Monday 29 May 2017

Focusing on process and remaining detached from outcomes

“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.”
Robert Louis Stevenson

My Grandfather Fredrick Sherriff introduced me to The Law of the Farm as a boy. It is the mainstay of my life.

As a farmer Pa Sherriff knew this law as you reap what you sow. He believed as I do that more often than not if you have fertile ground, plough it, seed it, nurture it, you get a harvest.

Today we phrase this law as what goes around comes around, or you get what you give.

In my Changing What’s Normal book I use this law to explain my perspective on many things and how you can choose to use this law in your own way. If you do not have the Changing What’s Normal book you can download a digital copy via the Gifts tab at my website here.

In the book I explore the five faces of a human being fully alive using the law of the farm as pictured below.


Who will you become? What will you do next to be more alive as a human being?

You might use this change process


The fertile ground is Appreciating what is (the remarkable, the great, the good, and the bad and the ugly).

The better you Appreciate what is, the more fully you can Imagine what can be (the ploughing).

Clarity around what can be enables precise planning around the tiny shifts (Quantum leaps - the seeding) that you will take to move from what is to what can be.

Leaping (the nurturing) leads to the harvest of positive momentum, which is the key to achieving better business results, at less personal cost.

Who will you become? What will you do next?

The wonder of weeds

I invest in weeding my garden on a regular basis. As well as the joy of being in nature, having my hands in the dirt, and making my garden pleasing to the eye, physical gardening helps me to think about the weeds that have gathered in my heart and mind.

There's much I can get rid of, misguided intentions, useless emotions, clouded thoughts, actions I'm not taking that I know I must.

What weeds have gathered in your heart and mind that you need to get rid of?

There's wonder in weeds. They're alive as much as the flowers.

Weeds gather and impose themselves in our hearts and minds. If we fail to pay attention and remove them we are hiding the flowers, the beauty our lives have for others.

Who will you become? What will you do next?

And how about your business?

I meet three kinds of business leaders in general,
those tied to the past,
those fixated on the future, or the outcome/result,
and the wise ones, those focusing on process in the present and remaining detached from outcomes.

How wise are you?

You need to be crystal clear about where you’re going or on what outcome/result you want however the secret is then to be the best version of yourself in the moment and to inspire others to be the same.

“Life consists only of moments, nothing more than that. So if you make the moment matter, it all matters.”
Ellen Langer in her great book ‘Mindfulness’

Maximising Your Most Valuable Space will help you too

One of the most valuable skills I've learned and continue to hone in my public speaking work is the pause.

Long ago my speaking coach David Griggs taught me to never speak while moving on the stage, rather to wait until I was still. Another coach Max Dixon calls the pause 'a beat beyond.'

I've learned that careful and considered short pauses, and sometimes long ones, are powerful ways for engaging an audience small and large. I've also learned that silence is indeed golden.

Yet most of all I've learned the power of the pause in every day life. I believe the pause as Viktor Frankl describes it to be your most important space.

My friend and colleague W. Mitchell says: “It’s not what happens to you.  It’s what you do about it”

Whatever happens to you this week, don’t react.  Instead pause, use the space, and then respond in a way that will likely lead you and others to the best possible future.

The moment something happens it’s the past.  We can’t change the past.  We can respond in the present in ways that determine a better future.

Everything depends on how we use this most valuable space, the tiny moment between stimulus and response.

Who will you become? What will you do next?

Be remarkable
Ian

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