The moonlit sky

I just walked outside with the dog. The sky is bright with the moon & stars. And the clouds are sweeping across the sky. I don't see the night sky too often in the middle of New York City. Out here in Ulster County it's large. And beautiful.

As I looked up, I was reminded, in a flash, of how wonderful the experience of life is. It moves so fast, seemly without any built in opportunity to reflect and feel grateful. I must create that time. The silence of the country has brought that on for me.

I am grateful for so much.

What time is it in China?

So I'm getting back from a completely amazing vacation in Sweden. My wife and I are freshly recharged and have set clear, concise directions for the next few months, both professionally and personally. We get back, pick up the dog from the doggie farm in New Jersey - She swam in the ponds, ran free and collar-less with about a dozen other dogs of her breed, including a litter mate who keeps trying to mount her (not sure what that's about, but whatever). We get back to the apartment, flip through the mail, start to unpack and basically settle in to return to our "regularly scheduled programing".


In Sweden I was reading a business book that proposes some bold ideas on how to maximize my time. Time is, after all, money, right? Right. So I thought I'd put one of these bold ideas into practice.

On a tangential note, boldness is the topic of this weeks Visceral Quote of the Day. To start receiving them, click here http://www.visceralcoaching.com/vcregister.html Just check the box labeled Quote Of The Day.


Now this bold idea dealt with the sometimes touchy subject of overseas outsourcing. As in, to India. Bear in mind, I'm not making any decisions here. I'm simply doing some research. After all I'm a coach with a conscience. I'm aware of the social, political and economic impact of outsourcing. But I reiterate, I'm simply doing some research - a google here, a google there, you know.

So I come up with two companies where an enterprising businessman such as myself can, you know, outsource various business and personal tasks to a dedicated virtual assistant. The assistant is an actual person, so I don't really know where the "virtual" label applies. But either way, I continue my research. For both outsourcing companies, I needed to register an inquiry with my name and email address. A senior level consultant would then call me directly to discuss the intricacies of using their services.


"Ooooo" I thought. "Here I sit, just returning from a Scandinavian vacation, and now I get to be called from and perhaps do business with someone from India. That would make me an international businessman" ( I know, I gotta get out of my own way.)

So off I go to register. Full commitment. After a nano-second pause to think if I should use by business email or my junk email account, I go with my business email account. I am an international businessman and this is a matter of important business, so I had better represent my business, right? Right.


Awesome! The clear objectives Anna and I set for ourselves as we sat by the lapping water of the Baltic sea just one or two days before are being put into action right away. I get the automated thank you response from both VA companies and think nothing more about it. I'm off to do more business. Coaching, marketing, updating, you get it. As the first day of "Back from vacation" business draws to a close, I'm taken by how well it's going. After a bit of dinner, a check in with the Yankees, a "sit down" with Anna to recap our re-introduction to non-vacation life along with some other evening activities and then it's off to bed. G'night.


The next morning, I awake with the same amount of focus and energy. I'm looking forward to speaking with my potential new employee in India. After all, I am an international business man, right? Right. I go through the morning routine, sit at my desk in my home office, turn on the computer and log in to my email account - my business email account, that is. And what do I see? A strange and unusual message from China marked urgent to the CEO of Visceral Coaching.


"Ooooo" I thought. "Someone in China thinks I'm a CEO. How very international."

Well I am, aren't I?


I opened the message and it was very formal and business-like, the tone of which sounded something like this: (I'm paraphrasing of course.)

"There's a Chinese company who wants to buy domain names using your business name. Do you own the following list of domain names? ( List, blah, blah...) If so no problem, If not, you better buy 'em now or they will and your business will forever get confused with Asian conglomerates who have no intention of releasing you from their grip without a truckload or two of Chinese cash."

I sat back in my pseudo-reclinable international businessman chair and thought to myself,
"Hmmmm, Perhaps, just perhaps, I should have NOT put my business email address in the registration inquiry for these outsourcing companies after all. Perhaps, just perhaps, there is an unsecured electronic pathway in between New York City and Mumbai where a person or company could hack in and exploit small businesses that inquire about hiring an overseas VA!"


*Sigh*

Now what? I thought. This will put the brakes on my forward moving progress for sure. I need to do something about this.

"I'll pick up the phone to a business attorney I know. He'll help me to decipher this message. I thought "He's a real international businessman."

So I did. I called my friend and he snapped into action by deciphering the message and, as a friend, offered some clear feedback as to what my next step might be. We hung up the phone and I sat back again in the same pseudo-reclinable international businessman chair and thought,

"Oooooo...this is all very international. Here I am consulting with attorneys, talking to India, now China and vacationing in Scandinavia." ( I know, I know. I gotta get out of my own way.)

As I sit in my "North American" office, I cant help but realize that when ever I set a goal, I'm usually not able to see what kind of twists and turns the actions can take. So the moral of this particular story... Yes, it's important to set the goal, but it's also just as important to enjoy the international journey that takes you there.

The Power of Chioce: Recreate Your Brain.

I recently read a New York Times article about how people can become "creatures of new habits" by consciously choosing their habits and daily actions. The article goes on to say that by making those choices we create new neuro pathways in the brain on a physiological level. It's the equivalent to cutting a new paths in a dense forest.
This has made me very curious about human behavior. All of those habits and actions in life that give us comfort and/or appease our psyches - Milk and cookies, Seinfeld re-runs, smoking, hitting the snooze bar, lost hours on Facebook - are in one form or another a manifestation of "mindless" habits. I've also realized that the battle of habit vs. making conscious choices in life is at the core of the Visceral Coaching 35 Day Balance and Goals Coaching Program. Clients who have gone through this program are asked to make a conscious choice to ignite positive change in their lives and in the process, create new paths for a better life.
Diet plans say it takes 28 days to loose weight, smoking cessation programs say it takes 30 days to break the physical addiction to tobacco. Marketing plans offer 30 day periods to acquire higher visibility and more business. The afore mentioned New York Times article claims that we can direct our own change by creating new habits thus creating new neuro pathways, gain a deeper consciousness and even create new brain cells! I have practical experience in the thirty days to change concept. It offers a strong foundation for a lasting positive change in a persons life. It worked in mine. So what about the extra five days? They are built in days off! Play days. Time off is just as important as time at work. That's a component of the Balance part of the program.
A component of the Goals part of the program is to set a S.M.A.R.T. goal, a goal that's Specific, Measurable, Accountable, Resonant & Thrilling. Put it in your calendar - make it real. For the next 35 days you will make commitments to achieve your goal, take daily actions to honor those commitments and begin to create new neuro pathways to carry you through your goal to a more effective life. My job as a certified empowerment coach is to motivate you on a daily basis to achieve your goal. We work on maintaining clarity of purpose, eliminating distractions, deepening the learning of where you are each day, and celebrating the victories found in the process of committing to your goal.
The Visceral Coaching 35 Day Balance and Goals Coaching Program is suited for highly motivated individuals who want to put more accountability in their lives. There are five coaching sessions, one a week, along with daily check-ins via phone or email to track the progress of your goal. I encourage you to commit to The Visceral Coaching 35 Day Balance and Goals Coaching Program, but if you are curious and want to try it out for yourself, begin by answering the following questions:
What goal do you want to achieve in the next thirty-five days?
What commitments will you make to achieve that goal?
What actions will you take (what new neuro pathways will you create?) on a daily basis to achieve your goal?
What paths are you willing to forge in order to achieve to the life you want for yourself?
What are you willing to do to make a bold, positive change for yourself?

Balance & Goals

Ahhhhh….February is gone. The first day of spring is steadily approaching. And what a complement it will be to a snowy, blustery winter. It reminds me of the need to strike a balance between ourselves and the changing environment. I am a warm weather person and Anna, my wife, is a cold weather person. We enjoy opposite seasons and through each others enthusiasm for them, we strike an energy balance in each others lives. In the middle of February, with the temperature in single digits, Anna will sit up in the morning, take a deep breath and give me that “Isn’t-it-a-wonderful-day?” look. I usually pull the covers over my head to get the extra seven minutes of snooze time before the alarm goes off again. In August, when the sun is at its warmest, I don’t even need the alarm clock. My mind and body gets up and gently taps me on the shoulder to say “rise and shine”. I turn around to look at Anna with the same “Isn’t-it-a-wonderful-day?” look, only to be met with a grunt.

Now, don’t get me wrong, in the winter I can be found enjoying long walks in the snow with Anna and our dog Luna, or doing a bit of cross-country skiing - Swedish style - as I did over the Christmas holiday. Ans during the summer months, Anna can be found playing beach volleyball, beach-combing or diving through the waves of the ocean right next to me. What’s great about that is neither one of us would have even thought of partaking in each others’ activities had we not met and been willing to strike the balance that co-exists between us. It’s that balance that allows us to both advance and learn in our lives. In the balance we gain clarity to focus on our goals and aspirations.

The symbolism of spring – the rebirth, the rejuvenation of ones self is a powerful tool to harness.

What does this transition of seasons present for you?

Take a moment to check in with what’s in or out of balance in your life.
Mother Nature will be rebalancing her scales soon, what would it be like for you to do the same? To take stock in your goals and get clarity on the direction you’re heading? To rebalance your habits & behaviors so they get you where you want to go? To change….yup to change; to be conscious of purpose.
Visceral Coaching will give you clarity,balance and purpose so you can achieve your goals. Check out www.visceralcoaching.com for more details on private one on one coaching, group coaching and a the five week Balance & Goals Coaching Program.

Bush, AIG, Lynch, Lehman, Madoff & the sub-prime players, thanks for your service.

That's right. Thanks for your service. You have done a priceless service to your country. Hey, it's tough out there right? Anyone with an iPhone, Blackberry, or a cathode ray tube can see that we're being told it's tough out there. I saw a headline this morning suggesting an eight trillion dollar bailout. Sure, why not. Eight trillion, I think that's the 2009 salary cap for The New York Yankees too.

Well, be that as it may. However the world at large frames our current economic, social or political climate, I say it's all a matter of perspective. I'll even go as far as saying we're in a good place. Yeah, good. Because there's value here. As an Empowerment Coach, it's my job to hold this space. The uncomfortable, dark, murky, embarrassing, smelly places just as much as the joyful, elated, bright, shiny psyched up places. It's all a part of the process of life. Take a look to see what juicy nuggets can be gleamed from within:

Billion dollar ponzi schemes, Two American wars, Cronyism in the white house, prisoner torture, unconstitutional eavesdropping, overextended mortgage lending, golden parachutes, national debt in the trillions, a besmirched reputation as a global superpower. That's not all of it, but it's a good chunk.


Who have we become as a society when we support the reward system of extending credit to people who aren't eligible for it in the first place?
Who are we as individuals who either facilitated the giving or receiving of that credit?
Who are we to place material gain ahead of principals?
What good can come from all of this?
Were is the learning in all of this?

Now, as a Coach, I feel the state of reflection that people are in these days. I hear it on the streets of New York. I speak to it in my coaching sessions. My phone is ringing now more than ever. The people I speak with see this time as an opportunity to change. To explore their core values, to acquire inner fulfilment, to seek help with a project. This place of self reflection, or self assessment is golden. This "climate" is ripe for a gut check for the soul.
There's the good.
There's the learning.

On Tuesday, December 3rd, I read an article in The New York Times about Bernard L. Madoff and his ties to Yeshiva University. What drew me to the article was a quote printed in bold italics. The quote and a link to the article is below.

" In elevating to a level of demiworship people with big bucks, we have been destroying the values of our future generation. We need a total rethinking of who the heroes are, who the role models are, who we should be honoring."
- Rabbi Benjamin Blech, professor of philosophy of law, on the downfall of Bernard Madoff

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/23/nyregion/23yeshiva.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=betrayed%20by%20madoff&st=cse

Rabbi Blech called it, alright. There's a man who is in a state of reflection. He is looking inward to deepen the learning of himself and working to influence, in a positive way, those whose lives he touches. And here we are. The New Year. A new beginning. This is an opportunity provided by the uber elite who have fallen from grace. An opportunity to check our guts, to take stock in what we're made of, to roll up our sleeves are recreate ourselves for ourselves. This is a great place.
Thanks Bernie...

The Healing Properties Of Facebook

Okay. So I'm forty years old, married, and I'm an enthusiastic participant on Facebook. I'm comfortable with that, really I am. I do admit however, I was somewhat reluctant to venture into this particular corner of cyberspace. "I mean, aren't those sort of sites for kids?" I said to myself. After all, I'm forty years old and I'm married.Well it took a while after creating my account to get acquainted with how the whole site worked, then the think tank at Facebook decided to change the format that I had just gotten used to. That's a whole other issue. I'm not going there right now. Maybe later. Maybe. Either way, I figured out the new format and I began to navigate around the site to acquire friends. That's what you do on Facebook, make friends.

Thing about that is, to date, I've made over two hundred friends. Some of them are people with whom I'm actually friends with now. Like, as in, currently and in three dimensions. You know, we meet in a diner or at a movie, shake hands, say hi, look each other in the eyes, celebrate birthdays, go fishing, generally hang out, those sort of three dimensions.

Some on my two hundred plus friends are people with whom I've never met. Friends of friends. And that's really cool. I get to meet new people in other countries like Mexico, Canada, Australia (It's a continent, I know), Spain, New Jersey. We can send messages and pictures of ourselves and our mutual friends and kind of tell how our mutual friends' lives touches our lives. "Oh, you know so-and-so from college." "I know so-and-so from work". That sort of thing.

Here's the kicker. Most of my two hundred plus friends are people who I have either met, known or befriended over the course of my forty years of existence on this planet. (Yup, forty. I'm comfortable with that.) The "overwhelm" from all of that kind of crept up on me. In the beginning, it was fun to reconnect with some of my friends in college, then it was a little heavy connecting with my best friends in high school, then it was kinda weird befriending my whole high school class. After that it was time-warpy rediscovering my close friends in jr. high school, then it became a little much hooking up with my whole jr. high school class, then (just yesterday) I was sought out by the guys I hung out with on a teen tour in nineteen-eighty-something. That required me to pause. "Whoa" I thought to myself. ( If you don't know what a teen tour is, just think of it as a 2 month bus ride around the country, as a teenager). Then - and I claim full responsibility for this - I sought out the very first object of my pre-pubescent desire. A cute-as-a button girl, who shall remain nameless to protect her whereabouts, who was my first kiss - my first kiss! (my wife's okay with that, by the way). I needed to walk away from Facebook for a good two weeks after that one.

With each friend acquired, and each area of my life that I conveniently and/or unconsciously compartmentalized, came the pictures. All sorts of pictures. Class pictures - in black & white!, school hallway pictures, college party pictures, and finally the piece de resistance, a picture of me and my afore mentioned first kiss in like nineteen-seventy-blah-blah with my lanky arm around her cute-as-a-button shoulders. We were about eleven years old. It looked like the wardrobe department for That 70's Show exploded all over us.

I've gone about as far back as my memory, and modern photography, can go to literally trace together the different phases of my life. And it all rushes back to me when ever I log in to my account. And you know what? It's all good.

I can look back on my life and see how I've recorded it, how lucky I am to have my family and friends. I can see how my friends have recorded their lives, where they have been, who they are now with, the families they have created and as I do I can see how I had been a part of their lives, who I was when I knew them, who I was when we lost touch and who I am now after we've re-established contact. and I can sincerely say that I've had an outstanding forty years on this planet. (Yup, I'm forty and I'm comfortable with that). All of those forgotten places and forgotten faces are now just a few click away.

It's because of Facebook that I'm able to see the single moments of my whole life strung together and displayed in pixels and wall posts on my computer. My Facebook page is the tableau of my life. And I really like what I see.

buzz words...buzz jobs...buzz off!

Well it happened. Just the other day. I was sitting in the Whole Foods at the Time Warner Center. I was minding my own business, reading the paper, enjoying my freshly brewed cup of coffee and my eyes began to wander - as they sometimes do in this visual landscape that we call New York City. I noticed a shopper with the trademark Whole Foods brown paper bag. My subconscious read the message printed on the side. I heard it out loud....only in my head... "Our Core Values", it read. I sorta stuck on that for a beat. "Our Core Values"...."that sounds vaguely familiar" I said to myself...only in my head..."Our Core Values, Our Core Values. Hmmm, why does that ring a bell"...myself said....Wait a minute. Core Values? It rings a bell 'cause that's what I do for a living. I help my clients identify and honor their Core Values. "That's valuable stuff I said"...only in my head...What the heck is that doing printed on a shopping bag? Have we, as a society, completely bastardized the whole concept of "values" that it just appears as a catch phrase on a grocery bag? Is the term "Core Values" pulverizing our senses so much that we've become desensitized to what the heck that bloody term really means!? Hey. Don't get me wrong. I happen to like Whole Foods just as much as the next guy....for food....good food. I don't go there shopping for values though...core values, food values (they don't call it Whole Paycheck for nothing) or otherwise. Imagine going down the produce isle and right next to the organic eggplant is a bushel of honesty or a bundle of creativity. I can see it now. The throngs of New Yorkers elbowing each other to get the reddest expressiveness, or the softest compassion. I mean c'mon here people. What I do here at Visceral Coaching is precious work. I work with my clients to dig down below the surface to unearth what highly personal tenants in life they choose to live by. These tenants, ie: values, are threads that intertwine together to make up the very fabric of who they are and why they do what they do. Life is not a marketing campaign, ya know.

When I'm asked by people what it is I do for a living I tell them I'm an Empowerment Coach. Sometimes, the person who asks cocks their head slightly - y'know like the RCA dog. I also get "Oh a coach, good for you", or my favorite..."What qualifies you to be a coach?"
Reasonable question.
It seems that just about anyone with a crooked number of decades on this earth figures that it's enough to call themselves a coach. There certainly are a lot of us out there, that's for sure. I can't speak for everyone, so I won't. What qualifies me to be a coach?
To put it succinctly - I see BS.
People...a lot of people are full of BS. Myself included. That's why I have a coach. He calls me out what I'm slinging it.
So as a coach, I say "Cut the BS."
I ask, "What do you really want?"
"And what are you willing to do to have what you really want?"
"Pitch the rest of it like the garbage that it is and get on with it."
This, simply and for real, is what my clients and I work on. What else is there anyway?...
Now I've spent many a day befuddled by what my place is in this world, who I am, what my voice is, my purpose, all of that...Today, I'm on the other side. I found my place, my voice, my home. I went straight through it, like a fullback over the center on 4th & goal...So that's what qualifies me.
So, life isn't unfolding the way you expected it to? Unhappy at work? At home? On the subway?
Well, whats the "Core Value" that's not being honored that makes you unhappy?
Dig in there and find it.
You don't need twenty years of therapy to figure that one out.....No you don't!
Is it enough to, as Thoreau put it, "...lead lives of quiet desperation." Is that good enough!? There's a two letter answer for that question. N-O.
Cut the BS.
Dig, if that's what in necessary.
Find your Core Values - they're not on a shopping bag, by the way.
Claim your space on this planet.
Make your mark and L-I-V-E!

Any questions - here's my number: (646) 736 7572