Two Rights a Wrong
Written on July 13, 2010 at 11:55 am, by Steve Stork
Question: When do two rights make a wrong? Answer: When one of the rights is not “right enough.”
No one enters an argument with the assumption they will be proven wrong. In every argument there are at least two points of view believed to be correct and defensible. And, though there are certainly cases where someone has their facts dead wrong, their error is unlikely to emerge during the course of an argument. In a discussion, maybe. In a debate, likely. But not in an argument.
An argument is an emotional display. It may begin with embarrassment, guilt or shame. But it escalates to anger. Anger mobilizes the mind and body for self-preservation. An argument ignores any mutual interests. Both parties defend an entrenched position, believing the other party to be wrong, and themselves right. And that is just plain wrong.
After the argument the conscious anger slowly dissipates, but the subconscious emotions underlying the dispute have been reinforced, making future disputes likely. In other words, the happiness presumed to arise from winning an argument occurs only at a conscious level. Negative energy in the subconscious mind that powered the argument is reinforced.
The Positive Human acknowledges the futility of being right over being happy, since the negative energy invoked in striving to be right contradicts the positive energy of being happy. Yet, that does not mean the Positive Human must avoid all disputes. That would be unreasonable since humans are prone to opinions and many “facts” are quite malleable. Rather, the Positive Human recognizes the no-win and self-destructive nature of argument; and chooses alternative means of resolving disputes that maintain and enhance personal happiness.
Further, the Positive Human is cognizant of personal emotions that arise during a dispute, and uses that awareness for personal improvement. The goal is to emerge from a dispute with happiness intact, and with ambivalence toward who is right.
The Positive Human approaches disputes with two strategies. One, do not jump in the pit. Two, mind your own business.
Anyone who remains centered and aware of their own emotions cannot be forced into an argument, i.e., “He just made me so mad.” Argument-prone people try to pull others into the pit with them. Manipulating others to wallow there with them reinforces their negative assumptions.
They attempt to pull others off-center by finding an ember of fear they can blow on until it bursts into flame. That is why it is so important to be aware of your own emotions. The Positive Human is attuned to such inflammatory efforts and keeps a fire extinguisher handy.
It can be entertaining to watch an angry person sputter around in their pit. Or it can stir compassion. Either way the Positive Human knows to mind your own business. The sputtering anger sends out sparks looking for combustible tinder. The Positive Human erects a non-flammable, asbestos shield as self-protection.
Once protected, the Positive Human can respond with positive energy, but should resist the temptation to ‘save’ the angry person. Firemen have specialized skills, equipment and clothing. Do not try to save someone if the only protection available is a bit of asbestos material. Refer them to an expert (and even then, only if they ask).
The Positive Human asserts personal truth with positive emotion. As a personal truth, it makes no difference who is right (though an angry person will argue it does).
If a disagreement requires a definitive solution, the Positive Human examines the issue from the contrarian’s perspective, with the goal of achieving a mutually acceptable resolution. That may require more thought be given to their position than one’s own. But “across the aisle” thinking is more likely to produce Win-Win results; two rights that become righter.
Make Your Greatest Gift GRACE
Written on May 11, 2010 at 12:10 pm, by Steve Stork
Dr. Kweethai Neill’s Address to AllianceTexas High School Senior Leadership Conference, April 2010
As high school seniors you are about to progress from a book bag to…what? Your new “bag” may be something you have not given a lot of thought to, yet. Just know that everyone in your generation is likely to change careers at least five times before they retire. At least that is what statistics say.
If someone had told me I would one day be a hypnotherapist, I would have considered them mad. I spent many years going to school to be a scientist. I have degrees in food science, management, and nutrition science. I went to law school. I earned a Ph.D. in health education. I taught many years in the university. Then I became a hypnotherapist and mediator.
Today, I am my own boss. I do everything; from signing contracts, to working on people’s minds, to cleaning toilets. My message to you is whatever you do, do your best. My father did not have the advantages you have. He started a business with only two years of schooling. Yet when he died at age fifty, he left a legacy that sent eight children through college. I never had to work when I was in college.
You already have a quality education. But to be successful you must believe in yourself. Whatever occupation you step into, you can become great; because you Choose it, because you Want it, and because God has already given you all the resources you need.
The Dalai Lama once said that the purpose in life is to seek happiness. Many people mistake pleasure for happiness. So, what does it mean to be truly happy? I see people in my office all the time who have achieved high status and financial success. They come to me because at the end of a long career, despite having made lots of money, there is still something missing in their lives. Right now, I am prepared to give you a shortcut to that something, to help you get started on the right foot.
The secret is, whatever you choose to do, first be happy. I train leaders. I think of you as leaders. Because if you do not take the lead in your own life, someone else will. So, if you learn nothing else today, learn this: To be happy you must make your own choices. As a college professor, I have seen too many students graduate with a Degree of Uncertainty, complying with choices someone else made for them. Be brave. Honor yourself. Do something that lights your fire.
Today I want you to figure out what you want to do no matter what. If you are a singer, sing. If you all are a writer, write; no matter what. Be true to yourself.
In many of the trainings I have done for leaders, I have done something that I’m going to share with you now.
GRACE
G stands for Good will. That means good will towards the other person as well is toward yourself. When we go to school we are taught to be nice to other people, but we also need to be nice to ourselves. Learn that, then you can extend good will to someone else.
R stands for Rectitude; do the right thing. Sometimes it is the unpopular thing to do, but do the right thing. If you have done someone wrong, “Sorry” is not good enough. You need to make good. Say you crash somebody’s car and while handing the keys back you say, “I’m sorry. I apologize.” That is useless. But if you say, “Forgive me. Here are the keys to my car. Drive it until your car is fixed. And I will be taking care of the repairs.” Now you have done something about it. That is rectitude. If you mess up; own up and fess up.
A is for Acceptance. Learn to accept yourself for who you are. You do not have to look a certain way for someone else. You were perfect the day you were born. Someone will love you just the way you are if you first respect yourself. That is acceptance.
I don’t believe in tolerance. Tolerance means, “I don’t like you, but I still have to put up with you,” said through clenched teeth. To accept you means I respect you just the way you are. I do not have to agree with you. I honor, respect, and value you just the way you are. But you have to respect yourself before you can do that for someone else.
C stands for Compassion. Compassion means kindness with warm. Be kind to everyone. It is easy to love someone you like. It takes effort to love people you don’t like. It takes even more effort to be kind to people who have been unkind to you. Compassion means you don’t have to be so hard on people. At the same time, cut yourself a little slack. If you have messed up something, don’t worry about it. Fix it and move on.
I recently worked with a gentleman who had retired as number three in a company that employs 450,000 people. He started with the company when he was 19 years old, as a clerk. It was a very illustrious career. He made a lot of money. He can do anything he wants. So why would he want to see a hypnotherapist? He said he wanted help with his golf game. He flew into DFW from out of state; yet began his session by stating, “Lady, you are not going to teach me how to play golf.” I agreed. I don’t play golf. So I asked, “What’s the problem?”
“When I go out on the golf course, and I hit the ball well, I’m happy. But if I make two bad strokes, my day is ruined. I can’t go on anymore. I don’t understand how this other guy—70 years old—can make a bad stroke and just start laughing at himself. He goes on, makes five more bad shots, and just keeps laughing at himself. Me, two bad strokes and I shut down for the day.” What’s wrong with that picture?
It turns out this person has been very critical of people all his life. He has placed very high demands on himself, as well as high demands on other people. Now retired, he has no job and no one to yell at. So he yells at himself. He’s not very happy.
Bottom line, I told him to loosen up. Life is not a contest. I had to teach him not to be so hard on himself. Most of us are our own worst critics. If you don’t support yourself, no one else is going to. If you don’t love yourself, no one else can love you. If you don’t value yourself, no one else can value you. The first step is to accept yourself.
Look at yourself in the mirror every morning, in your birthday suit, and say, “Good morning, Gorgeous, we’re going to have a great day!”
Do that. Accept yourself. People always want to be a little faster, a little richer, a little better looking. It’s like a bad country-western song. You want older whiskey, faster horses, and younger women. Stand still and accept yourself.
E stands for Exuberance. To be exuberant is to have lots of excitement in your life. Do you worry about things? Are you anxious about being tested? Do you worry what each day will be like? When you step out into the world of the unknown, it can be scary.
But let me put it to you; all that worry is energy. To worry is to put effort and energy into expecting a bad outcome. Energy is energy. You can neither create nor destroy energy. That is a law of physics. But you can take that same energy and turn it around. Be excited. To be excited is to expect a positive outcome.
One Christmas a man gave a bunch of little boys gift boxes. Imagine you are that child receiving a gift on Christmas Day. Open it. Inside is a pile of horse manure. What would you do?
Some people would be upset. How awful to receive a box of horse manure on Christmas! Some people would just embrace it with an artificial smile.
But imagine the little boy who opens the box, and immediately thinks, “Horse! Someone gave me horse manure. That must mean there is a horse!” Then he runs outside to look for this horse. That is the attitude of someone who is going to be very successful in life. That story is based on actual research done on Harvard graduates. It tracked how attitudes determine what people would become.
Imagine the word No. To me, when someone says No and I really, really want it, NO means New Options. I don’t take No for an answer if it’s something I really, really want. If you want that job, go after it. If you want that career, go after it. Don’t let people discourage you. “Oh, you can’t do that.” Most such people do not know what they’re talking about.
Once I was teaching a writing class and there was a student who had always wanted to write a children’s book. I asked where the book was. She explained she had taken a writing class and the teacher had told her not to try and publish it; it would be a very painful process; the manuscript would get rejected. I asked how many books that teacher had published. Zero.
If you want expert advice, go ask someone who has been successful. If you want advice about writing and publishing a book, go to a Pulitzer prize-winning author.
Remember, whenever you have a problem, everyone becomes an expert. So be careful from whom you take your counsel. Follow the flame in your gut that tells you you want to do it no matter what. Do not let anyone tell you No. And if they do, remember No simply means New Options.
Imagine a glass containing fifty percent of its volume in water. Is it half empty or half full? Consider a third option, it is the wrong size glass. For a long time I never saw anything in my glass. And when I discovered I had something in my glass, I could only see it as half empty. It took me a long time to get smart enough to see it as half full. And the wonderful thing about being an old woman is that I now say it is the wrong size cup, because every day I can choose that my cup runneth over. I shall not be measured by other people’s rules.
At the end of the day, it is how you feel that determines how you act. The wonderful thing about a feeling is that you own it and no one can take it from you. When you say “I feel,” no one can challenge you. If someone says, “You’re not supposed to feel that way,” that’s wrong. My feelings are mine. I may be fat and you may be ugly, but I can go on a diet. Adopt that as your mantra, then go out and be what you want to be. But first be happy with GRACE.
Positive Humans tell the truth…to themselves
Written on March 12, 2010 at 2:55 pm, by Steve Stork
Most good-intentioned lies protect someone from what is assumed to be a harsh truth. Though most truths are not that harsh, repetition causes the associated lies to become convenient and habitual. And since “everyone does it,” little white lies, falling within a range of acceptable untruth, eventually serve as a proxy for truth.
A couple problems. A lie is a lie, and can never substitute for truth. Lies are negative energy. Lies you tell yourself compound negative energy within your being. In other words, no matter how they are rationalized, lies contribute to negativity.
There is a Common Human tendency toward over-cautiously “protecting” others from the truth. Yet worrying (i.e., negative energy) that someone cannot handle the truth, which leads to a lie (i.e., more negative energy), is contradictory to a positive relationship. As difficult as it seems, there are positive ways to reveal difficult truths to others. But to understand them completely, you need to practice on yourself.
The first step toward telling the truth is to identify the lies you tell yourself. The most common lies are alibis and excuses that attempt to deflect personal responsibility (“I admit I…”) by blaming other people (“It is not my fault that someone else…”) or claiming unique circumstances (“I cannot help it that…”). But the more insidious lies are generated by a perception of deprivation (“I do not have the [time, money, resources] to…”) or the more common, “I cannot afford…”
Alibis and excuses can contain a kernel of truth. What makes them a lie is when you deny having had choices. What makes them a lie is when you allow circumstances or other people to suggest that certain failings make you a failure. In other words, you accept negative energy because you identify with it.
The Positive Human tells the truth, “I did the best I could with the resources available. I know it. God knows it. And that makes it alright.” Of course, that presumes a process of examining the situation via personal introspection to determine whether or not you indeed did do your best. If you did not, admit it to yourself and set a goal to do better next time. That may require some research to determine a means or path to improvement. But that is the strategy of a successful person.
Note, that was a recommendation to admit personal failures to yourself. Admitting failures to others may or may not be entirely necessary. The presumption that others cannot handle the truth is usually exaggerated; and if they really cannot, it does not bode well for a long term relationship. The same is true of inward admissions; and if you cannot stand yourself, no else will be able to either.
Among the clients who come to iHealth Center for hypnotherapy, the notion of “I am not good, deserving, or lovable” is a lie learned from adults when one was young and impressionable. It is a lie that provides a firm foundation for current alibis and excuses. Yet this habit of deflecting personal responsibility eventually leads to a sense of being “stuck.”
To become a Positive Human requires breaking down the old foundation and building a new one. When you start basing your life on the notion that “I am good, deserving, or lovable,” truth dispels negative energy, allowing you to be your best. When you can see it, others will as well.
Be My Valentine
Written on February 11, 2010 at 2:44 pm, by Steve Stork
Wanna gross out your kid on Valentine’s Day? In a public place, with lots of people around, say the three words everyone wants to hear, “Child, I am in love with you.” See how many cell phones speed-dial Child Protective Services.
There is a big difference between “I love you” and “I am in love with you.”
One is a state and the other is a trait. That is important because a state is temporary, while a trait is relatively permanent.
Being “in love” is a romantic state. Romanticism is fun, but hard to sustain. Soap operas provide a fairly realistic portrayal of what it means to be “in love.” Characters express ardent desires yet fall prey to roving eyes. While professing undying love for one partner, they seem unable to resist the enticement of another. The grass is always greener on the other side of the bedroom.
“Love” is hard work and, frankly, boring. It doesn’t make for very good theater. In fact, ask a couple married four or five decades why their marriage has lasted and you get a vanilla response, “We just made it work.” Probe a little deeper and you hear, “We promised to love and honor,” which became traits of the relationship.
If you have teenagers you have at one time or another probably resorted to a form of, “There are times when I do not understand you, and even find it hard to like you. But never doubt that I love you.” In other words, “I love you” conveys a trait that resists change, overcomes conflict and disagreement, and adapts over time to changes within the individuals.
Conveying love to a child in that way tells them you have their best interests in heart. Love keeps the lines of communication open, even when parent or child act in ways that drive the other to distraction. And in a committed relationship, the same can be true between adults.
Being “in love” is less permanent. It changes on a whim. It ends with sometimes even a minor conflict or disagreement. And, it is based on immutable ideals that, when proven wrong, terminate the relationship, i.e., “I thought you were perfect, but you are not.”
The ability to discriminate between “I love you” and “I am in love with you” defines relationships. The key difference is in what you “do.” Do you experience love (noun) or do you love (verb)?
“In love” (the noun) is an experience. It is life in the moment. You take no responsibility for it because it seems to have a life of its own. The lexicon of “falling” in and out of love supports the notion that it is sudden, unanticipated, capricious and uncontrollable; also, that it can only be experienced in extremes, as if the god of love flicks an On/Off switch.
In contrast, “love” (the verb), as in “I love you,” refers to your actions relative to the person you profess to love. Not that those actions always have predictable results. Some people are better or worse at giving and receiving love, making communication the most important act of love. In other words, love is a skill that benefits from constant practice and feedback. While “falling in love” is based on luck, “loving” reflects effort.
This Valentine’s Day, share acts of love. Saying “I love you” is a nice place to start, but it does not require meaningful effort. So, find a new way to show it. Surprise your Valentine with something of unique significance. Think beyond passion and the bedroom. In other words, how might you express your respect, admiration, appreciation, etc. for the person you love in a way that would not make a child think, “Oh, yuck”?
My New Year Resolutions, another set of ideas?
Written on January 6, 2010 at 4:06 pm, by Steve Stork
Minding my way to successful resolutions
New Year’s resolutions are a quaint tradition. They are more euphemistic than practicable. You say, “I resolve to…” while thinking, “It would be nice if something magical happened that would make me…”
Resolutions are not lies…exactly. But somehow they are more often intended than actualized. How is that so?
At the beginning of each new year you express desires to improve your state of well-being. You resolve to lose weight, manage debt, save money, get a better job, get back in shape, eat right, learn more, drink less, quit smoking, reduce stress, take a trip, or grow a garden.
Such resolutions are reasonable. It’s not like asking to win the lottery, find a cure for cancer or negotiate world peace. Yet, given you have the resources and the capacity to attain reasonable goals, you still fall short. What stops you from getting what you want? How come your resolutions feel more like a dream than a plan?
In her book Hypnotherapy: An Alternative Path to Health and Happiness (iChange Press), Dr. Kweethai Neill provides an explanation for the failure of most resolutions. Briefly, it’s not what you are eating, it’s what is eating you. While that sounds like dieting advice, the concept applies to all manner of resolutions.
New Year’s resolutions arise in the conscious mind, from things you know about yourself. The resolutions are expressions of desires to change your behaviors for the better. However, the conscious mind is the wrong place to start the process; because all habits—good or bad—originate in the subconscious.
The conscious mind is aware of habits but is powerless to change them. The conscious mind is logical and concrete, while the subconscious operates on emotions, and it is emotions that drive behaviors. For someone with bad food habits, you know a second piece of chocolate cake is unnecessary, yet you cannot resist the indulgence. Perhaps it is comfort food; the taste and texture reminds you of a time when mom’s baking provided a sense of love, comfort and safety. Those emotions trump logic and you take a bite.
Resolutions usually seem reasonable and logical. You think you have good reasons for stating what you want. But how you feel is more powerful than what you think. So understanding your feelings is a more effective path to changing your behaviors. But it is not an easy path to locate, since emotions are stored in the subconscious mind and resist being changed.
Fortunately, emotions can be accessed via hypnosis. And, via that access, they can be revised. As Dr. Neill explains it, hypnotherapy “rewrites the software of your mind” to revise emotional triggers. This makes the subconscious more amenable to change.
Change your mind to change your life
Most resolutions lead to tentative steps that, at best, create only temporary success. New behaviors don’t stick. Stressful events evoke emotions that cause you to fall off the wagon. You default back to your old habits (e.g., a former smoker lights up again as old stresses reassert themselves).
A more reliable way to ensure successful and sustainable change is to begin by revising emotions in the subconscious. This creates an energy flow that supports desired change. The result is that you feel empowered, and that makes you better able to sustain change.
This year try a new approach to actualizing your resolutions. For example, to more effectively attain what you want, first go inside yourself using meditation or prayer. With effort and practice, meditation shuts out conscious distractions; making it easier to address your feelings.
When you are still, your focus is better; which is empowering in itself. It sounds easy, but most people find this type of inner focus quite challenging.
If you cannot do it yourself, hypnotherapy can help. Hypnosis is simply a state of consciousness with a very narrow focus. You experience similar states every day. Consider how often you become engrossed reading a book or totally engaged in a project, to the point where you are not aware of your surroundings.
While in a hypnotic state, your thinking mind relaxes, which opens your feeling mind to suggestions. A competent hypnotherapist gives suggestions consistent with a prior discussion of changes you desire. You retain control. Your mind accepts only suggestions that correspond with your beliefs.
Once your subconscious is amenable to change, you are better prepared to learn new skills relevant to your desired behaviors. That includes learning self-hypnosis as a means of continuing to communicate with the subconscious yourself.
Don’t wait eleven and a half months to make new resolutions. Make them now and start looking for someone who can serve as your change catalyst. You’re on the right track; don’t be shy about asking for a push.
Success story:
Joanna, 52, was overweight most of her life. Her doctors were concerned for her health as she became borderline diabetic. She wanted and needed to lose some weight to enjoy her children and granddaughter. She had tried dieting, repeatedly losing and then gaining back the weight. As a last resort she saw Dr. Neill for hypnotherapy. Within two months, Joanna was one dress size smaller and her blood tests (HgA1c) were almost normal.
Joanna regained control of her life. She continues to lose weight without dieting. Since she is now happier and makes healthy choices to cope positively with stress, she can look at a chocolate cake and not be tempted by it!
Beware the spirit of Christmas cost
Written on December 12, 2009 at 9:32 am, by Steve Stork
Who’s paying for your Christmas? Or more accurately, what? For many people a credit card goes beyond mere convenience. If it weren’t for plastic, there would be little to celebrate on Christmas morning. But maybe that’s the way it should be.
The availability of quick credit makes it easy to lose sight of reality. What’s the real meaning of Christmas? Is it so bad if children do not receive everything on their wish list? Is it that embarrassing if the neighbors have a few more lights in their yard?
Too many people try to live up to a version of Christmas that would make a Madison Avenue Madman proud. They peruse Martha Stewart to create tableaus worthy of a Hallmark card and adhere to family traditions reminiscent of a Hallmark channel movie. At least that covers one end of the spectrum.
At the other end are petty, interpersonal dramas (the less pleasant half of those Christmas movies that make them interesting), which become even more stressful in light of the great expense (psychic or monetary or both) incurred trying to achieve holiday perfection.
It’s tempting to harken back to a simpler time. O Henry explained the true spirit of Christmas in his story of a wife who sold her beautiful hair to acquire a watch fob for her husband, while the husband simultaneously sold his prized pocket watch to buy ornate combs (i.e., fancy barrettes) for his wife’s hair. Children—and many adults—today cannot conceive such sacrifices. Modern gift giving is largely removed from sentiment, in favor of a gift’s popularity, brand or cost.
Ditto ostentatious light displays. Anyone who gets sucked into the neighborhood competition can soon find themselves spending much more than anticipated.
Which brings us back to the original question. What portion of holiday generosity is due to family circumstances, and what portion will be paid to a credit card company at 29% interest? Keep in mind, remittances hovering around the minimum payment will serve as a reminder of that generosity for many Christmases to come. Or, put another way, the payments may well last longer than a child’s memory of the gift.
The alternative? Expensive gifts are not an entitlement. And children can handle a bit of disappointment. Better yet, don’t feed unrealistic expectations; wishing is fun, but not all wishes come true. Certainly there is pressure to give children gifts they want. But at some point—when a wish list has been elevated to a list of demands—it is no longer a gift. The quality of any relationship should not be reduced to dollars and cents. The real Christmas spirit is represented in gifts lovingly selected to have special meaning for the recipient, not out of obligation to a list.
It is not easy to curb the irrational exuberance that typically accompanies Christmas. So, throughout the season, keep reminding yourself that the spirit of Christmas is in your heart, not in some small piece of plastic.
What is Creativity?
Written on November 2, 2009 at 1:19 pm, by Steve Stork
One of the most common reasons for seeking hypnotherapy is “to get unstuck.” Which, in simple terms, means “to be the person I would like to be, if only I could get out of my own way.” In other words, persons seeking hypnotherapy have preferred behaviors in mind, whether that means stopping bad habits or starting good ones. The inability to act on those desires makes them feel stupid or inadequate. Fact is, most have tried every conventional treatment or cure before settling on hypnotherapy as a last resort. They’re not lacking in intelligence or persistence. What they lack is creativity.
Creativity is often presented as a personality trait; you are either creative or you are not. But that’s not accurate. Creativity is a skill. Like any other skill, some people are better at it than others. But as a skill, creativity can be improved with practice.
As you might guess, one of the first steps to developing creativity is to eschew convention. Conventional thinking suggests that “practice makes perfect.” In reality, practicing a skill imperfectly makes one very consistent at that imperfect performance. So some creative soul modified it to “perfect practice makes perfect.” And that makes perfect sense; but who’s to say what constitutes perfection?
Actually, regardless of the skill, it’s pretty easy to find a teacher or coach who claims to understand perfection and can guide you towards it. And that includes creativity.
A discussion of the perception of perfection is beyond the scope of this piece. Suffice to say, virtually every skill can be broken down into smaller components. It is those components that the competent teacher or coach observes for when making recommendations for how one might improve.
The knowledgeable teacher attends more closely to the process of the skill than the product. That’s the difference between telling a basketball player he missed a foul shot (product) and recommending that he “follow thru in the direction of the basket” (process). And, yes, the same concept applies to observing components within creativity and recommending improvements related to them.
The iHealth Center tagline—Change Your Mind to Change Your Life—is an assertion of clients’ creative abilities. Most arrive with a pretty weak creativity muscle. That’s why they’re stuck. The challenge is to exercise that creativity thru repetition and refinement.
Hypnotherapy challenges conventional thought. Conventional therapies vest the responsibility for creative solutions in the care provider. Hypnotherapy requires collaboration between client and hypnotherapist, requiring both to think creatively. But don’t think of it as a game of HORSE. The client need not match the hypnotherapist’s creativity shot-for-shot. But neither is it a random “shoot around.” The purpose of developing ones skill in creativity is to produce relevant and practical solutions to real problems.
The next blog upload will discuss the components of creativity. When you know the components, and have developed some basic skill, you can self-monitor for continuous improvement.
Present and accounted for
Written on September 8, 2009 at 12:54 pm, by Steve Stork
What percentage of your time do you spend thinking about the past?
And what percentage of your time do you spend thinking about the future?
Don’t hedge. Create actual numbers in your head.
Now add them up. Subtract the sum from 100. And that leaves the percentage of time for you to be mindfully in the present.
Most people are shocked by this exercise. After all, you can’t change the past, and you can’t know the future. So the shocking part is that so many people spend such little time in the present; and it’s the only thing you really have control of.
“But,” you’re thinking, “I have only pleasant memories of the past; and I have wonderful goals for the future.” Our concern is not just that memories represent past embarrassment, or that the future present only worries. Thinking about positive events in the past means longing for it, wishing to go back to that time. And there’s nothing wrong with making plans and having goals, but too much time spent thinking about what things will be like when you get there detracts from doing the things necessary to get there.
Learn from the past so as not to repeat mistakes in the future. Plan for the future by acting in the present in ways that are consistent with that plan. Then live each day in the present to its fullest; because the past is gone, never to be repeated, and we cannot know the future, or even if there will indeed be a future.
And let’s say you have big dreams. What is your plan for after you make your first million? What happens after you win Olympic gold? What happens when you reach the peak; is it all really downhill from there?
Define yourself by who you are, not by your aspirations. That doesn’t mean you can’t fake it until you make it; but if you define yourself as a successful person, and your habits or abilities prevent you from truly becoming that false identity; you’ve created a failure of yourself. And that failure becomes your new identity. “I can’t do anything because, you see, I had this dream; and the dream didn’t work out; and it’s all I had. So I am a failed dream. And I can’t rise above that because that’s who I am, and that’s who I will always be.” For the person voicing such a rationalization, positive anticipation may or may not have been realistic, but nevertheless was unrealized. And once the dream ended, the focus shifted from the future to the past; reliving the moment of failure, and perhaps regretting having put all the eggs in one basket. The only real failing is the inability to consider alternate futures. But that requires taking stock within the present.
Do not interpret the preceding as advice to avoid dreaming big. Rather, expand your definition of Self from “I am the dream” to “I am someone who dreams big.” Then expand it from the future to the present, “I am someone who works toward big dreams.” Then minimize the influence of Fate by putting yourself in control, “My dreams don’t define me. I define my dreams. And as circumstances change, and as I come to a full understanding of my internal and external resources, my dreams can change.” Then be open to new opportunities, “Should I have the opportunity to accomplish a really big dream, I retain the flexibility and ability to set new goals. I will not be limited or defined by my accomplishments. But I will be defined by the way I live my life each day.”
Learn from the past. Prepare for the future. Live in the present.
Theft by Credit Card
Written on August 17, 2009 at 4:32 pm, by Steve Stork
Champagne taste on a beer budget presents a real paradox in the search for happiness. Theft by credit card is not just a legal crime associated with identity theft. In terms of financial health, it can be a moral crime you commit against yourself. You do it out of a sense of entitlement, to support an aspirational lifestyle. It is hardly surprising that people who rationalize excessive feel-good purchases are drowning in credit card debt.
Your “Need” is My “Excess”
Aspirational purchasing may be good for the economy, but it isn’t good for you. To understand why, you have to understand the concept. Aspirations refer to what you would like to be, or how you would like to live. Aspirations could be related to a specific plan or goal, but more often they simply convey a dream.
The aspirational lifestyle is based on a distorted sense of need. Aspirational needs are fueled by:
• Wanting to live like one’s parents, without the 20-30 years it took them to achieve that lifestyle.
• Peer comparisons. In a competitive society, too many people judge their self value not by how their own real needs are met, but by whether or not their friends or neighbors have more.
• Short attention spans. Special events have become ubiquitous, so that nothing is truly special anymore. That makes it harder to be patient and delay gratification.
• Controlling ads. Advertisements sell by creating dis-satisfaction (“You deserve the car of your dreams”) and fear (“You are a bad mother if you do not use anti-bacterial soap”). And though you may initially resist the attempts of advertisers to control you, their persistence has a cumulative effect on the subconscious mind.
These are the types of influence that cause one to go about acquiring the trappings of wealth prior to acquiring an occupation or resources sufficient to fund those acquisitions. And ads support that as well by suggesting that short-term debt is really just a matter of convenience. So you put yourself in debt on the presumption that 1) the terms will make it easy to pay by installments, 2) your aspirations are to increase your income, making the debt a temporary inconvenience, and 3) if all else fails, positive thinking will present a solution if it should become necessary to really pay the debt off.
Bottom line, such rationalizations only mask an attitude of “I can’t wait, I need it now, and I’ll have it despite the potential consequences.” And that is what makes such spending excessive. It is not the amount. It is not the nature of the purchase. It is the impatience and imprudence of acquiring debt to satisfy short-term desires.
Don’t fake it till you make it
Some wealth advisors advocate living the lifestyle you desire, on the presumption that new avenues consistent with the way you portray yourself will open. It can work…but rarely. Few people have the demeanor or desire to exert the effort that must accompany this approach. Even assuming that wealth production might follow the mere appearance of wealth, at what point does one attempt to stop spending beyond their means? It is a hard habit to break.
More important to Be than to Aspire
Aspirations are good and positive. They contribute to happiness if they are realistic, you have a plan, and you are willing to exert effort in that direction. But living the life of your dreams, in a way that creates an ever-deepening pool of debt, becomes a nightmare.
It is important to plan for the future, but live in the present. Credit cards are not inherently evil. They are indeed convenient. Particularly if you have the resources to zero out your account each month. But the current economic conditions may force credit card issuers to find new ways to charge even those of us who pay off the balance every month. We may not like it, but they provide a service and should get something for it.
The thief to watch out for is yourself
It is easy to blame credit card companies for the hole many people find themselves in. But far too many people dug that hole with no assistance. Aspirational spending steals from your future. Only in the most euphemistic terms can it be considered any type of investment. It is money you will never see again. And with credit card interest hovering around 26%, aspirational acquisitions end up with a real cost of around twice the purchase price. So remember, for that finger pointing blame at the credit card carriers, there are three fingers pointing back at you.
If you don’t believe it, try living on cash for 6 months.
Shoulda known? Coulda known. Didn’t know!
Written on July 7, 2009 at 1:28 pm, by Steve Stork
Whining is a time-honored pastime. If you are human you have done it. Even Positive Humans can get tired and cranky and engage a little whine with their Chees! But the Positive Human recognizes the negative energy that bubbles up in the whine, identifies the source of that negativity and transmutes it to positive energy.
How can you tell if you are a whiner? Most whiners live in Egypt along de Nile. Some blissfully ignore the inconsistency of “I am happy” followed by a laundry list of complaints. Others fess up to their unhappiness, detailing the same list of complaints. The complaints vary from home to work, from individuals to situations, from minor and specific to serious and broad. The only thing they have in common is that they are seemingly intractable and “… not my fault.”
It’s not uncommon for a whiner to claim “I choose to be happy…” followed immediately by “…if only I didn’t have to deal with these knuckleheads!”
A fellow whiner responds, “I hear you! They do the same thing to me.” Which begets a game of One-Upmanship in which each player attempts to convey ever more grievous complaints of malfeasance, non-feasance, or any other feasance that supports a contention of, “Look what they did to me. They should have known better!”
Which begs the question, How? The modus operandi of the whiner is to air a complaint to everyone except the relevant actor in it. So, this is the point where I recommend talking to the relevant actor and leaving everyone else out of it. And I do so with the assumption that everyone already knows that to be the correct course of action. But, do you!
The first How (How is an offender to know of a misstep if the offended does not say Ouch?) is followed by a second How (How can the offended say Ouch in a way that does not swap roles? I.e., it is unproductive if the offended becomes an offender in a downward spiral of reactive counter-offenses) and perhaps even a third How (How can the offended educate the offender in a way that minimizes future offenses?).
Whining at the offender is ineffective because it acknowledges only one perspective (your own) and usually dictates unilateral change (them). Getting out of whiner mode requires more elegant communication skills than “telling them off.” Rather, you need to listen and be open to change yourself.
Tell the offender what they did (or did not do) that caused offense to you and how it made you feel. Be prepared for some defensiveness; in a world of whiners, the communicative approach is too often unexpected. But speaking calmly and politely is a good way to start, gradually melting the defensiveness and opening clearer communication.
Then listen to their perspective. Be prepared to accept a reasonable explanation. And, yes, ignorance is a reasonable explanation. It may be ignorance of your own desires or preference, or it may be ignorance of broader issues (manners, patterns of speech, culture, etc.). Ignorance presents an opportunity to inform or educate; again calmly, politely, and with compassion for the culture or upbringing underlying that ignorance.
Be prepared also that an offender’s actions may be acceptable within their personal culture or environment. In some circumstances, an offender’s actions may be mandated by a higher authority. In other words, be prepared to accept that some things will not change.
Bottom line, the only person you can change is you. It takes courage to be Happy. With the perception that You are Good Enough, you can say Ouch when offended, but do so in a way that fosters mutual understanding. Very often, offenses are unintentional and easily resolved via calm communication. And for those that cannot be resolved, Happiness sometimes requires Acceptance. That does not infer you should lie down and give in to every offense. Rather, exploring an issue with relevance and objectivity improves your understanding, making it easier to implement change when possible and to accept what cannot be changed.