Got Stuck?

Are you stuck?  I get stuck.  We all get stuck sometimes.  Other words for that feeling include: baffled, mystified, puzzled, stumped and “at a complete loss.”

Life tosses us curves.  Those curves can send us in the wrong direction or spin us out of control.  That’s when choosing leadership comes in handy. It’s a choice away.

When you are “up-to-here” with the “same-old-same-old” and there’s no time to attend to those dreams you created on New Year’s Day, visions of walking away from your day job... or moving to Italy... or deciding to retire... or just
making more money...those dreams become easy to set aside when you feel stuck.

If you’re feeling stuck, having trouble getting started, or just need a good kick in the posterior, let me suggest a different body part…the head.  Okay, I’m talking about your mind, not your skull.  Let me explain.

I recently had the opportunity to sit in on a program being created by The Pacific Institute. The particular program I was observing is designed for law enforcement, but the content, although in a different package, has been around for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.

I’ve been immersed in this type of material for decades now, but it’s always refreshing to see an innovative take on it.  Moreover, it’s always good to go back to the basics and refresh oneself.

Lou Tice, the founder of the Institute, has worked, through his other programs, with thousands of folks over the years.  Many of them have been celebrities from a variety of fields.  He teaches people how to think about thinking.

Lou began as a high school teacher and football coach, but a belief in “no limits” has led him to become one of the most highly respected educators in the world.  He believes, as I do, that excellence is a process, an achievable, continuous process that inevitably results when we learn to control how we think, what we expect and what we believe.  (Sounds like Sam in The Offsite, yes?)

Similarly, I have been talking about closing the gap between your beliefs and behaviors for some time now.  (And I don’t intend to stop.)  This is another approach and one worth investigating.

There is a great deal of research on whether our thoughts control our actions or that emotions are actually the culprit that create the thought that creates the action and so forth.  We don’t need to go into that here.  (If you wish, check out one of my favorites, Candace Pert, for starters).

To keep it simple (and, you know I like things that are simple), let’s just say that the conscious mind is the captain of a ship and the subconscious mind is the crew.  (My first exposure to this type of information, by the way, was with that metaphor.)

If the captain overdoes the rum on a given night and orders the crew to sink the boat, the crew will jump to it and turn their oars into drills.

“Ahoy Matey, grab the buckets, all hands on deck.”

If we constantly tell the crew that we can’t do this or that, the crew will generate the action to achieve the can’t…in other words, it will keep you stuck.  It responds to your belief, which is reinforced by the self-talk habit of “can’t.”

Now, on the other hand, if the captain sends positive messages, the crew will oblige.  This is more than just positive thinking.  It is positive self-talk.

Self-talk is that internal voice, that conversation we have with ourselves on a daily basis.  It can be reinforcing the good, the not so good and even the bad.  It’s a choice.

That self-talk is a mirror of our beliefs.  Moreover, it instructs the crew.

Tice says, “Thoughts accumulate to become beliefs.  The quality of thought inside is reproduced in the quality of life outside.”  In other words, thoughts are things.  They are not wisps of air that have no effect in your life.  They actually create your life.

This is why I am so adamant that leadership is a way of life, not a red coat you put on to mingle with the troops.

Tice asks participants to answer a few questions during his sessions.

Questions such as:

“If I listen closely to how I typically talk to myself during the course of a day, what would be the dominant reoccurring conversation?”

Moreover, “Does my dominant conversation add the value I want to my life? If not, what would I expect the conversation to be like?”

I toss these great questions at your feet today.  Don’t kick them away.  Embrace them, wrestle with them and learn from them.

I had the opportunity some time ago to visit Amsterdam on business.  Once the business was handled, I went sightseeing.  I loved it all and have tons of pictures to prove it.  However, the most important sight I was able to see was into me.  And I owe it all to a little girl.

When I am “baffled” and I begin to hear my self-talk going south, I am quick to remember the story of Anne Frank.  Her diary, read by millions, has become a window for millions of people around the world to see Anne’s life and a mirror to see themselves through.

When I was waiting in line to enter the Anne Frank house, it seemed like any other tourist attraction in any city.  I was wrong, very wrong.

Once inside the building, one enters the annex through a secret door behind a bookcase.  As tourists squeaked through the opening, they became as silent as if entering a monastery.  It was no longer an attraction; it instantly morphed into a life changing experience.

I won’t share all of the details here (I urge you to go yourself or visit online.)

After going up a few flights of stairs and through a few rooms, you come to Anne’s room.  It remains just like it was the day she was captured.  The room is bland, beige with green trim.  Anne decorated it with magazine covers, postcards and celebrity pictures much like any girl her age might do.

However, Anne did something in her room that has changed the lives of millions of people.  She wrote her thoughts down.  Those thoughts…those things… continue to change everything.

The mind.  It’s a marvelous mechanism.  Check yours out today.  It might help you when you get stuck.

The Offsite Book Club

In late October, I was asked to stick my nose in a book.  A Wells Fargo Bank Book Club Webinar to be exact.

There were people from all over the country in the session.  They were reading The Offsite and asked if I would share my thoughts.  I loved it.  I am always eager to hear from readers what they discovered from the book, its characters, plot and learning points.

This was no different.

Plenty of listeners were too shy to talk, of course.  Some who had not yet read the book just soaked it all in.  However, there were plenty of good questions from those who had read it from cover-to-cover.  I was able to share some news about book two as well (shhhhh…secrets).

One of the questions was a recurring one and the other shows up from time-to-time.  The first question was about the fable genre.  Why did I choose to write the book in that format?

As I share in the introduction, the story chose me.  It was a process of writing down the stories I share on a frequent basis, then, one night, Sam, Charlie, Abby and the others showed up to tell me how it would all come together.

I think people enjoy and can relate to a story format.  Moreover, since I try to get others to create Vision Stories for their work or life, it seemed a perfect fit.

The Offsite is also a quick read.  Once you begin, I’m told, you must find out what happens to each character.  People have shared they like the book because it livens up a dull plane ride.  They can open the book in San Francisco and finish it before landing in New York.  By the time they roll their bag to the taxi stand, they realized they have refreshed or learned something new along the way.

It’s also been called the “best beach business book ever written.”  I do love the picture that pops into my head when I read that.  (Hawaii, surf, sun and Margaritas…Ahhh!)

Another question was centered on the “when” of reading The Offsite.  Should you read it before or after you’ve read The Leadership Challenge.

You can think of The Leadership Challenge as the Mother Ship and The Offsite as the speedy X-Wing Fighter from Star Wars.  When writing The Offsite, I saw it as a great pre-read to TLC and certainly a great refresher after absorbing the many lessons in TLC (or, if you’ve just been handed your Leadership Practices Inventory results).

So, I toss the question to all of you.  Let me know what you think.

Until next time, may The Force be with you.