Enjoy a stress free holiday season

Now that December is here and the “holiday season” is upon us, I offer the following thoughts so you can make it safely and healthily to the new year.

First, do you know why this has become the “flu season?” We have an immune system that is designed to protect us and keep us healthy and as long as we take care of that system, it will do just that. But the number one factor that compromises our immune system is stress. Number two is diet and life style. So what happens at this time of year is that all of the pressures of the season cause us lots of stress and, to make matters worse, we eat too much of too many unhealthy things. While I’m not going to lecture you on the later issue, here’s what you can do to minimize the stress.

First, you have to understand what stress is and where it comes from. Like most things in life as we see it, the answer is simple. All stress, 100% of it, comes from resisting what is. What does that mean? We all seem to have a picture of how everything and everyone should be. If you look, I’m sure you’ll see how true this is. Then, we compare how it is and how people are to this picture and invariably they don’t match. If we just noticed that and let it go, there would be no stress. But we don’t. We either try to figure out how to get how it is to be how we want it to be or we suffer because we can’t. That’s what I mean by resisting what is.

The solution is simple, not so easy. If you want to have a stress free holiday season, just allow things and people to be exactly the way it and they are. Let go of your pictures, things are the way they are. Nobody told you when you arrived that you would get to have everything be the way you want it to be. Stop complaining that life isn’t fair. It isn’t and was never intended to be.

Instead of trying to figure out how to get them and it to be the way you want them and it to be, which all goes on in your head, stay in your heart and focus on what you appreciate about everything and everybody. While nothing is perfect, there are always things about everything and everybody that is wonderful and worthy of your appreciation. Now more than ever, learn to cultivate an attitude of gratitude. Focusing on what you have to be grateful for is the perfect antidote to stress. And if you do that, you might just eat in a healthy way and continue to exercise because you won’t have to try and pacify yourself to deal with the stress.

Happy Holidays.

The Blessing in a Crisis

I recently heard a lecture by the best-selling author Daphne Rose Kingma and she said some things that are worth sharing. If you want to hear more from her, check out her latest book on the 10 things to do when your life falls apart, which you can order any place where you like to get books. While her comments were not directed to people dealing with business challenges, they certainly apply in that situation. Here’s what I got from what she said:

A crisis is any situation that you feel is beyond your control (which most people in business are experiencing given the economic downturn). Why it’s a crisis is that we are thrust into feelings we are unfamiliar with. As human beings, our nature is to want to feel in control. Since we are fundamentally emotional beings, feeling out of control is unsettling. The notion of surrendering to the circumstances is not our nature.

To make matters worse, we get a lot into self blame. Why me? Why now? And when we get beyond that, the tendency is to just try and figure out how to effectively deal with the circumstances and that’s that.

There is an alternative, one that’s empowering but not one that most of us choose. That is to step back and ask what there is to learn from the situation. We certainly don’t look at a crisis as an opportunity for personal transformation. Yes, you have to deal with the circumstances. But the real opportunity is to see the situation as an opportunity for emotional growth. People actually need an occasional crisis to become more personally aware.

Life is a journey of personal and spiritual growth. It’s really not about collecting “stuff,” although for too many, that’s how it appears. The richness of life comes from getting to know ourselves and the people in our lives and who we work with. The great beauty of a crisis is its opportunity to confront all of our assumptions and the areas where we are unconscious. And we don’t stop to acknowledge how brilliant we are just to have survived up until now.

Personally, and as an example, I just had a bit of a crisis. I crashed on my bike, landed on my face, had some pretty ugly bruises, spent 6 hours in 2 emergency rooms and had over an hour of plastic surgery to close all of the wounds. But I never felt victimized by the situation. As I took time to just relax and recover, I spent several hours writing in my journal, looking to see what the lessons were for me in the situation and what I could learn about myself from what happened. I learned quite a bit. It’s a good thing I had just heard Daphne’s lecture so I could try that approach. It really worked.

So if you are still at the effect of what’s going on in the economy and suffering in any way because of it, here’s an opportunity to take a different approach. Maybe it’s time to open yourself to some new possibilities, to reach out to others, to acknowledge yourself, to see what there is to learn about yourself, and to even claim a greater piece of your personal power. After all, couldn’t hurt!

You create the context for your life

Many years ago, one of my mentors made the statement that who we are is a context creator for the content of our lives. As the years have gone by, that statement has become more and more powerful in my everyday life so I invite you to consider what it means.

Let’s say you have a can of soda. The soda is the content. The can is the context; it’s the container which determines how the soda shows up in the physical world. Now let’s say you pour the soda into a glass. The content is still the same, but the soda now has a different shape because the glass creates a different context for it. Finally, now let’s say you pour the soda on your dining room table (don’t really do this). The content is still the same, soda. But now you have a mess because a table isn’t a useful context for liquids.

Is this making sense? The content, the soda, remains the same but it occurs differently depending on the container you put the soda in. The container or lack thereof is the context.

What this has to do with you and I is this: We all have lots of content in our lives. Our jobs, our friends and family, our circumstances, our home, our car, our companies, our cities and states, etc., are all the content. Usually, we don’t have a lot of control, on a moment by moment basis, about what that content is. But we have enormous control over how this content occurs for us and that is the reason for the opening statement that we are a context creator for the content of our lives.

And here is the most exciting news of all. THERE ARE ONLY TWO CONTEXTS AVAILABLE TO US. And you get to decide, on a moment by moment basis, which of the contexts you create. If you’ve been reading all year long, you probably already know what they are. The first context is the world of the ego. Fundamentally, it is the voice of fear and scarcity. What’s really important to know is that if you listen to that voice, the content of your life, whatever it happens to be, will show up as scary and threatening and NOTHING you think or do will turn out very well at all.

The second context is the world of spirit. It is the voice of peace, possibility, hope, faith, trust, abundance and yes, even love. What’s equally important to know is that if you listen to that voice, the content of your life, whatever it happens to be, will show up as an incredible opportunity to have more peace and love in your life and EVERYTHING you think or do will turn out very well indeed, probably better than you can even imagine.

The stakes are high, especially if you have been reading the newspaper and run a company. Our economy continues to be in the doldrums because unfortunately, most people are still listening to the voice of the ego. Isn’t it time you started listening to the voice of spirit? If you can see you need some assistance in making the switch, that’s what we’re in business to help people do.

Stop settling

As I continue to look at how we human beings operate, mostly under the domination of the ego, it is really remarkable to me how much we are willing settle, sacrifice and compromise. For those of you that who run companies, own companies, and/or manage people, can you see what I’m talking about? How willing you are to settle for far less than what you really want?

What am I referring to? Less than satisfying relationships; people who don’t perform the way you want; people who aren’t accountable; and teams that don’t demonstrate teamwork. The list goes on and on.

I remember talking to a client about a year ago who mostly complained about his receptionist. He had inherited her from his father who started the business and she had worked for the company for over 30 years. After listening one day to another complaint, I asked him: given what you know about her, if she walked into your office today looking for a job, would you hire her? His answer: “Not in a million years!” Is that incredible? Yet, I’ll bet there is an area in your company where you are doing something similar.

So why do we do this? I think the answer is pretty simple. We are so used to living in the ego’s world of fear and scarcity that we have no ability to see the vast and unlimited potential and world of possibilities that surround us.

Let me say that again. You live in a world of unlimited and infinite possibilities and abundance. That’s not some airy fairy statement, it’s the truth. And if you’re open to it, it’s available to you just for the asking.

So stop settling! There is NEVER a need to suffer, settle, sacrifice or compromise, never, unless you choose to. So if you are, know it’s because that’s what you’re choosing. If you don’t like what you’re experiencing, choose again.

The pathway to peace

If you’ve read Unshackled Leadership: Building Businesses Based on Faith, Trust, Possibility and Abundance, or if you have participated in one of our recent programs, you know that life is really not this complicated phenomenon. In literally every situation, you always only have two choices: listen to the voice of your higher consciousness or listen to the voice of your ego.

(If you haven’t done either of the above, please go to http://www.thpalliance.com/learning%20res.asp and get a copy of the book and some of the CDs while the special offer is still in effect.)

When you listen to the voice of your higher consciousness, you almost guarantee that whatever you do will turn out great. When you listen to the voice of your ego, you absolutely guarantee that whatever you do will turn out poorly.

I’ve been really listening recently to what the voice of the ego says. What I see is that the underlying theme is fear. I started to make a list of what the fear was all about and then it occurred to me that I was hooked into playing still another ego game: trying to figure out what I am afraid of.

So here’s what I’ve concluded and invite you to consider: just like last week, it doesn’t matter! We just wake up into fear. And we all have our favorites. So don’t try and figure out what you’re afraid of and why, just understand that it’s the voice of your ego and the ego is the voice of fear.

Is there a solution? I think so. I read recently that you are either host to the voice of your higher consciousness or hostage to the ego. Think about that. Hostage. That’s a pretty strong word. Can you imagine being a hostage? Well, if you aren’t a host to your higher consciousness, then you are held hostage by your ego.

So you have to consciously, every minute of every day, invite your higher consciousness into your thinking and that is surely a challenge. But it is a challenge worth taking on. And if you are willing to take it on, each day you will get a little bit better and a little bit better and who knows. One day, you might wake up and find yourself at peace. Which is, of course, the ultimate objective.

This is the game we at The Hunter Partnership Alliance are choosing to play. Are you willing to join us? And if you want some help along the journey, let us know.

 

Building Businesses Based on Faith and Trust

The subtitle of my latest book is: Building Businesses Based on Faith, Trust, Possibility and Abundance. I could write a book on each of those terms since they are certainly intriguing words. Why? Because not many businesses are built on that kind of foundation. Which is probably why 90% of all businesses fail within the first 10 years.

Let’s look at the words faith and trust. In the context of business, what does it mean to have faith? It means that if you are clear about your vision, stand boldly in it, and take action consistent with the vision becoming a reality, your action is with a knowingness that your vision will become a reality.

And then when you add the word “trust” to your faith, it means that you don’t question what you are having faith in. It means that you make the investments that you need to make, hire the people you need to hire, and take reasonable and occasionally unreasonable risks, because in your heart, you know you will be rewarded.

Are people doing that today? Hardly. Most companies seem paralyzed and unwilling to hire and invest because they have no faith in their future and don’t trust that the universe is on their side. That is why the world’s economy still seems to be stuck in neutral.

I remember all too clearly what happened to me after September 11th, 2001. I had just launched my professional speaking career when that happened and because of the fear that act generated, the speaking business came to a virtual halt. I found myself in the summer of 2002 with no business.

But rather than panicking, I asked myself a critical question, and one you should be asking yourself these days: what would I do if I was committed to my success and knew beyond a shadow of a doubt I could not fail?

The answers came quickly. I took 2 months and wrote my first book. I started my own publishing company, printed the first run of 1000 copies and mailed them to business executives to get feedback. Based on the feedback, I re-did the book, printed another 5000 copies and hired a publicist. I spent a year doing over 50 radio shows, many TV shows, and dozens of talks and book signings in major bookstores across the country. All of this when I had very little business.

I literally spent 2 years laying the foundation for my future, having faith in my vision and trusting it would all turn out great. And it did. The book I wrote, which I might never have written if my business didn’t come to a standstill, became the vehicle for the success of both my speaking and coaching business. In five years, I earned my certified speaking professional designation and in case you don’t know it, we now have offices in So. CA, Oakland, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Texas.

I’m reminded of the wonderful line attributed to Helen Keller: Life is either a daring adventure or nothing! What’s it being for you?

Do you know the function of language?

Of all the distinctions of our work, the one we find that people struggle
with the most has to do with the function of language. If you don’t
immediately have an answer to the question: what is the function of
language?, please read on.

In the ordinary course of events, people use language, and think it is its
function, to describe the world as they think it is. In other words, we
open our eyes, see what we see and, without realizing this, think that
what we see is actually there. We think people are the way we see them,
our companies are the way we see them, the economy is the way we see it,
our family members are the way we see them, and on and on.

It’s so bad, if someone sees things differently, has a different point of
view, we often will argue vehemently to try and convince them that they
don’t see things accurately and our point of view is correct. Haven’t you
found yourself doing this?

But the problem is that everyone sees things differently. There are 6.8
billion people on the planet and they ALL live in a different reality.
That’s a fact. With 6.8 billion different versions of reality, how could
it possibly be that any one person’s view of reality is correct? Makes no
sense to think that.

To really understand where I’m going with this, consider the fact that you
do not see with your eyes. Yes your eyes are responsive to light images,
but you do not see with your eyes. You see with your mind. You have a very
elaborate conversation going on within you and that conversation includes
a story about every thing and every body. All you ever do is take that
conversation and project it out onto whatever is in front of you and then
you act on what you see as if it’s the truth. But it’s not the truth, it’s
just a reflection of the story you started with. Another way of saying
that is: it’s not THE truth, it’s YOUR truth.

So when you open your mouth to speak, all you are ever doing is saying out
loud the story that you have already made up about whatever it is you are
speaking about.

If you’ve followed this line of reasoning so far, all you have to do is
add 2 plus 2 to get the function of language: which is to CREATE your
reality with. Every time you open your mouth, you are not describing
what’s there, you are creating your version of what’s there. Nothing you
ever say is THE truth, it’s only YOUR truth and it’s YOUR truth because
you just said it.

I really invite you to grapple with this one until we speak again. There’s
a great line in Unshackled Leadership that says: your tongue is like a
paintbrush. As humans, we are usually pretty unconscious of what comes out
of our mouths. I’m asking you to stop that. Wake up. Listen to your
thoughts and what comes out of your mouth. If it’s not empowering and
inspiring to you and everyone around you, don’t say it. If you take this
on seriously, I promise it will make a huge difference in not only your
life, but in the lives of all the people around you.

Old Cherokee Indian Story

In the last three posts, I pointed to the fact that there are two very different conversations going on within us all the time. The first is the conversation of the ego. It is the voice of fear, worry, problems, concerns, unhappiness and more. The second is the conversation of your higher consciousness. It is the voice of hope, faith, trust, peace, possibility and more.

To complete the conversation about the ego, and if you haven’t read my book Unshackled Leadership, it contains a wonderful story about a Cherokee Indian:

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, “My son, the battle is between two ‘wolves’ inside each of us.

“One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego.

“The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: “Which wolf wins?”

The old Cherokee replied, “The one you feed.”

Here’s my recommendation to begin winning the battle over the ego: Every day, read this story to remind yourself of the conversations of the two wolves. Then, spend the day noticing which one you are feeding. Remember: life is about the choices you make and you are always choosing.

Just have some fun

In the last two posts, I pointed to the fact that there are two very different conversations going on within us all the time. The first is the conversation of the ego and the second is the conversation of your higher consciousness.

The saddest of all the conversations of the ego is the one it has about you. If you really turned up the volume on the voice of the ego, you would hear it say to you:

you’re not worthy, you’re not good enough and you’re not loved.

That it tells you that about you has many implications. There is no real freedom to be you. We spend our lives hanging out in the shadows, trying not to be noticed, trying not to make waves, trying to just get by, all because we don’t want other people to find out what we believe to be the truth about ourselves.

Your higher consciousness, on the other hand, knows the truth about you. As you have heard me say, you are brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous, etc etc etc. You were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within you. It’s not just in some of us, it’s in all of us.

And here’s the biggest joke of all. You spend an enormous amount of time worrying about what other people are thinking about you. NOBODY IS THINKING ABOUT YOU! They’re all thinking about what YOU are thinking about THEM!

Try this: Just have some fun. See what life would be like if you did whatever you wanted to do, said whatever you wanted to say, without any regard to what others think. I think you’ll discover pretty quickly that nobody will notice anyway and you’ll experience a lot more freedom to just be.

If you want to be happy, here's the answer

In my last blog post, I pointed to the fact that there are two very different conversations going on within us all the time. The first is the conversation of the ego. It is the voice of fear, worry, problems, concerns, unhappiness and more. The second is the conversation of your higher consciousness. It is the voice of hope, faith, trust, peace, possibility and more.

The ego will do whatever it can to have you not live in the only place where you can really be effective in producing results: right here and right now. The past is over, just memories remain. The future is pure speculation. Where you want to focus all of your energy is right here and right now.

Here are some of the favorite conversations the ego uses to sabotage you:

“When …, then …” In other words, we think we’ll be happy and fulfilled some time in the future when something we want to have happen will happen (even though we have no idea whether it will or it won’t).

“If only …” Same story. We think we would surely be happy and fulfilled if only something that’s happening would stop happening or something that’s not happening would just start happening.

Both of these conversations of the ego keep you focused on the future and not present to what’s happening at the moment.

If you want to be happy, and we surely recommend it, start notice where your attention is. Do you have any “when – then’s” or “if only’s?” See if you can spend an entire week just focusing on what’s happening right now. If you can, see if you can further focus on what you have to be grateful for at this time in your life. There’s probably an awful lot, if you can only focus on it.

How are you playing life and business?

Do you realize that the value you get out of any activity you participate in is directly a function of what you have at stake in participating in that activity?

Many years ago I participated in an event where the organizers put some of the greatest sports coaches in a TV studio and interviewed them to determine why they were so great. In attendance were Red Auerbach, John Wooden, George Allen and Tim Galway. The event was broadcast worldwide and I hosted a viewing of the interview in Southern California.

At the conclusion of the 3 hour interview, we had a discussion to see what people had learned from these great coaches. One man leaped to his feet with excitement. He had been in corporate America for 30 years with Fortune 500 companies and thought this was the most valuable event he had ever participated in.

Another man, a former professional football player, found the participants “interesting” and that was that. A third man, an accountant, thought it was a big waste of time and demanded a refund as he stormed out of the room.

Three people at the same event all got something completely different because they all had something different at stake.

So my question to you is: how are you playing the games of life and business? Are you playing like your life is at stake or are you just getting by? Are you really committed to your work or are you there for a paycheck? What about your family? Are you an active participant in the lives of your spouse and children or do you just stop by at home once in awhile.

I have intentionally presented pretty extreme views but I did it to make my point.

Take a day of your life, from the moment you get up to the moment you go to sleep, and pay close attention to how you participate in every activity. Notice how you greet and approach the day, the attention you give to your meals, how you relate to your family, your work, your co-workers, random people you meet, your drive to and from work, notice it all. Get really clear about how you are playing the games of life and business. Does your level of play represent you or do you need to take some or all of it up to another level?

What you don't know you don't know

Now that you’ve hopefully taken some time to examine your “beliefs,” and hopefully have seen that many of the things you assume or believe may just not be the “truth,” let’s take this a step further.

I’m sure you realize that there is much that you know. You know how to tie your shoe laces, drive a car, dial a telephone, etc. It’s good to know things because you get to use what you know to make things happen and produce results.

And I’m sure you realize that there is much you don’t know. And it’s probably fine with you that there are things you don’t know. But if you want to know something you don’t know, you’re smart enough to ask questions, get a book, get some help, so you can know it.

Another challenge in life is that there is far more to knowledge than what we know and what we don’t know. There’s the whole category of what we don’t know we don’t know. These are our blind spots. And the way to get access to what we don’t know we don’t know is simply to become curious. Go on a treasure hunt, not to find an answer but just to learn what there is to learn that might just enhance the quality of your life.

So here’s an assignment, if you’re willing:

1. Pick an area of your life that you don’t presently feel like you’re very masterful in. This could be anything from man/woman relationships, effective communication, automobile racing, hang gliding, pottery, the subject makes no difference. Just pick a subject that you want to master that you presently don’t.


2. Then, start inquiring into the subject. Just look. Stay open. As you find out things, have that whet your appetite to learn more rather than thinking you’ve found “the answer.”


3. As you embark on this process, see if you can see how exciting life could be if you give up thinking that you need to have an answer to everything and instead, live life as a constant journey of discovery.

Maybe what you believe isn't the "truth"

The definition of a “belief”: A thought or idea that you repeat to yourself over and over again because you think it’s the truth. With that definition, I’m sure you’re clear that there are many things that you believe. And it’s not “bad” to have beliefs. For example, it surely is good to believe that it’s not right to attack or harm another human being. And believing that you have to pay your bills and taxes will keep you out of jail.

But the “problem” with beliefs is that when I human being says: “I believe …” what’s left out but implied is the statement: “ … so it must therefore be the truth.”

What I’m saying is that people equate their beliefs to the truth. And that’s where we get ourselves into a lot of trouble. Why? Because none of your beliefs are “the truth.” They are just your beliefs. And to make matters worse, you didn’t decide the vast majority of things you believe. You were born into a world, a “paradigm,” that had an already given set of beliefs and you bought into them hook, line and sinker, without much thought at all.

And there are an amazing number of things we believe that have absolutely been proven not to be the truth.

Take success for example: we believe that hard work, getting a good education, being lucky, being in the right place at the right time, and a lot more, will lead to success. None of that’s the truth.

The trick in life is to stay open. Be willing to question everything. Be willing to let go of every firmly held belief you have in favor of what you could discover in the process.

So here’s an assignment for you, if you are willing:

1. Start noticing what you believe to be the “truth.” Be willing to challenge your most deeply held beliefs.

2. Ask: is that the truth or just something I believe?

3. If you think it’s the truth, ask: is it true ALL of the time? Do you just ignore the facts when you encounter situations which are inconsistent with your beliefs?

4. Then ask: what would life be like if for you if what you believe was not the truth? Or if just the opposite was the truth?

5. Be willing to consider the possibility that you are living in a body of beliefs that are not only not the truth, but not even useful.

6. Have fun with this and see what you can learn by letting go of your assumptions and standing in not knowing.

Let the universe lead you into the future

In my last blog post, I discussed the importance of a company having a “vision,” which I defined as a complete picture of what a company could be/might be some time in the far distant future. Why is having a vision so important? It gives you a powerful place to stand and look from in creating a strategic objective. I then stated: here’s the best part of all. Once you have such a strategic objective, if you are the leader, start acting like you are the leader not of your organization as it exists today but as it will exist in 5 years. Create an organizational chart for the company as it will exist in 5 years and use that chart as a road map to get you there.

What makes this so exciting is that there are many “laws” in the universe and one of them says: you can’t get anyplace other than where you start from. That “law” is a an expression of a basic tenet of quantum physics that says you and your company are like a magnet, attracting to you and your company circumstances and people that are consistent with who you are being.

This law explains why most people, and even many companies, spend their entire lives doing the same thing over and over again, year after year, and why Einstein said the definition of insanity is being the same way you’ve always been thinking you’ll get a different result.

On a company level, if you think about your company as it is today, if you focus on the day-to-day challenges in front of you, you will attract to you people and circumstances consistent with how your company is today and you will have more of the same challenges you are presently dealing with.

If, however, you, as the leader, think about your company as it will be in 5 years and act as if you are the president of that company, you will attract to you people and circumstances consistent with how your company will be in 5 years. In other words, since you can’t get anyplace other than where you start from, start from where you want to be and let the universe show you how to get there. If you want to hear a real example of how this works, go to www.scotthunter.com and click on the client testimonial on the bottom of the home page.

Another reason for having a vision

In my last blog post, I discussed the importance of a company having a “vision,” which I defined as a complete picture of what your company could be/might be some time in the far distant future. It’s something that you work toward without any sense of when it will be fully realized, perhaps never. It’s the light in the distance that gives meaning to everything you do. It’s what your company would look like, some day, if anything and everything was possible, which it is, and your company could truly be a dream come true. You can find a series of questions to ask to formulate your company vision in Chapter 19 of Unshackled Leadership, available at www.thpalliance.com.

Why is having a vision so important? I’ll deal with one of many reasons here: it gives you a powerful place to stand and look from in creating a strategic objective. Most companies (maybe many) have a sense of where they want to be in 5 years. But in the ordinary course of events, that picture is created looking forward from where the company is today.

The problem with that approach is that where you are today is a result of your thinking and actions in the past and the view of the future tends to be a prediction or guess about how to extend that past into the future. Which is why most companies futures tends to look like their pasts.

But if you have a true vision, what you can do is look from there and see how much of that vision you want to take on in the next 5 years. So the strategic objective becomes a reflection not of what has happened in the past but something created inside the possibility represented by the vision. These different approaches are really like night and day.

Here’s the best part of all. Once you have such a strategic objective, if you are the leader, start acting like you are the leader not of your organization as it exists today but as it will exist in 5 years. Create an organizational chart for the company as it will exist in 5 years and use that chart as a road map to get you there. As I will write more about next time, the universe will open all the doors necessary for your strategic objective to become a reality.