Posted By Beth Terry on June 28, 2009

“Entertain the possibility that you may be mistaken.” That was my daily thought a few weeks ago from Ralph Marston. I enjoy receiving his notes daily (think you Tom Miura for the gift!) and usually they will stay with me a day or two. This one has danced around in the back of my mind for some time.

“Entertain the possibility that you may be mistaken.” What a concept. I look around and I see we all need to hear this from time to time. We are great rationalizers - rational liars - Humans have the capacity to justify everything we do and think, “That guy is a jerk, but we are just having a bad day.” “She drops the ball, but I have a lot on my plate.” We’ve all been there. We’ve all justified our behavior. We know ourselves, and we often don’t give someone else the benefit of the doubt.

Beyond mistakes in our judgments of others compared to our self-analysis, we also think the bad (or good) situation we are experiencing will last forever.

I wrote a poem about this in the 7th grade:

“Amid the thunder and the rain
We think the sun will never shine again.
And when the sun is beating down,
We fear the rain will never come.”

(not too bad for a 13 yr old!)

When we are in the middle of what feels hopeless, it’s hard to see the eventual solution to our woes. Some people make horrible decisions in the midst of chaos that are irrevocable.

I lost a friend to suicide last week, and a friend lost her son the same way. Last week’s paper ran a story of a man in a custody battle over his beautiful 3 year old baby girl. In desperation, he shot her and then took his own life.

These people thought their situations were permanent and immutable. But we never know how things will turn out unless we stick around to work through them. Life changes dramatically from day to day. NO ONE knows the future. Not the pundits, not the commentators, not the banks, not the President of the United States.

We are mistaken when we think our current situation - whether good OR bad, will last forever. Everything changes. Everything. If you don’t believe me, go look in the mirror!

Depression, grief, sadness, and confusion - all will pass. Think you are on a winning streak and nothing will go wrong in your life again? That too shall pass. Life is a series of hills and valleys. We exalt and rest on the hills, and we struggle and learn the lessons in the valleys.

The only solution is to keep on going. Keep being creative. Keep having faith and acting on it. Sitting in a chair and not doing a dang thing is not faith, it’s INACTION. But getting up out of that chair, turning off the TV and the negative thinking, THAT is faith-in-action.

We will look back on this, and Oh, the stories we will share with the young’uns. We will learn our lessons, we will find a way through it all, and we will be better. IF we are able to admit we might be mistaken, learn from the mistakes, and get out there and do something about it.

All the best on your journey!
Beth and the Team

© 2009 Beth Terry Seminars, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Remember to go check out Beth’s Motivational Gift to you.

Category: Life Crises, Real Life, Resilience, adversity, possibility thinking | No Comments »
Tags: adversity, hope, learn from mistakes, possibility thinking, ralph marston, Resilience, suicide

Posted By Beth Terry on June 26, 2009

Haha - I was looking for the RT (ReTweet) button. Amazing how Twitter has taken over our lives so quickly! Bill Catlett from the Contented Cows Blog has written a great article for the amateurs out there who don’t travel as much as we Road Warriors do.  A holiday is coming up! READ and LEARN! You’ll be glad you did.

Here’s Bill’s Advice to the Infrequent Traveler.

Thanks Bill!

Beth

Category: Common Sense, travel | No Comments »
Tags: air travel, common courtesy, frequent flying, travel, travel agents

Posted By Beth Terry on June 13, 2009

It’s been beautiful in Phoenix these past couple of weeks. Surprising for the Sonoran Desert. Temps in the 70’s and 80’s till later in the afternoon. By now we usually see ‘triple digits’ - in other words, it’s usually freakin’ hot and over 100º.

But we know this won’t last. And as the temps creep up every year I wonder about the people who settled this place. Who was driving across the 114º desert a coupl’a hundred years ago and said, “Hey, this looks good, let’s build a cabin HERE!”

Or did they just wind up here by default? The wagon broke down, the horse died from thirst, they wound up eating cactus fruit and ate the wrong one? (Yes, there are a couple of cacti that will make you hallucinate. I didn’t mention that in my little blurb on cactus to the right!)

The Native Americans lived in cool caves on the sides of rocks. But good ol’ American pioneering spirit - they just put up cabins in the middle of nowhere and settled in. The Hohokam Indian tribe had previously built canals, and we do have the Salt River running through the area… but still… One has to wonder how they survived here without air conditioning!

I saw some old photos of the adobe homes that were built here. Walls about 5 feet thick, some with open holes for windows. On the back covered porch, a blanket was attached to the overhang and stretched from the ceiling to the floor. It showed someone throwing water on the blanket. I guess the wind (what there was of it) would blow through the wet blanket and cool things down a bit. Ahh, necessity is a mother…

Everything is relative. What they considered hardship and what we consider hardship are two very different things. Hardship for some is the Starbucks closing on their corner of the block… and now they have to - gasp- WALK IN THE HEAT for TWO BLOCKS! GASP!

The native American tribes that lived up by Lake Montezuma and the Castle,  scrambled up and down ropes just to get into their homes. They dug elaborate caves right into the stone, and would visit their neighbors by grabbing a rope and swinging on over.

It’s all relative.

So - is what you are facing really a hardship? Or is it just an inconvenience? Is it just a challenge to be resourceful and come up with a new way of living in this ever-changing world?

None of us knows the future. Of course, none of us ever did. In truth, we are in the exact position we have been in forever. We may have thought we had plans, but, as the cliché goes: “Life Turns on a Dime.”  Right now, you have exactly as much information about the world around you and your future as you ever had. In fact, you have an advantage. Now you KNOW that you Don’t Know! How exciting is that! Yes, ignorance has been bliss. And, Oh well.

Take a deep breath. Get together with some trusted friends and create a new reality, a new future, a new way of dealing with this uncertain time in space.

And remember - none of us gets out of here alive. So, enjoy the ride!

Blessings,

Beth

© 2009 Beth Terry Seminars, Inc.

Category: Common Sense, Life Crises, Real Life, Resilience, Solving Problems, Work Ethic, collaboration, possibility thinking | No Comments »
Tags: hope, Lake Montezuma, Montezuma's Castle, Phoenix History, resourcefulness, surviving the desert heat

Posted By Beth Terry on June 7, 2009

Someone just sent me an amazing story about a Holocaust Wedding gown, and I was thinking how puny our troubles are compared to that unspeakable life in the camps, even after liberation. How jaded we have become, taking our abundance so for granted that we are offended when tiny things don’t go our way.

And this sort of typed itself as I reflected on their lives compared to mine:

Everyone take a deep breath. These are the days we will look back on and miss. Enjoy your evenings. Enjoy your loved ones. Wrap your arms around the moment, the exquisite moment - whether in pain or comfort, fear or joy, celebrate because in this moment, on this day, at this hour, and right here and right now, you are alive.

Blessings,

Beth

© 2009 Beth Terry Seminars, Inc.

Category: Values to Live By, Work Life Balance, adversity | No Comments »
Tags: Abundance, blessings, Holocaust, live in the moment, Real Life

Posted By Beth Terry on June 7, 2009

For several years, I’ve had a column in my newsletter supposedly written by my 5- pound Chihuahua, Xena Princess Warrior the Sixth. She’s a feisty little gal, and the way ’she’ one-ups me really tickles my readers.

Xena Princess Warrior

Actually, Xena gets more mail than I do from the newsletter.

OK - so you’ve figured out by now that this little thing really doesn’t sit at my desk and type, right? Well, here’s an email I actually received the other day, which convinces me that we are, indeed, nearing the end of the world:

Dear Beth:

Thank you for the newsletters. I have a Yorkie named Puddles who is the same size as Xena. I have a question. When Xena writes her newsletter, does she sit on your lap or do you put the keyboard on the floor? I would like to teach Puddles to type. My fingers aren’t what they used to be, and if Puddles could do my correspondence, it would help me out.

Thank you for the help,

Bette

As they say in the South, “Bless her heart…”  Of course I thought she was joking and had Xena write her back. Turns out she was dead serious.

“Oh Xena, I’m so glad you wrote. Beth didn’t answer my note. Do you sit on the floor or does she put you on her lap to type?”

Sigh.

Psychology Today way back in 2005 finally admitted that research shows “we are all a little bit crazy.” While 1 in 7 really ARE, we all skate back and forth between totally nuts and doin’ pretty good. As the Paul Simon song goes, “One man’s ceiling is another man’s floor.”

Growing up in South Dakota, we midwesterners learned to be pragmatic and use some common sense. Appears there’s not a lot of either out there in the world these days.

Then again, I s’pose that’s job security for me! <grin>

Beth

© 2009 Beth Terry Seminars, Inc.

Category: Common Sense, Real Life | No Comments »
Tags: dogs, Moment for You, newsletters, pragmatism, psychology today, south dakota, typing

Posted By Beth Terry on May 31, 2009

Friends of mine decided years ago to stay out of the housing market. They’ve been avid renters and love the freedom of being able to give notice and move. Recently they were in a lease they wanted to break, but the penalty was prohibitive. They just received a notice their landlord was losing several investment properties to foreclosure, including their rental. And they are happily on the road again.

I’ve watched both American Idol and Britain’s Got Talent to see the fate of two very talented singers: Susan Boyle and Adam Lambert. While they were hands-down the best of the lot, they both came in second. Lucky for them.

They lost, and they won a far greater prize than first place in both competitions: international recognition for their art. In both cases, the first place winners will be at the beck and call of the owners of the reality franchises. While these two are still beholden for being in the top contender group, the first level of focus is on the winners. Adam and Susan will have more creative control than if they had won.

There’s a lot of “losing” right now in our world and our economy. No one is immune. My meetings industry has been hit hard because of Government restrictions on Bailout recipients travel and meetings. Most don’t realize that 2.6 million jobs are directly affected by the Meetings Industry, and one estimate is 30+ million people are peripherally affected. (Mom & Pop stores near convention centers and hotels, taxi drivers, bus drivers, Food & Beverage facilities, Linen suppliers, florists, cities and states dependent upon taxes. The list goes on.) So, this topic has been top of mind for me this year. Thought I’d share my strategies.

So – how can you turn your Losing into Winning?
Use the 5 R’s:

Reflect • Rethink • be Resourceful • Renew • Recommit

Reflect: Where are you? How did you get here? Where do you want to be? What matters most?

Rethink: What do you really need? What’s possible? What can/should you invest in? What can you get rid of?  What are your non-negotiables?

Be Resourceful: What new avenues can you take? What else can you do? Where might you find the resources you need to make a new idea or venture take hold? Who can help?

Renew: Take some time away from the problem to see it in a new light. A walk, working in the garden, a massage, a movie, time with friends… all these help give you perspective and renew your creative problem solving skills.

Recommit: First of all, recommit to you, to your family unit, to your highest good. Don’t worry about “What will other people think?” Most of them aren’t thinking about you anyway. They’re just as worried as you about their own problems. Make a commitment to do the highest and best good for yourself and your immediate family unit. Write it down, keep it where you can see it, and move towards it one step at a time, one day at a time.

These are serious times. There are an abundance of Lessons to be learned and Changes to be made. In the midst of these, you have some opportunities to make critical life decisions. Take a deep breath and be willing to keep working on the solution that is uniquely right for you.

All the best to you and yours,
Beth

© 2009 Beth Terry Seminars, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Category: Life Crises, Money, Real Life, Resilience, adversity, change, possibility thinking | 1 Comment »
Tags: adam lambert, american idol, change, economic crisis, Great Britain's Got Talent, lessons, recovery, Resilience, strategies for 2009, susan boyle

Posted By Beth Terry on May 14, 2009

I had just finished a speech on Resilience, and a man came up and said, “Kind of odd you teach people to be Passive Aggressive.”  I immediately thought, “What a passive aggressive way to communicate that to me!” What I said out loud was, “Nah, I was teaching you how to be Passive Assertive!”

You won’t find THAT word in your dictionary, I just made it up on the spot. And, by golly, it WORKS!

We toss those labels around a little too freely. Passive Aggressive… what do we mean when we say, “he’s passive aggressive,” “she’s schizo,” “she’s BiPolar?”

We hear so much psychobabble in any given day that we actually think we know what we are defining about a person. Passive Aggressive is clinical. You can measure it. You feel it. You KNOW when you’ve been manipulated by someone who uses it.

(slightly whiney voice: )“Oh, That’s OK, you can have the last piece of cake. I didn’t want any extra sugar in my diet anyway. YOU probably needed the extra energy.”

or: “That’s OK, I’ll probably be late, but your job is more important than mine, I’ll give you a ride.”

Passive Aggression is a typical outward expression of rage, resentment, fear, and jealousy. These people are insecure and don’t know how to express themselves. They also tend to be extremely self-absorbed. Everything is about them.

The worst ones I’ve met are able to be incredibly nice to people who don’t matter in their lives, yet they treat family and colleagues in horrendous ways. This causes a problem if you are the target and you’re trying to get a handle on what’s going on. Normal, healthy people generally take some responsibility for their interactions. “Is it just me?” “Think, what have I done that may have offended this person.” “They are so nice most of the time. What the heck was THAT?” If we ask an outsider, they often don’t see it and we wind up looking bad.

Thus, I developed Passive Assertiveness over the years to deal with a family member who exhibits these traits. And I teach it in my courses. It is the only way I know to successfully distance myself and stay out of the fray.

Passive Assertiveness as I see it is this: You know what’s going on. You are conscious it isn’t right and you can feel it in your gut. You have no desire or need to “win” or change the other person. You simply don’t want to play anymore and you desire a method to exit this situation or conversation in a way that saves face for all.

You know that fighting does no good. Anyone who has fought or argued with a Passive Aggressive knows you can’t win. Their ability to reframe and live in denial is legendary. “Well I meant NO SUCH THING! How could you THINK that?”

Actually, the plan is to engage you and get you riled up. The Passive Aggressive in my life will say awful things in the most innocent way. Then they sit back and watch as the target gets angry, often showing little or no reaction to the target’s rage. Occasionally a little smile plays on their face, as if they are feeding on the upset. One can picture them smacking their lips and rubbing their hands together, “I’ve got you NOW, my pretty.”

They don’t know how to deal with detachment. If you don’t react, you ruin all the fun. Here’s the technique I teach in every class: Smile and say very nicely, “I love you, and I have to go now.” Using the word “AND” sends the message that you mean the first part of the sentence. If you said, “But” - you are erasing that.  “But means ‘NOT!’”  Of course, if you DON’T love the other person, don’t say it. You could say, “It’s great to see you, AND I have to go now.” The operative word being “GO!”

In other words, don’t stick around for more abuse. Don’t engage. Don’t respond to the insults and insinuations. Don’t play into their guilt game. Another response I learned from a friend is this: She waves her hand in the air and says, “You are sooo funny!” And then she walks away from the offender.

It’s the detachment and the lightheartedness that saves you. You are saying, “I see you. And I’m not buying into this.” It’s very powerful. It sends a message, and doesn’t devolve into an argument. Here’s the deal, if you don’t have clinical psychology training, you won’t win any arguments and won’t be able to change them anyway. Why try?

If you MUST, you can be Directly Assertive. You can say, “That was Passive Aggressive behavior.” However, NOW you are engaged. And their response will be a protestation of innocence and they’ll say you’re too sensitive. In my mind, it just ain’t worth it.

So, the next time you feel manipulated by someone like this, take a deep breath. Detach from the situation. Remember it isn’t about you. And let them know you have to go now.

Good luck!

Beth

© 2009 Beth Terry Seminars, Inc.

Category: Real Life, adversity | 4 Comments »
Tags: detachment, difficult family members, difficult people, interpersonal skills, passive aggression, passive assertiveness

Posted By Beth Terry on May 11, 2009

It’s hard to believe, but internet madness has REALLY been in our consciousness for only a decade. Our youngsters are growing up with tech tools as a given. We codgers are adapting at record pace to keep up. Some younger readers following this blog will find it hard to believe these observations are even necessary.

As each new technology shows up, we find ourselves leaving one behind and adapting to the new one. Are you on Facebook? Myspace? Twitter? Are you Blogging? Do you even have a standard website? Or is that, “like, so yesterday?”

With Twitter- which is texting online - you have to learn to think in 140 characters. You have followers, you follow others, you learn shorthand, and you learn what others care about and what they don’t. It’s a “Barbie Doll application” - meaning, it has spawned a number of support apps to make sense of it. I have downloaded Tweetdeck to manage all the Tweets! (I’m even following my FAVORITE comedian, Steven Wright!) If you want to “follow” me, go here.

As Twitter heats up, I’ll bet some of the other technologies will fall by the wayside.  I wonder which will win. Which will survive the long haul as each new thing pops up. In 2050 will people still own MySpace Real Estate?  For that matter, will we be Twittering 2 years from now? Or will something new take it’s place?

One techno-fallout I know for certain: spelling and vocabulary are rapidly dying. What Esperanto failed to accomplish, Twitter and Texting accomplished in one short year. Words are spelled out as they sound, or letters and numbers substitute for the sound of the words. Initials replace entire sentences. POS - means “parent over shoulder” — so the recipient of the text knows why the texter isn’t responding to something the parent wouldn’t approve of.

There are complex ones: FOTFLMAO (which means Falling On the Floor Laughing My A** Off.) And simple ones that just make sense. How RU - easy to read, How Are You?  (Go here for more info on words and abbreviations.)

Emoticons have taken the place of conversation. They still throw people who aren’t spending a lot of time online.  Along with LOL - Laughing Out Loud, we have little emotion symbols: ;-D - if you hold it sideways, you can see that is someone winking, the dash is their nose, and the D is a broad smile.  See it? Ok, cool. (My secretary is laughing. She’s 25. “Who doesn’t know this?”  You’d be surprised!)

THEN, Emoticons were pushed aside by Smileys - which are animated Emoticons doing everything from Rocking a baby (for Mothers’ Day) to, well, things I don’t want to put on a blog.  Let’s just say mischievous types have made X-rated ones. Of course.

What is the net result of all this techno-babble? We aren’t having regular conversations anymore. People look at us funny if we type or talk in full sentences with multi-syllabic words. We find ourselves editing for brevity… and feel guilty when we use - GASP -  500 words to communicate this message!

So - Tnx 4 Rdng this. Hope U hv a gr8 day.

Cheers,

Beth

© 2009 Beth Terry Seminars, Inc.

Category: Online Overwhelm, change, networking | No Comments »
Tags: conversation, diminishing conversational capacity, facebook, grammar, myspace, spelling, tweetdeck, twitter

Posted By Beth Terry on May 7, 2009

One of the challenges in this world is ((((tweet!))))  Oh, wait, there’s my tweetdeck buzzing. Anyway, one of the challenges is finding a laser focus - one thing at a time. You know ((((tweet!)))) Hold on. Ok - You know, be a postage stamp: stick to one thing till it gets to its destination? ((((tweet!))))

But we have a problem staying ((((tweet!)))) on one thing. ((((tweet!)))) Because, well, we have too much on our plate! ((((tweet!)))) There’s this blog, of course. And I write a newsletter. And of course ((((tweet!)))) there’s Twitter! ((((tweet!))))((((tweet!))))((((tweet!))))… OK, I’ll turn it off.

No Wonder we are tired, stressed, frustrated, and not getting anything done. When I was a kid, we didn’t have TV till I was about age 13. Even then, the only good stuff on TV as far as I was concerned centered around Westerns: The Lone Ranger and Sky King. Most of the time I had my head buried in a book. I had a special place in the crook of a tree. I could climb up there where I had stashed a pillow, and read to my heart’s content. I could see the family, but my leafy cover kept me safely alone and hidden.

Now we are  ACCESSIBLE! We have the web, email, TV, Movies, music, and Twitter on our cell phones, frevvinsakes! The TV ad about “dead zones” is a telling sign of our impatience with being out of touch even for an hour or so. A friend of mine was regaling me yesterday with tales of “one time when he went THREE DAYS without TV, cable, or his cell phone!” Oh the horror!

If someone doesn’t get back to our Tweet, our email, our voice message, our blog comment, our website contact within 24 hours, we are mightily incensed. They are Ignoring US! How DARE they?! Hmph. They had better be in a DEAD ZONE!

I have decided I need to have one electronic-free day a week. With my schedule, it will have to be a floater day. A travel day can be a partial electronic-free day while on the plane. But it would be unreasonable to restrict myself from checking the flight status on my computer before leaving the house. It will be a 3 month experiment. One day a week to read, plan, focus, meditate, work in the yard, putter around the house. Electronic silence. None of the white noise that fills our heads.Our parents did it. Remember when everything was closed on Sunday?

Turn it off. Open up the possibility of getting and staying more focused than you’ve been since grade school.

And don’t be mad at me if I don’t always get back to you within 24 hours. I’ll do the same for you.

Cheers,

Beth

© 2009 Beth Terry Seminars, Inc.

Category: Online Overwhelm, Work Life Balance | 2 Comments »
Tags: cell phones, daily stress, focus, online stress, Overwhelm, stress, twitter

Posted By Beth Terry on May 4, 2009

Be careful out there. The media is panicking a lot of folks. This IS admittedly a weird flu and we should all be conscious. Don’t be sneezing and coughing on people, wash your hands a lot. Wear a mask if you must. But don’t GIVE yourself the flu by worrying so excessively that you impair your immune system.

Here is an interesting link - PRE-swine flu.

for more go to Influenza Statistics

Here’s the deal, Discover Magazine reports that animals sleep to repair their immune systems, and the ones that sleep the most have the strongest immune systems. They also reported that humans who sleep at least 7 hours a day have an immune system that is 3x stronger than those who don’t. So make sure you are getting enough sleep!!

There are many aromatherapy formulas out there that effectively help to reduce your chances of illness. After all, the pharmaceutical companies have been trying to replicate healing properties found in nature from the beginning. A good formula that uses the best of the anti-microbial and anti-viral oils is called Thieves Oil. Young Living makes it (I don’t sell it, but there are plenty of articles out there about it.) Cinnamon Leaf Oil 3x, Clove Bud Oil 3x, Lemon Oil 3x, Eucalyptus Oil 1x, Rosemary Oil 1x.  I put it on a cotton ball and carry it in a ziplok bag. I also put it in my hand creme - but it’s volatile, so it isn’t as stable for the long haul. You could also boil leaves or spices of the above combination and fill your house or office with the scent. (Probably why we associate that scent with Christmas. Our ancestors used them during the high-cold seasons.)

I’m just sayin’ - take precautions. Get sleep. Protect yourself by being smart and doing your homework. But don’t make yourself crazy. The flu goes around every year. One researcher once told me that those little colds and sniffles you get are actually your body creating anti-bodies for the nasty stuff. The human body is an amazing instrument. Some of us develop antibodies immediately to whatever is going around. By the same token, the viruses are mutating and changing… so who knows if any vaccine will even work? Even the scientists admit they don’t know.

Be careful out there. But don’t be scared.

Best,

Beth

© 2009 Beth Terry Seminars, Inc.

Category: Common Sense, Life Crises, Resilience, Sleep Studies | 1 Comment »
Tags: health, media, Swine flu, Thieves Oil, vaccines, Young Living