Over the weekend I found myself glancing through some of the books on the shelf that I haven’t gotten too yet and came to a dead stop on page 43 of “the Gift of Change” by Marianne Williamson.  I read and re-read the following 5 short paragraphs and knew immediately that I must share them here.  Read, read again… enjoy and snap out of yourself.

You cannot find yourself by only looking to yourself, because an essence that is not where you are. The real you is an expanded self, literally one with the entire world.  And so we find ourselves in relationship to the whole. We cannot be happy unless we are wishing everyone the same.

            One day I was indulging some ego-based concerns about my life, worried that this or that wasn’t happening; I remember I was specifically worried that I wasn’t achieving enough in my career. The conversation in my head was all about me (mistake number one) and focused on what I perceived to be lacking (mistake number two). I did realize my thinking wasn’t miracle-minded, and finally I told myself to snap out of it.

            I was packing to leave a hotel room at the time, and shortly afterwards the bellman arrived to retrieve my bags. I started asking him about his life. Questioning others about their lives rather than rambling on about our own is a surefire way to direct our minds away from the ego. I asked him what time he came to work each morning, what else he did with his life, and so on.

            And then he said to me, “Excuse me, are you Marianne Williamson?” He proceeded to tell me that he and his used to attend my lectures regularly in Los Angeles, that his wife listens to my tapes every day, and about how important my work has been to them. And in so doing, he perfectly assuaged the concerns I had been focused on an hour before; his comments shifted my thinking and thus my feelings. But if I had simply stayed with my self-involved line of thought, without redirection my mind to focus on another, then I would never have received the miracle.  There would have been this person ready to offer me a healing, but I wouldn’t have been available to receive it. By with-holding friendship from the bellman, I would have been withholding healing from myself.

            Generosity, in that sense, is an act of self-interest. And I have seen it too many times to doubt it; as long as I remember that the love I seek can only be found as I extend my love to others, the peace comes fairly easily.  It’s when we forget that that all hell breaks loose. Love extended is the key to happiness; love withheld is the key to pain.

The gift of change could be just a snap away… If we can just snap out of ourselves and our self focused thinking.

Kirk Out

Change is such an important thing to have in our lives.  I met a guy without any … he was asking for some of mine.  I gave him all that I had, but am pretty sure it was not enough to make a significant difference for him.  What he really needed and what we all really need is lots and lots of all sorts of change to keep us in the game.  The more types of change we experience and gain in our lives the more positive change we can offer the world that is in desperate need of it.

   I have a favorite story by Robert Fulgham that relates to yesterday’s T4D that I want to share today.  It’t long been a favorite and is from his book… All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.

IN THE SOLOMON ISLANDS IN THE SOUTH PACIFIC some villagers practice a unique form of logging. If a tree is too large to be felled with an ax, the natives cut it down by yelling at it. (Can’t lay my hands on the article, but I swear I read it.) Woodsmen with special powers creep up on a tree just at dawn and suddenly scream at it at the top of their lungs. They continue this for thirty days. The tree dies and falls over. The theory is that the hollering kills the spirit of the tree. According to the villagers, it always works.

Ah, those poor naive innocents. Such quaintly charming habits of the jungle. Screaming at trees, indeed. How primitive. Too bad they don’t have the advantages of modern technology and the scientific mind.

Me? I yell at my wife. And yell at the telephone and the lawn mower. And yell at the TV and the newspaper and my children. I’ve even been known to shake my fist and yell at the sky at times.

Man next door yells at his car a lot. And this summer I heard him yell at a stepladder for most of an afternoon. We modern, urban, educated folks yell at traffic and umpires and bills and banks and machines„especially machines. Machines and relatives get most of the yelling.

Don’t know what good it does. Machines and things just sit there. Even kicking doesn’t always help. As for people, well, the Solomon Islanders may have a point. Yelling at living things does tend to kill the spirit in them. Sticks and stones may break our bones, but words will break our hearts….

So let’s watch our words… and remember eye rolling is one of the loudest non-verbal yells of them all.

Kirk out

“When you speak of someone or about someone, you should speak as though they were in the room with you. The ears that you speak to today are attached to the mouth that could relay the message tomorrow.”  ~  William ‘Biddy’ Allen
1903-2001, Bus Driver - Loving father of 7 children

My wife says it this way…. “Always be loyal to the absent” ~ Rebecca Weisler

Kirk Out

If you want to keep your memories, you first have to live them.  ~  Bob Dylan

Yes that’s him when he was young… and his abiltiy to sing didn’t stop him from making memories for himself or for millions of fans.

Don’t let your inabilities, or disabilities stop you from using your natural abilities to live life and make memories.

Kirk Out

This deserves more time than I have given it …but last night on a triple stand by flight situation..  I was thinking about how good leaders need to be great teachers.  Two thoughts kept running through my mind.

the first was…Great leaders are great learners and great learners are better leaders.  The second was about how leaders need to learn how to teach better.  My whole life I have been told that the very best way to learn something is to have to teach it to someone else.  So my note pad has these scribbles…

we must learn to learn better

we must learn to teach better

we must teach to teach better

we must teach to learn better

Some of the greatest leaders in my life were also the greatest teachers in my life.  They taught me not only a better way to do things, but a better way to see things….including myself.  Great leaders/teachers use insight to change eyesight… they can literally change the way we see the world.  As we learn to see better and do better…we are really learning how to be better.  As our minds change for the better we become aware that our lives are also changing for the better and our gratitude for the teachers/leaders in our life grows. 

Great leaders change live forever….  They do this primarily through their ability to inspire and grow or inspire growth in the people around them.  Though this is just one aspect of teaching in leadership it is a vitally important one.

Managers tend to tell… great leaders tend to teach.   Teach to reach, so you can inspires, not require to achieve the results you desire.  ~ Kirk Weisler

To reach your people…. teach your people a better way. 

Teaching, …it’s the better way.

   Just watched the last 10 minutes of the somewhat disappointing “Ghostrider” movie but still managed to pull out a nugget when the Ghostrider said… “My Daddy always said,  If you don’t make a choice then the choice makes you.” 

Your decisions determine your destiny.

Not choosing is choice…  … so choose and choose wisely.

Kirk Out

   Last week after a program in Chicago I needed to travel to San Diego.  To save nearly a thousand dollars my ticket routed me through Atlanta and I soon found mysefl flying in the complete opposite direction of my destination.   Even though I had the time between programs to go this route… there was a moment that my thoughts were on the irony and insanity of the nearly 2000 mile detour.

In the end I made to San Diego without incident, saved the client $1000 dollars, watched a great inflight movie, did some e-mails, and met a a couple really cool people.

In school we are taught that the shortest distance between 2 points is a straight line.  But in life the shortest distance between where we are and we want to go is almost never a strait line.  I’ve learned, and am learning still, that perhaps the most important thing to “keep right” on the journey is your perspective.  Because we will get there … and if we keep the right perspective we’ll arrive in a better state…not just a different one.

Keep RIGHT

Kirk Out

I was having less than great day yesterday…. and today fells a bit like I am eating leftover melancholy.  So dug back into the T4D archives looking for a smile and found the “Idiot Sightings” from 2004.  The sad fact that I can relate to at least 2 of them was enough to make me smile & laugh.  I hope it has the same magical effect on you.

IDIOT SIGHTING #1:
I work with an individual who plugged his power strip back into itself and for the life of him couldn’t understand why his system would not turn on.

IDIOT SIGHTING #2:
I was at the airport, checking in at the gate when an airport employee asked, “Has anyone put anything in your baggage without your knowledge?” To which I replied, “If it was without my knowledge, how would I know?” He smiled knowingly and nodded, “That’s why we ask.”

IDIOT SIGHTING #3
At a good-bye luncheon for an old and dear co-worker who was leaving the company due to “downsizing,” our manager commented cheerfully, “This is fun. We should do this more often.” Not a word was spoken. We all just looked at each other with that deer-in-the- headlights stare.

IDIOT SIGHTING #4:
When my husband and I arrived at an automobile dealership to pick up our car, we were told the keys had been locked in it. We went to the service department and found a mechanic working feverishly to unlock the driver’s side door. As I watched from the passenger side, I instinctively tried the door handle and discovered that it was unlocked. “Hey,” I announced to the technician, “It’s open!” To which he replied, “I know - I already got that side.”

Just keep your money…. and make it a great day. 

Kirk

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.  ~ Carl Sagan

I have long been intrigued by the power of the curious drive of those who “discover”.  If I ever do a thesis I might focus it on the powerful principle of discovery.   As a kids I watched ”Indiana Jones” and thought “Wow, too bad all the coolest things have already been explored and discovered.”  But my thoughts then were the result of the ignorance and lack of vision common to far too many youth(and adults).   If I continue to tell myself that same thing today…  it would not be ignorance but a lie that I tell myself as an excuse for my lack of curiosity and drive to learn, to grow, to explore…and to discover. 

Most great discoveries seem to be awesome accidents that were found by explorers who were trying to accomplish something else.  Columbus wasn’t looking for America.. he was looking for a better way to get to the spices in east.  So he sailed west to go east and bumped into something that was beyond imagining. 

If Carl Sagan is right… and I believe he is.  Then I want to let the belief that great things are still waiting to be discovered drive me, motivate and inspire me to learn more, explore more, do more and become more.

Great things will forever remain unknown unless I set out to discover them and to make them known.   And if we modify his quote just a bit.. as I have done below it offers us another important dimension to consider.  That being the “incredible” people in our world of work and life who also remain largely as yet, undiscovered.

Somewhere, someone incredible is waiting to be known.  ~ Kirk Weisler Sagan

Let’s get going, growing and knowing …let’s discover and create a more incredible life.

Kirk Out