Successful Blog

Change the World: Swear Off Slaying Kittens

by

Dragonslayer

Change the World!

When I was a young manager, I didn’t know it but, I saw myself as a knight in shining armor. I had decided that rather than look to my boss for approval, I would look out my people. I would be their champion.

When a person on my team came to me with a problem, I would immediately want to make that problem be gone. I would listen in depth to the story and talk with the person about strategy on how to handle it.

Sometimes the best strategy would be for me to step in. Defusing problems became removing road blocks and slaying dragons. Not the best way to look at things.

Armed with sword of the story that I’d been told, I would head over, up, or down to the location of the other people involved to meet about the issue. Sometimes the meeting would include the person who brought me the problem. Sometimes it would be a meeting between me and my counterpart in another department.

The meeting would happen. I would lay out the “facts” as I had been told them in the fewest words from beginning to end, and when I was finished. I would have slayed the dragon.

All too often that would be when manager peer would tell me the other side of the story and I would look down to see a slain kitten.

These days, when I hear a story of how someone has been wronged. I listen so carefully. I put myself in that person’s shoes. I think and feel as I were the person talking. Then I do what I might to get the other side of the story. I look for innocence, compassion, and forgiveness enough to give to both sides.

I’ve sworn off slaying kittens.

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

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If you’re ready to change the world, send me your thoughts in a guest post. Feel free to take the gorgeous Change the World image up there that Sandy designed back to your blog. Or help yourself to this one.

Change the World!.

Email me about what you’re doing or what we might do. Let’s change the world one bit at a time together. Together it can’t take forever.

Change the World: Believe in a Dream

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It’s Hard to Believe

Change the World!

I once worked for a woman who believed that if you got great grades at university you went to an easy school.

Every choice she made included taking the hard way. Somewhere in her thinking was a fear of being accused of taking the easy way. Even when the “easy way” was the most efficient, the smartest way, the best ROI for the company, this vice president had to be convinced every way to Sunday that it wasn’t a way to get out of doing the hard work that “should be” done.

This same person didn’t suffer dreamers. Dreams were for sleeping and children playing games of imagination. Sadly, she had been trained as a teacher. She taught me discipline with the details — I’ve lost some of it since. She taught me patience.

She taught me that some people can never make a dream happen. . . . because they think dreams aren’t real and they think being a dreamer is easy.

Dreams, hopes, goals are within our reach.

Why is that so hard for us to believe?

We can believe that the other guy will win, but not us. He will be the President, the rock star, the artist. She will be the CEO, the actor, the international lawyer. But it never crosses our mind to aspire to that path.

Have the big kids taken so much and told so much that they’ve wiped the stars from our eyes?

Believing in a dream is hard. Look at me. Go ahead, tell me I don’t know.

Believing in a dream is hard, because it’s saying out loud, “Here’s what I’m going for.”

Everyone knows it’s way easier to sit right here and say nothing at all.

Unless you just can’t.

People who have dreams. They don’t let go until they make their dreams happen. They fall down, but they get up and they keep right on going. They see that dream as sure as you see these words here.

It’s a little house.

It’s learning to read.

It’s building something that no one has ever seen.

It’s seeing peace in a family.

It’s seeing peace on Earth.

Believe in a dream, please.

We can change the world — just like that.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
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If you’re ready to change the world, send me your thoughts in a guest post. Feel free to take the gorgeous Change the World image up there that Sandy designed back to your blog. Or help yourself to this one.

Change the World!.

Email me about what you’re doing or what we might do. Let’s change the world one bit at a time together. Together it can’t take forever.

Change the World: Just Show Up . . . BE There

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Meet Me for Lunch Tomorrow?

Change the World!

When I went to the UK for the very first time, it was on a business trip. It was escorted from publisher to publisher by a dear friend I’d known for 9 years a that time. He was a buttoned up Brit. I was an American with too much personality. He was my credibility with the rest of the British citizens and publishers I was meeting along the way.

I was such an interesting experience to spend this time with a friend of so many years and so much time spent talking on this side of the water. I knew him well. We had many times over cognac figured out how to solve all of the problems of publishing and the greater world. We knew each other’s foibles, idiosyncracies, and downsides, and still loved each other.

He knew how self-conscious I was about folks who pick up me at the airport. I knew that no one ever saw him in a shirt without buttons up the front.

Still it was revealing to see him in his natural habitat.

On the day before I left the UK, he dropped me at my hotel and said, “Shall we have a leisurely lunch before I take you to Heathrow tomorrow?”

I said, “It depends on who comes to the door.”

A slightly sad, shy smile crossed his eyes, not his mouth. He’d said from the day we met he loved the American sense of irony. That was his way of saying he liked the way I told him the truth.

“And what would the lady prefer?” was his answer.

“I’d like YOU to SHOW UP — all of you. Not that guy in the tie I’ve been with all week. If HE comes, I’m closing the door, eating lunch alone, and taking a taxi to Heathrow. That guy is boring.”

He said, “I understand.”

The next day, a man with a grin showed up. He was live, wearing a sweater over his buttoned up shirt. We had lunch at a bistro that served the most wonderful fruit brûlée. I can’t tell you what we talked about. I don’t remember, but I remember we laughed a lot.

He was there. It was real. It was what friendship is about.

He showed up and he has ever since.

I can’t tell you how my world has been better because of it.

It really means something when you know someone will be there.

We can change the world — just like that.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
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If you’re ready to change the world, send me your thoughts in a guest post. Feel free to take the gorgeous Change the World image up there that Sandy designed back to your blog. Or help yourself to this one.

Change the World!.

Email me about what you’re doing or what we might do. Let’s change the world one bit at a time together. Together it can’t take forever.

Change the World: Doing What’s Humanly Possible

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The Power of Offering

Change the World!

In publishing the schedules were killer, at certain times of year — at some places all year — folks would work 16 hour days and through the weekend. I would find myself telling new editors to go home without work. The conversation would often be the same.

“Go on home. You’re tired. You’ll come back tomorrrow and in the first hour you’ll accomplish three times what you would do in the next hour now.”

“But I want to get this one thing done.”

“Okay, we have to do what we need to. But will you do one thing for me?”

The answer was always an anticipatory look, tinged with a fear of possible more work.

“Remember that you can only do what’s humanly possible. . . . and to think you can do more makes you a kind of snob [big grin here], because the rest of us humans can’t.”

The reply would shoulders relaxing and a move to start packing up.

When I start to get ‘whelmed and rushed, I know it’s time to slow my step. I
So often I try to do more, be more, help more than the next guy. I might try to out achieve the overachiever, but I cannot do more than is humanly possible. For me to think that is sort of arrogant. What human can do more than a human can?

I can only do what’s humanly posisible.

It’s such a nice thought. I immediately relax when I think that humans need to eat, sleep, relax, reflect, reach for balance to be effective.

I can only do what’s humanly posisible. It’s like a mantra for overachievers.

I accept it, and people start smiling. Being human is attractive. It makes other humans feel good to have me around

We can change the world — just like that.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
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If you’re ready to change the world, send me your thoughts in a guest post. Feel free to take the gorgeous Change the World image up there that Sandy designed back to your blog. Or help yourself to this one.

Change the World!.

Email me about what you’re doing or what we might do. Let’s change the world one bit at a time together. Together it can’t take forever.

Change the World: Don’t Hesitate to Ask or Offer

by

The Power of Offering

Change the World!

We are all aggregators of what we bring into the world and what we experience once we get here. Some context:

I’m the only girl and the baby of the family. I have an older, older brother and a younger, older brother. They were 8 and 9 years old when I was a baby. . . . Yeah, I’m fiercely independent.

Besides that I’m second-generation American. My grandparents were all born in another country. . . . All around me, as I grew up, were messages that said, “Hard work never hurt anybody.”

I was shy and perceptive. . . . My social skills were a cross between a monkey and a Weimaraner puppy — intrusive, cute, and clumsy.

When I went to college, I was the only one who had carried my suitcase. That was the way the world worked. That world had worked pretty well for me.

That explains a lot; doesn’t it?

This morning a man I just met, Fred Zelders, reminded me of all of that with one sentence in his comment..

P.S. Don’t hesitate to ask for help.

Wow! Hit my head. What the heck had I been thinking? I love to help people. Why shouldn’t they get a turn too?

What Fred sent me when we talked minutes later was simpler and more elegant than what I had been planning.

That simple offer — one sentence — changed my world. It saved me hours and gave me something so much better. AND Fred is no longer a stranger.

One sentence.

Thank you, Fred Zelders, for offering. Thank you for your generosity.

We can change the world — just like that.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
______________
If you’re ready to change the world, send me your thoughts in a guest post. Feel free to take the gorgeous Change the World image up there that Sandy designed back to your blog. Or help yourself to this one.

Change the World!.

Email me about what you’re doing or what we might do. Let’s change the world one bit at a time together. Together it can’t take forever.

Change the World: With Our Own Story

by

Hey, Tom, How Can We Change the World?

I’ve had several conversations online and off with Tom Clifford about how he tells corporate stories on film. One thing, one thing we talked about, Tom talks a lot about, heroes — that the people in his stories are the heroes of the companies where they work.

When a guy looks at the subject of his corporate stories as heroes, he’s bound to know a thing or two about changing the world.

Is Your Story Changing the World?

Guest Writer: Thomas R. Clifford

Change the World!

Remember, stories change the world. Story. Story. Story. Stories matter.

This may come as a bit of a surprise to you, but I know my story has helped change the world…and I’m here to help your story change the world, too.

You probably don’t know me, but that’s alright.

My name is Thomas Clifford and I’m a filmmaker. Some folks call me “Director Tom.” That’s alright, too.

I wander around the country like a nomad filming remarkable stories for remarkable organizations. I tell their stories through film in a unique way.

So imagine in your mind’s eye this scene…

A short, emotional, thoughtful, eye-catching and dramatic documentary about what you do.

Film ignites conversations. People TALK. People ACT. People THINK.

Picture your film like it’s your own Dna…it is unique, personal and one-of-a-kind.

The story in your film is told by people who know you; they are the storytellers; they are your “heroes.”

Your film has a sense of continuous momentum…every minute…something changing…new dynamics…feet tapping to a music groove…new graphic designs…a new story…a quick transition…keep it flowing…a new idea…new music….new heroes…a new scene…another person’s point of view…what’s next?…how will it end?

Directing your film is like mining for diamonds — the job is not done until they are cut perfectly — I’m not content with your story until it flashes in the light.

So now, let me ask you this simple, yet incredibly important question:

Is your story changing the world?

If not…

Well maybe, just maybe, our two stories — a filmmaker and you with your “heroes,” — we can change the world together.

It’s worth a try!

Thomas R. Clifford

Thank you, Tom, for telling us about our story.

We can change the world — just like that.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

______________
If you’re ready to change the world, send me your thoughts in a guest post. Feel free to take the gorgeous Change the World image up there that Sandy designed back to your blog. Or help yourself to this one.

Change the World!

Email me about what you’re doing or what we might do. Let’s change the world one bit at a time together. Together it can’t take forever.