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Us vs. Them

May 19, 2013 By 1 Comment

Isolated diversity tree hands

 

Sometimes it’s the administration who’s the “us” and the faculty who’s the “them”.

And then, sometimes, it’s the administration and the faculty who are the “us” and the students who are the “them”.

Parents, it seems, are always “them”.

HR is “us” when there are a flood of  job applicants clamoring to get interviews, and HR is “them” when we can’t get in the door.

Patients in the ER are “them” when doctors and nurses feel overworked and concerned about narcotics-shopping.

Yet these same medical professionals become “them” when patients wait for hours to be seen.

Us.

Them.

For.

Against.

Win.

Lose.

Perhaps this “us vs. them” setup is a reflection of the basic human need for belongingness. For tribe. For clan.

For knowing where we stand in relation to others.

Who’s a friend? Who’s an enemy?

But what if that didn’t matter? What if you simply knew where you stood all the time?

What if you took a deep breath and tried on the radical idea that there was no “them” – there was only “us”?

Could you stand tall every minute of every day as a part of “us”?

What if, rather than deciding that the 911 caller was one of “them” – those corrupt and sneaky people who only want free transportation to the hospital – and let the phone ring 15 times or go to voice mail, the dispatcher answered on the first ring and was as helpful as possible for as long as she was needed?

What if rather than bristling at questions, the teacher saw the parent as an ally in the educational journey of a child?

What if rather than failure, we saw humanity in the eyes of the struggling?

What if in politics we could refrain from categorizing and limiting into rigid definitions of “us” and “them”? Might we actually get things accomplished for the common good?

[Be still my beating heart.]

Maslow suggested the highest expression of human full potential is a state he called “self-actualization”, or “the need to be good, to be fully alive and to find meaning in life.”

And you don’t get there by hating and dividing, darlings.

You get there by seeing the “us” in everyone. 

I have observed something in the last few years – have you seen it? People are clamoring to unite around something. You saw it with the Boston bombings as people lined the streets applauding the first responders. You saw it recently in Cincinnati when crowds spontaneously gathered to welcome three kidnapped women home. You see it in baseball stadiums as we stand in the third inning to honor our men and women in uniform.

We see it whenever people rush to help, rather than rush away.

That’s honoring the “us” in everyday life.

That’s a movement toward good.

And that’s what increasing numbers of people aim to do each and every day – they choose to see the “us” reflected in everyone they encounter.

Which changes the world.

In case you’re wondering, there’s plenty room for you in this movement, too.

All you have to do is join “us”.

 

Filed Under: Blog, Clarity, Happier Living, Managing Change, WiseWork Tagged With: , , , , , , , 1 Comment

When Everything’s A Priority

January 27, 2013 By 1 Comment

 

Flipper

In the go-go-go world in which we live, sometimes it feels impossible to prioritize – there’s always so much going on, and so much to do, and so much we should be doing. We careen along our lives as if we’re in one giant pinball machine, banging into buzzers, whizzing by bumpers and – sometimes – losing ourselves deep black holes, with the only option… to start all over again. Pull that spring back as far as it’ll go and – wham! – you’re launched right the chaos of blinking lights and dinging bells.

Bing. Bing bing. Bing bing bing. Bing. Thwack. Bing. Bing. Bing.

Knowing your priorities can make this a whole lot easier.

Oh, I know that there are some who say, “Priorities, schmi-orities. No one’s gonna tell me what to do, and where to go! No way, man!” (or, “dude”, depending on age group).

Yes, for some people priorities feel limiting and inflexible. But for all of their no-way-man resistance, they still have priorities which they serve.

How do I know?

Simple. I watch what they do.

Because you can only see what someone truly prioritizes by watching what they do. Actions always reveal true intentions.

There are a couple of ways to identify your priorities.  First, you can use my Personal Planning Tool worksheet, which ultimately drives you to identify those things, in rank order, that are most important today. Download the PDF.

You can also sit down with a piece of paper and a pencil and do this exercise. Pick a day last week – a typical day when you had stuff to do.  Ask yourself:

When did I wake up? How did I feel?

When did I get out of bed? How did I feel?

What did I do first? How did I feel about that?

What did I do next? How did I feel about it?

[note: be more specific than saying "I went to work"; say, "I drove to the parking lot, parked, went to my office, read email, went to the meeting with Jim, phone calls with Tom, Dick and Harry. Lunch at desk while checking email," etc. and continue to note how you felt at each of these times.]

Keep asking “What did I do next/how did it feel?” until you get to when you got into bed and when you fell asleep.

Now, go back and look at this typical day. Anything pop out at you?

What did you make time for, without fail?

Where did you always say yes?

Where did you feel great? Where did it feel awful?

It’s a hunch, but I’ll bet that the people, places and things you said yes to, made time for and felt great about are your true priorities.

And the other stuff may be other people’s priorities, or what society tells you “should” be priorities, but which really hold no oomph for you.

So, looking at your time, it might be revealed that your true priority is your daily five mile run.

Or the office fantasy football league discussions. Which allow you to feel the deep satisfaction of belonging.

Or taking your kids to school and picking them up. Allowing the space to be fully engaged in their lives.

Or your health. Or someone else’s health. Permitting the grace of caregiving, or the power of self-care.

Or your own learning and growth. Gaining mastery of knowledge and understanding.

Whatever it is, it’s yours. And by honing in on your priorities, you come into awareness of your own ability to achieve, and to accomplish, and to be at your best more of the time.

So you might say one thing is a priority – often it’s around work, or your marriage, or your kids – but when you take an honest look at how you really spend your time, something else might show up.

Whatever that is? That’s your real priority. It’s not necessarily your spoken priority, mind you. But it is what you’re serving.

Address this misalignment between what we say and what we do and – just like getting bonus time – we’re on the road to getting happier, more effective and wiser.

So instead of saying, “My work is my priority”, honor that maybe your real priority is the things your work allows you to do – to connect with others, to learn, to grow, to have the space and time to run five miles a day, or pick your kids up from school.

It’s your choice. All of it – your choice.

You can be the ball.

Or you can be the Pinball Wizard, working the flipper to serve your most vital priority.

 

 

Filed Under: Blog, Career Coaching, Clarity, Getting Unstuck, WiseWork Tagged With: , , , , , , 1 Comment

Acceptance and Approval

October 21, 2012 By 2 Comments

 

What holds people back the most?

What keeps them from happy? From centered? From comfortable in their own skin?

I think it’s the powerful need so many of us have for acceptance and approval – from external sources.

I started thinking about this last week when a client was telling me that he needed more feedback from his boss: was he doing OK? Was he doing it right? Was he what the boss wanted? Was he? Was he?

It really struck me that this sort of rumination is a big energy suck – energy that could be used toward creation and productivity. And contentedness. “Why not,” I offered, “just ask?”

Dull thud. Silence. More silence.

I sensed a big swallow. Then the client said, “I can’t do that. I mean, it’s my boss. I shouldn’t have to ask.”

I totally get it.

Psychologist Erich Fromm, in his classic book The Art of Loving, wrote about the different kinds of love including “mother love” and “father love”.

Mother love says to a child: “There is no misdeed, no crime which could deprive you of my love, of my wish for your life and happiness.” This is Acceptance.

Father love says to a child: “You did wrong, you cannot avoid accepting certain consequences of your wrongdoing, and most of all you must change your ways if I am to like you.” This is Approval.

So when my client was desperate for feedback from his boss, you might say he was looking for a father to love him. Even if his boss is a woman.

Whoa. Makes you think, doesn’t it?

I see countless people around the world who struggle with this. Time after time, they choose to fill their internal gaps with external glue. They make choices because they want to feel accepted (mother love) or because they need approval (father love) – and sometimes those choices have powerful consequences. Like marrying someone because everyone likes him. Or taking a job because you “should”. Or spending money you don’t have to send your child to a particular private school because everyone else does.

It’s all external external external anxious striving for an idealized state we may have had in early childhood. Then again, we might not have had it. But we still idealize it.

As humans, we feel the absence and know we need both acceptance and approval to get along in this world.

After all, who among us could live without love?

Yet, placing the power of love in the hands of others – love is something we get externally – puts us at the whim of folks who may be unable or unhealthy. Or worse.

Think difficult bosses, spouses, teachers, neighbors. You’ve had ‘em. I’ve had ‘em.

We all have.

And you can’t get something from them that they are constitutionally unable to give.

So, it seems to me that the wisest thing any of us can do is give ourselves that which we seek from others.

Fromm says, “Eventually, the mature person has come to the point where he is his own mother and his own father. He has, as it were, a motherly and fatherly conscience…The mature person has become free from the outside mother and father figures, and has build them up inside…not by incorporating mother and father, but by building a motherly conscience on his own capacity for love, and a fatherly conscience on his reason and judgment.”

There’s the idea. If you feel trapped in a cycle of seeking external validation – desiring acceptance and approval (mother love and father love) - become your own parent.

That’s not to say that you have to chuck your own parents over the side. Nor am I suggesting that by parenting yourself you are somehow making a referendum on how you were raised. Or that you’re becoming a flaming narcissist. No, that’s not it.

What it is is this: every day, treat yourself the way you would treat someone you deeply love, approve of and accept. And to get there, of course, you must act in ways that you love, approve and accept.

Act with integrity. Be kind. Watch your self-talk, as well as your talk with others. Say yes when you mean yes, and no when you mean no.

Treat yourself with care. Honor yourself. Be proud of yourself.

And, give yourself a pat on the back now and then. Because you know better than anyone how far you’ve come.

Filed Under: Career Coaching, Clarity, Getting Unstuck, Happier Living Tagged With: , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

The Roots of Shame

April 29, 2012 By 7 Comments

 

 

Let me throw some stats at you:

The average American woman stands five foot four and weighs 164.7 pounds. She wears a size 14. Her waist measures 37 inches.

The average American man stands five foot nine and weighs 195 pounds. He wears a size 44. His waist measures nearly 40 inches. (CDC stats)

And,

The recent economic downturn hit men harder than women. Forbes says, “The share of men in the United States with a job is at its lowest point ever.” And forty percent of working wives are the family breadwinner according to the Chicago Tribune.

Now, allow me to pull in some other interesting data for your perusal. According to research at Boston College, the accepted societal norms for women are to be:

Nice.

Thin.

Modest.

Use all available resources on her appearance.

Men are supposed to:

Be in emotional control.

Put work first.

Pursue status.

Be violent.

I learned this from a powerful and straightforward new TED talk by Dr. Brene Brown on the subject of shame, and vulnerability.

What got me thinking while viewing Dr. Brown’s new talk is the wide gap between what we expect ourselves to be and who we really are.

Women should be thin – but the reality is that most of us are not a size zero.

Men should put work first, and pursue status, but the recent recession put more men out of work than ever before. Hard to put something first when you don’t have it, huh?

Women should be modest, which I figure means quiet, self-effacing and non-confrontational. Exactly the recipe for career success, don’t you think?

And speaking of time, what working mom has the time or energy to put all available resources on her appearance? I don’t know about you but I find it’s easy to spend money on my kids’ clothes, shoes, haircuts, dermatologists, orthodontists and dentists, and if there’s any money left maybe I’ll get myself a new t-shirt on sale at Target. Maybe.

Yes, the gap between who society says we should be and who we are is often quite large.

And it’s right in the gap that shame nestles.

Shame keeps us a far distance from feeling real happiness and fulfillment. Because it’s shame that says, “There is something profoundly, critically wrong with you. You should be different than you are. ”

[There's that word again - Should.]

You all know I have no fondness for that particular word. Because The Word That Must Not Be Named usually comes from an external source, and often is in conflict with what’s truly best for us.

“You should be a doctor.” says your father, even if you have it in your heart and hands to be a glassblower.

“You should be thin if you ever want to catch a husband,” says your mother, even if she’s heavy herself. And her sisters are heavy. And her mother was heavy.[ And they're all married, btw.]

If shame has roots in the conflict between what’s expected and what’s real, then shoulds are its potting soil.

Now, here’s what I know – if you can break the Should Habit, you’ve got a shot at breaking the round-and-round shame circle.

And it’s easy. Stop shoulds by simply substituting a wonderful word – choose.

Without any shoulds in your life, you are free to choose to be that happy, outspoken size 14 bread-winning woman that you are.

Without any shoulds in your life, you are free to choose to be that fantastic at-home dad whose size 44 suits found a new home at Goodwill.

Without shoulds, you can be you. Finally. Without any shame.

That’s what I choose. How about you?

 

Filed Under: Authenticity, Career Coaching, Clarity, Happier Living Tagged With: , , , , , 7 Comments

A Happy You = A Less Stressed You

March 4, 2012 By 2 Comments

 

 

I wish you had been a fly on the wall.

Five women – smart, accomplished, professionals – sat around the room with the look of astonished recognition on their faces.

Because they had collectively realized that none of them gave themselves credit for what they’d accomplished, but, rather, focused solely on where they fell short.

That’s like saying, “Sure, I climbed Mt. Everest, but I could have had better shoes.”

I’m reading Rick Hanson’s book Just One Thing – a helpful, practical book with instructions on how to use your thoughts to change your brain function – and even your neurological structures – by approaching problems, situations and general living in a slightly different way.

Hanson quotes John Gottman’s famous research which found that “the brain generally reacts more to a negative stimulus than to an equally intense positive one.” And researcher Roy Baumeister found that “painful experiences are usually more memorable than pleasurable ones.”

So my five stressed-out professional women were absolutely normal when they downplayed their achievements and focused on their lack.

But.

What makes for happiness?

“…sense of security and worth, resilience, effectiveness, well-being, insight, and inner peace,” offers Rick Hanson. Which sounds just about right.

So, our innate human default – to focus on what’s not working – totally undermines our ability to feel happy…

Wait a minute. You want to feel happy, don’t you?

Of course you do, unless…you don’t.

Unless “Me As A Happy Person” totally conflicts with the self-image you have of yourself. Or the self-image handed to you by your family, your schoolmates or pop culture.

Think about it. Maybe you were told that “happy” is frivolous. All that matters is work. Work for work’s sake. Eat what you kill. Climb the ladder until you’re at the top. Strive and struggle, and keep pushing. You can be “happy” when you’re retired.

Or maybe you were told that “happy” is for other people. Other people who were born with a silver spoon in their mouths, and had everything handed to them. You know, the ones living on Easy Street. You – with your immigrant grandparents, and up-from-the-gutter family history – you have to work for whatever you get. “Happy” – pfffft. For someone else.

But here’s the intriguing thing.

Think about the children in your life. Do you want them to be happy?

How about your dearest family members? What would you do to insure their happiness?

And your best friend. What do you want for him, or for her? Would you call it happiness? Do you do what you can to help them achieve it?

Of course you do. You’re a devoted spouse, a good mom, a good dad, a great friend, a wonderful son or daughter. I know you.

You want the people you love to be happy. But you’re not really happy yourself.

So…you want for others what you deny yourself.

Innnnnteresting, huh?

Friends, it’s time to change that up.

Promise me this: Promise me that starting today, you’ll begin to wish for yourself that which you’d wish for someone you love. That you will begin to show yourself the same compassion you show others. That you will own your successes and celebrate them.

That you will begin a healthy love relationship – with you.

By doing so, you will literally change the wiring in your brain from nearly-always-negative to nearly-always-positive, and reduce your stress.

You will start being happy.

And after you’ve done that, the rest of living is all a piece of cake.

 

 

Filed Under: Authenticity, Blog, Clarity, Getting Unstuck, Happier Living Tagged With: , , , , , 2 Comments
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