Without knowing what Soul is, as I cannot define it – but then again I cannot define Mind and Mind is as nebulous as Soul, and Mind exists, I’m sure, because it functions through the brain to create and express our thoughts. It seems at this point that mind has a voice (or a least is connected to one) and that the Soul is expressed through another mode of communication.

And then I come across Benyus, who says that we still have a longing to be reconnected with the nature that shaped our imagination, our language, our song and dance, our sense of the divine – and I began to sense my Soul as the nature in me that ignites the desire to be connected or perhaps reconnected with that that has shaped me and you and all of us.

This is my Souls journey. What if I intentionally brought my Souls desire to connect to the workplace? If I did, perhaps it would look like a great desire to be part of something more than the gifts I bring to a workplace. Perhaps it would look like a collaboration between team members and peers and everyone we encountered that together we can create more than we could have anticipated or imagined simply because 1+1= way more than the next number. This idea takes us beyond our unique contribution we can make as an individual and suggests that working together we truly grow exponentially as an individual and as a team, community etc.

I have a yearning to be seen and connected and not just witnessed and measured in the workplace by processes. These processes were designed to support our workflows to allow us more time to engage in acts of creativity in the workplace. Yet we spend more time designing, implementing and correcting ‘work processes’ than we do in engaging the human spirit to innovate and even less time for the Soul to connect.

And we do the same to our bodies. We push our body to meet the demands we place on her/him to be on time (therefore we eat fast foods) and to work long hours (therefore we deprive ourselves of the healing benefits of sleep).

Conscious Living by Dr Gay Hendricks has given five required lessons of the (Soul-my insert here) journey. They are:

1. Feel All Your Feelings Deeply

“Always and in every moment, embrace what is real inside yourself and focus on what is real outside yourself.”

This alone allows you to reconnect with your body and to stop and listen to her/his wisdom. Your arse is smart too you know!

2. Seek Your True Self

“Get your priorities straight. Focus first on who you are, then let your actions flow from this place of deep self-knowledge.”

The day you begin to contemplate, regularly, on the question of ‘who’ you are “ is the beginning of a new awareness that only you and no degrees or life experiences can give you. This is your essence and your essence is sourced from your soul.

3. Let Go of the Uncontrollable

“The secret of happiness is knowing that there are some things you can control and some things you cannot.”

Handy to reflect on!

4. We Are All Made of the Same Thing

“When we go deeply enough into who we are and who others are, we will find our organic connection with divinity and theirs.”

And we are back to the yearning for reconnection.

5. Life Is Fullest When We’re Most True to Ourselves

“If you express what needs to be expressed within you, you will be happy and fulfilled. If you don’t, you won’t.”

Could true to yourself refer to your Soul?

Appearing in this Article

Janine M. Benyus – Connecting and nourishing our networks with her thoughts – a champion of biomimicry

Dr Gay Hendricks – Psychologist and body/mind therapist – of course!

Robert Pirsig – Oh you didn’t see him? He wrote Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. There’s a relevant story there pertaining to arithmetic and the meaning of Soul. A son asks his father if he, the father, believes in ghosts. The father answers abruptly and quickly with “Of course, not!” Then, he thinks about it and he explains to his son that maybe he does believe in ghosts because he believes in the number system and it is a ghost. A ghost is non-concrete, can’t be touched nor felt, no weight, no mass. What are numbers? They are symbols with meaning attached to them… and, for some, connecting the symbols with the actual counting process is very abstract. When we look at ancient Egyptian numbers, they are meaningless symbols to us unless we have taken the time to study and connect the symbol with its intended meaning.

Buddha? What do you think?

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It’s on your mind constantly, repetitively going over the ‘yuck’ feeling of that relationship. And as you continue to re-live the relationship ‘issue,’ you think you are in the process of solving it. Guess what? You’re not. You are just keeping the story in the tabloids.

So let’s look at this another way. Do you always have harmony with people you do like? Be honest with yourself here. I asked one of my clients, a manager of many people in a public business, these three questions and these are her responses:

Why do you want to have harmony with colleagues that you dislike?

“Because without harmony I feel that we are not relating. I cannot understand why they are thinking and acting the way they are. Without harmony I feel that we are working towards different goals – this causes ongoing frustration for myself and them. I want to be able to work towards the same goals with them. And I want the process to be one based on synergy. I want to have harmony with them so that I feel better instead of feeling stressed, angry and frustrated all the time.”

Why do you dislike these colleagues?

“I dislike these colleagues because I feel they are not committed to the same goals as I am. I sense that they are thinking only of their own interests and are not interested in working together to achieve something bigger. I dislike the manner in which they communicate – I want them to be honest and upfront. I dislike their lack of integrity and their poor work ethics. I dislike them because they are not willing to compromise or understand my point of view.”

Do you have harmony with people you like?

“I think that you like people because you have harmony with them. It is easier to become friends with people you understand and can relate to – people you are harmonious with. It is much harder to become friends with someone who is the exact opposite of you. To do so you need to accept that you don’t quite understand them but are willing to appreciate them anyway. And they must be willing to extend the same courtesy to you.”

The Symptoms…

1. There is someone in the workplace that you don’t like. You don’t like them because of their personality, because of the way they treat you, because of the way they speak to you, because of their unreasonable workflow expectations, because they are demanding, because they are always negative about changes or just because!

2. When you dislike someone in the workplace and you do not work to resolve it, then everything that person does will be added to your basket of reasons to support your view of them. This means you are no longer able to be objective. This does not serve you, the other person or your organisation.

3. When we get upset with someone in the workplace, we feel so right to be upset that we want to tell everyone about it. As we do, we find even more reasons to be right (surprisingly) and the story of Being Right becomes practiced, rehearsed and dotted with quotes from the audience with who we shared our story.

4. When our buttons are pushed or our expectations not met, our emotional response can kick in before we’ve had a chance to check in our luggage (that baggage we carry with us all day, every day).

Did you notice that I only spoke about YOU?!

Turn it around

Mr Emotional Intelligence (or E.Q) Daniel Coleman says that there was an emotional brain long before there was a rational one. It was handy back in the good old days to react instinctively and impulsively to a feeling of danger. Back in those days we could sense a dinosaur approaching long before we could see it. That’s our old brain at work. But now we don’t want our old brain at work!

How to create harmony with people we don’t like:

Observation 1: Own it. Our reaction is ours. It doesn’t matter how our buttons were pushed; the point is that we had the invisible button displayed on our vests and someone accidentally (or even purposely) pushed it. Yet it’s ours to display, and our responsibility to control.

Observation 2: Don’t take it personally. It’s never about us, really. It may be about overcoming what we represent but never personal.

Observation 3: Take responsibility and create what you want. Don’t wait for it to happen.

How do we start practicing these observations?

1. Step back. Become aware of yourself and get to know your behaviours – you are more than your behaviours (thanks Tony) – so don’t get caught up with your reactions. We simply need to become aware of ourselves. That and that alone has the power to transform us as we begin to focus on ourselves and not on the behaviours of others.

2. Be fair. Really. I’m going to say that again. Be fair to others. Give them the benefit of the doubt and practice Covey’s habit no.5: Seek first to understand the other. Do not seek to be understood first. We do that so very well, ignoring the other, speaking louder and talking over them to be heard. Watch what happens to your workplace relationships when you practice the opposite of that.

3. Check in with yourself when someone has annoyed you or pushed your button. Write it out on a piece of paper, identifying the issue and then deal with it, not simply their behaviour.

Creating harmonious relationships in the workplace begins with creating harmonious relationships with ourselves. Get to know yourself, your behaviours, your beliefs and your values. Observe your thoughts, those automatic emotional reactions to any stimulus, and you will discover that there is a better version of you waiting to go to work. If you don’t, Maslow will have the last words: “if you plan on being anything less than you are capable of being, you will probably be unhappy all the days of your life.”

 Appearing in this article:

Tony Robbins – Unleashing his good words

Daniel Coleman – His book Emotional Intelligence – get it!

Stephen Covey – Making life a habit of good practice – and there are 7 habits.

Abraham Maslow – Love this man.

Arnold Jackson – Snuck in here to remind us to have some fun. A little guy from a T.V show called Different Strokes.

Anonymous Client – Thank you – you know who you are, but like the toothpaste advertisement, we can’t show you her face – sorry.

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1. Are you creative?
2. How do you define creativity?
3. Do you believe in creativity?

Take a moment and write down your responses to these questions and you will soon discover the lurking thoughts that are creeping around your cranium.

Sir Ken Robinson, a thought leader in creativity, has said that to realise the true creative potential in our organisations, schools, and communities, we need to think differently about ourselves, act differently towards each other and learn to be creative.

Are you creative?

“No”, “sometimes”, “it depends on the situation”, “I can’t draw a straight line”, “I don’t have a creative bone in my body”, “I’m not good at art”, “I wish I was,” are some of the responses that make up the majority “No” vote each time I have asked this question over the last 15 years to the more than 5000 people who have participated in my public and corporate programs.

What unites many of these responses is an underlying belief that to be creative means that you are able to express yourself through the medium of the arts. In other words, to be creative you must either be able to draw (this is the dominant response), or paint or sculpt or write etc. This belief generally goes deeper and that is not only to believe you must you be able to draw, paint or express yourself in an artistic manner, you must be able to do so eloquently like Michaelangelo or Leonardo da Vinci. Anything less and, well, quite frankly, you don’t think you are creative.

Every day we make (create) decisions, we make (create) friends, we make (create) love, we make (create) houses, we make (create) mistakes, and we make (create) thoughts. It is this process of making that we are indeed creating and therefore are creative. The question is not “are you creative?” but “what are you creating.”

How do you define creativity?

Fundamentally, if you believe you are creative, you are; and if you believe you are not creative, you are not.

To truly investigate your creative side it’s a good idea to Mindmap your thoughts. Don’t censor them. Just allow them to flow and you may literally ‘see’ what you are thinking. This is your starting point. Capture your thoughts on paper. Seeing these thoughts written down is very different to thinking these thoughts which really is witnessing a few thoughts going around your mind causing you to think in circles. These repetitive thoughts are what inform and hence create your beliefs.

You can change your mind

Habits of thinking need not be forever. One of the most significant findings in psychology in the last twenty years is that individuals can choose the way they think.

Do you believe in creativity?

Unless you believe in the power to be creative, you will not be motivated to access your creative potential, let alone be able to activate it. That is the power of a belief. No one can convince you to change your beliefs. That is a journey only you can take and that journey requires a willingness on your part — a willingness to be open-minded, to explore the views of others, and to listen with curiosity whilst suspending judgement.

Is that possible you might ask? I think so. This process is called learning. You can learn to be creative. Ask yourself this question, do you believe that you are capable of learning? If you answered yes, then you can learn to be creative. You can learn to paint, to draw, to think differently, you can learn anything. The question comes back to “do you want to?” This takes us back to becoming aware of underlying beliefs that may be holding us back from accessing our creative potential.

“The key question isn’t “What fosters creativity?” But why in God’s name isn’t everyone creative? Where was the human potential lost? How was it crippled? I think therefore a good question might not be why do people create, but why do people not create or innovate? We have got to abandon that sense of amazement in the face of creativity, as if it were a miracle that anybody created anything.” Abraham Maslow

Creativity in the Workplace

Creative thinking is sought out in the workplace even if it’s not acknowledged.

Though it may be enough to go to work and do a good job, even a great job, somehow your competency is measured by the added value you bring which goes beyond your agreed upon Key Performance Indicators.

Yet it’s more than this. We work more hours than not, that’s not new, and we work fast trying to keep up with changes in technology. How can we therefore engage our creativity when we don’t have enough time to keep up with the ever-changing work environment?

It starts with you

Don’t wait for the culture of your organisation to provide you with the opportunity to be creative. There is no time like the present to start connecting and engaging with your creativity.

You’re wondering where to start? To begin with you can write down some of the many challenges that you face in the workplace at the present moment. Create a second column and write down how you are currently managing those challenges. Let’s say that one of your challenges was how to manage the negative traits of your teammates.

Next create a Mindmap with the words ‘negative traits of teammates’ and write out all the things you see as being negative and detrimental to the team spirit that have been played out. Be as articulate as you can. Keep this going for at least fifteen minutes. The first things you write are the obvious issues.

You want to get deeper than this. Once you have finished, circle issues that are the most important to you. Each one of those circles will represent another Mindmap. So lets say you circled the word ‘gossip’. Now look back into your own life and Mindmap all the times you have done this very same thing. Notice anything?

“I recently asked my team to complete the ‘three good things’ exercise as part of a team building session with Nola. This proved to be a very powerful exercise. By the end of the session we were all feeling grateful for the skills and talents of our colleagues. Without intending to, we began to start acknowledging each other more and verbalising thanks and praise. This new gratitude helped us all to approach our work with a new positive energy. It helped each person to look at their individual complaints and issues in a larger context.”

This is an example of a creative approach to workplace relationships. Creativity is required to solve problems as well as to identify them. Can you think of other applications for this methodology?

How about spinning it around now. Name all your teammates in the first column. Next to each teammates’ name write three good things about them. Finally, next to each of the good things you wrote, also write down ‘why?’. It’s not until you write ‘why’ that you have fully engaged with the contributions that your teammates make to your team spirit. Notice something else? Those three good things that each teammate contributes to the spirit is what you may want to grow and flourish.

“The scientific literature suggests that happy individuals are also more creative, helpful, charitable, and self-confident, have better self-control, and show greater self- regulatory and coping abilities. Happy people, the facts clearly show, are flourishing and successful people.” Robert Emmons

It all starts with YOU, the only thing you can really change!
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 This article was featured in The Art of Healing, February 2012.

To view the article PDF, click here.
To learn more about The Art of Healing, visit their website.

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Every day we are challenged to make decisions. Some are easy. Some you don’t care about. Many are rushed and are gambled on, like the toss of a coin. And others are carried by what appears to be the very respectable use of logic and reason.

I believe we are either thinking creatively or we are mulling over a problem. The first way means we are solution-focused and looking at new ways, old ways and ALL ways to form a response that we are motivated to act on. We accept the problem as a challenge that will stretch us and we look forward to exploring the many and varied possible solutions our minds might come up with.

“Mulling over a problem” sounds like you are “thinking” about the problem – and you literally are, because you are thinking about the fact that you have this problem. And because you have spent a substantial time mulling over it, you know all about it, how it arose, what the issue is, and even who you can blame for it.

The Mulling Myth

We often push aside our ability to generate solutions until we have finished pondering the problem. Curiously, we value worrying as part of the problem solving process. Yes. Read that again. We value worrying and we value stress. Have you ever heard people say “Aren’t you worried?” or perhaps “You don’t seem worried about this.” when they are talking to someone working with their creative mind to solve a problem?

Reconnect with your Creative Mind

You know you have a creative mind, right? And it’s alive and well and always wanting to be part of the action.

The man wearing 6 hats once said that creative thinking is not a talent, it is a skill that can be learnt. It empowers people by adding strength to their natural abilities which improves teamwork, productivity and where appropriate, profits.

Reconnect with your creative mind by first playing with how the problem is phrased. Write out the problem on paper. Re-arrange the words. Now change your perspective entirely by rewriting the question starting with “How might I……?”

Let your creative mind follow the paths which spark its curiosity. Be curious about the words used to describe the problem. They may lead you on a wild goose chase, or if emotional language is used, well, that’s another goose chase entirely.

Here is a problem: “I don’t have enough people who provide trustworthy results and it takes a lot of time to recruit new people.”

The Mulling Response

“I can’t believe the attitude of the team members.”
“They are always producing unreliable results.”
“There is no commitment.”
“How am I going to manage this?”
“What can I do?”
“Qualifications mean so little these days”
“How did they get this position anyway?”
“They are useless.”
“How can I do my job when they can’t do theirs?”

Creative Response: Rephrasing The Question

“Do I have too few resources or is it that I don’t have the right mix of resources?”
“IS there nothing I can rely on from the team?”
“Are there ways that I can recruit quickly, and if so, what am I recruiting for?”

These questions then might lead you to the following creative thinking:

How might I discover what the real strengths of each member of the team are and how might I learn about their strengths quickly?

How might I introduce a process quickly and easily to immediately mitigate errors?

Who do I know that I can call on right now for a short term solution?

How might I discover what’s holding the team back?

Creative thinking is about making the challenge yours. You get to own it and then, and only then, can you find possible solutions.

However, something much more significant happens when you undertake this rigorous creative thinking process. You discover solutions that add value and grow the business in a better way. This is more than simply finding a solution – we can always do that. This process is about finding the best in fact the most appropriate solution that truly resonates with the growth of your team and the business.

Appearing in this Article:

Edward De Bono – man wearing 6 hats

Mulling – brought to you by sometime in middle England; from mullyn “grind to powder, pulverise” and used now as a considered reflective process that creates a lot of bull dust.

Clarence Birdseye – Okay, he didn’t make it into the article but this is the guy who invented the freezing food idea and how we came to eat Birds Eye frozen food. He said: “Go round asking a lot of damn fool questions and taking chances, only through curiosity can we discover opportunities, and only by gambling can we take advantage of them.”

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You have decided to become an artist and you are a late bloomer. You attend art courses or even art school and you practice. You read books and study from old and modern masters. You watch videos about the artist’s life, read blogs, surf the internet and continue to practice.

Yet the journey you have undertaken doesn’t feel as smooth as it should. Why can’t you immediately create the way you want to? You are an adult, so you should be able to learn new skills and execute them quickly, right? You have the desire. You have the determination. Yet you are not seeing results.

Disappointment turns to anxiety in no time. And then those uninvited thoughts kick in. You begin to question your decision to become an artist. That one thought starts a flood of unhappy thinking that rushes through, leaving you with an even deeper feeling of uncertainty, which has now spread beyond your decision to learn art. You begin to doubt your ability to ever see a creative result that would make you proud, and then of course there is that serious concern about having any talent anyway. Without that, what’s the point?

Hold on and read on. There are three things you need to know about becoming an artist in adulthood.

1. TECHNIQUES ARE TEACHABLE

Art techniques are teachable. Technique is not to be confused with having or not having talent. Art techniques are like learning the alphabet so you can read and write. These are the building blocks to unlocking further wisdom from the writings of others or even your own writing. So if art techniques are teachable, the question then is, are you teachable? You might think you are because you attend class or you self-study, you do your exercises and you are motivated to learn. However there is one big T that may be stopping you from being 100% teachable – those limiting thoughts that live uninvited and rent free in your headspace (how did they get there anyway?).

Pause a moment. Close your eyes. Listen to the voice in your head. What’s it saying? That you are wasting time? That you should be doing something useful? That what you are doing is self-indulgent? That you have no real talent? That you don’t have what it takes to become an artist?

Ask this question of yourself right now. Do you believe with certainty that you are capable of learning? It’s a simple question. Are you capable of learning? Yes, of course you are. Whether you want to learn is another matter. The point is, if you believe with certainty that you are capable of learning then the only uncertain thing is how long it will take you to learn, and does speed matter? Does learning something faster than someone else mean you don’t have talent?

You are an adult who has decided to pursue an artistic life. Perhaps you feel pressed for time because of your age or because you have a job/career that you cannot leave just yet. That’s fine. Just don’t let these thoughts distract you when you are learning. If you do, you are not optimising your time spent learning art. If you focus on your lack of time, then you end up focusing on strategies like step by step instructions on how to take perfect photos every time, or creating a masterpiece in oils or the top 1000 words to use to become a bestseller. Refocus. You have given yourself the permission to study art and to be a student. Don’t forget you are starting from scratch with all the advantages of your late blooming years!

Approach your self-studies or in-class lessons with enthusiasm and joy, and do not lessen the value of the lesson only because it doesn’t help you become what you think you want to become. Instead, take and master each and every lesson, and watch how they transform you into the best of you – a person even better than you might have hoped for. Let the role of education ignite the fire that will fuel your creativity.

2. TRUST YOUR TALENT

Talent means hard work. I’m not talking about the hard work required to develop your talent, I’m talking about the hard work to see the talent you have right now. We are all unique beings. You know this. You have heard it all before but I’m asking you to stop, listen, and then “get it”. There is no other person on this planet right now or ever before exactly like you, nor will there be in the future.

A cat in a hat once said that today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no-one alive who is you-er than YOU – remember?

Do not fail to recognise your own unique spark. Trust your Talent. It is there. You were born with it and it is your journey to discover, nurture and gift it. Do not deny that which you and only you were given custodianship on this planet to create with. Each time you create something go “WOO-HOO,” say “Not bad,” smile even if it’s crap, because you are one step closer to revealing your unique artistic language. Always say “Thank you,” and be grateful for the experience.

3. BE TENACIOUS WITH YOUR TIME

Now here is what you have been expecting to hear. Practice, practice and practice. Put in those 10,000 hours and become the expert. How many stories do you need to hear before you truly accept that this is a journey? Okay, here is one more:

Picasso’s painting Le Demoiselles De Avignon took Picasso ¾ of year to complete with a documented record of 809 preliminary drawings. Surprised? You shouldn’t be, because he was tenacious. He was prolific. He made art his life.

And nothing has changed today. People who succeed (insert your own definition here of success) are tenaciously attentive to their passions, their loves, whatever gives them the juice to self motivation.

Practice is another word for training. We accept this of athletes & musicians. They work hard and for many hours. If you want to be an artist as a profession then the demands on your time are no different to working a 9-5 career. This shouldn’t stop you from pursuing your talent. This should encourage you to not compare your results with those of an athletic artist. Having said all of that, I have seen amazing works of art from the most naïve practices. Yep – the word practice appears again!

Set time aside regularly. Be serious with your time and accepting of your talent as you nurture your voice.

For all those late bloomers who are venturing into the arts: you did not begin as an artist but that doesn’t not mean you have not been creative all your life. Every problem and every challenge you have faced and solved has been a process of creativity. And now you are learning how to learn, learning how to accept and learning how to be disciplined without apparent reward. Whenever you feel discouraged, just think of Matisse, who was 56 when his first solo exhibition was held by the art dealer Ambrose Vollard. And he is but one of many late blooming artists.

 Appearing in this Article:

1. William Butler Keats - A poet who used the technique of reading and writing to make and remake prose & verse of beautiful thoughts beautiful to read.

2. Ten Thousand Hours was brought to you by Geoff Colvin - He wrote a book called Talent is Overrated and he is all about rethinking our human potentiality – love that kinda talk!

3. Cat In a Hat is of course the memorable Dr. Suess.

4. Henri Matisse snuck in for he epitomises the three T’s. He originally studied law – go figure.

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Of course we should get educated and celebrate our confirmations of achievement (insert a loud woo-hoo here). Yet our talents and our gifts go further than the paper record, which is like a train ticket we validate when we arrive that says nothing about who we met and who we became along the way.

Is it possible to harness our experience into invaluable insights that can be applied in the workplace, home and in our personal relationships? We all have a ton of experience, but what are we doing with it?

We dilute our experience when we say “That happened to me once” or “I’ve experienced that,” couching it in terms of an event, rather than a personal experience which has charged a light bulb of learning and realisation.

The word experience comes from the Latin experientia, meaning knowledge gained from repeated trials, and experiri, which means to try.  Thus, experience is as Gregory Alan Elliott stated, is “the past tense of experiment.”

Experimenting is giving something a go, and opening yourself to making mistakes, like Thomas Edison’s numerous trials in creating the electric light globe. And don’t underestimate the results you discover – I have gotten a lot of results in my life. I know several thousand things that won’t work!

A positive way we can view failure is as experience. That’s good. But we can take it further; we can change our perspective and reclaim our experience.

 Give yourself (another) a New Years Task: Rewrite your CV.

To claim your experience you must first name it. And you can’t name something you can’t see. Begin by either writing out on paper or dictating to a friend; your experiences, experiments and “almosts.” Name them. Don’t be afraid to reveal your disappointments and shortcomings.

Write out all the things that you didn’t get right in 2011, and if you have courage and a good memory, go back even further in time. Deadlines that you failed to meet, books you didn’t finish reading (or writing), appointments you missed, unfinished workshops you enrolled in, ways you have mismanaged teams in the workplace, birthdays you have forgotten, budgets you have exceeded…
These are all examples of how you have wanted to achieve something but haven’t.

What lead to those failures? What weaknesses did you show? How can you work to change them? What stopped you finishing? Were those the right priorities?

You may not like what your experience shows up for you, and that’s okay. Randy Pausch said it beautifully: “Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.”

Now that you have got the “yuk” stuff out of the way, it is time to think differently and write out or call out all the good experiences.

We often overlook the challenges we overcame on a project that completed successfully and we focus on the simple fact that we did good. Ah… but there were elements where you have had to shift course or create a novel approach – record these too.

It’s time to write another CV, highlighting the positives of what you learnt from your experiences last year, and what you’ve subsequently learnt about yourself.  Writing down what you may have learnt of yourself may take a little longer, as it can be disconcerting to try to honestly analyse ourselves as people.

For example, do you value and respect the people you work with? What is most important, your relationships at work or your work output? Do you have confidence in your abilities? Do you will yourself to succeed?

Don’t judge your thoughts as you write these responses. Again it might be easier to buddy up and allow your friend to guide you to the positives.

By claiming your past experiences you can discover important truths about yourself, gaining so much more than any ‘piece of paper’ certificate.

 As a man in a toga once said… Know Thyself!

Now you can see the gifts, strengths and inner values that you bring to any working relationship and environment – continue to grow these strengths and speak of them with conviction, because you bothered to get to know yourself.

 Appearing in this Article

Thomas Edison - Shining some light on how to hang in there.

Gregory Alan Elliott - I really honestly dont know who this guy is but he is acknowledged as writing those words – Cool huh!

Randy Pausch - This quote was taken from Randy’s book called The Last Lecture, written for his children as life lessons, but this is just as applicable to business. He has also written: Encourage Creativity, Learn from Captain Kirk, Celebrate Brick Walls, Dream Big, Be the first penguin, Rediscover the lost art of thank-you notes and Have Fun.

Random man in a toga - Ah… that would be Socrates!

Jarod Kintz - He didn’t actually appear in this article but was keen too! “I wish my stove came with a Save As button like Word has. That way I could experiment with my cooking and not fear ruining my dinner.”
(Quoted from: Who Moved My Choose?: An Amazing Way to Deal with Change by Deciding to Let Indecision into Your Life)

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I know what you’re thinking: “Don’t you mean who are you growing into?” Yes, maybe, but I am curious about where I am right now and what I am doing right now and what an interesting journey it has been and how I have grown – into where I am!

Reflect

Growing is a creative process. You are where you are in your career right now as a result of a series of experiences. Experience is knowleged gained from repeated trials and errors (from the Latin experiential). Think about where you are right now in your career. How did you grow into this role? How creative were you with all your experiences? What did you create from all your experiences to date?

A mindfulness practice to access where you are growing into.

Think about your where you are right now in your career, and say: Here. I. Am.
Just pause a moment and say those words again.

Say them slowly. One at a time. I know you are busy. You want to get to the punchline. Ah! This is the punchline. Say these three little words slowly.

Here. I. Am. Close your eyes and sound those words internally. Try each word – one breath at a time.

One breath, one word. Inhale and internally sound the word  “Here” and exhale. Inhale and sound the word “I” and exhale. Inhale and sound the word “Am” and exhale.

Do you feel different? You should, because you are not where you were a few minutes ago and we never feel exactly the same twice. But lets continue.

Journaling your Here.I.Am

After the short Here.I.Am mindful practice, gently open your eyes and journal. Write whatever comes up for you. It could be reflections of those three little words. Maybe there are no words, so make marks instead. Let your mark making freely flow across the page. Let your imagination connect with your senses and allow whatever is there to be captured on paper. Do not judge what you are doing or what is coming up. This doesn’t take long to do. Not long at all.

A curious question of Insight?

Are you growing where you are? Are you aware of which map you are following? Where are you growing into?

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Justimagine wanting to go to work everyday grooving and oozing with positive vibes.

You are curious about what will happen today and looking forward to who might call you & what may come your way? You’re eager to make a contribution to changing the world and making it a better place. (Okay – maybe that’s not in your sights right now)

Still. You are keen to contribute, be productive, feel that you are respected and appreciated in your workplace.

Yet. It’s a mystery that we have come to blame the greatest place for our personal growth, as the one major cause for all of our dissatisfaction and unhappiness.

 Ask Yourself this Question
 
We blame our workplace for our bad health, our poor relationships, our unhappiness and pretty much most everything that is yuk in our life.
So I’m wondering: How have you successfully become unhappy at work (Oh yeah baby – you know you have been successful here!)
 
 A Creative Journaling Exercise
 
Why don’t you stop a moment and write that question down. Grab a sheet of A4 paper – yep go to the photocopier please. Place the question “How have I successfully become unhappy at work?” in the middle of the page and circle it.

Before you do anything else, just breathe for a moment. Take another breath and feel the breath pushing your belly out. One more breath and this time ensure that the breath is popping your belly out. Now close your eyes and breathe softly and slowly with your own rhythm for 10 breaths. (Use your fingers to keep count)

Gently open your eyes and with a soft gaze, reflect on the question staring back at you on the paper. Reflect a moment and sense the areas where you are not happy at work. Now respond. Please do not judge what you are writing, do not argue with what’s coming up and don’t try to make it sound pretty, just dump those thoughts down on paper.

Okay. Now grab a different coloured pen. Breathe deeply into your abdomen for three long slow breaths and then continue breathing in your own pace.
Take your breath into your heart and let it rest there.
What you see written in front of you are all the things you have created which have led to your success at being unhappy in the workplace.
Let your non-dominate hand write with the different coloured pen, picking  out three things that you can now reverse and begin to take responsibility for your own joy in the workplace.

How cool was that? One last thing. Seeing it and not doing it won’t create a change.

Please take action now.

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Imagine.

You can go beyond the internal dialogue.
This is a message from the universe – I have given you Space to be inspired, to explore and to create whatever you wish in it.

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Nola talks: James Charles Castle

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James Castle (1899-1977) was a self-taught artist from America.
He was born deaf, and not having learnt how to properly read, write or sign; he used his artworks as a means of communication.
His works are mostly consisted of hand drawn images, colleges and constructions made with everyday found and natural materials.
The works often depict his environment at the farm, and the people and places that he visited throughout his life.
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Biography Reference:
Foundation For American Self-Taught Artists http://www.foundationstaart.org/artist_single.aspx?artist=1

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