Productive

We all have choices to make every day; the question is what choices will you make?

When we go to work we can choose to be productive or lazy, we can choose to do the best job we can or we can choose to just get by.

If you are a supervisor you can choose to take an employee under your wing, train and develop them or you can choose to fire them if they will take too much of your time.

You can choose to put your career first; yourself first or you can choose to put your family first.

You can choose the approach of what will the world do for you or what will you do for the world. You can choose to do for others or you can choose to wait for others to do for you.

You can choose right now or what’s right for now. Will you choose to be part of the problem or part of the solution?

A story to ponder:

At a fundraising dinner for a school that serves children with learning disabilities, the father of one of the students delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended. After extolling the school and its dedicated staff, he offered a question:

‘When not interfered with by outside influences, everything nature does, is done with perfection.
Yet my son, Shay, cannot learn things as other children do. He cannot understand things as other children do. Where is the natural order of things in my son?’

The audience was stilled by the query.

The father continued. ‘I believe that when a child like Shay, who was mentally and physically disabled comes into the world, an opportunity to realize true human nature presents itself, and it comes in the way other people treat that child.’

Then he told the following story:

Shay and I had walked past a park where some boys Shay knew were playing baseball. Shay asked, ‘Do you think they’ll let me play?’ I knew that most of the boys would not want someone like Shay on their team, but as a father I also understood that if my son were allowed to play, it would give him a much-needed sense of belonging and some confidence to be accepted by others in spite of his handicaps.

I approached one of the boys on the field and asked (not expecting much) if Shay could play. The boy looked around for guidance and said, ‘We’re losing by six runs and the game is in the eighth inning. I guess he can be on our team and we’ll try to put him in to bat in the ninth inning.’

Shay struggled over to the team’s bench and, with a broad smile, put on a team shirt. I watched with a small tear in my eye and warmth in my heart. The boys saw my joy at my son being accepted.

In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shay’s team scored a few runs but was still behind by three.

In the top of the ninth inning, Shay put on a glove and played in the right field. Even though no hits came his way, he was obviously ecstatic just to be in the game and on the field, grinning from ear to ear as I waved to him from the stands.

In the bottom of the ninth inning, Shay’s team scored again.

Now, with two outs and the bases loaded, the potential winning run was on base and Shay was scheduled to be next at bat.

At this juncture, do the others let Shay bat and give away their chance to win the game?

Surprisingly, Shay was given the bat. Everyone knew that a hit was all but impossible because Shay didn’t even know how to hold the bat properly, much less connect with the ball.

However, as Shay stepped up to the plate, the pitcher, recognizing that the other team was putting winning aside for this moment in Shay’s life, moved in a few steps to lob the ball in softly so Shay could at least make contact. The first pitch came and Shay swung clumsily and missed.

The pitcher again took a few steps forward to toss the ball softly towards Shay.
As the pitch came in, Shay swung at the ball and hit a slow ground ball right back to the pitcher.
The game would now be over.

The pitcher picked up the soft grounder and could have easily thrown the ball to the first baseman. Shay would have been out and that would have been the end of the game.
Instead, the pitcher threw the ball right over the first baseman’s head, out of reach of all team mates.

Everyone from the stands and both teams started yelling, ‘Shay, run to first! Run to first!’

Never in his life had Shay ever run that far, but he made it to first base. He scampered down the baseline, wide-eyed and startled.

Everyone yelled, ‘Run to second, run to second!’ Catching his breath, Shay awkwardly ran towards second, gleaming and struggling to make it to the base.

By the time Shay rounded towards second base, the right fielder had the ball and he now had his first chance to be the hero for his team. He could have thrown the ball to the second-baseman for the tag, but he understood the pitcher’s intentions so he, too, intentionally threw the ball high and far over the third-baseman’s head.

Shay ran toward third base deliriously as the runners ahead of him circled the bases toward home.

All were screaming, ‘Shay, Shay, Shay, all the Way Shay’

Shay reached third base because the opposing shortstop ran to help him by turning him in the direction of third base, and shouted, ‘Run to third! Shay, run to third!’

As Shay rounded third, the boys from both teams, and the spectators, were on their feet screaming, ‘Shay, run home! Run home!’

Shay ran to home, stepped on the plate, and was cheered as the hero who hit the grand slam and won the game for his team

‘That day’, said the father softly with tears now rolling down his face, ‘the boys from both teams helped bring a piece of true love and humanity into this world’.

Shay didn’t make it to another summer. He died that winter, having never forgotten being the hero and making me so happy and coming home and seeing his Mother tearfully embrace her little hero of the day!

We all have thousands of opportunities, choices, every single day to help realize the ‘natural order of things.’

So many seemingly trivial interactions between two people present us with a choice:

Do we pass along a little spark of love and humanity or do we pass up those opportunities and leave the world a little bit colder in the process? You have a choice.

A wise man once said every society is judged by how it treats it’s least fortunate amongst them.

Not everyone will have an opportunity as glorious and special as this one to make a choice. However, you do have a choice everyday to do the right thing; to make an impact on someone’s life.

It’s your Choice; what will you do?

What makes you perform at your peak? What makes you happy? You are at your best and perform with peak efficiency when you are happy in what you are doing!

Think about what makes you happy. Is it baking, running or reading, even work perhaps?

I am not a runner but you hear runners talk about getting” in the zone”. They just run. The adrenalin kicks in and they only things they focus on are running, their time and their style.

Have you ever gotten so absorbed in a book you couldn’t put it down? You read and read turning page after page. You are completely committed to that book. Suddenly hours have gone by. That is being in the moment!

You will have happiness and power when you focus on doing what you are doing when you are doing it. Say that 3 times fast!

When you drive a car while thinking about other things like work, the baseball game, what you have to get from the store, your reaction time is slower. You fail to see potential problems and you are more likely to have or cause an accident. Inattention is the primary cause of auto accidents. There is no auto pilot on your vehicle.

Daydreams and distractions ruin your job performance. You try to go on auto pilot, do things out of habit or routine; you lack joy, make mistakes and therefore do not have power. Because you are not giving your best, you produce less and what you do produce is not up to the standards that you are capable of.

The ability to devote 100% of your attention to a task is difficult, at first. Yet when you start to live your life in the immediate present, in this exact moment of time, with little or no attention on the past or future, you feel more alive, happier, more productive and more powerful. You have taken control of yourself and your destiny.

Imagine being able to focus all of your attention on everything you do as you do it, when you do it. This is happiness! This is power!

Staying in present time, in the moment unleashes extra amounts of natural ability. For example, just before you leave on a vacation, you on specific things you need to accomplish and quickly get them done. When you only daydream about a vacation, you slow down and become less effective.

Imagine how much more effective and productive your conversations would be if you stayed in the present. People would feel you understand them better when you are doing nothing but listening, with no other thought in mind.

The stronger your focus is, the greater your happiness and the greater your power!

Practice doing what you are doing when you are doing it and nothing else in all your activities.

Here are some suggestions:

Do a simple task at your desk such as clear off some paper or write a note. Do this right now. Do absolutely nothing else when doing it. Concentrate on clearing the paper not just pushing it to another pile. Concentrate on writing the note focusing on your penmanship, on the content. Practice this until your attention is more in the present than ever before.

The next time you are talking to someone, give him or her 100% of your attention. Think of nothing outside of the conversation. Focus on the person, the topic and the issue. Notice the person’s reaction. Notice the surprise and the appreciation they have for your attention.

Have you ever driven your car someplace and when you got to where you are going you realize you have no idea how you got there? What did you see along the way, what lights were red, what was the name of the road you turned onto? We don’t know these things because we weren’t focused on driving, we weren’t in the moment. The next time you drive your car; do what you are doing when you are doing it. Don’t listen to the radio, don’t talk on your cell phone and certainly don’t text, don’t eat a snack, don’t think about work or do anything besides drive. Extend your focus all around your car. Notice how alive you feel, in more ways than one!

At your job, spend a complete hour doing absolutely nothing but work. Nothing but work for a whole hour. A strange concept for some! Do exactly what you are doing when you are doing it. Ignore other thoughts, other acts and other tasks. Take no breaks. No miscellaneous conversations, no Facebook, no phone calls to your friends. Do nothing but work. How much more productive will you be?

Here’s a power tip from Lao-tzu, “He who controls others may be powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still.”

Have you mastered yourself? Doing what you love makes you productive, happy and powerful!

Are you happy with your relationship, your friends, your hobbies and your career? If not perhaps it is time you take control and make changes. You cannot be happy or powerful, you cannot achieve your greatness unless you are happy, and happy with yourself and your environment.

Don’t be too surprised when you learn how powerful you can be just by being happy and in the moment!

It’s your Choice; what will you do?

Be Happy and Be Powerful!

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