Some people have a hard time warming up to direction. In the past, I would put myself at the top of that list, but for me, the wind has changed direction.

I am the father of three boys and am helping to raise my grandson. Most of the people I managed in the broadcast industry were men. From my experience, I can safely say that most men don’t take direction well. It’s a matter of pride.

Men figure they should already know that which they don’t. It causes lots of frustration.

Direction reminds them of what they don’t know but think they should.

The gap between where you are and where you think you should be causes internal friction. The director acts as a catalyst.

Directors need a tough hide and the knowledge that many whom they are offering direction to, don’t think they need any.

Reminds me of a story . . .

Many years ago I was working in Kansas City at a radio station and told a joke on the air that was mildly offensive. I didn’t think so at the time. The program director got some phone calls of complaint. He could have come into the studio and flat out told me not to do anything like that again. That would have been met with lots of resistance. He knew better because he was a savvy director.

Here’s what he did say, “I’ve just received a number of calls about the remark you made. I can tell the calls are orchestrated because they all use the precise same wording in their complaint. I’m not going to tell you not to do it again, but if you do, I’m giving them your home phone number.” He then walked out of the studio. Now that’s direction.

He offered me a different choice besides “My way or the highway” which is necessary at times, but, by and large, is the least effective form of direction.

Men and women both share this in common about direction: If they don’t like who it’s coming from, it’s a lot harder to carry it out.

“Enter adulthood” is the answer to the direction dilemma. I’ve mentioned this story before but it bears repeating here. My hypnosis mentor, Dr. Dave Dobson had us do an exercise where we would imagine being told to do something by someone in authority whom we didn’t like. The minute we reached that feeling of discomfort, we were to look down at our hands and laugh aloud.

The purpose of the exercise was to let us know that there will always be people telling us what to do no matter who we are. He said whether we were the President of the United States or Bill Gates we would have people telling us what to do. The exercise was to learn to laugh at the reality instead of getting caught up in the frustration. The exercise interrupted our patterned way of poorly responding to direction no matter what direction it was coming from.

It would be wonderful if we could like everybody, but that’s not happening anytime soon. The adult response is to separate the wheat from the chaff, or said another way, “Don’t confuse the message with the messenger.”

Which direction is your life headed? Is it going to be more of the same – railing against reality OR is it time to change direction?

Walking into the wind can be refreshing at times but if you do it as a matter of course, it’s no longer special and it’s counter-productive.

Direction is only a suggestion no matter how forcefully it’s stated. You have a choice. You already know where the old path leads. The only question left is: Do you have the savvy to head in a new direction?

All the best,

John

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How certain are you?

Notice that I didn’t ask “how sure” you were, I asked “How certain are you?”

There seems to be a difference, at least for me.

Surety seems to need some factual data to back it up; certainty is, as the great old song says, “More Than A Feeling.”

When you are sure, there seems to be a counterpart called “unsure” that pops in for debate.

Certainty is self contained and all encompassing. It has no opposite.

Bullheadedness, stubbornness, or being a braggart or true believer do not constitute being certain. Certainty is a quiet confidence that needs no cheerleading or committee to agree.

Certainty does not know what’s on the path ahead. That’s not its job.

Certainty is more of a knowing that whatever is on the horizon, we will be able to fashion a response to it in that moment.

Certainty is knowing that we have all that we need to respond to life.

Worry is not knowing we have the ability to respond. Worry is a conditioned reaction to an unknown future. Certainty responds to the conditions it meets.

Again, how certain are you?

How certain are you that you have the ability to respond? Certainty is not planned in advance like Davy Crockett‘s admonition “Be always sure you are right, then go ahead.” That’s a prescription for sound planning.

Certainty is what is there when the plan fails.

It pays to discover your ability to be certain. It’s part of the human being software package. Look through your manual and activate this incredible feature.

The greatest power we have as human beings is the ability to respond. Of this I am certain.

All the best,

John

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Here is one of life’s signposts: When what was in common becomes uncommon, a fork in the road forms.

It’s here that you either find new common ground or walk unaccompanied along a new path.

It happens to us all but we don’t recognize it’s happening, and then we wonder how it happened.

Think of someone you used to be dear friends with in junior high or high school. Now the only time you see them is at the class reunion. You may live in the same city, have kids that attend the same school, but there’s no connection. There was no major rift, just a gentle drifting apart.

No one noticed it was happening, but now it’s an unmistakable fact. You have little in common. You walked different paths without noticing.

Marriage is where we seem to notice least.

How can a joyous union with “’til death do us part” vows turn into a major row?

In common became uncommon and no one noticed.

There may be other specific issues that cause us to walk another path, but for the most part the cause is “commonly uncommon.”

A values shift has occurred. Either one or both people had their common values shift rungs on the ladder.

When common values become uncommon, a split is in the making.

It’s easy to get into the “who’s right” argument here, but that’s just dust covering what’s really at issue – a shift in common values.

Many couples renew their vows on special anniversaries. My sense is they would do better to review their values.

We don’t keep up with the times. We just assume that the way it was is the way it is. It rarely is.

Human beings are dynamic creatures. Not noticing that and failing to adjust will leave you at the crossroads.

The time to notice is always now. It seems we are all experts in noticing in hindsight. It would be useful to take that skill and bring it into the present.

Nothing is granted, and when we take that viewpoint, common ground gets shaky.

Not valuing what’s valuable to another is a lack of appreciation for their individuality. A friend, a spouse, a lover, a family member cannot be cast into a static mold. When you regularly take the time to find what’s important to them, you have an opportunity to adjust. If that adjustment is something you just can’t make, you then have choices.

Failure to recognize and take stock is cheating yourself out of choice; it will be made for you.

We live in uncommon times simply because we fail to notice.

Find out what’s important to the important people in your life and explore what you have in common. It’s just common sense.

All the best,

John

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The Grasshopper left this for me to chew on: Unrefined = Undefined.

There are many parts of us that we have defined – our roles, our moods, our personalities, our likes and dislikes.

Yet, most of who we are is unrefined, therefore undefined.

There is an old axiom that if you label it, you limit it. That means when we affix the label in our mind, we close the door to other interpretations. That’s a defining moment.

Definitions help us to communicate in a common language, but if we get locked into them, we miss all other possible refinements.

Once we get out of our heads, we tap into our unrefined reservoir. It’s there we find our raw selves, not yet shaped into the patterns of conditioning and labeling.

This reservoir is one of peace and creativity. The mind gets quiet and the labels stop bumping into each other and causing friction.

It’s here that we find that we aren’t our labels. Here we are undefined and free to discover and create new refinements – ones that have yet to be labeled.

If you haven’t yet discovered a mind quieting technique, times a wastin’.

There is no better way than another, so don’t get confused by the labels. They all work. You just have to pick one and work at it.

Mind quieting, at first, is sort of like home teeth whitening. It seems like it’s never going to happen. Then, low and behold, there is a brightness that appears. It just takes regular application to get results.

If you’ve become locked in by labels, it’s time to get unrefined. By doing so, you get to broaden how you define yourself.

All the best,

John

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Here’s a distinction with a difference: I do want/I don’t want.

What’s the distinction?

Do is a more direct route.

I’m an expert on what I don’t want. I’m not as skilled on what I do want. I don’t think I’m alone.

When your focus is mainly on what you don’t want, there’s less of it available for what you do want.

With “I don’t want,” there seems to be the need to express an opinion, a rationale to justify keeping what you don’t want in focus. What I do want is an expression of our desires which contain more passion and less justification. There is a measurable difference.

If you need to be heard, chances are you’ll be fixated on what you don’t want. That means that everyone within earshot will be treated to the rationale of what you don’t want and not have a clue as to what you do want. They’ll be as confused about your desires as you are.

That means that no one really knows what to deliver to you because you’re murky on it yourself. It’s a hit and miss proposition.

Shifting focus to what you do want gives you lots of room to operate because you’ve cleared away the distractions of what you don’t want.

“Do” suggests forward; “Don’t” suggests retreat.

It’s hard to get where you are going if you are traveling backwards.

But have you noticed that sometimes, even when we express what we do want, we are quick to point out all the “don’t want” conditions?

“I do want a new car but I don’t want the hassle of going to the dealership and playing the negotiation game, and I don’t want to have to park away from everyone so I don’t get dings, and I don’t want to pay more premiums to those ungodly insurance companies.”

The “Don’t’s” take the steam out of the “Do’s.”

Yes, do consider the consequences before making a major decision, but don’t get focused on the glue. It will keep you stuck as to what to do.

Do this experiment. List a few things that you do want and notice how quickly the litany of don’t wants start to crowd your mind. It’s a pattern of thinking that keeps our focus scattered – keeping us from taking action on what we do want.

You can interrupt the stream of don’t wants by just noticing them when they do show up. Don’t engage them in debate, just notice their presence. Once they are acknowledged, they do quiet down.

Then it’s time to give do and don’t their separate, proper due.

Set aside time to give consideration to all the things you don’t want. Have a private meeting and give the “Don’t’s” all the recognition they deserve.

Then set up the same ground rules for the “Do’s.” This is a time exclusively set up for what you do want.

You are reconditioning your mind to allow separate times for Do’s and Don’t’s.

The result is the meetings are shorter, leaving more time for action.

If you don’t want your “Don’t’s” getting in the way of your “Do’s,” do recognize the worth of both and then go pursue.

All the best,

John

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If you’ve never heard the expression “You are what you eat,” you have led a sheltered life.

Here’s an expression you’ve probably never heard, “You are what’s eating you.”

I had never heard it either until The Grasshopper hopped up on my computer keyboard and banged it out.

Have you ever noticed that your attention is drawn like a moth to a searchlight to something that’s bothering you?

There are a whole host of things going on in your life but the one thing getting the lion’s share of your attention is that which is gnawing at you.

Oftentimes we treat that thing like a rattle in the car. We believe that if we ignore it, it will go away. It won’t.

Something that’s eating you won’t stop until there is nothing left to chew on. You get eaten alive by that which you ignore.

I am a bit amused by the circus surrounding the Tiger Woods saga. Tiger is not playing golf well and each one of the golf analysts has a take on what he’s technically doing wrong. No one has stated the obvious, “Tiger is being consumed by what’s eating him.” He now has neck pain that has surfaced over the last month or so and has gotten to the point that he had to withdraw from competition last week. The sports physiologists and orthopedists of all stripes were getting their moment in the spotlight detailing the injury and potential remedies.

I have no doubt he is physically hurting, but this is a guy who played on a broken leg and won the U.S. Open. It’s not the physical pain that’s been plaguing his game. The lyrics to a 60s song come to mind. “When something’s wrong with my baby, there’s something wrong with me.”

“You are what’s eating you” is another way of saying, “You are what has your attention.”

That thing that’s troubling you can’t be pushed into a corner and ignored because it will come out swinging. It needs to be addressed.

There are many schools of thought on how to address issues, but my experience has taught me that the most effective way is head on. It’s the fastest way to a solution. All the finessing, dancing and nibbling around the cookie just adds days, months and years of avoidable pain.

The reality check is this: Until you address what’s eating you, that’s who you will remain. You are what’s eating you.

This is not an invitation to go throw up on someone and give them a piece of your mind. That’s a one-way strategy that rarely works. Yes, you may have something to address with someone and withholding it is not helpful to you or them. That is not the most effective first step.

The first step is to address your own behavior. No one is making you feel the way you do but you. Assailing another is just a convenient diversion to ignore your own behavior.

What can you do about what’s eating you? No one else can solve the problem for you, but I can point you in a direction – Address it.

The strategy of ignore and be blissful leads to a lifetime of pain, but you already know that.

It takes courage to address yourself, but once addressed, you are no longer on the menu.

All the best,

John

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Who can’t remember this schoolyard ditty: “Sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me”?

You can find factual data in just about any saying that’s stood the test of time. Let’s look at this one.

The assertion that sticks and stones can break bones is accurate. “Names can never hurt me” is more of a personal declaration and is short on facts that everyone can agree on.

How can names hurt? Two ways come to mind – conditioning and believing.

If we are told often enough (conditioned) that a word is offensive, there’s a high probability we will be offended when we hear that word. Notice that we’re not offended if someone says that word to us in a foreign language that we don’t understand.

What words are offensive to you? We all seem to have a list.

Believing you are the word is the most hurtful of all.

If you haven’t been in a name calling match, you aren’t human. It’s one way we choose to inflict pain on someone who has caused us pain.

If you believe you are what the name implies, you will have an escalated emotional reaction.

We already know the person who is calling us a name is attempting to hurt us, so let’s set that aside for a moment.

Explore for a moment the aspect that you believe it’s accurate.

This is a choice point. You can go into argument and denial mode and claim that it’s not true. This is the route chosen most often. Or, you can entertain the facts behind their assertion and choose to address them.

If someone calls you a name that you know is not accurate, you may be offended and defend yourself with the facts. But if someone “lays you out in lavender” with a name you believe, chances are you are going to give them some high decibel, vitriolic vomit in return. Most often, your response is a frontal assault on them, never addressing what has been claimed about you.

Labels can lock us in or become the key to let us out.

If someone is calling you a name you’ve been calling yourself, it may be time to excuse their bad manners for a moment and address the behavior that makes you believe the label. The temptation is to circle the wagons again and deny it’s there. That’s a sure bet that you will have this battle again and again.

Addressing what’s been repeatedly said about you from all corners is the mark of growing up.

Yes, name calling is boorish behavior, but name recognition can be the catalyst for transformation.

It may be time to leave the battlefield of the schoolyard, and enter adulthood by extracting some learning from the school of hard knocks.

All the best,

John

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We’ve heard it said many times that life is “Give and take.”

As an old song declares, “You’ve got to give a little, take a little, and let your poor heart break a little.”

It seems that some of us want to specialize and be exclusively one way – a giver or a taker. It never works. It seems we were created to be both.

The way I view it, we are here to contribute – give. We are also here to benefit by others’ contributions – take. The imbalance occurs when we stake a claim on one or the other and attempt to make it exclusively what we do.

There are so few pure givers on the earth that we can deduce that they are not responsible for the balance between the two being out of whack. So the onus falls on the takers.

My mother had an expression when describing a taker. She called them a “User.” They would use you to advance their agenda. When they got what they could from you, they would move on to another person to extract some more – never once giving back.

Takers don’t contribute. It’s not like they don’t have anything to give, they’ve just been conditioned into their entitled view of life.

If you only cut down trees and don’t replant them, you can easily see how poorly that strategy contributes to our ongoing, collective existence. But takers never consider scenarios like that as long as there’s enough for them.

A blog post like this will never reach a taker because, frankly, they don’t care and most likely never will.

This writing is for the unbalanced taker in us.

Have you evaluated what you are here to contribute? You have much to give but may be hiding it under a bushel basket. If you are sitting back and taking more than you are giving, you’re out of balance.

I’m considering someone who spends a lot of time online and reads only one viewpoint on a topic. Then they send out emails to others to urge them to get the point. That person is a taker. They have no viewpoint of their own. They just pass on someone else’s. They passively take in what’s said and blindly pass it on. Fact checking is not a strong suit of a taker.

What’s your contribution? Anyone can regurgitate what someone else has said. What do you think?

I have a friend that always quotes someone else – always! I want to know what they think, not what Benjamin Disraeli
thought.

I want to experience their unique contribution and not be treated to a poor imitation of someone else.

You have something to give. Find it!

The light that shines from you will pass through your life experience filters and be a unique contribution that no one else can give. Start sharing your light. Start giving.

Not everyone will take what you have to give nor will you take what everyone else has to offer. That’s the give and take of life. But that process cannot happen unless we are all contributing.

Julia Cameron, author of “The Artist’s Way” uses the term “Shadow Artist.” They walk in the shadow of the artist never casting their own light. That’s a taker.

Taking is a lonely existence.

Engage your curiosity and explore what you have to give and then give it.

When you give, you suck the overabundance of take out of life.

All the best,

John

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I ran into a young woman named Eve who worked in a T-shirt shop in a trendy vacation spot in Massachusetts.

Eve is from a foreign country and speaks English better than most Americans. She has talents well past the skills she’s being compensated for, but she’s failed to recognize them.

She’s not alone.

Eve runs what I called the “Scared Rabbit” pattern.

It’s difficult to put the pattern into words but I instantly recognize it, even when it’s slightly displayed.

“Scared Rabbit” runs from the slightest rustle. They head for a hiding place where they can’t be discovered.

They act like they are prey for just about every obstacle that stands in their way. “Run down the rabbit hole” is their conditioned reaction.

What are they running from?

An idea – a fearful idea.

FAILURE!

They fear failure more than almost anything else.

The idea of success doesn’t outweigh the notion of failure for a scared rabbit.

They prepare for success but engineer what they fear most.

Just so we’re clear, the fear of failure is the fear of what other people will think.

We don’t seem to take the time to notice that we can’t even control the thoughts that pop into our own head, so how are we supposed to control the thoughts of others?

No matter how clear your crystal ball, you’ll never know what others think. You may know how they think, but you’ll never know what they’re thinking.

If rabbits think others will judge them on their inability to accomplish something, they don’t make the effort. They take their skills and run for the hills.

A rabbit requires nurturing. They need to find where they’ve already been successful in life, no matter how minor, and build on that feeling. It’s that feeling that’s going to propel them to push past any imagined or real criticism.

Imagine having the courage as a young woman to leave your own country on your own to go to another country and make it your new home. That action outweighed anything others may have thought of Eve.

Now she has to draw on that that success to take her next step towards the carrot patch.

You can never control what others will think, but you can neutralize that feeling in you by focusing on the successful things you already do.

Scared rabbits have poor memories. They fail to remember their successes. When they begin to stack them one upon another, they form a foundation on which to build another.

If you’ve been running scared because of what others may think, it’s time to take inventory of your successes. It’s this action that gets you past the wagging fingers of failure.

All the best,

John

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I was reading through a terrific photography book the other day – Captured By The Light.

The author, David Ziser, chats about some advice he got from another photographer/author, Scott Kelby, about the importance of contributing to a blog on a regular basis. Scott said, “If you don’t feed the monster, it will die.”

It struck me how far reaching that statement is.

You can substitute just about any noun for “Monster” and the outcome doesn’t change. Whatever it is will die.

We are conditioned negatively to the word “Monster” so the wisdom may not be readily apparent. Think of your monster as the friendly ogre, Shreck.

Ask yourself any of the following questions:

How’s your relationship, your sex life, your friendships, your occupation, your avocation or your golf game? The answer is in direct proportion to the amount you are feeding it.

Anything will die if you don’t feed it.

It’s simply amazing to me the number of younger men who take erectile dysfunction medication. Lots of it has to do with the inundation of ads about the various products but most of it has to do with waning passion vs. any physical dysfunction. I quote two notables here – Donald Trump & Dr. Ruth.

Trump has said that if you are taking one of these products, you have the wrong woman, and Dr. Ruth has said that sex is more mental than physical.

Waning passion is the result of not feeding it – sexually or otherwise.

Somewhere along the way we stop contributing and before you know it, something is on death’s doorstep.

For example, people who exercise very little or not at all, may look upon it as a sometime thing. That angle of view starves the monster.

Is your career or marriage circling the drain? How much have you been feeding it?

We live the myth that things will take care of themselves. It’s never the case. Once you buy into “Set it and forget it,” you contribute to its demise.

It may be too late to feed your particular monster, but you’ll never know unless you make the effort. This much is for sure, if you do nothing it will die.

Today’s bumper sticker: FEED THE MONSTER!

All the best,

John

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