The Robert White Blog
Gratitude: Expanding Your Life Experience
Years ago while going through a personally challenging time (that’s meta talk for an unwanted divorce from the love of my life!), a friend and coach for leadership training in Colorado asked me if I prayed. I replied yes and he said “what’s the content and context of your prayers?” I don’t remember my response (don’t want to remember?); but I clearly remember that his counsel was to shift my prayers to ones of gratitude, to thank God for my many gifts, and for the additional gifts represented by my friends, family and colleagues.
Of course, he also told me to be grateful to my soon-to-be ex-wife and for the experience I was enduring – notice how I inserted that little victim role (enduring) even after all these years?
It took me a while to be grateful for that last part; however, the benefits of expressing gratitude began to show up in my life immediately.
David Berenson has done some really useful thinking and teaching about emotions. In his “Map,” he makes useful distinctions between what he labels as “moods” like blame, guilt, resentment and hostility; then a next higher level he labels “emotions” like anger, hurt and fear; and the highest level that he labels “textures or context” which includes love, joy, peace and ……….
Gratitude.
He considers these textures or context as “states of grace,” as being uniformly positive and felt everywhere in our bodies. I agree. Gratitude to me is not just a feeling or even an expression but rather a context, a space within which a more fulfilling, more satisfying life of contribution can be chosen.
Robert Emmons of the University of California-Davis found that extraordinary people who wrote down in weekly or daily journals five things for which they were grateful, were not only more joyful; they were healthier, less stressed, more optimistic, and more likely to help others.
In the workplace, there’s been considerable research that a major job satisfier is acknowledgement. When a direct supervisor or a peer or a subordinate simply and powerfully expresses gratitude, the results in pleasure and effectiveness for the receiver are immediate and substantial.
I don’t know why it is so difficult for us to give and/or receive expressions of gratitude and perhaps it is less important to understand that quirk of human nature than it is to simply adopt an “attitude of gratitude” (also an Amy Grant song title) and begin to “do it.”
Sooooooo ….. what are you grateful for?
Learn more below ….
EXTRAORDINARY LIVING ACTION STEPS
As I often say, these are simple and not always easy:
Writing down what you are grateful for helps to make them more concrete … plus you’ll probably be surprised just how much for which you should be grateful.
Some areas of gratitude for you to consider:
Teachers … past and present. Family … close and distant. Your friends and colleagues. Your various communities, local, national, vocational and spiritual. Your intimate relationships … past and present. Your own intelligence, wit, personality and well being. The natural world and especially those “special places” that mean so much to you.
Spend a few moments in prayer, meditation or contemplation being with the positive difference these “gratitudes” have made in your life and ask whether you need to take a “next step” and actually express your gratitude directly.
In these days of e mail and voice mail and instant messaging, consider a personal visit, a phone call or a hand-written letter of gratitude. Form does matter and remember that many people struggle to accept praise and that you need to be OK with them doing that.
Celebrate! How fortunate you are that you have so many sources of gratitude and the state of grace that this represents in your life.
Finally, please accept my gratitude for the positive difference you make in my life by being part of my worldwide readership. Your feedback and dialogue, your choosing to share these messages with your network, and your support of my work is deeply appreciated.
Email or comment on anything you learn about you and others in this process – your experiences inspire and motivate me. I promise to be grateful!
Principle #2 for Extraordinary Success
Visualize some dominoes placed on their edges. The one closest is simply telling the truth. When toppled (when you’re less than truthful), it hits the next one which negatively impacts the trust you generate from others. When trust is knocked down it hits relationships which, when diminished, negatively impacts your personal and professional effectiveness.
This fluid, fast moving world we’ve created (yes, I know you might think you didn’t create it; but find and read the responsibility principle!) makes trust relationships more important than ever. The ultimate source of creating powerful relationships is authenticity. Can people trust you to tell the truth as you know it and in a way they can receive it?
You must tell yourself the truth first, only then can you be honest with others. I have many “areas for improvement” – yet I’ve learned that one of my strengths is an ever-growing ability to develop a “selfless regard for reality.” When you were four years old, you might have gained some temporary win by fudging the truth a bit – with yourself or others. Today, to be effective and create an extraordinary future we must learn to simply ...
Be Honest.
Of course, it doesn’t work to use honesty as a hammer. Feedback is much more powerful when it’s honest yet delivered with compassion. The great motivational speaker Bill Gove taught that when your beloved Aunt Sue shared with you that she had lost weight, you should not say “look behind you, it’s still following you.”
You say, with loving intent “Aunt Sue, you look marvelous”…. because she does.
The goal is to develop trust in your ability and that of others – your family, your colleagues – to handle the truth. The effectiveness you create with your family, your work colleagues and your community is greatly enhanced when you express yourself honestly.
The action steps below will give you some work to do that I guarantee will further your goals and serve to deepen the quality and quantity of your relationships.
Read on!
Extraordinary Living Action Steps
Here are some suggestions for “homework” that have helped generate positive results for extraordinary people. Cut, paste and print the sentences below and then “do the work” of completing them for yourself.
Consider your experience of any relationship where you are less than open and honest. What are the prices you and the other party are paying as a consequence of your choices?
What could you do to begin a process of “coming clean,” letting that other person know that you’ve been withholding some communications that are important to both of you – now and into your future?
What are the risks and rewards of continuing to be less than fully honest?
What are the risks and rewards of choosing to be more open and honest?
What would be the best environment and the best communications approach to begin creating the kind of trust that builds extraordinary relationships?
When am I committed to doing it? (Now works really well!)
Leading the Employed Unemployed … and Still Being Paid
The World Business Academy estimates that 30% of workers report “no enthusiasm for their work.” My direct experience of founding and running companies like Lifespring, ARC International and Extraordinary People – which includes working with over 1,300,000 people in our seminars – indicates a much higher number. The 80% figure Dr. Mark Albion quotes from a Wilson Learning study is probably closer to being accurate.
Why do so many people report no enthusiasm for their work?
Answering this question is crucial if we want to be more effective leaders. One approach to looking at the root causes of this malaise is to look through the lens of responsibility. Certainly, being victimized by the lack of enthusiasm so many people feel about their vocation is not useful and won’t contribute to a positive solution.
I’ve spent the last forty years studying the power of individual responsibility and how our claiming responsibility is a key component of creating effective individuals and systems – including workplaces. One of my prior entrepreneurial efforts was a company named ARC -- an acronym for Awareness, Responsibility and Communication -- so Responsibility was central to our name and to all that we taught through our experiential learning events and executive coaching.
The responsibility for creating and maintaining this debilitating, expensive and sad reality of “no enthusiasm” is shared by
the companies for whom these individuals work (and specifically their management – individually and collectively)
by our general culture of entitlement and passivity and, not least of all
by the executive leaders themselves.
My observation is that in most of the management literature and business reporting that addresses this issue, the companies and their leadership groups are usually focused on as “the cause.” Our greater societal culture and the individual leaders are either completely ignored or their causal role is minimized.
This word “enthusiasm” is worthy of some attention. Its origin is the Greek, en theos, or literally, with God. My conclusion is that we are called enthusiastic when we are in a state of being “with God,” feeling one with spirit and connected to our essential self, our purpose, vision, and values.
Sharing that observation in an organizational context is a problem for some people; however, Fortune Magazine’s cover story about spirit in the workplace made it easier for all of us who share the belief that everything is spirit or energy or even spiritual, to come out from under our respective rocks.
If you can accept the “with God” interpretation for the source and meaning of enthusiasm, and accept that responsibility for generating enthusiasm is shared, here’s my perspective on the three major responsibilities for spirit, thus enthusiasm, being missing in action in most workplaces:
1. Organizations and Their Leadership … continue to be in denial about the power of culture to affect people and their bottom-line results. Thanks to the pioneering research done by Dr. Daniel Dennison at the University of Michigan and then expanded on by ARC’s former Vice President, Dr. Caroline Fisher, we now know that actualizing specific, measurable practices leading to a healthy, productive culture is the single most important responsibility of leadership that wants to create a high-performance organization.
In other words, if leaders are not taking personal responsibility for the development and maintenance of a positive culture as a major priority, they are not doing their jobs. In this regard, Harrison Owen said it so well about his role as an organizational consultant: “My first question of leadership is always some version of ‘How’s the spirit around here?’”
I would add to that question my judgment that if the spirit is not good, it is a major indictment of organizational leadership’s failure to liberate the spirit resident in all workers when they are clear on the purpose, vision, values, and mission of their work.
2. The Culture is unsupportive of enthusiasm. We could write a book here and some great ones have already been written. Our celebrity focused, outer (vs. inner) directed and “I’m entitled without earning it” culture has created an environment wherein enthusiasm is NOT COOL. With all we don’t know about people and their motivations, one reality proven again and again is the power of group norms ….. and many of the current norms about working are abysmally dysfunctional.
Many people sit before TV and computer screens for hours soaking up powerful images of work as something to avoid or complain about or sabotage. When was the last time you heard of a figure in popular culture exclaiming how excited they are about the privilege of working? Or bragging about the contribution they are making to people through their work? Or sharing how happy and satisfied their customers are and how proud they are of being in service to others?
Most people reading these thoughts don’t watch much television or surf social media. I highly recommend some brief channel surfing the wasteland of television afternoon talk shows and social media. Remember as you do that advertisers are paying big bucks for a huge audience watching these portrayals of victims as celebrities and heroes!
I assert this message spills over into the general culture and affects workplaces unless strongly acted on by an outside force … and that takes us back to the first point about leadership and management’s responsibility to interrupt the culture and model responsibility.
3. The Individual is usually not supported in being enthusiastic. In fact, they are often teased for being "too gung ho." Going off to work with enthusiasm or sharing an enthusiastic personal experience of work or taking personal responsibility for your experience of work requires a clear, courageous, and committed person … especially given our current culture and peer pressure.
For several years I personally led “The Aspen Experience,” which focused on participants claiming their legacy, declaring what non-material qualities they will leave behind. (This is consistent with the Jewish practice of writing ethical wills.)
A true story we shared in this seminar is titled “The Dancing Toll Taker” about a man who dances inside his tollbooth at the Golden Gate Bridge over San Francisco Bay. When interviewed he acknowledged that his job was in a cramped space, it was repetitive and often customers were rude. He went on to say the job also gave him the freedom to express himself through dance and that it brought him greater joy, thus a greater connection to spirit which he could then share with his commuter customers.
One message from his story is that even if the organization fails to communicate the deeper purpose and meaning of work, even if the culture is non-supportive of work and promotes a victim culture, every individual can still choose to find a deeper meaning in their work thus releasing spirit …. and enthusiasm. Wouldn’t you rather be the source or at least in the presence of enthusiasm?
Our Extraordinary Action Steps will speak to what you can do to generate more enthusiasm for yourself and your organization. Read on!
EXTRAORDINARY LIVING ACTION STEPS
Generating enthusiasm is challenging because God or spirit can only be experienced, not understood. Leaders who are committed to improving the climate in their organizations can begin with
Developing an awareness of the current reality and the personal and organizational costs resulting from the continued lack of enthusiasm.
Taking personal responsibility for acting to improve it.
Communicate early, often, and late about the organization’s deeper purpose, vision, values and mission.
Eliminate any self-imposed "I've got to look good and in control" behavior. Celebrate! Smile! Become a source of constant acknowledgement and praise. Get silly sometimes!
I’m personally not recommending bringing “God” to the workplace, even with Fortune’s support. Our increasingly diverse workforce seems to argue against any set of spiritual practices working for everyone. However, we can begin to address Harrison Owen’s question “How’s the spirit around here?” We can begin to talk about how energy and spirit are the source of all results. We can declare how our work is meaningful, how it contributes to people and society, and that we all need to develop some connection to that deeper meaning. We can have some fun!
There are multiple reasons not to try generating more enthusiasm for work and the projected outcomes of such a strategy are clear – being less competitive, personal distress and a steadily declining experience of work.
There are just as many reasons to “just do it” and the payoffs are legion – profitability, improved personal health and a future we will be proud to leave to our children.
I’m enthusiastic about the possibilities! How about you?
The World Business Academy estimates that 30% of workers report “no enthusiasm for their work.” My direct experience of founding and running companies like Lifespring, ARC International and Extraordinary People – which includes working with over 1,300,000 people in our seminars – indicates a much higher number. The 80% figure Dr. Mark Albion quotes from a Wilson Learning study is probably closer to being accurate.
Why do so many people report no enthusiasm for their work?
Answering this question is crucial if we want to be more effective leaders. One approach to looking at the root causes of this malaise is to look through the lens of responsibility. Certainly, being victimized by the lack of enthusiasm so many people feel about their vocation is not useful and won’t contribute to a positive solution.
I’ve spent the last forty years studying the power of individual responsibility and how our claiming responsibility is a key component of creating effective individuals and systems – including workplaces. One of my prior entrepreneurial efforts was a company named ARC -- an acronym for Awareness, Responsibility and Communication -- so Responsibility was central to our name and to all that we taught through our experiential learning events and executive coaching.
The responsibility for creating and maintaining this debilitating, expensive and sad reality of “no enthusiasm” is shared by
the companies for whom these individuals work (and specifically their management – individually and collectively)
by our general culture of entitlement and passivity and, not least of all
by the executive leaders themselves.
My observation is that in most of the management literature and business reporting that addresses this issue, the companies and their leadership groups are usually focused on as “the cause.” Our greater societal culture and the individual leaders are either completely ignored or their causal role is minimized.
This word “enthusiasm” is worthy of some attention. Its origin is the Greek, en theos, or literally, with God. My conclusion is that we are called enthusiastic when we are in a state of being “with God,” feeling one with spirit and connected to our essential self, our purpose, vision, and values.
Sharing that observation in an organizational context is a problem for some people; however, Fortune Magazine’s cover story about spirit in the workplace made it easier for all of us who share the belief that everything is spirit or energy or even spiritual, to come out from under our respective rocks.
If you can accept the “with God” interpretation for the source and meaning of enthusiasm, and accept that responsibility for generating enthusiasm is shared, here’s my perspective on the three major responsibilities for spirit, thus enthusiasm, being missing in action in most workplaces:
1. Organizations and Their Leadership … continue to be in denial about the power of culture to affect people and their bottom-line results. Thanks to the pioneering research done by Dr. Daniel Dennison at the University of Michigan and then expanded on by ARC’s former Vice President, Dr. Caroline Fisher, we now know that actualizing specific, measurable practices leading to a healthy, productive culture is the single most important responsibility of leadership that wants to create a high-performance organization.
In other words, if leaders are not taking personal responsibility for the development and maintenance of a positive culture as a major priority, they are not doing their jobs. In this regard, Harrison Owen said it so well about his role as an organizational consultant: “My first question of leadership is always some version of ‘How’s the spirit around here?’”
I would add to that question my judgment that if the spirit is not good, it is a major indictment of organizational leadership’s failure to liberate the spirit resident in all workers when they are clear on the purpose, vision, values, and mission of their work.
2. The Culture is unsupportive of enthusiasm. We could write a book here and some great ones have already been written. Our celebrity focused, outer (vs. inner) directed and “I’m entitled without earning it” culture has created an environment wherein enthusiasm is NOT COOL. With all we don’t know about people and their motivations, one reality proven again and again is the power of group norms ….. and many of the current norms about working are abysmally dysfunctional.
Many people sit before TV and computer screens for hours soaking up powerful images of work as something to avoid or complain about or sabotage. When was the last time you heard of a figure in popular culture exclaiming how excited they are about the privilege of working? Or bragging about the contribution they are making to people through their work? Or sharing how happy and satisfied their customers are and how proud they are of being in service to others?
Most people reading these thoughts don’t watch much television or surf social media. I highly recommend some brief channel surfing the wasteland of television afternoon talk shows and social media. Remember as you do that advertisers are paying big bucks for a huge audience watching these portrayals of victims as celebrities and heroes!
I assert this message spills over into the general culture and affects workplaces unless strongly acted on by an outside force … and that takes us back to the first point about leadership and management’s responsibility to interrupt the culture and model responsibility.
3. The Individual is usually not supported in being enthusiastic. In fact, they are often teased for being "too gung ho." Going off to work with enthusiasm or sharing an enthusiastic personal experience of work or taking personal responsibility for your experience of work requires a clear, courageous, and committed person … especially given our current culture and peer pressure.
For several years I personally led “The Aspen Experience,” which focused on participants claiming their legacy, declaring what non-material qualities they will leave behind. (This is consistent with the Jewish practice of writing ethical wills.)
A true story we shared in this seminar is titled “The Dancing Toll Taker” about a man who dances inside his tollbooth at the Golden Gate Bridge over San Francisco Bay. When interviewed he acknowledged that his job was in a cramped space, it was repetitive and often customers were rude. He went on to say the job also gave him the freedom to express himself through dance and that it brought him greater joy, thus a greater connection to spirit which he could then share with his commuter customers.
One message from his story is that even if the organization fails to communicate the deeper purpose and meaning of work, even if the culture is non-supportive of work and promotes a victim culture, every individual can still choose to find a deeper meaning in their work thus releasing spirit …. and enthusiasm. Wouldn’t you rather be the source or at least in the presence of enthusiasm?
Our Extraordinary Action Steps will speak to what you can do to generate more enthusiasm for yourself and your organization. Read on!
EXTRAORDINARY LIVING ACTION STEPS
Generating enthusiasm is challenging because God or spirit can only be experienced, not understood. Leaders who are committed to improving the climate in their organizations can begin with
Developing an awareness of the current reality and the personal and organizational costs resulting from the continued lack of enthusiasm.
Taking personal responsibility for acting to improve it.
Communicate early, often, and late about the organization’s deeper purpose, vision, values and mission.
Eliminate any self-imposed "I've got to look good and in control" behavior. Celebrate! Smile! Become a source of constant acknowledgement and praise. Get silly sometimes!
I’m personally not recommending bringing “God” to the workplace, even with Fortune’s support. Our increasingly diverse workforce seems to argue against any set of spiritual practices working for everyone. However, we can begin to address Harrison Owen’s question “How’s the spirit around here?” We can begin to talk about how energy and spirit are the source of all results. We can declare how our work is meaningful, how it contributes to people and society, and that we all need to develop some connection to that deeper meaning. We can have some fun!
There are multiple reasons not to try generating more enthusiasm for work and the projected outcomes of such a strategy are clear – being less competitive, personal distress and a steadily declining experience of work.
There are just as many reasons to “just do it” and the payoffs are legion – profitability, improved personal health and a future we will be proud to leave to our children.
I’m enthusiastic about the possibilities! How about you?
Living an Extraordinary Life… for Leaders
One of the most powerful pieces of writing that I’ve ever seen is from Marianne Williamson’s book A Return to Love.
It was quoted by Nobel Prize–winner Nelson Mandela in his inaugural address, and perhaps you’ve heard it before. For many years I kept the full quote on my desk, and I referred to it often. Listen closely and consider your own life as you listen to Marianne’s words.
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate; our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within is. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
Those are truly powerful words!
The best place to begin living an extraordinary life and becoming the leader you were born to be … is to honestly look at where you are now. This is not about judging yourself or making yourself wrong; it’s just a simple truth-telling from you, to you, about your current reality.
That honest look at yourself will be part of the foundation for making some quantum leaps in effectiveness and in personal satisfaction.
We’ll begin this message with a series of questions, such as,
How are you doing in the major areas of your life?
How are you doing with your relationships?
How about your career?
Your health and fitness?
Your connection to spirit?
Take an honest, direct, and nonjudgmental look at where you are. Beating yourself up is counterproductive. Glossing over real problems and having your ego speak is also counterproductive.
The following questions are for you to answer and only for you. It’s through the resulting awareness that you can create an authentic opening to actualize the rest of your ability to create an extraordinary life. You can just mentally make notes of your answers, or for maximum value, you can write them down.
So how are you doing with your relationships and communications? Your relationships with yourself, with your family, with your colleagues at work, and with your community?
Are those key relationships rich and fulfilling?
Or are they superficial or distant or in conflict?
Over the past five years I’ve asked many of my executive coaching clients and keynote audiences how many are estranged from a family member or know of someone in their immediate family who is estranged from another family member. The yes response rate is more than 70 percent. For many of us, key relationships are in turmoil. How about you? How are you doing with your relationships and your communications?
How are you doing with your career? Are you doing work that’s rewarding to you? Are your talents, experiences, and knowledge being used effectively? Are you acknowledged for your contributions? Do you spring out of bed each workday morning, eager to show up at 100 percent?
How are you doing financially? Are you making the progress with your income and savings that you feel are responsible and satisfying? Does money run you? Or is it simply an enabler in your life?
How’s your health and fitness? Are you as capable of your best work or giving your full attention to your children at 5 p.m. as you are at 10 a.m.? Do you like how you look in the mirror? If there was an emergency that required you to be fast and flexible, could you perform physically?
More importantly, what is the gap between where you are now and where you want to be in these key areas? If where you really want to be is represented by a 10, how do you rate yourself?
Begin to clarify what you want as a result. Perhaps more importantly, what’s your level of commitment to beginning the process of closing the gap between where you are and what you want as a result?
If you decide an experienced executive coach could help you see what you're unable to see; to accelerate your accomplishments; contact me!