It Takes Courage to be Yourself

It takes courage to live your truth.  First off, what is your truth? Only you know for sure. It can get buried or mixed up with all that you’ve been taught that you’re not sure what part is you speaking and what part is a conditioned behavior.  Your truth is in there somewhere but you need to distinguish what values, passions and beliefs are yours and which are the works of other influences that you’ve picked up along the way.

It’s good when teenagers leave the nest to venture out on their own.  It gives them a chance to see the world from a different perspective.  They begin to discover who they are.  It’s as if the sunglasses come off and they can see clearly see what has influenced every aspect of their lives from their parents, friends and education etc.

It’s a time when they discover their truth.  They figure out what parts of what they’re learned they’re going to keep and which parts they’re going to disregard.  In the process they find their truth.

Your truth continues to evolve as you age because you’re constantly learning through each new adventure.  With every new experience you’re deciding what to keep and make your own and what to disregard.  A new understand takes place.  It’s you evolving.  How exciting! It takes listening to yourself without judgment and outside influences to clearly define your truth.

If you need help, I’m available to open up new realms of possibilities for you.

Don’t Blame the Oil Companies

It’s so easy to find a target to blame. Take your pick. You can blame your parents for not giving you all that you think you deserved.  You can blame the government on the housing crash.  You can blame the oil companies or the government on high gas prices, environmental issues, transportation issues, take your pick.  There’s plenty of blame to go around.

The fact of the matter is oil companies are going to be who they are.  The environmental movement is going to be who they are and you’re going to be who you are.

Speaking from a business perspective, the number one job of a business is to increase share holders wealth. If a business doesn’t make money for the shareholders there won’t be a business and therefore jobs for people. Sure you can argue that they don’t need to have that high of a return on investment but that won’t negate they they’re in it to win it, make money that is.  It would be like telling a professional athlete to shoot for second place when what he wants more than anything is to be the best.  He’s in it to win it.

What is blame anyway?  In coaching, placing blame on someone else, a situation, entity or circumstance is essentially shifting the responsibility from you onto something else.  Then you get to feel good about yourself because it’s not your fault, it’s someone else’s.

I get it. You think you’re not responsible for high gas prices.  Do you use a vehicle, taxi or bus? If so, then you’re using oil.  There are not many places in the U. S. where you can walk, bike or use a train to get to work, run errands or do all the activities you do without using fuel.  Its part of our culture and it’s not going to change overnight.  Although, with the use of the Internet and electronic devices being created at a high rate of speed you’d think our society would be transitioning more to a work from home society faster.  Now that would help our dependency on oil.

There are those people who are pushing for higher gas prices in the hope it will propel the masses to pursue alternative sources of energy.  It sounds well and good but I see two problems with that way of thinking.

1)      Adults are no different than children.  The more you push the more they’ll resist.  It’s human nature.  They have to be convinced it would be in their best interest. More important, it would be better if it were their idea.

2)      Research and Development (R&D) is always the most costly expense of any company.  No business wants to go through the time and cost of creating a product only to have it fail in one form or another. But it has to be done.  It’s no coincidence that you’ll find a new model of a car come out and then shortly thereafter another brand will come out with a similar model.  The first company took on all the R&D expense while the other companies copied the initial model and added some modifications to it, thereby forgoing the R&D cost which means more profit for the company.

The environmentalists want us to use alternative energy but it takes time, money and human energy to discover research, analyze and produce a product which has no guarantee of success.  No business that wants to be successful would take on such a task unless the research indicated that there was a viable market for it.

Oh and another thing!  If you look at history, it’s only when the rich people start using or purchasing a product that it suddenly becomes desirable and acceptable.  Take for example SUVs and furs. There was a time when both of these items were highly sought after but not so much anymore.  At first they were hard to come by due to the high price and availability of them but as the economy improved the middle class was able to afford those items too.  Therefore, if you really want people to buy into alternative energy it has to be desirable, acceptable and affordable.

So as far as placing blame on the oil companies, it’s really not their fault.  They’re doing what they do, produce oil for a profit. They’re giving us what we’re demanding. Personally I think their profit margin is too high.  Therefore, until another affordable, reliable and economical alternative is created we need to make do with what we have.  It’s basic economics.

Obama Riding the Wave of Change

Oh boy and what a ride it’s been.  He got what he asked for – change.  Back in 2008 he campaigned for change and that’s exactly what he got.  Problem is the focus was mainly on the word change but the exact type of change wasn’t clearly defined.  What would it look like?  That’s the Law of Attraction in motion.  You get what you ask for, hence the saying, “Be careful what you ask for. You just might get it”. So many people bought into the rallying cry of change that change became a reality.

Do you know what change is?  It’s chaos.  It doesn’t sound so good now does it?  On the bright side order always follows chaos.  So here we are now working on making sense out of all this chaos and it didn’t just hit on one front but many and all at the same time.  Whew!  Give us a break!  It’s coming.  It’s inevitable.  It’s the Law of the Universe. Now what?

Well, Obama got it started by bringing a need for change to the front of our consciousness.  Lots of ideas, theories, scenarios and options have been proposed in the last few years.  Now we need to sort through all of those and figure out what is the best option for our future.  It’s a daunting task.  Obviously people were crying out for a change but exactly what form that will take still isn’t clear.

What the U.S. needs now is two types of individuals in leadership roles.

1)      The visionary, leader, CEO, doer type of person

2)       The visionary that can create form out of all the chaos

Personally I don’t think Obama fits either of these two types of roles.  He’s the speaker who inspires people to action but not the CEO or doer type person.  I know.  I’ve been in the business world for over 30 years and he’s not the type of person you’d find running the show.  If he had those qualities he would have shown them already.   He’s the type of person who would work outside the main channels to call people to action.

Theory is great.  It’s a starting point but as anyone who has tried to put a theory into practice it doesn’t always work.  There can be variables that have a larger impact than expected that throws the theory off course.  That’s why you need practical, hands on, been there – done that type of person to carry out the call to action.  This person would not only be able to carry the vision but also have the combination of being known as a doer and the practical sense of what works and what doesn’t work.  Typically this would be the CEO type of person.  

The other key individuals would have the known ability to create order out of chaos.  I use the plural sense here because there is so much to do that I believe it’s too large of a task for just one or a few people.  These individuals would have a track record of organizing information, departments, programs and materials and making them flow smoothly.  They have a knack for making sense out of it chaos. They would be capable of holding the vision while sorting through the data to create a harmonious solution.  Now we must find out which individuals fit these criteria.

In order for the Law of Attraction to work for us we must be clear on what we want, send out those thoughts and then be open to allowing the information to come to us without judgment.  Go ahead and work the Law.

If you’d like to know more about the two Core Passions (Power/Form) discussed above you can sign up for my Tidbits Newsletter.  Or, find out your own Core Passions by taking the assessment on the products page at Your True Heart's Desire

Peer Pressure – Soccer Style

It’s that time of year again when kids across the country gear up for soccer.  It’s an active sport which requires skill and practice to become better.  Although it’s a young person’s game the parents of these emerging athletes do sacrifice a lot of time and money to their child’s sport.  However, there is one practice I wholeheartedly disagree with, the standard practice of rewarding the players with a treat after a game.

It’s not so much the practice of rewarding with at treat, well that is part of it but that’s another story, it’s the peer pressure of the soccer parents in charge that mandate that all parents participate.  Mind you this is not something that is voted on, signed up for, or even discussed.  It’s expected.  Why? Because previous parents started to bring treats for all the players and then at some point decided it would be great to rotate this gesture among all the other parents thereby reducing the time and cost for those involved in the practice.  It all started innocently enough but then escalated into a form of obligation and passive aggressive behavior if you don’t comply. You could even say it has a bully element to it.   Imagine a few women conversing about the subject when one volunteers to bring a treat for the next game.  Another woman jumps in and says she’ll bring one for the game after that.  Now mind you I’m speaking from my own experience.  Perhaps other leagues are different.

As innocent as it all started I see a far deeper effect of this practice.  There is no joy in giving if you feel obligated, manipulated, bullied or pressure into it.  It’s no longer giving.  Instead, resentment builds up inside and now where there once was lover there is anger.

A better practice would be to allow those to bring a treat as the mood to give strikes them.  Sure you may have a double dose of treats or none at all at times but the people doing the giving would feel more love since it was given from their heart instead of out of obligation.

As for the children, giving them a treat every time they play a game, win or lose, only teaches them to be entitled. Is that what we really want to be teaching our children?