I love the lyric from the song “Spinning Wheel” by David Clayton Thomas

What goes up must come down
Spinnin’ wheel got to go ‘round

This morning I was reflecting on the ups and down of my life. The moments of excitement and the moments of despair. I picked up some favorite ancient texts (this question has been surfacing for all time) and immediately was presented with a conundrum.

I realized that I am addicted to the ups of life. I create so that I can feel the excitement of the highs. I landed a great contract. I got an accolade from someone I respect. I got a large check in the mail. You get the idea.

This addiction has a price tag. A cost that I forget each time I sip the elixir that will certainly give me the high. This simple law of opposites is that there is a low that must follow every high. This duality of life is the main part of living.

We breathe in, we breathe out.
We love, we hate.
We are born, we die.

Now, I mostly hope that the down will not follow the up. I pretend to myself that I can cheat the law of opposites this time around. I can do it through either my cleverness, or my authenticity, or by using my gifts.

Wrong. This law of duality is not escapable. Hoping it will be different is the foundation of suffering. I want the high because it feels so good. Then I begin running to escape the consequence of my choice.

I was with someone last week who was asking about love. She had accepted our cultural story of love that has been corrupted by romance novelists and movie makers. When you are “in love” the fireworks go off, and life is surreal, and you feel oh so good. She bought the story that this condition can last forever.

Anyone who has experienced the fireworks knows that they don’t last. Maybe you have had them last longer than most. There reaches a moment though when they fizzle. It may not be noticeable at first. You don’ want it to end so you start pretending you feel something that you don’t. Then the coolness sets in like morning fog and you start to feel things that you wish weren’t so. Small things about the other person begin to bother you. You may suppress it, but you both know that something is not right. In the end, a new relationship sets in. If you are fortunate, you grow together but mostly people become isolated and maybe feel a bit deadened.

We talked about another love. A true love that doesn’t live at the extremes. A love that is real and comes from embracing myself and others just as we are. A love that knows what’s true and has no need for anyone or anything to be different than it is. A love that gives without expectation. A love that is available freely to all who choose to receive it.

She felt very sad. The myth was punctured. She resisted even considering a life without the fireworks. I suspect she felt that she would be cheated of something important. We sat through her sadness and the beginning of peacefulness appeared.

Just as I am addicted to the high, we all have our emotional addictions. I know these addictions produce a fleeting feeling that is creating its opposite as it declines. By knowing this truth, I can step off the roller coaster and have a chance to feel something that cannot be described and is beyond belief.

Until later,

Thomas

Money and the Meaning of Life is the title of a book Jacob Needleman published in 1994. Needleman’s premise is that our obsession with money and materialism has eroded our aliveness, robbed us of our authenticity, and left us spiritually impoverished. I read this book many years ago, and was reminded of its lessons as I have reflected upon my conversations with women business owners over the past few weeks.

I had been preparing for our Business Matters program on women entrepreneurs . For some time, I have had the sense that there was much to learn from women in business that could change for the better the role that business plays in our world. What I found crystallized my intuition and sparked a passion to learn all I can and tell their stories to both men and women.

One of the most poignant lessons came from understanding the purpose these women had for starting their businesses. In no case did they tell me that they started the business so that they could make a lot of money. Their reasons varied a bit; however, in essence, they are the same. They started the business because they thought they could do something that was valuable. They started the business because they wanted to no longer participate in a system that was focused on money first and people second. They started the business so they could channel their passions into something they loved doing.

There is a sense that with this focus these women-owned businesses would not be successful. If success is only measured in terms of maximizing profits, perhaps that is true. Maximizing profits is a code word for making as much money as possible. These women did derive profits from their businesses. That is vital in a world where we are not self-sufficient and use money to secure the resources we need for a healthy life.

For them, though, success was measured in a broader context. Success came from how well they took care of their customers. Success, for them, is measured in how they felt about themselves at the end of the day. Success, for them, comes from knowing they are doing the right thing for their communities.

These qualities are amplified by one thing many of these women share – they are mothers. As a mother, they took care of a sick child through the night while everyone else slept. As a mother, they juggled the needs of all the members of the family. As a mother, they made things happen no matter what resources they had.
All of these qualities and more are what we say we want in those who lead and work in organizations, yet we don’t place a high value on what women, particularly mothers, bring. These qualities of care, determination and imagination are discounted when a woman applies for a bank loan to start her business. They are told their work experience as a “stay at home” mom isn’t relevant. I have to tell you after talking with these women entrepreneurs that that’s just plain wrong. There is no better experience than for leading a business than mom as ‘CEO’ of the family.

What I found in women led businesses can be a roadmap for how we can move from the devastating impact of consumption at all costs. The women I spoke with show us how collaborative work environments produce better long term results for everyone. It’s time for us men to go back to the drawing board with our beliefs about what business is about and take the lessons these women are clearly showing us.

Let me know your thoughts.

Thomas

I am still shaking my head after I read this headline, “Majorities of Americans Lay at Least Some Blame for Economic Crisis on Media and Advertising Agencies for Causing People to Buy What They Couldn’t Afford”. This comes from a Harris poll that was conducted in late March.

As I was thinking about this a picture came to mind. It was of an advertising person with a shotgun. He had this shotgun pointed at the head of a man. The man was walking with his head down into a WalMart. The two walked down aisle after aisle filling a shopping cart with stuff the man didn’t really need. You could see other similar pairings of ad folks with guns of various types forcing men and women “shoppers” to fill their carts. At the checkout people were digging into their pockets to pull out their shiny credit cards from BofA and Chase and Citibank. As they left WalMart, the consumers felt the sun on their faces and as they walked to their cars the ad folks disappeared and the shoppers developed a case of amnesia, not remembering it was the ad people who “forced” them to buy all this stuff they didn’t really need.

You know that I am having a bit of fun and feel sadness, too. There is a deep-rooted belief in our land that someone else is responsible for our lives. In surveys like this we can see that we project this responsibility onto advertising agencies. The problem with this approach is that nothing will change. I will project the responsibility for the next thing I don’t like onto some other group and happily believe I am an innocent victim.

What if I am responsible? What if I created this situation? I believe that I have responsibility for the current economic crisis. I know that I did not always act in a way that was sustainable with my business and how we used our money. I know that I supported a system that was focused on maximum profitability and had little concern for people and their communities. I know that I can be a force for changing what isn’t working, and it starts with accepting completely my accountability and never projecting it onto anyone else.

I invite you to consider taking responsibility as well. Change requires enough of us to act with accountability to achieve a tipping point that creates a new system. A system that brings back our focus on humanity, and releases our attachment to growth at any cost and mindless consumption.

Please tell me what this stirs up in you.

Until later,

Thomas

Probably you have seen this symbol before. It’s the Chinese symbol that is commonly referred to as Yin and Yang. As I was reading this morning, I was struck by a realization that everything that is definable is contained in this symbol.

All the experiences of life are either in the black or white. These experiences carry with them the seed of their opposite. We are living in a world that is filled with polarity. Say I am feeling happy. The sun is shining and the temperature is just the way I like it, the air smells fresh and the birds are singing. My emotions swell and my happiness soars. As it soars, the seeds of its opposite, despair, have been cast.

There will be a moment, maybe today, maybe a year from now, when I will feel what is commonly called the dark side. Like the Yin and Yang and its feeling of a wave, I will be fully tossed into my despair and sometime in that experience the seeds of happiness are sown.

A question may arise, “Well, what’s the point of happiness if it is invariably followed by despair?” Good question, for we have accepted that the ups and downs are inevitable. This “in and out” of the wave of our emotions comes from living outside the present moment. For the seed that is planted is a longing for something to continue. We like to live in the familiar. Even when I am in pain, I am often hesitant to leave its embrace because the next feeling is not known. I have made a friend with this darkness and I am afraid to walk away.

What would it be to just experience the moment. Not put any label on it such as, oh, this is good or this is bad or this is beautiful or this is ugly. What if I just feel the moment and not allow myself to label it or put it into a smaller box than is really fitting.

I can also see in this symbol in the fullness of anything that I encounter. For instance, if I am feeling that my current financial situation is totally desperate, this desperation is all I can feel. I can use this symbol as a tool and reminder. I can stop the depressing thoughts for a moment when I realize that all I can see of the Yin and Yang is black. I have come too close to see the whole picture. In my mind’s eye, I walk back until I can see both the yin and yang. I allow myself to see the wholeness of life and where this current moment fits in. As I watch my mood shift, what’s possible will be altered.

Seems simple, doesn’t it? What I find, over and over, is that life is profoundly simple, and it’s me that is running around making it complex and chaotic.

Until later,

Thomas

Technorati Tags: authenticity, Awareness, courage, Deliberateness, Feeling, inspiration, integrity, Intuition, Knowing, Practices, Self, simplicity, Truth, values, Wisdom

Today I was sitting in our living room when Michael, our 3-year old, turns from his play and asks me a simple question. “Papa, did you buy Thomas (the tank engine) for me?” “Yes, mom and I did.” “Did you buy Percy (another Thomas character) for me?” “Yes, MIchael, mom and I did.”

“Oh, thank you Papa!”. The genuineness of this appreciation was clear. The amazing thing is, he regularly asks me these questions, and each time he express his appreciation as if we had purchased the toy just minutes before.

As I was considering this interaction, I realized what a teacher this little one is. How often do I take for granted everything in my world. Sure, I might appreciate something when it is new or when I specifically reflect on what I am grateful for. What Michael was showing me is that gratitude is a constant feeling.

Each time that Michael plays with his toys, it’s like the first time for him. He remembers how he received the toy. He remembers who gave him the toy. He then feels appreciation for the toy and for the giver. He is filled with joy and gratitude.

What would happen if I treated each moment like Michael? All that I encounter is fresh, and I appreciate it anew in that moment. What joy my life would be filled with! I am sure that I would not have room for anger or fear if I am living this way.

Until later,
Thomas

Technorati Tags: authenticity, children, Gratitude, humanity, humility, Truth, Wisdom

I have spent some time this morning exploring the inner sanctum of my mind. It is such a stark and fearful place. I have been here before and each time, I leave before my visit is complete. It has felt too intense. I have lashed myself for my inadequacies. I have seen the places for improvement. I have seen the failures. When I leave, I feel like I have ingested all that I can handle. Yet the picture is far from complete.

Today as I embarked on this journey again, I allowed myself to explore more deeply and let the story that has yet been told speak to me. I share with you this story.

Imagine that you have been invited to talk to 10,000 people. You will talk to all these folks from a stage that is at the center of this welcoming crowd. They have come to hear someone who is authentic and will help them find their true nature, which is often obscured.

As you prepare for this event, you find that the only way to fulfill the invitation is to walk onto this stage naked. That’s right, there is nothing that is between you and those you are connecting with.

The thought of this requirement is so terrifying that you feel paralyzed. What do you do? How do you even find all the ways that you cloak yourself so that the truth is hidden? When you look into a mirror, you see only what your mind is ready to comprehend. When you talk with others, you get more glimpses into the hidden masks, and still their own fears are also overlaid on you, so you have to pick through the pieces to find what’s real.

The only way that you will discover all your disguises is to find a new way to observe yourself without reaction and with perfect recall. Your first response to this recognition is, “that’s simply not possible. This is too much to ask of a mere human.”

As these words fad, you hear something else. You hear an echo of truth responding to you. You place you attention on this faint sound and it grows. Your curiosity ifs active now and you have a notion that something new is about to be discovered.

As the message increases in intensity, you start to feel a sensation that starts in your hands and moves into the heart of your body. You allow it to radiate to all your cells and images begin to appear.

You see yourself in these images, but the picture you see is much different than what you saw in the mirror as you shaved this morning. The picture seems more alive and lighter. There is a peaceful gaze on the face and the eyes are riveting. Its as if the world universe is radiating from those eyes.

Your mind brings up a few things for your consideration. First, it says, “You know this is only a dream. Its not real.” You consider that and smile and realize that your mind is what ‘s not real. It’s just making things up to rationalize its own identity.

Not to be quieted so easily, your mind has a clincher to throw at you, it says, “if you start believing such nonsense, others will think you are crazy.” Now that’s interesting. You are being invited to invalidate what you know is a fear. A fear that is less solid than smoke. It is appealing though as you worry about what others think of you.

As soon as you realize this, your mind quiets. You have found a personal truth – Your need for validation and love from others has fueled the creation of all these many cloaks and masks. Each one added to bring the warmth or love or approval you feel is missing in you.

Now you are being asked to cast aside all of them. Your discomfort rises. You thought once you saw the truth it would get quiet. You find that there is more to discover. You take a deep breath. Maybe you can just stop now. Haven’t you done more than almost anyone else? Then again though your curiosity is peaked.

You think, “OK, let’s go for it. I’m ready!” What happens next is simply amazing. A parade of images passes before you. Each of these images is you with a different mask, with a different set of clothes, with a different expression. As the rate of viewing these images accelerates, the images start to merge together.

You feel like your head is going to pop off your body. You feel like your skin is being torn away from your bones. You feel like you are disintegrating. The parade of images stops and you feel calm. A voice asks, “are you ready to see yourself?” You nod and magically a mirror appears in front of you.

What you see is so bright that you want to shield your eyes. You feel love that is absolute and there is no worry or fear. You are now ready to walk on stage and reflect to each person their beauty and power no mater how hidden. The music starts, the lights come up and you walk on stage.

What you see is astonishing. In this crowd of 10,000 you see yourself. That’s right 10,000 of you. You laugh for the final lesson waited for this moment to reveal itself.

—————
Until later,

Thomas

I am not going to engage the title of the new book  (You Have to be Present to Win) in this blog (I know that the phrase “to win” has many interpretations that create the potential for misunderstanding the intent, and that’s OK).

I am going to talk today about an experience I had early this morning. My wife, Sherry, and I purchase a woodstove in the late fall. We had been talking about this for a few years and Sherry was concerned that we have a reliable heat source if our power fails for some reason in the dead of winter.

The day the woodstove was installed, we knew we had done the right thing. It is a cast iron stove that has an exterior of soapstone. The stone is slow to heat (which took some getting used to for me); however, when it gets hot it stays hot. We have found that even on very cold days, we can heat to an acceptable level our two-story home, even though the woodstove is not in the best possible location for air circulation. But I digress.

One of the pleasures of a woodstove is the morning ritual of chopping the kindling, organizing the fire in the belly of the stove, and then… bringing this potential for heat to life. What a joy to watch the fire catch the wood, watch it heat the draft and draw in the air it needs to intensify its heat so that it can sustain itself through the day.
This morning, our 10 year old was up early and I invited him to start the fire. I volunteered to be the one to wield the ax and chop the oak into the right size for building a great bed of coals.

I put on my gloves and grabbed the ax from the shelf on our sun porch. I searched through the woodpile to find the perfect piece of wood. I grabbed a number of pieces and, each time, my intuitive response was, “Not right.” Finally, I found a piece that felt perfect.
I propped it up vertically on the adjacent woodpile and put the ax in my right hand. Without a thought, and with a complete sense of peace and deliberateness, the ax came down on the wood with a single chop and a perfect piece of kindling flew off to the left. I continue this process of putting smaller and smaller pieces on the edge of the woodpile and chopping.

At one moment, my brain kicked in. It said something like, “Wow, this is easy, I wonder why?” That simple distraction changed the flow of wood chopping. The next downward chop missed the mark and bounced off the wood. This continued for a few more chops until I realized that I was trying to chop wood by thinking rather than feeling.

It was a moment of recognition about how many times I have entered into some area of life with singular purpose and the ensuing experience was either “hard” or did not turn out at all like my intention. Could it be that I was allowing my thinking to distract me?
Yep… thinking that is not deliberately engaged is distracting every time.

After I realized that “my best thinking” was making this wonderfull experience “hard”, I took a deep, deliberate breath and felt peacefulness return. I then finishing chopping all the wood we needed for the fire. When I brought it in to our young fire tender, he said, “Did you cut all that wood just now?” I smiled and nodded.
Life is easy when I don’t try to think my way through it.

How about you? Have you had experiences of “chopping wood” and found a lesson that covered your whole life? If so, I would love to hear about them.

Until later,
Thomas

The hiatus for writing the book is over. No, the book isn’t complete – it’s underway, and shifting slightly. The biggest challenge I have is not focusing my attention on what others will think of what I am writing. This is sometimes a subtle occurrence and sometimes very overt. Whatever its obviousness, it limits the creation and instead of a sunny day, I might end up with L.A. smog. Not the outcome I intended.  So, I am walking through all we have recorded to discard what doesn’t ring, and letting the rest show me how it’s best organized.

I have been missing daily heartful connection, so I said, time to get back to feeding my soul and connecting with you!

As I awoke this morning, I had the Bob Dylan song “Blowin’ in the Wind” in my virtual headset. I could hear Dylan’s raspy voice and haunting harmonica. I went to Itunes to listen to Dylan singing in his own voice, and I found so many layers of this song.

I was thinking of the great need to have answers to today’s challenges and I heard Dylan sing, “the answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind”. I was reminded that the answers to all great questions don’t come from my mind.  My mind is limited by what it knows and what I believe. Since that is only a fraction of all that is, why would I want to look there for my answers?

Where, then, do the true answers to questions great and small reside? I am not sure exactly of the answer to that. What I do know is that I can find the answer, without needing to know where it comes from or the details of how the process works.

Allowing answers to questions to show up without restraint, and as they are really needed, requires two qualities. The first is patience. I know how it is for me – I want what I want when I want it. The only problem with this is I’m not always ready to receive what I want when I want it. I can’t see all the consequences of receiving my answer now. Maybe it would better suit me to have it a bit later. So…patience.

The second quality is easy and hard. It’s easy because we are born with it. Every one of us is born with what we call an intuitive nature. We know there is more to the world than what we can see, hear, feel, touch and smell. We know that we get “gut feelings”. We know that when we don’t follow them, things don’t work out well.

Yet we ignore our inherent sense of knowing. Why? This is the hard part of the answer. Because we don’t trust what we can’t explain. So we let our logical sense, our limited world of the mind, override what is true.

Not the best way to find our way, so when you are faced with a question that you really want to know the answer to, you have to allow your intuition to be felt. You have to disregard that little voice that says, “but how do you really know?”.  It’s just the voice of the mind speaking, and it knows the truth.

Let me know what your experiences are.

Until later,

Thomas

I am in the midst of writing my first book, Real Success – It’s Never about the Money, and I am having a dilemma that I have heard about from others. It’s not that I don’t have enough that I want to say to fill a book; it’s that there is so much that I am not sure what to cut out.

I have started down this road before and would get into the project about a chapter and a half and something would come along that grabbed my attention and I was distracted. Maybe it was the fear of the unknown that was kicked up and created the crack for the distraction. Perhaps it was that I was doing something to which I was not really committed. In the end the result was the same, I would look at the pages of the good start and put it in a pile with other good starts and go on to something else.

This time I felt an almost desperateness and I got a bit smarter. I took a critical eye on what I have been spending my time on and I was not pleased with what I saw. I listened to the excuses of why the past writing endeavors didn’t work and let them fall to the ground.

I looked at what was fun for me. I love teaching and the way that I teach that is most effective is through interaction with others. In this interaction, I help others see themselves, learn what they have forgotten and in the process learn myself. So I set up an environment with Jonah Meadows, producer of our Business Matters radio program to have a daily “writing” session. In this session, we would have a conversation about a chapter of the book. Jonah is very interested in life and asks great questions. This process is perfect for how I work best.

To make this even more interesting and fun, we are recording the sessions and will use them in an edited form as part of the audio book. I will also talk to people who have a story to tell that fits the topic of the chapter and let their words help others learn and see themselves.

Finally, I will give those who listen or read something to do that will help them transfer what they are learning into their lives. I have some simple practices that have worked for me and others that I will share.

So a simple formula that has worked over and over again for me and the book is beyond the phase where others have spun out and I can feel the end. It’s very exciting and I look forward to the moment when I can share it with you. I will let you know in a few weeks, when that will be…..

Over the next month or so, I will be taking a break from writing here. My focus in on completing a book, tentatively titled, “You have to Be Present to Win”. Watch here for more details. Thomas