WHY SIMPLICITY AND SUCCESS?

**************************************************
"SIMPLY SUCCESS" -- Nov 29, 2007
=======================================
>Helping You Create What Matters MOST in Life and Work
Bruce Elkin: Life/Work Renewal Coach
Personal - Professional - Organizational
http://www.BruceElkin.com
Sent to subscribers only. Names are never shared or sold!
To leave list or change email address, scroll to bottom.
**************************************************

Hi ,
This time of year, I like to cycle back through some of the earlier posts I sent -- for 2 reasons.

One, lots of new people have joined the list and these posts can help them better understand my approach.

And two, long-time list members have asked me to republish some of the classic early newsletters to help refresh their thinking.

So, this week, I'm taking you back to the very first newsletter I wrote, just over 5 years ago. In it, I describe my approach to coaching and my own background. I hope you find it useful.
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> SIMPLICITY AND SUCCESS:
Creating the Lives & Work You Long For

"I would not give a fig for the simplicity on this side of complexity.
But I’d give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity."
— Oliver Wendell Holmes

This is a free newsletter for people who want to create simple yet rich, engaging and successful lives, work, and relationships. It’s about shifting your focus from merely solving problems to creating results that truly matter to you. It’s about embracing and transcending complexity as a part of life, and seeking the simplicity that can only be found on the other side of life’s challenges.

If you like what you read here, please forward it to friends and associates. (That’s how we’ll grow.) If you’d like to receive the newsletter regularly please e-mail me or go to http://www.BruceElkin.com/newsletter.html

There’s no charge and it takes only a couple of seconds to sign up,



WHY SIMPLICITY AND SUCCESS?
==================================
During the 20 years I’ve coached, almost all my clients aspired to 2 goals.

1) They want to create more successful, engaged, and fulfilling lives.

And 2) they all want to do so in a simpler, easier, more effective, and more enjoyable way.

They aspire to simplicity AND success. However, most don’t know how to do both at the same time. Simplicity and success seem to many to be competing goals.

My clients often tell me that they oscillate back and forth between the two desires rather than move forward consistently toward both.

This is as true with organizations as it is with individuals. In my consulting, I find the same two desires: to create an exciting, successful, and productive organization—and do so as simply, elegantly, and harmoniously as possible.

I hope this newsletter will help you see that simplicity and success do not have to compete. They can be integrated so one supports the other. You can produce results in both areas that complement (rather than compete with) each other. Simplicity and success can be integrated—if you approach them right.

Over the coming months, I’ll show you how to design a simple yet rich, sustainable, and successful life and lifestyle. I’ll show you how to apply the same generic skills and principles for creating almost anything.

I’ll describe how to set up organizing frameworks in which values such as simplicity and success compete with each other or support each other. I’ll show you how some frameworks lead to success and others don’t. And why!

I’ll show you how to create frameworks that lead to both simplicity and success.

And I’ll show you why CREATING is superior to problem solving as a platform on which to produce results that matter.

And, finally, I'll show what to do when what you do doesn't work. I'll help you learn to go beyond coping with adversity and harness the power of challenge.
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INTRODUCING BRUCE ELKIN: Personal Renewal & Results Coach
==================================================

I’ve been coaching for over 20 years. And consulting for 16. I offer Strategic Design and Planning programs through my consulting firm Summit Strategies.

Before I began consulting, I helped start a climbing school, ran outdoor-based executive seminars, was an associate of the Action Studies Institute, senior trainer for the Institute of Earth Education, and taught at the University of Calgary, Simon Fraser University, and the Banff School of Management.

I also trained and worked with Robert Fritz, author of the best selling Path of Least Resistance books, and was the first Canadian certified by Peak Learning, Inc. to administer the Adversity Response Profile™ developed by Paul Stoltz, author of Adversity Quotient and co-author The Adversity Advantage.

I started coaching long before it became popular as a profession.

Back in the 80’s, I discovered that workshop participants did MUCH better if they received follow up coaching than if they didn’t. Research by Bruce Joyce confirmed my own findings.

Joyce found that, although people might enjoy and get a lot out of a workshop, only 12% to 15% put into practice what they learned. However, when people received follow-up coaching, that figure jumped to 85-90%.

I was hooked on coaching.

Later I realized that people benefit from two kinds of coaching.

They benefit from help in creating the results that they most want to create.

They also benefit from learning how to cope with adversity.

They find results easier to sustain if they build optimism and resilience—the ability to bounce back from setbacks and to persevere in face of difficulties.

When I combined these two kinds of coaching, my clients made great strides toward creating what mattered to them.

Since then, I’ve coached professionals, Everest summiteers, single moms, writers, small business operators, artists and craftspeople wanting to organize their lives around their art, high-tech start-up teams, sales people, scientists, educators, and Fortune 500 Executive teams. My approach can be summed up as "Discovering What Works; Creating What Matters Most."

I start by helping you discover—and appreciate—your "positive creative core," that wealth of talent, skills, experience, and previous successes that are so often overlooked when we undertake a new project, job, or relationship.

Once you’ve grounded yourself in a felt sense of your own competence and confidence, I help you master the principles and processes of practical creativity.

I help you develop the capacity to create results that matter—independent of the problems, circumstances, and adversity you face.

By getting in touch with your creative core, clarifying results you want to create, and sustaining them in the face of adversity, you will find it much easier to create a simple yet successful approach to life and work.

For more info about me and my background, please see http://www.BruceElkin.com
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THIS WEEKS QUOTES
=============
"Find something you care about and live a life that shows it."
-- Kate Wolf

"The great thing in this world is not so much where we are, but in what direction are we going."
-- Oliver Wendell Homes

"Those who do not create the future they want must endure the future they get."
-- Draper L. Kaufman, Jr.

"All the greatest and most important problems of life are fundamentally insoluble... They can never be solved, but only outgrown. This "outgrowth" proved on further investigation to require a new level of consciousness. Some higher or wider interest appeared on the patient's horizon, and through this broadening of his or her outlook the insoluble problem lost its urgency. It was not solved logically in its own terms but faded when confronted with a new and stronger life urge."
- C.J. Jung

“Tell me, what will you do with this one wild and precious life?”
-- Mary Oliver
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> ARE YOU DOING WHAT YOU LOVE WITH YOUR LIFE?
Would you like to create what truly matters to you in life/work?
=========================================
I work with capable people who are stuck, stalled, or struggling with complicated life/work challenges.

I help them develop the SKILLS, STRUCTURE, and SUPPORT to make the complex simple, get going again on what matters, and turn visions into reality!

I can help you find what you love-and create a life that shows it!

> The New Year is fast approach. This is a great time to get a jump on re-assessing your purpose, direction, and action. I have
2 spaces open in Dec, and am interviewing for next year.

January is a great time to enter into a coaching relationship. it can help you make the coming year, your best year ever!

However, it is also my busiest time of the year. So, if you are interested, it might help to make your move now. That way you can jump-start your new year early in January.

>If you would like my fr.ee 7-page info package, e-mail me with "Coaching Package" as the subject at Bruce@BruceElkin.com
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Well, there you have it, a blast from the past. I hope this reminds some of you of what I'm trying to do here, and clarifies the purpose of the newsletter for those more recently signed up.

If you have any questions, please feel free to email me. I'm always happy to help.

If you want help learning to empower yourself and create what truly matters to you, let me know. I'm happy to send you my coaching info package.
Cheers!
Bruce
**************************************************
> BRUCE ELKIN:
Personal, Professional, and Organization Renewal Coach
>Call: 250.388.7210 www.BruceElkin.com Or Skype Me!
**************************************************

Gratitude

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"SIMPLY SUCCESS" -- Nov 20, 2007
=======================================
>Helping You Create What Matters MOST in Life and Work
Bruce Elkin: Life/Work Renewal Coach
Personal - Professional - Organizational
http://www.BruceElkin.com
Sent to subscribers only. Names are never shared or sold!
To leave list or change email address, scroll to bottom.
**************************************************

Hi ,
A very short post this week, as it is a short week for those of you in the US. Thanksgiving Day is tomorrow there.

Any day is a good day to give thanks. More and more research coming out of the field of Positive Psychology is pointing out the positive impact of gratitude on our health, wealth, and well-being.

Instead of lecturing about the importance of giving thanks for what you have each and every day, I'll make this post short and just leave you with this, and the quotes below:

"When we develop a right attitude of compassion and gratitude, we take a giant step towards solving our personal and international problems."
-- H.H. Dalai Lama

Happy Thanksgiving to those in the US. And Happy November 21 and 22 to the rest of us. I'm very grateful that you read what I write. Thank you!
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> ARE YOU DOING WHAT YOU LOVE?
Would you like to create what truly matters to you in life/work?
=========================================
I work with capable people who are stuck, stalled, or struggling with complicated life/work challenges. I help them develop the SKILLS, STRUCTURE, and SUPPORT to make the complex simple, get going again on what matters, and turn visions into reality!

> Christmas is upon is. And other major holidays. Each year, a number of people give the gift of coaching to someone they love. Interested? Send me an email.

>And the New Year is fast approach. This is a great time to get a jump on re-assessing your purpose, direction, and action. I have a couple spaces open in Dec, and am interviewing for next year. January is a great time to enter into a coaching relationship. it can help you make the coming year, your best year ever!
However, it is also one of my busiest times of the year, so, if you are interested, it might help to make your move sooner, rather than later. That way you can start into the new year early in January.

>If you would like my fr.ee 7-page info package, e-mail me with "Coaching Package" as the subject at Bruce@BruceElkin.com
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>THIS WEEK'S QUOTES:
=================
"If the only prayer you ever said was 'Thank You', that would be enough"
-- Meister Eckhart

"Appreciation is a powerfully magnetic energy that helps you see the wider picture faster. As you appreciate, you see more and understand more. On an energy level, it brings intuitive breakthroughs and helps you realize God is within you. . . .

Mathematically speaking, if people spent half as much time appreciating what they have as they do complaining about what they don't have, life would have to get better."
-- Sara Paddison in The Hidden Power of the Heart

"What you put out comes back. The more you sincerely appreciate life from the heart, the more the magnetic energy of appreciation attracts fulfilling life experiences to you, both personally and professionally."
-- Doc Childre and Sara Paddison

"Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes
sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow."
-- Melody Beattie

"Being grateful. That's the first step to the path of Joy."
-- Sarah Ban Breathnach
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If you want help learning to empower yourself and create what truly matters to you, let me know. I'm happy to send you my coaching info package. And I'm always happy to help.
Cheers!
Bruce
**************************************************
> BRUCE ELKIN:
Personal, Professional, and Organization Renewal Coach
>Call: 250.388.7210 www.BruceElkin.com Or Skype Me!
**************************************************

Empowering Yourself to Create What Matters

**************************************************
"SIMPLY SUCCESS" -- Nov 7, 2007
=======================================
>Helping You Create What Matters MOST in Life and Work
Bruce Elkin: Life/Work Renewal Coach
Personal - Professional - Organizational
http://www.BruceElkin.com
Sent to subscribers only. Names are never shared or sold!
To leave list or change email address, scroll to bottom.
**************************************************

Hi All,
Well the fall storms have finally hit. Not as bad as last year, yet. And, hopefully, they won't be. Still, lots of folks in the region are without power, and struggling to do their best with the situation.

When many of my clients come to me, they, too, seem to lack power -- personal power. Lacking the ability to do or act effectively, they feel "stuck" or "stalled."

While most are relatively successful people who are only temporarily stuck, some have too much on their plates. They feel overwhelmed, on the edge of panic. Others have too little, and are bored.

Still others seem to have lost a sense of direction. They have things to do, but can't seem to see the point of doing them. All lack power; all struggle to do their best with a difficult situation.

My job is to help them empower themselves, and as different as the above situations are, the way I do it is similar for all clients. I help them define what truly matters to them, and then envision themselves successfully creating it.

This gives them focus, and focus generates power. It also provides them with meaning, and meaning generates power. Finally, it simplifies their challenge, enabling them to apply their power to a smaller number of tasks, thereby increasing their chances of succeeding.

So far, I've been talking about motive power, or motivation. It is the power to get excited and get into motion. "Excite" means "to set in motion."

While motivation is important, it is only one of three sources of power in the approach to creating I work on with my clients.

The real workhorse -- the engine of creating -- is creative tension. This is the tension that emerges out of the gap between a clear, powerful vision of a desired result and an accurate, objective, and emotionally neutral description of the current state of that result.

When vision and current reality are in creative tension, it feels as if you are being pulled toward your desired result by a stretched rubber band (or spring). Once my clients master setting up and holding creative tension, they feel an unfamiliar surge of power.

Creative tension is important because motivation often fades in response to our moods. If we feel down, we lack motivation.

But feelings are overrated as standards for measuring progress, and with creative tension working for you, you can take action, even when you don't feel like it.

The capacity to act effectively --even when you don't feel like it -- is, largely, what separates the successful from the mediocre.

But there's more!

Once you have motivation and creative tension empowering you, you are much more likely to take action regardless of your mood or circumstances. And when you take action consistently, you build momentum.

Momentum is the third form of power I help my clients generate. It's the power that comes with practice. It arises out of increasing both your competence and confidence.

Momentum is the power that keeps you going when the going gets tough. It's also the power that helps you follow through to completion.

So "personal power" is made up of three, interconnected forms of power: motivation, creative tension, and momentum.

Working within the creating framework I help them set up, my clients are better able to focus on meaningful results, manage their moods, and take effective actions -- independent of their situations.

They get unstuck, back on track, and get going again. With continued practiced, they keep going until they can consistently create the results they most want to create.

And, hey, feeling empowered and able to create such results feels great!
-------------------



> ARE YOU DOING WHAT YOU LOVE?
Would you like to create what truly matters to you in life/work?
=========================================
I work with capable people who are stuck, stalled, or struggling with complicated life/work challenges. I help them develop the SKILLS, STRUCTURE, and SUPPORT to make the complex simple, get going again on what matters, and turn visions into reality!

I can help you find what you love-and create a life that shows it!

> Christmas is fast approaching. And other major holidays. Each year, a number of people give the gift of coaching to someone they love. Interested? Send me an email.

>Now is also great time to get a jump on re-assessing your purpose, direction, and action. I have only a couple spaces open in Nov/Dec, and am now interviewing for next year. Although, I'll be opening up my practice in January to accommodate more clients, it is one of the busiest times of the year, and it might help to make your move sooner, rather than later.

>If you would like my fr.ee 7-page info package, e-mail me with "Coaching Package" as the subject at Bruce@BruceElkin.com
---------------



> USEFUL WEBSITE AND PLANNING TOOLS:
=============================
Thinking about creating or upgrading your website and marketing approach? I use these tools with great results and recommend them without reservation. And Robert has recently made some great updates to the Website Toolkit. Great stuff!

* 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
-----------------------



>THIS WEEK'S QUOTES:
=================
--------------------------
"Fear is nothing except a drain of energy and not a power unto itself. Trust in yourself, for therein lies the true power."
-- Lori Hard

"The difficulties, hardships and trials of life, the obstacles one encounters on the road to fortune are positive blessings. They knit the muscles more firmly, and teach self-reliance. Peril is the element in which power is developed."
-- William Mathews

"Freedom is actually a bigger game than power. Power is aboutwhat you can control. Freedom is about what you can unleash."
-- Harriet Rubin

"It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power."
-- Alan Cohen

"Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now."
-- Goethe
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If you're not feeling empowered right now, maybe it's because you are not focused on meaningful results. Or maybe you over-rely on your feelings as guides to action.

If you want help learning to empower yourself and create what truly matters to you, let me know. I'm happy to send you my coaching info package. And I'm always happy to help. Cheers!
Bruce
**************************************************
> BRUCE ELKIN:
Personal, Professional, and Organization Renewal Coach
>Call: 250.388.7210 www.BruceElkin.com Or Skype Me!
**************************************************

Creating Sustainable Lives and Work

**************************************************
"SIMPLY SUCCESS" -- Nov 7, 2007
=======================================
>Helping You Create What Matters MOST in Life and Work
Bruce Elkin: Life/Work Renewal Coach
Personal - Professional - Organizational
http://www.BruceElkin.com
Sent to subscribers only. Names are never shared or sold!
To leave list or change email address, scroll to bottom.
**************************************************

Hi All,
I didn't send out a newsletter last week because I was in Banff, up in the Canadian Rockies. I was working with the Banff Centre's Leadership Lab to dream up new ways to use nature-based activities to "advance the practice of leadership."

Interesting, as 32 years ago, I helped found, and was one of the original instructors at The Banff School of the Environment.

Back in the mid-seventies, with oil shortages, 55 mph speed limits in the US, and a thriving environmental movement, there was great interest in things environmental. But, sadly, it didn't last.

As the eighties -- that so-called Decade of Greed -- dawned, interest in the environment began to wane. The School of the Environment morphed into The School of Resource Management,. Later, as priorities shifted, it died.

Now, the environment is "hot" again. Leaders of businesses and organizations want to know how to live and work lightly on the earth. Everyone is becoming concerned about global warming and climate change, and the ramifications thereof.

It is important to realize, though, that the environment is not a problem that can be solved. Short-sighted solutions to so-called problems are largely what got us into this situation in the first place. Believe it or not, the auto was introduced to Victorian Europe as "the solution to pollution!"

Living and working in harmony with the systems of life that underlie and support all human health, wealth and well-being is not problem sovling; it is an act of creating.

Living lightly and jofully on the Earth is a complex challenge that, approached correctly, we can rise to successfully. To do so, we will need to CREATE sustainable lives, work, and organizations that support them.

Simplicity and success are big parts of this. Simplifying our lives, doing more with less, and focusing on meaningful results that lead to authentic, self-determined success will helps us tread lighter on the Earth. But this is not necessarily an easy challeng to take on.

Learning to create what matters most is one of the most difficult, most challenging, and most important undertakings each of us -- and all of us in concert -- can take in these challenging times.

Mastering your own creative process is now a revolutionary act.

Creating the kind and quality of life and work you most want -- in harmony with the systems that support all life on Earth -- is, also, the most meaningful and satisfying thing each of us can do.

Solutions come and go. Lives and work carried out in a problem-focused framework tend to oscillate back and forth, up and down. Energy, time, and money are spent. But results don't last.

But CREATING underlies all the great and lasting achievements of human kind. Music, art, literature, architecture, business, sports -- these are all areas in which people CREATE real and lasting results that matter to them.

Finally, problem solving has a negative energy to it. Think of a current problem you're facing, and notice how you feel. Tight? Constricted? Down?

Now think of a result you'd love to create, a result you would love to have in your life, but don't, yet. And notice how you feel? Different?

It is the positive, uplifting energy of the creating process that makes it easier to produce lasting results. It's easier to take consistent daily action in support of those results when you're focused on something you love, and want to bring into being.

So, as you are turning down your thermostat, driving less, and eating locally grown food, try thinking of it as creating rather than problem solving. It'll feel better. You'll be more successful. And your actions will be more sustainable, in both senses of the word.

And, this time, I'm hoping the Banff Centre adopts a creating approach toward using nature to help leaders take successful actions, in harmony with the systems of life that support them.
------------------

>PS: If you want to take a few moments and reflect on what you just read above, here's the uplifting video I mentioned in the last newsletter. Might be a good time to take another look at it, or check it out if you missed it last time. It's only 2 minutes long.




> ARE YOU DOING WHAT YOU LOVE?
Would you like to create what truly matters to you in life/work?
=========================================
I work with capable people who are stuck, stalled, or struggling with complicated life/work challenges. I help them develop the SKILLS, STRUCTURE, and SUPPORT to make the complex simple, get going again on what matters, and turn visions into reality!

I can help you find what you love-and create a life that shows it!

> Christmas is coming. And other major holidays. Each year, a number of people give the gift of coaching to someone they love. Interested? Send me an email.

>Now is also great time to get a jump on re-assessing your purpose, direction, and action. I have only a couple spaces open Nov/Dec, and am interviewing for next year already. I'll be opening up my practice in January to accommodate more clients

>If you would like my fr.ee 7-page info package, e-mail me with "Coaching Package" as the subject at Bruce@BruceElkin.com
---------------



> USEFUL WEBSITE AND PLANNING TOOLS:
=============================
Thinking about creating or upgrading your website and marketing approach? I use these tools with great results and recommend them without reservation. And Robert has recently made some great updates to the Website Toolkit. Great stuff!

* 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
-----------------------



>THIS WEEK'S QUOTES:
=================
"To cherish what remains of the earth and to foster its renewal is our only legitimate hope of survival."
-- Wendell Berry

"I would say that there exist a thousand unbreakable links between each of us, and everything else, and that our dignity and chances are one. The farthest star and the mud at our feet are a family, and there is no decency or sense in honouring one thing, or a few things, and closing the list. The pine tree, the leopard, the Platte River, and ourselves – we are all at risk together. We are each other's destiny."
-- Mary Oliver


"Man talks of a battle with Nature, forgetting that if he won the battle, he would find himself on the losing side."
-- E.F. (Fritz) Schumacher

"We evolved as creatures knitted into the fabric of nature, and without its intimate truths, we can find ourselves unraveling."
-- Diane Ackerman

"A human being is part of a whole, called by us the 'Universe,' a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.

"This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."
-- Albert Einstein
--------------------------



Living lightly on the earth should not be a burdensome problem we "have to" solve. It can be a joyous act of creating that we love doing -- alone and with others.

If you want help learning to create, or more info, let me know. I'm happy to help. Cheers!
Bruce
**************************************************
> BRUCE ELKIN:
Personal, Professional, and Organization Renewal Coach
>Call: 250.388.7210 www.BruceElkin.com Or Skype Me!
**************************************************
> View the current issue of my full newsletter at
http://createwhatmattersmost.blogspot.com/
-------------------