This one’s a total drag. When it gets me in it’s grips it really yanks down my quality of life. I just feel rotten. And then it taints everything else in my life. Everything else is not nearly as good.
I’ve got to make this priority #1.
What are the symptoms:
- I feel it in my stomach - like a rock or pit.
- I obsess about it.
- I’m afraid.
- I’m angry.
- It sucks all of my energy. I’m instantly tired.
What can I do about it:
- Find some books on the topic.
- Research it on the internet and catalogue it in my del.icio.us tags as: confidence
- Study: “Feel the fear and do it anyway” book.
Alright, I’m on it.
If you’ve got a couple minutes, check out this overview article on Karma:
Beacon Journal | 06/10/2006 | With karma, you get what you give
“You get what you give.” That’s a nice thought.
Other than getting a super nice email from my mom, nothing out of the ordinary has happened so far today. I just feel warm, strong and full of love.
Thank god for the peace, joy, and love I have.
Of faith hope and love… the greatest of these is love.
Thank you.
Sometimes I’m so proud our the SageRock team that my heart actually feels like it’s swelling. I don’t know how that works. But your “heart swelling with pride” is real and I just felt it. So, I thought I’d let you know.
Check out Franklin Covey and get organized:
Someone recently suggested I write down my perfect day.
That seems tricky to me because I can imagine many perfect days.
- Watching movies and playing video games all day.
- I suspect I would try to find some new war movies I haven’t seen yet. Maybe Jarhead. And also some old classic war movies that I also haven’t seen. I’d watch my WWII documentary for a few hours (It’s a 30 hour set). Then I’d play online Halo with people who were at my experience level and no 12 year olds would yell at me. I’d order Papa Johns pizza and breadsticks and get a fresh 2 liter of diet coke. I’d probably prefer to do this all by myself.
- Going to Disney World with Rocky and Indy.
- I absolutely love showing Indy new and fun things. Disney seems like it might be the most fun thing he would love right now. We would go to shows, see Mickey, eat cheeseburgers (he loves cheeseburgers). He could just totter around moving aimlessly from one thing to the next doing what ever struck his fancy.
- The day I am no longer part of the day to day operations of SageRock and can focus on being a leader and less on producing things.
- We would have sales people, marketing people, project managers… all handling production and sales tasks. My focus would be to instill the core values of SageRock and move the company ahead in a way the makes sense for our company and is successful. I would be able to read more and implement sound business principles.
- Drinking beer and smoking cigarettes all day on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. (and then having no consequences for it.)
- This is always a fantasy of mine. I’ve done this often in my past. Ideally this would be with Rocky and Jamie. Maybe we would be on the patio of Paul’s Pub and Sub (a totaly hick, dangerous bar. But their patio is nice and the have horse shoes… I surprisingly fun drinking game). We’d just sit around talking about big ideas and letting our minds escape the real.
- A day of our back yard all inclusive vacation.
- Last year, we didn’t have much money so we set up a baby pool, a stereo and a movie project out in our back yard. We played Johnie Cash, Ray Charles, surfed the internet, and watched outdoor movies at night… all in our back yard. We grilled great food. It was awesome. It’s especially great because you are on vacation to minute of your last day of work. And you stay on vacation until the night before you go back to work. It’s low stress, totally relaxing. You just make rules that you won’t deal with any business issues, or home issues. It’s different enough from your daily life because you are out in your back yard all day. We have more money this year and could probably take a “real” vacation. But we’re going to do this at least once this year because it’s so great. I highly encourage you to try it.
So, there’s five days. I wonder if it’s strange that I can’t decide which one would be greatest. If I had to pick of these five, it would probably be Disney or the All Inclusive Vacation. And from there, I’d probably go with the All Inclusive Vacation. It’s just so low stress. You don’t need to pack, go to the airport… nothing.
I’m a little sleepy today so maybe that’s why I am leaning towards the “do nothing” day. I might feel differently some other day.
Today, I’m particularly grateful for Rocky from a strategic perspective. So often, she sees things incredibly clearly. She listens more clearly than I ever can.
She is a personality at a meeting that people so often like.
She listens better than anyone I’ve ever known, clarifies and confirms that listening so people know she understands. And she can analyze an event to a point of view that is as true as I’ve seen.
She’s awesome.
I knew I wasn’t going to do this every day.
I have a lot to be grateful for these days.
- I feel like I have conquered several battles recently.
- I won my second Toastmaster speech. You get a sweet pen. Mostly, I was happy with my performance. I worked at it during a particularly busy time. Speaking is scary for me and it was hard to pull out with my schedule. So, it was a really special success for me. I guess I’m grateful for pulling that off.
- I won a Sales and Marketing award. It was cool. I got a trophy. I’m grateful people thought enough of me to nominate me and then select me for winning.
- I’m grateful business is going so well. We are hiring someone very soon. It’s better than it ever has been.
- Today, I’m grateful for having a perfect weekend. It was pleasant, fun and relaxing.
This is a topic that I think about quite a bit. But the deeper I think about it, the harder I realize it is. Actually, the deeper I look at anything, I’m realizing these days, the harder I realize it is.
In empathy’s case, I find truly understanding what is important to someone else is extremely difficult. The problem comes in understanding someone else’s perspective. That sounds easy enough. But it’s not. A person’s perspective is made up from the sum of all the parts of their history.
You can’t simply say, this person likes this or that. What they like in one situation could be different in another situation.
So, the point is, even the most empathetic person is going to fail. It’s inevitable. The failures will make the empathetic person look insincere. But empathy is not about getting empathy in return. It’s done for the sake of itself. If you don’t enjoy trying to get to know other people then empathy is going to be painful for you. Empathy is looked on with suspicion.
Love for love sake. That’s the reward.