tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-55260523175676407132024-03-05T08:45:18.863-08:00Strolling in the Moonlight"A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world."
-Oscar Wilde-Glenn Collettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323017977339707663noreply@blogger.comBlogger386125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526052317567640713.post-29204531586491021952019-05-19T15:14:00.002-07:002019-05-19T15:14:33.246-07:00Trying to Convince MyselfI sometimes like to pride myself on being a lone wolf or not caring what other people think. I like to feel like I can read people pretty well or that I am witty and sarcastically funny. I like to think that I empathize with others and that I am a good communicator (or at least try to be - my mother would say that you can never ask me a yes or no question because I am too political).<br />
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Right now, I don't feel like all of those things. I can write my feelings here because the only one that comes here to read them is myself. When I use my blog, I feel like I can be more honest because I am not writing for an audience and this is not looking for pity or self-reassurance. But I do care how I perceive I care how this can be seen. I care about looking weak and vulnerable. I feel like to the best of my ability (and I will admit I am <i>clearly </i>out of practice) I have tried to find friends, people to hang out with, individuals with shared experiences, someone to date, someone to listen to and to talk with. I live by myself in Arizona and I get long periods of loneliness even though my grandparents and my uncles live minutes away.<br />
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It is nice to go see them and spend time with them. It is nice to be around people. Still, I feel like I am missing being around people my own age. I feel like I recognize or my perception is such that the more and more time I spend with my cousins the more I feel like to them I am that older single unmarried cousin - an outsider of sorts separated by years. When I try to talk and make friends with other people I get lackluster responses and am not invited to participate. There is something to wanting to be wanted and to feel like you have a place amongst others like yourself. And each time I try to invite myself to things or find mutual interest and common ground, I find myself getting rejected. In the past, I would brush that off and think it is simply a round peg trying to fit itself in a square hole. The discouragement comes from the fact that it just keeps on happening. And once I have continued asking and asking, I have started to become tired in asking and I start thinking maybe I am not someone they want there. I am not good enough.<br />
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Maybe I am arrogant. Maybe I am overweight. Maybe my hair is too long. Maybe I am not as vulnerable as I think I am and instead I am pushing them away. Maybe that is why so many bridges got burned in San Diego when I left. Maybe I am the problem. Today, we discussed the question of what do I lack yet in church... Maybe I don't want to know the answer because I am trying to convince myself I am doing better than I really am when in reality I am the problem. I try to be hopeful that God can make the best of an empty canvas or even one with issues like mine - he can see the potential perfection in each of us and that is why he has hope for us. I don't think I am too far gone. I do believe we can and consistently are changing all the time. I just see the common denominator in all of my recent interactions and are beginning to feel like maybe I just don't belong.<br />
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How does one find happiness in their life? My mother always talks about how I <i>used to be </i>such a happy little kid. What changed? Did life just kick me down too many times that I became cynical and I am making people not want to be around me? Enough thinking about the why... HOW DOES ONE FIND HAPPINESS AND VALUE IN THEIR OWN LIFE? I know I shouldn't look for others for validation but right now I feel like I can use a little help seeing the good when all I see is an empty room. Maybe what I am really trying to do is convince myself that I won't always be by myself.Glenn Collettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323017977339707663noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526052317567640713.post-4713126124432690772018-08-31T08:57:00.002-07:002018-08-31T08:57:44.799-07:00Creating Your Own Happiness<span style="font-family: inherit;">I liked my last post because I typically don't share some of the harder times in my life however pain is part of life and our trials can be our greatest teachers. I did find some relief by embracing my nerdiness. I have always been a nerd. Back in New Hampshire when I took calls in my cubicle at Fidelity, my friends and I were fans of League of Legends and our walls had small figures of our favorite champions. I even wore a few shirts from games I played - Ekko and Overwatch. Gaming was something we all were able to use to relate to one another. I even joked that I would arrange my future office as an investment consultant with LEGO Architecture to see what kind of conversations I could engage with my clients - travel, LEGOs or just investments.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I however resolved that although I accepted my nerdom, I wasn't yet a geek. After moving to San Diego, I realized I was a lot more normal than most of the people I met at church. I will admit that people do rub off on you the more time you spend with them. It was not long before I found a gaming store where you can play and buy games. I was able to play Mechs vs Minions, Firefly Adventures, Munchkin Panic and Mysterium. A lot of these games that I was playing with my friends were fun. I had another friend that was very much into anime. I already owned a lot of Studio Ghibli but my friends introduced me to lot of new shows that are awesome: Cowboy Bebop, Hunter x Hunter, Grimgar: Ashes and Illusions, Akame Ga Kill, Boku No Hero Academia, Your Name, A Silent Voice and Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? And yes, you read that last anime's title correctly... It was a weird time in my life.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">With that being the setting, I want to say that with all these different forms of entertainment I truly enjoyed them. The difference between all of these nerdy and geeky habits and what comes next is that I joined the cult called Dungeons & Dragons. I never really understood what it was and there is still absolutely no way that I will wear a costume or cosplay when I am playing. I have standards. The amazing aspect of D&D is your imagination makes the experience whatever you want it to be. You can try to do anything. All you have to do is roll to see if it is a glorious success or "falling on your face" type of failure. D&D at its core is a tabletop game where you roll dice and have stats that influence your rolls based on strength, dexterity, constitution, intelligence, wisdom and charisma. The other aspect of D&D is roleplaying. The true difference between everything else and D&D is fundamentally, you are watching or interacting within built worlds. You are passive observers. In D&D, you are creating a character or a world with its own backstory, motive and style. The dungeon master is the main narrator for the adventure or campaign. He is responsible for weaving your stories together and giving you obstacles that will become the foundation to your character's legendary tale.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I started D&D by playing a tiefling rogue assassin. Tieflings are the spawns of devils with horns and a tail and solid colored eyes. My character has Mauri facial tattoos that would remind people of Darth Maul. He was raised as a mercenary in the Thieves Guild so he has an insatiable curiosity about his infernal heritage and the Underdark. The more I played, the more fun it became as we survived many sessions as our adventure continued to grow. Some of our group left to go back to school but wanted to keep playing. Our DM didn't want to mess with Skype but I was open to the idea so I decided I would try my hand at being a DM. This was the birth of our second campaign. I had many questions about how to start so I ended up getting a few manuals and started watching a bunch of YouTube videos and eventually found my own way or style as a brand new player and DM. The only negative ramification was that I also saw how much I was missing out in my experience due to the group that I was playing with. I wrote an email to a prominent DM named Matt Mercer and I feel like it explains it the best, rather than trying to rehash it:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Matt,</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I am currently stuck between a rock and a hard place with my D&D group. I only started playing around 3 months ago and fell in love with the storytelling and the opportunity to create your own sandbox and make something that you as a player love or you as a DM experience with your players together. I began playing with a few friends and as they moved to different places, I started a separate campaign with them, myself as DM. Our original DM didn't want to make the effort involved in digital DM-ing which I completely now recognize and respect his decision after doing it for about a month.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; display: inline; float: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I started our campaign by not having them create their characters until we had discussed the world at large so they understood what I was willing to do story-wise and generally what to expect. That helped them to then develop some amazing backstories and connections between PCs that has been awesome to use.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I had a lot of questions so when I asked our original DM, he referenced me to Critical Role. I started watching your show, Critical Role, from the beginning and it has been pretty epic.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The root problem I am facing personally being brand new to both D&D and DM-ing is that the majority of my PCs are still relatively new to D&D as well and it is a large group - 5 in person and 2 Skyping in from another state. I struggle instructing/engaging my PCs in the communal nature of the story. I feel like I always have to ask what they want to do and they immediately reach for their dice when I am hoping to engage with them or they engage each other socially. They struggle to roleplay and dictate what they want to do and it has been taking away from my perceived notion or expectation of how much more this experience can be:</span><i style="font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 13.33px; font-stretch: 100%; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: 19.99px; overflow: visible;"><br style="font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 13.33px; font-stretch: 100%; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: 19.99px; overflow: visible;" /></i></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>I am looking more for what you describe the role of a DM to be. He/She is to have a story and give it to the party so they can make something new with it and give it back to you - many times as something you don't expect - asking for what's next... My group simply looks at the story I have crafted and instead of interacting with it, they hand it back to me full of arrows and covered with spell scorch marks, as if I was manning the throwing arm of a bucket of clay pigeons for them to take aim at all ready to go. As a DM I feel like I am being robbed in my experience and that the world I have created is simply being transformed into being full of punching bags or target dummies.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Do you have any suggestions on how to better connect with newer players to help them understand the collaborative nature of D&D instead of just having a DM providing you targets to use your spells and make attacks on? </b>I am trying to create A WORLD for us to play in, when I feel like all they want is a <u style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; line-height: 19.99px; overflow: visible;">gun range</u>. </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In the original campaign, we still struggle with balancing our party, being a mix of characters where some want to investigate and interact with the world and others that are clearly just a bunch of murder hobos. In my campaign where I am DM, the party still has the same issue of always wanting to steal from people or to kill without a second thought of developing the story - which if they were willing to do, would make it less of a burden on me as the DM and more fun for everyone as a whole.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I even went so far as to try and inception this concept into the PCs by allowing for them to use the downtime activities between actual sessions to improve their characters and earn some gold. When they wanted to research things that were pertinent to them and their backstory, I would dive into D&D cannon to find related lore that I could weave their individual motives together to build more of their bond as a party. As they adventure more and face villains, they would realize all of this affected each of their individual backgrounds. I went so far as to tell them that if they shared their information openly it would benefit everyone.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Still, they ask to go off and do their own things instead of moving together as a party and won't work together even when I prompt them that it would be for their mutual best interest to do so. Instead of solving the problem of them not having personal backstories, now they are missing the fact that they all exist in this world together and by working together, all of their desires will be resolved over time as a TEAM. One of the characters as a level 5 wizard wanted to take on a paladin boss and his hunting party by himself and another character wanted to steal a ship from a group of 15 armed smugglers that were providing them passage by initiating a surprise attack on their captain below deck - both situations would have obviously ended with their characters dead. I stopped the game briefly to explain that combat benefits the larger party early on in the game because you have less health and only have one turn to attack compared to all of their attack rolls.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Is it wrong to kill their characters now that they are finally invested in them to illustrate the point that this isn't Diablo or a FPS where you do it all by yourself? How do you help players get into character or illustrate the benefits of working as a team?</b> The biggest struggle is to get them to roleplay period and have social interactions that would create those beautifully hilarious and amazing moments that only come from conversations between PCs or between PCs and NPCs.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Any suggestions or ideas would be extremely helpful because I am at the point where I almost want to quit DM-ing and just go back to simply being a player because it can be overwhelming and I am not getting the "mutual" aspect of the storytelling back that I am looking for. It feels fruitless creating a gift that is being shot at until it is full of holes. It almost feels like I should just write the book instead of playing with my friends because they just don't get it. <b style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; line-height: 19.99px; overflow: visible;">It's not that I want to railroad them into MY STORY, it is that I want to railroad them into <i style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: 100%; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; line-height: 19.99px; overflow: visible;">ANY STORY</i>.</b> They are missing the major component that D&D is storytelling and there is supposed to be dialogue and not just dice and spells and weapons and stealing.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Again, I felt relatively justified in writing to Matt because my experience did lack the social and storytelling aspects. After a few more sessions, I was able to coax a few of my players to roleplay a bit more when I began treating their characters as breaking the fourth wall or as crazy by my non-player character that they would interact with. There were some players though that lost interest and wanted to change their character and instead of talking to me and working with me to write them out peacefully, they chose to commit suicide mid-game. I think this partially reflected poorly on me but more it reflected a lot on their connection to their character as well as the other people at the table. Nowhere in D&D does it actually say in the manuals that it is a roleplaying game. It by its very nature is simply a dice game to resolve interactions, both physical and social.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The reason I wanted to write about D&D was not to say that I am a nerd or a geek. I came to terms with that and that's okay. It was to say that I was going through a really hard time in my life and the power of creating a world and scenarios and reacting to situations with friends was something that helped lighten the situation. It kept me waking up with a smile on my face because of the adventures that I had crafted or experienced. It was a way that I could do that for my friends. <span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">I now live in a different part of the country and I find myself trying to make a new friend group but I can still create things using the building blocks left from these adventures. I am probably going to write a short book series using our characters and their adventures to save the world and it is going to be amazing.</span> Happiness is an emotion that you experience through choice not circumstance. I was creating my own happiness through my imagination and shared experiences with friends just hanging out, laughing and making memories together. We were new so there were growing periods as well but I finally realized why so many people love this game. If you haven't tried it before, all you need is some dice and a good storyteller for a DM and a character sheet and you are off and running. Tolkien said the following when it came to fantasy, "Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisoned by the enemy, don't we consider it his duty to escape? ... If we value the freedom of mind and soul, if we're partisans of liberty, then it's our plain duty to escape, and to take as many people with us as we can!" This is my invitation to you to escape and create your own happiness.</span></div>
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Glenn Collettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323017977339707663noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526052317567640713.post-31643679783217136302018-08-24T20:25:00.000-07:002018-08-24T20:25:13.565-07:00Things Can Only Get BetterIt has been a while since I have written down my feelings and journaled at all. I think it's because I want my writing to have inspiring or positive spins however the purpose behind this site is to be able to vent and express myself so I don't have to carry around all of my emotions all the time but have an outlet. The last year has been one of the harder ones in my life but I feel like I have been able to gain a partial understanding of what my father went through.<br />
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My father has always been open to taking risks in his professional life and in his investments. There was a company he had built with a few coworkers years after we moved to New England. It was a technology based company and they were one of the first companies to create speech recognition software. With all the potential applications for this technology his company was bought for more than a million dollars worth of stock. The acquiring company was fraudulent with their books and before my father was able to exercise and cash out on any of his stock, the accounting was exposed and the ink on the stock certificates was worth more than the value of the shares themselves. This situation coincided with our family moving into a new home we were building. He then went unemployed for more than a year. He worked for years, received an amazing payout and then had it stolen out from under him. I am sure there were many emotions that he felt over the next many months before he started working again. We lived off food storage and rainy day funds but with time, he is again very successful and he has many things that he didn't have before.<br />
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I am not saying that I have made and lost my first million. I am not saying that I have at all lived a day in his shoes. I am not married nor do I have kids. I think the best way to explain is to simply share what happened. Years ago, my life was generally led in a direction where I felt like it would be beneficial that once I graduated from BYU in engineering to go get my MBA. I spent the next two years doing that and I learned a lot. It was a good experience and I learned a lot of things I didn't know before: marketing, finance, investments, venture capital, business strategy, etc. I worked at an unpaid internship at a VC firm. I went to Japan. I did a lot of different things however in my haste, I realized that I went to the wrong institution for what I wanted to do with my MBA which was management consulting. I still feel like I have the intellectual capacity, emotional intelligence and work ethic to be successful in it however my resume and the brand of University of Utah is not tailored to consulting so outside of networking a bunch, it made for months of fruitless effort trying to find an entry point to pursue that career path. Even working with the college recruiters at the university provided what felt like no real benefit.<br />
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After looking through my network that I had made and cultivated so far through my professional and educational careers, I was afraid of being too picky in what I applied to as I approached graduation. I felt like I had an expiration date to find a job because of my pre-existing medical conditions that required me to have continuous health insurance coverage that I would lose once graduation arrived if I wasn't employed. I ended up connecting with an alumnus that had what sounded like to me was a really interesting and compelling career. She was able to consult employees of large companies on their investments but her primary role was first and foremost as an educator and secondary as a saleswoman. I was not qualified for this role because I lacked many certificates and licenses but I felt that I could work my way up to it over a few years and I and my family would all benefit from what I was going to learn about investments in general. Still, I felt slighted in all honesty. I was starting a new career in a new industry living at home with my parents making less as a full-time employee than when I was working as an intern and making 30-40% less than if I had stayed my course and stuck with engineering only with a MBA that I wasn't using and a $30k debt that I had to pay off. I decided to focus on my future and make the best out of my situation, all the time hearing former classmates tell me I had made a terrible mistake and that I was worth more and more qualified than what I was being asked to do. Honestly, I still agree with them but still what I was learning about finance, investments and retirement planning had a lot of value that I feel will pay off down the road.<br />
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I had to start at the bottom and work my way up. I took customer service and call center sales roles and within a year I had been promoted 3 times. I continued to work hard and was able to make a name for myself in a sales role but quickly hit a ceiling on my progression. I talked with the head of my department and he said that the best route for me would be to head out to investment centers and start doing sales face-to-face with customers and after proving myself I would be able to better qualified to apply for the original role that I was interested in or even some of the B2B sales roles in our department. I took his advice and after passing a few more licensing exams and networking a bunch with various managers in our company I was able to interview for a role where I would be doing essentially the same things I was doing at the phone site but at one of the local branches in San Diego. The hiring manager seemed nice and accommodating but he advised me that although I interviewed very well there were many things I would struggle with at the branch if I didn't start at the front desk. He told me that there was another candidate they would most likely go with but that the branches are really fluid and he would not hold me to any time requirement to stay in the entry level role before I would be interviewed again for the same position. He told me he just wanted me to become more comfortable in the way business worked in the branches. Understanding that I was an unknown entity for him, I was willing to work with that however that was not how my San Diego experience actually was going to go.<br />
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As my parents and I drove out, I got a call from that same hiring manager. He was transferring offices. There was a few projects that required a few local managers input and help and he was going to cover for them as one of the other assistant managers took his spot while he was gone. He said that he was still in the same area so he would make sure that things went smoothly for me. Since I arrived fully licensed, the assistant manager immediately put me to work. I did my best and arrived early and left late every day for months. I was part of a 3-person team to man the operational side of this office while most of the other branches in the area had 4 to 6 people. My coworkers were an interesting pair. One had chronic migraines that kept her out of the office more than she was in the office. She was the one that was supposed to train me because she had the most seniority. My other coworker had only been working at the company for 2 months and was still getting licensed but she was being groomed for the next role by the managers and did her best to exert whatever authority she could create over me if she wasn't taking time off and leaving me to run the entire office by myself. She offended customers and did not want to help people as much as she was looking for sales. <span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Within weeks, I was outselling her. </span>I met people like her before but I never had to rely or depend on them. She created conflict when there didn't need to be any and even straight out lied to our supervisor and blamed a few of her shortcomings on me. After multiple failed attempts to resolve things with her, I accepted that I just needed to get promoted and move on. Little did I realize, the original hiring manager had not communicated anything about what role I had interviewed for or my agreement with him to my new acting supervisor and I had failed to get any of it in writing.<br />
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To put this in perspective, I will quickly summarize the situation. Over a period of 2-3 months, I was hired as a fully licensed individual but was never once trained in the process and paperwork I was supposed to be assisting clients with. I was hired onto a 3-person team and for probably 3 weeks I was the sole employee that showed up for work because my coworkers were either on vacation or sick. I was told that I was hired so that I could quickly move into the role that I actually interviewed for and the individual that hired me wasn't even there nor did he communicate these facts to his replacement. I was overqualified and underpaid (again on both counts), overworked and underappreciated. The only benefit was not only had I negotiated a better starting salary but I was accruing a ton of overtime pay on top of that. I took on a variety of other responsibilities and acquired a few more additional licenses, both out of necessity and to show my capabilities, to fill in the gaps of my absent coworkers. When I had to leave for corporate training, the replacement manager had to call another office to get someone to cover for me while I was away when he had two employees that should have been capable to handle the work load that I was carrying for months as an untrained individual. Once I got back from training, my coworkers must have gotten an earful because finally they would show up for work but only occasionally were they both there on the same day. I took this opportunity to start working with some of the advisors in the local area, sharing the expertise that I had been trained in at the phone sites. This was successful and I was able to add value in many client appointments and took appointments myself to help out the advisors. 8 months pass and at this point the original hiring manager comes back. He starts grooming again the girl with the smallest tenure at the company. In fact, the girl that originally was hired in the role that I had applied to is out on maternity leave and he trains my coworker to fill in for her saying that I am indispensable in my role. I protest saying that I am ALREADY trained for the other role and I could fill the spot IMMEDIATELY. His response was so patronizing that I can only remember it as a verbal pat on the head and completely ignoring my statement of fact.<br />
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Unfortunately, I begin hearing from my friends back at the phone sites that layoffs are happening throughout the company. I feel safe now that I am out at the branch. Plus, I am indispensable and honestly I am the only one that shows up to work. To bring this long and painful experience to a close, I was let go. Partially because it simply was a RIF but also because a lot of miscommunication and lies that happened at the office that blamed me for mistakes made there. Some were indeed my mistakes and I took ownership for them but again they were mistakes that I made in ignorance because I hadn't been trained and wasn't told that they were being tallied up. The straw that broke the camel's back however was a mistake of my coworker who was filling in for the next role, which she pinned on me <span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">(intentional or not I still do not know)</span>. I have never felt like I could trust someone less than that girl nor have I met someone that was as willing to walk over other people and <span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">use her appearance </span>to get ahead. It was completely and utterly shocking to me that someone like her could work in a customer service role being such a selfish and self-centered individual. With the time I spent at the company, I had learned to find satisfaction in genuinely helping and educating clients on what they ought to do with their investments to help them reach their goals. Personally I was being paid less than 0.2% of what I was earning for the company but I figured that would change as I would be promoted due to my performance and merit.<br />
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I learned that in personal finance, it is still an industry where it is more about who you know than what you know. They continue to rank and pay their sales people based on products which is a conflict of interest when it comes to what is in the best interest for the client. Promotional opportunities only open up if someone has been promoted, died, quit, or in my case, let go due to a RIF. <span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">I didn't have a social life because when I was working, I had 10-12 hour shifts every day and was using my weekends to study for licenses and other work-related things. </span>I do not want to go through this hell again so I start applying to different jobs in other industries. I try using the expertise that I had gleaned and make a horizontal transition. No dice. I try going back to management consulting but use my experience in finance as my expertise. Nothing. Months go by and I know I have been away from engineering for far too long to ever go back to it. I remember basically nothing now since I went straight into my MBA from my undergraduate program. I am only being reached out by recruiters to go back into this hell I am trying so hard to get out of!<br />
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Everything so far is only the professional experiences I had since graduating with my MBA. Personally, there were some positive moments that I experienced in San Diego but they were scattered with negative ones as well. Within a month of moving to San Diego, I got into a car accident where I was cut off by a teenage girl driver and because she stopped in the middle of the freeway, I hit the back of her car. I was deemed to be at fault for someone else who had been texting in the middle traffic and lost control of her vehicle so my car was totaled and I had to replace it out of pocket, costing me $10k. After losing my job and months later, I finally have a social circle from my church where I feel like I have found some solid friends. I had previously tried dating with no success and quite a few horror stories: too focused on her career, straight up forgets we scheduled a date, won't accept me because of my faith, etc. I did have some amazing memories with these friends. We went camping together, grilling and bonfires on the beach, visiting national parks, and had a bunch of movie, food, and gaming nights together. I became close friends with one of the Marines in the ward and we spent time at the rec center on base called The Great Escape and went to a gaming store across from the base, At Ease Games. I went shooting with another friend and became friends with a less active member. He was getting back into the church but his family really didn't care either way as they were preoccupied with their rich lifestyle. They owned a few houses and companies and yachts behind the in San Diego Convention Center near Coronado. We completed a bunch of escape rooms, movie nights, anime nights and even began playing and running Dungeons & Dragons adventures.<br />
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Spiritually, San Diego was not the best with the exception of our Institute teacher. He was by far the best one I have ever had and was the most down-to-earth as well. The Bishopric was fantastic. The Ward was super inactive. Out of my friends, I was doing my best to reactivate four of them, of which two were either excommunicated or disfellowshipped. Spending time with them honestly was fun but taxing. Throughout my life, I hadn't had such a tough time spiritually. Doubt, frustration, and pride all were eating me up. It was affecting my trust in God and I was slipping in my activity. I did not lose my testimony in the gospel but my faith was definitely waning.<br />
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At home, I felt isolated. I had a roommate that was crazy. She was super excited to be living in America. She was Chinese and she was here to learn English which she spoke almost fluently but in reality was trying to work and start a business here without a visa or proper paperwork. I respected that she was driven and successful and I helped her when I could but I have dated in the past foreigners and my family had to work through immigration laws so her doing so many things that were in their essence were false and would've gotten her visa denied, frustrated me frequently. She was a convert to my faith but it was out of a social obligation she felt to her extended family, not out of any actual understanding or belief. She felt alone too so she tried many times to pursue me romantically and I repeatedly told her explicitly that I was not interested in getting into a relationship with her and asked her to stop. It was tiring and for months, I had to lock my door at nights. Not accepting my dismissal she would buy me things which I would give back to her or re-gift to my friends. I wasn't responding to her texts so she bought me a new phone because she assumed mine wasn't functioning properly when I told her that I just didn't want to talk. This made dating impossible in my social circle at church because she would want to sit next to me or hold my hand and I would simply bat it away. I have never been unkind like this before but she was relentless and I did not want to give her any reason why she would think I was leading her on. She simply thought that with enough persistence I would succumb and give in but obviously she didn't really know me. She later when visiting home and her company back in China was denied re-entry into the US and she still continues to message me on Facebook to which I do not respond. Unfortunately, this is also what my friends did to me shortly before I moved up to Utah a few months ago.<br />
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My family and I went on many trips during my time in San Diego - family reunion in Arizona, international trip to Peru, etc. On the international trip (which if you haven't been to Peru - go... it is totally worth it), there was some miscommunication between me and my friends over a Dungeons & Dragons campaign I was running. I let one of my friends continue it on while I was away and gave him some ideas of what he could do to continue the storyline. I didn't count on how crazy the session was and when he told me I thought he was pulling my leg. Through some textual miscommunications, I had offended him and in turn the group gossiped and without even realizing how blown out of proportion it had all gotten my whole friend group had written me off without talking to me before I had come home. I wouldn't have even realized there was a problem if one of them hadn't decided to go against the rest of the group's advice to ditch me at the airport and instead kept his promise to pick me up. I immediately went about apologizing to everyone and even though I a few of them acknowledged it had gotten out of hand, right now, none of them will talk to me. It was the most shocking and painful part of leaving San Diego. These were blokes that I had spent months of time with, listening to their problems, being their friend when no one else was, sticking up for them when they weren't there, having their backs and creating so many memories with and instead they burn me over a simple miscommunication between one of them and myself.<br />
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Let me again summarize: Moving back to Utah because I couldn't afford to live in San Diego any longer, I felt defeated, isolated, alone, worthless and generally a failure. I had even right before leaving had been given a job offer from a company in San Jose and had moved up to talk the job when at the last minute the offer was rescinded due to my driven record 3.5 years prior. When I had moved to San Jose I at least felt like it was to start a new beginning before that was crushed. Moving to Utah, it was because I was losing at the game of life. No friends. No job. Savings being drained with interest building on an outstanding student loan from my MBA that had remained fruitless. I will be honest, during this last year I have never had these thoughts but before in my life I have had out of body experiences and other feelings that made me think that I was slightly suicidal. Who would notice if I was gone? Do people even want me here any more? It's not that you don't have a will to fight, it's that you don't think it is doing anything and you must be doing it wrong because nothing is giving you any slack. I wouldn't ever ACTUALLY commit suicide. It is a selfish act and made out of cowardice and there is a lot of pain and problems you leave for your loved ones. And moving to Utah, I was heading back towards loved ones. I give Utah a bad wrap because generally, I feel it is overly concentrated and homogenous in its culture and demographics and so people try to individualize and will radicalize themselves or there seems to be a large "Better Than the Jones's" culture or atmosphere. I feel it comes from comparing to impossible standards and not seeing that life is a process. My frustrations were from the fact that my "process" kept being stopped by roadblocks so I feel like my personal bias makes me feel that my feelings were a little more justified than most. Still, this period and these feelings are why I feel like I understand what my dad went through a little more.<br />
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I put in the best effort I could. I tried my hardest and stayed true to myself. I even pursued my course of action because I could see a path ahead and it looked successful. Then everything started to fall down around and roadblocks popped in my path and I kept slipping each time I tried to get my feet underneath me. God has blessed me in many ways and I have many gifts that I can attribute to him and the opportunities that he has provided me in life but for whatever reason, for a year, none of that mattered. What lessons did I learn from San Diego? Taxes are high and the weather is amazing. I helped to reactivate a few people and in the end I hope they continue to stay on the gospel path because they no longer count me as a friend. You can help people and love people and trust people and that never means that it has to be reciprocated but it is the only reason or way to live regardless. I hoped I helped someone or touched someone in a positive way because for me, I walked away with a few fond memories here and there. I learned a lot about myself and different hobbies and interests that I really could identify with. I learned that without God, you will not be able to move forward. San Diego is a beautiful place and I would live there again under different circumstances but to be frank it was the hardest year of my life and I look forward to moving away from it and moving forward. It was in January 2017 that I moved to Southern California and I am so happy that I am no longer there. Honestly, life could be worse and I could be dead. I haven't even gotten into everything that happened that made things so difficult.<br />
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I make an accounting of this not to look back. Life is meant to be lived as we move forward. I am doing this to lighten my load. To release some of the pain and frustration and doubt and just let it go. Things will be better. Things can only get better. It's time to dust myself off like Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes and get back on that bike - even though I know it is literally trying to kill me. Whether that metaphorical two-wheeler is dating, social life, career, family, faith, etc., when the sun has cleared and I look back at the contrast of what I had to go through I hope I remain humble and be grateful that He helped pull me back and got me to wherever I am going. We are never truly alone no matter how much we are asked to endure.<br />
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<br />Glenn Collettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323017977339707663noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526052317567640713.post-43824787979929893692018-08-22T20:12:00.001-07:002018-08-22T20:12:44.207-07:00Wealth and ChoiceI haven't been blogging as much as I used to and I have realized how therapeutic writing is. There has been a lot of stress, my job has held my social life captive with all the hours, the licensing exams, and now looking for a new job. It has been a long complex last few months. I wish I had more time to explore San Diego and to enjoy the moment. I hadn't really comes to grips with that until recently when my time here has begun to feel more fleeting and verbalized it until I was talking to a few strangers on a plane back to San Diego after visiting my family for my sister's homecoming from her mission to Latvia.<br />
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I had two very different conversations on my connections. The first was randomly with another Fidelity employee, also a Financial Representative, down in a branch near Baltimore and then another with an Indian woman discussing about her children. The first woman was engaged to an artist but was a dancer that felt compelled to work to support her fiancé even though they had to live apart to do so. She had a passion that she had to put aside to do something else for the sake of her future husband - she fell into finance like I did. As we talked, we came to the point where she came to a realization of something. It reminded me of a sign I read in Jimmy Johns one day:<br />
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The point of this story is that why are we postponing our goals to pursue money and fame? This dancer could run her own studio with her mother and enjoy what she loved for decades and possibly even a half-century but instead was willing to sacrifice her dream for the benefit of her fiancé getting to do that. I hope that she changes her mind, gets an online MBA and falls out of fiancé as quickly as she fell into it.<br />
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The Indian woman spoke of her son and how her daughter and son had to both face similar things. They were expected of from their culture to become doctors, professors, engineers, businessmen, etc. These are all positions of power and intelligence and respect. These roles are not important if there is not a whole array of individuals to work with and because of that, they are important. As both children struggle to figure out where their lives are going, their mother encouraged them as does mine to find something that will give you more choices and freedom that also makes you happy.<br />
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It was a question of conflicting paradoxes: the paradox of choice and the duality of wealth. There are so many choices of jobs, careers, degrees, dates, etc. There is too much. People have gotten to the point that they can't decide and so they let people choose for them. How do people decide? For my generation, the most common factors are the job title, the salary, and how easy is it. I think most people forget nowadays that what they are spending the majority of their day at is called work. It is hard. It is long. So most people who are lucky are able to get at least 2 out of the 3 things listed before. Even if you are not hardworking there are people who abuse the welfare system and can still get at least one of those things but that is a topic of discussion for another day.<br />
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The other paradox is the duality of wealth. The sign shows that not all wealth is simply financial. Financial security is nice! It provides choices and options and the freedom to do a lot of lovely things. However money is liquid - it comes and goes and will flow in and out rather quickly. It doesn't matter if it is taxes or expenses or lifestyle. The only way to really save enough for a rainy day is to make a conscious decision. When people chase wealth it is a very fleeting thing unless they take the time to figure out what is truly important to them in their lives. How much is enough? When do your wants start turning into needs? Is there a grey area or is it clearly black and white? When does supporting and earning a living turn into avarice and greed? How much is enough?Glenn Collettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323017977339707663noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526052317567640713.post-8710841915830822372017-03-26T23:25:00.002-07:002017-03-26T23:25:54.983-07:00Finding JoyI feel like I have had a blessed life. I have had some really interesting trips, travels, experiences - both really good and bad from a worldly point of view. I truly am grateful for all of those things because they help make me who I am. Still, most people only remember the person that they see, their first impression, and it isn't always me. I have heard a variety of things: multiple personalities, could talk to anyone, no boundaries, and smiling more. Everyone is a critic and people see those things as positive or negative depending on their various situations.<br />
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I don't think people are observant enough though. I feel like people need to listen more and watch people to begin to figure out who they really are. It takes more time than a cup of coffee or a walk in a park. Social media is simply false advertising - the highlight reel that we put up ourselves for the world to see. The short answer is people are complicated.<br />
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God has a plan for all of us to become more like Him. He isn't any Instagram celebrity. His highlight reel would be more like an inspirational YouTube playlist. The question most people have is how do we become more like Him. How do we begin to see people like He did? How do we love like Him? We learn that kind of patience and charity not by studying it out in books or being on an island. We learn it through being together - living and interacting and bumping shoulders with people that we wouldn't normally meet. We have to see every interaction or chance encounter as an opportunity.<br />
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The Spirit of God helps us learn the attributes of Christ. In Galatians we read about some of these attributes, "<i>But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.</i>" I have always found it easy to connect with some of these feelings or fruits of the Spirit because they seemed natural. Others, I have struggled with for a while, like joy. I know the Plan of Salvation is also known as the Plan of Happiness and there are times I feel happy but I don't know if it is joy.<br />
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I have been studying this gift of the Spirit. The scriptures teach that you can find joy through forgiveness. It is one of the fruits of gratitude. The joy that comes from service. The joy that you can feel in the Temple or in God's presence. Joy comes from companionship or family. Joy in celebrating the blessings and success of others. There is the joy that missionaries feel when they bring people to the truth. I keep thinking about joy because I feel like it should be easier. "<i>Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.</i>"<br />
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We make choices in life and every one has an associated consequence. We may have been born into mortality and life is not easy but we were created so that we might have joy. We are here to be happy. If we choose God's path, we can find happiness in every step. Our surroundings may be clouded in temptation and trials but we can be a light unto the world and find happiness through our faith to press forward. We are not just asked to endure to the end but to endure it well. We can choose to be happy. Read your scriptures. Spend time getting to know people at church. Call a family member. Say a prayer. Ask God to bless you with joy. And when you find it, spread your joy because happiness and laughter are contagious and more enjoyable when they are shared.Glenn Collettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323017977339707663noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526052317567640713.post-11160465889757309362017-03-20T00:51:00.002-07:002017-03-20T00:51:42.434-07:00What is the Point? Why Do You Do What You Do?I have been more focused than usual on how motivations play a deeper role into what we do and why we do it recently. I don't know if it is the books I have been reading or my subconscious asking myself why in the world did I in an effort to get away from the calculator and cubicle lifestyle of engineering decided after business school to go into finance. Seems counter-intuitive if that was my end goal. In any case, it has been on my mind a lot lately and has been the filter that I have been looking through.<br />
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In my professional life, why does my branch feel the way that it does? Why does it feel like we are continually understaffed? It is because we are. The operations department is the expense and the consultants are the money makers. If the company as a whole is to make a profit, the consultants need to do as much business as possible and minimize the local costs as possible. Why are we not more helpful to more people? Why are we so focused on efficiency? What is the purpose behind the quantity and not quality approach? It is because from where I work, I don't see the quality. I am in the quantity role. The consultants will sit down with the high dollar customers and I have to get people from the front counter to their next location, whether that is out the door, into someone's calendar or into someone's office, as quickly as possible. We lose money on so many of our clients through free services and products because it is with a very small percentage of all of our clients where we get the chance to really make any money. Since I don't contribute to keeping the lights on, outside of being my charming self, I need to be as efficient as possible while looking for new opportunities for the money makers in my office.<br />
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The same can be true for the basic ideology behind financial planning. People hear about new products or new ways to invest but the basic principles are the same. As you save in the present for future expenses, you also need to save in ways to replace the income streams you will give up once you retire. Why do people talk about real estate investing or annuities or pensions? You no longer get a regular paycheck in retirement. You have to replace that somewhere and it needs to cover your basic expenses in retirement. How does social security play in? Have you covered what you need for medicare? You are spending less time earning money and more time spending it in retirement. Have you calculated your change in lifestyle expenses into your total savings as well? Do you have flexible investments that can be more aggressive that will also cover your flexible spending/expenses? People will invest in different ways and with different things but in the end the most important thing is that we help people to plan because it isn't about their money. It is about their goals.<br />
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No one really wants to invest and no one really wants to talk with us. They don't really want us to manage their money. All they really want us to do is help manage their stress. They want us to make sure that their fears and hopes and dreams and the same things for their children have been planned for. They want us to help their kids get to college. They want us to help them have time to spend with their children and grandchildren. They want to make sure that when they lose their health that they don't also lose their house to pay for it. People really don't lose sleep over the manner in which they get their returns as long as it meets their expectations. We help people manage those expectations and plan for the unexpected. We become shortsighted when we think the behaviors are as important as the motivations.<br />
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The same can be said for religious practices - the spirit of the law is more important than the letter. That being said, how often do we question or ask what is the point behind all the things we do in the name of religious obedience? Why do we go hometeaching? Why do we visit the poor, the sick, and the widows? Why are we asked to worship together or meet together at all? Isn't religion supposed to be about the personal relationship between you and God? Two weeks ago, I was in a elder's quorum meeting where the presidency asked what we as a quorum could do to increase attendance in our meetings? What could they do to help improve sacrament meeting worship in regards to passing the sacrament? The typical answers were given: make a rotation, make a map and have people patrol the hallways and ask people to get to class. This hadn't worked in the past so why continue to try something that has proven to fail? What would possibly produce a new outcome?<br />
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People are generally logical and we are driven by our emotions. Why not use the time we had in our meeting right then to fix some of the problems instead of using conjecture or waste time developing plans. Let's change the expectations right then! If there is an opportunity to serve, the correct behavior is to step up rather than look around. Let's be leaders instead of followers! The regular elders will fill most likely fill the empty seats but let's at least have someone passing and then we can perfect the process later on by asking new people to serve. With the lack of attendance in classes, this is again a question of expectations. What is expected of our teachers? What is expected by our students?<br />
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We always want to assume that our teachers have prepared a lesson beforehand. We don't want them simply reading from the manual. We enjoy a discussion or activities or any request for us to become engaged. Our expectations however are the boring lessons that we get every Sunday or the one we could have if we read the manual by ourselves from our own homes. We go to those classes despite our high expectations because of our sense of duty. Our hope is that we will have friends or family that will attend as well because it is a well known fact that misery likes company. So why do people not go to classes? It is because we don't want to. Our friends aren't in the classes. Our friends are in the halls. They are on our phones. They are in different places. They are everywhere but in that classroom. So how do we change that? Get to know the people that aren't there before they escape out into the parking lot. Introduce yourself before church starts!<br />
<br />
Why do we ask people to hometeach one another? Why are we asked to become a Zion people? Most of these people I wouldn't normally associate with. I wouldn't pick them out of a crowd, nevertheless, work to become their friends. However, this is exactly the point. Many people don't have a friend at church. They don't have someone that hopes or checks to see if they are there so God adds that to someone's checklist. It becomes an assignment to work to become someone's friend. It isn't the lesson that is important or that we see them once a month. It is to learn to love them and care about them. It is through these relationships that we learn patience, charity and become more like Christ. Socializing and serving others is part of the process of refining us and smoothing out our rough edges. We will never make it back to God one-by-one. Salvation is a personal process but exaltation is a family affair. Heaven isn't really heaven if we were meant to be alone.<br />
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This brings me to tonight. I went to a missionary fireside. The missionaries were asking us to sum up the principles or doctrines for missionary work. People described talking about what we do with more detail or inviting people to activities. They talked about what we should discuss when we preach the restored gospel or how we have a duty or that we have been commanded to share the gospel. Again, they understand the letter of the law or the duty. They missed the whole purpose behind the gospel and the reason we have been asked to share it, even the way we ought to share it, which can be summed up in the commandment that Christ gave to love our neighbor.<br />
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People don't care about what you know until they know that you care. You can tell them that we have the restored gospel and that we have the fullness but why did you have to tell them in the first place? Why couldn't they see it? Why couldn't they feel it? Do you even know how much they already know? Do you know what they already believe? Shouldn't you ask? The most profound and long-lasting missionary moments occurred when I began by showing that I cared before I ever tried to correct someone else's behavior. How many people are surprised when their doctor tells them they ought to start considering a diet to lose weight? Most of the time, they already know that they need to change.<br />
<br />
If you are trying to help someone, you don't need to identify their incorrect behaviors. You have to go deeper than the surface. You need to identify or help people recognize their latent or subconscious desires or fears. What is the point? Why do we do the things that we do? What truly motivates us? If you can figure that out, you will know how the gospel can help you discover true joy and happiness. If you want to change someone's life, help them discover that connection on their own.Glenn Collettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323017977339707663noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526052317567640713.post-55157725722039367182017-03-19T19:27:00.000-07:002017-03-20T00:56:56.936-07:00The Five Temptations of a CEOPatrick Lencioni is a fantastic author. I don't know whether to classify him as relatively unknown or simply that he writes for a very specific target audience that not everyone is a part of. The main medium that he writes in are small business fables that are quick reads - this particular book is about 100 pages long. What I love is that they aren't so wordy and they smoothly walk you through from a character's point of view a business model and then at the end of the book he lays it all out in a very obvious manner. When he is playing author and not consultant, he does have a very good sense of humor. The first book I read by him was about power of vulnerability and authenticity. It was entitled, "Getting Naked." My parents could only guess what the true topic was for the short novel.<br />
<br />
I don't want to ruin this book, "The Five Temptations of a CEO," so I will simply share the business model. It applies to all leaders in an organization, not just the one at the top. Companies are definitely like a tribe where it would be difficult if there were too many chiefs and not enough Indians. The major blessing or difference however is if there is a shared mission or purpose then having coworkers, employees or people that have enough passion about what they do will step up and lead without having to be asked. This is why companies look to hire leaders into all levels of their organization. More importantly is being the right kind of leader and knowing what that means.<br />
<br />
I take no credit for the following as they come straight from the book but here is the model and the self-assessment that make up the five temptations of a CEO:<br />
<br />
<h3>
<b>Temptation #1 - Choosing status over results</b></h3>
The most important principle that an executive must embrace is a desire to produce results. Most CEOs <i>were</i> results maniacs before reaching their ultimate jobs. Once they "arrive," though, many of them focus primarily on preserving their status. This occurs because their real purpose in life has always been personal gain. With nowhere to go but down, it almost makes sense that once they have achieved their ultimate status, they will do whatever they can to protect it.<br />
<br />
This causes CEOs to make decisions that protect their ego or reputation or, worse yet, to avoid making decisions that might damage them. They reward people who contribute to their ego, instead of those who contribute to the results of the company. By focusing on results, they will ultimately achieve greater status and ego satisfaction but this requires a lot of work over a long period of time. It allows for too many risky episodes of status-loss along the way.<br />
<br />
Advice: <i>Make results the most important measure of personal success, or step down from the job. The future of the company you lead is too important for customers, employees, and stockholders to hold it hostage to your ego.</i><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Do you personally consider it a professional failure when your organization fails to meet its objectives?</li>
<li>Do you often wonder, <i>What's next? What will I do to top this in my career?</i></li>
<li>Would it bother you greatly if your company exceeded its objectives but you remained somewhat anonymous relative to your peers in the industry?</li>
</ul>
<h4>
<i>Rationale</i></h4>
<div>
On a professional level, organizational success and personal-professional success are one and the same. Although it is healthy for any human being to separate his or her sense of self-esteem from success on the job, in the context of professional success these should not be divided. Too often, CEOs justify their own performance even when the organizations they lead are failing around them. CEOs must ultimately judge their personal-professional success by the results on the bottom line; only the CEO is ultimately responsible for the results of the company, and this must be his or her final measure.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Additionally, a pronounced concern for the "next step" in a person's career is a good sign of susceptibility to Temptation Number One because it is a possible indication that success is gauged in terms of career advancement rather than current performance. The most successful CEOs focus almost exclusively on their current jobs. Although human nature dictates that we hope for a just share of acknowledgement, it is a dangerous part of human nature to entertain. Those who eventually get that recognition are the CEOs who aren't distracted by the occasional slighting that an unscientific press is sure to give. Interestingly enough, they experience a low degree of satisfaction from such press. After all, they take larger personal satisfaction from achieving results.</div>
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<br />
<h3>
<b>Temptation #2 - Choosing popularity over accountability</b></h3>
Wanting to be well liked by peers is understandable, but dangerous, problem for CEOs. Being at the top of an organization is lonely. There are very few people in a company with whom CEOs spend considerable time, aside from their direct reports. Most CEOs become friends with their reports and commiserate about the constant needs and shortfalls of employees. They develop a sense of camaraderie around their overwhelming responsibilities. It is no surprise, the, that when it comes time for a CEO to tell these same people that they are not meeting expectations, they balk.<br />
<br />
Empirical evidence of this phenomenon is that CEOs conduct performance reviews for their direct reports far less diligently then do managers at other levels. Why? It isn't because they are too busy or lazy, but because they don't want to deal with the prospect of upsetting one of their peers. Ironically, those same CEOs will not hesitate to ultimately fire a direct report when his or her performance problem becomes too costly, thereby severing the relationship completely. But they often fail to provide constructive or negative feedback along the way.<br />
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Advice: <i>Work for the long-term respect of your direct reports, not for their affection. Don't view them as a support group, but as key employees who must deliver on their commitments if the company is to produce predictable results. And remember, your people aren't going to like you anyway if they ultimately fail.</i><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Do you consider yourself to be a close friend of your direct reports?</li>
<li>Does it bother you to the point of distraction if they are unhappy with you?</li>
<li>Do you often find yourself reluctant to give negative feedback to your direct reports? Do you water down negative feedback to make it more palatable?</li>
<li>Do you often vent to them about issues in the organization? For example, do you refer to your staff as "we" and other employees as "they"?</li>
</ul>
<h4>
<i>Rationale</i></h4>
<div>
It is wonderful for CEOs to care about direct reports as people, so long as they can separate the success of those relationships from their sense of self-esteem and personal happiness. This is difficult because most of us try to avoid major disagreements with close friends, and it is impossible not to be concerned about a deep rift with one of them. If those close friends are your direct reports, the accountability within the organization can be threatened. The slightest reluctance to hold someone accountable for their behaviors and results can cause an avalanche of negative reaction from others who perceive even the slightest hint of unfairness or favoritism.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Those CEOs who are able to make close friendships with direct reports and still avoid a sense of favoritism often find it easy to use those reports as their personal "venting boards." All executives need people they can vent to about challenges they face in the organization, but CEOs must resist the desire to use direct reports for this service. It can lead to politics among the executive team, and more importantly, it can undermine the team's objective understanding of their own actions by creating an atmosphere of self-victimizing groupthink. Often this manifests itself during executive staff meetings in comments such as "When will these people stop questioning us and start understanding what we are trying to do?"</div>
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<br />
<h3>
<b>Temptation #3 - Choosing certainty over clarity</b></h3>
CEOs are sometimes unwilling to hold their direct reports accountable because they don't think it's fair. This is because they haven't made it clear what those direct reports are accountable for doing. Why don't they make these things clear? Because they give in to yet another temptation: the need to make "correct" decisions, to achieve certainty.<br />
<br />
Many CEOs, especially highly analytical ones, want to ensure that their decisions are correct, which is impossible in a world of imperfect information and uncertainty. Still, executives with a need for precision and correctness often postpone decisions and fail to make their people's deliverables clear. They provide vague and hesitant direction to their direct reports and hope that they figure out the right answers along the way. The chances that they will produce the results CEOs eventually decide they want are slim.<br />
<br />
Advice: <i>Make clarity more important than accuracy. Remember that your people will learn more if you take decisive action than if you always wait for more information. And if the decisions you make in the spirit of creating clarity turn out to be wrong when more information becomes available, change plans and explain why. It is your job to risk being wrong. The only real cost to you of being wrong is loss of pride. The cost of your company of not taking the risk of being wrong is paralysis.</i><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Do you pride yourself on being intellectually precise?</li>
<li>Do you prefer to wait for more information rather than make a decision without all of the facts?</li>
<li>Do you enjoy debating details with your direct reports during meetings?</li>
</ul>
<h4>
<i>Rationale</i></h4>
<div>
Intellectual precision alone is not the problem but when it manifests itself during staff meetings in terms of unnecessary debates over minutiae, it is a sign of real trouble. It is no surprise that many CEOs take a great deal of pride in their analytical and intellectual acumen. Unable to realize that their success as an executive usually has less to do with intellectual skills than it does with personal and behavioral discipline, they spend too much time debating the finer points of decision making.</div>
<div>
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<div>
Those debates are problematic for two reasons. First, they eat up valuable time that can be spent discussing larger issues, which often receive just a few minutes at the end of the staff meeting agenda. Second, and more important, they create a climate of excessive analysis and overintellectualization of tactical issues. If there is one person in an organization who cannot afford to be <i>overly</i> precise, it is the CEO.</div>
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<b><br /></b>
<br />
<h3>
<b>Temptation #4 - Choosing harmony over productive conflict</b></h3>
CEOs fail to feel comfortable with the decisions they make because they don't benefit from the best sources of information that are available to them: their direct reports. Most people, including CEOs, believe that it is better for people to agree and get along than disagree and conflict with one another. That is how they were raised. However, harmony sometimes restricts "productive ideological conflict," the passionate interchange of opinions around an issue.<br />
<br />
Without this kind of conflict, decisions are often suboptimal. The best decisions are made only after all knowledge and perspectives are out on the table. Not every person's perspective and opinion can be agreed with, but they can be considered. When all available knowledge is considered, the chances of optimal decisions are greater - not to mention the likelihood of confidence in those decisions, which is just as important.<br />
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Advice: <i>Tolerate discord. Encourage your direct reports to air their ideological differences, and with passion. Tumultuous meetings are often signs of progress. Tame ones are often signs of leaving important issues off the table. Guard against personal attacks, but not to the point of stifling important interchanges of ideas.</i><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Do you prefer your meetings to be pleasant and enjoyable?</li>
<li>Are your meetings often boring?</li>
<li>Do you get uncomfortable at meetings if your direct reports argue?</li>
<li>Do you often make peace or try to reconcile direct reports who are at odds with one another?</li>
</ul>
<br />
<h4>
<i>Rationale</i></h4>
Lots of people complain about meetings taking up time that is needed for "real work." This is a sign that those meetings are not as difficult (or productive) as they should be. Executive staff meetings should be exhausting inasmuch as they are passionate, critical discussions. Pleasant or boring meetings are indications that there is not a proper level of overt, constructive, ideological conflict taking place.<br />
<br />
<i>Every</i> meeting has conflict so don't be deceived. Some people sweep that conflict under the table and let employees deeper in the organization sort it out. This doesn't happen by accident. The tone of meetings is set by the leader that is conducting it and after a CEO squelches any potential passion for peace, this sends a message. Boredom and agreeable meetings set in and executives start lamenting the real work that they could be doing instead.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<br />
<h3>
<b>Temptation #5 - Choosing invulnerability over trust</b></h3>
Asking for productive conflict does not always achieve it because people may not feel like their input is important or valuable. CEOs are relatively powerful people. Being vulnerable with their peers and reports is not a comfortable prospect. They mistakenly believe that they lose credibility if their people feel too comfortable challenging their ideas.<br />
<br />
People are unwilling to enter the fray of productive conflict if it doesn't feel safe. As a result, those reports position themselves around the inferred opinion of the CEO and conflict with one another only when it is politically expedient. Instead of creating a culture of creativity, trust and open dialogue for sharing important information, it is an atmosphere of "yes men."<br />
<br />
Advice: <i>Actively encourage your people to challenge your ideas. Trust them with your reputation and your ego. As a CEO, this is the greatest level of trust that you can give. They will return it with respect and honesty, and with a desire to be vulnerable among their peers.</i><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Do you have a hard time admitting when you're wrong?</li>
<li>Do you fear that your direct reports want your job?</li>
<li>Do you try to keep your greatest weaknesses secret from your direct reports?</li>
</ul>
<h4>
<i>Rationale</i></h4>
<div>
No one loves to admit being wrong, but some people hate it. Great CEOs don't lose face in the slightest when they are wrong, because they know who they are, they know why they are the CEO, and they realize that the organization's results, not the appearance of being smart, are their ultimate measure of success. They know that the best way to get results is to put their weaknesses on the table and invite people to help them minimize those weaknesses. CEOs who understand this concept intellectually but cannot behavioralize it sometimes make the mistake of finding symbolic moments to admit mistakes and weaknesses. This only serves to reinforce the notion that the CEO is unwilling to put real weaknesses on the table. Overcoming this temptation requires a degree of fear and pain that many CEOs are unwilling to tolerate.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
<b>Summary</b></h3>
<div>
Instilling trust gives executives the confidence to have productive conflict. Fostering conflict gives executives confidence to create clarity. Clarity gives executives the confidence to hold people accountable. Accountability gives executives confidence in expected results. And results are a CEO's ultimate measure of long-term success.</div>
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CEOs who follow this model still fail but mostly if they are thwarted by competitive and market pressures that are largely out of their control. Leadership and management are not the same thing. We can manage people and manage problems. Leaders need to expect to make mistakes and be able to change at a moment's notice. They need to rely on others and accept and acknowledge that they aren't the one with all the answers in the room. They have to take risks. Leaders need to act and can't settle for the same but require constant improvement. Good managers produce quantity but good leaders produce quality.<br />
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Great leaders find a way to produce both.</div>
Glenn Collettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323017977339707663noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526052317567640713.post-64252527848680319662017-02-05T00:21:00.000-08:002017-02-05T00:21:02.256-08:00The God Who Weeps<i>The God Who Weeps </i>is a novel about how Mormonism makes sense of life written by a couple of Mormons, Terryl and Fiona Givens. Even as an active member of the LDS faith, I still felt like I learned a lot and it made me think about life differently. I liked how it was about the journey of faith from a different perspective and it made me think about some of the tenants of my belief differently. Still, the fundamental question that it asked with every new principle was the same. What does this mean to me in my life? What's the point? What is the real value of a religion or a set of beliefs if it doesn't cause you to change? I feel like anyone, Mormon or not, could see their lives and their relationships after reading this book in a way that could improve them.<br />
<br />
This novel is so powerful because it simply provides a series of evidences that you as the reader can choose to use as you will. Whether or not there is a benevolent deity is based not on the evidence that is presented but what you personally conclude from that evidence. Theology, philosophy, and belief are all perspective. The following chapters were picked to help discuss who we believe our God is and what our relationship is with Him, His plan for us, and if we choose to follow that calling what the outcome will be. In essence, it is what we call within our faith, "The Plan of Salvation."<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li><i>God is a personal entity, having a heart that beats in sympathy with human hearts, feeling our joy and sorrowing over our pain.</i></li>
<li><i>We lived as spirit beings in the presence of God before we were born into this mortal life.</i></li>
<li><i>Mortality is an ascent, not a fall, and we carry infinite potential into a world of sin and sorrow.</i></li>
<li><i>God has the desire and the power to unite and elevate the entire human family in a kingdom in heaven, and, except for the most stubbornly unwilling, that will be our destiny.</i></li>
<li><i>Heaven will consist of those relationships that matter most to us now.</i></li>
</ol>
<br />
<b>His Heart Is Set upon Us</b><br />
Faith is not the end all in all. Doubt and faith are both required in life so there isn't necessarily progression for the new doubter or the new believer. The improbable nature of the universe or the chemical reaction that is human life or life in general, the way that the human mind works such that we contemplate more than simply our own survival but what is life or why do we exist... How we hunger for more in our lives than what this world can provide are all evidence of something more. The beauty of this paradox is we cannot prove that God exists. So if there is a god, who is He? What is He like?<br />
<br />
There are many different ideas of God from all around the world. There are two main points that are expressed in our discussion that are guided by both faith and logic: (1) Not all conceivable gods have claim over us... Or in other words, we can reject some gods not because it is unreasonable to <i>believe</i> in them but because it is unreasonable to <i>worship</i> them. If your deity requires human sacrifice, how long would it take until there is no longer anyone left to worship? (2) If we are inclined to believe a powerful deity does preside over the universe, the assumption that he would be a more perfect embodiment of the morally good that we recognize and seek to emulate is not a fanciful hope or wishful thinking. It is a logical and reasonable inference that God is more rather than less generous and forgiving, who will extend the maximum mercy that He can, and impose the minimum justice He must.<br />
<br />
We are never so vulnerable or defenseless against suffering as when we love. The pain felt by a parent when a child wanders away into addiction or the loss felt after the death of a loved one are but two common examples. Try to imagine then what God, Our Father in Heaven, feels being that He is the very embodiment of love. From the words of the prophet Enoch, he describes a vision from when he was taken into heaven and sees Satan's dominion over the earth and God's unanticipated response to a world veiled in darkness:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"The God of heaven looked upon the residue of the people, and He wept; and Enoch bore record of it, saying: How is it that the heavens weep, and shed forth their tears as the rains upon the mountains? And Enoch said unto the Lord: How is it that you <i>canst</i> weep?"</blockquote>
Enoch goes on to ask this question three times and he isn't asking <i>why </i>do you weep but<i> how are your tears even possible</i>. The answer was the same as we concluded above, which is that God is not exempt from emotion but His pain is as infinite as His love.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Unto thy brethren have I said, and also given commandment, that they should love one another, and that they should choose me, their Father; but behold, they are without affection, and they hate their own blood... and <i>misery</i> shall be their doom; and the whole heavens shall weep over them, even all the workmanship of mine hands; wherefore should not the heavens weep, seeing these shall <i>suffer</i>?"</blockquote>
It is not their wickedness, but their "misery," not their disobedience, but their "suffering," that elicits the God of Heaven's tears.<br />
<br />
Whether it was the example of Christ, Ruth, David or Mary, vulnerability is their end objective. Each individual was asked in their own way to place themselves in a situation where they were opening themselves up to the possibility of paramount harm (dishonor, public humiliation, and even death), in order to serve as vehicles of His grace. Vulnerability is both the price of the power to save, and that which saves. When Christ was pressed by the crowds and a woman touches his garments and is healed, He asks who it was. This person did more than touch. She drew from Him healing power as He felt it flow out of Him. What does this mean? Christ's power to heal comes at a cost to Him. Take this the extra mile and begin to ponder the cost of the crucifixion and taking the weight of the sins of the world upon Him in the Garden of Gethsemane.<br />
<br />
If vulnerability and pain are the price of love, then joy is its reward. All that exists in our world of meaning must exist in paired opposition. As much as God shares in our suffering, He delights in human happiness. With the mass of senses we have after "being created in His image," we can find ways to appreciate and find joy in the world around us. Some may see food as nourishment for survival but then what is the purpose behind all the flavors we are able to taste? Peacocks with their tail feathers and the changing colors in leaves that allow for the peacock to reproduce and the tree to keep the chlorophyll necessary to survive, these were never meant to please the eye? The fragrance of the rose or the lily which attracts the bees to help them pollinate, was it not designed to appeal to our sense of smell? The scriptures say,<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Yea, all things which come of the earth, in the season thereof, are made for the benefit and the use of man, both to please the eye and to gladden the heart; Yea, for food and for raiment, for taste and for smell, to strengthen the body and to enliven the soul. <i>And it pleaseth God that He hath given all these things unto man.</i>"</blockquote>
For He has set His heart upon us. He loves us because we are His children. We are children of God.<br />
<br />
<b>Man Was in the Beginning with God</b><br />
The idea in this chapter are there are two innate desires in all of us (at least to some degree). These are to understand who we are and where we belong. We don't feel like we belong or that we are looking for our home. Some think of this as we looking for something or somewhere but the idea that is presented in this novel is that we are simply trying to remember. The best explanation is that we are trying to figure out who are.<br />
<br />
What are we made up of on a molecular level? What is life? When does life begin or when does life end? These are fundamental questions that have no clear answers. There are theories though. The same carbon, iron and oxygen that are the building blocks for our bodies came from nebulas and stars however, this is not the essence of the soul. We may have forgotten for whatever reason any life before this one (if it exists), it may have been on purpose because a life with opposition is about choice and one where it is best if we do not have all the answers because then there would be no choice at all. Also if we truly are children of God, we would be inexpressibly more miserable, if we had retained the memory of our former Glory, and past Actions.<br />
<br />
The concept of what <i>kind </i>of children we are is still up for debate. If our souls are part of God's creation, then He could have prevented all sin by creating us with better natures and in more favorable surroundings. The problem is that in our own moral awareness, we sense we are responsible for our own choices because when we do something wrong, we feel guilt. If there was a good analogy to describe guilt, it would be a twisted ankle. The function of guilt is to <i>prevent</i> more pain, not expand it. Its purpose is to hurt enough to stop you from crippling yourself further. If God did not create us then we weren't born or created inherently good or evil. We were born free.<br />
<br />
Even if we remove God, we can't remove our past and present circumstances. In our current state, we are the product of forces outside our control that influence our personality, inform our character, and shape our wants and desires. And yet, we know we are free. If we are not shaped by our environment, our inherited form from our parents, or even God, we have always been and always will be in the principle of free will. So if this concept is further extrapolated, we have free will which means we weren't created by God so then if we weren't created, we have always been. If we have an eternal past, it is only reasonable that we will have an eternal future.<br />
<br />
Modern day scripture recorded in the Pearl of Great Price describes how before this life our spirits were present in councils where we choose this world and life. We knew that if we choose righteously, this life would be a test if we would choose God again. If they did well, then they would continue to progress and "have glory added upon their heads for ever and ever." There are two keys from this revelation: (1) It suggests that birth into this world represents a step forward in an eternal process of development and growth in an educative and not reparative way. Life is pain and it is not punishment. (2) We choose this world. If we face pain or loss, we chose this life that we are living. It also means that God chose us. We were unembodied eternal intelligences. He looked upon us and in His love chose us, counseled with us, and created this world for us.<br />
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<b>We Are That We Might Have Joy</b><br />
This same idea that life is a blessing and that all things are created for our good is further expanded in this chapter. Many Christian faiths believe that soon after the Creation that there was the Fall and Original Sin. However the logic behind this thought process does not make true sense for then why would God descend to earth only to be punished or take up a fallen state? Would he be still be counted perfect and sinless if he was to inherit the sins of Adam and Eve, the first parents of all mankind? Why would perfection don imperfection? We in the Mormon faith don't believe in Original Sin nor do we look at Fall as a fall but more as an <i>ascent</i>. Pain is not punishment - it is growth. In Revelations it speaks of the councils of heaven and how many of those spirits chose to come down to earth to learn from their experience. We chose a life of pain because we want to grow and become more like God and our Savior, Jesus Christ.<br />
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Our physical bodies are carnal in nature but that doesn't necessarily mean sinful. It means that our bodies strive to do as nature would intend, to survive and reproduce and live on. Our carnal desires represent those same feelings when we feel hunger or other physical appetites, including physical intimacy. Those feelings are present when we show distrust or question motivation or instruction because again our bodies are designed to fight for their own survival. But if we look to the example again of the Savior, at the end of His life he gains a perfected body. In his mortality He had to struggle with the same appetites or feelings as you and I but he overcame them. He learned and gained knowledge from physical experience. He progressed and grew and his love and charity deepened through hardships that he faced. Pain is again not a sign of punishment as it is progress.<br />
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So returning back to the Garden of Eden, many look at Adam and Eve's decision to chose the apple as a sin. They did in fact disobey God's commandments. Still, let us look deeper at the decision itself because it may not have been as simple as right or wrong choices. Is every choice we make in life black and white or is there some grey? The first choice was to stay in Paradise in God's presence forever. The second choice was to eat the fruit that delicious to the taste, beautiful in appearance, and would give them knowledge of good and evil. Adam and Eve had some level of moral judgment. They were not without some sense of right and wrong but the knowledge this fruit would provide is physical experience. This makes God's final injunction about death more making them aware that the cost of experience can be pain. So why is this important? The decision to partake of the fruit was made out a good place, a desire to become more like God, to progress. This wasn't a mistake in God's planning! Sending Christ as the Savior wasn't a backup plan but part of the choice in helping meet the price of both justice and mercy. We could learn from our mistakes through repentance and the grace that belongs to Christ's sacrifice. This was a choice between two Good decisions, not one right and one wrong. So do we still call this a Fall? Man was cast out of God's presence but it was to experience and grow to become like Him. It was to progress. It was to experience pain and joy.<br />
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The purpose of mortality is not to survive. It is to learn and grow. It is learn from our experiences and to master our bodies to control our appetites. We too often believe there is an association between sin and guilt. The pain of guilty is a feeling that we are wrong or inherently unworthy. Those wide generalizations are not true. There is a major difference if we change our perspective to that were we don't feel our pain as guilt but as weakness. We are imperfect creatures. Christ saves us regardless of how far we fall short. Guilt comes from the belief that we owe Him because He is exchanging grace and salvation for our obedience. They do not equate. Salvation is a gift of love. Our obedience if it is to equate needs to also be out of love. It is through gratitude and love and obedience that we are able to accept the place in heaven that Christ provides us through His mercy and grace. Our obedience and righteousness is not to earn our place but to help us grow and develop so that we will find joy there.<br />
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<b>None of Them Is Lost</b><br />
We need to understand that God is on our side. Obedience to Him and His laws bring joy and happiness. He being perfect also designed a perfect plan but this plan was for our benefit, His imperfect children. What does this mean? It means that through the ages when men debated the ratio or amount of people that God would save and bring to heaven in their understand of heaven and hell, they didn't make the connection that God doesn't want to save a chosen few, the naturally gifted, but He desires to save <b>all </b>His children. His plan allows for that to happen but it respects a fundamental law, our agency. We have reasoned that the universe is governed by laws, some that we understand currently and others that will take time but for every action there is a reaction or a natural consequence as it were. John Stuart Mill describes human liberty as the freedom "of doing as we like, <i>subject to such consequences as may follow.</i>" From our perspective of an all powerful deity, we may think those consequences look like punishments and rewards, but they were <i>chosen</i>. What we become is built upon a lifetime of small decisions and we can decide to change at any time as well.<br />
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When we think about our fundamental natures, who we are becoming, it is our own choices that shape our identities. The consequences of our choices will most often affect others. The part that people feel is unfair is the pain that we suffer regardless of our personal decisions but that is part of life. Again, this kind of pain is growth. Guilt is real too. Guilt comes from choosing to position ourselves in opposition to God - to sin knowingly. Misjudgments or simple errors have the ability to cause pain but that is not the same nor does it have the intensity of guilt. We are choosing to put ourselves in opposition to God or joy and love which by the laws of nature will cause misery. If we look at Dante's Inferno, he describes the different levels of hell as being places that people would go to on their own accord. The damned crossed the river Styx into their torments "eager for their river crossing." A lifetime of choices or the culmination of their true desires is what awaited them. What we worship is what we become.<br />
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An example from this chapter recorded the experience of an inmate of a concentration camp that heard a commotion and when he went to investigate found a prison guard mercilessly beating a female prisoner. He whispered, "What can we do for these people?" Another inmate replied, "Show them that love is greater." In that moment, he realized the other person was focused on the guard, not the victim. They considered the actions of greatest moral gravity to be the ones we originate, not the ones we suffer.<br />
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To see our mortality as a test is generally a great analogy but we have to be careful how far we take it. The part we go astray is when we lose sight that again that life is a test to measure progression and advancement. It measures again what we are <i>becoming</i>. When we begin to talk about <i>earning</i> our salvation we begin to think that this life was meant to be a spiritual evaluation instead of a spiritual formation. The only person that we are competing against is ourselves. There is no level of spiritualism where if you pass 50% you make it into in heaven, while others had only scored a 49% so they earned eternal damnation. God offers salvation and His grace to all men to choose for themselves freely. Heaven is a state of being - a blessed and sanctified nature. It is not a place we enter but a culmination of choices that allow us to become celestial beings.<br />
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This sanctification and perfecting process is only made possible through the Atonement. It is the willful suffering of someone completely innocent to choose to take upon Himself the price of all mankind's transgressions, sins, sufferings, pain and afflictions of every kind. He was completely alone during the culmination on the cross of Calvary. Although we cannot comprehend how that was done, it still begs the question of why it is accepted as the price paid for those that choose to accept that gift of repentance and forgiveness for themselves? Why does grace work? It is because we do not have a perfect knowledge. We are never given perfect instruction so our accountability is only partial and incomplete. Christ breaks that cycle and we are allowed to move forward and progress. But He broke the cycle in more than one way.<br />
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When we consider the fleeting time we are given in mortality and remember the eternal nature of the soul, Christ broke the chains of sin and of death. The time in which mankind can experience this perfecting process is not constrained to mortality but extends beyond death into the life after. We will continue to perfect ourselves and many people will learn of Christ and choose Him not in life but in death however, repenting and choosing a new life in his image will be increasingly more difficult without having the physical experiences to build upon. Again, this perfect plan by our perfect God is made so none will be lost - including the unbaptized infants and non-Christians. It is not that God is excusing them of sin but allowing them to learn, progress, and grow. He loves all men so His perfect plan is not going to default those who have not had the opportunity or the ability or capacity to choose His plan to damnation. This is what is meant in Peter's claim that "the gospel was preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit." The gospel of Jesus Christ - faith, repentance, baptism and receiving the Holy Ghost - and its ministry and blessings are extended to both the living and the dead.<br />
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<b>Participants in the Divine Nature</b><br />
The reason that we see that God's love is not limited in any capacity - living, dead, young, old, saint, sinner, etc. - is because we are not limited in our capacity. We were not created in the sense of God making our spirits, otherwise our spirits would not have the ability to do evil but would be inherently good. If we were not created then we must have always been and we always will be. This life or mortality is simply part of our existence that we pass through as part of our progression. But in what way are we to progress? To use a crude analogy from the book, Ender's Game, a leader tells a commander at the end of a battle, "We won! That's all that matters." To which the commander replies, "No. The <i>way</i> we win matters." God loves all His children. He wants us to have what He has and to do so has given us the tools and the example of how to become like Him. It is not His power or His glory that He wants to bestow as much as it is the understanding, knowledge, and attributes that He has obtained through learning and experience. Our mortality is the framework built to allow for that. This is why exaltation could not be given as Lucifer suggested in the pre-mortal council but it had to be experienced through mortality as was God's plan. The lie that is spread is that we can obtain this through "spirituality" and "religion" is unnecessary.<br />
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When Mormons describe through scripture heaven or heaven on earth, it is called Zion. It is a utopian-type community where "God is with us." It is not a solitary Zen. It isn't a private enlightenment. It is a place where there are families and groups of people coexisting and working together. This is why God again refers to himself as a Father. Families aren't a creation of society but a divine institution tied with the very fabric of nature. The reason for this is because the type of Christ-like characteristics that we are attempting to foster and nurture and develop are things like mercy, generosity, and self-control. "Kindness only exists when there is someone to whom we show kindness. Patience is only manifest when another calls it forth.... What we may have thought was our private pathway to salvation, was intended all along as a collaborative enterprise, though we often miss the point." We become perfected through lovingly learning to coexist because we have all experienced that many times working together can feel like a fiery furnace - this is intentional.<br />
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I myself struggle with this. I find that I hate working with whom I consider to be stupid people. I hate judgmental people. Sounds hypocritical but what I mean is that people fail to see the perfection that lies inside someone's desire or natures regardless of their own shortcomings and imperfections. When Enoch described what he saw and shared in regards to God's love, he was overcome with emotion. He wept over our disobedience and pain and shared in God's joy through our redemption that is only made possible through the Atonement. For a long time, I thought that my Sabbath day worship was only about partaking in the sacrament. It was becoming clean through the renewal of my covenants that I made at baptism and in the temple. The social aspects of the Sabbath were not important - however that is wholly untrue. Exaltation again is done through unity. We repent on an individual basis but we become exalted as a people and as families. We need each other.<br />
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In this last chapter, the authors use a particularly vivid metaphor. They describe a young boy who jumping around the yard, pretending to fly around, proclaims that he will eventually live among the stars and walk on the moon. They then contrast that to the rocket scientist that works and studies and learns the necessary laws of physics that will create a rocket ship and ask, who is more likely to achieve the goal? The one that through obedience and action learns and gains the necessary knowledge or the other? Obedience grants one knowledge and so both the knowledge and obedience frees them. It allows the scientist to grow and develop as an individual. People mistake this type of obedience as that of a blind sheep following a shepherd. And yet it is with that same analogy that the Savior describes us and those that drift away. He preached of searching for the One. The analogy of the prodigal son could be used not just to describe each of us but to illustrate what our union may be like once we leave mortality and return to our heavenly home.<br />
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The knowledge we gain in this life carries with us into the next. The study of science is a study of the laws of nature and the universe. The refining of Zion is in communities and creates in us the ability to gain the attributes of Christ. A study of Christ and Zion is a process of learning how to love as God does.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"The divine nature of man, and the divine nature of God, are shown to be the same - they are rooted in the will to love, at the price of pain, but in the certainty of joy. Heaven holds out the promise of a belonging that is destined to extend and surpass any that we have ever known in this wounded world."<i></i></blockquote>
The other aspect of this sanctification process, learning to love and become more like God, is that it is a lifetime commitment. It will continue into the eternities. We don't believe or have a relationship with a static God or an unchanging being. It is in that eternal perspective that we are taught to focus. It is like beginning a hike and knowing where you are going and focusing so much on the peak that you forget to enjoy the views along the way.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"What if the possibilities of Zion were already here, and its scattered elements all about us? A child's embrace, a companion's caress, a friend's laughter are its materials. Our capacity to mourn another's pain, like God's tears for his children; our desire to lift us from our sin and sorrow - these are not to pass away when the elements shall melt with fervent heat. They are the stuff and substance of any Zion we build, any heaven we inherit. God is not radically Other, and neither is His heaven."</blockquote>
The problem though is if we always think or focus on the future we can forget to find joy in the journey. God is love and so we must learn what God's love is. We learn through repentance and accepting the Atonement. We learn through obedience. And eventually we learn through seeing others as God sees us. We learn more about God through our interactions with others and ourselves. It is through learning to control our passions and to mourn with those that mourn that we can also find joy in life and find God's love in all our relationships.</div>
Glenn Collettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323017977339707663noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526052317567640713.post-15498569998103097912016-12-11T18:23:00.001-08:002016-12-11T18:23:47.158-08:00Looking Back to Look AheadIt has been months. It feels wrong to say that. I haven't written and I don't know why. I feel like routine has run my life and I have become what I hate - people that live to work and not the other way around. What I do is not something I love either. It has a purpose and I do my best to help the best way I can. I want to make a difference but in the end, the work I do can feel mundane, rote, and that I am no longer challenged any more. These feelings are what have prompted me to make a move to a new role where I can share what I learned and again learn something new with a chance to reinvent myself. I am moving to California and with that process I was able to learn something.<br />
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In my life I have found value in remembering. It is powerful to take time to meditate and reflect and learn from what you have done and experienced. I often do it days or weeks after events that have passed while they are still fresh in my mind. This is a sharp contrast from time I have spent recently going through old papers and notes that I found scattered among my belongings. Purging can have the effect of finding lost memories which was definitely the case in this situation.<br />
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As I was sorting through my things, I found notes and pictures from past relationships. I found a small envelope of pictures of my ex-fiancé and handwritten notes that she had sent me. As I looked on those pictures, I saw the face of someone I loved so much yet felt nothing as the years had passed. And all it took was reading her words to have those walls I had built to come crashing down. I had told myself many different things over those years...<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"She simply fell out of love with you. Distance killed your relationship. There was nothing you could have done."</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"She never really loved you the same way that you loved her. You simply were someone God put in her path to help her overcome what she was going through."</blockquote>
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"Forgive her. Forgive yourself. Forgive and forget them all. You will heal and the scars that are left will be filled with new and happier memories."</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Each relationship is different. You won't feel that way again and that isn't a bad thing. It will simply be a different kind of love."</blockquote>
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After rereading what she had written, I realized that I simply had told myself what I needed to hear in order to <i>survive</i> as time passed. I could see that she truly had loved me for a time and the experiences that we shared when we were together were real. They simply were fleeting. I then found other notes that I had gotten in the ward I had moved to shortly after going through the ordeal of breaking off my engagement. Our congregation had a habit of coming together for a group prayer each Sunday and following that, socialize for a bit and write each other "nice notes." These were short little notes you could put onto a scrap of paper that were in turn hand delivered to each apartment. Immediately after this incredibly painful experience, I had turned to God and I had <i>thrived </i>through filling my time with service...<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Thank you for always striving to be a happy person who makes others happy too! I love that about you! Good luck with finals and know that you are welcome anytime!"</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I will never not think you are wonderful."</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Remember when we went to Macy's that one night and I had a laugh attack in your car? Let's do that again one day. Love you SO MUCH."</blockquote>
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Remember. When did I become a cynic? When did I lose myself along the way? Remembering does a few different things: helps you count your blessings and see the things that you have overcome and faced along the way but it also helps you see what you wanted to become and re-center yourself. I used to be a REALLY good home teacher. I was more than that - I tried to become someone's friend. I found happiness in helping people and I felt like I genuinely was helping. What happened? I had passions and discovered shortly after what I wanted to do for a career. Now I am simply doing a 8-5 in a completely different and unrelated field. Again begs the question, what happened?<br />
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And what can I do differently? Rome wasn't built in a day and there are lots of great things happening in my life but if I really want to change things, what steps can I take to begin the process without tipping the boat too much. It will be interesting to see what happens in the next few months, if not in the next year! Dating? Living situation? Career? God knows but I will certainly be surprised.Glenn Collettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323017977339707663noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526052317567640713.post-5322685891255406462016-08-28T13:55:00.004-07:002016-08-28T13:55:27.757-07:00Introverts - Not Shy, Simply Dialed-InPeople are everywhere. We move together, around each other, through crowds and masses of people, and over time we see where our choices have brought us. If we aren't careful, we will see that our feet will have brought us to places not of our own design. Our present state is the summation of decisions that have brought us here and if we simply follow the flow of our lives, we will find the smooth edges and the paths that open below our feet.<br />
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When I walk into a room, I have the feeling to look around and survey my surroundings, to listen to the sounds, to feel the rhythm or pace, and to look at the people as they move around and interact. It takes a few moments for me to feel the underlying current before I take the full dive into the space. Some of these people feel like obstacles and others there is an immediate connection. Still, those connections are real and have an energy to them.<br />
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When we look for connection, we have to be willing to be open to all responses. We are feeling. It doesn't matter if it is pain, belonging, or anything in between. Extroverts thrive off the energy of a room itself or through creating that energy. It is the mass, size and quantity that fuels them rather than introverts, like myself, who thrive off listening, feeling out that energy, and having intimate and personal conversations. Crowds are sensory overloads for introverts - candles trying to stay lit in a storm of noise. And because I am an introvert doesn't mean that I am necessarily shy but simply dialed-in.<br />
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I feel like this is why I thrive off of personal connections - one-on-one conversations, small groups of people, and hearing what drives people's motivations, their passions, and their dreams. These are the types of things that bring meaning to life. It replaces bland routine with spice and with flavor. It is like our personal callings that fill our lives with a light that cannot be hid.<br />
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All you have to do is look and listen. There is beauty in every soul trying to express itself and escape the reality in which we cage ourselves. So what can an introvert do in a world that demands that they make a stand and speak loudly? We pick our battles. I demand brutal honesty. I ask for genuine vulnerability. I ask for personal expression. I want to know what you feel and why. In the meantime, I will be willing to say what others don't have the courage to say when they don't have a voice.<br />
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Other people can be afraid of what people might think when they will never know because they fail or forget to ask. Life is unbelievably short. It is fragile and fleeting at times. This is what makes our experiences so special and memorable. This is why it is hard to describe what our passions are or what love is. Those feelings are intimate in their very nature but that is the very reason they need to be expressed. Without realizing and knowing that you are loved or that someone has accepted you and your love, life can feel relatively meaningless.<br />
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When we think about our lives, we relive the past. We look through the lens of our memories and remember the things we saw, the people we met, but mostly how we felt. Why not live in that? Why not see our lives, see our selves and see everyone else as we might be? Why not look for that potential? Why did we stop dreaming to start living instead of the other way around? It gives a new perspective to the idea that we might all be giants.<br />
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What would happen if you started to believe in yourself and stopped measuring yourself? If you would stop holding yourself short and simply took the step, what is the worst that could happen - failure? No - failure happens when we quit. When we stop trying and believing, this is when we fail.<br />
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So how can we change the world? How can we push to make it better? It starts with belief. It grows with love. It burns brightly with passion. And it is made by individuals. Take joy in the journey because when you are willing to be authentic, the destination will take care of itself.Glenn Collettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323017977339707663noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526052317567640713.post-34044168434049564522016-04-17T13:39:00.000-07:002016-04-17T13:39:15.941-07:00What is a prophet?Today was another interesting day at the congregation I go to in Boston. I showed up a little late and ended up arriving half way through Priesthood. The lesson was from the Teachings of the Prophets and when I arrived the discussion had drifted to how the prophets are just men and that they err just like we do and how they need to catch up with society. Whatever the prophetic teaching, I was sure the original lesson wasn't that.<br />
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Let me back up...<br />
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My ward is made up of Harvard and other Ivy League graduate students. These men and women are intellectual superpowers. They go to universities that sell that message and they themselves believe in it. They believe that they are better and smarter than anyone else. I saw it before at different conferences with my MBA program. I have seen it again in quorum at church. There is a perspective that there are different levels of individuals who are considered peers and those that do not understand. The reason for a separation between the different groups was the differing levels of understanding.<br />
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The sad thing is that no one really understands everything. It always feels like one big intellectual contest. In previous congregations I had gone to before, the contest was a physical one. Men would compete with other single men and they might as well as lived in caves and carried clubs. I don't care for either of these types of confrontations, especially since the reason I am going is to strengthen my faith in Christ.<br />
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It is a paradox because as much as these people claimed to know and understand in terms of their faith, they really only could define doctrine. Once they felt like they understood that they would want to dive into something deeper but they weren't prepared. We don't understand the basic principles of the gospel well enough, like faith, or even have any faith to be more honest. They only had fear. They were afraid that people may understand there were things that they did not know. They were afraid of their own doubts. In all reality, they understood very little.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Faith is a house with many rooms."</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"But no room for doubt?"</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Oh plenty, on every floor. Doubt is useful. It keeps faith a living thing. After all, you cannot know the strength of your faith until it is tested (<i>Life of Pi</i>)."</blockquote>
They simply did not understand that having questions is good thing... Wonderful in fact. The issue with the questions they had were that they were questioning God. Their pride had put them in a place were they not only felt that they were above their fellow man but above God himself. They shouldn't confuse themselves into believing that they knew more or better about how the world works than the being that created it. Society can believe whatever they want but for those of us that know better, for those of us that know there is a God and know that He lives... for us, I know that God sent His Son, Jesus Christ to not only fulfill the law of sacrifice and atone for the sins of the world, but as a loving Father in Heaven, He has given us prophets to guide us in our modern day.<br />
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As men, prophets are people. They form a quorum of disciples of differing opinions and beliefs. They even disagree from time to time on how to lead and guide the Church. The part that many people forget is that in all reality, they are not the ones to decide where the Church goes. They are simply the mouthpieces and the tools God uses because as His children, we simply don't have faith enough to walk with Him and be taught from Him directly. And even if we were able, He would still use prophets to direct His church as a whole because that is how He has always done things during our mortal experience.<br />
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Once prophets have completed meditating and pondering as we do in order to receive inspiration, they pray together after debating and deliberating what the Church should do in regards to any given subject. Once a prophet speaks in the office in which he is called to, they speak in unanimity as a quorum and they speak in behalf of God.<br />
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People always seem to become afraid because they are unwillingly to accept there are things that they do not understand. They rely on science as fact when in all reality true science continues to question itself all the time. Science is evolving and changing throughout time. What is an atom? What is it made of? Science has changed its mind on this time and time again as its perspective deepens and expands. Science is more like faith and religion than what most people are willing to admit. There are facts that have always been true. This is why faith is a form of courage. It is a form of strength.<br />
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When people question the prophets, they forget that they are questioning God, the one perfected being that knows all things in the universe. They forget the parables and the prophesies. They forget that it is because the Jews looked beyond the mark and lost their testimonies, forgot their covenants, and went the way of the world that they crucified their own Messiah. It is our pride that moves us in the Parable of the Ten Virgins from one of the prepared to one of the preoccupied. Remember who you are and remember that God has not forgotten you. He has prepared you and given you everything you need to become who you need to become. A prophet of God is one of those things that you need in order to reach your divine potential.Glenn Collettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323017977339707663noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526052317567640713.post-43095967099639563392016-03-01T06:54:00.000-08:002016-03-01T06:54:13.549-08:00What is Greed?I was driving into work today and there was an interesting question that had been posed on a local radio station. They were talking about the large pay differential between CEOs and common laborers. One side was crying outrage! There should be more transparency in wages and more equality. The viewpoint was equally loud in saying that CEOs are indispensable. They provide direction, strategy, create the culture, etc. Without a solid leader the whole thing falls apart into anarchy. There is no "thing" without the workers to give it life. Both sides are correct but that doesn't end the conversation on what is right and what is wrong. How much can or should a CEO be paid?<br />
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Then a CEO called in from a small iron working corporation. He made a six-figure salary and the next highest paid individual only made 62.5% as much as he did. His strategy was to employ profit sharing. Everyone does get a base salary but profit sharing allows everyone to get paid more when the company performs better and the opposite is also true. It gives everyone skin in the game so to speak. It is a good way to approach the problem head on but then another caller voiced a question that readdressed what the real problem was entirely: "Wages aren't the real problem but a lack of accountability and mismanagement of funds by our government. Where do my taxes really go? Even if I get a better paying job, does that money really help anyone when it goes to taxes?"<br />
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Are our roads getting fixed? Why does my money go to welfare when welfare is being currently treated as a regular source of income when it was designed to be a transitional supplement that helps individuals to get by until they get back into the workforce? How much of the issue is the "1%"-ers versus our public representatives and public servants? Is the issue the system or is it human nature? And if it is human nature, how does one really define greed? Is it a bad thing or a good thing?<br />
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Morally, greed is a bad thing. Greed isn't necessarily all about money. It isn't defined as people who make <i>x</i> amount of money. There is no specific benchmark. So if it isn't inherently the money that is the issue, what is the issue? I believe that greed is bad because it is the inherently selfish motivation to accumulate resources of any kind. It is sole desire to need more. We need resources so we can have additional options or to increase our ability to choose. More resources allow for more freedoms. These resources include money, time, skills, etc. So are all CEOs greedy people? No. Is an inherent competitive desire to be better necessary to be a good CEO? Probably. Better than whom? Other people? Ourselves? Our past? Everyone? I feel like someone who is trying to provide for others, whether that is their family or their country or their employees, is someone who is the very opposite of greedy. Charity is about giving. Someone who honestly wants to help and serve people, regardless of their wealth, is not greedy.<br />
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Mathematically, greed can be defined in a way... Greed is exponential. It is about pursuing a maximum limit. It is about having more than anyone else. Greed is about gaining <i>x</i> without choosing to give away <i>y</i>. Charity is about choosing to give away <i>y</i> regardless of the value of <i>x</i>. Greed is selfish and charity is selfless. So what is the nature of our government? What is your nature? Who are you? What are you? It is something to think about because our desires are what guide our growth and our natures.Glenn Collettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323017977339707663noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526052317567640713.post-67588692206661998982016-02-25T21:20:00.001-08:002017-03-20T00:56:08.728-07:00The Science of FaithI haven't been blogging for a while which has been unfortunate. I like writing but I have been distracted lately. I have been trying to focus on work. I have been starting and finishing a new blog about a hobby of mine. I have been trying to create some resemblance to a social life and hopefully dating life (unsuccessfully I might add). In short, I have been making myself busy. Even when these periods of my life tend to happen, I can always make time to appreciate things that are a priority to me, like my faith. The most recent conversation about it surprisingly wasn't at work but on social media and so I hoped to share it.<br />
<br />
One of my friends recently had been going through similar struggles as myself in terms of dating. She had been really connecting with someone and then when they discussed her faith and her standards, that special someone disappeared. Frustrating - I know. So her friends responded to her post by asking two distinct questions:<br />
<ul>
<li>Would you date people outside of your religion? If so, under what (if any) circumstances?</li>
<li>Don't you have to marry someone who shares your faith?</li>
</ul>
<div>
Great questions. So my friend responded to the first question of course and I decided to help her out and respond to the second question. I said: </div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>"The keyword is 'should' simply because in marriage if you decide to have a family, it's easier to raise kids with a single standard or belief system instead of multiple. Also, you can get married in a LDS temple which is cool."</i></blockquote>
<div>
This is where my conversation started. One of her other friends (we all have that one friend that can't leave well enough alone...) continued to go back and forth about this subject with me and for simplicity sake I am simply going to copy and paste the dialogue, as follows:</div>
<div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>"What about raising children who decide what it is they believe on their own? The stigma is more of Christianity in general, and even greater for the LDS church."</i></blockquote>
</div>
<div>
I respond...</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>"My parents did that and that's actually what our faith promotes us to do... We believe in personal revelation and fostering an individual relationship with both God and Christ. </i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>"My comment was more directed at the idea that beforehand it is helpful to have some kind of foundation or starting point. Socially, psychologically and religiously, I'd think that it's beneficial for anyone, but especially children, to start with some sort of foundation instead of simply pushing them into the deep end of the pool and saying figure it out by yourself because mommy and daddy don't know either - we disagree.<br /><br />"I feel personally that doesn't inspire either faith or hope when I think there is an opportunity for a lot of both in this world."</i></blockquote>
He rebuttles...<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody _1n4g"><i>"But right there you mention Christ, and as a Jew, it is important for me that my children don't grow up with my input or parental input about Christ, or any other proclaimed deity, as a deity. I grew up in this way and have come to disagree. It took years to shake. All because I accepted it as truth because my mother told me it as the truth, when it is actually just a belief. It cannot be proven or disproven. Teaching a child that he should believe a certain way, and that Christ is most certainly God, is inherently wrong and destructive.</i></span></span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><i>"</i><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody"><i>But I respect that you believe that Jesus is Christ. Like I disagree but respect its you disagree with my helix but that's cool. But we have to respect each other's beliefs as beliefs and not as facts. Christian churches as have not developed a reputation of doing so."</i></span></span></span></blockquote>
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}">
Back pedaling to avoid filling my friend's wall with a personal conversation... </span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>"Please don't misunderstand me. I didn't say that parents aught to tell their children they should believe or worship in a specific way and only that way is correct. I said that they aught to promote faith, hope, and that there is a higher power.<br /><br />"I believe in God. I believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God. My parents pointed me in a direction but they didn't force or push. They simply invited and then allowed me to explore. I feel that everyone has that right and in so doing has the right to disagree as well. For a family and in terms of dating with the hopes of marriage, shared beliefs simply make the process more smooth."</i></blockquote>
He responds...<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody"><i>"I agree with that. It makes it easier if parents share faith, but to me it's equal if parents agree on how to raise a child."</i> </span></span></blockquote>
<div>
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody">
I wasn't a huge fan of his "facts" comment so I responded...<br />
</span></span>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody">"<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody"><i>And what is a 'fact' really? Science is made up of 'facts' but facts change. Reality hasn't changed just the amount of information we now have or in the way our perspective or viewpoints have altered.<br /><br />"For you, your perspective defines the 'facts' that make up your VIEW of reality... As do mine. Hence the reason, why political and religious conversations are so much fun.</i></span></span></span></span></span></span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody"><i>"It's nighttime and that's a fact... Where I'm at. But somewhere else it is daytime. In either place, the sun still exists and burns as brightly but our perspectives alter our view of it."</i></span></span></span></span></span></span></blockquote>
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody">
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody">He tries to come back at me one last time...
</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody"><i>"</i><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody"><i>Well a fact is true whether you believe it or not. It can be shown and observed through experience or record. Jesus simply lacks science. I have my own Personal view on the Bible, God, Jesus etc. Your helix is just as personal.</i></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody"><i>"</i><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody"><i>Ya that's not really the same thing."</i></span></span></span></span></span></span></blockquote>
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody">
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody">
And I finish it up by simply bearing testimony...<br />
</span></span></span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody"><i>"Facts and truth are not the same -science is a clear example of it actually. </i></span></span></span></span><br />
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody"><i></i><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody"><i>"Through observation and experience, scientific facts pointed to a variety of different models for the structure of an atom or the nature of our solar system. It continues to change even today with new technology that is invented all the time that continue to expand our perspective and ability to see new things. So all those 'facts' and 'science' are actually theories or models of how we can rationalize or explain things until our vision can be further expanded.<br /><br />"Interesting though that in that practical definition of science - a series of theories or models of how we can rationalize or explain things until our vision can be further expanded - sounds a lot more like religion than most people are willing to admit. Both allow greater insight as an individual continues to study it and question it. Blind belief does no one any good.<br /><br />"I am a big believer in science. I have a background in mechanical and biomedical engineering. The human body and many other aspects of science do nothing more than deepen and strengthen my faith in my God, the more I study it and learn about how it works and functions. Divine design is all around you. The probability alone of all these interconnected parts that sustain life is miraculous in its very nature."</i></span></span></span></span></blockquote>
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody">
</span></span></span></span>
<br />
<div>
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody">The point I am trying to make is that God is not new. God is truth. Whether you call Him by the name of Jehovah, Elohim, Allah, The All, or any other conception of a Supreme Being, there is a higher power. We have the opportunity to come to know Him. In fact, we have the ability to become like Him. He is our Father in Heaven so as we learn more about Him, we are also learning more about ourselves. Science is a little slow but it will eventually catch up to the truth.</span></span></span></span><br />
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody">Think about what an atheist is describing when they refer to the Big Bang Theory... All matter and all "creation" came from a single explosion or expansion of matter. It is simply another perspective on the same event we are describing during the Creation. All matter was organized during an event (or series of events) caused by a single force (or entity - which is God). We all use different lingo and fight over vernacular but in all reality, we are all talking about the same thing.</span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div>
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody">Faith and science are truly the same as they are the search for the ultimate truth.</span></span></span></span></div>
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody">
</span></span></span></span></div>
Glenn Collettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323017977339707663noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526052317567640713.post-71253265831451853652016-01-27T19:28:00.001-08:002016-01-27T20:03:26.079-08:00Make Me Feel OkayWhen we think of people, we can think of them as either aggregate groups or lots of individuals. I feel like we tend to identify a little of both. The personalities that stand out clearly become the individuals and everyone else fades to the background. Those groups are created around various titles or classifications. It is only natural because there is only so much data or information we can process at one time however, what are the implications of that choice?<br>
<br>
I have been on both sides of this coin. I have been both hidden in the background as well as the individual. There is a specific role that straddles those at the same time and it is the validator. So who exactly is the validator? When people begin to question themselves, the way people view them, the classifications that are assigned to us, many times we want to be seen in a specific way and that doesn't always come across or isn't communicated effectively so the validator is the friend or person who helps you clearly identify who you are in the crowd time and time again.<br>
<br>
I am friends with a girl who I have known for years. Throughout our relationship, she has dated many different men/boys. When things get rough, she knows she can count on me to <i>validate</i> who she is. Regardless of whatever her question is... How illogical or emotionally selfish or selfless she is acting... I am able to clearly provide a path that will help her with her problems and she will consistently choose to ignore it or even more commonly do the exact opposite. She clearly isn't listening and doesn't care about my advice so why talk with me at all?<br>
<br>
It is because of how I make her <i>feel</i>.<br>
<br>
Even when the men she dates treat her like scum, she can rely on me to pick her back up and brush her off and make her feel shiny and new. Why? Because she is relying on other people to make her feel wanted and to value her which influences her own sense of self-worth.<br>
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Is it healthy?<br>
<br>
No.<br>
<br>
Am I <i>constant</i>?<br>
<br>
Yes.<br>
<br>
So if I was to create a visual to personify the role of a validator it would be a warm blanket. The world has turned cold and you seem to have forgotten who you are. You pull the warm blanket out of the closet and wrap yourself up in it until you start to feel warm and then you put it aside. The validator makes the cold feel okay.<br>
<br>
"It's okay... Don't worry. You are stronger than you know."<br>
<br>
The problem is that if someone doesn't realize that they are the validator, this back and forth happens again and again. Eventually it stops. The person doesn't need the validator any more because they found the warmth they were seeking from someone else and the validator is forgotten. It is discarded. In simplest terms, it is no longer needed or necessary. Even if the validator surprises everyone and leaves, it only ever becomes necessary but never desired or wanted.<br>
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Someone wrote a description of this animation that fits perfectly. She said, "I think he's so in love with her but she's not his to have. That's why she's a sketch. When she finally loves him back to the extent he loves her, she becomes more than a sketch but he leaves because she's too late to realize how much he cared." Love, like all emotions, is a choice. People don't want to fall in love because there is no way to know if the other person is going to try. We don't want to get lost in our passion and emotions to find out it was <i>only </i>in <i>our </i>minds. True love is only given, never earned or bought. It is quite literally a gift.<br>
<br>
The irony is that you simply can't choose who gives it to you or when.<br>
<br>
It is sad how many people find themselves in this struggle because both feel the need to be loved and to love. There is only one place where we can <i>always </i>turn to find it but we have to learn how to feel it. It is through the Holy Spirit. It is God's perfect love. It validates who you are. It helps you feel that you are not alone or abandoned. It is constant. It is eternal. It is ours to find and only we can find it. No one can give it to us. You are perfect in God's eyes because He can see the perfection in the imperfection. He sees us not as we are but as who we can become. We simply need to pray for His sight and His strength.Glenn Collettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323017977339707663noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526052317567640713.post-57421897017555110172015-11-22T11:45:00.000-08:002015-11-22T11:45:01.308-08:00Agency and the Policy Change<h3>
Nothing Has Essentially Changed</h3>
If you read my blog, you know that I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, LDS for short, or Mormons if you don't know who we are at all. If you follow any of the local news in Utah, you also know that there is an uproar in Salt Lake because of the Church's stance on homosexuality and how that affects marriage, the family, etc. If you don't know what I am talking about, watch the link below. It is a 10 minute clip from one of the leaders of our faith.<br />
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<br /></div>
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Understand that Salt Lake City (as of 2014 statistics) is home to the 7th largest LGBT population in the United States and of the six other cities that higher on the list, it is one of two metropolitan areas that also has a growing number. With this in mind, a group or a variety of group decided to send those new policy changes to mass media outlets who in turn put their own sensationalized twist to them. So how does that affect me or why am I writing about it?<br />
<br />
I have a few different friends who either personally have homosexual attractions or have family members or close friends that have them. I love my friends. I think they are fantastic people. But like most of my friends, I don't agree that their lifestyle choices are the best. This includes my friends that drink or have premarital sex or gamble. There are lots of things that we all differ on but that doesn't mean I love them any less. It simply means that I won't have that in common with them or embrace that lifestyle personally. The way that the policy change and the aftermath of that has affected me is in a variety of different ways but it can be boiled down to something simple, some of my friends are confused, upset, and some have left our shared faith.<br />
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<br />
The reason I have stayed strong is because the policy "change" isn't a change at all. It was simply putting into writing the way we handle as leaders in our faith the new social changes that have come about when gay marriage became legal. Homosexual activity (not attraction) is still a sin and hence individuals who have a homosexual marriage cannot stay in the Church with good standing. And in situations where any children that have homosexual parents wishes to be baptized, they will be treated the same as children from a polygamist family or from an anti-family where the parents do not believe or follow or give permission for their children to be baptized into the faith.<br />
<br />
So when I have friends who struggle with this idea or don't believe that our Church leadership is up to date or need to adapt to society, they are missing the point.<br />
<br />
Our Church is lead not simply by men. It is lead by prophets and apostles who speak with God and Jesus Christ and receive their direction on how to lead and guide their children here on Earth today. God leads this church. God establishes His word. General conference is full of scripture spoken from the stand and not just a list of nice reminders and suggestions. So to be direct, their struggle is not with their testimony of God, the Atonement, or Jesus Christ. Their struggle of testimony is with modern-day prophets and their faith that God does continue to speak through his servants in our day. Or it may be with some other doctrine or principle of the gospel and this was simply the last straw, but in essence, how we choose to respond to the direction that God gives us through His prophets is up to us.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Connection Between Agency and Knowledge</h3>
</div>
<div>
Agency is an interesting topic to begin with. Agency as our ability to choose between good and evil. Many people don't like to think about agency as being that black and white because life is full of so much gray and there are things that don't feel like they necessarily bring us any closer to God or Satan so how do we differentiate that. The other thing that a lot of people talk about is that how come people who supposedly sin appear to be so happy? It doesn't make sense.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Agency is choice. In order to have different choices, there has to be different options with a variety of outcomes or consequences. Knowledge is important because it helps us understand that with every choice, there are eventual outcomes associated with each of them. God and Satan both entice us to try to make choices that will turn that agency over to them. Both of which, think of our agency with our eternal destinies or long-term potential in mind. Satan lets us know that in the short-term, we can have pleasure, avoid pain, and fulfill a variety of our physical appetites. Satan is the great entertainer. He likes us to waste away our probation and limit or damn our eternal progression. His promises are very real but they are also very temporary. In the end, the promises we can have are damnation, captivity, and spiritual death so the devil hedges his bets by selling us on the short-term benefits instead.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
God has let us know that long-term, his plan will provide us joy, freedom, happiness, and eternal life. The life of a disciple however is not easy. It will be painful and their will be a lot of growth. There is going to be tough times. These are all a part of the purifying and learning process we go through as we move from mortality into immortality and eternal life. But there is beauty along the way. There is happiness to be had. There is love to give and to be felt. You are not alone as you move through your probation here on Earth. That fact alone is a huge differentiation: YOU ARE NOT ALONE. Satan wants you to feel alone. The more you build and create habits of sin, the more you isolate yourself. The more you follow and keep the commandments, the more that God empowers you and strengthens you. He sends you His Spirit and angels to guide us. He wants you to become like He is. He wants to show you how to have all that He has. You are His child and you have divine potential.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
We always have a choice. We can act or choose not to act. We can do whatever we choose to do but in every choice, we subject our will and our very being to the consequences of our actions. It is not easy to always know how that works. In my life and being raised in my family, we were taught to remember one thing: "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." We were given our agency but it is essentially the only thing we have to give back to the Lord. In fact, it is the only thing He asks. He wants us to choose Him, to follow Him, and if we give a perfect and complete effort, He promises that through grace and the Atonement of Jesus Christ we will gain eternal life, sealed as families throughout time and all eternity. Marriage and family are nothing unless God is a partner in that relationship as well.</div>
Glenn Collettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323017977339707663noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526052317567640713.post-41508973249407027162015-11-04T19:55:00.002-08:002015-11-04T19:55:41.841-08:00"How Will You Measure Your Life?"<h3>
Introduction</h3>
Clayton Christensen is an excellent writer, philosopher, or a genuinely deep thinker. I like reading his books because they are riddled with analogies and examples of the theories and principles he is trying to portray. These theories aren't so much correlating ideas or trying to prove causation but trying to see the underlying the principles. And if we are able to identify those principles and test them for anomalies, we can use them in the future to predict outcomes and behavior. A great example of a principle is that we will sacrifice our wants to fulfill our needs.<br />
<br />
We all have an inherent sense of survival. The problem with this principle is our ability to identify what are truly wants and what are truly needs. Not all of our bills and expenses are truly needs as much as they are a consequence of a want or lifestyle choice. We have an inherent needs to be to happy, to love, and to be loved and sadly, it is highly common for people to<i> compromise their own happiness for the sake of their careers</i>. So how do we avoid this? We can be more<b> intentional</b> in our choices. We need to develop a strategy.<br />
<br />
Strategy is the concept that once a target or goal is identified, you develop a process on how to get there. You allocate resources based on prioritizing key factors and using a continuous feedback loop to check your progress on moving you forward towards your end game. So if this describes the general concept of answering the question of how, the real question is answering what... What truly motivates us?<br />
<br />
<h3>
Motivational Theories</h3>
Corporations and businesses have tried to answer that question for years with their employees and workers. The most commonly accepted theory for a long time was the "Incentive Theory." Financial incentives align desired behavior through equations based on debits and credits. You positively or negatively reinforce behaviors through money. The problem was that it didn't work. There is only a specific threshold where this did cause behavioral changes and a point where it simply didn't matter any more. The next iteration was no longer one-dimensional but a two-dimensional concept called "Motivation Theory." The two factors are satisfaction and dissatisfaction.<br />
<br />
Normally, we would assume that these are polar opposites because of the roots of the words linguistically however, in the scale we want to think of them as a x- and y-axis. <b>Satisfaction </b>is influenced by intrinsic characteristics like being challenged at work, receiving recognition or responsibility, or obtaining personal growth. <b>Dissatisfaction </b>is related to things like hygiene and compensation. Money isn't a constraint <i>if </i>you have learned to live within your means. <i>Money is not bad but it is also not a motivator</i>. It is simply an easy comparison tool. So back to our original question of identifying what motivates us, it goes back to the things that increase satisfaction. Managers directly influence 8-10 hours of an individual employee's daily life with a variety of opportunities. They can give them more responsibility. They can challenge them by asking them to do something where success will only be reached by learning something new.<br />
<br />
The challenge for managers is that we clearly need to have a plan but part of that has to include planning to be flexible. We can have both a deliberate and emergent strategy. These will fight one another for attention and resources so there has to be a balance between problems and opportunities. Before moving forward, do you have enough information to answer the question: "What has to be proven for this to work?" Once answered an initial strategy defined, we have to review how successful we were in rewarding and measuring the behaviors we wanted to control. Do the interests of the employees and the overall organization match? How do we actually spend our time and money? Is our focus on short-term or long-term goals? Even the journey towards a goal can be a motivator in and of itself.<br />
<br />
Dr. Christensen describes a time with his children when they decided as a family to construct a tree house. They picked the tree, bought the materials, and worked on it for months. They designed, cut, and built the tree house and each time there were visitors over, it was a topic of pride for the family in discussing the progress they were making. What fascinated Clayton was the fact that once it was completed, the children hardly, if ever, used the thing. The motivating factor was the journey itself in actually building something. In my family, we had a saying that described this phenomenon: "The purpose of the task was to build the boat." As a little kid, I had issues remembering, nevertheless saying, the word "relationship," so I mentally shortened it to a more exciting word, "ship." We never did end up "building a boat" but a kid can always dream, right? We did however build fantastic relationships with all of my family members because we took the time to work together often as a team.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Relationships</h3>
Relationships are key in business in so many ways. I personally am passionate about understanding the value of people. If you invest in your relationships now, you have the ability to rely on them later. It is similar to a business where in the initial stages there are high startup costs where the company has to invest all its capital in original strategies. Over time, the strategy has to change and transition from being patient for growth and impatient for profits, making quick decisions as cheaply as possible, to transitioning to the opposite and trying to trying to scale quickly. The company had to be adaptable and pivot strategies, leveraging what they had built so far. Once the company is ready to scale, the why of a purchase is more important than price comparisons.<br />
<br />
Growing companies or any person in marketing can see the importance of empathy. The value of understanding what's important to other people helps us see how we need to position ourselves with our clients. Is a combination of product and experience trump price? What is "<b>the job to be done</b>?" This type of interaction with customers require communication more than assumptions. The same is true of our personal relationships: Our wants and needs are going to be different than our partner's. Real commitment comes from finding someone who you want to make happy and will sacrifice for. From my own experience, sacrifice deepens our personal commitment so be careful that what or who you're sacrificing for is <i>truly </i>worth it.<br />
<br />
The one relationship that should never need to be questioned in terms of worth is family. The family is a place where we are free to be ourselves and where we can make mistakes. Parents have the opportunity to teach responsibility, practice problem-solving and failure, work, and various other values. What is even more important than giving kids opportunities (which might in itself be a lost opportunity) is to challenge them. If <i>we learn when we are ready to learn</i>, then it is a benefit to our children to have obstacles in their path that they can overcome rather than creating the expectation that as their parents, we will clear their path for them and give them things. By all means, we should help and my parents definitely work alongside me but I wouldn't recognize or value things the same way if they came to me freely and without any real effort on my part. The terms that Dr. Christensen uses are: resources, processes, and priorities.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Measuring and Learning</h3>
Resources are physical, measurable, tangible assets. These include things like skills, talents, and knowledge. The debate on resources is whether we are born with those skills or whether they can develop "the right stuff." Morgan McCall's <i>High Flyers</i> believes that these better skills can be hone along our way through life from learning by experience. Instead of looking for people that could have the skills that are necessary, asking whether they have actually been in that situation. As individuals, we should look for ways to practice skills and not shy away from challenging situations. Solving problems or creating opportunities are essential skills.<br />
<br />
Processes are <b>how </b>we use those resources to solve problems. One of the first things we have to do to find a solution is to understand the real problem. This requires communication, decision making, and other skills that refine the manner in which or how we ask questions, work, or solve problems. Processes play a bigger role than resources so what processes are already in place? If those processes aren't established, practice with small experiences before it becomes absolutely necessary. Celebrate success and celebrate failure. Set high goals. Fix things yourself and become self-reliant. Once we understand the "<i>how</i>," the next step understanding the "<i>why</i>."<br />
<br />
Priorities are defined as strategic direction, major investments, or core values. Our biggest concern is making sure that we are the ones that truly define those in our lives and in our families. The "<i>way we do things</i>" can be described as the <b>culture</b>. It is the autopilot of decision-making or instinctual response. This is defined early on in any relationship, business or personal or otherwise, as weighing the response to a specific process to see if it meets minimum requirements or expectations. Once established, those responses are assumed to be okay from then on so it is important to know what kind of culture you want to create early on or even before the situation comes up and then consistently follow through and control the bad and celebrate the good behavior. The way we establish that norm is by solving challenges together repeatedly.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Progressing Towards Goals</h3>
Now that we have discussed all the parts to decision making, we can put it all together. If we can have an idea of what things will look like at a critical milestone in the future that is on our path to our ultimate goal, we have a vision of a "likeness." It is important to have these smaller goals so that we can commit to that likeness. We measure our progress on reaching our goals using metrics. So although we theoretically have a plan and a picture of what we want to accomplish and where we want to be, the target is deliberate but the pathway is always evolving.<br />
<br />
Businesses can provide a great example. You have companies that want to be leaders in their industries and so they develop a widely successful process or product and excel in the marketplace. The issue is that many established companies see change from that point on as a choice between the status quo and new marginal costs and revenues. They are already in a good place and they don't want to lose their position as a leader. There is a clear difference between that marginal cost versus the "<b>full cost</b>." There is an unseen cost of not innovating and changing. There is a cost to letting others bring new things to market. Small decisions can lead to big mistakes and without realizing the "full cost" of keeping the status quo, can lead to a major player being taken out of business or their industry altogether. Do you remember Kodak, IBM computers, or Blockbuster? Stay 100% committed to your goal but accept that change is inevitable.<br />
<br />
When it comes to each of us individually, it makes us take a moment to ask, "<i>Who do I want to become?</i>" Do we consider all the facets of our lives? Family? Our core values? Our professional selves? Who we are as individuals? I want to be a man dedicated to helping improve the lives of others. I want to be genuinely kind, authentically honest, forgiving and selfless. I want to be a husband, a father, and a friend. A man that doesn't just believe in God but believes God. I want to be a facilitator who empowers people and educates them. Someone who motivates people to act. I want to be a traveler or an explorer. I want to be challenged and always striving to learn new things and improve.<br />
<br />
You can always revisit and rewrite that likeness if you find yourself not liking what you're becoming. You can have a vision of what you want to become but that is your vision and your choice and that can change as well. The point is whatever you chose to become, be fully committed and devoted to it. <br />
<br />
<h3>
Finding The Right Metric</h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"<i>I realized that, constrained by the capacities of our minds, we cannot always see the big picture.... We need to aggregate to help us see the big picture. This is far from an accurate way to measure things, but this is the best that we can do.</i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"<i>Because of this implicit need for aggregation, we develop a sense of hierarchy: people who preside over more people are more important than people who are leaders of fewer people. A CEO is more important than a general manager of a business unit; that general manager is more important than the director of sales; and so on.</i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"<i>Now let me explain in religious terms: I realized that God, in contrast to us, does not need the tools of statisticians or accountants. So far as I know, He has no organization charts, individual person in order to comprehend completely what is going on among humankind</i>.<i> His only measure of achievement is the individual.</i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"<i>Somehow, after all of this, I came to understand that while many of us might default to measuring our lives by summary statistics, such as number of people presided over, number of awards, or dollars accumulated in a bank, and so on, the only metrics that will truly matter to my life are the individuals whom I have been able to help, one by one, to become better people. When I have my interview with God, our conversation will focus on the individuals whose self-esteem I was able to strengthen, whose faith I was able to reinforce, and whose discomfort I was able to assuage - a doer of good, regardless of what assignment I had. These are the metrics that matter in measuring my life.</i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"<i>This realization, which occurred nearly fifteen years ago, guided me every day to seek opportunities to help people in ways tailored to their individual circumstances. My happiness and my sense of worth has been immeasurably improved as a result.</i>"</blockquote>
Glenn Collettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323017977339707663noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526052317567640713.post-69374591343069711422015-11-01T17:13:00.002-08:002015-11-01T17:13:33.438-08:00Creative Cultures of Innovation<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><span style="font-family: Calibri Light;"><span style="font-size: large;">Introduction<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></b><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">One of the
biggest buzzwords in today’s business world is innovation. We hear how
different companies claim to be centers of innovation and are pushing the
limits of creativity. From a marketing perspective, it is a great way to sell
your company as having a culture that inspires and accepts new ways of
thinking. Ed Catmull, CEO of Pixar, is quoted in saying, “Managers scour books
and magazines looking for greater understanding but settle instead for adopting
a new terminology, thinking that using fresh words will bring them closer to
their goals… To ensure quality, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">excellence</i>
must be an <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">earned</i> word, attributed by
others to us, not proclaimed by us about ourselves.</span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span style="font-family: Calibri;">”
Pixar is a recognized leader in creating widely admired stories with both
inventive plotlines and emotional authenticity. IDEO is another award-winning
firm that focuses on human-centered design to help organizations innovate and
grow. In a case study comparing these companies, we will discuss leadership
approaches that support a creative culture, benefits of project limits,
appropriate team dynamics, value of experimentation, and a strong mission focus.</span><br />
<h1 style="margin: 12pt 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri Light;">Historical Theories<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></b></h1>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Over the last
few years the debate on whether or not lone inventors are the source of
breakthroughs has continued to evolve</span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span style="font-family: Calibri;">.
The idea generation process goes through three basic phases: variation,
selection, and retention. Data suggests that although individuals can’t
typically recognize the difference between good and bad ideas as well as
groups, a group that generates ideas together won’t produce as much variety.
Hybrid teams that start as individuals and then come together for the last two
phases have better average quality of ideas, quantity of ideas, and variance of
ideas</span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span style="font-family: Calibri;">.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Team dynamics
also play a factor with the greater the diversity in a team, the more creative
the results. Varied backgrounds of individuals will increase the collective
knowledge of the group and allow for connections to be made across divisions of
individual expertise. One theory is that ideas and knowledge exist because of
the individuals whom make the necessary mental connections</span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span style="font-family: Calibri;">.
Resulting from this hypothesis, the importance of individual talent is key to
an organization’s success. One study suggested that approximately 5% of all the
employees in an organization create more than 50% of all the new ideas for a
firm</span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span style="font-family: Calibri;">.
In fact, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">who </i>is leaving or joining
the firm determines the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">culture</i> which
attracts, selects, and causes other people to remain in the firm</span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span style="font-family: Calibri;">.
The key takeaway is that talent is the most important asset or resource a firm
can acquire and cultivate.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri Light;">Leadership
and Culture<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">One
traditional framework for leadership in a business is where the company
hierarchy establishes a vision for the future plans and growth of the
organization and then works to inspire others to execute that plan. Creative
leadership is fundamentally different. Following Disney Animation’s purchase of
Pixar, one of the managers came to Ed Catmull with a two-year plan that laid
out exactly how she was going to manage her department moving forward. He
responded by telling her she had narrowed her thinking and that chances were
that they would end up somewhere other than where she had planned (see below).</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-91KyQFPiCX0/Vja4p6649gI/AAAAAAAABcg/2VjncPx80z4/s1600/Pixar_Innovation_Plan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-91KyQFPiCX0/Vja4p6649gI/AAAAAAAABcg/2VjncPx80z4/s320/Pixar_Innovation_Plan.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span>“Instead of
setting forth a ‘perfect’ route to achieving future goals (and sticking to it
unwaveringly), I wanted [managers] to be open to readjusting along the way, to
remaining flexible, to accepting that we would be making it up as we go.<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->”
Leaders have to create space or an environment for innovation, a place where
people want to belong and interact. This environment is both a spatial and
social atmosphere where experimentation is common. Leaders need to be aggregators
of conflicting viewpoints who empower the voices of all their employees. It is
better to be fuzzy and vague at the top than giving answers and solutions. You
want to be able to encourage ideas from those within your organization that
interact with the customer and have an environment where those ideas are tested
with candid feedback from your entire team. In my conversation with Ed Catmull,
he said, “Hierarchy is there but communication is separate.” Teams are created
for problem-solving. The feedback they receive is to communicate ideas and
identify problems but decisions come from within the team. Management’s role is
to help build teams, find talent, help teams fulfill their role and help others
see conflict as healthy.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri Light;">Benefits of Project Limits</span></span></span></b></span><br />
<a href="http://static1.squarespace.com/static/50d9dbe3e4b0a05702a24c37/t/5101fbbce4b0ef23f0db8c0b/1359084477263/IDEO_DesirabilityViabilityFeasibility.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="http://static1.squarespace.com/static/50d9dbe3e4b0a05702a24c37/t/5101fbbce4b0ef23f0db8c0b/1359084477263/IDEO_DesirabilityViabilityFeasibility.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span>There are many ways
that conflict is healthy for a creative culture. Unless a company is willing to
attempt to do something that might fail, they aren’t pushing themselves enough.
Fail early and fail often. By encouraging risk and pushing the limits, people
are forced to improvise and create unexpected solutions for unexpected
problems. IDEO and Pixar both empower their employees to act and solve their
own problems as they find them. When Pixar and Disney combined, Ed Catmull and
John Lasseter decided that Disney needed to create its own culture and they
would not share resources between the two studios. Limits forced groups to find
creative solutions when time was short or they were having issues rendering a
particular effect for a film. Limits imply that you can’t do everything you
want so you must think of smarter ways to work and think. Balance is inherently
required when working within constraints.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://static1.squarespace.com/static/50d9dbe3e4b0a05702a24c37/t/5101fbbce4b0ef23f0db8c0b/1359084477263/IDEO_DesirabilityViabilityFeasibility.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://static1.squarespace.com/static/50d9dbe3e4b0a05702a24c37/t/5101fbbce4b0ef23f0db8c0b/1359084477263/IDEO_DesirabilityViabilityFeasibility.png" height="190" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">IDEO specifically begins their design process by evaluating ideas with three overlapping
constraints in mind: </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; text-align: center;">feasibility (what is functionally possible within the
foreseeable future); </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; text-align: center;">viability (what is likely to become part of a sustainable
business model); and desirability (what makes sense to people and for people)</span><span style="font-family: Calibri; text-align: center;">. </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; text-align: center;">Design thinkers will work to bring these constraints into balance; however, not
all constraints are created equal. Some projects are driven by technology,
budget, or a mix of different human factors. An organization may focus on one
factor or another. There isn’t a linear approach to balancing constraints but
all of them should be considered during the life of a project.</span><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Most companies will
start with the constraint of what will fit within the framework of the existing
business model. Because business systems are designed for efficiency, new ideas
will tend to be incremental, predictable, and all too easy for the competition
to emulate…. A second approach is the one commonly taken by engineering-driven
companies looking for a technological breakthrough. In this scenario teams of
researchers will discover a new way of doing something and only afterward will
they think about how the technology might fit into an existing business system
and create value…. Relatively few technical innovations bring an immediate
economic benefit that will justify the investments of time and resources they
require.<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->”<o:p></o:p></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span>IDEO has found
that innovation comes from balancing these constraints through human-centered
design. Focusing on one element of the triad may undermine the sustainability
of the overall program.
</span><br />
<h1 style="margin: 12pt 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri Light;">Team Dynamics<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></b></span></h1>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span>A common best
practice is to hire smarter talented people to be the source of creativity.
Pixar expands this belief by saying “Give a good idea to a mediocre team and
they will screw it up. Give a mediocre idea to a great team and they’ll either
fix it or come up with something even better.<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->”
The secret, mentioned before when discussing leadership, is to focus on having
the right chemistry with the right team than having the right idea. Teams focus
on collective genius and not individual breakthroughs in an additive, evolving,
and collaborative process. IDEO describes their smart teams as a team of teams.
Each team member has strengths in two dimensions – a tangible and valuable expertise
that is hard to acquire and the disposition for collaboration across
disciplines. A smart team is an interdisciplinary team where “there is a
collective ownership of ideas and everybody takes responsibility for them.<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->”
Pixar also subscribes to the value of cross-functional learning and
collaboration. At Pixar, employees have classroom experiences and interactions
where everyone can learn more about other roles in the company. These new
situations taught them to be more comfortable making mistakes and to see new
ways in which they could improve and change their processes they were teaching
to each other.<o:p></o:p><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><br />
The greatest
learning opportunities at Pixar happen at Braintrust meetings. The sole purpose
of Braintrust meetings is to focus on problem-solving with the film currently
in development and not some personal agenda. Arguments, even heated ones, are
always about the project. The film is under the microscope and not the director
and his team. Everyone involved is seen as a peer and are encouraged to voice
their opinions candidly. They talk about what is working and what isn’t. They
make suggestions, provide feedback, and continue to rework and rework a
character until the iterative process finally helps it find its soul. The one
thing that the Braintrust does not have is the authority to make final decisions
on the story. The director of the film always determines the path moving
forward and does not have to follow any suggestions that are given in the
meeting, regardless of who made them. Although the Braintrust is made up of individuals
who are expert storytellers and have been through the process themselves, Pixar
believes that any solution presented won’t be as good as the one the director and
his or her creative team can come up with. It is this environment of candor and
trust and a focus on ensuring that all voices are given equal weight that make
Braintrust meetings what they are.<o:p></o:p><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><br />
IDEO uses Post-it
notes to measure the weight and value of an idea with what they call the
“butterfly test.” After lots of research and observation and numerous
brainstorming and prototyping sessions, a whole wall is covered with promising
ideas. Then each participant is given a small stack of Post-it “ballots” to
attach to ideas that they think should move forward. Not long after everyone
has gone fluttering around the room, it is clear which ideas have attracted the
most “butterflies.” Then begins a debate and a consensus is eventually reached.
“The process is not about</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">democracy, it is about maximizing the capacities of
teams to converge on the best solutions.<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->”
Certain approaches are important for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">making
</i>choices, but good brainstorming sessions <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">create</i> choices and is the route to innovation.</span><br />
<a href="http://www.peterjthomson.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/IDEO_Diverge_Converge_Process.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://www.peterjthomson.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/IDEO_Diverge_Converge_Process.jpg" height="228" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><br />
“At IDEO we have dedicated rooms for our
brainstorming sessions, and the rules are literally written on the walls: Defer
judgment. Encourage wild ideas. Stay focused on the topic. The most important
of them, I would argue is ‘Build on the ideas of others.’… It ensures that every
participant is invested in the last idea put forward and has the chance to move
it along.<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->”
Design-thinking is a balance between the divergent and convergent process as
well as the analytical and synthetic processes.<o:p></o:p><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><br />
Converging is to
drive toward a solution, while diverging is to multiply options to create
choices. When we analyze complex problems, we break them apart to understand
them better. The creative process of synthesis extracts and identifies
meaningful patterns from the data. It helps create the narrative or the story
which drives the project. “People have to believe that it is within their power
(or at least the power of their team) to create new ideas, that will serve
unmet needs, and that will have a positive impact.<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->”
This confidence is built on trust and trust flows both ways. IDEO builds trust
between their designers and their clients by sharing the creative experience.
Their team of experts sometimes consists of a small “unfocus” group of
eight-to-ten-year-olds, depending on who the end customers are. The purpose is
always human-centered design.
</span><br />
<h1 style="margin: 12pt 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri Light;">Experimentation<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></b></span></h1>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span>Designing for innovation
moves through stages of inspiration, ideation, and implementation. With IDEO’s
strong belief of thinking with their hands, design thinkers can test and refine
a portfolio of ideas through series of experiments, not pilots. Testing how
something looks through visualizing it in a picture, role-playing a scenario,
or a prototype forces a designer to make immediate decisions on how a customer
will interact with a service or use a product. The different stages of
innovation can be observed as these experiments become more polished and
refined. During the early stages, prototypes are quick, dirty, and cheap, with
many being made in parallel with one another. The greater the investment in an
idea, the more committed one becomes to it. As the process progresses, each
iteration decreases in quantity and increases in quality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>IDEO designs for the entire customer
experience, which they call the 4<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup> dimension. By mapping out the
sequence of the overall customer journey, they identify key emotional touchpoints,
turn them into opportunities and build upon them, in sequential order, across
time. They can then test if the central narrative of their designed experience
is meeting the needs of the customer in a powerful way.<o:p></o:p><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><br />
One of the key
things they do during ideation is observation. They literally put themselves in
the place of the end user. When designing for emergency rooms, they literally feign
an injury, call an ambulance, and go through all the steps a patient will, so
that they can notice all the details and feelings a patient would. Then they
observe analogous situations like a driver going to a pit crew or weary
traveler checking into a hotel. They want the higher level of acuity when
nothing is familiar because nothing is routine. They want to know what to do
and what not to do. They want to understand what to say and what not to say.
They are going on what Pixar calls “research trips.” They are looking for authenticity
in their storytelling.<o:p></o:p><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><br />
The first
guiding principles of Pixar was “Story is King.” This meant that nothing gets
in the way of the story and how it makes people feel. Whether it was a
Braintrust meeting or a Daily, the Pixar differentiator is that this mantra isn’t
just said but it is believed and acted on as the main focus of every
storyboarding process. Dailies make directors present incomplete work to their
colleagues to get constructive midstream feedback. It is in essence the Pixar
prototype. Another experimental arena to test a team’s ability is through
shorts. They consider shorts – three- to six-minute films that begin a feature
film – to be a justified expense as R&D where they improve technically,
like rendering clothes on human characters. Pixar and IDEO excel because they
experiment and with each iteration, improve with each success and each mistake.
</span><br />
<h1 style="margin: 12pt 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri Light;">Strong
Mission Focus<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></b></span></h1>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span>Pixar and IDEO
both focus on really the same thing – quality of the human experience. Pixar is
the master of storytelling. The reason they are such experts is because they
value learning and quality. At the end of every movie, they hold a meeting
called a postmortem where they explore what didn’t work and attempt to
consolidate what they learned. “Everyone was so engaged in rethinking the way
we did things, so open to challenging long-held ideas and learning from the
errors we made. No one was defensive.” They not only were proud of sharing what
they had accomplished and teaching others who weren’t a part of the film, but they
had to reflect and prepare for the discussion. They are able to prepare for
future films and future problems because they are already asking the right
kinds of questions.</span><br />
<div>
<table style="text-align: center; width: 100%;">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/articles/arts/culturebox/2013/06/130628_kidsPixarRatings.jpg.CROP.original-original.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/articles/arts/culturebox/2013/06/130628_kidsPixarRatings.jpg.CROP.original-original.jpg" height="188" width="250" /></a></div>
</td>
<td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/articles/arts/culturebox/2013/06/130628_criticsPixarRatings.jpg.CROP.original-original.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/articles/arts/culturebox/2013/06/130628_criticsPixarRatings.jpg.CROP.original-original.jpg" height="188" width="250" /></a></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><span style="font-size: x-small;">Year of Release</span></td>
<td><span style="font-size: x-small;">Year of Release</span></td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">One of the key
problems that Pixar was able to identify early was how success could affect
their culture. This is where the concepts of “Feed the Beast” and “Ugly Babies”
come from. The first concept is one where success leads to a demand for more
success and a need for increased output and speed. The second idea describes
how new ideas may be ungainly and poorly defined but are the opposite of
established and entrenched ideas. New ideas take time to cultivate and rework
until they become something truly amazing. They didn’t want schedule to drive their
output, but the strength of the ideas at the front end. There is a balance to
obtain that kind of quality storytelling between these two inherent forces.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">
<br />
IDEAO, as mentioned before, tries to understand feelings and experiences so the products and services they create meet latent needs and emotions. The mission of IDEO is to center all design on people. To measure the balance of their innovation efforts, they created the "ways to Grow" matrix.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><a href="https://lica420.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/naver_com_20101024_075717.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://lica420.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/naver_com_20101024_075717.jpg" width="320" /></a> </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Like Pixar, IDEO believes that repeating old plans will create incremental innovation through extending a successful brand or the next iteration of a current product. Evolutionary products come by "<em>extending</em> existing offerings to solve the unmet needs of current customers or <em>adapting</em> them to meet the needs of new customers or markets." These needs and markets are found in the tails of </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">the normal bell curve of a company's market research. The outlying populations can teach us new things abut creativity from their passion, their knowledge, or simply the extremity of their circumstances. This leads to revolutionary innovation where you are </span><em style="font-family: Calibri;">creating</em><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> new markets. IDEO's philosophy is that "a company's best defense is to diversify its portfolio by investing across all four quadrants of the innovation matrix."</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span><br />
<h1 style="margin: 12pt 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri Light;">Conclusion<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></b></span></span></h1>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">
</span>Although Pixar and IDEO come from very different industries, they are examples that you can't have "too much" talent in terms of creativity and innovation if it's part of the company culture. Innovation is messy and there needs to be a space and an environment where conflicting viewpoints can be shared and ideas built. Interdisciplinary teams need candid communication and focused on problem-solving. Innovation is a process with mistakes and because it is new, but there is also trust that the teams involved will be successful in finding solutions for those problems. Innovation requires a balance of the limits and pressures from success. Lastly, any product requires a process or service for it to be used and that user experience should be designed (as the quality product or service itself) with the needs and emotions of the customer in mind. Creativity and innovation are not talents only for the select few but they are results from skills we can all develop and contribute, in the right environment and as part of the right kind of team.</span></div>
Glenn Collettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323017977339707663noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526052317567640713.post-86150501721442373272015-10-02T20:41:00.001-07:002015-10-02T20:44:08.845-07:00The AdvocateI like taking personality tests. Some I have found to be more accurate than others. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is one that is more on the less accurate side because your results can change. In fact, they can change frequently. Still, I took it recently because I wanted to get a better gauge at where I am at emotionally and mentally. I figured I could use a small snapshot. There are 16 different combinations from 4 pairs of traits. There is introversion (I) or extraversion (E), intuition (N) or sensing (S), thinking (T) or feeling (F), and judging (J) or perceiving (P). My result was as follows:<br />
<br />
<h4>
INFJ Personality</h4>
<br />
The INFJ personality type is very rare, making up less than 1% of the population, but they nonetheless leave their mark on the world. As Diplomats (NF), they have an inborn sense of idealism and morality, but what sets them apart is the accompanying Judging trait - INFJs are not idle dreamers, but people capable of taking concrete steps to realize their goals and make a lasting positive impact.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>INFJs tend to see helping others as their purpose in life, but while people with this personality type can be found engaging rescue efforts and doing charity work, their real passion is to get to the heart of the issue so that people need not be rescued at all.</i></blockquote>
<br />
<h4>
Help Me Help You</h4>
<br />
INFJs indeed share a very unique combination of traits: thought soft-spoken, they have very strong opinions and will fight tirelessly for an idea they believe in. They are decisive and strong-willed, but will rarely use that energy for personal gain - INFJs will act with creativity, imagination, conviction and sensitivity not to create advantage, but to create balance. Egalitarianism and karma are very attractive ideas to INFJs, and they tend to believe that nothing would help the world so much as using love and compassion to soften the hearts of tyrants.<br />
<br />
INFJs find it easy to make connections with others, and have a talent for warm, sensitive language, speaking in human terms, rather than with pure logic and fact. It makes sense that their friends and colleagues will come to think of them as quiet Extroverted types, but they would all do well to remember that INFJs need time alone to decompress and recharge, and to not become too alarmed when they suddenly withdraw. INFJs take great care of other's feelings, and they expect the favor to be returned - sometimes that means giving them the space they need for a few days.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Live to Fight Another Day</h4>
<br />
Really though, it is most important for INFJs to remember to take care of themselves. The passion of their convictions is perfectly capable of carrying them past their breaking point and if their zeal gets out of hand, they can find themselves exhausted, unhealthy and stressed. This becomes especially apparent when INFJs find themselves up against conflict and criticism - their sensitivity forces them to do everything they can to evade these seemingly personal attacks, but when the circumstances are unavoidable, they can fight back in highly irrational, unhelpful ways.<br />
<br />
To INFJs, the world is a place full of inequity - but it doesn't have to be. No other personality type is better suited to create a movement to right a wrong, no matter how big or small. INFJs just need to remember that while they're busy taking care of the world, they need to take care of themselves, too.<br />
<br />
<h4>
INFJ Strengths</h4>
<br />
<ul>
<li><b>Creative - </b>Combining a vivid imagination with a strong sense of compassion, INFJs use their creativity to resolve not technical challenges, but human ones. People with the INFJ personality type enjoy finding the perfect solution for someone they care about, and this strength makes them excellent counselors and advisors.</li>
<li><b>Insightful - </b>Seeing through dishonesty and disingenuous motives, INFJs step past manipulation and sales tactics and into a more honest discussion. INFJs see how people and events are connected, and are able to use that insight to get to the heart of the matter.</li>
<li><b>Inspiring and Convincing - </b>Speaking in human terms, not technical, INFJs have a fluid, inspirational writing style that appeals to the inner idealist in their audience. INFJs can even be astonishingly good orators, speaking with warmth and passion, if they are proud of what they are speaking for.</li>
<li><b>Decisive - </b>Their creativity, insight and inspiration are able to have a real impact on the world, as INFJs are able to follow through on their ideas with conviction, willpower, and the planning necessary to see complex projects through to the end. INFJs don't just see the way things out to be, they act on those insights.</li>
<li><b>Determined and Passionate - </b>When INFJs come to believe that something is important, they pursue that goal with a conviction and energy that can catch even their friends and loved ones off guard. INFJs will rock the boat if they have to, something not everyone likes to see, but their passion for their chosen cause is an inseparable part of their personality.</li>
<li><b>Altruistic - </b>These strengths are used for good. INFJs have strong beliefs and take the actions that they do not because they are trying to advance themselves, but because they are trying to advance an idea that they truly believe will make the world a better place.</li>
</ul>
<h4>
INFJ Weaknesses</h4>
<div>
<ul>
<li><b>Sensitive - </b>When someone challenges or criticizes INFJs' principles or values, they are likely to receive an alarmingly strong response. People with the INFJ personality type are highly vulnerable to criticism and conflict, and questioning their motives is the quickest way to their bad side.</li>
<li><b>Extremely Private - </b>INFJs tend to present themselves as the culmination of an idea. This is partly because they believe in this idea, but also because INFJs are extremely private when it comes to their personal lives, using this image to keep themselves from having to truly open up, even to close friends. Trusting a new friend can be even more challenging for INFJs.</li>
<li><b>Perfectionistic - </b>INFJs are all but defined by their pursuit of ideals. While this is a wonderful quality in many ways, an ideal situation is not always possible - in politics, in business, in romance - and INFJs too often drop or ignore healthy and productive situations and relationship, always believing there might be a better option down the road.</li>
<li><b>Always Need to Have a Cause - </b>INFJs get so caught up in the passion of their pursuits that any of the cumbersome administrative or maintenance work that comes between them and the ideal they see on the horizon is deeply unwelcome. INFJs like to know that they are taking concrete steps towards their goals, and if routine tasks feel like they are getting in the way, or worse yet, there is no goal at all, they will feel restless and disappointed.</li>
<li><b>Can Burn Out Easily - </b>Their passion, poor patience for routine maintenance, tendency to present themselves as an ideal, and extreme privacy tend to leave INFJs with few options for letting off steam. People with this personality type are likely to exhaust themselves in short order if they don't find a way to balance their ideals with the realities of day-to-day living.</li>
</ul>
<br />
<h4>
INFJ Relationships</h4>
</div>
<div>
<br />
When it comes to romantic relationships, INFJs take the process of finding a partner seriously. Not ones for casual encounters, people with the INFJ personality type instead look for depth and meaning in their relationships. INFJs will take the time necessary to find someone they truly connect with - once they've found that someone, their relationships will reach a level of depth and sincerity that most people can only dream of.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Getting to that point can be a challenge for potential partners, especially if they are the impatient type, as INFJs are often perfectionistic and picky. People with this personality type aren't easily talked into something they don't want, and if someone doesn't pick up on that, it's a trespass that is unlikely to be forgiven, particularly in the early stages of dating. Even worse is if a suitor tries to resort to manipulation or lying, as INFJs will see right through it, and if there's anything they have a poor tolerance for in a relationship, it is inauthenticity.<br />
<br /></div>
<h4>
Is This for Real?</h4>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>One of the things INFJs find most important is establishing genuine, deep connections with the people they care about.</i></blockquote>
<div>
INFJs will go out of their way to seek out people who share their desire for authenticity, and out of their way to avoid those who don't, especially when looking for a partner. All that being said, INFJs often have the advantage of desirability - they are warm, friendly, caring and insightful, seeing past facades and the obvious to understand others' thoughts and emotions.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
INFJs are enthusiastic in their relationships, and there is a sense of wisdom behind their spontaneity, allowing them to pleasantly surprise their partners again and again. INFJs aren't afraid to show their love, and they feel it unconditionally, creating a depth to the relationship that can hardly be described in conventional terms. Relationships with INFJs are not for the uncommitted or the shallow.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
When it comes to intimacy, INFJs look for a connection that goes beyond the physical, embracing the emotional and even spiritual connection they have with their partner. People with the INFJ personality type are passionate partners, and see intimacy as a way to express their love and to make their partners happy. INFJs cherish not just the act of being in a relationship, but what it means to become one with another person, in mind, body and soul.<br />
<br /></div>
<h4>
INFJ Friends</h4>
<div>
<br />
There is a running theme with INFJs, and that is a yearning for authenticity and sincerity - in their activities, their romantic relationships, and their friendships. People with the INFJ personality type are unlikely to go for friendships of circumstance, like workplace social circles or chatting up their local baristas, where the only thing they really have in common is a day-to-day familiarity. Rather, INFJs seek out people who share their passions, interests and ideologies, people with whom they can explore philosophies and subjects that they believe are truly meaningful.<br />
<br /></div>
<h4>
Closed Book and Speed Reader</h4>
<div>
<br />
From the start, it can be a challenge to get to know INFJs, as they are very private, even enigmatic. INFJs don't readily share their thoughts and feelings, not unless they are comfortable, and since those thoughts and feelings are the basis for INFJ friendships, it can take time and persistence to get to know them. Meanwhile, INFJs are very insightful and have a particular knack for seeing beyond others' facades, interpreting intent and compatibility quickly and easily, and weeding out those who don't share the depth of their idealism.</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>In friendship it is as though INFJs are searching for a soul mate, someone who shares every facet of their passions and imagination.</i></blockquote>
<div>
INFJs are often perfectionistic, looking for ultimate compatibility, and yet also look for someone with whom they can grow and improve in tandem. Needless to say, this is a tall order, and INFJs should try to remember that they are a particularly rare personality type, and even if they find someone compatible in that sense, the odds that they will also share every interest are slim. If they don't learn to meet others halfway and recognize that the kind of self-improvement and depth they demand is simply exhausting for many types, INFJs are likely end up abandoning healthy friendships in their infancy, in search of more perfect compatibilities.<br />
<br /></div>
<h4>
Like Finding a Needle in a Haystack</h4>
<div>
<br />
Further complicating things are INFJs' eloquence and persuasiveness, which lead to a lot of (unwanted) attention and popularity. Their quiet, determined idealism and imaginative expression naturally draw influence, and if there's anything INFJs avoid, it's the accumulation of power over others - and the people who are drawn to that type of power. INFJs will find themselves more sought after than they'd ever care to be, making it even more difficult for them to find someone they truly have an affinity with. Really the only way to be counted among INFJs' true friends is to be authentic, and to have that authenticity naturally reflect their own.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Once a common thread is found though, people with the INFJ personality type make loyal and supportive companions, encouraging growth and life-enriching experiences with warmth, excitement and care. As trust grows, INFJs will share more of what lies beneath the surface, and if those ideas and motives are mutual, it's the sort of friendship that will transcend time and distance, lasting a lifetime. INFJs don't require a great deal of day-to-day attention - for them, quality trumps quantity every time, and over the years they will likely end up with just a few true friendships, built on a richness of mutual understandings that forges an indelible link between them.</div>
Glenn Collettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323017977339707663noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526052317567640713.post-68021427754887496452015-10-01T19:58:00.001-07:002015-10-01T20:02:21.774-07:00What Makes Me Different?My parents have been doing there best to give me a strong kick in the butt to help me be happier. I think all it is doing is making us both sore and annoyed at each other to be honest but I do appreciate the effort at the same time. And since it seems to be the continual center of any kind of discussion, I feel like I have no choice but to think about it since it is being placed at the forefront of my mind: What makes me happy? And more specifically, what can I do myself to be happier?<br />
<br />
I hate this conversation so as a starter, stop talking about it.<br />
<br />
Most of the things that come to mind aren't even things that truly make ME happier. They are things that would make OTHERS happier. Over the last few weeks/months, I have had a few health scares so I know I need to work on my diabetes. If you aren't diabetic but have the potential to become so, change your lifestyle and eating habits now. Diabetes can be summed up in the first syllable... Die. It is terrible. So get your act together and avoid it all costs, all you Type 2's out there! So I know I need to work on that. I have been testing a lot more but I need to set some appointments with doctors (LOATHE) so I can get my prescriptions in.<br />
<br />
The next thing I need to do is start going to the gym. I have never in my entire life have held a gym membership. I never wanted one. I avoid them. I don't feel that I <i>need </i>it. I know I am not as fit as I used to be. I know that I am clearly not as active as I want to be. I even set up my desk at work to be a standing desk to avoid sitting all day long when I am on the phones. The question is how have I avoided it for so long? Even with going to 7 years of college, I looked to be active wherever I lived. I had friends that I could play pick up soccer matches, ultimate frisbee, bubble soccer, volleyball, rock climbing, etc. If I needed to think or get away from people I would go for a run.<br />
<br />
I don't have those types of friendships right now. I was hired after the work leagues had finished their sign ups for the year. So any exercise I have to do now, I have to do independently and I have to organize and do by myself. It is not something I am super excited about or look forward to because partially, I don't want to go to the gym and it is a reminder that all of my friends I used to do that stuff with no longer live anywhere near me. Still, at my heart I am an active person even though lately I haven't had the desire to do much.<br />
<br />
The next thing I have on my "To-Do List" is reading and writing a novel. I have so much more time after work when I can read for my own enjoyment. I also can start working on my novel that I have outlined and think about in my spare time. It will be a good exercise to legitimately start putting pen to paper so to speak and start moving forward on the process. This is one of the things I actually want to do for me however, you need to feel inspired to really have exceptional writing. Writing for the sake of writing does not always produce anything of value but at least it helps the project progress.<br />
<br />
Things that also make me happy include:<br />
<br />
<table style="width: 100%;">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><ul>
<li>Kayaking</li>
<li>Snowshoeing</li>
<li>Going to the movies</li>
<li>Going for walks</li>
<li>Traveling</li>
<li>Golfing</li>
<li>Geocaching</li>
<li>Going out to dinner</li>
</ul>
</td>
<td><ul>
<li>Visiting friends</li>
<li>Rock Climbing</li>
<li>Racquetball</li>
<li>Games</li>
<li>Soccer Matches</li>
<li>Ultimate Frisbee</li>
<li>Hanging out with friends</li>
<li>Dating</li>
</ul>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: center;">
"I didn't lose you, you lost me. You'll search for me inside of everyone you're with and I won't be found."</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Typically in a breakup you will go into some sort of routine. I grow a beard for a while and my hair grows out. I watch old TV shows that make me laugh. Eventually I find myself again but this time I need to work on improving myself. I don't want to simply go back to who I was. I want to learn from this. I want to be better. Unfortunately like anything else in life, it won't be easy but it will be worth it. I have to be ready for the long haul again.</div>
Glenn Collettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323017977339707663noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526052317567640713.post-34468611944866626052015-09-28T09:22:00.000-07:002015-09-28T09:22:25.077-07:00Distance isn't a Killer... It's a MeasurementDistance truly is a killer. Distance in any relationship makes things difficult. My failed engagement ended partially because of long-distance. I have friendships fade because of long-distance. People look at me as no longer caring or becoming too selfish. Some relationships can't even begin because of long-distance. It is one thing to be a state away but it is another thing to be a country or a continent. There are simply fewer things you can do or share in those situations. It simply makes things more difficult. So why do I go so far as to say that it is a killer? Guns and bullets don't kill people but people do. So does distance truly end my relationships or is it something else?<br />
<br />
I think distance is an excuse. If people wanted to be there, they would be. If people saw the value in making things work, they would. Maybe we expect it to fail and so we stop trying. There are a lot of variables and reasons why things can and will get messy but all relationships have that. Relationships are complicated in their very nature. You are dealing with emotions, varying perspectives and schedules, and so many other things that it is practically a miracle that they even work. And if they fail, they do so in relation to the effort put into them.<br />
<br />
Currently, I live a hour away from my friends in my Ward. It takes two hours to spend any time with any of them and that's if traffic is good. It makes FHE hard. It makes Institute hard. It makes church hard. It doesn't make it impossible. So that leaves the real question of whether or not it is truly worth it. Do I ever personally get invited to things or activities? Do I feel personally accepted in my Ward? Do I feel like there are people that actually care? Is there a feeling of brotherhood? The answer to all of these questions is no. Is it their personal responsibility? That is also a no but I have tried. I have asked people on dates. I have gotten to know people's names and interests. I have made it known many times that I don't get emails or I don't have the items I need to fulfill my calling. I make due and I get by.<br />
<br />
I feel like the main reason is a cliche: Out of sight and out of mind. Living far away, people don't think of me and since I put on a strong persona, people don't realize how hard it is to keep coming when you feel like no one would even notice or blame you if you stopped coming. I reach out to my friends to find out what they have been up to and they talk about all these activities they have gone to or been invited to. I ask if they will invite me in the future. Nothing changes. I am on the outside looking in and it is with a group that I expected I would be accepted by or belong to.<br />
<br />
Maybe one of my friends was right and all I see or want to see is drama. Could I keep banging my head against the wall and see if anything changes? Sure - I can keep trying. But I can't see a different way to approach it and so I struggle to expect anything other than the same results. Physically moving closer to the Ward is something I financially cannot do, especially with my work hours changing in 3 weeks. I feel like the lack of success I had courting this last girl is analogous with the success I am having courting this Ward: Used, abused, and easily forgotten. Distance isn't the killer. It is simply a good measurement of your perceived worth by others. I simply have to continue to remind myself it isn't an actual measure of my real self-worth and look for new ways to share my talents and then maybe my perceived worth will go up.Glenn Collettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323017977339707663noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526052317567640713.post-76071519781463485692015-09-22T18:30:00.000-07:002015-09-22T18:30:56.464-07:00Burning BridgesAll I know over the last few weeks is I haven't felt this tapped out and exhausted in every possible way in a very long time. Physically, I am sick, tired, and sore. Mentally, I feel slow. Emotionally, there isn't a better word to use than drained. I am literally at the end of my rope and I feel like I am hanging. I simply can't figure out sometimes if the rope is what I am hanging onto or if it is a noose around my neck.<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I was nervous and had mixed feelings moving back home. I didn't like the phrase that seemed to always come to mind that this was my "failure to launch." I felt at times that my MBA was basically a failure. I failed to find a way to use my natural gifts and abilities in a career that I could be proud of or that was emotionally and mentally engaging. I struggled for weeks to find friends in my new Ward and when I did, they lived a hour away so it seemed unrealistic to actually spend time with them on a regular basis. These are only a few of the sad truths that I would find myself saying when I wasn't fighting my very hardest to try and remain positive.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I knew that I needed to get a calling in my Ward to stay active and to continue to drive down to Boston for church every Sunday. The call came quickly and unfortunately it wasn't an easy one either. I would have to wake up even earlier for early morning church to be on time for bishopric meetings and PEC and Ward Council as the Ward clerk. But this again wouldn't be so hard if I felt like I actually fit in. I feel like a continual outsider so even when I did meet someone who I could actually relate to and enjoy spending time with, I wasn't inclined to want to do many group activities. Part of that is due to how I hate large group activities where there are lots of strangers. It makes me feel small and insecure. The other part is due to the fact that I struggle to find people I trust or that I would like to get to know.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So here I am on the edge of a Ward with what feels like one social tie to it and as I continue to spend time with her and get to know her, I find myself starting to have feelings for her. I do my best to be respectful and aware of her needs and pace but I always end up giving more than I get. Each time we have a moment where we are becoming closer, she pushes away. After a month or so of going down to see her multiple times a week to spend time with her and support her, I was tired of having to apologize for my feelings, watching her flirt with other guys, and making space for someone in my life who didn't take the time to let me know whether or not she even cared if I was there. The paradox is that the only thing I wanted to do was to make her smile and help her see how special she truly is. It's sad because the most common thing she says nowadays has changed from how much fun she had spending time with me to how all I do is add drama to her already stressful life.</div>
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So when it finally came down to it and I began to tell her some of my frustrations today expecting to talk things out, she blows up at me and leaves me standing there shocked, hurt, and alone. Add this to a week where I went into a diabetic coma, crashed my car I recently bought, and got trucked off to the hospital in an ambulance. Hours later I still feel used and confused, not knowing whether it is worth it any more to try and put out the metaphorical fire I see of the burning bridge between me and her or to just stand back and watch as I let it burn to the ground. How is it so easy for a single match to destroy something you put so much love, time, and effort into building? I think the answer lies within how much did each person personally invest and sacrifice to get things to that point. I was the one in the past that reached out to stop past fires from growing but I guess it's my turn now to stop and see how she chooses to react.</div>
Glenn Collettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323017977339707663noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526052317567640713.post-6943584521569947992015-09-14T15:43:00.001-07:002015-09-14T15:43:53.880-07:00Prayer and FaithIn church this last Sunday, the speakers were giving us talks about faith. Faith is not belief. Faith is acting on a belief. I have a testimony or a belief that God is real and that He listens and answers prayers. Faith is both making time and taking the time to nurture my personal relationship I have with both God the Eternal Father and His Son and my Savior, Jesus Christ. Faith is taking the time to pray and seek revelation. But it begs the question of how do we pray and what should we pray for?<br />
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One of the speakers used the following scriptures from Matthew 7:<br />
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<em>8 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.</em> </blockquote>
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<em>9 Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?</em> </blockquote>
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<em>10 Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?</em> </blockquote>
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<em>11 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?</em> </blockquote>
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<em>12 Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.</em></blockquote>
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So this made me think for a minute about the parents I had seen in my life. My brother and his wife have three amazing daughters but they are the pickiest eaters known to man. They will not eat certain things and others they have appetites like a bottomless pit. So if they asked for dessert, would I give it to them as a parent? In all cases, I would want to but in some cases, I wouldn't give it to them because perhaps they hadn't finished their dinner yet or we had dessert the night before. Sometimes they ask for cake and we give them salad or vegetables instead. Are we ignoring their "prayers?" Are we giving them a "stone" or a "serpent?" Am I punishing them?<br />
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Regardless of whether or not the things we pray for are righteous desires, God has a timetable. He has a plan. People have their agency and it makes tough to see or understand why things happen and sometimes the why is simply because it was result of a variety of choices various people made and nothing more. Bring it back to prayer, why does God sometimes gives us exactly what we ask for and sometimes he doesn't? It isn't because He didn't hear us.<br />
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It is because we didn't hear Him or weren't in tune with the Spirit when we prayed.<br />
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We weren't asking for the real blessings that He has in store for us and He wants so badly to give to us, but requires us to ask for them.<br />
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It's interesting in thinking about the parallels or similarities between our temporal or mortal relationships and the ones we have with God. There are people in my life that I care immensely about and I would be willing to do anything for but I can't help if they won't ask for it. And even if they ask, if they aren't specific in exactly what they want, that makes room for miscommunication and misinterpretations of intentions and often leads to mistakes. I feel like it isn't most people's intention to upset or hurt one another, but there are the few exceptions where people are only looking out for themselves or for their own personal gain or pleasure. I do my best to avoid those people at all costs.<br />
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<span id="goog_1531029517">It's hard to be honest and supportive and put yourself out there all the time but it is part of life and it is unavoidable. You have to be vulnerable and genuine and authentic at times. You should try to be loyal. There are going to be times when people make mistakes or have hard days and you need to be there to pick each other up. But if people can't sustain you or support you or being willing to work things out with you, it begs the question if it is still worth it. How hard is it to say I am sorry? I made a mistake. And yet, we let pride get in the way and we don't realize what we lost for the sake of our pride until it is already gone. I have done that before and I have promised myself that I wouldn't let it happen again. The hardest part for me is to draw the line on how many chances I am willing to give. When do we stop giving? How long should I be patient and continue to support and listen and be there for someone before it is time to simply let them know that although you care, you need to walk away? At what point has loyalty become stupidity and being used by other people?</span><br />
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Going back to the scriptural reference, I think the only thing we can really know is that God listens, He wants to bless us, and He will bless us in His time and in the way that will bless us the most... Even when those blessings come in a manner that we weren't asking for, like in the form of a trial. And if we do stop listening to Him, we have to earn back His trust when it comes to listening to and following the Spirit like we would when we build back trust in our temporal relationships. He never left us but we left Him. He isn't a genie granting our wishes. He is our Father in Heaven trying to help mold us and guide us as we grow and sometimes growth is painful.Glenn Collettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323017977339707663noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526052317567640713.post-90308584592583619882015-09-10T20:48:00.003-07:002015-09-11T08:21:53.987-07:00Lunch Breaks with TEDCurrently, I have been trying to find effective uses of my time while taking breaks at work. One of the things I like to do is read my scriptures on my phone and I recently started watching TED talks. There are certainly TED classics... Brene Brown talking about Vulnerability, Steve Jobs discussing how to live before we die, and Linda Hill and Ken Robinson speaking on creativity. Recently, I found a few more great thoughts that I will have to watch again and again to really comprehend and understand what they were talking about.<br />
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The first was the follow-up talk by Brene Brown about her research on shame. It made me ask a few questions: Why do we want to stay small? Why do we think vulnerability is a weakness? What are we afraid of people knowing about ourselves? Vulnerability is emotional risk and uncertainty. "It is our most accurate measurement of courage. To be vulnerable, to let ourselves be seen, to be honest.... Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity, and change."<br />
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We are driven by failure. It motivates us to keep going and to work through until we finally succeed. She recites a quote by Theodore Roosevolt called <a href="http://zenpencils.com/comic/theodore-roosevelt-the-man-in-the-arena/" target="_blank">"The Man In The Arena."</a> Fantastic quote... Shame is personal and is a focus on self. It is two statements: "Never good enough" and "Who do you think you are?" It is the difference between I <i>made </i>a mistake, which is guilt, and I <i>am </i>the mistake. The ability to feel and recognize guilt is difficult but healthy and adaptive. Women feel shame in trying to do everything and do it perfectly without people recognizing how hard you work. Men feel shame when they are perceived as being weak... Emotionally, physically, etc. Shame can't survive when we have someone that can say "Me too." Shame dies when someone can show us empathy.<br />
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<i>"You show me a woman who can actually sit with a man in real vulnerability and fear, I'll show you a woman who has done incredible work. You show me a man who can sit with a woman who has just had it, she can't do it all any more, and his first response is not 'I UNLOADED THE DISHWASHER!!' but he really listens (because that's all we need), I'll show you a guy who has done a lot of work."</i></blockquote>
The next talk was by Tony Robbins who I first heard of as a life coach when I visited Australia. He sounded like a fascinating individual and when I saw his TED talk online, I thought I should give it a listen and I am glad I did. He gave an interesting talk about personal drivers or motivators we have today, which are generally governed by our emotions or human needs.<br />
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Most people say we can't achieve our goals because we didn't have the resources we needed to succeed... knowledge, money, time, technology, management, etc. Robbins says that the true defining factor is RESOURCEFULNESS and not resources. Human emotion... He breaks down into creativity, passion, curiosity, determination, love, resolve, etc. What are we going to be emotional about right now at this time?<br />
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The 3 Decisions of Destiny revolve around 3 questions: What am I going to focus on? Focus creates meaning. What does it mean? Meaning creates emotion or causes us to act. What are you going to do? These decisions can shape our lives. Our model of the world shapes our perspective of how we see the world: Needs, Belief System, and Emotions. The 6 Human Needs are:<br />
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<li>Needs of the Personality</li>
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<li>(1) Certainty,</li>
<li>(2) Uncertainty/Variety, </li>
<li>(3) Significance,</li>
<li>(4) Connection/Love,</li>
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<li>Needs of the Spirit</li>
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<li>(5) Growth,</li>
<li>and (6) Contribute Beyond Ourselves</li>
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These needs are all weighted differently for every person and we all have different belief systems. This is why we have so many different people around us. Our perspectives change when we add meaning or emotion to things and this is even more true with those of us who have faced death. The best answer in his opinion is to give our all and serve someone else. Learn to appreciate other people.</div>
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These both led me to think a lot about a concept that I feel can be a great driver in many aspects of our lives which is personal accountability. What are you proud of? What are you responsible for? What is the impact that you leave? There is a company called Profiles of Leadership and they focus on how personal accountability can positively affect teams. I feel like if we can combine all these concepts of authenticity and vulnerability, resourcefulness and emotion, and lastly teamwork and accountability, we can become truly great. We can move people and change cultures and society. I will come back to this in the future but I feel like this a great foundation and it is easily connected or parallel to my personal spiritual beliefs as well, which is a great segway back to the beginning... Lunch breaks where I read my scriptures on my smartphone. Thanks TED!</div>
Glenn Collettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323017977339707663noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526052317567640713.post-68275092901157555662015-09-06T20:01:00.001-07:002015-09-07T04:25:42.553-07:00Patience... My Young PadawanThe title for this post is ridiculously nerdy and stupid but sadly enough it fits... I am frustrated right now. At 27 years old, I am learning how to date all over again. I like one of my friends in my ward. We go on dates and hang out a lot but this actually may be hindering me as much as it is helping me. She has a really tough job and we talk a fair bit so I want to see her and spend time with her partially because as her friend, I want to help her to be happy and selfishly, it makes me happy. I really like spending time with her! However, it can be too much at times or more accurately I can be.<br>
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She knows that I like her more than just friends and she knows that I am willing and want to see if we can move in that direction. So with that sitting in the back of her mind, she feels a lot of pressure to be at the same place as me but it takes her more time than me to naturally move from friends to deeper feelings, so in turn I feel the opposite pressure to be self-aware and slow down. The more time we spend together the harder that is for me and she feels subconsciously some guilt that she isn't there already too. It has been a month... Maybe even three weeks... I can't remember. The hardest part is I think I am slowing down when I'm really not and I don't even notice it. So instead of continuing to try and fail to figure out what is the right pace for her, I'm just going to give her the keys and let her drive for a bit until I can really understand where she's comfortable.<br>
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I want her to be happy and spending time together makes us both happy but for starters, when we spend time together I need to keep it lighthearted and not so deep. We need to do "friend" things and do more relaxed activities. I want her to feel comfortable and I want to be friends regardless of what happens so this is super hard for me to bury any feelings and thoughts that I might have for her. I have tried to turn that part of me off for years so I could go slower but it's never worked. I guess I am going to have to try a little harder this time. I like this girl and I feel like she is worth the wait however being patient is going to be super tough.<br>
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It is going to be hard to bury my feelings. It is going to be hard to not be jealous when she creates friendships and spends quality time with other guys. I'm really not okay with that but honestly, it is a great thing for her to make a bunch of friends, get her feet settled here, and really figure out if she wants to date me and if she has those feelings for me. I feel like I want to do the same but I don't want to push her away either so instead of dating around, I think I might just get a gym membership or something. And I hate gyms... (Sigh). Who knows? Maybe if I get my sexy on that might speed up the process. Hahaha... Seriously though, it is going to be hard to see her struggle with the difficulties of her job and not be able to support her because of the possibility of scaring her off or coming on too strong. She can be jealous if I spend time with other girls or feel scared or guilty because of where I am emotionally in comparison to her. It is going to take time and it is going to be hard but that IS natural. Relationships don't come easy and they take work and time.<br>
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<i>Christiana: She says that if you love her, you will not lose another match. She says that if you love her, you will win this tournament.</i></div>
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<i>Chaucer: There she is William. The embodiment of love. Your Venus.</i></div>
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<i>William: And how I hate her.</i></div>
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Regardless of how frustrated I feel, we both simply need to be more present. She has a lot of fear of commitment and I don't know if comes from not wanting to get hurt herself or hurting others in the future or it could be associated with some part of her past or a past relationship. My anxiety comes from the possibility of missing an opportunity or not being enough. If I could learn to just focus on the now at all times instead of only when I am with her then I wouldn't worry or think about things that are out of my control. I guess the only way to see what will happen is to keep trying and wait and see if anything changes. I really hope that it does...Glenn Collettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323017977339707663noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5526052317567640713.post-46722923325059537132015-08-24T19:13:00.002-07:002015-08-24T19:13:51.453-07:00Down the Rabbit HoleI have always thought that the phrase falling in love was funny. It made me think of different cartoons that I watched when I was kid where little hearts came out of someone's eyes and floated up like balloons or when Thumper gets twitter patted during the movie Bambi. I always thought it was kind of ridiculous and then it happened to some of my friends. I have one friend who lives in Arizona. Growing up he was the personification of machismo. He was recognized for his athleticism, super popular in school, and basically was a great kid on all fronts. He meets a girl during college and now the types of things he posts on Facebook about his wife would make a Hallmark card embarrassed and he does it all the time! He isn't the only one either! I have a long list of "whipped" friends who are so caught up in their relationships that at times it can almost make you gag. How did this happen?<br />
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Simply put, they fell down the rabbit hole. You find something or someone that peaks your curiosity and eventually as you continue to observe and watch and follow it, you suddenly find that you tripped and fell and there you are falling down into this world where nothing makes any sense. I can describe it this way because I feel like it has happened to me before and I am sure it will happen to me again. Even recently, I have had a similar experience.<br />
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I began messaging a girl that had a few questions about the church I attend that had recently moved into the area. At first I was simply answering questions and giving a general description about our congregation but then the conversation continued. And it continued. And then little did I realize how much we ended up talking about and I decided I should meet this girl so I found a way to do that and I did. The more time I spent with her, getting to know her, and sharing experiences with her, the more I was impressed and intrigued by her. She has so many amazing qualities and characteristics that I admire and look for that I was surprised to have also found them all wrapped up in such a cute little package. I found myself losing track of time when I was around her. I would drive for a hour just to see her. I smile just thinking about her and all I want is for her to be happy.<br />
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Then I realized where I was and what I was doing. I was falling. How long had I actually gotten to know her? How much time had I actually spent with her? And how much time had I spent without her? Did she have anyone to compare me to? I suddenly began to see and hear all of these questions come pouring into my mind that I hadn't stopped to consider because I had simply begun to fall. Is it really mutual? What's the point? Am I going to screw it up? Is it going to work out? But then the last question and the only one that really matters came to mind: Is she worth it? And as unexpectedly as the fall began, you begin to embrace it for what it is. It is simply the cost or sacrifice of finding out if things are real. So am I in love? It is hard to say but I am definitely at least heading in that direction.<br />
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Still, I have been down the rabbit hole before and in the past I have been crushed pretty hard. How did that happen? Well, I chose to simply free fall to the bottom and hoped that I wouldn't splat on the ground at the bottom because somehow she would catch me. I trusted someone that I didn't truly know. But is that wrong? Is it wrong to put your trust in people? I don't think so but I would clearly prefer to instead have a controlled fall and slow it down a bit by throwing out the parachute somewhere along the way. So I am falling and still looking to see where this will go and what will happen in the end, but this time I am also trying to slow down enough so I can truly understand who I am falling for.Glenn Collettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18323017977339707663noreply@blogger.com0