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"A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes."

-- Gandhi

This quote from Gandhi is very powerful and most of us have consciously experienced it in our own lives. Yet we so often get trapped in our own labelling or self-talk which, if we are completely honest, is definitely not serving us.

I have been missioning with my eldest child to change a self-belief or label he has adopted, and damn it it has been hard work. I suppose partly because he does not really see his mom's issue/motivation and partly because he thinks: "If others (not my mom) says so, it must be true".

I had a similar 'moment' earlier this week - getting isolated feedback from an individual at a client. It is so easy to create a perception that a momentarily flaky opinion is the reality and accurate experience by the collective. Which is not necessarily the case. We have to be so careful which opinions and perceptions we allow our minds to engrave.

Let me put it in another way: A once-off happening, whether it is a mistake/opinion/triumph does not have to mean anything. You do not have to claim the label of being bad or a looser or whatever.

Not too long ago I met with remote staff of a client. When the client took me back to the airport I shared my observations and concerns about some of the exclusions that I have noticed. I considered various prejudices, suspecting that the behaviour could likely be subconsciously etcetera etcetera. Not phased at all by my opinion, the client said: "You are over-estimating us, I guarantee you these guys are quite clueless about these things!" And he was probably right. It was probably the individuals' own issues/labels, and not the group's.

I see this often, if not daily, in group situations where individuals put themselves in a category and behave according to their self-chosen label - assuming the group also see them in that way. Most of the time the group is oblivious to the self-label.

So the question to ask is: What labels are you claiming for yourself?

Motto Model: http://goo.gl/cNnpy and Motto Individual Assessment: http://goo.gl/UhC7V

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Empower yourself

When you go to bed very early just to get to the next day, you know you had a rough one. Or if you start wondering by Wednesday whether the Blue Monday will finally end today. Multiple challenging events in a short period of time.

I do not know if it is in the stars or the moon, or the stage of life, or the time of year, but I am finding people around me, and myself, are going through hectic stuff without a lot of energy to deal with it. Or even worse, the wrong kind of energy to deal with it. So now, reminiscing on how to empower yourself when things are not working for you, I find it quite challenging as I have recently been reminded how difficult it can be.

I have recently been exposed to and had head on collisions with two very disempowering situations: exclusion and abuse (emotional in this case). Both these behaviours are typical bullying behaviours, which indicates poor self-esteem. I know this, in my head, but my heart still feels the hurt when it happens to me or if I see it around me.

This is visible everywhere: with clients, where someone is excluded purposefully from meetings or teams (even though a very sensible reason may be presented at the time). It still hurts the excluded one. Or snappy comments, maybe coming from a place of frustration or insecurity. It is still abusive. With my kids I see it all the time, the two year old baby sister crying at the boys’ room – not allowed in. The hurt of exclusion.

I am not dissing any of the reasons for exclusion or the ‘excuses’ for the momentarily bad behaviours. I get them all. But what the disempowered person can do about it - that should be the focus. Throwing a super tantrum in front of the boardroom door to be let in might be, let’s say, “career limiting behaviour” (as appealing as it may sound!). Or swearing at or even slapping the abusive colleague or husband of a friend is also not ideal…

A line learnt from a retired business partner goes like this: “This is not working for me..” – realising the disempowerment or need to change the situation. And the second part: “… so what can I do?” Believe me, the answers will pop up. And more often than not one of the most empowering things to do, is simply to walk away.

Motto Model: http://goo.gl/cNnpy and Motto Individual Assessment: http://goo.gl/UhC7V

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Making Rules Work

When people talk about rebels, or rebellious behaviour as a negative, I find it so amusing. This is of course because conforming has always been a personal challenge. I wish I knew why, then at least it could have been less painful growing up – struggling to conform, follow the rules, fit into the system.

I am very aware of the risk of how this could sound. In my view a rule, for the sake of having a rule, has just never been something that you have to follow. It is optional. As you can imagine this mindset leaves plenty of room for failure.

During the school holidays my Grade 1 child had a homework project that he had to complete. When I asked him on his plan to making this happen, his reply was: “Don’t worry mom, it is optional.” I think not.

Being able to manoeuvre rules and systems to work for us, is a skillset I often see (or the lack thereof) with clients. For some people it comes very naturally – spotting opportunities for creativity in spite of (or because of!) the rule or system limitations. Please note: I am not advocating doing illegal stuff, not at all. I am wondering how you get people to see the rule/box and then work with it to such an extent that it starts working for you.

My IT guy has figured this out. In database design, if the current rules are not serving the developer, they simply create a new rule that will do the trick. My kids have tried this with our family “rules” as well, creating addendums to the norm. This is in the form of very cleverly worded qualifying circumstances and subsequent consequences.

Some very successful businesses base their whole business model on the weakness of another’s rule, law, contract, system, etc. The limitations of the box we all so desperately try to fit into. I applaud these guys (or most of them at least.) A display of the creative human spirit at work, fantastic!

Motto Model: http://goo.gl/cNnpy and Motto Individual Assessment: http://goo.gl/UhC7V

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