READER'S RESPOND - SURVEY RESULTS

Hi All,
Thanks so much to all of you who responded to my little survey last week. Your feedback was very useful, and much appreciated.


>Here are the results from the survey:

Respondents:
100 people responded (10% of the list!). Wow!

Length of Newsletters:
10 thought the newsletters were "too short".
13 thought they were "too long."
72 thought they were "just right."

Frequency of Posts:
5 people thought the frequency should be 1/month.
37 thought it should be 2/month.
12 thought it should 3/month.
38 wanted 4/month.

General Comments:
A number of people took the time to be more specific about what they liked or did not like. Here's a compilation of those comments:

A pretty even split between those who liked the "folksy" first paragraph (usually referring to the weather outside my window) and those who said, "who cares about the weather?" (3/2)

An almost even split (4/5) between those who wanted more on "the basics" and those who wanted more on applying those basics to various areas in life.

7 to 1 in favor of the low-tech approach over a fancier, HTML, or linked approach.

A number of folks suggested I "mix it up" -- with 1 longer post and 2 shorter ones.

Everybody who commented about it (10) loved the quotes section.

On the whole, the feedback was very supportive and useful.


So what am I going to do with it all?

I'm going to think on it for a week, and then decide. If you didn't meet the Feb 24 deadline, and still want to kick in your two bits worth, feel free to email me. I'm still open to suggestions. And, again, thanks to everyone who sent me feedback!!!
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THIS WEEK'S QUOTES
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"One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes...and the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility."
-- Eleanor Roosevelt

"A moment of choice is a moment of truth. It's the testing point of our character and competence."
-- Stephen Covey

“If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, all that is left is a compromise.”
-- Robert Fritz

"We become truly human only at the moment of decision."
-- Paul Tillich

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is a daring adventure or nothing at all
--Helen Keller
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That's it for this week. I have some coaching spots coming open in March, if you're interested. But act quickly; there are only a few.

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

All the best!
Bruce

GRATITUDE AND SUCCESS!

************************************************
"SIMPLY SUCCESS" - Feb 13, 2008
=======================================
>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,
Warm here on the coast, squalls blowing through, and sun streaming through in between. Quite exciting, and feeling very spring-like.

I'm grateful for this time of year, because we can be pretty sure winter is over. The dark, damp tunnel is behind us. Spring and summer are ahead. Hope is in the air. And for that I, who suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), am truly grateful.

My suffering is way less now than 30 years ago, before I mastered the techniques for dealing with difficult and negative emotions. Now, I'm only occasionally SAD.

But there's more to managing moods and creating successful results than just rising above negative emotions.

GRATITUDE AND SUCCESS
In my eBook Emotional Mastery: Manage Your Moods and Create What Matters -- With Whatever Life Gives You! I don't just describe how to embrace and transcend negative emotions, and use the energy of creative tension to power effective actions.

I also describe ways to create positive emotions. A good ratio of positive to negative emotions not only makes you feel good, it increases your power to create what matters most to you -- with whatever you have to work with.

One of the most powerful and easy to generate positive emotions is gratitude.

Gratitude means, "being thankful; ready to show appreciation for…."

Many benefits come from practicing gratitude daily. You feel better emotionally and physically. You have less stress and more joy in your life. You experience more exuberance and vitality. You feel more hopeful, and realistically optimistic.

Another benefit of practicing gratitude is that it can make you more successful at what matters to you. When you are grateful and appreciative for the good and beautiful things in your life and work, you tend get more of them. Why?

Because, largely, you tend get what you focus on, and take action to support.

And when you pay attention to and give thanks for what you are grateful for, you focus on what you care about. Energy-robbing negativity fades away.

In its place, you feel the highly energized sense of power that comes from focusing on what truly matters to you. When you put that energy into action, and learn from it, you greatly up your chances of creating what you most want to create.

Being grateful for what is and what happens is a wonderful way to generate positive emotions. Appreciating what you have helps you define life—the Universe—as friendly, a place in which to feel at home, and to thrive and succeed.

And seeing the Universe as a friendly place increases your confidence, allows you to learn, and, thus, increases your competence. Growing competence strengthens your sense of authentic confidence.
The truth is the Universe wants us to succeed.
It wants us to learn, change, and evolve. It wants us to free ourselves from habits that don’t work, and transform ourselves and our species to do what does work. It wants us to enlighten ourselves. It wants us to stretch our consciousness to embrace more and more of Life and the Universe.

The Universe wants us to say “Yes!” to life.

I’m also sure the Universe wants us to say “yes” to ways of living that harmonize with (rather than dominate and exploit) the natural systems of life on which all of our health, wealth and well being depend.

At retreats, before the first evening meal, we read a poem/prayer by Gary Snyder called "Gratitude to Mother Earth." It moves folks to tears, and to a deeper appreciation of the systems of Life on which our food -- and all of our health, wealth, and well being depend.

As we stretch our minds, develop our skills, and learn to live well on a healthy planet, we create ripples of positive emotions. And not just the fleeting, surface emotions, but also deeper, meaningful, life and world changing emotions such as love, enthusiasm, compassion, contentment, and connection to meaning and Spirit.

From such a deep, solid foundation, creating what matters most becomes easier. And although it becomes more challenging, life also gets more engaging, exciting, and fulfilling. The ability to consistently say, “Thank you; I appreciate this!” to life is the most all-encompassing way to produce positive emotions and successful results.

So, how do you practice gratitude?

Start a "gratitude journal" and, each evening; write down 6 or 7 things that you're grateful for, that you appreciate about the day. Writing and reading these notes can fill your heart with pleasant, empowering gratitude.

Practice stopping during the day and just noticing something or someone you appreciate. Say "thanks" to the person, or to the bird with its cheery song, or to the Universe for giving you this day.

Also practice appreciating yourself, just as you are. The Universe don't make no junk!

This might sound hokey. It did to me when I first read about it. But it works!

It makes you feel better. It makes it easier to figure out what you truly want. And it makes it easier to create and sustain those results. Give it a try. You've got nothing to lose and a pleasant, successful, and grateful life to gain.

Oops! The sun is out. Time for a quick walk and suck up the rays.
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For more creating positive emotions, see my ebook Emotional Mastery on my website BruceElkin.com.
----------------------------

Here are a couple of recent responses from readers of Emotional Mastery:

"Thank you for writing the book Emotional Mastery. It really changed my life! I felt so vulnerable and volatile before, and now I am able to choose to be confident and calm. I don't know what would have happened to me, if I hadn't run across your book when I did."
-- M. R.

"I stayed up late last night swept away by your book "Emotional Mastery". (Of course now I am exhausted. But that's another story… ;)

"I have been seeing more and more articles on CBT and it's interesting that this revolves around that. I am SO GLAD YOU SENT THIS TO ME!!!! Your candidness about your own experience really touched me. I could relate so much. It just makes me even happier that you are my coach, knowing that you have personally suffered with these problems. You are the real thing.

"Thanks again. Just couldn't wait to tell you about how I love this book."
-- L.N.

>To get your copy of Emotional Mastery, go to
http://www.bruceelkin.com/emotional-mastery.html
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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, and get going on what matters. I also encourage and support practice as they turn visions into reality!

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

> NOW is a great time to re-assess purpose, direction, and action. It is a great time to enter into a coaching relationship. It can help you make this year, your best year ever!

My practice is full at the moment, but I'm taking a waiting list, and spaces will come open soon for March and April. I'll be taking some time off in May to celebrate a special birthday.

>If you would like my fr.ee 7-page info package, e-mail me with "Coaching Info" as the subject at Bruce@BruceElkin.com
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>FEELING GENEROUS AND HELPFUL?
=================================
I'd love it if you would help me increase my subscription list. Please forward this to anyone you think might like it? The more subscribers we have, the more viable the newsletter is. Even if you can only think of 1 or 2 folks to forward it to, it would be a big help. And I'd deeply appreciate it. Thanks.
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>QUOTABLE QUOTES:
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"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

"If you concentrate on finding whatever is good in every situation, you will discover that your life will suddenly be filled with gratitude, a feeling that nurtures the soul."
-- Rabbi Harold Kushner

"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

"Being grateful. That's the first step to the path of Joy."
-- Sarah Ban Breathnach

“It’s all in your perception. If you see your tasks in life as drudgery, then they are drudgery. On the other hand, if you see them as gifts of the Universe manifest through you, then your tasks are done in the spirit of love and generosity. You step out of your ordinary life and make it extraordinary. Little by little, you realize that your life truly makes a difference and you are filled with a wondrous sense of gratitude and abundant flow. A heavenly feeling, indeed! Yes, it’s all in your perception.”
-- Susan Jeffers

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>If you want help being grateful what you have, even as you create what you truly want, let me know. I'm happy to send you my coaching info package. Just email me with "Coaching Info: as subject at Bruce@BruceElkin.com

Have a Happy and Grateful Valentine's Day!
Bruce
**************************************************
> BRUCE ELKIN:
Personal, Professional, and Organization Renewal Coach
>Call: 250.388.7210 www.BruceElkin.com Or Skype Me!
**************************************************

Change Your Structure; Change Your Life!

************************************************
"SIMPLY SUCCESS" -January 30, 2008
=======================================
>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 ,
Nothing special about the weather here this week. Typical mix of wind and rain, but warmer than last. More early flowers appearing. Time to get the bike tuned and oiled.

A lot of people get themselves tuned and oiled this time of year (metaphorically speaking). They resolve to get fit, get healthy, get richer, get friendlier, and, maybe, bring about world peace.

They may read a self-help book or attend a workshop or see a coach or counselor. They're excited, ready to act, looking forward to results. But something happens.

The results don't come easily. Things take longer than they thought. They are harder than they thought they'd be. And things go wrong. People backslide, feel bad, judge themselves negatively, and feel down, and depressed.

Often, they give up the project as a lost cause and slip back into their old ways, feeling that their worst fears about their own inability to create what matters have been confirmed.

Sound familiar?

Here's the good news. It's probably not you or your actions that don't work; it's more likely the STRUCTURE in which you take those actions that doesn't work.

All action takes place within a structure -- an organizing framework -- that guides your actions and influences your results. For most, that structure is unconscious, unseen. They are not aware of it.

So they can't change it, and, to truly change your behavior in a real and lasting way, you have to change the structure that gives rise to it.

Think of a rocking chair. It's a great structure for going back and forth in. You put energy into it by leaning back, and the chair returns that energy as it rocks forward. Very relaxing. Ahhhh!

But if you want to go to the store, a rocking chair is not a very good structure in which to do so. A bike is a better structure. While a rocking chair is designed to oscillate back and forth, a bike is designed to go somewhere and stay there.

In your life, you may find that you're trying to go somewhere in a rocking chair structure,. No matter how hard you try, no matter how good your ideas and actions are, at some point you find all your energy going in the opposite direction to what you want.

There are many examples where this occurs: dieting, getting fit, developing new habits at work, fixing a shaky relationship, etc…

Again, it's not usually you, it's the structure. Change the structure and you'll change your results. Get out of the rocking chair, and get on your bike or in your ca,r and your trip to the store will likely be much more successful.

One of the major structural reasons that prevens peole from producing real and lasting change is that they operate in the structure of PROBLEM-SOLVING.

But most changes we want to make are not really problems that need to be solved; they are challenges that arise out of some deep-seated desire. To be healthy, to be fit, to be loved, to love, to succeed at what matters. All of these desire-driven challenges are best organized with the structure of CREATING.

Creating is a superior structure to problem-solving because it can include and transcend problem solving within it. When you know how to CREATE, you can see problems as merely part of your current reality, but not the driving force behind your actions.

Your vision of desired results drives the action. You account for the problems and take action that acknowledges them, but that action stays focused on moving toward the result you care about and want to create.

To give you a sense of how this plays out, I'd like to share a recent not from a long-term client to whom I have on-going coaching role.

She is selling her home so she can buy a property on which to develop an organic food products business. It's a slow process, and she's being careful. But her actions are (usually) driven by vision, grounded in reality, and focused on resulst that matter.

Generally, she's making good progress. Soon, I imagine the pieces will come together and she will experience the joy of being on the steep part of the learning curve, where results come fast and furiously.

Here's what she had to say about overcoming a recent setback. She "felt overwhelmed" by too much to do at work and in getting her home ready to show, and had view these things as problems she "had to" solve. This approach was stressing her out.

I'd suggested she reduce her stress by taking "recovery breaks" (where she gets up. moves around, and does something different) every 90 minutes, AND make sure she views challenges from a CREATING orientation and framework.

Here's her reply:

"Hi Bruce,

"Just a quick note to follow-up from our consult this morning....

"What a valuable session - my rest of the day at the College was significantly more pleasant and productive as I consciously shifted from problem-solving mode to creating mode.... I also bought a journal diary at the College bookstore this afternoon where I will briefly denote my 'calm and confident' result breaks during the day at the College for this term...today I chose to have two such breaks.....

"When I came home for lunch today, I took 15 minutes to begin a designated area of my bedroom to increase its show-ability...it went so well that I extended the 15 minutes to 30 minutes and achieved the result I set for myself today re: the bedroom showability - I got more 'done' in this productive 30 minutes than I had in my 'stewin' mode' the last 2 weeks....

"With your help, I continue to experience the profound difference between the creation mode of life and the problem solving mode of life - and I ALWAYS like my life a whole lot more when I'm creatin'

"You do good work coach - thanks! Brenda"


CREATING is not just for artists or musicians or writers; it's for all of us.
It is a time-tested and vastly more successful way of producing real and lasting results that matter than is problem-solving. And it feels soooo much better.

For more on the skills and structure of creating, see my book SIMPLICITY AND SUCCESS: Creating the Life You Long For, or go to my website BruceElkin.com, mouse over "About Me" and click on Writer. Lots of free articles and ebooks there.
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>QUOTABLE QUOTES:
=============
"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

"Real change isn't motivated by either crisis or fear. The best inspiration comes from leaders who can create compelling and positive visions of the future."
-- Alan Deutschman

"True happiness comes from the joy of deeds well done, the zest of creating things new."
-- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

"We create our lives a thought at a time. And sometimes, it comes down to changing a thought such as "Why did this happen to me?" into "there is a reason for this, and my choice is to create the most positive reaction I can."
-- Dee Wallace Stone

"A man of good will with a little effort and belief in his own powers can enjoy a deep, tranquil, rich life -- provided he go his own way. He need not and should not think of making a good living, but rather of creating a good life for himself. To live one's own life is still the best way of life, always was, and always will be."
-- Henry Miller
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>If you want help shifting from a problem solving focus to a focus on creating what truly matters to you, let me know. I'm happy to send you my coaching info package. Just email me with "Coaching Info: as subject at Bruce@BruceElkin.com
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/
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