I had an interesting message from The Grasshopper the other day – “Criminals don’t get caught because they’re stupid; they get caught because they’re patterned.”

It got me to thinking about what patterns we are caught up in that lock us up every time.

You can go a lifetime and not become aware of an arresting pattern.

Patterns are pieces of purposeful behavior that we learn without knowing how we learned them, and they often hang around long after the purpose of their formation has come and gone.

We become like an unfragged hard drive in a computer with little pieces of behavior strewn about here and there, slowing us down and compromising our performance.

Pattered behavior is wonderful when it continues to serve a purpose that’s serving us.

It becomes problematic when it handcuffs our abilities.

I was reminded of the tragic side of patterning the other day when listening to a song by Karen Carpenter on the radio. This young singer had a beautiful voice but learned a pattern that she didn’t have a beautiful body.

As the story goes, early in her career, she and her brother, Richard were performing at a small venue and were well received. The local newspaper ran a glowing review of their performance the next day. The reviewer, as an aside, referred to Karen as “Chubby.”

She ignored the rave review and got caught up in the personal characterization. She began a life of dangerous dieting and purging and died from heart failure attributed to anorexia nervosa at age 32.

The purpose of the original pattern was to get her to not be chubby. The pattern lived on well past the time any healthy weight had been achieved.

What pattern do you own that’s confining you? It’s a question worth asking because your exploration of an answer can serve as your “Get out of Jail for Free” card.

The purpose in finding a limiting pattern is to then employ a strategy to outgrow it. This new outgrowth learning begins when you catch yourself running the pattern.

In order to catch yourself, you first have to know that you are running a pattern. Sometimes it’s quite evident what pattern you are running, and sometimes it’s not. If you are really in the dark about what offending pattern you are running, ask someone close to you. They always know.

But knowing isn’t enough to get paroled from this pattern. You have to catch yourself committing the crime.

That means to catch yourself in the act. All new learning begins when we become cognizant of a behavior while it is happening. The key to escape is to interrupt that behavior while you are in the middle of it. Beating yourself up a half hour later won’t do the trick.

Interrupting the pattern while it’s going on takes you to the prison gate. Continued recognition and interruption gives you the key to freedom.

It’s not only against the law for a high wire act to work without a net, it’s extremely risky. If you are caught up in a risky pattern, take a tip from the pros: Work with the net of recognition and interruption. You’ll catch yourself every time.

All the best,

John

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We live between the tick and the tock of a clock. That pause between sounds is where life is.

It seems we stay focused on the tick and the tock and ignore the silence between them. This is ignoring the wellspring of creativity.

Life is a dynamic, creative adventure, not a static collection of ticks and tocks.

The ticks and tocks we experience in life are only made possible by the creative silence that lies beneath and between them.

Any graphic designer worth their paycheck will attest that a great design is the utilization of the space that gives their designs life. The brushstrokes or keystrokes only come alive when the silent partner, space, is sufficiently used.

You can have the most exquisite furniture that money can buy, but if you crowd it into a room, it cannot be fully appreciated without respecting space. Reminds me of a story . . .

My mother had an eye for exquisite things and diligently saved to buy what she could afford. She lived in a mobile home and decorated it with pieces you would see in Architectural Digest. The problem arose when you attempted to walk around. You couldn’t.

These lovely pieces – breakfront, grandmother clock, expansive coffee table, antique desk, overstuffed chair and a large sofa buried in decorative throw pillows made walking around in her home a high wire act and an exercise in baby steps.

She was caught up in the tick and the tock. All the pieces were beautiful; she just crammed them into a space where their beauty couldn’t shine.

Ticks and tocks are to be celebrated and appreciated. They just can’t be confused with life which lives in the space between them.

If you are a clock watcher, begin to pay attention to the space between tick and tock. It’s this space where all the creativity of life takes place.

All the best,

John

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Something has left the building and I’m not certain it’s coming back.

Perhaps it’s cyclical and will return, but my sense is it’s on death’s doorstep and circling the drain.

Traditionally we have seen it wane in difficult times and have witnessed its rebirth when the smoke cleared, but my sense is not this time.

We don’t recognize the demise because it’s insidious and sneaks up on us.

What is about to leave this planet and leave us less civil? (please cue Aretha Franklin)

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Respect for our fellow man is at an all time low and the bar is getting lower.

I’m not sure even Tinker Bell can save respect.

I wouldn’t even attempt to cite the reasons for its downfall because they would fill up libraries. (For younger readers: That’s where you go for peace and quiet to read your Kindle or iPad)

I would offer a remedy but I’m fresh out of ideas.

It’s time to call the family and say “Goodbye.”

Who among us will deliver the eulogy?

Perhaps no one can because dementia has universally set in and we can’t remember what respect was like.

I wish I could be more upbeat and point to a silver lining, but since respect has been subject to caustic elements for so long, I believe it’s tarnished beyond repair.

I can’t officially pronounce its death because that would be disrespectful of your ability to resuscitate it.

If that’s something you want to attempt, you have my undying respect.

All the best,

John

I have never read “Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus” but I understand that one of the differences outlined between men and women is this: Women complain about problems because they want their problems to be acknowledged, while men complain about problems because they are asking for solutions.

That should not surprise any couple in a relationship because that complaining scenario plays out on a regular basis.

What’s interesting to me is the role that bitching plays in bonding.

Men, by and large, don’t bond as deeply with other men as women do with other women. It’s the bitch factor.

Men may piss and moan for awhile with other men and then look for an action plan to move forward. They won’t stay in complaint mode long enough to forge a bond with other men, or women for that matter.

It will come as no surprise to you that, as a man, I’m not a big fan of bitching because it doesn’t lend itself to a way forward. What I’m coming around to is that bitching may be a foundational step that most men are missing in their efforts to form bonds with others.

The bitching/bonding method is a slower way to get to a solution, but it promotes a better connection between the people seeking solutions.

There are “no nonsense” women among us, but, like men, they just don’t bond as well as the women who allow for complaints.

I may never totally warm to complaining, but I’m beginning to recognize the glue it provides to bonding.

Allowing for bitching longer than your current comfort zone allows, may be the stretch needed to form a bond which will still be in place long after a solution is reached.

All the best,

John

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It seems so obvious but the only time we can make a choice is now.

That means that every current moment is a choice point.

What is it that you can choose every time you become aware of the moment? – Your response to what the moment presents.

The only thing that keeps choice hidden from view is our patterned thinking that we don’t have a choice.

Reminds me of a story . . .

I was presenting a workshop some years ago illustrating that we always have a choice. I asked a participant if someone had a gun to her head and told her to move from one place to another if she had a choice in the matter. She emphatically said, “No.”

I was quick to point out that she did have a choice – to move or not move. Of course, the choice to not move had a high risk of death, but there was a choice present.

Most of our choice points are not that risky, yet they are also not that obvious, due to the conditioning we have received that we don’t have choices.

How many times have we heard someone say, “I had no choice”? That’s not accurate. What is really being said there is, “If you were presented with the same set of circumstances I was, you would have done what I did.” Meaning we would have made the same choice.

There are opportunities presented by choice but we won’t explore them if we believe we have no choice.

You have a choice every moment. You can let the choice be made for you by letting your patterned thinking that you don’t have one stay in place, OR you can recognize that you always have a say.

There is freedom in recognizing choice – The freedom to choose.

It’s really this simple: When you fail to recognize choice, you diminish your options.

Open your eyes to what choices the moment presents and you will see more options.

Choose or don’t choose; it’s your choice!

All the best,

John

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It seems on Election Day we vote for someone else to do our bidding and represent our interests.

We parcel out that job to someone else because we cannot or choose not to do it ourselves. It’s somewhat like hiring an electrician to do something you are unwilling or incapable of doing. The difficulty, as I see it, is that we pay more attention to the quality of the electrician we hire than we do our elected representatives.

This “someone else” is your voice in congress. If you don’t vet them, you have no idea how capable they are.

“Oh, they have to be good to pass the electrician’s test” you may say. Remember that someone had to graduate at the bottom of their class.

Today you may choose to leave it to others to elect someone else. That’s like letting your neighbor decide which electrician will work on your house. It could, after all, be their inept brother-in-law.

Call me crazy, but I want to know the quality of the person doing my bidding and I don’t want my neighbor deciding on who works on my house.

Bottom line: If you choose not to participate in the process, your chances of a power outage are much greater.

Al the best,

John

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What is the essence of you? What’s your main quality?

Are you Kind? Decisive? Loyal? Thoughtful? Insightful? Honest? or something else? What’s the quality that is mainly you?

You may be all of the above, but one quality stands out. That’s your main quality.

Not sure? Don’t be embarrassed; ask someone who knows you well. They will have an answer.

Once you identify your main quality, ask yourself this: “Am I using it to my best advantage?”

Chances are, if you are struggling, you don’t recognize your main quality and aren’t using it to serve you best.

Your main quality is best used when it flows into everything you do. It’s not being used to its finest advantage if you use it for work and not for home or vice versa, and it’s not in your best interest to hide it under a rock.

This much I know for sure: Your main quality comes to you easily. It’s there without you having to think about it, but if you don’t recognize it, you’re not offering yourself the opportunity to take full advantage of it.

“But I don’t like to brag.” No one is asking you to announce it to the world, just begin to notice your main quality and make sure it’s part of everything you do.

It’s not about exalting, but rather about being practical.

If you are discounting your main quality, you are being discounted.

If you are struggling, you are not making use of your main quality. You’ve got something of value, but you may be letting it gather dust in the back of the closet.

Here’s a weekend project: Find your main quality and get curious about how many ways you can insert it into the things you do.

What you will find is that you have a natural catalyst that will propel you forward.

The two ways to activate your main quality are to recognize it and to use it.

You can’t get the blue ribbon for being you unless your main quality is in everything you do.

All the best,

John

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I had this extraordinary thought come to me yesterday: “If you had all the beliefs I have about you, you wouldn’t be you; you’d be me.”

It got me to thinking how personal and powerful beliefs are.

No one has the same collection of beliefs that you do. That makes them personal. Their power comes from their ability to direct our thinking into specific channels. This power itself is neutral. It will flow into any belief we own without prejudice.

What you believe about another is, for the most part, not evidence based, but belief based. You see them and their actions through a filtering system that is unique to you and your conditioning.

This is more than saying that everyone believes differently. This is gaining a perspective that people will not behave exactly like you unless they are you, and judging them for not doing so is missing the point that our beliefs are unique to us. We’re the only one to have this particular collection. Others have a different set causing them to behave differently.

Sidebar: It is prudent to note that reality will not always act in accordance with our beliefs. That alone should demonstrate how unreliable many of our beliefs are.

The reality is this: Human beings are “Human Believers.” We too often believe that others should act the way we believe they should. That’s impossible for them because they are not us.

When you attempt to make another into your image and likeness, you are pretending to be God. That belief will shatter when you discover that you can’t clone you.

It makes for a more peaceful existence when we have a functioning level of tolerance for another’s beliefs. That’s because attempting to make theirs just like ours is an impossible task no matter how much you believe it.

All the best,

John

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We’re all familiar with the “Fight or Flight” response. When fearful, we either fight or flee.

I think during this time of high volume, political dissention that we should highlight the less often discussed reaction to fear – Freeze!

It’s not factual that reaction to fear is an “either or” proposition as in “Fight or Flight.”

Dogs when faced with fear will engage, run away, or just be paralyzed in place by fear. Such is the case for humans as well.

Registered voters will either vote or not vote; those not registered freeze.

The current actions of those engaged in the political process make others so fearful of that process that they freeze in their tracks and do nothing. How sad.

It’s your right to vote or not vote. You remove that choice when you freeze.

I wonder what the percentage is of people who rail against the political process, but when it’s time to take action, they just freeze?

Bitching and moaning is a right guaranteed by the first amendment, yet I don’t think the founding fathers expected a people who were thirsty for liberty and freedom to freeze.

This is really a rant about those who complain and do nothing about it. They freeze their complaint in place by their inaction.

Words without action are just words.

Sometimes it makes sense to retreat so that you can fight another day, but you negate that choice when you lie there and do nothing.

All the best,

John

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What makes us push on when every shred of evidence indicates we are wrong?

Is it stupidity, being bullheaded, stick-to-itiveness, blind faith or something else?

I don’t have an answer, only the practice of pushing on against the current.

It’s not an easy choice. It’s fraught with head winds, brick walls, no results and ridicule; yet we push on.

Is it fear of losing or denial that we’ve lost? I’m reminded of the words of legendary football coach, Vince Lombardi regarding a loss his team just endured. He said, “We didn’t lose; we just ran out of time.”

For the most part, I don’t think we accept loss well and dress it up in other clothes and pretend it’s something else.

Yet, Thomas Edison pushed on past the point where most of us would have given up. He had more than hope pushing him forward.

What is that intangible?

I wish I could answer that question and identify that which has us push on in spite of overwhelming odds. It would be a major discovery.

I guess I’m not the only one asking the question about pushing on. Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, in his quest to know, offered us the Serenity Prayer:

God, grant me the serenity

To accept the things I cannot change;

Courage to change the things I can;

And wisdom to know the difference.

It’s the difference we all wrestle with.

My sense is the wisdom does not come from our intellect otherwise we would have given up long ago. After all, the facts are the facts. The wisdom to push on comes from somewhere else.

I don’t think I’ll ever get to name that place; I only hope to discover it.

If you are pushing on, the only comfort I can offer you is that you are not alone. The difference we are looking for has a distinction, and it’s that sought after distinction that will determine if we push that light switch on or off.

May the force be with you!

All the best,

John

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