Boomer Ronin

Are You a Heart Worker? The Value of Being a Quitter.

Yes, I quit. I didn’t resign, and I wasn’t moving on to a better position. Well, in retrospect, that last part did turn out to be true.

At the end of 2010, I felt tired, not because I was working 60 hours a week or because the work was challenging. I was engaged in a battle of someone else’s making – a 70-year battle for the minds and hearts of the children of Harlem. Like many other good ideas gone wrong, this one is masked under a mission statement of “helping children achieve their full potential”. I was doomed, as I was there to do my usual heart work – and not to be a hero or a savior.

Looking back, this being the end of the year and all, some lessons have become self-evident. For example, there is the issue of values and value alignment.

If you are a heart worker and your values don’t match the values of the organization then it is inevitable that a break up will ensue. Sound familiar? Like it kind of sounds like a bad romance (thanks, Lady Gaga!).

Yup. Your 9-to-5 is like a lover. Do you follow? Most importantly, are you still in love or are you there because of routine, have to pay the bills, don’t believe you deserve better, feel guilty about initiating the break up, afraid you are making the wrong call if you leave? What will they do without you? The reasons to stay are endless but there’s only one way out…out!

I admit, before leaving I felt a twilight zone-type fear of unproductivity. After quitting, I soon realized the reason I did not want to go into my office was not because I was “burned out” as some folks in the nonprofit world call it. It was the feeling of energy being sucked out of my body by complacent, bitter and miserable colleagues, discouraging board members and an organizational culture so resistant to change that it’s leadership wouldn’t even change the conference room wallpaper without going into 10 executive sessions.

The break-up was inevitable. It/us just couldn’t work.

But yet there we were, Hans Hageman, Executive Director at the time, and myself trying to rationalize staying because of the kids.

Then came the final realization – yes, worse than facing the twilight zone or energy suckers. The right choice is incredibly hard to make.

If you quit you are a quitter. But if you stay you are useless. You compromise your values, risk depression; creativity dies a slow, painful death.

So, I ask YOU: what’s it going to be?

Before answering, think about this:

“We have to be able to walk forward with faith into a world that is chaotic and abstract and allow the opportunities to present themselves. And we need to be so aligned, so true to what we believe, that we are in a position to seize these opportunities when they occur. Our example is our reputation.
– Sue Knight, NLP at Work

I am proud to be a quitter. I recognize and accept my own value/values and better yet, I know my heart work is priceless. Do you? Allow yourself to answer honestly, and in 2011 proceed accordingly.

by Lino M

How To Be Your Own Dominatrix: A Roadmap for Practicing Self-discipline:
By: Yaromil Fong-Olivares

Discipline will get you almost anything in life. Self-discipline is not a trait we are born with; it simply takes discipline to develop self-discipline. As adults, we no longer have the same accountability forces we had as children.  We can no longer rely on our mothers to remind us to clean our rooms, our teachers to remind us to do our homework, or our coaches to push us to develop our athletic skills.   Unfortunately, the best we can hope for is a supervisor that challenges us to develop as professionals. But rising to the rank of supervisor does not equate with good managerial skills, which means that we must be able to balance personal accountability and self-management with the responsibility of working for and with others.

Most of us have never had the opportunity to choose how we spend our “work time”, our 9-5 time that is.  All of our lives we are socialized to believe that listening to others and following directions means being good.  We follow what our mothers, teachers, bosses instruct us to do.  This is not intended as a personal judgment.  Rather it is a challenge to look within your lives and determine how much of your time is truly yours.  Also, use this opportunity to analyze how much of your time should be yours to manage but currently isn’t and whether or not you are allowing others to manage time that you should be managing.  Take inventory of those hours during the day when you wish you were doing something else.  Once you have determined how much of your time is yours or you have the power to make yours, choose an activity that you have been wanting to participate in.  This can be exercise, yoga, meditation, writing, painting or anything that you enjoy; then follow these steps.

A roadmap for practicing self-discipline:

• Evaluate your time. Figure out how much time you have available that is truly yours.  This means you are away from your children, partner, boss, friends, or anyone else you spend time with.  Even the television.

• Before choosing the activity make sure to brainstorm and allow yourself to pick something that you truly want to do.  If you pick something because it’s easy to accomplish or because someone else thinks you should be doing it, you are not likely to follow through.

• Make your goal visual.   Use magazines, internet, your own writing, painting or picture and place it in a place where you can see it right before engaging in the chosen activity.  The visual reminds you of what you are working towards and helps you get back on track whenever you have the urge to avoid the activity.

• Get a buddy, but make sure to get just one.  Ask your buddy to call you the day after you are scheduled to complete the activity.  Be honest when you do not follow through on your activity.  Having the encouragement of a buddy helps push you to follow through and helps you explore why you choose not to.  Make sure you establish agreements and expectations with your buddy before getting started. Your buddy’s role is not to berate you when you do not follow through.  Your buddy’s role is to listen and repeat back what he or she is hearing with the sole purpose of helping you figure out  the reasons you did not follow through.  If you begin to feel that your buddy is antagonistic and judgmental it’s time to get a new one.  Another variation of this is to start a blog or twitter account specifically for the purpose of sharing your progress.  This option is for the bolder types of course.

• Give yourself an end goal.  Self-discipline is an ongoing practice.  It always involves a goal because otherwise you are more likely to slack off.  The more goals you accomplish the less you’ll require the accountability of a buddy and the easier that it will be to follow through on future goals.

• Evaluate your progress each week and each month, depending on the activity.  Look at your own patterns of avoidance and accomplishment.  If you go to sleep at a set time each night are you more likely to get up for an activity that takes place first thing in the morning? If you adjust your meeting schedule do you have more time for you? These are the types of questions you should ask yourself once you start to carve out time for yourself.  The goal of progress evaluation is to make showing up for your chosen activity easier each time.

• When you are done, be done.  If you feel dissatisfied with your end result then start over with a new goal.  Do not extend the deadline.  This defeats the purpose of establishing an end goal.

• Celebrate. Remember how good it felt to get a gold star when you were in the first grade?  Take your buddy out to dinner.  Take yourself out to a movie.  Give yourself lots of positive reinforcement.

• Start over.  Don’t limit yourself.  Apply this roadmap to anything you want to develop self-discipline around.  Disciplining yourself to follow through on your attainable goals and wishes will get you almost anything you want in life.

What would you rather be doing with your time?  Write me back and let me know!

By Yaromil Fong-Olivares

Obstacles
Obstacles remind us that we are unbreakable.

Unless we are physically ill or the obstacle is in the form of a person in our lives, most obstacles exist in our psyches. Consequently only we have the power to transform them into learning experiences. Obstacles are temporary because they don’t truly exist until we allow them to exist. With determination and creativity any obstacle can be transformed into a marvelous opportunity. Some common examples of obstacles turned into opportunities are: writing a memoir, engaging in public service, and sharing our experiences with others through public speaking.

Flexibility
When confronted by an obstacle, our spirit is like a rubber band; it is meant to stretch but not to break.
When we experience a block in our lives, the lowest phase of the experience is also the most crucial. During this phase we feel like the only viable option is giving up and hope is gone. The experience of deep suffering and pain is what I like to call the “moment of elasticity.” Our inner rubber band is stretched widely forcing us to regain control. These feelings are unpleasant but they add complexity and layers to our lives. We experience compassion for ourselves and inevitably learn to feel compassion for others. It is through compassion that we are able to find our way to our resiliency and discover a comfortable but challenging state of elasticity. The experience gives us VIP access into our immense capacity to stretch our hearts, minds, and souls and we begin to feel reconnected with ourselves.

Immediately after the “moment of elasticity” we access our vulnerabilities, strengths, and inner fire. We are able to rebuild ourselves and realize the need to make adjustments to our lives we were unaware of or unwilling to make prior to experiencing this particular block.

Toddlers
Consider approaching obstacles as if you were a toddler learning to walk. It takes many attempts. It involves falling down. It involves getting up. It often requires a tremendous amount of creativity since parents are usually watching us, attempting to protect us from the fall. It involves a lot of external pressures and almost always disappointing others. Despite all these variables we learn to walk and eventually run.

When you feel paralyzed by an obstacle ask yourself where you would be if, as a toddler, you had given up on learning to walk. Succumbing to feelings of disinterest, fear, inadequacy or even rationalizing other priorities are alluring distractions from tackling obstacles. The list of excuses is endless but all excuses in our lives can be challenged by the toddler within us. Run on and if you are not ready to run start by occasionally getting on your feet and allowing yourself to fall. Great feelings accompany standing up after falling.

Check out the whole movie when you can. Pam Slim, Michael Port, Justin Lukasavige, Chris Brogan, Janet Atkinson, John Carlton, and Hans Hageman & Associates, are some great places to start if you need or want to investigate the employment side of life as a masterless Samurai -- the Ronin. There is no better time.

I am going to avoid the obvious Tiger Woods jokes and tell you that if you, like me, are a man over 50, golfing is not the thing to take you into your golden years. Having a low libido (uh, not one of my issues) could turn out to be the least of your problems if you don’t pay more attention to the quality of your exercise.

I never thought I would have to pay attention to these issues but being firmly entrenched in my early 50′s has forced me to turn a spotlight on things that had previously only concerned “other people.” Don’t get me wrong – I enjoy grabbing the mantle of wisdom that is assumed with the half century mark. I delight in the challenge of maintaining a cognitive and physical edge on not only my peers but on many of the weak and insipid young men I come across.

You can’t ignore the signs though. I was taken aback to learn that direct marketers have a term for people like me – “Grumpy Old Men.” Yes, my brothers, we are GOM’s. When you get this age, you also become aware of terms like “aging in place” (I think that means the ability to remain in your home and adapting the environment to make it more elder friendly). GOM’s have a lot of concerns:

• illness
• frustration with technology
• feeling like outsiders in youth culture
• weight gain
• relationship problems (as a result of the empty nest, etc.)
• sleeping problems
• lack of energy
• financial concerns around retirement
• prostate issues
• feelings of a wasted life

Being part of this demographic, with a couple of these concerns on my list and a website named Boomer Ronin, I figure I have to take a crack at some of this stuff. The exercise piece covers a bunch of this.

Until very recently I came close to obsessing about whether I should put together a workout based on linear vs. conjugate, vs. undulating periodization. Now I find out from the literature on aging that there’s something called “sarcopenia” (which essentially has to do with us older people losing muscle mass with resulting problems with balance, gait, bending, etc.) and that I may have trouble just getting up from a chair!

Well, join me in raging against the dying of the light! research in things like the British Journal of Sports Medicine (yet another publication that I read so you don’t have to) talk about the effects of regular exercise reversing the effects of dementia, promoting neuronal growth, preventing cognitive decline, preserving healthy hormonal levels, etc. What you should know is that, while any exercise is better than nothing, the intensity of the exercise is more important than the volume.

Libido is negatively affected by things like alcohol, drugs, obesity, high blood pressure, and anger. A program of intense exercise will have a positive affect on these conditions. Your physical and mental profile will improve when you seek out the social support and get ‘er done. Look up people like Arthur Devany, Dan John, Paul Chek, or Frank Forencich for exercise prescriptions or you can send me an email. Challenge yourself with programs like the Crazy Monkey Defense System with its physical and Embodied Warrior programs, or figure out your personal “Shugyo” (a periodic physical and mental purification through vigorous and focused physical challenge).

Bottom line, it doesn’t matter where you are now. It’s not too late to start. I want you vigorous, happy, and healthy. Let’s all “age in place.” There are a lot of soft kids out there who need role models.

I have never found regret to be a useful emotion. It’s tough to learn from regret and it prevents forward movement. If you can work yourself up to something a little stronger, like guilt or remorse, there may be some positive benefits – a necessary apology, or a change in behavior or a different approach for next time.

As Frank said, “Regrets? I’ve had a few, but then again, too few to mention.” I was able to figure something out when I practiced law and while not perfected, it has allowed me to lessen some of the kinds of regrets I hear too many people experiencing. Perhaps this is because of some really high self esteem but I like to hallucinate that it’s mainly because of a fairly regular values inventory.

We get our values from experience, family, role models, and various cultural/media messages. For the most part, they remain outside of our conscious awareness. Our values often change with context, age, and experience but I believe that people are happiest and most successful when they are able to establish “bedrock” values that aren’t contextual.

In some of my recent work with police officers I was interested in their answers in response to questions about their values. Like many of us, they hadn’t given too much thought to their personal values or to the values that are important to police work. In this line of work, if your personal values don’t line up/aren’t congruent with those of your job, the consequences can be extreme. It was a good discussion and the conversation was more honest and robust than it could have ever been with the board members and many senior staff at Boys & Girls Harbor.

Some of the questions I asked them are the questions I have asked myself at different times in my professional life:

• What’s really important to you?
• What motivates you to do what you do at work and for your family?
• What things, people, experiences do you feel you can’t live without?
• What do you get most excited about? When?
• In what areas of your life do you refuse to compromise?

After you answer these questions, ask yourself, “Do I live these answers?” Understand that when you don’t, you pay a price. It’s too simple to be described by single words but since we live in the land of McDonald’s, here are a list of some values that serve as my bedrock:

• Honesty
• Compassion
• Directness
• Freedom
• Truth
• Generosity
• Mastery
• Family
• Duty
• Sacrifice
• Knowledge
• Achievement

These aren’t in order of importance. Another interesting exercise is to rank them. Send me a comment or email if you want a post on this. What I do know, is that there was a conflict between my bedrock values and the people who were calling the shots at my job. I am grateful that they brought me back to awareness and I thank you all for joining me on my latest adventure.

Write me with examples in your life when your values came into conflict with the living (not espoused) values of your job.

Jai Ho!