well, i declare...

"When we know it is our conversations that constitute our world, it shifts our relationship to what’s possible. It puts us in the driver’s seat. The shift doesn’t necessarily get rid of the lens or filters or mindsets per se, but fixed notions, old assumptions, old realities stop defining what’s possible and what’s not. We most commonly use and think of language in an experiential, descriptive, or representational way—as a response to the world, a process of fitting or matching our words to the world as we know it. Let’s call it a word-to-world fit. This use of language allows for certain outcomes, but not others. In a future-based model, language is used in a generative or contextual way, and is more than a response to the world. It yields completely different outcomes and is actually what brings the world into being—a world-to-word fit. In this model, language is both what gives rise to the world and what gives access to what is in that world.

"With that premise, we say that reality, conditions, and circumstances of the future do not exist as facts, but rather as a product of our conversations. Assuming that’s the case gives us a certain dominion, a direct and powerful access to shaping performance, to shaping outcomes. This generative, future-based model dynamically and actively pulls for the fulfillment of whatever future we are out to create.

"Take Akio Morita, former chairman and cofounder of Sony, who said he would change what 'Made in Japan' means. He wasn’t just interested in his company’s performance or a particular product line, but a shift in thought globally as well as in his own country. 'Made in Japan' at that time was associated with cheap, poor-quality items. He redefined the phrase to embody leading-edge technology, quality, and the highest levels of customer satisfaction on a worldwide scale. He also created new futures for Sony’s products; he spoke of listening to songs while walking about at a time when nobody believed in the marketability of a tape player that couldn't record—the Walkman was the result. History is strewn with examples. Louis Pasteur set out to demonstrate that microscopic organisms caused disease and propelled medicine into a new era; the writers of the Magna Carta (by establishing the principle of limited government) altered the world stage for human rights; Kennedy’s declaration made manned space exploration a reality.

"There’s something very important in these examples — each represents a future not existing at the time. There’s a certain declarative or generative language that was used in each case and the game unfolded in a new direction based on what a person or group of people said. A declaration made by an individual or group isn’t him or her or them speaking 'about' something, but is the thing itself—it’s language that actually creates something, brings something forth—the declaring into existence an intention, a stand, something with an impact, a space of possibility.

"Possibility is not real at its origin—it’s something we create as real, and then stand for as a reality. And when possibilities such as those mentioned above are created and articulated as a future, the terrain of the present occurs differently for people. Future-based language, in other words, contains the direction and momentum in which and for which things move. It folds the future back into the present, and when that happens people’s actions become correlated to that future and their performance alters in the present."

Visit www.threelawsofperformance.com to find out more about the creative power of language (and specifically, about Declaration and the power of your Word) and "The Three Laws of Performance" by Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan.

back, after a brief absence...

pardon our brief moment of silence, but we were having computer issues, which appear to have been resolved...

hit me up now, while it's still free...

unlike this guy...

bad news for the rest of us...

don't wait...

my latest favorite video... corndogs!

20 things we should say more often

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5yCOSHeYn4

possession is 9/10ths of the law...

“You and I possess, at every moment of our lives, under all circumstances, the power to transform the quality of our lives.”

-- Werner Erhard

quite jarring...

 
Do this!

Take a jar, and every time something good happens to you next year, write it on a small piece of paper, and put it in the jar.

At the end of the year, on New Years Eve, open the jar, and reminisce on all of the good times you had.

it's all in your _______

“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”

                                                                          ― Albert Einstein

the plot thickens...

whatever you resist persists...

what you don't know can kill you...

five days to make a difference...

get out!

this means you...

for everyone going back to school, the parents of everyone going back to school, and everyone going back into the world...

bacon on vacation...

We all need a break from time to time.  Be sure to unplug, relax, and recharge something other than your cellphone and tablet...

i give up...

so, how do you rate?

always...

things you are not...

(Inspired by the interns of the 2013 Kaiser Permanente Summer Youth Employment Program in Modesto, CA)

 

You are not your name.  You are not your past.

You are not constrained by your emotions, your experiences, your culture, your thoughts, your body, or your mind.  Your “permanent record” isn’t permanent; and your “life sentence” doesn’t have to be.

You are not your personality, your persona, or your act.  Who you are being at any given moment doesn’t have to define who you are; it’s just one possible way of being.  And when you recognize that the way you are being right now – however that way of being is – is not only one possible way of being, but a way of being that is separate and distinct from what’s happening (and how the world is occurring for you in that moment), you give yourself the power to choose to be another way.  If you have that power, if you have that choice, why not choose something that enlivens you, that gives you strength, that creates a future based on the unwritten future – not the “almost certain” future given to you by your past?

You are not your job, your department, your successes, your failures, your checkbook balance, or your wages.  You are not condemned to a life given to you by your ancestors, their sins, or those thoughtless, stupid things you once did as a kid.  You are not what your brother did to you when you were young, or what you discovered about your parents, or the people you have called “friends” who turned out to be anything but.  You are not your mistakes.

You are also not your go-to winning strategy of being funny, or smart, or distant, or assertive, or perfect, or any of those other ways you’ve compensated for feeling inadequate or “less than” at some earlier time in your life.  Those, too, are but ONE possible way of being, and if it’s “automatic” – if it’s running you instead of you running it – it’s not authentically who you are either.

Who you are – should you choose to be so bold – is who you say you are.  Your future lives in your word – the language you speak into the world, accompanied by the powerful, committed actions you then take to turn your word into reality. 

Be confident, kind, determined, capable, inspiring, outrageous, compassionate, creative, beautiful, spontaneous, loving, connected, hopeful, happy, peaceful, courageous, charismatic, and unstoppable.  You can choose to be any and all of these, and more.

So remember that, especially during those dark times what will inevitably come, when you allow yourself to listen to that little voice in your head that tells you otherwise.  Remember that even pity, self-doubt, anger, and disappointment are possible ways of being, but please know, they’re just another few items on that long list of “Things You Are Not.”

And finally, remember that Love, true love, is accepting yourself and each other exactly how you/they are, and exactly how you/they are not.  Got it?

So, I ask you, who are you being?