On Their Side

One of the perspectives I needed recently is that, if you want someone to do something for you, you have to be completely on their side. And part of that is showing them that you are on their side. I was reminded again how loudly people hear any criticism, no matter how small it seems to you, and so how gently and compassionately you have to say it. Not because you're afraid of them, not because you're a wimp, but because you care about their well-being, they need to know, and if you don't say it gently and compassionately, they won't be able to hear it at all.

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

Help to Remember

Even though I always remember that it is important to apply those concepts -- not judging people, not trying to hold them to my expectations, and accepting them as they are, sometimes that goes against what I am feeling right at the moment and I can't see how to do it. It seems strange, but it's absolutely true, that I have to read my own book, because my book details how that underlying philosophy manifests itself in actions.

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

Freedom

When we can let go, we can be free. The ropes of our expectations, everyone's expectations, haven't been constraining us, we have been holding onto them. People are what they are. We can't make them perfect. We can't be perfect. Or we already are perfect. Let go. Expect nothing from other people but be open to what they are willing to give. Ask for what you want.

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

No Fault

The thing that is wonderful about Toastmasters is that everybody is highly valued. We don't send anyone away because they aren't good enough or don't make the same progress as someone else. Everyone proceeds at their own pace. We simply encourage and support each other. And it works!

The thing that was great about that job was that we all rose to challenge of doing our best. And somehow we figured out that we didn't need to fix people or find the perfect person for the job and got into the habit of solving problems and adapting the job to the person. Much better!

Fault is irrelevant, blame is irrelevant, and they are a waste of time and energy.

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

I'll Take That Job

It happened to me once by accident and now every day I try to get there again on purpose. The job was fun! We were all in it together. Our only motives were to make things better for our customers (patients, because it was a doctor's office) and more efficient for ourselves. We asked for ideas from everybody. Ideas bounced off each other and got better and better. The owner was our champion, who listened to and appreciated and rewarded us. Ideas that worked were applauded, no matter where they came from. We even remodeled parts of the office to fit our purposes better. Nobody got blamed for failures. They were good ideas that didn't work. We just tried something else. Mistakes we responded to with training and thinking about how to make it more difficult to make the mistake again. Wow! It was educational. It was exciting. It transcended excitement and became pure joy.

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

What Is It?

What is it about Toastmasters that makes it so fun, exciting, and inspirational? These are the ingredients, which don't have to be confined to a Toastmasters club, but which you can see working there:

We are happy to welcome anyone who wishes to learn. We don't give any tests or reject anyone for not being good enough. The desire is all that anyone needs.

We demonstrate what we want to teach. People learn by watching others, in all stages of development, and by trying it themselves, by getting up and doing. Trying is rewarded. Failing is not punished.

We concentrate on what is good. We want people to keep doing what they are already doing well and build on that. Every success is noted and rewarded.

We tell people how we think it could have been even better. We tell the truth, but kindly. We never criticize unless we have a suggestion to make, which is always expressed as our own opinion.

We keep in mind that people hear negative comments very loudly and praise very softly and that it takes many positive comments to balance a negative one.

We remember that our goal is to inspire the person to keep trying, to keep getting better, and to want to come back and do it again.

In all these ways, we show how much we value the person we are trying to help. We never give up on them. We believe in them. And we believe in ourselves, in our ability to help them.

As we do all these things, which is the way we are taught to do them, something starts to change in us. We realize that the desire to do something is the most important thing. We see that people do have all the right stuff and only need a little help to polish it up. We come to know that every one of us brings a unique perspective that makes all of us working together an awesome teacher. We share the joy that each one experiences, because we help to bring it about. We watch each other grow and see how it's done and know that we can, too.

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

It's Better with Help

One of the most amazing places to be if you are interested in seeing people exercising their potential is at a Toastmasters meeting. It's the only large group I know of that exists for the expressed purpose of helping its members grow. There are over 200,000 members worldwide. They teach communication and leadership. What big, hairy, audacious goal doesn't include that? Toastmasters learn in clubs, whose optimum size is 20 members, of which about 15 will come to any one meeting. That's 15 people to demonstrate the skills you are trying to learn, listen to you, encourage you, and make suggestions for how you can do even better. Not to mention the effect of that many people working in harmony to achieve their goals. And, of course, if you're not having fun, you're not doing it right, as we say. There is nothing like it. But I did see it in a vision once and wrote about it in my book.

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

Potential

Sometimes people will say that someone has potential, but what they're really seeing is someone who is starting to exercise their potential. Because people say that when they see someone on the verge, standing on a mountain top, getting ready to fly -- awake, alert, interested. It's an exciting thing to see.

We all have potential. But what gets you to that point where people can see it and you can feel it? Maybe it is a big, hairy, audacious goal. I love that phrase, which I must have heard somewhere. Looking it up just now, I find that it was in Jim Collin's book, Built to Last. Shades of The Tipping Point! It has infiltrated the language. I didn't even know where it came from.

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

So?

When you know yourself, you can properly respond to insults:
You're stupid! No, I'm not, but I do stupid things sometimes.
You're lazy! No, I'm not, but I don't feel energetic today.
You're crazy! Yes, so?

Because it's not really about who you are. That's your business, you're the only one who knows who you are, and you can make better choices all the time, which changes who you are. The only thing other people can hold you accountable for is what you do.

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

Taking Risks

And there is a way to be okay even when you are way out on a limb, taking a risk, going into a beautiful, dangerous place where you have never been before.

Know who you are. Think about what you are doing and do what you do on purpose. Know what your strengths are and how to use them. Know what your weaknesses are and how to compensate for them. See how to succeed and know that you can. Be honest about your goals. Say what you intend to do and do what you say. Ask for what you want. Be honest about the risks to other people. Pay attention. Adapt. Warn people when they are in danger and help them adapt.

If you fail, accept it, admit it, and pay the price. Let the people who tried to help you pay the price, too, even though that is often harder. If you succeed, generously acknowledge the help you got and share the rewards. Whether you succeed or fail, keep pursuing your goals, learning, and growing.

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

Know Yourself

Another way to be okay even when people who do know you are mad at you, is to know yourself. Know what is true about you and what isn't. You are basically good. You are always trying to do the right thing. Keep trying to be better than you are, yes, keep trying to be who you want to be. But give yourself a break. At any given moment, you are doing the best you can.

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

It's Not About You

A psychiatrist told me once that a patient got very angry with him, but he kept his equanimity because, he said, she didn't know him well enough to hate him. When people act in ways that feel like an attack, make you mad, or hurt your feelings, it helps if you can remember that it's probably not about you.

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

Why I Wrote the Book

Someone asked me why I wrote the book. I explained that I had worked for 30 years and couldn't keep a job for more than three years at a time -- the first year when everything was fine, the second year when I was disgusted with my coworkers, and the third year when they were disgusted with me. But then I had a chance to work closely with people without actually being an employee and I realized that people were never the problem. The people were always okay. It was how we treated each other that was the problem. So I wrote the book.

When I thought about it later, I realized that I had explained how I came to write the book, but not why I wrote it.

I wrote the book to change the world.

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

The Good Side

If people treat us badly, we tend to think they are bad people. But it's not that. Everyone has a good side and a bad side. No matter how mean and ugly they seem to us at any given moment, to someone they are kind and beautiful. They show their good side to someone. With some people it is easier than with others, but I think that there is a way to get almost anyone to smile on you. That's by treating them as if they already are. The reason that it is right to do that, and not just a trick, is that you don't change because of what someone else is doing. You can walk in beauty, as the Navajos say, all the time.

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

Room to Think

It's funny, but to have the most impact on a situation, you have to take yourself out of it. You have to see it from a distance, from a height, from the crest. You have to be removed so that your emotions and defenses are not in play. Then you can see other people's actions dispassionately, compassionately, because you're not afraid or angry or disappointed. You can think about where things stand and where you want them to go and what it would take for them to get there.

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

The View from the Top

Next to Albuquerque there is a mountain, called Sandia. It has a steep face but is sloped on the back side. There is a road that winds up that way and takes you to the crest. You can stand up there and see forever.

That's what it is like when you can start to see things from a different perspective.

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

Perspective

When you believe that everyone is doing the right thing all the time and everyone is doing the best they can, you see what is happening from a different perspective. My book describes what it looks like from there. It affects three areas:

Knowing
Listening
Speaking

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

Everyone is Doing the Best They Can

Everyone is doing the best they can. Maybe not as well as they did yesterday. Maybe not as well as they will do tomorrow. Everyone is doing the best they can right here, right now, at this moment in time. If they are not doing as well as they are capable of, then there is something going on that is preventing it. You can't coerce them into doing better, but you can try to help them get over the obstacle.

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

Everyone is Doing the Right Thing

You have a choice, but it's still not easy, in the heat of the moment, to make the right choice. There are some guidelines, a belief system, a philosophy if you will, that make it easier. Even if you don't believe, if you act as if you believe, they will work. And I think that you will come to believe.

Everyone is doing what they think is right, or at least justified, all the time. Before anyone does anything, they first convince themselves that it is the right thing to do. To understand someone, to talk to someone, even to convince someone to change what they are doing, you must acknowledge that. When you do, first in your mind and then in your words, it changes everything about how you approach them. You will not be the enemy if you believe they are basically good.

Everyone is basically good.

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

You're Right

The important thing to remember is that you have the power to act in a way that helps you to do the right thing and to achieve all your goals.

Whether you think you can or whether you think you can't, you're right.
--Henry Ford

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing; the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.
--Viktor Frankl

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

It's Simple But It's Not Easy

If it was easy to make conscious choices about what you do instead of reacting to what is happening around you and how that makes you feel, you would do it all the time because it works so much better. It's not easy. It's faster to react than to consider before you act. That's what most people are doing so that's what you see all the time. It's hard to remember. But it is simple. By keeping a few things in mind, things that you already know, you can change your position, so you're not so much under attack, and gain a new perspective from which everything is clearer.

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

It's Your Choice

You can choose to act consciously. You can choose to do the right thing. You can choose to do what you believe will result in the best outcome for everyone. If you are impulsive, you can choose to act deliberately. If you are angry, you can choose to think it through and let it go. If someone tries to hurt you, you can choose not to be hurt. You can decide what you will do no matter what is happening within you or around you.

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

Be Who You Want to Be

People say that you should be who you are. But I think you should be who you want to be. Not pretend to be something you're not, but become who you want to be. You may have been born, or learned as a child, a certain way of acting. That doesn't mean you have to act that way the rest of your life. Hopefully, you have learned not to throw tantrums or cry when you're frustrated (or at least not as often). Just because you have become an adult doesn't mean that you can't keep growing and learning. You may have a natural tendency to do things a certain way. A personality test may show that you have a certain profile. It doesn't mean anything. It's a snapshot of where you are now. It's a tool you can you use to understand yourself. Don't let it hold you hostage. Don't let anyone use it against you. You still have a choice about what you say and do, and it's your choices that matter.

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

Who You Are

One of the most liberating things is to realize that the way you treat people should not be determined by who they are, how they act, or how they make you feel, but by who you are. To be free, treat everyone the same. To be happy, treat them well.

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

Book Signings Oct 7 and Nov 17

Saturday, October 7, 2006, 3:00 to 5:00 PM

Page One Bookstore in the Cafe
corner of Juan Tabo and Montgomery
11018 Montgomery NE
Albuquerque, NM 87111
(505) 294-2026

Friday, November 17, 2006, 4:00 to 6:00 PM

Hastings
corner of Tramway and Candelaria
12501 Candelaria Road NE
Albuquerque, NM 87111
(505) 332-8855

Choices

Who acts on every emotion they feel? A child does. If we feel an emotion, even an unwanted one like fear, that doesn't make us childish. But acting on it might. Of course, there are times when acting out of fear will save our lives. That is what it's for, after all. But most of the time, we can hold off on our gut reaction and come up with a better plan that fight or flight. It doesn't mean that we suppress the fear. We push it aside in order to go after what we want or need. Anger shouldn't be suppressed either, because then it can damage us. Mental health professionals say depression is anger turned inward. It's no better to harm ourselves that way than someone else. But if we can think through the reason for our anger, sometimes we can just let it go.

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

The Real Beginning

I'm not going to complain about my parents because, you know, I'm just too old for that! And I decided a while back that they were just doing the best they could, what they thought was the right thing, just like every other human being on the planet. And if I am what my parents made me, then they are what their parents made them, ad infinitum.

The real beginning is when we realize that we have a choice, no matter where we were born or in what circumstances, no matter what happens that's out of our control, no matter what other people do. It's a choice to be responsible for our own lives and our own actions, to adapt and grow and find our way, to make our world what we want it to be, and to be happy.

When we start making conscious choices based our vision of what can be instead of being pushed around by what has always been, that's when things get interesting!

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com

Thought of the Day

I started thinking about what Steve Pavlina said about how he created his successful website. He said that he wrote the best articles he could, to give something of value to his readers, and he set up some links with other people. I followed a link to his site the first time. I don't think it was as simple as that to get over a million visitors a month in two years. Maybe he already knew a lot of people. But he has a point.

It's the same thing that we tell Toastmasters about how to recruit new members to their clubs. Have a good meeting. Invite a few people. In both cases, you have to have something really good, something you're proud to ask people to come and see. And a few is probably a few hundred!

I decided to start a sort of thought for the day, to see if it would be valuable for people. That made me think about where to start. Being a logical sort of person, I wanted to start at the beginning. The beginning is where we all began, when we were born. When we were perfect. So, what happened! If we are perfect when we're born, how do we lose confidence in ourselves?

When I was a kid, I knew I was bad. Even if I had never done anything wrong, which I could tell from my mother's voice I had, there was that original sin that we inherited. So, we all started out in the hole, having to work our way out. That's not good, is it? What kind of a thing is that to tell little children? But maybe it is. From the beginning, we have to work at who we are and who we are going to be. No free ride. And it's that struggle that makes us interesting and interested, seekers and thinkers. I wonder if it is the same in other cultures? What do they tell their children?

Steve Pavlina

It's the two-year anniversary of Steve Pavlina's personal development blog. Go on over and see how he's doing at Steve Pavlina's Two-Year Anniversary. Steve reports:

Monthly web traffic tripled from 410K to 1.3 million visitors
Monthly revenue increased 10x from $1140 (Sep 2005) to $12K (Sep 2006)

Nine Countries!

Another amazing thing that I learned from Google Analytics was that, in the few short days since I turned it on, I have had visitors from nine countries:

United States
Norway
Phillipines
Dominican Republic
Canada
Malaysia
France
United Kingdom
Pakistan

Is that cool or what!

I can't see who they are, but I can see their city, region, and country. I did have a little trouble with that at first. It was easy enough to see the country on Geo Location under Marketing Optimization-Visitor Segment Performance, but the only way I could see the city was to use the Analysis Options for each country, which was a drag. But I finally figured out that I could go to User-defined, which put everybody in the same category since I haven't defined any subcategories, and then use the Analysis Options for city, region, country, whatever I want. It's far out!

Please let me know if you know a better way or whatever else you especially like about it!

Doing the Right Thing
and Achieving All Your Goals at the Same Time
www.mariannepowers.com