WholeLife Mastery

"Contrast Helps You to Identify Desire"

Driving home from campus yesterday, I recognized the first week of school was all about contrast, i.e., experiencing what I didn't want -- a parking ticket, a student who only wanted to know if a course was easy before registering for it, being shot down in a committee meeting .... -- so I could make clear and conscious decisions about what I do want. I earnestly want a safe, legal parking space close to my building every day I go into campus. I deeply desire students who love to learn and who are ready and willing to stretch and grow. I passionately long for a learning community where feeling and believing are acknowledged as legitimate ways of knowing.

Clearing the Way for an Effortless Life

One of the reasons I started blogging was to create some accessible storage space. This blog is serving that purpose well. Now when I come across a bloggable (Did I just make up a word?) tidbit, I click on Blog This! or I start a new note in Outlook (if it's an incomplete thought I don't know when I'll get around to completing). As I clear my file cabinets -- my goal is to scale down from 3-four drawer vertical file cabinets to 1 four drawer lateral cabinet on or before June 10th 2004! Hey I've got to be realistic about this-- I scribble a note on the paper and file it in one of my blog folders for later (should I ever run out of stuff to blog - HA!!). Ohhhh! It feels so good to have a system that works. And speaking of systems, Bernice Ross of Teleclass4u.com wrote two very insightful newsletter articles on "Creating an Effortless Life": "Effortlessness requires structure. Creating structure requires action. Maintaining structure takes consistency and rhythm." Unfortunately, I can't find the articles archived online, but you can subscribe to The Teleclass4U.com Community Newsletterfor free.

My First Kudos

I've been surfing around to change my blog's description in several services I added -- Blogarama subject directory; Haloscan, commenting service -- when lo and behold on Blogwise, another categorized directory, I saw the comment "Interesting subject matter. original" from Gooberbug Danielle. But, hey she didn't Blogroll Me! As it seems to be this week's theme: "I blogroll myself; therefore, I am." Tee! Hee!

Clarity is a Wonderful Thing

In journaling this morning, a new description for my blog came to me -- "Learning to live the life that is one's own", from the J. California Cooper short story, "The Life You Live (May Not Be Your Own)" in Breaking Ice. That feels much better than the previous description "Be(come)ing and Making the Best Use of a Coach from the Inside-out". The new description is a container spacious and flexible enough to hold all of who I Am being and who I Am becoming. Coach. Professor. Greatness experiencing and expressing. Writer. Yes, I claim it. Techie. Trekker. Suburban gardener. Journaler. Householder. Friend. Daughter. Racquetballer. Gourmand. Deliberate Creator. "I write myself; therefore, I am." And so it is!

Seven Habits of Highly Successful Bloggers

Given that The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is the text for my Professional Career Development course, I couldn't resist this blogger's take on them: 7 Habits of Highly Successful Bloggers

Coach as Professor

A woman whose company is named WholeLife Mastery -- it's official, there's even a Fictitious Firm Name file with the county clerk -- can't get her WholeLife into one blog. What's up with that? The professor has three blogs, one for each class I teach -- Diversity in Hospitality, Hospitality Human Resource Management, and Professional Career Development. There's one for theWeblogging101 course I'm taking this week, and there's this one. I've decided it's okay to have all those blogs; they're each for different audiences. This one is my "I write myself therefore I am" (Henry Louis Gates in the Introduction to Bearing Witness) blog, where I write myself into experiencing and expressing my Greatness. That's exactly what I support and challenge my clients in doing. What if/How can I bring that same example of reflection to my class blogs? How can I BE "Coach as Professor"?

The Factfinding Challenge

This is the third time in about two weeks that I've spent way too much time hunting down the citation for a quotation. The first one was -- okay, this is getting to be quite funny. A hunt inside a hunt. I went to look for the other two citationless quotations -- both are in this blog, and realized my blog has gotten large enough to need a search tool. Blogger's got a list of possibilities (for me that means free and easy), including a recommendation for AtomZ.

• "Abraham Lincoln’s response to the following inquiry: 'what would you do if you have only two hours to chop a cord of wood?' Lincoln’s response was that he would spend the first hour sharpening his ax".
  
• "treat and move your feet"
  
• hmmm! the third one didn't make it into my blog. I was too frustrated after searching for the citation to do an entry that day.
  The master in the art of living
  makes little distinction between
  his work and his play,
  his labor and his leisure,
  his mind and his body,
  his education and his recreation,
  his love and his religion.
  He hardly knows which is which.
  He simply pursues his vision of excellence in whatever he does,
  leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing.
  To him he is always doing both.
  
  

The last one was variously attributed to a Zen Buddhist text (which one specifically??); quoted in "Head to Head" by Lester Thurow; also attributed to James Michener; to Francoise Rene Auguste Chateaubriand; to George Bernard Shaw and Christopher Walker claimed to have originated it himself.
The only thing I can offer those who help me find these citations is my undying gratitude and the title "Factfinder Extraodinare!"

Resolving to Stretch and Flow

The Well Within Coach posted the Fast Company article "Cultural Revolution", which describes creating "new social structures that harness the power of technological innovation". While blogging is not included on the list, psychological "Flow" and personal renaissance are. For these two structures, the author resolves, respectively: "I will set a 'stretch' goal and invest in learning the skills that are necessary to reach it." and "I will change a personal routine. I will try something new."

What William Gibson and I Have in Common

On tonight's Weblogging 101 course, teleclass leader Andy mentioned William Gibson's blog and the impact it had on Gibson's writing routine. I can empathize with Gibson. When I first started my blogs -- I now have four started!, I stopped journaling for a while. OUCH!! Okay, I admit it. I am often a creature of routine and ritual (R and R), and blogging was a new task that has taken me some time to incorporate into my daily R and R. R and R's are excellent examples of structure, i.e. "a means by which we create focus and discipline, .... any device that reminds [one] to be in action" (Co-Active Coaching, p. 91). "Take time to compose a routine to keep things in place so you don't waste time with the daily question 'When will I get to that?'" (Chic Simple Storage, p. 15). Inquiry: What routine would make your life easier? What ritual would make your life sweeter? Design and establish them now.

The Power of Journaling

Last night I surfed across several websites on journaling: a truly inspiring article in Personal Journaling Magazine "Life's Sticking Points" by Kay Marie Porterfield. I was so inspired by her powerful questions -- e.g. "Are big issues impeding your progress, or are you being held up by a collection of more minor procrastinations and irritations?" and "What hidden benefit do I derive from this relationship or situation?" -- and journaling exercises, that I finished the Book Review List for my Professional Development course. Then I treated myself to this month's issue of Personal Journaling to celebrate. BTW: how often do you become or do something ordinary or extraordinary without stopping to enjoy the accomplishment and celebrate? I'm working on that one. I realized that for me journaling serves several purposes: 1. means to connect with my Greatness; 2. tool for "Keeping my heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life" (Proverbs 4:23); 3. key spiritual practice/discipline that opens me to experience grace; 4. record that reminds me of how far I've come; and 5. a sacred space for creating where I want to go. Inquiry: How could you use a journal to experience and express your Greatness?