Free Your Mind from fear of rejection
Free Your Mind for greater creativity
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Free Your Mind to develop powerful relationships
Free Your Mind to create new opportunities
Free Your Mind and improve your health

FREE YOUR MIND AND IMAGINE THE POSSIBILITIES

Gift or curse?  I have thought my mind is at times both to me.  I was blessed with a great mind that has served me well in many areas of life.  But alas, its strength of imagination and intellect also produce some other ideas that don’t always serve me so well. 

I feel comfortable sharing this, because my experience is I am not alone.  Things happen in life.  Sometime these things really stick with us, and positive or negative, we carry them around for the rest of our life.

All too often excessive old-baggage is repackaged by our mind.  What happened 25 years ago has a knack for showing up today in the oddest places.  A smell, a touch, a taste, a tone of voice – they have a way of bringing back old memories. 

If the memory is a fond one, that’s great.  But, more often, we tend to remember the emotionally painful events life brings to us.  Ultimately the quality of our life comes down to our ability to self-manage how we experience and process these events as they occur.

For example, I have a great story on a somewhat personal level.  It concerns my Dad.  Recently he did what he thought was a good, neighborly deed.  His neighbor of many years often joked while my Dad mowed his lawn, “Are you going to mow mine too?” 

Last week, while the neighbor was away at work, my Dad did mow his neighbor’s lawn. And, knowing my Dad, he probably did a great job of it.  One might think the neighbor came home and really appreciated this.   He didn’t.  In fact, he became extremely upset.

I wasn’t there and I have no idea why this upset the neighbor so much.  But it did. 

The moral is things happen in life.   While I would love to come home and find my lawn mowed by a neighbor, many of us may not.  How the neighbor experienced what my Dad did for him probably had nothing to do with my Dad.  Yet it has affected and, for the time at least, soured a friendship.

Upsets occur throughout our lives and it is our ability to recognize the source of the upset and address it that ultimately makes all the difference in our peace of mind, relationships and how we proceed in the world.  The neighbor in this case takes my Dad’s gesture to mean something other than what was meant by it.  The result has been unnecessary upset for all.

In this event, I would coach the neighbor to simply ask, “Larry (my Dad), what did you mean by mowing my lawn?”  

And the following conversation could probably ensue: 

Dad says, “You have joked with me many times about mowing your lawn.  I had some extra time and energy today and I just wanted to do something nice for you.”

Neighbor, “You know, my wife has been on me all week to mow it and I just haven’t had the time.  In fact, she’s on me about it all the time.  It’s a real source of irritation for me.”

And therein lies the real issue.   The neighbor took it as more criticism.  He went to a place of defensiveness when it was not warranted.  I don’t mean to make the neighbor wrong in my assessment.  He provides us with a great example of how we can twist good things into not so good things.

This is a simple example of an upset I see all of the time.  Something occurs and we interpret that occurrence through the filters of our life experiences – we make interpretations and assumptions.  We think in stereotypes.

Interpretations and assumptions are probably the cause of more relationship problems than anything else.  How often do we not call a business prospect a second time because we make assumptions when they don’t return our first call?  How often do we make an assumption about an employee who doesn’t do the job as we would like?  How often do we not ask for what we want, because we already think we know the answer? 

When we transfer past experiences (especially those held negatively) on present events, we force ourselves to play smaller than we are capable.  We limit our view of opportunity.  We destroy relationships and prevent countless others from ever getting a chance. 

I offer a powerful two-week course called Free Your Mind.  The course is delivered to you daily via e-mail and supported with two follow-up group coaching calls.  Individual coaching on the principles is also available. 

In this course you will learn principles to expand your thinking and increase your vision of possibility and opportunity in your life and your business.  I believe this course is a powerful piece of work that can transform your life and dramatically improve your professional results.

Take Charge of your future!

© John R. Barker and Coaching Works, Inc. 2000

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