Welcome! Our goal is to make this newsletter interesting and useful. Each month, we feature an overview of a different topic, some food for thought, and perhaps a smile or two. Enjoy! and please invite others to join the Viewpoints subscription list – it’s an opt-in list on our website: www.infiniteperspectives.com

Our thoughts and prayers continue for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. I urge you to do whatever you can to help people who have lost everything. I also encourage you to be careful about sending donations because of all the scams that have sprung up on the Internet. As this is being written, Hurricane Rita is headed through the Gulf of Mexico toward the Texas coast. Let’s hope that more people are able to get out of harm’s way this time.

Warmest Regards,
Charles (Charlie) Boyer

Infinite Perspectives, LLC
www.infiniteperspectives.com

PRINCIPLES of ATTRACTION. The late Thomas J. Leonard, often described as the father of personal coaching, developed a set of principles and strategies that “… draw on wisdom from psychology, career counseling, management consulting, personal growth programs, motivational training, and good old common sense.” The principles Leonard developed have helped build an awareness of what it takes to attract abundance into your life. The more I study these 28 principles, the more it helps me to understand more about myself and my clients. I’ve found them helpful and insightful, and plenty of food for thought. I encourage you to study each of the 28 principles and decide for yourself whether they are helpful to you. In this issue, we’ll take a look at just one of those principles: Sensitize Yourself.

The source material for the following is from: The Portable Coach: 28 Surefire Strategies for Business and Personal Success, by Thomas J. Leonard. New York: Scribner, 1998. ISBN 0-684-85041-9.

BE WISE – SENSITIZE! We live in an age of busy-ness, hype, noise, and many distractions. It is often easier – and maybe more than a little self-preserving - to turn off and turn away than it is to remain sensitive and fully aware. Think of all the descriptive terms we use to escape or withdraw from what’s happening around us – chill out, zone, couch potato – well, you get the idea.

How do you turn it all off? Maybe you are one who watches one mindless TV sitcom or soap opera after another. Maybe you put on headphones and drift off into the fog of a never-ending click-track beat and unrecognizable lyrics. Or do you pop a pill or have several drinks just to steady your nerves?

These all are numbing activities that rob us of our senses. Leonard wrote: “Numbness perpetuates ignorance, causes delayed reactions, and is just plain dumb.” (p. 213). Pretty blunt, but he sure said a mouthful, didn’t he? Numb equals dumb.

Think about the numbing activities that have sneaked in to become a part of your daily life. Imagine what you could sense and feel if you weren’t so busy shutting the doors and windows all around you.

What we really need is to become more sensitive, not less. But it takes some careful development. Sensitizing can charge you with energy, but that energy must be guided into positive and productive ways.

According to Leonard (p. 215), you are becoming sensitized when

• You notice things earlier and more deeply
• You remove desensitizing things from your life
• You begin to rely on feelings and sensing things rather than on facts and opinions
• You notice details others miss
• You understand your body’s signals
• You sense wrong turns immediately and can make self-corrections instantly

Top 10 Ways to Sensitize Yourself. Each of the main points in this “Top 10” was written by Thomas Leonard. Working from this list, I expanded on the basic idea and have suggested some things to think about and apply to your own life and experiences.

1. Identify and reduce or eliminate numbing substances. “The woods is full of ‘em!” as my grandma used to say. If you pay attention to some of the ridiculous TV ads, all you have to do is pop a pill, drink a cold one, have another super-zinger coffee, and you’ll be full of energy, all smiles, and every day is bright and sunny. Not so! Alcohol, drugs, sugar, caffeine all leave their marks on us. Get medical help if you need it, but take steps to reduce the numbing substances in your life.
2. Identify and reduce or eliminate numbing behaviors. Here comes the new fall lineup of TV shows. Well, let’s just say “fall lineup.” Not much really new, is there? While we’re watching, we can supersize it from the nearest fast food emporium. Here’s a tip: make a list of everything you do in one day, and I DO mean everything. You don’t need to show it to anyone else. Then take a good look at that list the next day and ask yourself which of your activities were necessary, which were productive, and which were numbing. You might be surprised at the length of your “numb” list. Now that you’ve identified them, what can you reduce or eliminate?
3. Identify and reduce or eliminate numbing environments or situations. How much of your daily dose of stress is healthy? Not much. How much overwork can you truly tolerate before it begins to take its toll on you? Not much. How much road rage gets you anywhere? Not much. What can you do about it? Now, don’t say “not much” because you can find ways to get away from harmful situations. Maybe you can’t eliminate numbing environments or situations entirely, but you can take steps to reduce them.
4. Identify and clean up what motivates you. Ahhhh, now we move more into the positive realm. OK – what or who puts a smile on your face? What do you most look forward to doing each day? Notice that rush of positive energy that you’re feeling? Clear away the obstacles, and find more time to be with the people you want to be with, or do the things you really enjoy doing. You don’t have time? Better look at #5.
5. Make the choice, set the priority, in order to sense and feel all of what is occurring inside and outside of you. Yes, the choice. It’s yours. You can either suck in your gut and keep a stiff upper lip, or open up to a world of sensations and feelings that too often get buried deep inside when we become adults. The beautiful part of this is that you can choose what you want to feel and sense, not what someone else thinks you should. Ignorance is NOT bliss; it is numb … and dumb.
6. Identify and reduce or eliminate the emotional blocks to your natural ability to feel. Ohhh, do we ever pay attention to those blocks! When you were a kid, did any adult ever tell you that you couldn’t do something or that you weren’t good at it? And you believed it? A lot of what we think we can’t do is baggage we’re carrying from the past – and it is damaged goods. Why continue to drag it around? Here’s a thought: if your kids or grandkids have a set of toy blocks, get them out and build a wall or tower (imagine these are your emotional blocks). Then, knock them all down! My grandkids always thought this was great fun – again, and again, and again! If that doesn’t begin to make you feel better, I’ll eat my hat – without mustard.
7. Realize that more knowledge is contained in feeling and sensing than is conveyed literally, intellectually, or linearly. Imagine how difficult it would be to tell someone with no sense of smell how a loaf of bread smells when it’s warm and fresh out of the oven. Try to describe the glorious sounds of a Beethoven symphony to a person who can’t hear. Define “cat” to someone who has never held a purring kitty. Some things must be experienced rather than talked about. Our feelings and senses can teach us a lot, if only we’d let ourselves pay attention to them.
8. Learn to feel – vs. – just react emotionally. Hmmmm, is this a bit puzzling to you? Dig a little deeper here. Think of someone who throws a temper tantrum. That person may rant and rave, but is probably feeling very little in the present. Emotional reactions are just that – reactions to an emotion you felt in the past. Feelings are right now. Leonard wrote, “A lot of us mistake emotional reactions for feelings, which is why feelings often get a bad rap.” (p. 220).
9. Deliberately respond to inklings, bare traces, or sensation – instead of waiting for “enough evidence.” When is enough information really enough? Haven’t you heard the expression “Paralysis by analysis”? Learn to trust your feelings about people, situations, and problems and let yourself respond openly and more spontaneously. Don’t let that “NO” voice in your mind talk you out of it. It takes practice to trust your hunches and to let go of “NO”.
10. Realize that by the time you can fully explain, describe, or articulate something,most of the opportunity has already passed. We are bombarded with opportunities every minute of every day. We can’t possibly act on all of them, but we must make good choices. The secret is to be flexible and not worry about all the paralyzing “what ifs.” If you stop to ask “what if we fail?” you already have. If a soprano worries about missing a high note while singing an aria, she probably will. A quarterback can’t wait for the receiver to get in place before sending the ball on its way. Leave the excuses and explanations to the second-guessers. Opportunities do pass by quickly and they just may not come by again.

POINTS TO PONDER . . .

 Things do not change; we change. (Henry David Thoreau)

 Good judgment comes from experience, and often experience comes from bad judgment. (Rita Mae Brown)

 Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try! (Theodor Geisel – Dr. Seuss)

 Don’t confuse fame with success. Madonna is one; Helen Keller is the other. (Erma Bombeck)

All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them. (Walt Disney)

 You Are Invited to visit my new weblog, look over the short articles posted there, and post a comment or two, or send me an email charlie@leadersavers.com and tell me what you think of it. Take a look! LeaderSavers Weblog can be found at: www.leadersavers.com

NEXT ISSUE: How to Become Unconditionally Constructive. It’s more than just being optimistic and looking for the silver lining. Being constructive requires you to DO something. Are you the one who always says “NO”? Do you find 50 reasons why “It CAN’T Be Done” rather than 2 ways to make things happen? Find out how YOU can become Unconditionally Constructive – it will astound your enemies and amaze your friends!

Infinite PerspectivesCoach-Based Consulting can help YOU

• Turn your intentions into actions
• Build your team into a well-tuned ensemble
• Create your windows of opportunity

Call (303) 972-2581 to schedule your complimentary consultation.

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