Category Archives for "Blog"

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.

August 20, 2014, TGIW: Unhumping Hump Day

By Darrell Gurney | Blog

“I collect lucky pennies that I find on the ground. I keep them in a Ziploc bag.” –Jessica Simpson

Unlike Jessica, I put them in my pocket.

Call it silly and not worth even bending over for, but a penny on the ground for me (much less a dime, quarter, or even $100 bill I once found) is a little piece of reassurance that good things are coming, the Universe is on my side, and anything else I’ve made up about it.

Yep, I made all those meanings up…and yet they empower me.

Yesterday, I was at a popular food venue with lots of folks in several lines putting in their orders. I watched as multiple people walked over a nickel and 7 pennies right under their feet.

It was if they were too proud to bend over to get this “small change”?

Heck, though I didn’t run around dodging legs to scarf them up, I did gracefully stop to pick up each of them that came under my path.

The monetary value didn’t mean much…but the emotional value did.

One of my favorite authors, Stuart Wilde, talks about how he held up London traffic one time following a rolling penny down the street because of his beliefs around leaving no fallen penny uncollected.

The point: where in our day can we allow little things to mean a lot and inspire us?

Is it when we look at the clock and it has the same double or triple digits? What could we make that mean?

When we achieve progress on a project, can we celebrate mini-wins on the way to the big win?

If someone compliments our work, rather than just quickly brushing it off, can we take a moment, look them in the eye, breathe, and say “Thanks. I appreciate hearing that.”

Looking for our own “pennies”, not walking over them, and enjoying whatever they mean for us can make a day a bit brighter.

Got meanings?

“Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.” –Mother Teresa

August 13, 2014, TGIW: Unhumping Hump Day

By Darrell Gurney | Blog

“Expect trouble as an inevitable part of life and repeat to yourself, the most comforting words of all; this, too, shall pass.” –Ann Landers

“Robin, my Robin.”

Everyone is writing and reading about the man whom likely everyone considered a friend, whether they knew him personally or not: Robin Williams.

He was so loved and will be so sorely missed not only because of the world of joy he brought to many but because of the way he chose to exit the stage of life. It saddens us to feel that someone who gave so much to us didn’t experience the joy himself.

He follows a long line of other beloved individuals who, from a distance and by the world’s standards, lived lives that others would die for.

And yet everyone faces their demons. In the end, though they come in many shapes, sizes, colors and speaking different languages, all demons are equal because they can each diminish our time on the stage…or take us out of the scene entirely.

Robin gave us everything to laugh for. In his final, dramatic, Oscar-winner act, can he give us everything to live for?

Where have our own demons said we might as well give up on a plan, a dream, a tomorrow?  Where might our own “voices in the head” be squelching our unique expression on the stage? Where have we become paralyzed by making judgments about ourselves vs. making a difference for others?

In times when the demons come a knocking and want to move in, putting our focus on what can we give, share, or do for others might might fill up the house so there’s no room for them.

Got no vacancy?

 “You must make a decision that you are going to move on. It wont happen automatically. You will have to rise up and say, ‘I don’t care how hard this is, I don’t care how disappointed I am, I’m not going to let this get the best of me. I’m moving on with my life.” –Joel Osteen

August 6, 2014, TGIW: Unhumping Hump Day Birthday Edition

By Darrell Gurney | Blog

“Sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together” –Marilyn Monroe

If you’re like me, you have your pictures of the way things should go.

One definition of “success” is “to have things turn out as planned.”

Think about that: we live our lives intent to have things turn out as planned!

Maybe that sounds like a “duh!” or “of course!”…and yet are we missing out by having that as our primary aim?

Can we really know that a layoff isn’t the BEST thing that could happen to us? Can we be so certain that a business failure isn’t EXACTLY what we need to take us to the next right opportunity in our life? Can we stand completely convinced that this person, partner or relationship leaving us is not opening up a vacuum for someone or something better?

Change for good often comes masked in what we fear, and is rarely welcomed with open arms.

If we can free ourselves from our own infinite wisdom — our own “best thinking” that keeps us attached to our pictures of the way it should be — there just might be something unexpectedly cool on the other side of the mask.

The good news is, we will generally get what we’re looking for.

Got choice?

“Letting there be room for not knowing is the most important thing of all. When there’s a big disappointment, we don’t know if that’s the end of the story. It may just be the beginning of a great adventure. Life is like that. We don’t know anything. We call something bad; we call it good. But really we just don’t know.” –Pema Chödrön