Category Archives for "Blog"

October 29, 2014, TGIW: Unhumping Hump Day

By Darrell Gurney | Blog

“You can clutch the past so tightly to your chest that it leaves your arms too full to embrace the present.” –Jan Glidewell

Life brings us many perfectly-termed and metaphoric lessons when we’re awake to it.

My Outlook browser recently crashed. It was where I stored most every correspondence to do with my life. Though I keep most files separate from the emails they came or left in, I generally maintain various folders within Outlook for communications around the business activities and interests of my life.

So, it was as if my “life and times” had been wiped out in one fell swoop.

[Before we get to the punchline, take the hint: backup now!]

Like many of us have experienced (especially through recent times), I was facing a “starting over” process…with the last 6 years of communications eliminated. Not an exciting prospect.

I tried to think affirmatively and had all my friends praying as I brought my computer to the “miracle worker” shop I had used for years.  Yet, I had a sick feeling, from past experience, that a frozen Outlook file spelled disaster.

Sometimes we need to get the “lesson” being offered before conditions can shift…so I began looking. Again, it amazes me how literal our lessons can be.

It was time for a new “outlook”, one not based on the past, what had been done before, what had been said before.

Immediately I got the hit that my “Outlook” file would be recovered…yet I wouldn’t be able to interact with it: only to view it and use it for reference when necessary, but not operate based out of it.

Sure enough, lesson learned, and the old file is now accessible in “read-only mode.”

I truly hope the lesson was indeed learned (this time), and I offer the same restorative inquiry to you:

How can your dusty records of “life and times” get a wipe-out makeover, so you have a new “outlook,” informed by the past but not based on it?

Got new outlook?

“What’s so fascinating and frustrating and great about life is that you’re constantly starting over, all the time, and I love that.” –Billy Crystal

October 22, 2014, TGIW: Unhumping Hump Day

By Darrell Gurney | Blog

“Be Prepared… the meaning of the motto is that a scout must prepare himself by previous thinking out and practicing how to act on any accident or emergency so that he is never taken by surprise.” –Robert Baden-Powell

My son was a scout for 12 years, all the way through school. We reminded the boys of this simple motto often: “Be Prepared.”

As described above by the founder of Scouting, Lord Baden-Powell, it sounds like preparation is for what “bad” thing might come…so as to be able to deal with it effectively when and if it does.

That’s prudent, and yet we can also all identify people in our lives (or ourselves??) who operate this way in a not-necessarily-prudent way. That non-prudent way has a lot of names: worry, anxiety, negativity, expecting the worst, waiting for the next shoe to drop, etc.

Yet, have you noticed that what you put your mind on you get more of?

What about preparing a place in our mind, emotions, and even physical presence for that which we actually want to happen, vs. what could happen?

I once heard a story of how Della Reese, the acclaimed actor and minister, prepared for love to enter her life. She added an extra place setting at her dinner table and slept on one side of her bed so that there was ample space on the other side for her love to show up. I heard she would even say “Goodnight Dear” to that pillow beside her…and kiss it!

It may all be a vicious rumor…and yet it says something about preparing a place for our dreams to occur. After all, how can anything new, different or even “answered prayer” show up if our mental, emotional and spiritual bodies are already filled up?

What if, like the Good-Seeking Life-Scouts that we all are, we prepare ourselves “by previous thinking out and practicing how to act on any” degree of unexpected Good that comes into our day, life, world?

Where can you build into your mind, for several minutes a day, an image of your dream (job, career, love, future, etc.) actually being real and happening, right now? How can you set up your physical and emotional homes with some space for it to actually enter?

The Universe loves a vacuum. What old attitudes or “stuff” can you let go of to allow something else to take its place?

Got prepared place?

“The future belongs to those who prepare for it today.” –Malcolm X

October 15, 2014, TGIW: Unhumping Hump Day…and Gobs of Goods Coming Soon!

By Darrell Gurney | Blog

“You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” –Gautama Buddha

When I was in college, the then first woman Mayor of Austin, Texas, Carole Keeton, came to speak to our group. Something she said stuck with me: “If you don’t have people criticizing you, you’re not up to much.”

Similarly, a sharp coach I know who worked for a top-notch consulting company described how the staff was managed for performance based on making “promises” and, if you always kept your promises, you would come up for review…because you obviously weren’t stretching yourself very much.

So what about ourselves when we’re going outside our own comfort zone, playing in new arenas, or taking on innovative, bigger or even difficult areas of endeavor? Do we show up as accepting and encouraging of ourselves and our nascent efforts…or are we rough, tough and hyper-critical of those efforts all along the way to “perfection”?

Just like we can’t plant a seedling and then hover over it, shouting at it to “Grow!”, we can’t expect ourselves to thrive and expand into new aptitudes, altitudes or amplitudes unless we offer ourselves an attractive space of attitude to grow within — including the willingness to make mistakes.

Maybe if we’re not making a lot of mistakes, we aren’t up to much?

And maybe a spoonful of self-forgiveness helps the growth medicine go down?

Got amnesty?

“If we all hold on to the mistake, we can’t see our own glory in the mirror because we have the mistake between our faces and the mirror; we can’t see what we’re capable of being. You can ask forgiveness of others, but in the end the real forgiveness is in one’s own self.” –Maya Angelou

October 8, 2014, TGIW: Unhumping Hump Day…and Gobs of Goods Coming Soon!

By Darrell Gurney | Blog

“You gotta have fun. Regardless of how you look at it, we’re playing a game. It’s a business, it’s our job, but I don’t think you can do well unless you’re having fun.” –Derek Jeter

Does the undone “to do” list steal the stage?

Do unexpected interruptions get treated like a red-headed stepchild?

When a seeming roadblock challenges progress, does it color the day darkly?

Though we often forget, we have the opportunity at all times to pivot our thinking toward another view.

“Thank God I have more to dos! And thank God I have the means, mind and motivation to do them!”

“How great that some person, predicament or piece of information came along to motivate me to stretch my mind and/or my means!”

“I obviously didn’t take everything into account, so how perfect that this wall appeared for me to learn to get over!”

Maybe it sounds like a Pollyanna way to live, but does the other way leave us playful at the end of the day?

Got perspective?

“I am going to keep having fun every day I have left, because there is no other way of life. You just have to decide whether you are a Tigger or an Eeyore.” –Randy Pausch

October 1, 2014, TGIW: Unhumping Hump Day

By Darrell Gurney | Blog

“And stay right here, ’cause these are the good old days.” –Carly Simon

Does the end of the day, the week, the project, hump, rut, challenge or road seem better than here?

So funny that, every time we’ve gotten there, it’s just another here.

The real rub is this: what are we going to do with here.

Got now?

“All in good time, my pretty, all in good time.” –Wicked Witch of the West

September 24, 2014, TGIW: Unhumping Hump Day

By Darrell Gurney | Blog

“Without leaps of imagination or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all is a form of planning.” –Gloria Steinem

Ever have that feeling that something great is unfolding, something you’ve been dreaming about or working toward is right around the corner? And, if you could just tweak that or push this, it could happen so much faster?

I remember having a hard time sleeping the night before a big holiday or birthday as a kid. Or driving my mom nuts wanting to get to the swimming pool a few blocks away in the summer…while she was trying to be hospitable to a neighbor who had just dropped by.

As an adult, however, we’re matured into taking a longer term view, less likely to display the immediacy of excitement. I hear the term is “patience.”

Matured? Or, maybe we just had too many former innocent hopes not be realized and we toughened up to shield our emotions.

Finding that place in between, where we allow the giddy child within to dream and fantasize (“magic thinking”) while being protected with a healthy spoonful of  fortitude…this seems like the prescription for unhumping hump day.

Then we can enjoy the idea that our efforts and intentions toward what is beyond the present moment are even now in the process of coming into form…all while we relaxedly appreciate that the time it’s taking, like good wine, is refining the end result.

Is there a dusty, tucked away dream you can awaken with some energy today? Or maybe a live-wire one that you can temper with a bit of serenity?

Got patient excitement?

“Don’t you long for something different to happen, something so exciting and new it carries you along with it like a great tide, something that lets your life blaze and burn so the whole world can see it?” –Juliet Marillier

September 17, 2014, TGIW: Unhumping Hump Day

By Darrell Gurney | Blog

“A dream is your creative vision for your life in the future. You must break out of your current comfort zone and become comfortable with the unfamiliar and the unknown.” –Denis Waitley

It’s been said that life begins at the end of our comfort zone.

We’ve heard that. We even intellectually know that. But do we live that?

When feeling awkward or unconfident because we’re doing or thinking or acting or being in ways we haven’t before, do we stick with the new ways of operating…or turn back because of our uncomfortable feelings?

When the chips are down and thoughts of retreat overwhelm us, do we side with a commitment to grow into the dreams we say we want, even if what we really want right now is to hurl? Or do we side again with the tried and true “me” or “how I am” or “the way it is” that we know so well?

In a personal development seminar, I was once challenged to produce a result which would require me to be someone other than who I knew myself to be in order to produce it. Wrap your head around that one.

Many of us want to fulfill a dream, something grand and glorious. The rub is finally learning that it don’t/won’t/can’t come easy. We can’t produce a new result from our old comfort zone.

But it will come…if we just build the muscle of placing our attention on the commitment vs. all those seductive and hypnotic thoughts and feelings which call our name so sweetly.

Got discomfort?

“The best piece of advice someone has ever given me was ‘do it scared.’ And no matter if you’re scared, just go ahead and do it anyway because you might as well do it scared, so it will get done and you will feel so much better if you step out of your comfort zone.” –Sherri Shepherd

September 10, 2014, TGIW: Unhumping Hump Day

By Darrell Gurney | Blog

“The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.” –Albert Einstein

Sometimes it’s hard to waver from what we believe are our principles or boundaries to adapt to situations or events as they unfold.

We can get offended or believe that somehow our personal value or worthiness is not being recognized. Or, if in pursuit of a goal or a dream, with already-designed pictures of how it should all play out, we quickly begin to think the whole idea was silly in the first place once we hit circumstances that don’t fit those pictures.

I know for myself that what I often consider my principles or value being confronted is really just my ego wanting to survive, look good, and be “special.”  And when it comes to boundaries…why would I really want them anyway?  More separation simply means that less insight, intelligence and outside-of-my-existing “best thinking” can reach me.

Moving towards our career and life dreams may be more like dancing than a straight- course marathon. Flowing and adapting to the music of the moment, the other dancers on the dance floor, and the unique personalities and faculties of the partners we’re presently holding onto.

Jeff Bezos, the visionary founder of Amazon.com, said “If you’re not stubborn, you’ll give up on experiments too soon. And if you’re not flexible, you’ll pound your head against the wall and you won’t see a different solution to a problem you’re trying to solve.”

He also said of Amazon, “We are stubborn on vision. We are flexible on details…”

But, then again, he only had a small dream with a big name, right? NOT!

Where can you bend a bit today to get more of what you really want?

Got committed flexibility?

“Despite my firm convictions, I have always been a man who tries to face facts, and to accept the reality of life as new experience and new knowledge unfolds. I have always kept an open mind, a flexibility that must go hand in hand with every form of the intelligent search for truth.” –Malcolm X

September 3, 2014, TGIW: Unhumping Hump Day

By Darrell Gurney | Blog

“If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own backyard; because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with.” –Dorothy, The Wizard of Oz

So was Dorothy saying that we should make due and settle with what we have? The job, the situation, the lot in life? Don’t go for big dreams or shake the dust of crummy little towns off our feet and see the world?

I don’t think soooo!

I think she was saying that our dreams aren’t that far from us, maybe even as close as our own backyard.

Problem is, we’re often blind to what’s in our own backyard, nor do we see the forest for the trees in our own life and times. Rather, we go traipsing through Munchkin lands of yellow brick roads and emerald cities in search of what’s right here in front of us.

When I coach folks, it’s often like this. They can’t see what is so clear to me in terms of their real passions, real gifts and real opportunities. Heck, it’s like this when I’m coached myself! We can’t see for ourselves what others can so undeniably see for and about us.

When Dorothy is told that she always had the power to “return to Kansas” (i.e., get in touch with the real truth about herself), the Scarecrow asks Glinda “Then why didn’t you tell her before?”

Glinda responds, “She wouldnt have believed me. She had to learn it for herself.”

Thus the dilemma: we have to learn for ourselves that the truth that is within us we can’t see for ourselves!

Got coaches?

“No coach has ever won a game by what he knows; it’s what his players know that counts.” –Paul Bryant

August 27, 2014, TGIW: Unhumping Hump Day

By Darrell Gurney | Blog

“There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired.” –F. Scott Fitzgerald

We are each privy to experiencing all of these at times.

We strive to be pursuing: a dream, a greater Self expression.

We rarely mind if we are pursued: for our gifts, talents and general loveliness.

It’s great if we’re busy in an effective way. And it’s wonderful to experience being tired as a result of our Self expression getting a good work out.

Yet, sometimes we’re simply busy to be busy, and our tired disposition isn’t coming from full Self expression at all but, rather, the total void of expression whatsoever.

Thoreau said “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” I’m sure today he’d expand that to include women as well.

Maybe some of us just never got the memo that we, too, could have dreams and pursuits beyond the basic needs of the moment.

I visited a major HMO service facility yesterday for some tests. The woman checking me in saw a rubber bracelet on my wrist and read it aloud: “‘Live Your Dream.’ What does that mean? What is your dream?”

I responded, “Well, I’d like to travel the country in a 43ft motorhome doing talks and workshops as I go, getting to connect with people from every corner and make a difference as I go.” Then I asked her, “What’s your dream?”

“Retirement!”…upon which she laughed.

Of course, in social settings such as these, we can always laugh it off and gloss over an apparent lack of vision for life beyond the immediate.

And there’s nothing wrong with a good “retirement” of the old to make way for the new. Yet, in my work with people who had all the means to “retire” comfortably, Mai Tais on the beach and golf often wore out in sexiness within 6 months or so.

Besides doing what there is to do in the immediate, what dream or vision for the future can you tweak or speak a bit more into existence today?

Got hot pursuit?

“It is not true that people stop pursuing dreams because they grow old, they grow old because they stop pursuing dreams.” –Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Q & A
Media Source: SELF Magazine/SELF.com
Topic: “Tips on Getting Your Foot in the Door at a Dream Job”

Reporter Query: “Query: Looking for expert comment/provide a list of 5-7 tips for job seekers trying to get their foot in the door at a company.”

CareerGuy Response: “Hi Ravelle, as to your query, I’m an ardent advocate of dream job career transition, and have worked with folks in that regard for 28 years.  My tips are thus:

1) Don’t look for jobs like everyone else, through the front door, competing with every other Tom, Dick or Harriet

2) Focus on creating relationships, not looking for a job

3) Get clear about your dreams and passions, putting aside for the moment the desperate need for a paycheck, and focus instead on where your heart is and where you’d love to spend your time if you could

4) Come up with 20 questions that you really want to know about those areas of passionate interest

5) Reach out to folks in those areas, the thought leaders, industry experts and influencers because of research you are doing.  Actually create a research project, White Paper, blog or some other basis of research

6) Get out and meet them, focusing the meeting completely on them and their story and their path and, thereby, building “relationship equity” with them because you are interestED rather than interestING

7) Cultivate, massage and grow those relationships.  People want to work with people they know and like.  Over time, and by systematic follow up, you ingratiate yourself into the consciousness of those people.  And over time, it pays off in opportunities coming your way, referrals, and doors opening.