I was reminded of this perspective recently.  A cool little consulting assignment I’ve had for some time changed the amount I am paid.  My first reaction was a little anger at the “unfairness” of it; fear about the reduced revenue; and quite frankly, feeling undervalued.

Here’s what’s interesting.  For several weeks, I have been intently and consciously practicing what we preach (of course, by saying that, it does make it seem that I don’t always do this).  I very quickly began to focus my thoughts on what is the best view of this situation: I have said I want to find similar contract work and this is the incentive. My client’s decision is a valid business one. It’s not personal.

It was taking me a little too long to have this perspective actually come alive energetically so I walked down and told Cathy the news.  Her instant reply – well, you have said you wanted to find similar contract work. Now’s your chance. That’s the difference between having cellular learning and still practicing.

A few years ago, I heard from a client several months after he left one of our retreats.  He said that we really should call ourselves perspective changers.  When he left his retreat he thought one of the changes he wanted in his life was to get a divorce.  After several weeks of focusing his thoughts and doing what really energized him, he began to see the positive in every situation.  Then he discovered the problem with his marriage wasn’t his wife – “it was me.”

Following is a great demonstration of perspective from Intero Real Estate Services blog on perspective – http://interomojo.com/2012/05/14/monday-morning-mojo-the-tiny-black-dot/.  Thanks to Jon Terry for sending this.

     “If I were to make a little black dot on an 8 1/2 x 11″ piece of white paper and show the sheet to a group of people and ask them what they see, the majority will say that they see a black dot. The majority will say that they see a black dot. Very few, if any, will tell me that they see a white sheet of paper with a tiny black dot.  
      We tend to look at our lives in very much the same way. We have our health, enough food to eat, a job that pays the bills and allows us some leisure activities, but we don’t focus on that. We don’t appreciate that.
      Instead, we concentrate on the tiny black dot – the 10% in our lives that we don’t like or the things we wish we could change. By concentrating on the 10% that represents our problems or things we don’t like, we develop a negative attitude and feel lousy. Plus, there’s a universal principle that comes into play: we attract what we think about most.  By focusing on what is lacking in our lives, we create more experiences of scarcity.”

In order to be able to change your perspective, you need to keep your thoughts, actions and behaviors above-the-line (positive). Focusing your thoughts on what enlivens you – in this moment – gives you the opportunity to see everything from a more energizing and effective perspective.

Fun stuff – perspective.

Gary

This means that each of us has two primary energetic jobs: Job #1 is to be responsible and accountable to keep our own lights on; be consciously thoughtful of our own energy and do what we need to do to be fully energized each day.  Additionally, Job #2 is to make sure we are thoughtfully aware of creating the space for each person in our family to also have what energizes them each day.  Although staying lights-on is their job not ours, we need to be mindful of supporting their lights.

   Just shower the people you love with love
Show them the way that you feel
Things are gonna work out fine if you only will
Shower the people you love with love
Show them the way you feel
Things are gonna be much better if you only will

                                      James Taylor

The most effective way to shower the people you love with love is to live every day thinking, doing and being lights-on.  When you are fully enlivened, you have the capacity to give your room-mates, partners, co-workers the space and encouragement to live every day lights-on.

This phrase literally popped into my mind recently and my first reaction was – What does it mean?  Why did it suddenly appear so clearly into my brain?  Cathy says it’s the Universe sending me information.  I have learned that listening to Cathy is always beneficial.  I’m sure that listening to both Cathy and the Universe is even more beneficial.  So, here’s what I believe it means.

Living in the present is absolutely necessary to live a vibrant, lights-on life. It requires being present, staying awake and aware all the time.  Being conscious so you are making choices, moment by moment, that are enlivening, not draining.  Being present allows you to be observant – be a high noticer of the clues and synergies that give you direction for the present as well as the future.

Expressing gratitude for the future allows you to focus on and express your knowing that all things are possible.  It also reflects your knowledge that everything is just energy.  You send out your intentional energy for what you want in the future and that energy attracts the future reality you desire.  This expression of gratitude is a very powerful force in your designing the future you want to create.

Honoring perspective of the past allows you to remain knowledgeable of the lessons you learned from the experiences.  Once you fully acknowledge the lessons you have learned, you can let go of regrets and wishing you had done something differently. And, know you have released any energy draining thoughts that remain from a past you cannot change – but can only learn from.

Live in the present; express gratitude for the future and honor my perspective of the past. I’m grateful it popped into mind, and I think it will be my daily mantra for a while.

While waiting for my name to be called, I looked at my photo on the old license.  I’ve had to live with this grumpy, angry representation for five years.  What I remember of my last experience with DMV was that it was excruciatingly aggravating – as was reflected in my photo.

You may remember that I do not always enjoy contact with large organizations (see The Personal Energy Cost of Bad Customer Service).  This visit actually went smoothly (more on that later).

Looking at the photo I was also reminded of a former client. Bill is a very bright guy, and at the time, the head of an engineering department at a communications company.  There were many important projects to be managed, so Bill always had much on his mind.

Grumpiness is seldom intentional

When I began working with him, I received feedback from his co-workers.  They said – he’s always grumpy; never smiles; never says hello; never acknowledges; always unfriendly and scary looking.  Bill was also a very large, bear of a man, over 6’5” tall.  When he walked down the hallways looking grumpy, he was scary.

The Bill I met with was soft spoken and truly likeable, more of a teddy bear.  When I presented his co-workers’ feedback, he said “I’m not thinking about other people when I walk down the hallway. I’m usually on my way to a meeting and thinking about some challenge that needs to be addressed. I honestly don’t even notice the people on the way.”

Grumpy impacted co-workers do not enjoy the workplace

Dedicated focus on results is an admirable trait.  However, there also needs to be an conscious awareness of the people around you.  Peak performance is the result of a peak work experience.  And, that requires helping your co-workers enjoy their workplace; not scare them to death every time you leave your office.

Bill changed his whole approach.  He began to intentionally use his walk time to be more observant of his team.  He actually hung a mirror by the door to his office so he was reminded to look at his face before he walked out.  Was it his scary, grumpy face or his gentle, teddy bear face?  He set his intention to observe, smile, say hello and engage with people.

That little move made a huge difference in a very short period of time (actually being conscious and aware of your impact on others is not a little move).  His CEO told me that there was almost a magical change in workplace. By being intentional about how he wanted to be with others, Bill was not only engaged in the hallway but was also more personable and engaged with people throughout the day.

An obvious side-effect was that Bill began to enjoy his work more when he realized that he had been ignoring his personal need for interaction and connection.

It’s up to you. What energy do you want reflected back to you?

The energy you send out to the world is the energy that is mirrored back to you.  You control that energy with your thoughts – conscious or unconscious.  If the people in your near energy field are grumpy, fearful, anxious, scared, the first question to ask is what energy are you sending.

As I mentioned, my visit to the DMV went smoothly.  When I told a friend I was going (with some expressed, negative reservation), she suggested I read my own blog and follow my own advice.  So, I sat in my car, set my intention that everything would flow smoothly and that I would maintain a feeling of effortlessness throughout.  That’s exactly what happened.  I think  my new photo reflects that feeling of effortlessness.

Lori is a homeopathic veterinarian.  She is a true animal lover and understands more than the average person her capacity to communicate with animals.  The other day, she also learned the amazing power of using her thoughts to impact the animals she lives with.

Naturally, Lori shares her home with animals.  She lives with 4 cats – two of which are restricted to two rooms because they don’t play well with the others.  They are the upstairs cats.

During a recent Get Clarity™ retreat, Lori learned that in order to live a fully energized and enlivened life, her job number one is to monitor and control her own thoughts and energy.  And, job number two is to create space for the people she lives and works with to also live energized lives.

The other day, Lori entered a room where the upstairs cats lived to what she defined as a “furball of two cats engaged in screaming and hissing ferocity with clumps of hair all over.”  Normally, she would have injected into this ferocity furball her anxiety and fear that one of them would be hurt.  However, being conscious of effectively holding her own thoughts and actions, she calmly looked at the cats and said “My intention is that this family will live here in complete harmony. So, the two of you need to work it out.”  Ferocity immediately turned to calmness.

Lori said the astounding part of this experience was the real, tangible, visible effect that controlling her own energetic thoughts and stating her intention had on the cats.

The energy you send out to the world is the energy you will attract from those closest to you.  The thoughts, actions and behaviors of those people closest to you (family, co-workers) are mirrors of your own.  Like attracts like.  What we’ve learned from Lori’s great story is that sending out positive thoughts and energy also works on the animals in our lives.

We think that’s the cat’s meow.

During these separate experiences, we each pondered on the same idea – the power of our thoughts to create our own reality.  Not unusual, of course, since that’s what we primarily teach and live every day.

Lights-on and arm-driven hiking
My pondering began when I met a couple on the hiking trail.  The man apparently didn’t have use of his legs as he was using an arm-powered bicycle.  And, he was obviously very lights-on and delighted to be on that path.  Seeing him so vibrantly engaged with his life, reminded me of a recent discussion we had with a group of people responsible for helping soldiers and airmen returning from war zones mentally and physically damaged.

Our discussion was around the question: “what has one person depressed and retreating because of his or her injuries; and others not only accept their new reality but actually become energized and focused on staying vibrantly alive, following their passions – skiing on special skies; running marathons on prosthetic legs; “hiking” in Sedona on an arm-powered bike?”

Cathy’s pondering experience came during a workshop led by Dr. Joe Dispenza.  In his new book, Breaking The Habit of Being Yourself, he talks of the science behind our ability to create new neural pathways – new thought patterns that energetically create the life we want; that we can “craft the specific future events we want to experience”.

Vibrant, aliveness energy comes from focusing your thoughts on a lights-on vision you want to create and live.  It is that aliveness energy that will attract your vision to you.
Whatever our situation in life, we all have our current reality. It’s how we energetically view that reality, where we focus our thoughts that is critical. “Woe is me” thoughts are energy draining and the more we think those thoughts, the more we build a brain pattern that keeps us from designing a vibrant life.

Sustained thought changing enlivens us
When we look at our current reality and feel a lights-on desire to create something different, we bring energy into our system.  Just the mere fact of focusing our thoughts on something in the future that lights us up, we feel energized.  The more we focus our thoughts on this vision, we begin to build a different brain pattern – one that enlivens and keeps us in effective action.

If you are interested in a tool that can help you control changing your thoughts, take a look at SHIFT, A Guidebook to Positive Thinking.

Live lights-on

Cathy & Gary Hawk

We want to restate our belief that if you want peak performances from your employees, you first need to create peak experiences for each and every employee.  Everyone does their job better if they are lights-on and enjoying their work.  Our 20 Ways to Inspire Employees will help you create that experience.

11.  Use coach-able moments to improve the performance of employees.  Watch for both the good work people are doing as well as the areas where they can improve.  Coaching’s purpose is to improve an individual’s performance. Good     coaches make sure to acknowledge when the work is done well while also guiding the employee on how to improve the performance.  When you see an opportunity to improve performance take that moment to do it.

12.  Remember that a big part of your responsibility as a leader is to develop other leaders.  Every good employee wants to grow and become better at what they do. Train them often.  Provide opportunities and encouragement for them to learn new things, better methods, and their own deeper self understanding.

13.  Always direct your thoughts and your expression of them to the positive. Your primary focus should be on what is working, rather than what is not working.  Do not spend all your time, energy and conversations on all that’s wrong.  This does not mean you don’t need to solve the problems. It’s how your energy is focused on solving them that’s important.

14.  Focus on developing each individual’s strengths; don’t keep expending all your managing efforts on trying to fix that person’s weaknesses. When every employee is primarily using their strengths every day, it creates energy in the workplace that is very palpable and powerful.

15.  Remove judgment and criticism from your actions and your conversations.Direct everyone’s focus to what worked or what did not work – what was effective or ineffective.  Judgment and criticism creates drama and negative  energy throughout an organization.  Assigning blame and making personal attack will only have people get defensive and resistive.

16.  Keep total faith that you will achieve the shared vision while remaining fully aware of the current reality.  It is your unwavering faith in the vision that will spark the productive energy in your employees.  This is very critical when the current reality becomes challenging and difficult. Designing strategies and solutions to handle current realities are much easier to see and do when guided by the light of the shared vision.

17.  Let go.  Don’t hold on to past mistakes – yours or your employees. Bringing the past  into the future has everyone looking to the past for justification or excuses.  It is just not effective.  Focus instead on where you are now and where you want to go. Remember the lines from Willie Nelson.  “I know just what I’d change if I went back in time somehow.  But there is nothing I can do about it now.”

18.  Be grateful for the opportunities offered by the work you do together.  This is related to focusing on the positive.  When you take time each day to recognize what you are grateful for, you create an energetic opening that generates more positive energy.  Expressing gratitude helps you keep your focus on the right things to be productive and effective.

19.  Celebrate wins often.  Nothing is emotionally more energizing then celebrating work well done. Taking the time for company or team high fives will energize everyone.  Remembering the satisfaction of accomplishment feeds the desire to do it again and again.

20.  And, to help make this list similar to other lists you may have read on how to motivate employees, take everyone out to a ball game once in a while.

You will see that number 3 on our list is that you quit motivating and start inspiring people.  When you substitute the work inspire for motivate, you will ask different questions.

We also believe that if you want peak performances from your employees, you first need to create peak experiences for each and every employee.  Everyone does their job better if they are lights-on and enjoying their work.  Our 20 Ways to Inspire Employees will help you create that experience.

1. Be the leader they want to follow.  Never lose sight of the fact that good employees follow good leaders.
2. Lead with a passionate vision of what you want for your business.  If your vision is not clear and not connected to your heart, then do whatever is necessary to discover that vision.  If you do not have a clear, heart-connected vision, it is impossible to connect with the passion and spirit of your employees.
3. Quit trying to motivate them.  Put all your time and effort into inspiring them.  Tap into their spirit and they will be inspired to do their best work.
4. Create and inspire a shared vision with every single employee.  The employees you want need to know that their work has a purpose and makes a difference in the world.  Let them be part of creating a shared vision that incorporates your vision as leader.  It’s basic human emotion to want to belong to a community that they believe in and connect with.
5. Talk about the shared vision often – everyday.  Connect the actions taken by everyone to the vision by telling stories about how individuals, project teams and the company are delivering products and services that support the common vision.
6. Be relentless in hiring the right people and placing them in jobs where their skills and talents can have the most impact.  Extensive research has proven that every person, including you, wants to do work they are best at; work that is the highest and best use of their time, talent and energy.
7. Be ruthless about protecting the culture and shared vision.  Be quick to fire the employee who doesn’t fit or whose skills cannot deliver what’s needed.  It is very de-motivating to your best people to work with someone who isn’t productive.   It’s even more de-motivating if the leader doesn’t lead and do what’s necessary to move that person out of the company.
8. Be authentic, self-confident (and modest) in everything that you do every day.   Lead by example.  Do the personal growth work required to become more self aware.   In many ways you are the lead product or service in your business.  As a leader you are always looking for ways to improve your company’s services.  It is just as important to seek out ways to improve you.  Find training, books, coaches, mentors who can help you grow as a person. Then bring that more evolved person to work every day.
9. Stay present – stay conscious.  You can’t lead at your full capacity if you go through your day on automatic and being unconscious.  Take many moments throughout the day to stop and become fully present.  Staying present will enable you be more observant of your impact on others.
10. Create an environment of trust and open communication.  Trust primarily comes from living and working from a set of core values.  Develop and instill company core values and a set of guidelines on how each employee will work within those values.   Continue doing all that is necessary to teach and practice honest, open and direct communication.

Recently we posted a question in a Linkedin group – “When you find yourself in a wave of negative thought, how do you shift back to positive thinking?”  It struck a chord and several people responded with some great ideas.

Isn’t this the underlying quest for many of us – keeping our thoughts, which drive our actions and behaviors, on a more effective, more positive level?  With this in mind, below are many different methods others use to sustain positive thinking.

The first step is to have a strategy in mind ahead of time.  When you realize your thoughts and actions are negative (ineffective), what are the tools or actions you will immediately use to shift your thinking?

You have the power to choose your thoughts.  The more you use this power of choice, you can rewire the way your brain thinks – permanently.  Neuroscience has established that you can create new neural pathways in your brain.  Do you choose to trod down that well worn, energy draining pathway you have already created, or do you use your power of choice to create a new, higher energy highway.  It only takes 90 to 120 days of following a daily, shift your thoughts strategy to develop this new super highway.  Here are some great ideas you can incorporate:

Make a list of “to-do” items to follow when you fight the depression – inclusions for the list include: call my spouse and talk, run, workout, play tennis, take photos, paint, listen to comedians on YouTube, smile, take a hot bath, listen to music, get into the sunlight, do deep breathing, focus on the present moment, be of service to someone.

Realize quickly when you are beginning on a negative track before it fully takes over; then notice if it’s a negative recording from the past – create a new positive recording. Recognize the negative thoughts and reframe to positive; create affirmations.

Get moving – hike, yoga, dance; reading, meditation, exercise and going to church. Read an uplifting book. Definitely do not watch the news.  Take a deep cleansing breath and exhale, release and let go

Act your way into right thinking, don’t think your way into acting; Stay focused on the tasks at hand and know if you keep moving your energy will return.  Positive actions will bring your thoughts with them.  Do something out of the ordinary; gives you a new focus.

Embrace all the successes of the day – applaud even the simple ones throughout your day.  Keep a gratitude journal that acknowledges all the positive things in your life. Give and feel gratitude for all the wonderful things around you

Surround yourself with family and friends that positively recognize you and the good you bring to them.

Keep a journal of inspirational quotes; during the down moments find more quotes to add to the journal. Listen to uplifting people; watch positive videos.  Subscribe to a free email service that sends inspirational sayings.  Turn on Pandora and skip all the way to the store – observe how others look at you.  Laughter will break the blahs – read joke books.

Two experiences in the past year have been great reminders of how I can allow things I have no control over to impact my thoughts, health and energy.  We have all experienced large company customer service (a true misnomer).  For me it was two separate occasions with phone companies.  I won’t mention their names because the lack of true customer service is apparently not limited to these two (go to Google and type in “I hate (pick a company)” and you will see what I mean.)  It does make me wonder what would happen if senior executives multi-million dollar bonuses were based on evaluation of their commitment to customer service rather than their stock play.  However, that is a subject for someone else’s blog.

The last event forced me to ponder my inability to control my thoughts, behaviors and energy when faced with six calls to six separate 800 numbers, seven different people in three different states (and maybe two countries) and then having the one who could help me drop the call with no way to get back to him.  I went ballistic…several times.  Embarrassing, screaming of obscenities, testing the durability of plastic phones when being slammed into their base, scaring the dogs and Cathy… Of course, we all know that served no one, most of all me.  Most importantly, I didn’t walk my talk.

We are in total control of our thoughts.  To live a healthy, vibrant, passionate, purpose driven life, our job number one is to hold our own energy by controlling our own thoughts – no matter what.  I re-learned the cost of not paying attention to this.

My physical health was affected.  The adrenaline overload made me tired, drained and a little ill for two days.  My relationship was impacted – Cathy had to listen to my colorful, high volume tirades; worry about my health and hold her own energy field at the same time. And, I certainly didn’t use intentional, attraction energy to influence the near field person on the phone who claimed they wanted to help.

We do not have control over large, monolithic organizations or anyone else we interact with daily. The only thing we have control over is how our thoughts about them impact our own personal energy.

What can we do to be more energetically effective in situations like this?

Set our intention:  Would the result of all these conversations been different if before the call I had set my intention to stay calm no matter what the service person said or did?  Would the service have been different if I had expected and trusted that they would take care of me?  Certainly, I would have been more present and effective in my own communication with them.  And, whatever happened on the call would not have negatively impacted my energy, my health or capacity to think effectively.

Delegate:  If we know an activity is going to drain our energy, then delegate it to someone who will be energized by it. Rather than test my dedication to walking my talk, I now delegate to our assistant, Kim, all conversations with monolithic corporate service departments.  Her only attachment is to making it happen and she remains calm throughout the process.

Gary Hawk

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