Liz Archives - Page 3 of 10

Roadblocks and Breakdowns — Waste Energy or Have Fun?

February 7, 2008 by Liz

When Your World Goes Down

Yesterday and today, my usual means of connecting isn’t working. . . .

It’s a moment to think about what we do when things go wrong. A first response is to think what we’ve lost. It’s too bad some folks never get to what they’ve gained. When the world isn’t behaving, we get to pick waste energy or do something fun.

Five years from now will anyone care? Most of our daily disasters are fairly boring five minutes or five days after they’re gone. Seems a waste to put too much energy in something that won’t matter that far on. I’d rather do something else.
Do you have any control? Whether it’s the horrible traffic you’re stuck in or the electrical blackout caused by the storm, seems a waste to invest in talking about things we think should be going on. This is free time I hadn’t planned on having!
Could it be an opportunity in disguise? When a plan goes awry is something we’ve always wished we had time to do? Why waste an opportunity to think about or do whatever I want?

With a slight shift, an upset can become an adventure. . . . and adventures are way more fun.

What do you do when your world doesn’t behave?

Be irresistible,
ME “Liz” Strauss

Change the World: One Choice Decides

January 15, 2008 by Liz

Go On and Do That

Ever watch someone building a dream? Ever wonder about building a dream and catch yourself thinking, I wish I was meant to do that?

Why would some people get to have their dreams and other people have to go without?

It can’t be luck. It can’t be money. It sure can’t be smarts. Look around. Those things don’t decide who gets what.

How would a universe choose which stars get to shine and which don’t?

Is it that some people know their dreams? Deep in our hearts, don’t we all? We did when we small enough to still dream big, giant dreams. It’s in ourselves. It’s in our hearts. We know.

Ourselves. What’s so scary about going after a dream? Is it the self in ourselves? Is that the question, the word, that stops us from being who we are? We can’t be ourselves because of our self?

Self-directed doesn’t mean self-serving. Self-determined isn’t self-absorbed. It isn’t selfish or self-centered to be who we are.

Truth is, we give our self to a dream.

What’s the difference between the person who changes a dream into reality and the person who looks on?

One changes the world.

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

Change the World: See the Light, See the Promise

December 24, 2007 by Liz

Seeing What’s Inside

Every year at Christmas, my mother had her own tradition. She began buying gifts and wrapping them long before other folks even thought of such things. It was efficient. It was productive. It allowed her to wrap up the gifts in the same careful way that I choose my words every morning.

Gosh, the presents! They were large and small! They were tiny and incredible. They were many, and they were for so many. They sat under a tree that was decorated with such care that I realize now it must be the reason that I spend hours rearranging word that I write until they’re in order.

Under that tree and piled through the large room as proof that my mom had found a reason to return every favor, and every smile she had received. Each gift was wrapped more beautifully than the one before. The bows were crafted and carefully chosen.

The part of the tradition seems only my mother’s was that she waited until Christmas Eve to put names on the presents. Until then, every present only had a tiny number. She said that it was that we wouldn’t shake the gifts with our names and be tempted to open them early. But the result was that those little numbers filled my imagination with wonder.

You see, I didn’t sort the boxes into theirs and mine. I only saw the abundance and the promise of good surprises.

And it made me think about what could be inside the boxes. I could see them shining inside.

Imagine if we look at people — the ones we love, the ones we know, the ones we’ve not met — the same way.

Gosh, the abundance and the good surprises inside each of us! See the light? See the promise? Our light shines when we shine on them.

See the gift they are. Be the gift you are. It makes us glow from the inside out.

Thank you for the abundance and surprises you are to me.

I’m a very lucky girl.

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

Change the World: Think Our Way Out of the Box

November 23, 2007 by Liz

We Make Our Reality

It’s only sensible that we make our reality. What we perceive comes through the filter of what we have experienced before.

When I used go home to visit my family for holidays, every trip was a stress. I felt they didn’t see me.

Families have a way of bringing us back to our “role” in the group dynamic. I would return telling people how my siblings thought I was still 12 years old. I thought they were self-centered in doing this.

Couldn’t have been me? Could it?

Silly me. It sure was all my own doing. I thought they put me in a box, but I was finding that box and crawling right into all by myself. Sometimes the roles we play in a group dynamic are so comfortable, so much easier than being fully present. We gravitate to old roles without being aware that we’re choosing them, and then we decide that it’s something that other folks are deciding for us.

Head and heart, when all of our parts are connected together. That’s when we really have a soul. That’s when we know how to listen — to ourselves and others. Our cells resonate with the sound of life like drops in that pool.

We imagine other people in our own image and likeness. When we guess what they’re thinking we’re really imagining what we, ourselves, might think were we them.

So why not imagine them thinking we’re a fabulous success? It’s within our power to think our way out of that old box.

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

Change the World: It’s Millionaire Day!

November 20, 2007 by Liz

Feel Rich and Appreciated

When I lived in Austin, I worked for a company that had a strict matrix for how merit performance increases were allowed. To say that in plain English, in an effort to be fair — or was it to control the budget? — the company had a chart showing how monetary increases would be “done fairly.”

I don’t remember the exact merit increase chart, but the matrix chart only allowed for 10% of the staff to receive increases above the rising cost of inflation.

This chart was problem.

Editors had a lot to say about the words chosen to describe performance — outstanding, good, adequate, and poor. Even more, though, was the problem of an entire team that was performing in an outstanding fashion all being limited to a raise of about 4-5%, when inflation was at least half of that.

So I did what I could to provide other incentives. . . . tweaked the atmosphere, found days they might take off . . . to pay them in other ways.

About a mile from our office was a small store with a glass counter. Behind the glass, the shelves displayed expensive Belgian chocolates. If you’ve a taste for chocolate, if you’re a connoisseur — read that as a chocolate snob — as I am, this 6 foot counter could entertain and amaze for well into an hour. One chocolate, in particular, became a favorite with my team.

This delicacy was made both in milk chocolate and dark chocolate versions, each filled with praline. One piece was 1.25 x .5 x .5 in size and was shaped like a US Dollar sign — $ . That was the hit! A single chocolate dollar sign sold at an exchange rate equivalent to that of the Australian dollar at the time.

I would buy those chocolate dollar signs, and we’d have an emergerency team meeting. An official announcement would state that we had once again become millionaires in the chocolate lottery. Then we’d spend 30 minutes or so eating one luxury chocolate a piece.

It was a ritual. It was a game. It was the best time and a way of saying what needed saying.

And our moods and minds changed. We stood taller, smiled more, and were more generous toward each other We also laughed. We were millionaires for the day. One piece of chocolate made that difference.

I can’t give you the chocolate. So I told you the story.

I hope you can imagine it, because I’m declaring, “We’re All Millionaires Today!”

We have a million in the bank and a few million invested. Millions of friends love each of us, and millions of readers and customers love what we do.

A little millionaire thinking really can make a difference. . . . Will you be a millionaire today?

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

Change the World: Put Yourself in Your Work

November 14, 2007 by Liz

It Makes a Difference to Know

Yesterday I was in a business meeting with some spectacular human beings who own a digital animation company. We had reached that point at which our conversation turned to contracts and a formal relationship about the work that we would do together.

As we spoke of who, how, what, and how much, one young man excused him and left. He’d gone to find a single sheet of paper and copied it several times. Upon his return, he handed a copy to each of us still in the room, including members of his own team. This is an excerpt from the letter be brought.

My 71 year old father has stage IV pancreatic cancer . . . He is in his third week of taking part in a clinical trial using Rexin G.

Viewing your animation helped me understand his cancer treatment. . . . I’ve been praying for cures for the many types of cancer for years. I never imagined that my own father would develop the terrible disease. My Dad is hopeful and so am I . . .

Thank you for your part in helping us to understand this complicated treatment.

The letter made us all stop. I think I heard every voice in the room whisper, “Wow!” Each person handled the page with reverence and care for the person who wrote. I’m sure it slightly changed our perspective on what we already knew was a good and right relationship to something more.

The writer had sent a piece of herself in the spaces between her words. She said, “You made a difference in my life.”

That page was proof. One man had put heart in his work and that gift had changed a stranger’s life.

Just the thought is stunning.

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