I recently reconnected with an old friend; on Facebook would you believe, of all places!  He is actually not old, I simply knew him twenty something years ago when we were both young twenty somethings.  He wrote on my Facebook page:

plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose

 when translated means

the more things change, the more they stay the same 

He wrote this in response to the fact that I was heading out for a long lunch and long lunches were one of the things we used to do all those years ago.  In fact, we aptly named him sir lunch-a-lot because he did lunch so well.  His comment got me thinking.  What else am I doing today that I was doing back then?  And surprise, surprise, there are many similarities.

Back then, there was a group of us that would meet after work on a Friday, hang out, party and have fun.  I am now collecting a bunch of friends that will often meet after work on a Friday, hang out, party and have fun.

Back then, I would always get up with the band (whatever band, at whatever venue) and have a sing.  Often now, I will ask the band (whatever band, at whatever venue) can I have a sing.  This is why, when people comment on my ability to get up and sing with a band I respond with ‘well, you know, I have been rehearsing for twenty-five years.’

Back then, I was single and searching for love. Today, same.

Back then when I celebrated my big 3 – 0 birthday and back then, turning 30 was a big deal, I threw a huge party and had the band, so I could sing my little heart out.  It was after all my party, and I will sing if I want to! Back then I knew the members of the band and sang with them often.

Recently, when I celebrated my big 5 – 0 birthday and it too I got to tell you was a big, if not bigger deal, I threw a huge party and had the band, so I could sing my little heart out.  Yep, because it’s my party and I will sing if I want to… And again, I knew the members of the band as I sang with them also.

Back then, I wanted to focus more on the creative stuff, like song and song writing but the need to earn money far outweighed and over-ruled this.  Back then, I would work all day and then sing all night, and back then I could.  Today, I find myself with the same yearning to focus on the creative stuff, like song and writing. Only this time I have given myself permission to pursue this side of me as maturity has provided the insight to know I can pursue the creative as well as earn money.

Back then I wrote some really good songs.  Back then I even recorded my songs but sadly over time and moving house these are now lost.  What I do have however are the words to one of the songs I wrote and I gotta tell you, back then I knew stuff because today the words still ring true.  I remember singing this song with my piano player at a bar in the city, receiving a standing ovation and a $20 tip!  I also remember us having an excellent guitarist (a friend at the time) who played the most magical guitar riff, that I am sure contributed toward the tip and ovation also. Damn! I wish I still had the recording.  I remember the guitar bit being really lilting and beautiful.

Today, I can still hum the tune and hear the guitar and piano, however it is when I look at the words that I shake my head almost in disbelief because today, this song (perhaps now a poem) is not only reminiscent of days gone by but so appropriate for where I am at today.

So you see, a truism - “the more things change, the more they stay the same!” Or as the kids today would say ”same, same but different.”

Enjoy my poem… and let me what you think?

MOJO is a funny thing, you sure as hell know when you have it, but it is really hard to find when you lose it!

Mine is lost; been looking for it for a while now, yet still nothing – *sigh*.

I have just finished facilitating an appreciative inquiry for a bunch of senior managers in a mining company. An appreciative inquiry is a method of getting people to focus on what is working for them in order to build more of that, rather than focus on what is not working, and trying to problem solve. There is a set of assumptions that sit behind an appreciative inquiry as follows: there is always something that works, what we focus on becomes our reality, there are multiple realities and the act of asking questions influences the moment.

The inquiry has four parts to it:

Discover: what is working well?
Dream: what would I like to be, do or have?
Design: how am I going to achieve what I want to be, do or have?
Deliver: what can I influence, what can I do and by when?

It got me thinking that if I preach this stuff, I should be able to live it and apply the assumptions to myself, so I went on a path of discovery to identify what is working for me and I came up with the following list aptly titled:

These are a few of my favourite things

I love I can get out of bed in the morning… that sentence could finish there, but I will continue with… and sit at my computer and write. I write story, I blog, I tweet, I email, I message.

I love that I have i-tunes on my computer and I download songs. I am back in touch with song. I have my guitar; I am remembering chords and can play and sing ‘Bridge over troubled water.’ I first learnt this song on my guitar when I was fifteen.

I love hanging out with my friends. I love doing long lunches, just chatting and enjoying. I love walking and playing with my dogs. I love being connected to friends via text. I love texting, I love hearing the sound of a new text message beep on my phone. I love my family. I love life. I love…

Yep, it works. When you start to realise all the things that are good in your life, you realise how blessed you are, well at least I did.

So ok, I get my life can function without mojo. But imagine the possibilities with mojo? Now there’s a thought, so I think I will keep looking a little longer. Yoohoo, mojo… where are you mojo? Here mojo …

Just when I thought I was starting to see light at the end of the tunnel, bam! I get a huge jolt to the core of my very being by having my stable monthly source of income terminated. It was on the cards but I had it on good authority, or so I thought that I had until the end of the year before it would actually eventuate. So to have it happen almost out of the blue and so soon has sent me into a huge spin and left me feeling extremely fragile. So what does a grown woman do, when she is feeling like this? Well, sulk… of course!

I realise that this is not life threatening, not for me anyway. I am able to rationally think through situations like these and plot a path of recovery. But that is not to say, I can’t wallow in self pity, sulk, feel sorry for myself and whinge about the situation; all of which I did with my colleague and friend in Melbourne.

I want my solo life and for that to happen the EX and I need to resolve our financials. I have put the house on the market for sale and removed it; I have put the house into the corporate leasing market and removed it also. So just when I had reconciled myself to staying in the house and enjoying it as I intended when I embarked on the renovations a couple of years back, I suddenly find myself in the predicament of not having a guaranteed source of income. This is pretty amazing, as I have never been in this situation ever, so it begs the question “why now?”

You would have heard me say on many occasions “I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up” so I think perhaps that this is the universe saying to me ‘well, if you can’t figure it, we’ll push you along and insist you start finding your way.’

I have become a big fan, or perhaps a better description is, addict of Twitter. Twitter is a messaging, come networking tool that allows you to stay connected with people (your followers) on-line. You tweet short messages, no longer than a 140 characters as frequently as you like, providing updates of what you are thinking or doing.

So I tweeted:

 “When one door shuts, another opens – right? So… Ok… I’m waiting.”

I am wondering if this is the start of my new life. That perhaps today is the day I will find the courage to embark on the life I am passionate about. I am not yet sure exactly what that passion is, although I do have an inkling, and perhaps any moment now I will gain that clarity?

Again, I tweeted:

 “Today is the first day of the rest of my new life; my mojo awaits.”

I have had two significant relationships end in a very short space of time; first, my long term personal relationship and now my six year client relationship. I am pondering ‘what is this about’ and potentially I think it is about having faith that what is happening right now is the right thing to happen and whilst I am feeling fragile I simply need to go with what is. My words are almost prophetic. A couple of weeks back I wrote on my Facebook Wall: ‘When life seems confusing, just go with what is.’ And here I am feeling fragile and trying to hold the faith that what is… is OK.

Having said that, as I sat back of room in the last workshop I will be facilitating for the client, I pondered my position, opened my notebook and wrote:

Time to get my shit together…

I am a writer, on-line marketer and business entrepreneur.
I can only fail, if I give up.

Do this:

1. Embark on BIG marketing campaign around all Lifelong Learning product and services
2. Build a focus on wellness / wellbeing
3. Learn to use the Business Contact Manager in Microsoft Office
4. Schedule public courses as part of brand building and marketing

John Demartini in his book ‘The breakthrough experience’ talks of acting now as if you have achieved your dream. He says articulate your vision through a model of BE – DO – HAVE. That is, what is it you want to be? How are you going to do that? And what will you have as a result of achieving this?

So for me:

BE:     

I am a WRITER; a syndicated writer for a column or piece in a newspaper or magazine; an author of books.

DO:            

Sell, hawk, tout my wares to newspapers, magazines, publishers; create a BIG on-line presence and find an agent.

HAVE:     

Freedom… to pursue life.

I am wondering when this comes to be, if I will look back and say thank you to the client for terminating my contract and pushing me to finally find my mojo?

Feedback… of course… where was your head at?  Feedback is so important for us to truly gain a sense of who we are, by validating our view of self through others.

Mirror, mirror on the wall; do I see me warts and all?

I have been telling this version of the Snow White story for many years now. It is a true story about me.  You see I used to look in my mirror and see Snow White. I saw myself as a results-oriented hard worker; a people-person who was fun to be around. What I didn’t see was how others viewed me. To them I was obsessed with work and winning; aggressively task-oriented through driving people; and as for fun, it was on my terms only.

So where I saw Snow White, others saw Wicked Witch of the West. What a shock when someone finally decided to share this with me. My immediate reaction of course was deny – blame – justify.  Deny that I was anything other than sweetness and light, blame anyone and everyone else, because if I behaved in a certain way it was because *they* made me and justify my position on some basis, because it was important for me to protect my EGO, my view of me.  Wow, what a bitter pill to swallow! But as my mother would say, “Where there is smoke there is usually fire.”

So I took some time to reflect on the feedback I had just received, and so my journey of self discovery and creating congruence between my inner and outer self began.

To get a sense of how you feel about feedback ask yourself ‘do you like to give it?’  If your answer is no then more than likely you don’t like to receive it either.  Feedback has to be reciprocal.  That is, if you provide feedback to others you must be prepared also to receive it.  Most of us think that feedback is confrontational, perhaps even negative.  However, feedback is simply a method of gaining clarity around our behaviours and attitudes. 

For example, I might see myself as a shy retiring sort of person that doesn’t like to get in people’s way.  So this translates into me arriving at work each morning without bothering my fellow workers and settling into my desk and computer and starting my day.  What my fellow workers see however is someone that is aloof, maybe a little arrogant (what! can’t even say good morning or hello) and potentially someone who is not a team player and doesn’t care; and all of these statements have the potential for becoming powerful limiting career options.  All that has to happen in this instance is for someone to tell me, and usually when the feedback is received it is received graciously because most of us are not aware how we behave or more importantly how our behaviours are perceived.  I would have been mortified to hear that I was perceived as aloof and not a team player as I was mortified when I was actually told I was aggressive and steam-rolling over my team! 

I didn’t get it, I didn’t understand that I was perceived in that way and most of us are the same.  We don’t like feedback because we see it as personal.  That is, I don’t want to hurt his feelings so I won’t tell him the team think he should not be on the project because he won’t speak out at meetings.   If we look at that last sentence in terms of ‘I don’t want to hurt his feelings’, how arrogant is that?  How arrogant for us to think that another person is not capable of receiving feedback. So rather than show compassion and inform the person, we say and do nothing and again potentially limit that person’s career.

When providing feedback we should look at the performance or the behaviour NOT wrap the person up with it.  That is, rather than make comments like “Henry, you are lazy and have a poor attitude toward your job.”  Re-frame the feedback to be specific and say “Henry, you have been 15 minutes late for the last three mornings. Please explain why.”

The key to feedback is to remember:

‘We may not remember what was said,
but we will always remember how it made us feel’

I can’t seem to shake this feeling of restlessness, of wondering what I want to be when I grow up. Life is funny don’t you think? Just when you think you should have your stuff together, you realize you don’t and go chasing rainbows. Well at least I do!

I have recently returned from a wonderful six (6) days in the northern parts of Australia. I was in Darwin for nearly three (3) days and then sat on Cable Beach in Broome for the next three (3) days naval gazing, sipping the odd cocktail and watching the magnificent sunsets – sigh, what a life!

I made the decision easily to run away but then couldn’t decide where to go. I thought about China as I do have a longing to go there (that is a whole other story) but that didn’t feel right and then the thought came to me, Darwin. Yes, Darwin! One of my clients mentioned a project that the company is involved with in Darwin and suggested they (the project team) might need me in some capacity. So when I thought about running away I thought well perhaps a visit to Darwin to meet the folk on the project would be good as it might turn into a piece of work, something worthwhile. And then to make it feel like I was really running away I booked a couple of nights at Cable Beach Club Resort.

I have blogged about Eckhart Tolle (Power of Now) before but you know it is so true; you can’t force the pace of life, which is why it is so important to appreciate the here and now.

My here and now is really weird, even weird for me, but I get I am in the place and pace I need to be right now. The universe is a wonderful teacher if we simply take the time to listen and observe what is going on around us. Most of us however, get so caught up in just living or surviving that we don’t really see or hear much else.

So this is where I am at. I started writing this blog on the verandah of my room, sweat pouring off me as it was really hot – around 38 degrees and very muggy!

When I first arrived at the Resort I have to admit, I thought what am I doing here? I have done this before, taken myself off somewhere secluded only to be reminded that I am an extrovert and get totally bored with myself within 5 minutes! This time however, (I must be growing up) I persisted and to my absolute delight I really enjoyed the quiet time, actually enjoyed my own company. Let me also put this into perspective. Whilst I may have been there on my own physically, I had been texting the whole time (the joy of mobile phones) so really, I had been there with at least half a dozen of my closest friends! You have no idea the comfort that new text message beep on the mobile phone brings to an extrovert on a solo trip!

So anyway Darwin was fantastic, the project team a great bunch of people and I had the added bonus of meeting a very nice travelling executive that likes to party and explore neural linguistic programming (NLP) as a sales tool, which of course for me being into Lifelong Learning made chatting with him very interesting. Again, that is a whole other story (so many stories to share) but meanwhile click here to learn more about NLP.

Back to Broome, the Resort has a Day Spa so I availed myself of daily moments of bliss with relaxation massages and am pleased to report that I have gained some clarity around my current situation.

So, clarity: I am where I need to be right now. The pace my life is unfolding is as it should be and I should not try to force this. I am re-thinking what I want to be when I grow up so I am in planning mode which, yes the irony of that last statement is not lost on me… trying to plan for something you cannot force the pace of! And the people in my life right now are the RIGHT people to be in my life and I am enjoying every experience that is being presented to me.

This all feels a bit Zen, but listening to life and allowing the universe to be the teacher is a good place to be, especially for me, as I am learning to let go and *get* that I actually don’t have to be in control!

Hmmmm so there is a force greater than me out there? Uh huh, there is. And that clarity… that ah-hah moment, has been huge. I love learning!