Starting with my own!

January 1981, I remember the moment vividly.

This was what I didn’t know I didn’t know!

I’d relocated and needed work. I took a recruitment job “placing” accountants and then “selling” for a temporary placement agency. “Salesmanship” was a skill I lacked. Utterly.

Today I understand it on a deeper and more nuanced level. “Salesmanship” is a way of life. Daniel Pink describes it brilliantly in To Sell is Human: The Surprising Truth About Persuading, Convincing, and Influencing Others. “We’re all in sales now…”

The persuading, convincing and influencing begins every day as I arise. I am the “customer”. Today I will choose… it is the mantra that opens my day.

It doesn’t end as I leave for work. My practice is about supporting change. Trained in counseling, my credentials for this subspecialty are less about education and certifications than experience. Recovery is a a process, a way of life. It is not a destination. Every day involves overcoming objections.

My own objections and other peoples’.

Choosing a conscious, mindful  presence in the world, a world overmedicated with mood altering substances and practices isn’t easy.

“Change management” isn’t just for businesses any more. Everyday the question is:

What very small change will I make – or sustain, in order to move forward, personally, professionally or in community?

Begin with: “I will not do what I have always done”,

believe that you can choose to be the “master of (your) fate, the captain of (your) soul“.

It can be done. More easily in the company of others, in fellowship with likeminded people and with skills and tools to short-circuit any objections you encounter.

 

How? Well quite frankly -“it takes guts”.

Don’t go it alone . Get in touch!

 

 

More on Personal Change Management→

 

 

If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would be not be one cheerful face on earth.

Abraham Lincoln

This timely reading from a book of daily meditations was followed by: “If Lincoln could achieve all that he did feeling such depression, can I not bear feeling down in the dumps occasionally without being driven to the insanity of….?” fill in the blank with whatever your personal demon, overeating, drinking, gambling; workaholism, irritability, controlling, fits of rage…

Thursday night I broke bread with fifteen friends and colleagues – a summer social barbecue, to wind down another year of breakfast meetings for a small cross border business group in the Northeast of Ireland.

These fifteen are among the most positive of about 25 who meet from time to time during the year.  Monthly, in fact, at 7 am for a networking breakfast in either Dundalk (County Louth, Ireland) or Newry (County Down, Northern Ireland).  There is much for this group to be pessimistic about. The economy is faltering, we are sole practioners or small business owners – many of whom started new businesses following career setbacks and redundancies. All of us struggle to live and work a “new way”.  Many thought they would be in corporate jobs, large professional practices or civil service until they retired.

What we have in common is that we wake up every morning, put one foot in front of the other and just do the work of doing the work.

I am grateful they embraced me warmly and shared their knowledge  – experience, strength and hope – when I came to Ireland two years ago.  They have carried me through low times, and I hope I have done the same for some of them.  The shared commonality of our experience is what has sustained us as a group. We celebrate each others’ successes and mourn and learn from the losses.  We encourage, coach and cajole. You cannot help leaving a meeting on a positive note.  I have gone to meetings while in the depths of personal and professional loss and I have been uplifted – either by someone’s success or the knowledge that they too have come through what I am now experiencing.  I am never alone. In the sentiment of Lincoln’s quote – whatever the emotion it becomes “equally distributed to the (this) whole human family”.

Who are your fellow travelers? What human family are you choosing to embrace? Who brings the light of sunshine or optimism to your day? What I was reminded of that evening was that this was no accident. There are days when I think how lucky I am to be part of this group – and then I remember: I went looking for them, I go to meetings on dark, cold and wet winter mornings and I just keep showing up. So do they.

Choose to find a home among like minded folk, a family of choice – a new tribe. Not sure where to start? Pick up a copy of the Artist’s Way it will embolden you, find a 12 Step group, go to a Toastmaster’s meeting, try a business or social networking group, take a class, go to a house of worship you’ve abandoned or try a new one.

Or write me.

Just stretch – a little. Take a step outside of your comfort zone.  You will undoubtedly be rewarded.