Lauren Card Live

I posted this last night but somehow it became corrupt so here it goes again…

Tonight I had my second class of the 2nd session of Sensei Ron Thomas’s Black Belt in Excellence coaching series. Sensei brought up a very thought provoking topic around anticipation and how it’s different from expectation.

With expectations there are boundaries and limits, “If this happens, then that will happen, or be true.” With anticipation there is flexibility, “I’m thinking this or that may happen, but I’m open to possibility.” …Let me give you an example of what I’m talking about for both, especially with the intention it will help others with Thanksgiving around the corner.

How many of you cook or like to cook and make a big deal over Thanksgiving dinner? Appetizers, turkey, grandma’s secret stuffing, yams, green beans with those onion things on top, Waldorf salad, pumpkin pie, mashed potatoes and gravy…you know what I’m talking about. Trust me, I’ve had many years cooking for 25 people plus, loving every minute of it. Starting about a week in advance I would create the expectation that all of those that R.S.V.P.’d Yes, would show for dinner… reasonable, right? Well, ask yourself, how would I feel if only half of them actually showed up?…(remember you are not them… Since you have a quantitative expectation (25 were going to show), it can only be measured as “enough showed” or “not enough showed”. This is Win-Lose thinking… how’s that working for you?

How can I structure my thinking to have it be the best holiday season ever? The answer may lie in changing from quantitative expectation to qualitative anticipation. Let me to explain.

A quantitative expectation is a way of looking at the future that can hardwire us to make absolute judgments (“good / bad”). Quantitative means “to measure” flexibility, and expectation is part of a paradigm. I expect the sun to rise, I expect to pay taxes, I expect to die…reasonably rigid. Expectations when reasonable are the meat and potatoes of life that let us make appointments, have children, and engage in social behaviors. Quantitative Expectations are good for some things, but are probably best kept to a minimum.

Qualitative anticipations on the other hand are not part of life paradigms…they are softer and more flexible. The root word for “qualitative” is “quality”, which is subjective, not objective. Anticipation for me trends to the positive, I have no history of anticipating bad things…I anticipate good things. Qualitative anticipations are my personal observations of how things that I expect to be joyful are more or less joyful… to be authentic, there’s not much room for “frustrating.”

It is my utmost hope and desire for each of you to have peace and freedom in your lives, not only this holiday season, but everyday… why not?

…are you ready for change? talk tomorrow?
L.

Hugs,
L.

Most of us have heard the phrase “the whole nine yards.” It means to “give our all”… right? Not exactly!

The origin of this phrase is a BIG mystery. Some think it came from World War II, where the machine gun belt that holds the bullets was twenty seven feet long (nine yards). Giving someone the “whole nine yards” meant that you shot at them until you ran out of ammunition! Others believe that it relates to the length of sail in a three-masted ship. Three masts times three yards per mast equals nine yards total. There are many competing explanations for the “whole nine yards”, but most if not all are urban legend.

We’re all at risk for the misuse of words. We think that we know the meaning of the phrases that we use, but our measure of understanding is often the degree of criticism or censure that we get from others…not the absolute conviction that we are speaking correctly.

Perhaps we have a duty to our magnificent language…that is one of contemplation and constant learning. The English language is robust and has many options for us to say EXACTLY what we mean, if only we are disciplined and have the will to do so.

The next time that you are inclined to use a colloquialism like the “whole nine yards”, I invite you to dig deeper, Google it, or othewise research it to find out what you are really saying!

Whenever I reach into my purse, the one thing that jumps into my hand is my keyring…it is huge! I have too many keys. Where did they all come from, do I still need them? I decided to stop and figure it out.

My strategy was to remove them all from the ring and to lay them out side by side. Big ones, fat ones, little itty bitty ones…lots and lots of keys. Some are colored, some are wierdly shaped. I even had a couple keys that were duplicates! The original and the spare for emergencies were in the same place. Duh!

I wondered if I should be more concious about what I allowed on my keyring, I wondered if the quality of life is better or worse with more or or less keys. More keys generally means you have more possessions or responsibilities…a mark of success? Perhaps not. If I could have homes all around the world, would I want to carry the keys with me, or would I put them in a keybox and just carry the key for the house I was in? Decisions, decisions.

Some keys have wonderful memories attached to them… a friend’s cabin, a cherished car. Another, suggest a more painful memory, the door to my old home and defunct relationship, Do the keys with good memories belong on my keyring as well-worn reminders? Should I keep a big box of retired keys labelled so that I can paw through them from time to time, feeling the energy of my past? Too much clutter.

Let’s start from scratch…an empty key ring. What possibilities! One by one, I added back the keys that were required, the front door, the car, the mailbox. Just three keys, it seems so simple, so enticing. But what about the back door key, what about the key to my girlfriend’s house. I decide to make a second key ring for all of the keys infrequently used. Brilliant. Unless of course I forget to bring them with me when I need them. I’ll take that chance. The mystique of a small key ring is just so compelling.

Give it a try, pull out that key ring of yours and get ready for some surgery. Pick your keys, pick your life. How do you feel now?

BTW- You might be asking why the Greek in my blog title? …Just a shameless ploy to get you to read my blog !

It’s a bird. It’s a plane. No, it’s me…the flying Amazon.

Last spring I had the great fortune to attend a Leadership Team Building event, sponsored by Quattro University on something called a “ropes” course. I had no idea what was in store for me that day, and what I experienced set in motion a chain of events that has empowered me.

High above the earth (tall even for me!), on numerous occasions, I confronted choice. Many times that day there was a symphony running around my head about whether I was up for this challenge. The William Tell Overture Canons were my old beliefs, booming in the background. “No Lauren, you’re not ready to do this, you’re not wanted or good enough.” Step by step, I crawled out onto thin wire to find balance and strength. Support came from my teammate Jeff. It’s amazing how our upbringing, culture and past experiences rule our little pea brains. That day was a paradigm shift for me. Who decided I wasn’t good enough?… Me.

As it turns out, it wasn’t true…I was more than good enough! With the help from instructor Andi Burgis, I leapt to new beliefs. Now, I have a much better perception of where that bar is and beyond, captured in the pictures here.

Are you ready to fly? On Saturday November 21, 2009 we’ll grow together. Please come with me to see Andi Burgis. She’s the guest instructor at Quattro’s Pivot Point, a half day workshop from 9am-1:00pm here in Orange County.

Please note that this is NOT a ropes course. We’ll be in the classroom only!

Please email me for more info.
Lauren

The creative individual has the capacity to free himself from the web of social pressures in which the rest of us are caught. He is capable of questioning the assumptions that the rest of us accept. – John W. Garner

I believe all of us are creative, but some of us have difficulty escaping social pressures. Today was stressful for me. A friend of mine had challenges and found a solution in laughter, and invited me to laugh with her by being in the moment.

We have so much to be grateful for, including our sense of humor. I have a question…What have you done in the past week that feeds that part of you? I invite all of you to step out of your Comfort Zone, let everything go and have FUN !!!