Inner Work Q.E.D.

From time to time I need to remind myself that the “I” in VOICE stands for “Inner Work.” Inner Work is the stuff that we do that generally others can’t see. Inner Work is usually hard work and in some sense we could perceive that the payoff is low. Rarely will you get a compliment from a co-worker saying that you seem in balance. Rather, they will compliment you on your outfit, hair style, or the fact that you appear to be losing weight. Yet, it is the Inner Work which must be done first. You can’t reverse the process and expect lasting results.

We see warnings and admonitions all around us that remind us of the importance of doing the Inner Work. When we take on an exercise regimen whether it is through joining a health club or purchasing a piece of exercise equipment we get the warning “always consult your physician before beginning any exercise program.” That warning reminds us to check our Inner Work first before attempting to work on the outside.

I have observed that many people ignore such warnings. For them, achieving the outer results is more important than Inner Work. Watching guys in my local gym I see any number of men lifting weights for bulk, but failing to stretch for flexibility or run for a healthy heart. At the hair salon where my children get their haircut I watch the women on Saturday getting the incredible beauty treatments on the outside while discussing how they are “just not going to eat” in order to wear a particular outfit. In each case they are ignoring the Inner Work.

I don’t want to go too far here and appear that I have somehow mastered the Inner Work. In fact I even bring it up today as it remains a struggle for me to be consistent in my Inner Work. In this regard I can do better, and it is likely that you can too.

Like all other self improvement efforts we want to start small with Inner Work. My formula for starting small is what I call Inner Work Q.E.D. This stands for Quiet, Exercise, and Diet.

Quieting your mind is the first step in doing the Inner Work. I find that quieting our minds is an excellent place to start. I often speak with clients about the amount of noise we endure in the course of a typical day. Our lives are filled with buzzers, radios, televisions, beeps, dings, bells and even the occasional whistle. Taking some time away from these distractions is a great place to start.

There are enormous benefits to spending some period of time each day in silence. Perhaps for many of us that might mean just spending time not listening to anything and not talking. For others that might mean time spent in silent prayer or meditation. You can adjust this based upon your own preferences and beliefs. Yet, the key here is to find time every day to quiet your mind. Start by spending ten minutes each morning being intentionally still and quiet. I am not talking about driving without the radio playing. I mean sitting still and quietly for ten minutes. If the morning does not work for your schedule then do it at lunch or before going to bed at night but find the time to just get quiet. My hope is that you can get that time up to as much as thirty to sixty minutes each day but like all things you want to start with moderation.

Once you have developed a habit of quiet time you can begin to work on the next two key areas. The first is exercise and the second is diet. Here again the Inner Work is hard. Let’s talk about exercise.

Regular exercise is essential to our well being. However, many of us exercise for looks rather than doing the Inner Work. Exercise should include strength training, aerobic activity, and flexibility. You don’t need a gym membership to get all three. For strength training I do push-ups and abdominal work three times each week two sets each time. For aerobic activity I like to run three days each week and ride my bike two to three times a week. For flexibility, I do yoga every morning practicing a few simple poses and stretching. Today I have better balance and flexibility than I have had at any time in my life even though I am now well past 50. In fact I regret that I am more flexible than my nearly 13 year old sons.

Finally, we get to diet. With regard to diet I am not talking about dieting for the purpose of getting thinner. Rather, I am speaking of diet in terms of improving overall health.

I often quote Stephen Covey who says that we must learn to subordinate taste to nutrition. Those words have resonated with me for years. I use them to remind me of the things that I know serve me best nutritionally.

You can do the Inner Work of diet with a few simple changes. A great place to begin is with breakfast. Our lives have become so busy that we hardly have time to eat a healthy breakfast. I recommend starting the day with a simple yet nutritional and portable breakfast. For me that is a morning fruit smoothie. This can be made in a blender and takes less than ten minutes including clean up. Here are my ingredients:

One cup of plain or vanilla soy milk (I like WestSoy and Eden Soy as these seem to be highest in protein)

One banana or ½ banana and 5 strawberries

Six ice cubes

Two scoops of protein powder (soy protein is best here)

Mix all of these ingredients in a blender (putting the protein powder in last after the blender is moving) for about two minutes. These ingredients will make about 16 ounces.

My morning smoothie eliminates the temptation to eat any of the various fast foods we often eat on the run. You can carry your smoothie out the door by purchasing a tall plastic container with a top. You can drink this during your commute as long as you remember that the drink can leave a “milk mustache.” Now here is where we get to taste. While I like the taste of my smoothie, many people would not describe this as “good.” Yet, this is a high protein breakfast that will get you through to about 10:00 in the morning feeling energetic (and after your morning exercise you need the protein). I also plan a morning snack which I sometimes pack to take with me when I can or I can pick it up at most hotels when I am on the road. My morning snack is a bagel with peanut butter. Sometimes I toast the bagel, but here again, it is about the nutrition. My bagel will get me through to lunch.

As often as possible my lunch consists of a salad, and perhaps a piece of fish or chicken. As an afternoon snack I carry a protein bar, or an apple or banana and you will usually find almonds in my briefcase. Dinner is my final meal. I try to eat dinner as early as possible but rarely after 8:00. This sets up my digestive system to be switched off before I go to bed which assures me of a restful night’s sleep, with no interruptions due to going to the bathroom, or indigestion. With a good night’s sleep, I am ready early the next morning (work days as early as 4:30) for my quiet time and then on to exercise to begin my routine once again.

Give Inner work Q.E.D. a try for about a month. What I provide here is really just an overview but I would be happy to share more expanded information including sleeping tips, fasting tips and specific exercises if you write to me. The three steps to Inner Work Q.E.D. will bring your life more into balance. It will make you stronger physically, and improve your overall health. By the way, regular Inner Work does also improve what others see on the outside and let's be honest, we all want that too.

Getting New Glasses

About a week ago I picked up a pair of new eye glasses. This was necessary because I managed to lose my glasses about a month and a half ago. That is a long story in and of itself, but not the purpose of this post.

The glasses came to mind because of what I realized during the period that I did not have my preferred pair to wear every day.

Because I travel extensively for work last year I decided to purchase a back-up pair of glasses in event that something ever happened to my glasses. It would really be a disaster to be on the road and to break or lose my glasses and not have a back-up pair. Because I had two pairs of glasses, I sometimes would switch my glasses wearing the back-up pair so that I would not feel like I wasted money having two pairs of glasses when no emergency had struck. The back-up pair of glasses look and feel great, but I am one of those people that has worn the same frame for a very long time. The result is that I have become quite accustomed to the look and feel of my old glasses. Even though I have changed prescriptions twice in past seven years, and once I broke my frames playing basketball with my sons, I have still consistently gone back to the same glasses, one time having to hunt down the frames from a distributor.

Wearing my new glasses for about a month caused me to step out of my typical routine and even caused me to appear differently to others. My old glasses were truly inconspicuous. Over the years more than one person has noticed me cleaning or removing my glasses and remarked that they did not know that I wore glasses. I think that this has been much of the appeal of the old glasses. The new glasses as I have said are quite nice but in contrast to the old pair they have evoked a number of comments like “nice eyewear”, or “your glasses look great.” In each case I have thanked the person giving the compliment, but I realize every time that I really don’t want people seeing my glasses as a fashion statement or somehow signifying that I am interested in a particular look. I also noticed that while my two prescriptions are the same, my back-up pair of glasses caused me to see things differently. The shape of the frame caused me to move my head a certain way when reading and to make adjustments to use the progressive bi-focal say while I was driving or watching television. This took some getting used to doing and I yearned just to get my old glasses back.

When I did pick up my replacements to my original pair of glasses I was happy to be able to look and feel the same once again. In the week that I have been wearing them I have not had one comment on my glasses. I am back to being inconspicuous.

This morning as I was packing for a trip I was putting the back-up glasses in my suitcase and I was struck by my recollection of how they had changed the way I saw things over the past month. I was also thinking about how they caused others to see me differently. People noticed something about me that was different, and they attributed those differences to the glasses that I was wearing. I too noticed something different so I made adjustments in the way I looked at things so that while wearing the new glasses I would still be able to see clearly. I wondered just how often in our lives we could stand to take a moment to put on new glasses.

While my experience was with new glasses without a change of prescription, how many times in our lives do we find ourselves changing our prescription (the way we actually see things) and being amazed as to how we now see? How often do we realize that we need new glasses (knowing that we are not seeing things quite so clearly) but we ignore that and just go on seeing things just a bit out of focus. Or worse, we find ourselves only able to see those things that are right in front of our eyes not really able to see the big picture.

We all would do well from time to time if we changed our glasses. Author Stephen M.R. Covey in his book The Speed of Trust, suggest that we can see the pervasive impact of “the speed of trust” when we put on our “Trust Glasses.” I love this idea as the metaphor certainly fits my experiences of the past month. Wearing the other glasses caused me to see things differently, and it also caused others to see me differently. Can you just imagine what would be the impact on your life, your business, and your relationships if you were wearing different glasses that caused you to trust more? What if those same glasses caused you to act in a way that was consistently trustworthy? This is not to suggest that any of us are behaving in a morally bankrupt way, but rather looking at a refinement in our behaviors. Each of us could stand to really be more precise in our speech, or to apologize when we are wrong, or to stand up for what is right, and to avoid hidden agendas. We could all improve in speaking the truth even when it is not convenient. As Stephen M.R. Covey says, acting in these ways causes others to trust us more.

I read a book two years ago titled “The Four Agreements” which was written by Miguel Ruiz. While the book impacted me in a number of ways, I am always reminded of the first agreement. The first agreement is “be impeccable with your word.” This is what came to me this morning while packing. The back-up glasses caused me to look in a way that people noticed. Not long ago when a man was well dressed people noticed. We used words like natty, sharp, or pressed. To me all of these add up to being impeccable. People notice when we are impeccable. When we are impeccable with our words people notice that too. When we speak and behave consistently, and when we are transparent we get the attention of those around us.

I think that it is time that more of us experience the impact of putting on new glasses. As we see things differently we will act differently. I know that impeccable is not a word that is very common in our vocabulary these days, but I think it is time to bring the word back. Let’s start by being impeccable with our words. Let’s truly say exactly what we mean. No spin, no double talk, no straddling the fence. Let’s do what we say we will do and not leave things open to interpretation. Let’s speak honestly with each other balancing that honesty with a genuine concern and avoiding just “speaking our mind.”

Losing my glasses cost me a great deal financially. But the value of having my eyes truly open once again is well as they say Priceless!

Today while listening to Joel Osteen's program I was finally able to get my thoughts organized around the subject of change. I think that Joel's message today was titled Embracing Change.

After listening to Joel My thoughts about my Green Apple story (which I had promised to get to the people at Rogers a while ago) became very clear. I was able to write the story in a matter of minutes and sent if off to Rogers. But what is most interesting about this today is that with this clarity about the Green Apple story, I am also feeling more clear about my book subject. What is most amazing to me today though is that this was exactly my prayer last night. I asked God for greater clarity around my subject so that I could get the project unstuck.

The book has always been about change, it was jut how do I tell the story without making it the story of my own life. I wanted this to be a fictionalized account that helped people with the message that they could change their lives from where they are to where they want to be. With this clarity of thought I even became more clear about the process that would work best for me for documenting my daily thoughts. I am more comfortable with typing than I am with writing on paper. My words become more clear to me and I can capture the thoughts quickly and make changes as I go. This too is something with which I have struggled these past few weeks, and perhaps something with which I have struggled for years.

Yet another confirmation? I just paused for a moment and looked at the quote at the top of this page (I am using Franklin Covey's PlanPlus for Windows for documenting notes). The quote is from Leo Tolstoy. "The change in our life must come from the impossibility to live otherwise than according to the demands of our conscience... Not from our mental resolution to try a new form of life."

This quote reminds me of one of the points that I realize about the change process. It is not just a matter of the systems we use to affect change or reach a goal, but also an understanding of our purpose or underlying values that prompts the need for the change itself. This is much more than simply deciding that we are going to make a change. In order to have sustainable and meaningful change we must have a compelling reason linked to something we value to carry out the change. Yet another quote related to this subject is from Herbert Spencer - "A living thing is distinguished from a dead thing by the multiplicity of the changes at any moment taking place in it."

Finally, I am unstuck! So what follows is the Green Apple story. This is a story that I used as a metaphor for how we might perceive change and react earlier to the changes that are already present in our lives. I first told this story back in February as an introduction to a Managing Matters workshop at Rogers Communications on Managing and Influencing Change.

The Green Apple

This morning as I was leaving my hotel to head to class I picked up this wonderful green apple. In doing so I thought this would be great for me to have as a mid-morning snack and would be helpful in keeping me from eating the pastries we have in class. While walking to class this morning carrying this apple, another thought occurred to me. You see looking at this apple you likely think that it is just a shiny green apple. After all, it does look like just a green apple doesn’t it? I realized this morning that this is not just another green apple. Rather, this is an example of the impact of change in our lives.

When we look at this apple what we see on the outside is the shiny exterior of the apple. Looking at the exterior we can appreciate just how wonderful and healthy the apple looks to us. In fact, sometimes when we have a shiny apple we just want to polish it and sit it on the table to really enjoy the beauty of the apple. But what we don’t realize in our casual observation is the impact of what is really going on inside the apple. While the exterior looks magnificent and beautiful to us, what is really happening on the inside? On the inside the apple is in a state of change. We can’t perceive the levels of change on the outside just yet. In fact because we can’t perceive the change we might be tempted to just hold on to the apple while we enjoy the beauty a little while longer. But even though we can’t see it, the apple is changing, and these changes are going to become apparent very soon. In fact, if we don’t act right now, biting the apple and enjoying what we have today what is going to happen tomorrow? If we wait until tomorrow this apple is not going to look quite as good. In fact, if we wait several days it may be likely that we will have missed our opportunity all together, and that shiny apple will not only be unappealing, but will have changed so much that we will have missed the wonderful opportunity to enjoy the apple when it was still fresh and crisp.

This apple helped me to see change differently. When we sometimes have something so wonderful to look at we are tempted to just hold on to it wanting to retain the beauty of the current situation. Certainly we might all understand doing that. But you see this apple taught me that we also at times need to take a closer look. It is likely that upon close examination we might see the subtle signs of change that are evident in this apple. We might see that there is a soft spot or two that suggest that things are really changing on the inside that we just can’t see yet. If we fail to act now what appears to be something we should just hold on to will become that lost opportunity to really embrace and enjoy something wonderful. That is how change really works. We must embrace the possibility for change when it is most subtle. Recognizing the possibility that failing to act today will cause us to be left with the lost opportunity of really enjoying the apple by taking our bite now before it is too late.