My Legacy

As one who helps navigate others through the stormy seas of change and conflict, I hope to be known as the coach who helped thousands chart their way to success and contentment. May it be so!

http://stormycs.wordpress.com

Being Real

Four from our little church recently went to the home of some members who would probably be classified as poor. They were having a neighborhood cookout - in a "poor" neighborhood. About 20 hungry people showed up, and we had a great time.

Afterward, the youngest of us - a recent college graduate - remarked that he had noticed that poor people are open and honest. That was refreshing - and biblical. That sparked a conversation about middle class and rich class people.

Most middle class people talk about each other, we concluded. The difficulty of climbing out of the middle class is that everyone else in the class is working hard to pull each other down in their own effort to climb up.

Most rich class people talk about business, philosophy, politics, and society subjects. Hmmmm. Interesting.

What do you think about our observations?

Coach

Is Roger Federer the greatest player ever? However we answer that question, we cannot deny that he is a great tennis player. Do you know his coach's name? I don't. Do you believe Roger Federer could have accomplished what he has without the help, training, and encouragement he received from a coach - or coaches?

How about Michael Phelps? Do you know his coach's name? Most of us heard the name of the amazing gymnist, Nadia Comaneci's coach - Bela Karolyi. But that is unusual. A great coach often stays in the background.

As a change and conflict coach, I do not care if anyone knows my name, other than those I coach. I do care that my "coachees" succeed. I hope, if I'm known by name, to be known as the coach of people who wildly succeed. "The winningest coach ever" would be great, if that means my "coachees" are known as winners!

Laughter

I don't laugh enough. I'm actually working at laughing more. I recently read about a health study that reported 3 main reasons people can't cope in life:
1. Living in the past
2. Low self-esteem
3. Unable to laugh at themselves

I subscribe to a daily joke email. That sometimes provides some laughs (sometimes the jokes are pretty lame). But I have some other great laughter material: me! I usually have no problem laughing at myself, but I need to get better at it - not take myself so seriously.

Sometimes life just gets too serious, busy, and complicated. That's when I need to laugh. I want to laugh more. I need to laugh more. That study I previously mentioned indicated that we need approximately 12 laughs a day to stay healthy! I'm working on it!

Zoe woke me up (unintentionally, unwittingly, and pleasantly) this morning laughing in her sleep. She was enjoying a good, funny dream! What a great way to begin the day!

Negative Thinking

"Recovery was frustrating for Lee. One of his largest battles was his negative thinking. When he started to work less and spend more time with his family, he was convinced that financial disaster was imminent and that he would lose everything, including his family. His family reassured him but it did not help. Instead he would rationalize that they were only saying that to make him feel better.

"Negative thinking is a common characteristic of workaholics and members of their families. It is promoted by perfectionism and an unconscious belief that it is possible to know and be in control of everything. When this doesn't happen disappoint fuels negative thoughts.

"Lee was unable to look at his life choices realistically and with promise. He was drained of the energy he needed to do his work and manage his life by this negative thinking."

Negative thoughts are unnecessary and unproductive.
[from Gary E. Hurst, Mike Kachura, and Larry D. Sides, Time Out. Daily Devotions for Workaholics. 2002. NEGATIVE THINKING - May 22]

Renewing the Mind

“For Louise to renew her mind she had to replace many thoughts that had ‘seniority,’ and they were not going to be easily changed.

“One such belief was the constant message that she was not good enough, no matter what she did. As a result she was always trying harder and harder and, quite honestly, was doing quite well. But her belief system would not allow her to see her doing well at anything.

“To change that idea she had to take certain ideas as truth, not because she could see that they were true but because she would choose to believe they were true. She had to replace her standards of measurement.”

Paul, a spiritual leader, wrote to his friends in Rome, “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.” (Romans 12:2, The Book of Books)

[adapted from Gary E. Hurst, Mike Kachura, and Larry D. Sides, Time Out. Daily Devotions for Workaholics. 2002. May 21 – REPLACEMENT PARTS]

GIGO

“’Garbage in, garbage out.’ We hear it all the time from computer people. It is the recognition of the fact that computers make very accurate mistakes if they have been programmed with mistakes—garbage, if you will. Louise had been programmed with garbage. At an impressionable age she had repeatedly heard that she was just a body to be used and her feelings did not matter.

“We had been working on her thinking process for about a month before I called it ‘reprogramming.’ It is the only road to transformation, and Louise knew she needed to be transformed from what the incest had done to her.

“The process of renewing the mind has two steps. The first is to recognize the lies and the inaccurate self-talk. The second step is to replace the lies with the truth. The problem is that the lies are subtle and the replacement takes more than a single corrective act.”

[from Gary E. Hurst, Mike Kachura, and Larry D. Sides, Time Out. Daily Devotions for Workaholics. 2002. COMPUTER PROGRAMMING – May 20]