What’s Your Challenge??

How to challenge yourself and grow!Are you up for a challenge?

In the last episode of my podcast, I discussed how to hold on when life is tough.  That’s when life is challenging you.

But what about when life isn’t so challenging… where life is copacetic?  Just cruising.

It’s my observation that we work hard to keep life flat.  We work hard to keep things smooth.  Cold out?  Turn on the heater.  Hot out?  Turn on the A/C.  Keep things even… even-keeled.  Flat.

We spend LOTS of energy to save the energy of dealing witb challenges, big or small.

But does that help (or harm) us?  Does it keep us safe or make us fragile?

What if taking on small challenges actually gets us better prepared for bigger challenges?  What if making choices to expand into life helps us deal with life encroaching upon us?

One of my “things” is to find little challenges for myself… new things to try, new activities to do, new tastes or sounds to take in, and new ways to try life.

How about you?  What challenges are you taking on right now?

Listen to this episode of the Thriveology Podcast to discover the power of a challenge.

RELATED RESOURCES
Learning and Life
Ways to Expand
Growth Mindset
Lessons in Jiu Jitsu
Book:  Thrive Principles
 

Your Heaven on Earth

It is so easy to get pulled into threats and dangers, mishaps and mistakes.  It is wired into our brain to have a focus on the negative.  Which is too bad.  That means we are more likely to miss the good moments, the highlights of life, in favor of the down moments.  We clearly see the negative, but can miss the positive.

Unless, of course, we nurture a focus on the positive.  Unless we look for those moments of “heaven on earth.”

What are your moments of heaven?

Martin Rutte, Project Heaven On EarthMartin Rutte spent his career helping companies enter into dialogue for transformation.  He led difficult discussions so that company cultures could transform.  Dialogue is a powerful tool of exploration.  Which, unfortunately, is often replaced by debate in our culture.  That is what happens when we stop listening, demanding our own viewpoint.  Martin has worked to shift from the hell of debate to the heaven of dialogue.

And that led him to wonder what we might be able to do to shift our world in a better direction.  So, he started wondering about those moments of heaven people have.  What were the moments?  What was common to those moments?  How might those moments become a more intentional part of life?  What if that process starts expanding those moments for more people?  Might culture and society transform?

In this episode of the Thriveology Podcast, Martin gets me to discuss my moment of heaven on earth… and how I might bring that moment more into my own life.  We discuss the power of three simple questions, the power of dialogue, and the need for cultural transformation right now.  In this moment.  Perhaps a shift to a moment of heaven on earth?

Listen to the episode below.

RELATED RESOURCES
Project Heaven On Earth Website
Finding Hope or Building Hope
Hope in Difficult Times
Doing Your Part
Your Purpose

You Are Built for Impact
MPI Triad

From the Projects to Ping Pong

Wally Green, world class table tennisHow does a young man from the projects end up playing table tennis in North Korea… on a diplomacy mission?

How he ended up there is not much different than how Wally Green ended up in Germany, becoming a world-class ping pong player, after leaving his gang past behind.

I “met” Wally on a Zoom call with lots of others and knew I needed to have him on Thriveology.  I wanted to talk with him because he had a  handle on thriving.  Not because he was making life look easy.  But because he was taking life on.

As a child, Wally was faced with domestic violence at home and gang violence outside.  Even though he threw himself into sports as an escape, he didn’t escape gang life.  As he noted, it was a matter of survival.

But guess was really saved Wally’s life?  Table tennis.

How did he get there?  Because he broke a stolen pool cue.  And he took out his frustration on someone playing table tennis.  One thing led to another… and there he was in North Korea.

Really, Wally is the one who needs to tell the story.  And he does, as I interview him in this episode of the Thriveology Podcast.  You can listen below.

RELATED RESOURCES
Wally Green’s Website
Your Resilience Muscle
Damaged, Resilient, or Thriving?

 

The Power of a Challenge

How to challenge yourself and grow!Are you up for a challenge?

In the last episode of my podcast, I discussed how to hold on when life is tough.  That’s when life is challenging you.

But what about when life isn’t so challenging… where life is copacetic?  Just cruising.

It’s my observation that we work hard to keep life flat.  We work hard to keep things smooth.  Cold out?  Turn on the heater.  Hot out?  Turn on the A/C.  Keep things even… even-keeled.  Flat.

We spend LOTS of energy to save the energy of dealing witb challenges, big or small.

But does that help (or harm) us?  Does it keep us safe or make us fragile?

What if taking on small challenges actually gets us better prepared for bigger challenges?  What if making choices to expand into life helps us deal with life encroaching upon us?

One of my “things” is to find little challenges for myself… new things to try, new activities to do, new tastes or sounds to take in, and new ways to try life.

How about you?  What challenges are you taking on right now?

Listen to this episode of the Thriveology Podcast to discover the power of a challenge.

RELATED RESOURCES
Learning and Life
Ways to Expand
Growth Mindset
Lessons in Jiu Jitsu
Book:  Thrive Principles
 

Eggs, Balls, And Turtles

Raising thriving children.  Are they eggs or balls?  Lessons from baby turtles. . .Summer has flown by!  Here we are, already at Labor Day in the States.  That kind of marks the end of summer for many.  Most schools are back in session and schedules start to be a wee bit more important.  Structure returns.

And parenting may be ratcheted up just a bit.

It’s a great time to be thinking some about your hopes and goals of your parenting.  I’m guessing that your hope is NOT to be the rescuer for life.  Maybe more like coaching from the sidelines while the kids run their plays.

Or maybe like volunteer turtle patrols.

Know what I mean?

If not, maybe a listen to this week’s podcast will clarify for you.  Remember, there are two models of viewing kids:  Eggs or Balls.  I’m leaning toward balls.

Let’s think about it in this week’s podcast, below.

Raising Thriving Children Series
Introduction

Control What You CAN Control. . .

Control what you CAN control.We spend lots of time trying to control our Fears, Feelings, and Thoughts.  But, we can’t.  We can decide how long they will keep us stuck, but we just can’t stop them from popping up.  And yet, we spend LOTS of energy trying to avoid them.

Why not spend your time on what you CAN control?

You do have a choice about your Aspirations, Attitude, and Actions.  Focus there.

Let go of the things you can’t control and then choose to control what you CAN control.

Listen below for details.

The Change Matrix – Dealing with Change

Change.  So many times, I hear people say, “I don’t like change.”

But it seems to me that we like change,

  1. when we choose it, and
  2. when we want it.

Over the years, I noticed that change doesn’t always come in the ways we want it, and the time the want it.  Change chooses us, and sometimes challenges us.

That creates the “Change Matrix.”  In my little schema, change falls into four quadrants:

Lee Baucom's Change Matrix

Each quadrant has opportunities and challenges.

Change isn’t optional.  Change comes to us, no matter how much we resist.   Sometimes, we chase it.  Sometimes we avoid it.  But it still comes.  That is the nature of life.

What can YOU do, in the midst of change?

Extend Your 3 Horizons to Thrive

Extend your 3 horizons to really thrive.Sometimes, the horizon can seem to stretch in front of us forever.  Sometimes, it seems that we are smack up against the world.  We can’t see beyond where we are.  We can’t see past our problems and struggles.

Time to extend and expand your horizons.

There are three horizons we can all expand:  our problem horizon, opportunity horizon, and growth horizon.

When we can’t see past our problems, our problem horizon is limited.  At those times, you can believe that there is nothing on the other side of a problem or situation.

Sometimes, we just can’t see any opportunities.  Our opportunity horizon is too small, too close.  There seems to be no options, no possibility, no opportunities.  At the same time, others are seeing an opportunity everywhere.  The difference is their opportunity horizon.

And there are times when we just don’t believe we can grow and change.  Our change horizon is too small.  Maybe you tell yourself that “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”  But in reality, we are ever-changing and ever-growing.  The question is only on how intentional we can be about that growth.  Do we embrace change or run from it?  Do we see our place of growth, or hide from it?

Learn more about your 3 horizons.  And then learn 5 steps to expanding and extending your horizons.

 

What Thrivers Do: They Grow

Thrivers grow, throughout life, learning from difficulties.Are you growing?  Maybe you feel “all grown up.

But that’s not what I am asking.  Are you “done,” or are you in a process of becoming?

People who thrive continue growing.  It is not about always being happy, but forever growing and developing.

When the goal is “happiness,” we can get stuck.  But when you know the task is to continue to grow, there is always room for that.

Thrivers nurture their curiosity.  That helps them continue to expand their world.  It opens before them.

Thrivers know that, while crises don’t happen in order to teach a lesson, one can still learn the lessons from the struggle.  Growth is all about being open to the lessons.

How’s your Growth Quotient?

 

What Thriving People Know About Accepting What Is

Thrivers Accept What Is.Things happen, and we wish they hadn’t.  Then, we fight against what we think might happen.  And we even fight against where we are right now.

The struggle does nothing to change what is.  In fact, the more we struggle, the less we are able to respond.

The less we are able to respond, the more stagnant we become.

But thriving people know to accept what is.  It becomes the starting point for growth and change.  It becomes the foundation of thriving.

[tweetthis]Acceptance is not giving up. It is the starting point of getting up. – Lee Baucom[/tweetthis]

Listen below for why thrivers accept what is, and how we all can thrive more!