Category: FEATURED REGULARLY

Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday features.

Q FRI: How would you write your quote bio?

Posted on by Senia

Hi, Welcome to Question Friday. I receive daily quotes by email, and below the quote, there is a brief summary of the person’s life.

It’s not easy to summarize our own bios from five sentences to one or two, and here, whole lives are summarized and in a wonderful way too! If you were writing the bio to appear underneath some of your quotes, what would you want the quote bio to say?

Q: How would you write your quote bio?

Here are some examples, and my italics of some great phrases in them:

About Richard Bach
Richard Bach, the American pilot and author, became hugely successful with the publication of the slim novel Jonathan Livingston Seagull a spiritual quest about a bird who loved to fly rather than seeing flight as a means to an end. He was born in Illinois in 1936, a descendant of composer Johann Sebastian Bach. He has been an Air Force Reserve pilot, a flight instructor, and a barnstormer; most of his books involve flight either directly or as a metaphor.

About Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams was the pen name of Thomas Lanier Williams, the multiple-award-winning Southern Gothic playwright best known for his plays Streetcar Named Desire and The Glass Menagerie. He was born in 1911 in Mississippi, where he had a difficult childhood with an abusive father, a smothering mother, and a schizophrenic sister. His emotionally honest plays often feature sensitive souls who don’t fit into a confining culture. He spent most of his adult life in New York City. He died in 1983.

About Virginia Satir
American psychotherapist Virginia Satir played a central role in shaping family therapy. She was born in Wisconsin in 1916. While working as a teacher, she became deeply involved in the lives of her students and their parents. This led to graduate school and a career change. She took on the mission of inspiring therapists to work with families. She cofounded the Mental Health Research Institute in California, where she held the first-ever family-therapy training program. She died in 1988.

What’s your quote bio?!
BTW, do not be intimidated by the fact that these bios above are of well-known people. Write yours as just that – yours!
p.s. Brag! :)

Best,
Senia

Nick-isms: “I don’t spend my energy in battle.”

Posted on by Senia

“You can’t get anyone to change unless they want to.”

“What’s the point of picking an argument? I’ll still have my views and you’ll still have yours.”

“People who push someone to do something usually just wish someone would push them instead.”

“Forgiveness is the lynchpin of humanity.”

“I don’t spend my energy in battle.”

Margaret-isms: “Get it out the door”

Posted on by Senia

A colleague of mine from the MAPP program, Margaret Greenberg, is an executive coach and runs a organizational effectiveness consulting practice. She says some absolutely wonderful things! Margaret emphasizes fulfillment and balance in working with individuals and teams. I am big fan of Margaret’s action-based approaches. Some of my favorites of her quotes:

On concrete tasks:

“What’s the point of spending hours on something until you know what the value of it will be?”

On finishing projects and sending them off for comments:

“Get it out the door!”

And others:

“Start with WHO and WHAT you know.”

“We’re human beings, not human doings.”

Update: More Margaret-isms! (4-5-07)

* Our lives go in the direction we tell ourselves.
* What if it were easy?
* Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.

* When all is said and done, more is said than done.
* What would your future self, you 20 years from now, have to say about that?

Sam Bayer-isms: “More than ‘All the world’s a stage'”

Posted on by Senia

Sam Bayer is one of my favorite singer-songwriters. He is one of those rare immediately-caring people that you recognize as soon as he sings a song or talks with you outside the music hall. Sam Bayer writes in his latest newsletter about the roles people play:

Goffman was a brilliant sociologist, and one of his most influential books is The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, which can be summed up, pretty succinctly, by mutilating Shakespeare: not only is all the world a stage, but every situation is a performance, and the roles we assume vary according to which play we happen to be in at the time. I think of Goffman a lot; we’re different people to our friends than we are to our coworkers, or our parents, or our spouses, or our children.

Sam is in particular speaking about how we have different roles as a musician and as a host. The audience learns just a few things about you while you’re on stage. Sam writes:

Some people believe that there’s really no room for more than three basic facts about a solo performer: e.g., you’re tall, you’re a cross-dresser, and you used to be a Marine. The other details are just noise; they detract from the focus of the performance. A while back, I settled on three words: Literate. Resonant. Exuberant. They’re on the top of each page of my Web site. They’re the three things I want people to remember about me, and my performance, when they leave.

If you have a chance to see Sam Bayer perform, DO!
Sam also hosts the definitive lists of Boston “open mikes” on his site.

My Seinfeld Script: “Mr. Subliminal”

Posted on by Senia

In 1998, I wrote this Seinfeld script one night out of the blue. Since today is Story Tuesday, enjoy!

TITLE: Mr. Subliminal

ELAINE interviews a prospective job candidate and JERRY buys a silk undershirt.

Seinfeld

Scene I

JERRY at comedy club.

JERRY (on stage): You wanna know why I became a stand-up comedian?

All the other jobs had applications! – I couldn’t handle the applications. “Applying for a job? Please fill this short form out … High school athletics … past salaries … references.”

I didn’t have any of those. I would hand in a half-filled out application. The secretary would never even let me in to see the interviewer.

Scene II

In ELAINE’s office at work.

ALFRED GRUBERG (A medium-height, going bald, 30-45-year-old man. Dressed in a business suit for an interview. Smiling and charming. He has one quirk: he is a psychologist by training and often inserts subliminal phrases into his speech. Subliminal phrases are in all capital letters. Alfred says these phrases quickly as if skimming over the words with no change in demeanor, in how he speaks, how he acts.)

ELAINE and ALFRED walking in.

ELAINE: Mr. Gruberg, please sit down. (ELAINE points to seat on other side of her desk) Now, let’s take a look at your resume. … Secretary at Blomingdale’s . . . Vogue . . . Russian Tea Room. Psychology? It says here that you received a degree in psychology before starting your secretarial positions. Why would you do that (very puzzled look, taking her glasses off) – gain proficiency in one field and then leave it for secretarial positions?

ALFRED: Well let me tell you the two differences between secretaries and psychologists – Secretaries get fewer looney-tunes (signaling crazy with his finger to his head) if you know what I mean (smiles at ELAINE) GORGEOUS BRUNETTE WOMEN and more money to boot. (laughs, trying to get ELAINE to laugh with him)

ELAINE: (laughs uncomfortablly, looking at resume) Uh-huh.

ELAINE’s VOICEOVER: (Double-take) Did he just say “gorgeous brunette women”? Is he trying to come on to me during an interview?

ALFRED: (reaching over her desk) And if you notice there at the bottom, I have listed my specifications: typing speed LOOK CLOSELY PENILE ENLARGEMENT and standardized test scores.

ELAINE’s VOICEOVER: (ELAINE looks very skeptical) Standardized test scores?

Scene III

JERRY’s apartment. JERRY and GEORGE.

JERRY: My mom recommended I buy a silk undershirt for the winter. But I just don’t know . . . . She recommends it every year.

GEORGE: Oh, no, JERRY, silk undershirts have been underrated. My mom got me a bunch when I was in junior high school.

JERRY: And you still have them?

GEORGE: Uh-huh.

JERRY: You have silk undershirts from when you were in junior high?!?! How could they have lasted that long?

GEORGE: (Looking at himself apologetically) Well, I haven’t changed much. (Explanatory tone) And – and I only wear them in the winter.

KRAMER walks in.

JERRY: Hey, Kramer, you have any silk undershirts?

KRAMER: Oh, yeah, (smiling big) how else do you think I stay warm in the winter? And let me tell you, women love that! Silk shirts, silk boxers, silk bedsheets, oh yeah! Ok, guys, I need your advice.

(Door buzzer)

Continue reading “My Seinfeld Script: “Mr. Subliminal””

QUESTION FRIDAY: How do you celebrate steps towards a goal?

Posted on by Senia

This week, we talked about the exponential power of daily action and taking daily action steps to gain the 10,000 hours of expertise!

Question: When you’re working toward a goal, how do you celebrate the steps along the way to that goal?

celebrate

Here, on Positive Psychology News Daily, Nicholas Hall gives a summary of some ways to celebrate steps. He breaks out possible celebrations along two axes: body-mind-spirit and pleasure-engagement-meaning. Some suggestions:

  • Go dancing (Body and Engagement)
  • Learn something you’ve always wanted to (Mind and Meaning)
  • talk to a friend (Mind and Engagement)

What is your list of small celebrations?!
Thanks!
Great weekend!

I’d love to hear your answers. Feel free to leave anonymous comments. My answers are in the comments also.
Image: fireworks.

Little mouse stories: Little Book of Self-Discipline

Posted on by Senia

Here’s the entire Little Book of Self-Discipline:

Page 1:

Little mouse Jonathan wakes up and wants to play, play, play.
He wants to find his friends, and just play.

Page 2:
He goes to play with his fun mouse friends Sally and Joe and Melanie and Siobhan and Markus. They run around and they chase balls of yarn, and they play hide-and-seek around tree trunks!

Page 3:
Then Sally says, “I’m going home to help my sister do the laundry.”
Joe says, “I’ll be back. I’m going to help my mom make lunch.”
Melanie says, “I promised my brother that I would help him with arithmetic.”
Siobhan says, “I told myself that I would finish twenty more pages of my great book.”
Markus whispers, “Oh, my whiskers, my whiskers! I want to keep them nice and short!”

Page 4:

All of Jonathan’s mouse friends run off to do the things they needed to do. So Jonathan lies on his back and he thinks. Then he gets a little bored. So he walks and he walks and he walks. Then he thinks, “I can go help my sister with the laundry! I can help my mom make lunch! I can learn arithmetic and help my little sister later! I can finish more of the super book I read at night. I can go cut my whiskers!”

Page 5:
Little mouse Jonathan runs home to help his mother, his sister, and to do some things for himself.

Page 6:

In the evening, when little mouse Jonathan goes to bed, he is very very very happy.

Little story book POP-QUIZ: Why is Jonathan mouse content and happy when he goes to bed?

Hint.
Today is Story Tuesday. Enjoy!

What are your newest GOOD Constraints?

Posted on by Senia

Hello, welcome to Question Friday!
What are some of your recent, newest GOOD Constraints?

* What are you doing that’s great for yourself?
* Are you keeping to an exercise schedule?
* Are you keeping to a sleep schedule? (The single most important thing to a healthy life, IMHO)
* Have you set a new rule for yourself recently?

Q: What are some of your recent, newest GOOD Constraints?

My answers are in the comments. Look forward to reading yours also!

Technorati keywords: habit, goals, new year’s resolutions, resolutions.

Conscious Decision to Do Something

Posted on by Senia

“[S]atisfaction can arise only by the conscious decision to do something.”
Greogory Berns, Satisfaction

Excerpt from fuller sentence, “While you might find pleasure by happenstance–winning the lottery, possessing the genes for a sunny temperament, or having the luck not to live in poverty–satisfaction can arise only by the conscious decision to do something. And this makes all the difference in the world, because it is only your own actions for which you may take responsibility and credit,” as quoted in this Scientific American article (March 2007).

Furthermore, Gregory Burns says, “satisfaction comes less from the attainment of a goal and more in what you must do to get there.” (From Publishers Review quoted here.)

Gregory Berns’ attitude speaks to me a lot about expertise being trainable and about goals.