Sandra Shelton And StrengthBank®

Holiday Frenzy Ends; New Year Bustle Begins; Where Is The Peace?

Sandra Shelton — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 01:52:56 +0000

“Where is the peace?” while being reminiscent of the funny burger commercial depicting a little old lady yelling “Where’s The Beef?” isn’t so amusing when we consider the inability to hold on to the peace we glimpsed at Christmastime. We want or may resolve to forge into the New Year with that peace, that is, peace of mind amidst all the circumstances around us. But something happens and it fades in the first hours of Monday morning when we are back to work, back to “normal.”

What brings us to lack of Peace? Lack of peace does not come visibly. It comes unseen and stealthy in conditions called: frenzy, hustle, busyness, misplaced loyalty to a job or a person or coming up with resolutions for a new year that cannot be known ahead of time and a new year that may totally make said resolution meaningless after all. Peace comes unseen as well but in opposite conditions: acceptance of reality, confidence, continuing a direction toward spiritual maturity regardless of what the new year brings, and unshakeable calm.

How do we see the unseeable? The focal point for peace or discontent can be understood in “seeable” behavior, that is, relationships in your life at any moment. For example, lack of peace and relational immaturity might be behaviors like:
•   disappointment from what wasn’t under the Christmas tree.
•   trying to jog off holiday hors d’oeuvres without considering the pattern of gluttony still present.
•   scrambling to get as many expenses for office or healthcare on the record before the 2010 start-over position rather than taking in, being refreshed by the slow down to end the year.
•   trying to get a jump start on 2010 at the office while everyone else is gone.
•   virtually missing the opportunity for a holiday break by worrying over what might happen next year.
•   setting empty-action resolutions and missing the opportunity to simply look forward to how this next year will move you forward in the purpose for which you were born.

People who can take breaks, go on vacation, give back for no specific reward, stay involved in how this country maintains freedom … are the ones who have discovered peace, i.e., they know this life is bigger than:
•   a pay check
•   15 minutes of fame
•   winning the lottery
•   having a baby
•   fooling a vendor by returning a used item as unused
•   getting revenge
•   getting marginal tax breaks
•   being adored.
Peaceful folks don’t have to “get away” from it all with trips, workaholism, drugs, or unhealthy liaisons because peaceful folks have discovered how to have it all, all the time; they have found lasting peace, the perfect getaway that never goes away.

Relational voids erode peace.
No matter who you are, you are designed for relationship. No way out. Taking advantage of that basic need, there is a virtual relationship connection fervor that creates more frenzy and less peace, that is, instead of balancing life with necessary face-to-face relationships it literally may increase the size of the relationship void. Satisfying the relational need nor finding peace occurs by thinking either is attached to virtual connections such as the number of “friends” on facebook; twitter retweets for things you’ve written, LinkedIn invites, etc.

Social media is not “new”; it is an updated version of a very old unsettling, peace-less, long-term unsatisfying relationship breaker I-can-have-more-marbles-than-you game with little regard for full relationship. Instead of nurturing the basic need for relationship, the new version of the game absorbs huge chunks of time and attention while seemingly promoting the game player into connection and lots of “relationships.” Details of our lives are now online with a surface completeness never before possible; Yet, when one is clicking the keys in response to a message, invite, tweet, etc. it seems so personal, close, and private. Beware the one-to-one that is really one-to-world. Much to learn about social media and keeping it in relational perspective that generates peace not feverish “keep up with all my peeps” who were never your “peeps” in the first place.

So, where is the Peace for 2010?
Peace springs from the same place it always has and always will no matter how technically advanced we become; it is where your treasure is. If your treasure is nurturing and growing healthy relationships, peace comes from the fruit of your life as it is spelled out in relationships, that is, from growing spiritually. Think about this. What do you remember about your grandfather, favorite uncle, cherished mentor? How much each had or how much each loved you? What memory do you want to leave behind for those you say you love?

Quick checkpoint: Overall, considering work and home, relationships in your life are: Exciting? Fun? Nourishing? Embittered? Lackluster? Invigorating? Encouraging? Neutral? Don’t think about them? Demanding? Battle-weary? Secondary to career? Not a priority? The list goes on. Regardless of your version of that list, who you are in your heart of hearts just passed before your mind’s eye. That recognition deciphers, if you allow it to, your level of sustained ability to live at peace even at the most trying times. No one lives in peace without attention to building relational connections and first based on the relationship model of you and the One who created you.

The world is broken and will not yield serenity through circumstances but it can give us a glimpse of serenity through our everyday connections to other people so that we are constantly renewing a peaceful mindset. When the day grates on you, for example, it is not because something physical may be chaffing like a scarf that is scratchy, shoes that is creating a blister, or a paper cut on your finger. More likely, the day that grates on your last nerve is one wherein a relationship is out of joint, tough, unyielding, worrisome, “complicated”, etc. Denying the relationship the effort it would take to move this from a grating day to a celebrated day will bring the grating day back to you again and again. When a comedian comments on those who work your last nerve, you laugh but it was not funny when you lived it unless you are rooted in peace that carries a sense of humor with it.

Question to discover your peace status: “Do you understand this moment in the context of eternity?” If you can answer yes, peace will find you. Answer no, and there is much work yet to do. Life is not about you; it is about where this life ends and in relationship to whom.
Peace from last year. At the end of the year we turn with eagerness to all that the future holds; yet, anxiety is apt to arise from remembering and fearing a repeat of last year’s failures. But the peaceful heart understands we must have a memory of the past lest we get into a shallow security in the present; learn the lesson from yesterday to live the future fearlessly ready to learn more.
Peace for to-morrow. A gracious revelation of the knowledge of a plan for our world bigger than anyone or anything in it assures us that Divine Providence still watches over those called to His purposes just as He did our forefathers as they forged this nation with arms and battles but with internal resolve from a peace beyond mortal understanding, pure peace of purpose. Tomorrow is about going forward taking the part of the past necessary to continue each resolve to live your part of the plan set for you before you were born.
Peace for to-day. “Slow down, you move too fast. Gotta make the morning last” sings the 59th Street Bridge song lyrics. As we go forth into the coming year, let it be neither in the haste of impetuous, denial nor with the flight of impulsive “gotta push harder till it works or I win.” Let this new year be lived with the patient peace of knowing that the learned lessons of our yesterdays present reminders to us for a smoother tomorrow.
McCall magazine came to Norman Rockwell in 1957 to do its cover. It took Rockwell 11 years to paint “Home for Christmas” – rare because he rarely painted a landscape – usually just faces. For the last 20 years people of Stockbridge, Massachusetts (the setting of the painting) have tried to recreate the painting in real life. Usually art tries to imitate life; here is just the reverse. Tens of thousands go every year trying to recapture that Spirit of Christmas. Every Christmas Movie tries to recreate this Spirit. We long for this peace.

Use this season of joy and peace just past, not to wait for it again next year but to live differently from now to next year’s season that can then be a continuing not a beginning again just for a season. Keep the spirit of the Peace of Christmas by running with endurance the race set before you in 2010 knowing the prize is not that you get the most marbles but that you live it in peace regardless of circumstances.

The One who brought you here never intended to leave you here without His peace that goes beyond any human understanding. The offer to you at birth was serenity of heart, but only those who accept the gift of Heaven we celebrate at Christmas can keep peace flowing into the New Year’s every moment big and small. 2010 is a good time to begin again, to seek and live that for which you have been called and for which you have been equipped. If you are already there, share the good news and help someone else get there. We are only as peaceful as we demonstrate through the of nurturing others.

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Virtually speaking, part 2: The power of negative feedback

Sandra Shelton — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 18:08:00 +0000

No one wants to hear that he or she has made a wrong word choice, turned an awkward phrase, or allowed a grammatical faux pas, particularly in this age of “text, text, and more text.” Worse is that what has been written appears divisive or critical and that was not your, the writer’s intent. The root problem of some of the less concrete errors (misunderstanding, confusion, overtones) is that “pesky” perception thing.

We think our intent comes through clearly when we “text.” Really? Then why are there so many “spins” of the same message? That is, one view says it is offensive and another commends it as “great thought.”

Ahhh, relationships (remember, text is to a human being even if unknown to you personally at the time (blogs, comments on blogs, online discussions, etc. … all relationship territories) are amazing support and amazing conviction at the same time. Thank anyone who has been or is willing to tell you the truth about how your words are perceived, what you said or wrote, even if he or she is a complete stranger or known staunch enemy! Those who “shoot straight with you” are a rare gift. The rest of those around us may let us go on and on, never telling us we have “spinach dangling between our front teeth.”

I don’t mean to say that we should be the constant naysayer or critic but I am saying that we know when another person is not aware he or she is presenting information that may not be palatable to the people that person is trying to influence. If it is someone with whom you share mutual respect and trust, say something! The relationship can take it. If the latter is not true, don’t open your mouth or limber up your texting fingers.

Haunting Question: Who is it with whom you have mutual trust and respect to whom you have not told “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” from your perspective. (Don’t discount that last immediate phrase “from your perspective.” Just because this person shares trust and respect with you does not mean they have your same perspective on everything.) Who is it that you have not mentioned that they are being misperceived or ask if they intend to be so perceived? Yeah, now we are talking courage and diplomacy all wrapped into one.

Relationships in life and work are all about how to love. Tough love (tough because critique may at first sound “negative) is hard to give and hard to receive sometimes, but it is what allows us to keep becoming as people with worth.

Rule of thumb – preserve the relationship by being the one the other can “count on” to “tell me the truth even if I might not like it at first,” but soften it so that the other can “hear” without being “destroyed” by it.

I received a critique from a precious friend that, at first, cut me to the quick about my recent blog entries. I must admit, I needed to hear it and immediately “cleaned up” the mess I heretofore had not “seen.” All I can say is thanks for being my friend.

What are you promoting, virtually speaking?

Sandra Shelton — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 15:55:39 +0000

The virtual side of individual worth centers on that fact that now we all have “movie star” exposure. We can be represented accurately or inaccurately at the touch in one-click moments.

A picture may be worth a thousand words but internet text now rules more than we may like. One ill-advised comment may become the next “shot heard ’round the world” or worse around and around in a never ending cycle. That is not to suggest that a youtube video or Facebook picture is not subject to the same fate but we tend to think of text as harmless or less obtrusive. Rethink as we apply virtual exposure to both media.

What appears online seems spiffy and cool. Let’s take Facebook for example. One fills in text into well-ordered boxes and part of a planned graphic that includes the font used for the text we submit. Virtually, we look great and if we are smart, type out our entries in a word-processing program to proof BEFORE submitting them online. We look great, “smell,” great and supposedly are now “great.”

However, what used to be the marketing department’s function in a company is now ours and ours alone as each of us establishes an online presence that is part of our work and our life. We now need marketing and communication basics in a way we’ve never needed them before, even down to practicing the protocols of the online handshake and eye contact that person to person encounters have held as the standard in human first connections. Now, however, most of us connect online far more frequently, more specifically, and can come off as the dreaded “wimp,” “sweaty palms,” “dead fish,” or “crusher” virtual handshake and never know it unless someone is brave enough to mentor us. Again remember the endless cycle for these virtual missteps. How many times has anyone told you the status of your physical, face to face handshake? Right. They just mentally recoil and let you go on and on making the same negative impression. Multiply that error by the number of times you “meet” someone online.

The virtual presence faux pas happen too fast, too often, and last too long to be caught. What has been done is done. Now it is time to look at our worth marketing plan and understand others’ may be as misleading as ours has been. Do over’s don’t correct what is already “out there” but we can start using better communication from now on to combat former misrepresentations of who we are and what worth we have to offer.

The internet is not new any more. It is time to become a pro and develop discernment from a less fleshly more wisdom-focused perspective. All is not as it seems on the internet just like all is not as it seems on a phtoshopped photo. Reading between the virtual icons that make everyone appear “cool,” photos that may create a “halo” effect that encourages hasty decisions (don’t get me started on online dating services), and well-stated or poorly stated text is more and more arduous yet more and more necessary.

Bottom Line: Assessing individual worth from a totally virtual encounter is dangerous and fraught with pitfalls. The strongest, most reliable connection to worthy relationships is the face-to-face encounter over a period of time. If you re hiring, dating, or creating a “life” first and solely on the internet, you may be accepting a skewed version of what you may later come to realize is not the best choice for an employee, partner, or spouse. Or, you may miss out on the best employee, partner, or spouse by deciding the virtual presence was flawed even though accompanying credentials said worthy. The flip side is to ask yourself what worth are you promoting, virtually speaking?

Leadership lesson from a thug

Sandra Shelton — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 14:58:33 +0000

I was participating in a group study and the subject of “difficult” people came up. Every one agreed that the problem seemed to have few real, long-term answers, that no matter what you tried with these annoying behaviors, the “fix” renders itself temporary at best. The group leader was a former thug (gangs and mayhem). He had “seen the light” realized his life was going nowhere fast and reformed to become a now focused on living as a model citizen and patriot. A thought occurred to me and I voiced it:

“What was the motivation for wanting to beat up others, hurt them in some way, behave badly?”

His answer was amazing to me:

“There was no beginning motivation; the “urge to kill” lies there ready to spew forth.”

I continued:

“Did the destruction lessen of the anger, that is, to attack someone or someone’s property? Did exercising the anger make you happy?”

He replied:

“Honey, I did not know what happy was. I was never satisfied; whatever the action, it was never enough. That was the problem. Somehow, the ever-present “boiling” was never extinguished. When I saw someone that did not have that anger, I wanted to hurt them because they did not have the unrest I had. If I had to live that way; so should others. I might not be able to “be happy” but I could sure take down someone else to suffer with me.”

WOW! I saw the bleep of dysfunctional use of the normal need for human significance and human connection. I sat there stunned for a moment. Then, based on my coaching and consulting practice, that is, previous observations of others who live with that ever-present anger, ever-ready to erupt at the slightest thing, I asked: “Did you have mood swings?”

The resounding answer was, “Honey, I lived in mood swings. It was exhausting.”

Some of the really difficult people in your life at home or at work cannot come to the place you would like them to come because they cannot face down the fear they cannot understand in themselves. (Remember: Anger is a secondary emotion to Fear.) Fear is False Evidence Appearing Real – I understood that on a whole new level. The thug thought fear was all there was and it appeared his only option, of course, not true to those not caught in fear’s (anger’s) grip.

I left the group that night lifted up and determined to be more dedicated to realizing fear-based behavior and that unless the person chooses to seek out and destroy that fear (no one can do this alone), the continued option in handling them is to use coping mechanisms that do work but only temporarily. This is not to say that stop encouraging all to see the fear and defeat it with logic and reality, but do lessen any personal fear of the continuing troublesome behaviors. Realize personal limits while urging the person in “difficult” behaviors to “hear” the possibility of non-fear based living.

The decision from a supervisor or manager is to first determine that you are not the one in fear. Then calculate how much time it is worth to keep a chronically difficult person on the team. Make the decision based on your responsibility to the team, not a false sense that you will keep someone who is damaging team morale but that you can surely “fix.” Come into the real world, make a right decision in the right manner (exit interview, offer counseling or coaching, set deadlines for expected changed behavior … another subject but there are some starter ideas.)

As a parent or a family member, decide it is worth continuing to show by your actions that fear is not the better way and when you see a crack, offer to go with the person to seek the truth from wisdom of the ages or good counseling based on the same wisdom.

As a teacher, view the “difficult” student with love that demands more than other kids demand of you but is a part of your opportunity to change a young mind’s direction but not head-on; this is an unseen not a seen dilemma. StrengthBank® For HIgh Schools – A Relationship Skills Initiative works as an aid to teachers in the high school.

As a neighbor, little acts of kindness MIGHT draw them into a conversation rather than a physical fight. No guarantees; but your efforts keep you whole, not divided into fear, anger, or frustration.

Bottom line, understanding the nature of the thug (difficult, angry, dysfunctional) behavior helps you cope without becoming a partner to the fear that causes such unhappiness and disdain for others. The real battle is in the unseen. Quit trying to “fix” it with “seen” vehicles or your healthy circle of fellowship might become tainted with your accepted frustration.

Cope … learn to cope until a healing takes place, just don’t count on the healing. If healing does come, consider it a blessing and rejoice. Otherwise, keep moving on and taking in those who will move to the “light” with you. Those are the folks that help you keep strong for the difficult ones who may never join the joy party.

Leadership Wrong Turns

Sandra Shelton — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 15:30:02 +0000

Whether personal or positional, when leadership in a nation, company, or a family turns wrong, the cacophony of disillusionment begins. If not halted, the followers begin to think wrong is right and that it is acceptable to disavow and disobey not only the rule of law but also the laws of human decency. As the downward fall continues, desperation grows to heights of chaos and distracted attention to each one’s purpose for being created and here.

God save us from the weak leadership wherever it occurs! All its excuses, rational, and crisis-creating tactics are simply to make disobedience to the truth more comfortable; sometimes, that push is overwhelming and chokes the human spirit.

Americans, remember the traditions that our forefathers endowed us and formed upon the rock of truth. We need not flounder. Any time is a good time to actively participate so that when that freedom bell is kept loud and clear, you will be blessed having been one of the bell ringers.

Mentor up the next generation as they see our today’s actions to preserve our republic: www.talkgroups-mentors.org

The plain daylight life is your personal peace in plain sight

Sandra Shelton — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 15:29:17 +0000

If going to work separates you totally from the rest of life and coming home again brings separation from the you you have been all day, Aye, there’s the rub!

Working out your daily grind as a part of the same you that comes home at night brings you a peace and satisfaction with life unavailable if you continue to live Jekyl and Hyde. How?

Learning connectedness of all the roles you play (tool – StrengthBank® COMMUNICATION WorkOuts™). It just does not bode well for your health and well-being to be posing in one or all of your life circumstances. In fact, many elder care issues that bring elders to the point of not being able to live independently come from the wear and tear of a life of not finding the necessary balance and consistency of living the daylight life. Watching you on the job reveals more than you may realize about personal sustainability.

“Let Freedom Ring” Need Not Become A Distant Memory

Sandra Shelton — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 18:34:16 +0000

In this day of negative publicity about corporate leaders and falling GNP (Gross National Product), we need a little positive Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the headlines. An enduring, community involvement CSR strategy exists, i.e., Employee Volunteer Program that allows employees to volunteer mentor during high school advisory periods. Not only does the strategy show the encouraging human, American resilience connection to private enterprise but also gains greater workplace engagement; it is uplifting for employees to know they work for the company with a reputation for contributing to the greater good.

Curriculum-based mentoring creates a focused, engaged-in-working-for-a-living pool of new hires rather than a pool of graduates looking for a government handout. If the latter seems a stretch, you have not heard the current thinking in the halls of your local high school. During a high school advisory http://www.talkgroups-mentors.org last fall when asked each one’s vision, what each has always seen as his or her future, answers came back:
“I am going to get on welfare and enjoy myself.”
“I (immigrant from France) am going to stay in America so I can take advantage of the welfare system and never have to work.”
“I am going to work for the government where I can’t be fired.…”
The responses were thought provoking. Today’s students are absorbing knowledge in an environment moving other than by tradition for these United States of America, perhaps not all bad if the sole intent is to be sure every child gets a chance to go to school, but once you let the fox into the henhouse for a snack, … One landmark statute to note: Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/184196/Elementary-and-Secondary-Education-Act. We are remiss to assume that magically upon public high school graduation, young adults will reach for the stars, struggle to achieve and live out each ones’ calling while ultimately contributing to the GNP as each embraces free enterprise http://www.investorwords.com/2085/free_enterprise.htm l and the satisfaction of participating in capitalism http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/capitalism! What are we thinking?

We can step up an Employee Volunteer Program for a CSR stellar, that is, that will mentor the future workforce to the truth about the engines that “Let Freedom Ring,” includes individual excellence, the latter (StrengthBank® http://www.talkgroups-mentors.org )is the key that moves us to the others.

3 key things a business can do now to begin strengthening the future workforce:
Schedule a company professional growth seminar to experience the mentoring program and benefit from the program’s tenets that enhance productivity and service capacity building for the company itself.
Connect to local chamber of commerce, high school, or business network and host events to educate to the CSR possibilities inherent in curriculum-based mentoring during high school advisories.
Contact StrengthBank Inc. for the how-to’s and support: 817 230 4523 – sandra@strengthbankinc.org – www.talkgroups-mentors.org
You, as a member or retired member of private enterprise can “Be A StrengthBank® Mentor” beginning next fall. During StrengthBank® Talk Groups you can watch tomorrow’s workforce reach out to each one’s potential to contribute.

“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.” Thomas Paine

“You know it took us 80 years to get to where we are today and it’s going to take us 80 years to contain it and start to unravel it. It’s not going to all happen tomorrow and if people think it’s going to happen tomorrow, then they tend to give up and don’t take the little steps that they need to take today. We need to start with the little steps. We need to start chipping away and that is how we get back in the game.” — Mark Levin (Beginning in 1981, Mark R. Levin served as advisor to several members of President Ronald Reagan’s Cabinet, eventually becoming Associate Director of Presidential Personnel and ultimately Chief of Staff to Attorney General Edwin Meese; Levin also served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education at the U.S. Department of Education, and Deputy Solicitor of the U.S. Department of the Interior. He has practiced law in the private sector, and is president of the Landmark Legal Foundation in Leesburg, Virginia. He holds a B.A. from Temple University, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude, as well as a J.D. from the Temple University Beasley School of Law.)

A Special Note To Wannabe Self-Published Authors

Sandra Shelton — Sat, 16 May 2009 16:11:06 +0000

Self-Published Success Is Not Do-It-Yourself or One-Stop, Do-It-All-For-You
If the process of writing and self-publishing a book does not align with what a speaker/coach professes from the speaking platform, it is a lie and you will be ultimately “found out.” Speakers ask people to hire them for the speaker’s “special expertise.” If a speaker does not respect others’ “special expertise” and is not willing to pay for it, the speaker’s platform comes into question. Ask vendors who work with speaker/coach author’s. Over and over I hear that speakers/coaches the most difficult and unethical to deal with, the most demanding, and the most rude.

Speakers and coaches, lie to yourself but not to your potential reader’s. Don’t self-publish a book if you are not willing to seek the “special expertise” from professionals yet stay involved in the process (not give over to a “publishing house” with restrictive templates and homogenized book cover designs) so that the process of reaching the end product best represents your message to your own customers and clients. Not to mention, the world does not need more rehashes of someone else’s work. Think original, excellent content. The latter being the rightful place for your “special expertise” in the publishing mix.

Counterfeit Leadership

Sandra Shelton — Sun, 10 May 2009 14:34:14 +0000

If you do not live in a free country and do not understand the self-healing workings of capitalism, you could easily mistake counterfeit leadership for the real thing. To recognize what one has never seen requires willingness to seek answers beyond humanness and get information that contradicts what you are seeing and weigh the odds. The light can dawn.

However, in the United States of America for over 200 years, capitalism, though tossed about and chipped away at, still thrives. Genuine leadership to keep it thriving would NOT:

make decisions quickly and with little thought for long-term consequences.
make policy decisions based on personal grudges.
seek to tear down the government it has sworn to uphold.
mask religious bias that creates fallacious policy.
make up answers to sound right that are in fact “empty statements” to pander to the under-informed.
bankrupt private enterprise to pay back political capital.
stop bankruptcies or offer taxpayer bailouts to prevent the ebb and flow of a self-healing capitalistic system.
defame his/her own country to other nations.

We have seen the genuine leadership: Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan. We can know the difference and vote to it.

Community involvement initiatives create CSR/Sustainability connection

Sandra Shelton — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 12:44:13 +0000

There is little CSR or Sustainability in an organization with continual turnover and where management spends 80% of its time handling “people problems” any more than there is CSR or Sustainability in public education with dropout rates in double digits and where principals spend 80% of time on discipline problems.

More high school dropouts ultimately results in fewer high quality applicants. What happens in the high school classroom ends up at the corporate hiring table and in the customer blogs. Remember, it is the millineals that are the expert techno dancers and only some adults are catching up – the baby boomers, but for the first time, are outnumbered.