Choose Your Culture

Where do you spend most of the time in your life? My guess is for most it will be in the workplace. Each week, we have 168 hours to live. If you sleep like most average Americans, you probably don't get much more than six hours of sleep per night. Which means, you would have 126 waking hours to experience. If you approach your work like most of us do then, one way or another, you probably spend somewhere close to 50 hours either in or traveling to your place of work. I would suggest most Americans spend over half of their lives at work.

Here is the point. If you are going to spend over half of your life in a place with people who aren't the people you love most or to whom you have the most commitment, why would you not want to do your part to make it the most positive, productive, and powerful experience of your life? Yet, the culture experience at work being produced by most of us is toxic to say the very least. We live it and then go home completely wasted. Then, we get to take on the hard part of living. Is there any wonder family life in this country has and is being ravaged.

I believe we need to create workplace cultures where we receive energy to live the rest of our lives. Before you think it, I know it is work. I also know work done well in the midst of others who are equally committed to creating a special, if not protected, professional environment in which to work can be an experience that is both healthy and positive.

Here is your reality. You are going to have to choose to create it. You cannot wait for others to produce it. You can encourage others to join you in producing it. You can't wait for management or ownership to produce it. They can't do it for you, and in many cases, they won't. You can, however, manage up and influence them toward the difference it will make in company productivity, morale, and ultimately, profitability.

Start a movement in your workplace. Begin as you travel toward it. Listen to something instructive and positive. Choose to represent the culture you want to experience. Respect others. Recognize the kind of behavior in others, management included, you want to continue to experience. Determine to grow and develop. Learn something even if it does help "the man" make more money. Do it for you. Learn to communicate clearly and with power. Engage conflict and learn to produce through the opportunity it represents. Then, go home. Take home with you the energy you will have created. Do well, my friends!

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Life's Limiting Factor

Life is difficult and fear is the complicating factor. In fact, it is the limiting factor in all of our lives. It complicates life because it limits the relationships we were meant to know and enjoy. Fear serves to limit us on several levels, however, it does its primary work in the area of intimacy in relationships.

Fear of someone really coming to know us is one of fear's most limiting factors. The best definition I have ever heard for intimacy is "the ability to share our most present fear with absolute confidence". It is our lack of confidence in who we are that serves to defeat us. Because we are insecure in ourselves, we hide from others.

We are afraid to get too close to others because of our fear of losing them. Once again, fear tends to limit the very thing we were meant to enjoy. We stay afraid of losing something we were never meant to own. Relationships are not possessions. They are privilege. They are meant to be a life experience where we can love and be loved.

Fear keeps us afraid of exposing ourselves and all of our weaknesses. We don't want to look, or feel, foolish. In fact, we work overtime to keep from being seen as we are. We disguise ourselves. We wear masks to hide our weakness. We want to avoid being vulnerable at all cost.

We will only come to know true relationship with others when we allow them to know us as we really are. It is when we allow ourselves to be vulnerable to another person that we begin to know and be known. It is by engaging our fears that we conquer them. The work begins within. We have to find peace. Our identity issues need to be settled. It really is a spiritual matter. Knowing others begins with knowing ourselves. Make peace with self and know peace with others. Do well, my friends.

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