Being Point

Tag: trust

  • Effective Collaboration Is Critical To Moving Your Vision Forward

    Who do you think with in meaningful and high level ways? What is the nature of that relationship(s)? Are you and they able to be completely and constructively honest as you consider mutual opportunities, issues and problems?

    We can never directly see our own faces nor the backs of our bodies. Each of us has literal blind spots built into our experience of being human. Often, the best way that we have to reality-check ourselves is to be reflected in a literal mirror for physical reflection and / or a “figurative” mirror in the form of another person for feedback about our choices.

    Last week, we discussed trusting. This week, trusting expands into collaboration because trust is an essential foundation for effective collaboration.

    Do you cultivate collaboration? How critical do you consider collaboration in moving your vision forward? What are your conditions for effective collaboration? Are you a good collaborator for others?

  • “As Soon As You Trust Yourself, You Will Know How To Live” ~ Goethe

    After a client meeting this week, a very talented colleague was surprised that I shared an opinion that he said he had not been sufficiently comfortable to share. He said, “I should trust myself more.”

    Goethe said, “As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.”

    What are the implications of trusting yourself? Perhaps that . . . you keep your own counsel, you are willing to honor your instincts, you know yourself and what matters to you . . . and you’re willing to take risks to be true to your core values.

    When you trust yourself, courage comes both more easily and more frequently. You’re less willing to be a pleaser and more willing to honor your life with choices that you clearly make . . . rather than those choices that are made for you, either directly by others, or indirectly by inherited belief systems and customs.

    What is the degree to which you trust yourself? Has your ability to trust yourself increased or diminished over time? Who is your best role model for trusting herself or himself?

  • What Are Your Beliefs About Loyalty ~ Personally and Professionally?

    I had the good fortune recently to hear a talk on loyalty which reminded me of a fascinating client session many years ago. We were discussing core values, and a participant said that he did not value loyalty at all; and I remember being intrigued and a little surprised about his point of view.

    Study Hall does not presume to know all the answers, but we seek to raise useful questions. Loyalty means faithful, true, trustworthy and reliable. Blind loyalty may not be loyalty at all, but some sort of dependence or abdication of the responsibility of choosing.

    What is the role of loyalty in your life: Personally, professionally, internally? Is there a place for loyalty in your current professional environment? Why or why not? What are your criteria for loyalty, and how true are you to those criteria?

  • Without Integrity, We Can Feel As Though We Cease To Exist

    It’s been said that without integrity, we don’t exist. Why? Because for one to pretend to be true when one isn’t true simply invalidates * being * itself.

    Dishonesty exists for one primary purpose: to mislead. To mislead others – but, ultimately, to mislead oneself. If all we have is our word, then to utter false words is to, in effect, cease to exist.

    Yet, no one of us is perfect. All humans, by definition, are flawed vessels. So how do we reconcile our imperfection with our hunger for integrity?

    How do you feel when someone lies to you? How do you feel when you know that someone is not operating from integrity – especially if they are trying to imply or assure you that they are? What are the implications for the health of that relationship? How can we, as humans, do better?

  • Tough Love and Surrender

    Some element of trust is required to surrender to something that may be amazingly good for you, but that you may be afraid of for various reasons – including fear that you may not be up to it. But, most likely, you are up to it or the invitation to surrender would not be in your life.

    After yesterday’s Study Hall, longtime great friend, Sir Erik Hill, sent the following poem by Guillaume Apollinaire:

    COME TO THE EDGE

    Come to the edge, he said.

    They said: We are afraid.

    Come to the edge, he said.

    They came.

    He pushed them and they flew.

    Being pushed by someone whom you trust can help you surrender. Pushing can feel difficult like the tough love that it is, but it results in flying and in even greater degrees of forward and upward movement.

    If someone has pushed you to surrender recently, consider that that person may be lovingly urging you to evolve and grow.

    How do you best respond? With silence or with the strength to fly? Will your ego surrender?

    Copyright 2009. E. B Hutt Bush and Coaching for Results, Inc.