Bring Meaning to Chaos – The Importance of Review

Posted on August 19, 2010 by pdncoach
“Chaos makes understanding what you know and not know more important… Eliminate chaos through identifying what you do and don’t know.”

The way you nail down what you know and what you still need to find out is done through reviewing your work. I recommend my clients complete a review of their work and life each week (and give it the catchy title of “Week in Review”).

Why do a Week in Review?  Here are a few reasons:

  1. Bring structure to chaos.
  2. Celebrate wins; acknowledge your lessons from setbacks.
  3. Create focus and uncover Purpose.
  4. Identify patterns and priorities.
  5. Become more goal-directed and track your progress.
  6. Categorize and address ongoing issues.
  7. Everything cannot be important; decide what is.
  8. Monitor projects, promises and assignments.
  9. Share it with your coach to provide perspective and breadth to coaching sessions.

What goes into a Week in Review? Of course, this is up to you and anyone with whom you might share your review.  The template that I give my clients for starters include these elements:

  • What has happened since we last spoke?
  • Things I accomplished, learned or am proud of this week?
  • Where I am stuck (challenges or concerns)?
  • Opportunities available to me
  • Obstacles I face
  • Where I need support
  • Best way to coach me this week
  • Field work for next week
  • List of the goals I am working toward achieving
One of my clients, a highly successful career salesperson, uses this Week in Review to better suit his needs:

  • My most important goal right now is…
  • What did I do this week that moves me toward my most important goal?
  • What is getting in the way of achieving my goal?
  • Companies I have contacted this week.
  • What specific obstacles am I facing?
  • I need support to help me not fall back to old habits like…
  • During this (coaching) call I would like to talk about…
  • My Top Goals in each of eight categories.
  • My Purpose Statement.

Herrick reminds us that all of us have mostly common components to our lives. The rest is focus, timing and review.  But we all have unique dreams, goals and purpose. Record your dreams, develop focus and purpose, then remain attentive through courageous action, review and planning.

You’ll start to clarify what you are pretty sure you know so you can put that into its proper place in your priorities and move on.

Focus, timing and review – that’s what puts us at The Intersection of Purpose and Now.

Join me at the Intersection of Purpose & Now.
Posted in chaos, goals, planning, Purpose, week in review | Leave a comment

The Weight of Glory

Posted on August 18, 2010 by pdncoach

“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of the kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously – no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinners – no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbour, he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat, the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.”

From The Weight of Glory, by C.S. Lewis

I absolutely love this brief passage that concludes one of C.S. Lewis‘ classic shorter works, “The Weight of Glory“. Lewis describes glory as not in being noticed by others and seeking their approval, but being noticed by God. We can recognize the glory in others only when we see them through the eyes of God. 

I also love the Na’vi greeting in James Cameron’s blockbuster motion picture Avatar: “I see you.” This is meant as more than just a greeting or acknowledgement; it is a statement of recognition. I recognize the spirit in you; I appreciate how you and I are alike and different.  There are no ordinary people, no mere mortals, but divine spirits that are at once unique and common because of all we have in common. 

“There are no ordinary people… We never talk to mere mortals… We must play… And our charity must be real and costly love…no more tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment… Your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.” Quite a standard of living and working together, isn’t it?  Maybe these are the standards of a remarkable life.
  • How do you greet people on a daily basis? Do you really “see” them?
  • How do you “see” the people on your team, in your workplace, in your neighborhood…or the neighborhood on the other side of town?
  • How might you begin to look for the divine – the immortal – in the people you see daily?
  • How might you be more playful in your relationships by taking people seriously?
  • How might you experience the real meaning of tolerance through “real and costly love”?
  • What if your co-worker, your boss, or your most troublesome employee was really the “holiest object presented to your senses” today? How might you treat them differently?
  • What if you were to “see” each person in your path as Christ vere latitat – truly hidden?

Miss “seeing” any one person today and you may miss your experience of Glory.  Greet people well at The Intersection of Purpose and Now.
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Posted in C.S. Lewis, remarkable life, team, tolerating | Leave a comment

What PDN Coaching is all about

Posted on August 17, 2010 by pdncoach

This is a rough video shot on the spot with no script (you can tell) at the 2010 Small Business Expo in Decatur, IL, courtesy of Falcon Multimedia, a division of Wood Printing in Decatur, IL. It’s rough, but gives you an idea what PDN coaching is all about and what it can do for you, your team and your organization or business.

Contact me directly (either by email or phone) and mention seeing this video to receive a COMPLIMENTARY Attribute Index* Assessment and debrief.

* Unique to Attribute Index is its ability to assess the way an individual makes decisions and interacts with the world around him/her as well as how the individual perceives himself/herself. Unlike any other instrument, this process has a direct relationship with deductive science allowing it to accurately measure the core dimensions of how individuals think and make decisions. The result is an accurate ranking of personal attributes describing individual potential for performance.

Join me at the Intersection of Purpose & Now.
Posted in Attribute Index, free coaching, performance | Leave a comment