The Japanese have a wonderful prayer or “saying” before meals … they say “itedaki masu” the idea of which is to acknowledge and give thanks to all people that were involved in making this food possible and available for me to eat.  To me, this is honoring the principle of people in your life.

I once heard someone speak of how tough it really is to survive in the wilderness.  Most of us do not have the opportunity to know this first hand – but face it, if you did manage to get enough food, protein included; and managed to not get eaten by some wild animal, life would be pretty dull without someone to chat with.  The solitude might just drive you crazy.  We were not designed to live alone.

So let’s take a moment and review the things we do that define us, that give us work and resources we need to live our destiny.  Let us also “notice” the people that support us, work with us and give us the opportunities to do what we do.  You will notice that the list grows.  Be honest in a way that is grounded.  Here is a personal example;  very often I am in a conversation with people about my gift of healing and my love for being a teacher of spirituality and living; sometimes they are rather surprised because they might have met me at a cocktail party or in a business situation.  In these instances I remind them that – a teacher is a teacher only when he or she has a student.  The rest of the time, they (the teacher) might be a parent, a friend, a customer, a patient, and even a student of someone else.

We are the narratives we hold, we are the stories we tell our selves – but what story is complete without all its actors – minor actors, major actors, villains, heroes and let us not forget the jesters.  My invitation here is for you to dance with this awareness.  Honor the people in your life, give thanks to them, but go further … cherish them, nurture them and support them; so they might live their dreams and fulfill their destiny.  Doing this activates the principle of reciprocity … some call it Karma.  But when you activate this principle in your life; you activate a force multiplier.  Wonderful things happen to you, a little bit here, a little bit there and they add up beautifully.  I find that – one good turn or deed or thought begets another.  The opposite is true as well, one bad deed or action leads to another.

So walk with the consciousness that we are connected and that we need people in our lives.  The better the quality of people in our lives the better they will contribute to us in positive ways.  The less they are aligned with our commitments, the less they will be able to support us living our dreams.  Remember, you can choose who you play with so choose your people teams well.  When it comes to family …. That’s whole different ball of wax; I will leave that up to you.

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It was January, bitter cold, they were hardly dressed and were starving.  As they stopped to camp overnight my mother broke down and began to cry. A German soldier asked her what she was crying about and my mother said, “I can’t stand it anymore. I’m freezing, starving, and I’d rather you kill me.” He said, “Look at me.” She looked into his blue eyes, blue eyes she could see in her mind the rest of her life. He said, “The war will soon be over and it is us who will be dead and not you. You can make it just a little bit further a day at a time.” He then gave her a piece of his sandwich and ordered her to go guard one of the fires at the camp.

The next day my mother had renewed hope. She looked for an opportunity and noticed two things. When you went through deserted German towns and the road curved, there was a point when the guards couldn’t see you. There were about 1000 girls and only 100 guards. She also noticed when they stopped to camp for the night there were many moments when no guards were visible. At one of those moments she snuck away. Looking for a place to hide she went to a deserted house and scratched the frost off the window to reveal a wonderful scene inside. A Christmas tree with ornaments, but even better with fruit hanging from it. She broke into the house, devoured an apple, but before she could feel the joy of freedom she realized she had left her two sisters and friend back at the campsite. For sure they’ll think she’s dead and this could be “the straw that breaks the camel’s back” for them. She also knew they couldn’t continue the march much longer either. But what should she do? She’d already escaped! It was only a few seconds of deliberation before she thought, “I could not live the rest of my life knowing maybe I could’ve done something. If I can do this once I can do this twice. I’ll sneak back and we’ll get away together.”

So she hid some fruit on her person and tried to sneak back to the camp. But a guard caught her! “Where were you!” he barked. She explained she just wandered off and got lost. He beat her a few times with his rifle. But even during the beating my mother knew that this would be the last time and tomorrow she would escape.

The next day when the road curved and the guards couldn’t see, she, her sisters and friend all scattered. This time my mother found a barrel and waited for hours until nightfall before she came out. The first thing she noticed was silence and that’s when she realized, “I’m free.” Just like that. All things pass. She, her sisters and friend had escaped and survived.

For the rest of her life when times were tough, when problems or upsets would occur, my mother would let her thoughts drift back to those days and put the present circumstances into perspective. Then in her words she would, “Spring into action and do something about it!”

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My wife is outgoing and more task-oriented than people-oriented. She likes to move fast. She tends to make decisions on-the-fly and to work in a stream-of-consciousness fashion. She finds it easy to jump from topic to topic or from task to task.

My oldest daughter is much like me with a female perspective. She is a bit more sensitive than I am, but not much. She recently told me that she often does not like people because they do things that do not make sense. We have a running joke between us that one of us hurt the other’s feeling (Yes, feeling is singular and not plural.)

My youngest daughter is a lot like my wife. She moves fast, talks fast, and decides fast. She is different from my wife in that she tends a little more towards the people-oriented side of life. She loves to laugh, have fun, and play. She often leaves clothes on the floor or dishes on the counter because she “forgot” about them in moving on to the next thing.

I struggle with understanding the three female perspectives on life that live in the same house with me. I struggle to shift mental gears when either my wife or my youngest daughter makes a request of me with an “oh, by the way…” start while I’m working on a project that requires focus.

My wife struggles to find ways to communicate with me that respect my need to stay focused on my current task-at-hand without interruption. She struggles to slow down and allow my oldest daughter the time she needs to process requests before answering. She also struggles to restrain her frustration when my youngest daughter fails to follow-through on a task.

My oldest daughter struggles to understand and value her sister’s more light-hearted perspective on life. She has to guard against her own perfectionism when she comments on her sister’s singing. She also struggles with her mother’s intensity and drive when tasks need to be finished in a short period of time. To her, her mother looks angry, and she often responds accordingly by withdrawing from rather than engaging with her mother.

My youngest daughter struggles to allow me to work without interruption. She finds it difficult to stay quiet or to work without music when I am working on business matters. She can run afoul of her mother with her occasionally too quick wit and mouth. She really gets frustrated with her sister’s performance expectations.

In a nutshell, that is my team, my family, my work unit. And somehow we have to find a way to make this work.

We all understand the DISC model of human behavior. We all work to understand each other’s perspective. We work (almost) every day to apply what I have learned professionally to our family dynamic. It’s still hard work.

How different are we from your family or your business team?

I would guess, not very.

We are all similar, and yet we are different. We have different levels of maturity, different levels of knowledge, different levels of skill, and different perspectives on the “right” way to do things.

Still, we have to find a way to make this work.

All the knowledge and skills in the world don’t make a difference in the functioning of a family or a team without a desire and willingness to make it work. As one of my mentors taught me, “commitment and compatibility are two different things.”

As you move forward in your business and personal life, I encourage you to focus more on commitment than on compatibility.

After all, we have to find a way to make this work.

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Many parents may disagree on how to raise their children, but few would disagree that Child A below entering college or the work force has a much better chance for a good life than Child B.

Child A

• Focused
• Resilient
• Persistent
• Passionate
• Goal-oriented
• Handles Disappointment Well
• Doesn’t Take Self Too Seriously
• Coachable

Child B

• Scattered
• Quits
• Bails
• Bored
• No Goals
• Is Easily Upset
• Hypersensitive
• Know-it-all

12 Steps to a More Self-Confident Child*

1. Print up this blog for your children and the article from Divorce Magazine (from which these charts are excerpted) for your spouse (or ex-spouse).
2. Ask your children and your spouse if you can sit down with them to discuss something that relates to your children’s futures and is on your mind.
3. Have your children read this blog and have you and your spouse read the Divorce Magazine article and look at the chart re: Child A and Child B (which will help you be aware of how you and your relationship with your spouse influence your children’s personalities).
4. Ask your children if they think that Child A will not only be more successful and happier, but will be looked upon more positively by friends and others who may be that child’s teachers, boss or even future boy friend or girl friend (Hopefully they will agree).
5. Ask your children how they believe they would be viewed with regard to the traits in both Child A and Child B by their friends and those people in their life (including you) who have the power to grade them (teachers), accept them into college, hire them, promote them and give them raises.
6. Ask your children to describe what they do or don’t do that would cause those people to see them that way.
7. If your children answer that they are more like the insecure Child B rather than the confident Child A, ask them if they would like to become more like Child A? (Hopefully they will again say, “Yes”).
8. If your children answer, “Yes,” ask them what they specifically would need to do differently to become more like Child A and what you and their other parent will need to do differently to help them become that way.
9. Ask your spouse if they will participate in working together with you to help your children become more like Child A.
10. Set up a plan with one observable positive “do” behavior and one observable negative “stop doing” behavior for your children to commit to changing every month (after a month that behavior will become a habit and if they pick too many behaviors to change, they will not be able to do it) and keep doing this until they become more like Child A than Child B.
11. Set a date every two weeks to check in and to see how they are coming along with that change and for your children and you and your spouse to offer refinements to improve those selected behaviors even further.
12. Also include you and your spouse changing your behaviors according to what your children say you each could do differently to help them.

* This approach was inspired by the work and ideas of Marshall Goldsmith, one of the world’s preeminent executive coaches and author of What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful. Check that book out if you want to improve your interpersonal skills and greatly increase your career success.

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These descriptors almost universally come from clearly observable behaviors, thought processes, or attitudes common to a group of people. In and of themselves, most descriptors are neutral – neither good nor bad. It is what we do with them and how we use them that determines their worth and value relationally.

For example, I am a man and my wife is a woman. I have read many books and articles, listened to many audio programs, and attended many workshops in an effort to learn what I need to learn to make our relationship as powerful and dynamic as possible. In nearly twenty years of marriage and after many efforts to understand this other human in my life, I have come to two startling conclusions:

1. In general, men and women do not process information the same way. They do not tend to see the world through the same lens, interact with people in the same way, or have the same emotional needs.
2. No matter how hard I try, my wife will not think the way that I do and I will not think the way that she does.

There, I said it. Men and women are different.

Now, what do I do with this information?

I see two clear options. One, I can label, classify, and put my wife in the “woman” box so that the word “woman” becomes a label on her and her approach to life. Or two, I can use the  “statistical norm” that describes the female perspective to create a reference frame for entering her world to understand her in a deeper and better way.

The first approach leads to stereotyping, criticizing and tolerating the other person. In my experience, I have never met someone who wanted to be stereotyped, criticized, or tolerated.

The second approach leads me to use what I have learned about the “typical” female perspective to discuss things with my wife. (No, I do not believe that there is a “typical” female response. I am using this phrase very lightly, and just to make a point.) Based on this understanding of how women often interpret a situation, I can engage in conversation and dialogue with my wife to better understand her unique perspective. I use the “statistical norm” describing the general female perspective to help me understand how we might see a situation differently. Understanding the general differences gives me a lens to see into her world rather than to reach a judgment of her.

As we work, interact, and communicate with others, understanding our differences can help us to connect at a deeper level. Using this understanding to build bridges to others rather than to label and judge others creates a positive environment where we can move past tolerance to celebration.

Related posts:

1. We Have To Find A Way To Make This Work
2. Seek First to Understand

As a submarine officer, I had plenty of opportunities to see ships tied to the dock, ships in transit in the harbor, and ships in the open sea. All of them have this in common: they are held afloat by the water that is outside the ship.

All ships also share this: they all have water inside them. Water inside a ship can either be disgusting or refreshing.

So, ships have water both inside and outside their hulls, and the balance between them determines the state of the ship.

The disgusting water is normally in the ship’s bilge. Bilge water enters the ship in many ways, most of them small and uncontrolled. Bilge water is unfiltered, uncleaned, and uncontained. It always has oil, dirt, and grime floating in it. Looking at bilge water is nauseating. When a ship has too much bilge water, it will sink.

The refreshing water is contained inside tanks. It enters the ship in a controlled fashion, and it is filtered or distilled to make it clean for use. Ships use this water for cooking, cleaning, showers, and running the engineering plant. This water is cool, clear, and inviting. Ships have a limited capacity for holding refreshing water, but they still hold it.

The water outside the ship always contains a bit of the gunk and grime that makes bilge water so disgusting. It doesn’t contain much of this junk, just enough to make it unfit for direct use by the ship’s crew and engineering plant. Systems in the ship put energy into it to clean it and to make it fit for use. In some cases, these systems take the bad stuff from the incoming water and put it in the bilge for a time until the ship’s crew can pump it overboard in a safe way.

The events, interactions, conversations, and relationships in our lives resemble the water both around and inside a ship.

Like water outside a ship, the things that happen external to us have both good and bad pieces to them. In most cases, the good far outweighs the bad even if it takes work to separate them.

Like the refreshing water inside a ship, we may have to work to separate the good from the bad, and we may have to keep some of the bad with us for a while until we find a healthy way to get rid of it.

Like bilge water, the bad events and interactions with others that we experience look pretty nauseating, and, if we let them build up inside of us, they can sink us. They can sink our attitude, our confidence, our ability to interact positively, and our ability to see events clearly.

The people around us, the relationships we engage in and experience, the situations we face; all combine to either keep us afloat or to sink us. Our outlook, our effort to focus on the good, and our willingness to invest energy into relationships will determine the outcomes we experience. The energy that we invest in these areas lets the refreshing water in and keeps the bilge water out.

Sadly, when we let bilge water fill us, we do not get rid of it in a healthy and controlled fashion. Instead, we spew it on the people around us, and, if they are not careful, it can get inside of them as well.

Two people carrying lots of bilge water will find it difficult to maintain a healthy relationship. So, do your part to build healthy relationships by:

1. Filtering and distilling your experiences to pull the good from the bad,
2. Storing the good inside you, and
3. Finding a healthy way to get rid of the bad.

Just as all the water in the ocean cannot sink a ship if it does not get inside, all the negative in the world cannot sink us or our relationships when we do not let it inside.

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