In a recent conversation with my sisters, I was reminded that people don’t necessarily have to agree with the how, why or when of a particular possibility. But they do have to be aligned on the ‘who’ and the ‘what’ in order to move forward together—and the ‘who’ has to include a commitment from each person involved to the possibility of the ‘what’. In fact, disagreeing with the specifics of how to create a possibility adds value to the conversation and can inform and, in many
Category Archives: Personal Empowerment
Habitual Being
One thing about being on the road as much as I have been for most of this year is that living in hotel rooms allows you to reflect on many things. For example, you get to examine your values and priorities and whether your transient life style is really a choice or just a kind of habit you’ve developed over the course of your career. I have been a consultant since 1969 and have traveled a lot over the past 28 years. You get some idea of how nutty we road warriors can be when you consider we
Wasting Time
I am not sure it’s possible to waste time. It is possible to spend time, and waste is always a judgement relative to some standard or expectation of what we should be doing with our time.
We can use time to do things that we judge as having maximum or high value. When we are really up against a deadline and there is more to do than we think can be done in the time allotted, we can even somehow create time.
Yet, there are many times when I just don’t feel like doing whatever it is I think I
Giving Your Best
By Shae Hadden
Bio
I
am reminded, once again, that we cannot ‘give our best’ day in and day
out unless we also give to ourselves. And sometimes the best we gift we
can offer ourselves is a new perspective on time. For the point of view
I have held until now (that time is a precious resource that I don’t
have enough of), has left me drained and unsatisfied. I wonder what
happened to unprogrammed time to relax and smell the roses, to be in
the company
Giving Your Best
As the evenings get cooler and days shorter here, summer holidays wind down. Everyone seems to be preparing for the start of September, and looking forward to the last real weekend before things start up again. Most everyone I talk with has enjoyed some of the summer outside with family and friends, and I find myself experiencing a twinge of regret. For me, the last few months have been a blur of work indoors in front of the computer, interspersed with a few brief moments of relaxation. This afternoon,
Polarity
Either/or.
This way of thinking about and relating to life is one of the most persistent and difficult aspects of our culture. Everything is either this or that. And if it isn’t this, it must be that.
We are either independent or dependent.
We are either the part or the whole.
We can be unified and whole or we can be fragmented and incomplete.
If something isn’t true, it must be false.
If something isn’t wrong, then it is right.
And on it goes….
This either/or mode of observing and
Im-Possibility
By Shae Hadden
Bio
“The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible and achieve it, generation after generation.”
—Pearl S. Buck
When I was younger, I used to believe in setting goals that were feasible, practical, reasonable and possible. Now, in middle age, I find myself wanting to throw aside the limited scope of the goals I inherited from my parents, peers, and society. Rather than save up or mete out my resources to last into a distant future, I’d
Upsets
I have a friend who is really upset because she feels she was pressured into a particularly large purchase and not appreciated afterwards. It occurs to me that this could be a concern for many single women, especially as they grow older. We read daily of various scams to help older people part with their money. While I don’t think that women are the only ones affected, they do seem to be targeted more often than not. In the case of my friend, the issue wasn’t one of the salesmen being dishonest,
Empowerment Revisited
By Shae Hadden
Bio
When I worked for a public service agency, I used to think that I was responsible for certain results, but I never felt ‘empowered’. I equated being empowered with having the boundaries removed that seemed to stand between me and getting the job done. I remember one instance in which there was an immediate and urgent need to provide a client with resources (which would impact a budget over which I had no authority). Without the ‘power’ to commit to this expenditure, I
Prayer: Connecting with Possibility
My friends and I have been told by a couple of our wives and
girlfriends that we are a unique group of men. It is ironic that we
don’t really understand why, but we are all extremely open, vulnerable
and nurturing in our relationships with each other, as well as with
other people in our lives. I don’t know why, perhaps it comes with time
and the fact that we’ve all worked in some form of transformational
training for most of our careers.
Whenever
we ‘Souls’ get together, we follow