I am lucky to work with some wonderful people. Recently the work I do with a couple of different people has coincided with events in my personal life. And it has been a powerful experience.

Jenifer Landers (http://www.fullyexpressedcoaching.com/) is my life coach. She helps me with business and personal challenges. Because of all the changes going on in my life this year, she has talked to me about leaving space in my life for people and things to “show up.” For example, my daughter graduated from high school and will be going to college in the Fall. Yikes. That will leave a big space for me to fill.

Or, if you think about it, I don’t have to fill that space. I could just leave it open for awhile to see which opportunities arise.

Another wonderful person I work with is Kelli Wilson. Kelli recently published a book: The Clutter Breakthrough (See her blog). In this very powerful book, Kelli does NOT go through a “plan” to clean up the clutter. Instead, she looks at the root causes of clutter. Her argument is that people have painful experiences in their lives, and they fill up their lives with something in order to avoid the pain.

Some people fill these spaces with alcohol, drugs, sex, shopping, or any number of other things. The goal is not about the alcohol (etc.), but about coping mechanisms that keep them from having to experience the pain or the emptiness.

Analogy: Nerves

There’s a great medical device called a TENS unit. TENS stands for Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation. A TENS unit operates from a 9-volt battery. It creates tiny electrical impulses and has pads that are attached to your skin. For example, if you have muscle spasms in your back, a doctor might use a tens unit to block the pain.

The electrodes are taped to the body near where the pain is.

Inside your body there are large nerve fibers and small nerve fibers. Of course these nerves carry pain signals. Well, actually, only the small nerve fibers carry pain. The TENS unit sends tiny electrical impulses down the nerve fibers. It floods the nerve fibers with these harmless impulses. Once the nerves are “filled” with these harmless electrical impulses, the pain signals cannot travel through the nerves.

This is a great analogy for thinking out the spaces in your life. Space might left because of a true loss: A death, a divorce, the loss of a job, or having a child leave home. Similarly, if you have a space that’s filled with pain, you need a mechanism to either stop the pain or at least take your mind off the pain.

And so the coping mechanisms we develop help us to 1) Fill empty space in our lives, and 2) Avoid dealing with the painful spaces in our lives that we’d rather not address. Just as a TENS unit fills the nerves with electrical impulses that keep the pain from getting through, we can use a variety of behaviors to fill our lives with *something* that’s better than the nothing or the pain.

Whether the space is empty (for example, loneliness) or filled with pain, “coping mechanism” are always a short-term solution. Coping mechanism might help you get by today and tomorrow. But longer term, you need to find more permanent solutions.

In the case of pain, the most important goal is to stop the cause of the pain. In terms of emotional pain, the cause is probably YOU and not whatever you think the cause it. Yes, the original cause of the pain was very real. But the ongoing cause of the pain is probably your willingness to continue dwelling on it. Counseling, prayer, and meditation can help you understand the pain and diminish it over time.

But you need to be aware that that process will leave a space where your “old friend” pain used to be.

In the case of loss or loneliness, you will also have an empty space.

No matter how this empty space comes about, you need to find healthy ways to fill that space. But I really encourage you to take some time filling the space. It takes a great deal of self-awareness to leave spaces in your life and not give in to the urge to fill them with “stuff” (physical stuff, activities, hobbies, bad habits, etc.).

Daily quiet time can be an extremely powerful tool to help you with this process. Whether you use it for meditation, prayer, or some other means of being away and clearing your mind, the very fact that you spend time considering your life will help you to work on the spaces in your life.

You may legitimately decide that you want to take up a new hobby, buy some clothes, or do whatever. But with daily contemplation about where your life is going, you will have a much healthier perspective for examining your options.

You may also find that you’ve managed to create a great deal more contentment than you had before.

:-)

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I agreed to contribute an article to a work on Workaholism some time back. And then I forgot about it.

Well, yesterday I had the pleasant surprise of receiving a copy of the final printed book, Workaholism Perspectives and Experiences from Icfai University Press.

The book is about 190 pages and filled with great essays on Workaholism — Facts, perspectives, and some great tips on making positive changes in your life. I haven’t read most of it yet, but there are some great statistics about the effects of workaholism around the world.

Of course this is a key topic for me (that’s why it’s the topic of the second chapter of my book).

Workaholism can consume your life, your relationships, and your business. Then it affects all the people you live and work with as well as your customers. At the same time, it’s not particularly difficult to overcome. The hardest part about changing a workaholic lifestyle is deciding you want to.

There’s a certain comfort level in working hard all the time: fooling yourself that another hour will make a different; fooling yourself that there are extra rewards; fooling yourself that you’re doing it for the family; fooling yourself that no one can do this but you. Working really hard makes you feel good about yourself.

But some day something dramatic will happen.

And when it does, you’ll be faced with the stark reality that effort above a certain point counts for nothing, that your family values quality time more than an extra box of money, and that lots of people can do the work you feel you have to do.

When that day comes you will be overwhelmed with a sense of loss. Just like losing a loved one, you will have lost a piece of what defines you as a person. You’ll spend time figuring out how “reality” could be so different from what you believed it was. And you’ll work through it.

But working really hard still feels good. So you might cure yourself for awhile, but that doesn’t mean you’re cured forever. Part of it is still baked into who you are. Part of it is pushed on you by society. Part is pushed on you by your job. Etc.

Workaholism is a lot more than a personal choice made by one person who can un-make that choice. It is part of a complex series of structures and relationships that have evolved in modern society.

This book is a great start to recognizing and addressing the issues of workaholism — personally and as an organization. It’s also a good resource for work place counselors and HR pros.

As your bookstore to order ISBN #978-81-314-2469-8.

(Disclaimer: I wasn’t paid for the chapter I contributed to this book and I make no money on sales whatsoever.)

:-)

Workaholism

A few posts back I talked a bit about how the sender and the receiver each affect the messages that pass between them.

If you haven’t read John Gray’s book Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, you should. In addition to explaining some obvious truths about the species, the book is chock full of examples of communications gone bad.

The simplest phrase can get lost in the human communication process.

The sender and receiver each add attitude, mood, experience, and a dozen other factors to every communication we have. It’s one thing to try to communicate feedback. But innocent little phrases get miscommunicated just as easily.

“That’s a good job.”

“What does he mean? Don’t I always do a good job? I’m such a failure that you have to point out to everyone when I do a good job! You never tell anyone else that they do a good job: Are you getting ready to fire me?”

- – - – -

It would be convenient if everyone just believed every word you say with no interpretation or reading between the lines.

But, alas, they have a lifetime of their experiences, plus whatever personal history with you. These things create filters through which all communications take place.

This is true in personal relationships, business relationships, online communications, in groups, one-on-one, and in every other human interaction.

A few years ago our company decided to let clients know that we really appreciate it when they pay on time. As a small business, this makes a big difference for us. So we drafted a memo and sent it on its way.

Wow! What an uproar. Several clients called to complain. They’d always paid their bills on time. They didn’t need to be told . . . etc.

Others didn’t even notice the communication. They said it was like the generic pages full of notices that show up with credit card privacy inserts. In other words, it was meaningless communication.

So how do you learn to communicate with a variety of people?

Most of us do pretty well. But there’s only one way to be sure that your communication is successful: Ask.

That is, simply reflect back to the other person what you heard them say. I try to do this with clients, especially regarding action items during a meeting.

At the end of a meeting, say something like, “Here’s what I understand that we agreed on . . ..”

In conversation, try “I heard you say . . ..”
What ensues is a back-and-forth conversation that may be a little uncomfortable at times. After all, you’re going to express what you heard. The other person may well say No, that’s not what they said.

After a little back and forth, you’ll both agree on what was said and what you each want.

And the next conversation will be a little more comfortable.

It would be great if communication were always perfect, or at least easy. But you have to remember that everyone involved is human.

:-)

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There’s a good book called Delivered from Distraction: Getting the Most Out of Life with Attention Deficit Disorder by Edward M. Hallowell, John J. Ratey.

The book deals with a wide variety of subjects and not just ADD. Among other things, the authors make some recommendations for basic principles of what you might call “Brain Management.” In other words, here are some tips for maintaining a well-oiled and well-working brain:

• Take 30 second breaks from work or any activity that keeps your brain “on”
• Get enough sleep
• Rest your brain as you feel overloaded – just 30 seconds
• Eat the right food
   - not too much carbs
   - not too much caffeine
   - not too much alcohol
   - whole foods
   - balanced diet
   - proteins with breakfast
   - omega 3 fatty acids
• Exercise 3x week
• Pray or meditate – even for 3-5 minutes
• Have positive human contact. That is, do fun things with interesting people. Don’t stay in your room, isolated from the world.
• Keep a Journal

These are interesting pieces of advice for everyone with a brain. In a very real sense, they apply to everyone, everywhere.

The authors contend that we don’t give our brains a chance to turn off. We don’t give it natural breaks.

Interestingly, there is research to show that, for most of us, the brain naturally takes a break between activities. We finish a task and the brainwaves settle down into a pattern of inactivity. In other words, our brain shifts into neutral for a few seconds before we go on to the next task.

But that doesn’t always happen, and it doesn’t happen for everyone.

The really great news is that you can simply do this for yourself. In other words, you can simply take a 30- to 60-second break and get a huge boost in productivity.

Your brain can never really be “off” at any time. But there are many parts to the brain. Your autonomic systems keep your heart beating and your lungs working. Don’t touch that part.

Other operations, such as conscious and unconscious “work” are another story. We can consciously choose to stop thinking about one thing and begin thinking about another thing. So taking a break with our conscious mind is very easy. It can be as simple as staring at picture, or closing our eyes for a few seconds.

At the same time, the unconscious mind continues working away. Giving it a break takes a little more effort — but not much. A 3-5 minute break in which we pray, meditate, or just do a breathing exercise, can be extremely refreshing.

I’ve had people argue that they don’t have time to exercise, relax, or spend 30 minutes a day in quiet time. Okay. I don’t agree with that.

But when I tell you that a series of 30-second breaks every hour will give you a major boost in brain power, isn’t that worth checking out?

Try it. What have you got to gain?

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For this exercise you will need the following:

- A Book
- Large Post-It Notes
- Pen or Pencil
- Highlighter
- Small pad of paper (optional)

Step One: Smell the Book.

Okay. Not really. But you do want to familiarize yourself with the book. Flip through it. Read the table of contents. What’s the plan? Where are you going?

Are there cartoons, tables, charts, etc.?

Step Two: Take a small stack of Post It notes and put them in the front of the book. I like the ones that 3″x5″ or 4″x6″ with lines. But the small 3×3 work just fine.

You need these so you can jot notes to yourself while reading. Remember, ideas are easily lost if you don’t write them down and take action. So the first part of that habit of success is to write it down.

This does not affect your ability to write comments in the margins.

Step Three: Read.
Obviously, at some point you’re going to actually read the book. Just remember that all of your formal education has taught you the wrong way to read.

Reading is not a one-way process. It is not an activity in which you passively ingest knowledge and try to understand and accept everything you find in the book.

You’re reading the book for a purpose. Let’s assume that purpose is to improve your self, your skills, your business, your personal life, etc.

If you’ve been around long enough, you might remember the “capture” mode on computers. It basically worked like this: You prepare your local machine to capture everything that scrolls across the screen. Then you execute a command on the remote computer to send the information you want. When the “download” is complete, you close the capture mode and save the file.

That’s not how you read a book!

You don’t ingest a book: You interpret it.

Good books are not written to give you the absolute truth so you can turn off your brain and just “be” successful.

Sorry.

As a non-fiction writer, I’m not trying to give you the one true nugget that will magically transform your business or life.

I’m arrogant, but not that arrogant. The best I can hope for is to spark a fire under your imagination.

Your brain will naturally interpret the world as it is presented to you. Use that process. Be open to it. Welcome it.

Ask yourself . . .

- How does this apply to me, my life, my business?

- Is this true and accurate?

- Does that apply to me?

- Am I doing this already (in another form)?

- Is that the only way?

- How would this work for me?

- etc.

Step Four: Write.
Here’s another thing you need to un-learn from school. It’s okay to write in your book. In fact, it’s more than okay. It’s encouraged!

Write notes to yourself. Write feedback to the author. Circle things. Underline them. Re-write key ideas in your own words.

When you stumble across real gems that you don’t want to lose, do one or more of the following:

a) Dog-ear the page. Fold down the corner so you can find it again.

b) Write a note on the inside of the back cover.

c) Write a note on one of those sticky post-its.

Step Five: Summarize.
When you’re done with the book, make sure your effort is not for naught.

Review your notes, marking, hyroglyphs, and feedback. Create a list of action items.

Reading a book is good. Creating an interactive experience is better. But stranslating that effort into action steps is the key to getting value from any book.

Warning: Don’t overdo it.

Every college freshman has to learn the lesson of over-highlighting. This is when you find yourself highlighting so much of the book that it looks like it was printed on yellow paper.

Even in the best books, you need to be picky.

Take a maxim from your personal to-do list: If everything is highest priority, then nothign is highest priority. If everything is highlighted, then nothing is highlighted.

One of the keys to getting the most out of a book is to use it interactively.

—–

I hope you took notes on this advice so you can interpret it for your own style and adjust as needed.

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May 2007, New York: Relax Focus Succeed® — The Book — was officially released May 3rd. In addition to a three-hour seminar, we had a great reception and party.

 A good time was had by all.

 After the book launch, I attended SMB Nation East, which is a wonderful two-day technology seminar at the headquarters of CA (Computer Associates), a provider of quality software.

 The book is available for purchase at www.RelaxFocusSucceed.com or at www.Amazon.com.

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