Self Improvement Information

We, humans, are amazing creatures.  We can choose how to experience our lives.  Life will happen to us.  Every life has joy and pain.  There are no exceptions to that rule.  It is our belief system, who like the Great Wizard of Oz, sits behind the black curtain  running our individual programs of what choose to see on our life screen.

Every day, we have decisions to make about how we choose to live our lives.  What we decide is driven by our  own individual vision for our lives.  We have opportunities to live our lives small and stay in our own little fiefdoms of influence.  Or, we can choose to live large, beyond the scope of our individual lives and to be a benefit to all man kind.  No one will fault you for your choice.

We don’t get a choice on whether we will experience pain in our lives.  That comes in the package called living.  What we do have a choice of is how we will see that pain.  Will it be something that is a burden to be endured?  Is it possible to see it as a gift?  I know in my own life, the times of greatest pain have become my biggest blessings.  As Sean Stephenson says, “find the purpose to your pain and you will find the drive to go through it to the other side.”

Many of you know Sean Stephenson.  He is an amazing, insightful man.  Many people introduce him as the “3 foot giant”.  He is not only unique in the size of his human body, but in the size of the experiences his vision has chosen for his life.  Because of the vision for his life, he has had the opportunity to mentor with people like Tony Robbins and President Clinton.  He is an author and motivational speaker.  He has written a book called, Get Off Your “But”, which has earned a 5 star rating on Amazon.  He writes an insightful blog called Living at Cause.  He has participated and been voted one of the best speakers at the Engage Today 2009 Event where he shared the stage with the Dalai Lama, Sir Richard Branson, Dr. Stephen Covey to name a few.

I have a 7 minute video from a speech he gave at Purdue University.  He has some great insights into living a life with vision.

There are many ways to build a business life.  Whether you work in your own entrepreneurial business or as an employee in someone else’s business. Some people work hard and the fruits of their labor come with extreme amounts of pressure and stress.  They work long hours.  They have little time to enjoy family, hobbies, and relaxation.  As soon as they stop, due to illness or misfortune, they seem to be swept up by an invisible force that seems to carry them away.  They spiral into more health problems or financial ruin.

A few months back, I was sitting next to a gentleman at a seminar.  The relationships side of my personality took over and I just had to make a new acquaintance.  Hoping to find areas of commonality, I asked him what he did for a living.  He explained that he was a Yoga instructor with his own business in a nearby town.  Being interested in Yoga and knowing that it can be a competitive field for instructors, I asked him how that was working for him.  His response was, “quite well, I have more business than I can handle”.  I asked him how he got his clients and he responded, “they just come to me”.

I have observed businesses that function similar to the first and, also, to the second examples. I have puzzled over it.  How can some folks have an almost effortless experience building their business like the Yoga instructor, and some people always seem to be swimming upstream against a waterfall of adversity.

We would all like to be part of a business that grows, with what seems like effortless ease.  Most people don’t have a problem with the part of the equation that calls for working hard.  That is not where the challenge lies.  It is the mindset, or being in “the flow”.

I have been on a quest to answer the question, how do we get to “the flow”?  I have been making considerable headway on answering that question.  As the quotation says, “when the student is willing the teacher will appear.”  I stumbled into this video from “Engage Today 2009″ which was a conference held in September of 2009.  This conference had some heavy hitters, in the success arena, in their line up of speakers.  A 16 CD set will be released on January 28, 2010 with all of these speeches.  Looking at the line up of speakers this should be a great investment.  You can check out the preview videos here.

The 9 minute video I am showing you today, which is just a teaser, is bits and pieces from a speech given by Vishen Lakhiani from Finer Minds.  Even in this preview video he gives some interesting answers to the question about how to get into the flow.  If you enjoy this post please re-tweet.

There are many different types of relationships in the human experience.  Most of us desire closeness with other people.  Our mental, emotional and physical health depends on our abilities to form close and loving relationships.  Many people have as much difficulty cracking the friendship code, as I would understanding any one of Einstein’s equations.

There are many different friendship relationships; mentor/coach, acquaintances, business and circumstantial, and long lasting close connections.  One thing that they all have in common is that they start out superficial, or the “getting to know you stage”.  Some relationships never progress beyond that, and stay in the acquaintance level.  To progress beyond the acquaintance level requires a different set of skills and needs.

In humans, the differences between male and female is very pronounced even as infants.  Female infants tend to look at human faces much more intensely than their male counterparts.  But, how much after that is social conditioning and how much is physiological?  Do adults hug and hold their female children more often than their male offspring?  Do we encourage “female bonding” in their games and activities vs the games males are encouraged to participate in? Those questions are best left to the clinicians who study human behavior.

The argument can be made that women have an easier time forming close personal relationships than men.  Is that true or a convenient excuse?  I seem to be raising more questions than I am answering.  I do know, that if the need or desire is not there for close personal relations, it won’t be accomplished.  Many people don’t feel the need for this until they have suffered a health or emotional crisis.  Putting all the differences aside and making the assumption that this closeness is desired, I would like to present the traits or skill set a person needs to learn to form close personal relationships that last.

1.  Loyalty – this skill is often debated regarding its importance.  I, personally, find this trait to be one of the most important to me.  I call it a skill because it can be learned at any age.  Without loyalty it is difficult to completely relax and let our guard down.  Some friendships are born out of competitive relationships ie; sports, business, etc.  Matters of the heart can’t be drawn into that competition.

2.  The ability to keep confidences.  Our family calls telling confidences to others as “baby mouse syndrome”, named after Sniffles the mouse in the old time cartoon.  The little mouse, Sniffles, followed the other character in the cartoon around telling everything he knows and asking too many questions. In our family, if you get called “Baby Mouse” you spoken a confidence or said too much.  Feelings can be hurt if we say too much about someone else.  It becomes gossip.  No one trusts a gossip.

3.  Honesty – this one can be difficult.  We don’t want to hurt others.  The sign of a true friend is one that will tell you the truth, even when you don’t want to hear it.  A loving person is honest.  Many people confuse being honest with a lack of tact.  It is possible to be honest with compassion and empathy.

4.  Compassion – Truly caring about someone else’s life and feelings.  Showing interest and remembering facts that are important in someone else helps lower the other person’s guard. As the old saying goes, “No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care.”

5.  Common values – It is very difficult to sustain a lasting relationships without this.  It helps us understand one another.  We could meet someone from another culture or place and form a lasting friendship if we have common values.  Sometimes, can look at a friendship and wonder what common values they have.  If you look hard enough, you will find them.

6.  Empathy – Caring and understanding – no matter what.  This means suspending judgement on them.  Listening to what they have to say.  Leaving those hurtful words, “I told you so”, out of the conversation.  Those words only serve to hurt the other.  If it is important for you to be recognized as the  superior intellect in the relationship, you might want to question your motives.

7.  Share the good times and the bad.  A relationship that is one sided where only the bad things are shared becomes burdensome for the person being dumped on.  Do you want a friend or a counselor?  If your life seems to be one big bite off the pooh-pooh sandwich and that is all you have to share with your friend, I suggest you get a counselor.  They can point you in the right direction.  They are paid to listen to you and to teach you coping skills.  We all have times where our life seems to be falling apart.  That is understandable.  But, if all you know how to share is the crap, why would anyone want to be your friend?  Those are the times we need to see the good things.  Sometimes, being a friend to someone is pointing out the good things even when they aren’t in the mood to hear them.  When the shoulder to cry on becomes the thing you have in common and that is all you hear, it could be time for honesty.

In our lives we will have different friends for different moments.  When we don’t have those things in common, such as a job or an association we lose track of them. What we can strive for is long lasting friendships that it doesn’t matter how long it has been since you have seen them, you can pick up where you left off.  The closeness of heart is always there.

Related articles:

How to Cultivate Closeness

Forming Friendships