Better Than Your Best Blog

The Importance of Your Earliest Memories

2007-01-29T14:12:00.000-08:00

What is the first thing you remember about your life? My first memory is about an event that occurred when I was about three or four years old.  

I vividly recall walking up to the place where the local barber had his shop in the front of his home. It was a small white house with lots of windows in the front. My mother was holding my hand as we approached the front door, opened it and walked into the shop.   

I only vaguely remember what the old barber looked like but I do recall that he had a bundle of silver hair and a broad smile on his face every time I looked at him. He took out a long board that was covered with red vinyl with brass studs all around the edges and placed it over the arms of the barber chair. He picked me up and sat me on the red board and then whisked a cloth around my chest and neck. It was my first haircut.  
 
Mom stood next to me as the barber clipped the large curls it had taken me all my life to grow. As they were clipped, the barber gave them to my mother who placed them lovingly into a plain white envelope. After the last curl was removed from my head and put safely into the envelope, Mom licked the flap and sealed it with a kiss.

Why are our earliest memories important? It's not as important what we recall as how we remember what happened at the beginning of our awareness of our lives. If the event we recall is remembered as being loving, warm, supportive, encouraging, comforting, enabling or embracing, for example, then I believe this sets the stage for subsequent experiences in life.

Let me go a step further. We have the ability to not only remember our past but to re-member it, as well. Our past is like a deep mine that is filled with all sorts of material. When we recall events and experiences in our lives we're really mining our memories and arranging them in certain ways together with emotions we may have actually had at the time or that we're adding at the time of our remembering. In other words, we have the ability to re-arrange (re-member) our memories as we recall them. We can mine our memories for multiple meanings and not be confined to the narrow range of what we think actually happened.   

Often we commit what I call “memory merge:” we merge our recollections of what happened from various sources and from different time periods into a single memory. This could be because these various sources were incomplete in and of themselves and were easily combined into a single whole or it could be that we're being creative with our past in our effort to make sense out of it. There could be any number of reasons why this occurs. The point is that memory is flexible, pliable, fluid and, on both the conscious and subconscious levels, to some degree within our control.

Your earliest memories set the stage for the way memory itself is molded and how it treats and molds the past. However, you still have the ability to alter the psychic and emotional environment within which your memories emerge. If you don't like the way your life has been going or if you feel that your life has been marked by dark circumstance and negative experience, you can begin to change it by mining your memories for additional meanings that are more supportive of a loving, positive life. You can re-member your memories to fashion them into a caring corpus characterized by compassion, forgiveness and self-acceptance.

Re-live your life through re-membering it and mining it for multiple meanings. You'll find that not only will your outlook on your future improve but your respect for your past will improve, too.

Rush Through Life At Your Own Risk!

2007-01-27T02:03:00.000-08:00

Bogged down by procrastination? Part of the problem is that you think you have to get it done today, or at least sooner than later. You've been brainwashed by the popular maxim: "Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today."

Hogwash!! Even though your goals can only be accomplished through appropriate daily deeds, they nevertheless take time and cannot be rushed. When you feel you must hurry to accomplish your goals, this leads to what I call “goal-rush” thinking. This is a sure-fire way to short-out your energy and sabotage your efforts in the pursuit of your goals. Feeling rushed often leads to muddled thinking, mistakes, lack of concentration, abbreviated attention span, frustration and eventual failure.

Do you have trouble falling asleep at night? Do you frequently feel tired throughout the day even though you’ve slept well the night before? Have you ever felt harried for no particular reason? Does life overwhelm you with all the demands and tasks that it presents you every day? Do you find it difficult to relax when you have the time to do so? Do you feel anxious as you prepare for a presentation, performance or meeting? Do you feel that something bad is about to happen or that “the other shoe” is about to drop and it won’t be good news?

If you answer “yes” to any of these questions, you are more than likely experiencing the effects of “goal-rush.” Ironically, rushing yourself to accomplish your goals results in confusion about what actions are most appropriate to take, and this winds up stalling your efforts to take any action at all.

The main reason you’re not taking action to move forward is that your brain is overworked. It’s tired from trying to process, manage and integrate all the bits of data it receives and retains every day of your life. It’s exhausted from being pushed to perform in over-drive. You need to take charge of your brain and tell it what’s important and what’s not. You need to consciously direct its movement toward subjects of thought that are edifying and away from those that further drain its energy and focus. You need to stop rushing through life.

Ever see those 3-D pictures? They’re sometimes called “Magic Eye” puzzles. At first inspection, they look like a jumble of smudges and smears with no apparent form or image. It takes three traits for a person to see the third dimension:

1) belief that the third dimension is in there waiting to be seen

2) belief in yourself that you can see the third dimension

3) determination to stay engaged with the picture until the third dimension emerges

If any of these three elements is not present, all you’ll be able to ever see is what first presents itself to you – a two dimensional surface with no depth or meaning.

As you pursue your goals you’ll do well to engage these three traits of goal accomplishment. To do this requires time and timing. Allow yourself the necessary time to decide what needs to be done and the appropriate timing in which to do it. Some things cannot be done effectively before other things are done first. With this approach, you will discover that what you need to be doing to achieve a goal might not need to be done until tomorrow.

How to Take a Good Look at Yourself

2007-01-16T06:05:00.000-08:00

I'm overhauling my website - at last! I've needed to for quite some time, but it takes time to do it. It also takes getting updated photos of myself so that people won't be so puzzled when they actually see me in the flesh at some conference and wonder, "who is that guy speaking - I thought we hired Ken Wallace!"

My wife took dozens of photos of me one afternoon in all poses and from all angles - trying to discover my "good side." Perhaps I'm like you in that I don't like having my picture taken. I think it's because I feel I have to be "just right" in the way I appear and that anything else - that is, the way I would look in an unguarded "candid shot" - wouldn't be good enough. Such a non-posed photo might show me in an uncomposed state - and that would be close to catastrophic because it might show who I really am and not who I want others to think I am.

Well, as I was going through all the pictures my wife had taken, I discovered something profound. I didn't look at all "posed" or forced or artificial or unnatural. The more I looked at myself in those photos the more I realized that the "me" others were seeing was not what I thought I was projecting to them. They were seeing the real me no matter what I was trying to project and no matter what I was doing inside my head to craft an image I wanted others to see.

The longer I looked at the pictures of myself the more I began to see myself not in terms of my own self-image but rather as others see me. This gave me a sense of freedom from my narrow self-image and from my exhasuting efforts to act in precise ways that would gain approaval, acceptance and accolades from others.

This is something you can do, too. You don't even have to have pictures taken of yourself to do this. You can simply do it in "real time" by looking at yourself in a mirror without doing anything to yourself, like applying make-up, shaving or brushing your hair or your teeth, etc. Just spend five minutes (which will feel like an eternity) gazing into your own eyes and studying yourself from different angles. Do not judge yourself by any measure or standard. Just look deeply and without pretense or fear.

What you will discover is that you'll begin to appreciate yourself as you would another person in your life, one whom you have good reason to appreciate. You will see yourself as a person "outside" yourself, external to your inner anxieties, stresses, fears and apprehensions. You will begin to appreciate your worthiness to exist as a living person without having to justify your existence with mental positioning, posturing and posing. You will see the plain, unvarnished truth of yourself and this truth will set you free from yourself.

Physically look at yourself without any internal agenda or preconceived intentionality and you will see yourself - and others - in a whole new light of gratitude, freedom and joy.

Go for it!

Ken

Are YOU the One Someone Else is Waiting For?

2007-01-04T19:08:00.000-08:00

Runners in a race do not start the race themselves. They wait for someone to give them permission to go for their mutual goal of being the first to break the tape at the finish line. Many of us have spent much of our lives getting on our marks, getting ready to go but never finally getting off the starting line. Why? I think it’s because we’re waiting for someone, perhaps we’re waiting for a particular someone to give us permission to go for our goals.

Who are you waiting for to provide you with the permission you seek before you finally step off the starting line and onto the track toward the fulfillment of your dreams? Whose blessing are you ardently seeking not realizing, perhaps, that this is what you’re after?

William James, the Founder of American Psychology, wrote, “Our chief want in life is for someone to make us do what we can.” We all need someone to appear at some point in our lives to help us see what we are capable of achieving and then to direct us in the most efficient and effective ways of doing what we now know we can. These are the people who are blessings in our lives because they have given us their blessing, their permission to proceed with passion and purpose in the pursuit of our personal goals. They say, often silently, “You may!”

Have you had someone like that in your past? Do you have someone like that in your life now? More importantly, are YOU that someone in someone else’s life who is making them do what they can but didn’t know they could?

Ken

Have You Found Who You're Waiting For?

2007-01-02T08:33:00.000-08:00

We’ve been taught that the reasons we don’t accomplish our goals in life are that we’re too timid or too disorganized or too unfocused or too lazy or too unclear in knowing what we really want or too unmotivated to improve ourselves because we’re too comfortable in our current situation or too unknowledgeable and inexperienced. All of these are true to varying degrees throughout our lives.

However, the one reason that is neglected that is too often the primary cause of procrastination and the feelings of emptiness and lack of fulfillment is that we’re waiting to receive permission from someone of significance in our lives. This is the same as receiving a blessing from those whom you love, respect and admire. The ancients knew of this need we all have. Many of the enduring stories of great and noble people of the past involve their quest for and receiving of a blessing from their parents or others of significance in their lives. This permission they received served to pull the trigger of the starting pistol of personal progress and significance in their own lives.

You need to know that your mentors support your choices in life and your path for achieving significance. Without the blessing you subconsciously seek, you travel tentatively through life with timidity or temerity. Neither extreme satisfies nor produces lasting positive or fulfilling results.

More later . . . !

Ken

Who Are You Waiting For?

2006-12-22T12:26:00.000-08:00

Of all the words ever written or spoken, some of the most influential in shaping human history and thought are to be found in the Ten Commandments. When we think of the Ten Commandments, usually three words spring to mind: “Thou Shalt NOT.” I don’t know about you but whenever I’m told I can’t do something I get very curious about the thing I’m not supposed to do! So, ironically, we seem to be drawn to the negatives in our lives, toward those things we’re not supposed to do because they bring more negative consequences than positive ones into our lives.

I think the reason for this is that so few of us are ever given explicit permission to set and pursue specific positive goals. Rarely, if ever, do we hear, “You may.”

Granted, some of the Ten Commandments begin with “Thou Shalt,” but this is interpreted more in terms of being given an order rather than being granted permission. The difference is that when you give someone an order, you’re trying to shape their behavior without regard for their personal beliefs and aspirations. Sounds like a boss or a parent, doesn’t it? On the other hand, when you grant someone permission, you are allowing them and encouraging them to pursue a goal of their own choosing and of their own desiring.

More on this in the near future. . . .

I wish for you a very Merry Christmas and a restful and rewarding Holiday Season. Happy New Year and all the best therein!

2006-11-09T15:33:00.001-08:00

Better Than Your Best: Follow Your Path and Learn to Fly

I've been traveling all day to get to a retreat that I hope will actually be a forward! I'm experiencing what I call the "slingshot effect." This effect gives you the feeling that you're being pulled back and that you're losing ground but, in fact, you're in the saddle of a slingshot poised to be let loose so that you can fly much further than you could have gone if you had merely kept trudging forward one foot after another.

Sometimes, you must allow yourself the perspective that going backwards is often the fastest way forward. By pausing from your current activity to examine your past patterns of thought and behavior and their consequent results, you can learn to move at greater speed toward accomplishing a personal or professional goal. By consciously interpreting a setback as a step forward, you prepare yourself to be released with greater force and momentum toward a target that now seems far distant and perhaps unattainable. Let yourself go back during those times of being pulled back so that you can learn to trust the path that you're on even if you feel you're being dragged in the wrong direction. By learning to trust your path you'll learn how to fly and cut your time to goal achievement!

Throw your heart over the goal line and your body with soon catch up!

Ken

Thoughts on the Start of a New Week

2006-11-06T06:52:00.000-08:00

Each week, especially Mondays, brings with it a slew of emotions accumulated from all the weeks and Mondays in the past. Mondays are usually greeted, if not with a sense of downright dread, then with a less than enthusiastic attitude and a low-grade anxiety. It's like going through a briar patch - as you travel through it, more and more burrs from the branches stick to your clothing. As you accumulate more "attachments" (physical, mental and emotional) as you go through life, the spiritual speed with which you travel decreases and the goals you set for yourself begin to loom loftier and soon appear to be bigger than your ability - and now your desire - to achieve them.

In order to grow inside, often you must shrink the outside, the accumulations and attachments and stuff that wind up cluttering up your mind and soul. The things you possess eventually possess you because you worry about their safety, care and cost and develop anxiety over the possibiity (or expectation, if you're really paranoid) of losing them. The growth of a person into a fuller, more fulfilled and joyous human being is more a matter of letting go than of adding on. If you can let go of your attachments to past possessions and attitudes you can move forward faster to accomplishing your worthy and worthwhile goals of becoming the person you can be so that you can do what you need to do in order to have what you really need to have - and nothing more. You won't want anything more because you have all you need because you are the person you've always wanted to be. You've given up trying to add anything else because you don't need anything else. You've grown so big on the inside that nothing on the outside can add to your growth as a person. The only source of growth from external things for you now is to let them go so they can flow through you to those whose need of them is greater than yours.

This is a great place in which to be, emotionally, spiritually, mentally and physically. What do you need to let go of instead of trying to add more of?

Ken

2006-11-01T15:11:00.000-08:00

Having traveled home by a different route, I saw different things. Now returning home on a familiar route, I see things differently. The lesson: I'll see when I choose to see and not simply because what can be seen happens to be in my field of vision.

Ever looked high and low for something only to find it where you searched several times before? It was in your field of vision but you were distracted from choosing to see it. You chose to focus your mind on something else, quite likely what you were going to do after you located what you were looking for. To really see, you must choose to see; you must be in the moment and not merely looking through it to what might be after it.

Have a different way today!

Ken

2006-10-31T08:55:00.000-08:00

A thought on doing better than your best. Try going home today a different way. And when you do, make a point to look for something unusual - like the unusual brightness of a particular tree or bush, or the different people you see on the way and what they are doing that might be different than what you'd expect. Alter your path and you alter your perception!
Make it a different day!
Ken

Solving Organizational Problems Once and For All: Play Pitch and Catch!

2005-12-28T09:30:00.000-08:00

Here's an article that you might find very helpful in getting a grasp on the best way to manage people's time and energy toward the accomplishment of organizational goals. Enjoy! Let me know what you think . . .
Ken Wallace
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Solving Organizational Problems Once and For All: Play "Pitch & Catch"

One of the primary functions of management and leadership is to solve organizational problems. An organizational problem occurs whenever the work practices and processes of those tasked with producing specific results do not actually produce those results. How can a manager solve such problems in an efficient and effective manner so that your organization remains on track for profitability and success?

The word "problem" literally means "to throw." A baseball pitcher finds it impossible to hold onto the ball and pitch it at the same time. In other words, to solve a problem you must not hold onto it but rather "throw it" out for discussion to get other perspectives and ideas regarding its causes and consequences. When you do this, you begin to see the "bigger picture" because you can view the problem from a distance. More importantly, you "throw" the problem into your organization's collective pool of experience and wisdom whose depth will provide the most appropriate solution(s) in a timely manner.

Based on this understanding of "problem," it becomes clear that a manager's job is not to solve problems all by him/herself; rather, it is to nurture the process of collective problem solving among the work force making sure that everyone is both a pitcher and a catcher. Everyone is trained and encouraged to throw problems they see into the collective talent pool; at the same time, everyone is equipped with a "glove" to catch the problems thrown by others in the organization.

It must be said that this is not as easy as it sounds. We've been trained over many years that talking with others about our problems is in bad taste. Nobody wants to hear about your problems, we've been told. Besides, everybody has enough of their own problems to be concerned about yours. And so we keep it to ourselves and think that we must solve it ourselves without bothering anyone else. Author Paul Strauss says: "Collaboration is the least of our skills. We don't like to share. Society stresses individual competition so working together is unnatural to us." When everyone in an organization keeps problems to themselves the problems soon take on a life of their own and grow much bigger and have a greater negative impact than they actually should warrant.

Learn how to play "pitch and catch" with problems in your organization and you'll soon see a big difference in the number of problems you're faced with. The number will go down and you'll find that you actually enjoy your work more.

Point #1: A problem shared is a burden divided. This helps the organization move toward the most appropriate solution in the least amount of time.

How do you create an organizational culture in which problems are willingly thrown and caught? The easiest and most cost-effective method for creating such a culture is for management to continually encourage problem sharing and solving behavior. You've heard it said that everything in an organization "starts at the top," or "rolls downhill." Presuming that leadership is positioned at the top of the organizational chart, this is true. However, in an organization that is defined by a structure the foundation of which is formed by its leadership, everything grows from the "bottom up." Just as crops are nurtured by proper nutrients in the soil and adequate amounts of sun and moisture, so, too, organizational cultures are nurtured by proper sources of growth from the soil of management leadership. In both cases, if the necessary ingredients for growth are not present in a sustained and sufficient manner, the result will be a meager harvest-- and eventual death.

One of the proper sources for optimal organizational growth is continual management/ownership encouragement of collective problem sharing and solving behaviors throughout the workforce. This is an essential ingredient for success. If you're having difficulties dealing with problems in your business, ask yourself: "Am I regularly encouraging my employees to play "pitch and catch" with the problems we seem to always be having?" If your answer is "No," then you'll know what to do next: at your next meeting with employees, raise the issue of problem solving and tell them you'd like for them to play more at work -- play more "pitch and catch" with the problems they see in the organization. But you have to be part of the team, too. Owners and managers are not the referees in this game of problem solving: they are player/coaches. Everybody throws and everybody catches -- those are the rules of the game.

Point #2: A problem unshared is a problem unsolved; a problem unsolved is a growing problem. This is not the kind of "growth" you want in your organization. Grow joy instead.

When you find a collective solution, then it's time to share the joy. To paraphrase the words of Jesus in the New Testament: "There is more joy in the organization at the solving of a single problem than over the multitude of things that go right everyday." When the employees of an organization know what the problem is because of playing "pitch and catch," they have a mutual interest in solving it and in celebrating the solution. Don't forget to celebrate the team victory over the problem and to keep track of the successes the solution produces over a period of time. Keeping the players informed as to on-going successes keeps them emotionally rewarded for having made the best choice and done the "right" thing; it also provides paced motivation for employees to continue to play "pitch and catch:" they can see that this sort of "play" really works.

Point #3: A problem solved is a joy multiplied. Anytime you can foster joy in your organization, you will prosper in terms of both employee and customer loyalty. An excellent way to create and sustain joy is by solving a problem together and tracking the results of the solution.

The organization that plays this game of "pitch and catch" together stays and grows together!