Integrate!

The next twelve months or so are probably going to be filled with doom and gloom. Whether or not you are hard hit by the financial downturn, you will be hit hard by the anxiety in the air. Optimism will be in short supply. It is a good time to make a decision. Crudely put, it goes something like: dig in or give up. Either decide that you have the gumption to make something good out of a tough time, or quit now. If you are going to give up at some point during this downturn, there is no sense in waiting. Why not forgo the roller coaster of hope and doubt and simply get to the end that much faster? Or. . . if you are not prepared to give up, why not decide to survive? Why not incorporate - as the hypnotists say - the negative vibes and the fear and the general angst? Notice it and acknowledge it as a predictable consequence of being in business and move through it as a swimmer moves through an icy patch of water or a climber moves up a piece of raw cliff? Hardship is difficult, ...

Sunday evenings are an edge: the boundary between the weekend and the week beginning. The edge is reflected in calendars which sometimes make Sunday the first day of the week and sometimes the last. I think if they were more precise, it would be Sunday evening that seems to be part of both and separate from both. Edges are always, mysteriously, unfamiliar. No matter how many Sunday evenings we live, each one remains caught in the tension of being neither end nor beginning (and certainly not a middle). The tension remains whether we choose to make the evening a time of preparing for the week or a time of lingering in the weekend. This seems especially true to me since many of my weekends are work-time. It is work I love unreservedly - as people love their favourite recreations - and it is work nonetheless. During the weekends, I teach people how to find the resources within them, and how to draw resources into the attention of the people around them. On Sunday evenings, I am often...

As I consider my own business, I am aware that we are walking a very thin edge - and that many others are walking the same edge. It is the nature of a business to move - we do not have the option of clinging to the edge and waiting for something to change. Work is a verb - when we work we keep moving and when we move, we make choices. I wonder how you are making choices now you are uncomfortable, incongruent, maybe even afraid. The world would be a gentler place if all our edges were wide and soft and only a short way above safer ground. They are not. We are called on to make choices when we are not safe and not comfortable. We make these choices all the time. The question is: what makes the difference between good choices and bad choices on the edge? One answer - provided by both history and experience - is that when we cannot trust our instincts, we trust our principles. Another way of looking at this is that there are some situations in which we know we cannot be congruent and ...

Here we are: the day after the election. I live on the border between two ridings and they both have new MPs this morning. Oddly, no one expects much to be different as a result. Yesterday, I asked college students why people vote. A few of them thought it had to do with a sense of duty or a sense of belonging. Some thought it had to do with protecting things that mattered to them. None of them thought that voting meant supporting terrific leaders who would help us do great things collectively. Today, I watched a man load a sign into a truck - the beginning of the great clean up that marks the end of 15 years for one MP. All endings impose chores. So do beginnings - although the winner's signs all seem to be in place. For the people who help, it might seem like something has changed. For almost everyone else, the only thing that changes will be the amount of noise in the landscape. If we want change, we have to expect change. If we want leadership, we have to expect to find...

In our trainings, we play calibration games in which we notice the difference between two states - from the inside and the outside. This weekend, practice different ways of saying Thank You. Notice the difference between saying the words with your voice and saying them with your voice and your smile. What changes when you make eye contact as you say thank you? What changes in you when you catch yourself being thankful for something or someone? We talk more often about the need for praise than we do the need for thanks. Like praise, thanks requires that we notice something good and stabilize it. Thank you gives us something more than praise. Thank you gives us the recognition that some good things are given - that they are extras. We give praise for a job well done - we give thanks for the little bit extra that went beyond what was required. We give praise for results - we give thanks for moments in which we connect and feel better or stronger for the connection. The more we gi...

There are days when I believe in dreaming dreams and setting goals and building. And there are other days - days when the news is scary, and the work is piling up and unhappy people are throwing their complaints at me. On those days I take a deep breath and do what I can do - I count the things I can count on. And then I celebrate. With good food and movement and music. Sometimes I read a book where I know the good guys will win. Sometimes I eat food that has a satisfying crunch or a deep mellowness. Sometimes I look at old family photos. I believe in blessing. Not everyone does, but I do. I believe that a Grace beyond words touches our lives and makes them bearable. Not always easy. Not always joyful. Not always successful. Still. Think of the way a baby smells, fresh from the bath. Think of the way rain deepens the colour of autumn leaves. Think of apples on the tree, and apple pie in the oven. Let all your focus rest in one small good thing. And realize that the Leafs j...

What happens when you come face to face with something that wants to eat you? We have all heard that we have three choices when faced with a threat: we can fight, we can run away, or we can stand very still and hope the problem goes away. If the threat persists, we sometimes try all three choices in sequence. This fall feels threatening. As the days get shorter and cloudier, the economic forecasts also get gloomier. National elections never bring out the best: leadership in a campaign consists of getting your version of the world's woes placed squarely in front of every voter. Vote for me, they say, or face certain doom. One of my very favourite stories is told in a children's book called "Everybody knows what a dragon looks like" (by Jay Williams). When faced by threats on all sides, the leaders of a village decide - systematically - that they cannot fight or escape, and that hiding is unlikely to be effective. So they pray for help. And then they hide. When he...