The Grameen bank and You

The Synergy in Life System — Section 20

Ever heard of the Grameen Bank?  No collateral, No legal instrument, No group guarantee or joint-liability.  And… unlike many banks right now, this one is doing FANTASTICLY well!

If there was ever a story worth telling it is of the Grameen Bank and Professor Yunus.  He is a pioneer or magnificent magnanimity.  Below is the 20th excerpt from my book The Synergy in Life System.  Please read about this Nobel prize winning professor and how he helps others.  It has a bearing in your life too.

Helping Others

Some will say that they cannot or should not have affluence because there are so many poor and unfortunate people in the world who have nothing other than misery in their lives.  As you likely are deeply concerned about the plight of poor and unfortunate people, you should spend some of your time helping them.  You can help them best, however, not by giving them some form of material things that will keep them in their place, but through giving them the power of hope and by developing pictures of affluence in their minds, and by helping them to realize their deserved expression of life.  Read the rest of this entry »

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.

In taking action…

In taking action, do so and believe that you can do so in the following ways: demonstrate fairness, give encouragement, nurture, show patience, stay interested in positive growth, provide quality service, contribute in positive ways, demonstrate honesty and integrity, be concerned with excellence, value human dignity, be accepting, be kind and open, show compassion, be gentle, be teachable, be creative, be loving and demonstrate an abundant character, be receptive, be appreciative, be reflective…. 

The Synergy in Life System… book. Section 8

Well, we’re on to the second chapter.  In this section, the system begins to pick up speed.  Have a look at what Einstein told us that affects just how effective we can be…  really! Read the rest of this entry »

Beliefs are Important

Beliefs are Important

How do you operate the most powerful organ of your body? Your brain:  if it is left on its own, it reacts, runs off on recursive thinking loops, and generally does a lot of things that are not useful to your overall state of performance and success.  I wrote about the idea of directing energy in positive ways in Energy is Useful if we Know How to Use it… on the 21^st January 2009.  An absolutely important precursor to our either using thoughts effectively or just wasting critical energy is BELIEF!  Scott Gallagher is a prominent key note speaker and program facilitator who helps people live more effective lives.  He delivers his inspiration far and wide and talks extensively, helping people through THE POWER OF CHOICE.  He helps people overcome addictive behavior, and fundamental to his talks is the importance of belief.  Continue with this article to read a few of Scott’s own words about belief…. Read the rest of this entry »

The Synergy in Life System — Section 4

The posts keep rolling out.  I hope you are telling your friends about this site!  The next section is a short one.  It entails aligning your affluence — a natural desire for health, wealth, and happiness — and your desire to have a purpose in life that is beyond that of daily sustinance and survival.  Remember to read these particular posts in order….

Aligning Affluence and Purpose Read the rest of this entry »

The Synergy in Life System Book… Section 3

The Harmonious Influence of Energy

Have you ever met those people who gripe and complain all the time, and through all the griping and complaining not one bad thing is turned to good; bad things just keep happening to them over and over.  Lucky for these people, they manage to have an endless supply of things to gripe and complain about!  Read the rest of this entry »

~ Confront the Elephant ~

This blog post has a special guest from the field of health medicine – Heidi Paul BSN is the manager of Health Promotion and Prevention Services in a major Canadian city.

How to deal with those things you DON’T want at work.

There are things about your work and work environment that you likely do not like.  If these things are commonly disliked throughout your entire corporation or through the group you work with most closely, then they exist as part of a social system.  Thankfully, systems can be influenced.

Systems are collections of interconnected and interrelated parts that we can say have an aim or goal or purpose, and those parts can most certainly be human beings; that is why there is a branch of systems thinking called Human Systems Thinking.  This post starts to deal with Human Systems Thinking in a very practical way that you will want to bring to your work or even to your family. Read the rest of this entry »

The Synergy in Life System Book… Section 2

In this section you’ll get a look at the Introduction so you will know what will be covered throughout The Synergy in Life System book as it unfolds for you on this site.  This is a HIGH PERFORMANCE SYSTEM that shows you step by step how to create amazing power in your life.  It is LARGELY concerned with your BELIEF and spends a lot quality effort helping you to foster a belief in the powerful, life-altering ideas that are written.  Read the SILS or Welcome tabs above if you want more background information.  Remember, this work unifies powerful ideas and concepts taken from hundreds of sources that span literally centuries of quality thought and action.  It is worth reading!  There’s 22 years of work given to you for free, right here; customized for you by a professional educator and trainer….  Please, do yourself a favor… read on!  Douglas Leadbetter M.Ed.

Coming up next week — The Harmonious Influence of Energy! Read the rest of this entry »