Saturday, October 16, 2010

FAMILY IS THE CORE VALUE

"You don't choose your family. They are God's gift to you, as you are to them." ~Desmond Tutu

"The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family." ~Thomas Jefferson


Family is the unparalleled arbiter of whether or not your life is in balance. Simply, are you able to drop your child off at school after breakfast, and rejoin your family again at the dinner table? Do you laugh together across generations, dancing in the living room, celebrating each and every day as if it were a named holiday?

Too often today families and family members live the mythology that an unscheduled hour is a wasted hour. Children are enrolled in as many activities as afterschool and weekends will allow. Parents and grandparents coordinate hand-offs and pick-ups with air traffic controller precision, while often not actually having the opportunity to observe the very events in which their young people are participating. Enjoyment and social interaction become secondary to the resume'-stoking quality of the activity.

Our adult family members are no less indoctrinated into this cult of overscheduling. Work is brought home from the office in brimming shoulderbags; work emails are sent and responded to throughout the evenings and weekends. Dinner is a microwave buffet affair, resembling a strolling dinner, where rarely two members of the family will actually sit at a table engaged in quality conversation. Late at night when exhausted children are safely off to bed, mothers and fathers launch themselves into Farmville and all other manner of online fantasy worlds, while beds and genuine marital intimacy both tragically grow cold.

There will be no sized flat screen HD/3D television large enough to recapture our children's youth; there will be no cascade of urgent weekend smartphone messages that will rekindle our spouse's laughter amidst handholding during an evening's neighborhood walk.

Re-engage. Truly listen. Unplug from the 24/7 technology.

Just because someone else may not have the courage to genuinely participate in the fabric of their own family's life does NOT imply that you must sacrifice your family.
  • The co-worker who cannot leave the office before dinnertime is not a leader, but is very simply a person who is afraid to leave the office because his/her world outside the office is devoid of laughter and intimacy.
  • The co-worker who cannot restrain themselves from emailing, texting, or calling about "urgent" work projects on weekends is merely a sad, weak caricature who has forgotten the warm touch of a spouse's hand or the laughter of a child.
  • Empty marriages and estranged children do not need to be your legacy though they may be the rotten fruit beneath a co-worker's tree.
Live. Love. Laugh. Leave a Legacy. Begin today.

TODAY'S QUESTION: Will you become the balanced leader whose success is measured by the enduring warmth shared within your family home...or will you resign yourself to the mythology of the 24/7 unbalanced life only to "die" alone long before your earthly body last gasps?

Thursday, October 14, 2010

PATHWAY TO VICTORY

"Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths."  --Proverbs 3:5-6

"Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values." --Ayn Rand

For me, my Faith in God eases my path daily. Inevitably each of us will face challenges en route to achieving our aims, but I have always believed that we are strengthened to overcome those challenges when we have named and embraced our Core Values. As we approach the November election, living our Values and our Faith in all of our daily actions remains imperative.

The courage to live our core values must eminate consistently from within, lest we habitually subsume our core values to society's expectations. The elected officials and corporate executives I admire most consistently live values-driven lives. Their power springs forth from genuine Faith and Knowledge, discerning right from wrong even when the simpler, more popular path might provide immediate gratification.

Leaders--of families, of businesses, of schools, of elected bodies--adhere to their values and remain aware of the guideposts provided by God in all matters. Parents provide discipline even when giving in to a child's demands might appear easier. Executives strategically plan for the future even when satisfying the public's appetite for glowing quarterly financial results might garner more favorable press.

True happiness lies not in today's perceived victory but in every day's genuine victory. Be not afraid to rely upon your Faith, to prayerfully go to your God for guidance, to act upon your core values, for at the end of the evening you will be able to lay your head upon the pillow for deep and peaceful rest. Your victory must also be God's victory for His people.

TODAY'S QUESTION: As YOU approach the November election, have YOU gone to the Lord in prayer regarding your strategy, your objectives, and your concerns?

Sunday, October 3, 2010

VALUES-DRIVEN LIFE

"Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live." ~Oscar Wilde


"To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man." ~William Shakespeare

Doris and I worked through several productive sessions as we plumbed her history to identify and dismantle the notions of "must", "have to", and "everyone does" that typify the externally-imposed value systems of those we modeled as we grew and matured.
 
Every one of us, whether we consciously identify and manage it or not, has a list of values that drive us toward certain behaviors and situations. Likewise, each of us has a list of values that drive us away from certain behaviors and situations. Doris also came to realize that while we each have a list of aspirational values that drive us toward our fully lived Life, habit and perceived necessity often work to override our aspirational values. We find ourselves climbing the ladder only to learn it was leaning against the wrong tree.
 
While love, integrity, commitment, family, achievement, and balance appeared on her list as she worked to identify the Life she intended to fully live, Doris also conceded that external expectations as well as her internal desire to please others had led her to live out the values of deference, control, independence, intensity, obedience, and significance. Let me be very clear: every individual can choose to live a full Life by the values most appropriate to him/her. It is not for I or any other individual to tell YOU what values YOU should choose to guide YOU how you should order them to achieve the fully lived Life. But, be absolutely certain that you are the architect of your own values system, and not that you are the laborer driven by someone else's values system.
 
I coach individuals and groups of varying sizes. Over time I have repeatedly encountered two commonly-observed causes of living out of congruence with one's own identified values list: (a) real or perceived financial obligations that no longer apply; and (b) fear of disapproval by persons perceived to have authority over us. Please note that both of those causes refer to perceptions that individuals may hold. Perception will lose its power over you once you bring it into the bright light cast by your own self-chosen values list.
 
I've long shared the guiding principle with my clients, "If you fail to consciously choose, then you succumb to the choices of others..." We will each be driven by values, so let us commit to living our own highest values, not those we believe someone or "society" expects us to have.
 
TODAY'S QUESTION: Have YOU committed to fully live your Life by your highest values...or are YOU continuing to live the life that YOU perceive and believe that others expect YOU to live?
 
Write the top 10 values that are habitually driving your daily routine.
Pause.
Then write the top 10 values that you are committed to adopting to fully live the Life of your own making.
We will then build from there together.