Good day, team,

Your challenge this week is about innovation. In a recent meeting, the guest speaker quoted a well-known retailer in Great Britain: “If you do something first, your customer thinks you do it for them. If you do something second, they think you do it for yourself.”

The speaker went on to say that being innovative, although often risky, puts you out in front of your competitors in ways you cannot imagine, and that this process is a big part of the fun: discovering what happens to your ideas as they become reality.

The dictionary defines “innovate” (from the Latin word “innovare,” to renew) to include not only introducing something new but making changes to anything established. It’s easy to recognize innovation when a product or process is brand new: We’ve never seen it before. But many innovations simply renew or redesign something that needs improvement.

My new i-Phone is the most innovative item I’ve purchased in the last few years. There are many new things about this product that make it a joy to use; having my i-Pod as part of my phone, accessing videos and e-mail quickly and easily, and experiencing a look and feel that are not like anything I’ve experienced before. However, I also see that many of its features are similar to those on my old phone, redesigned in a much more innovative way. So although they’re not new, they do feel different and much more user-friendly.

Innovation requires us to see something completely differently. Once when I had trouble envisioning something, a friend had a suggestion: “Instead of seeing the sun as a ball in the sky that you know is a star emitting light, think about it as a hole into a completely new world that is completely light-filled.”

This changed perspective had a profound effect on me. If I thought of the sun in a completely different way, I would have to think about our solar system totally differently too. If the sun was a hole in the sky, then how would our planetary system revolve around it, and what would that mean? When I applied this same way of completely altering how I looked at something, I found that my creativity was sparked, and I felt anything was possible.

This kind of creative energy is a requirement for innovation. It’s the type of energy that allows us to sprout new ideas and plant them so they grow into new products and new ways of doing things.

Your challenge this week is to introduce something new into one of your endeavors. It can be as simple as redesigning a process that’s become stale and no longer works as well as it used to. Maybe you explore new ways of doing your art, craft or avocation. Try challenging your team to be more innovative by coming up with a new product idea or a better way of servicing your customers. Or ask your family members to create a completely different way for you to spend time together. Children are very creative in their thinking and can usually come up with innovative ways of doing things.

Last week, I saw a television segment about a man who invented a new kind of suitcase: a round tube. He travels a lot for business and noticed how many people get on planes with garment bags for their suits. He knew from his own experience that garment bags don’t prevent wrinkles. He also knew that when he rolled his clothes in a suitcase, they often came out much less wrinkled, and he could get a lot more into his suitcase. So he went to Home Depot, bought a piece of PVC pipe about 8–10 inches in diameter, added some velcro, and then rolled a suit into it. After two days, he took the suit out, and it was in great shape. He now manufactures rolled suitcases that are selling faster than he can make them!

Have a great, innovative week!

Kathleen

Good day, team,

A quote from Pema Chodron, a Buddhist nun, has stayed with me over the past week. She writes, “The essence of bravery is being without self-deception.”

The quote reminded me of a situation in which I had greatly deceived myself. I was working for a high-tech company in Silicon Valley as a human resources manager. The company grew rapidly, from 60 people to 1,200 people within 24 months, and was experiencing record profits when, suddenly, the CEO made a bad decision to completely change the direction of the company. Within six months, it spiraled toward bankruptcy.

At this point, the board of directors intervened, removed the CEO, and brought in a new COO, a man who was known for reducing spending and coordinating large layoffs. He was positioned as the guy who could save us. We were told that he would help the company focus on its key products, reduce expenses and scale down appropriately.

One of the first things the COO did was meet with the human resources managers to let us know what was coming so we could orchestrate the layoffs. There were two other managers in the department who had been there longer than I had and who were more specialized in their human resources expertise. I was the generalist who had helped recruit and hire many of the employees.The new COO told us that he wouldn’t need three human resources managers for a company of about 100 people, so only one of us would survive the layoffs. To make matters worse, I learned from the COO’s admininstrative assistant that the new company, that was being described as smaller and more focused on key lines of business, was actually being prepared for sale and a few people (including the new COO) would pocket a lot of money when the deal went through.

The competition that ensued between my team members and me was ugly; we all fought to save whatever territory we thought we owned and did our best to ingratiate ourselves with the new COO.

At the same time, I felt very badly about what was happening to the company and the people I had helped hire. Many employees had families who depended on them. Yet here we were, sitting in meetings looking at lists of names and treating the people as if they had no history, no families, no value, even though I knew what they had sacrificed to make the company successful.

I also knew how much they believed in what the company had been doing before it changed direction. People had felt great pride in their work and the company’s initial vision and mission. They knew they belonged to a company that valued them, and they worked hard so everyone could profit.

Now, all of this enthusiasm and team spirit was gone. The atmosphere went from open and creative to secretive and unproductive. When a manager walked into the lunchroom, people became quiet. When the human resources team met with anyone, people would walk by the conference room and avert their eyes: They didn’t want to see what was going on. The negativity that permeated the building was intense. Paranoia began to increase, and even those who thought they were in the know, part of the inner, executive circle, began to question each others’ motives.

What I witnessed in myself was something I have always regretted. In the midst of the competition to keep my job, I did whatever was necessary to win the approval of the COO and the managers who bonded with him to keep their jobs. I watched myself do things that I didn’t believe in. I repeated the party line, even when I knew what I was saying wasn’t always true. I convinced others that the company’s new direction would be better for them and that, even though we had to let some people go, the new company would be better for it. I remember saying, “Don’t worry about them. They’ll easily find other jobs. It’s a good economy, and they have plenty of experience.” But, in my heart, I knew that finding new jobs would not be easy and that ultimately the company was being put up for sale and in the end, everyone would lose their jobs and benefits.

Ultimately, I understood that no matter how much I deceived others, the greatest damage I did was to myself. My level of self-deception was deep. I kept excusing my actions and telling myself that sustaining my lifestyle, my family and my position was more important than the inner voice that reminded me of the truth. I didn’t have the courage to be honest with myself and act upon my convictions.

I look back at that time and see someone who was afraid of losing her job, her income and her life. I also see that I was losing my integrity.

In the end, I was chosen as the only remaining human resources manager. I remember what one of my fellow managers said as she left: “Well, congratulations. Now you just have to live with yourself.” At the time I thought, “Sour grapes,” but in my heart, I felt the truth of her assessment.

The company was eventually sold. The people who did it for the money pocketed much less than they thought would get. They blamed the employees, the board of directors, the company’s advisor’s, etc., and went away thinking that, for all the effort they had put into it, it wasn’t worth it. What they never saw was that whatever amount they got in the end could never satisfy their greed. And I don’t think it ever crossed their minds how much damage they did to the spirit of the company, its people and its customers.

Your challenge this week is to express yourself with forceful grace in situations where you have been deceiving yourself or hiding from yourself and others, even if it just means having the courage to tell yourself the truth. It may be a situation at work where you are afraid to express yourself, but know that avoiding the truth or hiding from it is no longer acceptable to you. Perhaps there’s something happening at home that you know needs attention, but you’re avoiding it and telling yourself that it will just go away or change on its own, even though you know it needs addressing. Whatever the situation, be gentle with yourself and courageous at the same time.

There’s a wonderful metaphor here about the lion and the lamb, but that’s another story.

Have a great week!

Kathleen

Good day, team,
I received some requests last week to re-send this challenge that was originally sent out in January of 2006. It seems timely.

Kathleen

Good day, team,

The challenge this week is about realizing that we are not indispensable and working to cultivate backup and support. At this time of year, we are much more susceptible to colds and flu, and we often find ourselves struggling with the question “Am I well enough to go to work?” Yet we all know that it’s pretty stupid to go to work when we’re sick. Not only do we function poorly, but we also expose others to our illness. I often see whole departments affected because one person felt that he or she was well enough to go to work, and then many other people in the department caught that person’s illness.

So why do we go to work when we’re ill? Perhaps we think that we’re indispensable and the work won’t get done if we’re not there. This is an illusion. Anyone who has been away from work for an extended period of time knows that somehow the work gets done. At times it’s done better by the person who pitches in for us when we’re out! One of the advantages of being part of a team is that our team members support us when we need it most. There’s nothing more gratifying than being able to help someone when they really need us.

Unfortunately, none of us wants to think that we can easily be replaced, so often we make unreasonable demands upon ourselves to show up to get the work done. Generally, people who think they’re indispensable have a difficult time letting go of control. Be honest with yourself. Are you cultivating this attitude because you’re really afraid that if you don’t do it, the work won’t get done at all, or because you can’t control the outcome? We all know that it’s never just a single person who accomplishes a task, but a team of well-coordinated, talented people who make it happen. No one is indispensable, and thinking that we are keeps us imprisoned in our fear of losing control.

Try challenging your attitudes about being indispensable this week and look at whether or not you have sufficient backup. If you don’t have people to delegate to, set up a good support system for yourself in case you have to be out of work for a time. Ask yourself, “Who do I rely on most for support?” Let the person who supports you know how much you rely on them. This helps a lot when you wake up some morning with a splitting headache and sore throat. With one phone call, you can easily engage your team member to take over, and that person won’t be surprised by the request.

Having backup also makes it easier when you call your boss to say you won’t be in. You can reassure her or him that the work will be done by your team member and that the team is covering for you. If you work on your own, take a look at your network of business associates and friends. See if there’s someone who can back you up if you need it. Don’t be afraid to ask for help from a trusted friend or colleague. You may find that person asking you to return the favor, and then you both get to feel dispensable but valuable!

Have a great week and stay healthy!

Kathleen

Good day, team,

This week’s challenge is about forgiveness. This subject came up for me just this weekend. My husband and I attended a large family celebration, and I was given opportunities to forgive some family members with whom I have had difficult relationships in the past.

In one case, one of my in-laws and his wife became quite angry a few years ago about something that my husband and I were supposed to have done to them. We never understood what the actual offense was, and although we tried to talk with them about it, their response was to stop communicating with us altogether.

In this situation, I felt completely justified in also shutting them out of our lives. I thought, “Well, it’s their choice to not work this out and, therefore, I’m certainly not going to keep trying if they don’t want to. I never understood what the problem was to begin with, so they have to reach out to us if this is ever going to change.” And with that attitude, the chances of the situation ever getting resolved were pretty minimal.

The celebration yesterday brought me such joy that when I saw my in-laws, I realized that all the justifications and questions about who’s right and who’s wrong really didn’t make any difference. Here was an opportunity for my husband and me to reach out, and if they didn’t respond, then so be it. It was worth trying again.

Interestingly enough, we were actually able to communicate civilly, and perhaps a small opening was made for future interactions. I was feeling quite good about all of this and, as the evening continued, I thought about the miracle of forgiveness and how it clears the path for people to be able to move forward. To forgive means to cease to feel resentment toward an offender, to pardon one’s enemies, to grant relief from payment of a debt. It comes from the Old English word “forgifan,” meaning to give beforehand. In the act of forgiveness, we are willing to give to the other person before they are willing to give to us. Someone must be willing to be the first to give of themselves for another to receive and reciprocate.

Resentment is an obstacle to moving forward. The longer we hold on to resentment, the more difficult it is to overcome. So forgiveness acts as a catalyst for increasing possibilities between people.

Your challenge this week is to see what resentment you’re holding on to with another person. Try forgiving that person and do something that lets him or her know you’ve done so. Maybe you’ve been feuding with a co-worker for awhile and decide to forgive all the negativity that’s gone on between the two of you by having coffee and talking about how you’d like the relationship to change. Perhaps you’ve been unable to forgive a family member for many years and you write that person a letter expressing your desire to relate differently in the future. How about giving a treat (a donut, bagel, piece of candy or flower) to someone you have a lot of trouble with. Sometimes the smallest act of kindness can completely change the nature of a relationship.

As our family celebration continued yesterday, many of us were out on the dance floor having a gay old time. At some point, a distant relative who had had far too much to drink approached and verbally attacked me. I was completely taken aback. At the time, I immediately judged her and wrote her off.

And so, as we see, the cycle starts again. One minute we work to forgive someone and the next moment we are given another opportunity to do it again with someone else. It seems to me that these kinds of opportunities are plentiful at family events! Whatever the case may be, we all have the chance to forgive and forget so that our hearts remain open to the love and kindnesses that human beings are truly capable of giving each other.

Have a great week!

Kathleen

Good day, team,

Albert Einstein was a Nobel Prize-winning scientist whose theory of relativity changed Western concepts of time and space forever: No small accomplishment by any means. Einstein remains one of the greatest scientists who ever lived.

However, many people do not know what a sensitive man he was and how, as he aged, he became more and more philosophical, often challenging the entire scientific method he was trained to venerate. His experience of life became more and more magical as he aged, and he seemed to revel in the fact that many of life’s great truths persist without any scientific proof.

The following Einstein quotes were collected by Kevin Harris in 1995. I am grateful to him for this compilation:

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: His eyes are closed.”

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”

“A human being is a part of a whole, called by us ‘universe,’ a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest… a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”

“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.”

“Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.”

“The most comprehensible thing about the world is that it is incomprehensible.”

“The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.”

“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts” (sign hanging in Einstein’s office at Princeton).

These last three rules have also been attributed to Einstein:

“The Three Rules of Work:

1. Out of clutter, find simplicity.

2. From discord, find harmony.

3. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”

Your challenge this week is to choose one of these quotes from Einstein, print it out, and find a place where you can see it daily (on your desk at work, on the refrigerator, in the bathroom, wherever). Choose whichever speaks to you so that in the midst of your daily routine, Einstein’s words of wisdom will wake you up, give you some perspective about a situation that seems unsolvable, make you laugh, offer you a different viewpoint.

We are so blessed to live in a world where there is an infinite amount of information available to us. I call it info ad infinitum. What a marvel: That we can read Albert Einstein’s most intimate thoughts just by googling his name on our computer! Why not use this information to arrest ourselves for a brief moment of truth?

Have a great week!

Kathleen

Good day, team,

This week’s challenge comes from the book “The Man Who Listens to Horses” by Monty Roberts. Roberts is a real-life horse whisperer, an American original whose gentle training methods reveal the depth of communication possible between people and animals.

A few years ago, my fellow coach Kate Dwyer (who’s also an avid horsewoman) mentioned to me that the similarities between coaching people and horses are uncanny. She suggested this book to me and in reading it, I have found many useful hints in my attempts to understand good ways of working with people.

Here’s an excerpt from the introduction to the book, written by Lawrence Scanlon:

“Three hundred years before the birth of Christ, there lived a Greek cavalry officer named Xenophon. He wrote a tiny classic called ‘The Art of Horsemanship.’ Here is a paragraph from it:

‘A fit of passion is a thing that has no foresight in it, and so we often have to rue the day when we gave way to it. Consequently, when your horse shies at an object and is unwilling to go up to it, he should be shown that there is nothing fearful in it, least of all to a courageous horse like him; but if this fails, touch the object yourself that seems so dreadful to him, and lead him up to it with gentleness.

‘Riders who force their horses by the use of the whip only increase their fear, for they then associate the pain with the thing that frightens them.’”

This advice makes me think about situations in which some sort of discipline is required. How strong do we need to be in getting the message across (the whip)? And what are the consequences if the people we manage or parent don’t do what we’ve instructed them to do?

Interestingly, none of us seems to have trouble letting toddlers know that if they touch a stove, they will get burned. It’s not hard for us to be quite direct in our instructions about it. However, try using the same direct message when cautioning adults about something that can burn them figuratively: We often stumble on our words and are not very clear about the consequences.

Coaching works best when we begin by being the active force but then quickly step back from that position so the people being coached can become the active force for themselves. People, like horses, respond best to those who are willing to be patient, considerate and clear about their intention, with no hint of anger or judgment.

Of course, managing people will require being tough at times. Such toughness will be effective if all team members believe the discipline is being applied fairly and that it’s for the good of the whole team, not just one person in particular. Managers shouldn’t ask their team members to do anything they themselves wouldn’t also be willing to do.

One of the techniques Roberts uses most effectively, which he describes many times in his book, is to listen to what horses are saying in their own language. This attentiveness gives him the opportunity to respond to them in the same way, with the flick of an ear, the movement of an eye, or a facial expression. Our body language communicates volumes, and unspoken messages that frighten people or make them ill at ease do not facilitate good communication and often make people wary. Feeling safe is a prerequisite for being vulnerable enough to open up the lines of communication and say what we’re really thinking.

Your challenge this week is to take a lesson from our four-legged friend the horse. Take a look at the people you spend most of your time with. How do you treat them? Are you hard on them because you think that will bring out their best? Do you find yourself asking them to do something you wouldn’t dream of doing? Are you willing to invite them into the running, so to speak, rather than forcing them? How would you like to be treated in a similar situation? Are people willing to come back to you for more guidance, or do they try to avoid you? Do you cause people to fear you or respect you?

Once you are able to answer these questions, try taking a gentle, attentive approach with people. Maybe it’s just as simple as holding out your hand and asking for help rather than pointing your finger to get your opinion across. And if that hand offers an apple as well, you might just find that people respond like the horse does, with a willingness to carry you that extra mile!

Have a great week!

Kathleen

Good day, team,

Each Labor Day reminds me that there are just a few months left until the year is up. It’s a good time to review what I’ve accomplished in the past eight months and what’s left to do.

It’s a curious time of year. We are in full harvest, reaping the benefits of spring planting and summer ripening in the short season of Indian summer. The melancholy of autumn is right around the corner, the season that leads us right into the darkest time of the year, when things go underground and to sleep. I see September and October as the last big chance to show off my flowers and colors, so to speak, before the seasons change again and the window of opportunity that harvest brings is gone.

I think we all suffer from procrastination from time to time. For me, in September I realize that what I’ve been putting off all year still needs attention. Usually I avoid what I don’t enjoy. If I have a list of five things to do, it will be the ones I enjoy the most that get done first.  Sometimes the fourth and fifth never get addressed at all.

I’ve taken plenty of time management classes, and they all tell me to do the things I don’t enjoy first to make sure they get done. But it’s a little like dieting. I start out eating the recommended foods and within a few days something like a potato chip creeps in and the next thing I know, I’ve lost my resolve.

So it’s a good time of year to be honest with yourself and face what you’ve been avoiding, or maybe have talked yourself out of. I friend of mine told me last week, “I was going to buy myself a new car this year, but then decided against it, although I know that the repairs on my old car have cost me more than it’s worth at this point. In fact, I just missed the August sales. I guess I didn’t really want to spend the money.” I encouraged her to give her original resolution some more thought.

This week, take a good look at where you are procrastinating in your life. What are you avoiding that requires attention? Do you remember what you resolved to do this year? Have you made any progress? Don’t wait until November is here and the holidays start to gobble up your extra time. There’s no time like the present.

Johann Goethe wrote, “Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.”

Have a great week!

Kathleen

Good day, team,

This week I am reminded of the importance of celebration and ceremony.  Summer is the time of year when the ceremony of marriage often takes place.  We mark this new beginning for the bride and groom by creating an event that sanctifies and celebrates their union. Many other types of ceremonies and celebrations mark some aspect of change in our lives.

We often think of change as just one thing, but it is, in fact, three things: an ending, a transition and a beginning. When things change, something has to end that we need to release. Then there’s a period of transition that is often disorienting and scary because we’re not sure what we’re moving toward.

Eventually, a new beginning occurs. This happens with the budding of the leaves on the trees, it happens with the rising of the sun each day, it happens to us as we move into new phases of our lives. How do we acknowledge these changes and, in particular, the events that significantly impact our lives?

In this past week alone, a friend bought a new house, two other friends got married, and another friend’s father died. A few weeks ago, my husband began a new job. All of these events force lots of readjustment. In each case, it is important to acknowledge the end of one way of life and embrace a new way. So creating ceremony for or celebration of these events seems appropriate and also very helpful to the people experiencing the greatest change.

We  can also celebrate our good fortune. Most companies have rewards and recognition programs that give teams the opportunity to celebrate their successes, often with a ceremony or some type of ritual to honor those who have gone above and beyond their normal work requirements to contribute significantly to the success of the business and their team. The importance of these events has been proven time after time in studies of team dynamics and motivation. People love to be recognized for doing a good job, and taking the time to celebrate their success goes a long way toward continuing to motivate them.

Your challenge this week is to acknowledge changes that have occurred in your life recently and to create some form of celebration or ceremony as you move from one part of the change to another. We often think of celebrating as involving many people, but these rituals can be quite small and intimate. Perhaps you light a candle for someone who has recently died and take a few moments to contemplate his or her passing. Maybe you are close to a person who has had a baby or is sending a son or daughter off to college for the first time. These events deserve some form of celebration that helps the people who are most affected move from what used to be to what is now. In your workplace, see if you have rightfully acknowledged your team members recently. Have you taken the time to celebrate their successes and to thank them publicly for doing such a good job? Maybe you could take someone who’s recently changed jobs out to lunch to celebrate the new venture.

Life often asks us to make a rite of passage. Our ability to do this is much more meaningful when we share in ceremony or celebration with others as we move toward a new beginning.

Have a great week!

Kathleen

Good day, team,

This week, your challenge is to see things from a different perspective. As we get older, our attitudes and opinions become more set in stone, and it becomes more difficult for us to change our viewpoint. And yet we all know how refreshing it is to experience a completely different viewpoint that broadens our vision. It’s always exciting to talk with someone, completely convinced of our view of things, and hear new information that suddenly expands our perspective. When we hear ourselves say, “I never thought of it that way; it sounds like a good idea,” we open up to new possibilities and a feeling of lightness and freedom.

One of the great benefits of traveling to places you’ve never been before is that it gives you the chance to see things for the first time. Recently, I went to Israel on business. During my week there, I was able to visit the city of Jerusalem with a guide. As luck would have it, I had the guide all to myself for the day (he usually takes 4 to 6 people at a time), and he was able to take me to places that he would not normally take a group.

At one point during my tour, we traveled on foot through back streets, behind old buildings and up hidden staircases, until we arrived on a rooftop where we had a 360 degree view of the city. We looked down on the old city, where so many different religious communities live closely together: Jews, Muslims and Christians.

Amazingly, all these different communities exist within a few feet of each other (the entire old city takes up less that one square mile), though their beliefs and customs are completely different. The buildings around us were all pretty much the same—the white stone was old and weathered, laundry hung from porch clotheslines, flower boxes spilled over with geraniums, and a variety of sights and sounds emanated from darkened windows that protect the residents from the bright, hot sun. The smell of ethnic foods wafted through the air as people prepared their daily lunch.

I stood there in amazement. How was it possible that people of such different religious and cultural beliefs could live so closely together? While religious and cultural conflicts continue among them as they have for centuries, these people, who live less than a few feet from each other, go about their daily lives in relative peace and prosperity.

I heard a sound from the alley below. A small boy, seven or eight years old, was kicking a soccer ball. Long curls fell beneath his yarmulke on either side of his face. He was totally absorbed in kicking the ball with the side of his foot, back and forth along the alley way, totally oblivious to what was around him. No more than a quarter of a mile away stood the infamous Dome of the Rock, its golden roof gleaming in the sunlight, the place where Abraham was willing to sacrifice his only son to God. No more than 100 yards from him, Muslim families were having their lunch. In the other direction, Christians were doing the same. Above him, in his own home, his mother prepared kosher food.

For this young boy, in this moment, his perspective on the world was all about how well he could kick that soccer ball. All of the strife and wars that had occured in this place over so many centuries didn’t exist. He was just like any other boy of similar age in any other country, absorbed in the moment by what he loved to do: kick a soccer ball. His view of the world was just that alley way.

From my perspective, on the rooftop, I was able to see in all directions. I realized that my view of this part of the world before I visited Israel was much like the young boy’s, innocent about what exists elsewhere and limited to my small view of the world from the United States. Now that I have visited Israel and Jerusalem, my view has expanded and my understanding has increased. I never would have believed that people of such different faiths and customs could live a few feet from each other and go about their daily lives doing many of the same things: hanging wash, preparing food, caring for their families.

Your challenge this week is to seek out a way to expand your vision and your understanding of the world. Maybe it’s by reading something new about a part of the world you know nothing about, or seeing a film about a person who influenced history. Perhaps you go to a restaurant that prepares ethnic cuisine you’ve never tried before or speak with someone at work who is proud of a cultural heritage different from your own. Whatever it is, try expanding your view: to gain more understanding and make your life more interesting.

Have a great week!

Kathleen

Good day, team,

This morning I happened upon an article about Dr. Albert Ellis, a noted psychotherapist who died last week at 93. Dr. Ellis focused much of his psychotherapeutic treatments on action; that is, rather than overanalyzing everything, he encouraged his patients to take action regarding their emotional and psychological states by accepting who they were and not delving too deeply into the reasons why they were that way. He wrote over 75 books with titles like “How to Stubbornly Refuse to Make Yourself Miserable About Anything,” “How to Keep People from Pushing Your Buttons” and “How to Make Yourself Happy and Remarkably Less Disturbable.”

Dr. Ellis’s words remind me of the importance of staying sane in our daily lives by dealing with the internal dictator that tries to tell us all sorts of ridiculous things. For example, some of us walk around all day with internal thoughts such as “I’ve got to do this. I’ve got to do that. I should have said this to that person. I need to more like that. I ought to be more organized. I should be more attractive, intelligent, witty, popular and personable. I ought to be more assertive. I need to be less aggressive. I’ve got to speak up more. I really need to keep my mouth shut.” Some of us “should on ourselves” all day long!

This mind chatter makes us crazy. And if that’s the state of mind we harbor most of the day, we tend to project that same state onto others. It often takes the form of judgment and blame: “He should do this. He should do that. They ought to know better. They should treat us more fairly. She should be more sensitive. She ought to be more personable,” etc., etc.

This week, try to give yourself a break from thoughts and attitudes that continually judge and blame yourself and others. Ellis wrote, “Not all emotional disturbance stems from arrogant thinking, but most of it does. And when you demand that you must not have failings, you can also demand that you must not be neurotic…and this only makes you nuttier! Neurosis still comes mainly from you… And you can choose to stop your nonsense and to stubbornly refuse to make yourself crazy about anything.” Often the simple practice of trying to think of how we can serve others, either at home or at work, will take us out of the subject of “I am the center of the universe” and expand our thinking.

I see that continually thinking about myself is where my arrogance shows up. When I spend more time thinking about the well-being of others rather than continually entertaining thoughts about myself, I am a lot happier, and life is much more rewarding and interesting.

Have a great week!

Kathleen

Kathleen Doyle-White
Pathfinders Coaching
(503) 296-9249

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