Nancy Love’s Weblog

I wonder what would happen if I posted my list of things to do.  Would actually get done?  What if we all did that?  Would the public shame that cold accompany not doing what you said you were going to do actually serve as a motivator??  I know that it works for me when I am trying to improve my body mass.  I go to Weight Watchers of  Herbal Magic for the public humiliation.  The threat of that weigh in helps me behave myself at table…. at least some of the time.

I have always said that people are weird.  One of the ways that they are is how they approach their to do lists.  Do they even make a list or just let it sit in their heads??

By September 1st this year my head was FULL of to do’s.  I created a list.  10 pages of things I hoped to accomplish in September.  Well my list is down to two pages today so I did a pretty good job of at least moving things along.  For me the physical list that I kept in my purse along with a small calendar that I could write in made a huge difference.  I also made a commitment to the list at the beginning of the month and stayed here in Calgary until I could accomplish most of it.  Most of the things that remain relate to our addresses in St Albert and Vancouver. Some have just gone stale.  By that I mean that they are no longer relevant.

How do you deal with your to do’s?  Are you  ruled by the list or do you take things as they come?  What strategies could you share about how to get it all together and then deal with it?  Is there another way besides the list???  It is the only way I know to organize myself and my life.

Did you know that it was Peace Week?  It seems to have been kept pretty quiet.  There are people spreading the word of inner peace, peace in family and community, between nations and around the world.  People like author Deepak Chopra, who is one of my favourites, are talking about Peace this week.

I am encouraged to know there is still a peace movement but a little disappointed that it is not more public and widespread.

The whole thing got me to wondering about who many people make their living making peace compared to how many make their living making war.  If we include peacemakers working on inner peace and community peace and family peace and peace in the corporate world and peace in government there would be an astonishing number I think.  If you compare that to the number of soldiers who are paid to make war I think you would find that the number of peacemakers of all kinds still falls short of the number of war makers.  I bet if we could even that out a bit we could make a major change in our time.  What do you think???

Back to the questions of life the universe and everything….

The way I see it life is interesting. I remember a video clip that Mel shared with me once. It shows a baby being shot out of its mother through a window and follows the baby as he develops to a toddler, a young boy, a teenager, an adult, a middle aged adult, an old man and the lands in a grave. all in less than 30 seconds. Sometimes life feels like it is moving that fast. This month I have deliberately slowed things down, taking more time to read an prepare food and to avoid rushing from one thing to another. It has been wonderful. The result is that there is actually room in my brain to write the novel I have been considering, to create and attack a very long to do list and to feel satisfaction as one by one I cross things off. It is a much easier way to approach life than running full steam at everything. Slow down, make a list and move through it.

Not rocket science for sure. I have taken these steps many times before in my life and invariably I get pulled back into the proverbial “Rat race”. I think this time will be different. I am satisfied with life at the moment. I have a few clients. I love working with them and I am considering that looking for more would trigger the fast pace again. I also have enough friends. I have LOTS of friends and I love all of them too. No need to explain to them who I am or what I am about. It is a comfortable place to be. I love my family and I have enough of them for the time being. They are all wonderful and spending time with them now is important. And I have enough places to go. Life is good in the slow lane. Thank you world.

Did you ever get a great idea that you want to share with people but you are afraid that they will think that you are crazy?? Or worse yet, you keep the idea to yourself because you might not be able to pull it off so you want to keep it to yourself so that no-one knows how crazy you are until you can prove that you are not??  Does that make sense???

I have this great idea for a novel.  I have been thinking about it since I got back from Newfoundland.  My dad was telling me about being in the Canadian Navy and being posted to St John’s when Newfoundland joined confederation.  He was told not to wear his uniform in town because people might refuse to serve him.  hmmmm  I think there is a story in there somewhere about the mainlanders and confederation in 1949.  My mum and dad met because he was posted there and she was visiting from Nova Scotia.  Although she was born in Newfoundland, she had immigrated to Canada in 1946 with her parents to live in Lunenburg.  She was home for a visit when she met dad.

Mum has always thought that I should write “stories”.  Maybe I will ….

I could also write a story about an investigative reporter who is searching for the secret to the peace in Canada, Ghana and Jordan.  He wants to understand how these three countries have managed to stay relatively peaceful while their neighbours continue to go to war.  He could have a romantic name like ‘Trip’ and be a curious fellow who finds the secret answers to the questions of life, the universe and everything from a political point of view.

I could write a story about the perfect politician … one whose motto is “Politics is a Conversation” … one who demonstrates all of the qualities and wisdom of each of the nine perspectives people take on the world.

Becoming a novelist would be work.  Constructing a good story to make your point takes skill and attention.  I wonder if it would be a way to get people’s attention and have them learn what I have already written in PULSE Conversations for Change 1 and 2 by putting the lessons in context.  hmmmmm I could get my friend Trish to be on the cover and make up attention grabbing titles. Of course I would have to use a different name to distinquish my fiction from my non fiction.

The Republic of Max – by Dr Charlotte Love

Trip Peacenik – Investigative Reporter – by Dr Charlotte Love

Perfect Politics – Dr Charlotte Love

My first name sounds more like a novelist than Nancy.

What do you think???  If you know me you are thinking “Oh no … she is bored again!!!”

insert happy face here!!!

I have just spent a wonderful week in Vancouver with Austin Gamey and his wife, Gladys.  Austin and I were able to blend work and tourism rather well.  We saw White Rock and Whistler and most things in between.  We also talked about the work that needs to occur to move PULSE Africa forward.  Austin’s energy and enthusiasm was contagious and although he was many hours off of his own time zone, he maintained a pace that I found difficult to match.

The future is bright for PULSE Africa with Austin at the helm.  Wonderful things will happen as he introduces his countrymen and those of other nations to the Complex PULSE Frame.  Austin rightly describes it as the PULSE Discovery Frame.  His use of that word with the Frame is interesting to me.  I always refer to it as a discovery and not an invention.  He elaborates that once something is DISCOVERED it is always with you and never ‘Un”discovered and that is true. Those who have discovered PULSE in their lives after they have been made aware of it in a classroom or in a book continue to use it on a daily basis.

That is true on this side of the ocean as well.  There are many people who have come to understand or have discovered that all conversations that come to successful, sustainable resolutions include the essential elements of the PULSE Frame.  It is how people make decisions and resolve differences successfully.  It makes sense then to use it when things are not going well to ensure a sustainable outcome that works for everyone.

Austin and I used the Frame to guide our talks.  The results are assured. We were Gentle and Honest with each other. We were open to the other person’s ideas and we used specific examples to ensure clarity.  We continued to Talk, to say what we were thinking until we had prepared, uncovered, learned criteria, searched options and explained a mutually agreeable plan of action which we put in writing.

Thank you to Austin and Gladys for making the long trip to visit with us in Canada.  Safe trip home.  The future is bright.

The Complex PULSE: Conversations for Change by Dr. Nancy Love  arrived in boxes today at my condo in Vancouver.  Exciting!!

I think it turned out really well.  I hope you like it too.  We printed 100 and will be sending 45 to Africa with Austin Gamey who is visiting here in Vancouver.  Austin and I have been thinking together for a few days now.  It is both exhiliarting and exhausting to be this intense.  It is good for me because it forces me to organize my thoughts in a way that makes sense to others.  That does not always seem possible. A good conversation like this is exactly what I needed to move the other two projects forward.

The BEACHs book is alive again and the Leadership series has new live as well.  It is amazing what the support of  other humans can do to change your own attitude toward your work.  I admit to being discouraged a few times this year but today is different.  The fruits of my writing are in my hand and the possibilities of others fill my head.  My heart is full of joy and expectation.

Could not have done it without all of you.  Thanks to everyone who reads this.  It is my testing ground for all that comes out in the books.  Your patience with me counts.

The seven ages of man: spills, drills, thrills, bills, ills, pills and wills. Richard John Needham identified the seven ages some time after Will Shakespear wrote this :

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players,
They have their exits and entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
Then, the whining schoolboy with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden, and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice
In fair round belly, with good capon lin’d,
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws, and modern instances,
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side,
His youthful hose well sav’d, a world too wide,
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again towards childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

We recently saw “As You Like It” performed in Vancouver’s Bard on the Beach Festival.  It was a great reminder of how life moves quickly and changes without warning.  We are all aware that we age each day but the reality hits from time to time when a change in stage becomes too evident to ignore.  I ask myself where I am right now and how that influences my perception of things.  And I ask what impact the stage have on a world view or the perspective that each of us takes on the world.

I admit to the Justice Stage.  That leaves me on ly two more stages.  Yikes!  In my own way I have described the stages differently.  I was a child, I raised children, I became political and entrepreneurial and now I am moving beyond that to look at different ways to give back to the world.  I am comfortable in my role as grandmother and want to define that to have the maximum impact on that wonderful generation of human beings.  I ask myself how best to serve them. I know how I felt about people my age when I was theirs.  They seemed redundant and irrelevant for the most part.  Now I know how much they knew and could have shared with me if I had only taken the time to ask.

This generational effect is reeking havoc in workplaces these days.  The wisdom of the young is so different from the wisdom of the old.  Both are indeed relevant and valuable and yet the divide keeps the one from asking the other about what they know.  Finding away to do that might be my next project.  What wisdom can we all take from the Bard himself as we consider generational differences.

Do you have friends who feel it is their job to criticize and correct you at every turn?  Do you have people in your life for whom nothing or no one is good enough? Do these people suck the positivity out of every conversation and out of you when you let them?  And is not letting them get to you more work than you counted on?

Sometimes I am overwhelmed by the energy it takes to manage relationships. I want to run away and hide.  I am pretty skilled at talking to people and think I am open to the possibilities that people present but sometimes they lean on me too hard.  I just want to shout out them “There are other was to deal with life besides burdening your self and others.”

The “glass half empty” crowd can’t see what is good in their life and don’t seem to be able to take the time to count blessings or be grateful for what they have.  they blame the world for their woes and expect others to rescue them from life itself.  For them it is difficult to find the joy, the pleasure in getting up in the morning and letting the sunshine on them.  “It is too hot.” they complain.

The other crowd that irks me sometimes is the ‘helpless’ crowd.  These people can do nothing for themselves and do not have enough confidence to even try to fix anything or any situation.  They cry for help and sit back and watch as other people solve their problems for them and them complain because they are not smart or capable but do nothing to rectify the situation.  Those people make me tired and I can only handle being around them for so long before I need to find the ‘helpful and capable’ and ‘half full’ crowds to replenish my energy.

I guard against becoming ‘helpless’ and ‘half empty’ by retreating to treat myself to some down time to rejuvenate and to pay attention to the syncronistic ways of the world.  I am not sure if that is cowardly or not.  I like to think of it as survival mode.  What about you?

Just got back from an exhausting and exhilarating jaunt to NYC.  I love the big apple as do many others.  There were hundreds of thousands of visitors in New York at the same time as I was.  That is what makes it vibrant and that is also what makes it exhausting.  Although you see lots of smiles on the street you also see lots of disconnects as people live separate lives together.  New Yorkers rarely make eye contact.  Visitors are so awestruck by the sites they don’t even watch where they are going and there are line ups everywhere.  It is apparent to me as I watch people in line ups that the human race has yet to develop a strategy for maintaining patience while in line. In the US they say ‘on’ line.  That might be because it gets ‘on’ your nerves.  To see the Statue of Liberty you stand in line for the tickets and then you stand in line for the boat.  It is an all day affair and people choose to do it.

We choose not to stand on-line, looked at Lady Liberty from afar and moved on to other places of interest.  For me the statue which was a gift from France is symbolic of the wonderful opportunities offered to immigrants to the US and for them it is a shrine.  That is understandable.  It also shows the connection between France and the US and I heard many people speaking Parisian French on the streets and in the parks of Manhattan.  Their presence is felt as is the presence of the Italian immigrants.  There are so many restaurants offering Italian and French cuisine. The four we tried were excellent.  Good food, good wine and good friends – a vacation to remember. And an opportunity to study people in crowds and begin to understand how some people thrive in these settings where others cannot cope with the lack of both privacy and intimacy in the big city.

A crucible for conflict of many kinds, New York survives.