How about experiencing joy

Knowing that attitude is the most critical factor in determining ones level of success, (if you don’t believe that, go back and read previous posts or get a copy of Unshackled Leadership) I have been thinking this week about the attitude of joy. Do you experience joy? Are you joyous? Do you awake every day (or most) with a level of enthusiasm and excitement about your day?

It’s not my experience that very many people will answer those questions yes. I’m not sure I can answer them yes myself, which is why I’ve been thinking about it. Yet when I look at the issue objectively, it seems to me that it’s a shame that we all can’t answer those questions with a resounding yes. Why? Look at the facts:

80% of the people on this planet live in poverty, 70% are illiterate and 50% suffer from hunger and malnutrition. About a billion people do not have ready access to clean water. If you have never experienced the horror of war, the solitude of prison, the pain of torture, were not close to death from starvation, then you are better off than 500 million people. If you can go to your place of worship without fear that someone will assault or kill you, then you are luckier than 3 billion (that’s right) people.

If you’re reading this, it’s pretty evident that none of those horrible statistics apply to you. So have I made my point? It seems to me that why we all don’t experience enormous amounts of joy is that instead of thinking about how fortunate we are, we spend our time thinking about all of the things we want and don’t yet have. And, of course, it’s the ego that has us do that because it knows that if we do, we won’t experience joy.

For me, I've decided to focus my intention this week on experiencing joy. And I’ll use the above facts to support me in doing that. Would you like to join me?

Feeling like a proud parent

I don’t recall ever doing this before but I feel like a proud parent that just has to share about the wonderful things going on with his children. So if you’ll indulge me . . .

What you may or may not know is that we regularly conduct multiple day retreats, mostly for the management of companies, but sometimes for entire companies. Last week we conducted such a retreat for the 14 managers of a privately held company to lay the foundation for an exciting and successful future. Like many companies, this one was going well but being run on a day to day basis without an underlying philosophy that would guarantee the future the owner wanted. So we stepped in with the Unshackled Leadership approach and spent two days indoctrinating everyone in our philosophy. Here are the e mails I received either the very same night or within a day or two of the completion of the retreat:

“What we just did as a group has already changed my train of thought.  I feel as if a weight was lifted from my life... not my body. I stopped to get some panda express for dinner. My fortune cookie stated "you shall soon achieve perfection". Being blind to the world " I thought I had already"!  Until today I thought I had it all worked out "foolish". Does anyone feel like they left something back in that room? It seems so much clearer now.  I believe that just letting go has made me realize that all is so easy to achieve. Makes me wonder how much time I have wasted in the last year worrying about a bunch of petty crap!!!  I appreciate my family at home and my family at work now. And... I know what I need to do to improve both! Good night team. Tomorrow is already brighter!!!”   

“All is well. The mood is good. I’m looking forward to the future. Home life as well. Need to get out of this negative tar pit. I’m betting on this.”

“Scott, I think after all said and done you have changed me. I guess I thought I knew it all… Apparently not the case after meeting you. The good thing about the whole meeting was that I am feeling so much more emotional. I always had the pride…but emotion was lacking. I want to go through more classes very soon. I actually did not sleep a wink last night due to excitement. My mind was all over the place.”

“Scott, I’ve had a couple of days to process and go over the information passed and conversations had. I truly believe that I am very fortunate for having lived the experience of your seminar. I’ve had several phone and radio conversations with some of the people that participated, and I sincerely view these people in a very different way. I find myself feeling a level of understanding and compassion that I never felt for these people in the 4 years knowing them. That in itself gives me a sense of self pride. I would like to take this opportunity to extend to you and you’re staff “Lois and Lori” my most sincere thanks. I know that I must take full advantage of this precious gift that has been set in front of me in full view and apply it. Please rest assured that I will not let your knowledge and faith in us go for naught. I am disappointed in the fact that there was more to do and not enough time to do it in. hopefully there will be another opportunity. Again Thank You Very Much.”

If you’d like to learn more about how you can experience the same results, please give us a call.

The function of language

One of our associates and I were reviewing the syllabus for a retreat we are doing next week. When we reached the section on the function of language, we looked at each other realizing we had just reached the same conclusion: this is the most difficult distinction for anyone to get.

To first take a moment and review the point, it is this: there is no such thing as reality. There is only your reality and you actually create your reality every time you open your mouth. Therefore, the function of language is to create your reality with.

To describe this in a bit more detail, people think they see with their eyes. Actually, you do not. You see with your mind. You take the conversation going on within you and project that conversation onto what’s in front of you and see only your individual interpretation of whatever is going on. So you’re not seeing what’s there, you’re creating what’s there, which is why everyone has a different interpretation for whatever is occurring.

Why is this so difficult to comprehend? Because we are all intelligent human beings and it is oh so tempting to trust our eyes and believe that whatever we see is really the truth. How can it not be? There it or he or she is, right there, doing whatever it is doing or being however it is being. We’re not stupid. We can see what’s really going on.

But the point is: we can’t. The nature of us is that we interpret and give meaning to everything. Everything is neutral, nothing has any inherent meaning. Everything only has the meaning we give it. We are a meaning generating machine and we give people and things meaning based upon our entire life’s experience. Again, it’s hard for us to realize that we are doing this. We think we are explaining how things actually are instead of creating with language our own personalized interpretation of how things are.

What’s the point here? Just start to accept the fact that everything is neutral, that you interpret and give meaning to everything, and be willing to be responsible for the meaning that you give to people and circumstances. As I say in Unshackled Leadership: your tongue is like a paintbrush. Every time you open your mouth, you paint a picture for you and those around you to live in. Start noticing that and choose your words carefully. It will make an enormous difference.