Month: February 2015

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Jigsaw Puzzle

Bob McInnis1 Comment

puzzle

In the middle of Seth’s Blog post on  02/21 he says “Today, there’s no everyone, and certainly no media channel that can sell everyone, cheap, to the folks who market Jello”

I was taken by the idea that there isn’t an everyone anymore. ” Everyone agrees.”,  “Everyone knows”, Everyone likes”, ” Everyone wants”, were common phrases 15 years ago. This wasn’t because we had data that said any of these were factual, it was because we didn’t and could stereotype a single, single-minded set of expectations.

Today we activists, readers, parents, parishioners, consumers can opt in and out, personalize, adapt, combine ideas, products, processes and practices that fit them. The menu isn’t endless but the array can seem overwhelming.

The new ‘everyone’ message is a curated jigsaw  that allows the user to put the pieces together and create their own picture.

In southern California, the proliferation of micro breweries, brew-pubs, taphouses are creating beautiful tapestries that are competing with the mass produced products of the big machines.

How are you weaving a tapestry, painting a picture, putting together a puzzle?

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Helicopters

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I attended a webinar this week presented by Joanne Connell PhD based on her work and book ” Flying without a Helicopter: How to prepare young people for work and life”. As a parent a child development expert she asserts that parents are doing their children a  disservice by overprotecting them from the world and never letting them fail. When asked ” How early should parents be letting their children struggle and fail in order to succeed?” she responded “from birth really”.

I have long been concerned that children are being raised without a sense of consequences. They seem to pass not because they succeed but because their feelings can’t be hurt. They try something once and give up because “they don’t like it”. “Parents are following advice on how to sculpt their children into the perfect applicants before their children are even born. The problem is that the mold the parents are working from does not generate young adults who are able to succeed at work—with or without the coveted college degree. This problem is growing, not declining, with today’s hyper competitive, helicopter and lawnmower parenting trends.”

Thanks to Weaving Influence for hosting the webinar and providing these links.
flying-without-a-helicopter-book-cover-final
Here is a link to the recording of the webinar for you to view or review at your convenience.
If you enjoyed the webinar, I encourage you to buy a copy of her book TODAY. It’s available in hard back, paperback, or Kindle.

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Shoelaces

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I have tried everything; double knotting, reverse knotting, hard tugs, round laces, leather laces, square, flat but I still find myself with dangling laces flapping against my ankles before I get to 3km on a morning run. The simplest things seem the most difficult to solve.

What am I missing? Maybe the laces aren’t the problem, maybe it is something else. The holes on my shoes? The impatience that I feel? My shoes don’t fit properly?

How can I take a new look at a problem that has been perpetually a problem for many years? How can I use this classic POV story to assist me?

An automobile accident occurs. Two drivers are involved. Witnesses include four sidewalk spectators on each corner, a policeman, a man with a video camera who happened to be shooting the scene, and the pilot of a helicopter that was flying overhead. Here we have nine different points of view and, most likely, nine different descriptions of the accident.

Do I need to be the helicopter pilot for a while to understand what the true problem is?

What if we are looking at pressing social issues like poverty or global warming like I look at my shoelaces – tried everything and threw my hands in the air. Maybe going to 1000 ft or digging down 500 ft and looking at the issue would afford a different perspective.

Surely, we can end loose laces, poverty, climate change, racism, war if we take a different POV. We should at least look for 9, 90, 900 different viewpoints rather than continuing to try changing the results with the same laces.

Make Today Remarkable, by trying something completely different,

B

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Thank You

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Police, firefighters, and paramedics put their life at risk to serve and protect us. It is dangerous on our roads, violence on our streets, drug addicted irrational people to deal with, angry motorists, and those who believe that it is their right to break the law (DWI, Speeding, not stopping for pedestrians). Firefighters try to save our property, belongings, pets and our lives. EMS races through the city with half of the motorists not pulling over because they are in a hurry.

We can’t compensate these people enough but we can say “Thank You”.

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Make it Your Problem

Bob McInnis1 Comment

Make it your problem (miyp) means accepting that your personal and shared responsibility are intrinsically woven. Together they empower and lead to a higher level of self awareness. We all need to stop delegating responsibility until and unless we have done our share. Even after ‘doing your share’ there may still be more that needs to be done. Asking “what can I do?” and then acting on it is admirable, asking “what else can I do?” is amazing.

Today, look at your world, neighbourhood, home with a new set of eyes. Eyes that will see a problem, an issue, a conflict and not shirk, shiver or hide but step into the void and take some action – almost any action is better than the status). No excuses, no if onlys (if only they would …).

For 7 years, I got to be part of feeding up to 2000 hungry kids in Calgary and on my best days I begin that action with the question “if your brother’s child was hungry, what would you do?” I tried to find the most immediate, relevant and concrete action I could take and jumped in with both feet. At least I was doing something that I could then improve upon.

Your action may not be an everyday routine. It might appear as a walk that needs shovelling, a friend that needs a coffee, trash that needs to be picked up, using reusable grocery bags, planting/weeding a community garden …

If your eyes and ears are open, your specific miyp will make itself known and then you get to act, in the best way you can.

Make Today Remarkable by making it your problem,

B

PS: I just realized that I am past 50 days of posting everyday – 365 doesn’t seem so far away.

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Coaching Can Make You Remarkable

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Pioneered and developed by Marilyn Atkinson, PhD, Solution-Focused Coaching is an advanced coaching model that integrates the profession of coaching with a highly developed body of personal growth technologies. Developed over the past 30 years, it provides a comprehensive approach that assists individuals, managers and teams to take action in alignment with their highest individual and corporate vision. Solution Focused personal or business coach, does what a good sports coach, an acting trainer, or a writing teacher does, but with systemic clarity of focus. A Remarkable Coach, will challenge you and help to clarify what you want, and takes the time to find out what winning in life means to you. A Remarkable Coach is a partner in first clarifying your vision and the steps to get there, and then inspiring you to your next level of personal excellence. Through coaching you can discover the life you know as deepest aim; a life of development and accomplishment, both personally and professionally.

A coach will encourage, prompt, provoke and sponsor you towards the ownership of skill-sets that encourage and support your increased creativity, productiveness and effectiveness.

We all face doubts, barriers, personal scripts that slow or even halt our progress. People with high aspirations, move past these ‘gremlins’ through simply partnering with a Remarkable Coach.  Athletes, high achievers, musicians, writers, skilled actors know they get best results with a coach who can help them review aims, set directions, clarify and specify steps.  Their attention can then become relaxed around their ultimate direction towards excellence.  When they commit themselves to work with a personal coach they learn how to focus on their long-range ability sets. A serious performer or serious player in the realm of competitive sports or music would not expect to progress very far without a strong alliance with a good coach.

Contact bob@remarkablepeople.ca for information on a complementary one hour skype coaching session.

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What are You Doing to Improve Your Health

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Right now, this moment as you read this post – what are you doing (not considering or thinking about) for your personal healthcare? Nothing? If you aren’t taking action to be healthy then you are taking action to be ill, unwell, unhealthy. There are consequences. I am not suggesting that you need to make radical changes (maybe your doctor should offer that prescription), I am asking you to become aware of your choices. That burrito with mexifries and all the trimmings is a choice (one I have made often) that is fraught with consequences. Walking two flights of stairs instead of taking the elevator has different consequences. We seem to move through our convenient lives oblivious of the ramifications.

I respect and support your freewill and your right to make whatever decision is right for you (leaving me and others unharmed) but you have a responsibility to be aware, acknowledge and accept the results of those decisions (holding me and others blameless).

Our disease management system attempts to absolve us of that responsibility but creating new diseases, procedures, drugs and treatments so that we can pretend we are objects of our health rather than active participants.

Right now, make a healthier choice and celebrate your participation. Try it again in 18 minutes, and again in 42 minutes … maybe all the choices won’t be the best but when they are; recognize that you chose and celebrate.

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Prepositions rather than Propositions

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We always imagine that our life will be changed by a huge proposition that comes our way. A job , a marriage proposal, an offer you can’t refuse … Theses things do alter our paths but the wouldn’t happen without our prepositions.

In, of, for and with are tiny words with remarkable impact. Each signal a different perspective and guide us to a different destination.

You can be in a job, in a relationship, in love or in cahoots. In represents a beginning, a small commitment, a testing the waters phase. There is anticipation but wariness, optimism but anxiety. You aren’t sure if you are in this or have one foot waiting for something else.

When you become part of a cause, a movement, a relationship, a partnership the commitment stakes go up. You see endless possibilities in the present and can envision a future. In the ‘of’ phase you are connecting ideas as in ‘ fond of sunsets’ or ‘she is a colleague of mine’. Anxiety is reduced and hope increases.

‘For’ shifts your attention and intention. For the sake of someone or something else points to self actualization and the recognition of something or someone outside yourself.  Loyalty and allegiance; the feeling of strong support for, becomes a reciprocating norm. Even if the object of your loyalty is abstract like ‘do it for love’ or ‘in it for the money’, the motivation shifts away from you.

Finally, the ‘with’ phase. Cooperation, collaboration, collective impact become tactical weapons. You compliment, complete, correspond in support of each other. “I am with you”, signals a destination of confidence and acceptance.

These prepositions aren’t linear and don’t necessarily follow a pattern from in to with. One day you can be with and find yourself at for the next day. It is these tiny steps, forward and back, that form the path(your path) to a destination where a big proposal might be possible.

Make Today Remarkable, in your way, for the sake of others, with someone you love,

B