We live in a world of fluff – non specific communication that leads us into infertile fields that don’t bring forth any harvests.

Nowhere is fluff more prevalent than in customer service. The amount of non usable information offered is staggering.

Let’s pretend you ask, “When will my package be delivered?” The fluff answer is “Soon.” I don’t know about you, but my daily planner doesn’t have a date called “Soon.”

Rather than this becoming a rant against customer service, I am making a plea for you and me to clean up our language so that we can have more fertile, productive exchanges.

How much fluff are you using? If you are having trouble communicating what you want, your requests are filled with fluff. If you accept fluff as an answer, you may as well say, “Please consider me as stupid as what you just said.”

I detest staff meetings, always have and always will. There is no bigger amount of fluff generated than at a meeting run by a purveyor of fluff. Here is actual verbiage from a meeting I attended years ago:

Fluffer: We really need to get going on this.

Staff Member: I hear you; we’ve got to get the ball rolling.

Fluffer: We’ve dropped this ball in the past and I don’t want it to happen again.

Another Staff Member: it can’t happen again.

Fluffer: I’m glad we’re all agreed.

That was all that was said. I’m sure you can imagine that this same topic resurfaced at many meetings in the future with no resolution.

Let’s look at the fluff. “Get going” and “this” are fluff words with no specific direction. “Get the ball rolling” = more fluff. What does that mean? “I don’t want ‘it’ to happen again.” What is “It”? What does “Agreed” mean?

Let’s do a quick unfluffy rewrite:

Our budgeting deadline is October 20th. Today is September 30th. We have 20 days to get our budget submitted. Here’s what I want each of you to do by 5 p.m. on Friday. (Give specific instructions as to what you want each to do by 5 p.m. on Friday).

One of my favorite quotes is from Werner Erhard: “The reason life doesn’t work is because people don’t keep their agreements.” As spot on as I think that observation is, I believe it would be more complete if people knew specifically what they were agreeing to.

That takes fluff monitoring.

I did a blog post on hinting last year. Hinting is filled with all sorts of fluff. So if you’re a hinter, you are a lousy communicator and will get less of what you want.

Fluff contains no direction.

Please don’t misinterpret what I’m saying. I think “shooting the breeze” with a friend is a fun thing to do and most often those exchanges are filled with enough fluff to make sandwiches for the entire neighborhood. No harm, no foul – just two friends enjoying a “Fluffernutter.”

When it’s important to you to have a common understanding of what’s being communicated, that’s when fluff monitoring and fluff challenging are essential.

When you hear a fluff word like “Soon,” and it’s important to you to know when soon is, respond by asking, “When specifically is soon?” If you pretend you know when soon is, you will be disappointed when your version of soon arrives and you don’t have what you requested.

I’m not going to give you my entire dictionary of fluff. You can easily come up with your own. Just pay attention to the non specific language that you and others use. More importantly, notice that fluff rarely, if ever, delivers what you want.

It’s springtime in the northern hemisphere, a perfect time to clean up our fluff.

All the best,

John

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I’m sure I’ve written about this before, but part of me wants to revisit it again – Arguing for our limitations.

There are countless things to argue about, but none less productive than an argument for our limitations. There are few things less limiting.

If you need a textbook example, look no further than a politician lobbying for a position that has failed miserably in the past. No credence is given to the abject failure of the policy, only the pontification of the proposed merits.

Facts aren’t considered when arguing for a limitation.

Most of the beliefs we own are limitations. They limit us from believing something else is possible. Once our beliefs become concrete, we become cement heads.

I once did a talk show and had the head nutritionist for the state as my guest. She was proposing a commonly held, de facto belief that it’s the amount of calories that you consume that determines if you will gain or lose weight.

I showed her a documented experiment I had read about. They took a female patient and put her on a 1500 calorie per day diet for three days and put her twin sister on a small watermelon only diet (5000 calories a day) for the same period. The sister who ate only watermelon lost more weight.

She immediately launched into the dangers of fad diets, something I was not proposing. I was just asking her if this fact disproved that weight gain or loss is more than just about calories. She came up with a zillion justifications but could not and would not answer the question. She was arguing for her limitations, which leaves no room to consider facts.

How do I limit myself? Let me count the ways.

Like the main character in the book, “Ishmael” says, “There is no argument to end the argument.”

Some people like to argue. They’re the ones I want representing me in court. They are not the people I would choose to hang around with because I find myself drawn into their limiting world of argumentation.

What limitation are you arguing for?

It’s easy to find. Just find something that’s not working in your life and see how many arguments you make to stay on the same course you’re on.

Arguing for our limitations is a national pastime. If we want to move forward, we need to find a new favorite sport.

Begin to notice what you argue for and you’ll discover that your argument is the limitation that prevents you from entertaining something new.

The formula for staying stuck is arguing for your limitations. The surefire cure is simple: Stop arguing!

All the best,

John

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What constitutes living? It sounds like a question ripe for a bevy of Facebook responses.

I asked that question to no one in particular and here’s the answer The Grasshopper gave: “Live the moment you’re in.”

That, for me, is living. Conversely, attempting to live in a moment you are not in is “Deading.”

I had a tree surgeon come by yesterday and remove a lot of dead wood from a big oak tree in our front yard. It got me to thinking about all the dead wood we deal with everyday – moments that contain no life.

We attempt to live in lifeless moments never noticing that they have the ability to break off and rob us of our life.

Lifeless moments are ones that are over and done, or ones that may never arrive. We spend so much time dwelling on these moments that we forget to live.

Living is a now phenomenon – not a 5 minutes ago or 5 years in the future thing.

Living is a byproduct of keeping track of your attention. The minute it wanders off, you are no longer living; you are, instead, accepting a cheap imitation of living.

Want more life in this lifetime? Pay attention to the moment you’re in.

One little practice that delivers more life is to start paying attention to things that you do with automaticity. Start with something as simple as washing your hands. Most of us aren’t present to our hand washing. We’re off in another moment while our hands wash themselves. Sense the feel of the soap and warm water on your hands, hear the water splashing about, notice the suds being washed away, smell the aroma of clean hands.

As silly as this may sound until you try it, is that a simple practice like this delivers more life. It opens you up to the notion that you can live more life each day by paying attention to the moment you’re in.

There are countless theoretical answers to the question, “What constitutes living?” But living your life by a theory is truly “Theo-rectical” – living with your head up your ass.

There is no substitute for the experience of life that present moment awareness brings.

All the best,

John

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I remember the first time I was introduced to the phrase, “The point of no return.” I was a young boy watching a John Wayne movie where he played an airline co-pilot. It was called, “The High and The Mighty.”

They were on a flight over water and plane trouble ensued and they were low on fuel. Someone suggested they turn back to the departing airport. Then someone uttered the phrase, “We’re past the point of no return.”

I remember the chills and scary feelings that spread throughout my body. There was only one chance to live: Go forward or face certain death.

There weren’t then, or aren’t now, any guarantees about going forward, but I like the odds much better.

Best as I can tell, life is a trip out and a trip back – a trip out there and a trip back home. Everyone makes the turn at a different point in life, if at all.

The trick is to recognize there are two life tracks, most people don’t. It usually takes a trauma to discover the path inward. Once discovered, you discover the upside of the point of no return.

Once you round third and head for home, there is no turning back. You may be temporarily tempted to do so, but you quickly realize that you’ll wind up in a squeeze play and that focuses you like a laser on home.

The trip out is additive; the trip home is subtractive. We add things to ourselves during the course of our life, many which serve us well, and other things that are extra baggage. The subtractive process is a weeding out of that which isn’t working. You move from superficial to substance and the plane gets lighter and takes less fuel to run.

As long as you believe what you are looking for is out there, the less likely you are to entertain the trip home.

If your search isn’t bringing you peace of mind, you’re probably still looking for a piece of the rock – a quest that will only drag you down.

Your answers are not out there; they’re home.

This has nothing to do with giving up your goals; it has more to do with noticing that attaining them has little to do with providing the comfort of home. Pursue your desires, just don’t make the mistake that they will provide your answers. They won’t.

The point of no return is discovering that the answers are not out there; they’re in here. The more you head towards home, the more substance you feel. There is no substitute for substance, no matter how high and mightily it’s packaged.

All the best,

John

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Back in my radio daze, we had an expression we used to signify that a broadcaster was overusing and leaning on pet phrases. We called them crutches.

A typical slam of another broadcaster was, “He/she has more crutches than the statue at Lourdes.”

That doesn’t mean that the phrase itself didn’t have impact, it did. When it lost its air, was when you aired it out one time too many.

It’s also the phrase that comes out when you don’t know what you’re going to say next and are attempting to get time to think. For example, during the last presidential race, the four candidates had their crutch word or phrase out on display quite often. When you heard them saying these phrases, you knew they were stalling until that next idea popped in.

Obama: “Look”

Biden: “Ladies and gentleman”

McCain: “My friends”

Palin: “And so too”

Broadcasters and politicians on the stump hate “dead air.” They fill up all the time with words. They and we would be better served if we allowed some space between our thoughts so that we don’t come up with the same stale answers.

How often have you felt compelled to answer instantly? Almost always is the common answer. We were conditioned that way. If you didn’t have an immediate answer when asked, you were considered indecisive or just plain dumb.

All the stutterers that I’ve worked with had one or two overly impatient parents. They would says things like, “out with it” in a demanding and impatient tone to a child who was forming an answer. It was as though they were trying to force bloom flowers. What they were doing was helping the child create a crutch that gave them time to think – a stutter.

Pat answers are crutch phrases. As mentioned in past blog posts, patterned answers have their uses but if you are giving people a steady diet of them, you are truly saying nothing.

I was asked a great question by Jerry Stocking last summer. He asked, “What is your purpose in speaking?” It really got me to focus on what I was about to say. Too often we speak without purpose and contribute to no one, and are guilty of air pollution.

When asked a question, get in the habit of letting your answers form rather than having to be as quick with them as you have to be when playing “Whac-A-Mole” at the arcade. Pausing will get you more hits than misses.

Make it your purpose to ask yourself, “What is my purpose in speaking?” You’ll find that you speak less and say more.

Look, my friends, it’s a crutch to speak without purpose, and so too ladies and gentlemen, you’re leaning on unproductive conditioning when you answer without a bit of reflection.

Buy yourself a present today. Purchase a pause. It will be one of the most creative things you’ll ever do.

All the best,

John

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“There’s a first time for everything” has taken on a new meaning for me.

The common wisdom surrounding that phrase seems to be that it either suggests possibility or derisiveness about the possibility of something happening.

I have become less of a skeptic and gained more appreciation for the possibility of something happening.

One catalyst for a first time to happen is to open yourself up to the possibility that it can happen.

First times are not dependent on your personal history. In fact, our historical way often gets in the way of a first time happening.

Think of “everything” as infinite possibilities. Our personal history puts a governor on what’s possible for us. Our conditioned way of doing things keeps us looping around in a small circle of possibility.

First times, at all times, are just waiting to happen. They’re just waiting for us to open the door and let them in.

It’s our “stranger danger” conditioning that keeps us behind closed doors.

First times are always strange, or maybe a better word is “different” because we haven’t experienced them before.

“Everything” is filled with first times. We just have too narrow a view of possibility to experiment past our corralling comfort zone.

Expanding your view begins with stepping out of who you think you are for just a moment and pretend that you’re someone else – someone who has a broader view than you. When we slip into this mythical person’s skin, our vision becomes more panoramic and possibilities multiply.

If you’ve never adopted another’s perspective, this may just be the time to make it your first time.

Perhaps you are struggling financially. There are hundreds of books about abundance and money making but most of them, in my opinion, miss the point. The point is to see the world of possibility through the eyes of someone who sees more than you. Step into their shoes. See what they see, hear what they hear, feel what they feel. This adoption strategy works in all areas of your life, not just finances.

You may only be pretending, but it is one strategy around the structured way you’ve been using that isn’t working.

First times are filled with the promise of possibilities. As the head of the Israeli Lottery said when the same four numbers (in different order) came up within a month. “Anything is possible, even the rare and infrequent.”

What’s possible for you? You may not be able to see it with your current brand of shoe.

Opening yourself up to possibilities leads to more first times. Can you remember the specialness of your first kiss? There is special excitement contained in a first time, but you’ll never experience it if you are containing yourself.

Hear the phrase, “There is a first time for everything” with new ears. Have the new meaning be: There is a first time of possibilities waiting for me.

All the best,

John

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Yesterday I witnessed “Bad Hypnosis” to the level that it made me flinch, then laugh. Bad Hypnosis is reinforcing a negative in someone’s mind that won’t serve them in moving forward.

I had a doctor’s appointment with a new physician. When I got to the office, I had to fill out the requisite first time patient paperwork. Sitting right there at the reception window was this giant oversized pen. It was very colorful and looked like a child’s toy. It was HUGE!

Since the receptionist didn’t hand me a pen, that was the one I was expected to use. Here’s what caught my attention: It was in the shape of a giant syringe.

Holy Cow, Batman, did anyone ever consider the message that sends? It’s a safe bet that most people don’t like needles, especially BIG needles. What the prop does is reinforce a negative in anyone’s mind who has even the slightest aversion to needles.

It was a gift from a medical supply company with their logo printed on it so that their name would be out in front of the public in doctors’ offices all across America.

The doctor’s office looked at it as a free pen; the people they’re treating got a whole different message – a reinforced fear.

If this was the only instance of bad hypnosis we encounter, it wouldn’t be so bad. The problem is that it’s everywhere. We use it on a daily basis and it never gets productive results.

Reminds me of a story . . . Years ago, I was going through an emotionally painful time in my life. I was visiting my father in the hospital and he asked how things were going with my situation. I told him that I was dealing with it a day at a time but was making progress. Then he said what he thought was a well meaning, empathetic phrase. His exact words were, “It must be eating you up inside.”

That’s bad hypnosis.

Lucky for me that I have a bad hypnosis filter that was installed years ago that allows me to chuckle when someone offers me an obviously bad suggestion and allows me to avoid processing it.

This post is an attempt to make you more aware of “Bad Hypnosis” so that it doesn’t take a toll on you and you don’t use it to take a toll on others.

Become aware. Is what you are about to say going to reinforce a negative in a person’s mind? The way to know that in advance is to pretend the same thing was said to you. How would you feel? If it only puts you into a tailspin, don’t offer it to another.

Start to notice that bad hypnosis is everywhere. “If you don’t button up, you’ll catch cold.” Calibrate your bad hypnosis radar. When you hear a piece coming your way, either laugh aloud or chuckle to yourself. That response will be the way to guard against you unthinkingly processing the information to your detriment.

You are exposed to bad hypnosis everyday – suggestions that, if taken to heart, will lead you to an un-resourceful frame of mind. You also use bad hypnosis everyday and it doesn’t serve the people you’re offering it to.

My mission is not to make bad hypnosis go away, only to get you to see how it impacts you everyday.

All the best,

John

Most people believe that there are external circumstances causing their problems, and I consider myself a card carrying member of that group.

When that belief becomes limiting, is when we believe that circumstance is always the culprit.

The biggest problem causer I encounter personally and professionally is the phenomenon of being boxed in by a belief itself, not circumstance.

Beliefs are conditioned, habit patterns that run in the background. We, for the most part, are unaware that they are there. Our unawareness does not keep them from directing our behavior 24-7.Think about it, our beliefs are alive and well even in our dreams.

Here’s the conundrum: Our beliefs keep us blinded to the facts that our beliefs aren’t working. That’s being “boxed in” by your belief.

I had a little doubt creep in about one of my beliefs last night and normally I would dismiss the doubt and proceed to justify what I believed. This time it was different. The Grasshopper intervened and gave me, as we used to say in the radio business, “The Phrase That Pays.”

Before I share the phrase with you, let me tell you what normally goes on with me when doubt about a belief enters the picture and I don’t dismiss it. I have a debate in my head. I go back and forth with all the logic I can muster regarding the pros and cons about the belief working or not working, and I always end up at the same place – Impasse.

That means the argument lives to fight another day.

So how can you suspend the argument AND suspend a belief that has you boxed in? Use this phrase that pays: “I don’t know what I believe.”

When you find yourself about to justify a belief or about to debate it until you drop, say this instead – “I don’t know what I believe.”

This phrase will pause your conditioning to justify your belief AND prevent you from engaging in another knock down, drag out debate.

“I don’t know what I believe” is such a freeing phrase. It takes away the concreteness of certainty and allows for the porosity that a new solution needs to enter.

A new way to unbox your beliefs is to not know what you believe.

It takes courage to not know. It’s not knowing that will get you curious, and your curiosity will get you to poke past the iron curtain of beliefs.

Try it out right now. Find something that you believe in that just may be causing you some mental distress and simply say, “I don’t know what I believe.”

This new mindset will create a void where something solid once stood. It’s into this void that a new way to go will flow.

It’s uncertainty that will unshackle you from the concrete pillars of knowing and lead you to a place of possibility.

If you want to open yourself up to some less concrete ways of thinking and behaving, start with this phrase: “I don’t know what I believe.”

All the best,

John

I woke up with the word “glue” on my mind this morning. I had to let the term set for a bit before I could appreciate the larger concept it adhered to.

It struck me how glued we are to our thoughts, positions and actions, especially the ones not working for us.

It’s as though we have a sign glued to our back that says, “Kick Me,” but we can’t see it, and wonder why we’re getting our donkey kicked.

Looking in the mirror is a great practice, but it dawned on me that we can’t reflect on what we can’t see.

That’s where the addition of another mirror comes in handy.

A hand mirror, working in tandem with a larger mirror, gives you the ability to expand your view of you.

Your hand mirror is the hidden part of you that reveals more than even the largest surface mirror can reflect.

Using it is how you find the glue that keeps things stuck to you.

Where in life do you keep gumming up the works? If you don’t know, be brave and ask a close friend or family member and they will tell you. There is a repeating pattern that causes you to run into the same sticky-wicket with whomever you meet.

You can’t seem to help yourself. You get the same results time after time even though you’ve made many adjustments to yourself in the big mirror.

The way to never discover that the back of your hair remains uncombed is to justify what you have been doing, even though it isn’t working. That’s called arguing for your limitations. It’ll keep you in a sticky mess.

So how do we get a more complete view so we can remove the glue? Recognize that you have a hand mirror – a part of you that expands your view.

The next step is to ask this part of you what to do. This request is best asked before going into a time of quiet reflection. Your request could be as simple as this: Reveal to me the part that I can’t see.

Remember: You can only go to work on what you can see.

If your constantly sticking to your guns and your ever present thought is, “They don’t get me,” you are oblivious to the sign glued to your back that says, “Pee on Me.”

The overarching reality is this: Everyone gets you but you.

If you ever decide that you want to see what they’re seeing, so that you can make some real adjustments, get quiet and find your magic mirror.

All the best,

John

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If you haven’t heard the story of “The Tortoise and The Hare,” you have lived a sheltered life, perhaps living in a shell.

One moral gleaned from the original story is that the race doesn’t always go to the swiftest.

I’d like to look at the tortoise and the hare from a different angle.

My notion is that we are both the tortoise and the hare, but we believe we are only one of them. If I may dare say it, our mantra is: “That’s the way I am.”

I haven’t yet completely outgrown my bristle to that phrase, mainly because there’s a part of me that still believes it – The tortoise part.

The tortoise is always looking for the safe way where there are no potential bumps and bruises. This causes the tortoise to retreat to his shell and if that’s all he does, he becomes shellshocked.

The hare gets us out there. It’s the more adventuresome part of us that takes risks.

I would say that we need to balance the two parts of us but that would be inaccurate. Perfect balance means a stalemate. But if you’ve labeled yourself as one or the other, and it’s not working for you, you require a new mixture of these two parts.

Abandoning your shell is too risky for most and it’s not the way I would recommend. I think inching out of your shell and experiencing the outside world a bit at a time builds confidence that you can function out there. It will lead to further excursions and perhaps even vacations away from your shell.

The hare is running away from home. It’s our free spirit wanting to see all that it can see. It often takes us too far out on a limb for a better vantage point of those new vistas, and we experience our share of avoidable crashes and burns.

If you have labeled yourself as one of these characters, you have missed an opportunity to discover that other part of you.

It’s fun to be both and it’s less limiting because the tortoise gets to see new things and the hare finds the comfort of home.

The prescription for the tortoise is: Stick your neck out; the way home for the hare is to sit out a race or two.

If you want to win the rat race, it does go to the swiftest. If you want to be the “Biggest Loser” in the truest sense of the phrase, eat nothing but turtle soup.

If you want to live a fuller life, give up the idea that you are one or the other and seek out the complimentary part of you, which will allow you the flexibility to live out the famous phrase: “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”

All the best,

John

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