do I want to be a part of moon shot thinking?

How much of the 6 hours left in my day after the work-sleep-eat-cycle can/should I spend on entertainment?  Well, if you have a family like me you decide to spend quality time with your wife and kids but what do you do with the rest of it?

I understand that we have a great privledge of free time and don't want to waste it. Many people in the world don't get "free" time and many have so much free time but nothing to do in it.

I remember my Grade 8 social studies teacher lamenting to our class about how leisure time will be huge for our generation. He said that we would either end up working in that industry or enjoying it. I remember very few details other than him going on at length several times about the types of activities he thought about. I do remember thinking his vision of my adult future sounded more like summer camp than what my parents were living.

Fast forward to today and where I live in the world I suppose we do have more leisure time than my grand parents did at my age. I am lucky enough to work a day shift, Monday to Friday at a job that is not dangerous that pays well. What I find ironic about our leisure time, compared to the vision my grade 8 teacher had, is how much a screen of some sort is involved. A smart phone, tablet, monitor or TV is a big part of leisure time in society today. We squeeze in "social" time, game time, reading time, movie time, music time and a variety of other screen based pursuits to entertain ourselves. My grade 8 teacher was right about one thing, we entertain ourselves more hours in the week than ever before and more jobs are tied to it than ever before. I don't think he had devices and screens in mind though.

Some of us do spend some of our leisure time in pursuits he had envisioned like golfing, fishing, biking, skiing, etc, etc. Sadly, I am fairly certain that the statistics speak for themselves, the screen dominates. Entertaining ourselves with the screen is a new norm and one that is broadly accepted. A norm that I am trying to reject, but not finding a great deal of will power to do so. My question to myself is how much time should I spend each week on:

• Time with my wife 
• Time with my kids
• Time entertaining myself on a screen
• Time entertaining myself with reading
• Time entertaining myself with the arts
• Time creating new stuff on a screen 
• Time creating new stuff with tools and materials
• Time in activities that are fun but also provide exercise
• Time creating new opportunities for income
• Time expressing myself through the arts
• Time learning new mental skills
• Time learning new physical skills
• Time in activities that challenge me mentally and physically
• Time in activities that involve exploring new spaces
• Time in activities that are building  or contributing to a goal much bigger than my own but that I am passionate to be a part of. 

Now, I know what some of you are thinking. Dude, you think too much! Or yikes man, talk about over analysis. Both statements can at times be true but consider moonshot thinking on a personal scale.

What can I do that contributes to my moonshot? Is it even possible to do so without planing my activities and doing this analysis and deep thought? Can we contribute to our own moon shots by just playing around, having fun, living in the moment and entertaining ourselves?

working better together to change the world

I have been fascinated by the idea of communal living and the benefits of sharing. Sharing tools with each other and helping to learn new tools and solve problems together. This very concept seems like something that comes from deep within me as if programmed to try to do this.

In real life however, I do not live near the people that are in my circles of connection. In fact my physical neighbours are almost more of a buffer of anonymity than they are human connections that matter to me. Kinda sad when I reflect on it. I have chosen, perhaps without thinking, to choose to not associate with them socially (outside of summer street meetings) for one reason or another, except where very convenient. Of course I do know people who have neighbours that have become friends and their stories are such that I think we too would have found ourselves in good relationships but in our case we have not been so fortunate to find that relationship connection opportunity, yet.

On the other hand, I do have connections with people outside my neighbourhood that are incredibly valuable to my personal development and well being. I do have access to technology that would let me connect with them one-on-one and in groups regularly.

So now the question to myself.

What if you could connect with 9 other people once per week for 30 minutes and in that time 1 person (on rotation) would share with the group a tool/technique/idea that they have learned that helps us to work better together.

Just talk or share image or slides, for up to 30 minutes the show is yours. You can share something you have personally discovered or something you have read or watched, whatever thing that you found to be so interesting or cool that you thought you would want your friends to also see.


Some would say that opportunities to do this in person already exist out there. I would have to agree but I find that I have let my life get too busy to make it comfortable to fit in the extended social gathering that would facilitate the interactions I desire.

Regardless of the how, what or when I think the why is incredible. Why would I want to see this happen for myself? Why would I want 10 men all over the world to meet to discuss ways to work better together.  Not working harder together to make money, fight wars or impose our ideals on others. Working BETTER together in my mind is the Godly challenge of changing the world for the better.  Helping all of us come to terms with how greed is not collaborative. Teaching ourselves that military forces serves only one purpose and that is to justify more military force for them or us. Working to learn to ways to make our paid employment less of a burden on us, our families and our community and make our environment a place filled with love, peace and satisfaction.

There is a place I go to with my family where we find community, work and beauty and it is like a recharge. It is not a private place or an oasis away from people but it is a place where God's creation embraces you and you feel our human history of working poorly together start to pull away from you and be replaced with inspiration that feeds you with the desire to be innovative with each other.

I would like to recreate that feeling of innovative coaching in my weekly routine where I do not have this special place at my disposal.  I would like to be a part of 10 men working to change the world into a better place.

catalyst

lyrics to consider.  imagine U2 with Bono singing it?

you wake up and see the same pain of yesterday
you drink your coffee and mourn the need
you long for Sunday, for rest, for time to heal 
you feel tired like a part of you has died but you do not bleed

you have a list of all you would fix and how
you won't let the wrong sit, but where to start
you are no one important, no one in the right place. 
you ache for change, the change is in your heart

the change you become, the change you will be 
the world needs your mind, and your vision to see

you're a catalyst, you leave a legacy
your voice echos on and on and on into eternity

I don't know where to turn and look for help
my money leaves a trail of blood and pain
the way its made, the toil required
my heart aches thinking of the stain

my distance, my desire, my needs they take
my quest is to replace, replenish and give
how can we stop our rape of the world
how can we find our balance and live

the change you become, the change you will be 
the world needs your mind, and your vision to see

you're a catalyst, you leave a legacy
your voice echos on and on and on into eternity

you know there are things to make right
I am scared to speak out and talk
you know we need to continue the fight
I have to lead the way and start the walk

I can change the world by talking to one
You can shape the future by telling the story
I will share my thoughts and then its begun
You will plant a thought and watch it grow

the change you become, the change you will be 
the world needs your mind, and your vision to see

you're a catalyst, you leave a legacy
your voice echos on and on and on into eternity

we need hope that we will learn from our mistakes
we feel the love of connecting with one another
we know the earth responds when we stop the bad
we know deep down we are sister and brother

we can start the train that changes tomorrow
we have the power to change now 
we want people to be around forever
we will shout our dreams out loud 

the change you become, the change you will be 
the world needs your mind, and your vision to see

you're a catalyst, you leave a legacy
your voice echos on and on and on into eternity

the change I will become, the change I will be 
the world needs my mind, and my vision to see

I am a catalyst, I leave a legacy
My voice will echo on into eternity


the catalyst, written by Dale Clark


Now I just need the music to go with it and can hit the road. Simple chords please with a YouTube tutorial perhaps? 

recipes for success - professional development

After two days at a professional development forum I am reminded of yet another recipe for success, take the time to for professional development.  

While we regularly have opportunities to improve our skills for our job, we also need to take the time to improve our overall person and see out opportunities to stretch ourselves. We need to be reminded that working with people, data, information, concepts, etc is something that is always changing and improving. We need to hear and read how other people think so we can reflect on how we think about the same things. 

After we take the time to develop ourselves we then need to share that information with others to further develop ourselves and contribute to the same of others. 

I will try to write more and at to this but I wanted to share this before I forgot. 

recipes for success - what is missing?

OK,  so someone is stuck. You, or someone you are assisting, has the making of a simple problem you can't seem to get unstuck from. You need a quick practice to assist yourself(s) to finding the answer that likely already lies within the deep reaches of your mind. This tool is another I have learned that helps you to figure out what is missing from your plan to achieve success in the situation.

The challenge is to break down the situation to determine if what is missing is

a) your willingness to get done what is necessary to pull through to success or
b) your skills, abilities, aptitude, understanding, knowledge of the subject matter at hand or
c) the circumstances, situation, environment, schedule that would enable you to reach for success.

If someone is not really willing to put in the effort require, sometimes called commitment, then the discussion that follows is around determining why?

Skills and abilities can be the easiest of the three because it comes down to finding a plan to get those skills through training or some other course of learning.

For the environment, it might mean redefining the rules and talking with others about the situation to layout the space to succeed.

A couple examples:
My kids participated in a athletic program which started off with success but after a few evenings there seemed to be a problem with their participation. When I applied this practice to the situation I determined that they had the skills to participate, the environment for success but they were not 100% willing to put in the effort to make it work. In this case they thought if they didn't participate they could instead play video games. Once they realized that the other option instead of participating would be less fun than the program, and not video games, suddenly their commitment was back.

Later we experienced another lull in their participation and what I found that time was that they were still willing, still skilled but in fact now the circumstances in the program had changed. The instructors had slacked off their early rigour with a solid schedule to more of a "guys hanging out" kinda program where they bragged about their accomplishments. For our kids who were hoping to do cool things sitting around listening to cool stories was boring. I spoke to the instructors, and their boss, and in a very short order the kids were excited to be participating.

So, what is missing, the will, the how or the way?

recipes for success - relationship * possibility * action

One of the most powerful concepts of the coaching practices that I have learned is to think of our interactions with the idea of three types of conversation: relationship, possibility and action. There is no script for each of these conversations to happen but rather the practice of seeing your conversations through these lenses has helped me consider where I am at with the person.

Relationship 
A conversation that is about you getting to better understand the other person. Its not about becoming friends or buddies but rather finding out what are the things that are affecting and influencing them. How do they think about issues, how do they shape their decision making and what styles of leadership, communication and connection works for them and doesn't work for them. You will find that the more you learn and the more connections you have in your relationship the more possibilities you will find emerging.

Possibility 
This conversation leverages on your relationship, what is possible now that you know more about the person. Who they are and what they can do that you have discovered in the relationship building helps you understand why they are the person for "the job". Your collaborative relationship building has created a possibility that they can live into because you understand them better. For example, I find when I am working towards connecting a technical person with a client that part of the relationship building is finding a common language about the work to be done. That relationship building has now created the possibility that they can talk action because the language barrier of the technical terms and business terms is gone.

Action
Finally the conversation you have been waiting for, a conversation about action.  Its the conversation about doing stuff and having gone through building a relationship and building possibility now that action is far more likely to result in success. Now if the request for action is not well received maybe you need to go back to the conversation about possibility or maybe even further back to consider the relationship but in either case you have somewhere to go. I find this much more comfortable than the situation where I need action from someone or expect it from a friend or peer but because there is limited possibility its easy for both sides to take it personally.

I  am amazed at how this simple practice can help me in solving a problem or helping someone or figuring out where to go next in a conversation.


Ben Zander has a taken on creating possibility and I will leave you with one of the videos that captures part of his view on it:

recipes for success - an offer to share what I have found or learned

Engaging in discussion with people that are very passionate about their work (paid or otherwise) is incredibly stimulating but also at times exasperating because of the tendency not find opportunities for collaboration let along finding consensus towards some good results. With that in mind I wanted to share some ideas that I have taken in since a couple years back in a coaching practitioner learning event in which I took part. The coaching practices shared with us were not about getting some credentials but rather about us regular folks learning new ways of thinking and doing things.

Over the next while I will post the recipes as I have time to type them and share them.