To all our highly valued clients and acquaintances:
As we approach yet another mid-year point and in America, the Celebration of Independence Day, I can’t help but think again about the possibility of a bigger vision for ourselves and the unfolding of our world than an intentional focus for interdependence.
Considering the game-changing developments over the recent decades of just the internet and the smart phone revolutions alone, the landscape for humanity has irreversibly and dramatically changed, in terms of our non-stop global connectivity.
It seems to me that part of what is being called for here is a new level of interacting.
Why don’t we now start to formulate and create a Declaration for Interdependence??
The possibilities can be to intentionally evolve ourselves as people for a win-win world.
If so, what might that require and how would that really work??
We might start by asking ourselves questions such as:
What kind of culture are we creating for ourselves? Our families? Our communities?
Are we more interested in a world where the focus seems to be more about being right (and making others wrong, maybe out of personal, unresolved insecurities??)
Can we create respectful, compassionate, fulfilling relationships as our standard??
In terms of focusing on what we can control, it obviously all starts with our own Self-Mastery. That can include our sufficiently informed perspectives and reflective wisdom, our emotions, our relationship and communication skills, our ongoing learnings, our training and personal development to further grow and transform ourselves, and our ultimate ways of being in the world. It’s all within our grasp.
I imagine that we’ve all heard the common-sense rule that states “charity begins at home”. I’ve always liked this idea (paraphrased) that “It’s not what happens in the White House that’s important, it’s what happens in your house that counts”.
If this is something that most want, what seems to be the problem?
Maybe, due to factors such as insufficient vision and/or training for workability, human beings can not only act in self-justified ways, rationalized by a need for or fear about their own survival, but they can also seek to make sure that others lose.
The disconcerting and stress-inducing level of polarization in the public discourse in recent years gives me pause and makes me wonder – are we at a point where we only fire verbal grenade launchers and missiles at each other non-stop, versus a focus on a greater good, starting with our common humanity and empathic ears??
There are always 2 key challenges in any form of relationships.
First, we must clarify our expectations, including the rules for our engagement, along with defining what constitutes success. From there, we determine shared objectives.
Secondly, we must decide and/or create the best possible pathways to get us there.
A doable operating system and framework to improve our collective direction may be to promote the study and consistently living of a set of timeless, universal principles, such as outlined in the book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change, by best-selling author Stephen R. Covey.
Covey presents a holistic, integrated, principle-centered approach for solving personal and professional problems. With penetrating insights and anecdotes, Covey reveals a step-by-step pathway for living with fairness, integrity, service, and human dignity — principles that give us the security to adapt to change and the wisdom and power to take advantage of the opportunities that change creates.
As Jim Collins, author of the #1 best seller Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t, wrote in a FOREWORD to 25TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION:
“…there had been hundreds of years of accumulated wisdom about personal effectiveness, from Benjamin Franklin to Peter Drucker, but it was never assembled into one coherent, user-friendly framework. Covey created a standard operating system—the “Windows”—for personal effectiveness, and he made it easy to use.” – Jim Collins
You can read his whole foreword here, where I think he makes an encouraging case.
https://www.jimcollins.com/article_topics/articles/The-7-Habits-of-Highly-Effective-People.html
I also wrote a blog about The 7 Habits 2 years ago, to further advocate these principles.
Could it be time to write and sign a Declaration for Interdependence??
As we approach the Celebration of Independence Day on July 4th, we certainly advocate all forms of healthy self-reliance and responsible independence. The good news is that we get to choose that and can also expand that opportunity for others.
For a lot of people, survival is a loser and winners’ game. For some, not only do they want to win – they want to crush their ‘opponents’ to an irrevocable defeat and loss.
In our highly competitive world, even in business and sports, we can have respectful, civil dialogue and sportsmanship, spurring ourselves and others to new inspirational heights of living and performance. We can all compete with our past to beat our best. We can all keep developing and learning, opening new frontiers of possibility.
What can lead us to healthier growth, prosperity, and fulfillment??
We can choose to adopt the mindset in any relationship or any situation of “not my way or your way, but let’s see if we can create better ways” – even third alternatives.
We can develop the willingness, the patience, and the practices to see and commit to those kinds of possibilities. We can increase our own trustworthiness and extend the trust required for this, to have more and more experiences where we not only can trust the people and the processes to patiently hear people out, but also to work collaboratively to solve public crises, as well as meet our personal and family needs.
The power of partnership and creative collaboration (please see Covey’s win-win outline) – with anyone and everyone – can crack a big code for our better health, prosperity, well-being, and success. Whether it’s with your personal and/or family relationships, medical doctors, work colleagues, auto mechanics, the list goes on.
Maybe we can start to have dialogues to create such a Declaration?
The intent of my recently published book is to provide processes to serve you in your efforts to move yourself forward, onward, and upward on such topics. I encourage to invest a bit of time to see for yourself how this may serve you in both your inner and your outer journeys as you traverse the mountain climbs of your life. You can consider:
- What are you now seeing that you never saw before, from other perspectives that you never previously saw or considered?
- What are you now learning, or could you now be learning? What can you now do with your new learnings and your new insights?
In Our New Life in ‘The Zoomiverse’, Zoom can be a Resource for You
https://explore.zoom.us/docs/en-us/communications-platform.html
As they write on their website, “Zoom is for you. We’re here to help you connect, communicate, and express your ideas so you can get more done together. We’re proud to be trusted by millions of enterprises, small businesses, and individuals, just like you.”
“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”
Theodore Roosevelt 26th President of the United States of America
We control more than we may realize, outside the weather, rough politics, major media news stories, the cost of gas, etc. Stress derives from a sense that we’ve no control or can’t do anything that helps. Let’s focus on what we can control/influence.
“I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the community, and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. Life is no ‘brief candle’ to me. It ia a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for a moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to the future generations.” – George Bernard Shaw
Shall we explore how best to expand our future efforts together??
Again, I look forward to further communications in the weeks ahead, as we all work to strengthen and expand our effectiveness for greater freedom and fulfillment through both increased self-awareness and creative collaborations. We can all be fully engaged in worthy directions for satisfying solutions, as part of a forever journey that life can be.
Wishing for You that The Rest of Your 2022 be The Best of Your 2022.
With sincere and deep appreciation,
Coach Don
