Growing up in Cincinnati, my family drove south for our summer vacations.  Kentucky has many amazing state parks and wooded resorts.  I fondly remember Cumberland Falls, Greenbo Lake, Carter Caves and Gwinn Island. 

My favorite was Natural Bridge State Park.

I loved hiking to the Natural Bridge.  It was both cool and scary.  I remember walking to it and looking over an edge.  YEOW!  A long way down. 

My Wisdom Story from Natural Bridge State Park, though, was in the gift shop.  My Dad was a credit manager at a large retailer.  Day after day, he saw people devastated by extending way beyond their means which made him pretty tight with his cash.  At a very young age, I knew how much money was set aside for my Christmas gifts.  I knew to ask for something within my gift budget. 

So there we were in the gift shop and my Dad tells me, 'you can buy one thing in the gift shop.'  WOWEE!  What a surprise and it wasn't...

Stop signing your letters and emails with 'Best'! 

Other forms:

• All the Best
• Best
• Best Regards
• Very Best

Why?     Reserve "Best" for exactly that …. your Best. 

I'm working with Bo Eason, Storytelling Expert, Former NFL All Star, Broadway Playwright and Motivation Speaker.  He works with people to be their Best.  Working with him has made the word, Best, nearly sacred for me.  Let's explore!

The definition of Best is 'the most excellent, outstanding or desirable.' 

Best isn't just a high bar.  It's the HIGHEST bar!

When you signed off your letter or email with 'Best,' did you go into your whole being, gather up all your best thoughts and best intentions?  Thought about how you can best serve that person's life mission?  And then write that word, 'Best'?

Hmm

Oh, and what about using Best as an apology.  That really grinds me.  Someone hands you their work and say, "I did my Best."  When you hear...

During our Ireland Wisdom Council this past September, we visited a Climate Change exhibit.  At the end of our tour, four college students at the customer service desk were ready to answer any questions we had.  As a Dad and Granddad, I naturally took the opportunity to ask them what they wanted to do with the rest of their lives.

The first three eagerly responded with aspirations of changing the world through social policy, animal welfare and natural resource conservation.  When I got to the fourth young man, he looked down at the desk and in a low voice said, "I'm majoring in robotics.  I guess I'm going to take jobs away from a lot of people."

My heart sank.  Not because of his chosen profession, but because how he FELT about his chosen profession.

Perfect time to share some wisdom.  Here's what I told him ….

Imagine four cavemen huddled around the fire after a long hard day of hunting and hauling big rocks for their home structure.  One...

Ever felt like an underdog?  Does that mountain you need to climb look … HUGE!

I've had those feelings since …. forever.  I'm the youngest of four.  I didn't grow up in a normal family.  (Did any of us?)  My parents had an uncanny way of expecting excellence, but without speaking a word.  No overt pressure.  Their primary force du jour was Silent Disapproval.  My siblings were all excellent at their chosen tracks.  My oldest brother is an intellectual genius.  My sister, an extraordinary professional artist.  My other older brother, a financial guru.  I felt a constant pressure to excel. 

When we played cards, I would lose.  When we played the game Risk, I would lose.  When we played Monopoly, I would lose.  When we wrestled on the floor in the living room, I would always get pinned. 

Silent Disapproval and Relentless Comparison with Continual Defeats.

I've talked this over with my...

What we never had in the beginning was never ours

Just borrowed

We enter the world with our spirit

And it's with our spirit, we depart

All else .... just borrowed

Even our time is unknown

Borrowed time

What do you do with all these borrowed things and borrowed time?

Do you take them?

Use them up?

Leave this world with less than what it had before you arrived?

Or

Do you treat these gifts of time and things preciously?

Adding your talent to them

Giving back

Nurturing them like a beautiful prairie field

Oh, can’t you see Her beauty!

The grasses bending as the breeze cuts across the field

Billowy clouds create pillows of cool shadows

Clean fresh air fills your lungs with each breath

We are not natural takers

We’ve learned these ways

Time to unlearn

Time to return to being givers

Living in harmony

Giving back to each other

Giving back to the nature we call ... Her

Mother Earth

It is TIME

And it's just...

Borrowed

In...

You've got the task in your sights.  It may be simple or hard, but what you need to do is clear.  It doesn't get done.  You move it to next day's or next week's To Do list.  Still doesn't get done.  You convince yourself you'll get tired of moving it to the next To Do list.   And it still doesn't get done.

You may have a bunch of reasons why push it off, but this is a specific kind of pushed task.  It's the kind where you've got a story in your head that you're not good at that task. 

"Oh, I'm not good with numbers."  Or, "I'm not good at technology."

It requires you to…..gulp….. LEARN something you don't want to!  I call these:  "I don't wanna" Competencies.

If you find yourself lacking a competency critical to your success and you lack the drive to learn it.  You can make one of 3 choices. 

1. Build that competency – build a personal learning program
2. Buy that competency – engage a coach...

As we close this year and enter a new one, there will be lots of New Year resolutions.  Lots of ambitious plans about how the new year holds promise for a brighter future.

Before moving on from this year, though, take a few moments to celebrate what you've done THIS YEAR.  Do your Annual Review. 

When I was consulting, our annual review process looked back on the year.  We completed a form, encapsulating our performance for the year.  Early in my 28-year career, I realized the power of the Annual Review.  Sure, it was important because my supervisor read this document and recommended my performance rating and promotion.  Important.  MORE importantly, in this single document was a description of a year of my professional life!  2000 working hours.  All the sweat and tears.  All the client wins.  Team bonding events.  My learnings, especially the ones learned the hard way!   Yes, my struggles.  All was...

What is the most sensual voice you've ever heard?  YIKES!  Where are we going with THAT question? 

Vocalics.

Vocalics is the study of all stimuli produced by the human voice that affect the auditory sense.  It's not the words themselves, but how the words sound.  Even pauses and silence are our instruments of vocalics.

Have you ever thought about how you sound?  It's time to hike up your awareness and skills of vocalics because people hear the emotion in your words maybe even more than the meaning of the words themselves! 

When we project our voice, we think of it as our voice.  We may initialize it from within our body, but once it gets out there, it really isn't ours anymore.  Once our voice leaves our bodies, three little ear bones vibrate in the other person's body. 

How intimate is THAT? 

Let's do our own experiment.  Hum a really low note.  Where do you feel that in your body?  Now hum a really high...

Have you ever stressed out about what someone thinks about you?  Yep, I've done it too.

After my divorce, I all too often wondered what my ex-wife was telling my daughters about me.  Was she saying good things?  Disparaging things?  I wondered and worried.  It really ate me up inside.  I thought about being direct and asking her, but would she tell me the truth – especially if she was telling them icky stuff?  And I must admit, there was enough icky truths to tell them, too!  Should I ask my young daughters?  Aargh…this was SO frustrating!

We worry about what others think.  Every time you think about what another person is thinking, you give that person power over this moment in your life.   Is it worth your mindshare, your energy?  If it's not worth it, you leak energy and personal power!!  YIKES!

So how do you prevent leaking personal power?  I analyze these situations with three simple...

Ever feel like you weren't being heard? 

'Do you mean within the last hour?'   The feeling of not being heard is common.  Unfortunately … too common.  We can't do much to improve another person's listening skills, so let's focus on our own.

Active Listening is a skill.  Learnable.  Improvable. 

Wikipedia says Active Listening 'requires the listener to fully concentrate, understand, respond and then remember what is being said.'

On a ten-point scale, how would you rate your Active Listening skill?  10?  5?  C'mon be honest.  We all can improve our Active Listening skills.  We just need to learn more about it and then practice.  And practice.  And practice more.    Until Active Listening becomes Habit.

Let's get to it!

There are three fundamental steps to Active Listening:  Hear.  Store.  Respond. 

Hear.  You'd think something as simple as hearing is...