"Fear Destroys The Capacity To Learn"
Bruce Perry
What is it that you fear the most in life?
When we live from deep inside that dark place of "fear", we are enveloped by the darkness and its sheer weight will allow "no escape".
Reach your hand just outside the darkness and you can be pulled into the light of learning.
Think about that.
Filed under Growth by 
This past weekend I had an epiphany about "TIME". I was entertaining out of town guests and we were talking about "TIME" and the management of time and how we use our time in the course of a day. We know we have lots of distractions and interruptions and when those occur our productivity goes down and we almost always do not go back to doing what we were interrupted from. There are lots of statistics out there which are readily available and I will not bore you with them here.
Let me ask you. Have you ever experienced a moment or several moments in your day when you are finished with one thing and you have another coming up shortly and you find yourself standing or sitting there with a few minutes to spare? OK! OK ! You don't have to shout. I know you say you don't have a moment to spare, but here what I have observed over and over not only in my life, but , my family, peers, strangers and others; when these precious few moments show up; we immediately go into our "default behavior". What is your default behavior?
Here are several examples of what I have seen and I have even done myself:
* Pick up the phone and call someone until the next thing
* Pick up the phone and text someone until the next thing
* Check the email, something very important might have come in since I last looked before the next thing
* Smoke get a quick drag before the next thing happens
* Eat something until the next thing happens
* Visit with someone who is working to kill time until the next thing happens
* Go online and shop until the next thing happens
* Go online and check personal email until the next thing happens
All of these are POOR time management defaults and we all do many on this list. I know there are thousands of others that I have not observed.
All of these items listed above have one thing in common. Do you know what that is?
They all involve decision making skills. These skills are the same whether you are at work or you are at home. They know no boundary of any kind.
If you decision making skills are not fine tuned and honed then you will not be as productive as you might have been when employing some simple things.
One of the critical triggers that I have observed over and over is the "inability" for people in general to tolerate "inactivity in the form of being with themselves". They are always looking for the "next thing". We have totally unlearned how "to be". Do you remember when you were a kid and you would tell your parents: "…….there's nothing to do……I'm bored……" ? What did your parents do or say when those words came out of your mouth?
If your parents felt responsible for keeping you busy and happy at all times they probably became your "private entertainment" concierge. You never learned how to just "be" and find something to amuse yourself with where you were learning something or entertained in some other method other than being plopped in front of an electronic device of some kind.
We keep our calendars so full we are overwhelmed. When we have a free moment we are looking to our personal concierge for a "fix" until the next thing!
At your next default moment……S-T-O-P ……..and think we doing any one of the items above move me forward, earn me more money, calm me down "really", or fulfill me in some manner?
Filed under Grow, Growth, Prosper, Start Grow Prosper by
As this past weekend past and I watched the nightly news, what strikes me is that we seem to be living in a season of "uncertainty". Now I'd like to ask you if that is what you see, hear, and feel in your own world today?
How do you know that this is true?
On what do you base this feeling?
I would like to propose that this is a fabrication of your own thinking. So, let me just test the water here with a couple of questions to which I know you have the answers to.
This coming fall there will be a group of young adults who will be Seniors in High School; there will be a graduation come late spring. Is that certain or uncertain?
In the coming months women who are pregnant, will give birth to those babies. Is that certain or uncertain?
This coming summer, there will be marriages all over the country. Is this a certainty or uncertainty?
Every year there are thousands of families who will go bankrupt or loose their homes to foreclosure. Is this something that goes on every year or not?
Colleges graduate students each spring and summer and winter. Is this an on going process or is this not a certainty?
Every year millions of people complete their journey here on earth and pass on to death. Is this a certainty or is this an uncertainty?
Every year there are storms, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, political upheaval, wars, celebrity meltdown, relationships which fail, leaders that disappoint their constituents, scandals, winners and losers in every business and aspect of daily life. Are these certainties or are these surprises to you?
You have always lived every moment of your life in the certainty that all of these will occur. Do you agree with this statement?
So where does this anxiety come from that you are somehow in the grips of something that you feel you MUST control?
If you are AWARE that these are the daily occurrences of life and they will not change for the most part, then be at peace with who you are and what you do in this world.
If you are willing to be a part of the accountability team which has no leader and works tirelessly without recognition to keep your own family, home, community safe, responsible for the resources on which you depend and keep a positive, supportive attitude of building up others instead of tearing down the fabric of life and using your most powerful tool, your actions, life will look very different for all of us.
If you do these first two items then you and your family and community will experience the freedom that we all seem to have forgotten. We each must take responsibility for things being the way they are in our lives, our communities and our families, and businesses. We also must recognize that nature will do what nature does and has been doing for millions of years, we are powerless to control something that is not controllable.
So let me ask you again; "Are you living in the jaws of uncertainty?" or "Are you living in the decisions that you have already made?"