“There are holes in peoples’ lives that keep them from becoming whole.” So said The Grasshopper this May morning.

We often don’t recognize the hole that we’re in.

When I’m coaching someone, I listen and look for what’s not there. They describe everything but the hole.

Everyone is an expert on their problem until it comes to solving it. Solving a problem requires that you unearth it from the hole that it’s in.

“What’s not there?” is a curiosity question that fires off in my mind when I begin to hear someone’s story.

The answer to that question is usually a piece of behavior that they are not recognizing or burying in a burrow.

Behavior is the root of most peoples’ problems. It’s the hole in their story.

Many people ask for help but reject it out of hand when they find out they have to lift a hand to solve their situation.

We are a magic potion society that believes there is something that will get us out of our hole without adjusting any of our behavior. For example, just ask any couples’ therapist and they will tell you this story: Each member of the couple holds the notion that if the other changes, then everything will be better.

They keep their behavior holed up and it’s a major hold up in solving their problem.

What piece of behavior can you adjust that will help solve your problem? “That’s just the way I am” is your first clue that you’re stuck in a hole that you dug for yourself.

I am a lousy second or third time listener. What I mean by that is when someone describes their problem to me multiple times, I become deaf. It was crystal clear the first time and the remedy is the same each time - adjust your behavior or stay in your hole.

If you notice that you have the same problem you had last week, last month, last year or ten years ago, you are in a hole.

The lifeline to extricate you from this pit appears when you notice the hole in your story - the lack of behavior recognition or a lack of willingness to adjust.

I’ve mention it before but one of my favorite songs from my church going days had these lyrics: “Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.”

Our behavior begins with us. It’s the whole story.

All the best,

John

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Awakening is like a Lay’s Potato Chip, you just can’t have one.

I woke up last summer and I cannot describe the experience because awakening has no words. You’re so steeped in a serenely connected experience where words don’t belong.

I could speak but I didn’t want to, and when I did, the words didn’t pre-form in my head; they came from somewhere else without agenda.

This is not akin to any artificial highs I have ever experienced in my lifetime. They brought me below consciousness. Awakening is consciousness itself.

I have experienced brief awakenings since and it’s from this place that infusion begins. My life has become infused with more and more of these moments. They sneak up on me, and what a pleasant surprise it is when they silently say, “Boo!”

This isn’t about me; it’s about us. Awakening is available to everyone. You’ve experience awakening if you ever had your breath taken away by something of beauty - a sight to behold that couldn’t hold any words. They went away with your breath. You were just totally aware without comment.

It was raining last summer when I had this experience and it’s raining this morning as I write. I’m aware of the different sounds the raindrops make as they hit different surfaces - the leaves, the ground, the rain gutter. I’m conscious of things that normally escape my consciousness.

I woke up twice this morning - when my eyes opened and when my commentary shut down.

I have a friend who has many skills and one of them is his ability to guide you to an awake state. His name is Jerry Stocking and I encourage anyone curious about waking up to get to one of his workshops.

Potato chips, anyone?

All the best,

John

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It struck me the other day that the word “Onus” can be hyphenated to read: “on-us.”

I laughed when I realized how often we twist that word to suit our purposes. It seems we want to spread the responsibility when things go awry and often claim full credit when they go swimmingly.

It’s on-us when we do well, and on anybody but us when we don’t.

Here is a piece of wisdom from The Grasshopper that will save us all from the practice of spreading the poverty around: “Your behavior is your behavior and no amount of burden shifting can explain it away.”

Simply stated, your behavior is “on-you.” Think of it as a French word that means “total responsibility for your behavior.”

Behavior is, more often than not, programmed. That means we learned it along the way. We weren’t born with it; we acquired it.

Many of us, when we don’t like the way we behave, learned to shift the burden to avoid the responsibility for our actions.

Take the toddler being potty trained as an example. The child knows after several training sessions that the goal is to make it to the potty when they have that urge. When they don’t feel like making it to the potty, they do their business wherever they sit. When their behavior is discovered, they may offer up that they “tried” to make it to the bathroom. We learn at an early age that “try” absolves us from behavior.

We have shifted the onus of our behavior to a word that has no behavior attached - Try. That pattern of learned behavior follows us through life as we continue the practice, if you’ll excuse the expression, of spreading the shit around.

Try attempts to shift the burden from “on-you” to “on-us.” “Us,” in this case, means “not you.”

Our behavior makes up our life. Explaining away or ignoring our behavior has become our national pastime. We spend our time explaining away what we did rather than focusing on what can be done.

We do what we do. I hope you noted the period at the end of the previous sentence. The more time you take to blame and explain, the less time you have to take dead aim.

Noticing and taking full responsibility for what we do puts us on a path towards something new. It puts the onus on you to outgrow explaining away everything that you do.

All the best,

John

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Life’s “Secret Ingredient” is interruption. It takes us out of programmed mode and opens us up to something new.

We tend to treat most interruptions as annoyances when, in fact, they can be a portal to a new view and a new you.

Every now and again our dog, Snuffy will interrupt my “Busy and Important” work by plopping a rope on my lap. I want him to go away but he wants to play. He has interrupted me. When I take the bait and play tug-of-war with him, it’s always a fun experience and it always produces a laugh for me.

Would I schedule that interruption? No, I wouldn’t; but each time it happens, I end up with a pleasurable break I wouldn’t normally take.

Interrupting ourselves is the agent of change.

We run on programmed mode at least 95% of the time. I made that percentage up, but it feels right to me. That means we are on automatic pilot most of our lives and auto-pilot will only take us to the same place.

We are patterned creatures and our patterns are quite reliable, regardless if they serve us or not. When they don’t serve us well, interruption is our ticket out of hell.

Observing a pattern of behavior, while it’s happening, is what I call “noticing.” In order to outgrow a pattern, we have to notice it while it’s running. The next step is to interrupt the pattern in midstream. Just interrupt what you are doing while you are doing it.

This is the 2-Step process for change. If you truly want to change a behavior, you have to interrupt it each time you notice it while it’s running. Each interruption paves a way towards a more useful pattern. The key is repetition of the interruption.

I don’t know how it works; I only know that it does. It takes discipline to notice and it takes commitment to constantly interrupt.

If you are struggling with change, take the time to notice and interrupt. It works when you commit yourself to work at it.

If this 2-Step process has opened your eyes to a new way, I will happily take credit for interrupting your day.

All the best,

John

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The Grasshopper dropped a bombshell this morning: “You’re shortchanging your parents’ contribution to you if you only laud them for their good example.”

We hear comments like these all the time: “I got my sense of humor from my mother”; “I get my ability to be on time from my father.”

We don’t often credit them for their bad examples. I believe it’s one of the most overlooked contributions they gave us.

“My mother is so obstinate.” My father is such an opinionated windbag.” How can traits like these possibly benefit us?

There is certainly enough downside to these traits if we’ve incorporated them into our life without noticing. That means we are as oblivious to these undesired traits in ourselves as our parents are/were to them in themselves. That’s just a lack of noticing on our part.

It’s time to notice and praise your parents for their bad examples. If they didn’t show them to you, you may not have built such an aversion to them so as not to incorporate them into your life.

Reminds me of a story . . .

If you have any Irish heritage, this story will carry more weight. Years ago, I was hosting a “wine and cheese” function with a travel agent enticing people to come on a cruise we were advertising on a local radio station. The morning DJ from the station came to the event to give the main pitch as to why these folks should come along. This fellow was a well known radio personality and his surname was unmistakably Irish. He did his presentation and then fielded questions from the audience. One person asked, with their tongue in their cheek, how an Irishman could go through an entire wine and cheese night without having any wine. The question brought a big laugh from the group. His answer was sobering. He said, “My father drank enough for all of us.”

It’s a fact, some people had lousy parents. Here is a typical comment a therapist will hear from a client: “My father was such a womanizer and he tortured my mother with this behavior her entire life. He spent more time with his ’skanks’ than he did with his children.” If the client is a man himself, he may not recognize how he came to become such a faithful spouse and devoted father.

There is an upside to our parents’ downside if we take the time to notice.

The downside can act as a catalyst for us developing more admirable traits.

There are no perfect parents. There never were and there never will be. That fact needn’t stand in the way of us recognizing how our parents’ good and bad qualities helped us form into the people we are.

If you have one of your mother’s annoying habits, it’s helpful to notice it in yourself so that you can outgrow it. It’s equally helpful to know how a parents’ shortcoming has become the stimulus for your evolvement.

“I never want to be an ungrounded dreamer like my father” is an uncredited gift that your dad gave you.

It’s easy to disparage our parents’ shortcomings. It’s a more inclusive view to notice that our upside is a direct result of their downside, and it’s another avenue to allow forgiveness to enter our hearts.

All the best,

John

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I’m not sure what motivation is. I’ve been called a motivator but I’m confused by that term as well.

It’s as though motivation is something you have to get. I don’t get that.

Sometimes motivation is described as getting people to do something you want them to do. Other times it’s described as getting them to do something they want or don’t want to do. I don’t think it’s either.

I don’t think motivation exists; I just think it’s a name we made up to make excuses for our inaction.

If you can’t get started on something, you may say, “I need motivation to begin.”

My sense is we need to act to begin, rather than wait for mythical motivation. Action is measurable behavior we can see instant results from.

Waiting for motivation always delays action.

Action is movement. You have to make a move in order to begin something. Waiting for motivation is a cover story for inaction.

Suppose you are a writer or a painter and you’re not “motivated” to write or paint. Pick up a pen or paintbrush and begin the action of writing or painting. That’s a start. Conversely, motivation is waiting to start.

Action begins a process, always has and always will.

The good news is it doesn’t take a big action to begin moving. That’s another myth we’ve bought into that keeps us waiting for motivation. In fact, big steps can be an impediment to action. When we consider what we have to do as a huge mountain to climb rather than taking one step towards the foothills, we often fail to act.

The next time you fall into the waiting for motivation trap, notice how inactive you are.

Inactivity is the culprit, not a lack of motivation.

Here is an acronym to refer to when you find yourself waiting for motivation:

S. Start believing in something that does exist - Action.

T. Take baby steps at first.

A. Action is salvation.

R. Repeat an action. It will save you from waiting for that which will not come.

T. Take motivation out of your vocabulary.

I’m not sure I’ve completely debunked motivation, but it’s a start.

All the best,

John

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Everything has a recipe. Whether it’s organization or chaos, it has a recipe.

It’s easier to spot a recipe when the cake is being baked rather than having to do forensics on the final product.

I came to the recipe conclusion in the mid 80s when I read two polar opposite books - The Art of the Deal by Donald Trump and The Structure of Magic by Richard Bandler and John Grinder.

Trump is a master at structuring a deal - a recipe for success. Side note: The nice thing about being me is I don’t have to like you to learn from you.

Bandler and Grinder methodically observed and catalogued the work of, among others, Dr. Milton Erickson, a world renowned psychiatrist and hypnotherapist who was getting “magical” results with clients.

Recipes, whatever they are for, are there to learn from, copy and tinker with to make your own magic.

Here’s my personal and professional opinion: Most people don’t want to follow a recipe; it’s too much work.

It’s our conditioning that has made us into a “Shortcut Society.” We want to start at the top of the totem pole and not be exposed to any potential splinters.

That philosophy is just that - a philosophy, and it doesn’t work. If you are not working at your philosophy, just thinking, postulating and dreaming about it, you are following a recipe for failure.

There is a step-by-step recipe for success; you just have to be willing to take the steps. I am amazed at the number of people who attend seminars, workshops, symposiums, etc. and decide not to follow the blueprint. The equally amazing thing is to hear them complain about what an awful workshop it was.

We have become addicted to fairy dust and expect the cake to make and bake itself.

Recipes require work.

There is someone who is doing, being or having what it is that you want to do, be or have. Find that person and find their recipe. They may have even passed on but their recipe is alive and well in biographies, autobiographies or as sticky notes in a Betty Crocker Cookbook.

Getting the recipe is the easy part. How many people have asked someone for their recipe at a party and never used it? The practice goes well past cooking and baking.

One of my favorite quotes is begging to be heard again: “Talk doesn’t cook rice.”

The recipe for success requires a willingness to do the work. The “woe is me,” lost little lamb is going to wind up in a familiar stew if they don’t find a recipe and follow through.

All the best,

John

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What attracts you to someone? Looks? Personality? Social Status? Intelligence? or Something Else?

My suspicion is those are not stand alone qualities. Just like you may be attracted to a picture of a shiny new car or computer, you know that neither one is useful to you without a power source.

Our power source is our light. It’s what makes a person personable.

I’m sure we’ve all seen pictures in magazines of the vacant look of some fashion models. That’s a look that serves the ad by getting people to look at the clothes vs. lookng at the model. He or she, admittedly, is nice looking but we are not drawn to them. Their light is absent.

How often is our light obscured?

We obscure our light by pretending that we are someone who we are not. Teenagers do this all the time. It’s one of the reasons teens start smoking. It certainly wasn’t the “taste” that made them start. It was their desire to be someone who they weren’t and smoking was going to do that for them. They would appear older, cooler, one of the gang, chic, independent, rebellious, like my favorite movie or rock star. The next time you see a person smoking, just notice how absent of light they are. Yes, lighting up obscures your light.

But this isn’t a lecture on the evils of smoking; this is a lesson in light.

What are you pretending to be? Whenever you do that, your light is diffused. You are a dimmed version of you.

If you have ever tried to impress someone (and who hasn’t), you are pretending and, thus, lack full access to your light.

Ask any landscape photographer and they will tell you that the best light is either at daybreak or day’s end. It’s when the light has the richest colors.

Your light is your richest asset.

How are you dimming your light? Let me count the ways. Any attempt to embellish who you are keeps you in the shadows. You appear inauthentic and not even moths are drawn to your light.

The real you is your light. We’ve been conditioned to cover over our light with add-ons that are supposed to get us noticed. Each time we think we have to add to ourselves to become more, we become less. Our light is perpetually at the end of the tunnel and this keeps us mostly in the dark.

Discovering your light is a process of subtraction. What pretenses can we let go of? What game can we stop playing? What can we remove that will let our light shine through?

This can be our meditation for the day. Just wonder what you can let go off that keeps your hand off the light switch.

Here’s something we never learned in school: Subtraction can be enlightening.

All the best,

John

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Had occasion over the weekend to get some insight as to why most people really don’t like to have their picture taken.

I attended a workshop conducted by famed headshot photographer, Peter Hurley at his New York Studio. There were 5 accomplished photographers attending and then there was me - a photo enthusiast.

Peter gave some world class instruction to our group and gave us plenty of hands-on experience as we got to photograph 8 different actors/models over the course of 22 jam packed working hours.

These are people who are used to being in front of cameras and skilled in bringing different emotions into their expressions. The objective was to capture something real as well as something that would draw you in to their photograph.

What I found is that most of these people are just like the rest of us who “freeze” when they are in front of a camera. It got me curious as to what’s really going on.

We want people to see who we think we are. Our self image is what we want to convey. The difficulty is that self image is one we made up and got comfortable with and is nothing like the real us.

You really have to dig to get peoples’ depth. Peter is a master at this. He intuitively knows that he has to get them off their game in order to capture their depth. He’s made the process into an art form; and even though it takes lots of work and skill, the results are amazing when you see the final product.

People don’t like to have their picture taken because the resultant photograph they usually get to see is their false self - someone they can see right through. They figure if they can see it so can everyone else.

People don’t like their false selves even though they put that makeup on everyday. It’s the conditioned social mask we wear and we present that facade to just about everyone we encounter.

When I do a coaching or a therapy session, I have to dig past the veneer to get to the real person I’m interacting with and, more importantly, get them to discover that part of them as well. It’s an eye-opening discovery to find out we are a lot deeper than the person we pretend to be.

The next time you find yourself freezing in front of a camera, let it serve as a reminder that you are deeper than your fear. This recognition alone will allow you to remove layers of makeup and let a more secure and natural you to show through.

All the best,

John

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There is a huge difference between arguing and retreating and I’m not sure we’ve parsed the difference to our best advantage.

I assert that knowing the difference will make a difference.

Most people know when they’re about to enter an argument. There are telltale signs - jaw gets set, face gets flushed, fur is up, etc. Whatever happens for you that tips you off that you’re about to get into a verbal tiff, is worth noticing when it happens.

That’s your choice point - Argue or Retreat.

I am not going to lobby for one or the other because both of them have their uses. What I will encourage is to notice which choice you’re about to make.

NOTE: Retreating is not giving up; it’s taking time to reassess your strategy.

Arguing can communicate to others what you are fervent about. It can also indicate to you what’s important enough to give your full throated endorsement to.

When arguing is counterproductive is when you know, in advance, it’s going to go nowhere. That’s when it’s best to bring out the white hankie.

Do a quick assessment: How many arguments have you entered that you knew there would be no exit from? My guess is hundreds, if not thousands.

The trick is to get that awareness upfront rather than after the fact. After the fact writes history books; upfront prevents another endless war.

Sidebar: Some people like to argue for argument’s sake. My poster child for that strategy is law professor, Alan Dershowitz. He is the first person I would call if I needed a serious argument to be made on my behalf. I’m pretty sure he would be further down on my list if I just wanted to chat. People like Professor Dershowitz make their livelihood by arguing.

What will you do the next time? Argue or retreat? No one really knows the answer to that question, but it’s worth knowing that you do have a choice.

Some of the sagest advice you could offer will fall on plugged ears if it’s delivered to someone who is in a mindset to argue. Develop the sensory acuity to sense the state of mind of the other person you are about to interact with. If they are in a less than resourceful frame of mind, retreat and save your wisdom for another time, otherwise you will probably argue to no avail.

If you want to be right, argue, but remember what The Grasshopper said many moons ago: “Some people would rather be right than happy. And preferring to be right, they are left out.”

All the best,

John

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