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Communication Evolution

March 16, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Our methodology of keeping up with one another certainly has evolved over time. I was thinking back, remembering party lines! I’d pick up the phone and find that someone else was using the line. Gosh, if they had a lot to say, I might have to wait several minutes before I could call my friend with my most important teen-ager news. My fifteen year old niece has no concept of a rotary dial phone, let alone a party line! And I sent a card to my grandparents for birthdays. How wonderful it was to get a letter in the mail from a pen pal!

If I want to talk with my kids today, I can text them. That usually produces a one-word response but hey, they answered! My cell phone shows me who’s trying to contact me. I can pick up or choose to ignore. I can talk with several friends at a time or see them on Skype!

Facebook probably has been the biggest breakthrough in communication in my lifetime. I can know daily what the kids are up to, how my brother in California is faring and see pictures of my grandkids. I can communicate with clients, find new clients and make new friends that I’d never have the opportunity to meet, were it not for ‘friends of friends’.

I met Sean Anderson when AOL ran a story on him a few years ago. Sean was enroute to a healthy weight, having once weighed in excess of 500 lbs! Many of his friends are now my friends too.  I look forward to his daily snippets of wisdom. Oh yeah, and he wrote a book too – Transformation Road!

This morning, as usual, I checked the birthday reminders, and my dear friend Janet Carmine  popped up. I guess her family is maintaining the page, but Janet left this world on August 18th, 2010. The reminder pulled the strings of my heart – again. I miss my friend so much.  I wonder if she has Facebook in Heaven? She’s truly there, singing with the Sweet Adolines and dancing with Al!

I recently was hacked on Facebook. Honey Jones will remain in my memory as the blonde bimbo who used my identity to sell Nike sneakers. Now, who in their right mind would buy shoes from a Facebook hacker? I have no idea.  I finally was able to regain control of my account, but in the process, lost many of my friends, and friends of friends.

I learned a lot from the hacker – guard what you hold valuable. I’ve changed all my passwords  – email, bank accounts and of course, Facebook.  You can rest assured that I will change passwords with great regularity in the future.

I am left wondering from this whole thing. I can’t imagine the contributions to society that fell by the wayside, because some talented individual placed their efforts into hacking, rather than something helpful. It makes me want to be the very best person I can be. I want to contribute. I want to make a difference.

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Travel Humor

January 20, 2012 By 1 Comment

I often tell my clients, “Quote yourself; you’ll never become famous by quoting someone else.” Of course, not everyone wants to be famous and there have been a quote or two that have been life changing for me.

I’m enroute to Los Angeles, waiting in Albuquerque for a connecting flight. The flight here was uneventful, save a rather restless passenger behind me. Perhaps he was listening to some great song on his I-whatever, keeping beat on the tray table – which extends from my seat. I found myself becoming irritated, wanting to turn around and politely ask him to knock it off. It was annoying.

Wayne Dyer’s quote came to mind, “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” .  Gosh, why didn’t I think of that first?

But, it did come to mind and I wondered how I could change the way I perceived the constant jarring. I was blowing it way out of proportion by allowing it to become an aggravation.  Maybe it was his way of just letting me know he was back there, so I’d not feel alone.

Tadum!  I was instantly transformed. I didn’t have to be an irritated old shrew; I was once again, the nice lady from Titusville, just flying to Los Angeles with about 90 other people, one of which was unintentionally communing with me.

I wonder if I’ll be so blessed on the second leg of my journey. The nice thing about Southwest Airlines (in addition to no charge for bags or changing your flight) is that I can pick my seat. Perhaps I’ll search out a friendly looking soul with which I can share the ride. I’ve really met some nice people that way. And if the person who sits behind me wants to let me know they’re there, I’ll welcome the unknown hello and smile when I visit the restroom!

Gosh, this whole thing could turn into a spiritual experience. Thanks, Wayne!

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New Habits for 2012

January 3, 2012 By 2 Comments

Marcia Sirota wrote an article yesterday about ten bad habits to let go of in 2012. Some of them are pretty good, such as ‘comparing yourself to other people.’ Whenever I do that, I come up short. I’d much rather look for ways that we are the same. I can usually relate in some way to everyone. Yes, everyone! Everyone has something in common with someone else. And we all will have something more (or a little less) than the next guy. It’s just too
exhausting to look for how I’m different and then feeling less-than as a result. So, thank you, Dr. Marcia, I’m going to use that one.

The article also recommends that we let go of jealousy, avoidance, rudeness, denial,
complaining, gossip, a bad attitude, co-dependency and facebooking your ex. All are excellent habits to replace with something positive.

I have a few good habits that I want to reinforce in 2012:

Building a support team – Self-sufficiency propelled me to over 250 lbs. I binged, dieted and failed at diets alone. About nineteen years ago, I was introduced to the concept of building a support team to help me with my goal of weight loss. I’m sure that some friends thought me to be a bit daft when I’d call and let them know that I was thinking about eating a whole bag of cookies. We’d laugh about it and voila! I didn’t eat the first cookie. I know today that I need people in my life for all successes – you just get more results with an army than a slingshot and a pebble, unless of course, you are David.

Listen More – Every time I give to others, I get something in return. It doesn’t have to be about money either! Listening is so valuable and sometimes it’s just what a friend might need while working through a tough time. I also want to listen to my own instincts around self-care.

Forget the One – If there are 99 people in a room that love me, I’m not going after the 1 who doesn’t any more. There are always going to be people who don’t prefer my company, so I’ll bask I what I have and not worry about what I don’t have. Unless of course, the one is Tony Stewart. I’d have to go after him! He drives pretty fast and I’d probably not catch him, but I’d have to try.

 

Strengthen my Spiritual Disciplines – I presently start my day out with prayer, meditation and whenever possible, exercise. It feels so good to be connected to God in this way. And there’s always time to meditate during the day – it only takes a minute to stop and take time to breathe in God and breathe out self, or whatever might trouble me at the time. Just for one minute. Try it!

I’m also going to keep it simple this year. I was racking my brain to come up with more good habits, but this is really enough. I can make a list of ten but odds are excellent that adding more will only lead to doing less.

What bad habits do you want to release? What good habits will you reinforce in 2012?

 

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You Can Make A Difference …

January 2, 2012 By Leave a Comment

You can make a difference.

My friend Sean Anderson has lost 275 lbs, the right way – reducing calories and increasing exercise. It didn’t happen overnight. He didn’t make People Magazine’s annual “Half Their Size” issue. But he’s helping a lot of people. Sean has blogged for nearly all of the three years of his weight loss journey. He’s created some unique tools for himself, such as the “Steel Curtain Zone,” the “Calorie Bank and Trust.” In his journal today, he relates how the Rachel Ray show sought him out and then turned down an opportunity to have him on their show. Their loss.

So, Sean won’t be a celebrity this week. Instead of being a guest on the Rachel Ray show, he’s busy helping people, one at a time, to experience a shift in their thinking toward healthy weight. He writes, “My goal has never been fame and fortune. My goal is very simple: Reach as many people as I can with my experience and to communicate it in such a fashion, that somehow, maybe, just maybe…it’ll make an impact, shift someone’s perspective—the tiniest amount, but enough to help them facilitate their own “click.” Because I’ve found a sweet freedom and it would be selfish of me to keep it to myself.” I feel the same way about helping people to find a spiritual approach to living, one person at a time.

There are some great spiritual people out there – Joel Olsteen and Wayne Dyer, people who really affect the masses. There are also weight loss heroes who will make the People magazine special issue. And then there are the little nobodies like Sean Anderson and me. I wake up every day and ask God to show me how to be of service to Him and to those around me. The opportunities are often subtle and if I’m not on my game, I’ll miss them. Sean touches thousands daily with his 3,406 friends on facebook, and counting! And he’s captured his dynamic story in his recently released book, Transformation Road.

This morning I got up and made two pots of coffee – a decaf and a regular. My husband’s brother is visiting for a few days. He likes the high test, so I dig out my second pot and fix some regular for him and decaf for me. It’s the little things like that which make me feel good about myself. It’s a small spiritual moment and my brother-in-law doesn’t even know that he contributed. It can be that simple. It doesn’t have to be People Magazine or the Rachel Ray show. It can be a friend, a spouse, a co-worker, a sister or a stranger.

Can you make a difference today?

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