Changing my world – becoming a PPP

Today I experienced the power of somone who was a positive presence person (PPP). PPP(people) are able to bring people to almost immediately into a positive state of mind.

I walked into a corner store to by a can of pepsi. The young person behind the counter was dressed in a singlet and shorts, was covered in tatoos and had a number of piercings on various appendages. My immediate expectation was that I could expect only a very basic level of customer service. And at worst I could experience a certain amount of contempt.

I was wrong. Completely, totally and utterly wrong.

It started when he served the lady in front of me. He was helpful and smiled and wished here a nice day. I found that my expectation of service was beginning to change. But, she was far more attractive than me and I am a not overly attractive middle aged man.

I was wrong.

It was even better than I thought. Somehow this young man made my purchase of a can of pepsi into one the highlights of my morning. It wasn’t just what he said or how he served me. It wasn’t what he did in the end that made a mundane task into something special.

It was his attitude to life that changed everything. He was a prime example of a PPP. He is an influencer, a leader who is able to change his world.

PPP’s do some of the following things regularly:

• They change their world, they are not limited by their present context.
• They change other people’s world – they are a positive influence and are able to change the attitudes of people around them.
• They don’t worry about their present circumstances – they know that they are not the permanent thing in their life. Attitudes remain with us far longer.
• They are not lmited by their present circumstances. Hope is a key element of being a PPP. It is a key component of being a whole person, living without hope is living a half life in which we survive with a part of our humanity missing.

 

Boundaries – what not to do with your children

Cloud and Townsend (Boundaries) identify four typical ways that people will blur boundaries:

1. Compliancy
   1. They are afraid of hurting someone by saying no.
   2. Their boundaries are so indistinct anyone is able to cross them and this opens the person up to abuse.
   3. They don’t like to rock the boat and will often give into a child’s demands rather than follow through with consequences
2. Controlling
   1. This person doesn’t respect others boundaries and will often look for opportunities to intrude in other people’s lives.
      
   2. Controllers will rarely believe that they have done the wrong thing because they are so consumed with their own needs.
   3. As a parent they will have little understanding of their child’s needs or temperament instead they will enforce their standards or expectations on the child.
   4. Controllers are not really in control, rather they are controlled by their own insecurities and impulses. (For example they will become extremely angry when something doesn’t go their way)
3. Non- responsives
   1. They are not able to hear the needs of others or see things from another’s perspective.
   2. They often will appear distant from their children. This wall is put up to protect them from further hurt
4. Avoidants
   1. These people find it hard to accept good things from others Cloud and Townsend say that this is common in men who demonstrate it by finding it hard to accept help or advice.

The influence of parents

Frederick II the emperor of Germany from 1196 to 1250 was called a wonder of the world by his admiring subjects. He was a keen scientist and conducted the following experiment,

He bade foster mothers and nurses to suckle their children, to bathe and wash them, but in no way to prattle to them, for he wanted to learn whether they would speak the Hebrew language, which was the oldest, or Greek or Latin or Arabic or perhaps the language of their parents of whom they had been born. But he laboured in vain because all the children died. For they could not live without the petting and joyful faces and loving words of their foster mothers.(Ross and McLaughlin, 1949, p.360)

Children learn to communicate through the messages that they receive from us. They are conditioned by the environment that we provide and are taught by us how to respond. A name given to this is behavioural conditioning.

There is a story about a young psychologist who wanted to train his small son to use the potty. Since children don’t usually find the toilet seat too much fun or too stimulating he decided to change this by bringing an element of pleasure to the toilet environment. He obtained a circus poster of a clown that was colourful and smiling with a big nose. He placed a red light bulb in the nose and switched it on while the child was on the potty. Needless to say the child enjoyed this immensely and as a result wanted to go to the toilet all the time. Later it wasnt too difficult to rig an electrical circuit so that whenever the child urinated the circuit was completed and the nose light up.

This also produced what is called a stimulus generalisation, which means that a stimulus like the original can produce a response like the original. One day the father and the son went on a car ride and were stopped by a red light.

Can you guess what happened?

Money isn’t everything

We all know that is true. But we were given a couple of passes for us to go to a children’s expo in our city. It was supposed to have lots of fun things for kids to do.

We decided that we would go. We didn’t want to explain to the person that it would be difficult for us to afford the extra money to pay for the kids (the passes were only for the adults) so we decided for once that we would put it on credit (we never do this normally).

When we get there we find that we have to pay $5 cash for parking. This is not normally charged. Luckily we did have this on us.

But, we find at the ticket boot with it’s mile long line that they were only taking cash. This too was unusual. This precluded us from going in. We felt a bit disappointed plus we wasted $5 on parking for about 10 mins time.

We decided that we would take the kids to a park. We had a packed lunch already for the day at the Convention centre so we made the day into a picnic. Then we played in the playground and went for a walk. This also meant a lot of playing around together.

Even though we felt disappointed I don’t think the kids felt the slightest bit neglected. In fact they had a great time.

April and I talked on the way home and reflected on this. We are not poor, but we don’t have lots of spare cash. Like most families we need to watch how we spend our money. We tend to live simply. Ultimately it comes down to priorities. For us it is ensuring the kids can go to a good school and that we can spend time with them. This means that I make sacrifices in my career and that April doesn’t work.

When I think about the relationship that I have with my kids it is more than worth it.

What happens when things go wrong

You have to say sorry. Thank goodness we are seeing the other side of what happens when things go wrong as well. When our leading lights stuff it up. From Mel Gibson, to Kramer to back home in Australia people are making mistakes.

• Watch the Glenn Milne video here
  
• Then Kramer on David Letterman

Then unless we have forgotten just recently Mel Gibson’s meltdown and his need for a huge public apology. I am not sure if Glenn Milne has yet reached the level of humility displayed by Mel. Really self justification as this article sounds like suggests that the lesson has not really be learned properly yet. None of us needs to flog ourselves for the rest of our life for a mistake but all of us need to go beyond dealing with the surface issues.

Glen blaming mixing alcohol with medication may be partly the cause of his actions. But really what we saw was the action of a very angry man. None of that anger is properly faced it is simply justified. Sure he may have been upset by the way that he has been treated but how many careers and lives have been ruined because of inaccurate reporting by the Australian media.

What is the way forward in such a situation? Forgiveness. We all have to let it go and get on with life. I felt sorry for Glenn Milne. His antics on the stage were not acts of greatness. But they did make him vulnerable and where that vulnerability goes will be the measure of his future greatness.

The same is true for any Hollywood star or even a mere mortal such as myself.

Dealing with close minded people

This is one of Steve’s most helpful posts in a long time. We all have them in our lives, people who won’t listen. I would like to add my two cents worth to this in the near future but Steve has set the ball rolling when he starts by challenging the position that many of us take when we meet resistance. How can you intelligently deal with people who are close-minded, totally stubborn in their beliefs and unreceptive to new ideas? Steve Pavlina

It’s all about ego. And the key word is intelligence. How quickly do our brains go and our emotions take over when our ego is challenged. In any situation I could be wrong. That is a fairly daunting prospect to apprehend.

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A Celtic Meditation Exercise – Hand Meditation

A Hand Meditation

Sitting with your palms up resting in your lap, eyes closed, tune into your breathing, relax your tension points and go into your centre.

Become aware of the air at your fingertips, between your fingers, on the palm of your hand. Experience the fullness, strength and maturity of your hands. Think of your hands, think of the most unforgettable hands you have known  the hands of your father, your mother, your grandparents. Remember the oldest hands that have rested in your hands. Think of the hands of a new born child, your nephew or niece  of the incredible perfection, delicacy of the hands of a child. Once upon a time your hands were the same size.

Think of all that your hands have done since then. Almost all that you have learned is through your hands turning yourself over, crawling and creeping, walking and balancing yourself.; learning to hold something for the first time; feeding yourself; washing and bathing, dressing yourself. At one time your greatest accomplishment was tying your own shoes.

Think of all the learning your hands have done and how many activities they have mastered, the things that they have made. Remember the day you could write your own name.

Our hands were not just made for themselves but for others. How often were they given to help another. Remember all the kinds of work they have done, the tiredness and aching they have known, the cold and the heat, the soreness and the bruises. Remember the tears they have wiped away, our own or another’s, the blood they have bled, the healing they have experienced. How much hurt, anger and even violence have they expressed and how much gentleness, tenderness and love they have given.

How often they have been folded in prayer; both a sign of their powerlessness and of their power.

There is a mystery which we discover in the hand of a woman or a man that we love. There are the hands of a doctor, a nurse, an artist, a conductor, a priest, hands which you can never forget.

Now raise your right hand slowly and gently place it over your heart. Press more firmly until your hand picks up the beat of your heart that most mysterious of all human sounds, one’s own heartbeat, a rhythm learned in the womb from the heartbeat of one’s own mother. Press more firmly for a moment than release your hand and hold it just a fraction from your clothing. Experience the warmth between your hand and your heart. Now lower your hand to your lap very carefully as if you were carrying your heart. For it does. When you extend your hand to another, its not just bone and skin, it is your heart. A handshake is a real heart transplant.

Think of all the hands that have left their imprint on you. Fingerprints and hands that have left their imprint on you. Fingerprints and handprints are heartprints that can never be erased. The hand has its own memory. Think of all the places that carry your handprints and all the people who bear your handprint. They are indelible and will last forever.

Now without opening your eyes begin to write out of your stream of consciousness. Slowly become more aware of your outer extremities. The pressure of the air on your forehead. The sensation of the air touching your fingertips.

Slowly as you are ready become present to your reality once more.

Putting a boy to bed

Those who approach life like a child playing a game, moving and pushing pieces, possess the power of kings. Heraclitus

I couldn’t resist putting this in. We rest easy at night at our place knowing that there are many superheros with us who will protect us if there were to be any problems. It is quite a job collecting them each night and making sure that they are positioned just right. However we managed it quite quickly tonight. Also missing is a stuffed crocodile from Australia Zoo. It didn’t quite make it into the shot but Steve is pretty big in my son’s eyes a the moment.

How to provide really terrible customer service. Be able to tell your customer absolutely nothing

Recently we ordered a printer from a very well known manufacturer through an awards scheme. Great idea, I have been plugging away for ages using a black and white laser printer but with so many photos of the kids we wanted to also start printing some of them.

We were rung by a courier company the day before the delivery asking what time we would be home and we were given a two hour window of when the delivery would occur.

Two hours after we were supposed to have the delivery I thought I would like to try to ring the company to see if there was an ETA. However, I hadn’t got the number or the name of the company. No problems I thought I would just give HP a ring and see who they used as the courier for my local area (I had been told that they were the HP deliverers).

So I look up the company’s website and get the numbers for my region. Thankfully they are local call rates so I begin wading through the pressing this number if I want this service and that number if I want to go here. Finally I get to a person and I ask if he could tell me who they used for deliveries in the capital city in my state. He couldn’t tell me. Eventually I discover that they are in another country and he simply does not have the information. You can’t get blood from a stone so I ask is there another number in Australia that I can contact who may be able to help. He gives me another number.

I ring it, and then you know the drill. Lots of keypad work until about 7 minutes later I get to be put on hold then another 12 minutes and I am through to a person. This person sounds a bit more local so I start to feel a bit more hopeful. But, she says no I have the wrong number and says that I should have run another number. You guessed it!! It was the first number that I rang. I told her that this number was no help because they didn’t know what was happening in Australia.

She said I just got the wrong section and suggested that I try a different area. I am not hopeful but I try. Again another obvious offshore voice and again I am not any wiser just becoming significantly time poor.

My last hope. I try to ring the awards scheme. Surely they may be able to tell me who at leas they order it through? Nope. By this time I’m feeling very neglected as a customer. Sure I didn’t pay cash but I have more than paid for it by my use of the reward scheme.

I give up. I have to go out and I really don’t care anymore if I miss the delivery. I’ve wasted nearly an hour trying to just contact the company and my excitement over getting a new printer has diminished significantly.

I go out and don’t get home till after 6pm. The Printer has arrived. It just doesn’t feel the same somehow. I will probably try a different company next time.

Finding the humanity in Salespeople

One of the personal challenges that I have taken on over the past few years is to find something of beauty in everyone that I meet. Now Steve Pavlina has raised the bar that much higher and said that even sales people are to be loved.

When picking up my daughter there are a group of mothers and some fathers who meet at what they call the cowshed. I usually try to smile at everyone and at least acknowledge most people. There are some people who will never look back or make contact in any way. That’s ok with me I guess they have busy lives.

I had an interesting experience in our local shopping centre a couple of days ago. Here in one of the stands selling a product was one of the mothers from the cowshed. But, she has never acknowledged me in the two years that we have been picking up our kids.

Guess what? She smiled at me when I was walking past. And, I think that she may have even talked to me if she hadn’t been busy at that moment. Two years of zero contact and then a smile. I smiled back. Maybe it was because the context had change or perhaps she just wanted to try to sell me something. This is not for me to judge, its just for me to enjoy the moment and take that smile and appreciate it for itself.

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