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The Positive Road
Jon Gordon

Reaping the Harvest
Kathy Paauw

Ice Sculptors and Sand Blasters
tom walsh

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"You have a right to complain," Joyce said.  "I can't stop you.  It's a free country, but it's like my sister Joyce who drives a bus says, in life you have a choice between two roads--the positive road and the negative road.  The positive road will lead to enhanced health, happiness, and success and the negative road will lead to misery, anger, and failure.  Since your bus can't be on two roads at the same time, you must decide which road you want to be on.  And when you complain, you travel down the negative road.  So which road are you on, Hope?"

"I think it's pretty clear," Hope said as she calmed down a bit.  "But when you feel the way I do, it's as if the positive road is closed with a big sign that says 'Do Not Enter,' if you know what I mean.  And besides, what about venting?" Hope asked.  "Sometimes you need to let it out.  Sometimes a person just needs to complain.  You hear psychologists say it all the time.  That it's healthy to vent, and if people don't have an outlet, then it's bad for their health.  Ironic, don't you think, since you work in a hospital?"

"The psychologists are wrong!" shouted Joyce, raising her hand in the air.

"They are right about one thing.  We were born to complain.  As babies, we cried our hearts out to get what we wanted.  When we were hungry, we cried and our Momma fed us.  When we were tired, we cried and we were rocked to sleep.  We cried to get our way all the time, and it worked like a charm.  

Unfortunately, far too many are still using an adult form of crying--called complaining--to get what they want or to express their feelings of helplessness.  But just as we learned not to suck our thumb and sleep without a night-light, we must also outgrow the habit of complaining.  There are certainly better and more productive ways to deal with our negative feelings.  Sure, we all need to complain once in a while.  Everyone does.  But, Hope, I've got you pegged, and you are not a one-time complainer.  You sound as if you've had a lot of practice.  And there are millions of people like you.  I call them CC's--Chronic Complainers--and they're not only hurting themselves but annoying everyone else.  It's like the great football coach Lou Holtz said, 'Don't complain.  Eighty percent of the people you complain to don't care and 20 percent are glad you have problems.'"

Hope went from angry to sad very quickly.  She knew Joyce was right, and she knew her daughter was right.  She was a CC.  The writing was on the wall.  No wonder so many people avoided her lately.  They didn't want to listen to her.

Joyce continued, "No matter what the psychologists say, complaining doesn't make us feel better.  Maybe temporarily, but in the long run complaining creates a cycle of negativity that feeds itself and grows.  Think about it.  For years psychologists had their patients hit punching bags to relieve anger only to find out recently that this practice creates more violence.  It works the same way with complaining.  When we complain, we feed the negativity.  You know what I'm talking about, Hope?  Some people wouldn't have anything to say if they weren't complaining."

"Yeah, like me," Hope answered with a look of despair.  "You know, it wasn't always like this.  I used to be an eternal optimist.  I used to be the one all my friends called to cheer them up.  Then he left me.  Then he crushed my heart.  It's just like you said.  As time when on I became more negative.  I grew more angry and bitter every day, and now look at me.  The fact is, I feel like I'm dying every day instead of living.  I used to believe in miracles and signs that guided me in the right direction.  Now the only miracle I wish for is for the strength to get out of bed in the morning."

"It's okay, girl.  You can quit any time you want.  As my sister says, you can get off the Complain Train and hop on the Energy Bus any time you want.  You can get off the negative road and hop on the positive road right now.  The positive road is never closed.  And if you ever get off of it, you can always get back on.

"What do you say?  Let's go get you that ultrasound and while we're at it, we'll hop on the positive road together."

"Sure," said Hope, who was surprised at her response.  She was about to learn her fate and was facing the possibility of really bad news.  Yet Joyce made her feel better than she had in a long time.  She just hoped her test wouldn't give her something else to complain about.
  

I recently heard a story about a woman who went into a store and found God behind the counter.  He asked her what she wanted, and she said, “I want to buy a little joy and prosperity and a lot of peace -- not just for myself -- but for everyone.”  God replied, “We don’t sell the fruit here. . . we just sell the seeds. Once you get the seeds, you have the power and authority to produce the fruits yourself.” 

What a great way to illustrate our lives.  We have the power and authority to produce from the seeds (our talents and passions) that we have been given.  We also have the ability to choose when and how to cultivate those seeds.  Of course, we often find weeds growing alongside the fruit.  If we ignore the weeds, they’ll eventually take over the garden.

One of my highly creative clients (I’ll call her Kate) used to think she could never be organized.  She had always believed getting organized meant that she’d have to give up her creativity, self-expression and spontaneity and become a rigid and compulsive person.  She had decided long ago that she would rather stay disorganized than to use systems and stick to boring routines that she believed would squelch her creativity. 

Kate’s work required high creativity –- something she had developed quite a reputation for.  Her employer counted on her to deliver quality work, and she did. . . but usually at a great personal cost.  She typically had to work late into the evening and on weekends in order to meet deadlines without compromising the quality of her work.  These late-night working sessions frequently consisted of spending several minutes to several hours each day frantically searching for important information that contained critical specifications required to complete her work.  But in the end, Kate always met her deadlines and delivered a quality product. 

All was well with the world. . . until eventually Kate had taken on more responsibility than she could handle.  She began running late, missing appointments and deadlines, and not returning clients’ phone calls.  And things were no better at home.  The stress was doing her in, and she knew that something had to change.  In essence, the weeds were choking off nutrients to the fruit-bearing plants she had been cultivating in her garden, and she was no longer able to produce the same quality or volume of fruit.

As much as Kate wanted to preserve her freedom of self-expression by NOT getting organized, she realized that she could be much more productive at work and at home if she didn’t waste so much time looking for things.  Kate was ready to make some changes, so she read some organizing books and tried to implement the ideas on her own.  That didn’t prove to have lasting results, so she hired a professional organizer to help her gain control of her work area.  But by the end of the following week, her desk had reverted back to its original state, and her email and phone messages were out of control, too.  The weeds were starting to sprout again and choke off the fruit-bearing plants!  Kate felt very discouraged and defeated. 

By the time Kate contacted me, she was ready to do whatever it took to turn things around.  Once she quit viewing “getting organized” as an enemy to creativity, she began to discover that creating some systems and routines actually freed up her time and thoughts so she could exercise more self-expression and creativity.  This time she started pulling the weeds from the roots so they wouldn’t grow back. . . and the nutrients began flowing again to the fruit-bearing plants.  By organizing from the inside out, Kate was able to begin making lasting changes in habits that had been costing her a lot of time and energy. 

How did Kate and I get started?   We used the 7-step process below.  We went to the root of the problem instead of just pulling up the tops of the weeds.

Seven Steps to Lasting Change

To demonstrate these steps, I’ll use examples related to getting organized, although you can use this process in other areas of your life, as well.

-  If you were to get and stay organized, what different results would be possible?
-  What will getting organized enable you to do that you are not doing now?
-  If you don’t get organized, how will that affect your future?

2.  Visualize your success.  Imagine that you are already organized.  How do you feel?  Imagine going through your day and your week being on time, feeling in control, getting home for dinner with your family, and finding what you need with ease. . . or whatever it is that you want to experience as a result of being organized. 

Behave like someone who has already arrived where you want to be.  Claim your desire to accomplish a goal by affirming your joy in having already achieved it.  For example, repeat to yourself, “I love being organized!” several times a day.  By focusing on how pleasurable it is to achieve a desired outcome, you'll begin to install new beliefs in your subconscious, which will increase your chance of staying motivated and inspired.

3.  Identify your obstacles.  What’s getting in the way of you having what you want and being who you want to be?  What behaviors or habits need to change?  

5.  Create a plan to support your intentions.  Start small, and be consistent.   For example, if your inbox is overflowing and you have an intention to go through it daily, schedule dedicated time to do it daily.

6.  Maintain your success -- build in accountability and support.  Sharing your intentions with someone else will increase the likelihood of you following through.  Ask a friend for support, or hire a coach.

7.  Acknowledge and celebrate your accomplishments.  Reflect on the positive changes you make. . . even the little successes.  They are stepping stones that will provide the foundation for lasting change.  Celebrate that you tossed that piece of unwanted mail immediately instead of allowing it to collect on your desk, or that you kept that appointment with yourself to go through your inbox.  By acknowledging all your accomplishments –- no matter how small -- you train yourself to appreciate steady progress rather than expecting overnight success.

Kathy Paauw helps busy executives, professionals, and entrepreneurs de-clutter their schedules, spaces and minds so they can focus on what’s most important. She is an organizing & productivity consultant, certified business & personal coach, and speaker. Contact her at kathy@orgcoach.net  or visit her website at www.orgcoach.net and learn how you can find anything you file or store in 5 seconds…guaranteed!

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Ice Sculptors and Sand Blasters

The other night I saw the last few minutes of a television show that fascinated me.  It was called Sand Blasters, and it featured a bunch of people building elaborate, beautiful sculptures of sand on the beach.  Once they were finished, the judges chose three winners out of what looked like ten entries, handing out cash prizes to the teams that had created the artwork.  Once that was done, one of the hosts pulled out a detonator and they blew up all of the sand sculptures.

This is the kind of artistic creation that I most admire.  The people who are willing to create something beautiful just to have it blown up are doing really well in the area of letting things go in their lives, and in not trying to hold on to things "just because."  I have the same admiration for ice sculptors who create some of the most fantastic pieces I've ever seen, knowing the whole time that the ice would melt away and their work would disappear completely.

I'm pretty suspicious of "classic" artwork.  I've been to most of the major art museums in Europe and in the states, and while there are some truly great works in all of them, there are also many, many pieces that have very little aesthetic value; they just happened to be painted by someone famous--usually a very long time ago--so they're displayed prominently right there along with much better work.  They're famous and valuable because some critic or historian has said that they're famous and valuable, not because of any other criteria.  I've watched people reach some of these paintings, and the vast majority of people just walk right by them.  There are whole rooms in many museums full of portraits that almost no one spends more than a few seconds in.

Interestingly enough, I see much more artwork that I like a lot in our local hospital, where there are many beautiful pieces by a huge variety of artists.  These are pieces that I can stand and look at for a long time, just drinking in the scene before me.  None of the artists have their paintings hanging in the Louvre, but I'd much rather have some of these paintings in my house than most of what's in the Louvre.

There are many artists who are willing to do their own thing without caring a bit about whether or not they become famous.  They draw or paint or photograph because they love what they're doing and they love the results artistically.  They don't care if thousands of admiring fans stream past their works every day--they just do what they do and enjoy themselves while they're doing it.

To me, the ice sculptors and the sand sculptors epitomize this healthy attitude.  Nothing in life is permanent, so why spend so much of our time trying to create something "immortal"?  Why not express yourself right here, right now, expressing what you truly want to express right now, without a care as to whether or not you'll be able to pay the bills with it?  Yes, many ice sculptors get paid for what they do, but I don't think that we're ever going to see an "Ice Sculpture Museum."  Creating such a place would defeat the whole purpose and philosophy behind sculpting ice in the first place--it would be an attempt to preserve the unpreservable, to hold on to something that should be let go.

When you're going about your life doing your own thing, think of yourself as an ice sculptor.  What you're doing today in your life will melt away by tomorrow (or by next week if it's really cold outside), leaving you to do something completely new once it's gone.  I would love to be able to be so willing to let go of something that I could create it one hour and see it go away the next, and I think that these artists have something very important to teach us about letting go and not getting attached to their own creations.

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