Back in August of 2009 I wrote a blog post about the 4 Signs of Immaturity. Thank God I didn’t say the list was all-inclusive because I’ve found another one – undependability.

Yesterday, The Grasshopper delivered this: “Learning to be dependable is learning to be an adult.”

Sidebar: I’ll admit that “adult” can be a polarizing word depending on one’s maturity level. If the lyrics in your head are “I won’t grow up” from Peter Pan, or you’re still singing “I don’t wanna’ grow up; I’m a Toys ‘R Us kid” from the TV commercial, adulthood is something you’re still rebelling against.

Being dependable is a mark of maturity. There is nothing more satisfying to me than dealing with people who do what they say they are going to do. I am reminded every day why Werner Erhard‘s quote is one of my favorites. “The reason life doesn’t work is because people don’t keep their agreements.”

If, more often than not, you agree to do something and you don’t follow through, you are undependable and locked in by another sign of immaturity.

Yes, we all forget from time to time that we agreed to do something that just slipped our mind. That’s a far cry from the slippery slope of undependability.

We expect children, teenagers and young adults to be immature because maturity is a learning process. Those who learn maturity become dependable; those that don’t have earned their soiled reputation.

Please don’t confuse maturity with success. There are many people who are successful who are not dependable. They are generally the people you refuse to do business with again. They may have all the talent and expertise to do the job, but their lack of maturity makes their delivery schedule and them undependable.

It’s never too late to become dependable. It’s a process that takes regular practice in doing what you say you will do. Once learned it becomes second nature and will come to you naturally.

If you are serial disappointer, start small and follow through. It will serve as a stepping stone on the pathway to maturity.

Also, it’s helpful if you keep your lips zipped. The telltale clue of undependability is a grandiose litany of what you’re going to do. Don’t over promise because you’ll always under deliver.

If you are undependable, you are immature and you will continue to be less than you can be.

You’ll know you’ve reached maturity when you can confidently say, “You can depend on me.”

All the best,

John

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I watched a woman who clearly had a physical handicap, haltingly out walking for exercise yesterday. I remarked to myself, “What a testament to the human spirit.”

Here was this woman, overriding any acceptable excuse not to exercise, displaying her human spirit.

What is the human spirit?

We all have it, and yet we all constrain it from doing its best.

The human spirit is what animates us and differentiates us from being dead.

Yet, many of us are the walking dead, without an acceptable excuse, because we keep our human spirit on a leash.

How do we confine the spirit we all have?

It’s done through patterning.

We all learn patterns of behavior and thinking. Some of the learning is conscious; most of it is conditioned without our permission. We learn most patterning by accident and then that accident becomes a way of life.

Are you rude? You didn’t go to a formal class to learn it but, nonetheless, you were schooled. Think about it, who would consciously decide to learn rudeness?

Taking the learning one step further, you have channeled your human spirit into being rude, because like water, spirit will go wherever there is a route.

So we channel our malleable human spirit through patterning, most of which was done outside of our awareness. It seems like this patterning keeps us stuck in place.

Not for the woman out walking yesterday.

What made her human spirit flow into a productive pattern of exercise versus into an acceptable excuse not to?

I would only be guessing because I don’t know this person, but my sense is that she discovered that our human spirit will flow wherever we channel it.

That means that we have to begin to recognize where we are allowing it to flow now. That’s easy to determine, just look at your patterns. That’s where your human spirit is flowing.

In order to redirect the flow, it’s essential to recognize a confining pattern while it’s happening, not during a guilt trip, or on the therapist’s couch after the fact. That’s just a history lesson, not a plan of action.

When you begin to recognize your patterns in action, you create a space for the flow of human spirit to go somewhere new. Repeated recognition, while the pattern is happening, creates a channel for your spirit to flow away from that which is holding you back into something new that’s more productive for you.

To save your spirit from stagnation, begin to recognize where it’s pooling now and you’ll quietly create a channel for its escape.

The human spirit is remarkable; we just need to lead it where we want it to take us. That’s done through using our gift of recognition. It’s the catalyst for producing new channels for our human spirit to animate.

I’d write more but I want to catch up with that woman who’s out walking.

All the best,

John

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The Grasshopper had an addendum to yesterday’s post. When I heard it read aloud, he added, “Imitation is limitation.”

When we imitate someone, we are always one off from the original. It can be great entertainment but it’s rarely a satisfying substitute for the real thing.

Enter “Emulation.”

Emulation takes the best of what someone has to offer and allows you to adopt it and add your own style. Imitation makes you a poor man’s copy cat.

When I was in the radio business, most novice broadcasters imitated the person who influenced them to become a radio personality. As I’ve mentioned before, a wise program director once told me that I could never be the guy I was imitating, but that guy could never be me either. That’s the day I went from imitating to emulating.

When you adopt successful strategies and incorporate them with your personal style, you get to see the frame from which another operates and can then make decisions to go outside that box to create something new.

Learn the difference between imitation and emulation. It will make you a true original.

All the best,

John

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The Grasshopper hopped into a telephone conversation I was having yesterday when he said, “Limitation is learned early.”

It immediately made sense.

A friend and I were discussing peoples’ attitudes and beliefs about money and then the topic turned to childhood learning. I recalled something Tony Robbins said some 25 years ago: “Ask a group of kindergarteners who the best artist in the class is and all the hands will go up. Ask the same group a year or two later and notice the lack of hands being raised.”

It’s helpful when you are constrained by a belief to notice that belief in action. Part of the noticing is to recognize that the belief was born after you were, because you were not born with beliefs.

Beliefs, whether useful or not, are learned. For example, sadly, the belief that another race is inferior can easily produce a 5 year old bigot with the requisite conditioning. That’s an early limitation.

This isn’t a treatise on parenting because frankly, we are all amateurs in that arena. There is no manual to follow other than the one that was modeled for you during your own upbringing. Yes, each generation makes adjustments to the process, but the art of limitation is still taught.

The real gift comes as an adult when we notice our learned imitations in action. Sometimes it produces a laugh and other times a tear. The emotional reaction isn’t the gift; the noticing of the limitation in action is.

Beliefs, for the most part, are limitations, even a belief in the most accepted of things, like gravity. The limitation of gravity would suggest to most that heavy hunks of metal can’t fly through the air. The Wright Brothers noticed that limiting belief, and in doing so, made room for a new belief that didn’t have that gravitational pull.

Sometimes someone has to point out to us that our beliefs are limitations, and sometimes that realization arrives in an “ah-ha” moment.

The question you don’t want to get caught up in is whether your beliefs are right or wrong, but rather if they serve you or not. If they are not, you are lashed to a pole by your limitations.

Back to money: Putting silver spoon prejudice aside, people with money don’t have the same beliefs about money that people without money do. The real limitation isn’t that you don’t have money; it’s the conditioned limitation about money that keeps you in the red. It’s learned early.

What were your parents’ attitudes about money? Odds are, your attitudes are slightly watered down versions of theirs.

Whether your limitations are about money or some other thing, the route to rectification begins with recognition.

Begin to recognize your beliefs in action and you’ll pause them long enough for a new idea to take root – one that’s not so limiting.

The limitation about limitation is that we don’t take the time to recognize it in action.

Recognition, alone, will do more to move you forward than another mental trip down limitation lane.

All the best,

John

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Limbo is more than a spine testing dance or a hypothesis about the afterlife; it’s a frame of mind that keeps you in a state of wait.

The trapped Chilean miners had no choice but to wait, but we do. Yet, many of us don’t choose; rather we set up shop in Limbo.

Limbo is waiting without anticipation. You are just suspended in time without any view of a horizon or light at the end of a tunnel. It’s truly a “no place” place to be.

You can’t envision what you want because you wear blinders in Limbo.

Limbo is like being in shock; all you can do is fuzzily think about how you can’t move.

Like shock, you arrived in Limbo by accident, but you stay there by your own hand by reinforcing your lack of options.

When you deduce that you only have one option, you stay in a self induced coma known as Limbo.

The one option of permanently waiting is Limbo.

Please don’t confuse the waiting of Limbo with patience. They are different approaches.

Patience suggests something will happen; Limbo is just waiting.

A patient person will take action within their patience, while a “Limbonian” just dies on the vine. Perhaps an example would be helpful . . .

Suppose you have to be patient to go on a vacation. You have to wait until next summer before you can go. You don’t have a time machine to speed up the days but you do have the ability to take action on a variety of fronts. You can set up a weekly savings plan that will give you money to spend on vacation. You can buy discounted sunscreen in the off season in preparation for your summer getaway. You can plan the clothing you want to take, bone up online about the restaurants and sights you want to visit, and the list goes on and on.

In Limbo, you only have one option – waiting.

Limbo is the mythical kingdom of the mind known as no action.

Limbo is being overwhelmed by the mountain; getting out of Limbo is noticing the foothills and taking steps towards them.

The rescue begins by recognizing there are options and then taking action on those options no matter how small.

Here is the 2-step dance for getting out of Limbo: Notice & Move.

You don’t have to bend over backwards to get out of Limbo, just notice you have options and move towards them – a step at a time.

All the best,

John

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Willpower is weak and powerful at the same time.

It’s most often the initiator and rarely the finisher.

Living on a diet of willpower will make you heavy with failure.

Willpower gets a bad rap, and deservedly so, because it is so misinterpreted and misused.

I’d like to make the case for willpower and give it its proper due.

Think of willpower as the match that’s used to light the fuse on a bomb. The match cannot insure that the fuse won’t fizzle out and fail to detonate the explosion necessary to get what you want, but without the match, the process may never begin.

Willpower is a sprinter, not a marathoner, yet we treat it as such, and we attempt to use its power for the long haul. That’s like selecting a chainsaw to prune your bonsai tree.

Willpower is the initial action, period. When you attempt to expend it past its role, you inflict harm on yourself and others. You cause yourself unnecessary pain and failure, and you pollute those you have influence over with pseudo-science.

“Willpowerers” claim to have the answer, but fail to recognize it’s only the answer to the first question of a lengthy exam.

It takes willpower to begin a long journey, but if it’s the only thing in your backpack, it’s highly unlikely you’ll make it to the mountain top.

Look at someone who uses willpower almost exclusively. What you’ll notice is someone devoid of satisfaction. Their life is a task and they rarely bask in what they’ve accomplished, because their focus is on the next project. Willpower for them is like the drug, amphetamine that keeps them from resting and reflecting long enough to discover peace and an easier pathway.

Willpower keeps you separated from your strength. When we have the notion that it’s I alone who makes things happen, we negate the source of our power which is the creative void where willpower cannot enter.

No one is better than willpower to get the ball rolling, but if you don’t employ your other teammates your chances of scoring a goal are slim.

You are not alone. You just have to stop using your willpower long enough to ask for help. It’s in abundant supply once you discover there’s more than “I.”

If your life’s mantras are “tough it out,” “nose to the grindstone,” “just do it” or anything similar, you are misusing the power of willpower. They are great appetizers but a steady diet of them will give you acid reflux.

The ancient Chinese wisdom could have just as easily been stated as, “The longest journey begins with willpower.”

All the best,

John

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I’m old enough to remember when many holidays were celebrated on the day of the week they landed on, rather than on a Monday. Such is my memory of Columbus Day – October 12th.

I also remember two jokes that came with Columbus Day:

1. Have you ever had the Columbus Day cocktail? Two of these and you discover a whole new world.
2. Columbus actually had 4 ships – The Nina, The Pinta, The Santa Maria and The Murray. The reason you never heard of The Murray is because it sailed over the edge.

But Columbus Day really reminds me of a personal discovery I made some 20 years ago. It dawned on me that discoveries were really “Uncoveries.”

What you discovered was always there, just not in plain view. It was covered over.

What covers what’s there to discover? Blinding knowledge that we know all there is to know.

Knowing covers over what’s yet to be uncovered.

When you know, you stop looking. And when you stop looking, you are covered in the stench of superiority which is a dead giveaway that you know it all.

The Grasshopper reminded us that, “When you know, you cease to grow.”

What is that you’re laying claim to knowing about that’s preventing you from uncovering a new discovery?

It’s a powerful question that will lead you to your own uncoveries. You just have to ask it and follow it where it leads.

I invite you to view the following video that clearly demonstrates the type of knowing that deters discovery and how adamantly we defend what we claim to know.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=By-ohi3vO2w

All the best,

John

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It’s harder than it looks when you know how, and it takes lots of work to make it look easy.

What are you really good at? It’s OK to blow your horn; no one is going to hear your response – just us chickens.

The fact is that you are good at something and you make it look easy.

Look at any cooking show or home improvement show on TV. They make it look easy. The degree of difficulty becomes apparent when we attempt to replace the toilet or serve that soufflé.

You can credit your impetus to start the project to enthusiasm but more often than not, it’s a lack of appreciation.

We often don’t give ourselves or others the proper due for the ability to make something look easy.

If I were handy, I would write a best-selling book of instruction called, “There’s No Such Thing as a 5 Minutes Job” because there isn’t.

Hard things are not easy; proficient people just make it look that way, and that includes you.

The real message here is that self-appreciation seems to be in short supply for many people and it makes their lives harder.

It’s not that we don’t have it; it’s in our toolbox, but we don’t use it enough.

I love self deprecation in a person, but when it becomes their lifestyle, they begin to lack appreciation for their developed skill set and marginalize it, rather than use it to their best advantage.

When you don’t appreciate your own skills, you communicate a lack of skill, which is never the case.

Take a look at what you’re good at and look for ways to let that skill ooze out.

It will make life easier and it will be harder for people not to appreciate you.

All the best,

John

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For a deity so worshiped around the world, “God” is a polarizing term.

The polar opposites go from “My God” to “No God,” with some form of “Our God” taking up the middle ground.

I have a neutral position that I feel most can agree with that will put the concept of God in a new light.

Most everyone, including extreme fundamentalists and atheists, will admit to having “Gut Feelings.”

It’s that instant, unmistakable sense that something does or doesn’t pass the sniff test. It’s the proverbial OK/Not OK sensation that we all have experience with.

Let’s call that sense “Gut.” You can still call it “God” if you want to.

Gut hits us with an absence of logic because it’s not a mind phenomenon or mental construct; it’s a feeling.

The rub is that we pollute this feeling with mental debate after we receive it. Our intellect doesn’t trust what our gut is impressing upon us because it’s not in logical, thought form – the only thing it can understand. So our gut feeling becomes watered down with intellectual compromise that keeps us in Limbo.

Your gut, like what we hear about God, looks out for you 24/7 even when you are sleeping. Reminds me of questions I ask at my seminars . . .

I will inquire if there are any mothers in the group and hands will be raised. I ask them if they know when their children are lying and most of them say, “Yes.” I then ask them how they know. They rarely answer with a specific like, “They cock their head to one side when they lie.” The answer is more often, “I just get a feeling.”

Next, I ask, “How many of you mothers can sleep through a thunderstorm?” and several hands go up. I then ask those mothers if they ever heard their child softly sobbing in another room, through closed doors, in the middle of a loud thunderstorm that they traditionally sleep through. Invariable the answer is “Yes.”

What woke them up? A gut feeling!

My suggestion is to cultivate and catalog that feeling and not be so atheistic or oppositional when it visits you. By taking time to notice these sensations when they first arrive, you will be conditioning yourself to know what gut feeling are and begin to trust them.

Gut is non-denominational. It’s a God everyone can worship without having to give up your current belief system, because there is no belief necessary; you only have to feel.

My sense is that “My Gut Is My God” is not going to be a big selling Successories poster, but it’s a notion worth checking out – with your gut.

All the best,

John

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“Where” is one of the famous “W” words – Who, What, Where, When and Why.

“Where” suggest location. “Where are you going?” or “Where are my car keys?”

In the spiritual realm, there is no such thing as location. There is a part of you that can’t be located but is ever present. How’s that for a conundrum?

“Where is that part?” is a question subject to unending debate because there is no logical answer. That must mean that part doesn’t exist if it can’t be physically located as logicians would insist.

That piece of logical wisdom ignores that Chinese Medicine has been alleviating pain for thousands of years with acupuncture. In acupuncture, the practitioner inserts small needles into meridians along the body that can be illustrated on a chart. The problem is that these meridians cannot be located anywhere in the body, so they must not exist.

“Where is my spirit located?” Is a question that you will never answer, yet this spirit animates your body every day.

Even if you are a dyed-in-the-wool spirit denier, ask yourself this: “Where is my mind located?” When surgeons cut peoples’ heads open, they cannot find a mind, only a brain.

“Where?” is a practical question that engages our curiosity in helping us to determine a location, but again, no one has found the location of curiosity.

“Where?” is a waste of energy when it solely focuses on the location of a part versus usage of that part.

If you spend all your time searching, there’s no time for using. “But if I can’t locate it, how can I use it?” Pretend!

Give your logic a vacation and pretend there is a part of you that can’t be located but is extremely useful. This usage of your imagination (another part that can’t be found) is the source of all creation.

You can only access this part of you when your logical mind calms down and ceases its search. It’s from this part of you that all creativity flows – into a mind that no one can find.

The best answer to a where question I ever heard came from the founder of Transcendental Meditation, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. He was announcing that he was going to build a new center. A questioner asked where the money would come from. The Maharishi answered, “From wherever it is at the moment.”

We would all be more useful if we take time to remember this: Creativity doesn’t care about where.

All the best,

John

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