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My Inheritance Of Waste

by Walt | Dec 1, 2022 | Success | 0 Comments

My life has been filled with terrible misfortune; most of which never happened.
Michel de Montaigne

I come from a long line of worriers.

My grandfather was a worrier. He would wring his hands for days before he’d travel about what the weather might be on the day he was set to start out. And when he’d arrive, he would become obsessed about what the weather might be for his return.

My father was a worrier. He worried about the weather too. And the stock market and his business and his health and his children and their children and whether he should retire or not retire and what may or may not happen in the next hour or on the next day or the next week or the next year. And did I mention that he worried about the weather?

I’m a worrier too. And I can be even more resourceful than my father.

“Worry saps energy, warps thinking and kills ambition,” said Dale Carnege in his classic How To Stop Worrying and Start Living.

Worry is a waste.

Worry is the bastard child of Fear.

FEAR: False Evidence Appearing Real.

Fear resides deep in the ancient part of our brain, the amygdala. It served us once. When we hunted on the plains and needed to avoid the predators: the mastodons and the woolly mammoths.

But as I drove to the coffee shop this morning, I noticed a curious thing: the landscape appeared devoid of wild beasts.

Today, fear is the predator.

Fear limits. Fear paralyzes. Fear diminishes. Fear robs you of opportunity.

With fear, you fail to live life fully.

There’s a really good book on fear: Feel The Fear …And Do It Anyway by Susan Jeffers. Jeffers says, “We can’t escape fear. We can only transform it into a companion that accompanies us on all of our exciting adventures; it is not an anchor holding us transfixed in one spot.”

But how do you transform it? By holding it and moving through it. By feeling it – deeply – and doing what makes you afraid – anyway.

It sounds overly simplistic. But it really is supported by the “evidence.”

Mark Twain said, “I’ve seen many troubles in my time, only half of which ever came true.”

Jeffers says: “It is reported that more than 90% of what we worry about never happens. That means our negative worries have less than a 10% chance of being correct. If this is so, isn’t being positive more realistic than being negative? Think about your own life. I’ll wager that most of what you worry about never happens. So are you being realistic when you worry all the time? No!”

Fear never goes away. As long as you grow, fear goes with you. Those of you who journey out on the edge recognize fear as a pretty steady companion. But the paradox is, that in moving through your fear, you do grow.

And here was the big revelation for me: everyone is afraid. You’re not alone. No matter how successful someone is, no matter how confident someone appears, fear looms in the dark recesses, in the unknown, the untried, the unexplored.

Whenever you risk – whether in business, in relationship, or at play – you invite fear.

But as Jeffers says, “Pushing through the fear is less frightening than living with the underlying fear that comes from a feeling of helplessness.” If we don’t confront our fear – and move through it – we stay stuck. And fear full.

“Courage,” Mark Twain said, “is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.” He also said, “Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain.”

Ultimately, the conquest of fear is about trust: trust in yourself. “All you have to do to diminish your fear is to develop more trust in your ability to handle whatever comes your way,” says Jeffers.

Trust. Trust that you can handle it.

Whatever comes your way. You can handle it.

(I wonder what tomorrow’s weather will bring?)

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Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday. Is time passing way too quickly? Are you ready to create that exciting next chapter? Let’s connect. Email me: [email protected]

And stop by for a visit at: https://summit-success.com/

How To Be Unhappy

by Walt | Nov 24, 2022 | Success | 2 Comments

If you want to be unhappy, it’s easy.

Focus on all the bad shit.

Gianni Infantino is unhappy. Really unhappy.

Infantino is the president of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association. He’s hosting the Qatar World Cup.

He’s unhappy about 3000 years of European oppression, the rapacity of capitalism, and the rapid enfranchisement of women in various cantons of Switzerland, just to name a few things on his list.

(And, yes, there are other people unhappy about the lack of beer.)

A lot of shit to be unhappy about for sure.

But jeeeeez. So many good things: extraordinary athletes from all around the world united by their passion for the game. Thirty-two nations together. Competition, celebration, dance. And for millions of spectators, joy.

This brings me to Thanksgiving.

A holiday in the U.S.

There are lots of people who are unhappy about it.

Some are unhappy about the holiday itself: the travel, the inconvenience, the social pressures.

(Oh, and the overeating and over-drinking. You see, there’s definitely no lack of beer.)

Others are unhappy about the holiday’s etiology: colonialism, oppression, genocide.

This camp sees Thanksgiving as a commemoration of conquest and subjugation, as Pamela Paul of the New York Times suggests.

But jeeeeez. There is so much goodness about Thanksgiving: a holiday unencumbered by gift-giving, the gathering together of families, and celebrations of joy around a festive table (many, for the first time in long pandemic years).

I do not diminish Infantino’s concerns or Paul’s truths.

But it’s easy to see bad.

Everywhere you look.

And good too.

A Ukraine refugee who gets to watch the World Cup from a shelter in a foreign land, and experiences a moment of hope.

A homeless family in Philadelphia that gets to enjoy a warm Thanksgiving, and sees the kindness of strangers.

This isn’t popular to say: But the world isn’t binary; it isn’t divided into good and bad.

Anne Frank, hiding from the Nazis, wrote, “In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.”

You can focus on the bad.

Or you can focus on the good.

What you focus on you’ll surely see.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Doctor No

by Walt | Nov 17, 2022 | Success | 2 Comments

What is essential is invisible to the eye.
— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

I have a confession to make: I loved the old James Bond movies.

Dr. No was the first. The inimitable Sean Connery played Bond. Julius No was the villain, Dr. No.

But these days, I tend to think that anyone with doctoral level skills in “No” ought to play the hero.

I gave a workshop recently on productivity and work- life balance.

As I was preparing for the workshop, I saw a colleague of mine, Sandy, at a conference.

Sandy called out to me across the hallway, “Walt, I hear you’re giving the seminar on life balance.”

“Yes,” I said. “Are you coming?”

Breathlessly (because Sandy always breathless and in a hurry), Sandy replied, “No, can’t, have no time.”

We both chuckled about how ridiculous that sounded. But as ridiculous as it may have been, it is, for most of us, not only irony but truth.

We have no time to get balanced because we’re so out of balance. And breathless.

Saying “no” might help.

But that’s super challenging. You want to please others and be seen as affable. If you get asked to contribute in some way to a church or school or community event, your knee-jerk reaction is to say yes. And if you dare to say no, it’s not without some chagrin and guilt.

Parents are particularly prone to “yes.” We’re hard-wired to want the best for our kids. We’re hard-wired to want to see them happy. Most of the time, in our minds, the “best,” or what we think will make them “happy,” is to say “yes” to whatever the request is. Even when saying “no” may be the “right” response.

Helping professionals are especially at risk. We get paid to come to the rescue. And coming to the rescue feeds our sense of self-worth. The more we say yes, the more meaning and significance we feel. Even when saying “yes” places us at risk for divorce, depression, and burn-out.

Not only that, saying lots of yeses and staying busy is, for many, a badge of honor.

You gotta be busy. Because being busy is to be important, we think. To be busy is to have worth, we think.

The problem, of course, is that by continually saying yes, we become stretched too thin, over-extended. Depleted. Worth-less.

I really like the Pareto Principal. It’s also called the 80/20 rule.

Tim Ferriss in his provocative book The 4-Hour Work Week, says, “When I came across Pareto’s work one late evening, I had been slaving away with 15-hour days seven days per week, feeling completely overwhelmed and generally helpless.”

Overwhelmed and helpless ring any bells? I know that I am susceptible to this!

“Faced with certain burnout or giving Pareto’s ideas a trial run, I opted for the latter,” Ferriss says. “The next morning, I began a dissection of my business and personal life through the lenses of two questions:

1. Which 20% of sources are causing 80% of my problems and unhappiness?

2. Which 20% of sources are resulting in 80% of my desired outcomes and happiness?”

What are the 20% of the customers or clients that give you 80% of the headaches? Get rid of them. What is the 20% of your work that gives you 80% of your joy? Focus on it.

Who are the 20% of people who produce 80% of your happiness, who support and encourage you? Who are the 20% who cause the 80% of your angst?

You get the idea.

You know you take on too much.

Especially during the holidays.

Say no more often. Say yes only to what is essential. Say yes to what brings you joy.

Wasted Is Good

by Walt | Nov 10, 2022 | Success | 2 Comments

There is a lost art. An essential art.

An art that unlocks the door to the deepest parts of yourself.

It’s called: wasting time.

Anathema, I know. Especially from a time management and productivity expert!

Yet, without wasting time prodigiously, you will always be caught in the slipstream of life, without ever savoring its deep joy.

Our dominant cultural message is: stay busy, do more, drive harder.

But at what cost?

It seems that “we have lost the habit of unprofitable pleasure,” writes the Carmelite mystic William McNamara. “We shall get nowhere, we shall never find life, life will escape us, unless we learn not to be always bustling about – unless we learn to be still, to let things happen around us, to wait, listen, receive, contemplate.”

You will never connect with the real treasure; you will never know the true value; you will never taste the bountiful goodness that surrounds you every moment your life; unless you recover and practice this lost art.

The holidays are here again. The slipstream will become a vortex.

Unless you deliberately plan to waste some time.

What do you think?

Will you give it a try?

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Tired of the vortex? Ready to create something new? Let’s connect. Email me: [email protected]

And, stop by for a visit at: https://summit-success.com/

Hello Darkness My Old Friend

by Walt | Nov 3, 2022 | Success | 0 Comments

To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
— Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

We’ll turn the clocks back this past week.

The shadows here in New England will begin to fall by mid-afternoon.

I’ll rail against it.

Some find the dark cozy and embracing. They relish the long evenings in front of the fire. They embrace the dark.

I hate it.

I love the Alaska Range in the summer: the long endless days and the midnight sun. I’d jump from a bridge if I lived there in the winter.

Of course, many folks have taken care of this by moving to places like Southern California, or Belize. And there are many more who embrace the changing seasons with greater equanimity than I.

But the seasons of change can be another matter altogether.

Most all of us get used to our routines. Constancy is safe. Secure.

We like predictability.

Anything that disrupts the status quo is, well, disruptive.

We fight change. I do. Yet change is really the only constant. It is the rhythm of things. High tide and low; ’til death do us part, or sooner; daytime and night; in sickness and in health; drought and flood; in good times and in bad; carry days and rest days; generativity and the dark night of the soul.

The legendary Jim Rohn taught so eloquently on the seasons of life: The seasons always come, Rohn said. “You cannot change the seasons but you can change yourself.”

Winters always come. And there are all kinds of them, Rohn said. “There are economic winters, when the financial wolves are at the door; there are physical winters, when our health is shot; there are personal winters when our heart is smashed to pieces.”

Use winter to get stronger, wiser, better. Get ready for the Spring, Rohn said. It always follows winter.

“Opportunity follows difficulty.” Take advantage of the Spring. Till the earth. Plant.

In the Summer, nourish and protect. “Every garden must be defended in the summer,” Rohn taught. The garden of values – social, political, marital commercial- the garden of ideas, the garden of all that is good. Be on watch over your garden in the summer.

Reap what you have sown in the fall. Take responsibility for what you did not sow, for what you did not protect. But celebrate the harvest. “Learn to welcome the fall without apology or complaint,” Rohn said.

Embrace the seasons of our lives. Know them. Use them.

Why do we fight so what is so?

To be with change, to be in its flow; to experience the shifting sands with open hands and open hearts. To have the courage to accept and say: “and this too.” Cherish this challenge. It is all we really have.

The seeds of new life blow on the cold winds of November. Winter will come. But so will Spring. It is the rhythm of things.

To live fully, deeply into each season of our lives: this is what we are called to do.

Every year we have been witness to it: how the world descends
into a rich mash, in order that it may resume. And therefore who would cry out
to the petals on the ground to stay, knowing as we must, how the vivacity of what was is married
to the vitality of what will be? I don’t say it’s easy, but what else will do
if the love one claims to have for the world be true? So let us go on
though the sun be swinging east, and the ponds be cold and black and the sweets of the year be doomed.
— Mary Oliver

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Want some support through a season of change? Let’s talk. Email me: [email protected]

And stop by for a visit at: https://summit-success.com/