Uncategorized


I’m waiting for my car to have a light bulb replaced at Canadian Tire. I love this store. You can buy just about anything. I’m in Vancouver for a wedding and enjoying this time to just sit and think. I’m hoping to do more work here. I visited the new offices of Demers and Associates. Great space for training.

I also had lunch with a local lawyer – mediator to Learn a little bit more about the lay of the land. I think there are possibilities here. I will have to do a meta map about how we can capitalize on the opportunities.

I talked with Mel yesterday about the importance of mind maps and when to use them and then I found myself mapping what I would say this afternoon as I address a group of medical leaders here in Red Deer, Alberta.
Mapping your thoughts really works to focus and clarify your purpose. For me it is especially helpful because I think in circles or spirals but rarely in a straight line and for the most part audiences expect you to speak in a straight line. So drawing a map of where they are and where I am hoping they will be when I am finished given what they have stated is the purpose of the gig, gives me a couple of routes to follow.
I know that the map is not the territory. The representation of the reality I will face with the audience that the map provides is vague at best but it provides the landmarks that will make it easier for me to see if the fog rolls in or a their is a sudden storm. Red Deer IS known for its fantastic storms after all.
Drawing word maps with milestones and other markers will help me navigate the afternoon and I feel more confient about how I can serve the audience then I did a few minutes ago when I didn’t have the map. I feel like I just stop and asked directions or bought a map for an unfamiliar town. You know that feeling of security, false or otherwise that the map will allow you to find your way out should you get lost.
I like to use the PULSE frame as what I call a meta map. The five guiding questions in Prepare, Uncover, Learn, Search and Explain each have there own level of detail in a separate map that fits together to point toward a sustainable outcome for everyone. Each mini map gets you through the neighbourhood you are in and points you toward the next one.
Having just spent time on the Greek Island of Mykonos where the maps where in English and the street signs where in Greek, I know that I will have to rely on the people in my audience to guide the way and that I must trust their guidance, the map and my own intuition to get us all where we want to go.

Tuesday, the second day of the work week and a day to be grateful you are alive. I love Tuesday. It is the day I have dinner with my friends when I am in Calgary. Lots of stories and books and songs have been written about Tuesdays. Ruby Tuesday is my favourite. “Who can hang a name on you, when you change with every new day…”

Jim and I are still in the suburbs of Athens until Wednesday. It is beautiful here. The only problem is that we are missing our family and Thanksgiving Dinner in Canada.

We are grateful for family and for friends and for the opportunities we have to travel and explore the cultures of Turkey and ancient Greece. We are grateful for the many gifts we have to share with others, for our work and our play.

Wishing all of you things to be grateful for….

We were in Istanbul yesterday and we ran into the guide we had on our trip 6 years ag0.  What are the chances of running into the only person you know in a city of 17 million???  I love the way the world works.  Istanbul is a fabulous city and the Turks are hospitable people.  The ancient history juxtaposed against the modern landscape is intriguing and comforting in a way.  It is a gentle reminder that civilizations have been working effectively to serve their citizens for many years.  It is also a reminder of wars and rumors of wars.  Everybody conquered Istanbul at one time or another.  The people and the language reminds of the Asia/Europe crossroads we are visiting.

Today we are aboard Sea Dream II in the Dardarnells.  Lots of Australians on board off on a tour of Gallipoli.  We are going to Troy to see th eTorjan Horse.  Pictures to follow.

Gloria Fuentes’ quote is at the bottom of my journal page so I thought I would use it as the title for today.  I am realizing that it doesn’t have to be a new idea.  I can’t always stimulate my brain to create.  Sometimes it just doesn’t want to work on anything new… it just wants to sit and veg…. So I can open a book and find an idea and use that one as a catalyst for thought production.

The journal for example is called create everyday.  I am guessing that the creative quotes in it did not come in a stream of daily sitting and thinking but were gathered from other thought leaders over an extended period of time and with a deliberateness of purpose and focus.  I can come up with 360 ideas in one day and then go without any for weeks on end.  The discipline of coming up with one idea a day scares me.

So think everyday and create when the spirit moves you.  Be gentle with yourself.  Be honest and open to new ideas and when they do come explore for the specifics that make it unique.  Think and talk and think and talk and in so doing make the world a better place.

At a Canadian Association of Professional Speakers meeting on Saturday I learned the  world’s systems crashed in 2008 and that we are still rebooting.  The reboot is taking a long time and we are having to learn how to do things differently as we experience and learn the new operating system.

I finally get it.  people have been talking about the new world order, the hyperlinked world and finally I heard it expressed in language I understand.  Thank you.

What does that mean for PULSE?  WEBinars.  At least once a week for two years for a certificate in leadership.  Blogging and BLOOKS.  Video conferencing and VOOKS.  More and more product for a line of superiour electronic PULSE stuff.

WE are off and running.

PULSE is working with someone to include more presence for us on Social Media.  What I need to know is what kind of information would serve our readers.  What do you need from us on Social Media?

We have a Face Book Presence and a Twitter Presence.  AND we are still so new at how to use them and how to understand the power of them that it makes my head spin.

It reminds me of working with someone who is hearing impaired.  They can sort of hear bits and pieces and they will contribute, sometimes forcefully to a conversation when they think they know what was said.  In fact they may have the details and therefore the intent of a comment wrong and yet they hold on to their idea passed on their perception of the situation.  

With social media I can’t hear what is being said.  To me it is still NOISE.  Therefore when I do comment it may or may not be appropriate.  I totally relate to people who have lost some capacity to deal with the world and are forced to try.  I have no capacity for comprehending what is going on in social media.  The more people you talk to the more confusing it gets.  Everyone approaches it differently and it seems to serve different purposes for different people.

I DON’T GET IT>>>>> We follow someone so that they will follow us.  We retweet other people’s tweets.  Will someone please tell me what the end game is???  He who has the most followers wins???  I know that even that is not static but moving.  All I see on my twitter site is my friends tweets and retweets.  I AM NOT LEARNING ANYTHING.  And I am frustrated.  Someone please help….  If you can help a relatively intelligent, relatively knowledgeable person UNDERSTAND what is going on in Social Media, you may be able to change the world…..

I have a newish car that I call Scarlett.  She is beautiful even with the slight hail damage that I am waiting to have fixed.  I felt ill the day I was driving home and the skies opened with golf ball sized hail.  There was nowhere to hide and Scarlett came away dimpled.  I was grateful to have her to protect me.

Anyway…Scarlett has GPS and helps me get to where I want to go when I don’t know how.  I appreciate that about  her.  She is helpful and protective and she and I are learning from each other.  One thing that sometimes happens is that Scarlett’s directions don’t match what I know to be true about the road systems her in Alberta.  There has been lots of construction here over the past year and new roads have opened up that I don’t think she knows about.  When I take her down a new road, she thinks for a moment and then says “Recalculating the route…”  and comes up with a new plan for me to follow.

I like that about Scarlett.  She isn’t angry or confused she just recalculates and we move on.  I wish it were that easy for people.  I have noticed that for some people it is.  They just CHANGE their plans…. no issue.  For others it seems impossible to recalculate or move away from the original plan.  These people demonstrate a loyalty to a plan that is fierce and can be destructive.  It is sometimes difficult to understand this need to stick with a plan unless you ask the questions about the significance of the plan and then ask about other paths to get there. 

A plan is just something to base change on.  That’s what a friend of mine always says.  I’m guessing that like Scarlett, he recalculates the route and keeps moving toward the destination.  He also says “order, counter-order, chaos” … you can change the plan once but not twice is what he is telling me.

People should be more like cars….

Sitting in an airport wondering about delays…. Why do they happen and why do we not plan for them… Okayu why do I not plan for them. My day is planned to the minute and when a plane needs a new windshield it does blow my plans. Now I will be late for the webinar in Calgary.

Things happen for a reason! I firmly believe that. I am sitting here waiting for the reason to become clearer … I don’t want to miss the webinar. I don’t want to let my colleagues down but I am curious about the universe and how it unfolds. This is my opportunity to practice finding the opportunity in the crisis.

Reframe, reframe, reframe. Switch it to the positive. That is the opportunity today. With any kind of luck I will get to San Diego sometime today.

« Previous PageNext Page »