Choose: take responsibility or be a victim

Well, much to my surprise, and delight, I received very few unsubscribes after last week’s post and, while I received many e mails from subscribers, the vast majority of them were quite positive. K.K. from Illinois said “Great thought provoking article today! Keep up the great work.” D.S. from Mississippi wrote “This is great!  Keep up the information, I need a boost and you give me what I need. I will definitely forward this one to others, people need to wake up! Thank you so much for all the encouragement!” And C.S. wrote “I cannot thank you enough for posting this newsletter! I am going to forward this on to some of my friends who need this just as much as I did. Although what you have written might have offended some; those offended have to face themselves, which is not always easy.”

And here’s one you really have to read. K. K. from Missouri wrote “Thank you for saying what needed to be said about our country's health. I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes 3 years ago. With the help of a good doctor, I was able to change my eating habits and lost 57lbs. Although I still am taking Metformin, which desensitizes a body's resistance to use insulin, I have my blood sugar under control, my blood pressure is way down, my cholesterol is well within range, and a lot of the side effect symptoms of these conditions have simply gone away !!”

So with all this encouragement, I’m going to continue on this vein. What was interesting to me is that essentially all of the feedback touched on the health issue I wrote about. But as a business coach, the issue that concerns me the most is the fact that 7 out of 10 of the full time workers in the US are either “checked out” or actively disengaged. This fact is costing our economy 100’s of billions of dollars yearly, if not trillions. The odds are that 7 out of 10 of you reading this are in that group. So whether it’s the health issue or this issue, I asked last week: where do we go from here?

I hope you’ve been thinking about the issues I raised, I surely have. Here’s what I’ve come to next: I think the real issue behind why we choose to stay ignorant, and I still believe we do, is that we really don’t want to take responsibility for our lives. Early in my career as a coach, my very first mentor told me that if I want to have an amazing life, take responsibility for everything. Not only for what I do, but for what others do to me, and even for what others do to others. I chose to take his advice and while I still have a lot to learn, the biggest advantage is that I no longer feel like a victim. What happens in my life is my responsibility, all of it, and I don’t get to blame you or anyone else if I don’t like what I’m experiencing.

My assertion is that few approach life this way. I really think that people get off on blaming others for all of life’s challenges and/or expect others to solve their problems. Take the health issue, for example. People want to do whatever they feel like doing, eat whatever they feel like eating, exercise or not, get adequate sleep or not, and then, when the body breaks down, which it almost has to do, they run to the doctor to solve their problem. I’ll bet that that’s exactly what most of you do.

And at work, regardless of which side of the management issue you’re on, it always seems to be somebody else’s fault when things don’t go the way you like. For people in  a management position, the typical questions are: why aren’t my people motivated; why can’t I get them to be accountable; why can’t people just get along; why can’t I get people to take responsibility and not come running to me for everything. Can you relate?

When I hear managers say things like the above, my comment is always: people are always motivated. Just watch what they take on when they go home. How come you’re not providing them with a reason to bring their motivation to work? What’s their motivation to be accountable? Why don’t you teach people the skills of getting along?

And if you’re on the other side of the management position, the typical issues always seem to be your boss or one or more of your coworkers or the company or the customers. Life would always be great if someone else would just do what you want them to do, the way you want them to do it, and be the way you want them to be. Still with me?

And this is really an even bigger issue than I have expressed here. At the risk of exposing my political perspective, we have an entire political party that believes that people have no ability to be responsible for their own lives and it’s the role of government to take care of everyone. It so offends me. Surely there are some people who need to be taken care of. I’m not heartless. But tens of millions? I’m reminded of the expression: “Give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and feed him for life.” So what are we doing? Feeding people or teaching them to fish?

So I leave you with this question: Are you willing to take responsibility for everything in your life? And I mean everything? Two choices, as always: Be responsible or be a victim. Now you choose. As always, I welcome your comments. To be continued.

I have met the enemy and it is us

I’m on a cruise from Venice, Italy to Athens, Greece and the one thing that traveling surely does for one is give them an opportunity to observe both themselves and others. With that in mind, I find myself wondering why is it that we seem both to be so ignorant about so many important issues and, even worse, to be committed to staying ignorant? Now that I have your attention, hopefully, please consider the following.

Statistics show that fully 1/3^rd of the people in the USA are overweight. Yet, if you watch people at the buffet, as I have done, it’s always the heaviest people that take the most unhealthy food. If you’re one of the 1/3^rd, do you look in the mirror? Do you not know that you’re overweight and unhealthy? You can’t seriously be ignorant of the fact that your eating and lifestyle aren’t healthy, so why do you choose to stay ignorant?

We really don’t have a healthcare crisis in this country, we have a health crisis in this country and hardly anyone is talking about it. In fact, we have entire industries seemingly committed to keeping us unhealthy. Does anyone seriously think a can of soda pop is good for you? Yet Coca Cola and others continue to crank those cans out. Does milk really do a body good? Does any other animal on the planet other than human beings drink the milk of another animal? The fact of the matter is that there isn’t anything you can put in your body that’s unhealthier than dairy products but that doesn’t stop the industry from producing them.

And let’s talk about drugs. There has never been a drug created that doesn’t have potentially serious side effects. But when you go to the doctor, does he coach you on regaining your health and taking steps to cure what ails you? Rarely, if ever. All western medicine is about treating, not curing, and all treating is drug related. One day this will hopefully be criminal but today, the drug industry is a multi-billion dollar behemoth that has taken over our lives. Do we really think we’re getting healthier as a result? I’m sure we’re not ignorant, but are we committed to staying ignorant?

And now that I’ve ragged on the health issue, let’s talk about the fact that people in the USA are mostly unhappy. 1/3^rd of the country is on anti-depressants. There are more drugs and anti-depressants sold in the USA than the rest of the world combined. And there’s no place where we’re unhappier than at work. I previously reported the results of the latest Gallup poll. Of the 100 million full time workers, 50 million are “checked out” at work and another 20 million are actively disengaged. We surely can’t be ignorant of the facts, there they are. But is anyone trying to do anything about it or are we committed to being like the Ostrich with its head in the sand and staying ignorant?

I just don’t get it. What has happened to us? Have we stopped caring, about ourselves, and each other? We laugh when we think that people used to think the world was flat or that if you tried to run a mile in 4 minutes your heart would explode. In those days, people were ignorant but didn’t realize they were ignorant so I can excuse them. But today? All the information is out there. I recently saw a movie entitled Sick, Fat and Almost Dead. Great movie about a man who was each of those things and lost well over 100 pounds and then coached a man who lost well over 200 pounds. And then there are some really great books available like The China Study which is discussed in another great movie Forks Over Knives.

If you’re not totally healthy, the information is out there. There’s no longer an excuse for being ignorant. The real problem is that people seem to be committed to staying ignorant. I once asked a man who had quadruple bypass surgery if he changed his eating habits as a result. His answer: I’m not giving up my barbecued ribs! Amazing.

There are 10’s of millions of people who have diabetes, the most easily curable disease we have. All it really takes is a change in one’s diet and you can be cured in as little as a week. But nobody wants to change their diet. They want to do what they please and then run to the doctor for drugs. It’s almost unbelievable to me. We’re ignorant and committed to staying that way.

And for the 70 million of you who work for or run companies where people are checked out or actively disengaged, those are the facts. You can’t claim ignorance. But are you committed to staying ignorant? There are solutions, we see them every day. Have you stopped caring, about yourself, about your fellow human beings? I just don’t understand.

We’re on an unsustainable path and you all know it, at least I hope you do. We need to wake up and start seriously addressing these issues or we will ultimately face some even worse consequences.

Now what are you going to do about this? I suspect I will have more unsubscribes than ever before because I’m sure I’ve offended many of you who, if I have done so, choose to stay ignorant. For the rest of you, let’s start a dialog about what we can do to start confronting and resolving these issues. I truly welcome your comments and suggestions.   

Leadership tip: Get off the ladder

As we get ready to head off for a bit late summer vacation, I find myself wondering if you’ve taken some quality time off this summer? Vacations, and actually frequent vacations, are good for the mind, the emotions, your health and your spirit. Why is that? Because we need periodic breaks from what has become for most a pretty pressure filled life. Every day, it’s go go go, do a lot, do more, do even more. This type of life creates stress and stress is the number one contributor to a compromised immune system. And you really don’t want to compromise your immune system because it’s the mechanism that protects your entire body from all of the factors that attack it daily.

I have found that a long weekend, 3 to 4 days, at least every other month, and at least a 10 day vacation, at least once a year, is critical to restore your immune system to a high state of effectiveness. And I won’t even get into the importance of at least 8 quality hours of sleep each night, a healthy diet and regular exercise.

So why is it that so many people in a leadership position just don’t take time off? Once again it’s our old friend the ego. Remember, there are 3 things the ego tells you, as well as every other person walking on the planet, and that is that you’re not good enough, not worthy, and not loved. If you think your ego doesn’t tell you that, you just haven’t been paying enough attention. The result is that the vast majority of people embark on a useless journey, early in adulthood, to prove that they really are good enough, worthy and loved. Focusing for a moment on the first point, what is the most common strategy to prove you’re good enough? Make it!

So if you wonder why you and so many others are workaholics, why taking time off is often not something we even consider, the simple answer is that it’s not the primary focus of our lives. The focus of our lives is to climb the ladder of success toward some imagined goal which represents “success” because if indeed we become “successful,” this will be evidence that we have “made it” and in the final analysis, we have proven that we really are good enough.

Can you relate to any of this? Just look around you or perhaps in the mirror, you’ll see this everywhere. But here’s the problem. It’s a scheme that never works because what never seems to be noticed is that the only reason people are frantically climbing up the ladder of success is because the ladder is resting on a foundation of “I’m not good enough.” So how high on the ladder do you have to climb before you invalidate the foundation? There’s no answer to that question because no matter how high you climb, the foundation is still there. In fact, as we climb higher and higher, the more frustrating it becomes because we never seem to feel better about ourselves.

Is there a solution to this quandary that will allow you to relax, enjoy life and perhaps take some time off? You bet. Get off the ladder! And if you think that’s easier said than done, perhaps it will get easier if you step back and take a look at why you’re climbing in the first place. It’s just a game the ego loves to have you play because that’s one of its many techniques to keep you unhappy. The fact of the matter is that you were born perfect. Really. If you stopped and took stock of what you have accomplished already in your life, you would even reach the conclusion that you’re amazing.

Finally, who are you trying to convince that you really are good enough? See, you think everyone is watching you and wondering how good you are. That’s completely not true. Everyone else has their attention on themselves, they really don’t care about you, they spend all of their time wondering what you’re thinking about them and whether you think they are good enough.

One of these days I’m going to write a book entitled “The Incredibly Silly Games People Play.” What I’ve written about here will be one of them. So until I write that book, stop playing, take a vacation, and read more about what I have written here in Chapter 12 of Unshackled Leadership. You can get your copy on this site.

The Power of Forgiveness

Have you ever had trouble forgiving someone, maybe, even yourself? You just keep holding on to something and can’t let go.  It’s like a weight dragging you down and keeping you stuck. 

Scott Hunter talked about the importance of apologizing and forgiving in his Unshackled Leadership website blog and Coach’s Corner newsletter earlier this week, saying “Forgiveness is a willingness to let go of the anger and hurt, to pardon the other person, to put the past in the past, and to restore the relationship to how it was before the events discussed occur.”   It is the act of pardoning or excusing oneself or someone else without harboring resentment.

The biggest challenge is for us to forgive for something we believe is absolutely wrong.  To get beyond this, it’s important to understand that forgiving is not condoning a hurtful or harmful behavior.  It’s freeing your heart and mind from the meaning you have created about yourself, about others, or about something hurtful that occurred that continues to cause you misery.  It’s helpful to remember that in every moment, people do the best they can based on their thinking and programming at that time. 

What makes this difficult is that most of us have our own programming that involves judging.  We go to “right” or “wrong” and “good” or ”bad”.  To forgive, it’s important to let go of these judgments, to forgive and let go. 

An important first step to forgiveness is to forgive yourself.  Look at the situations that are troubling you and ask, “What do I need to forgive myself for?”  Write these things down.  State out loud your willingness to forgive yourself for each thing. As you do, cross off each item. You can tear up the paper or burn it.  Picture it blowing away in the wind. You’re now done with it.  Let it go! Follow this process for other people you need to forgive.

Sometimes, forgiveness is a process.  When these thoughts come back into your mind, continue the process to let them go.  Remember, we all do the best we can with what we have.  Forgiveness gives you power.  As you let go of resentments and forgive, you will feel lighter and more energetic.  Forgiveness gives you the power to move forward with a life that is full of love, joy, happiness and success.

Learn to apologize and forgive

In the last three posts, I stated that for true teamwork to occur, people have to learn three fundamental rules of effective human interaction: you must keep your files empty; you must learn to communicate appropriately; and you must learn to make it safe for the people in your life to communicate to you. When files are empty, what’s present is openness, intimacy and trust, the hallmarks of nurturing relationships.

Last week I discussed the third rule: making it safe for the people in your life to communicate to you. Here’s the end of the story.

After everyone has “emptied their files,” as discussed last week, the next step is to apologize. It’s really remarkable how difficult it seems to be for so many people just to apologize. The reason behind this is that most think an apology is an admission that they have done something “wrong,” and, in many cases, it just doesn’t feel that way. After all, it’s the other person’s perception that something hurtful has been done and that might not at all been the guilty parties intention.

The fact of the matter is that an apology is not at all an admission of guilt or wrongdoing. When fully understood, an apology is simply a way to acknowledge the other person’s feelings about the matter they have just communicated. When you apologize, in essence what you are saying is: I acknowledge what you said, I acknowledge what I did or didn’t do, I acknowledge that whatever I did or said or didn’t do had an impact on you, I’m willing to take responsibility, and I request you forgive me. When understood this way, an apology allows the other party to experience that they’ve been heard and opens the door to forgiveness.

So once both parties have apologized to each other for whatever was communicated in the file emptying session, the final step is forgiveness. Forgiveness is a willingness to let go of the anger and hurt, to pardon the other person, to put the past in the past, and to restore the relationship to how it was before the events discussed occurred.

Now you would think that people would be willing to forgive each other for the simple reason that to not do so means that people are quite literally “stuck” with the anger and/or resentment that arose from whatever the event was. But it’s an unfortunate reality of the human condition that far too many people are unwilling to forgive. Being a kind and loving human being is not a high priority for far too many. People seem to feel entitled to their grievances and they actually cherish their negativity.

Studies further show that people seem to feel entitled to make enemies and somehow justify their right to do so. They use the fact that they were wounded in the past to justify wounding others. People simply do not look carefully enough to the consequences of their behavior and this is a big reason why there is so much anger in the world. Please, learn to forgive and let go. You can either be right or happy and the later is so much a better choice!

There are a number of stories of how this works in personal relationships, with management and other teams, and between co-workers in Chapter 14 of Unshackled Leadership. If you still don’t have a copy, you can get yours today at http://www.unshackledleadership.com/online-store/