The freedom of being complete

As we approach the end of the year, we request that you use the following approach (which is in The Coach’s Corner every year at this time) to be complete with the past, wipe the slate clean, and prepare yourself for a loving, joyous, and prosperous 2014. Don’t think about doing it. Just do it. You won’t be sorry and you’ll be pretty happy when it’s done.

The freedom of completion

Let's explore the phenomenon of being complete.  The first part of being complete is to notice that we naturally want to allow ourselves to express whatever we are experiencing. You see this most clearly with little children. They never hesitate to let you know exactly what they are feeling. Simply said, laugh when you are happy, cry when you are sad, yell when you are angry, and apologize when you screw up!  Learn to get present to the moment and be aware of your body sensations, your emotions and your thoughts about yourself and others.  Little by little, you will get faster at noticing yourself in the present moment and be able to respond authentically and responsibly to what is happening with you.  You will be amazed at the freedom gained just by this simple process.

The second part of being complete is to learn to let go of grudges, just like children in a playground.  When someone takes away their toy, they might throw a tantrum, but when they have fully let out their anger, they usually go back to playing together! We highly intelligent, highly evolved and oh-so-cool grown-ups, however, might not ever speak to each other again!  And not only that, we are righteous about not having to because, after all, it IS their fault!  So for us, this is really the hard part.

All kinds of things happen to us that we are not happy about, but rather than expressing ourselves and then letting go of the anger, we tend to hold on to it. We get righteous about our point of view instead of communicating it.  We have the choice to be either right or be happy, and we cannot be both! Unfortunately, people think that they get to be happy by being right, but it's not true. Those choices are mutually exclusive.

If you want to be happy, you need to give up your attachment to being right and that ultimately means you must forgive yourself and others for the things that happen in life that you do not like.

If you want to be blissfully happy or even immensely sane, forgive others and forgive yourself for everything.  Forgiveness is a gift you give to yourself. Through the act of forgiveness, by giving up resentment and the right to punish, you are left with serenity, freedom and peace of mind. You will again see the world through the bright eyes of a child.

Try This Exercise

We have discovered a completion process that embodies these principles, one which, if you are willing, allows you to express that which you have experienced and let go of the past.  It is ideally suited for this time of year so that you can be complete with whatever happened in the year 2013 (and even before that) and not drag it into 2014. So PLEASE, do this exercise.

Keep in mind that completion is a function of your willingness to be complete, your willingness to express that which you experience, and your willingness to forgive and let go.

Do this exercise with your co-workers or family or a friend.  It is very effective to do this in a group and you can also do it as an individual at any time you want to be complete with something.  We have done this many times at the end of the year with our clients, always with spectacular results.  It’s a six-step process and it’s really important that you express everything, answering each question fully.

First, "What did you accomplish this year?"  Acknowledge all of your accomplishments for 2013. Just acknowledge what you did this year. Include the big things, [You cleaned out the garage or cured a rare disease], the little things [You cleaned out the garage], include everything.  Don't rip yourself off with the "that doesn't count," the "yeah, buts" or the "if only's."   Just acknowledge your big and small accomplishments.

Second, acknowledge what occurred in 2013 that was a source of pleasure. "What gave you pleasure this past year?"  List it all. I literally went through my calendar for 2013, one day at a time, and made a rather long list of what I accomplished and what brought me pleasure. It was a very exciting list. And I now have these lists for every year since 1994.

Third, express your disappointments, unfulfilled expectations, thwarted intentions and sources of displeasure in 2013.  Again, list them all.

Fourth, answer the question:  "Who do you need to forgive and for what?" It’s crucial that we be willing to forgive each other and ourselves for whatever happened. When we don't forgive, that grudge takes up space in our life and we cannot put anything in that same space to make ourselves happy or healthy.  Grudges use up our life's oxygen.  To the extent that we are unwilling to forgive is the extent to which we miss out on wonderful things we want because we simply have no place to hold them.

The Fifth question is: "Who do you need to thank and for what?" This is the most inspiring part of the process, as it gives you an opportunity to really acknowledge each person in your life as if today were the last day of your life.  So many people contribute to us each and every day, and we usually don't stop to say thank you.  "Thank you for remembering my birthday, thank you for being kind, thank you for respecting me and listening to me, thank you for making my paycheck good every single time."

When we do this process in organizations and people go around the room thanking each other, it is really very inspiring.  By the way, don't forget to also thank yourself.

The sixth and last question simply is: "Is there anything else you need to say about the year 2013 in order to be complete?"  If you just ask yourself each of these questions, what is there will immediately come to light.  Whatever comes up, that's the answer.

There are no hidden meanings and no right answers. You do not have to search through your mind or struggle with the process. Whatever is necessary to be said will be readily apparent.

Finally, completion is a phenomenon that lives only in language, it's always and only just people talking, and our speaking creates our reality. In other words, the only way you can be truly complete with something is to declare yourself complete.  After you have acknowledged your accomplishments, your disappointments, forgiven and thanked people and said anything else you need to say about 2013, declare yourself complete. Move forward, let the past go, and bring on the New Year.

Enjoy!  Be happy.  Be Complete.  Be free.  Happy New Year.

To have an amazing life, let go of all attachments

Continuing with the post I started last week, I said at that time that the more I study and understand the nature of life and business, the more I become convinced that the “formula” for having an amazing life and a truly successful business is really quite simple: Totally release the past, let go of all attachments and judgments, forgive everyone for everything, including yourself, be grateful for everything, and focus only on being peaceful. Pretty simple, wouldn’t you agree?

But the problem is obvious: hardly any of us do any of those things. Wouldn’t you agree with that too? So let’s continue to dig into this a bit deeper so you can understand why this is a sure fire formula for happiness and success and why it seems so difficult to implement.

Let go of all attachments!

First, what do I mean by “attachments?” Simply put, we want life to be the way we want life to be, we want people to be the way we want them to be, we want circumstances to be the way we want them to be, etc. So far, no problem. The problem arises when not only do we want things and people to be the way we want them to be, we are determined that they be that way, and our very existence, our happiness and our joy are all wrapped up in whether or not they are the way we want them to be. This is what I mean by attachment.

Now you might, at first, think that you don’t feel that strongly about anything or anybody. If you think that, you’re being naïve. People generally do not look carefully enough at how they approach life to see how much they are attached to life being the way they want it to be. Think about it. Don’t you really care a lot about how your business is, how your spouse and children are, how your employees or co-workers are, how successful you are, how much money you make, how much money you have in the bank, how your sales go, what others think about you, etc.? I could go on and on. Don’t you really care about a lot of things and people and spend time and energy trying to have them be the way you want them to be?

Now you might say: what’s wrong with caring about things like that? There’s nothing wrong with caring, as long as you care in a loving way. But when you’re attached and things have to be a certain way, you pretty much guarantee you will never be happy and I hope that’s obvious. If it isn’t, just realize that things and people will never be the way you want them to be, even if you don’t realize that, and when you put your happiness and peace of mind at stake in attempting to overcome that, your happiness and peace go out the window. The result is that the possibility of having an amazing life and a truly successful business go out the window too.

Is there a solution? Surely. Let go of your attachments. Let life and people and circumstances just be the way they are and just the way they’re not. Learn to practice the serenity prayer: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

If there are people or circumstances in your life or business that are not the way you would like them to be and you can develop a plan to change them or it, go for it. Just give up your need to be successful. Do what you can and if it works, great. If not, let it go. If you can see that you can’t make a difference with whatever isn’t the way you want it to be, learn to accept it/them just the way it/they are.

Here’s the best part: those are the only two choices. Change it or leave it be. Being unwilling to do either and complaining about them or it is not an acceptable option. Turning yourself into a victim is also not an option. Blaming others is another unacceptable option. You’re in charge of your own experience. Take responsibility for it and choose wisely. More next week.

To have an amazing life, release the past

The more I study and understand the nature of life and business, the more I become convinced that the “formula” for having an amazing life and a truly successful business is really quite simple. Hold onto your chair because here it is: Totally release the past, let go of all attachments and judgments, forgive everyone for everything, including yourself, be grateful for everything, and focus only on being peaceful. So there it is. Pretty simple, wouldn’t you agree? Now get to work implementing it and I can retire!

But the problem is obvious and I might have to write for the next year about what I mean by that and why hardly any of us do any of those things. Wouldn’t you agree with that too? So let’s dig into this a bit deeper so you can understand why this is a sure fire formula for happiness and success and why it seems so difficult to implement.

First: totally release the past! The value in doing this would seem to be so obvious but are you willing to do it? What is the past? It’s just a story you have that’s stored in your memory about what happened starting yesterday and working backwards. But here’s the thing: what you “think” happened never really happened. What I mean by that is that we never remember events. The reason for that is that we attach a meaning to every event and store the event with the meaning attached. But nothing ever means anything. Life is neutral. But we don’t believe that. We think everything means something.

So we take the events of life, give them meaning, and store the two away and that’s what lives in our memory. If you’re following me, can you see why I say that what we think happened never really happened? What we think happened is just a story we made up about what happened and when you couple that with the fact that we are far better at attaching negative meanings to things then positive things, you can see that essentially all of us are carrying around an enormous amount of unhappy memories. The consequences are that those memories go with us everywhere we go and color our reactions to everything and everyone.

Someone speaks to us in a way we don’t like. But we don’t just react to the person in the moment, their actions bring up all the instances in the past where we felt someone spoke to us in a way we didn’t like. And, as I discussed last week, instead of using your negative reaction to the person speaking to you in the moment as a reminder that you need to go back and “clear” all of the negative reactions that you’re storing about how people have spoken to you in the past, you react to the person in front of you and perhaps get into one more conflict.

Or, you’re up for a promotion but don’t get it. Instead of looking to see exactly what the facts are today so you understand why you didn’t get the promotion, this event becomes one more example of why you’re not appreciated, why nobody understands you or why you never seem to get a break. In other words, all we ever seem to do is re-live negative things that happened in the past over and over again.

What’s the solution: totally release the past! Easier said than done but a critically important step if you want to be successful and happy. Remember, what happened in the past is just a story you made up and far too many love to repeat the story over and over again. Let it go. Nothing that happened in the past changed anything about you. You’re still the same amazing person that arrived here the day you were born. The past is over and can hurt you not. All that really exists is the present moment and what you can use that present moment for to create your future. If you have to hang on anything from the past, hold on to only your happy memories. The negative ones serve no purpose.

Spend some time this week thinking about this and look to see if those memories that you’re hanging onto really serve you. Think about how wonderful life could be if you just let them all go and we’ll continue this conversation next week.

Success strategy: learn to be grateful

In my way of thinking, Thanksgiving should be one of the most important and most celebrated holidays of the year because if you’re reading this newsletter, you have so much to be thankful for. And, as I will discuss in a moment, being thankful is the key to having a great life and a great company.

But it seems to me that we almost gloss over Thanksgiving in the USA. Halloween, at the end of October, is the second biggest holiday event in the USA and do you notice that the Christmas trees and Christmas decorations are already up. I’m looking forward to Thanksgiving but mostly people are already gearing up for “the holidays.”

So why do I think Thanksgiving should be a really important holiday?

The law of cause and effect and teaches us that our thinking is the cause of EVERYTHING in our life. I hope you believe me when I say that because there is now an amazing amount of scientific evidence that it’s true.

In the 1970s, the Andrew Carnegie Foundation funded the largest research study ever done to determine what makes a successful individual. They surveyed more than 300,000 people in four employment sectors - business, industry, education and government. The findings speak for themselves. It was found that only 7% of your success is determined by the knowledge you have, only 12% by the skills you possess, and 81% of your success is determined by your attitude! So let’s look at this thing called attitude.

How the law of cause and effect relates to you is: you are like a magnet that will attract to you that which is consistent with your feelings/emotions/attitude.

When you are at the lowest of possible emotions, when you have the worst possible attitude - fear, anxiety, depression, powerlessness and despair - you attract to you circumstances and events which support you in being fearful, anxious, depressed, etc. I doubt you’d call this a formula for success.

Here’s a pretty common attitude at work: blaming, criticizing, condemning, judging, and thinking badly of. Know people that do this? Do you do it? If yes, guess what you’ll get?

The attitudes which will literally guarantee your success are love, gratitude, appreciation, thankfulness, joy, bliss, excitement, enthusiasm, passion and the like. Why? Because you will attract to you and your company, events and circumstances to support you in experiencing gratitude, appreciation, thankfulness, etc.

And here’s the most important point of all. What are those things? Where do they come from? Well they are neither the circumstances of life nor do they come from those circumstances. All of those things are attitudes. They come ONLY from you. They need to be generated.

In so many ways, we live in an upside down world. We are so programmed to believe that we get our attitude, our feelings, and our general sense of whom we are and how our life is from the circumstances of life. It just isn’t true.

Circumstances are just circumstances. They don’t inherently mean anything. You can be incredibly poor and truly happy or fabulously rich and miserable. How you choose to interpret the circumstances of life makes all the difference in the world. And now I hope you see how critical that choice is to your success.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving in the USA. It is supposed to be a time when we pause to give thanks for all our blessings. How about using the opportunity this year to start giving thanks every day, maybe even every hour of the day, for all of your blessings? Start generating an everyday attitude of gratitude, appreciation, thankfulness, enthusiasm, passion and joy. You might just come to discover how truly blessed you are. And, given the law of cause and effect, you might just find yourself being showered with blessings!

Several years ago I recorded a program entitled Living a Life You Love. It looks at each of the areas in our lives and gives guidelines on how to make the choices that will bring you success in your finances, relationships, career and attitude. If you haven’t yet gotten your copy, you can order it today at http://www.unshackledleadership.com/online-store/. It might just be the perfect Thanksgiving or holiday gift for yourself or a loved one.

Have a great Thanksgiving celebration wherever you are and a great week.

Success strategy: rules for decision making

Let me again start with what has become my favorite quote, from Albert Einstein, that: “The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or a hostile universe.” Two choices, friendly or hostile. Assuming you choose “friendly,” and I can’t imagine wanting to choose “hostile,” what that means is that the universe is on your side, it’s like a friend, you can count on it, it has your back, it will provide you with whatever support you need or require. So the next question is: how to use this to plan your day. Give this approach from Chapter 30 of A Course in Miracles a try:

Spend some quiet time in the morning thinking about the kind of day you want. Don’t worry about how it will happen; your job is just to think about what you want, what the kind of day you want would look like. Then, tell yourself “there is a way in which this very day can happen just like that.”

The next step, and this will be the hard part for most of you, is to tell yourself: “Today I will make no decisions by myself.” This means that you are choosing not to be the judge of what to do and that you will not judge the situations where you will be called upon to make a response. Remember, it’s a friendly universe and it’s on your side. You must trust it will all unfold perfectly without any interference on your part.

Throughout the day, at any time you think of it and have a quiet moment for reflection, tell yourself again the kind of day you want; the feelings you would have, the things you want to happen to you, and the things you would experience, and say: “If I make no decisions by myself, this is the day that will be given me.”

Until you get good at this, there will surely be times when you make up your mind about something and then decide to ask what you should do. There will also be times when situations occur and you have a judgment about it. This will lead to any of a number of negative reactions like fear, anger, frustration and the like. When this occurs, remember once again the day you want and recognize that something has occurred that is not part of it. Then realize that you have likely asked a question by yourself and must have set an answer in your terms. So, say to yourself: “I have no question. I forgot what to decide.” This approach will cancel out the terms you have set and lets the answer show you what the question must have really been.

Finally, if you are so unwilling to receive you cannot even let your question go, you can begin to change your mind by saying this to yourself: “At least I can decide I do not like what I feel now.”  Having decided that you do not like the way you feel, what could be easier than to continue with: “and so I hope I have been wrong.”

Hopefully, having previously believed that your happiness depends upon you being right, you can now see that you would be better off if you were wrong. This tiny grain of wisdom will suffice to take you to the final step where you can say, in perfect honesty: “Perhaps there is another way to look at this. What can I lose by asking?”

In conclusion, why am I suggesting this approach and what’s in it for you? Most people have a picture of what needs to happen for them to be happy. So they spend their day trying to manipulate people and circumstances to fit that picture. Clear? And, it never works. This approach leads to frustration, resentment and anger. So allow yourself to be wrong about all of it. Just think about the kind of day you want and LET IT GO. Assuming you believe you live in a friendly universe, why not have faith in that universe and trust it to bring it to you. Then you can go on with your day and really be happy. No judgments, no manipulation, no decisions on your own, just an allowing of it to unfold. Doesn’t that sound a lot more peaceful?

Give it a try and let me know how it goes or ask any question you might have. And if all else fails, get a copy of ACIM and read all about it yourself.