Wooly Mammouths and Other News

Have you ever noticed how much energy people spend lamenting about what is wrong? Sometimes conditions are truly difficult, but more often people seek out something to complain about. I'm not talking about a death in the family or a major disaster, I'm talking about getting a teacher they don't like or encountering a long line at the checkout. I actually read a bit about it from the neuro-linguistic folks (you know, the ones who study brains). It turns out we are programmed for two things:

1. to focus on short term conditions and
   
2. to scan our environment for possible threats.

Apparently these instincts are both left over from our hunter-gatherer days. It also seems that these are not so helpful to people who might be receiving an e-mail newsletter in 2010. (Of course, if a woolly mammoth comes charging at me, I am certainly glad that my brain will know just what to do). On days that we are not attacked by prehistoric animals, however, our brains still default to the short term instead of the long term, and the negative instead of the positive. We are programmed to survive, not thrive. This explains why urgent tasks take precedent over important tasks, why short term pleasure overrides long term happiness, and why we cannot possibly reflect on our goals and dreams when we have deadlines and media and other things that demand our attention.

If this is not the way you want to live, overcome these instincts by developing habits for long-term success.

• Establish a regular practice of quiet reflection
  
• Notice the patterns you repeat through life and learn from them
• Set long-term goals that tap into your purpose and passion
  
• Leverage your natural instincts to create new habits

If you can do that on your own, great. Most people do better with a coach. That's where I come in: people who commit to coaching sessions set aside time to make a  change for the better. It takes more than a passing thought, it takes focus and motivation. Overcome your prehistoric brain and align with your long-term goals through coaching.

Cinderella's Life Coach

This summer I was in Ohio working in a dinner theater production of Cinderella. One of the most intriguing scenes that Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote is right before Cinderella goes to the ball. Her fairy godmother has given her a dress, a coach shaped like a pumpkin, white horses, a coachman and a footman. So many gifts. Everything seems perfect, so the fairy godmother says goodbye.

Cinderella: Aren't you coming with me?
Godmother: Heavens, no. I've been to so many of these things I couldn't stand another. Furthermore, all I can do is give you your wish. How it turns out from here is up to you.
Cinderella: But I'm afraid to go in there all by myself.

Cinderella moves past her fear, goes to the ball, and the fairy tale unfolds.

In Rodger's and Hammerstein's version, Cinderella's godmother can give her all the trappings of a fairy tale, but she must take action in order to achieve her fairy tale ending. Although we don't all have a fairy godmother, how many times are we faced with the resources to fulfill our dreams, but our fear gets in the way? Learn to recognize when opportunities arise, and learn how to move past your fear. Take a risk. Walk into the ballroom alone. Claim your fairy tale ending.

What's Inside: Part 2

I began eating organic food a few years ago because my body does not respond well to the pesticides and hormones in conventional food. At that time, I learned about one of the major differences between conventional and organic vegetables: conventional vegetables are grown for looks (size, color, perfection) and organic vegetables are grown for nutritional content, even if that means they don't look as good. However, I didn't know the magnitude of the difference until I read an article on MSNBC that quantified the significant drop in the nutritional content of conventional veggies in recent decades. "Broccoli, for example, had 130 mg of calcium in 1950. Today, that number is only 48 mg.... The very things that speed growth — selective breeding and synthetic fertilizers — decrease produce's ability to synthesize nutrients or absorb them from the soil." The article said that the opposite is happening with organic vegetables: nutritional content is going up in organic food.

We often favor the big, beautiful conventional tomato with half of the nutritional value of the smaller, flawed organic tomato. We often value the cheaper, conventional food but pay the price in higher medical bills, extra beauty products, or feeling less than our best.

What's inside eventually manifests into what's outside.

It's what's inside that matters

I stayed with a friend for a few days before leaving New York City. While out one night, he sent me a text message that asked if I would buy toilet paper on my way back to his place. I stopped at a bodega and chose the cheaper of two unfamiliar brands. Toilet paper is toilet paper when you don't have many choices, and both rolls seemed to be the same size. When I got to his apartment and unwrapped the toilet paper, I found out why this toilet paper was so cheap: it had a core that was nearly twice the size of a normal roll. There just wasn't as much there as I was lead to expect from the outside.

Many things look the same from the outside, but eventually you unwrap them and look inside. If there's not as much there as you expect, it's always a disappointment.

The bank

I belong to one of those banks that was bought by another bank during our last economic downturn. I've been using that branch of that bank since I first moved to New York almost seven years ago. The old bank was friendly, and that's why I chose it. The tellers stood behind small podiums with hardly any physical separation between them and I. Over the years, we chatted and I got to know them.

Then the bank was bought. The new owners of the bank took out the podiums and made one big sturdy desk with bulletproof glass continuing to the ceiling. All the tellers were now behind the desk, behind the glass. The tellers who had chatted with me for six years have not looked me in the eye or talked directly to me since the wall of glass went up. These are the exact same people doing essentially the same job but in a new environment. 

Environment directs behavior, if you let it. How is your environment affecting you?

Now Boarding on Track 4

One of the realities of living in different places all the time is that I take different routes "home" all the time. Last week I had lunch with a friend by the World Trade Center, and then took the train out to Hoboken, NJ. Since I've never done this before, I read every sign to make sure that I got on the right train. There was a sign near the track, a sign on the front of the train, and a sign over each door to the train. They all said Hoboken. I got on. Business people filled the train, headed home from work. You can tell when people are on their usual route because they don't read the signs and pay very little attention to their surroundings. They know where to go. They are on autopilot.

It turns out, they should have read the signs. Just as the doors were closing, the conductor announced "this is the train to Hoboken" and there was a general rush to get off the train. Apparently that track usually has the train to Newark. They assumed that this train would go to Newark. They did not read the signs.

Sometimes autopilot is helpful. In this case, it wasn't. If things in your environment change but you are on autopilot, doing what you always did, you end up in Hoboken when you wanted to go to Newark. They could have stayed on the train, insisting that track four always has the train to Newark, but they would have ended up in Hoboken, still wondering why they weren't in Newark. We all know people like that. We've all been that person, whether or not we've ever ridden a train. Be honest, what part of your life needs to be taken off autopilot because the behavior you've always done just isn't getting you where you need to go?

You can change the channel

Sometimes when I enter a shared space where a person is watching television, they tell me I can change the channel. They say it as an aside as they appear to be engrossed in something else. Even though they aren't watching, I find that they don't mean that I can turn the television off. I've actually tried it a few times. It plays out like a British comedy.

"Why is the TV off?"
"You said that I could change the channel."
"But I didn't think you'd turn it off."
"Oh, sorry, were you watching it?"
"No.That's why I said you could change the channel."
"So I can change the channel but not turn it off?"
"Right."
"So you weren't watching it, but you want it on?"
"I just need it on."
"You're willing to have it on any programme that I could possibly choose out of 500 channels, but you're not willing to have it off?"
"Right. Could you please turn it back on?"
"I don't know how, there are too many remotes."

I'm not saying that all television is bad. I watch a couple shows online. I also don't go around turning off other peoples' televisions uninvited. I just don't understand why it's on when no one is watching it. Television is designed to attract your attention, even if you're "not watching it." How do you have a sustained set of thoughts when the television pulls away your focus every few minutes? How do you create your own reality when you are so involved in the "reality" of the characters on television? How do you hear the still small voice of God over the laugh track?

Perhaps it is time for you to "change the channel" on your television habit.