Serenity

I Made It!

Well, last night I finished my Dale Carnegie course and was voted by the group to receive the Award for Highest Achievement, an award they only give to one person in the class. It's for the person who has demonstrated the principles of the course to the highest level. It was quite humbling, and for a moment I was lost for words.

But only for a moment!

I will begin as a Group Assistant on another Dale Carnegie course in a week's time. And I'm excited to continue my path with Dale Carnegie.

The Music Is In You

A Step Closer...

Today I became a step closer to realising my dream of becoming a professional speaker and coach. I have been taking the Dale Carnegie course and I finish this Thursday. Tentatively I will begin as a group leader in another twelve-week course starting the following Wednesday (April 25th).

I have shown a lot of interest to the organization that runs the courses in Calgary that I would like to become a Trainer and they are taking steps now to facilitate that.

It is an exciting development and one that will start me on a new path.

The Dale Carnegie program started almost a hundred years ago and resonates today almost unchanged because it deals with the fundamentals in life, relating to having better relationships with people, being a strong leader and an effective communicator.

I'll keep you posted as to my progress.

Brainstorming Your Own Goals

One of the toughest things for so many of us to do is decide what it is we want to do with our life. Even when the pressure of earning an income is removed, as in retirement, it's a known fact that retirees who don't have something to keep them occupied die sooner than those who do.

For the Baby Boomers the crunch seemed to come in the forties and fifties when they hit a mid-life crisis, suddenly re-assessing their lives, what they had done and where they were going.

For Generation X (the children of the Baby Boomers) the problem seems to come about earlier in life. I can't count on both hands the number of my friends in their late twenties and early thirties who are changing careers, taking big chunks of time off (a year or more) to travel, going back to school or whatever to chase their dream. I have gone and continue to go through the same issues, and it's a tough time if you're stuck with no idea how to move forward.

One exercise I found helpful was a kind of brainstorming your goals. Sit down with a piece of paper and write 100 goals that you want to achieve given no restrictions and unlimited opportunities. This would include health, financial, personal, career, achievement, recognition goals and anything else that you can possibly imagine you would like in your life, no matter how big or small.

Doing this exercise, which takes between one and two hours I found the first forty or fifty quite easy to rattle off, but as I wrote more it became harder and harder and I had to really think about each one.

I did this with my wife. We sat opposite each other in a cafe and wrote down our goals independently. Then after we were finished we read them to each other one by one. It was a great learning experience for me about my wife as well as for myself.

The exercise forces you to think and re-think what you want out of life, and a theme to many of the goals will probably become fairly evident.

"Enjoyment is not a goal, it is a feeling that accompanies important ongoing activity" - Paul Goodman (1911-1972)

Don't lose sight...

I heard a comment directed at me yesterday that I hear quite often, "Is there anything you don't do?"

My answer is usually, "I do most things." And that's the way I like it. People who know me well know how many different things I'm involved with, and what hobbies or pastimes I have. I do a lot, and I'm interested in doing a lot. My life consists of very little inactive time, and I feel I get great value for my time. Though sometimes all these activities can get a little overwhelming I'd rather have that than sit around wondering what to do next.

I guess the reason I do so much, (other than my lack of television viewing, which has already been discussed at length) is because I'm interested in doing a lot of different things. Why shouldn't I? Really, what value does it add to my life to not be interested in doing something?

For example... I enjoy painting, and I enjoy going to the theatre, but I also enjoy exercising, dinner parties, meeting new people, camping, travelling, investing, gardening, renovating, golf, ten-pin bowling, watching sport, walking, writing, reading and spending time with friends and family.

Is there a reason I shouldn't enjoy all of those activities?

Is there a reason I can't enjoy more activities and spend time doing them? Absolutely not!

If I want to take up yoga, sewing, fishing, cycling, swimming or playing the piano, can anyone stop me? Absolutely not!

Does it matter how good I am at any of those activities? Absolutely not!

As it turns out I'm pretty good at ten-pin bowling. I averaged 187 in the last season's league. This was the second highest average in our Monday-night Mixed League. I'm not good enough to make it to the TV leagues and bowl in any sort of championship, but I'm a pretty good league bowler on a Monday night. My point here is that even if I sucked at bowling there's no reason for me not to bowl if I enjoy myself. Whether I average 187 or 87 the point of bowling on a Monday-night mixed team is to have fun.

Far too many people don't attempt something because they are worried about how good they will be at the activity. When I started bowling my average was 135. I took some lessons, persevered and practiced and after two years I was bowling in the 180s. But my enjoyment for the game didn't change, I just got a bit better at it. There were still the same frustrations and challenges.

I took up painting a few years ago, and I quite enjoy it. It's very relaxing and I feel a sense of accomplishment after completing a piece. I've had my work exhibited at a few places, and after my first exhibition I hadn't sold anything and I spoke with my grandmother, a recognised artist in Australia, and her words were, "It doesn't matter whether you sell anything, so long as you enjoyed having you art exhibited for people to see."

I realised how often we lose sight of the real point in doing things. Far too often people get carried away with winning at all costs, when we're really participating for enjoyment and perhaps exercise or self-improvement.

Don't let anyone tell you you're not good enough to do something. Vincent Van Gogh sold one painting when he was alive. Should he have never painted?

The Value of Time (Published Article)

Have the words “I just don’t have enough time” ever passed your lips? Have you ever wished for an extra one or two hours in the day?

It seems to be a common problem, but it’s not that there isn’t enough time, it’s that the time we have available isn’t being used efficiently.

Time isn’t something we can change, but our use of it is. Somehow people like Donald Trump seem to find enough time, so how can we squeeze a little more out of the orange?

Firstly, consider how important time is for you, and how much time is wasted every day. I treat my time like a scarce commodity, because I’m never sure just how much more of it I’ll have. Time is my only non-renewable resource.

If you work full-time, then you’re donating forty or more hours per week. Unless you can increase your hourly rate or decrease your expenses, this time spent is a given.

But what about the rest of your time?

A year or so ago my life came to a crunch. I felt I was close to a breakdown because I was overdoing it, committing to too many projects and trying to get too much done. What was disconcerting was that I felt I wasn’t giving enough attention to the parts of my life I valued most. I think most of us can relate to that.

So I wrote a list of the top ten ways I’d like to spend my time, and I compared it to the top ten ways I actually spent my time. The difference was staggering.

That was the day I gave up television.

Here are some of the ways I maximize the value I get from my time. I won’t spend time with people who don't appreciate me. I am continually trying to improve myself and my life and I actively enjoy the time I have doing what I place high on my priorities - reading, painting, exercising, socializing, writing, meditating, traveling, and most importantly being a Dad and husband.

An interesting statistic: The average Canadian watches television for 21.4 hours per week (source Stats Canada). Over a lifetime of say seventy-five years, that's 9 years and 193 days spent in front of the television.

Think about what you’ve achieved over the last nine or ten years and realize that’s what you might be giving up.

I didn’t watch 21.4 hours a week, but I had my weekly shows, and a few others I liked. But I saw how those shows got in the way of doing what I really wanted to do. Watching television wasn’t in my top ten.

By giving up television (I now watch between a half and one hour per week) my available time is more than nine years longer than the average Canadian.

On the other hand a fifty-year study completed in 2004 by BUPA's Health Information Team in the U.K. stated that smoking cuts life expectancy by ten years. So when you compare watching television to smoking, which continually gets bad press, you effectively miss out on about the same amount of time to actively live.

It's important that we not only respect our own time, but even more importantly, the time of others. It is only by being active in the time we have that we can accomplish and grow.

"I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book" - Groucho Marx (1890-1977)

If you have any comments, I’d like to hear them. Please email me at matthew@pagehanify.com