Category Archives for "Blog"

February 24, 2016, TGIW: Unhumping Hump Day…Seeds and Water

By Darrell Gurney | Blog

“To change ourselves effectively, we first had to change our perceptions.” –Stephen R. Covey

Sometimes the exact same events, circumstances, situations or challenges — “the facts” — can be seen in an entirely new way. Even an empowering way.

The question is how to bring into our mind a perspective it’s not already acquainted with.

It’s been said that our perspectives on life and circumstances come from the cage we were held captive in.

So, many of us reach out for input so as to get seeds planted among the weeds of our existing “own best thinking”.

Every now and then, with watering, those new plantings overtake the weeds…and a personal discovery is born.

Got seeds and water?

“It is the obvious which is so difficult to see most of the time. People say ‘It’s as plain as the nose on your face.’ But how much of the nose on your face can you see, unless someone holds a mirror up to you?” –Isaac Asimov

February 17, 2016, TGIW: Unhumping Hump Day…Monkey Vigilance

By Darrell Gurney | Blog

“The mind is a monkey, hopping around from thought to thought, image to image. Rarely do more than a few seconds go by in which the mind can remain single-pointed, empty.” –Dani Shapiro

The Chinese New Year began last week, the year of the monkey.

Those cute primates representing intelligence, activity and playfulness can also play massive games in our head.

A friend recently told me he no longer asks people “What’s happening?” but, rather, “What’s not happening?”…because he figures that what’s going on in peoples’ minds is rarely what’s actually occurring in the world.

Mark Twain said “I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.”

Where can we discern for ourselves today what is really going on…vs. the monkey mind?

Got monkey vigilance?

“The hard work, you discover over the years, is in learning to discern between correct and incorrect anxiety, between the anxiety that’s trying to warn you about a real danger and the anxiety that’s nothing more than a lying, sadistic, unrepentant bully in your head.”  –Daniel B. Smith

February 10, 2016, TGIW: Unhumping Hump Day…Gap Endurance

By Darrell Gurney | Blog

“Endurance is patience concentrated.” –Thomas Carlyle

It’s been said that concentration is a state when you put in 10 and get back 1…

compared to mastery, a state when you put in 1 and get back 10.

Therefore, in any new skill or project in which we engage, there’s a gap to be traversed.

Got gap endurance?

“The men who learn endurance, are they who call the whole world brother.” –Charles Dickens

February 3, 2016, TGIW: Unhumping Hump Day…Emergency Possibilities

By Darrell Gurney | Blog

“Take your mind off the problems for a moment, and focus on the positive possibilities. Consider how very much you are able to do.” –Ralph Marston

Cutting it so close to catch an 8am flight from LA to DC yesterday morning, halfway to the airport, I thought “Where’s my phone??”

Realizing it was still in my robe pocket at home, the emergency seemed monumental.

Who goes anywhere without a phone these days?? Especially for 5 days?? Calls, texts, GPS, instant online access…they all seem as important as walking and breathing.

The dilemma was crazy-making. Turn around in the early-morning, rush-hour traffic, and be late for the plane…with all the problems of rebooking, fees, etc? Or, simply go without? Wait, that’s an oxymoron: you can’t SIMPLY go without a smartphone, right?

Upon rationally determining (in my state of irrationality) that the first option wasn’t actually an option, my mind then began — under duress — to entertain possibilities.

What if this telephonic, textic, and immediate-access disconnect offered whole new openings for what could be produced this week?

That rewrite of “The Back Forty: 7 Critical Embraces for Life’s Radical Second Half”…just in time for our next course? The systems build outs and other infrastructural pieces which could be handled by computer and not by phone?

The possibilities became delectable.

Where might you similarly turn the seeming emergencies of quick change-ups in plans into your own delicious possibilities?

Got emergency possibility?

“To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination.” –Albert Einstein

“Stress is basically a disconnection from the earth, a forgetting of the breath. Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency. Nothing is that important. Just lie down.” –Natalie Goldberg

January 27, 2016, TGIW: Unhumping Hump Day…Aargh

By Darrell Gurney | Blog

“You know how advice is. You only want it if it agrees with what you wanted to do anyway.” –John Steinbeck

If you’re like me, you can see it in your kids, but not so much in yourself.

I call it the “aargh of advice”. We may need it, we may have even requested it (not the teenagers, of course), and then there’s what we do with it.

If it fits what we already had in mind, it’s easy and affirmative to incorporate. When it doesn’t fit, however, the aargh begins.

“Change up what I think or, excuse me, what I KNOW is the best way to proceed?”

“Hmmm, let me think about that!” [Said more honestly, “Let me silently find all the justifications possible that the advice is bad.”]

There’s no easy answer on answers — coming from within or without — and no cookie-cutter way to give or get.

Yet, thank God there’s something to at least juggle along with our own best thinking.

Sometimes the biggest aarghs create profound aaahs.

Got aargh?

“I think it’s very important to have a feedback loop, where you’re constantly thinking about what you’ve done and how you could be doing it better. I think that’s the single best piece of advice: constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself.” –Elon Musk

January 20, 2016, TGIW: Unhumping Hump Day…Balanced Conviction

By Darrell Gurney | Blog

“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t–you’re right.” –Henry Ford

Most of us are familiar with the children’s book about the small, unassuming and apparently ill-equipped engine that saved the day by getting toys to children over a steep hill.

It was a hill which other engines, perhaps more suited for the task, were either too arrogant, grandiose or self-deprecating to tackle.

Yet, balanced inside the ego extremes of the others, and with a moment-by-moment generation of determination, the little blue engine triumphs.

We all have our respective “children over the hill” to deliver our promise to this week, this month, this year.

What ideas or edges of over-confidence or supposed incompetence can we let go of to save the day?

Got balanced conviction?

“I think I can, I think I can.” –Tillie, The Little Engine That Could

January 13, 2016, TGIW: Unhumping Hump Day…Rigid Flexibility

By Darrell Gurney | Blog

“Unforeseen surprises are the rule in science, not the exception. Remember: Stuff happens.” –Leonard Susskind

Even us late starters may have at least some design in place by now for our new year of possibilities.

We’ve all heard that “Man plans and God laughs.”

Nonetheless, we move forward with any plan (and that’s always better than no plan).

Good for us. Let’s just keep the door open for from whence our good will come.

It may be our organized, detailed efforts and tenacious sticking-to-it that bring our results through the front door.

Yet it may be our openness and flexibility which allows them to come through the back door.

Got rigid flexibility?

“Everything’s not going to go perfect. You’re going to have some losses that you’re going to have to bounce back from and some things that are a little unforeseen that you’re going to have to deal with.” –Tony Dungy

January 6, 2016, TGIW: Unhumping Hump Day…Possibility Points

By Darrell Gurney | Blog

“Your present circumstances don’t determine where you can go; they merely determine where you start.” –Nido Qubein

The new year has begun, and we’re now 1/52nd closer to resolving to improve all over again.

It’s interesting how much serious thought, weight and even pressure many of us put upon ourselves to recreate, restart, or reformat our lives (e.g., “new years resolutions”) on a January 1 imaginary and arbitrary point in time.

The reality is, we can choose to live into a new possibility at ANY point time, be it Jan. 1, April 23, or 3:45am on August 9.

We began this year with certain circumstances surrounding us that we may seek to better.

We will, for certain, face unexpected and unforeseen circumstances as we move forward.

What if, this year, we give ourselves the capacity to resolve for new possibility over and over and over again…despite the current results and/or circumstances?

Got a possibility point?

“A Scout smiles and whistles under all circumstances.” –Robert Baden-Powell

December 30, 2015, TGIW: Unhumping Hump Day…Starting

By Darrell Gurney | Blog

“You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.” –Zig Ziglar

By this time next week, we will be nearly a full week into 2016.

If you’re like me, there’s been more than ample thought put into visions and plans for this next, illusionary period of time called “the new year”.

Yet, with all the planning (or not) that we’ve achieved (or not), there simply comes the time to begin.

Has there ever been a perfect start? Unlikely.

But with a burst of energy to jettison the old and the willingness to set a (many times correctable) course for the new, we may see some perfect finishes.

Meet you here same time next year…for show and tell?  Happy New Year.

Got starting gun?

“Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” –St. Frances of Assisi

December 23, 2015, TGIW: Unhumping Hump Day…Holiday Moments

By Darrell Gurney | Blog

“Holidays, bringing out the best in family dysfunction.” –Anonymous

We love and laugh, and sometimes groan and grimace, in these special opportunities to be with “family”…whether that be by blood or choosing.

It could be easy to miss the present being offered us by attention to remnants from the past.

Perhaps the present is the best gift we could give ourselves and others.

Carly Simon sang “These are the good old days.” What if she was right?

May your holiday celebrations will be made up of many individual moments of appreciation…of and in the present we are given.

Got a moment?

“We do not remember days; we remember moments.” –Cesare Pavese

“A happy life is just a string of happy moments. But most people don’t allow the happy moment, because they’re so busy trying to get a happy life.” –Abraham