If you have adult children with families of their own, you may not yet be aware of the change that has taken place. Even if you don’t have children, but you are of a certain age, this change has affected you as well.

What is this transition? Here’s how I capsulize it. “Our children used to live in our world; we now live in theirs.”

This may be especially hard to swallow if you are a “Baby Boomer.” The boomers were the driving force behind major shifts in the way we do things in this world. They are a large swath of the population used to doing things “their” way, more so than any other generation. “Their” way has been “the” way for longer than any other age group, so the amount of resistance they display to change is no surprise.

This shift has been going on for a while. The transfer of power is almost complete, being slowed only a bit by many of this aging generation who are dragging their feet.

The handwriting is on the wall and these folks know how to read, but denial won’t allow them to comprehend. I’m a proud member of this generation and in the past have been reluctant to accept the unrelenting future.

We are living in a different world that has snuck up on us like any other insidious change. Resistance only gives change persistence.

Even a mega power broker like Don Corleone, the Godfather, ceded control of “the way” to his son, who went in a different direction to get things done.

You do have a choice: you can circle the wagons and pontifically preach and pray that your way is the right way, OR get a clue that the way it is, is no longer dictated by you.

It’s this simple: Rant and rave to the grave about your way, or start to see the world you lived in has had its day.

All the best,

John

Listen to the recorded version.

Make sure to download a FREE copy of my ebook: INTER RUPTION: The Magic Key To Lasting Change here.

Here is the recorded version of the Grasshopper Note for the week of 10-5-20.

Read the written version here.

The Grasshopper gave me a new question to ask myself: “Suppose they’re right?”

How often do we dig in to our position without ever considering another’s angle of view?

I’ve told this story before but it fits perfectly here. I was attending a week long workshop about 20 years ago and got into a “discussion” with another attendee. We were on opposite sides of an issue and both of us were using our outside voices inside. Based on our backgrounds, I was the more experienced debater and easily boxed this person in and made them look stupid in front of our fellow attendees. This person stormed out.

My roommate said this to me after the altercation, “Dude, you really know how to throw a hand grenade under a table.” The room was uneasy.

About an hour passed and this person returned to our group and asked to speak to me alone. We went outside and had a more civil conversation. It was during this exchange that this phrase left my lips: “Ya know, if I were brought up in your house, I’d be exactly like you, and if you were brought up in my house, you’d be exactly like me.” It was an icebreaker. The bottom line is we “hugged it out” and became friendly.

“Suppose they’re right?” is a reminder to, as the song says, “walk a mile in my shoes.”

No matter how absurd you think another’s point of view is, take the time to ask yourself, “Suppose they’re right?” Just for a moment, explore how they got to this conclusion. What shaped their view? Make an effort to find out and you’ll discover more than someone with opposing views, you’ll find out why they think they’re right.

It can lead to a less heated and more factual discussion. When you discover how someone got to the point that they feel a certain way, you’re now finding out how they make decisions vs. deciding, out of hand, that they’re totally wrong.

I’m not suggesting that this strategy is going to bring either of you to the other side of the fence, or even start exchanging Christmas cards. What I am suggesting is, it’s a way to reduce the heat so you can discover more of the light. That’s the magic you create by asking yourself, “Suppose they’re right?”

All the best,

John

Listen to the recorded version.

Make sure to download a FREE copy of my ebook: INTER RUPTION: The Magic Key To Lasting Change here.

Here is the recorded version of the Grasshopper Note for the week of 9-28-20.

Read the written version here.

The Grasshopper had this to say over the weekend: “I can offer a reason for it, but not an excuse.”

Let’s face it, we are, by conditioning, “excuse machines.”

We learned at the knee of other excusers that if we find a good enough reason, we are not responsible for our behavior.

I think of the lyrics from an old Doobie Brothers song: WHAT A FOOL BELIEVES: “No wise man has the power to reason away what seems to be.”

I also think of the Werner Erhard EST exercise he used to demonstrate how we generate an inexhaustible amount of reasons. He would simply ask someone at his seminars to pick between two flavors of ice cream – chocolate and vanilla. When they picked, he asked them why they picked that flavor. When they answered, he would say that’s the wrong answer and again asked them, “Why?” They came up with another reason and he would again say it was the wrong answer and had them come up with yet another. This went on ad nauseam until he asked them if they would like to know the real answer. The group responded with a resounding “YES!”

Let’s say the person picked vanilla. He would tell them the correct answer was, “You picked vanilla because you picked vanilla.”

The purpose of the exercise was twofold to my eyes. 1. It was a lesson in reality by owning up to the fact that you made a choice. 2. That you could come up with countless reasons for the choice that you made.

We have learned that reasons excuse us from the consequences of our actions. Although that strategy doesn’t work, it doesn’t keep us from continually trying to excuse our behavior.

Earlier this year I wrote a blog post called “The Biggest Mistake.” The germane quote from that post that fits here is, “The biggest mistake is not learning from a mistake.”

That post ended with this line: “‘My Bad’ needs to be taken off life support and put back into our vocabulary. Once we utter those words, we’re more likely to learn our lesson.”

And here’s the last line of this post: Acknowledging our actions is the only excuse that works.

All the best,

John

Listen to the recorded version.

Make sure to download a FREE copy of my ebook: INTER RUPTION: The Magic Key To Lasting Change here.

Here is the recorded version of the Grasshopper Note for the week of 9-21-20.

Read the written version here.

Make sure to download a FREE copy of my ebook: INTER RUPTION: The Magic Key To Lasting Change here.

I’m sure I’m not the only one to notice this but on Facebook more women than men use the love ❤️ response.

Is it manly not to love something?

There’s something in our culture that prevents a man from expressing his genuine feelings. That’s sad.

I’ll spare you the “Venus/Mars” analogy because you’ve heard it too many times. What you may not have heard or considered as often is how powerful conditioning is.

Your intellect may now buy into something you’ve opposed in the past but your conditioning keeps your emotional responses (sensations) in place.

You may lobby for something you lobbied against 10 years ago but notice if your sensations have caught up with your intellectual enlightenment or not. If you’re anything like me, they probably haven’t yet.

What to do? The best answer I have is “Sit with the sensation.”

We tend to try and chase away a feeling when it opposes our intellectual stance. We generate negative conversations about how awful we are for having such a feeling and tell it to go away. That never works!

Feelings needn’t be judged; they need to be noticed. Notice where they show up in your body. Once you notice the location of the feeling, put all your attention on that area of your body. That’s what I’m calling “sitting with the sensation.” You’ll have to do this a lot more more than once to update your feelings, but the practice has lasting results.

Your whole metamorphosis (body and mind) to your new way of thinking will come about when you discover that transformation happens from the inside out.

Pay attention to what’s going on inside your body and give it some attention and you’ll rid yourself of conditioned, emotional retention.

All the best,

John

Listen to the recorded version.

Make sure to download a FREE copy of my ebook: INTER RUPTION: The Magic Key To Lasting Change here.

You must live in a cave if you haven’t seen or heard lots of people complaining about being bored during the pandemic.

Years ago, I discovered what boredom was for me, and highly suspect it’s the same for everyone else.

Pure and simple, bored is being bored by your own thoughts.

It’s our thinking that engenders boredom and keeps it alive. I’m more than certain that we’re not going to stop thinking anytime soon, so what’s the solution to boredom? The same remedy that’s effective for any thought based malady: Noticing!

Notice that you’re having thoughts about being bored. Just the simple act of noticing your mind at work causes a pause in your thinking. In that pause is room for a new idea to arise – one that may lead to boredom’s demise.

Noticing puts your thinking on pause and the more noticing you do, the less you’ll be at the mercy of your thinking. It’s in that pause that we make room for something novel and new to come through.

Make it a practice to start noticing your thinking. Notice as an unemotional bystander and you’ll witness your mind at work. What you’ll notice by noticing is that your mind has a mind of it’s own, separate and apart from you.

If you start noticing yourself as the viewer or witness of your thoughts, rather than being associated with them, you can stop being what your thoughts tell you you are.

You are not bored. Your mind is bored with the same thoughts. Interrupt them by noticing, and witness boredom melt and fade away as you cause new thoughts to come your way.

All the best,

John

Listen to the recorded version.

Make sure to download a FREE copy of my ebook: INTER RUPTION: The Magic Key To Lasting Change here.

Here is the recorded version of the Grasshopper Note for the week of 9-14-20.

Read the written version here.

Make sure to download a FREE copy of my ebook: INTER RUPTION: The Magic Key To Lasting Change here.

The Grasshopper has been quite active recently delivering little nips of nectar. This one came out on yesterday’s walk: “The whole truth has no parts.”

I take that to mean that it’s self-contained, meaning there are not different versions of a truth. Different versions are just opinions.

I’m reminded of a blog post I wrote 5 years ago that contained the following quote: “Liars and angels both tell the truth.”

That post highlighted the absurdity of the phrase “My truth.” Again, there are not versions of the truth, only different opinions.

Truth is like reality; it has no opposite. There is no debate about the reality (the truth) when a light is turned on. Yet, some will argue that the light is off and call it “My truth.”

People, in defense of “their truth,” often refer to an anecdotal example that pales in comparison to an avalanche of facts and doesn’t, in fact, counter the facts. The example I gave in my book was about one person stating a statistical fact that his favorite sports team had the oldest starting lineup in the league. Then someone said to him, “Yea, but we signed the youngest running back in the league.” That argument wasn’t part of the truth; it was in total opposition to it.

The whole is the sum of its parts except when it comes to the whole truth; it’s indivisible.

There is a practical result for dropping the words “My truth” from any discussion you have. You’ll engage in less arguments and have more opportunities to exchange opinions. That last statement may not be the whole truth, but, from my experience, it’s damn close.

All the best,

John

Listen to the recorded version.

Make sure to download a FREE copy of my ebook: INTER RUPTION: The Magic Key To Lasting Change here.