July 9, 2009
by Rod Smith
Welcome Tim
President of Growth and Associates, located in Brentwood, California, to Durban today. Tim and I met in Hawaii in 1986 when Tim was a know-it-all 15-year-old striding the university campus where I studied. Tim’s mother worked at the university while Tim strode the campus as if it were his very own creation. Even then he embodied generosity. Quick witted, visionary, Tim always seemed able and willing to develop a means to get what he needed, and a way to get where he wanted to go.
Congratulations, Tim. Not only have you have become the leader, and the teacher of leaders, making all who know you proud, you also offer hope to parents who might be overwhelmed, even intimidated by the zeal, determination, intelligence, and creativity they discern in their offspring.
Author, entrepreneur, and friend, welcome to Durban. I wish I were there to greet you, to haul you off to tea at Mitchell Park with Gordon, my favorite waiter in the world, and then show you Durban’s beauty. I will have to leave that up to those you meet while you are there. Durbanites will show you a good time. It comes as naturally to them as inspiring others does to you.
Posted in Communication, Differentiation, Education, Faith, Friendship, Grace, Leadership, Listening |
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July 2, 2009
by Rod Smith
“My three children live with my partner of 9 months and me. His children visit regularly. His son (12) pushes the boundaries and my partner allows him get away with a lot more than the other kids, including his daughter. My partner, who is brilliant with my children, will comment on bad behavior from my children, yet will not judge his son for the same behavior. His son lies to get the other kids into trouble and when I am near his father he makes sure that I cannot get too near. I refuse to compete with a 12-year-old for the affections of his father. My issue is the unfairness. It drives me up the wall. His father feels his son is sensitive and because he sees him so little that he will be less harsh with him. I understand this and am not sure if I am being unfair. I am starting to dislike the boy more and more. Please help.”
Get out of the middle...
Rod:
You are already competing and the boy is winning! Get off the “life is fair” gig and out of the middle. Leave EVERYTHING about his children UP TO HIM. While you are 12-year-old-focused, dad doesn’t have to be, – and you will always, always, end up looking like the enemy!
Kathryn
Kathryn:
Ignoring the behavior is not loving to anyone. The boy’s “sensitivity” is never a good reason for parents not to discipline a child. Consistently setting good boundaries with children is very loving. Spend intentional time together and perhaps your partner’s own guilt may dissipate bringing change into the dynamic. Be honest.
Posted in Attraction, Blended families, Boundaries, Children, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Education, Faith, Family, Friendship, Leadership, Living together, Parenting/Children, Single parenting, Step parenting, Stepfather, Stepmother, Teenagers |
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June 29, 2009
by Rod Smith
Rod@TakeUpYourLife.com
Occasionally I like to recommend a book I have found inspiring. Anyone in any form of leadership will benefit from Rabbi Edwin Friedman’s
Failure of Nerve, Leadership in the age of the quick fix. While no light reading, it is so very good it ought to be banned!
That said, here’s Tuesday’s MERCURY column:
You want greater emotional health?
1. No blaming. Take full responsibility for you life. It’s impossible to create the future you want while you are convinced you are a victim.
2. Try to separate feeling and thinking. Lead with your head, not with your heart. Thinking (deliberating, discussing) yourself into your future, rather than “feeling” your way, will at least gives you some opportunity for objectivity. “Feelings” will make you feel as if you only have extreme choices – usually all or nothing, fight or flight. Thinking will show you there are more options than you feel.
3. So-called “burnout” is not from working too hard but from living a meddling lifestyle. Remove yourself from the middle. Get out of the way of issues that are none of your business and you will be surprised at how much of a load will be lifted from your shoulders and how much more energy you will have.
4. Forgive everyone, everything, always. (I am not sure commas are necessary – what do you think?)
Posted in Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Education, Family, Forgiveness, Friendship, Leadership, Listening |
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June 25, 2009
by Rod Smith
Let your voice be heard!
for full expression. Some have allowed their voice to be stolen or silenced and might find it necessary to take time to find or re-establish the voice they have chosen to deny or ignore. Thankfully, suppressing a voice seldom kills it. It can usually be found even after years of denial.
Any person who will not hear what you have to say, or who tries to silence you, does not love you even if he or she proclaims otherwise. It is never a loving act, except in very unusual circumstances, to stop someone from expressing who he or she is. Likewise, it is never a loving act to withhold your contribution to the world by maintaining your silence.
You were not created to be silent or to silence others. The world will benefit for hearing who you are and what you have to say. Part of having a voice, and using it, involves the process of discovering how best to package and express your voice so others can hear what you have to say.
Compromise yourself, your talents and skills for no one. Be silenced or made “smaller,” rendered voiceless for no one. It is never worth it. There is no cause, no relationship, worthy of your silence. There is no person of any rank, no spouse, boss, or spiritual leader deserving of your downplaying who you are. Only those with dark motives will seek for you to be less, minimized, diminished, or silenced. Walk away from such small-mindedness, even if it is costly to do so.
Find your voice; use your power!
Loving, good people, will celebrate your strength, encourage your freedom, and admire your talent. Stick with such people. Stay with those who enlarge your world, not restrict, shrink, or contain it. Live fully, love fully, and speak fully.
I am weary of men and women, irrespective of who they are, who hold others captive, especially in the name of love.
I am weary of spiritual “leaders” who are afraid of gifted people; of bosses who silence talented people lest their own inadequacies be revealed. If you live above, and beyond, the damaging jealousies that surround you, you will stimulate the dreams of everyone in your circle of influence, and make your dreams come true before your very eyes – and the world will hear your voice.
Posted in Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Leadership, Listening, Recovery, Responsive people, Victims, Violence, Voice, Womanhood |
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June 4, 2009
by Rod Smith
Take up your life....
Love prevails. I am not referring to the kind of love associated with romance, although such love is of course vastly important. I am referring to a love that is beyond romantic attraction, love that is usually beyond humans unless they know, first-hand, something about suffering, something about loss, hurt, about loneliness and abandonment.
The love that prevails is sometimes born in people who know how painful life can be. I say sometimes, because tough events can also produce bitterness, not love, in others. Prevailing love is not about good feelings, about an emotional high, nor is it about being known or rewarded for good deeds.
The kind of love is born or developed in the wake of suffering prevails because it has learned that there is goodness in others, that there is hope in the world, that there is reward in believing in the goodness of others.
Love people today. Do something counter-cultural to the spirit of self-seeking in your office, at the hospital where you work, or at the school where you teach. Offer a open hand of love and generosity to a struggling person. Turn your own reservoir of pain and suffering into an act of love.
Love prevails, and it wants to prevail in you.
Posted in Attraction, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Leadership, Listening, Long distance relationships, Love |
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May 19, 2009
by Rod Smith
Call me...
It’s the petty jealousies, I’ve noticed, are often the heart of the gravest discord. A venture fails, a woman cuts off from her family, a teacher walks out of a school never to return; a business office is plagued with inter-personal struggles. Examine it. Get to the heart of the matter. I bet you it started with someone being overlooked.
Another got the praise. A name was omitted. Thanks went to the “wrong” people. The office with a view – the larger company car, the newest computer, the high-back desk chair – went to a more junior employee. It’s these matters, not graver concerns that are usually at the heart of discontent.
I am sure the White House and other centers of power are similarly contaminated with petty jealousies. The “I’ve-known-the-president-longer-than-you” kind of talk probably occurs as frequently in those hallowed halls as parallel themes surface (or fail to surface) in your boardroom, staff room, or at your breakfast table.
To desire recognition is human. To ruin relationships when it is not forthcoming is a sad commentary on one of the many complexities that come with the package of being human.
Posted in Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, High maintenance relationships, Leadership, Listening |
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May 17, 2009
by Rod Smith
Get out of the middle!
(short-fuse living, attacking, failing to listening, assuming you know what others are saying anyway, harboring damages, gossiping, transmitting unhelpful or damaging information, being sarcastic) usually hurts others and our relationships.
Responsiveness, on the other hand (embracing and listening to what others are saying before responding or acting, allowing the full story to be told without making judgments, holding onto ourselves in the face of trouble or anxiety and the anxieties of others, not falling when all the other dominoes are falling) usually helps heal others and our relationships.
Yet it is important to realize that responsive people or those persons whose behavior is usually characterized by being responsive, did not get there by sheer willfulness or determination. Becoming a “non-anxious presence” is the result of the long, and often very slow work of making peace with every possible relationship and human connection (past and present) a person has. Reactivity (anxiety) and Responsiveness (non-anxiety) are not willful choices but rather the product of individual journeys.
Finally, reactive behavior and responsive behavior are not “bad” and “good” respectively. A person can be display both. A parent can be viciously reactive if a child is threatened (appropriate) and yet warm, nurturing, and protective toward the same child all in an instant.
Posted in Anxiety, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Leadership, Listening, Love, Manipulation, Reactivity, Responsive people, Therapeutic Process, Triangles |
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May 13, 2009
by Rod Smith
Call me for your Leadership workshop
(school, church, business, sports team, newsroom) is fraught with possibility and with challenge. The wiser leader expects:
1. Sabotage from areas where it is least predictable or expected.
2. Chaos in at least a few, or even in many, areas of the organization.
3. Trails that sometimes lead to no useful destination.
4. Trials that waste time, energy, and other resources.
5. Seduction into focusing on the irrelevant as the irrelevant stubbornly vies for recognition while giving the appearance of utmost importance.
6. Seduction into the illusion of total control.
7. Approximation of what is possible and viable in exchange for expecting perfection.
8. Power to be shared, offered, that true serendipity and creativity may occur.
9. Transmission of his or her personal, domestic, or moral struggles to emerge in the life of the people who serve the organization.
10. To resist the natural push from within the organization to be all consuming of the leader’s time, talent, and resources.
Posted in Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Education, Grace, Leadership, Listening, Schnarch, Therapeutic Process, Triangles |
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May 5, 2009
by Rod Smith
May you grow and grow...
1. You are less dependent on others yet have a growing awareness of how you fit into the bigger picture of your immediate family and community.
2. You genuinely regret past errors and are vigilant not to repeat them.
3. You possess the foresight to know that moving on with your life is a necessary part of growth no matter how grievous your past mistakes may have been.
4. You want success in every area of your life but not at the cost of your integrity.
5. Within reason you resist saving, rescuing, or protecting others (even those whom you love) from the natural consequences of their own behaviors.
6. You are comfortable with your many and varied roles in life and are unafraid to play your part to the full.
7. As far as it is within your realm of influence and power, you are at peace with all people.
8. You forgive everyone, everything, all the time, even when it is not requested and when forgiveness is undeserved – and yet, despite this, you are not the proverbial doormat.
9. You know when and how to express your voice and when it is necessary to remain silent.
Posted in Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Education, Family, Forgiveness, Friendship, Leadership, Listening |
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April 21, 2009
by Rod Smith
I love Friedman. I hope you will too.
I have reconstructed one of the late Rabbi Ed. Friedman’s parables which I first encountered as a footnote in his paper entitled “The Challenge of Change and the Spirit of Adventure.” (It’s essential reading, by the way):
A man was getting ready for heart bypass surgery when his organs called a (secret, of course) meeting. Lungs declared they would refuse to participate in the surgery saying the host had no business making them work harder after all they’d done for him for all these years.
Spleen agreed. Pancreas nudged in agreement. Actually Pancreas winked, but it is hard to tell with Pancreas.
Intestine mulled endlessly on the matter and felt (it was rather an emotional moment, actually) it should side, if he sided with anyone, with Spleen.
Intestine, who found it hard to have an opinion anyway, also did everything slowly.
The Kidney Twins, in unison and stony-faced, kidded a just little (they are not given to too much humor) that he had had the audacity to think they’d work any harder on his behalf, “Who does he think he is trying to get all well?” Their comment became a scoff.
Bowel, not given to small talk, churned the over the matter, repeatedly sighed a long conspiratorial, “Nooo. Nooo. Noooo!”
Liver, still seated, said he wasn’t about to change after all these years. Then, standing to address the meeting, said, “Who exactly is he to decide without due process anyway? New lease on life, a new Heart around here will mean new demands. Everyone’s been so worried about old Heart for all these years, no one gave a rip about us! We’ll show him who is boss! He’ll get all active – which means we’ll have to, too. No. No. No. What does he know about taking out the trash anyway? I do the REAL work around here!”
Round the table the organs voted and a decision was reached. “No! No to surgery for our ambitious, unreasonable, demanding, host.”
Just then Brain spoke up, “It’s none of your business. It is not your decision to make. Get back to work.”
(I highly recommend Friedman’s Fables and Failure of Nerve by the same author.)
Posted in Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Leadership, Meditation, Reactivity, Schnarch, Voice |
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