Most of the time when you get a fortune cookie, it has some meaningless “Good fortune is coming your way” message.
Today I received the most insightful I’ve ever seen:
“Your happiness is intertwined with your outlook on life.”
I don’t care who you are or what your life is like, everyone needs reminded of that sometimes.
Have a good weekend.
There was a time, not so long ago, when a great many people would have jumped at the opportunity to switch places with Britney Spears. That idea is not nearly as popular today, due to the mess that she's been making of her life. So where did she go wrong, and how can you avoid the same mistakes?
There is a mistake that is common amongst all demographics, when it comes to leading their lives, but is more prevalent among celebrities, especially if they became celebrities when they were young. What is that mistake? The answer is simple… they let other people tell them who they are.
There will always be people around you who want to tell you who you are, either directly or indirectly. Celebrities have a lot of people in their lives, and those people are even more likely to try to tell the celebrity who they are. Combine that with becoming a celebrity while you're young, and thus don't have a good idea of your own about who you are, and it can be overwhelming.
So, how can you avoid this? Well, here's a good start… The Top 5 Ways To NOT Be Like Britney Spears:
It's important to have some time for yourself, with no one else around. Your body and your mind both need this time to heal and strengthen. As a celebrity, and one of the most popular for gossip magazines, Britney has a harder time than most getting time to herself, with the paparazzi always around, as well as fans, people seeking business deals or endorsement, etc. Non-celebrities can have a hard time finding time for themselves, too, though… friends, family, work, spouse, and especially children can take all the time you have every day if you let them.
Make sure that you take time for yourself, so that your mind can strengthen and you can evaluate choices that come your way clearly. This can help you to avoid making bad decisions… like driving 45 MPH with your child on your lap in the driver's seat.
Other people always have an influence on you. How much effect that influence has over your actions and choices, however, depends greatly on how aware of it you are. The influence of others over your choices drops as your awareness of their influence rises. Perhaps Britney could become more aware of the influence of the people she associates with, and choose NOT to wear a short dress without panties.
As long as you blame others for your choices, you can't begin to make the changes that you need in order to avoid repeating the problem in the future. Taking responsibility for your choices, and your responses to the situations around you, can be difficult. It means that there's something less than desirable about you, and it's YOU that needs to change to fix it. Britney, if she were to read this, could perhaps take this advice and not blame her mother for associating with the father of her (Britney's mom) grandchildren.
This one is always difficult, when you first approach it. You have to spend time and attention, focusing on determining what your core priorities are, what your purpose or calling in life may be. One of my passions happens to be writing, which is why you're reading this right now. I suspect that one of Britney's passions may be music, although that can (rarely) change as life goes on, and she may no longer have music as one of her core priorities.
This, of course, is the most difficult of all the advice in this article. Once you have discovered who you are, and accept responsibility for your own choices, the next step is to give up the personas that you put on for other people and be yourself… all of the time. Any choice that comes up, you should go with the one that reflects who you are the best. This may not seem like the best advice, considering what seems to be who some people are, but, as I've written before, you are who you choose to be… so make your choice of who you are in some of the time you take for yourself. Decide who you want to be, and then be that person (and I don't mean decide to be Lindsay Lohan, I mean choose how you will respond to different circumstances). You can see that Britney needs help in this area by how wildly her behavior changes.
While it would certainly be pleasant to have Britney's money, it would not be worth the trade-off with the things going on in her life. On the other hand, she can always take the steps listed above and change her life, becoming who she chooses to be, instead of letting others define her. That would bring much needed stability and peace into her life.
So, now you know how to not be like Britney Spears… do you need to stop letting other people tell you who you are, too?
Do you want to have a fantastic relationship? Do you know how to tell if a relationship has what it takes to be great instead of somewhere between "okay" and "good enough"?
Relationships can seem like tricky things, but the basics really aren't that complex. There are certain things that any really good, great, or fantastic relationship will have. Some lesser relationships will still have some of these things, but often only on one side. In other words, one person possesses the quality, but not both. Other lesser relationships will feature both people showing some of the attributes listed below, but missing others. Sometimes these lesser relationships can turn into great relationships if effort is put into learning, and adopting, the other pieces.
There are many lists of things a relationship needs to be successful, but most of them are of a more mechanical nature. I've even posted a few of that kind myself, listing things like time together, communication, etc. This list, however, is not things you do, it's things you have.
If you want to know whether your relationship has what it takes to be great, and to last the test of time, then evaluate it based on the attributes of a fantastic relationship listed below.
Do you know how to love? To really love, not to like, or do things for, or get turned on by, your love? Do you feel that you are soul mates, that you have a connection so deep that it will be there forever, no matter what happens to the relationship?
Love takes more than buying someone flowers. It takes more than holding their hand when you're out… Love is when you take them by the hand and it reaches out and touches their soul, too. If you don't know what I'm talking about, or that sounds scary or too deep, then you may not be ready for love. That's okay… you don't have to be in love, and trying to force yourself when you aren't ready only backfires.
"Love is patient; love is kind and envies no one. Love is never boastful, nor conceited, nor rude; never selfish, not quick to take offense. There is nothing love cannot face; there is no limit to its faith, its hope, and endurance. In a word, there are three things that last forever: faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of them all is love."
The Bible has some great pieces of wisdom concentrated down to their basics, and this is one of them. Love is patient and infinite… trials and tribulations can scratch the surface of it, but never damage its depths.
So you both know how to love, but do you know the complexities that love contains? Love can encompass and contain your whole awareness at one moment, and be rejected in pain the next. It never really goes away, not if you truly loved, but you can certainly bury it deeply. You can bury it so deeply that only you know it's what is causing you pain, or so deeply that even you don't know that's where the pain is coming from.
Love can have good days and bad days, but it never really goes away, and as soon as you let go of the walls you use to hold it back, it will come surging in again, often bringing with it whatever pain caused you to build those walls, but only temporarily. The flow of love washes away the pain, though the time required varies.
Love is complex, bringing both pain and healing, leaving you vulnerable but making you stronger. If you don't understand this, if you don't accept it, your relationship is going to be weaker than it could have been.
There is one thing that is certain in any relationship: You are going to hurt each other. If you have a good relationship, it won't be intentional, but it will still happen. If you can't forgive each other when it happens, then your relationship is going to be very shallow.
If you can't forgive someone for hurting you unintentionally, you are building walls to keep love away, probably because you are scared of the way it makes you vulnerable. Those walls will keep the other person out and limit how deeply love can spread its roots. Shallow roots can still keep it alive, but when trouble comes along, its grip is weak, and it can be ripped away.
Learn to forgive, and relax those walls… getting rid of them can be scary, and usually hurts right at first, but it will make you a LOT happier in the long run, and the pain is only short-lived.
When you are "falling in love", it's easy to mistake loving the attention you are getting for loving the other person. You are getting closer rapidly, you haven't hit your walls yet, and you're getting loads of attention. Attention is the universal currency by which you show that someone is important to you, and it's an awesome feeling to know that you are important to someone specific, especially if that person is someone you like. This is also what leads to a lot of affairs, unfortunately… people need to feel important, and if they feel that they aren't important to their spouse because they aren't getting attention from them, and someone else comes along and offers that attention and feeling of being important to someone… well, it's a bad situation.
There's a relatively easy test to see if you love the person or the attention, though. It works like this: close your eyes. Now bring up the other person in your mind. What is it about that person that comes to mind? If your answer is a part of their body (a la eyes… if it's certain other portions of their anatomy, don't kid yourself, you know it isn't love), or the fun you have together, you may be loving the attention. If what comes to mind is more of a complete concept, something that's hard to put into words but is a representation of them and what they mean to you, something that if you're really open to it nearly brings tears to your eyes… THAT is being in love with the person.
I've been thinking a lot about "walls" lately… if you've been reading my stuff, you may have noticed. If you have any walls that are for a specific person, it means that person is important in your life. You may have walls that only your mother can hit, created in response to some pain she caused at some point in your life. You may have walls for any specific person who has caused you pain, and that can include your significant other.
Walls are built to keep pain out, but they don't… they keep pain in, trapped inside of you. When you build walls that are just for one person, you are doing two things… you are shutting that person out of that part of you, and you are holding on to pain that they caused. Holding on to pain that someone specific caused you isn't really a good way to have that relationship grow stronger and deeper, and a real love is generally either growing deeper or becoming more shallow.
Holding on to walls at all limits the heights you can reach, but holding on to walls against just one person also limits your depth.
In any really good (fantastic, anyone?) relationship, you share a bond of a depth that anyone who has not been in such a relationship cannot imagine. This connection can be stronger or weaker at different times, but one thing should always remain: if you close your eyes, you should know that the other person is there. I'm not talking about any psychic phenomenon, like knowing exactly where they are even though you're hundreds or thousands of miles apart. I am talking about that unshakable certainty, that depth of connection, that unmovable mountain that says "I am here".
If you've been in a good relationship where there is real love, you know exactly what I'm talking about. If you haven't, I can't explain it any better than that. You might be able to guess, but when you feel the real thing you'll know that your guess wasn't even a shadow of the truth.
Does your relationship have these elements? If you're not in a relationship currently, then may I recommend that next time you find one, and you think it might be THE one, you pause the breakneck plunge for just a moment to come back to this list and see if it has the signs of what could be a fantastic, long-lasting relationship?
As I said, this is not a list of "mechanical" type attributes of a relationship, things that can be quantified. It's a list of… well, I don't know how to describe the common thread, but it's there.
Does your relationship have these things? Does it have more or less of any given thing? Do you think any of the points listed above are more important than the others? Let me know in the comments.
What is the real you? What is it that makes up the true you, what belongs to you and only you? What do you get when you see past the surface, past the anger and fear, "love" and betrayal, hurt, pain, and even agony? The real you… the deep you, the you that is beyond what the surface you can even imagine.
When you are born, you have no concept of your "self". As you grow older, you build up a structure, a belief system, a framework of lenses and mental maps through which you see the world. You are told, and you believe, that this framework is you. The framework gets covered with experiences and emotions, and even the spaces between the beams of the support structure get filled up eventually. You go on about your life with the belief that this giant amalgamation is you.
Everyone else around you believes this, too. Only what they think of as you isn't even the structure you have built up… it's only the surface of that structure, a surface that changes constantly as new experiences, new emotions, and new everything else piles up, sometimes stripping off pieces of the old coverings, but more often simply piling over them, making them part of the inside, and making that structure ever harder to discard.
As you go about, identifying more and more with this framework that you've built, some of it intentional construction, most of it not, you build walls, walling off this portion from that portion. You do this to protect yourself, to keep yourself from getting hurt, but that's not what they do, it's only what you fool yourself into believing they do. Because those walls don't keep things out, they keep things in.
That's right… you're building yourself a prison. A prison inside a structure that is built of the giant ball of stuff that you call your life. And you not only build this prison, you voluntarily stick yourself inside of it, trapping yourself in with all the pain and injuries that you have suffered over the years. And to top it off, the prison that you build, and trap yourself inside, can't ever even fulfill the purpose for which you supposedly built it… it can't even keep out new pain!
That's right… you build up this structure of falsehoods, lies told to yourself, walling yourself in to keep out the pain, and it doesn't even work. The walls only function in one direction… they hold things in. They hold you in… they limit you to far, far below your true abilities. They keep the pain that you have experienced close to you, so that it can continually injure you and prevent you from healing. What do you do when the pain builds, when it gets harder and harder to deal with? You build more walls, and build the walls you have higher!
The walls that you build for yourself are a prison… but they're also an illusion. They are part of the framework that you have built up, an integral part as a matter of fact. But here's the thing: that framework isn't you.
That's right, all those lenses and perceptions and mental maps, all those experiences and emotions, those hatreds and angers and fears… they aren't you. They're a tiny little pimple that you've built up on the surface of the real you. All that stuff that you're trying to protect, the part that hurts, the part that knows pain and fear and suffering… that is only the very smallest fraction of you. It's like looking at a tiny island in the middle of the ocean, and calling that the ocean.
The real you is vast. It is deep, and strong, and powerful. It cannot be hurt by the vagaries of this life, because it is only the tiniest fraction of it that is involved with this life. Your physical presence, and the structure that you have built up, are merely the tiny portion of it paying attention to what you perceive as your whole life. And when you identify yourself as that tiny portion, you are giving up the vastness of the real you, like identifying yourself as your pinky.
Your walls you have created are illusions, but they are self-maintained illusions, given the power that you are drawing through your connection to the real you. Want evidence that what I'm saying is right? It's very easy to obtain… all you have to do is let down one, just one, of your walls. You will immediately feel closer to that vastness that is the real you. And with each wall that you release, you will find yourself closer to that reality.
When you get close, you may be scared by the openness, the sheer open expanse that you feel drawing nearer. After all, for all of your life that you can remember, you have lived inside your walls. You may never have even had a moment's clarity, an opening of the mind's eye to see the vastness around you. If you HAVE had one of those moments, you may be even more scared, because you have an inkling of what it's like.
It's not an empty vastness, though… you aren't alone. In fact, when you reach that vastness, you'll find that you are connected to everyone and everything else, with a deepness of connection that the very word connection doesn't seem strong enough to convey the reality of what you feel. You are a part of everything, and everything is a part of you.
It's sometimes hard to keep this connection to the real you… it's easy to forget and focus back on the surface structure, identifying with that structure that you've built up. Once you've let the feeling go long enough, in fact, it's hard to remember what it was like… until something triggers it again, and then it all comes rushing back.
There is an old movie called Dune. They made a newer version of it, too, but I'm talking about the original. In it, there is a phrase that is repeated a few times: "The sleeper must awaken." I have always identified with this phrase… I've always felt like it meant something to me, something more. I've felt like there was something bigger slumbering inside me.
Lately, as I have read, and learned, and written, and looked inside of me, my awareness has gradually expanded, and the phrase has changed, in my mind, to "The sleeper is awakening." I felt that bigger thing inside of me stirring from its slumber, starting to uncoil.
Tonight, as I was talking to my wife to help her relax, something clicked. Sometimes the greatest words of wisdom come when the conscious mind gets the hell out of the way and lets things flow from far deeper inside. Suddenly, that thing that had slowly been awakening came aware. The sleeper has awoken.
This connection, this deeper you, is your connection to God, to the awareness that created, and contains, and in a way is, the universe. But it is being "consciously" (too small a term, I think) aware of that connection, not in some sort of vague "God created the Heavens and the Earth" kind of way. It is an intimate and strong connection, a direct connection. It is deep, wordless communication flowing back and forth, much of which, to this point at least, seems to be more of an "I am here" message and an "I know" response flowing from each direction.
This vastness is inside each of us… in fact, it IS each of us. We are not the limited lives reflected in the world we live in, we are not even the conscious part of our minds… we are far more than that. But in order to find our true selves, we must first give up the structure that have built up, that we have defined as "us"… and that's probably the hardest thing in the world to do. That last wall, the one that separates us from our true selves, the one that is the foundation of support for our whole framework of our lives, is really, really hard to let go. It is giving up the "you" that you have always known, for a great unknown.
Do not be afraid. The whole world will change before your eyes, leaving nothing unaltered. Once you let go of that last wall, and the fear, there will be no doubt, however.
It's worth it.
Author
September 28th
Awareness, Beliefs, Body/Mind Relationship, Communication, Conscience, Energy, Expectations, Fear, Feed Your Mind, Free Will, Growth, Healing, Internal Quiet, Learning, Motivation, Patterns, Relationships
The world around us is filled with beauty. There is some way to look at anything around you and see beauty in it. Take, for example, the picture above… it's a photograph of an ordinary tree with a few small flowers around its base. You could easily pass by and not even notice it consciously… it is very ordinary. Looked at from the right angle, though, it can produce a very interesting picture.
Life is like that… you can find beauty in the most ordinary of places. There is, of course, the beauty of a truly happy smile… no matter whose face it is on. There is also the passing beauty that arises when one object is perfectly juxtaposed over another, like a palm tree silhouetted against a sunset sky.
Seeing these things, the extraodinary beauty in the common sight, is what it means to have the eyes of a photographer. You capture the moment, the precise frame, and store it, whether it's on film, a memory card, or just in your mind.
You can have the eyes of a photographer when it comes to the non-visual parts of life, too. You can find the beauty in a baby's laughter, a mischievious glint in a young boy's eyes, or the way your beloved touches you softly, looking into your eyes. These are beautiful moments that you can capture, just like a photographer captures a wondrous sight.
You can record them on the film of your mind, to review later, when circumstances warrant. You can bring them out to share with others, talking about the memories you have captured until the wee hours of the morning. You can look at them in the quiet of your own mind when you are sad, to remind you of the beauty of life (though sadness can be beautiful, too). Or you can simply have a quiet moment with your happy memories, reliving some of the best moments.
You don't have to capture every nuance of the scene in sharp detail… sometimes blurring background elements is part of the beauty of the whole. Look at the flower in the picture above, for instance… it is out of focus, blurred, but if it weren't, it would change the whole picture. It is often more useful to keep the important elements in sharp focus while allowing the rest to blur… it brings even more emphasis to the parts that are in focus, that you want to show.
So… where can you find beauty in the ordinary? Find something today, whether it's a picture, a sound, or a memory. And if you like, you can share it with me… you can find my email by clicking my name at the top of this article.
When you look at any large company from the inside, it's easy to see that they usually have at least some people in leadership positions for which they are quite simply unqualified. Why does this happen? Why is it so consistent?
I'm glad you asked… I've been thinking about this issue for a long time. There are a few reasons behind this phenomenon that all tie together to make it almost inevitable once a company reaches a certain size.
I'm really not sure how this one got started, but there is a very strong, almost universal, tendency to promote someone who is very good at their current job to a different job, without regards to the different skill set that is needed. The best salesman that a company has is likely to be promoted to sales manager, should that position come open, for example. This in spite of the fact that a manager needs an entirely different skill set AND the fact that you're taking the best salesman away from directly selling.
That's not to say that the person who is the best at their current job is NOT the best qualified for the promotion… they may very well be the best. But whether they are the best choice for a promotion has nothing to do with their skill at their current job… only with the qualities they have that apply to the new job.
This is even stronger than #1. This tendency is almost universal, and it most likely derives from the valued trait of loyalty… they have given the most time to your company, so you reward their loyalty with a promotion. This tendency at least has an advantage over #1, in that it doesn't automatically take the best person away from the job where they excel, but it is just as random about finding good leaders. The person who has been there longest is no more or less likely to be the best choice for the promotion purely based on longevity.
And that leads us to number 3… if you would be up for promotion based on either of the two tendencies above, and someone else is promoted that is NOT based on one of those tendencies, it carries a strong social stigma. So strong, in fact, that it can often lead to someone quitting an otherwise satisfying, well-paying job. If you get passed over, and other people know it (and they will), it makes them think lower of you because they think there must be something wrong with you that caused you to be passed over… even if it's only slightly, it's still noticeable, and unpleasant.
Another major reason why leadership tends to grow progressively worse is that people are never demoted. If you are promoted to a new job, and you can't do it, you should be demoted back to where you were before. Unfortunately, that basically never happens… the stigma attached to demotion is so strong that demoting someone not merely tarnishes their reputation, it tarnishes the reputation of the one who demotes them, as well. Nobody wants to work for someone who demotes people… even though if you're good at your job, working for someone who does that is actually GOOD for you. It also basically guarantees that the person who is demoted will leave the company.
There is also a stigma attached to not accepting a promotion. While this one is not as strong as the previous two, it still certainly exists. Anyone who knows you turned down a promotion will assume that there is something wrong… and if they can't find out what it is, they will start speculating, potentially leading to new and potentially harmful rumors. Nobody wants that, so they feel strong pressure to accept any promotion that is offered, even if they don't really want it.
All of those factors combine to cause people to be promoted until they hit a point where they can't do the job they have reached. Then the higher-ups don't want to cause problems by demoting the person back to a previous job where he was more qualified, and if they did, that person would feel obligated to leave the company… even if he liked the old job better AND made more money! The social stigma is that strong.
Since that leaves people promoted past their level of expertise, and often times even past their level of competency, it causes the leadership at the company to deteriorate, and that leads to even worse choices for leaders, as having someone who is not a good leader pick the leaders under them is not a good idea. This extremely strong tendency toward lowering standards of leadership as a company grows and ages is one of the primary reasons why new companies CAN come in and compete and become the new big companies… their execution of ideas and strategies is generally better, due to less of the above causes having had a chance to set in, thereby balancing the leverage of existing companies due to strong branding and established presence.
PS – This article was inspired by John McKenna in his leadership challenge.
