When I speak with people, I have a completely different experience from the experience I have when I write to people.  Hearing someone laugh makes me feel different from the way I feel when I read LOL.

Using email and sending text messages is simple and one-sided.  I tell you what I want to you know, or I ask you a question about what I want to know.  In an email or text message, there is usually no creative stimulation that comes from the give and take of a conversation.  Most people are not creative, stimulating writers whose writing creates a sense of personality. People seldom attempt to project their personality into an email or a text.

Everyone shows their personality or shades of their personality when speaking.  People may even create the character of another person’s personality through accents or voice tone or by placing emphasis on particular words.   They may speak more rapidly or loudly.  They may project sarcasm, agreement, understanding, compassion, or any emotion through the tone of their voice.

I feel different about speaking with different people in different situations.  Most people feel the same way.

When speaking with a pleasant person about a pleasant situation, I feel comfortable.  I look forward to the experience.  I enjoy talking with the person.   I may even find that I have gained peace of my mind from the experience.

When speaking with a difficult person about a difficult situation, I do not look forward to speaking with the person.  I may feel anxious.  I may even feel angry and can make a mess of an already messy situation.

I am more effective when I prepare to speak with anyone, especially when speaking with a difficult person.

I start with a written outline of the subjects I plan to discuss.  When the conversation is important, I want to make certain that I know my subjects.  I can research the subjects I need to cover and type the research information into my outline.

When I have completed my outline, I can let it sit overnight.   By not thinking about it for a few hours, I see the information from a fresh perspective.  I seem to have a higher level of thinking that takes place when I stop pouring over something and let my subconscious mind process the information.

Researching and writing the outline puts me in a better place mentally and emotionally.  The process also enables me to understand better what I want to say.  I am more spontaneous.  I am more confident and better informed.

Unless I am speaking to a crowd of people, I try to remember that I am speaking with someone and not speaking to someone.  In speaking with someone, I am listening as well as speaking.  There are several benefits to listening to what other people have to say.

1. By listening, I am learning.
2. The conversation becomes meaningful.
3.  I gain insights.  I can turn conflicts into solutions.
4. Often people in difficult situations do not want to change anything.  They simply want someone to listen to them and for the listener to express an understanding of what the person has to say.
5. I may find that where there was conflict there is understanding and resolution through simple two-way communication.
6. By simply allowing other people to express themselves, I can show my acceptance of their point of view while not conceding my point of view.
7. When I listen to people, I often learn that their point of view is correct.  The information I gain from other people helps me make better decisions.
8. From listening, I can learn how to turn bad relationships into good relationships and good relationships into great relationship.

For important matters, I always use the phone, or I meet with a person.   There is the risk that I am not able to get my point across and not be aware of how much is lost between my writing and the other person reading my message.

The wonderful ways of communicating through emails and texts are terrific for many of the things that I do.   Speaking with people rewards me with a greater understanding between the other person and me.

Job confidence feels good, makes us healthier, gives us energy, and enables us to focus.

Confidence is the friend of success.

Uncertainty and its ugly sibling cockiness are the foes of success.

Feeling confident when we are in the middle of success is easy.  Feeling confident when we are in the middle of frustration is more difficult.  To feel more confident, I become a more organized and take certain steps.

Call some of my upbeat pals.  Some of my friends are a lot of fun.  After I speak with them, I feel better about my world and myself.

Do stressful things first.  When I lack confidence, I relieve unnecessary mental pressure when I take care of stressful things and put them behind me.

Do simple things.  I can regain confidence when I handle some important yet simple things.  For example, reading and replying to much of my email is simple and important.   Running files for critical contacts is simple and important.

Create a schedule of tasks and break these tasks into smaller pieces.  When I create a schedule of tasks, I take the ideas that are crawling around inside my noggin and put them out there on a schedule.  Then I gain confidence when I see that I will do everything I need to do and how I will go about doing them.

Business Power: Taking Command 90 Minutes into the Job

I read a lot of articles about companies using 90 days to know whether a person will work out at a company.   I have never seen anything in business that supports this thinking.  Often companies place people in jobs where the company can not know how well a person will do for 6 months to a year.  In other cases, a company knows within a week that it has made a disastrous hiring mistake.

However, if a company has hired a fully qualified person at any level, that person can take command of responsibility within 90 minutes.   A fully qualified CEO should have no more difficulty taking command of a company than a qualified airline captain has in taking command of an airliner.

At any level of responsibility, the hiring company has responsibility for making information available to new hires.

At the “C” level, the board of directors has responsibility to give the new CEO the controls of command and the information to run those controls.

1. 1. A guide or person who can direct the new CEO to the resources necessary to take command
   2. The name, responsibility, and contact information of every necessary contact
   3. Access to any information to discover any other necessary information for operating the company
   4. The name and experience of each board member, company officer, and department head
   5. The financial status of the company
   6. The inventory for each product at the company
   7. The name of each person who manages a relationship with a supplier
   8. The contract terms of each supplier
   9. The marketing plan
   10. The financial plan
   11. The places  of distribution
   12. The places of potential distribution
   13. The contracts and terms for all clients
   14. The new products in design
   15. A summary of the legal status and activities
   16. The products in design and the schedule for these products

   A qualified CEO can begin to read through this information and know that there is other information for reference take control of the company in 90 minutes.  Companies have the burden of making sure that great hires have the power to succeed.

Attitudes: Some people have a natural, positive attitude. Life has blessed them with wonderful circumstances or wonderful minds and emotions.

Understanding Moods and Attitudes

When I am in hungry, tired, or rushed, things can seem more personal.   I may feel more anxious or impatient.   My mood declines and my attitude declines with it.  I may feel angry over things that might not otherwise bother me.

It is easier for me to treat other people the way I feel.  Then I infect them with my bad attitude.  By simply taking a deep breath, having lunch, or taking a break, I can often change the way everything looks and improve the way I treat other people.

By understanding that other people experience the same decline in attitudes based on what is going on with them, I can avoid catching a bad attitude from them.  They are human.  I am human.  I can allow them the same understanding people have so often given me.

My response to other people in this light relieves me of the stress of owning their bad feelings.  I can let those actions toward me to pass.  I feel healthier when I can to see that, as humans, we share the same wiring.  I can find compassion for people who need compassion.  I can find patience with people who are being impatient.  I can stop and listen to people who are being rude without agreeing but simply letting them air out their thinking.

Conditions Affect Moods

Driving has a profound territorial impact on attitudes.  In my car, I have a sense that I am in my personal moving territory.  My mind says that the area around my car is like the yard around my house. It is my space, my yard, my safe distance between from other people and cars, my mobile territory.

If another driver moves into my mobile territory, I have a sense of violation and frustration.  My sense of mobile territory can even extend to a sense of injustice when I see a driver cut off another driver.

Among the thousands of other drivers on the highways every day, there are people who feel overwhelmed, experiencing grief, living in fear in failure, or experiencing other very difficult situations. There are other people who are simply tired and hungry and have just had a dreadful day and caught a bad attitude from someone else.

However, I can’t change their attitude.  On the other hand. I can change my attitude.  Maintaining a bad attitude is painful.   If I allow myself to stay angry or anxious, or fearful, I am trying to punish other people when I am hurting myself.  Bad attitudes are very painful.

 Furthermore, good attitudes have so many benefits.

1. I am healthier.
2. I feel better.
3. I can focus.
4. I can feel joy in the present moment.
5. I can celebrate life as a flow of passing events.

When someone has a cold, I do not see them as being a bad person.  I see them as a person with a temporary disease.  When someone has a bad attitude, I see them as a person with a temporary attitude disorder.

When you can, avoid people with bad attitudes.

Most people avoid those types of people.  However, when that person is your boss or coworker, you may find that the best way to keep from catching negative attitudes from these people only takes some practical steps.

1. Be very positive and upbeat around these people.
2. If the person is your boss, try to understand what your boss wants done and try to do those things without expectation of approval.
3. See them as people and not as evil forces.
4. Angry, rude, difficult, even obnoxious people are just people.   When I see them as human just as I am human, I realize that they are the one in pain not me.

Surrounding Myself with Positive People

The most important thing that I can do is to stay close to positive people and read or watch positive things. I love the healing that I get from positive people, places, and things.  Today I am going to catch the good attitudes and heal the bad ones, in myself and in the people around me.

Focus on the Job not the Boss.

Bosses may come and bosses may go.  Bosses have good days, and bosses have bad days.  Some bosses make work a joy.  Other bosses make the people around them miserable.

It is helpful for me to remember that the boss is not the job.  The reason that I am working is not to get the bosses approval, but to get the job done.  So when working for or with difficult people, I try to focus on the job I have in front of me and do that job to the best of my ability.

If the boss has specific guidelines for the way to do a certain job, I try to follow those guidelines as closely as possible.

Some bosses do not have any patience.  I once had a supervisor who required that I only give him information that required his decision.  He required me to give him this information in the form of a summary of the situation and some recommendations about what he should do.  Then he would question me on the recommendations.

I found that the best way to work with this boss was to prepare before meeting with him.

I was successful under this boss.  I also learned that his process of making decisions was very effective.  I did learn a great deal from him.

After time this boss moved away.  My new boss had a very different approach.  He empowered the people around him.  He corrected people by instructing them on what to do.  I enjoyed working for him a great deal.

In working for both bosses, I learned to focus needs on the job not the boss.  My performance was in my hands.  I controlled my performance no matter how pleasant or unpleasant my boss might be.

Sometimes The Best Way to Start Exercising is Simply to Walk Out the Door.

This morning I was having trouble getting started on an exercise program.   So I just put on my shoes, my sweatshirt, and walked out the door. I walked to the end of the street and turned left. I walked along the paved path beside the canal system.

I walked up twenty feet from a small hawk sitting on the fence along the way. As I drew closer the hawk flew across the canal thirty feet away and landed on the fence on the other side.

It was exciting to see the hawk.  I know that they are ruthless raptors that prey on other birds.  I have seen this ruthlessness first hand when I saw a sparrowhawk eating another bird in my backyard a couple of years ago.  Although I do not encourage ruthlessness, I respect the bird for it powerful and simple success in doing one thing and doing that one thing to perfection.  I often wish that I could see my life with similar straightforward simplicity.

I have read that sparrowhawks also eat small rodents.  I guess that if prey is scarce, a sparrowhawk might eat anything.

There is an owl’s nest along the walk I took today.   I wonder how many city dwellers live among birds of prey and are not aware of that these birds exist.   I have heard this owl screech from its nest at night.  I know that this owl eats rodents, because I have seen the bony remains of rodents under the owl’s nest.

As I walked further, I passed a neighbor who was cutting up small branches from a tree in his yard. It has recently turned fall.   We had a strong wind a few days ago.   I am guessing that the neighbor was cleaning up his yard.

The leaves on some of the trees have turned yellow and gold.   The temperature was around sixty.  There was not a cloud or even a trace of a cloud anywhere.

A plane passed overhead.  I could not see it, but I could tell from the sound of the engine that the plane was at a level and inbound for a landing.  I know that it was inbound.  I never see outbound flights overhead in this area.

While walking the other night with a friend, I learned something that probably everyone on earth knows, but was news to me.

In the Northern Hemisphere, a waxing moon appears as a “D.”  A waning moon appears as a “C.” On this night, the bright moon formed a solid D or perhaps a white half of pie.

My friend also taught me that as the moon rotates around the earth, the bright reflection of the sun on the surface of the moon shifts from the right side across to the  left side.   Picture the full moon: ” Ο.”    As the full moon wanes, the earth slices a slightly larger crescent out of right side of that reflection each day until the earth eclipses the moon’s surface into darkness.   Then as the moon continues to rotate around the earth, the slices of reflection begin to reappear on the moon on the right side.

The phases of the moon to us in the Northern Hemisphere kind of look like the following.

)   Waxing

D   Waxing Quarter Moon

(]   Waning Quarter Moon.

(   Waning Moon.

Getting started exercising can seem difficult.   Yet just walking though is so rewarding.  The best way to exercise is to just to start exercising.   I am truly blessed that I can just walk out my front door so easily, get the exercise of a run or a walk, and learn so much as I walk along.

5 Signs I Have Lost Focus on the Job

When I feel anxious, I have lost focus.  My mind is not on what is going on around me.  My mind is on what I imagine might happen.

There is a difference between planning for future events and creating scary scenarios of what might happen.  I have to remind myself every day that scary thoughts might come along.  The best way to end those scary thoughts is to take a deep breath and see the world around me.

The feelings of anxiety will pass.  I do not have to fight them.

When I feel regret, I have lost focus.  No one can do things in the past.  What I can do is recognize where I might have made mistakes.  I can learn from those mistakes and not repeat them.  I can remember that ruminating over the mistakes will take me no where today.  I can take advantage of the time I have today is to take healthy strides that will give me great memories tomorrow.

When I am angry over the past, I have lost focus.  Staying angry after things have passed is painful and futile.  The greatest waste of time, mind, and energy is carrying around anger over a squabble or personality difference.  Ironically, I can often get past the personal anger by speaking with a person and telling that person that I regret how I handled a situation and saying that if I had it to over again I handle things differently.

When I feel insecure, I have lost focus.  Insecurity is a form of fear and is another waste of time and energy.  We might experience insecurity when we enter a room full of people, especially at a social gathering, or when we are speaking in public. We might experience that feeling when we are working with a new device while other people are watching.  Insecurity occurs when our main concern is how other people are judging us.   Insecurity makes our thoughts and feelings personal and can steal our presence of mind.

I remember telling my father that a shirt in his closet was out of style.  He liked that particular shirt.  He smiled, winked, and said, “Son, if other people don’t like the way I look, they can look the other way.”

I loved my father’s modest self-confidence.  When he felt insecure, he just let the feeling pass quietly.

Sometimes I find that overcoming insecurity requires action.  When I enter a social gathering, I can face insecurity head on by speaking with the first person I know or introducing myself to someone.

When speaking in public or handling a new devices in front of other people, I can practice what I am going to say or do.

If I have no time to prepare, I can admit that I am doing something that I have never done before and ask the audience to go easy on me.  Showing humility is always a great way to win over an audience.

When speaking to a large crowd, I can also know that half of the audience is not paying attention and the other half will not remember what I said.  The main thing is simply to work from an outline however quickly written and sketchy and to stick with that outline.

When I played football, I suffered horrible insecurity at the beginning of the game.  I found that just banging into someone one time relieved the pressure of insecurity, and I was into the game.   Often the least simple action can break the ice of insecurity.

When I have target fixation, I lose focus.  I become unaware of what I am doing.  When I focus, I am aware of my surroundings and aware of the person with whom I am meeting.  When I get target fixation, I only see the goal I want to carry out.  Target fixation can make me deaf to the points the other person is making.  I might fail to give correct and complete information.  I try to stay loose and focus on the other person and make sure that I deliver the information this person needs to know.