Good. Better. Best. Which self do you want to be?

The 3-Minute Coach

March 22, 2001, Issue #17
Feeling Complete

Welcome to The 3-Minute Coach

Welcome friends, old and new.

The 3-Minute Coach continues to grow and is now read in 43 countries!!!

Australia, Austria, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, England, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Istanbul/Turkey, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Malta, Malaysia, Negara Brunei Darussalam, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Puerto Rico, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Scotland, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sultanate of Oman, Sweden, Switzerland, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, United States, Wales, Yemen, Yugoslavia,

Have a joy-full two weeks!

Louise

Food for Thought

"Things turn out best for the people who make the best out of the way things turn out." --- Art Linkletter

Keep It Simple

How to Handle Your Boss

The following are excerpts from "Not Just for CEO's" by John Zenger.

How to Get the Most from a DIFFICULT Boss:

Make sure you know exactly what your boss expects of you. Clarify these expectations on a daily basis if necessary.
Don't take it personally. Don't let a critical boss demolish your self-esteem.
Think of your primary job as satisfying these expectations and exceeding them, if possible.
Keep your boss informed of progress - and lack of progress. Be the one to initiate contact.
Find out the pressures your boss operates under, and do what you can to help him or her deal with them.
Don't burden your boss unnecessarily with your problems.
Don't push for more of a personal relationship than your boss wants.
Keep in mind that many difficult bosses are simply pushing you to do a better job. If your boss is the kind of person who plays a more direct role in helping you do a better job, you're lucky. Treat him or her like an expensive trainer or coach you've hired to help you improve your golf game or control you weight.

How to Get the Most from a COACHING boss:

Be as open as possible about your strengths and weaknesses.
Make it as easy as possible for your boss to give you honest feedback. (If you hired an expensive personal trainer, wouldn't you want to get the very most for your money?)
Ask for help. Don't expect your boss to solve your problems - that's YOUR job - but do ask for help in how to approach a problem or think through a difficult situation.
Make a point of observing how your boss handles difficult situations. Try his or her behavior on for size.
Take a stab at solving the problem yourself and then getting feedback from your boss on what he or she thinks of the solution you've come up with. Your boss will appreciate not being pulled into the problem and see that you are capable of taking action yourself, yet not exceeding your authority when you seek approval for the final decision.

Of course, most bosses are difficult at times and helpful at others, so in the final analysis you may need to apply all these guidelines!

Feature Article

Feeling Complete

Every now and again (if we're lucky, it's only every now and again), life forces us to become aware of its cyclical nature: the ocean's relentless ebb and flow, the budding of spring, the desolation of winter. We are confronted by inescapable facts, facts that in the hustle and bustle of every day life we are usually able to ignore. The fact that life goes on, but it also slows down, and ultimately, comes to an end.

Life has thrown one of these cold hard facts my way. My dad, as I tell people, "isn't doing well". He's doing as well as can be expected "under the circumstances". The circumstances seem to be that all of his organs are slowing down and refusing to work the way they were intended to work. He's not in pain but he's not really himself either. He's not the loving vital man I remember, the man whose faults sometimes outweighed his virtues, but whose love and strength and gentleness are the legacy he will leave. He wasn't a talker, but he was a feeler. And I'm incredibly grateful for all the years we've had together, and God willing, for more times together in the future.

But, those times won't be the same. That much I've come to accept, although I've spent the last 6 months to a year, pretending that it wasn't so. But pretending didn't change the cold hard facts. Because we are separated geographically (about an 8 hours drive worth) I don't get to see my parents as often as I'd like. And that certainly helped me maintain the illusion. I didn't want to believe it, so it wasn't so!

Last weekend, my husband and I did a quick trip down to visit my parents and see my dad in the hospital. Before I left, I was speaking to a friend, who was talking about her relationship with her elderly parents. At some point in the conversation, she talked about being 'complete' with her parents and asked me if I was 'complete' with my dad.

That definitely started me thinking. To be 'complete' means to have no unfinished business with someone or some thing. I am grateful to her for asking me that question, because otherwise I'm not sure I would have thought about it until it was too late. The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized that I did feel complete. That there was nothing left unfinished or unsaid. And as I sat by his bedside, I was sure. My heart is filled with sadness, but it is the natural sadness of the passage of time and our inability to stop the process of aging.

This wasn't always the case, however. I believe I was 27 or 28 the first time I ever remembered my dad saying "I love you" to me. And because he never said it, it wasn't something I found easy to say to him (although it was very easy with my mother). I can still see myself sitting on the couch in the back room of my old apartment. We had finished a conversation and I said "I love you". It was a little scary, and I know I had to work myself up to it.. And I remember having prepared myself for silence. But there wasn't silence. He said "I love you too", then 'bye' and hung up. In fact, although he said it, he said it as though he was surprised it needed to be said. I told you he wasn't a talker!

I sat in stunned silence for a long time. It seemed - and was - such a momentous occasion. I was sure I'd never forget it - and I haven't. Even though it became a regular occurrence, I've never forgotten the magic of that first time. In many ways, I even feel lucky that it took so long. It never became rote or meaningless. I was always aware of the special-ness of that exchange.

But if my dad had gotten to where he is now before we had that opportunity, would I have felt so complete then? I am positive that I would not. My need to hear him say it (I always knew in my head that he loved me, but I still needed to hear the words!) was pretty strong. The thought of never hearing him say it or of my being able to say it to him freely and without hesitation brings a different kind of sadness, a different kind of loss.

So, luckily for me, my dad's doing a whole lot better in the last few days and I still have lots of time to enjoy this exchange with him. But what about you? If you got a call today that said your father, mother, husband, wife, son, daughter, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, grandfather, grandmother, mother-in-law, father-in-law was gone, what would you regret not saying? Same holds true for you. We often think we have plenty of time to 'clean things up. The truth is, we usually don't so don't delay. Get on the phone and say it now.

Sometimes what we need to say is harder than 'I love you". If you feel what you need to say is too painful and you don't think you can actually say it to them, then write a letter to them that you never plan to send. The important thing is to release the energy, and it is much simpler to do this while they are still alive. You will notice a difference in your interactions and you will feel 'complete'.

If that person is already gone, then definitely write the letter. Pour out all your feelings, love, anger, sadness, whatever comes up. It will be helpful if you burn the letter after you are done. Create a "releasing" ritual of your own.

'Completeness' is a gift you give yourself and your loved ones. I hope you'll give it soon.

Related Quotes

"What's gone and what's past help, Should be past grief." -- William Shakespeare

"So much of what is best in us is bound up in our love of family, that it remains the measure of our stability because it measures our sense of loyalty. All other pacts of love or fear derive from it and are modeled upon it.." - Haniel Long

"What breaks in a moment may take years to mend.." -- Swedish proverb

"The ultimate test of a relationship is to disagree but hold hands." -- Alexander Penney

The Welcome Mat Guest Column:

Making Time Your Friend
By John Scriven

"Make time your friend by finding a cause for joy in every moment." Alan Cohen, from "The Healing of The Planet Earth."

Finding a cause for joy in every moment, is a wonderful philosophy by which to live. But it's not easy. One of the obstacles to joy and peace is the way in which time has come to dominate our lives. We have allowed it to become our master, when it should be our servant. Or better still, our friend. The attitude we choose to adopt toward time has an immeasurable impact on the way we think, the way in which we live and our ability to be true to ourselves.

To understand the metaphysical implications of time, you don't have to know how science explains it or how it relates to the laws of physics. You just need to be aware of how it affects your life and the way you process its effects. The way you treat time is another choice you make that can have either an expansive or a limiting effect on your ability to be true to your self.

Time is a measure that human beings devised to give life order and structure and to make sense of the natural cycles of the planets. In the modern world, time still provides a framework for the organization of our lives, but it also harnesses us to an unnecessary work routine and ruthlessly measures the aging process.

My dictionary defines time as "the interval between two points on a non-spatial continuum in which events occur in succession." Conventional wisdom tells us that events take place in a sequential order that's irreversible, making it impossible to travel backwards or forwards in time except in our thoughts, where we do it at will.

In fulfilling its function as a means of measurement, time has served us well. It's difficult to imagine how the human race would have developed without the measure of time. We would have been late for just about everything! But now, the tail is wagging the dog and we have enslaved ourselves. Not to the ethereal unreality of time, from which we can escape from time to time (forgive the pun), but to the almighty, omnipotent Clock-God.

We have relinquished our freedom and now live our lives according to the Clock-God's laws. Clocks tell us when to start work and when to finish. They tell us when to eat, even if we aren't hungry. They tell us we should be in bed, even if we aren't sleepy. They jangle insistently, or turn on inane radio shows, to get us up in the morning, even though we're still dog-tired. They tell us when to be at work (weekdays) and when to be at leisure (weekends), causing an artificial separation of the two. We measure many athletic achievements not by how poetically beautiful and magnificent they are to witness, but by one of the Clock-God's precocious offspring - the stop watch.

You may think that cars cause traffic jams, but that isn't so. The Clock-God causes them. He (or is it She?) tells us all to be on the road at more or less the same time each morning and evening. Clocks also determine the size of our phone bills and how much we pay lawyers who are already obscenely rich. They determine what we owe accountants, whom we pay to find out how poor we are and how much we owe the government.

Writers don't have nine-to-five jobs, but when I first began writing, I continued to buy in to the universal agreement to use this all-powerful device to measure my life. The Clock-God icon on my wall, which was synchronized to other Clock-God icons all over the world, give or take a time zone or two, still dominated my thinking.

Although I didn't realize it at the time, I was suffering from Clock-guilt. Frequently, I would wake up in the small hours and be unable to get back to sleep. When this happened I would get up, go to my computer and write for four or five hours. I would then go back to bed at round 8:00 or 9:00 am, sleep for a few hours and resume working later in the day, often continuing late into the evening.

When I first starting doing this, I felt it was wrong. I was going to bed at a time when other people were going to work! The Clock-God was controlling my conscience and I had a tough time breaking its vice-like grip. Since then, I've learned to put these guilt feelings aside, realizing they're a natural reaction to many previous years of working by the Clock. I now count myself fortunate that I can work more flexible hours than most people.

Clocks even tell us how old we are. Part of the universal agreement with the Clock-God is that we all measure our age by the Clock and another of its autocratic offshoots, the calendar. As they age, some people even allow the Clock-God to dictate what they should or should not do in life. Whoa, I'm sixty clock-years old - time to give up sex and start wearing a flannel nightshirt!

But despite the human preoccupation with the Clock-God, Nature doesn't measure time in years and months, weeks and days, hours and minutes. Nature flows and just is. We have taken Nature's cycles of light and dark, and turned them into a non-spatial straitjacket called time.

Just imagine how free and easy life would be if we could repeal the Clock-God's laws! We could go to work whenever it felt right, eat when we were hungry and sleep when we felt drowsy. Deadlines would become livelines, organic and changeable according to whatever purpose we were pursuing. No one would know how old we are, including ourselves, and sex would go on right up until the day we passed away. Better still, it might be the cause of passing away!

Unfortunately, the result of abandoning the Clock-God would be the collapse of society as we know it. In some ways, that may not be a bad thing, but it would result in unbearable chaos. But hold it. Maybe we can usurp the Clock-God without bringing anarchy and chaos down on ourselves. How? By changing our attitude toward time.

If we treated every moment as precious, we wouldn't waste time on fearful thoughts. We wouldn't procrastinate about pursuing our dreams. We would free ourselves to achieve everything that our higher selves are capable of achieving and find joy in every moment. In short, we would think of time as our friend.
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John Scriven is an author of self-help and business improvement books. He is also a songwriter and recently produced a CD of inspirational songs called SONGS FROM THE ROAD TO ENLIGHTENMENT - A Rock 'n Roll Journey Of The Spirit.

Theme Watch 2001

LMK: Theme 2001: Extreme Self Care

Quit Smoking Meter: 1072 hours (44.5 days) !!!!!! Thanks to so many of you who have sent me such wonderful encouraging emails. This really helps a lot. I can't tell you how much I appreciate your taking the time to email me. It's quite exciting to have hit the 6 week, 1000 hour marker.

Two days after sending the last newsletter, I had quite a physical attack of nicotine withdrawal. It through me totally off, since I thought, like millions of others, that the all the physical symptoms were gone after about a week. I did some research and found that a number of other smokers also report this kind of reaction. It was very difficult to get through days 26 and 27, not just because of the strong nicotine withdrawal, but because I felt like somehow I had failed, that I wasn't normal, that I was doomed to be a smoker forever even if I never touched a cigarette again. Although I didn't want to, I ended up taking a minor anti-depressant they had given me in the hospital. It got me through those two days and I'm grateful.

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Shared Themes
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Virginia Lambert:
The theme for the year is an idea I came up with about 10 years ago when I had a sales business that involved many motivational tricks. Each year I would write a rhyming theme to help them in their sales. The verse was easier to remember than just words. It worked too.

I no longer have a business, but each December, one of my concerns is writing a rhyming theme for myself for the new year. The one I'm living by this year is "I'm going to have FUN FUN FUN in 2001". It's short and sweet but very effective. I find myself enjoying even the most mundane things in my life. Not everyday can be a vacation, but I am trying to have the attitude that it is. A simple change in attitude about what you do can sometimes change your life.

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I'd love to include your progress in this section. Please send me a line, letting me know what theme you picked for the year and how you're doing.

If you're a new reader and are wondering about themes, see Issue 12, available here

Louise Hay Power Card of the Week

Louise L. Hay is a metaphysical teacher and the best-selling author of 27 books, including "You Can Heal Your Life" and "Empowering Women". She has recently created a set of 64 Power Thought Cards, with beautifully illustrated affirmations. Each newsletter, I will share one of these wonderful thoughts.

Power Card:	My income is constantly increasing.
Affirmation:	I begin, now, today, to open myself to ever-increasing prosperity.

All That BIZ

Louise Morganti Kaelin is a Life Success Coach who partners with others to help them turn their dreams into reality.
Phone: 1-617-984-2868
Email: louise@touchpointcoaching.com
Web: http://touchpointcoaching.com
While you're there, register to win a free month of coaching.

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Copyright (c) 2001, all rights reserved. The 3-Minute Coach is a publication of TouchPoint Coaching. Permission is granted to reproduce, copy or distribute this newsletter provided that The 3-Minute Coach is kept intact, and this copyright notice and full information about contacting the author are attached.