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Letter From The Editor

Dear Friends,

Late spring brings with it not only beautiful flowers and budding trees, it often times brings with it an air of tiredness, of not wanting to play. Instead of holding on to the energy that early spring brings us, we get caught in the drama of the impending summer, and many, many people get stopped; they go on a bit of a “mental vacation”!

What I mean by “mental vacation” is that:

• They have a sense of lethargy about them – no matter how great life is, life is “hard”!
• They don’t want to play.
• They somehow buy into the notion that they can’t have what they want.
• They convince themselves that they can be happy living in a cave – which isn’t really like them – and they stay there. They don’t want to communicate, and they want to stay right where they are in life, in relationships, in their job (or at least they think it would be easier to stay right where they are!)

The only problem with this is that when these people we know go on a “mental vacation” they generally kick themselves in the behind when they get back because sitting in a cave and eating worms isn’t who they are!!!

Now, if you think I’m just talking about the people you’ve witnessed do this… think again. I am talking about each and every one of us!!!!! We’ve all been here at this place I call “Stopped!!!!”

When do we get stopped?

We can get stopped at any time for any reason, but there are two times of year when I see people stopped more than any other time of year:

1. Prior to and during the holidays
2. Right now, just about the time when schools are getting ready for the end of the school year and the summer months are upon us.

I don’t know for sure why, but if I had to guess, I would say it has to do with this sense of completion, of finishing something and starting new and even though we are adults, instead of the children we once were, a cyclical sense of completion that rolls around this time of year still has the power to consume us!

So what do we do about it… how do we get unstopped?

• Acknowledge how you are feeling – clear it – communicate that you are stopped!
• Have a plan for doing the things you feel you are missing out on
• When the “I’d much rather be outside than at work” feeling over takes you, go for a 15 minute walk… soak up the sun, breathe the fresh air, and then get back to it!
• Ask for help!
• Get a sense of humor – Learn to laugh at yourself
• Instead of feeling sorry for yourself and wishing you had more time to play with your children, really be with them when you are playing with them!
• Get out of your head – go back and read your plan… get present to what it is you say you want to achieve!

The point here is that in order to get unstuck we’ve got to get into action. We can’t move forward if we barricade ourselves in our mental cave. We can’t move forward if we don’t choose to stop feeling sorry for ourselves. We can’t move forward if we choose not to. It is that simple!!

Being stopped is not a good/bad, right or wrong conversation. This is simply a conversation that is intended to wake us all up to the power we have to be stopped or not. It really is a choice we make! Remember: Only you have a say in how your life turns out. What do you say?

Clay S. Nelson

Leaving Road Rage Behind

Road Rage incidents are something we hear about on a daily basis. It happens mostly out of our feeling of not having control in all areas of our lives. After all, when we are in our cars it is the one place we feel like we do have control, which actually couldn’t be farther from the truth!

So to first avoid being a victim (or perpetrator) of Road Rage, you have to give up your attachment to the road. Now I don’t mean you give up paying attention to it, but many times people have road-rage because they take driving on as:

• “This is my car.”
• “I’m all powerful.”
• “This lane is mine.”
• “This spot in the lane at this time is mine and nobody can have it.”

It is, as I said above, our last ditch chance to have control of our lives. So if you give up that driving down the road in a certain spot in a certain car means anything about you or your life, you are much less likely to feel the need to defend a position (either as a victim or a perpetrator).

Second, you have to get that human beings mean more to each other than the car, the lane, or the time; meaning chasing someone down the road in order to give them the “one finger hello” after they’ve cut you off just isn’t worth it! (I have never heard of a road-rage incident where the guilty party didn’t feel sick for what they did.) So it is all about learning how to vent ourselves when we feel ourselves getting sucked in!

Anger when we’re behind the wheel of a car is very hard to turn off once we are in the defense of a lane or a position on the road, and the best way to avoid it to begin with is to not play; get out of the space, smile, wave hello, turn up the music, get in the slow lane and let the other person go on by. It is called “turn the other cheek”, because demeaning another person, an accident, or serious injury just isn’t worth whatever relief one might feel in the very short moment in which we express our anger!

Stopping the Time Drain

With our easy access to the Internet, Instant Messaging, email, cell phones, computer games, web cameras, and everything in between the distractions we have at work aren’t limited to office gossip that takes place around the coffee maker on Monday mornings! More and more team leaders are finding their team members wasting their day away, instead of being focused on their responsibilities to the team and the company they work for.

Whether you manage a “virtual” team or your team is all in one location, the key to keeping everyone focused, on track, and not daydreaming is the same… communication!

First, management and supervisory team members should have regular meetings (daily or weekly, depending on the size of the team) to review the list of tasks for what has to be done by-when and by-whom, which leaves no room for assumptions or uncertainty about what is expected and by-when.

Second, during the meetings each team member should be given the opportunity to say whatever they need to say before their day/week is off and running, including asking for help, getting clarity on a specific task, etc. It is called full and complete communication!

Third, train your team that it is okay to ask questions, and that it’s NOT okay to just drift off because they don’t want to do something, they are done early, or they are bored with what they are doing! Truth is that everyone gets to one of these places at one time or another, but if your team members believe they will be reprimanded for being human, they will be more apt to waste their time (and ultimately yours) than to speak up and ask for the help they need to get going again!

Finally, management should openly acknowledge those that do hang in and do what they need to do on-time and/or ahead of time. It sets those who don’t waste time apart from those who do and gives those with a habit of wasting time incentive to get on the ball.

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