When things backfire.

June 30, 2008 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Leave a Comment 

I want to illustrate with a more specific example, particularly for solo professional creative practitioners, of when the old default response can kick in. Its one thing to theoretically talk about raising emotional intelligence and empathy. Its quite another when you’re getting attacked and you never saw it coming. It happens; you turn in something good, maybe even your best work, but your boss, or client or professor or whoever unexpectedly reacts very negatively and lashes out at you.

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When that happens, in a real-world professional situation, can you prevent yourself from getting “hooked” and responding by running away, judging and criticizing, lashing back, getting your allies involved, going for the win, and re-living (and embellishing) the memory over and over in your thoughts?

Yes, you can respond differently, with practice. And to practice means staying present with your feelings and using whatever techniques you’ve learned that will prevent you from getting hooked. And if you totally, or partially fail, you resolve to keep practicing and being alert and vigilant to your default and automatic egoic responses to people and situations that backfire on you. Because without them, there’s no test, no real-world practice, no awakening to your own blind spots and consequently less self-awareness and emotional intelligence.

Don’t confuse your resolve with thinking you’re becoming a pushover because great strength, power and natural influence accumulate and suffering diminishes when you practice self-awareness and self-management in unpleasant situations and with unpleasant people. Like failure, they’re your best teachers, so be grateful for them even though you dislike them. Its good practice.

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Positioning

June 10, 2008 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Leave a Comment 

Another metaphor found me last night as I was browsing through my rss feeds.

A popular marketing blogger/author wrote a dire post about the urgency (emergency!) of paying off credit cards and recommended drastic personal spending cutbacks including eating rice and beans for a year.

Another popular blogger wrote about how the fearless small business, that embraces a “So screw it. Let’s ride.” belief is poised for a treasure chest business bonanza.

The third was a Mac blog about the new iPhone which has a very cool built-in GPS (Global Positioning System).

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It struck me that we have the choice in every moment to choose our personal and professional life experience GPS. The two bloggers provide radically different views about how to respond to change and there are limitless directional choices beyond these two. I’m not advocating either. I do want to point out that our beliefs are like GPS satellites. They unfailingly get us to the destination based upon our input, that is our beliefs, intentions and assumptions, into our system.

If we commit to and urgently prepare for survival our belief satellites put us on the scarcity, subsistence and lack highway for as long as we intend that. If we commit to and are poised for success and a huge demand for our services, then that’s the road on which we’ll travel and the destination we’ll arrive at.

What do you call your positioning system? I like FPS (Field Positioning System). Other possible replacements for global are: universe, spiritual, source, etc. Whatever you call your positioning system, be vigilant about what you choose to believe, and then just set cruise control and D.R.I.V.E.

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How To Raise Your Metaphor Q

June 9, 2008 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · 1 Comment 

Metaphor transforms the strange into the familiar.

- Cynthia Ozick

The conceptual economy requires creative decision making, problem solving and communication skills infused with metaphor. Metaphor inspires, makes the abstract concrete, changes perspective, and adds spark and interest to professional service content. I’m sometimes asked “how do you find your metaphors?”. Its one of the easiest aspects of being a creativity autodidact; just stay present and aware, and have a notepad handy.

Some recent examples of mine:

I’m a rower, starting most of my days with peak experiences on the Charles River. Recently when sculling the interaction of my body, my boat, my oars and the water brought up the phrase “natural influence” which has now become an important new theme in my work. Its not coincidence that the root is flow into, or flow to.

I’ve always enjoyed science fiction and that grew into an interest in cosmology and metaphysics. A few years ago, when reading about a phenomenal discovery about very distant stars, I learned about their redshift. RedShift, associated with increasingly accelerated expansion, was such a strong metaphor for how I saw my business, that it became the name and brand.

I love all music and added a bunch of music videos, spanning four decades, to my Facebook Profile. Although its a diverse collection, I noticed commonalities which made me think of “gritty passion” and reminded me to let that quality come through in my personal and professional life.

The world is our metaphor, arising in consciousness each moment. Metaphor finds us; there’s no need to look for it. Facilitate it by doing what you love as often as you can. Sometimes a metaphor can seem a little odd and in that case its important to not discount the importance. Even when you don’t immediately see how its trying to tell you something, write it down, and save it, preferably in your creativity “box”.

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Natural Influence

June 5, 2008 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Leave a Comment 

People expect results from personal, professional and organizational change programs.

Individuals, executives and business owners make the connection that shifting beliefs, relying on presence and not just strategy, and responding to problems from a higher emotional and social IQ aligns with their personal and organizational bigger games.

But I often hear some version of the question “to what end?”. There’s a need to experience some positive result that reinforces the work of change.

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I suggest noticing your natural influence and realizing it as a wonderful, and often unexpected benefit of increased self-awareness.

I call it natural influence as derived from the root meaning “flow into” and contrast it to the more widely used meaning that I label “artificial influence”.

Relating to others with natural influence may feel soft and vulnerable and “too easy” at first, but its an authentic point of power for communications leadership, building trust, gaining support and developing and deepening relationships.

Stories about the positive impact of natural influence that I’ve recently heard, or personally experienced include: