Business Attention – Classroom Rules

Miscommunication – My Attention or Yours…and does it matter?

The Deadline

The Deadline

Last week I was invited to speak at a local business networking group meeting. I had a couple of days to create my material as it was a last minute invitation. But that was fine and I met my Friday deadline sending off my material to be used in a promo.

Mid-day Monday I received a phone call indicating the material was not received. I resent it and continued to prepare the presentation. At 11 pm I was notified that my resent material was received too late and I would be invited to speak at the next meeting.

In a flurry of worry, I wanted the credit that the material was sent on time and I had kept my commitment. But it didn’t matter. Material is either received or not received. This is like classroom assignments. The smartest students can stay up all night (some of whom do) working but if they don’t turn in the work, there is no credit. It’s in or it’s not in. Things are done or not done. It’s the worry, the perceived stress around receiving acknowledgement in the form of good grades or the perceived punishment from parents who ‘just don’t understand’ how something so important could not be completed that wastes our time and energy.

In your business, what is getting in your way of completion? There are no excuses; in the final analysis things are done or not done. The next time your student says there is no relationship between school and real life, you and I will know the truth…your student may need to wait until there’s a real life job situation to understand.

In the meantime, I’ve created a kickin’ workshop on…Attention Manifestation! Ah, the irony of it all.

What’s your attention story today?

June 2, 2009 | Posted in: attention, business | 1 Comment »

Attention to MY Intentions in a Job

 

Did I intend to get fired?

Did I intend to get fired?

It wasn’t my intention not to pay attention on the job…or was it?

The ghastly job seemed to have all my attention. I worried about it; thought about it; dreamed about it; talked about it; stayed late; arrived early and in the end I was fired from it. But what was my intention during that time?

This job was a dead end when I said yes. The first day of work the ‘boss’, the woman who asked me to apply for and then to take the job; who was the mother of my son’s friend, told me we wouldn’t become friends. That we would be working at the same place every day and then some, but we wouldn’t become friends. That was her intention.

My intention in taking the work was to provide income for my family while my husband began a professional transition. My intention was to support his desire to change his life. I had no intention to change my life or the world. My intention was not related to friendship, but it would have been an OK perk on the job to be friendly at least.

So, serendipity found me fired and quickly hired to work at a school for students with ADHD and LD where my intention again was to support my family. This time, however, I found a calling and a life’s work. In the end, I was completely changed and passionate about working in the world of ADHD. My strengths were used to create my job and my weaknesses were otherwise managed. I grew in confidence and stature knowing that in that environment I made a difference.

I’m a born coach, maybe even born again. I was the student and young adult who asked the questions no-one else thought about. That’s what I love – asking the questions whose answers will change your life.

What do you want in a job?
What are your intentions in taking the work?
How will you make a difference in this field?
Is there a future for you with this company?

My story is the story of many job seekers and office workers. If you can’t pay attention it may be because it’s not worth your health and the health of your attention to remain.

What is your attention-to-intention-on-the-job story?

Forgive me, Donald. 

(http://www.abovethelaw.com/images/entries/Donald%20Trump%20You%27re%20Fired%20Above%20the%20Law%20blog.gif)

May 27, 2009 | Posted in: Everything Else, Important Posts | 1 Comment »

ADD Coaching for Attention

Do You Take Attention for Granted?

Want my attention?

Want my attention?

It sounds so simple – coaching for attention. We all have attention, but how often does it wander? Where does it go? Why? What does it matter? How does attention serve you? (I just stopped writing for a moment to send an email) (just answered the phone, too)

My attention is a commodity that I trade for attention, that I give to my loved ones, that is a source of my pleasure through its stimulating function. Prospective clients are looking for ways to anchor down their attention and to have it serve them better in their lives. On the other end of the spectrum are those who don’t want their attention and move toward addictions to avoid experiencing attention on parts of their lives that cause pain.

I coach for your attention. No longer do I take sweet young faces (my son, Matt for instance when he was young) between my hands and gently guide eyes toward mine for a chance at obtaining attention. Nor do I shout, plead, please, outline, wave, bump, throw, threaten, manipulate or initiate any other sort of attention grabbing activity. If you are my client we agree, disagree, negotiate, honor, value, respect and enjoy each other while working on your goal.

Together we understand your experience of attention; how and when it shows up and how and when it doesn’t. We coach to your strength (when it shows up) and allow the rest of your life to unfold. This is a glorious process of trial and error, cooperation, vision, mission, passion and acceptance. It is creative and sometimes mundane.

But ADD coaching works. When would you like to start coaching with me?


May 18, 2009 | Posted in: Atlanta ADHD Coach, attention, New Clients | No Comments »

A Lesson in Authentic Attention

 

Ah - Food!

Ah - Food!

My literary and food life converged today at the lunch counter at Tacqueria del Sol in Decatur. Next to me, a lively woman was talking about her recent trip to NY City and her encounter with the rudest/most authentic restaurateur in the city – maybe the world. Christiane Lauterbach (for the uninitiated, she has been reviewing restaurants in Atlanta for over 25 years) had been in NYC as a member of the review board for the 2009 James Beard Foundation Awards. Told by another critic not to miss this place, in the retelling of the experience, I was reminded of a restaurant in St. Louis in the ’60′s/’70′s when I lived around the corner at Grand and Lindell.

 

It was an Italian restaurant, very old with equally old Italian men servers. We were warned they were the meanest men alive and it was a point of pride to survive a meal. I was eighteen and student poor but we saved up to get a lunch and a lesson. Remember that age? My attention was on the dare, certainly not the menu. Their accents were challenging so it didn’t really matter what they said because I couldn’t understand them anyway. I knew Southern and Ohio accents by that age. I made it through the meal, wide-eyed and food innocent (the scent of burned food in my home was common, another blog topic on attention) linking Italian food and rude servers until I married an Italian (see blog on divorce and attention).

Maybe the issue was communication not insult. But in Ms. Lauterbach’s newly found restaurant, the insult was the entree of communication and the meal was all the better for it. This attitude she conveyed, is an authentic life lived through insult and straightforward passion.

My blogging is my authentic life, not an insult rather an entry to a life with attention as I know it. It’s not literary; nor a talent but an expression of my lifelong challenge and passion – Authentically my Attention.

What’s your authentic challenge with attention?

May 16, 2009 | Posted in: Everything Else | No Comments »

An Attention Hangover

Wendy at forty!

Wendy at forty!

Frankly I’ve been in attention overload for a couple of weeks. Wendy invited me to her 40th birthday celebration, given by her friend Maria Maria Sangria. Need I say more – with an inventive name like that I should have been forewarned. We had found our way to a magical ten-acre untouched forest in way SW Atlanta where a giant forest spirit protected the land from being developed. And a reclusive creative artist kept the house and land as sacred space for visiting shamans and citizens.

We arrived after 10 pm in the warm April evening to meet women in long dark dresses and drapes, young women in bright dresses and skirts, men in street clothes, African dress and Jamaican hair and children and dogs of no particular description. It seemed not everyone there knew Wendy nor that it was her birthday. I discovered two Italian matrons who had just flown in from Italy for the weekend, and a Ghanaian spirit dancer on his way to the islands.

Only a little panicked I recalled attending the wrong wedding once and thought maybe this was the wrong party. But even in a forest glen like this, cell phones work and Wendy called to locate me. It was time for the drum circle and fire. I didn’t see a birthday cake or hear birthday songs, rather the drums started up and we gathered around the fire pit for a couple of hours of chanting, dancing, praying and a celebration of all of our lives.

In the dark, small lights lit semi-circles of chairs in the woodsy clearings up a straw strewn path past the fire pit to an outdoor open-air grotto. I grew up during the ’60′s and ’70′s in Atlanta; I saw the Allmann Brothers play for free in Piedmont Park; I didn’t make it to Woodstock, N.Y. but to Woodstock, Ga. for a similar festival, and I’d been to some unique parties in St. Louis during college, but I’ve never been to SW Atlanta for a Drum Circle celebration.

This was heaven on earth. People of all descriptions came and went with the wind, and when I left at 1 am the Jamaican music was just beginning. I was high on life for two days before the stimulation and pleasure of the evening began to wear off. I can only describe my state of mind as a kind of attention hangover – there was too much sensory input in the dark night with the drums and chanting for me to pay attention to time and space…can there be too much attention? Is too much attention simply an out of this world experience?

What is your attention hangover story?

May 6, 2009 | Posted in: Everything Else | No Comments »