Pops of Thought

Righteous indignation was my new best friend. BFFs fo eva! We snarked. We were witty and we were oh, so right. I felt like crap. I was blue. I was negative, depressed and angry and I did not know how to change my situation.

I have the heart of an academic, so I started reading. Everywhere I looked I heard the theme of gratitude. It sounded like a simple first step in turning things around. I have tons to be thankful for, but I was not feeling it, not expressing it. Beating myself up about not remembering to be grateful didn’t seem like a step in the right direction. What could I do to develop a practice of gratitude?

Photo courtesy of my husband, Burkhard Saur.

Then I remembered the Prayer Flags I saw in the Himalayas.

The image of prayers carried by the wind over otherworldly mountains to the heavens always stuck with me. I found a bell we bought in India and hung it in a high traffic area of my house. My commitment was to ring it every time I walked by and give thanks for something, for anything. Every time. The thanks then rides the sound waves out through my house, letting everyone know someone is grateful in this moment.

Sometimes I was thankful for something as simple as ice cubes. It did not have to be a moment worthy of enlightenment! I just wanted to practice gratitude. It went well. I enjoyed ringing the bell and sending out my thanks. Then stuff happened… I still rang the bell, occasionally, when I remembered. It lost some of it’s pull, some of it’s magic.

My gratitude bell.

One day a coworker reminded me that I had told her about my gratitude bell. She was so inspired by my story that she bought a bell and introduced the practice in her house. People would just jump up and run ring the bell. Everyone knew they thought of something to be grateful for. She told all her friends and they installed gratitude bells in their homes. The gratitude bell rippled from person to person. It had become a gentle movement through a network of people. I felt enormous gratitude that I could have a positive impact on so many. And by reminding me of the power of my original purpose, the power of gratitude, they inspired me to get back to ringing my bell.

Do you have a gratitude bell? How do you practice gratitude?

Posted at 7:57pm and tagged with: one column, Gratitude, Gratitude Bell, Prayer, Prayer flag, Himalayas, Bell, Grump, Depression, Complain, thankful,.

May 9th 2012

Literary Theory, Freud and Insanity in the Ivory Tower

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If you are writing a paper, essay, book, article, thesis, doctorate in the literary theory discipline and are referencing Freud in any way that is not dismissive of Freud as a reference in literary theory, you should immediately walk down the stairs of the ivory tower, step outside and take off your shoes to walk barefoot in the grass. Let’s take this whole Literary Theory thing back to humanity, shall we? Modern humanity.

Seriously, it is the equivalent of referencing Newton if you are making an analogy to physics or Linnaeus Classification if you are referencing biology. Many of Freud’s theories are just wrong and the rest unprovable. Why would you not look to modern science in the field of psychology to understand the narratives we create? Visit the Psychology Department on campus. Go to a conference. Get a copy of the most recent DSM. Think of all the mind blowing essays you can write by revisiting all the canonical classics with a new perspective!

I used Post Traumatic Stress Disorder to understand the 40 years of German literature after World War II. It was fantastic! The literature fit frighteningly well into the stages outlined in PTSD recovery maps.

Freud was great for his time, but you are insane if you think he is going to reveal any new insights into our literature or art. It is just plain wrong.

Sigmund Freud

Max Halberstadt[1] (1882-1940)[see page for license], via Wikimedia Commons

Posted at 8:10pm and tagged with: One column, Freud, Literary theory, post modern, Post Modernist, PTSD, Canonical, academia, academic, literature, University, doctorate,.

April 27th 2012

Native American Storytelling and Gals with Grit

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I had the great opportunity today to attend the annual Dynamic Chickasaw Women’s Conference, hosted by the Chickasaw Nation Arts and Humanities Division. There was a lovely panel of three accomplished ladies discussing the importance of “Our Stories.” Like other Native American tribes, storytelling is a critical part of the Chickasaw culture and core to our identity as a people. It was fascinating to listen to these wise Chickasaw women talk about the impact of stories in their lives:

Stories from elder women about their lives
Traditional Chickasaw stories
Personal stories of trials and successes to be shared with other Chickasaw
Development of Chickasaw history through story sharing

One of the panelists, Robyn Perry Coe (@art_test), emphasized how important it is to share stories with young Chickasaw; that without the stories, they won’t have their identity, won’t know who they are. This line of thinking sent me down a yellow brick road that I want to share with you.

When I researched Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) for my Master’s thesis, I learned that a narrative expression of the traumatic event signifies the recovery phase. These narratives weave a shared cultural map of beliefs and wisdom. They express a spirit of survival and the character of a people. Storytelling defines us and sharing stories with the next generation gives them references for their own life as well as paints the broad strokes of their identity.

I think there may be more here, but I wanted to get this little Pop of Thought out. Narrate my experience. Share it before it evaporated.

Posted at 1:47am and tagged with: Native American, Storytelling, story, telling, wo,.

December 6th 2011

Grace-filled State of Gratitude

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In my 40 odd years, I can count the number of “transcendent” experiences I have had on one hand. One happened to me recently. While there is no way I can do it justice, the itch to share it just won’t leave me alone.

My 92 year old Granny was dying. We all knew it was her time. The broken hip and recurring pneumonia were too much for her. She was tired. In the hospital, her short term memory issues caused her anxiety to skyrocket. Sometimes she would not know where she was or why she was there from one minute to the next. My aunts wisely decided to bring her to her home and let her pass surrounded by family. My cousin and I drove the hour and a half to our childhood stomping ground to spend the day with her.

Granny in the hospital

You should know, my Granny was a spitfire. She was a petite, religious, old fashioned, country girl. She was happily married her entire life and the undisputed matron of a large and extended family. She was by no means perfect. That is very important to understand. She was no saint, but she had this way of appreciating you that made you feel so special, every single time. When you walked in the door you were always greeted with naked delight. She was never too distracted, stressed or feeling too ill to douse you with a warm smile and a sing-song “Well, Honey, I am so proud you are here!” that made you feel precious to her, sincerely, deeply precious. I have yet to meet someone in whom Granny did not inspire this feeling.

Granny in the hospital, sporting cousin Payton’s sunglasses

When I saw Granny, she was pretty out of it. The pain drugs made her sleepy and it was a great effort to talk, to breathe even. We gathered in her room and sang hymns to her great pleasure.

At one point, she stirred from a quiet sleep. I was the only one in the room, holding her paper thin hand. She began to say something in a moan. Concerned that she was in pain, I strained to understand her. I deciphered the following, “Oh Lord, Thank you for Wyonette. Oh Lord, Thank you for…” She was not in pain. She was praying. She was saying a kind of mantra of thanks for all the people in her life. I cannot express how beautiful this was to me, how moved I was and still am. I felt like I was seeing the Divine. She exuded a Grace-filled State of Gratitude.

That is how I hope to go, giving thanks for all the people who have entered my life. We strain and strive, spending so much time and energy conquering challenges, achieving things: building careers, security, wealth. My Granny sparkled with delight in everyone who walked in her door. I was blessed to see a brief glimpse of the joy that Love gave her. That is what I want, a Grace-filled State of Gratitude.

I am thankful to my Granny for this gift. I will always be able to return to this memory, when I witnessed a Grateful Love, a Divine Love.

Posted at 9:52am and tagged with: two column, gratitude, mourning, divine, grace, love, transcendence, miracle,.

September 21st 2011

Check your Favor at the Door, Please

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I was in a meeting. The exchange went kinda like this:

“They probably won’t want any photos of the facilities and stuff included, though. I am just letting you know,” said the kindly person, telling me gently to shove my grand thoughts.

“Do they not understand that we can cross promote? This is a great opportunity to get them infront of a brand new audience, associate the brand with something cutting edge!” The grand vision is, well, so grand you would have to be blind to miss it.

“It isn’t up to me or to Bob. It has to go up and I am just telling you, the leadership probably won’t go for it. I don’t know why.” She does a ‘that is the way it is’ shrug and smiles.

Curses bounced around the inside of my head. Don’t they know, I am the one doing them a friggin favor? I don’t need the crosspromotion on this little project. I am HELPING them, damn it! Take the blinders off people! Don’t you realize I am offering you a gift? Luddites!

(Image thanks to LauraMG in Wikimedia Commons)

I stomped around for a few hours. Then it hit me! Crap! My attitude was completely wrong.

When was the last time I thanked someone for doing me the favor of changing how I do my business? Um… Never. And no one was going to thank me now, either. That just isn’t how change works.

Change is hard. Leading a drive toward change can be an uncomfortable marathon. Driving change from the bottom/middle, well, there are times when I think the inspiring “change agent” stories are propaganda for some secret kamikaze recruitment effort.

Some days you, my fellow change agent, may get a little worn down working to transform whatever it is you set out to improve. When you encounter resistance and start thinking, “Don’t they know I am doing THEM a favor?” Just remember, the answer is no, they don’t and actually, you are not.

The seeds of change are rarely seen by those that need it most. They are not planning a parade in your honor. That is not why you are here, anyway, now is it?

Check that favor at the door. Lift up your attitude and dust it off. There is still a lot of work to be done! :-)

Posted at 11:50pm and tagged with: two column, change agent, transformation, attitude, business management, leadership,.

September 18th 2011

Who does it better? Private Enterprise or Government

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I really abhor lazy thinking. Here is one that has been floating out there forever.

Private enterprise does things better than the government.

Um… What?!!!

There are so many things wrong with this statement it makes me cringe. For the purposes of this post, though, I am only going to zero in on one thought: efficiency.

According to the SBA, “Seven out of 10 new employer firms survive at least 2 years, half at least 5 years, a third at least 10 years, and a quarter stay in business 15 years or more.”

That is a failure rate of +30%, 50% and 75% respectively, people!! Private enterprise tries all kinds of crazy, inefficient, unlucky, lame crap and fails much, much more than it succeeds. Seen as a whole it is a wild, eccentric experiment.

Do cool, amazing, companies and well designed things fall out of those experiments? Sure, but to say that the end product is this fantastic, efficient model of what the business world can pull off is to ignore the massive mountain of failed endeavors.

Many of us who worked in large corporations can also tell horror stories of inefficiencies, waste and down right insanity! In fact, I worked for one large company that, after 20 years, no longer exists.

There are a lot of things I pay the government to do for me, my family and my community that I do not want to give over to the wild west of private enterprise.

failed gas station

Posted at 5:19pm and tagged with: two column, private enterprise, government, efficiency, failed business, federal,.

September 3rd 2011

When Wonderful Happens, A Social Media Fairytale

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Once upon a time, some years ago, a small team of intrepid workers was tasked with building their first business Facebook Page.

They were good corporate citizens who had studied hard in the hallowed halls of PR, Marketing, PMI, ROI and business process engineering.

After…

… about a billion hours of reading “guru” blogs on social media,
a brilliant project plan, complete with a lovely color-coded Gant chart,
dozens of risk mitigation plans based on every negative PR and customer service scenario the team could conceive of, …

everyone was about as comfortable as they were going to get and that puppy went live!

In the beginning, the entire team powwowed on how to handle just about everything that could could possibly be a risk. Gradually, they discovered that people on the page were pretty enthusiastic supporters. If they had any negative feedback, most people were delighted with acknowledgement and offline follow-up. There were the occasional “haters,” but the earth didn’t stop turning when they showed up. In fact, the fan base usually handled those situations, brilliantly.

And thus, the community manager was released from the bonds of committee review and flew free, sprinkling happy dust throughout her community.

As the months flew by, the team felt assured and validated. They had covered it all. Risk Mitigation Masters, they were. Coffee mugs were ordered with “RMM” logos and a calm settled across the corporate land.

Then it happened, the Wicked Witch of Wonderful struck! She had been scattering bits of wonderful on some review sites and blogs, but no one was paying any attention, so she decided to nail them in the kisser with some unavoidable awesome. Oh, the wailing and gnashing of teeth!

The manager responsible received a casual email from a coworker:

“Check this YouTube video out. Thought you might like it.”

The video was of a major celebrity talking and joking about their experience with said business. It had aired on primetime TV 4 days earlier. The commentary was not 100% positive and some humor was a bit off color, but this was a priceless opportunity for buzz. It was, my friends, Marketing and PR nirvana.

The manager launched a scramble of internal communications:

Review the media, IP, legal, FTC policies
What could they do in relation to the video
Who had the authority to approve whatever action they took
and so on…

A week went by. Finally the “OK” arrived and they posted the video on their Facebook Page and tweeted it out to the ether. By then it was 2 weeks old. That is a decade in Twitter years, dear reader, a DECADE. So, I don’t have to tell you that nobody cared about that video. The celebrity video buzz opportunity that they could never have paid for, that landed on their doorstep like a rainbow unicorn, was wasted on them. For all their scenarios and planning, for their airtight risk mitigation plan, no one ever planned for wonderful.

Are you watching for wonderful? Do you have any idea how you will react when wonderful happens to you? If you would like a little real world advice, here it is:

1. Write up a few fairytale scenarios for wonderful, whether it is a positive review, major coverage in a popular blog or a celebrity on camera. Document what you would do to take full advantage of it with in 2-4 hours. Do you know who you need to call if it is a little racy? Do you know how to tag it, link it, whatever you need to do for full leverage?

2. Use your reputation monitoring services and make sure you are actively looking for all the wonderful that might be out there.

True story, mostly…

Posted at 3:40pm and tagged with: Social Media, reputation management, video, youtube, monitoring, community management,.