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Change the World: Start a New Job

June 25, 2007 by Liz

Change My Job with a Thought

Ever hear someone talk about a brand new job? Whenever I do, it takes be back to those nice first day of school feelings.

Life seems light. The world is fresh. Even the kids that that we knew from last year start to look and act better. Everything is new beginnings — new desk, new paper, new pens, new problems to solve, new ways to solve them, a chance to see what I can do. New jobs are like that.

I bring myself back from the new job fantasy by recalling how long it takes to get familiar in a new place. Every new job takes time to learn the culture, the people, and how to get things done when I need to. That’s a lot to give up once you’ve gotten there.

New beginnings are wonderful and fresh, but being around a while offers the relationships, credibility, and support of a familiar place. I want the values of both without lose the downside of each.

I wanted that enough that I figured out how to make it happen. The trick is to blend the old and the new together.

All it took was a change in the way that I see.

Today, I start a new job, doing the job that I did last week. I let go. I wipe the slate clean. I imagine that I inherited this busy desk from the busy person before me. It’s a good feeling to put that distance between now and Friday.

All of the tasks on this desk held no romance for the person who sat here on Friday. But the new me walks into this job looking at them as filled with promise and so exciting.

Thoughts of someone who isn’t delivering turn from an ongoing headache into the challenge and opportunity that a fresh mind sees. That situation has just become information the person previously in this job shared before leaving. It’s simply a fact on my radar that has no past feelings attached to it. The problem solver in me knows that I’m more than ready to smile into a new approach.

A clean slate is like the first day of school filled with new beginnings– new desk, new paper, new pen, new problems to solve, new ways to solve them, a chance to see what I can do. I take a new look and my old job becomes new like that too.

The people I work with notice that I’ve got a new outlook and soon they have one too.

I’m taking a new job to work with me today. I can feel it already.

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

Bloggy Question 54: This Conversation Is NOT Bloggable

June 24, 2007 by Liz

Can’t I Talk to Bloggers Anymore?

For those who come looking for a short, thoughtful read, a blogging life discussion, or a way to gradually ease back into the week. I offer this bloggy life question. . . .

You travel a lot and occasionally meet up with a blogger in the city where you are. The conversation and the company are always worth what little it might take to get across town to get together.

Last night was an event. This time you met not one, but three bloggers you read. Dinner was at a beautiful restaurant. Everyone sure hit it off. The conversation went from mutual blogging friends to ideas about what folks might do to improve their blogging style.

As always, pictures were taken and blogger hugs given. It seemed a perfect evening complete with the champagne toast at the end. You wrote up your experience and uploaded two photographs. Then you did some work and went to sleep before an early client meeting.

You didn’t get a chance to read the blogs of the folks you dined with until after 5pm the next day. The first was a great reminder of the fun, as was the second. The third, however, was a critique of the entire dinner. That blogger trashed the restaurant, the service, the food, you and your other new-found blogger friends. Exact quotes, taken out of context, had been and used in the blog post. The quotes were word-for-word accurate, but as they stood they sounded mean and petty, not they way they were said or intended.

The blogger who wrote the critique says that the event was fun and funny. But the remarks he makes are snarky — fully at your expense and that of the other two at dinner. You’ve never seen this sort of behavior before . . . from him or from anyone.

The post has been up for 8 hours and there are no comments.

You check your own post. Some cold “thank yous” are there — from folks not mentioned in your post, but mentioned in the quotes taken out of context in the other blogger’s recap.

How do you respond?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Series: The Enneagram – a Brief Introduction

June 24, 2007 by Liz

Enneagram Series by Mark McGuinness

I’m pleased to announce that over the next two weeks, we’ll be featuring a series — a sneak peek at an upcoming eBook!! — on the Enneagram. The series is written by Mark McGuinness of Wishful Thinking, a specialist coaching and training service for creative businesses such as design studios, ad agencies, film and TV production companies, computer games developers, architectÃ¢â¬â¢s practices and fashion designers. Mark studied the Enneagram as part of his training as a psychotherapist. He has used it for his own personal development and in his work with individuals, families, and organizations.

The series appear over the next two weeks. The six articles will be posted in the evenings between 5-6pm CDT on the following schedule.

Monday, June 25: What is the Enneagram and Why Should You Care?

Wednesday, June 27: The Heart Types

Thursday, June 28: The Head Types

Monday, July 2: The Body Types

Wednesday, July 4: Using the Enneagram Ã¢â¬â Working on Yourself

Thursday, July 5: Using the Enneagram Ã¢â¬â Working with Others

The Enneagram Names

This illustration and the others in the series produced by Sandy Renshaw.

Besure to drop by this week and next to check it out. It’s been weeks in the making and worth every minute. Thank you, Mark!

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Great Find: Five Things I Learned from Blog Comics

June 24, 2007 by Liz

It’s More than Reading the Funnies

Doing research for another post, I came across this one.

Great Find: 5 Things I learned From These Hilarious Blog Comics by Siziopedia

Permalink: http://www.sizlopedia.com/2007/06/24/5-things-i-learned-from-these-hilarious-blog-comics/#more-453

Target Audience: anyone who knows a blogs

Content: This article describes blogging made using blog comics as the talking points. The commentary is right on the experience of blogging. Click the comic below to read the article.

It’s short, sweet, and funny.

What more could you want for a Sunday afternoon?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Our Misbehaviors

June 24, 2007 by Liz

noticing people’s faults.

Usually when I see something someone does, a misbehavior that causes hurt, I look for my own version of that kind of thing. Then I think Here’s what I do to try to avoid doing that stuff. I hope that person figures out a similar solution. It doesn’t cross my mind that I’m making an assumption or two when I do that.

One simple sentence, not my own, brings me back. Hopefully, writing down this quote will etch it in my neuropaths.

When I criticize a person I assume he has a choice. I Touch the Earth, the Earth Touches Me a journal by Hugh Prather.

People have reasons for their behavior. I’m not fair when I assume I know what their reasons are. It’s not good to try to read people’s minds. I get it wrong more often than not, when I try to. Trying to read people’s minds is a misbehavior of mine. Go figure.

I don’t think I’d make a good juror. OR Does that mean that I would?

I find the whole thought hard to unravel.

Thanks to Week 87 SOBs

June 23, 2007 by Liz

Successful and Outstanding Bloggers

Let me introduce the bloggers
who have earned this official badge of achievement,

and the right to call themselves
Successful Blog SOBs.

I invite them to take a badge home to display on their blogs.

They take the conversation to their readers,
contribute great ideas, challenge us, make us better, and make our businesses stronger.

I thank every one of our SOBs for thinking what we say is worth passing on.
Good conversation shared can only improve the blogging community.

Should anyone question this SOB button’s validity, send him or her directly to me. This award comes with a full “Liz said so” guarantee. It is endorsed by Kings of the Hemispheres, Martin and Michael, and backed by my brothers, Angelo and Pasquale.

Want to become an SOB?

If you’re an SO-Wanna-B, you can see the whole list of SOBs and learn how to be one by visiting the SOB Hall of Fame. Click the link or visit the What IS an SOB?! page in the sidebar.

–ME “Liz” Strauss