It is what it is….

So much of what we think is packaged.  Free running thought is sometimes enjoyable, sometimes frustrating; all in all, it is what it is: “unbridled”. 

While the rippling enthusiasm of a young colt bounding and kicking, sprinting and zig zagging in a summer-lush field is sport to watch, it is only what it is… unbridled.  The colt’s purpose, though it has no knowledge of this, is to develop muscle and reactions that will serve in a contest for a mate or in a flight for survival.  The colt’s joyful actions are taken in service of an — though unconscious — anticipated need for reaction.

We are like that.  We have body, mind, and spirit too.  All of which from time to time have enthusiastic flexing, movement, and joy.  No real reason at the time, but reason enough in design.  The mind needs to be quick, as well the body in times of need.  In times of reaction.  The spirit is sometimes assuaged as well.  It has to have depth and stolid consistency to deal with times of hardship, and to have the resiliancy to withstand the tests then flourish once again in times of joy. 

Packaged thought is disconnected yet necessary.  I have to do this NOW. Whatever that is — groceries, pick up the kids, go skating… whatever it is, that is what it is at the time.  The art of living comes in drawing connections, or is it in managing connections, between one time an the next.  The art of living is in connecting, relating, pulling the experience of the past into the fore when needed, laterally drawing like experiences together when needed…. connecting the packages.  Bridling the unbridled for the purpose of being free.

The discipline of living free.  A paradox.  An oxymoron.  Discipline — free.  Juxtaposed… or not.  Freedom does have a ‘price’ we might have heard.  It does have a cost in action, for sure.  But energy is abounding, so where to put our energy except into actions that free us?  There’s no other reasonable answer.  Put energy into bondage?! Not a good answer.  The packages of thought, the boundaries of the moment are put to service in the well led life.  They are moments to be consumed, as they are because they are what they are.  There is not another moment to supplant the one you are in, so live it and be it and do what it is that moment demands, or wants, or requests, or needs.  That package is the present.  The one you open only now, and now, and now again.  The precious ‘present’ that we are given to live and connect and to find freedom within.

Unbridled, bridled.  It is what it is.

When GOOD turns to Dissapointment

“How We Too Often Make Our Good Feelings Turn Into Dissapointment”

It is really easy to do and we so often do it without even noticing.  Follow this and see if you are one of these people, even some of the time.

So, you get a good feeling, maybe a gut instinct and you feel like something good is around you or going to happen to you.  That’s a nice feeling! 

What do you — we — often do?!  We LOOK for confirmation.  We buy a lottery ticket, start dreaming of what would happen if….  We imagine that NOW is the time our ship will come in etc. etc.  Guess what?  When those things don’t happen, we get dissapointed, we even get depressd: “how come other people have this or that and I don’t…?”  “How come I didn’t win this or gain that?” 

Of course, the next thing that happens is… well, the good feelings are gone and we have served only to prove the good feelings false.  Not a great reinforcing cycle.

WHAT TO DO?!

As the Beatles said, “let it be”.  If you feel good or feel the presence of good, let it be!  If you do that, and DON’T look for anything the feeling lasts a long long time. 

My oldest daughter said to me at dinner tonight, after I was informing her about some writing I have been doing lately, “Dad, sometimes we weren’t meant to look too hard for things; sometimes we just have to let go and let things happen.”  She is right.  We then had a good talk about what I have just written for you to read.  We had a laugh and then agreed: “Let it be, and good things last so much longer… maybe your whole life long…”

Namaste

The highs and the lows of life…

“Life is a gift when you know how to create and enjoy the highs

and survive and build strength from the lows.”

This quote is from the “about DRL” section of this site.  I didn’t really remember writing it until a good friend mentioned something about it hanging on many office walls in her hospital. 

At this, I twisted my head and said, “what is hanging on many office walls in your hospital?” 

“Your quote!” she said. 

“What quote?!” I remarked ever more intrigued.  Well,  you get the idea. Eventually she got out her Blackberry and brought up my page and read it back to me.  “Wow,” I said.  “That’s pretty good!”

I smile even now.  What I wrote was and is true and I am very honored that Heidi has it on her wall and others have taken to making photocopies and putting it on their walls….  Absolutely fantastic. 

What is very interesting to me is that I forgot that I wrote this little line, and even more so, that people would be inspired by my words.  Thank you!  Thank you; thank you.

Its amazing what effects we have, every day.

How to live life as a work of art…

FLOW…

Csikszentmihalyi is one of my favorite writers.  Hardest name in the world to spell and definitely defies pronunciation… but a very engaging writer and thinker.  I have grabbed some content from another site and posted it below.  If you like what you read click on the link I put above — the word FLOW.  Click it and you will go to the site from where this content was posted.  Or… type in < flow csi > in Google and there are over 185 000 hits to look at.  Some video, some books that he has written.  I recommend the book titled FLOW.  Fantastic!!  Much of what you will read in my book posted on this site is related to Csik’s work.  Read the rest of this entry »

Principle Centered Leadership :-)

Stephen Covey wrote a great book… a great big book many years ago.  Principle Centered Leadership.    Here’s what it means to me…

Covey expends a great deal of time and effort focusing the readers attention on natural metaphors.  The enduring law of the farm is the grand, guiding theme of this book.  The first sixteen chapters focus greatly on the development of self, and they culminate in a management model called the Principle Centered Leadership paradigm. It is constructed on the following foundations: the alternate life centers of security, guidance, wisdom, and power; the characteristics of highly effective people; the resolutions of discipline, character and competence, and service; integrity, maturity, and abundance; growth; moral compassing; Principle Centered Power; communication; influence; and balance.  What does all of this mean to me? Read the rest of this entry »

Finding ‘UP’ through Systems Thinking

If you are sick, you really don’t have to do anything… at the very least, people don’t expect much of you.  That’s fair because most people feel a little low now and then and getting cut a little slack can go a long way to recovery.

BUT

What if there is no direction for a recovery?  To recover, you are returning to a state of balance and if you don’t know what or where that balance is you don’t know what direction to head for an optimal state of being. Kind of like jumping from a height into a lake and losing the ‘UP’direction for a moment.  That’s a bad moment.  It feels very out of control.   Now, what about organizations?  What if they are ’sick’ and no one expects much of them because they don’t have the talent, the funding, the facilities, the management team, the support, the recognition….  What if your organization is sick and you are floating along with no where to recover to?  No ‘up’.

What if?

You have to know where you are going in order to get there…. That’s what forecasting is all about and planning.  Do they work?  If the road you are driving on leads to a cliff, then all the planning in the world, all the best talent on board, the best equipment etcetera will not mean much by the time you reach the end of the journey!  Forecasts and planning must be made in health and plan for health.  A sick organization is not the best planner.  Its like a sick person.  It just wants to get better and lays low and does its best to recover.  Luckily for individuals, we are — most of us — able to return to relative health after being ill.  Thankfully, gratefully, we return to health.  An organziation doesn’t have such sophisticated organizing power as does the magnificent human body… so, it needs to see itself as a system — and within the system that it inhabits — before it can find its up.

The systems thinking exercise in objectivity is done through symbolic conversation.  Using symbols to ‘tell the story’ of the organization helps everyone first SEE what the parts make and then realize — collectively — just WHAT the organization is.  After this, purpose and direction are determined.  And THEN strategies can be implemented — but ONLY those that make sense in terms of the system’s organization, structure and capacity.  And, all along the way the tools of systems — the symbolic language of organizing — are used for deep conversation and clarification.  They are used to CREATE the organization’s picture and its story.  Complete a systems thinking exercise in objectivity and you are ready to apply energy and find the correct times and places to influence for gain, for good, for improvement.  Its the only way that works.  It is the way.

Douglas Leadbetter M.Ed.

Balancing Systems

A system that has an aim or a goal balances over time.  Kind of like our body and the constant flux we are in to keep a constant core temperature of 98.6 F.  Or thereabouts.  This flux is called homeostasis and that simply means a balance over time.  We get a little cold, we put on a jacket or a sweater.  A little hot and the sweater comes off.  We work hard, we sweat.   Get cold and we shiver.  All of this is part of our overall aim of … well, survival. 

A thermostat in a house balances over time.  Set it at the temperature you want and it reacts to changes in the internal environment of your house.  It gets a little cold, the heat kicks in.  It gets too hot, the heat comes off.  You know how this works.  The goal of this system is to keep a constant temperature over time.

These are examples of systems with an aim or a goal, balancing over time.  Now, let’s say you have something you want to achieve or a goal to be reached.  You WILL experience undulations — highs and lows — over time.  Knowing this is liberating.  You ever experience this?  You are feeling great and full of energy and you make some plans to work-out, lose weight, paint the entire house, learn how to play stocks…. And then a week later, you don’t feel as high and the stuffing comes out of your plans.  Well, this is a system that is finding the mid-point, finding balance.  Many people feel the low and give up.  THE LOW IS NORMAL!  Knowing this allows you to feel out the low, experience it for what it is, recognize it, carry on and find the balance of the system. 

Take this information to the bank.  Think about it a bit.  Everyone has rhythms — everyone.  The ability to see and understand those rhythms and experience them for what they are without trying to get away from them — that’s wisdom.  And wisdom is a path.  Follow your systems for a while and see where they lead.  Do you get manic?  Depressed?  Can you through gaining an objective view point, change habituated behavior?  Can you find points in the system to leverage, and others to simply allow to play out?  You can.  Of course you can.  Work with this idea.  Its about seeing the systems and working with them for greatest effect — for high performance.  All the best. 

Douglas Leadbetter  M.Ed.