May 21, 2008 Getting There

I haven’t been up to getting moving – It’s 3PM and I’m starting.  email takes too effing long; even just deleting…

I am working at separation — separating the work I do for tomorrow and the work I do for today.  It’s difficult because in my mind tomorrow always has precedence.  But today is earning a living.  Today has the virtue of immediacy, the call of urgency.  Tomorrow has the virtue of pleasure, the call of importance.

It seems we are all caught by the pull of urgency and the call of importance.

And between Scylla and Charybidis is commitment… my commitment to a sustainable tomorrow – without it there ain’t me, us or it… the commitment to spiritual fulfillment that makes it all worthwhile, that gives it meaning beyond facts….the commitment to social justice becayuse it’s not just you and me and never has been… and we forget that.

April 27, 2008 My Greening

Yesterday I co-facilitated a Symposium (Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream)… It is more powerful than ever, always evolving.  It grows as it goes, because so do we. 

I’ve bveen asking myself, along with Nancy — “What’s next?”..There are some things we can do that we’re not ready to do:  replacing all our windows and getting a new furnace.  And there are some things we can’t figfure out how to do:  getting rid of all plastic (we can’t figure out how to eliminate all plastic wrapping on food products, but we’re coming close.  But we can’t possibly commit to not getting more eyeglasses, never buying computer, car, cell phone, etc.) so we’re putting that on hold.

But what we can do is increase our talking to people.  I started a new blog today:  MYGreening.  And I’ll start speaking about what we can do without scr ewing ourselves up….There’s nobody but us.

 

April 12, 2008 Stopping michael lipp

Starting and stopping are the hardest things.  Inertia is both physically and psychologically difficult to deal with.  Mostly we talk about starting, but strting one thing often means stoppping something else and stopping is very hard.  I use the analogy of my washing machine.  The final spin cycle shakes my whole house – probably true of the presidency, too.

It’s very clear that solving the climate crisis means stopping many of the things we’re used to.  Establishing a carbon tax as the basic tax will work, but will have far reaching effects.  Better than the alternatives, however… much better – food shortages, droughts, extreme weather.

Stop driving?  We can’t even get people to car pool.  Stop watering lawns?  You’re kidding, right?

We too quickly become habituated.  It takes long, strong laws, enforcement and public relation campaigns.  And we need to start now.  When I say I’m out to have people have joy and satisfaction, I need to look past today.  Immediate gratification does not often lead to long periods of joy and satisfaction.  If I’m out for environmental sustainability, social justice and spiritual fulfillment, I may have to learn how to stop things with joy and satisfaction.

March 31, 2008 Not Another Monday

What makes it different is that I’m launching a new book and new programs.  I’m coaching the staff of a medical office, starting Wednesday.  Now I have a book that I could use to model the coaching — It’s Best to Love and Win.  It says what I have to say about relationships.  But I realized that Love and Sex, while crucial, have no place in a professional workplace.  So I completely rewrote the book, now called The Relationship Principles, tailored to non-intimate relationships.  Obviously leaving out a lot of juicy observations and anecdotes – but quite appropriate and, I believe,, quite marketable.

I’ve also started the buzz leading to my teleseminar at the end of the month.  And I’m changing the design and structure of my weekly ezines.  Helluva Monday.  Fortunatle and intentionally true to my commitments to a sustainable environment, social justice and spiritual fulfillment for all of us…all of us!

March 27, 2008 Coaching Two Point Oh Oh

Coaching 2 Point Oh Oh

You know, I’ve been writing about Coaching 2.0 for a while now.  As I’ve told you, the feedback from my clients has been unvaryingly great.  The problem is that talking about it isn’t it.

So I’ve been wondering how I can give you a taste of it, give you some way of discovering it so you can make use of it in your life, make use of it in your business or, if you’re a coach, make use of it in your practice.

Then I thought – Maybe I can do a teleseminar and really show people how exciting it can be.  Except that would have you hear me talking about it instead of reading about it.  Big deal.  But then I got this idea.

I’ve been on teleseminars where they sometimes let one person from the audience interact with the leader.  Or one person acts as moderator and others interact with the leader.  That’s better, but it’s still not what Coaching 2.0 is, because the flavor is still missing, the dynamism is not there.

Well, I’ve given myself a small research project and I’ll tell you about it on April 3rd, hoping I’m not a fool, because here’s what I’m going to do.

I’m going to schedule a teleseminar in a few weeks.  And I am committing to be able to demonstrate Coaching 2.0 in a way that you will absolutely get it.  Call it a bold experiment.

March 26, 2008 Nancy’s Home

Wednesday’s the day that Nancy works at home.  I’m still adjusting.  I think my buggest ine is that I need to wear headphones to listen to music – it distracts her.  But her presence keeps me on track.

I am very excited, getting ready to launch my teleseminar on Coaching 2.0.  This method of coaching makes results more accessible and immediate.  I’ve said before that one of the main things is that insights are contagious.  And the other, that I articulated yesterday is that Coaching 2.0 gives each participant an opportunity to contribute.  And it’s much easier to contribute to someone who contributes.  Normally, everyone wants to contribute, but nobody wants to be contributed to.

Stay tuned.  I’ll be talking about this as we lead up to it. 

I’m clear that giving this technique to you furthers my own mission, which is  to inspire and empower people to live fulfilled lives in harmony with Earth.

March 25, 2008 Gratitude

The whole notion of blogging is fascinating – I talk to the world and here and there, people listen and even respond from time to time.  I just say different things and I assess responses (which are the most important stuff)

I’m launching a new teleseminar program – possibly unlike anything that’s been done.   I’m in the research phase, to determine the technical feasibility of what I want to do…. which is to demonstrate Coaching 2.0 —  I’v written about it, but there’s a huge difference between finding out and experiencing.

So I’m filled with gratitude today – About everything in my life – family, friends, pieces of earth that are special because they listen, my health… just great to say thank you.  But I’ll never forget to share my commitment.  I have the notion that simply sharing it will spread it – My commitment is to have our world be spiritually fulfilling, socially just and environmentally sustainable for the species we are luck enough to share it with (though I often wonder about mosquitoes)

February 8, 2008 Learning

I hate to admit it, but I hate to learn – even the things I’m interested in and should want to learn.  I am impatient.  I only want to learn the minimum, the least I have to know to us a thing.

I only know how to make & receive cell phone calls.  I do know how to take photos, but I don’t know what to do with them.  I only know the minimum about using this blog.  I go to my daughter’s and she has cat pictures and lists of other blogs — it’s embarassing…  I am suffering from good enough.

And who says it’s good enough?  Me!  That’s the part of The Matrix that I liked the most – plugging themselves into a learning program, like a quick injection of knowledge.

The thing is - What makes me think it’s good enough?  I have a racket that says, I’m so good, I shouldn’t have to…. and it keeps getting in my way.  Bah!

I won’t let it interfere with my commitment to a sustainable environment, to social justice and to spiritual fulfillment.

January 31, 2008 Campaigns

Personal, not political.  I intend to discover and succeed in launching personal campaigns – and then passing on that knowledge.

Very simple.  I am an excellent author.  This is a daily smattering, but I have written numerous books.  And I simply offer some on my website – but even people who go to my website don’t even know I’m offering these books.  Websites are obsolescent.  They’re like business cards that travel from hand to hand to pocket, desk, draw and recycling – human roadkill.  So over the next week I’m planning on how to let you know about, Less Stress – More Wealth
and It’s Best to Love and Win and Memoirs of a Middle-Aged Hippy  and The Time of Ray  and A Brief HIstory of the End of Hunger  and Guide to a Fulfilled Life.

My intention is to sell 1500+ copies over the next 6 weeks.  I’m releasing these all as e-books at $12.95.  This is a steal, believe me.  They are part of my commitment to a sustainable environment, social justice and spiritual fulfillment.

January 30, 2008 New Beginnings Are Fun

Some people are up tight about starting anything new – Old habits are hard to break; starting something new changes routines, introduces new people, new systems, new methods.  Hey – these are also the advantages, aren’t they?

Endings rarely disappear things – completions do.  And completions give rise to new beginnnings; it’s automatic.  They can be great or same-old-same-old – Up to us. 

Bad endings can be complete and lead to great new beginnings.  The value of a bad ending is that the price – whatever makes it bad – is tuition to earn your next degree.  When you look back at your life – look at the bad things (we all have them & mostly would rather not look at them)  But take a look and see what the eventual consequences have been…  Getting fired, always moved me to what I wouldn’t have been moved to.  Getting divorced, which I thought was a terrible tragedy has led to my greatest happiness.

So the best way to hold bad circumstances is to know they lead to new beginnings.  Said more traditionally — it’s always darkest before the dawn.

Look at what we’re going through in order to get to a spiritually fulfilling, environmentally sustainable and socially just world.