Today at the NY Rotary Club luncheon we had an absolutely fantastic speaker, Cliff Connor. His book, A People’s History of Science, chronicles the tremendous impact artisans, machinists, and even slaves have made on science. While we all know the Isaac Newtons, Albert Einsteins, and Galileos of the world, there’s a whole other class of unknown people who have made contributions to science and human survival.

One person that Cliff highlighted was a slave named Onesimus, who taught his master, Cotton Mather, how to inoculate for smallpox. If not for Onesimus’ contribution, the American colonies would not have survived the smallpox epidemic of the early 18th century.

What struck me was not that unknown people, toiling in their work, have made amazing discoveries. Instead, I thought of the spark of human creativity that inspired them to create, develop, or perfect their ideas. Mr. Connor’s speech was like a refresher course in the subject of human possibility.

What can you, just a humble guy or gal like the rest of us, do that can impact the future of the world?

Steve Jobs and his partner Steve Wozniak were just a couple of computer enthusiasts building machines in their garage when they started Apple Computers. Remember, you don’t have to be a celebrity or a superstar in the Ivory Tower to be important or impactful.

Technorati : books, computers, education, science, success
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So many of us are frustrated by not getting what we want. We feel angry or disappointed that we have a vision of something that we want to have, be, or achieve but we’re somehow unable to manifest it into being. I think this feeling is a fundamental frustration for all of us- one of our essential impulses is dynamic, a lifelong urge to create, to grow, to progress. When we are stymied in our ‘create-ive’ progress, we get angry, discouraged, or self-critical.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what the process of ‘create-ing’ is all about and really going back to basics in my own life. In doing so, I’ve decided on 5 steps that I really believe in. These 5 steps have worked for me and my clients over and over again and I hope they will inspire success in your life also. Without further ado, here we go…

#1 Outcomes Must Come First

You must begin with the result you want to achieve. This is primary and crucial to success. At the beginning, one must forget about process, leave behind worries about how to get to the result. Start instead by focusing all of your attention on the desired result or outcome. What does it look like? Is there a feeling attached to what you want to achieve? Can you taste it, smell it, touch it? The more detail you can grab on to at the beginning, the more clarity of vision you start with, the more likely you will get what you desire.

#2 Where are you right now?

An honest, non-critical assessment of your place along the path to your result is the next step to tackle. Once you’ve gotten clear about the vision of what outcome you’d like to create, the contrast of where you are right now could inspire a path to the result. If a clear path doesn’t appear via contrast, many possibilities will come up. Ask yourself, how could I get from here to my result?

You don’t need to decide yet. Simply take stock of the possibilities, jot them down in a journal, write them on separate index cards for later arrangement, or keep them percolating in your mind.

#3 What could I do next?

Now that you’ve created some possibilities for the path to your result, it’s time to think specifically about the first step forward. Ask yourself, what could I do tomorrow that would move me one step closer to my result?

The answer may lead you to an action, like doing research, calling for information, buying running clothes, or asking your friend about her guitar teacher. If you can determine an exact physical action, then you are more likely to complete that step and move forward with the process.

The answer may also be more subtle, non-concrete step like being more relaxed, thinking in a more self-affirming way, etc. If the answer is about mind-state, clarify the exact steps you need to take to achieve that mind-state. If the next step is being more relaxed, then one could meditate every day, take walks in nature, keep a journal, or even just be more aware when tensions arise.

#4 Commit to, then undertake the next step

It’s time to take action, so you must commit to the next step. In step 3, you generated some possible next actions, did any of them stand out as the obvious next step? If so, commit to that step and do it. Schedule in the workouts, send off for information about that vacation spot, ask your boss about the opening in your department. Whatever that next step is, it’s time to do it.

If your feeling scared or overwhelmed because you’ve begun the process of a large commitment, try focusing your energy entirely on this next step. Forget about the larger goal of the desired outcome. Think instead about your next action and whatever resources it requires. Try to complete this next action and forget about the process.

When you complete the next step, give yourself an affirmation. You’re closer to your goal and you deserve some positive reinforcement. Congratulate yourself with an imaginary pat on the back, some positive self-talk, or even a small gift.

#5 Repeat

When you’ve completed that next action and you’re ready to move on to the next step toward your goal, simply repeat the process outlined above. The more proficient you are at this process of creating successful outcomes, the quicker this process will move. Each step will take minutes instead of hours or days. Next actions will appear in your mind with zero effort. Where once you may have seen obstacles, you’ll now find possibilities. You’ll be creating new outcomes for yourself and consistently achieving the results you want.

I hope that this process helps and that you move closer to your dreams and desires. I leave you with a phrase that has helped me quite a bit.

Inch by inch, life is a cinch. Yard by yard, life is hard.

Technorati : lifehacks, results, success
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Swarthmore Professor Timothy Burke, of Easily Distracted blog, has authored a couple of valuable posts for students. While Professor Burke most often posts about his area of expertise, Modern African History, he’s written some very insightful pieces for prospective and current College Students.

First is Beyond the Five-Paragraph Essay . Professor Burke navigates through the common mistakes young essay writers make. Awkward sentences, poor choice of tenses, overwriting, and confusion of source materials are just some of the mistakes he covers. In part 2 of his post, Burke offers suggestions and archetypes for writing better analytic essays. The post is very informative and simple at the same time. Taking a moment to read this post will definitely improve any student’s essay writing aptitude.

In, How to Read in College, Professor Burke proposes some great tips for mastering your reading workload.

"The first thing you should know about reading in college is that it bears little or no resemblance to the sort of reading you do for pleasure, or for your own edification.

Professors assign more than you can possibly read in any normal fashion.

We know it, at least most of us do. You have to make strategic decisions about what to read and how to read it. You’re reading for particular reasons: to get background on important issues, to illuminate some of the central issues in a single session of one course, to raise questions for discussion. That calls for a certain kind of smash-and-grab approach to reading. You can’t afford to dilly-dally and stop to smell the lilies."

Finally, for the soon-to-graduate College Senior or the recent College Grad, Professor Burke offers Should You Go to Graduate School? This post is a sort-of "Graduate School for Dummies," offering a behind-the-scenes peek at what Grad School is really like. Burke has an interesting take on the nature of learning in contemporary Graduate Schools.

"Graduate school is not about learning. If you learn things, it’s only because you’ve already internalized the habit of learning, only because you make the effort on your own and in concert with fellow graduate students…Graduate school is not education. It is socialization. It is about learning to behave, about mastering a rhetorical and discursive etiquette as mind-blowingly arcane as table manners at a state dinner in 19th Century Western Europe."

Update: I also want to reccommend Steve Pavlina’s 10 Tips for College Students . As usual Steve has some great advice, though I’m not sure I would take point #3 (take an extra class each semester) as a must.

Technorati Tags : College, Success, Writing, Reading, High+School, Graduate+School

In Parts 1 and 2 of this series, you’ve worked to identify a sense of purpose. Your next step is to use this life purpose statement to help find work that you love. How do you do that?

If you followed the previous exercises to the letter, you should have spent at least 7 days with your life purpose statement and your visual close at hand. This should have grounded the statement in your mind and probably led to all kinds of stimulating thoughts.

Does your statement lead to a clear career? If your purpose was to communicate your deepest dreams and desires via song, then it would be pretty clear what kind of career you’d what to work towards. You could be a singer, musician, songwriter, poet and you’d easily be doing work that you loved to do.

If your purpose statement doesn’t lead to an obvious career path, then you should complete this next step. Using the example from Part 2, someone with a purpose to connect from the soul to create peace and learning, could work in many different fields. Like the example above, this person could communicate via singing. But this person could also be a psychologist, a rabbi, a drug abuse counselor, a divorce mediator, an English professor.

How then does one transfer the purpose statement to a career? Using the example of the person whose purpose was to connect from the soul to create peace and learning, that person could choose any of the above careers and be pretty happy with the choice. In my experience as a coach, one or two careers usually jump out from the purpose statement. Usually, the process of creating the purpose statement, connecting a visual image to anchor it, and letting the statement percolate, leads clients to a clear career path.

If however, your statement doesn’t lead you to a clear path, then do some visioning exercises. Take the couple of possibilities that your statement has brought to mind and envision yourself doing those activities. See yourself being the teacher or the counselor or the investment banker or whatever else came up. When you envision these activities, ask yourself:

How does it feel to be…?

When you imagine a career path that feels good, that makes you tingle when you think about it- you’ve found work that you love.

Tags: career, life purpose, success, growth

In Part 1 of the Finding Work You Love series, you wrote down 10 or so of your most important life experiences and searched for some golden threads amongst them. Did you find some important themes? Did any new ideas come about? Hopefully, some of the words will stand out as important and invigorating to you.

Gather the 5 or so most important words from that exercise. Do any of the words fit together? Do you find that some of the words reflect the same feeling or action? You may find that there’s an immediate pattern. For example, when I completed the exercise, words that stood out from my experiences were: learning, connection, soul, peace.

Now let’s take your 5 words and write each one down on a seperate index card or small slip of paper. Take some time to read each word, focus on it’s meaning and it’s connection to your life experience. Let the ideas and thoughts percolate without judgment or fear. If possible, spend a minute or two on each word, letting ideas come and go.

When you’re ready to move on to the next step, either immediately after the brainstorm you just completed, or a day or two later, bring your 5 words back in front of you. Try to arrange the words in a sentence. Try to complete the following sentences with your words.

My purpose is to….

I’m at my best when I am….

Take your time with this step, don’t hurry to make the words fit in a sentence. You don’t have to use all 5 of your words together, but it’s best to use at least 3 in your sentence. This exercise works best when you play around for a day or two with your statement, though if something clicks right away, don’t be afraid to go with it. When you have the words arranged in just the right fashion, and the sentence connects with you on a meaningful level, you have finished the exercise.

Guess what? You now have a life purpose statement. You have an announcement to yourself and the entire world of who you are at your absolute best.

Using the words from my example above of soul, connection, learning, and peace; I crafted the following purpose statement.

My purpose is to connect from the soul to create peace and learning.

To really give your statement extra power, find a nice visual to pair it with. Maybe your statement is connected in your mind to a place you’ve been or seen on TV. Perhaps another, more abstract visual comes to mind. Whatever works for you is what is best here. Spend the next week looking at your statement and reading it to yourself. Ground yourself in your purpose over the next seven days.

That’s the end of Part 2 of this series, look for Part 3 soon.

Tags: career, life purpose, success, growth

 

It’s hard to find work you love; it must be, if so few do. So don’t underestimate this task. And don’t feel bad if you haven’t succeeded yet. In fact, if you admit to yourself that you’re discontented, you’re a step ahead of most people, who are still in denial.

 

 

1. Start to think about what is important in your life.  Write down 10 or so of the life experiences that have been the most satisfying, most joyous, most fulfilling.
2. Look for golden threads.  Examine the words that come up, see what recurs, what seems most true, which words really connect with you. Choose 7 or so words that really stand out to you.
3. Create a purpose statement.  Once you’ve determined the golden threads and themes, take those golden threads to the next level. Play with the words that you’ve written, move them around, speak them to yourself.  Finally, choose the 3 or 4 words that are most powerful to you.  Write them in a one sentence format beginning with “My Purpose is to…” (An example is my own, personal purpose statement: My purpose is to connect from the soul to create peace and learning.)
4. Assess where you are.  Take stock of your journey to find work that you love.  Think honestly and without judgment of exactly where you are on your path.  Are you just beginning to think about work you love?  Has this idea been rolling around in your head for a while?  What kind of work experiences have you had?  What worked for you?  What hasn’t worked?

We’ll move forward from here in Part 2.  Feel free to comment and ask questions if something above is unclear.

Technorati Tags : Career, Work, Success, College, Student, Purpose

This year is a really big year for me. I’m beginning my second year as a full-time coach and am really looking forward to helping as many people as possible. So, without further ado, here are my resolutions:

Act with Compassion and Integrity

I will use objective, compassionate support with all of my clients. I will trust and believe in their infinite capacities, no matter what the circumstances are. I will offer scholarship coaching to at least five young adults in their teens and twenties. Also, I want to further my role with the NY Rotary as Chairman of the Interact Committee. My pledge is to get at least 1 new Interact club up and running this year. I will continue to support the local homeless population on a one-to-one basis as much as possible. I will act with integrity in the moment at all times and not compromise my values to please others or be affirmed.

Speak Up

I commit to speaking about young adult issues in as many community forums as possible. I will raise awareness of methods to combat young adult alienation, increase purpose, and tap into native talents and desires. I will host a ‘Young Adult Success Program’ in as many places as possible. If there are any readers who would like me to speak to their organization or association, please contact me to arrange this via email: blog at haydencoach dot com. Also, I will begin to podcast this year, focusing on young adult concerns.

Meditate Daily

Meditation has made a huge positive impact on my life over the last ten or so years. During 2005, I let my meditation practice become irregular instead of maintaining a daily routine. This year, I commit to meditating daily for at least twenty minutes.

Have More Faith

If there was just one catalyst that I could point to that shifted my attitude, my life, and my ambitions; it would be the development of faith. When I was in my teens and early-twenties, I had very little belief in the rich possibilities that life had to offer. Rather, I felt bored and trapped. I developed a skeptical, nihilistic attitude towards others and the world at large. Transforming this belief system to one that was built on believing- in G-d, in others, even in myself and my own power- was a massive change that took years to actualize. Over the last five or so years, I’ve established faith as a cornerstone of my life. This year, I want to push further and find faith more often. In 2006, I commit to listening calmly and gently to doubts when they arise and then allowing them to be dismissed by a steady sense of faith.

Throw Out the Trash

Finally, I commit to letting go of the past. I will let go of all of the garbage- the regrets, the guilt, the mistakes, the negative thoughts. In 2006, I will concentrate on the here and now so that I may enjoy every perfect second of it.

What are you committing to this year?

PS- Check out Rosa Say’s post on making those resolutions stick- Cause the Good to Last.

Technorati : 2006resolutions, new+year’s, resolutions, success

Over the holidays, I came across a very insightful post on the goalsguy.com site. Titled ‘The Ten Commandments of Goal-Setting,’ the post is a perfect accompaniment to your New Year’s Resolutions. Goals Guy nails the most important point in his first commandment, ‘Thou Shall Be Decisive.’

Success is a choice. You must decide what you want, why you want it, and how you plan to achieve it. No one else can, will, or should do that for you.

Making choices instead of letting life’s circumstances lead you along is fundamental to getting where you want to go. By making choices, you become a create-or. No longer will you be sitting on the sidelines as things happen to you. Instead, you’ll be piloting the flight of your life towards any destination you desire.

If you do nothing else this year, deciding to make real choices can improve your life exponentially. Are you ready to take the plunge and be an agent of choice this year? Take a look at the commandments and see if you can integrate them into your life this year.

Technorati : 2006resolutions, college, decision+making, resolutions, success, teens

I’ll be on vacation for the next couple of weeks beginning tomorrow, so posting will be light until after the new year.  I’ll be checking email and voicemail regularly so please don’t hesitate to send a message.  email: blog at haydencoach dot com

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I came across this really cool free music service called Pandora. The creators of Pandora call it “a music discovery service designed to find and enjoy music that you’ll love.” By using the Music Genome Project’s database of hundreds of musical attributes or ‘genes,’ the service suggests music that’s similar to your tastes. You simply enter a song or artist you like and Pandora will suggest music that might suit your tastes. Pandora uses the actual musical attributes of a song or artist such as rhythm, melody, phrasing, or arrangement to suggest music you might like.

Pandora is like a radio station completely customized to your tastes. You can give each song a thumbs up or down to further customize your station. And the best feature is that you can have as many as 100 stations which are all built on the ‘genes’ of a song or artist that you like. Did I mention that it’s free too?

Technorati Tags : Internet+Music, Radio, Pandora, Music, Online+Music