Do you need to hire a slapper?

Have trouble achieving your goals in life? Having trouble achieving the level of success you desire? Not as productive as you wish?  This short piece from NPR yesterday put a smile on my face for the rest of the day.

It is an interview under 2 minutes.  I don't want to give away the story.  Trust me, if you have every had trouble achieving a goal in your life, this is a vision you should hold.  Or maybe hire?

http://www.npr.org/2012/10/29/163845754/man-hires-someone-to-slap-him-for-goofing-off

Maneesh Sethi, thank you for making me smile (even if I may not have been as productive the moment I was listening to your interview!) 

Andrea T. Goeglein, PhD
DrSuccess@ServingSuccess.com
https://www.facebook.com/DrSuccessPhD

In Honor of SeaWorld's Dawn Bracheau

In a December 2009 blog post, and on the December 2009 segment of AM Arizona, I featured a book, Whale Done Parenting. It is a story and guidebook of how to apply the positive psychology techniques used to train orcas at SeaWorld to the development of children.

Last week an experienced, devoted trainer of SeaWorld orcas was killed by the animal she loved and trained. The trainer was Dawn Bracheau. The orca is Tillicum.

I feel an obligation to comment on my recommendation. I stand by the book, I stand what I know of SeaWorld as a company, and I have be reminded of something I learned early in my education in ethical, moral, and spiritual development.

What I was reminded of was these facts: Although animals and humans share the ability to feel pain – physical and psychological – only humans can anticipate that life is followed by death and premeditation for an animal is limited to the next action – never the result of the action.

More recently I read in Happier by Harvard’s Tal Ben-Shahar:

“However, while our capacity for emotions is similar to that of other animals, we are fundamentally different. The fact that we can reflect on the cause of our emotions is one of the characteristics that distinguish us. We have the capacity to reflect on our feelings, thoughts, and actions; we have the capacity to be conscious of our consciousness and our experiences.” P. 38

In my post I wrote: What I liked the most was the use of the term “redirect”. At every key note, the authors suggest ignoring the undesirable behavior, yet they invest most of the time instructing you how to redirect your attention away from what you don’t want to happen, and focus your energy on what you do want to have happen.

In this case there was not enough time to “redirect” or “ignore”. However, I have complete faith SeaWorld will develop procedures that insure this type of accident cannot happen again.

Whether Tillicum intended to kill Dawn will forever be unknown. What is known is that Dawn was fully aware and knowledgeable of her trade. She died doing what she loved. At any age, that is a sign of a life well lived.

Thank you,
Andrea T. Goeglein, PhD
Dr. Success™
DrSuccess@ServingSuccess.com
http://www.YouTube.com/user/ServingSuccess
www.facebook.com/DrSuccessPhD

The Limits of Web Based Social Networks

Dr. Success Thanksgiving Challenge: During the week surrounding Thanksgiving, reach out and touch as many of the people in your life as you possibly can. I am not suggesting you email, text, or send some cyber hug or Facebook farm animal. What I am imploring you to do is physically reach out and touch as many of the people in your life as you possibly can. That included hugs, kisses, handshakes, and lingering embraces. Then compare that experience with the feeling you get when you receive an email, text, or cyber whatever from that same person. No judgment (yah, sure…and about that bridge in Brooklyn I would like to sell you) just do a comparison for yourself.

This challenge came from a recent review of the positive psychology research on why money does not really make you happy and an event my parents described on a recent visit.

The research was that of Ed Deiner. He termed the prosperity we seek as “psychosocial prosperity.” Psychosocial prosperity is based in things like social support, public trust, the ability to learn new things and feelings of competence when doing them, liking your job, continued good health, and social tolerance, among others.

My observation about web based social networks is that they allow for a lot of width, but very, very little depth. When it really counts, 10,000 friends or followers cannot have the impact on your heart and life that one person in the right place at the right time could potentially provide.

Now for the story from my parents. My parents live in a home they purchased over 60 years ago. Since their home is in New York it has sometimes felt like their little block had lived through every immigrant surge this country has allowed. There have been many alterations in the homes, and since they live in attached housing, your neighbors' business and tastes sometimes can be closer than you would prefer. One such home alteration occurred to one of the homes attached to my parent’s home. Over a year we watched (mostly in horror and with a lot of critical review) the construction of what appeared to be a glass enclosed porch. It was a story high, had windows that opened, permitting the owners to move a sofa and television on to what was once a backyard porch. Not exactly the home renovation any in our family would have hoped.

English is a second language for this neighbor, so communication takes the form of neighborly gestures. My Dad usually sweeps his neighbors' front sidewalk while he is doing his, or moves their trash pails back while they are off at work. Don’t get me wrong, they do speak to each other, but the reality of my Dad’s 88 year-old-ears hearing capacity and the accent laden speech of their neighbors truly limits the amount he can understand. To add salt to an open wound, my parent’s kitchen looks directly on to the neighbor’s glass porch. My Mom has a difficult time not being distracted by the neighbor’s outdoor living room as she sits having her morning coffee or afternoon tea.

Then there was a crisis for my parents. It started innocently enough with my Dad competing a chore and my Mom supervising his cleanup. On the particular day in question, my Dad had used a ladder, which then needed to be returned to the basement. As he traversed his porch staircase, he lost his balance and fell. Before my Mom could comprehended what had occurred, their neighbor had climbed through one of the small open windows in the much distained glass living room and ran down the stairs to help my Dad. Scared, shaken, but with an ego bruised more than his body, Dad and his neighbor hugged in a way they had never hugged before.

There is an irony to this story that cannot be overlooked considering my preoccupation with coincidence, serendipity and synchronicity. For my entire life my Mom used a saying when she wanted to teach you not to judge others or think you were better than someone who had made a mistake. The saying is “People who live in glass houses should not throw stones.”

Hummmm….Yes, Mom you were right and yes I have gotten the lesson.

May you use this Thanksgiving season to continue to do things for people who annoy you, and share human contact with love at every opportunity.

The Great Chain of Being

I have been intrigued with the concept of connectedness for most of 2009. I have always used models of development that have 1-2-3 steps, processes that appear to have a beginning and a logical end. I suggest books that offer such models all the time.

I do believe these models are useful to help organize the process of complex human change.

And I don’t believe it really works that way. What I do believe is that there is a mystery to human interconnectivity that we are never meant to understand, but instead live. One of the best ways I have read it described recently was offered by author Richard Rohr in a daily meditation he adapted from his own work, Hope Against Darkness (p. 135):

“I would like to reclaim an ancient, evolving and very Franciscan metaphor to rightly name the nature of the universe, and to direct our future thinking: the image of the “the Great Chain of Being.” It was a metaphor not of hierarchy but of connection thus the word “chain.” The essential and unbreakable links in the great chain include:

the Divine Creator,

the angels, saints, and ancestors,

the humans,

the animals,

the world of plants, trees, and vegetation,

the waters upon the earth,

the earth itself with its minerals and metals.”

For me, however, the universe outlined in Rohr’s “universe” is missing something. It appears to include all things relating to this earth, but not the infinite galaxies. I don't offer this as critisim. I am truely not that bold. It is more an open observation and question I have. Let me know your thinking.

For those of you lucky enough to live in Las Vegas, Richard Rohr will be holding a day-long event on Saturday, December 5. Call Stillpoint Center for Spiritual Development for more information 702 243 4040.

Working on the Weekend in Las Vegas

This last weekend -- on July 4th to be exact -- I had the opportunity to enjoy the Las Vegas Philharmonic against the greatest community asset Las Vegas has -- the Springs Preserve. On of the architects of this ecologically perfect environment is Craig Galati, President of Lucchesi Galati Archetects.

I admire Craig not only for his architectural talent, but for how he has merged and expanded his life by observing and discussing how we work, why we work, and how to work better, smarter and happier. The post below is Craig's online blog in the Las Vegas Sun, The Heart of Business. Craig gives us all much to think about and specific ways to make our business lives better. Read, learn and use. You will be Serving Your Own Success if you do.

By Craig Galati · June 29, 2009 · 11:02 AM

Remember the 1981 song by Loverboy, “Working for the Weekend?” You know the song and now you probably will be singing it in your head for the rest of the day. You’re welcome! “Working for the Weekend” was the anthem of working stiffs everywhere, and back in the ‘80s it was played every Friday at my office.

Fast forward to today. Everywhere I go, I see professionals working on the weekend. What happened to working for the weekend? Even though our country is in an economic slowdown, the business owners I know haven’t slowed down a bit. It takes a lot of work to find work, especially if your company is short-staffed.

I took time out the other day to have coffee with a couple of friends. All three of us remarked about how tired we each looked. I guess we are. My friends and I lamented about how we were working harder than we had in years, but this time with less tangible results. After leaving the coffeehouse (“It’s a Grind,” no less) I started thinking of some old, tried and true sayings, time management techniques, thoughts and quotes.

Don’t confuse effort with results. It has been reported that 80 percent of one’s efforts yield 20 percent of the results. Conversely, this means that 20 percent of our efforts are achieving most of our results. This principle, called the Pareto Principle after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, is widely accepted in business and has been used to describe marketing and sales efforts, time management and financial strategies.

Here is my take. Most people focus too much on doing. They feel productive if they are working on something, doing something. It does not always matter if what they are doing is productively achieving results or, more importantly, the results that are wanted. This comes down to a lack of vision, goals and strategy. Remember Stephen Covey’s habit, Begin with the End in Mind? Too often the end (result) is not clearly thought through or not communicated at all. Therefore, the plan of doing (strategy) and milestones (goals) are not geared toward achieving the result.
One way of helping people within your organization is not to reward effort for effort’s sake. Reward the results and I assure you that people will think differently and “Begin with the End in Mind.”

Focus on slaying the elephants first, before tackling the ants. If you believe, as I do, that 80 percent of your results come from 20 percent of your effort, then tackle the projects and sales efforts that will yield those results first before spending time on those that will not. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Then why do some people spend as much time on a proposal for a $2M engagement as they do on a $10M one? Or, worse yet, why do some professionals spend time fine-tuning their product library instead of the financial management and invoicing systems? I once heard from a colleague who complained to me that he was too busy working on a new logo for his firm to find time to invoice. I was dumbfounded. Secretly, though, I was happy he was my competitor.

Schedule your day purposely. Begin each day with a goal. What do you want to accomplish today? How does this goal fit into your long-term strategy? This goes well beyond making the traditional to-do list. I’ve found that most to-do lists are mostly busywork. It’s better to prioritize your to-do list using your vision or strategic plan as the filter. I break down my to-do list in three categories: 1) things I need to do to stay in business; 2) things I need to do to better my business; and 3) things that will move my business to its future. Obviously, the most important list is category 3, yet the most urgent is category 1. Make sure you do the things in category 1 but also make sure you spend time working on category 3 each day. I try to shift category 2 tasks into category 3 to make them more effective.

Work smarter, not harder. For many professionals, there is no other solution than to work harder. That is because they haven’t put the time into developing a strategic vision and plan. Once you develop your vision for the future, it becomes quite clear how to work smarter. That doesn’t mean you won’t work hard, but that you will be working on things that truly matter to your business.

I’d like to hear from you:
• Would you share your tips to managing time effectively?
• Have you ever analyzed how you spend your daily work time?
• Are you working on important or urgent tasks?
Until next time …
Craig

The Answers to Life are In the Questions You Ask

The Answers to Life are in the Questions You Ask

How do you know…?

In my profession it is not unusual to have someone ask a question as a way of seeking advice. I will be asked a question such as, “How do you know if a job offer is the right one to take?” Or, “How do you know if this person is the right person to go into a partnership with?”

This week I received a different kind of question via email. It read more like a riddle than a question at first, but the longer I sat with the message, the more confident I became in my response.

The email question:

What is the difference between persevering, beating a dead horse and letting go?

My response was and is: The difference between those three is the level of spiritual strength. You persevere to achieve a valued life task (a goal), you beat a dead horse when you are afraid of what is next (fear), and you let go when you have released the fear (connecting with your spirit instead of your ego).

A week later the same person sent another question:

What’s the difference between denial and positive thinking?

Those of you who work with me and my philosophy could probably answer that one…

Answer: Whether or not you take ACTION!

There are a host of wonderful books about the art of asking questions to achieve results in work as in life. One I would highly recommend is Change Your Questions, Change Your Life by Marilee Adams. You can order the newest edition by clicking this link: http://www.amazon.com/Change-Your-Questions-Life-Paperback/dp/1576756009/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239204209&sr=1-1

With appreciation for all the questions I am asked,


 

 



Andrea T. Goeglein, Ph.D.
Dr. Success™
866 975 3777
Join a class: http://www.servingsuccess.com/events.php

Self-Declared Spring Break

Being an entrepreneur during a recession has many negative implications. And being true to my title of Dr. Success, there is always a benefit to be found in every less than desirable life situation. A moment ago I posted the following away message on my business email:

"I have decided to use the week of April 6 - 12 as a self-declared Spring Break. I will honor all confirmed appointments and look forward to doing so. However, if you are not on my calendar and you are not contacting me about a minimum 5-digit check you would like to hand me at this moment just because I have done such wonderful work in the past...I'll get back to you next week. As always, love, learn and prosper. Andrea"

You see, I could look at my calendar and wonder where has all the business gone...or I could look at my calendar and declare a spring break. I have made my choice. I encourage you to do the same.

Remember to remember...You are as happy at any moment as you allow yourself to think you are.

With much appreciation, Andrea

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