Integrate!

There are many sources of information on how to balance life and work, as if being paid for something automatically meant being less alive while you do it.  Work involves effort that gets results, and life involves staying alive, which often involves making money, which means doing work. What you are doing at work - right now, in the job for which you earn money - is your life's work. It's the work you do with your breath and your thought and your time and your effort. It's a big part of who you are and how you are and even how you relate to friends or family.  Your life's work is your work. And despite the best efforts at contracting out and delegating, you can't make more of your life to make up for the life you give to your work. As human beings, we all come with a built in program for our life's work. We are all highly sensitive to our connectedness to other people (whether or not we see that as a benefit). Our life's work is to have influence on the...

I've been thinking about how to communicate value to people. Should I just be saying that if you come to one of my programs, you will get to think in really cool ways? It's true. I create experiences that open people up to new thoughts in a way that feels really good. But that doesn't tell people how I solve problems. I do show people that they can solve problems. And in thinking about the problems they solve or could solve or might want to solve, I've realized that every human day wakes up every morning with just two problems: How will I spend my time? How will I live with other people? These are the two non-negotiable conditions of human life for everyone regardless of location, experience, background, etc. etc. etc.  What will call life is continuous with what we call time: we cannot make more of it. Once we have used it, it is gone. How we spend our time is how we are spending our lives, and time moves regardless of whether we are intentional or ready or int...

I've noticed that we do not often talk about sadness. We talk about depression (it's a disease) sometimes about grief (there's counselling for that). We do not talk about what it's like to be sad or how sadness enriches our lives and perspectives. We do not talk about how sadness slows us down and interrupts our thought patterns and makes a change in us. I'm sad today. There are lots of reasons, good reasons. Some are old reasons, anchored to this time of year. Others are current heartaches. Some are not really my own, but they are close enough. And some are things that have not happened yet (but they will happen one day). One of my most firmly held beliefs in life (and presuppositions in my work in NLP) is that we are here to live our lives, not escape from them. Sadness has a place in my life because I have (almost always) stopped trying to outthink my life or work around it. So today, I am agreeing to feel the tightness and tenderness around my heart, to be...

If you are not a geek, it's possible you either haven't heard of Doctor Who or have only a vague sense of a campy sort of show that features time travel. If you've tried to sample just one episode, you might have found it quite confusing and decided to watch something else that required less research to make sense of the action. Two years ago, my son gave me Series 1 as a Christmas gift, and we watched the episodes mostly while on summer holiday. I liked it quite well, but I wasn't quite hooked. Last year, I started watching episodes on television or on the computer shortly after they aired. I liked it better, but I wasn't quite hooked. This winter, I had a cough that lasted forever and I decided I needed to take a break each day. That's when I got hooked. I have to rematch the episodes I had already seen, but I have worked my way through most of series 1 through 7. That's why I finally understood the nature of the blue box that carries the Doctor t...

My friend and colleague, Sheri Andrunyk (an NLPCT Master Practitioner) has been developing a wonderful partnership publishing program at IC Publishing.  Sheri Andrunyk is the founder of I C Publishing and the I C Bookstore, entrepreneur expert, and author of  Working From Home & Making It Work  and  Hearts Linked by Courage ; and she is extremely passionate about providing more choices and high level support to other writers, business professionals, wellness coaches, and spiritual mentors. Sheri is an expert is getting the word out about independent authors and publishers. She invited me to participate in a virtual book tour and I am delighted to blog the results. What am I working on? At the moment I am in the final proofs of my most recent book, Living Your Purpose: The Heart of NLP . It is that stage most hated by authors, the one where I have to do one more brutally detailed reading and decide the book is ready to be released into the world. ...

I am in one of those periods when I am beyond busy. It happens to me from time to time: I have lots of commitments to lots of people (including me) and I really, really need to produce a lot in a limited amount of time. Some of what I need to produce is not especially fun. What do you do? I recently received coaching emails from a well-known expert that talked about getting rid of wasted time and managing time in 30 minute increments. It's easy to agree in theory, but I don't think I do.  Agree, I mean. I also don't manage time this way. Who are you when you know yourself? What's important to you? Some of the things that are important to me are a belief that the arts make us smarter and an equally powerful belief that God (substitute the universe if you are more comfortable with that) doesn't punish us for being present with people who need help or support or just to have company. So I fit music and art into my schedule even when they don't fit. And I sit wi...

I took this picture last week as a reminder that grit happens. As the snow melts and the seasons change, the first result is grit: on the sidewalks; on the melting heaps of snow; in the mess of the gardens. Spring begins with robins and crocuses and grit. We often confuse what is pretty with what is useful. Bunches of tulips in the grocery stores and florists are pretty. They are a sign that spring has arrived somewhere. Mucky puddles with salt and sand left over from colder days are a sign that spring is creeping up on you. When you think about it, you might find that many changes begin like this. Grit happens whenever you want something bad enough to be willing to produce some grit to make it happen. Grit happens when you look at what you have just written and erase it all to make it better. Grit happens when you follow the instructions to the letter and it doesn't work and you start all over again. Grit happens when you are used to feeling good at something and you risk be...