Oops!

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Now that was a little embarrassing! ๐Ÿ˜…
Yesterday, Monic and I visited 4 different missionary apartments in Lelystad, Amsterdam (x2) and Haarlem. Over the last few weeks, we have visited nearly all of the apartments in the mission and only have a handful to go. It has given us a really good understanding of the state of repair of each of them, the good, the bad and the downright ugly!
Feeling tired, after a long day, and loaded down as usual, carrying bags of linen, bedding, pillows and our cleaning materials, we took the lift up to the last empty apartment of the day.
With the bunch of keys in hand for that specific apartment, (there were 8 different keys) I tried each of them, one by one. 1st – nope, 2nd – nope, 3rd – nope… You get the idea, until I reached the last one. None of them worked! Grrr….
Start again I thought. 1st – nope, 2nd – nope, 3rd – nope… and then I said to Monic, “do you hear that?”…”There is someone inside!” “Ring the doorbell” she said. We did so and a few moments later, a lovely old couple came to the door. We looked at them quizzically, thinking to ourselves “what are you doing here?”
A quick check of the address and to our embarrassment – we were at the wrong door! Oops! We were supposed to be at apartment 371 and had been trying the keys in door 317!!
Graciously the old couple gave us the directions to 371. We made our apologies, smiled and laughed a little and were then on our way.
With a glint in our eye, we looked at one another, chuckled together and a few minutes later found ourselves at 371!
Have you ever made a silly little mistake when you were tired?

Change one Thing

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Change One Thing….
Have you ever asked yourself what’s the one thing that I can change about myself that will make the biggest difference in my life?
Change happens one (baby) step at a time.
In a number of recent conversations, I have found that we tend to focus on far too many changes at once.
Then it struck me this morning that we must remember, that new habits are formed one step at a time……One By One.
By changing one thing in your daily habits and routines, no matter how great or small, I have found that just one little thing can have many big consequences in your life.
Perhaps its that one annoying habit that consumes lots of your time every day, that is really just a waste of time and effort!
You know what I mean.
So – why not do something today that will make a big difference?
Choose to change.
It may help you to soar higher.
What one thing will you change today?

Asking Questions

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“What questions do you have for me?”
I asked that question several times yesterday in numerous interview sessions, phrasing it in such a way that I expect to receive some questions. And on nearly every occasion I did.
Have you asked any good questions lately?
Questions can be extremely powerful. They help us to think, feel, see and do things differently.
We all need to learn how to ask great questions….
Some professionals like doctors, lawyers and journalists are taught how to ask great questions as part of their training.
In my own professional career through sales, leadership and coaching, and now as a Mission Leader, I have found it equally important to be able to formulate and ask the right questions.
Questions aid performance, develop relationships, help provide inspiration and direction, they even help to build trust and rapport.
“Management teams aren’t good at asking questions. In business school, we train them to be good at giving answers.” – Clayton Christensen.
Itโ€™s time to be a little more curious. Asking questions is an important part of life and learning.
I am constantly asking questions to help others move forward.
“What do you want?”
“What do you need most right now?”
“So what?”
“Why now?”
“How can you be truer to yourself?”
“Can you tell me more?”
What question can you use today to unlock your potential and help you or others to move forward?

Shopping

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Yesterday, in preparation for our busy week ahead, we went shopping to Makro.
It wasn’t long before our shopping trolley was full.
Even after 27 years of marriage, it still fascinates me how my brain works different from Monic’s brain. What I think we need (and want) is oftentimes very different what Monic thinks we need (and want!).
Thankfully, with a wry smile and a wee wink in my eye, the chocolates made it into the trolley once again…! ๐Ÿ˜‰
Can anyone else relate to this regular experience?
All comments gratefully received below!

Signs of Progress

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How do you measure progress?
After 9 weeks of immersion in the culture of Belgium and the Netherlands, something significant, yet very subtle happened in my head this week.
For several weeks, I hear the Dutch language and then translate what I hear into English.
In order to respond, I then translate my English thinking into Dutch.
This week though, things started to change – just a little.
I am beginning to think in Dutch… ๐Ÿ™‚
What a difference it makes!
The result?
I am even struggling to recall some simple English words and replacing them with Dutch ones!
The transition is starting to happen!
Don’t get me wrong, I have still lots of learning, but genuinely feel after some tough weeks, that I am making some progress.
So how do you measure progress?
…One day at a time! And then recognising the change.
When I’m dreaming in Dutch – that will be a real sign!
And for our new missionary arrivals next week, remember to speak it every day – that is so crucial. There is hope!!

Its all a matter of perspective

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Recently, on a couple of instances, our attention has been drawn towards crickets.
Departing Eindhoven on Sunday, a cricket landed on the bonnet of our car, and stayed there for a few moments even after we drove off.
A few weeks earlier whilst in Belgium, we were momentarily distracted by a large cricket as we sat chatting with our hosts Angelo and Candice. We were assured that this was a small one, but for Monic and I, we thought it was huge!
It’s all a matter of perspective, I thought.
Some things look much different when you are up close.
Perspective is the way we see things, when we look at them from a certain distance. In that brief moment, we saw the true value of this remarkably large or small (depending upon your perspective) insect.
Each of us see things ever so slightly differently, dependent upon our own personal experiences in life.
For Monic and I our familiarity of crickets in life, has been almost nil. Thus this cricket was huge! Yet, for Angelo and Candice, it was at the opposite extreme on the spectrum of cricket experience and thus the cricket was small!
Fascinating!
In that brief moment, our eyesight drew us close to this captivating creature. Yet there was more a sense of awe, wonder and an appreciation of beauty in those few seconds of time, before it hopped off to find something much more interesting than our gawking eyes!
In this fast paced life, do we ever pause momentarily, just long enough to enjoy the simple little things?
Why not pause, reflect and stop long enough today, to really see some of those things that really matter most of all. It may just give you a new perspective on lots of things.
Enjoy your discoveries!

Change 6 things!

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Facilitating a meeting earlier this week with our Mission Leadership Council, I used one of my favourite little change activities. I paired each participant up with a buddy, had them stand back to back and then invited them to change 6 things about their appearance.
I always love running this activity as it is such a great little icebreaker. It went very well and everyone had some fun together.
There were also some great points made by the participants and some very positive in the moment learning takeaways…
Two points I want to make today about this little activity.
Firstly, I always change something about myself. It is always very difficult for them to spot. When they are all busy changing various things about themselves, I simply sneakily remove my wedding ring. Eventually, after several guesses, someone always identifies the change. I then explain how difficult it is to remove my ring. Its been there a long time – 27 years! And it has great sentimental value, which brings back many memories too.
๐‹๐ž๐ฌ๐ฌ๐จ๐ง ๐Ÿ- Change is sometimes difficult because we have been doing things the same way, for a long time. Little things, are often BIG things!
Secondly, after the activity, everyone changed their appearance, back to how it was. I didn’t ask them to do it, yet every single one of them did!
Why did they do that?
๐‹๐ž๐ฌ๐ฌ๐จ๐ง ๐Ÿ- Simply stated, because that was the way they were before and frequently its much more comfortable there!
Two simple reasons why change is sometimes difficult to achieve!
William Bridges Transition Model, is a great place to start to understand more about change.
What change are you facing today?

Its a marathon, not a sprint!

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“๐ˆ๐ญ๐ฌ ๐š ๐ฆ๐š๐ซ๐š๐ญ๐ก๐จ๐ง, ๐ง๐จ๐ญ ๐š ๐ฌ๐ฉ๐ซ๐ข๐ง๐ญ!” has been the counsel shared several times as Monic and I commence our service as Mission Leaders.
Fortunately, in the mission home, we have some exercise equipment, including a treadmill, which helps us to keep in shape physically!
I have however, never run a marathon and wasn’t a great sprinter either, but the phrase has been playing on my mind.

Key Things

A few things I do know, is that to run a marathon, several key things are usually in play.
– A Training Plan, with a few stretching goals is essential.
– Accept that there will be many obstacles along the way.
– Pace yourself and you need time to recover.
– It isn’t an easy thing to do!
– Endurance & stamina are critical, so you can do it for a long time.
On the other hand, and I am happy to stand corrected, but I guess sprinters don’t hold back – they give everything in short, fast, explosive surges of energy. They have lots of training too, but it is a different mindset altogether. We may need some of that mindset along the way, in order to get some key tasks done!
In the Book of Mormon, there is some great counsel from King Benjamin in Mosiah 4:27 – it reads “And see that all these things are done in wisdom and order; for it is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength. And again, it is expedient that he should be diligent, that thereby he might win the prize; therefore, all things must be done in order.”
Perhaps the message is simply this – diligent, steady and consistent progress along our mission journey will be far more productive than short surges of extreme activity, followed by long periods of recovery.
One thing is for sure – I’m grateful for the advice and the exercise equipment too, it really does make a difference to listen and do! It is certainly improving our physical condition by building some stamina and endurance!
What’s your mindset today? A marathon runner or a sprinters?

Trust

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“What will be our focus?” I was asked.
In a flash my thoughts returned to an experience from 25 years ago.
I recalled one client visit, where I was approaching the close of a sale. I vividly remember that I leaned over to the client, touching her on the wrist and said “it will be okay.” I’m not quite sure what came over me, but it was a powerful act of reassurance that closed the sale. It was one of those “in the moment” experiences and it just felt like the right thing to do. It was all a matter of ๐ญ๐ซ๐ฎ๐ฌ๐ญ.
๐“๐ซ๐ฎ๐ฌ๐ญ is the key to building strong relationships – i.e. to rely upon or place confidence in someone or something.
Reflecting on that experience many times over, it was a particularly dangerous move, violating her personal space, touching someone, even just momentarily, that I hardly knew. If that were to happen today, I’d possibly be accused of something much more sinister!
Someone then asked…

“How do we build trust?”

I shared the trust equation.
– Credibility, the words we speak.
– Reliability, the actions we take and things we do.
– Intimacy, the stories we tell and how safe others feel around us.
– Self orientation, the extent we focus on ourselves or others.
In their book “The Trusted Advisor”(Maister, Green and Galford), propose that the level of trust we have with a person will depend on the depth of our personal relationship (intimacy & self-interest) and the breadth of issues that they are willing to discuss with us (credibility & reliability). Increasing the level of any of the variables in the numerator increases the level of trustworthiness. Decreasing the value of the denominator โ€“ will have the same effect. In other words, we can increase the level of trust in a relationship by focusing on any of these four factors.
“Trust is the glue of life. It is the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It’s the most foundational principle that holds all relationships.” – Stephen Covey.
That one intimate moment, coupled with credibility, reliability and focusing on the needs of others was the the foundation of my sales career. Little did I know it at the time, but my determination to live and breathe those principles in my daily actions, were the key to success.
Time will pass, but when trust is present, years will go by and it will seem as if it was but the twinkling of an eye.

Understanding

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“Do you understand what I mean?” he asked.
In many relationships, one of the big barriers to understanding is a lack of communication, a lack of talking things out, a lack of keeping things in the open. Oftentimes whilst counselling, one half of a relationship will sit in brooding silence, hugging any grievances close to their heart, rather than being open and honest.
Pressures can mount, small things are magnified and frequently much more than is true can be imagined in their minds by either party. Fragmentary listening, misinterpretation of ideas, and mistaken meanings of words can cause misunderstandings. And so there is much not knowing, much mistrust, much heartache, much unhappiness and sitting hurting, in silence. Happiness will not survive in pent up places.
So how do we strengthen these relationships?
We need to engage in meaningful conversations.
It all starts with the greatest of all the communication skills, and that is being an effective listener. That means slowing down. Being listened to is one of the highest forms of respect and recognition. Really listening is not about gaining information, rather it is to gain understanding.
Some years ago Marvin J. Ashton said โ€œCommunication is more than a sharing of words. It is the wise sharing of emotions, feelings, and concerns. It is the sharing of oneself totally.โ€
Regularly setting aside time to talk where there are no distractions can help to solve problems.
Why not start today and resolve to listen a little more.
When will you set aside time to communicate and really listen?