Category: Epiphany

To wake up with a thought that staggers you down to the bottom of your feet. You have just hit upon something that will intrigue an audience.

Imagine a Society

Imagine a society where typical laws were replaced by laws of “please”, “thank you” and “I’m sorry”. In the new society, a person would have to use these in all appropriate situations.  If you take the time during the day and truly pay attention to how often these words are used, it might shock you.  If you look at the person who does receive this kind of attention, you see a glow that reflects the attention they just received.

If you were at the grocery store and someone helped you get a box off the shelf, would you say, “thank you”? If you needed that box, would you ask someone to “please” help you? If someone slipped on some water you spilled, would you say, “I’m sorry”?

There are so many situations during a day that these words can be used. It makes you wonder why they aren’t. Is it because people just don’t care or has society dismissed any civility? None of the words are hard to say and the impact that they can have on people is amazing.

The building block to society is communication. Having a peaceful society means you not only treat yourself well, but that you treat your neighbor well. These words have an effect of calming any discussion or interaction.

When you look someone in the eyes and genuinely say “thank you”, people feel appreciated, and a bond is created through eye contact. When you do the same with “please”, you show faith in your fellow man which generates respect. Lastly, when you genuinely say “I’m sorry” to someone, scars are healed, and relationships mended. Sometimes “I’m sorry” is not used because a person may think they will be perceived as weak. In truth, it shows a strength of communication that is vital.

A couple other laws that need to be enacted are “active listening” and “smiling”. Again, these actions shape the face of communication. If you’ve ever been in a situation where someone has a complaint, these two qualities are crucial. You resolve a complaint by allowing the person to discuss/explain their objection. During the dialogue, you’re smiling with intent to understand. Sometimes people just want to be heard and a grateful listener reduces the tension. What happens when they are finished? You say, “I’m sorry” and “thank you”! What a concept!

We have laws now concerning murder, domestic abuse, robbery, etc. These laws and their punishments are in place to try and decrease or eliminate the occurrences. We need to enact laws that encourage civil behavior such as someone not saying please, not using thank you, or not telling someone you’re sorry.

Imagine putting someone in jail for these offenses. It might look like this: “Sir, you are sentenced to a week in this grocery store to learn and demonstrate the norms of our society which include “please”, “thank you”, and “I’m sorry”. The unit around your wrist will record every time one of these is used. Please learn from this experience and thank you for your attention.”

This “incarceration” should be a learning experience that should have been developed since childhood.  Often, we are the product of our upbringing.  How your parents and/or peer group handled civility very often is the model you follow.  Be sure to be the model that genuinely enjoys interaction with others and delights in bringing a sincere smile to their face.

A civil society starts with civil communication. Imagine a society that is structured on respect and kindness.

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Imagine a World….

I am so excited to discuss a new series I will be doing that will address many of the thoughts people have about issues that seem to trigger emotions in us or make us stop and ponder the reality of things.

It is an interesting time both nationally and internationally and how we get through this really depends upon us. We all have beliefs and attitudes that dictate who we are. How we share those beliefs and attitudes can also determine how we are perceived by others.

The values we hold dear personally are the ones that usually come through in good times and bad. Sometimes when our values are fragile, we move outside of ourselves and become someone we do not recognize. It is times like this that we need to hold strong to what we believe and, if we are not sure what we believe, we work to learn and better understand what we want and need. We also need to learn to discern what others want and need and how we can help them in that journey.

The title of this new series is “Imagine A World.” You can see that the keyword here, Imagine, means we are using our value system, our beliefs, and attitudes to weave into our imagination. That imagination in the world would make certain strengths universal and be good for all mankind.

Have you ever thought about a world without hate? How about a world where the main priority was looking out for your neighbor? In this politically charged environment, what would happen if people found common ground, if people listened to understand rather than talk to accuse or challenge? Is the world a place where loving someone is considered weak? Is it a place where being concerned for someone is a weakness?

This is a portion of the topics or questions that the new series will address. This series will be posted on YouTube and I will be anxious to see the comments that are generated from ideas that some may consider controversial and others perhaps just nod in agreement. I fully expect to get both sides and to read and listen to the rationale of each.

This series idea was generated from various events in conversations that have been ongoing. Being a Life Coach and a Christian, I walk an interesting line with people who may have different views and values than I do. One of the missing links is that we have not taken the time to reflect on the opinions of others or to take a step back and to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes. So often we take our opinion and one way or another impose it on others without knowing their circumstances, needs, or desires.

My hope is that this series triggers some thought individually and between other people and that the conversation generated from it becomes a powerful tool for positive action.

The series will be located on YouTube at:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOTYakAJR0aMRmoIE9Bygyg?view_as=subscriber

There will be a new segment every week. Please take time to comment and add your thoughts. This forum can be a valuable tool in strengthening personal experiences, relationships, and the building of a caring society.

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Your World Is What You Think It Is

We all go about our daily lives not really paying attention to the activities of others around us.  Life seems to move forward no matter how we try to speed it up or slow it down.  Our attitude tends to put everything in perspective for us and we don’t think twice about what that attitude is. 

We wake up in a good mood, bad mood, or just figure it is another day.  We don’t reflect on the best way to start today, although, if we did, it would set a positive tone for the remainder of the day. 

How do you see the world?  Is it through your eyes or through someone else’s?  So often we let others dictate how we feel, what we believe, or determine who we are.  When we are children, this is natural as we don’t know any better, but, as we grow older, our world view should be our own.  Remember the term “peer pressure.”  This refers to our behavior and decisions determined by those around us.  Most of the time, this begins in school and can last a lifetime.   

The end of a dream can come from words or an attitude of someone else.  The dream itself was formulated inside each one of us.  We can hold on to that dream by knowing we all have the potential to realize it no matter what. 

So often I run into people with no self-esteem and I wonder how this happened.  Who said or did something previously to drive them down?  If you watch people every day, you see those who can’t make eye contact, who think that their low position job is the best they will ever be, who feel like they have nothing to contribute.  All this is a result of external pressures that we have internalized to be true.  It is easy to tell people they have more value than they realize but it means nothing until they internalize that message. 

How do you create your own special world?   

First, what happened in the past is gone.  Let it go.   

Determine to find a positive in every aspect of your life.   

Live in the here and now.   

Be present and focus on every interaction throughout the day.   

Reflect on every conversation.  Look for the hidden gems.   

Be excited for the future but don’t dwell on it.  Plan simply.   

Don’t try to do too much. 

Creating your world is like producing a movie.  You are the star.  The script that you go by is one that you have written yourself.  Like any good script, it takes time and effort.  Also, the benefit of your personal script is that it can be adjusted as you go.  You decide when you want to “ad lib” and make other changes.  All movies have a supporting cast.  Since you are the casting director, you determine who is going to support you and what role they will play. 

The message is that you have control over what your life will be like.  You may be affected by other people, but it is YOUR choice whether you accept it or not.  Be the one in charge and determine what your life plan will be and then carry it out utilizing the tips above.  Doing so will generate the happy and fulfilling life that you are seeking. 


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Filling the Void

Throughout my travels I am constantly holding workshops, and when I do, I like to open with a brief introduction of each person, so I can learn, number one, what their name is, and number two, what their dreams or goals are. This gives me some information about the person. It tells me if they’ve thought about goals at all, it tells me if they were raised in a positive or negative environment, and it tells me if they are headed in a certain direction. It’s an eye-opening experience for me as a person doing the workshop.  

Sometimes it’s generational and sometimes not, as far as people having dreams, whether they believe they’re possible to attain, and how dreams and goals may or may not fit into their life plan. When I ask the question, I would say that many young people, and I’m using “young people” in a millennial sense, will say they don’t really have any dreams or goals.  

My next question to them is, “When you go home at night, what do you enjoy doing?” Many times, their answer is, “I go home and plan video games.” That’s it. There’s nothing beyond that. To me that is an expected answer and a disappointing and saddening answer because it means they believe on some level that they are unaware of their possibilities or abilities going forward, and that, to me, is a void that needs to be filled. This void is why many people never get ahead and sometimes there is a misunderstanding of what a dream or a goal is. Sometimes when you are going to a class or workshop on setting goals, they talk about all the different techniques of writing it down and setting a time frame, which I completely agree with, but on a more emotional level the act of simply thinking about, on a regular basis, what you want to do or accomplish can spur action if there are other factors involved. For example, I may not write down an action or goal of I want to quit smoking and the steps I’m going to take, but each time I think about quitting smoking, it plants a seed and it triggers something. For me personally, when I did quit smoking, it wasn’t a set of goals or steps, it was a sort of switch that was flipped in my head, and after the multiple attempts I had made to quit, this one took. It was just as though a switch turned off and I no longer had the urge to smoke. Now, that doesn’t mean that setting goals, writing them down and putting steps to them isn’t a valid way of achieving what you want in life. What I’m saying is that if your mind set is such that you are always thinking about the possibilities and where you want to go and what you want to do, you have that as a stimulus in your brain, that at some point is going to be activated.  

Something else that often disappoints me in my workshops is the response I receive when I ask participants, “Why don’t you have any dreams or goals?” I hear answers such as, “I’m just not smart” or “I never finished school” and I just want to grab my head in frustration because what all these people are doing is putting limitations on themselves. One person who told me this, I had spoken to during the workshop and knew that he was a bright individual and had some great ideas. To hear this was extremely disappointing because I knew it just wasn’t true, but somewhere in his past experience he had been told or convinced that he wasn’t smart. The fact of the matter was that he was one of the individuals who indicated that he played video games when he got home. I asked him why he didn’t start dreaming about something and he responded that he knew he should and that sometimes he thinks about it, but he just doesn’t take it any further than thinking about it.  

The last thought about filling a void – action. There is something to be said about doing anything at all. It doesn’t matter what it is but simply taking some type of action to begin realizing your dreams and goals. I recommended to this young man that he take fifteen minutes before he begins playing a video game and do something that will drive him toward an action, which will in turn get him closer to his dream or goal. He thought it was a great idea. The next thing we must do to help someone fill that void is to bring out what the dreams or goals are. What are the desires you have that you would like to see realized in your life? That’s what this is all about.  

I want to encourage everyone to take the time to sit quietly and think about where you are and where you could be. Do this on a regular basis. Come to a workshop called “Purpose” and follow that with our workshop on “Goals” if you want to act toward those dreams. This is called “filling the void.” 

www.fergussongroup.org

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Reality Exposed

Whether it be in business or life, we always run into situations that call for a decision. Whether we know it or not, we’re always making this decision based upon our knowledge, our experience, or our awareness around us. That decision is whether to be in the real world or be in a made-up world.

This may sound a little funny but what this is referring to is how we may appear, communicate or interact depending upon the situation. In other words, are we going to be completely truthful in the situation, are we going to be our natural self when we are involved in some way with another individual. Everyday we’re making those decisions. Every conversation means we are taking stock of the situation and responding in some way. Let me give you an example – let’s say you are preparing to ask someone to go to dinner and you perceive the person as an extrovert and you are not quite an extrovert but not a true introvert. In your judgment of the situation means you need to be very gregarious, outgoing and enthusiastic about the asking. Therefore, you are going a bit outside your normal personality. Now this is a very simple situation, but it does reflect how we tweak our realities based upon the perceptions we have of the situation or issue.

In other words, we want to try to establish our own reality in that situation and sometimes it means we must alter our own initial reality to get where we want to go or to receive what we want to receive. If you think about your own situations, how do you think different issues correlate to this? It is something we all run into from time to time, but it’s daily, if not hourly, that this situation happens because when you think about it, each time someone enters your space, they are changing your reality to a certain degree and you are changing your reality to a certain degree to adjust to whatever the issue may be.

It is said you should be true to your nature, but we can’t always do that because staying true to your nature means no one impacts you, no one changes the way you see things, so the way you see things is the way it is at that time. Is every reaction you have exactly who you are? Not necessarily. People change us just as much as we change them. What we need to be aware of is how much someone is changing our reality or how much we’re changing our reality for them.

Another example is if you look at business relationships such as boss to employee.  An employee is always trying to be the perfect subordinate even when that is not necessarily their nature or their reality. I’m not saying they should be a bad employee, I’m just saying they are not being themselves. When they are not being themselves and just saying what the boss wants to hear they are creating a perception that may not be reality.  We have to be aware of ourselves and who we are, and, unless we are aware of the nature of the person we are talking to, we can’t help but change some realities.  We have to make the choice of who we are  going to be and the frustration for many comes when they look back and realize, “that was not who I am”.

If we want to be as consistent as possible, we must know who we are and what we want and need to have a philosophy of life that initiates a nature that is easy to project. What that means is, if you have a philosophy of life that says, “seek happiness in everything you do,” then your projection reflects that attitude.

Typically, what you give is what you will receive. If you are consistent in what you project, then what you receive is going to be will be in like manner.  If you are always smiling at people, I would be willing to bet that you are constantly receiving smiles in return.
The bottom line is, know who you are, know what you want, know how to give, know your philosophy of life and understand as much as you can the nature of other people. Joy is found in drawing people into the reality of happiness and contentment.

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Keeping a Broad Perspective

We all go through life, most of us with the best intentions, of what we want to do, who we want to be and where we want to go. Many times, we are offered different roads to take in order  to achieve those ends. What we determine those roads to be will give us the result that leads us to the next path.

As a child, we have a certain aspiration as to what we want our vocation to be, whether it be a fireman, a doctor, a lawyer, etc.. Children have these ideas in their minds and somewhere along the line they either become a reality or a different path is chosen, and that initial goal is never realized. Just think if everything we were able to dream were to come true. What would that look like and how would that manifest itself?

What so often happens is we lose our way. That is, we take paths that are not in line with what we intended to do. Sometimes we do this by choice and sometimes it is just a function of life events, so we need to be aware and open to all possibilities; hence, keeping a broad perspective. By doing so, we don’t let things slip by. We keep our eyes open to the dangers of a certain path or a decision that may not be in alignment with our intentions.

It is often said that it is a difficult road to try to find one’s life purpose, but that is because the road to finding one’s life purpose has so many paths that may be followed and the danger of taking one particular path and focusing on that path is that you lose perspective. You lose the ability to be open to all the possibilities. What is boils down to at times is, are we actually seeing what is before us? So often we go through life in a very superficial manner and we don’t see the truth, the value or the reality around us that is telling us what road we should be taking.

It is so important to dig deep and be a student of seeing the truth. When you do this, a whole array of possibilities springs up and your choices become much broader. If you have developed the art of seeing behind the screen, behind the shadows, those possibilities guide you into alignment with your purpose or your intention.

A favorite topic in business is “active listening.” This is nothing more than not being a superficial listener, but being present in the conversation and determining not only what is being said but who is saying it and what they mean. You have these separate components that come together – active listening and “deep seeing.” It is a combination that takes considerable practice. There are not many great listeners in the world nor are there many great “deep see-ers.” It is not a fault of anybody.  It is not how we were taught to see a person or to listen to a person, but when you do become present in the conversation your perspective broadens. Your possibilities become endless and you find a whole new world opening up to you.

“Look for the depth of a person’s intention.  It is only then you will                                                                     truly see.”                                                    

Craig Fergusson –January 5, 2018

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Thoughts Trigger Perception but Define Reality

We go through life with all sorts of external issues defining who people think we are.  Growing up, I was very introverted but rarely get defined that way today; then, in my twenties I “blossomed” into a “me first” type of person.  It is funny how getting married and having kids can change all that.

I look back now and can’t remember a time when I actually thought about how my thoughts were defining me.  I seemed to be reacting to everything and everyone around me.  Do you ever have to assume a role to make sure people view you the way you want?  Let me explain.  I always want people to see me as a confident, professional and knowledgeable speaker.  The problem is, my thoughts don’t always synch with my action.

What this means to me is that I “assume” I don’t have the confidence, professionalism or knowledge that I want to exude but I know that my actions are going to give the impression  that I do.  So, the question is, since my thoughts are creating an external perception, aren’t they also creating a new reality in me?

Think about your own situation.  Who are you and who are you perceived to be?  Your thoughts can take various roads in defining who you are going to be.  Are you really the life of the party or is that a role you play?   Understand that, if you create this perception, people may assume this is who you are.

All of this comes down to knowing who you are and/or who you want to be.  I prefer to think of myself as reserved, private, kind, understanding, a good listener, etc.  So, when I go into situations that may deviate from those qualities, I have to consciously think about I should stay the course or assume a “role.”

Just understand that your thoughts define you, accurately or not!

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