The Divinely Guided Boot of Upward Inspiration

Tuesday, June 29, 2004

Your Serve...

The following is from an email list I'm on, and it sparked an interesting line of thought in my head (italic emphasis is mine) -

Elder's Meditation, June 29, 2004

"Whenever you take anything from the earth, remember to leave an offering."
--Joe Coyhis, STOCKBRIDGE-MUNSE
We need to look at nature and its inhabitants as our brothers and sisters. Whenever we pick plants or herbs, we should leave an offering of tobacco. We should talk to the plants and ask their permission to use them. The plants will feel honored to be of service for each of them knows they are here to serve. Each of them knows they carry a special medicine and this medicine is about continuing the cycle of life. We need always to be grateful to our brothers and sisters.
Creator, I thank you for the opportunity of life.
Elisi Tsayonah, AniWodi
St Francis River Band of Cherokee

What struck me was the fact that this is true of people, as well, and yet few of us recognize this and even fewer can manage to take advantage of it in a way that is honest, clean and respectful to both parties. But, in fact, for many of us the opportunity to be of real and lasting service in an area of our own special skill or ability sparks our enthusiasm and our best efforts far beyond anything we could be convinced to do otherwise, as long as the person we are serving recognizes, appreciates and respects our service.

For example, how many of you have ever dealt with a co-worker or a family member who just wasn't pulling their weight on projects or doing their part in the group effort?

What, nobody? :-D

Of course, we all know how futile it is to cajole, nag, threaten or try to manipulate this person into doing what we want or need them to do. But using this new understanding, we can easily entice them to do just that by taking the time to respect their inner worth - their own special medicine - and create an atmosphere that redefines their part in the overall issue as a chance to be the recognized expert and a valuable contributer to the end product.

For example, say that Steve is a member of your project team, but no matter how much lead time you give him or how much pressure you put on him, he always manages to come up a day late and a dollar short on his end of the deal, making your whole team look bad and costing the company money and clients.

Of course, you can always elect to do it the way you've always done it - tossing a pile of papers on Steve's desk, giving him a deadline and an ultimatum. Using the old paradigm, you might try threatening to take up the issue with the boss. Or you might simply bow to the inevitable and give the majority of Steve's work over to the rest of the team - or take it on yourself - unfairly burdening everyone else and doing nothing to change Steve's working habits. But chances are, Steve is not going to go into spontaneous remission of whatever brain tumor is making him act like a real putz just because you stuck to your guns and held out for a miracle.

The next time you have a hot project, try using the new concept and approach Steve like this:

[Scene - hallway. Come up to Steve like you've been looking for him specifically and with great need, if you can pull it off without looking silly.]

"Steve! There you are. Boy am I glad I found you! Bossguy just sent a new project down the pike and I could really use your particular talents on this assignment. You're the only one I know who has the skills and the insight to pull this off." (Outline his end of the project here) "I know I could probably hand this off to Hannessy, but to be honest she hasn't got the experience you have with XYZ Corp, nor the trust that you developed with them during the Magnum project. You could really be of service to me if you would take this on and put your particular stamp of expertise on it. Everyone knows you are the go-to guy for this sort of thing, so I feel that if I can get you on board I know that we can go to the meeting with the best presentation possible ."

{NOTE: None of this should be blatant bullshit! If Steve is not the go-to guy for this sort of thing, then why are you going to him? (That could be part of the issue - maybe you're giving Steve assignments that don't fit his skills or talents). And also make sure the reasons you give (the experience with and trust of XYZ Corp) are real and valuable - that's Steve's special medicine in this situation.}

By recognizing someone's true worth and tapping into the innate human desire to be the recognized expert put in a position to cast our greatness over the needs of others, we create a 'pull' of inspiration rather than a 'push' of motivation. If you can hold your otherwise-inclined tongue and approach Steve in this fashion, and he isn't glowing with pride and energy to get to work by the time you're done, then either he's hopeless or you've been so unpleasant to him in the past that he simply doesn't trust you. In the case of the former, well, you tried. In the case of the latter, you've dug your own hole and can only hope he turns in something good enough for you to reinforce him with a "You see, now this is what I was talking about - pure Steve genius!" in front of the whole (no doubt incredulous) project team and hope he starts to warm up to the idea of being a real and valuable human being in your eyes.

Although it may take time and effort (and some creative muscle work keeping a straight face the first few times), with this approach the Steve's in your life are going to feel more and more recognized for who they are and who they want to be, rather than for who and what they aren't.

Okay, I hear some of you whining that the person you have to deal with is a real scumsucker or completely beyond your ability to get along with. Well, so what? Recognizing and honoring someone's abilities and skills and liking them are two different things. I'm not asking you to slip them some tongue or take them home to mother. Just recognize and respect what they have been given where it crosses your path out of necessity, and on your own time you can block their calls and avoid them at parties all you want.

For example, you might guess how I personally feel about the Saudi terrorists who participated in the 9/11 tragedy. But when it comes to setting up, organizing and carrying out what was admittedly a highly complicated and globally effective act of terrorism, nobody can deny that they had mad skills (in more ways than one). And, however execrable and abhorrent their action was, nobody can deny that it was one of the most singularly effective ways that anybody has managed to pull off to really make us think about how we live our lives, how we treat other people and who we want to be, as a nation and as individuals, in the future. By that measure, they accomplished what they set out to do - even if they didn't achieve their overt desire to see the great American Satan fall to it's knees. (It makes you wonder if God really was behind their action - just not in the way they thought. After all, tragic as it may be for those behind, bringing several thousand souls home to heaven is hardly a bad thing in God's eyes, and to my mind we really have evolved significantly as humans as a result of this horrific event.)

Anyway, what all of this means is that by operating on a level of nemasté - recognizing and honoring the divine in others - we can literally change the way the world around us works. Superficially, we get our projects or our family needs done on time and on track. But on a deeper level, it means that we are taking a step toward becoming a people who recognize and honor others for their true worth - their particular medicine that was given to them by the Creator - and by doing so we create and engender a social atmosphere of respect, love and appreciation where all people can grow and develop spiritually and personally.

Edit: If you'd like to subscribe to the above-mentioned email meditations, go here.

Posted at 05:36 pm by sonipitts
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Monday, June 28, 2004

About Me

"I reject your reality and substitute my own."

-- Adam Savage, cohost of Mythbusters

Greetings, fellow blogosherans.

My name is Soni Pitts. Welcome to my blog.

Who am I?

I am basically a free-range bon vivant, determined to enjoy life to its fullest and take as many people with me as I can.

If you ask me what I do, I'm just as likely to answer "When?" as to provide the more socially acceptable (and helpful) tangible life-tag. That's because I do whatever strikes my fancy and then play with it until I get bored and move on.

Currently, I am enjoying some amazingly cool success as a life coach (specializing in helping people make more sustainable, abundant and joyful choices about their life and their lifestyle), helping to run a social capital and networking learning community and am in the early stages of creating a business in freelance writing and copywriting.

In the past, I have been an exotic dancer, an Americorps member building homes for the Durham, NC Habitat for Humanity and a librarian, among other things. I am also a legally ordained minister, for what it's worth, although I do not actually do much with it at the moment.

As for the future? Who knows...hopefully it will be fun, useful and leave the corporeal plane a better place than it was when I got here.

I am also...

...a happily married, child-free, first-born vegetarian with a penchent for good food and drink, cats, science fiction, 'dead body tv,' great humor and the written word.

...a geek-chick, in the sense of a 'sci-fi fan who reads books on quantum physics for fun, can find her way around html and a CSS without getting too badly burnt, defaults to open-source over DRM'd snare-ware and thinks Cory Doctorow and his posse are gods' kind of geek, rather than a 'code monkey, hardware-modding, can build a computer from duct tape and old twist ties' kind of geek. Geek 2.0: The Web Edition, if you will.

...a child of the '60s, a product of the '80s and '90s, and a fully engaged citizen of the '00s - and I just can't frakking wait to see what's next.

...lining up to welcome our emerging Google overlords.

...a somewhat lapsed Pastafarian.

My vision for life...

...is to create a permanent lifestyle of joyous and fully engaged semi-retirement that narrows my resource footprint and expands my options by opting for sustainable simplicity, work-of-choice rather than work-of-neccessity, ongoing personal growth, integrated community and global service and time for the sheer enjoyment of the benefits of coporeal existance in a healthy, abundant manner.

Yanno, the usual stuff.

Here is a brief idea of what you will find herein:

inspirational, intriquing and thought-provoking insights, stories and ideas that interest or intrique me
cool links, tools/services and other fun and interesting tidbits from around the world and off the Web
zombie news, sightings and other matters relating to the state of the undead
issues, problems, new lines of thought and other pesky products of my over-extended navel-gazing
what's going on in my world and updates on anything interesting or useful (interesting or useful to me, that is; your mileage may vary)
random friend, family and colleague pimping, and occasionally some auto-pimpage, as I see fit
random rants, snarks, snerks, jabs, kudos, WTFs, giggle and/or hissy fits and other such reactions to the world around me

In the interests of fair warning, here are a list of the official DGB rules and policies:

My space, my rules. You may call me on anything you feel is BS or express any opinion of your own. I may agree or I may not, and will summarilly delete anything that is intended as pure troll-baiting or just nasty for nasty's sake, but in the end, it's my blog, so I win. You wanna play by your rules, get your own blog. So there, nyah nyah nyah.
What I put in here is my opinion, and no one else's, unless I note to the contrary. I may be wrong (hey, it can happen!) and I encourage free and open debate of any subject in the comments section or by private email. Who knows, I may even change my mind (don't tell hubby that, though. I'd never get any peace).
NO FLAMING! 'Nuff said.
Although I do not go out of my way to be foul-mouthed or engage in shock journalism, I do occasionally use adult language and R-rated humor. Deal with it or not, as you see fit. (See rule #1).
All nationalities, religions (or lack therof), lifestyles and so on are to be welcomed and loved here - or at least treated respectfully - by all who participate. If you can't deal with that, you're obviously just not ready for this place at this time. Feel free to come back later if that changes, no hard feelings.
Feel free to offer your own personal or business resources and assistance whenever appropriate (generally in response to another's request) in the comments section. But there will be absolutely NO SPAM tolerated. And no, I'm not gonna type out a long list of what is and isn't SPAM. You're grown ups. You can figure it out. If you can't, I'll do it for you and it won't be pretty.

And now that we've gotten all of that out of the way...let the games begin!

Soni Pitts

Posted at 07:24 pm by sonipitts
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