Personal Ecology

Personal Ecology SELF MANAGEMENT AND THE ART OF CULTIVATING HEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS

WILLIAM POWELL

THE LEADERSHIP ADVISOR LLC

Personal Ecology Copyright © 2010 by William Powell

Published by The Leadership Advisor LLC.

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CONTENTS

Introduction

Acknowledgements

ONE

THE INFLUENCE OF BELIEFS

Our lifelong companion

The great influence

Being at odds with yourself

Killing some sacred cows

Ecological choices

Quality self expression

A new dynamic

TWO

THE POWER OF LIMITATIONS

There’s a fee for the extra bags

There’s always something bigger

The toothless lion

Tethered to your mind

A parked car is tough to maneuver

THREE

LIVING IN THREE STATES

A non-linear life

Who are you?

Making things happen

Keys to the kingdom

Changing the flow of a river

FOUR

IDENTITY THEFT

Know thyself

Where it all started

The filtration process

The power pair

FIVE

CREATING REALITY

Why did you do that?

Being emotional

Your personal time machine

A malleable path to destiny

SIX

DIAMONDS IN THE ROUGH

The price of olive oil

The sun rises in the west

People aren’t things

Everything in its place

Conclusion

INTRODUCTION

It was in the early 1990’s when I first recognized I needed to make some changes in my life in order to have a healthier existence. This was beyond eating better and exercising, it was about gaining joy, peace, and contentment in my life as well. I needed an internal adjustment that would provide me with a healthier perspective on life overall.

Having come from a divorced family, my influences were limited. My father was absent and my mother was frequently ill. She did the best she knew, but it was driven more by a reactive and preventative posture than a proactive and assertive one.

Throughout that decade, I tried everything that made sense to me and then I tried everything that didn’t make sense. I was operating from a place of ignorance and desperation. I knew that I had dreams and aspirations, much more important and valuable than my career, which would never come to realization until a shift occurred in my approach to how I chose to do life.

It wasn’t until the end of that decade that I began to gain some positive influence from someone who helped me alter my world view. Life, from my point of view, was self defeating in many respects. How I chose to respond to things was my biggest problem. It wasn’t only my outward response (i.e. what I said or how I acted) it was also my inward response (i.e. what I believed and told myself) that caused the most problems for me.

During the first decade of the new millennium, I was consistently searching for ways to improve how I viewed life and my subsequent response to that view. I was developing a new lifestyle and mentality which created a much healthier environment for me.

My initial challenge was that I was able to recognize what I was doing poorly, but that was it. I didn’t have a viable alternative to my present course of actions. There was no real focus in my attempts to change these areas of my life except to do something different simply because it was different. I wasn’t walking towards anything I was simply trying to walk away from something. What I didn’t realize is that walking away from something will take me anywhere and walking towards something has much more purpose and direction.

Bit by bit, things began to take on some perspective and - through the support of some amazing mentors - I eventually began to have a clearer vision of what was taking place and what needed

to take place in the future. It was this journey of discovery that brought me to the place of becoming a coach for professionals and leaders.

I had tried my hand at many things and achieved a measured success in most of them. Once I began obtaining leadership positions my dilemma of needing to gain a healthier perspective became even more obvious. The issue I faced was the closer I got to the top of an organization the fewer people there were with whom I could share these challenges.

It is for this reason that I choose to serve professionals and leaders. Having a confidential third party with whom you can explore your personal and professional development is invaluable. Through coaching various clients, I have designed a coaching model that centers upon having a healthy environment or, as I call it, a healthy personal ecology. This is the foundation for self governance and the development of healthy relationships – personally and professionally.

Due to the success I have seen in the lives of my various national and international clients, I thought it time to share this with a much larger audience. As much as I would like, I can’t coach every professional and leader on the planet, so providing the pillars of my coaching model in this medium was a logical step.

In writing this book it was important to me to ensure that you had an accurate understanding of its premise and purpose before starting your journey. This project is by no means exhaustive in its scope, but it is designed to be holistic in nature. Life is much too grand of an experience to attempt a complete collection crammed into one piece of work.

I trust you will find the humor, and occasional irreverence, throughout these pages refreshing as you confront some of the issues you encounter as you work through them.

As a personal executive/leadership coach, I am aware that everyone responds differently to the various areas which are being challenged. I have found allowing those emotions to exist, but managing your response to them, is quite healthy and effective. The key is to not skip around. The book is somewhat progressive in its design, as the later chapters frequently reference the earlier ones.

The main focus of Personal Ecology is obviously the concept of ecology which, simply put, is the study of the interactions between organisms and their environment and other organisms. From a more person centric view, it is the interaction and interdependence we share with others through our humanity, as we do life together.

There has been a significant amount of research that has connected the change of our physical environment due to the influence of modern civilization. How we, as individuals, decide to live out our existence can affect our personal environments in a similar fashion.

By the end of this book you will have a greater understanding of yourself, how you affect your sphere of influence and how you can continue to positively impact it from a more purposeful position. You will become acutely aware of your personal ecology and more capable to recognize the toxic pollutants in it. Just as oil spills in the ocean take some time to get under

control and eventually clean up, our personal ecology will take some time to get the poisons that we have allowed into our lives under control as well.

If you’re looking for the magic bullet, this is definitely not it. A free piece of advice, there is no magic bullet. Personal ecology takes time, awareness, effort, courage, and action to effect positive change in our lives. These challenging elements are what give value to the process. A quick fix lends no difficulty, no obstacle to overcome. Therefore, we tend to place much less value on them.

The content in this book is not intended to diagnose or treat any psychological/mental illnesses, although some psychological principles may be the underpinnings for the suggestions laid out in this book. It remains the reader’s responsibility to seek out a licensed psychologist or other mental health professional should they believe they have any mental illnesses. By purchasing and reading this book, you agree that you are of good mental health and are not using this book as a substitute for the services of a licensed mental health professional. I hate to have to put these types of things in the book; however, in such a litigious society it has become a necessity.

I am very excited about the path you are about to begin. With some due diligence on your part, and an ongoing effort, you are at the start of a very positive and life altering journey. This is your fork in the road. What will you do with it?

Let me encourage you to have pen and paper handy as you move through these pages. You will find that numerous thoughts and ideas will come to you. Write them down! You will gain an amazing insight into yourself as you do this. There are sections in the book where I will suggest you to write out certain things. Let me urge you to not just skip over this part. You will gain the most benefit by creating a written record to which you can reference and reflect regularly.

The research that has gone into this book branches from various places. It has come from my own personal development over the past couple of decades. Much of it has come to light through my interactions with colleagues, mentors and clients. I would be remiss to exclude the countless hours of study and reading in areas such as psychology, NLP, the coaching industry and sociology.

I refer to the content in this book as suggestions. You don’t have to do any of them, but why would you not at least try them? Your interest was piqued enough to shell out some cash to make this purchase, so why not make a return on your investment?

While I can’t personally guarantee a definitive outcome for any one individual, due to too many unknown contributing factors, I can definitively state that you will become a person with much greater self awareness. This is a very empowering skill to have and develop.

Awareness is the precursor to action and action brings about change. It is the quality and accuracy of your awareness that will develop choices which result in positive or negative adjustments to how you choose to manage your life and cultivate healthy relationship in your life.

So grab a cup of coffee or tea and find your most comfy spot to sit and read. You are on the precipice of something amazing in your quest for personal and professional development. Dedicate some time to this and try to limit the distractions that you typically encounter. You will thank yourself for having done so upon finishing this book. I’m very excited for you, so let’s get to it!

William Powell

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

It takes a village to raise a child, it is said. It seems it is no different in writing a book. As an author, sure I provided the raw content, but without the input from various individuals, this project would not have become what it is today. I would be remiss, and quite selfish, to not give proper thanks to those who have contributed to the finished product of Personal Ecology.

I’m certain that I will inadvertently leave a name or two out of this list, so let me beg the forgiveness of those absent in advance. This particular project has been a long time in the making and has taken years to develop the content to such a degree that it has culminated into the book you hold in your hands.

The first person I must thank has been a dear friend of mine for nearly two decades, Ray Phillips. He has been a constant source of support and direction for me as I began my journey in the early nineties. No matter my place or perspective, he always acted as an anchor to help me stay grounded and keep my focus in a healthy place. Thank you Ray, you have been a rock for me and I will never have the ability to fully communicate my complete appreciation for your friendship and your undying grace with me as I grew and developed my world view.

I would also like to thank a dear friend of mine, Jerel Sute, who isn’t old enough to be a father figure, but I suppose he could pass for a young uncle. Jerel was one of the first people to engage me in a very practical way in my personal and professional development. No matter how ugly things got as I grasped at various ways to find my footing in life, he was always thick skinned enough to weather whatever I decided to throw his way. Jerel, you have been an influence in my life that will echo throughout eternity and I am deeply grateful for the contribution you have made to my life.

One of the most influential people to impact how I do coaching and develop perspective is someone who treated me like a brother. Greg Bellingham was initially an instructor for a course I took, while living in Sydney Australia. The course wasn’t exactly related to coaching, but it was based on developing a healthier perspective. Greg never let me be anything but myself, yet he continually challenged me to question whether who I allowed myself to be was who I wanted to be. I will always thank you for your diligence and perseverance in how you chose to engage me, Greg. You are an amazing friend who left an indelible impression on my life, my soul, and my spirit. I owe much of my passion for coaching to your involvement in my life during one of the most difficult things I have ever experienced.

The last person I would like to acknowledge is a friend of mine who made sure I “colored inside the lines” from a psychology standpoint, Dr. Frank Nation. Frank has such a demanding schedule with his career and family responsibilities and he still was gracious enough to take the time to read my manuscript and give me feedback. I felt quite confident in publishing this book because of the feedback I received from him. Thank you Frank, your contribution means more than your humility will allow you to recognize.

Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can't practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage.

Maya Angelou

ONE

THE INFLUENCE OF OUR BELIEFS

Our lifelong companion

“Don’t sit so close to the television, it will ruin your eyes.” “Don’t make your face like that, it could freeze that way.” How many times did you hear that growing up? We all have been exposed to a set of stories or sayings in our younger years that we may or may not have taken on board. The fact is they were consistently present in our lives at some point or another. Did they have an impact on how we do life now? I suppose that depends on what was said, who said it, how it influenced us, and the number of times we heard it.

Some of these statements could have easily contributed to, or even formed, a significant part of our belief system. Our beliefs are some of the few things that truly stay with us for a lifetime. I’m sure you have some amazing friends that have been with you through thick and thin. Think back over the last 10, 15 or 20 years. How many people have come and gone in your life during that time? How many of them are still with you? Friends come and go, but our belief system is there for life. It is one persistent little bugger that is always there to direct our decisions and opinions, whether we like it or not.

What we believe develops from things like parents, family, our faith or religious beliefs, pleasant/unpleasant experiences and close friends. It can come from more subtle places such as culture, political pressures, and a host of other social factors.

Our belief system operates on a subconscious level. When you consider that approximately 97% of our behavior is driven by our subconscious, what we believe plays a crucial role in how we do life. To be unaware of this is to blindly go through life and hope for the best from our behavior and for our future.

We aren’t to play a victim to our subconscious. If we do, that would imply we have no means to influence it. What few people know is that our subconscious, the address of our belief system, does not understand sarcasm or jokes. Let me repeat that: Our subconscious, the place that houses our beliefs, does not understand sarcasm or jokes. What it does understand is how to take orders and in turn affect behavior according to what we tell it.

When I first learned of this and it actually sunk in, it was frightening and liberating at the same time. It was frightening because I enjoy a fair dose of sarcasm and humor. I began to wonder what orders I had been giving myself. However, the realization that I could contribute to how my psyche responded to the happenings of life gave me an amazing sense of freedom.

How many times have you said something about yourself half jokingly out of nervousness or anxiety? Was it a self berating statement, meant only to elicit laughter as an awkward attempt to alleviate some of the angst and tension you were experiencing in the moment?

Don’t worry we all do it on certain occasions. What is important is that you recognize and become aware of this. Not so you can experience raging paranoia, but so you are able to avoid the “poor me” game we tend to play with our subconscious.

Being a victim is a very tempting role indeed. There is no need for one to take responsibility whatsoever. It is as simple as blaming the wrongdoing of someone or something else and embracing your own helplessness. See how easy that was? Anyone can do it and do it quite well. Some people make it a lifestyle or a chosen mentality. It is occasionally effective at manipulating others, if that’s your chosen way to navigate life (which I doubt is true for you since you bought this book). It also happens to be a recipe for disaster, but we’ll look into that a little later.

You may be thinking, “All you’re doing here, William, is presenting the problems associated with not having your belief system sorted out.” Well, yes and no. It is true that being ignorant of your belief system and how you developed it can pose considerable challenges to the way in which you manage yourself. It is equally true that in adequately understanding the details of our problems do the solutions begin to become more evident.

The great influence

As mentioned before, our belief system is housed in our subconscious, but how does that give us something practical with which to work? On a primal level, when you act or react instinctively your actions will be governed or impacted by what you believe to be true. These presuppositions aren’t only expressed in how we perceive our outside world, they also expose the perspective we have of our inside world, which includes how we view ourselves.

We all believe certain things about ourselves and, accurate or not, we assume these things to be truths. We may think that we are quite selective in what we share with others about what we believe to be true. However, the reality is we do share the complete picture we have of ourselves it just isn’t as forthright as one might think.

Let’s imagine that you are in a position of leadership and you believe that you were placed in this role because you were the only one available. Your view of self is that you don’t have what

it takes to be successful in this capacity, but you wanted to be a team player and “step up”. This perspective is a truth for you – at least that’s what you are willing to believe.

An issue arises that provides you with a significant amount of anxiety because you feel it reveals the area(s) in which you feel unqualified, or at least under qualified. A colleague who now, because of this new position, has become one of your subordinates questions how things are being done. How do you respond to this?

There are a number of ways in which we can view this scenario. One option is you are correct about how your assessment of yourself and your new subordinate is simply challenging your authority.

If that were true, how would you manage this situation and your feelings of inadequacy at the same time? Would you try to put on the mask of tolerance and openness in front of others, but inwardly stew about such effrontery by someone who is obviously trying to make you look incompetent to those who decided to give you this new role? See how this has become a self fulfilling prophecy?

Another option is you aren’t correct in your self-perception and your new subordinate simply doesn’t understand something. They’re not trying to challenge your authority, they are just seeking some clarity and questions are a way to clarify any uncertainties.

If that were true, how would you manage this situation if you weren’t struggling with feelings of ineptitude, as in the previous scenario? Would you be more concerned about answering one of your team member’s questions than trying to defend against some imagined threat?

Yet another possibility could be that you believe that you don’t have all the answers and faculties to fulfill your new role, but you don’t believe that this dearth of required skills defines who you are as an individual.

If this scenario were true, how would you manage it and the acknowledgment of your ineffectualness in certain areas? Could you more easily recognize that your new ancillary has strengths in areas that are areas of fragility for you? Are you willing to delegate appropriate tasks to that individual and ultimately benefit the team?

In all three of these synopses, you shared with others what you believed to be true. In the first sketch, your stewing and pouting showed that you presumed that you were inappropriate for that role. In the second, your understanding and willingness to communicate showed that you believed the challenge rested with your team member’s lack of understanding. In the final role play, your trust and willingness to delegate showed that you were comfortable in allowing others to see that you aren’t superman/woman.

When we believe things to be true, which may not be an accurate assessment, we open ourselves to the possibility of exhibiting self sabotaging behavior. Our belief system influences us more than many of us realize. This only underscores the importance of becoming aware of it. Awareness empowers you, when used wisely.

Action Point

Write down an example where you may have overreacted in the past.

What were you choosing to believe in that moment?

Was it true?

According to that scenario, how accurate was your belief? What was

untrue about what you believed?

Based on some other examples in which you may have overreacted, what do you think is the most dangerous result from you having an erroneous certainty about yourself or a situation? What could you stand to lose? Could it be the respect of your partner, your kids, your superiors or subordinates, your peers? Perhaps you could potentially forfeit a significant amount of business, market share or even tarnish your reputation to a degree that becomes nearly irreparable. Write down what you may possibly be capitulating to a faulty assessment of what may be true. It’s important for you to be able to take something as abstract as an idea and put it to words. It makes that potential loss real for you. That sense of factuality helps to spur you to action.

Being at odds with yourself

Don’t you just hate those decisions when you have to do something with which you’re just not completely on board? It’s a bit like eating poorly made food at someone’s house and you don’t want to offend them, but they just won’t stop offering you more! Of course we could say no, but we don’t. We have all experienced this dynamic in one relationship or another.

What is even more sickening is when we reflect on an event and we find that our own actions weren’t truly in alignment with what we wanted to do in the first place. How infuriating! We become creative about how we can wordsmith something to try to shift the blame to someone else, but we all know that is nothing short of desperation.

If you absolutely have to cast blame somewhere, I’m more than happy to give you some dramatic license and you can blame your belief system. Chances are there is a belief clinking around your subconscious that isn’t exactly thrilled with your choice of actions.

Usually, when we do things that aren’t in agreement with our beliefs we experience some form of anxiety and/or stress. The sad truth is, we have been socially groomed to learn to suppress many of these feelings and conform to what is expected, profitable, easy, or numerous other diluted versions of the truth.

One could argue that this presupposition is idealistic in nature; however, I would argue that aligning your actions with your beliefs is ideal for success and a healthy personal ecology. It is not merely ideal, it is absolutely imperative to live a fully balanced life.

If you are surviving (and this is truly only surviving, not living) in a system that expects you to sacrifice having a healthy environment, I would assert that you might consider making some changes to that system or leaving it altogether.

There aren’t many things in life any worse than when you feel that you have betrayed yourself and who you are (or at least who you want to be). Consistently committing acts that are self-betraying can bring about a myriad of problems. There are two that are common in every instance.

For one, you believe something to be true that you may not want to be true. This creates an internal conflict and results in stress and anxiety. Two, the more frequently that you do this the more self berating you become and create an inaccurate view of self. This prompts more self-betraying behavior. It becomes a seemingly endless cycle, when left unchecked.

Action Point

Write down the last time that you did something that was self-betraying.

What is your favorite act of self betrayal?

What do you think you believe to be true that leads to that act?

Is your belief accurate?

What belief would lead you to act in a non self-betraying way?

It is woefully important that we become acutely aware of this in our lives. This impacts our personal ecology in such a significant way. Our beliefs and the truths they hold for us dictate our actions. This influences the path on which we choose to walk through life.

What you agree to accept as truth, will always be a truth for you. It may be an inaccurate statement, but for you it will be an absolute truth until you choose to believe otherwise. In this respect, we create our own reality. What truths do you need to begin believing in order to access the future you dream about?

Killing some sacred cows

Up to this point, you have been focusing on what you ascertain to be true, what may be some possible alternatives and how this governs your actions. Gather up the few notes you have taken so far and review what you have written about what you believe. Can you see a theme? There doesn’t have to be a one, but many times there is. If you do have a common thread, what is it? How have you come to develop the beliefs associated with this? Who has influenced you in these areas?

Even if you don’t have a great amount of similarities, still try to find certain commonalities such as the same person, people or group of people who contributed to the development of these beliefs. Maybe it was a series of events or a group of experiences during a specific season of your life.

We all have to manage difficulties; however, we only have two options in how we choose to face them. We can either alter the predicament (good luck with that) or we can alter ourselves to be able to better deal with it. Remember that the subconscious doesn’t understand sarcasm or jokes; so, ask your mind a stupid question and you’ll get a stupid answer.

Contrary to all the rage in the training profession, there are stupid questions. If you pose a query such as, “Why can’t I seem to get anything right?” what sort of answer do you think your psyche will provide? You aren’t asking yourself a question, you are dictating to your intuitive mind the content of your belief system and structuring it as a question. Your subconscious will find an answer that validates your inquiry.

In order to develop, or recognize, strong inner beliefs you need to understand what truly motivates you. It has to be something for which you are willing to be thrown under the

proverbial bus. You’ll go the extra mile for these things. No matter your core values, you will always have your opponents, so seeking out a belief that pacifies all schools of thought is an exercise in futility. Be yourself and let the chips fall where they may.

This affects how we view ourselves and our ability to accept ourselves the way we are. It is what allows us to develop a healthy sense of self pride and steer clear of arrogance. We can only accept ourselves the way we are when we know ourselves the way we are.

The key to this is to have a strong belief system. Everyone has one, but it may not be as solid as it could be. We need to approach this and be painfully honest and truthful with our own conscience. Our individual thought lives are littered with fabricated expressions, ideas, and thought patterns so we need to weed out the “what others think” portion of your belief system.

First of all, it is necessary to explore what you currently hold to be true. You have beliefs about work, life, those who surround you and yourself. It would be beneficial if you represented each of these areas on separate sheets of paper. The best way to explore this is to utilize a free writing exercise.

Action Point

Write the following words at the top of a sheet of paper, one sheet for

each word:

Work

Life

People

Me

On each sheet of paper, write down everything that comes to your mind

about the word at the top of that page.

Don’t analyze what you are writing and don’t censor it. It doesn’t matter if it’s vague, negative, positive, or far-fetched. Let it be honest and completely authentic to what you think and believe. Don’t prejudge anything. The only thing you need to pay attention to is that you are keeping in line with the word written at the top of the page. Write until the page is full with no cheating; 12 font, not 48 font.

Now reflect on what you have penned on those sheets. Truly read it. Don’t just intellectually recognize the words, read between the lines. Reconnect with the feeling of why you chose those particular words. If you are able to retrace your thought process, then do so as you read it.

Connect these statements of truth to various incidents in life which may have given birth to them. Identify messages that came from parents, family, friends, peers, teachers, former bosses, etc. These messages could have been communicated overtly through someone telling you what to believe or perhaps it was a little more clandestine in nature through actions or responses to your behavior.

Now that you have critiqued these pages to some degree, grab a highlighter and highlight only the things that you feel are an accurate representation of who you are (or want to become) and what you believe (or want to believe). Don’t highlight anything out of pressure you may feel from anyone in your past or present.

This is a rare opportunity to be quite selfish and honest about your own convictions and the reasons behind them. This is about being authentic. It is not about painting yourself to be a particular someone for the approval of anyone else. What emotion do you feel when you think of being able to live out of the beliefs that you want and not the ones that you were told to have, or feel pressured to have?

Using a different color, highlight the statements that conflict with how you want to govern your life or that are in conflict with who you want to be. What is it about each one of those beliefs that causes the opposition? How would each of them look so as to not contradict who you want to be? What would each individual statement need to communicate in order to support you in becoming who you want to be? Write down these new declarations and use the same color highlighter you used the first time to connect them with the beliefs you had written originally.

It’s completely fine if there are some things that you just end up throwing out the window altogether. That happens sometimes. You’re not creating some trade off you are being authentic and selective with the truths that you allow to light your path in life. That’s powerful.

What you have now, after all the adjustments, are your strong inner beliefs. You now have a metric by which you can measure decisions and actions. Write these things on a separate sheet of paper and put them in a place where you will see them frequently. This will reinforce your understanding and awareness of your belief system. This is your personal declaration of independence. No more inaccurate truths for you.

Ecological choices

In developing your personal ecology, there must be some form of awareness that begins to take shape. Without it, your personal growth will begin to stagnate and very quickly atrophy into you becoming a mostly reactive individual. Life is to be lived, not endured. Therefore, we must be pro-active in our approach to how we choose to manage it.

Now that you have the tools to understand and know what you believe, how this impacts your thoughts and actions, and how you have influence over what you choose to believe, you are well equipped to pay closer attention to how you conduct your life.

You are becoming empowered to make adjustments that have a purpose greater than simply being something different for difference’s sake. Many of us in the past, during times of distress, have turned to the traditional spray and pray method of effecting change in our lives. We react on a very broad scale and hope that good results come from it. It seems correct to do this in the moment, but it doesn’t provide sustainable change in the long term.

Most of us weren’t properly taught these things. I’m sure your parents were well meaning individuals, as were mine, but if no one had given them instruction how would they have passed it along to you? Now is your time to break a cycle and pay it forward to the next generation or two. You are beginning to get ahead of the curve in managing yourself in both your personal and professional life.

Take some time to notice how your thoughts (and hopefully actions) compare to your new found belief system. Don’t try to make any major changes in your behavior just yet. Simply be aware of your thoughts and deeds and try to equate them with one of your governing statements. Are the things you do and the statements you developed in agreement with one another? If not, no worries just yet. You are in a place of learning to pay attention. Action will come a little later in this chapter.

Continue to review the strong inner beliefs you have developed. Read through them frequently. Do they still resonate with you? Don’t let any actions that weren’t in alignment with your new governing statements dictate whether or not it resonates with you or not. You aren’t trying to fix the past, that’s impossible. You are becoming aware so that you can more powerfully and successfully navigate into a desired future.

You are in a place of transition and it may seem a little weird at first. Living from a base of personal conviction and passion is not something many people do, so it should feel weird…at first. It gets much more natural the more you do it.

You have been encouraged to be a bit selfish so far in this process, now let’s look a bit beyond yourself for a moment. Ecology is the “the study of the interactions between organisms and their environment, which includes other organisms”, so we would be ignoring the very basis of this book if we didn’t include those who are in your personal environment.

Consider how your actions and responses influence and impact your environment (including the people who share that space). It’s as if a pond is your ecosystem. How will the ripples of a stone (your actions and responses) affect those around you?

It is important that you understand something very crucial to maintaining balance with your ecology check. Those around you are very important to you, as they should be; however, make sure any acquiescing you may do in your choices or actions are based on your belief system and not a need to gain acceptance from someone else or an act of abandoning your convictions to adopt theirs.

For example, one of my convictions is that I should live in peace with those around me. If I am able to make any concessions to do so, without going against one of my other beliefs, then I am happy to be flexible. Again, I am doing so to be true to my belief system and not allowing myself to be steamrolled by someone who has their own agenda.

If I am put into a situation where I would have to act against one of my governing statements, then I won’t do it. It is a choice that no one can take away from me. If someone else chooses to respond to me being true to myself with anger and contempt, then it is exactly that…their choice. I don’t do this from a place of arrogance, but I don’t compromise who I am as an individual in order to placate another either.

There is a significant chance that many of the statements on your “People” page had to do with those close. This could possibly be your life partner, your children or other family members and friends. Many of your beliefs will reflect the relationship you wish to have with them and the boundaries you feel are necessary in order to have a healthy relationship with them as well. This provides an amazing opportunity for open dialogue. You are able to delineate exactly what you believe and why you believe it. You even have it written down!

If you are married, or have a committed partner, you can share this book with them. Have them develop their strong inner beliefs as well. It will be a great exercise to understand one another. When a decision is to be made, you are able to juxtapose your convictions with the possible options and make a decision about which you can feel confident and peaceful. By knowing the truths held by each other, an incredible amount of support can be given in your relationship.

Action Point

Discuss with those close to you how your inner beliefs can affect your

relationship with them.

Ask them about their perception of your beliefs.

Explain to them how important these beliefs are for you.

Ask them to support you by giving you the room to learn the best way to

outwork your beliefs practically.

You are not asking their permission to have your beliefs. You are creating

an open dialogue about them. It is important that your beliefs aren’t a

covert attempt to control others.

Perhaps you have children who are able to understand this concept, do the same with them. You can give them an amazing tool with which they can make much wiser decisions and choices as they progress in school, their profession and personal life.

Confident self expression

Confidence has been so poorly represented on such a grand scale that the true nature of it has almost been lost to many of us. Being authentic in who you are and to the beliefs which govern your life, no matter the opinion of others, takes confidence.

Arrogance is deeming others beneath you because they don’t share your truths or they don’t have what you have or what you perceive to have. Confidence will be discussed in more detail in the next chapter.

You will go through a period of testing the beliefs you have chosen to govern your behavior. It is uncomfortable and yet quite natural. This is why the teen years are such a challenge for us. We are struggling to establish ourselves as an independent adult and we are examining what we perceive as our personal truths.

As you develop your personal ecology and become more aware of your beliefs and their role in your life, you will experience similar battles, but as an adult you are better equipped to navigate these waters than you were as an adolescent.

While you settle into the idea of expressing yourself, new and innovative ways of doing so will begin to present themselves to you. Sometimes it will come out in conversation, but other times you may find yourself seeking other ways of revealing this aspect of who you are becoming.

Perhaps one of your beliefs lead you to lend your spare time to a not for profit entity in a volunteer capacity. You notice that their vision and work is an amazing representation of a shared conviction between you and the leadership of that organization. Go for it! What a great way to express yourself.

Maybe you will relate to your partner differently. You could share yourself in a way much more authentic than before. There is nothing sexier and attractive than someone who is authentic and not afraid to reveal it to the world. It is so rare and refreshing when someone is passionate about who they are and don’t play the cloak and dagger routine.

At work, you will be amazed at how people begin to respond to you. If you are creating a dynamic shift from how you managed your life before, it could be a little confronting at first; however, it’s your life to live. People ultimately respect others who are real.

I’m sure you have encountered a number of people who have been, well…a jerk, and their excuse has been, “I’m just being the real me.” That’s a bit of a lame excuse, and most likely an inaccurate one at that. I have this little habit of asking people the same question, no matter where I go. “If you could do anything in the world for a living and money wasn’t an issue, what would you do?” Do you know how many people dream of doing something that positively impacts others on this planet? There are a lot more people in this group than most cynics would care to admit.

I obviously won’t know every person who buys this book, but I would venture a bet that your beliefs didn’t come out looking like you’re trying to organize the next suicide cult. We like to do something good for others because it makes us feel good about ourselves. There’s nothing wrong with a little narcissism, when kept in check. Personal ecology is all about balance.

People will respect you for considering others as you make decisions, especially if you are in a position of leadership. It is a very honorable way to serve those you lead and still confidently express your beliefs through your words and deeds.

This is so infrequently done by most leaders that it will be a breath of fresh air for those around you. Test your governing statements. You may find yourself pleasantly surprised by the results. Remember, you are doing this to be in agreement with the truths you have decided to allow govern your behavior, not to be accepted and validated by others. This type of authenticity will stick out like a sore thumb.

A new dynamic

There is a term that is commonly used when someone’s actions are in agreement with their beliefs; it is called being congruent. It is derived from a Latin word that means to come together, to fit in or to agree. In other words, your actions and beliefs are coming together in

agreement. They fit or complement one another. This is a place of having inner peace with one’s self. Without congruence, a healthy personal ecology is not attainable.

This is the ultimate goal when resolving your behavior with your convictions and how they are to relate to one another. This chapter has been about guiding your path to become congruent through addressing the quality of your beliefs. This is a solid foundation for balanced living. There are other things that must be considered in order to holistically manage your personal and professional lives; however, being congruent sets the tone for developing a healthy personal ecology.

This place of congruence helps to create a new dynamic in your world. It adds depth and a broader view than just a two dimensional view of life. We are able to adjust beliefs, perspectives, and other things that influence how we choose to manage ourselves.

Allow the existence and the possibility of this new dynamic of congruence to become your greatest ally in your personal and professional growth. It is this form of awareness that brings about holistic living. Feel free to take as much time as you feel appropriate to reflect on this first chapter. Go back and revisit the Action Points and review the notes you have made in following through on them.

It is more important for you to engage the content in this book, or rather allow the content to engage you. What isn’t important is finishing this book in a specific time frame. Take your time and do it right. Don’t try to rush through it.

Action Point

Before moving on to the next chapter, reflect on the areas in which you

feel the least congruent. Write them down.

Why do you believe you are incongruent in these areas?

What would you need to adjust to become congruent in these areas?

Explore your beliefs and actions in various areas of your life and search for

discrepancies.

TWO

THE POWER OF LIMITATIONS

There’s a fee for the extra bags

The relationship between a wise, old sage and his young disciple was nearing its end. As they discussed this closing chapter of their affiliation the sage gave his disciple two bags to carry. The disciple was to carry one bag in each hand. The wise teacher told his student he was to take these bags with him as he travelled. The purpose of his trip was for the pupil to find the final lesson before moving on in his life. Once the young disciple had learned his final lesson, he could put down the bags.

The young man, quite anxious and excited, set out on his journey to learn this final lesson. Along the way he encountered many opportunities, in various locations, in which he could have used his skills and abilities, but each of them required him to set down his bags so he declined and moved on. As he travelled he thought of how nice it would have been to have taken advantage of those opportunities, but he was determined to learn his final lesson.

After traveling for many weeks the young disciple met an old man along the path. The elderly gentleman looked at the young traveler and said, “I know the secret to your final lesson”. Intrigued, the young disciple followed the old man into a grass and mud hut in a nearby village. Upon entering, the young traveler saw his teacher reclined on a stack of hay and was sipping some warm tea.

Without looking up from his cup the sage said, “I see you still have your bags.” The young disciple was perplexed at what this mystery lesson should be. He couldn’t take the frustration any longer, “Please, wise teacher, help me to understand my final lesson.”

“You have had your lesson with you the entire journey” the sage began. “Those bags represent your way of thinking before you became my disciple. You refused to let go of them in order to take hold of something new. You wouldn’t let go of your old way of thinking and ignored the great opportunities that were presented to you along your path.”

This story is quite representative of our lives. The baggage we choose to hold on to from our past costs us valuable opportunities in our present. We pay an expensive fee, much more than what the airlines would charge us, for this extra stuff.

We have many preconceived notions about the reasons behind the existence of this dead weight in our lives. We like to play victims to it, but we choose to pick it up, we choose to carry it, and we choose to not put it back down. How does that make us a victim? None of us have baggage nailed to our backs with no recourse whatsoever to free ourselves of this burden.

For some of us our extra bags have imprisoned us by our previous failures and problems or our inaccurate and sabotaging perceptions. In order to take advantage of new opportunities we must set down our old baggage. Many of us are simply unwilling or afraid to do so. You may feel that you don’t know how, which is a very common response. This excuse (yes it’s an excuse and not a reason) is a by-product of the victim mentality that is typically associated with carrying these things around.

Carrying baggage, or having a sabotaging and antiquated mentality, is nothing more than a choice. Later in this chapter we will discuss this in greater detail, but it is important that you begin to view baggage as a choice and not an obligatory burden about which you have no control. You are not a victim and you are the one who controls your destiny, but only if you choose to do so. Take the initiative to manage your life differently.

Action Point

As much as you are able to recognize, write down the baggage you are

choosing to carry.

What opportunities have you missed because you were carrying this

baggage?

How is this baggage a limitation to having a healthy personal ecology?

Write down some creative solutions on how you can set down your

baggage.

By choosing to carry our old baggage, we are creating a limitation for ourselves. If you are to live a life without limits, and I personally believe this is true for each one of us, then you must make the choice to set down your bags so you can take advantage of the opportunities in front of you.

There’s always something bigger

Our universe is a seemingly ever expanding entity. There are some pretty huge cities: Mexico City, Beijing, São Paulo. All of these cities are a part of something even bigger, their respective states or provinces. These states and provinces are themselves a part of something larger, a country. Each country is a part of a continent and each continent a part of the planet.

We could carry this out to solar systems, galaxies, etc, but the point is, there is always something bigger. This is true in nearly every area of our lives in some capacity or another. What impact could this have on the development of our personal ecology and what does it have to do with limitations?

This isn’t about comparing your world with that of others; don’t mistake this for the same mentality of “keeping up with the Jones’”. This is about seeing beyond what you are presently doing. It is about looking beyond your borders and assessing whether your borders should be re-established. If you believe they need to be, or at least could be, re-established, where do you think the new borders should be placed?

If you aren’t questioning the possibilities, you are limiting the quality and effectiveness of your confident self expression. A desire to have an outlet for your strong inner beliefs will most likely cause you to redefine the borders in your life. Keep in mind that borders and boundaries are not the same thing. Borders are limits as to how far out you will venture. Boundaries are limits to how far inside your world others are permitted. Don’t confuse the two.

If you imagine yourself as a dot with two circles around you, the innermost circle represents your boundaries. If managed well, everyone in your world will exist outside that innermost circle. The outermost circle represents your borders. That will be the area in which you choose to do life and explore possibilities. If you notice, there is an overlap of where you and others travel together. The larger the distance between the inner circle and the outer circle, the greater chance you have at encountering more people and be exposed to more opportunity.

Having your circles too close together becomes a significant limitation in your life. Your experiences are diminished, as are your interactions with others. It is imperative that your mentality is much bigger than what you do. There is no such thing as standing still in life. You are expanding or contracting, moving forward or falling behind. Life is never static.

In the figure below, the grey area represents the area in which you can enjoy various experiences and interact with others. The circle on the left shows a set of borders placed very

close to a set of boundaries. The circle on the right shows a set of borders placed far beyond the boundaries. This is what I call your border to boundary ratio (BBR).

Don’t diminish the potential in your life because you have chosen to have a low BBR. You are created to be creative. The answer is “Go!” until you hear stop. Don’t be the skittish toy poodle that shakes and shivers and is taken out for a drag. Be the adventurous one who has to be reigned in a bit when you become overly rambunctious. It is so much easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. You owe it to yourself, your personal ecology and your future to increase your BBR.

Life is a grand experiment, much too massive for human comprehension. Living out of a mentality of expansion (not greed) is true freedom. Don’t allow yourself to be shackled and diminished by the lie that what you do is as big or as good as it gets. You could be the CEO of the largest and most profitable company on the planet. There is still more that you can do. There are still dreams inside of you that may make you appear almost delusional. Expand your borders to encompass your delusion. Live your life without limits.

Action Point

Write down the area(s) of your life in which you are tolerating a low

border to boundary ratio (BBR).

What can you do to change the location of your borders to increase your

BBR?

How does your belief system affect the placement of your boundaries and

borders?

Don’t be afraid to feel a little uncomfortable and dream big!

The toothless lion

Something that many people don’t fully understand is the concept of humility. The general acceptance of how it should look is this meek and timid doormat that becomes a bigger person by tolerating others to treat them as less of a person. No room in living a life without limits for that kind of humility, right?

This understanding of humility is erroneous and has become a large part of the problem. As a matter of fact, humility and confidence go hand in hand. However, having an unclear distinction between arrogance and confidence is equally crippling for most of us. We intellectually understand these words (humility, confidence, arrogance) and use them in everyday language, but we typically miss the underlying images and perceptions we have when they are used.

Humility is an unassuming quality one has when they are completely aware of their strengths and their weaknesses and are comfortable with both. There is no need to prove one’s self to others and there is a sense of peace and contentment. Humility is very much an internal process of one having a healthy and honest relationship with one’s self.

Confidence is an external representation of humility. One does not try to be confident; you either are or you’re not. If you are trying to be confident, you’re not. Without humility, confidence is false, cheap, transparent and often manipulative or overbearing.

Arrogance is a natural outworking of a belief; the belief that because of a skill, position in life (socially, economically, etc) or possessions that one is superior to others who do not have the same. It is condescending in nature and is self serving. It usually is overcompensation for feeling inadequate in some area or another and is commonly an attempt to protect itself from being discovered or revealed.

It is common knowledge that confidence is a necessary quality for effective leadership but without humility, confidence has the tendency to result in overcompensating and it usually manifests itself as arrogance. Humility is not threatened by the strengths of others, nor is it threatened by the exposure of one’s weaknesses. A lack of confidence in a leader creates nothing more than a toothless lion. You may be making a lot of noise, but that’s about it.

Confidence, the external manifestation of humility, is quiet and unassuming. There is no need for bellicose dramatics and ape-like chest beating in the town square. It is not emulated, it simply exists.

If you want to develop confidence, it is important for you to become acutely aware of your strengths and weaknesses. After that, you must find a way to be content in accepting your weaknesses and learn to live in peace with their existence. This is humility and without it you will not have true confidence.

This is not an easy task, at first, but it is necessary. Many of us struggle with this because we have a tendency to validate our identity through what we do (or more importantly do well), or our strengths.

Conversely, our sense of identity can be negatively affected by our perception of our weaknesses and what we believe they say about us, no matter how inaccurate that perception may be. You will learn more about identity in a portion of chapter three and all of chapter four.

Action Point

Write down your strengths and weaknesses.

Are you comfortable in allowing your weaknesses to exist and be exposed?

Do you feel threatened when your weaknesses are exposed?

What do you need to do/think/believe to become comfortable with your

weaknesses being exposed?

This exercise can possibly elicit some anxiety, depending on the individual.

If so, be diligent to push through it.

Take some time to reflect on various times when you were confident. What was it that made you feel confident? Did you feel the need to shove it in someone else’s face, or were you just comfortable in knowing that it existed for your own peace of mind?

How about when you may have felt threatened and you responded in arrogance? No point in beating yourself up about it now, just be aware of the differences you are now able to recognize about those situations. There will plenty of time for you to take action a little later.

The influence of humility, confidence and arrogance can be a sticking point for many people, but it will be an ongoing limitation for you until you come to terms with what you need to do about it. It is a necessary step in developing a healthy personal ecology.

Even if you may not want to admit it right now, there is a part of you deep inside that knows what needs to be done. It’s that annoying little urge that wants you to do the right thing even if

it seems difficult. Let me challenge you to take the necessary steps to eliminate this limitation from your personal ecology. Your future will thank you for having done so.

Tethered to your mind

How would you like to have that inner dialogue (your inner voice) turned off for a day? Half of a day? One hour? It can get quite noisy in there sometimes. We all have that internal voice we need to manage the entire time we are awake. Even when we are engaged in watching a movie, that voice is rattling on about something. It’s telling you something right now.

How do you turn it off? Well, to be perfectly honest, you can’t. If this internal voice doesn’t take a break, then the obvious solution is we must find a way to change the content of what it has to say. How positive is that voice for you? Does it constantly point out negative things, or is it your best cheerleader?

The mistake many of us make is that we spend more time listening to ourselves than we do talking to ourselves. Yes, I said it is important for us to talk to ourselves; besides, you probably already do that anyway. How many times have you been alone and said out loud, “Where did I put (insert object here)?” It’s not a big secret, but it is a big deal.

What do you permit that inner voice to tell you? It is predicated upon what you believe to be true. That voice is an echo from your subconscious of how you perceive yourself, and in turn how you believe others to perceive you as well. Some of this was addressed in chapter one and more of it will be addressed in chapter four.

We all have self defeating thoughts from time to time. There is no stopping them altogether. Our problem doesn’t lie in the existence of negative thoughts, but rather the way in which we choose to respond to them. A healthy and positive response to these thoughts helps us to replace them and conquer them. A poor response to them erodes our confidence and self esteem. It actually creates more limitations in our lives through our chosen mentality.

If you allow these negative thoughts to harm you, they will be quite content to do so. Likewise, if you allow them to help you, they will. If you notice the onus doesn’t rest on whether or not it exists. It rests on you and your chosen response to that thought.

The limitations we experience don’t come from the existence of negative thoughts; everyone on the planet has them. What defeats us is what we choose to tell ourselves as a response to it. You can change any thought you want to by simply altering what it means to you.

We all have some sort of triggers in our lives that bring about the negative thoughts we have about ourselves. What many of us fail to realize is that it’s not only the trigger that churns up all the bad feelings. The true culprit is the internal dialogue we choose to entertain in response to

the trigger. These destructive and self defeating conversations distort what is actually true and put our emotions in a half nelson. What a mess!

What if your partner has been distracted over the past few days/weeks? You try talking to them on several occasions, but they aren’t too forthcoming with information. You hear them talking quietly on the phone, just quiet enough that you can’t make out what is being said. Your partner is coming home a little later than normal as well. How many hours will you spend letting your internal dialogue get you all worked up?

That little voice may be telling you (and you believing it as well) that your partner is ignoring you, they are having an affair, or that they don’t find you attractive/appealing anymore. This gives rise to feelings of anger, resentment, grief or even self pity. Could you have been more probing, which is not the same thing as accusing, in your questions as an expression of concern? Maybe what is needed is to give your partner more time.

In this instance it has become more about relieving your personal anxiety than about understanding what is going on in your partner’s world. Your response to those negative thoughts allowed those thoughts to control you. If you don’t control your inner voice, it will most definitely control you.

It is so very important that you learn to speak to yourself with a greater frequency than you listen to yourself. This is not a call to abandon your gut instinct or intuition. These things have their place when you are aware and certain that you are not being judgmental and unrealistic in your assessment. Pick apart your intuition a bit. Is it truly intuition or is it a fear based response to an unhealthy internal dialogue?

Action Point

Write down some common challenges you face because of an unhealthy

internal dialogue.

What are some alternative perspectives that would be more ecological?

How can you change the meaning of those negative thoughts so that you

positively alter the script (content) of what your inner voice has to say?

This exercise can be challenging, so take your time and do yourself justice

by sourcing practical answers.

Overreacting, or reacting inappropriately, because of that inner voice dictating the content of the dialogue becomes a significant limitation in our lives. It affects our personal ecology on a number of fronts and can isolate us from the very situations and opportunities we dream of having. Not managing what it has to say is limiting your possibilities.

Take the time to dictate the content of that internal dialogue. Speak to yourself. Write down what you know you need to hear to accomplish your dreams and goals. Do whatever you need to do in order to script the conversation you hear from your inner voice. It is this internal dialogue that becomes the director of your life. This can be augmented by your belief system. Make sure that you remain congruent as you develop your new script.

A parked car

If you have ever had the pleasure of pushing a car or, worse yet, steering a dead car being pushed, you know how difficult it can be. It’s as if you’re attempting to overthrow a small government with a Boy Scout troop armed with wooden swords.

The inertia of a moving vehicle is what makes it much easier to maneuver than if it were sitting still. The same is true with our actions. We choose to be tentative in moving forward and so any adjustments in our trajectory become quite arduous or sometimes impossible. The difficult nature of this is what causes many of us to give up or back down the moment there is a need for a change of plan.

When we overanalyze something we are in effect trying to steer a slow, or nearly non-moving, vehicle. This excessively analytical approach is many times done out of fear and attempted to be justified and presented as due diligence. While life shouldn’t be lived with utter reckless abandon, we shouldn’t try to huddle around the other end of the spectrum as some cowardly attempt to feign responsibility.

Eliminating risks from your life is not much more than trying to build a flat roller coaster. Sure it’s safe, but there’s not really much to it. Even the kid roller coasters have age appropriate adrenalin producing aspects to them. This sense of overanalyzing is definitely a limitation we place on ourselves, especially when it is done out of fear.

Wise restraint and fear are not one in the same, yet many of us condescendingly try to convince others that it is. What’s worse is that we try to convince ourselves that this is true. We’re back to the art of self-betrayal. Zeal tempered by wisdom is strength. Zeal crippled by fear is a shame and a very effective limitation.

Being afraid to fail is truly a paralyzing fear when left to fester in one’s mind. It’s so easy to play out potential scenarios which in turn become a prophetic movie for us. We imagine why we

can’t do it, become afraid of that image (or perceived reality) and then respond to it as if it were true and inevitable. Before even one step or action is taken towards trying to achieve something, we have defeated ourselves and have already manufactured a “justifiable” reason for not even trying. Sounds like it teeters on the brink of paranoia, doesn’t it?

For some people, the idea of moving beyond this particular fear can make them nauseated or even pass out. It is something that only exists in the mind, but is quick to manifest itself physically, such as trembling of the hands or profuse sweating. So how do you overcome something so limiting if you’re sweating, trembling, passing out and nauseous?

Action Point

Divide a piece of paper lengthwise and write down on the left side the

things that produce fear in you.

What excuses have you used before that you know were fear based?

Were any of them based on having your weaknesses exposed?

What have you been overanalyzing?

The more thorough and honest you are, the more limitations you will be

able to overcome.

First of all, it’s important to approach the subject when there is no pressure or expectation to carry out the act that produces the fear. It simply won’t work if you do otherwise. Confronting fear is a great thing, when done at a wise time. You must be in a rational state of mind.

Perhaps you believe that people will make fun of you. Maybe you will view your value, as an individual, in a lesser light if you fail. The possibility of public embarrassment could be too great for you to want to move forward. Whatever the reason, write it down. It is quite likely that you will have more than one reason.

Go back and look at these reasons. Imagine that you have no emotional investment in these statements whatsoever. They are just a list of things a dear friend sent to you. This friend has asked you for your help in overcoming their fears. The instruction they have given you is to read

and assess each statement. On the right side of the paper they have asked you to write down another statement that has just as much chance as being true as the ones on the left side of the paper. They have asked you be as creative as possible. You’re not influenced by the old reasons of why these fears exist and so everything becomes a possibility.

The statements you are to write on the right side of the paper are empowering statements that overcome the limiting nature of the ones on the left side of the paper. Perhaps what was written on the left side reads:

I’ll look stupid if I fail at this

You could write on the right side of the paper:

I’ll get a great sense of accomplishment when I try this

Each statement has an equal chance of being accurate. One assumes defeat, the other assumes success. If they both carry equal probability, why would you choose the one that assumes defeat? The one that assumes success becomes an empowering statement for you.

Once you have written these new empowering ideas that replace each of the excuses by which you have justified your fear, write only the ones from the right side of the page onto another piece of paper. Write them as neatly as if you were crafting a hand written letter to someone of great importance.

Take the original piece of paper and shred it, burn it, throw it out or whatever makes you feel good. Throw it in the floor and stomp on it, repeatedly, if you like. Imagine that in destroying that piece of paper, you are actively destroying those crippling reasons that have been limiting you in achieving more in your life. Each one of these reasons, excuses actually, begin and end in the mind.

In this last section of this chapter we have talked about the inner voice that never shuts up and never takes a day off. This is part of that new script you can give to that inner voice. This is the new content. When you hear the old excuses that you destroyed on that piece of paper creep up again, you can simply reference your new empowering statements.

Limitations are crippling and toxic to our personal ecology. None of us are victims unless we choose to be and nothing has any meaning except the meaning we choose to give to it. The beauty of this is that we have a choice in more things than many of us care to admit.

In acknowledging the availability of choice, we automatically assume responsibility and ownership of our lives and destiny. We lose our opportunity and justification to blame others for things going badly. The more people you choose to blame the more control you give them of your life and your destiny. Own your life, conquer your fears and live without limits.

THREE

LIVING IN THREE STATES

A non-linear life

A common perception of our time on this planet is birth, life and then death. It is frequently referred to as a timeline or a directional journey. All of these statements are true, but not fully inclusive of what life is and can be.

Much of our western culture and thought process is highly influenced by philosophy from the Greeks and the Romans. However, there are other cultures who have seen (and still do see) things from a different perspective. To exclude this cultural element of our shared humanity within our global village is to ignore a part of ourselves. Things don’t have to be a part of our culture to contribute to it and can also teach us something more about who we are as humans. While we all have our differences, on a fundamental level, humanity is pretty much the same. If this were not true, the entire field of psychology wouldn’t be effective whatsoever.

Many of the middle-eastern and far eastern cultures view life less linear, generally speaking. There is more of a “big picture” approach to what a life represents. They embrace the linear nature of birth to death, but inside that linear structure there is a multi-dimensional aspect to our lives. There is a much greater influence on the three dimensional view of life by our eastern counterparts, than the two dimensional view we tend to share in the west.

It’s as if you would see a line drawn horizontally on a piece of paper. Now imagine that you are able to crawl inside that line as if it is its own entity in and of itself. The content of that line would be so expansive that you couldn’t touch the edges. Are you starting to get a larger view of how this could look?

It shouldn’t be uncommon for us to be comfortable to reach out in various directions within our respective lives. It can take us well beyond what conventional wisdom tells us is normal or expected, yet we can still learn and experience newness as we continue our journey. Conventional wisdom is usually fear based anyway and the only purpose it typically serves is

homogeny. Each person is one being yet we simultaneously manage three states, or three places of perspective, throughout our entire lives.

It is in becoming aware of what these states are, finding a way to be balanced in all three, and allowing them to influence one another in the correct order that brings about a more peaceful and healthy personal ecology.

When this isn’t properly managed in our lives, we live out of balance within ourselves and it negatively affects our personal ecology. When we don’t properly govern them, we permit toxic elements to enter our lives. This, in turn, affects our interaction with our environment and those around us.

Who are you?

When we are children we are almost incessantly asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” The answer adults generally expect from kids is a word, title or phrase that describes what the child intends to do. Not much thought is given to it, as it is a commonly accepted way to interact with children.

This perception doesn’t end with childhood. So much of our world is geared around what we are doing, what we plan to do, what we want to do, or what we are expected to do. These expectations can, and most often do, come from various sources and usually isn’t an either/or proposition. Many times we experience a number of sources that attempt to exert pressure and to influence the expectations placed upon us.

While we don’t live in a feudal society anymore, there are still considerable social level pressures which attempt to dictate what we do. It could be the coercion to follow in the footsteps of a family member. For those who come from a less fortunate background, financially speaking, there may be a learned understanding that there exists an inherent inability to rise above the statistics and break free from that socio-economic status.

On the other side of the coin, those who are from a more affluent background may experience the assertion that there exist particular things which are simply improper for certain people of specific backgrounds to do.

The structure of the question begs an unfair expectation of the answer. There is a social grooming, however unintentional, that takes place in this verbal exchange. You are equating who you are with what you do. I am a financial planner. I am a CEO. I am a pastor of a church. I am a doctor. I am a life coach.

These answers are quite accurate when defining your role in some social sphere. Primarily they provide financial support for you and your family. What you do adds value to how you do life

and we all have these things at work around us. What it doesn’t do is describe or define who you are.

Let’s take away all of the things you do and allow me to ask you one question: “Who are you?” You can’t mention anything about what you do as a means to answer who you are. It’s not so easy to do, is it? In this question rests a very important thing, our identity and how we view ourselves.

Let’s assume the rectangle on the left represents who you are. It is you, your identity. The rectangle on the right represents what you do, the tasks you carry out in your life. Let’s focus on the rectangle on the right for the moment.

It is of grave importance that you understand this distinction between the two. If not, you will develop an unhealthy view of who view yourself to be. Your identity hangs in the balance of your ability and willingness to separate who you are and what you do.

What you do is run a company, or a department in some organization. Maybe what you do is coach your children’s soccer team. Maybe what you do is fulfill husband/wife responsibilities for your partner. Maybe what you do is parent your children. Perhaps part of what you do is to volunteer for a local non-profit. These things are not who you are, no more than being a coach is who I am. It is only what I do.

Only you can truly answer the question, “Who are you?” Anyone else who tries to answer this question for you will base it primarily on what you do. It would be a great idea for you to pull out your belief system notes from chapter one.

Action Point

Write down who you believe yourself to be (identity statement). Don’t use

anything that refers to what you do.

Can you group any of these statements into a theme?

What has influenced your view of self (faith, family, etc.)?

What do you want to influence your view of self?

Don’t try to craft anything. Be open and honest. Don’t censor. It’s normal

to want/need to start over a few times.

I don’t want to influence you in your discovery of who you are, but I understand that this can seem like a difficult task at first, so I’ll share with you who I am. I believe I am created by God and the simple fact that I exist validates me and gives me my identity. I am loved, honored, and appreciated simply because I exist.

This may not be who you view yourself to be, and then again it may resonate with you. The point is who you are (and who I am) is not based on what we do. It is not based on someone else’s opinion of you either. You develop your identity statement, not anyone else. It must be something that is intrinsically a part of you. It is unquestionable, as far as you’re concerned. It cannot be picked apart. It is the authentic you.

Opinions change and a healthy personal ecology can’t be based on the whims of someone else’s opinion. Who you are, must stand alone from what you do and any external affirmations. We will explore the relationship between who you are (state of being) and what you do (state of doing) over the next few pages of this chapter.

You may need to take some time to create your identity statement for who you are before you continue on with this book. Take a few days, or even a week, to make sure you have done yourself justice. There is no time line for it and this is for you. Others will benefit as a by-product, but it is ultimately for your benefit. Chapter four will go into a bit greater detail about identity to help you fine tune your identity statement.

Making things happen

If you’re anything like me, you like to stay busy. Having a few projects going at once is exciting for you. No matter the number of projects you have, or don’t have, going you will always be doing something.

How you do that something will be based on who you are, unless you are following a prescribed process or procedure for work or something of that nature. Out of who we are, we do. It is how we do life, it is how we do relationships, it is how we do parenting, and it is how we do a range of other things. This is why it is so important to understand who we are, without mixing in what we do as part of that definition.

As I mentioned in the previous section of this chapter, it can be toxic and unhealthy for us to derive our identity from what we do. It allows how we view ourselves to be dictated by those around us and their respective agendas.

Think back to the last time someone criticized how you did something. They weren’t nice about it and it elicited a significant emotional response from you. Why do you think that happened?

A common response may be, “They said I was incompetent/stupid/under-qualified/lazy.” Maybe they didn’t actually say that, but that was the message you received from what they did say, or how they said it. Does this event still cause you to question yourself or perhaps elicit the same emotions now that you felt originally?

There is a very real possibility you weren’t incompetent, stupid, under-qualified, etc. Your actions may have led someone to believe that, but that is not who you are as a person. When these things take place, there is a tendency to equate actions with who an individual is as a person.

If you know who you are, then these statements can be perceived in a much healthier way. You will be able to recognize them as addressing your behavior or actions, which is what you do (state of doing) and not who you are (state of being). Your response to them will be much more benign and balanced.

For example, let’s say that your partner says “You are (insert complaint here).” It’s very difficult to hear criticism from someone with whom you are emotionally intimate. “You are” is a statement that implies your state of being; however, the rest of that statement is most likely based on an action you took, or didn’t take.

If you aren’t aware that there is a distinction between who you are and what you do, then there is a significant chance that you will respond emotionally, which can end in an argument very quickly. It is natural to desire our partners to appreciate who we are, so when we feel our identity is being attacked it is natural to respond emotionally.

A possible response to your partner’s question could be for you to reframe what is being said. You’re not challenging them for how they phrased the question or for even questioning you. You are simply responding through your awareness of the distinction between a state of being and a state of doing.

You might say, “What is it that I did that leads you to feel this way?” or “What is it about what I did that upsets you?” Most likely your partner will be happy to talk about what you did.

Do you see how that question reframed the dynamic of the conversation? A state of being statement was posed by someone regarding what you did, but your response reframed the conversation to discuss a state of doing. When you are able to separate who you are from what you do it will become much easier to discuss misunderstandings. It will also be much easier to engage change in your life.

As a practical example your partner says, “You are so lazy!” You reply, “What is it that I did that makes you think that?” You partner tells you that they are tired of asking you to take out the trash. You respond, “So when I don’t take out the trash, I appear lazy to you?” That last question is a simple yes or no question. You can apologize and take out the trash. No need for an argument and everyone felt heard in the conversation.

Action Point

Write down some instances in your personal and professional life where

you felt your identity was being attacked.

What did you believe they were saying about you?

Was it different from the actual words being said?

Is there another way to interpret their comments?

How could you have responded in a way that reframed the conversation?

This reframing should be from a state of being statement to a state of

doing statement.

Perhaps what you did wasn’t in line with who you want to be according to your belief system and you aren’t congruent. If your partner is perturbed by your actions, you can genuinely thank them for keeping you accountable to whom you want to be. You are managing yourself to be congruent and you are honoring your partner by listening to them. It’s a win-win.

There are performance reviews and feedback on projects or work performed. As much as we wish it were different, there are still supervisors and HR personnel who have yet to polish their people skills to a level that is a little more palatable.

In making sure your response to their feedback is reframed from who you are to what you do, you are allowing yourself to respond to feedback and not emotionally react to it. You are also educating those around as to how you receive feedback well. It may be subtle, but it does make a difference.

You know who you are, others recognize what you do. It is natural to pass judgment on someone regarding who they are because we can only base it on what they do. It is done from a place of ignorance. Once you begin to see this from your side of the fence, you will notice that you begin to adjust how you interact and supply feedback to others.

You are starting to develop a healthier personal ecology that not only benefits you, but creates a good environment for those around you. Chapter five will give you more insight into how your state of doing affects your personal ecology.

This is an important aspect of your personal and professional development. If you are able to improve your contribution to your environment, then those with whom you share this space will benefit from the positive changes you have made.

That is one of the most amazing things about developing a healthy personal ecology. It begins with you, but becomes something that influences and impacts the environment around you. You can carry a healthy ecology with you into any situation.

If you choose to clean the water of the ocean, all of the marine life that shares that part of the ocean will benefit from you positively affecting one thing. Our lives are no different, so keep working towards managing yourself in this way. It will bring about quality change in your life.

Keys to the kingdom

What is the first thing that comes to mind when you read the phrase “keys to the kingdom”? For me, I envision having access and a legal right to all the possessions within that kingdom. The third, and final, state we manage in our multi-dimensional lives is the state of having.

We all have possessions in some form or another. The book is a possession. The copyright of the content of this book is a possession. You have possessions such as clothes, crockery, cutlery, cars, pictures, furniture, appliances, and a host of other things.

Some of our possessions are necessities and some are luxuries. What might seem like a necessity to one person may seem like a luxury to the next. Our shelter is our possession in one capacity or another, whether you own, rent, or lease. These possessions are a part of our lives and are not going to go away.

Most of us run into problems when we allow our priorities, regarding our possessions, to become muddied and imbalanced. The state of having plays just as much a role in our personal

ecology as our state of being and our state of doing. I’m not saying they are equal, but I am saying they play equally important roles.

When I was volunteering with a non-profit in Sydney, Australia part of my role was to oversee a number of teams. There was a situation in which a member of one of the teams I led (it was their first day) accidently hit the car of a staff member of the non-profit with another car. The new team member, who was young and a volunteer, was devastated and didn’t want to continue on the team.

I brought the accident to the attention of the staff member. Their response was nothing short of amazing. They surveyed the damage and said, “Ok, I’ll get it fixed. Thanks for letting me know.” All this was said with a smile as if they did nothing more than drop a paperclip or something.

I later asked them why they chose that response. She told me, “It’s much easier to fix a car than to try and fix destroyed confidence. It’s just an object really.” I learned a very valuable lesson that day. She valued her possessions. She changed her oil, washed her car, and cared for it as a valuable possession. What she didn’t do, was place her possessions above the value of another human being. She was living a balanced life and was exhibiting a healthy personal ecology.

Let’s assume you have an S class Mercedes and some teenagers exit the mall seconds before you. As they are backing out of the space behind where you parked they put a dent in your rear bumper. You can see that they are laughing and going on as teenagers do. How do you react?

Are their actions irresponsible? Yes. Do irresponsible actions (state of doing) change their value as a human being (state of being)? Challenging way to live your life, isn’t it? This is part of the balance you experience as you develop your personal ecology. I’m taking a significant chance by putting this in the middle of the book instead of the end. You may put this book down and not finish it, but I have faith that you bought this book for a reason.

I know that this type of perspective is confronting to how many of us have lived our lives, but I am confident that you purchased this book because you are ready to make some difficult choices in order to move forward in your own personal and professional development. If this book was a gift, then the person who gave it to you believes in you as much as I do. Don’t let your potential to move beyond something difficult go to waste.

Changing the flow of a river

During 1811 and 1812, along the New Madrid seismic zone between Memphis and St. Louis, a number of violent earthquakes shook the area. One of these earthquakes was an 8.0 earthquake which temporarily caused the Mississippi River to flow in the opposite direction. There was such a shift in the underlying rock that the water actually began moving in a completely different direction.

For many of us, we determine what we want (possessions) and that affects what we choose to do and how we choose to do it. It is from our chosen actions that many of us begin to develop a view of ourselves. We have already discussed that who we are isn’t to be based on what we do, so this presents somewhat of a conflict.

It is here that I want to tie everything together in this chapter. As suggested in the previous paragraph, most of us live according to the following process:

Having → Doing → Being

According to the work we have done up to this point, this doesn’t serve the healthy development of our personal ecology because it leaves us to determining who we view ourselves to be wholly dependent upon what we do. What we do becomes influenced by what we have (or want to have). We have a flow which is not ecological for us.

Since this is contrary to what we have learned, we need to view these three states from a completely different perspective – a more ecological one.

Being → Doing → Having

This shift can feel very much like a severe earthquake in our lives, but it can affect a permanent shift in the flow of how we self-govern, much like what happened with the Mississippi River. This is developing an ecologically friendly flow for your life.

If we have determined who we are (or who we are becoming), which significantly influences our belief system, then what we do will begin to change to reflect that. Our actions will become more congruent with our beliefs and we will begin to live a more balanced existence. Our personal ecology is reaching a healthy place. Out of who we are, we do.

Our actions cannot exist without affecting something which brings about results in some form or another. Many of these results will take the form of our possessions, both tangible and intangible. Our desires for certain possessions are likely to change. We may end up wanting the same possessions as before, but our motives for having them may change. Some of our intangible possessions could be peace or a deeper sense of emotional intimacy with the important people in our lives.

Accurately adjusting the inter-relational dynamics among these three states is the bedrock of developing a healthy personal ecology. If you are able to view the state of being as the innermost element of your existence, then the state of having will be the outermost element.

Everything must start from the inside, your state of being, and flow outwards through your state of doing to influence your state of having.

You are structured to function in this manner. You cannot have the state of having as the innermost element. Your core will always be your state of being.

If you choose to have everything start with your state of having and allow things to flow towards your state of being, the only option is to permit things to flow from the outside in. This is not healthy for your personal ecology as it brings toxins in with it, and you will allow your quest for stuff to bastardize and distort who you perceive yourself to be.

Everything needs to begin on the inside and flow out of you. The healthier you are in your state of being, the healthier everything else will become in your states of doing and having.

An added bonus is what you end up having will bring even more joy and contentment to you because even your possessions will become congruent with your belief system. You become self governed and disciplined without the deep sense of loss and sacrifice. You will find that your motives for the things you possess and seek have shifted.

Will you still have to sacrifice? Sure you will, but you will do it more joyfully when you are doing it to remain congruent with the beliefs that you want to believe. Your strong inner beliefs are your choice and not the choice of others. This is truly a sacrifice of love…love for the person you are able to now see yourself to be.

This is most likely a new concept for you, but let me encourage you to make sure you have your head wrapped around it, at least on a basic level, before you move on in the book. This concept is the crux of the idea behind having a personal ecology. Having this as a new perspective of how to manage self and cultivate healthy relationships will serve you well.

The following Action Point is the last in this chapter. Make sure you give it the adequate time to develop something honest and real. You may have to confront some not so pleasant realities, but it will be a liberating experience for you. This process gets easier the more you do it, so the sooner you start the sooner it gets easier.

Action Point

Write down the ways in which you have allowed things to flow from your

state of having into your state of being.

What problems has this caused in your life?

How has this made you incongruent?

What can you do to reverse the flow in these areas of your life?

Becoming aware of this is a great way to begin developing an ecological

flow in your life. This should begin with your identity statement.

FOUR

IDENTITY THEFT

Know thyself

Now that you have learned how all these things fit together, I thought it necessary to pick apart each of the states listed in chapter three. I have dedicated a chapter to each one.

One of the most difficult people to get to know well can be getting to know one’s self. There are so many contributing factors to how you “know” you or, more importantly, your view of self.

We all grow up in families and there isn’t, nor hasn’t been, a family that has created a perfect environment for the children. We are all infallible human beings and will make mistakes along the way. Some families are a little further away from how a perfect family can look than others, so we are all on a sliding scale that demands nothing more than a responsible, yet gracious, response to these imperfections. This chapter will unpack this concept in a little more detail.

Many of us find ourselves to be our own private mystery. Our lack of understanding leads us to view ourselves as complicated and so that is how we relate to ourselves. There is this ever so subtle current of frustration that is pinned to this self view, but most of us manage it in some form or another.

Our identity, with respect to our personal ecology, is perhaps the most important thing of which we should be aware. It touches every facet of our lives. It influences how we work, our emotional, our response to events/experiences, our relationships, and nearly every other behavior we can exhibit. Identity also governs the harshness with which we tend to judge ourselves through our internal dialogue.

How we judge ourselves is indicative of the manner in which we will most likely judge others. We usually act more harshly in how we judge ourselves, though. If you were as stern with your friends as you are with yourself, how many friends would you still have?

I cannot stress enough the importance of identity. If you only take one thing away from this book, I hope it is the content that focuses on having a healthy identity. As I’ve said many times before, out of who we are we do.

I say this to empower you to realize that you have an option to proactively engage change in your life, not to instill fear in you. Your state of being is something of which you have control and influence. Remember, you are not a victim unless you choose to be one.

The beginning

There are three aspects to each of us that are affiliated with our identity and our perception of it: temperament, character and personality. Each of these things has an influence on our identity but they are birthed out of different places.

Our temperament is something that has been studied for a number of years. The famous Greek physician, Hippocrates, developed names for the four main temperament types (circa 450 B.C.): Choleric, Sanguine, Melancholic and Phlegmatic.

Without going into the characteristics of each of these types, it is widely accepted that much of our temperament is greatly influenced by genetics and is primarily inborn in each individual. As a generic definition, our temperament determines the speed and intensity of our response to a stimulus or change.

Our character is something of which many of us have a greater understanding. It determines what we choose to do and is more of a cognitive approach to managing our lives. We develop our character as we grow, as we are taught (or not taught) and it is influenced not only by others but also by our environment. We can change our character, but that happens at a very deep level that is heavily influenced by your strong inner beliefs.

Ethics play an influential role in our character as well, or one could say our character plays a vital role in our ethics. No matter your point of view, they are definitely intertwined.

Our personality is something that we choose to develop. It is our personal mask. How we choose to present ourselves to the world. This can be developed by a number of things. Many times it has become a protective mechanism for us.

We have the ability and the opportunity to change our personality. Much of what you read in this book will greatly influence your personality as you begin to manage and improve your personal ecology. You cannot change your temperament; however, you are able to become more aware of your temperament and your comfort level regarding its existence.

Your character was developed and has evolved into much of your behavior. If you view behavior as a series of habits, then developing new habits (usually done best through a change in perspective) is a very practical way to alter behavior and character. Behavior modification is

nothing more than an attempt to merely treat symptoms. A change in perspective results in behavioral changes. There is a distinction. In behavior modification, it is the modification that is the primary focus. In a change of perspective, behavioral changes are a natural by-product.

Action Point

Take some time to write down the things that have influenced your

identity.

What temperament do you have?

What is important enough that it has conditioned your character?

What personality do you have (how you represent yourself to the world)?

Review your identity statement. Make any adjustments you feel

appropriate or necessary.

As you continue on your journey of developing your personal ecology, your perspective will definitely change. When your perspective changes, your priorities will shift and that will adjust your beliefs.

Many of us have tried to make changes in our actions because we felt it necessary to move forward in a particular direction. We have also experienced a great amount of frustration because we keep “failing” at making these behavioral changes. If we spend time becoming more ecological our perspectives will begin to shift. A change in behavior becomes the natural outworking of this shift in perspective.

Our time is valuable and a finite resource, so why not spend it wisely. Attempting to change behavior without addressing perspective is nothing more than continuously slamming your face on a cinderblock wall expecting the wall to magically move. Utilize your time wisely and recognize the role your perspective plays. Your temperament, character and personality all influence your perspective. Behavior follows perspective, always.

You have already discovered your strong inner beliefs and the importance of being congruent (actions in agreement with beliefs). In your quest to be congruent, any changes in your strong

inner beliefs will bring about a change in perspective and actions/habits. This will present itself as a change in behavior.

The higher your level of awareness and comfort with regards to your identity, the more peaceful and confident you will become. Reflect back on your life and find things that could have influenced your sense of identity, both positively and negatively. Don’t shy away from the difficult areas. Confront them head on.

The filtration process

We all do life through filters. We filter what we say based on who is around. Sometimes this is an act of courtesy, and other times it is an act of privacy. We filter how we observe life. Our level of cynicism is a very common filter that many adults have developed over the years.

How we communicate with our life partners and families have filters as well. We have grown accustomed to various behaviors and then use those behaviors to judge subsequent behavior. We are constantly filtering the actions of others.

We also filter information about our view of self. We approach life, and its scenarios, with a preconceived assumption about ourselves. We believe certain things to be true, or untrue, about us as an individual. We pre-determine our capabilities based on previous performance or the opinions of others. There are benefits and downfalls to this filtration process.

How do you think your life may look if you were to adjust or change these filters? What if all the filters you used in determining your view of self were empowering and positive? So many of us have a tendency to focus on what we aren’t able to do, and the limitations we like to claim as reasons, that our identity becomes a bit tattered and fractured. We touched on this concept in chapters two and three.

Action Point

Write down some filters that aren’t ecological for you.

What corresponding filter would serve your identity statement better?

What corresponding filter would be more ecological for you?

Are you still congruent with your newly developed filters?

Write down the new filters next to the old ones you wrote originally. What

change of perspective is needed? Stay congruent.

Much of this filtration process happens because our flow has been going the wrong direction. We have allowed it to flow from our state of having, through our state of doing and into our state of being. Therefore, whenever our actions are criticized or made the focus of a joke or mean-spirited cajoling, we assume that it is a defining moment about who we are. Through these filters, we can mistakenly define our identity.

This underscores the importance of making sure you begin with your identity and work out towards your state of having. Your identity statement is something to which you can reference each time you are experiencing self doubt about who you are. That is why it is such a powerful thing to have written down.

Our view of self (identity) will ultimately determine our personal ecology. Like I said, these three states are not equal, but they do play an equal role in how we manage self and cultivate healthy relationships with others. This is why each one must be balanced with the others. Our view of self determines the health of how the other two states operate and influence our lives.

Recognizing your filters isn’t a one off event for you. This is a tool you can, and should, use for the rest of your life. As you change as an individual, and your ecology requires change in order to manage your environment, you can use this exercise to ensure that your filters remain ecological. Make sure that your filters are balanced with being ecological, maintain congruence, and serve your identity statement.

The power pair

There are a number of things that are very effective when they are paired together. If you mix fire with gasoline, there is an extremely powerful force that is created. When you combine ecological actions with a personal passion, amazing change takes place.

One of the most empowering pairs one can have is that of strong inner beliefs and a healthy, ecological sense of identity. It is truly a force with which to be reckoned. This is an incredible contributor to having inner peace.

This remarkable combination is a potential which I believe is housed inside every single human being on this planet. It is not available to the traditionally accepted elite, it is available for the elite few who recognize it and take action. You have this inside of you and you are fast

becoming aware of how you can activate these two forces to bring about ecological, powerful, and sustainable change in your life.

When we are able to be secure and ecological in our sense of identity, we step into our potential which has lain dormant in our lives up to that point. Our identity is the vehicle by which we travel to our destiny. Our belief plays two roles in this: ¹ it acts as a compass for how we choose to get there and ² it acts as the fuel that moves us forward.

Our beliefs act as a moral compass as we work towards the future we desire. It is in our healthy and ecological sense of identity that we have the courage to stick to these strong inner beliefs. We are secure in who we are and why we have these beliefs.

Reflect back on chapter one when you were developing your strong inner beliefs. What was the driving force that dictated the beliefs you chose to have? It was passion!

Passion is a very powerful emotion. It is what has driven every revolution and change on this planet. Ghandi was a man of passion. Mother Theresa was a woman of passion. There are untold stories of people who are individuals of passion who have made a massive difference in the world.

A woman named Leymah Gbowee, from Liberia, was a woman who found the power of pairing identity with beliefs. Her country was being ravaged by civil war between a despotic president and war lords. Children were being forced into fighting, even killing their own families. Rape and murder were commonplace in her world.

One night Leymah had a dream about bringing peace to her troubled country. She shared that dream with friends and some other women. They began to view her as the leader of this movement. She resisted. Why? She questioned her identity.

She was a woman of faith and a single, unwed mother. She believed that her identity rested in those external representations of what she had done. Once she resolved that issue, she went on to lead a group of women who brought peace to the country of Liberia. The despotic president was ousted from office and exiled.

What are your dreams? Are they bigger than overcoming the odds of a single mother bringing peace to a war torn third world country? Find a way to bring a healthy and ecological sense of identity together with your strong inner beliefs. You will conquer those things your imagination has placed before you. You have one of the most powerful combinations in the universe working for you, identity and belief! Don’t let this potential go to waste and be an untapped resource in your life. It is by far the secret weapon we all possess and is largely ignored by humanity.

Your dreams will become reality through understanding this. Your goals will be forced to submit to the authority of these two forces working together in your life. Don’t let this go unnoticed. You have the ability to do so much more than you are doing right now. Live without limits and dream huge!

Utilize this last Action Point of this chapter to begin to develop your Power Pair. You have an amazing resource at your fingertips and it is your identity and strong inner beliefs. Empower yourself to move forward with your passion.

Action Point

Refer back to your inner beliefs notes from chapter one.

What do your beliefs tell you about yourself?

What is your passion (don’t worry about cost or logistics)?

How can your passion and your beliefs work together?

What can you begin doing right now (no matter how small it may seem) to

pair up your beliefs with your passion?

It’s best if you approach this with the mindset that anything is possible.

Don’t limit one thing with rationalization or logic.

FIVE

CREATING REALITY

Why did you do that?

What we do influences our reality. We have more control over our future than we care to admit or even believe. Our daily tasks may seem like minutia, but they are the collective force that helps design tomorrow.

The number of things we do in a day is staggering, if one were to document it bit by bit. It consists of which side of the bed we like to sleep to the route we take to work, even how we make our coffee. Each one of these things can be broken down into even smaller tasks.

There are reasons and motivations behind all of our actions. Some of them are prescribed for us by others and then there are things which are proscribed for us as well. The fact is, even though many of our tasks may be habitual, we have motivations for doing the things we do.

If you haven’t picked up on the theme, this chapter is about our state of doing. Being aware of what we do is very important, but being aware of why we do it is equally, if not more, important. It gives us insight into ourselves when we reflect on what we do and why we do it. Again, out of who we are we do. If this becomes a mantra for you, then you will begin to pay attention to your actions and critique them more effectively.

There are a number of different ways one could approach this, but I would like to offer a very simple way to critique your actions. It is quite beneficial if you do the same with what you did correct in the same manner. This will allow you to reinforce those positive things in your life.

The most simple and first question you can ask yourself is, “Why did I do that?” Brutal honesty reigns supreme when you are doing this. It facilitates developing a healthy personal ecology. A hidden pollutant is usually worse than one sitting in plain view.

The next question you can ask yourself is, “Why do I have this reason for doing this action?” This begins to question the purpose for the motivation behind the action. Again, the more honest you are with yourself, the more ecological you will become.

If the why behind the motivation doesn’t answer where this idea came from, then it is important to ask, “From where did this purpose/reason develop?” Now this can be from anywhere. It could be something your fifth grade science teacher told you. You may also begin to see that this exercise has some overlap in your belief system development. You believe something to be true and correct; otherwise, you wouldn’t be doing it.

This is a great opportunity to ensure that you are being congruent. Your belief system becomes a checklist for you. You are able to make sure that your motivation for an act or set of actions are congruent with your belief system. This helps you to avoid that inner conflict that can cause you to question your identity.

To gloss over our motivations behind the things we do is ecological suicide. You are assuming that every reason and motivation you have for doing something is correct, healthy and ecological without having ever done any form of assessment. Does this sound like an ecological way to do life? Does this exhibit self awareness?

It is good to try and pick up on themes, common areas or tendencies, in your life that your actions make you incongruent. What is it that you believe that is in conflict with your belief system? Try to find the belief in the act. What would you have to believe to be true to justify that act? This is a valuable exercise, so give it an appropriate amount of attention.

Action Point

Write down one thing over the past week that you have done well and one

thing that you wish you had done differently.

Why did you do each of those things?

What reason do you have for why you did those things?

From where did that purpose/reason originate and/or develop?

Check your congruency. Were you more congruent with the thing you did

well or the thing you wish you had done differently?

Being emotional

Just the title of this section will make some people, mostly guys, cringe. We have a tendency to group certain emotions into gender based categories. All the gooey and mushy emotions are for females and all the aggressive and adventurous emotions are for the males.

I hate to break this to you guys, but that is not a very ecological approach to managing your personal and professional life, nor is it entirely accurate. Now don’t take things to the extreme and assert, “I can’t just break down at work and have a little cry session!” I understand what you mean and you’re absolutely right.

Allowing all emotions to be a part of our lives doesn’t mean it runs rampant and isn’t managed at all. On the contrary, managing an emotion isn’t denying its existence, dismissing it as something that belongs to the other gender or simply ignoring it altogether.

At the risk of seeming close minded, I’m going to go out on a limb and make a generalization. Most women are comfortable, and relatively adept, in expressing most all emotions. So, if the women reading this book will give me a little grace for some guy talk, I would appreciate it. Ladies, feel free to follow along with the conversation, however. You may pick up a few nuggets here and there about understanding men.

Now before you get all nervous and defensive guys, this is something that will allow you to express your masculinity in a very confident way. We men don’t lose our masculinity when we allow ourselves to experience emotions. We actually strengthen and reinforce it.

As men, it is easy to express ourselves assertively, sometimes aggressively. We are exceptionally good at being stubborn and showing anger, at times.

Many of us don’t know how to respond well to certain emotions, so we just either shut down or overreact without ever bothering to stop anywhere in the middle. When something is soft, gushy and “lovey-dovey” we shrink back from it and push our chests out to show we’re not soft, in other words, we want to show that our masculinity is still alive and well.

Deep down inside we can see the beauty in what is in front of us, but we may struggle with knowing how to respond to that and still maintain our masculinity…or at least what we perceive it to be. How is that supposed to look?

I realize that I’m not speaking to every man holding this book, but it is a common enough issue that I thought it important to address.

Are you still with me ladies?

Having said all that, let’s get everyone back together. The important thing about our emotions is that we learn to respond to them and not react to them. There is a genuine difference in this approach, and it is true for both male and female alike.

There are things that take place in our lives that can act as emotional triggers for us. It is usually these triggers that elicit a reaction and not a response. In a reaction, you are allowing your

actions to engage without any real thought or control/management by you. In a response, you are thoughtful and deliberate in how you choose to act and engage the situation.

Ladies, let’s suppose that you are in a situation where you experience the emotion of contempt because you feel you are being treated unfairly by someone else. This contempt begins to bring about anger, frustration and possibly resentment. Do you have a tendency to have a bit of an outburst to try to control the person you feel is eliciting these emotions in you or do you withdraw and simply stew about it?

Neither one of these options are healthy, nor ecological. If you were to juxtapose these two responses onto your strong inner beliefs and your identity statement, you would find that you are most likely not congruent. This is an opportunity for you to use assertion as a means to respond to the situation, instead of the extremes on the emotional continuum as a reaction to the situation.

Should you choose to do this, you would be more able to reframe any state of being statements into state of doing statements to support you in responding and not reacting.

The same would be true for men. You may find yourself in a position where you have the opportunity to respond to something that may seem like a preconceived “feminine” emotion. You are perfectly capable of simply acknowledging that something is touching, pretty or anything else appropriate to the situation. There is no need to fawn all over something to express that emotion.

This is in agreement with the idea that what you do isn’t a definition of who you are. Who you are dictates what you do.

There are no negative emotions, only negative responses to emotions. Anger is a perfectly healthy emotion to experience. It shows our contempt for things that aren’t in agreement with our world view of what we deem fair, just or appropriate.

Our chosen response, yes it is a choice (there are no victims), to our anger is what can come out quite ugly at times. Finding a way to communicate your anger, instead of being controlled by unmanaged actions, help foster a healthy personal ecology.

You may be asking yourself, “What do emotions have to do with my state of doing?” It has everything to do with it. If you are angry and react instead of respond how confident are you that you will take actions that are ecological and congruent with what you believe?

It is a scientific fact that when we allow ourselves to become extremely angry that it diminishes the blood flow to the brain. A lack of blood flow to the brain inhibits cognitive thinking and we become this reactive, irrational person who is a seething mass of incongruence.

Let’s not bag out anger alone, what about jealousy? How ecologically damaging is this emotion when there is a reaction to it and not a response.

Action Point

Write down the emotions that you deem negative, belonging to the

opposite gender, or difficult to express.

What do you believe about these emotions that lends credibility to this

list?

How could you change your perspective to view these emotions

differently?

How can you practically begin to respond to emotions instead of reacting

to them?

Don’t cheat yourself on this action point. It is very tempting to gloss over

this one.

If you want to make sure your actions are managed by you, then it is important that you develop the skill of responding to emotions and choose to not react to them. Allow the emotion to exist, but don’t let it dictate your state of doing. If you do, you will not be congruent and that internal conflict will soon become the norm.

Your personal time machine

Like I said at the beginning of this chapter, your daily tasks are the collective force that helps design your tomorrow. We guard and form our future through what we choose to do, or not do, today. The future and the past are nothing more than a notion…an idea, if you will. They both live in the electronic impulses of the memory.

What does that leave us with for our reality? You’re exactly right, the present. Now is the only tangible existence we have or in which we will ever operate; however, through this present existence your actions are able to influence the future for when you eventually experience it as the present.

Strategy, centered on your beliefs and identity, becomes a personal time machine for you. This sort of time machine is infinitely more efficient and less dangerous than the H.G. Wells sort. You are defining a destination and determining the parameters for any and all possible roads that lead to that destination.

This chapter is about doing, not strategy, but strategy is a contributing factor in how we choose to do things and what we choose to do. Strategy is a proactive approach to our lives and our future. If you haven’t developed a sense of identity and your strong inner beliefs then your strategy will most likely be based on things that could cause you to live a life of incongruence; a life with an unhealthy personal ecology.

We have already discussed the conflict that accompanies incongruence. It creates anxiety and the normal response to anxiety is to address whatever we believe to be causing it. If you are only being reactive to feeling anxious (a symptom) you will simply treat the superficial issues that seem to produce that sensation. It is quite common for this to look like you attempting to control things external to you (family, friends, subordinates, circumstances, etc).

This is the never ending and unproductive cycle of living a reactive life. This cycle actually begins to run your life. It dictates your actions and controls your state of doing. You begin to believe that you are out of control and that becomes an integral part of your belief system and sense of identity.

Aligning the strategy for your life, in general, with your strong inner beliefs allows you to be more deliberate in your actions. You self-govern from a place of confidence and security and this contributes to maintaining congruence.

None of us can change our past, nor should we want to do so. Our past has brought us to our present and it is from here we are able to navigate into a future that we are choosing to create. Sure we all think back to something we wish we would have done differently, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t have the ability to make different choices now and in our journey to our future.

Action Point

Write down the future you want.

Have you developed a strategy to achieve that future?

Are there any aspects of that strategy that will require you to do anything

that makes you incongruent?

Writing out the strategy for achieving your desired future is nothing more

than a personal version of a business plan.

What future do you want? Does that future agree with your identity statement and your strong inner beliefs? Your answer should be a resounding ‘yes’ for both of these questions, in order to live in congruence and have a healthy personal ecology.

Businesses utilize these plans as a roadmap, but they also make sure that the path they have lain out agrees with the culture and identity of the business. Business ethics act as strong inner beliefs and the branding/internal culture of a company act as an identity statement in the business world. These things govern the actions of a business.

As individuals, we should be just as diligent in aligning our personal strategy with our beliefs. It’s so much more holistic than only having a short, medium and long term plan. This plan should be in agreement with who we are, who we want to become and what we believe.

A malleable path to destiny

You have become acutely aware of the motivations that influence your actions. You are becoming more and more comfortable in allowing yourself to experience, express and manage all of your emotions. You have done the due diligence of aligning your strategy with your identity statement and your strong inner beliefs. As it happens in life, the unexpected occurs and throws you off your planned path. Now what?

Many of us have portable GPS navigators. They can be your mobile phone, built into your vehicle or a stand-alone GPS unit. If the directions tell you to turn right, but the road on which you are meant to turn is closed for construction, you have to take an alternative route.

The GPS unit doesn’t begin to berate you because you missed the turn. It doesn’t keep saying, “I said turn right, stupid” getting louder and louder each time until you make that specific turn. It simply adjusts for the difference in position and calculates another route to get to the intended destination. Our lives should be no different. We should have as much grace with ourselves, others, and the unexpected in life as our GPS navigators have with us not paying attention while we’re driving.

The destination is fixed based upon the future we wish to create, but the journey can be flexible. Our actions need to be based on this principle as well. We have our strategy, but it

must be flexible because life isn’t perfect and we aren’t able to predict every little nuance of our journey.

If you have developed a healthy sense of identity, you will be able to look at a strategy that wasn’t as productive as you had hoped and adjust it, and still be aligned with your belief system. An attempt that didn’t have the intended outcome isn’t a failure. It is an act of courage and confidence. As long as you get up one more time than you fall down, you’ll never experience failure. You’ll just find a bunch of ways that didn’t work so well.

A readjusted strategy is a sign of wisdom, not failure. Continuing with an ineffective strategy out of pride, fear and/or an unhealthy sense of identity is a sign of stubbornness, foolishness and is a serious red flag to becoming (or being) incongruent. Readjusting your strategy, and being able to recognize when to do that, is much easier to do when you are congruent.

Awareness is the only way to know if you are congruent or not. Your actions play a large role in your personal ecology. They are the movement that effect change. That change can be ecologically healthy or it can be ecologically toxic.

Don’t be afraid of doing the wrong thing. If you are aware and have honestly and diligently developed your identity statement and belief system, then you will be doing the right things more often than not. You will still make mistakes, of course. A mistake isn’t necessarily the wrong thing it is merely a reflection of the fallible nature of our humanity.

Stripping away our mistakes dilutes the very nature of who we are as humans. Your state of doing will be the vehicle by which your future becomes a reality, when properly and ecologically managed. Striving for perfection is unreasonable. Striving for excellence and ecological living is freedom.

SIX

DIAMONDS IN THE ROUGH

The price of olive oil

The outermost state in this model of personal ecology is your state of having. The subject of possessions has been a source of debate and contention for centuries, but that doesn’t have to be the case.

I would suggest that the manner in which possessions were attained, the way in which possessions are used, and the actions of people because of such possessions are the true culprits behind these heated discussions. Things only have the meaning we choose to give to them.

Much of this discussion centers on the price of an object, or objects. The price seems to be the static metric by which the goodness or necessity of something is judged, and in turn the owner of this object is also judged by the same approach. What is the true price of something? Does something have to cost a lot of money in order to be expensive?

The price of olive oil is usually considered the amount on the tag on the shelf in the supermarket. Let’s suppose that this isn’t the true price of it at all, it is merely the amount of money one is willing to accept in order to have a transaction that legally permits a change in possession of the olive oil.

In order to understand the true price of the olive oil, one would have to consult with the olive. It was the olive whose nourishment and nature provided the olive oil. The condition under which the olive was placed to extract the olive oil was that of great pressure and intensity. Without the olive having experienced this, the olive oil would not even be in existence for that monetary transaction to take place.

This story of the olive can teach us a great deal regarding our possessions, providing we are allowing our efforts to begin with our state of being, travel through our state of doing and into our state of having.

As I mentioned in chapter one, most of the people I ask in my travels and work want to do something that positively impacts others on the planet. Using this as a point of reference, their belief systems will focus on this desire. As you have already learned, your belief system resides in your state of being. Out of who we are, we do and out of what we do, we have. If one is truly living an ecological life, then others will benefit and this person will still possess what they have worked to have.

As you follow your dreams and fulfill your strategy, you will experience the same conditions as the olive. You have the potential to be placed under extreme amounts of pressure and intensity. If you are operating from a healthy personal ecology, you will respond, not react, in a way that brings something of value to the world.

While your possessions may not demand a great deal of money to purchase, they are of great value because of what you chose to experience on your way to your destination. If your possessions do demand a great deal of money in order to purchase them, if you have been congruent and ecological in your pursuit there is nothing sinister about having those possessions. Remember, personal ecology takes into consideration those who are in your environment at any given time.

A key indicator of where you are ecologically is to stand back and take inventory of yourself and your possessions. If you feel a bit of a twinge in your conscience, then you may want to explore as to why. Are your possessions congruent with your state of being and your state of doing? When you are congruent, there should be no conflict.

Action Point

Reflect on your possessions. Especially focus on the ones you find

extremely valuable.

What gives value to that possession (price or experience)?

What changes in perspective could you make to be congruent regarding

your possessions?

Your state of having must be equally balanced with your states of being

and doing…in that order.

If you detect a bit of a twinge, don’t “toughen up” emotionally to push that feeling away, explore what might be causing that twinge. Keep your ecology healthy. You may find that you are allowing someone else’s opinion to influence how you view yourself.

The sun rises in the west

How do you think you would react if you saw the sun rising in the west one morning? It would definitely cause some wonder and maybe, after some scientific thought, a bit of apocalyptic fear.

Our expectation of where the sun will rise each day is a healthy one based on fact. Many times we allow our expectations to be less than realistic and it affects what we are able to have in our lives. Fear born out of inaccurate expectations has the same detrimental effect.

What we have is so much more than tangible possessions. There are also the intangible treasures in life. It could be love, peace, happiness and all the other things that make life so unique and special.

Our expectations dictate our vision. We usually are able to find that which we seek. Our expectations determine where we choose to look. Like many things, our expectations are birthed out of our belief system. We believe something to be true, so we begin to expect that. It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. This expectation carries through to our state of having.

How do you manage your expectations? Do you manage your expectations? Are your expectations congruent with your strong inner beliefs? This is another area in which you can be incongruent.

Developing your belief system is an ongoing endeavor and it is definitely more of a process than an event. A belief that you may have can easily be masquerading as an unrealistic, or worse, an unhealthy expectation. This underscores the importance of awareness.

Your personal ecology is complex and intricate and a healthy expectation is to understand that you will always be critiquing and grooming your ecology. Like I said in the introduction, there is no magic bullet. Developing your personal ecology is important, but continually managing it is essential.

This process is a chosen lifestyle, not an event that accompanies this book and then stops once you have finished the book. Don’t cheat yourself like that. If you do you are only diminishing your potential and positioning yourself in a place to have a toxic personal ecology.

Take note that self critiquing isn’t self berating. It is an honest and objective assessment of where you are, where you want to be, and finding a way to close that gap while still remaining congruent. This is the journey I take with my clients. Managing expectations so that they are

realistic and ensuring that the individual remains congruent is one of the key metrics used in my coaching model.

What if your expectations could be anything you wanted them to be? We have the power to create and dictate our expectations. Many of us diminish the possibilities we believe available to us out of a fear of being disappointed. This is imposing an unnecessary limitation on your life. Taking into consideration the laws of physics and the legal structure in place, begin to craft expectations that are limitless.

The impact this has on your state of having will be much greater than you may imagine. It’s not about developing some secret equation to get anything and everything you want. It’s not some magic formula to make people do things according to your bidding. It is a way to live ecologically so that who you are becomes manifested by the things you do and subsequently have.

Action Point

Write down some expectations that prevent you from being congruent.

What causes them to be in conflict with your inner beliefs?

How can you resolve a conflict between your expectations and inner

beliefs?

What would be a more ecological/congruent expectation?

As our journey presents change, our expectations will also change. It’s

important to stay acutely aware of your expectations regarding ecology

and congruence.

If I am a person who has peace in my life, then it should be apparent to those around me that I value peace and I believe that peace is a necessity. It should also communicate that I do things that bring peace to my environment. I expect to have peace in my life

If I am a person who has gracious relationships with others, then I believe that grace is an integral part of what life should be. It should also communicate that I do things that are gracious regarding those who share my environment. I expect to find ways to be gracious.

If I am a person who has a lot of books, and I do, then I believe there is value in reading these books and I will continue to do so in order to stay congruent. I expect to always be reading something.

Your expectations reveal your beliefs and the health of your state of having. Don’t overlook this important element in your personal ecology. By remaining aware of how this affects how you do life, you will be in a very empowered position regarding how you manage your life.

People aren’t things

Ghandi was an amazing man who lived a principled life. There was never a Ghandi before him and will never be another Ghandi after him. In this sense, he is truly irreplaceable. As a matter of fact, each human being on the planet is irreplaceable. Sure it could be an issue of the number of people and when one dies another is born, the number wouldn’t change. However, our humanity cannot be defined by and reduced to a simple number.

You have a unique mix of skills and insight which contribute to our global village in a way that has not happened before and cannot be repeated ever again. The value of your existence is inestimable. Every individual on this planet has this uniqueness and value should be given to it.

The value others place on your existence should be only a fraction of the value you place on the existence of those around you. If you are to have a healthy personal ecology, value must be placed on the other individuals with whom you interact. Just as you are, they are also irreplaceable.

Your home is replaceable. Your car is replaceable. Your clothes are replaceable. Yes there are certain objects to which we have placed sentimental value. Once they are lost, they may not be replaced, but we are still able to carry that sentiment in our hearts, if we choose to do so.

It is important that you value humanity over material items; otherwise, you position yourself to consume people in your quest for things. Your state of having is subject to become corrupt and the flow between the three states has a tendency to move from having to being. This will affect your sense of identity and begin to allow toxins to enter your personal ecology. Your ecological flow will be reversed.

Action Point

Write down some of the material things you have that are of great value

to you.

Have you ever valued any of these things over another human being?

Why did you decide that was the appropriate response or course of action?

Does this response agree with your strong inner beliefs?

Does this response allow you to be congruent?

The answers to these questions can be revealing for some people. You are

developing awareness…not self definition.

This is a very stealthy way in which we can fail to manage our personal ecology. We become so incensed by the actions of others (state of doing) that we begin to abhor them as an individual (state of being). This becomes a poison to our ecology. It is not necessary to condone lascivious behavior in order to value the humanity of another individual. It is recognizing the distinction between a state of doing and a state of being in another person. This doesn’t happen until you are able to do it for yourself first.

Many times regret is an emotional flag that we were acting incongruent at some point in our past. It could be an indication that your belief system was being governed by the influence and expectations other people had of you and you were not in agreement with those beliefs. Awareness is what will allow you to build the solid foundation from which you are able to self govern and maintain a healthy ecology.

An unhealthy state of having will act like a flood of toxins if left unchecked. Giving value to those around you is important for your own ecology. We are able to see ourselves in others through the commonality of our humanity.

Why else would we respond so generously to perfect strangers when they are experiencing a significant time of need? Look at the outpouring of help that went to the tsunami survivors in India, the child soldiers in Uganda, the earthquake in Haiti, and the countless other tragedies our global village has experienced in the first decade of the 21st century.

A lack of valuing others is an act of not valuing yourself. This will affect your ecology in untold ways and it will be different for everyone. Our humanity is what syncs us together and it is an ecological choice to value other organisms in your ecological environment.

Everything in its place

We have so many different tools and ways to manage our things. We have computers, databases, filing cabinets, PDA’s, day planners, tie racks, shoe racks, and specially designed closets just to name a few. Organization is an integral part of being efficient and allowing things to operate well.

Entire professions have been created to ensure the organization of things and tasks. The project management profession is an excellent example of this. It takes into consideration all the stakeholders (other organisms affected by the project or change) and a host of other important factors that can affect the ultimate success of the project. Its methodologies strive to operate from a healthy ecological position.

It is important that we maintain an ecological perspective as we continue on our journey of life and personal development. It is this perspective that will allow us to properly manage our state of having. It is in this state where we are most tempted to abandon our beliefs and slip into a place of incongruence.

This is why I said in chapter one that your beliefs must be that for which you are willing to be thrown under the proverbial bus. They will most certainly be challenged many times throughout your life. For every belief you have, there will be opposition. This is in line with you managing your expectations, which we talked about earlier in this chapter.

What you have will be a natural outworking of who you are. It should not, however, define who you are. Don’t allow your perspective to shift from this. It is from this place that you will remain congruent and free from the internal conflict associated with incongruence. Maintaining an ecological perspective will serve well as a compass for you.

Your state of having isn’t something for which you should be ashamed if you have developed it within the construct of a healthy personal ecology. There will always be critics, but that is true when you have an unhealthy personal ecology. So, why not live from a place of health?

You are in control of your personal ecology, so don’t abdicate this position to someone else. Maintain your focus and your awareness and you will be just fine.

Conclusion

During the time you have spent reading this book you have taken a serious look at where you are, and where you would like to see yourself. You have also taken some bold steps to close this gap.

You have confronted some significant issues and challenged many perspectives. There is a very real chance that your world view has changed and you feel even more excited about your future than you ever have before.

You have begun to see the benefits and the ultimate necessity to become and stay acutely aware of your personal ecology. I am confident that your understanding of the principles presented in this book has empowered you to become a better contributor to society at large and whatever environment in which you are a participant.

Let me encourage you to view this book as the beginning of your journey and not the end of it. Let the things you have learned about yourself from reading this book launch you into a lifetime of learning about who you find yourself to be and who you purposefully develop yourself to be.

We are ever changing as we journey through life, so your awareness will reveal the need to make adjustments along the way to continually manage your personal ecology. Stay focused, but not static. Remember, fixed destination; flexible journey.

Each one of us has the ability and the responsibility to better ourselves for the overall betterment of society and the perpetuation of peace. The betterment of society, and us as individuals, isn’t about some homogeneous amalgamation of beliefs and perspectives. It is about living authentically in who you are and valuing your fellow man/woman in their uniqueness.

We aren’t to attempt to banish our differences, nor fight over them, but rather embrace our similarities and allow our differences to teach us more about ourselves and one another.

In the introduction I spoke about how excited I was that you were about to embark on a journey as you read this book. I am even more excited now that you have read the book and are making the effort to develop your personal ecology. This lifestyle of managing yourself is contagious, so don’t be afraid to share.

It is this type of thinking and self management that produces the grass roots revolutions that bring about positive change in the world. Enjoy your new tools for a healthy personal ecology and the ongoing journey that accompanies it. Your environment, and those in it, will be much better for having done so.

I suspect that you are just as excited as I am excited for you as you move forward in your endeavors with your healthier perspective and way of doing life. I’m confident that you will find much more fulfillment as you develop your personal ecology. It is truly an empowering way to manage life.

Upon finalizing this book in the editing process, I find myself in a place where I want this book to have completely wrecked your ability to stay blindly complacent to remain unchanged. It is

my wish that you can’t view life from the same perspective. I hope that your eyes are able to see a broader spectrum of what life can be through responsible diligence and acute awareness. I wish you all the best in your journey!

I take on new individual clients as my schedule allows. If you are an executive, a professional, or someone in a significant level of leadership and are interested in engaging in an advisory/coaching relationship with me, I would love to hear from you. Feel free to visit my web site and have a look around. You’ll find plenty of information there. I conduct all sessions via phone or Skype.

I am anxious to hear how your life has changed because of this book. Feel free to let me know what has transpired in your life after applying these principles. I’m a bit of a feedback junkie.

Find yourself, be yourself and change the world.

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