The Renewal Times
January, 2008.ISSN 1705-3773 The Renewal Times
The Renewal Times is a publication of Renewal Technologies Inc. and is edited by Roger Ellerton.
This newsletter may be republished without permission, provided it is reproduced in its entirety and provided copyright is acknowledged. To reproduce sections of the newsletter, please contact Renewal Technologies Inc. at info@renewal.ca.
Please forward this newsletter to friends and colleagues. To become a subscriber or to view previous editions of this newsletter, please visit www.renewal.ca/newsletter.htm.
Please note: The material in this newsletter is presented for information only. It is not a substitute for medical, psychological or professional advice. Please consult a qualified professional.
Included in this newsletter:
- Thought for the day
- Health Notes
- Upcoming Seminars
- Feature Article
- Humour
- More Information
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Thought for the Day
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Good enough never is.
Debbi Field, Founder Mrs. Field’s Cookies
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Health Notes
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Wake Up and Smell the Peppermint
The scent of peppermint is like a drill sergeant, telling your brain to "Wake up and focus!" New research shows that you pay better attention to dull-but-must-do jobs when this scent is around. So the next time you're mentally sluggish, grab a candy cane, chew a stick of peppermint gum, or inhale the scent of mint-infused oil, and then listen to your brain say, "Can do!"
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Hang Out at a Salad Bar
Seems regular salad eaters have higher blood levels of lycopene, alpha and beta carotene, folate, and vitamins C, E, and B6 than people who shun "rabbit food." So step right up to the salad bar and get your fill of these cancer fighters, bone builders, and stroke stoppers. Here's to the green buffet!
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Amazon's New Kindle
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Amazon's new kindle
Kindle customers, no matter where they are in the U.S., can wirelessly shop the Kindle Store and download new content -- all without a PC or a WiFi hot spot. Amazon pays for Kindle's wireless connectivity so there are no monthly wireless bills and no service commitments for customers. The Kindle Store contains over 90,000 books that can be purchased and delivered wirelessly to Kindle, each in less than a minute. Customers can choose from hundreds of top newspapers, magazines and blogs and have their subscriptions auto-delivered wirelessly. All New York Times Best Sellers and New Releases are $9.99, unless marked otherwise.
At 10.3 ounces, Kindle is lighter and thinner than a paperback book, carries two hundred books, and includes built-in access to The New Oxford American Dictionary and wireless access to the Earth’s biggest encyclopedia, Wikipedia.org.
See the new kindle
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New Year's Resolutions
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Are you good at setting New Year's Resolutions and then not following through? Or are you not clear on your direction for 2008. In either case my new e-book Live Your Dreams Let Reality Catch Up: 5 Step Action Plan can help you gain clarity and have a plan of action to achieve what you desire. Check it out now.
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Upcoming Seminars / Workshops
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We are pleased to offer the following public workshops/seminars in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada:
Introductory NLP Evening
March 5, 2008 7:00pm - 9:00pm
Please come as our guest. Invite a friend to come with you. Registration is required so that we can reserve a seat for you. E-mail your name and the number of people attending to info@renewal.ca. For more information, please see www.renewal.ca/freeseminar.htm.
During this event, we will have a book signing for Live Your Dreams Let Reality Catch Up: NLP and Common Sense for Coaches, Managers and You and offer you a special discounted price.
NLP Practitioner Training
Three week-ends: February 1 - 3, 8 - 10, 22 - 24, 2008.
NLP Master Practitioner Training
Four weekends: March 28 - 30, April 18 - 20, May 23 - 25, May 30, 31, June 1, 2008.
Get More Out of Life
A program designed to help you get more out of life through discovering who you are at many levels -- your place in the world, your mission in life -- and to inspire you to take action to pursue your mission with passion and joy in a way that is respectful of others.
January 12, 2008. Discover Yourself -- Find Out What's Holding You Back
Going Beyond the Limits of Traditional Coaching
Discover why goals don't work and experience what does! Learn the nuances in the NLP coaching model for resolving the most common, challenging coaching issues such as procrastination, values conflicts and life transition issues. Presented by NLP trainer John Overdurf.
October 17 - 19, 2008.
For our most recent schedule and a description of these workshops/seminars, please visit www.renewal.ca/neurolinguistic.htm
Click on the following link for the location of our NLP Training Centre in Ottawa (Stittsville), Ontario, Canada.
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Feature Article
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This article may be reproduced, provided it is reproduced in full, including author bio and a reference to Renewal Technologies' website (www.renewal.ca).
A Proven Set of Principles to Guide You in the New Year
By Roger Ellerton Phd, ISP, CMC, Renewal Technologies Inc. www.renewal.ca
How many of us have set New Year's resolutions or goals for our lives that all too quickly are forgotten or put aside until the next year? The following set of principles will help you achieve your New Year's resolutions and much more. Read them over carefully. Challenge them, as at first reading you may not fully understand or agree with some of them. Select one of these principles and put it into action for a full week. Notice how things in your life improve and move you closer to achieving your desires. At the end of each week focus on a new principle until all seven are a way of life for you.
1. There is no failure, only feedback.
Have you ever done something that didn't work out the way you had planned? How often have you interpreted this as failure and possibly beat yourself up or blamed others? Far too many of us have been trained to judge our results as either success or failure. How would your life change if you viewed failure simply as feedback - an opportunity to learn how not to do something and become flexible in developing new ways to achieve your intended outcome? The next time something does not unfold as planned accept it as feedback, get curious and ask yourself questions such as, "What do I need to learn about myself, others, my work or family environment, so that if a similar situation were to occur in the future, I can get a better result?"
"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."
Thomas Alva Edison, scientist and inventor
How different would your workplace be if failure were viewed as feedback? Would you, and others, be more inclined to explore new ways to get your work done more efficiently and effectively, with more fun?
2. You cannot not communicate.
Often we think we communicate only when we speak or write. This is not so. Consider the following situations: 1. You are in a staff meeting sitting off to one side, with your arms folded and an angry look on your face, and not participating in the discussion at all. 2. You have chosen not to respond to telephone and e-mail messages in a timely fashion, or at all. Even no communication sends a message, and it is often not a positive one. Who are you really hurting?
Through your tone of voice, actions, facial expressions, gestures and body language, you are always communicating. Take time to step back and see the impact of your actions on the larger system. Is this really the impression you wish to create or the message you wish to convey?
3. Be flexible - If what you are doing is not creating the results you desire, do something different.
Have you ever been stuck in life, doing the same things repeatedly and each time expecting to get a different result? This is the widely known definition of insanity. If you want your life to be different, doing the same things more often, harder, or louder is not the way to change it. You must choose to do something different. If you use one key in a lock and it doesn't fit, would you keep using the same key repeatedly? Or would you be flexible and use other keys until you find the one that works?
It is the same for your life. Be flexible; explore different behaviors and strategies to unlock what you truly want in life or who you are destined to be.
If you are a parent, consider the following: There are no resistant children, only inflexible adults.
4. The meaning of communication is the response it produces.
Your intended communication is not always what is understood by the other person. And what is more important - your intention or what is understood? It does not matter what your intention is, what matters are the results you generate from your words, tone of voice, facial expressions and body language. By taking the other person's response as feedback and being flexible, you can change how you communicate until you achieve your desired result.
Consider the following situation: as a man, I notice a female coworker is wearing a new dress, so I decide to pay her a compliment (my sincere intention). I say to her, "My, you look terrific in that dress." However, her reaction isn't what I expected. She seems annoyed and leaves the room. I do not know what is going on in her mind, but obviously she heard my message very differently from what I had intended. Perhaps from her experiences and beliefs, she interpreted what I said as "hitting on her" or being suggestive. The next time I see her, I can continue with the same behavior, or simply ignore her and harbor all manner of bad thoughts about her. Or I can recognize that my remark did not produce the result I had intended and find different ways to communicate with her so that we can have a productive working relationship.
5. Every behavior has a positive intention.
No matter how strange, hurtful or inappropriate a person's behavior may seem to you, for the person engaging in that behavior, it makes sense from their perspective - their beliefs and values - and is predicated upon satisfying a positive intention for them.
The key is to appreciate that there is a positive intention behind the other person’s behavior - for them, maybe not for you. This does not mean that you must view the other person's behavior as positive or acceptable. On the contrary, you may find it quite distasteful. You need to look behind the behavior to discover the positive intention or, if it's not apparent, look for an intention that makes sense in their reality. This intention may be for themselves, for you or for someone else. Once you have an understanding of their intention, you can explore alternative ways to help the person achieve it.
As an example, let's say you are having a discussion with someone and he suddenly raises his voice, knocks things off the table and runs from the room. From your perspective, this certainly cannot be viewed as positive behavior. What could possibly be the positive intention behind this kind of behavior? Now look at it from the other person's perspective. Given his background - his experiences, beliefs and values - perhaps he felt unsafe or overwhelmed in the conversation with you. Given the resources he had available at that moment, this may have been the only option he felt he had in order to create some space or to flee to a place of greater safety.
What can you do to avoid a similar result next time? You can accept what happened as feedback, respect his perspective, explore the possible positive intentions behind his behavior and look at other ways to achieve your outcome while satisfying his positive intention. In other words, be flexible.
It is useful to take stock of your own behaviors on a regular basis. Notice the results you are achieving, identify the positive intention behind these behaviors and ask, "Is there a better way to achieve my positive intention that minimizes the negative side-effects?"
6. Everyone does the best they can with the resources available to them at the time.
People already have the resources they need to succeed. However, their perspective of the world (beliefs, values and limiting constraints) or temporary state of mind (overwhelmed, sad or angry) may prevent them from seeing what is really possible or prevent them from fully accessing their capabilities and resources. In these situations, a person may make decisions or take actions that, from another viewpoint, are much less than they are capable of and that may even be experienced as hurtful.
With hindsight, that person could have done many things differently, but it was deemed the best choice at the time. We do not always make the "right" decision or take the "right" action; simply, decisions and actions are taken based on what resources we have available to us at the time.
7. You are in charge of your mind and therefore your results.
It was you who chose the beliefs, values and decisions that determine your perspective of the world and how you experience different events. It is also you who can change these to gain a different perspective and thus reap the benefits of results that are potentially very different, bringing significant changes to your life.
Your Next Step
You can simply read the above principles or you can begin to put them into action and make them a way of life. In doing so, you have the opportunity to change your reality, your results and your life!
Have a great 2008.
Author: Roger Ellerton PhD, CMC is a certified NLP trainer, coach, certified management consultant and
the founder and managing partner of Renewal Technologies. The above article is based on his book Live Your Dreams Let Reality Catch Up: NLP and Common Sense for Coaches, Managers and You. Available from
Amazon.com
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Humour
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Merchants
A woman walks into the butcher shop just before closing. She says, "Thank Heavens I've made it in time! Have you any turkey?" The butcher opens his fridge and takes out his only turkey, and plops it onto the scale. It weighs 4 1/2 pounds.
"Ah, haven't you anything bigger?" the woman inquires. The butcher returns the turkey to the fridge, takes it out again, and plops it onto the scale, only this time, he keeps his thumb on the scale. The scale shows 7 1/4 pounds.
"Marvelous!" says the woman. "I'll take both of them please."
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Shopkeeper Smith was alarmed when a new business, much like his own, opened in the storefront to the left of him. A huge sign was installed, reading BEST DEALS.
Mr. Smith was troubled a second time when another competitor leased the building on his right, and erected a much larger sign, reading LOWEST PRICES.
At this point Smith was really depressed, however, he came up with an idea. He put the biggest sign of all over his own shop...it read MAIN ENTRANCE.
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More Information
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For more information, please visit our website or contact us at 613 692-1424 or info@renewal.ca
Copyright © 2008, Renewal Technologies Inc. All rights reserved.
Renewal Technologies Inc.
5423 North Drive
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K4M 1G5
www.renewal.ca
info@renewal.ca
(613) 692-1424
