Where are you on the global scale of “everyone”?

Not that long ago I got randomly selected to be on a survey panel from my gas company. So every now and then I answer some online questions and get Amazon points in return.  For the most part they are pretty innocuous questions about appliances and light bulbs but one time it was to preview energy conservation service announcements.  I got seriously irked. Particularly at the one that said “everyone should turn down their thermostats to 70 degrees”  as mine was set to 60!  But it did get me to thinking that perhaps those of us that are conservative in whatever behavior hear these messages and feel that we must dial it back even more.  Whether it’s ‘be careful what personal information you put on the Internet’ or ‘everyone should save more’ it would be a good idea to figure out the range of ‘everyone’ before making changes to what you already do.

You should be careful on the Internet, but there’s a big difference between posting your social security number and letting people know that you are a die-hard fan of Big Bird (isn’t everyone?)  Yes, that last could be slightly embarrassing in certain circles, but if you really are a die-hard fan, don’t you owe to yourself to be all that you are?  If you’re holding back because of the potential damage to your personal brand, what about the potential gain?  What if you become the go-to person for Big Bird fans around the world and get interviewed on Oprah, thus sending everyone to your blog so that you become the number one site on the web? It’s definitely not going to happen to the person that is worried about what people might think – either now or in 30 years.

Cautionary advice has its place, but not if you are so far over on the scale that you really need to be taking more risks.

Technorati Tags: being yourself, taking risks

Adventure and treasure hunting

I was more into dinosaurs than pirates as a kid, but I’ve always loved  a good treasure hunt (although not the kind where some adult already knows what and where…)  So ever since I saw the Cash & Treasure episode about Spanish Armada gold on the Florida coast, I’ve been dying to go try my luck and that day has finally arrived, or will next week.  I know that the odds are that my sister and I will come back empty handed, but the possibility exists for anything and everything to the right of that and it’s got me thinking about why adventure is so much fun.

A big part of it is that it’s not quantifiable.  It would be virtually impossible to write a risk analysis or a business plan around treasure hunting.  What would you say?  Projected earnings are between $0 and $5,000,000?  I think there’s a big relief for most people to get away from a plan for a bit, whether that’s with a metal detector or on a hike to a new spot looking for wildflowers. When you don’t know what could happen or what you’ll find, the entire journey is exciting.

By it’s very nature, adventure has a goal (gold and spices in the Far East) and a very hazy road map that quickly gets tossed away for inaccuracy.  So how come when that happens in the other parts of our lives, we get resentful and start turning over rocks looking for that itemized list that will tell us how to get on? Most of us seem to want to be safe and adventurous all at the same time.  However, outside of some theme parks I’ve never heard of that happening.  That doesn’t mean I’m taking off for the beach forever, just that I know that the sense of possibility and excitement that comes with the thought of treasure is one that can come with any risk/goal combination we want to achieve.  If you start with “I won’t find anything” and “it’s not worth trying” then it’s unlikely to fall out of the sky and hit you on the head.

Technorati Tags: adventure, taking risks

Not all advice is created equal

Twice now in the last few weeks I’ve heard Jean Chatzky, the perky financial guru on the Today Show, refer potential entrepreneurs to S.C.O.R.E as the one stop shop for advice on starting a business.  I’ve winced each time and since I’m trying to pay attention to these kinds of repeating signals, here goes.

It’s not that hard to see why she would point people to this organization, it’s free, it’s not affiliated with any company, and it’s national. It’s an easy, seemingly helpful reference. I sought advice there several years ago and would certainly not tell someone not to try it out – it ‘s just that the people I met with and the advice I got was so contrary to getting a business off the ground, I’m still stunned.  It’s one of those organizations that has the best of intentions, but the counselors are retired business people, mostly from large corporations that succeeded by and large by playing it safe and having hit retirement age were even less risk-inclined. Not to mention they had all come from  pre-Internet businesses.  Not only has the world changed but if I’d gotten all the possible liability insurance that was being recommended for a craft business I’d still be saving up.  Insurance is a good thing but it often can’t be in the first year’s budget unless you can’t open without it.  When I looked around I found my same experiences echoed by others which I wish I could have known back then. What I should have done was gone to the street and talked to business owners, but that was scary and making a private appointment seemed a safer way to admit my ignorance.  It was entirely too safe.

My point here isn’t to knock the SCORE organization, it’s just to point out that often the most referenced advice isn’t what you need to hear and you should always go in with a large bag of salt.  I got so scared by the advice I was given I didn’t make any progress for a couple of years; convinced that I had to have all these things in place before I could start selling. Strangely my state tax organization was less conservative!

Whatever kind of challenge you are looking at, keep digging for other, less common resources.  Find the people that match the profile of who you want to be and see where they got advice in the last five years.  And keep peeling away the layers until you find what works. Advice may put more steps in the plan – there’s no good way to avoid medical school if you want to be a doctor, but it shouldn’t blur the pathway so that you can’t see what you need to do to accomplish the goal.  Helpful people are lovely to behold but sometimes become a hindrance.

Technorati Tags: entrepreneurship

What does Universe delivery look like?

I’m not a follower of the molecule-alignment of visualization, but I do believe that you have to put it out there so that your brain and those of your friends are attuned to that particular wavelength -cosmic networking in other words.  I did that about five or six weeks ago when I decided that I needed a treadmill if I’m going to get back on my  (more) healthy exercise patterns. When I went into an office I got a lot of exercise walking from the train and at lunch; now that I’m working from home, the commute doesn’t add up to much.

So I researched models and prices, gasped, then researched used equipment, sighed, checked Craig’s list, groaned over the condition of what was offered and let it go. I built a little stepper out of paving blocks and figured it would come eventually.  Then one morning I passed a free one on my walk through the neighborhood. I thought hard about it but it was also pretty beat up, it looked like it might shake apart and then I’d have to figure out how to get it to the dump. Regretfully I moved on.  Last week my sister told me she’d missed out on one in super clearance with an employee discount to go with it. Oh well.

Yesterday she called me with an offer for a free one from a neighbor. It works. It’s in good condition and it’s now sitting in my living room just waiting for me to get over hauling it up the stairs!

So what’s my point here?

Things do eventually happen but it’s not always the first option that comes your way, or rather it’s worth waiting for the one that meets your minimum criteria (for men and treadmills;-) It also required spreading the word, my sister didn’t know I was looking for one until I mentioned it.  I wasn’t holding out for winning a brand new $5000 machine but I did want one that would hold up and get me moving while feeling safe.  It was worth the wait.

What are you missing to help you achieve an important goal? Have you told anyone?

Technorati Tags: manifesting, visualization

Doing by not doing

Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that dealing with my father’s death has  been a lesson in zen, although he was the least zen-inspired person you could hope to find.  He was against any formal services so instead we had an open house; simply opening the door to those who could come.

Yes, I did make about five phone calls to key people to ask them to spread the word and I did clear off the table tops (so there was room for drinks), brought up homemade wine from the basement, and vacuumed, but that was it. Simply because I knew I wasn’t capable of more and because I had no idea how to go about this kind of event. 

Even though I’ve heard the phrase ‘doing by not doing’ and been open to the experience, I’ve never really had a personal example to point to , an a-ha moment until this one; by not doing more, more was received.  Tables were laden with unsolicited food just right for the event and the rooms were full of people that had come from as far as two states away to pay their respects. The flowers that were delivered were just enough to decorate for the party but not make it seem like a funeral home. People arrived early and stayed late and helped out where help was needed while good stories were told. There were no speeches or preaching which was what my father hated the most.

I and others could have planned and slaved for three weeks and not created anything more appropriate. It was an event run on intuition and I can only hope that the valuable lesson will carry forward to other things.

Technorati Tags: doing less, going with the flow, thinking isn't doing

The five hidden dangers of feedback statistics

Although I think grades and test scores have a valid place, I sometimes wonder if we don’t get so used to that mentality in school that we never let go of it in adulthood. It seems like there are a huge variety of places to see our progress or self-perception reflected in the ‘grade’ of salary and raises (or not), reviews, conversations, web site statistics, etc. While these can be valuable indicators, relying on them too strongly over your intuition may keep you from where you want to be. Sometimes relying on your own judgment is required over the perceptions of others and it’s one of the advantages of growing up! Here are five things to be aware of when looking at feedback, whichever form you are either exposed to or seek out:

1. Despite the numerous analogies out there, life isn’t baseball. There’s no specific calendar to know when you can definitively judge the feedback as to when something was good, great, or a waste of time. You might do a favor for someone and not realize until ten years later what it meant to them but because they are still talking about it, you now see just how much it meant. Or this blog – when I post this, if nobody reads it the first day does that mean it’s not of interest? What about the following week? What if 100 people read it the first day but nobody after that? Watching statistics too minutely is unlikely to provide realistic data in the long term.

2. You don’t know what you don’t know about. If someone praises you to your boss while that boss is frantically looking for the presentation that was supposed to start five minutes ago, what are the odds that you’ll ever hear about it? Exactly. Bloggers that check Google stats daily (or more often) because they’re attaching self worth to those numbers only know about the readers that permit cookies or leave comments; the rest are invisible, but not unimportant.

3. The smaller and less varied the sample the less accurate the data is generally. It’s the whole ‘six out of seven doctors surveyed’ ad campaign. Was that seven doctors down the hall from the marketing department or 70,000 personal interviews? If your boss says the majority of your customers are happy/unhappy with your performance, it does make a difference how many customers you have. If that number is very small it doesn’t make the existing ones less important but that feedback may not apply beyond that small group  to the next set of customers you work with.

4. Feedback is more likely to come from those that feel invested, thereby skewing the statistics. I find blogging to be fascinating to watch because it is a constantly changing social experiment. What I’ve noticed lately is that the majority of comments on my other blog are coming from people, organizations or competing organizations that were mentioned in the post. They are all more invested in what I’m saying and how it’s perceived than general readers. If you aren’t a great cook, that’s much more likely to come up in conversation if you invite friends over for dinner (invested) than if you mention to them what you made for dinner last night (not invested.)

5. People don’t read directions. Whether it’s a ranking survey (1-10) or an assessment someone is going to provide different information than was requested because they misread that 10 was excellent or a valid email address is required. Going back up to point number 3 that can change the feedback you see significantly. If you base your feelings or your actions purely on that feedback you could  inadvertently head down the wrong path.

Technorati Tags: intuition

Are you happy now? How about now?

I’m starting to wonder if we aren’t all focusing a little too hard on happiness or rather the lack thereof.  I passed several blog references yesterday to a new iPhone app/survey that will ping you with interview questions regarding your current state of happiness in an effort to figure out when and what makes you the happiest.

For one thing I can’t imagine anything much more annoying and more importantly it’s beginning to remind me of the American obesity ‘crisis’.  It’s a real medical and cultural problem but the more media attention and group hand wringing that occurs the worse it gets.  There’s been a Presidential Council on Physical Fitness acknowledging the issue of children and exercise since 1956!  The only impact it seems to have is a few torturous days in gym class when it’s publicly acknowledged who can or can’t do a chin-up.  Obviously that’s not working all that well so why expand the same process to other areas?

Maybe the manifestation gurus have something when they say that focusing on the problem just brings more of it.  If you constantly focus on the lack of complete happiness what are the odds that you will bring more of a sense of incompleteness to your life? It seems to me that what makes us happy changes all the time anyway.

What to do?

Instead of constantly assessing your happiness level or giving up and living with unhappiness, what about looking for the happiness and joy in whatever is going on?  I don’t love taking out the garbage but I think it’s pretty cool to live in a part of the world where garbage collection happens and in a town that hasn’t had a garbage strike. It also makes me happy to check off another chore for the week.

I think it’s also important to know that happiness and problems aren’t mutually exclusive.  Kids can be happy in a homeless shelter (maybe not long term but they know how to enjoy something fun in the moment) and adults can be happy while struggling with divorce or unemployment or anything else that life throws their way.

So what are you happy about right now?

Technorati Tags: how to be happy

People want to help – Let them!

For a variety of reasons, we all seem to be better at giving than receiving when it comes to help and assistance. It seems to get worse with age and I’ve watched people I care about endanger their health because they save asking as a last resort.  Maybe we can become better spontaneous givers if we practice asking for help ourselves. Here are three articles that discuss this and offer solutions to gain a better balance.  Are you guilty of being more of a doer?

How to Accept Help and Generosity in Your Life

The Challenge of Accepting Help

Accepting Help

Technorati Tags: accepting help, balance

How to make your own rules

Not that I hang on to these things or anything, but I still vividly remember an incident at an involuntary school book club I was part of in fourth or fifth grade. There were probably eight or nine girls with discussion led by a parent volunteer. One week we gathered in the hallway outside the classrooms as usual, only it turned out that I was the only one that had read the book, including the leader.  So she discussed other things, unrelated to the book.  It was news to me that not reading the book was an option and I was a little put out that my efforts had been pointless.  Like any kid armed with a new set of rules, I tested them.  I don’t know if it was the very next book or the one after but not  too much time passed before I tried the whole ‘I just couldn’t get into it’  excuse.  Only I was the only one that didn’t read the book that week.  It turned out that you definitely need a quorum for this kind of move in grade school; not only was I outnumbered but I wasn’t allowed to forget it either.

In one way or another, most of us have had experiences like this that urge us towards socially acceptable middle of the road conformity. Usually that means other people are happy instead of us, because they aren’t the ones having to adjust.  I suppose there are thousands of people out there living this kind of life with little interest in changing, but I haven’t met any of them personally. So how do you go about making rules for yourself and sticking to them?

1. First off, evaluate how many rules govern your life. You can start by making a list of all the rules you follow that you can think of and then divide them into health and safety, morals, and everything else.  Not all rules are bad and in my book, stopping at a red traffic light is not negotiable and I’d really prefer it if everyone continued to wear clothing in public; those that want to fight that kind of rule are usually more interested in being angry than achieving a happily balanced life.  That said, the impact of slicing the fruits and vegetables lengthwise versus widthwise has absolutely no known consequences.
2. Think about what it is that you want to achieve and why you haven’t yet – somewhere in there are the most crucial rules of all – it may be that you have a rule that children should grow up near their grandparents so you can’t move to the beach, or that only skinny or young people can date so you’re off the market until you achieve some monumental fitness goal or achieve reincarnation.
3. Look at the consequences of breaking any of your rules. If you wear white shoes after Labor Day, what will happen?  And is that dire enough to keep the rule or consider modifying it? If it means your mother will never speak to you again, are you sure about that? Or does that really mean that there’s going to be an extended argument that you’d just as soon avoid? If your avoidance costs you what you want, is it worth it?  What can you start eliminating or modifying to help achieve those goals?  Can you call instead of sending a card or dare to go to work without makeup?  Can you move to the beach and setup web cams for the grandparents?
4. With your goals in mind, think about what brand new rules you need to accomplish them, not just the ones that need to be broken or modified.  Maybe it’s a rule that writing has to happen before the dishes get done, or that you can ‘only’ have a part-time job until you finish that graduate degree. As long as they’re not rules for the sake of having rules, they should help you get there.
5. Be resolved – for every person that has changed the rules about what a portrait looks like, how food should taste, or anything else there are usually at least nine people trying to drag them back to the social norm for every one person that says ‘cool!’ If they’re your rules, they need to be rules not resolutions or suggestions. Don’t let the book club push you around;-)

Technorati Tags: breaking rules, creating rules, doing what you love, gain self confidence, transitions

Whatever happened to moderation?

I’m starting to think we’re turning into a generation of obsessive-compulsive worriers. Or at least the news media is doing its best to make that happen.  This morning I saw the fourth or fifth segment so far this summer on skin cancer with the recommendation that women apply sunscreen to their face and body and then makeup with sunscreen in it over that, cars should have tinted windows and you shouldn’t pick the window seat on an airplane.  While it’s true that skin cancer rates have risen for White people in the U.S., death rates have not.  And if you’re any other race there have been no statistical changes in detection or death. That’s not me talking, it’s the CDC. Isn’t anybody questioning what damage all these chemicals applied daily and avoidance are doing compared to some sun exposure? There are studies in progress that suggest a link between low sun exposure and developing MS. When it comes down to it, skin cancer is a lot easier to catch and treat. I’m not inclined to sit out and bake and I try to get sunscreen on for long days outside or at the beach. That seems to me to be the approach that feels right – I’ll take the risk that driving to the grocery store with untreated skin (and no makeup!) might backfire on me someday. My instinct says doing anything else would be more dangerous.

Whatever happened to preaching moderation? I guess it’s harder for the newscasters to look anxious while talking about not going to extremes. However, I think we all might have been healthier, mentally and physically, before we started competing for who can live the longest. All this worry can’t be good for us – is the goal to make it to 100 without skin cancer or to 98 without an ulcer?

Technorati Tags: balance, perspective

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