With all of the carnage in the financial markets, combined with the non-stop reports of doom in the media, it takes something these days to maintain a balanced perspective.  Hence this blog entry.  

For me, the past few months have certainly had their ups and downs, and my perspective has taken a beating from time to time.  Thankfully, there are a number of things I do to help keep it more balanced.  Without those practices, however, I think I would be shrouded in fear, and not much else.  After all, that's pretty well the only thing that's being sent our way these days.  

So, HOW DOES ONE MOVE FROM FEAR TO CONFIDENCE?  Here are a few ways:

• Look back at past situations where you felt your "survival" or wellbeing was at stake.  Remember that you're ok now, and repeat the lessons you learned there (from your successes and your failures).
• Read something inspiring.
• Read something empowering.
• Review past accomplishments and remember you can do even more now.
• Put yourself a year into the future, and give your "current self" advice on how to manage the situation, and on what the bigger picture looks like.  I've done this in the past, and my coach did this with me today because I needed it.  It's a fantastic perspective-setter.
• Talk to some good friends and ask their advice.
• Get some exercise. 
• Take a vacation – even for a day.
• Focus on the positive things that are happening.
• Spend some time feeling grateful for what you already have.
• Consider what the absolute worst case scenario would look like (e.g. personal bankruptcy, or whatever), then figure out a plan for how you'd manage that.  Once you're ok with that plan, you can use that to remind yourself that, no matter what, you'll be fine.
• And, last but not least, go out and have fun for an evening.

I'm about to taking the latter point of advice. 

My wife and I are in Boston at the moment, joining a great group of colleagues and friends to celebrate this special time of year.  I have known many of them for more than 10 years now.  Some I am very close to, and some of them I haven't seen in YEARS.  I am very thankful for all of them.  I'm excited about the evening; excited to be able to take part, and grateful to have them in my life.  So, tonight and tomorrow, my perspective on things will be that much better than it was earlier today.  It's already improved dramatically since my call with my coach this afternoon. 

I will end this posting with some wise words spoken to me last Friday at a professional development day by a colleague and friend of mine who lives in Wales, named Wyn Jones:

• A change in pace
• Plus a change in place
• Equals a change in perspective.

Often, it's as simple as that. 

Give yourself the gift – at least once a month, and maybe once a week.  These days, we all need it.

I'm dealing with a client situation right now that has taken on quite a life of its own.

What I mean is that it's as if the project is a living, breathing beast that has overtaken the people involved in it and is spinning them around like twister spins houses effortlessly as it passes through a region. 

As far as I can tell, the people involved have not stopped to really focus their thoughts and feelings about the situation.  And, so far, we (at Common Outlook) have not done a good job of it either.  The effect? 

All parties involved are engaged in a lot of "busywork";
generating a lot more activity than the situation requires. 
But that is stopping tomorrow – at least for us. 

I have decided to hit the "pause" button and have called a round-table discussion for tomorrow with a few of my key team members to step back and look at the big picture here.  To help us do that, I have asked one of our team members who is not involved in the discussions – and therefore not lost in the forest, unable to see the trees – to join us in the discussion. 

We will be asking big-picture questions like:

• Given the nature of this beast, is this a situation we still want to be involved in? 
• What are the key goals we have in this situation?  

• Are we still meeting them? 
• Do we believe we will be able to meet them if we stay in the game? 

All of the questions above are designed to help us renew our focus. 

And, we will be able to do this because we are choosing to "unplug" long enough to regain the focus we have lost.  I believe many of us would be better served by doing this.  That is, unplugging long enough – even for only 15-30 minutes in some cases – to ask some big-picture questions in order to establish or regain FOCUS.  

I find that this creates a much calmer atmosphere intellectually and emotionally, and it dramatically reduces wasted effort. 

Especially in today's crazy economic times, I think this is something we can all use. 

My last entry opened the topic of how to respond purposefully (and not just from fear or survival instinct) to the current economic troubles.  This posting goes a little further down that path. 

One of the most effective ways of maintaining a balanced perspective
is being purposeful about what we focus our attention on. 

With today’s 24/7 media environment, 24-hour news channels, and electronic gadgets all around us, we are constantly bombarded with the (bad) news.  In fact, we’re given a lot more bad news than good news.  If this is most of what occupies your mental space, where do you think your emotional state will end up? 

Don’t get me wrong – I am not telling you to ignore what is happening around you by sticking your head in the sand.  I think it is useful and important to be informed.  BUT, there is a difference between being informed and being inundated.  Sadly, I think the norm for us these days (and we’re not even aware of it most of the time), is to be inundated.  Worse yet, we are not at all purposeful about what we allow ourselves to be inundated with.  So, the default is “what’s available”, which is predominantly bad news.   

Instead of hearing and reading over and over and over each day how terrible things are and how bad things are going to get, my suggestion is to balance some of that with at least SOME attention on positive things that are happening in your life and work.

“WHY?”  You might ask.  Because – as you will probably know by observing your own life – we often create the result we fear most, or at least the result we focus on most.  Said differently, we create a self-fulfilling prophesy.  Worse yet, once our fears are realized, we have proven ourselves right and the cycle gains power and validity.  It can be hard to break out of unless you hit a “pattern interrupt” button somewhere and decide to be more purposeful about what you focus on and what you put your energy toward.  I say this in part because there is widely held theory that what we focus on, we produce more of.  It is called the law of attraction.

Here’s to having a say about how your day goes.

This blog entry is overdue, given the wild ride of the financial markets over the past few weeks, and the unbelievable amount of press associated with it. 

It is obvious that fear has been the predominant emotion driving the behaviours of millions of people around the world during this period.  And unfortunately, because of modern technology they are able to act on their fear very easily and very quickly by selling anything and everything as quickly as they can.  Or, in the case of most of the world's banks, by stopping lending to each other.

What is the effect of all of this?  Massive value destruction.

Furthermore, fear's actions create the context for more of the same, and we keep proving ourselves right as we produce exactly the results we fear most.  For example, when we cut our spending and investing, the economy slows down.  Hearing that news, we cut our spending further, and the economy slows down further. 

It isn't until we reach some arbitrary level that we determine as "low enough" or "bad enough" that some of us start opening up the flow of money again and taking more risks.  That is when things start to turn around, and then more and more people start doing the same, in reaction to the data they hear.  BUT SOMEBODY HAS TO BE FIRST. 

So, how do we break this cycle?

Surely we can't completely ignore what is happening around us? 

No, we should not completely ignore it.  But we should not let it be the ONLY thing we are responding to either. My recommendation is as follows:

KEEP THE LONG TERM IN MIND, AND BALANCE THE NEGATIVE WITH THE POSITIVE. 

• If you've lost money in your investment portfolio (like most of us), keep in mind that in most cases you won't be needing that money for a loooong time anyway, so it isn't a "real" loss in that sense. 
• If you were thinking about taking a trip, I suggest still taking the trip – just make it a bit more modest. 
• If you were thinking about making home improvements, make them, but similarly, maybe you just make them a bit more modest. 
• If you were going to invest in a new business venture, weigh out the pros and cons, and if it still adds up, proceed.  Perhaps it's just a more modest business venture.

Remember, the economy doesn't grow (nor do plants) unless there is and exchange and flow of funds (or in the case of plants – nutrients).  

I will end this entry with a quote from Thomas Jefferson that is listed on our website: "In matters of style, swim with the current.  In matters of principle, stand like a rock."

To balance. 

Greetings from France.  I arrived here yesterday to do some client work, and am writing to share an interesting conversation I had with the gentleman who picked me up at the airport on Wednesday morning. 

Among other things, we were talking about the high price of oil these days (who isn't?).  

The gentleman I was speaking with runs a car service, ferrying people back and forth from Charles de Gaulle airport mostly in a fairly new Mercedes.  He is the person who generally picks me up when I come to work with this client, so I've gotten to know him a little bit.  I asked how his business has been affected by the high oil costs and slowing economies.  The good news is that his revenues have not dropped (at least yet), but needless to say his net income certainly has.  

I was just about to say, "You know, part of me is happy that oil prices are this high", when he preempted me by saying essentially the same thing.  This, from a man whose living has already been adversely affected by this change, and for whom more damage is almost sure to come.  I was delighted by his ability and willingness to see beyond his own circumstances, to the bigger picture.  

The discussion that ensued was mostly connected to the impact on our environment and, therefore, our wellbeing, brought about by our  continued heavy reliance on burning fossil fuels to meet our energy demands.   

There I sat, saying to him that perhaps I wouldn't be flying to client sites as often anymore, and saying that this was ok.  In fact, I've already reduced my travel from previous years, and now when I fly, I purchase carbon offset credits that fund initiatives such as tree planting, biodiversity, watershed preservation, and other such practical steps to help offset my impact.  See www.zerofootprint.net for details. 

Whatever your take on the global warming issue is, one thing people ARE in agreement about is the daily impact of smog in thousands of large cities.  So, reducing our oil consumption will help this on a day-to-day basis. 

While oil was cheap, the economics were not favourable enough to encourage most of us – the masses – to make more than partial moves toward changing our consumption habits.  Now, we're being pushed towards it out of greater economic necessity.  I think that's a good thing.

Yes, there will be pain for most of us because of the changes this will bring.  But, the pain can bring growth – growth of a different kind.