Star Wars wisdom

I hope that everyone had a great Thanksgiving! The weekend certainly passed by quickly!

Recently I have begun work on a series of seminars that I am going to be giving with a friend and colleague of mine int he New Year. We have been working on the concepts for a while and seeking to illustrate them with movie clips and relevant quotes. One of the best comes from Yoda when he is instructing Luke Skywalker.

Luke is learning techniques and Yoda is getting him to retrieve something from a swamp. Luke doubts that he can do so and comes up with a series of excuses around how he has never tried it before, it is harder than anything he has tried previously and so on. Yoda encourages him to do it and Luke says: “I’ll give it a try”

Yoda: “No. Do or do not…there is no try”

the reason I like this quote from a fictional character is that it sums up the problem many people have with their belief systems. What we believe to be true is very powerful and colors how we approach things. If you think that something is beyond your skill set or knowledge you may “try” to do something but in reality, if you don’t believe you can then you are setting yourself up to fail. This further validates your belief and “proves” to yourself that you were right.

So how do you change that? Think about Yoda when you hear yourself saying “I’ll try”. Turn that round and realize it for what it is – setting your self up to fail. Try implies that you may well not succeed. Then realize that you can chose what you believe and imagine what it will be like when you have succeeded in your efforts.

The first step in this process is, as always, awareness. So look out for your inner voice (or yourself actually saying) the following:

I’ll Try
I am the sort of person who…..
I’m no good at…..
I can’t……
I never…..

These are strong signs that a belief about yourself will follow. Take some time to think about how that is serving you and whether or not you are making it come true. Next post I will follow up on this theme and illustrate how this can be changed and also how it plays into finding balance.

Is the world really flat?

I am currently reading “The World is Flat” by Thomas Friedman. It is a fascinating read although I am still in the early stages. As far as I can tell so far the premise is that we are now in the third stage of globalization. The first was the rise of the nation state and the global reach of those powers as they discovered and colonized the world. The second phase (which ended at the end of the last century) saw globalization by large companies. The third, is the rise of the individual.

So what is the point as it relates to Work Life balance?

Well, I frequently here arguments, and see evidence that suggests today’s world is getting more and more demanding, fast paced and stressful. I can see that. However, with the increase in computing power, telecommunications and everything “on-line” this seems to be a double edged sword. There are some opportunities to achieve balance as well as threats to it.

OK, we have probably heard about or experienced how technology can adversely affect work-life balance. Blackberry bringing work emails into your leisure time anyone? How about the home office where you have to go and work late at night? However let’s look at the potential upsides as well.

Technology gives you more choice, and as I have written here before, it’s all about choice isn’t it? If you can work from anywhere (I am in a coffee shop as I write this) can’t your gear your life around what works for you, and where it works? Now that you can outsource things to remote call centers you can free up time to do what you really enjoy and want to make time for.

So I recommend that you take a look at how you are spending time and how you want to and then see if technology can enable that to happen more easily. Let’s embrace it and see how it can help us!

Self-esteem issues

I have just finished reading a classic in the field of self-help/psychology. It is called “Psycho-cybernetics” by Maxwell Maltz. Maltz died 20 years ago and he was a plastic surgeon in the 40s and 50s. He was fascinated that changing people’s appearance via the scalpel could also change their whole seld image. I guess that’s not surprising, but what was unusual was that this wasn’t universally the case. Some people continued to see themselves as imperfect and obtained virtually no change in self image after the surgery.

Anyway, his theory is that self-esteem is a choice and there are many mental exercises we can perform to improve it, and with it our lives. I encourage you to read it. It is very well written, in terms that can be easily understood – there is no “psychobabble!”

The point that I took away has a lot of relevance to work-life balance. How do you chose to view yourself? What do you want from life and more importantly do you see yourself a winner? From work-life balance point of view what is most important to you? Once you view yourself in a positive light it is so much easier to take positive actions.

For example – I have mentioned before that my son and I are taking Tae Kwon Do classes. Tonight is our first test for a higher belt. As beginners we need to perform in front of an entire class. This will be challenging but I chose to look forward to the positive result and I visualize how that will feel and look like. The same in tennis – I expect that I will find a way to win in a close set. These things are choices and putting positive thoughts in my mind means there is no room for negative ones. It takes practice but it works really well.

Find out what is really important to you and visualize yourself in that situation, as though it had really happened. You will be surprised how you will find the time and the energy to do it, no matter how full life now seems.

Time for things

I think I have written a post about this before but it is worthy of recapping. Over the last few weeks I have noticed (for myself and for others) that things are getting more hectic as we approach the holiday season. It is only a couple of weeks to Thanksgiving and then we will really be in the run up to Christmas – there are a couple of radio stations here in Kansas City that have been playing EXCLUSIVELY Christmas music since November 1st.

At this time of year it is worth revisiting priorities as there are a lot of demands on our time. These will increase as we get into family time and that can be a good or a bad thing! One exercise that can help is looking at what you are saying “yes” to and what you are saying “no” to. In other words when you are pressed to agree to do something, think what you must give up to do that.

This can be freeing since it is a choice. You can always ask yourself that question. “What things must I give up to do this?” This applies equally to work and career tasks but can equally be applied to time with family in the busy Christmas period. By the way it is usually OK – you don’t have to do everything!