Inspired Project Teams
By Michael Greer
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Podcast Description
Each podcast in the Inspired Project Teams collection starts with one or more powerful quotations or great ideas that can help you create a more inspired project team. The quotations are followed by specific Challenges (suggestions) to help you put these powerful ideas into practice. Challenges include Reflections (questions) for the project team leader to think deeply about, Team Challenges (questions & suggestions for the project team members), and Project Manager Challenges (specific actions project managers or team leaders can take to encourage the project teams inspiration). Text versions of each podcast are available at the website, as well as related links and more. Some of the titles include: Learn to Be Optimistic… Learn to Succeed; Take Charge… Stop Playing the Victim; Make Time for Recreation; Get High on Kindness; Think Small; Celebrate the Chaos Within; Let Go of Perfectionism; Train Yourself to be Happier; Listen, Understand, Collaborate; Get Excited… and Let It Show!; Spend More Time in Quadrant 2. New podcasts appear weekly. For info -- Go to http://www.inspiredprojectteams.com or visit http://www.michaelgreer.com
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CleanBecome a Project Management Minimalist | Audio: Become a Project Management Minimalist [Time - 37:05, File Size - 17.4 MB] (Click here to get unlimited access to this audio by Web, Android, or iPad via Amazon Cloud Drive.) Note: This post is a bit different from most Inspired Project Teams posts. It focuses less on the inspirational side of project management and more on the “nuts and bolts” practices that can help your project team be more effective. After all, if a project team is ineffective, no amount of inspiration can help them find much joy in their work. So in this post, we look at how you can use “just enough” PM to get great results. Less is More… Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction. – E.F. Schumacher Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials. – Lin Yutang The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak. – Hans Hofmann Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. – Leonardo DaVinci Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. – Albert Einstein These amazing quotes, representing visionaries in the fields of philosophy, art, and science, all agree on one thing: An appropriate simplicity is always better than needless complexity. And this is especially true for projects and project teams. Step back and think about this: Most of us don’t derive our joy from project management (PM). Most of us derive our joy from creating something that hasn’t existed before or solving an unsolvable technical problem or overcoming a challenge that our organization has never before overcome. And achievements like these come from using our professional judgment, our technical skills, and our general “deep knowledge” of a profession such as computer programming, graphic design, construction, pharmaceutical research, or whatever to get results that we can be proud of. The point: Our project results and our project deliverables exist because members of a particular profession or technical specialty are joyfully doing the work they love. And all the project management stuff… the schedules and templates and checks and balances… are a sometimes necessary evil to keep the results flowing and to keep all these professionals coordinated. Viewed in this way, PM becomes a kind of overlay that is imposed upon (and, if we’re lucky, tolerated by) our project team members. How Much Project Management is Enough? The question is: How much PM is enough? How many PM processes and artifacts can we impose on our projects before they collapse under the weight? … before our teams begin to hate doing their work? … before the joy is ripped from the hearts of our projects? Ultimately, every project manager and every project team must answer this question for themselves. Start Lean… Become a Project Management Minimalist I’d recommend two broad strategies that can help you and your team formulate your own answer to “How much PM is enough?” Start lean… become a Project Management Minimalist by using only the bare essentials of PM on your first project. At the end of this first project (and all projects thereafter), do a Project Post Mortem, create some Lessons Learned, and add (or, better yet, subtract) some PM processes and artifacts until you get your own answer to “How much PM is enough.” 10 Steps: A Minimalist Approach to PM Here’s an overview of 10 steps that represent a “bare bones,” or minimalist, approach to project management. After the overview, we’ll examine each Step in greater detail. 1. Define the project concept, then get support and approval. 2. Get your team together and start the project. 3. Figure out exactly what the finished work products will be. 4. Figure out what you need to do to [...] | 2/2/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clean10 Specific Actions That Can Help You Become Happier | Audio: 10 Specific Actions That Can Help You Become Happier [Time - 25:10, File Size - 24.6 MB] (Click here to get unlimited access to this audio by Web, Android, or iPad via Amazon Cloud Drive.) In this post, we focus on the individual instead of the team. After all, teams are made up of individuals. And when individual team members are happy, there’s a good chance the entire team will be happy! But how can anyone become happier? To begin to answer this question, I share 10 specific actions that I’ve taken to create more happiness in my life. (And I hope you will share your suggestions in the Comments section at the end of this post.) 1. Turn off the local news; it’s not real. Think about it. News production is a business. News producers must create powerful headlines that generate a sense of urgency on the part of viewers or listeners. They want big, bold, sensational announcements that scream nervously about fires, murders, local indiscretions by public figures… all to attract a large audience. If it’s nasty and ugly and sensational, we’re going to hear about it. To make matters worse, these kinds of stories are comparatively easy to get. Journalists can simply listen in on the local police scanners, follow the police or fire department to the scene of the latest crime or accident, and pick up that sensational story. So it’s easy for broadcasters to bury us in this drek! Yet, at the same time, there are countless little acts of kindness in neighborhoods everywhere that go unreported. What’s more, there are employees who labor quietly to create a great new product, or go that extra mile to serve their customers, or otherwise make their anonymous positive contributions to make the world a better place. But most of this positive energy goes unnoticed by local news producers. The result: You come home from a long, hard day at work, turn on local news, and a glut of negative energy pours over you. You wallow in bad events that simply aren’t real for you, your family, or the people in your neighborhood! Ultimately you begin to feel a little uneasy, sad or angry. If you aren’t careful, this stuff begins to cast a dark shadow over your whole life. But you don’t have to let this happen! You can do what I do: I turn off my local news and go out and enjoy a walk in my neighborhood or call a friend or relative and say Hi or whatever! I do anything other than sit through all that bad news. (What about the local weather, you ask? No worries. I get my local weather, updated every few minutes, from the internet!) 2. Turn off the national & world news; it’s not real either. The same business dynamics related to local news apply to the national and world news. And worse yet, with national and world journalism, the scale of the bad news is typically much grander. The bad behaviors of public figures are said to have world-wide implications. The wars (there are always wars, right?) and acts of inhumanity are captured in gory detail. And it is implied that the local disaster on the other side of the world could soon apply to you, in your neighborhood. Meanwhile, in nations all over the world, public officials, citizens, and workers labor quietly to do their jobs as best they can and generate countless acts of kindness that go uncelebrated. So again, I suggest this: Turn off the national and world news, go outside and look around. There’s a good chance that all that bad news that was so compelling as it poured into your home is simply not a reality in your back yard, in your neighborhood, in you family, or among your friends. And if it’s not in these places, then it’s not real to you. So why let it shape your thoughts and your mood? Here’s a challenge: Stop watching local, national, and world news for one solid week. At the end of the week, tune in to a news broadcasts and see how you feel. If you’re like me, you’ll be shocked at the amount of negative energy these things spew at [...] | 12/7/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanConsciously Choose Your Attitude | Audio: Consciously Choose Your Attitude [Time - 17:10, File Size - 16.1 MB] (Click here to get unlimited access to this audio by Web, Android, or iPad via Amazon Cloud Drive.) Your attitude is that collection of feelings that you bring to a situation or to a relationship. If the prevailing attitude of your project team is negative, cynical, or hopeless, then there’s a good chance your project results and work processes will reflect that bad energy. On the other hand, if you and your team feel positive and enthusiastic, then you’re likely to have a better work experience and produce higher quality work products. So a project team’s attitude can make or break the project. But what can you do about something as intangible as your attitude? In this post I hope to show you how you can consciously choose your attitude instead of simply allowing it to overtake you as a collection of random feelings. And when you bring consciousness to your attitude, you can change the very texture of your life. Ultimately, it’s up to you whether you live in darkness or light, in a field of crackling tension or a glow of enthusiastic energy. Some Quotations to Illustrate Here are some powerful quotes to illustrate. The first is from Victor Frankl, a man who was stripped of everything as he witnessed his family abused, tortured, and killed by their Nazi captors. Enduring incredible miseries, he was ultimately led to this realization: “…Everything can be taken from a man but one thing; the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” - Viktor Frankl in Man’s Search for Meaning Then there’s this from Marcus Aurelius in his Meditations: “If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself but to your own estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.” Finally, Greek Stoic philosopher Epictetus writes in The Enchiridion: “We cannot choose our external circumstances, but we can always choose how we respond to them.” The message of these and many other great philosophers and teachers is this: We have the power to choose our attitudes. But how can we apply this message in our everyday lives? Some Examples: The Lineman, The Farmer, The Trucker, & The Storm Chaser Consider these examples. I’m standing outside on a typical summer day. Off on the distant horizon, I see a wall of huge, dark clouds forming. There is a thick breeze and a slight smell of wetness and ozone in the air. The sun disappears. I hear a far-off rumble. Now, if ever there was an external event that speaks to my ancient lizard brain, it’s this approaching storm. A sense of anticipation wells up within me… even excitement. What will this storm bring? For purposes of this discussion, a better question might be: What attitude do I bring to this storm? As the son of an electric company lineman, I feel myself anticipating the destructive forces of the lightning and thunder and winds that so often took my father out with his crews when power lines were knocked down, leaving hospitals and supermarkets and ordinary homeowners without the electricity they depended upon. So I might recall and begin to feel the fear of a kid who is hoping his father is going to return home safely after he battles the elements. On the other hand, I might have the more hopeful attitude of some of my Pennsylvania farmer neighbors who, let’s say, have been enduring a long drought and have been watching their crops wither without life-giving rains. For these folks, the attitude that manifests is more likely to be eager anticipation or even enthusiasm. They are hoping the rain will renew their crops and save them from financial loss. Then there’s the long-haul trucker, speeding down a highway that disappears into this storm on a mission to deliver his load on schedule. He’s seen lots of big rigs overturned by similar storms, so his [...] | 10/5/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTend Your Gardens of Thought | Audio: Tend Your Gardens of Thought [Time - 7:35, File Size - 7.3 MB] “A man’s mind may be likened to a garden, which may be intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild. But whether cultivated or neglected, it must and will bring forth. If no useful seeds are put into it, then an abundance of useless weed seeds will fall therein and will continue to produce their kind.” – James Allen in As a Man Thinketh Wow! “…whether cultivated or neglected, [the mind] must and will bring forth.” When I consider this quote in the context of my project management, I am reminded of this paradox: The most productive, the most creative people… the ones you really want on your project team… are also the ones who have the greatest potential to take you far astray from your contracted deliverables and your carefully laid plans! Just “Make It So…?” Here’s an example: Several years ago I was part of a project team who was creating a multi-media sales training intervention designed to show sales reps how to sell an amazing new technical product. Part of this package was to be a video that was broken into several scenarios, illustrating our role model sales team strategizing, conducting sales calls, and closing sales. The client manager on this project met with the video production team, gave them a brief overview of the video requirements, handed them some marketing and engineering brochures, and said: “Make it so…” sorta like Captain Picard from Star Trek. He figured they were smart, creative people who knew their business, so it was up to them to produce a good finished product. Well, true to their spirit and their values, the video team went to work, spending several weeks scripting, casting, shooting, and editing their assigned videos. Unfortunately, when the client manager finally saw what they had been up to, he learned they were way off the mark! The role model sales people (the actors, that is) weren’t right for the parts, they modeled inappropriately chummy behavior in some scenes, and they even mispronounced the features, components and operations of the product they were trying to sell. Take 2: Creativity with Collaborative Boundaries Needless to say, the video scenarios had to be scrapped and an entirely new collection of videos was started from scratch. This time, we were all instructed to spend time working with the video producers, guiding them through the intracacies of the new product and helping them create the scenarios. We built in the time to review and revise small increments of the videos. They evolved from brief media treatments, to expanded treatments, to several versions of scripts – all of which were reviewed by many people and revised before production. Then, during production, we attended rehearsals and taping to make sure the actors pronounced technical terms correctly, dressed to suit the corporate culture, and otherwise represented the client’s company like the top-quality sales pros we were trying to model. The result: This video was extremely well-received by the client and was rated highly by the sales reps who attended the class. And, as a bonus, the video producers were proud of their work and glad we had helped them create something that was on target. The point: By helping the video people “tend the gardens of their thoughts” — by shaping their focus, by guiding their creativity to match our project specifications — we came up with a much more successful finished product. Without this guidance… without this effort to connect everyone to a shared vision of the finished product, these folks followed their own unique vision. So here’s the lesson to be learned: If you give a productive, creative person a blank slate, she will create on it whatever she deems to be most useful, most relevant, or most exciting. So your challenge as project manager is avoid too many blank slates — to harness your team’s energy and creativity and gently guide it in the [...] | 8/15/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanJust Say No | Audio: Just Say No [Time - 9:45, File Size - 9.3 MB] (Click here to get unlimited access to this audio by Web, Android, or iPad via Amazon Cloud Drive.) In most of these Inspired Project Teams posts and podcasts, I’ve tried to focus on the positive. We’ve examined optimism, happiness, trusting your inner voice, embracing your work, joyfully taking risks, and generally saying “yes!” to the challenges you and your team face. However, while it might make sense for individuals to say “yes” to life as often as they can, there are critical moments when project teams have just gotta say “no!” Otherwise, your team could find itself swamped by chores that you never agreed to and that are not tied to the essential project deliverables. As Stephen Covey says: “You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage—pleasantly, smilingly, non-apologetically, to say ‘no’ to other things. And the way you do that is by having a bigger ‘yes’ burning inside. The enemy of the ‘best’ is often the ‘good.’” – Stephen Covey in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Then there’s this from journalist Herbert Bayard Swope: “I can’t give you a sure-fire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time.” Finally, Steve Jobs warns: “You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new.” Be the Plumber The best people – the ones you really want on your team – are highly-motivated professionals who want to do great work. That’s the good news. The bad news is that these same highly motivated people often find it difficult to say “no” to add-ons, those additional bells-and-whistles that customers and stakeholders dream up as “nice to have.” Each request for add-ons poses a challenge to these high achievers. For them, meeting and beating that challenge can often be a matter of personal pride. Unfortunately, most project budgets are finite, as are project schedules. So adding deliverables – even ones that are professionally challenging and potentially wonderful — usually means chewing up more time and money than is available. In my classes I challenge new project managers to “be the plumber.” That is, to ask yourself this question: What would happen if you contracted with a plumber to put new plumbing in your kitchen and then, half-way through the project, ask him to add new plumbing for a nearby bathroom? Everyone realizes that doesn’t make sense! Either the plumber would say “no” flat out, or he would demand two essentials to accept such a request: more time and more money! But for some odd reason, many professionals find the plumber’s simple business logic difficult to grasp. I’m guessing this is largely due to grad school habits and internship experiences in which they gleefully accepted every challenge and request that came from advisers or supervisors. And if this meant working around the clock, accepting unfair assignments and changes, or generally allowing themselves to be the victims, then so be it. That was all part of the hazing … er… challenge of earning a place in their chosen profession. The result: By the time they are employed in our organizations, they’ve had plenty of practice having people ask them to do more or provide additional features, without offering more time or money, and they readily agree because doing so has become a habit! The original contract, the original project specifications, even the original verbal agreements everyone supported can be forgotten as these seemingly reasonable requests for “little add-ons” or enhancements are accepted. And later, when the project budget and schedule are blown, the whole project team is blamed. So here’s the deal: Our project teams need to say “no” to such requests… as Covey says, “smilingly, non-apologetically” — [...] | 7/20/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanBe the Change You Want to See | Audio: Be the Change You Want to See [Time - 11:25, File Size - 10.8 MB] (Click here to get unlimited access to this audio by Web, Android, or iPad via Amazon Cloud Drive.) “You must be the change you want to see in the world.” - Mahatma Gandhi “I can’t hear your words because they are drowned out by your actions” – Ralph Waldo Emerson “If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. Men will believe what they see.” – Henry David Thoreau “… if you want joy, give joy to others; if you want love, learn to give love; if you want attention and appreciation, learn to give attention and appreciation; if you want material affluence, help others to become materially affluent.” Deepak Chopra in The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success All these quotes point to the same powerful truth that has become an aphorism: Actions speak louder than words. What’s more, implied in all these bits of wisdom is the deeper truth that when you take a heartfelt action, especially one that is rooted in giving of yourself, you somehow release into the world the same sort of energy that propelled you to take this action. The result: Other people resonate to your energy and begin to replicate your behavior. By being (or manifesting) the change you wish to see, you are actually releasing forces that conspire to bring about more of this change in the world. OK. That sounds a little cosmic, right? Well, here are a couple of examples that will make this all a bit more real. Picking Up the Litter Here in the Los Angeles area, I take a daily cardio walk/run carrying weights. I walk along a groomed, palm-tree-lined city trail, complete with benches and garbage cans placed at strategic locations. A couple of months ago, I began noticing Styrofoam drinking cups and bags from chips scattered around messing up the otherwise green and well-groomed view. After I got over being irritated, I decided to see how much longer my exercises would take if I were to simply pick this stuff up and deposit it at the nearest garbage can. In all, there are usually just 4 or 5 locations where I need to stop for litter. The impact on my walk, I learned by timing it, was to add less than 60 seconds to the overall duration. That’s not much impact, when weighed against the benefits of removing the visual blight. Now along this route there’s a particular bench where all the day laborers hang out, waiting for someone to come and take them to a job site for work. These guys have been the worst for littering, with all kinds of cups and bags dribbled around their bench. Now I certainly don’t want to tangle with them… they are all younger and stronger than I am. Worse, I don’t speak Spanish and they don’t speak English, so I could barely get past a quick Hello, even if I wanted to complain. In any case, I decided to go ahead and pick up the litter around them, smiling all the while, then deposit it unceremoniously in the trash can beside their bench, and wave good-bye. Now, the first few times I did this, they looked puzzled, but tolerated me. After a few days of repeating this behavior, I started to be received with smiles and hellos. And finally, just about a week ago, I saw that they had begun to pick up the litter when they caught sight of me coming. They laughed when I got there and said, “See… It’s okay… We got it!” In fact, for the last several days, their bench area has been either trash-free or they begin picking it up when they see me coming. It’s kind of good-natured game! But more importantly, the change I wanted to see (i.e., everyone picking up trash to keep the path clean) has now been manifested because I first became that change! No lectures, no complaining, no yelling… I just became the change and set loose the energy for it to manifest beyond me! How cool is that! The Subject Matter Experts Here’s a project management example. I was once managing a large project whose goal was to create a comprehensive [...] | 5/10/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTake the Risk | Audio: Take the Risk [Time - 16:50, File Size - 15.8 MB] (Click here to get unlimited access to this audio by Web, Android, or iPad via Amazon Cloud Drive.) This post is all about getting outside your comfort zone. It’s about encouraging you to run with open arms to embrace that somewhat scary opportunity that you see in front of you. If you can imagine it… if you can see it clearly… if it gets you excited as a possibility, then it may be your destiny to make it a reality. As Ralph Waldo Emerson says: “There’s nothing capricious in nature, and the implanting of a desire indicates that its gratification is in the constitution of the creature that feels it.” In other words, the very fact that you can imagine a new path or a new invention or a new way of being indicates that it is part of your larger life’s purpose to manifest it. Emerson elaborates: “Our desires presage the capacities within us; they are harbingers of what we shall be able to accomplish. What we can do and want to do is projected in our imagination, quite outside ourselves, and into the future. We are attracted to what is already ours in secret. Thus passionate anticipation transforms what is indeed possible into dreamt-for reality.” – from The Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson The point: If you are imagining it and you feel excitement (and possibly a little fear) about making it real, then you should probably take the risk and go for it! As Emerson says: “God will not have his work made manifest by cowards.” Similar words of encouragement are captured by Joseph Campbell in his book, A Joseph Campbell Companion. Campbell tell us: “A bit of advice given to a young Native American at the time of his initiation: ‘As you go the way of life, you will see a great chasm. Jump. It’s not as wide as you think.’” What’s more, as anyone who’s leaped across chasms will tell you, the more leaps you make, the more fearless and confident you will become. Soon, the chasms will seem narrower and you’ll look forward to the opportunity to jump! Three Good Reasons to Take That Risk Now, from the perspective of several decades as a working professional, I can see at least three good reasons to take that risk and to make a few mistakes along the way. Reason 1. You’ll grow. As Henry C. Link tells us: “While one person hesitates because he feels inferior, the other is busy making mistakes and becoming superior.” Then there’s this from Joseph Campbell: “The old skin has to be shed before the new one can come.” And finally, Tony Robbins says: “Success is the result of good judgment, good judgment is a result of experience, experience is often the result of bad judgment.” (From Brian Johnson’s PhilosophersNotes website.) So make your mistakes, shed that old skin, and make a few bad judgments. Without these, you simply can’t grow! Reason 2. You’ll create something new or amazing. Most new or amazing creations are the result of someone taking the risk to pursue them. As Brian Johnson tells us in his PhilosophersNote on Psycho-Cybernetics: “It took Edison 10,000 ‘failures’ to figure out the light bulb. [Edison] said: ‘I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.’” And recently researchers at a US Navy laboratory have unveiled what they say is significant evidence of cold fusion, a potentially cheap, limitless and environmentally-clean source of energy. What’s more, it appears that some of the same scientists who have been laughed at for decades and risked their careers by pursuing cold fusion as an impossible dream may have been responsible, in part, for these recent breakthroughs. And who knows? Someday soon, we could all benefit from their risky leap across the chasm! Reason 3. You’ll become inspired, connect with your Source, your God, or the universe, and acquire new energy. There’s something about accepting the challenge of a dream that seems to open a channel to [...] | 5/3/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanPractice Mindfulness | Audio: Practice Mindfulness [Time - 22:10, File Size - 20.8 MB] (Click here to get unlimited access to this audio by Web, Android, or iPad via Amazon Cloud Drive.) [Acknowledgement: The main inspiration for this post comes from various interviews and articles featuring Jon Kabat-Zinn, Professor of Medicine Emeritus and founding director of the Stress Reduction Clinic and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Kabat-Zinn started his career as a scientist at MIT and it is with this scientific perspective (along with his clinical research to support many of his positions) that he shares his thoughts on the power of mindfulness. He teaches mindfulness meditation as a technique to help people cope with stress, anxiety, pain and illness. You can check out the links below for more about Jon and his work.] In this post I hope to convince you of the power of mindfulness — the practice of bringing your full awareness into the present moment. This is very different from that “kinda sorta” awareness that you have while you are attending a meeting, firing off a text message, and eating lunch all at the same time. And it is different from the awareness you experience within a conversation while you are trying to stifle clever or fearful or angry or resentful thoughts that are clamoring for your attention. And it is different from the awareness you experience when sitting alone at your desk, working to solve a problem while thoughts of past difficulties and future fears challenge your concentration. Instead, it is a cleaner, simpler kind of awareness. It is simply being fully present, with all your attention. It is, in the words of Jon Kabat-Zinn, “paying attention, on purpose, to the present moment, without judgment.” This is mindfulness. Why practice mindfulness? What’s in it for you, as a project manager or creative project team member? Better decisions. Clearer distinctions and analyses. More powerful judgments. Less stress. What’s in it for you, as a spouse, parent, or friend? The ability to participate in relationships more fully, more compassionately, and more authentically. For most of us, our minds are like the internet — an undisciplined and nearly endless expanse of content that can be enlightening, engaging, amusing, and frightening all at the same time. Unfortunately, like the internet, the stuff that bubbles up from the content of our minds is not always accurate or relevant. And, just when you think you are beginning to unravel a knot full of contradictions to comprehend the truth, you are rudely bombarded by inappropriate and distracting pop-up thoughts that appear from nowhere. Like the sometimes over-stimulating experience of surfing the web, the experience of being a conscious human being can also be confusing or downright overwhelming. However, when we’re surfing the web, we can rein in much of the chaos by using a powerful web browser such as Internet Explorer or Firefox with pop-up blockers and search engines like Google to help us stay focused. But how can we navigate the turbulent storm of thoughts that fly every which way in our consciousness? What “browser” is available to help us move through the chaos of our minds? The practice of mindfulness can be such a browser. Just as the newbie web surfer flits madly about the web responding to the random stimuli of ads and animations and sensational headlines, so too does the unmindful person bounce around his own consciousness responding to random thoughts and feelings that arrive unannounced, like so many rude pop-ups, to mislead and distort perceptions. If, however, you are able to be fully present — to step back and look at the big picture — to witness this pattern of self-inflicted, thought-induced tension, noise, and chaos for what it is (simply a mind whirling somewhat out of control), then you have begun the journey to mindfulness. And you’ve begun [...] | 4/26/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanAccept What Is | Audio: Accept What Is [Time - 16:45, File Size - 15.8 MB] (Click here to get unlimited access to this audio by Web, Android, or iPad via Amazon Cloud Drive.) Imagine this situation: You are in your beautiful, newly remodeled kitchen wiping the counters clean after dinner. Out in the hallway you hear your big labrador retriever galloping toward you. In a flash, he bounds across the tile to the table, plunks his meaty front paws up on a chair and begins sniffing the dinner plates for leftovers. Stopping your clean-up chores, you whirl to see what he’s getting into and bam!… his big nose knocks over a nearly full glass of dark, purple grape juice left untouched by one of the kids. The tough plastic tumbler bounces all over the place, spritzing the walls with purple droplets, while a big puddle of juice begins expanding across the tile. It’s flowing straight toward your new beige living room carpet. Do you: A. Deny that this is actually happening, telling yourself that you are a good, hard-working person who doesn’t deserve this kind of misery? B. Find your spouse and begin an angst-filled review of your family’s history of owning this dog, bemoaning the fact that while the dog is lovable, he has always caused too many minor disasters? C. Sit down with your wife and kids and imagine a future that has in it no potentially staining leftovers and no dog anywhere near the kitchen? D. Run across the room, placing yourself and your counter-cleaning sponge squarely between the expanding puddle of purple and the new carpet, thus preventing the major stain? The correct answer, of course, is D! You accept what is and you take appropriate action. To deny the reality of the situation, to bemoan past issues, or to wistfully imagine an alternate future makes no sense in this emergency! You first must accept and deal with what is (that expanding puddle). If you allow yourself to get tangled up in denial, or agonize over what might have been or what ought to be, you waste time and drain away energy needed to stop the flow of grape juice to the carpet. Of course you’d probably never even consider those other options. Your intuition… your good judgment… would immediately lead you to 1) accept what is, and 2) take appropriate action. Unfortunately, not all of life’s difficult situations are this clear-cut. Few of our challenges come packaged as obvious emergencies, such as our grape juice spill. But the fact remains: You must first accept a difficult situation for what it is before you can handle it effectively. Accept it, see it clearly without denial and hand-wringing, and you will be able to see, choose, and carry out a proper course of action. Wisdom from Some Great Teachers Deepak Chopra, in The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, describes how important it is to accept what is, and not get caught up fighting it: “This means that your acceptance of this moment is total and complete. You accept things as they are, not as you wish they were in this moment. This is important to understand. You can wish for things in the future to be different, but in this moment you have to accept things as they are.” His point: to make clear-eyed, effective decisions about this moment you must stop struggling against reality and stop wasting energy wishing things weren’t so. Only then will you make the best choices and have the strength to carry out these choices. There’s no doubt that denying and struggling against reality generates enormous stress. But as José Silva and Burt Goldman explain in The Silva Mind Control Method of Mental Dynamics: “Stress is not caused by problems. It is your attitude toward the problem that causes stress. Knowing the cause of stress makes it easier to deal with, for now the appropriate question can be asked. The question is not how can I rid myself of stress, but how can I change my attitude toward work, events, disappointments, fears, and people?” The bottom line: Accept the [...] | 4/19/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanJust Do It! | Audio: Just Do It! [Time - 15:47, File Size - 14.9 MB] (Click here to get unlimited access to this audio by Web, Android, or iPad via Amazon Cloud Drive.) It is my intent in this post to convince you of the tremendous liberating power of simply taking action. I want to encourage you to get moving… to get unstuck… to just do it! If you and your project team members are sometimes plagued with fits of analysis paralysis or procrastination, accompanied by worry over all the bad things that might happen when you take action, then this post (podcast) is for you. Let’s start with some a couple of powerful quotes: “A good idea if not acted upon produces terrible psychological pain. But a good idea acted upon brings enormous mental satisfaction. Got a good idea? Then do something about it. Use action to cure fear and gain confidence. Here’s something to remember: Actions feed and strengthen confidence; inaction in all forms feeds fear. To fight fear, act. To increase fear — wait, put off, postpone… Jot that down in your success rule book right now. Action cures fear.” – David J. Schwartz in The Magic of Thinking Big. Think about it. What Schwartz says makes sense! How often have you spent days and days putting off an action because you feared some dire consequences, only to find out later (after you acted) that these consequences were simply not real! In the meantime, for days, you lived through the agony of dreading your negative fantasy! So… you say you know what to do, but are just feeling hesitant about it? Maybe you’ve convinced yourself that you need to do “a little more homework” before you get started. Okay. It’s always good to think through a problem before you act. But remember this from Dale Carnegie in How to Stop Worrying and Start Living: “… knowledge isn’t power until it is applied; [my] purpose …is to remind you of what you already know and to kick you in the shins and inspire you to do something about applying it.” Carnegie also says: “Spit on your hands and get busy. Your blood will start circulating; your mind will start ticking–and pretty soon this whole positive upsurge of life in your body will drive worry from your mind. Get busy. Keep busy.” Castor Beans and Procrastination Here’s an example of how I’ve let procrastination ruin my own peace of mind: In Southern California where I live, castor beans are to the plant world what cockroaches are to the insect world. They are invasive, extremely aggressive about staying alive and procreating, and almost impossible to eliminate once they get a foothold on your property. They produce large, ugly leaves; choke out everything near them; and soon tower 8 or 10 feet over the yard like some kind of berserk bamboo colony, dropping spiny, barbed, and poisonous seeds that hit the ground and immediately go to work adding more plants to the colony! Now just behind the fence at the back of our beautiful, did-it-ourselves, landscaped back yard is an easement separating our property from our neighbor’s. Here, secluded from the view of both property owners, those sneaky castor bean plants sprout, grow, and gather momentum. Left unchecked, like we did one year when we left town for a several months, these guys can grow taller than the people who have to battle them. And once they get a few feet tall, they extend their tough roots deep into the ground. Removing them when they have grown even moderately large is a huge chore requiring a lot of cutting and digging and much scratching of forearms and hands. So everyone knows that the best way to deal with these things is to get them while they’re young, digging them out when they are small plants. And when you’re done, you can’t assume they’re gone for good. You have to check on them frequently because the seeds from an ancient crop that was allowed to go unchecked several years ago can lie in wait and spring to life when you least expect it. Now I love sitting in my [...] | 4/12/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
| Total: 10 Episodes |
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