Poetry and Prose by #1 Amazon Bestselling Author of Nature Speaks of Love and Sorrow, Co-Author of #1 Amazon Bestseller, Wounds I Healed: The Poetry of Strong Women, and Jan/Feb 2022 Spillwords Press Author of the Month
The end of January. Wow. It’s been almost a year since the pandemic broke out here locally. What a year. And, within 2.5 months of starting to work at home, my first blog post was published. Since then, I’ve created 295 posts, began following so many amazing blogs and inspiring people, and have now over 450 followers. Awesome, and so much fun.
Alright, let’s get to the writing part.
My 2 Favorite Posts This Week
I want to do something different this week, and for a few weeks. Instead of simply recapping all that I wrote, I’m going to choose my favorite 2 or 3 posts each week and provide some of the inspiration, thinking, and reflecting that went into the post. Ready? Good. Here we go.
The reminiscence poem was created as a multi-reflection on my marriage, my childhood, and having two beautiful boys. All three reflections combined in unique ways to create a poem about pain and joy, and recollections about simpler times.
One of the things I love the most about writing poetry, outside of the sheer exuberance I get when an idea flows through me, is looking back, reflecting, and putting on paper some joyous, and yes, sometimes painful life events.
Tanka #2
Tanka #2 was created as a reflection on my meditation practice, and the chasing we sometimes do as humans, trying to get to the next thing, and then the next. Reflecting on meditation and then the concept of chasing after things is a paradox, just like all of life.
The last two lines are a reflection upon creating the future from the present moment, with the knowing that already living inside of me, all of us, are the past, present, and future. As, they are one.
Alright, that’s my reflection on the reflections that inspired the two poems above. That was fun. Let’s now turn to one of my other favorite topics, music.
I’ve posted about my love for music before, though it’s been a while. I grew up in a household where music was always present. Whether that was through the TV and MTV, my dad playing his guitar, or sisters, mom, or myself playing the radio, cassettes, or an 8-track.
Yes, I did just reference the radio, cassette tapes, and 8-tracks in the same sentence. I did grow up in the late 70’s and 80’s though.
In this entry on music, I want to do two things. Show you the guitar I bought today, and embed a youtube of one of my favorite songs.
Alright, first, here is a pic of the guitar I bought today. As I mentioned, my dad played the guitar. Though I tinkered with the guitar as a child, youth, and young adult, it’s been years, and I am excited to take some lessons and begin to play.
Corvallis, Oregon 2021
Pretty, yes? Yes, I think so too.
Alright, now here is one of my favorite songs. I am present to it, because my oldest son played it on the guitars we looked at on Saturday. Was so beautiful.
Here you go.
YouTube
I just adore this song. Always have, and always will.
Alright, friends, that’s all for this week.
Remember, to keep breathing and take time for yourself. It’s important.
I’ve been thinking and reflecting upon writing an article on the law of attraction for a while now. Though some people may consider the law of attraction a metaphysical topic, which it is, it is also quite scientific, and, well, quite frankly, part of how the Universe works.
Why is this important?
Well, if you are interested in achieving goals in life, then the law of attraction will be important to you. And, I’d say most people are interested in achieving the goals they have for themselves.
Furthermore, if you are interested in getting outside of a loop of negative thought patterns, understanding the law of attraction, in a very practical way, is also important.
Before we get into our discussion, let’s define the law of attraction.
The belief that positive thoughts are magnets for positive life experiences and negative thoughts (i.e. the very cynical definition previously provided for this term) are magnets for negative life experiences.
Alright, in this article we will take a look at the law of attraction from three perspectives. All of which, combine to form a unified whole. Ready? Good. Here we go.
It is factual that how we think creates our reality. Let’s do a quick example to show how this works. I want you to think about a time when you were really frustrated about something, and that frustration lasted for at least a day, maybe longer. Many of us have experienced this type of frustration.
When you were frustrated in this way, how did the world look, feel, and function to you? Likely, it functioned in a frustrated way. Meaning, that you saw and experienced people that seemed frustrated to you. And, you likely blamed them for your apparent frustration. The issue?
Well, no one outside of ourselves is responsible for how we think and feel. They are not. Therefore, when we experience frustration in the world, and it affects us in some way, we are likely, on some level, frustrated ourselves.
Knowing this to be true about ourselves is not a demerit. It’s not. It just happens. And, happens often for people that are unaware of how their thoughts and feelings affect their actions.
You can conversely think about a time when you were joyful, again for a sustained period of time, and I bet you saw and experienced much more joy. Right? Yep. Same.
All of this simply means that it is how we think and feel that creates our reality. And, if we are stuck inside of negative thinking patterns, as I once was, we will experience our beautiful world through a lens of negativity. And, conversely, if we are “stuck” inside of positive thinking patterns, we will experience our beautiful world through a lens of positivity.
And, whether we see the world negatively or positively matters and manifests throughout our body. Why? Because human beings have a tendency to hold onto their emotions. Therefore, if we are seeing the world through a negative lens, we will experience more negative emotions, and holding these emotions within ourselves will cause pain and suffering.
Further, when we see the world through a negative perspective, or cynically, we will typically make justifications and excuses for our negative behavior. Meaning, abusing our body in ways that will end up causing us more pain and suffering. An example here may help.
For many years I saw the world through a very cynical lens. It’s not a demerit. As a matter of fact, I understand this time in my life as a blessing today. Yes, it was painful, yet it was how I knew how to live in the world, and, therefore, has, upon much reflection and internal work, given me many insights.
Insights which help me tremendously today as a parent, friend, coworker, and leader. Immensely helpful.
When I was stuck in these negative thinking patterns, I held onto my anger. And, therefore I saw anger everywhere. And, I mean everywhere. Yet, I had no conception at the time that the anger I was seeing was my own. And? It was.
It was my anger, because I was the one thinking about and feeling anger, thus I gave out anger often, which caused others to be angry. Further, I could sense anger very easily, as I was in a more or less constant state of anger.
Fast forward 4 years, and my experience of life today is completely different. And, it has everything to do with how I think and feel; and, how those thoughts and feelings bring more of the same into my life; and, that, in essence and practicality is the law of attraction.
How we think and feel affects our perspective, as we’ve just discussed, thus affecting our experience of reality. I’ve written before that there are over 7 billion worlds, or realities, on this one planet. It’s true.
Each of us has a different experience of life, based on, yes, how we were raised, the life experiences we’ve had, and how we currently think and feel.
How we think and feel brings more of those same thoughts and feelings into our life. There are some that say that thoughts are just like any other thing on this planet; meaning that they are made of matter, just like we are.
And, when thought and feeling matter are manifest in our day-to-day experience we get back more of that same matter.
As simple as all of this may sound and read, it is not necessarily easy, or simple, to create new thinking and feeling patterns, or habits. Human beings like to stay in their comfortable patterns, even when those patterns are likely hurting themselves and those around them.
Because habits are hard to change, let’s take a look at a few strategies I use daily to continue to iterate my thinking and feeling.
Meditation – a meditation practice, when guided by an expert, can be transformative. When we learn to sit in silence, we get to see and experience our thoughts and feelings in a whole new way. And, in seeing and experiencing our thoughts and feelings in new ways, we create the possibility of working through these thoughts and feelings, and eventually releasing them.
Writing – I’ve been journaling in different ways for years now. I find the experience very therapeutic. There is something about actually seeing your thoughts and feelings on paper that creates a space to dive deeper into why you are thinking and feeling as you are. It’s like a thread, which you can use to trace thoughts and feelings back to their origins.
Talking – finding someone to talk to about how you think and feel is another way to open yourself up to new ways of thinking and feeling. As I’ve mentioned many times, I’ve been seeing a life coach for 4 years now, and inside of those conversations, I get a whole different perspective on why I am thinking and feeling as I am. And, with a different perspective comes new possibilities.
Reflecting – one of my favorite parts of the process of getting to know yourself on a deeper level is reflection. I reflect often, and use the knowledge gained in my reflections to continue to move myself forward as a human being. Insights from reflecting can come at any time, however, creating quite time for yourself throughout the day, so you can reflect is important. If we are continuously plugged in and receiving stimulation, there is less time to reflect, and therefore less insight will come.
Alright, that concludes this post on the law of attraction.
Remember, we truly are what we think and feel. Our thoughts and feelings shape our perspective and thus our reality; and , it takes time and practice to begin to create new thought and feeling patterns, or habits, for ourselves.
Therefore, as you walk through your day today, begin to question your thoughts and feelings. And, make sure to create quiet time for yourself so you can begin to see why it is you think and feel as you do.
Once you begin to create time for yourself to reflect, you will get insights about yourself, which will create new possibilities for your life. And, it’s inside of these new possibilities, where you can begin to create new thinking and feeling habits, which will create new experiences of the same world you lived in before.
And, through the law of attraction, you will begin to attract a whole new reality into your life.
Blue The ocean During the night Glistening in the light Stars
In the event you don’t know, this poem is called an Elfje. As you know, I started writing both haikus and tanka’s recently, and am excited about venturing into another poetry medium with the Elfje.
According to the Elfje rules, the fourth sentence is supposed to be about yourself in relation to the person or object. Though I did not follow that rule in this poem, I wanted to share it anyway, as I liked the way it turned out.
Alright, that’s all for now. Have a lovely Sunday, everyone.
How often have you thought about a recipe, if you will, that will lead to developing high performing teams? Well, it’s not something that I thought about often until about three years ago.
Though I spent time in leadership in my late twenties, and early thirties, I always worked within a very defined system. And, when you work within set parameters, such as a defined system, there is room for some creativity, for sure, yet not as much as when you work within an organization that has fewer systems and structure.
It is a paradox.
With systems, you get a level of comfort and reliability. With a non system, you get the opportunity to develop systems and be innovative. While the former can feel constricting, the latter unwieldy.
They both have their strengths and weaknesses.
In this installment in the leadership series, we will discuss developing and creating high performing teams in an organization with few systems and very little structure.
As I’ve written many times, and did so extensively in the second installments of this series, it is my perspective that everything in life starts with our relationships. First, with the relationship we have with ourselves, and then with everyone around us.
And, these relationships form the basis of all that happens within the contexts we create. When people on a team are in relationship with each other, they are able to transcend difficult times with more ease. The team members, and the team, are more resilient.
There are several strategies that leaders can employ to develop high-quality relationships with their teams.
Here are a few of those strategies.
Safe – one of the first things I did in my first year on our team was create one-with-one conversations with every staff member. Literally, creating a safe space where you can get to know everyone, and they can get to know you, is an important first step in any relationship. If you assume you know them, for instance, you will miss out on the subtleties of their personality and their drive as a human being. Further, as you create the one-with-one context, the safety, trust, and reciprocity that blossoms will carry over into other aspects of the team, and will become a standard way you do business. Meaning, people first.
Learn – another strategy I found beneficial in my first year was to learn each person’s job function. Learning from the staff member about their job is the best way to understand, yes, the varying aspects of their work, and also how they perform their work each day. Furthermore, learning from them, and with them, provides you with information about how the team functions. Each person on a team is one piece of a whole, so understanding how each piece functions is important to the overall health and sustainability of the team.
Listen – when you are in conversation with someone, especially in a burgeoning relationship, listening and actively taking in their story is important. In effect, it is more than listening. As a leader, there is information about people, process, and systems, that you need to hold onto. Some of this information you’ll be able to store within you, and some you’ll need to store in other ways. For instance, I have employee files where I can hold pertinent information. Holding and storing information is how we get to know people, and keep the conversations we create with them continuous.
Value – relationships are grounded in reciprocity. Simply meaning there is some kind of value for each person in the relationship. Which, of course, means that when you are interacting with people on your team, the conversations you create with them need to be valuable to them. Sometimes these conversations will be personal, sometimes they will be about business. Likely, the conversations will be a mixture of both. Regardless, the conversations need to provide value.
Alright, there are a few strategies you can use to begin creating relationships with your team. Though I have much more to write about this topic, know that if you create safe spaces where you can learn about the people you work with, listen well to them while holding and storing information about how they are doing as human beings, and always ensure there is value in the conversations you create with them, you are off to a wonderful start.
As your relationships develop, you will naturally begin to look at how the team functions. What are their processes? What are the systems?
Well, as was aforementioned, when you work in an organization with few processes and structures, you get to create them all. Well, maybe not all, yet you do get to create many, and for surely recreate all of them.
What is a process? A process is simply a step-by-step rubric, or guide, of how something gets done. And, a system? A system is like the glue that holds all of the different processes together. Make sense? Good.
Now, in my first year on this job, I said something like, everything we do needs to have a process. At that time, there were large chunks of work that did not have a process. Whether you are on a team with lots of processes and systems or not, there are simple steps you can take to ensure your processes and systems are working well.
Ask questions – human beings love consistency and patterns, or habits. Meaning, that if, when, we don’t question the processes we use, we just keep using them. Not necessarily because they work, but because they are there, and have “worked” for so long. Ask questions. Ask, why we use the processes we do, and you will find out which processes need to either be upgraded, recreated, or created anew. We’ve either upgraded, recreated, or newly created every process in this entire department in the past 3.5 years. And, done it twice! The pandemic brought with it the need to upgrade, recreate and newly create processes again.
Upgrade – sometimes process upgrades will suffice. If the process is sound, and people know their roles and responsibilities inside the process, yet, there are still ways the process can be improved, a simple upgrade may be needed. When working in teams it is extremely important to have everyone that “touches” the process in the conversation when upgrading the process. It is likely that your team members will hold their work inside the process tightly. Meaning, changing the process they’ve been doing for years will be difficult, which is why asking questions is an important first step. Once you gain an understanding of what needs to change, based on collective feedback, you can set out, with the team, to make the necessary upgrades.
Recreate – sometimes a process will be so old that it will need to be recreated. Meaning, that though the process is old, there are still parts of the process that make sense for how the team functions and the goals they have, yet modifications are needed to bring the process into the current reality. On the team I work on, we did a lot of process upgrade and recreation in the first two years. Very normal.
Newly Create – when, however, a process no longer serves the current business or program model, it is time to create new processes. How do you know? One clear way to know is that the work is not moving forward. Another way to know is there is confusion on the team about the outputs and outcomes of the process. Simply meaning, that the outputs and outcomes of the process have probably changed, which will require creating a new process to satisfy the new outputs and outcomes. This past year, the team and I have created completely brand new processes for everything we do. Really. Everything. Why? Because every output and outcome has changed inside of the pandemic. Truth.
Document – one thing we did not do as a team until the second year was document all of our upgraded, recreated, and newly created processes. Super important. Documenting your processes ensures that you have held how the process functioned at a single point in time. And? It will likely change in the future. However, if you don’t have the process documented, you will not have a history to look back upon to understand the how, when, why, and where, for instance, of that process change. Further, people need a rubric of sorts to help them hold all of their work. Helpful.
Here is a quick example of a process map.
Albany, Oregon 2021
Alright, there are a few steps you can take to assess and begin to upgrade, recreate, and or create new processes on your team. Let’s discuss systems for a brief moment.
Systems are also needed and necessary on teams. Though, I will say, especially on teams that are highly innovative, maintaining one system can be challenging. The team and I are currently working on creating this system, which includes several parts.
Google Documents
CRM
Project Management System
Today, we use two of the three tools listed above. Yet, when they are organized in such a way, they can, and will for us in the next year, create a unified system of communication and connection. It looks like this.
Corvallis, Oregon 2021
In this oversimplified vision board, we can see how people, process, and systems are interconnected and correlated. When you are communicating with each other through your processes, and your processes are embedded in a system, each part of the whole is in communication and is connected. Fun.
Well, that wraps up this first installment of Part 3 of the Leadership Series. What’s next? Good question.
I have one more installment on developing teams to discuss with you, which will come in the next week or two. In that installment of Part 3 of the Leadership Series we will discuss getting into action and the resulting traction that occurs on teams when everyone is moving in the same direction.
For now?
Remember, leading teams is just like leading yourself, though, yes, more complex. However, when you create safety, learn, listen, and value each other, which starts with the leader, teams can become high functioning, creating amazing outputs and outcomes for the communities they serve. It is beautiful to see and be a part of.
Develop. Inspire. Transform. 