Have you ever thought about the power of intention? And how it can have a sweeping effect on your current life?

You have to create the intention that you really want, not the intention that is driving you crazy. For when you focus on what you really want, obstacles melt away, your goal becomes crystal clear, and in an odd sense you get ‘tunnel vision’. Not the kind that blinds you from seeing all the risks and as a result you act irrationally. The type of vision that allows you to easily say ‘no’ to those tasks, favors, requests and actions that will not help you reach your goal.

What intentions are you bringing into your life?

I found this on the internet while I was researching company mission statements:

We are in the business of creating, gathering, aggregating, organizing, packaging and disseminating compelling content through …. “

and continued on for another 26 words!

Now tell me, will anyone remember this enough to say it off the top of their head? Better yet, what exactly does this mean?

In this case, it isn’t what was said ….. heck I can’t even decipher it!

You probably read the word ME in brown, but…….
when you look through “ME” you will see “YOU!” Do you need to look again?

This one is quite tricky! The word TEACH reflects as LEARN!

What do

You may not see it at first, but the white spaces read the word optical, the blue landscape reads the word illusion. Look again! Can you see why this painting is called an optical illusion?

These next four blogs come to you by way of my good friend and colleague, Jason Cordoba, Manager of Small Business Systems -Aviation Industry at Component Control. I met Jason several years ago at an ACPC conference … he was instrumental in keeping the break-out session crowd under control.

In black you can read the word GOOD, in white the word EVIL (inside each black letter is a white letter). It’s all very physiological too, because use it visualize the concept that good can’t exist without evil (or the absence of good is evil)

He had a natural way with words ….. brought to our attention the confusion of the English Language. Or course his most famous dialog was The 7 Dirty Words, which went all the way to the Supreme Court. Somehow, George Carlin made them sound funny, not nearly the nasty words they are.

My favorite is the difference between baseball and football:

Football is concerned with downs - what down is it?
Baseball is concerned with ups - who’s up?

In football you receive a penalty.
In baseball you make an error.

In football the specialist comes in to kick.
In baseball the specialist comes in to relieve somebody.

In his introduction on The Actor’s Studio, in the usually mundane “You were born in ..”, George Carlin submitted “George Carlin was conceived in August 1936 at Curley’s Hotel in Rockaway Beach, New York…”

I encourage you to watch on Bravo, or rent the interview. It is pure George Carlin!

TEACHER: Johnny, why are you doing your math multiplication on the floor?

JOHNNY: You told me to do it without using tables.

TEACHER: Glenn, how do you spell ‘crocodile?’

GLENN: K-R-O-K-O-D-I-A-L’

TEACHER: No, that’s wrong

GLENN: Maybe it is wrong, but you asked me how I spell it. ____________________________________________

TEACHER: Donald, what is the chemical formula for water?

DONALD: H I J K L M N O.

TEACHER: What are you talking about?

DONALD: Yesterday you said it’s H to O.

__________________________________

TEACHER: Millie, give me a sentence starting with ‘I.’

MILLIE: I is..

TEACHER: No, Millie….. Always say, ‘I am.’

MILLIE: All right.. ‘I am the ninth letter of the alphabet.’
_________________________________

TEACHER: Now, Simon, tell me frankly, do you say prayers before eating?

SIMON: No sir, I don’t have to, my Mom is a good cook.
______________________________

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands — A Dutch woman who was the oldest person in the world when she died at age 115 in 2005 appeared sharp right up to the end, joking that pickled herring was the secret to her longevity.

Scientists say that Henrikje van Andel-Schipper’s mind was probably as good as it seemed: a post-mortem analysis of her brain revealed few signs of Alzheimer’s or other diseases commonly associated with a decline in mental ability in old age…

Asked what advice she would give to people who want to live a long time, she once quipped: “Keep breathing.”

You have a long time to learn how to communicate effectively …. Begin now!

I was talking with a coaching client recently about their department policy. He was following the policy, only to be told by his boss the President that “Our department policies are guidelines only. It is ok to deviate from the written policy.”

Think of the confusion this would cause! A policy such as “Travel expenses over $75 must be accompanied by receipts”. If this policy is only a guideline, then who determines how much you can expense without a receipt? And does it apply to everyone?

How about performance appraisals … let’s say department policy is to review performance appraisals quarterly. Your performance appraisal is an integral part of your raise and promotion. If you don’t meet your performance appraisal targets, do you get zinged on your raise? Or is that one of the department policies that is used as a guideline? If you miss your targets by, say, 10%, and someone else misses their targets by 15%. Are they treated the same when raise-time comes along? If that’s the case, why even set policies?

Are you consistent with your communications?