Motivation Archives - Page 114 of 146

Believing Dots

August 12, 2007 by Liz

Connecting dots with The Idea Dude

Earlier this week, Liz was thinking about the sound of words. It got be me thinking too, how words are affect our hearts, moods and minds. Take for example.

Adversity The word is ominous, like an unscalable mountain.

Stephen blogs about facing adversity with examples from his own life. Sometimes adversity is real, other times, it is a perceived position we choose to take in our minds. Stephen talks about our debilitating habit of comparing ourselves to others and how it makes us feel small. It did not feel good. That’s exactly what your ego wants you to feel. He chides himself for that temporary weakness by recognizing, that each and every one of us is exactly where we are supposed to be, right now at this very moment. (If you love his attitude to life, you’ll love his story on self-acceptance.)

Liz looks at it in a very similar way when she says, Itâ€™s the knowing that Iâ€™m going in the right direction that counts. . . . Who do I want to be? was where my focus belonged. Being true to myself suddenly became easy. Believing in ourselves is the beginning.

Sometimes an adversity is just a setback.

Tony tells us the best weapon against setbacks is momentum. It’s about taking responsibility, picking youself up and saving yourself. Tony is smart (btw, he also draws terrific cartoons). Hmm, if we view any adversity as a temporary setback instead of a failure, we have hope. Hope is belief in the future.

Responsibility

Being responsible for our own setbacks is something Terry wrote to himself when he was faced with an untenable situation. On that particular day I decided to take control of my life. . . . From that point, I can imagine Terry felt more like the master of his destiny than a victim of circumstance. It made him believe in himself and his says, I still believe.

Hope

April coined a very interesting word, Opi. It means future you. It’s a wonderful concept, she says it’s writing about your future in the present tense. To me, it’s about focusing on everything you could be despite where you are today. It’s about setting your own ceiling.

Terry is a terrific singer. To all this week’s dots, I’ll leave you with these words that Terry sang at SOBCon, I hope you don’t mind that I put down in words. How wonderful life is while you’re in the world. . . . It’s for people like you that keep it turned on.

Terry, I believe too!

May the dots be with you!

Vern, The Idea Dude

Connecting dots at TheGoodBlogs

Keeping Track of Our Love

August 11, 2007 by Liz

how some folks keep track.

Recently my son and I were talking about people who try to use quantitave measures of affection. They keep track of what we do — how often we visit, how long we stay, whether we live up to an “ideal.” People who do that compare one person’s “performance” to that of another. Then a decision is reached about who gives most love.

My son and I noticed how one person often wants to pay for the simplest favor. We both agree that not only do we not wish payment, but the offer makes us no longer enjoy the generosity of being able to help.

How do you teach someone love cannot be measured in time or length of stay? How do you help sad people let go — to put their money away?

Love needs freedom to in to fill the empty place.

The Sound of Words

August 10, 2007 by Liz

about the words inside my head.

If I were born deaf, would they be there?

I might care even more about words than the average writer. I don’t care as much about typographical errors. I try to wrestle errors down when I am able, but it’s the words and how they fit together that turn me on. . . . I like the way they look on the screen and on paper. I like the way they sound in my head as I think them.

I think about what individual words mean. Words like know, understand, comprehend — I spend time deciding which one to use. Sometimes I go for the musical ones — despicable sounds like a drummer drumming, sincerity sounds a tango is ready to begin.

I keep a Special Categoy, a healing place, for the words that need their meaning back . . . Most have suffered the torture of being locked onto holiday cards. peace, joy, compassion. forgiveness, joy. greetings, good will

Words connect us and with the sound of voices. We use them to seal our pacts. I do. I love you. I promise. All of those are more than words.

Words explain what we do and who we are.

Love, hope, destiny, conversation, imagination, creativity, freedom. understanding, faith, brave kind

We are so hungry to be heard. We sometimes talk about anything.

Sometimes people listen to the words we say.

I read that. . . . People born deaf have no words. If they learn sign thatâ€™s the language of how they think. The signs are their words. They even sign in their sleep.

I don’t suppose people born deaf feel brave or alone without words inside their heads. Yet I imagine they still have the same wish to be heard.

Brave and vulnerable is what it takes to stand tall when so many people can’t stop to listen to our most important words.

What happens to our words when we forget to listen?

Personal Integrity: Sometimes a List Is Just a List

August 9, 2007 by Liz

This is an invitation for a conversation on personal integrity and how we, as humans, interact. In this case, I’m having what might be called an examination of conscience.

Every person comes to his or her own views on religion and politics. I respect and honor those. I’d like to keep this conversation focused on the personal and the individual, not the national or international. Conversations on political or social problems are better and more deeply thought through in places other than on this blog in a single blog post. Please note that contributions that obviously belong in those other discussions will be not be posted here.

I need space to be understood and offer that personal space to the people I meet. If you are new or a long-time commenter, please feel welcome to discuss your views on the problem below. I truly would appreciate your wisdom and counsel.

There is, as always, only one rule here: Be nice.

personal integrity.

Last night, I put up a list of Women Bloggers. People have every right to question my doing that. I did too. I still am. It’s a matter of personal integrity.

I don’t speak a great deal about link lists on my blog, but it’s not hard to know my feelings about link lists that were made to boost rankings or game the system. So why did this one elicit a different response from me?

Did I cross my own line? Was I seduced by unconscious peer pressure? Was my reasoning really just a rationalization? Or was I being the complicated person I am? Humans are nothing if not complicated beings.

Too much information makes this problem bigger than I am. Yet I think it’s worth exploring, because we face dilemmas of this nature every day. What contributes to such decisions, I wonder?

Here’s what I know unequivocably.

As I begin writing, I don’t know for sure why I made the list.

I do know this. I invested close to 3 hours putting my part of the list together, despite the fact I worried about the people I would leave out. I find the list a resource because sometimes a woman’s point of view is what’s needed. Last night proved that I don’t know enough of them. Even now two blogs come to mind that I wish I had remembered to include.

When I first saw the W-List, my plan was to say “thank you and move on.” Sometime last night that plan changed. Several factors might have influenced such decisions come to be. Here are the influences and the questions those raise for me as I look back.

Who I am as a person — I am an individual who creates my own path. I don’t feel I’ve be obstructed unfairly — Was it link love or a sell out?
My history — I grew up with brothers in an all boys’ neighborhood. Don’t you dare say I throw like a girl — Was I honoring women or leaving out men?
I was on the list — Was it ego or gratitude?
New versions of the list were coming up, always with new content added by the blogger who offered it — Was it appreciation or peer pressure?
The fact that I was surprised by the number of great blogs I had not seen before — Was it guilt or a wish to share?

Who knows what other factors might have been an unconscious part? I went back to my “Dear Emperor” post this morning. I can say I passed the test that I set.

As they say in the world of law, we might be able to prove possible motive, but we cannot ever know someone else’s intent. I’m finding now it’s not that easy even to know my own every time.

At the end of writing this . . . it’s been close to two hours and then, I’ve taken out 60% of what I wrote . . . but I know more. I state it calmly and gently here with my head and my heart.

I celebrate the women bloggers on the list. By giving to them, I take nothing from the men I esteem. I only wish I had taken the time to celebrate the men too.

As a child I knew, sometimes my parents celebrated one of their children without mentioned the other two. Yet each of one of us was always their favorite.

One lesson that I have always had trouble with is that when I’m not included it’s rarely about me. (And when I am, that’s usually not about me either.)

Sometimes is just a list.

Gosh, thanks for listening. Feel free to disagree.

As a following note: Before I leave, I’d like to mention that I don’t believe much in fate or omens, but I do enjoy delicious irony and blogger synchronicity. When I awoke I found these. Brief Case Study: Liz Strauss appreciating readers on Successful Blog through comments and through encouragement awards and Now, Make me feel important! who pointed me to The W (and M) List – Promoting Quality Bloggers

Change the World: Let Them Discover

August 7, 2007 by Liz

It’s about Them

It happens something like this. I meet a person who intrigues me. I rush in where the proverbial fool would fear to go. I want that person to see my value. I put it out there. I don’t realize that my thinking is all about me.

“Look at me behavior” is what I call it. The subtext of what I do is something like “I want you to see what I know, think, understand, have accomplished. I want you to see how worthy I am. I want you to see me.

The irony is that whenever I make things about me, it’s not me who shows up to tell the story.

I end up saying things in ways that aren’t my way of saying them. I hear myself handing over my weaknessess as I tout my strengths.

When I am lucky, when I have my wits about me and my heart in the right, relevant place, I know that the other person doesn’t know or even suspect. I’m only ludicrous facts that I’m spouting without context.

It’s so silly, We all know that folks discover the things they need to know.

When I choose to trust the person I’m talking to, I find that the right parts of me show through — without effort, within the bigger story of who I am. I find that my defensive self promotion falls away like water falling down a moutatin cliff.

When I trust in the thoughts of others, I am who I am.

When I trust the thoughts and humanity of others, the rest happens rightly more often than not. It’s so much easier to let them discover wht I am.

We can change the world — just like that.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

Leading Dots

August 5, 2007 by Liz

Connecting dots with The Idea Dude

I used to think looking good was something you only had to do during a business presentation. Beyond that, my work and talent would take care of my reputation. Many years ago, I read Tom Jeary’s Life is a series of presentations. He said Whether you are talking to a soccer coach or potential client, the way you present your thoughts and ideas to people have a profound effect on the shape of your life..

I felt like someone poured a bucket of ice-cold water over me. I learnt to value each individual who stood before me and take the time to be nice. I don’t always succeed and sometimes under duress or tiredness I walk away from a conversation wishing I did better. But it became part of my DNA. To be deliberate in the experience I wanted to leave with the person I was interacting with.

The first dot that went blink, blink, blink in my head the whole week was Anna’s. Anna blogs about business leadership and has many terrific things to say. But the thing that made her dot blink for me was her tagline right at the top of her blog. People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. I’m willing to bet that if you met Anna, she would be one of the 10 people you would never forget even if your paths never crossed again.

Dot #2. It reminded me what Liz said about being good and nice.
Being good at what you do is important, but a strong personal identity includes both good and easy to work with.
Sometimes when we’re good or hold positions of authority, we forget to be nice. It’s not only a business rule, it’s a life rule.

In fact, if I recall, it is the ONLY rule that Liz has on her blog.

Speaking of personal brand, what I found most interesting is that the people who were clearly leaders and had a profound effect on me had a common attribute.

They led by serving.

What a paradox! or is it? You’re the people I trust and the people I serve., Liz says in her post this week

I’ll never forget in all my years in business, the companies I wanted to work with were those who asked me the question at the end of the meeting (even though they were 10 times bigger than we were).

So how may I be of service to you?

Let me take you to another favorite dot of mine, his name is Drew. Drew is an extremely smart person and very well-read in the blogosphere. He’s take on how to write an outstanding blog post?? It’s all about you. It is that humility and generosity that makes Drew compelling.

This particular journey would not be complete without stopping to visit Steve. The title of his Greater than yourself mashup series already defines who he is as a blogger and thought leader. The one sentence in his blog that resonated the most with me?

I have to give of myself before I expand myself.

I was reminded of one of my kids’s favorite jokes. How do fit a an elephant into a matchbox? Take out the matches!

As Liz would say, make room for the conversation.

May the dots be with you!

Vern, The Idea Dude

Connecting dots at TheGoodBlogs