Tales Worth Telling 2 - What IS That?

I keep up pretty well with current events - at least the sort that make it into the newspaper and broadcast news anyway. So a lot of times I understand what some of the hot searches are all about. Google Hot Trends searches are also a great way to catch breaking news, such as the crane collapse at the refinery in Houston the other day.

Then there are those entries in the top search list that make me scratch my head. I have no idea what they're about until I go look. Sometimes I'm sure I don't want to know or that finding out will simply be feeding some prurient interest. Sometimes I worry that by following the links to learn more, something bad might happen like I'll be placed on some government watch list or something. Of course, if it's on the Hot Trends list, in all probability I'll have lots of company there.

Today, there are a few of these. The first "Wha-aa?" is at the very top of the list, Green Gulch. On investigating, though, it turns out just to be one of those "I know what you're watching" things.

It seems that CBS News Sunday Morning profiled Green Gulch, and it must have sparked people's innate curiosity to learn more. Of course, Voice of America did a similar piece on Green Gulch nearly a month ago and I don't recall seeing that kind of spike in searches. Best guess(es)? CBS got the idea from VOA and more people watch CBS Sunday Morning News than listen to Voice of America.

For a while, I was confused about what that story had to do with "stone by design", considered by Google to be a related search. Then I discovered that Lew French's Stone By Design had been profiled by CBS News Sunday morning back in November. A-ha! Mystery (probably) solved.

Lake Placid Ironman competition - seems pretty self-explanatory. I'm not sure I'm all that curious about it or the results.

From the looks of it, not as many other people are all that curious either. As I write this, that search has dropped to number 17. The occasional spikes in searches on the Lake Placid Ironman probably have to do with coverage from CNN or people wanting to find out more about race results. And, having looked into it a bit more now (see there's that curiosity thing again. Really, the internet is a black hole), I can imagine that thunderstorms today and an expected finish time of midnight for some really would pique a bit more interest.

Roomsaver, pass. Probably featured in some news report and people are even more interested than usual right now in saving money. The most interesting aspect of this hot search item is that I can't seem to get to the website at the moment. That tells me they may be pretty new, perhaps not yet built for scaling, and some news piece grabbed enough people's attention that they're overwhelming the site at the moment.

Which brings me to my favorite on the list. Katie Holmes and her purple hands. Why would I care about Katie Holmes in the first place? And why in the world are her hands purple? Should I care about that?

Guilty pleasure or not. Inquiring minds want to know.

Investigating that one pays off with interesting stuff. Google Hot Trends searches are indeed helping create news. I'm not the only one finding out new things because of what other people are searching. Are her hands really purple? And if so, is it because of some kind of Scientology ritual?

You know what, after finding out that much, suddenly my curiosity has died. It's really not something I care about after all. There are way better things to think about than whether or not some celebrity's hands are purple, and why.

Update on the Roomsaver website - it finally loaded. It's a website (who'dathunkit). It helps you save money on hotel rooms (surprise!). They provide coupons for saving on rooms such as you might find on road trips. Okay, not a bad idea. Not super sexy either, but hey, who am I to judge? Saving money is saving money. Just remember to keep the coupons in the car.

Huntington Bank is a little trickier. It could be a bank robbery, but that was back in April and the most recent news story on the subject was three days ago. It could be because of recently posted profits when we're all feeling a bit skittish about the viability of some banks but again, that story came out Friday and none of the other banks mentioned in it are that high in the searches. Hmmm, still no joy. Time to give up for now.

On the creepy side of that search though, my concerns about randomly following links from the Hot Trends list may not be completely unfounded. It turns out there is a website called Businessuu that seems to operate by taking some of the text from top searches like these and then turn them into something vaguely... icky. I can't tell for what purpose, but surely it can't be good. I'm not linking to it. Trust me, you do not want to go in there. And if you ignore that recommendation and decide to go look for yourself and come across something unseemly or contract some gross virus, don't say I didn't warn you.

On that note, it's time to turn my back on the moving target. So, no storm chasing with Tropical Storm Dolly. I'm going to perhaps indulge in some voyeuristic tendencies and check out the Danica-Milka video of some exchange/fight they apparently had recently while trying real hard to ignore some of the idiotic comments by others. And then I'll see if The Long and the Short of It family can manage to combine some bicycling and ice cream to celebrate National Ice Cream Day.

Happy Sundae!

What puzzles you?

Leggo My Lego!

So much interesting is going on right now that it's almost too much. Now that I'm back in town again, I've been joining the other folks in putting out some feelers for space for Startup Weekend Seattle (know of anyplace that'd work? we'd love to hear about it!) and it looks like I may be helping to re-write the curriculum and co-teach a unit on customer support for a UW certification program. We're making headway on those plans anyway and I'm excited about the prospects.

That's just for starters. There are plenty more irons in the fire too and on top of all that, there were so many articles of interest in the business section of the Seattle PI on Monday that I hardly know what to do with them all. The highlight for me was probably the article on Lego Serious Play. I've been interested in LSP since November, when I got to try it out for myself at the ICF Conference in St. Louis last fall.

In fact, I forwarded the article to Robert Rasmussen, figuring he'd appreciate knowing it made print here in Seattle. I'm glad I did; we've been talking about how to get me into one of the certification sessions and he mentioned that there's likely to be one in Vancouver, BC sometime this winter. I'm so there. I just have to make sure it doesn't conflict with Startup Weekend!

All I can say is with everything popping up at once, it's both scary and exciting - kind of like those thunderstorms Monday night which were way cool to watch by the way; it's just too bad that we had an obscured view - even our treehouse wouldn't have helped much in that regard. I'm just glad that Small Person is back to school so that he doesn't have to feel neglected as I start getting into all the cool new stuff happening.

Whether you're interested in Lego as a business performance tool or have ideas about space for Startup Weekend, I'm interested in what you have to say. You can send messages to me at techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com and we'll build on that. It'll be fun, too - so long as you leave at least a few of the cool Lego pieces for me to use too.

How can I tap into fun and excitement to help get things done?

Internet Off the Grid

For the past year or so, the thought has occurred to me that conditions could reach a point where energy is precious enough that we may be pushed out of urban centers to better situate ourselves to grow our own food or at least live closer to its production. That's not the only cause or justification, but you get the drift - people more spread out instead of more concentrated. People quite likely living off the grid.

And if that were to happen, the question I keep wondering is whether that would result in going back to an agrarian society or whether some other way of being might evolve.

I'm comfortable enough with the former, having grown up around wheat farming and having helped raise cattle myself. But I'm betting on the latter. There is so much of what so many of us do that is virtual anymore that if there were a way to stay virtually connected via the internet, despite the distances and the changes in availability of energy, then I'm sure we could rebuild a spread out, virtual society.

It's an interesting thought anyway and now it seems there really does exist the technology that could take the internet off the grid. Makes you think about where the new power centers are likely to be, doesn't it? Of course, with the combination of the decreased daylight and increased clouds and storms in the wintertime, the Seattle area would likely be open for business only in the summer months.

So - what's your most interesting and/or optimistic post-apocalyptic scenario assuming there are still computers and ways for them to stay connected over distances? I love science fiction "what-if's" so send yours to me at techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com and let's riff on it a bit. You never know where it could lead.

Where do I want to be in twenty years? What's likely then? And what can I do today to make the two mesh?

You Sneeze, You Lose

Twenty some-odd years ago, I can remember clearly being way too sick to work. Unfortunately, I was waiting tables at the time, so not going to work meant not getting paid and I definitely did want to get paid. Worse, if I really was so sick that it was worth being even more broke than I was, it was up to me to find someone to cover my shift. My feeling at the time was that if I was well enough to be dialing for coverage, I was well enough to get my behind into work, sniffly nose and all.

This is not to say I was heedless of public health. Back when "cover your cough" still meant nothing more than using one's bare hands, I raced to the back sidestation every time I felt a cough or a sneeze coming on and aimed under my arm for the garbage can, dishes held high - especially if they were full of food I was on my way to deliver to patrons. In fact, it was more because of how pressured I felt to wantonly endanger the health of others that I felt so much anger toward a system that did them and me such disservice. It would have been nice to not worry about the money so much too.

You'd think that in the corporate world where we have paid sick leave available to us that the situation would be better, but it's not. Within weeks of starting a new job as a senior manager, I can remember coming down with a nasty respiratory flu. In a world where my boss was sending out messages at 2am, I wanted to prove I was serious about my work and so I showed up even though resting horizontally sounded much more appealing. The truth is, that even when they tell you to stay home, the realistic workplace expectations of today are that you'll be there anyway.

During one meeting, I started feeling worse and worse and without realizing it, began to slump down in my chair just so I could rest my head on the back. I was completely mortified when my boss noticed and told me I should go home - whether he meant it this way or not, my sense was that I had been caught slacking.

This isn't just me with a higher-than-normal sense of responsibility either. Another more recent flu that knocked me flat on my butt and kept me on the couch for nearly a week this spring, hit the spousal unit a few weeks later. He wasn't so inclined to rest up and get well though - he had a major project happening at work with a deadline that was out of his control and no one there to pick up the slack. So he dragged his sorry butt to work day in, day out for the entire week he was sick. I hope he remembered to sneeze into his armpit or the trashcan.

Variations on this theme are endless. More companies than I can count send out notices in advance of bad weather reminding employees of their inclement weather policy - often stating that all employees are "essential" and so while they won't go so far as to tell you what you should do if getting to work is truly dangerous, they do expect everyone to be there, (quite literally at times) come hell or high water. If you simply can't make it to work, they'll be happy to dock you a vacation day.

In all of these situations - because we want to get paid, our employers consider our presence to be vital (and they're tired of dealing with people who are slackers, wimps or simply have poor judgment), our sense of duty and responsibility in showing up and contributing our share is strong - especially when there are deadlines looming - all of this is understandable and even laudable much of the time. However, usually when we do this, we're also missing critical information that shows this can be truly stupid thinking and really, it has got to stop. Really... before it gets people killed.

Anyone pushing themselves to get work done because of a deadline has forgotten the dual lessons that a) no one is indispensable and b) a few hours sleep almost always means we'll get more work done at higher quality than we will in the "all-nighter" world of diminishing returns.

Managers who work late at night or work when they are sick are only role modeling poor behavior for the workplace and setting the bar inappropriately high for their employees in the process. We'd all be better off if managers worked harder at having a balanced life themselves and expecting and helping their employees to do the same. If we can get that far, we'll probably at least see a reduction in the number of heart attacks in overstressed workers just living for their jobs.

Don't believe this is a better option than working at all costs? Check out this Cornell study that exposes the previously hidden costs of "presenteeism". I bet most managers and business owners don't take these costs into account when they're writing their absenteeism policies.

We also have to take responsibility for ourselves, no matter what our employers are saying. When we push to get ourselves on the road when we shouldn't be, we're letting outside factors that have little to do with reason cloud our own judgment - the only judgment that really matters when it comes right down to it. I remember making a flight one pre-dawn morning that I should never have made. Although I was fully capable of flying in the clouds that were scattered around that morning, the plane I was flying was not certified for instrument flight rules and it was too dark to see where the clouds were to avoid them.

The trouble was, I was scheduled to take some doctors east of the mountains for the day and while my boss at the time told me to call if I couldn't make the flight, the unspoken understanding was that I was not to call. Just like in many bush flying operations, I'm sure he'd tell you differently, but they have ways of making these things clear while keeping themselves out of trouble.

There were definitely some scary moments for me that morning, trying to figure out where the clouds were and how to keep out of them.

If I'd had an accident or if I'd been found to have busted any regulations, I'd have been the only one blamed. My prediction though is that only when we recognize the culpability of the employers in pressuring employees to do things that they shouldn't be doing, will we begin to see meaningful change in that regard. Workplace policies that make it financially difficult to stay at home, or create other pressure to be at work when there is good reason not to be, effectively force people to act against their own best interests and quite often the best interests of others too.

Alone, these ought to be compelling arguments. Stop for a moment, though, and think about one more element to this issue that is looming on the horizon.

How are our present practices setting ourselves up for failure in the event of some kind of flu pandemic? Whether it's a return of some extra nasty fatal version of the flu or whether bird flu mutates to a form that humans can pass to one another, the possibility is out there. And if that comes to pass, as it's been predicted by health officials, that would not be the best time to expect we'll all be at work even if we're sick.

In fact, now would be a really good time to prepare for a pandemic by practicing getting work done even when some people are unwell and better off at home. After all, if you can't do without a handful of people now, what makes you think you'll be able to do without an officeful when things get really difficult?

And why not practice that when earthquakes and windstorms and blizzards and hurricanes hit too? It's called business continuity and because of all the ways that businesses can be impacted, it makes sense that we should reevaluate our workforce policies and the ways in which we might be able to use newer technologies to our advantage in the face of various situations that could arise.

Perhaps as we think more comprehensively about these issues, we can get to the point where going home sick doesn't have to mean a loss of face or, worse, a loss of a paycheck. Perhaps then we can also enjoy a nice dinner out without having to wonder if the server sneezed on our food.

Send your thoughts about workforce policies to me at techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com and let's explore how changes to those policies might improve the results we see.

What are the possible unintended consequences of today's decisions?

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Kimm Viebrock is an ICF-credentialed Associate Certified Coach who helps technology professionals and service-oriented technology groups develop and use their skills more effectively and increase their value within the larger organization, allowing them to do more, do it better and have more fun doing it. Kimm is devoted to finding the connectedness in life.

Mulligan

Somehow, I never grew up with the concept of giving someone a mulligan. I'm not sure exactly why that was but today seems like a day for do-overs... a chance to get it right... so I'm going to take what I can get and run with it. I'm looking forward, for instance to doing a better job scoring Small Person's little league game this afternoon than I did over the weekend. Now that I understand the rules better, including the time limits, maybe they'll actually win this time. The weekend's game was definitely a good lesson in how we often have far more influence over matter than we realize.

If that's of interest to anyone, I'm sure I could get around to elaborating further. In the meantime, there seem to be other do-overs in the mix that have practically demanded today that I pay attention and appreciate. Getting a chance to re-write this essay after it blew up in my face is one. In the fall-out, I discovered that I get to have two ideas to work with, instead of just one, so I'm sure we'll all benefit. And while not everyone has been privy to my credentialing pursuit given that I've been far more silent on the topic than I'd intended, there were some rather interesting events that conspired last week to get in my way of filing my application by the deadline. I apparently was given a cosmic mulligan on that one too, sent in all the paperwork in the nick of time and now am under active consideration for my ICF ACC credential. Whew.

Coaching too, as an industry, got a mulligan today. After being (appropriately) skewered by the Daily Show, I didn't think the New York Times necessarily clarified any better what it is coaches do and how they can help the average person. On this morning's Today Show, however, Laura Berman Fortgang and Penelope Brackett did what I (and others) thought to be an outstanding job showing people the more positive side of coaching and what it can do, as Laura put it, to close the gap between where you are in your life and where you want to be.

Of course I'm somewhat biased because I highly respect Laura's work. Those who know me, however, know that it's not that I think she's good because I like her but more that I like and respect her because she's good. Part of that stems from the fact that I discovered her approach to be very similar to my own and so I've found it worthwhile for myself and my clients to leverage off of her efforts by becoming an authorized facilitator of her Now What: 90 Days to a New Life Direction program.

As with anything I get excited about, I'm happy to talk ad nauseum on the subject... and am totally fine too if it doesn't interest you in the slightest because here's one of the things I've learned about do-overs: they're great for helping let go of emotional attachment to a particular outcome because we've already been through the initial sense of loss. Getting a mulligan, at its best, means being able to give it another try without so much of the emotional attachment that can get in the way of doing it well.

Now, if only I could get a do-over where Laura knows/remembers about my meteorological background so that when Al Roker tells her he needs a weather coach, she knows to tell him she knows just the perfect person. Hey Al, I'm over here, on the other coast.

If you've been granted a mulligan recently, or wish that you had, how about letting me know about it at techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com and sharing what you learned in the process.

What would you do differently if you were granted a do-over?

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Kimm Viebrock is a Certified Professional Coach who helps technology professionals and service-oriented technology groups develop and use their skills more effectively and increase their value within the larger organization, allowing them to do more, do it better and have more fun doing it. Kimm is devoted to finding the connectedness in life.

Curiosities

It feels quite strange sitting here, listening to my own voice being broadcast over the radio. This is not the first time I’ve had this experience – when I was a broadcast meteorologist, the teases I would tape to air during primetime television would always make me jump out of my chair whenever I heard them as I prepared my late night forecasts. It’s very disorienting.

At the same time, it’s exciting too. I can think of only one other time I’ve been interviewed on the radio before (back when being a broadcast meteorologist made me a bit of a local celebrity) and I remembered today that it really can be a lot of fun.

On the other other hand, it’s downright painful to hear my answers to some of the questions. Like so many perfectionists, no sooner had we stopped taping the interview when I thought of other things I’d have liked to have said – or other, better ways to put what I did say. Feeling so vulnerable is difficult for me.

I realize now that part of how this happens is because of how much I learn during a process like that, and how quickly. While ultimately that’s a good thing, it also means that I will probably never be completely satisfied with my performances in such situations. I will always see a way I’d like to improve on what I’ve done.

At the same time, I have also learned to appreciate the good in things. For example, I had fun during the interview. That clearly comes across in my voice and I’m glad of that. Anyone who can have that much fun talking about what they do can’t be all bad, right? Given how much I enjoyed the experience, I expect I’ll create more such opportunities in the future, so I expect I’ll get additional chances to hone my skills as an interviewee.

One of the topics of conversation that came up with John Moe – the host of this radio program I was on (The Works on KUOW, one of the local NPR stations) – was the question of vulnerability. He even joked at one point that we were getting close to some of his own vulnerabilities during the interview. I wonder what those were?

We readily agreed on one important point… that being vulnerable isn’t about being insecure, dependent, or needy. Instead, it’s about exposing one’s humanity, your authentic self. Doing so in a worthwhile manner requires setting aside the fear that others will judge us as somehow less for it. As scary as this is for most of us, it helps to ask the question, “How can we be anything less than by being ourselves, our true selves?”

If somehow, these ‘others’ don’t see the value of you being “you” (the real “you”, now, not some persona you put on, daring others to believe “this is me”), then you’d probably be better off hanging out with a different crowd!

In the end, when we find the courage to come from a place of curiosity (even if it exposes some vulnerability), everyone benefits. This is as true for managers and co-workers and family members as it is for interviewers and coaches.

Coming from curiosity means no dumb questions, no bad answers. We don’t have to be the experts if the questions we ask further understanding and the answers we give help foster more such worthwhile questions.

Check out the archive of the show (available along with John's interview of Sister Helen Prejean that aired the same night) and let me know what you think. Send your comments and unanswered questions to techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com and I'll see about responding to them.

What are you truly curious about?

There's Always More...

“I thought I was wrong once – but I was mistaken.” When did you last have to re-think an opinion? If your answer is “never”, then you might want to check to see if you are taking enough risks in life… or to see if you might have been in error – however slight – in that assessment.

Personally, I recently had to totally re-think an opinion of my own. The polite version went something like, “How in the world did this guy ever make it two days, let alone two years as an on-air weather anchor?” on seeing a clip of Mark Mathis and the work he did until a few short months ago for a Charlotte, NC station.

This clip has been making the rounds on the internet, so perhaps you’ve seen it already. At one point, I was all-out, jaw-dropping horrified as I watched him clowning around with a graphic in the background showing some extremely nasty-looking thunderstorms. As a former broadcast meteorologist (also facetiously known as “weather bunny” in my house, with full knowledge that I possess enough of the credentials to make fun of the work in a way guaranteed to annoy me if it ever came from anyone questioning said credentials), I found it appalling to have him be that flippant with serious weather. It nearly ended there for me. I feel fortunate to have had to courage to reconsider my gut reaction on this one. Perhaps I was being overly serious about the matter though I do still like to think people want to know about major thunderstorm activity.

It all started when curiosity overcame me and I had to find out more of the story; one thing I know - there's always more than what's obvious. I started trolling for more information about this guy. How had he lasted as long as he did, acting like that on-air in the 28th largest television market? Charlotte is not exactly small potatoes so he and the station had to have had quite a lot on the line.

What I learned from "the rest of the story" began to re-shape my opinion. It turns out that part of the reason was that people loved him… or loved to hate him, far more than I’d given him credit for. From a Charlotte Observer article, it sure sounds like the station probably hired him – and kept him around – for exactly that reason. Then they dumped him for breaching the standard morality clause in his contract, supposedly having nothing to do with his on-air antics.

I’d like to point out that I never was comfortable with those clauses and several others like them – it made me into one of those people afraid even to have a glass of wine with dinner if I was out on a night off, or even consider a different haircut than the one I had when I was hired. And, like similar sorts of clauses I’m sure you can find in your own corporate employee handbook, my opinion is that they are rarely used except as an excuse to terminate someone they plan to be rid of anyway when they don’t care to share their real reasons for their actions.

Here’s the cool thing about this guy though, and the reason I’ve come to admire him – he fully owns who he was and the events and actions that led to where he is now, even if there is still some question of the station management’s role in what happened, and he’s actively taking responsibility for his own life at this point. I can see no whining here.

If there’s any truth to the additional information I’ve read, it’s quite possible that getting fired may have saved his life. What’s more, I’m thinking that Mark is poised to take advantage of this turn of events and make some major improvements in his life – perhaps even using his even greater notoriety for even greater impact. It’d be a great thing to shoot for anyway.

Meanwhile, the station is still searching for a new weather anchor, a real meteorologist this time. Much as I'd like to see weather being treated less flippantly, I have to wonder if that will help them get back their ratings to the level they had when Mark was hamming it up?

Ultimately, there are so many ways it occurs to me that this story might impact the rest of us and our lives. It’s funny and entertaining in a train-wreck, “misery loves company” sort of way. And it’s inspiring in a “you have to lose it all to find what’s important” sort of way. It also shows us how we can allow our own mistakes and the poor behavior of others to chew us up and spit us out if we hold on too tightly to our own righteous indignation… or we can choose to find some positives in the situation and take that to make life better somehow.

There’s plenty more where that came from. Now it’s your turn. I’m sure you can think of even more ways this story might be relevant so I hope you'll take a moment to drop a line at techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com - if it's iced over, I'll know it's cold; I still remember how the weather rope works.

What would you want to accomplish if looking stupid was no barrier?

Cobbler's Children's Shoes

Well, I know what I'm likely to be spending most of my day doing. Apparently the fan is out on the power supply for the old computer I use as a print and scanner and weather station server. Alarms started going off VERY late last night and I just sat and stared at it wondering what the heck it was till I figured out it was the overheat alarm. What a drag.

At least I was still up (working on the background info for the project that I've decided to take on as part of NaNoWriMo). It would have been even more of a drag to have been woken up by those rather obnoxious alarms. Of course, now I can't really print until I get this thing taken care of.

I don't fool myself though - the job is not really just as simple as changing out the power supply. This is the second time in about a year I'll have had to do that so clearly something else is up. Which means, of course, that unless I want to keep changing out power supplies and risking further damage, I'm going to have to take the time to figure out what is up and do it pretty darned soon.

I don't exactly have a great track record there though - like many techies, I tend to have my systems running closer to the edge (at least for my own capabilities, if not always the true edge) than really works to keep it all running in top condition, which means my equipment regularly crosses the line into inoperable or barely-operable-using-annoying-workarounds. And I don't always take the time to fix it right, just fix it enough to get it back operational again. It's a case of the cobbler's children having no shoes. Such minor problems invariably are simply larger problems waiting to happen.

On the good side, when the larger problems raise their heads, I usually recognize that I myself am the root cause for ignoring the earlier warning signs I and don't go looking to point blame anywhere else. Strange how the reality that things are FUBAR and it's all my own fault should be in any way a good thing. Hmmm, maybe I can prepay for a trip to de Nile.

I'm curious how you approach important, non-urgent issues and hope you'll send some thoughts to me at techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com. And if you happen to know what (besides replacing the whole box) could readily be done to fix whatever keeps sending my power supplies into never-never land, go ahead and let me know that too.

What are you putting off today that could become a serious issue tomorrow?

Letting Go...

Today it's raining. Big surprise given that I live in Seattle, if you believe the stereotype but that's beside the point. What I've noticed today, is that after having a truly superb summer (assuming it's not a part of the whole global warming trend that folks are concerned about), it's finally feeling like fall is really setting in. The weather has definitely changed and everything feels different now.

Some people are whining about it but you already know I don't go for whining, right? The rest of us are thinking about what else we can do with the time that's productive.

Personally, I like taking my cue from the seasons. Summer is a great time to be out there doing things, having fun and making things happen. The whole world is active and it feels right to participate in that activity. Then, late summer and early fall is harvest time in nature and I start thinking about paying attention to the successes I've had. It's usually good timing too because it's not too unusual that this is when I'm asked to write something up about my performance during the previous year.

Then October comes and by the middle of the month, the leaves are starting to color and fall off in earnest. It's time to let go of stuff.

What can I clean off my desk? What stuff at home can I bag up to give away to charities or sell on eBay? If I get enough junk tossed, I find I can even begin to think about what mental clutter I could be ditching too.

For me, mental clutter is outmoded assumptions, beliefs that don't help me get where I want, and any negative thoughts that I have to keep navigating around just to get through the day. Imagine piles of newspapers around that have to be stepped over or through just to get anywhere. Eventually I get tired of it and it just has to go... my thought processes are no different in that respect than the physical space around me.

So what about you? What thoughts or beliefs are keeping you from whatever it is you want? Are you ready to let go of any of that yet? If not, what would it take to be ready? I think it would be cool to hear what you're letting go of... and even more cool to hear what happens afterward. Send me an email at techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com and let me know what you're up to.

Learning to let go is a powerful way of making room for something even better.