launches us into a higher orbit of joy. These three actions are the core habits of happiness and life satisfaction. That’s why Thanksgiving is such a potent holiday. It’s a day to reflect on the large and small sources of joy. It’s a time to pitch in and help at whatever needs to be done. Don’t let the lower emotions of Black Friday bargain hunting become your theme music for the holiday. Rather mindfully promote gratitude, giving, and growth and see how you feel.
Being happy is something you create. Something you can do. Happy is a verb!
Will
—
My heartfelt aspiration for you is that you have many things to be grateful for this holiday season, and that we all take a moment to share that attitude of gratitude with the people that matter most to us in our lives.
As the perfect antidote for the typical holiday season fervor of material spending and crazy consumerism, that begins with Black Friday and continues through Cyber Monday and now Mobile Tuesday, here are some soul food gifts to share with your loved ones. They cost nothing but are indeed priceless, validating that Einstein knew what he was talking about when he said, “Not everything that can be counted, counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” :
First the gift of humor (and lateral thinking):
The following short quiz consists of 4 questions and will tell you whether you are qualified to be a professional. Scroll down for each answer.
The questions are NOT that difficult. But don’t scroll down UNTIL you have answered each question!
1. How do you put a giraffe into a refrigerator?
The correct answer is: Open the refrigerator, put in the giraffe, and close the door. This question tests whether you tend to do simple things in an overly complicated way.
2. How do you put an elephant into a refrigerator?
Did you say, Open the refrigerator, put in the elephant, and close the refrigerator?
Wrong Answer.
Correct Answer: Open the refrigerator, take out the giraffe, put in the elephant and close the door. This tests your ability to think through the repercussions of your previous actions.
3. The Lion King is hosting an animal conference. All the animals attend…except one.
Which animal does not attend?
Correct Answer: The Elephant. The elephant is in the refrigerator. You just put him in there. This tests your memory.
Okay, even if you did not answer the first three questions correctly, you still have one more chance to show your true abilities.
4. There is a river you must cross but it is used by crocodiles, and you do not have a boat. How do you manage it?
Correct Answer: You jump into the river and swim across. Have you not been listening? All the crocodiles are attending the Animal Meeting. This tests whether you learn quickly from your mistakes.
According to Anderson Consulting Worldwide, around 90% of the professionals they tested got all questions wrong, but many preschoolers got several correct answers.
Anderson Consulting says this conclusively disproves the theory that most professionals have the brains of a four-year-old.
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Now for some other meaningful thanksgiving holiday gifts.
*** The FIRST gift is the gift of time.
“Just being with someone can be of great comfort to that person”.
*** The SECOND gift is the gift of good example.
Most people learn fundamental attitudes by observing other people.
*** The THIRD gift is the gift of acceptance.
People often begin to change when they realize they’re being accepted for what they are.
*** The FOURTH gift idea for those who are so often busy and distracted these days is the gift of privacy – that is, time of one’s own.
Too often, we smother people with questions and demands on them and their time.
*** The FIFTH is the gift of seeing the best in people.
“How can you see a ‘fine’ picture of someone close to you – when that person doesn’t always seem to be so fine?
*** The SIXTH gift is the gift of self-esteem
Not crippling others by nagging or criticizing – especially those we love. That’s particularly a tough one for millions of people every day.
*** The SEVENTH gift, might be the giving up a bad habit.
*** Number EIGHT is the gift of self-disclosure.
Bottling up feelings and resentments deprives the other person of truly knowing who you are.
*** The NINTH gift idea is the gift of helping someone learn something new.
It is an investment in their future happiness.
*** The TENTH gift is the gift of really listening.
“Few of us know how to listen in an effective manner”.
*** The ELEVENTH is the gift of fun!
It’s important to help those close to you to find the fun in ordinary, small events.
*** Finally, the TWELFTH gift is letting others give to us.
“When we let others give to us”, “and when we can accept their gifts in a gracious and mature manner, we may be giving them one of the most important gifts of all.”
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A Thankless Profession? We can change that!
As we extend that attitude of gratitude to those that touch our lives most meaningfully, please let’s not forget our teachers who give so much, and get thanked so little. Take a moment right now to thank a teacher for their hard work, dedication, enthusiasm and willingness to go the extra mile for our students and their families. In addition to your priceless gratitude, Mission Fed will serve to memorialize their service and esteem them for their great work! It is easy, just click here: https://www.missionfed.com/im-thankful
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We’ve highlighted Dogs and Cats but let’s not forget the Birds:
Musings from DreamForce 2012: The Largest Technology Conference on the Planet
Recently, I was afforded the opportunity to attend DreamForce 2012 the largest technology conference on the planet, which was held in San Francisco with over 95,000 registered guests and 950 breakout sessions. DreamForce completely blanketed downtown San Francisco including the Moscone Center and all the adjacent hotels and featured notable keynotes by the likes of General Colin Powell, Sir Richard Branson of the Virgin companies, Jeff Immelt, CEO of GE, Mark Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com, Dr. Dean Ornish and Tony Robbins to mention a few.
It is purported that70% of businesses today are using social which in turn provides a $1.3B boost to the economy.
Social has become one of the two top ways to connect with customers, all made possible by the convergence of “cloud, social and mobile spheres”. Trust and transparency foster authentic connectedness and rightly applied the social revolution can become a TRUST Revolution as “what happens in Vegas ends up on Facebook.”
There are 6 ways to move the needle on your business imperatives using Social; Sell, Service, Market, Collaborate, Work, & Innovate- but they ALL begin with Listening. Sentiment Analysis, Crowd Sourcing, Collaborative Design & Intention Analysis all are made easier through the advent and application of social media. Brand is the sum of all these conversations. Today we call it Social Business but soon it will simply be referred to just business as usual…
DreamForce featured more than 75 sessions to choose from on the Marketing/Social Media track alone. Here I was forced to prioritize, schedule and then move maniacally like a presidential candidate from venue to venue in the final days of an election cycle- but it was totally worth it.
One of the most enlightening sessions was a session entitled Metrics that Matter in Social Business Innovation by John Hagel of Deloitte & JP Rangaswami Chief Scientist of SalesForce.
Here these two thought leaders helped me reframe Social not as an emerging fad but as the centerpiece of community in the digital age. We are and have always been creatures of community. Eons ago, community occurred around the camp fire. Fast forward thousands of years and community was in the town square. Fast forward yet again, and community is engaging via social media. This is why if Facebook was a country, it would be the third most populated country on earth!
Social technology has brought a new age of interaction to the business world, turning nameless faceless data made up of social security, phone numbers and FICO scores into real people that demand to be treated as such.
The 4 ways to measure the true impact of social media include:
Financial:Has revenue or profit increased or costs decreased?
Digital: Has the company enhanced its owned and earned digital assets?
Brand: Have consumer attitudes about the brand improved?
Risk management: Is the organization better prepared to note and respond to attacks or problems that affect reputation?
The collaboration of shared knowledge, shared experiences, and shared content are the core of social business value. However, interactions in social media aren’t here today and gone tomorrow. They can remain in recorded history in perpetuity. Clearly, the expressed sentiment of customers and employees is critical to the successful design and implementation for any business. Social will provide new vistas of value in the future as well as open the organization to new risks.
Here are some interesting social media stats-
More than 600 billion minutes are spent on Facebook each month with average user spending 20 minutes per visit & 23% of Facebook users checking their account five times or more every day
1 million accounts are added daily on Twitter & average time on site is 13 minutes
Twitter handles more search queries per month than Bing & Yahoo combined – 32 billion
Pinterest is the fastest growing social media platform to achieve 10 million unique visitors & average time on site is over 14 minutes
LinkedIn gains two new members every second & average time on site is 8 minutes/session
YouTube handles 20% of the entire internet’s traffic and has over 4 billion views per day
Side Note: “Four more years.” A short enough message, but one that has set Twitter’s record for the most new tweets-per-second record, reaching 327,000 a second at its peak. The message was sent from U.S. President Obama’s Twitter account at 4.16am GMT, once Obama’s re-election to the White House for another four years became certain.
Technology is a great servant but a horrible master. With smart phone adoption the fastest of any technology in human history, and today with more smart phones on the planet than toilets and toothbrushes, access to information (resources) is unprecedented. It is our resourcefulness in using these technologies to inform, educate and shape our workplaces, educational systems and customer experiences that becomes critical. To quote Rangaswami, “Health services will not get better if we design better thermometers. Measures don’t work to make things better in Healthcare and Education. It’s how we do it that changes the quality of the outcomes.”
The more things change the more they stay the same…Human constants such as valuing trust as the basis of all real relationships, the importance of connectedness and community and the need to be heard & valued remain constants.
These constants however meet the dynamic and disruptive forces of globalization & emerging digital technologies at unprecedented rates of change that in turn are upending our business models, dis-intermediating conventional systems and processes, and creating new opportunities for innovation and value creation.
Brand no longer resides in the purview of one brand manager or brand champion, and now is shaped by thousands of customer encounters and experiences that good or bad will be shared across the digital community and ecosystem in a heartbeat. The best we can do is create the conditions for an authentic brand experience, then listen well and act quickly as the era of the connected, self-directed consumer and empowered citizen continue to build steam and shape our collective future, redefine the nature and contract of work, and add another step on the ladder of the history of that social, relational, communal being we call human.
Who Am I
Interesting what each of these young people turned into. See if you can guess the answers…
Kelly O’Neil, in his “The Secrets of Success” blog, outlined 15 characteristics of an excellent entrepreneur. This is a result of his association with extraordinary and successful entrepreneurs. In his blog, I learned that excellence is not inborn–it is something you have to work at. A high performing entrepreneur values his word and looks for ways to improve himself and his business. Unlike others who dwell on problems, he finds solutions to them. He learns from his mistakes, considers suggestions from others, and excels in his undertakings. He is willing to take risks and to do what needs to be done. These traits eliminate mediocrity. More specifically, O’Neil identifies these 15 traits as markers of true excellence. Great entrepreneurs…
-Aren’t just working for the money. They care about their company beyond the profits and take great pride in its performance, impact on society, and ability to help others through its offerings. -Are truthful. They do what they say they are going to do, when they say they are going to do it. -Embrace opportunities. They look for — and find — opportunities to improve themselves, their work, and their business. -Are focused on solutions. They don’t bring problems to the table without recommending a solution. -Focus on CAN. High performers focus on what they can do rather than what they can’t accomplish. -Don’t blame. When they make a mistake they own it, fix it, and learn from it. -Are busy, productive, and proactive. High performers are out there getting the job done. -Are life-long learners. High performers constantly work at educating and improving themselves. -Consistently do what they need to do. No matter how they feel or what curves life has thrown their way, they get it done. -Have a desire to be exceptional. They will typically do things others won’t do. -Accept feedback. High performers aren’t just open to feedback, they are more likely to act upon it. -Set higher standards for themselves. The result? Greater commitment, more momentum, a better work ethic and (of course) better results. -Are more interested in effective than easy. High performers look for the course of action that will produce the best results over the long term. -Finish what they start. Even when it’s not fun. -Are resourceful. They figure it out and get it done….
In summary, excellence is the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction, skillful execution, and the vision to see obstacles as opportunities.
Have You Checked Out BizTown? This week, after a prideful morning exercising my civic duty and being grateful to be able to vote on election day, I had the further good fortune to join my daughter’s 5th grade class at Junior Achievement’s BizTown in San Diego.
If you have never hear of it or been there, it is quite the experience as these 10 and 11 year olds invest many weeks at their respective schools prepping for “a day in the life of work”, in a real setting with real jobs getting real checks that get deposited at real credit unions (and of course banks).
5 years ago I was at BizTown as a parent volunteer with my son Arman, as Mission Fed launched our first ever Thank A Teacher Campaign with Cox and JA.
Here we are 5 years later on the 5th Anniversary of the hugely popular Thank a Teacher campaign, that has generated more than 25,000 thank you notes to thousands of teachers at hundreds of schools all over San Diego county, and now we have a gorgeous Mission Fed branch in BizTown, where half the 12,000 kids that attend BizTown every year do their banking and cash their paychecks all year long.
Here are some pictures memorializing and personalizing the occasion with our daughter Aysha:
Working as a Nutritionist at Kaiser
Hanging with her pals Marina and Trinity on lunch break
With her 5th grade teacher Sue Yant in front of the Mission Fed Thank a Teacher table
Making her charitable contribution at the San Diego Foundation to help Animals
With Joanne Pastula the President/CEO of Junior Achievement, San Diego
(Thanks Mission Fed, BizTown and Ada Harris Elementary)
For more information, here is a recent media story on the feel-good Thank a Teacher Campaign:
(Thanks JA, Cox and Mission Fed and EVERY Teacher out there!)
Coping with Natural Disasters and Stress by Will Marre:
Last week one of Will’s clients asked him to develop a quick guide to help their employees deal with stress caused by hurricane Sandy. I thought you might be interested in what he sent out as I was.
Natural disasters are usually sudden, shocking, and stressful. You are normal if your feelings range from disbelief and anger to numbness so don’t get down on yourself for being human.
Symptoms of stress overload are:
Recurring feelings of fear, worry, and anxiety
Difficulty making decisions
Feeling powerless and depression
Achiness and stomach pain
If you are feeling this way, please consider some dos and don’ts.
First don’t:
Isolate yourself from others
Overeat, drink alcohol, or take drugs
Watch too much T.V. news about the disaster which may deepen your sense of helplessness and upset
(disturbing visual images are the most re-traumatizing)
Do:
Create a daily routine that includes 7-8 hours of sleep, light exercise, stretching, and healthy food.
Invest time with your friends, family, and co-workers.
Encourage people to share their stories and feelings but don’t dwell on them or repeat them over and over.
(Repeatedly retelling of terrible events causes your brain to create deeper, more disturbing memories.)
Encourage conversations about:
– What you’re grateful for in spite of the disaster
– Acts of service, help, and heroism
– Any positive things you’ve learned or will do differently
Watch (if you have power or internet access) humorous shows or movies that actually make you laugh.
Laughing creates feelings of optimism.
No matter how busy you are snatch 30 minute breaks to do something you enjoy—read an inspiring book, play a game, call friends who are out of the disaster oven and talk to them about the good things in yours and their lives.
Help others. One of the most stress resilient activities you can do is help others using your strengths and gifts.
We are each wired to offer help in one of five ways:
Teach: Teach the people you can touch these stress tips, how to make sure their water is clean, how to get their power back on, or any other helpful information.
Take Charge: Organize people so they can use their strengths, knowhow and resources to do the most good.
Create: Create methods, processes, and tools to help people get their lives back to normal.
Help: Directly lend a hand in helping others clean up their property, get an insurance adjuster, or any other direct way.
Fun: Spread joy. Encourage gathering, organize parties, be the activities director to get people re-engaged with their fun side.
So are you primarily a teacher, leader, creator, helper, or party planner? If you take a minute, you’ll see your gift among these five. It’s what you do well that brings you a great sense of satisfaction. Give your gift.
Enrich your private life. Take time to meditate on what you’re most grateful for now. Tell others what you’re grateful for. Stay fully present with others, hug, hold hands, enjoy moments of sacred silence where feelings of love are shared without words.
Every disaster is an opportunity to grow, serve, and love. The quickest way to heal is to both give of yourself and take care of yourself.
We don’t need to wait for a natural disaster to engage on some of these life enriching activates. Any time your life feels overwhelming is a good time to recharge your personal vitality.
Did You Know that this week is the actual500th Anniversary of the Sistine Chapel?
With talk of restricting access so the art will be preserved for the next 500 years, here is a panoramic, up close way to view this masterpiece in a way never possible even if you are there.
This virtual tour of the Sistine Chapel is incredible and purportedly done by Villanova at the request of the Vatican. Virtually view every intricate aspect of this MICHELANGELO’S MASTERPIECE.
JUST CLICK AND DRAG YOUR ARROW IN THE DIRECTION YOU WISH TO EXPLORE
In the lower left, click on the plus (+) to move closer, on the minus (-) to move away.
The choir sets the tone so make sure your speakers are on.
I mentioned this powerful documentary on how to save our broken healthcare system in a previous blog. This movie specifically addresses a variety of critical issues, including integrative practices.
Recently we heard about love from the 4 year olds, now let’s explore real SAT answers from some 16-year olds…
The following questions were part of last year’s SAT examination
These are real answers (from 16 year olds).
Q. Name the four seasons
A. Salt, pepper, mustard, and vinegar
Q. Explain one of the processes by which water can be made safe to drink
A. Flirtation makes water safe to drink because it removes large pollutants like grit, sand, dead sheep and canoeists
Q. How is dew formed
A. The sun shines down on the leaves and makes them perspire
Q. What causes the tides in the oceans
A. The tides are a fight between the earth and the moon. All water tends to flow towards the moon, because there is no water on the moon, and nature abhors a vacuum. I forget where the sun joins the fight…
Q. What guarantees may a mortgage company insist on
A. If you are buying a house they will insist that you are well endowed
Q. In a democratic society, how important are elections
A. Very important. Sex can only happen when a male gets an election
Q. What are steroids
A. Things for keeping carpets still on the stairs
Q. What happens to your body as you age
A. When you get old, so do your bowels and you get intercontinental
Q. What happens to a boy when he reaches puberty
A. He says goodbye to his boyhood and looks forward to his adultery
Q. Name a major disease associated with cigarettes
A. Premature death
Q. What is artificial insemination
A. When the farmer does it to the bull instead of the cow
Q. How can you delay milk turning sour
A. Keep it in the cow
Q. How are the main 20 parts of the body categorized (e.g. The abdomen)
A. The body is consisted into 3 parts – the brainium, the borax and the abdominal cavity. The brainium contains the brain, the borax contains the heart and lungs and the abdominal cavity contains the five bowels: A, E, I,O,U…
Q. What is the fibula?
A. A small lie
Q. What does ‘varicose’ mean?
A. Nearby
Q. What is the most common form of birth control
A. Most people prevent contraception by wearing a condominium
Q. Give the meaning of the term ‘Caesarean section’
A. The caesarean section is a district in Rome
Q. What is a seizure?
A. A Roman Emperor.
Q. What is a terminal illness
A. When you are sick at the airport.
Q. Give an example of a fungus. What is a characteristic feature?
A. Mushrooms. They always grow in damp places and they look like umbrellas
Q. Use the word ‘judicious’ in a sentence to show you understand its meaning
A. Hands that judicious can be soft as your face.
Q. What does the word ‘benign’ mean?
A. Benign is what you will be after you be eight
Q. What is a turbine?
A. Something an Arab or Shreik wears on his head
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On Affirming Differences:
“The underlying philosophy is to ask not, ‘How smart is this child?’ but instead to ask ‘How is this child smart?’ –-Howard Gardner
I couldn’t agree more! This video will stir your soul…
We enjoyed the music and safety tips, now SHOW US YOUR PRODUCTIVITY CHOPS:
6 Tips on Productivity from Robin Sharma
What makes an elite performer isn’t how you show up when Plan A’s working. What reveals a true superstar is the way you deliver when your best laid plans are falling apart.
These are messy times. Days of intense volatility. A period of immense uncertainty. And one of the dominant themes in work + life these days is distraction (a constant stream of activities begging for our attention that in the end amount to nothing).
So the fight we face as Leaders Without Titles and as human beings on a mission to express our absolute best talents is to block out the noise so we get real work done. Here are some of my best strategies to help you do this:
#1. Get Great at Reverse Engineering: Engineers working with technology startups are masterful at taking a competitor’s product and breaking it apart – piece by piece – from the finished version to its initial components. After study, they then make their own product even better. Truly productive people do the same thing with their most valuable opportunity. They know the final result they are after and maintain acute clarity on it. Armed with this awareness, they reverse engineer this big goal into a series of small and actionable steps that they then put into a 1-2 page plan of execution. This strategy works for them. And it’ll work for you.
#2. Abhor Distraction: I fiercely fight distraction in my own life and teach the teams I work with at companies like Starbucks, Coca-Cola and Oracle along with the billionaires I privately coach how to do the same. Everyone’s fighting for your focus. And too many people are stealing your attention. Don’t be so generous in giving it to them – unless it’s for something that truly matters. So, clean out the distractions in your workspace and personal life. I just read that special forces on a military mission are kept in isolation from other teams and denied access to TV/Newspapers/Internet. Why? To PROTECT their focus so they deliver perfection on their mission. Pretty great metaphor for you and I, no? So please remember: Distraction is the greatest thief of time. And time is a non-renewable resource.
#3. Stop Multi-tasking: A recent case report shared a story of a medical resident who was using her cellphone to input data about the dosage of a patient she was attending. She was interrupted with a text message from a friend inviting her to a party. The resident replied and started a conversation. The only problem was she forgot to get back to her patient who then began receiving a near-fatal dose of the medicine. Open-heart surgery saved his live. But the larger point is that so few of us are fully present to the work/activity in front of us anymore. I see people on airport runways checking their Twitter feed. I see taxi drivers reviewing their emails. A huge competitive advantage falls to the 1 in 100 performer with the brilliance to develop the skill of becoming massively focused on the one thing in front of them. Truly a game-changing move.
#4. Build Rituals: Ok, this is another valuable tactic to unleash your productivity. When I studied the lives of People of Great Output like Stephen King, Winston Churchill and John Irving, I saw that they didn’t leave their productivity to the fleeting winds of inspiration. Instead, they instituted precise rituals into their daily lives that allowed their creativity to flourish. Stephen King, for example, sits down to work at 8 am every morning, in the same chair, with his papers set in the same way. His belief is that this obsessive consistency sends a signal to his mind to focus and deliver serious results.
#5: Launch at Beta: So many of us procrastinate by waiting for ideal conditions to get big things done. Here’s what I’ve learned from some of the software enterprises we’ve consulted with: launch at beta and then iterate to perfection. What I mean by that is stop waiting for perfect conditions or the perfect product before you get to market. Yes, I stand for ensuring anything you offer is best of breed. But sometimes putting off a project until it’s flawless demonstrates nothing more than your fear of success. And we both know you’re so much larger than that.
#6. Practice Productivity: When I was learning to ski, my instructor taught me about muscle memory. He made me practice many tiny moves over and over again sharing “this is going to build your muscle memory”, meaning that if I practiced the technique relentlessly, a time would eventually come where I could perform it swiftly, elegantly and unconsciously. Same applies to your productivity. Practice doing work that matters. Practice sitting in one place for many hours focused on a single result. Practice running rituals and elite performance routines that will lift you into the realm of world-class. Because as I know you know: Genius isn’t so much about genetics as it is about work ethic and sheer practice.
I hope these strategies have been of service to you. The world needs you at your productive best.
Stay Great,
Robin
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Ready for Some Natural Wonder?
Enjoy the Canadian Rockies in HD. Go to full picture for the best viewing!
If you can read this, you have a strangemnid, too. Only 55 people out of 100 can.
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Stay Soul-filled…
Thanks this week to Mohit, Ron, Robin and Larry H.
Pay it forward!
Love,
Neville
“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”– Albert Einstein
Happy Soul Food Friday! 