It just occurred to me that not only do “cocoon” and “womb” rhyme, they can be synonymous when it comes to hiding out.

Trend analyst, Faith Popcorn coined the term “cocooning” in the ’90s. It described the shift of people socializing less outside the home and making their homes more comfortable, like a cocoon.

I think most people can relate to getting cozy at home, but some, like me, have made it into an art form. Like elevator riding, this has its up and downs.

The up is you get to become more comfortable in your own skin and don’t need a lot of outside contact to feel alive. The downside is you miss a lot of the evolving world because yours has stopped turning.

In and out is a game of balance. Leaning too much to one side or the other has you tip over which can cause you to burrow deeper or forever chase the horizon. Either one of those options is the womb you’re attempting to crawl back into.

The good news is that you’re not at the point of no return if you stop and recognize where you are. It’s the recognition of your current geography that allows you to triangulate to a more balanced life.

Seeking the womb is an attempt to avoid life, rather than live it. Whether the womb you seek is inside or out, it’s a pursuit that will keep you off balance, and the safety you seek will always be out of reach.

“They can’t hurt me in here” is the mantra of the womb dweller. Whether you are seeking your safety in numbers or whether you’re attempting it home alone, it’s a false sense of security that has you hear every bump in the night.

You may not live on either of these edges and that’s to be applauded. My purpose is to point them out so that when you approach them, you only visit for awhile and not put down permanent roots.

“All in” or “All out” are not sustainable positions. They are filled with unrelenting tension to sure up your location, when what you really need is a womb-less vacation.

All the best,

John

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Here is a title of a book I will write – “Willingness.”

I am convinced that it is the missing ingredient in most of our endeavors or dreams.

Willingness is a mindset, nothing more. Like most mindsets, it takes cultivation.

Here’s the formula that never works – Crafting your goal and having the anchor of unwillngness digging you deeper into immobility.

Defining “unwillingness” helps make us cognizant of what’s keeping us in place. Unwillingness is a subconscious pattern, outside of our awareness, that determines what we can or cannot accomplish. Once you recognize the pattern, you are on your way to being willing.

Unwilling is filled with conditions; willing is singularly focused.

Here’s an example of an unworkable solution: I want to (fill in the blank) but these conditions have to be in place. Reminds me of a story I’ve told before . . .

I had two female co-workers as passengers in my car years ago and they were discussing their “list.” That would be the must attributes of their ideal mate. After listening to them exchange conditions for awhile, I interjected with this: “When you meet the guy of your dreams, he’ll be missing most things on your list.” They scoffed.

They both met their ideal guy, and guess what; each man had many of the unwanted conditions on their lists.

Over the years, their unwillingness softened and got out of the way of them getting what they wanted. It takes recognition for unwillingness to fade.

Here’s a phrase you can interrupt your conditioned list with: “I’m willing to (fill in the blank). The blank would be your goal minus any conditions.

Here are a few examples:

“I’m willing to be more open to abundance in my life.”

“I’m willing to attract the person of my dreams.”

“I’m willing to be well.”

Please notice the period at the end of each of those sentences. We usually add conditions after the period. Resist the temptation to do so and watch the weight of unwillingness melt and fade away.

When I write the book I’ll let you know more, but in the meantime start focusing on what you are willing to let happen without conditions.

Don’t be too surprised how one little mindset shift can trigger a world of unconditioned possibilities.

All the best,

John

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There is a skill we all own but too rarely use – Sensory Acuity.

Pure and simple, it’s the ability to sense what’s going on around you.

Too often we are so focused on us that we miss what’s going on with them. That’s a lack of sensory acuity.

Think of the guy telling off-color jokes in the break room at work. He mindlessly misses that some people within earshot are recoiling at his stand-up routine.

I’m sure we’re all guilty of saying or doing something stupid or inappropriate, but not noticing the response to what we’re offering puts us deeper into a blind hole.

People will consistently advertise what’s important to them, but if we fail to see, hear, feel, taste or smell anything but our own aroma, we give off the scent of indifference and their needs go unmet by us.

Here’s a mindset to try on for a few days to find out how it feels: Focus on someone other than yourself and find out what’s important to them. This will get you out of your head, and open you up to the world of others instead.

It’s in this new world that you will grow. You already know what it’s like to live on your planet, so take the time to visit theirs and see how much more worldly you become.

Sensory acuity training starts by noticing that there is someone other than you. Besides broadening your horizons, there is a side benefit of sensory acuity training to you; it will keep others from telling you to “Get a clue!”

All the best,

John

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Have you had the “Nature/Nurture” argument with someone? Chances are you have.

Here’s the difficulty I see: It’s an argument.

There isn’t enough evidence on either side of the issue or the issue would have been solved long ago. We argue our point of view with partial evidence and discount any evidence that supports the side we’re not rooting for.

You will not win the Nature/Nurture argument. If you engage in it again, it just means you like to argue.

This doesn’t mean you have to give up your point of view or not share your thoughts with others; it just means that to argue for it will have an adverse effect on you and those around you.

When you solve the Nature/Nurture issue, let us all know about your unrefuted evidence and then you can move on to explaining infinity to everyone.

Here’s my real message: Thanksgiving is coming up. Refrain from your penchant to argue for anything that no one can prove. But if you have solved the infinity mystery, by all means, share it.

All the best & Happy Thanksgiving,

John

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Without getting too deep into Calculus (which is Greek on steroids to me), “Inflection” is a change point. It’s when we go from one direction into another.

For example, when we use inflection in our speech, we go from one way of speaking to another.

The piece we rarely focus on is the change point. The change automatically happens without us noticing the specific point at which we changed direction.

We usually find this point when doing some retrospection, but it’s of marginal use then because the change has already taken place.

If we notice the change point in real time, we have a much better chance of choosing whether we want to change or not.

What triggers your change? What takes you from glad to sad or vice-versa? What takes you from “in the pink” to needing a drink?

Begin to notice the triggers and you decrease your chances for getting shot. The triggers precede the change and take us to the point of inflection.

Here’s a simple test. Is there a word or phrase that hooks you every time into a less than resourceful frame of mind? That’s a trigger. But notice that the word or phrase has no power on its own to cause change; it’s the meaning that you’ve attached to it that fuels the change.

You have done some pre-conditioning algebra that X=Y. If X always equals Y, you are at the mercy of a debilitating equation. The inflection point is noticing and acting on your response to X before it becomes Y.

You have to do this more than once to reap the benefits. It takes practice to get unhooked from a trigger. This practice has application well past outgrowing your response to a word or phrase.

What triggers your recurring bad mood, a downward health cycle or a spat with your partner or spouse? You’ll never eliminate the triggers but you can notice them, and you won’t pull them as often if you act at the inflection point.

A good place to start is noticing your speech. One word to be on the lookout for is “Always.” “I always get a cold at the beginning of spring.” “She always makes me mad when she says that.” “I always get irritable just before I have my period.” These are all X=Y statements and left unchecked lead to self fulfilling prophecies.

One great way to outgrow these equations is a phrase I learned from the legendary hypnotist, Dr. Dave Dobson. The phrase is “in the past.”

“In the past, I always got a cold in spring.” “In the past, I got angry when she said that.” “In the past, I got irritable before my period.”

Referencing something as “in the past,” suggests to your mind that it’s not happening now. When the trigger fires, the inflection phrase “in the past” or its second cousin, “up until now,” changes the equation from always being true in the past to one of many possibilities now.

I request that you engage your curiosity and start noticing what triggers your automatic behavior and then apply some “in the past” reflection to the point of inflection.

All the best,

John

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There was a big hit song in the 1970s called “Feelings.” I’m not sure it would have been as big of a hit if it was properly labeled as “Sensations.”

One of the biggest errors we make in communicating is attempting to explain our feelings. We would be exponentially more accurate if we described our physical sensations.

Pure and simple, feelings are labeled sensations.

“I feel sad” doesn’t give us much to go on. “I feel a lump in my throat and a heaviness in my chest and I call that ‘sad'” gives us a much clearer picture of what “sad” is for you.

“Sad” may have different sensations for me, and if I say, “I know exactly what you mean” when you say you’re sad, I really don’t have a clue what sad is for you unless I know the attendant sensations you’re feeling.

Feelings are made up labels that don’t communicate very well. When you say “I’m totally pissed,” you know exactly what you mean because the same sensations in your body present themselves each time before you announce your label. You’ve catalogued these sensations over time and affixed the label “totally pissed” to them. But your “totally pissed” may be my “minor annoyance” depending on my sensations and how I’ve labeled them.

So when we’re “sharing” feelings, we’re not talking about the same sensations, which causes tons of miscommunication.

I sincerely doubt we’ll stop talking about our feelings any time soon, but I believe it’s useful to notice from time to time that we aren’t communicating as well as we could if we’re just exchanging labels.

All the best,

John

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Last week The Grasshopper offered this: “Apologize for what you’re sorry for.”

That statement may not seem terribly profound until we notice how often we apologize for what we’re not sorry for.

I think apologies are one of the most poorly executed pieces of human communication. We often claim we are sorry for something when we aren’t and our apology doesn’t connect.

How many apologies have you received that you didn’t believe? That’s because the person delivering it didn’t believe it either. How did you know it wasn’t sincere? Just count the justifications their apology contained for their offending behavior and you have your barometer.

A partial, sincere apology is much better than a full-blown one filled with faux regret. Let’s say you have a dust up with someone and you want to ease the tension. Let’s also suppose that you are not sorry for what you said. You can generically apologize without being specific and not justify your behavior. “I’m sorry things got so tense last night. I don’t like it when there’s that barrier between us.”

You were sincerely sorry that it got tense. That’s an apology for what you are sorry for and it may be enough to open the door to a much calmer discussion about the situation.

We all know that “I’m sorry but” apologies don’t work, but, sadly, we continue to use them. I believe the purpose of an apology is to express sorrow for your behavior. If you add anything past that, it’s not an apology; it’s a tactic whose rhetoric will fall on clogged ears.

I saw a video apology online that I believe is the textbook example of how to apologize. It comes from cable TV host, Chris Matthews who’s apologizing for something he said on a previous broadcast. If your apology isn’t structured like this, your shot at the target will badly miss.

CHRIS MATTHEWS’ APOLOGY

All the best,

John

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The Grasshopper offered a profound piece of wisdom the other day: “It doesn’t matter if you’re right if you present it wrong.”

We’re all making cases for something in our daily lives, but how often do we lack the sensory acuity to notice that the jury is asleep during our closing argument?

Presenting something “wrong” simply means your message isn’t getting through, even though it may be factually correct.

Take the run-up to the recent election as an example. I have Facebook friends on both sides of the political spectrum who have posted vile pronouncements against the candidate they didn’t want to win. Yes, there may have been a kernel of truth in some of their messages but it got crushed by the weight of their hate. The bigger problem they have is this: What they are tone deaf to is that all of their demeaning reflects directly on them. They get tarred with the same brush they slather their salaciousness with.

For instance, sarcasm works for comedians and, properly placed, it can be a spice in human communication. If, however, it’s the main meal, it causes heartburn for everyone.

Your message is wrong when it doesn’t get through, and if it’s presented with malice, it reflects back on you. You may want to appear as passionate for your cause but what you project is that you’re a person filled with hate.

You may want to justify that hate by finding a group of people who agree with you and you form a club where you club everything you’re against. The problem is you don’t take your club to bed with you. You’re alone with your hate and it doesn’t feel great.

Outgrowing your hatred is a topic for another posting. My main message here is this: Sharing your hate doesn’t make it go away, and even worse, it puts your worse side on display.

All the best,

John

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Here we are in the month of November which contains my favorite holiday – Thanksgiving. We are all encouraged to give thanks during this time of family gatherings, fantastic food and festivity. It got me to wondering about gratitude and how we laser focus on it during this special time.

Out for my walk yesterday, I was struck with the idea that gratitude needs attention to work its magic. Gratitude has to be more than a concept; it has to be felt to be validated.

You can easily say that you’re grateful for something, but if you don’t feel it, it’s just another empty buzzword.

This is where attention comes in.

Take a moment or two and give your undivided attention to something or someone you are grateful for. Notice the sensations that accompany this focusing of attention. These sensations are your version of gratitude. No one else feels gratitude the way you do. This feeling is unique to you.

Notice how you got to that feeling – through the magic of attention. Gratitude wasn’t just a passing thought; it was the focusing of your attention that delivered that indescribable feeling.

I know that some people keep gratitude journals which is a useful practice. They write down things or people they are grateful for. My suggestion, to supercharge that practice, is to take the time to give that something or someone a few moments of exclusive attention and feel the sensations multiply.

If you want to feel the gratitude you express so, focus your attention and that magical sensation will arrive quicker than you can say “Presto!”

All the best,

John

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Lots of folks intend. In many circles, intending would be called praying. You would think that we would give up on a practice that has worse odds than Whoopi Goldberg winning the “World’s Greatest Speaking Voice” contest, yet we persist.

Intending is like golf. You hit one good shot out of hundreds and you give the credit to your intention rather than to the odds.

Like you, I haven’t given up on intending, I just recognize that there are more productive ways of hitting the target more often. Two ways immediately come to mind:

1. Action

2. Without reason

Action is the piece left out of most intentions. We pray (translate “wish”) for something to happen and we want it to happen without any effort on our part. That’s actually drop-dead funny if you step back and look at it in the light of day.

Intention without action competes with winking in the dark for the least effective strategy for scoring.

Your odds will improve if you add action to your prayers.

Without reason is a bit harder to grasp but improves the hit rate of your intentions when implemented.

Have you noticed that your intentions are loaded with reasons? “Dear God, I need a new car. Lord knows that I’ve been a good person and faithful servant who is truly deserving of reliable transportation.” Sound familiar?

We justify our intention with a reason. Let me illustrate how that strategy plays out in your mind. Your mind hears your reasons and then counters them with opposing assertions. “Good person?!! Remember when you gossiped on the church steps right after services? And I don’t call it faithful going to church once every six weeks. You don’t even deserve a rusted bicycle with flat tires.”

So your mind gets you focused on all the reasons you can’t get what you desire and puts your intention in the fuzziest of focus. Tough to hit a target when you can’t see it.

Consider intending without reason. “I intend on getting a new car.” Period. Your mind will still have opposition to your declaration, but not as much as reasons will give it.

You increase your odds by simply getting your mind less cluttered. You now have a clearer goal to shoot for.

If you think about it for just a moment, praying is really goal setting. When you add action and subtract reason, you streamline the process and your intention has a prayer of succeedin’.

All the best,

John

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