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Oct 14

October 14, 2015, TGIW: Unhumping Hump Day…Git ‘er Done!

By Darrell Gurney | Blog

“Perfectionism is not the same thing as striving to be our best. Perfectionism is not about healthy achievement and growth; it’s a shield.” –Brene Brown

Larry the Cable Guy’s blue-collar, red-neck charge to “Git ‘er Done!” is encouraging…because many of us will produce and contribute a lot less attempting to do it “right”.

How much is play and productivity limited by our pursuit of perfection?

How much further can we get when giving ourselves the freedom to fall short?

Got wharts and all?

“These ‘mistakes’ occur in my books for a reason. I have an agenda: I’m secretly trying to inspire kids to create their own stories and comics, and I don’t want them to feel stifled by ‘perfectionism’.” –Dav Pilkey

Oct 07

October7, 2015, TGIW: Unhumping Hump Day…Life of Learning

By Darrell Gurney | Blog

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” –Mahatma Ghandi

“Live and learn” is an easily disbursed platitude we often express at a moment of surprise when something or someone has hit us blindside, resulting in an outcome we would have never expected.

Yet, all the while it’s being said, we’re likely kicking ourselves for not having seen whatever coming beforehand.

“Why didn’t I think of that?”  “I should have figured something like this would happen.” “How could I be so stupid/silly/blind/asleep/[bludgeon of your choice]?”

That’s actually not “live and learn”…but more like “live and judge ourselves for not knowing what we could only know by living.”

I once heard that good judgement comes from wisdom, wisdom comes from experience, experience comes from mistakes, and mistakes come from poor judgement.

Makes good, circle-of-life sense, doesn’t it?

So what sense does it make to carry a load of good-judgement-driven guilt around with us?

Where can you let yourself off the hook today?

Got a life of learning?

“You’ll never see all the awesome things ahead of you if you keep looking at all the bad things behind you. Sometimes you just have to turn around, give a little smile, throw the match and burn that bridge. Live, learn and don’t look back!” –Unknown

Sep 30

September 30, 2015, TGIW: Unhumping Hump Day…Getting Bigger

By Darrell Gurney | Blog

“You become what you think about most of the time.” –Brian Tracy

We’ve all heard that you are what you eat, that our income will be the average of the five people we hang out with most, and that we become what we think about.

I’m not a nutritionist, nor a financial advisor, and yet I do think a lot.

The question I ask myself is whether I’m most focused on controlling and managing what’s happening in the moment — as if there will ever be a time when things are “handled” and orderly — or whether I’m thinking outside of this current box to the next level of becoming.

It’s been said that the level of responsibility we choose to operate from determines the size of the games we get to play. A focus on paying the rent is a necessary level of responsibility, and yet that focus doesn’t get us playing at the level of transforming society.

Yet, when choosing to have an impact on or about society, sometimes and somehow the rent just gets paid.

I tell my career transition clients that someone with a mission or a vision is way more attractive than someone who needs a job.

There will be problems. That’s just life. Yet, if the size of the problems you choose to engage in determines your bandwidth, what problems will you pick…and how will you design your work/home/life environments to call for you to become the solution?

Got size enhancement?

“You say I dream too big. I say you think too small.” –Author Unknown

Sep 23

September 23, 2015, TGIW: Unhumping Hump Day…Your Path

By Darrell Gurney | Blog

“We have all been placed on this earth to discover our own path, and we will never be happy if we live someone else’s idea of life!” –James Van Praagh

One of the many merit badges my son earned while in scouts was for Orienteering, involving the use of a map compass so as to find locations and plan a journey.

When it comes to our dreams, though other travelers may offer us many maps and compasses to follow — perhaps all with the highest intentions of love and contribution — it pays for us to realize that we must walk our own path.

That doesn’t necessarily mean we travel alone, or that we can’t seek input and guidance along the way. Yet the buck must stop with us when we balance all the offered knowledge and good counsel with our internal compass.

Realizing that it’s not necessarily always the road we’re on which makes the difference, but who we are BEING on whichever road that is, then we can take into account the internal journey of “getting there.” Perhaps it’s really an inside job.

What if, through the unseen and uncharted course of belief in ourselves along with calibration to our internal compass (and a bit of openness to miracles), we could still end up in the place we desire no matter where we start or whatever seeming wrong turns we take?

Got faithful orienteering?

“If you can see your path in front of you, step by step, you know it’s not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That’s why it’s your path.” –Joseph Campbell

Sep 16

September 16, 2015, TGIW: Unhumping Hump Day…an Idea

By Darrell Gurney | Blog

“Those who are meant to hear will understand.  Those who are not meant to understand will not hear.” –Confucious

It’s your dream. It’s your idea. It’s your inner voice.

Nobody else can hear it, and many won’t speak the language even when you try to translate it.

Yet it was given to you. It’s not yours, and yet it landed on your doorstep.

What you do with it is up to you: listen to it or not, entertain it or not, nurture it or not, and birth it or not.

Whether others hear it yet is not your concern.

The eminent science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke said that new ideas pass through three periods: 1) It can’t be done, 2) It probably can be done, but it’s not worth doing, and 3) I knew it was a good idea all along!

The question is whether we have the fortitude to foster-parent the idea through the third period.

Got idea rearing?

“If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.” –Albert Einstein

Sep 09

September 9, 2015, TGIW: Unhumping Hump Day…and Story Arc

By Darrell Gurney | Blog

“Plotting is difficult for me, and always has been. I do that before I actually start writing, but I always do characters, and the arc of the story, first… You can’t do anything without a story arc. Where is it going to begin, where will it end.” –Elizabeth George

I recently attended a wonderful reunion for a great group I was honored to be a part of in college…seeing folks I haven’t seen in 30 years or so.

Just like similar opportunities — be it high school or other reunions of groups we were once a part of — some of us go (which may require courage) and some of us don’t.

When we do, it’s fascinating to observe the story arc for the characters of our lives: their life paths, career directions, and general personal evolvement. You just can’t tell from where someone’s story began how it will eventually turn out.

Obviously, we can’t perceive the story arc of our own lives the way we can see it in others whom we still remember “the way they were.”

Yet, we all have our personal arc and plot unfolding all the time…and it pays to remind ourselves that we are writing it vs. observing it.

Just as in a good book or screenplay, anything is possible to the extent to which the author has us suspend our disbelief.

As we look back at our lives and careers, perhaps our biggest task is disbelieving some of the things we think it has taught us?

How can your story evolve if you, as the author of your arc, suspend disbelief?

Got arc?

“One life is all we have and we live it as we believe in living it. But to sacrifice what you are and to live without [dis]belief, that is a fate more terrible than dying.” –Joan of Arc (with addition)

Sep 02

September 2, 2015, TGIW: Unhumping Hump Day…Honoring Wayne Dyer

By Darrell Gurney | Blog

“Doing what you love is the cornerstone of having abundance in your life.” –Wayne Dyer

I love what I do.

I get to talk to folks about what they do, what they have done, and what they want to do.

I get to hear stories from people in all professions, learn how they came to be in that line of work (the past familial, cultural, and/or educational influences they received), and experience them sharing vulnerably their dreams for career and life in the future.

I get to help them see beyond belief systems or small-self ideas of what’s possible for them. I get to hold up a mirror unbroken by their fearful or critical self-concepts so they get a glimpse of their unique value. I get to show them ways to tap into the natural love of humanity to go further and faster toward their dreams than they could through traditional means…regardless of age, experience or other perceived blocks.

That’s me. I got it good.

Which brings me to Dr. Wayne Dyer…whom the world of love and humanity will miss greatly.

Among many pearls of wisdom that Dr. Dyer offered around work, he said “Don’t work and sell it to make money, do what you love and sell the love!”

He was adamant that we could each do this. Do what we love. Sell the love. That includes you.

In honor of Labor Day and the gifts of Wayne Dyer to each of us, as part of our celebrations, let’s be grateful for having work that we love…or else faithful that we shall have it, no matter what.

Got work of love?

“There is no scarcity of opportunity to make a living at what you love; there’s only scarcity of resolve to make it happen.” –Wayne Dyer

Aug 26

August 26, 2015, TGIW: Unhumping Hump Day…and Shoes Rising

By Darrell Gurney | Blog

“The bad times I can handle. It’s the good times that drive me crazy. When is the other shoe going to drop?” –Erma Bombeck

As ironic as it seems, a higher level problem from that which many of us experience is life going well.

Things going not so well, progress not happening, dreams going unfulfilled…all of that is an easy shtick. We’ve played those tunes many times.

Things rocking, however — now THAT can be discombobulating.

It’s the state we all strive for and yet, when life starts to really click, it takes a recalibration of our insides to acknowledge, accept and allow those clicks to take place over the long term.

Sometimes our workplace, culture, and even internal wiring is shaped by a belief that, if things start to go really well, the other shoe is about to drop.

I remember a Peanuts cartoon where Charlie Brown said “I think I’m afraid to be happy because whenever I get too happy something bad always happens.”

What if we could rewire ourselves to look for and expect everything to get better and better? Might we begin to see shoes rising?

Got joyous expectation?

“Now and then it’s good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.” –Guillaume Apollinaire

Aug 19

August 19, 2015, TGIW: Unhumping Hump Day…and Vicissitude

By Darrell Gurney | Blog

“Transformation is a process, and as life happens there are tons of ups and downs. It’s a journey of discovery — there are moments on mountaintops and moments in deep valleys of despair.” –Rick Warren

In college, I had a housemate from another culture, country and religious upbringing.

He described how his faith was based on a philosophy of never getting too excited and never getting too down. Maintaining a steady and even keel was the ultimate goal.

In many ways, an ongoing peace of mind, unflappability and internal conviction that, no matter what, “this too shall pass” can be great strengths to develop within ourselves.

Yet, in the external experience, being willing to ride the waves of life, to accept (maybe even enjoy?) the massive dips as much as the huge elevations, gives us a ride we don’t get through steady-state safety.

It’s no wonder that a heart monitor screen or EKG printout is encouraging only when displaying regular highs and lows in-between the flat lines.

Face it: the ultimate low life is a no life.

Perhaps an Attitude of Vicissitude allows for a more enliving experience?

How can you throw some lively movement into your own mix of growth and aspirations today?

Got ups and downs?

“You know, when I was nineteen, Grandpa took me on a roller coaster…Up, down, up, down. Oh, what a ride!…I always wanted to go again. You know, it was just so interesting to me that a ride could make me so frightened, so scared, so sick, so excited, and so thrilled all together! Some didn’t like it. They went on the merry-go-round. That just goes around. Nothing. I like the roller coaster. You get more out of it.” –“Grandma” from Parenthood (1989)

Aug 12

August 12, 2015, TGIW: Unhumping Hump BirthDay…and Not Knowing

By Darrell Gurney | Blog

“Not knowing anything is the sweetest life.” –Sophocles

Ever notice how the more we seem to know the more we realize we don’t know?

Then, when realizing how much we don’t know, we can go one of two ways:

1) Think we should have known and question why we didn’t know.

OR

2) Be empowered by not knowing and enthusiastic to know more.

One supports growth.  One doesn’t.

Choose.

Got not knowing?

“Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next.” –Gilda Radner

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