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>SIMPLICITY and SUCCESS:
Creating What Matters MOST in Life & Work
Vol. 5, #1, November 14, 2006 All rights reserved.
Bruce Elkin: Personal/Professional Life/Success Coach for 20 Years
http://www.BruceElkin.com
Sent to confirmed subscribers only. List is never shared or sold!
>View current & back issues of my full newsletter on my blog at
http://createwhatmattersmost.blogspot.com/
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"One must feel chaos within to give birth to a dancing star."
— Frederic Nietzsche
Hi All,
Wow! This issue marks the beginning of the fifth year of Simplicity and Success. Time sure does fly when you are having fun.
To mark this auspicious anniversary, I have updated a piece from our first year. I hope it gives folks who signed on after that a deeper glimpse into what I mean when I talk about Simplicity AND Success.
Also, I hope this piece helps all of you deal with the difficulties that many experience as winter approaches, skies darken, and spirits sag a little.
Here on Vancouver Island and around the Pacific North West of NA, we have been pounded by storm after storm. Many places have already broken records for the wettest November ever.
Of course, you folks below the Ecuador can rub your hands in glee, as summer approaches. Many of us up here hope to visit you soon.
I hope this week's piece helps you all, wherever you are, whenever your life feels messy or overwhelming.
Enjoy!
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>1. QUICK TAKE:
APPRECIATING COMPLEXITY; CREATING SIMPLICITY
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Simplicity is not just about sorting out the material aspects of life.
Real and lasting simplicity is about appreciating what works, discovering what matters, and taking action to create the results you really care about.
Moreover, simplicity is also about accepting--and transcending--the complex messiness that occurs in all our lives, work, and relationships.
So, if life feels too complex, chaotic, or even overwhelming, take a deep breath, and relax. If you are struggling with a messy situation, step back and refocus.
Focusing on what you do NOT like and do NOT want--and trying to get rid of it --maybe bring you temporary relief. But it will not bring the real and lasting results you truly DO want.
When they come up against complexity, I caution my clients to embrace its messiness. Play with it. Get to know it. Acknowledge, accept, and appreciate it all as a natural part of your life.
I also help them shift their focus to creating results they truly want.
So don’t worry if your life or job feels a bit chaotic. Acknowledge whatever comes, but focus on what you most want to create.
Steer off your vision of desired results, accept what is as given, and ease your way through the messiness into simplicity by creating what matters.
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2. MY BOOK:
> SIMPLICITY & SUCCESS: CREATING THE LIFE YOU LONG FOR
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Discover What You Love -- And Create A Life That Shows It!
Simplicity and Success is a different kind of simple living book. It is also a different kind of success book. It is a book that will help you slow down, relax, and integrate a rich, simple, and satisfying life with meaningful and lasting success that truly matters.
This life changing book can not only help you achieve simplicity AND success, its practical step-by-step process can help you create just about anything that matters in life, work, and relationships.
>For more info, visit http://www.bruceelkin.com/simplicity-book.html
Simplicity & Success is also available on The Simple Living Network and at Amazon. And can be ordered through any bookstore.
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3. FEATURE ARTICLE: "MESSINESS IS BEAUTIFUL"
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“I would not give a fig for
the simplicity on THIS side of complexity,
but I would give my life for
the simplicity on the OTHER side of complexity."
— Oliver Wendell Holmes
"Our lives are so complex," a client told me. "It is overwhelming. Can you help us get rid of this mess?"
Complexity, I told her, is not a problem. It’s not something to avoid or eliminate. You can’t solve it. It is just the way things often are.
Complexity is part of life. It keeps novels interesting, fine wine enjoyable, and airplanes in the air. It makes conversations dynamic and engaging. It keeps all living systems healthy.
Some messiness is essential to life
"Let’s face it," said systems thinker Donella Meadows, a practitioner of deep simplicity, "the universe is messy. . . . It creates diversity not uniformity. That’s what makes the world interesting, that’s what makes it beautiful, and that’s what makes it work."
Life thrives on messiness.
"Through messy, parallel activities, life organizes its effectiveness," says Meg Wheatley. "It looks like a mess. It is a mess. And from the mess, a system appears that works."
Wheatley is referring to "emergence," the idea that order arises out of chaos. To navigate complexity and create the simplicity on the other side of complexity, we best embrace and transcend life’s messiness by opening ourselves to the magic of emergence.
Although we cannot control what emerges in our lives and work, we can greatly influence it by shifting from a problem-focused stance to a creating stance.
We cannot make what we want happen, but we can make a space in which it is much more likely to happen.
Embrace and Transcend
Lives, careers, relationships, families, even businesses are unpredictable, even messy. That does not mean they are broken. It’s usually a mistake to try to fix or solve messy systems.
Research shows that most problem-focused approaches to life’s challenges do not produce real and lasting results. At best, they provide relief from a problem’s intensity; at worst, they produce worse problems.
This is because a basic feature of complex living systems is that you can't control them as you control machines.
However, you can influence them.
Influencing messy systems is different than controlling mechanical systems. It is more organic, more like growing results than producing them on an assembly line. It is like engaging in a dynamic conversation that leads to new understanding and action.
"We can’t control systems, or figure them out," said Donella Meadows. "But we can dance with them!"
"Control" comes from the Middle English for "exercise restraint over."
"Influence" is derived from the Latin word fluere, "to flow."
To influence complexity--to produce results in spite of it--you best adopt a stance that lets you flow with the forces in play.
Know what you want, then take what emerges in your life or work and shape it into desired results.
Just as a sailor doesn’t "exercise restraint over" wind, tides, and currents, it’s best if you don’t force things to happen.
Dance with them. Use your vision as a beacon. Ground yourself in an objective assessment of current reality. Use the energy of the forces in play to steer a gentle course toward what you want.
As the forces shift, so does your path. Keep your vision firm, assess where you are, and make your path up as you go.
Trying to control complexity is a simplistic strategy. It leads to the simplicity on this side of complexity, and complication and confusion.
Embracing and transcending complexity through creating is a complex strategy that matches the complexity in life. It leads to the real and lasting simplicity on the other side of complexity.
Creating Makes the Complicated Simple
"Anyone can make the simple complicated," said jazz giant, Charlie Mingus. "Creativity is making the complicated simple."
There are seven keys to creating the results you most want. The first three set up a framework--a container for creativity--out of which a useful tension emerges. The last four help you influence the resolution of that tension in the direction of what you want to create.
1) Appreciate what works for you, notice what makes you fully alive. Then focus on what matters--envision what you want to create,
2) Be honest, and accept reality as it is-. Tell yourself the truth about yourself, other people, and whatever happens,
3) Hold vision and reality in mind together to set up "creative tension,"
4) Deliberately make choices and take action that honours reality AND supports what you want,
5) Seek feedback; make adjustments, build momentum toward results,
6. Flow: open to surprise and learning; make up your path as you go,
7. Finish fully; use the energy of completion to launch your next creation.
Creating is a simple, easy to use, and more coherent framework in which to create results than problem-solving because it embraces and transcend problems and complexity as it moves toward desired results.
If you can appreciate your life as a complex, sometimes messy system, and realize that creating is senior to problem-solving, then your chances of rising above life's messiness will greatly increase.
If you give a messy system--be it a life, a career, a relationship, or even a business--the right kind of nudge here or the appropriate creative intervention there, what emerges can be rich yet simple, easy-to-use, and lasting.
It can engage and reward you. It can give you purpose and meaning. It can result in the simplicity on the other side of complexity.
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Bruce Elkin is a writer and internationally known Personal, Professional, and Organizational Life/Work Renewal Coach. Get his eNewsletter at http://www.bruceelkin.com/free.html For more info, visit BruceElkin.com and http://createwhatmattersmost.blogspot.com
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> 3. "COACHING for CREATING WHAT MATTERS MOST!"
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- Feeling stuck? Stalled? Drifting?
- In transition? Not sure what to do next?
- Facing complicated challenges with no real organizing framework?
Would you like to be:
* Clear about what most deeply matters to you?
* Able to create results that support what matters?
* Able to do more with less stress and striving?
* Feel on track and moving toward desired results --
in spite of problems, circumstances, and adversity?
* Feel free, energized, and full of zest for life, work, or whatever…?
> If so, my CREATING WHAT MATTERS MOST coaching program can help you develop the SKILLS, STRUCTURE, AND SUPPORT to find what you really love–-and create a life (and work) that shows it.
> Check out my f.r.e.e 45-minute coaching consultation:
"My friend got your info and had a mini-coaching session with
you. She said it was amazing. Can I do a session?"
- A. M., Victoria, BC
> Although my practice is still full, I am interviewing now for late November and December. FOR INFO, e-mail me at Bruce@BruceElkin.com with "Coaching Package" as the subject.
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> 4. RESOURCES I RECOMMEND:
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> * THE SOUNDER SLEEP SYSTEM:
Can’t sleep? Need help relaxing and drifting off?
Get THE INSOMNIA SOLUTION by Michael Krugman. It’s a great book
on how to get the deep, restful sleep you crave. I use MP3 files in which Michael teaches soothing, restful guided exercises. For info, got to http://www.soundersleep.com/start.php?mpuid=1215
* MARKETING AND WEBSITE TOOLS:
Thinking about upgrading your website and marketing
approach? I've used these products with great results and
recommend them without reservation.
* For info or to purchase a copy of THE WEBSITE TOOLKIT,
please go to http://www.1shoppingcart.com/app/?af=73714
* THE ACTION PLAN TOOL KIT can make designing and
implementing a marketing plan easier, effective, and fun.
Go to http://www.1shoppingcart.com/app/?af=73714
* A GREAT NEWSLETTER BY AN EX-CLIENT OF MINE:
If you are interested in Health, Environment, and Negotiation,
please check out the eNewsletter HEN. Written by Julia
Menard, a Victoria-based coach, and mediation expert, HEN is
an excellent source of info. E-mail
with "sub.scribe HEN Musings" in the subject line.
* FR.EE VALUES and HAPPINESS ASSESSMENT:
Martin Seligman, author of Authentic Happiness, offers an
excellent way to support you in creating happiness in daily life.
Go to www.authentichappiness.org and do his Values-in-Action
Signature Strengths Survey. it will help you increase your authentic
happiness. I do it. It works.
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> 5. SPEECHES, SEMINARS, AND WORKSHOPS:
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I am available to do keynotes, seminars, or workshops for
your organization or team on subjects such as:
• What’s Next? Renewing & Re-Creating Life and Career
• Creating Flow: Integrating Life and Work
• Emotional Mastery: Manage Your Moods and
Create What Matters—With Whatever Life Gives You!
> Call 250-388-7210 or e-mail me to discuss your needs.
> 6. THE LAST WORD: QUOTABLE QUOTES
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"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage - to move in the opposite direction."
--E.F. Schumacher
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
-- Leonardo Advance
Be content with what you have, rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.
-- Lao Tzu
It is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all.
-- Laura Ingalls Wilder
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> THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT!
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THANKS for forwarding my newsletter and short posts. I appreciate your support. New subscribers are vital in keeping the newsletter alive and thriving. So please keep forwarding them to friends and associates.
If you received this from a friend, please sign up for your own sub at http://www.bruceelkin.com/newsletter.html
You’ll also get some neat fr.ee gift.s!
All the best!
Bruce
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>BRUCE ELKIN: Personal/Professional Results & Renewal Coach
Author:- Simplicity & Success: Creating the Life You Long For
- Emotional Mastery: Manage Your Moods & Create What
Matters--With Whatever Life Gives You
> http://www.BruceElkin.com 250-388.7210 Skype Me!
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All material herein is copyright © Bruce Elkin, 2006.
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