Information, Schminformation--Enough Already!Written by Lynn Moore
We are drowning in it, our grey matter is swollen with it, half time when we need a piece of it and we know it is "in there" somewhere, we can't access it because poor Grey Matter Computer is so jammed it takes forever to search for file and then it's usually "just lost" or was mistakenly deleted. And that's just our brains...what about our files, drawers, shelves, filled with papers, books, stuff.Arrrgggghhhhh! What heck good is all this information if we can't use it? Or can't find it? Well, there is good news... The INFORMATION AGE is slowly passing. Like tail of a comet that appears, is visible for a time then gradually loses it's brilliance and fades from view. And in it's wake there arrives... TA DAH... THE INSPIRATION AGE! Let's look at word "inspire". It comes from root words "in spirit". "We have a responsibility to listen to and honor siren calls of our Souls-too often silenced by our egos" -Lance Secretan, Author of "INSPIRE: What Great Leaders Do" How much of activity in your life is duty-driven? How much of activity in your life is driven by passion? There is a world of difference between duty-bound activities and INSPIRED action! INSPIRATION propels you into actions you love to do. In any segment of your life, if you do not love what you are doing 80% of time, you are not living an On-Purpose life. INSPIRATION is fueled by passion. What are you passionate about? If you can get in touch with this, you will have defined your life purpose. For most of us that is not easily done and is a good subject for Life Coaching. In meantime, here are some ideas with which to start: 1. Write a list of things that are important to you. You will find that once you get rolling, you won't be able to write them down fast enough. 2. List 10 times you felt like a winner or things you are most proud of. Some should be from childhood.
| | Make Fear a Nine Day Wonder - Motivate Yourself with Fun!Written by Cliff Kuhn, M.D.
Have you heard something referred to as a "nine day wonder"? The phrase refers to something that causes a sensation for a brief period of time and then fades into obscurity. The origin of this phrase is usually tied to nine-day reign of Lady Jane Grey (1537-1554) as Queen of England. This reluctant queen met an untimely fate. More on that later...I added a new Fun Commandment recently to address a very pesky and persistent nine day wonder we all face - fear as a motivator. Fear is a great motivator...for a brief period. Then it does worse than fade into obscurity; fear adds to our load of stress and pressure. So I'm calling for an end to this nine day wonder's reign with my Fun Commandment, Motivate Yourself with Fun Rather than Fear. Motivating yourself with fun rather than fear pays big dividends in myriad ways. Making this choice accelerates your ability to communicate, rests your brain, lowers your stress, increases your tolerance for pain, among other things. In this article, however, I am focusing on one incredibly important and impactful side effect of this Commandment - using fun to motivate yourself increases your creativity. Creativity is an ability highly sought by businesses and employees alike. Creativity is trumpeted in every mission statement and praised by every CEO for good reason - we know that creativity brings breakthroughs! Since ability to create breakthroughs is both a highly sought after and also a highly marketable skill, creativity gets a lot of deserved attention. Yet there are still many myths to dispel about creativity. One of biggest myths is that creativity is fueled by time pressure. Time pressure is an example of fear-based motivation because it involves trying to escape a negative consequence rather than moving toward a positive outcome. Deadlines are a reality, but using fear to fuel our creative juices has opposite effect. The alternative is to use fun as our motivator. Theresa Amabile, head of Entrepreneurial Management Unit at Harvard Business School, has been studying creativity for 30 years. For past 8 years she has collected nearly 12,000 daily journal entries from 238 people working on creative projects in seven large corporations. She and her team scoured journals for moments when people struggled with a problem or came up with a new idea. The following rules for using fun to motivate creativity are inspired directly from Amabile's research.
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