Change Your Thoughts-Change Your Life Part 7 of 20: Living without Excess
April 7, 2009 by dr. lam · 4 Comments
The 24th Verse:
If you stand on tiptoe, you cannot stand firmly.
If you take long steps, you cannot walk far.
Showing off does not reveal enlightenment.
Boasting will not produce accomplishment.
He who is self-righteous is not respected.
He who brags will not endure.
All these ways of acting are odious, distasteful.
They are superfluous excesses.
They are like a pain in the stomach,
a tumor in the body.
When walking the path of the Tao,
this is the very stuff that must be
uprooted, thrown out, and left behind.
Too often we live with too much pride and arrogance. We must feel that we are superior over others and live life with selfish disregard for all those around us. Do you live most of your day only looking at yourself? Are you overly focused on your own successes, trophies, goals, and gains? Have you thanked someone around you recently for being who they are in your life and contributing to this world?
Many of the books that I read must invariably decry plastic surgery as an excess. Obviously, I work with this paradox in which I talk about internal self-actualization and also disregard to ego. Perhaps that is ultimately a Tao principle of holding a paradox in your mind. However, I simply do not see it as a paradox. As I have repeatedly stated, plastic surgery done correctly and with correct moderation and perspective can change one’s life in a profound and tangible way. However, when we seek plastic surgery to fulfill an internal want that is absent then we are in trouble. I look at plastic surgery as a method for providing congruity between what we see in the mirror as what we feel in our heart. But when body dysmorphic disorder or overly obsessing over a body part leads to social crippling then we have crossed that fine line.
It is important that when we attain our own enlightenment that acquisition and acquisition and acquisition of material goods and status not be the motivating factor or dominating factor in our life. These blogs are meant to put you into a peaceful sense of gratitude for where you are and not where you need to be. Being a man of ambition almost my entire life, it has been a profound shift in my own paradigm not constantly to want and desire and be insatiable in my appetite for wanting more. Today I truly cherish where I am and what I have and am not in a desirous mood for this or that, certainly not as much as I did in the past.
Today it would be great if you could offer your gratitude (yes, a fourth blog indirectly on this important subject today) for where you are but even as importantly offer that gratitude for someone near you for who they are and how special they are to you. Offer that gratitude to someone you know or even you don’t know that well today.
Change Your Thoughts-Change Your Life Part 3 of 20: Living Humility
April 1, 2009 by dr. lam · 34 Comments
The 9th Verse of the Tao Te Ching:
To keep on filling
is not as good as stopping.
Overfilled, the cupped hands drip,
better to stop pouring.
Sharpen a blade too much
and its edge will soon be lost.
Fill your house with jade and gold
and it brings insecurity.
Puff yourself with honor and pride
and no one can save you from a fall.
Retire when the work is done;
this is the way of heaven.
I truly love the idea behind this verse. It tells us that enough is enough. Hording more acquisitions for the sake of doing so only leads to fear, insecurity, and pride. It leads to fearing the loss of these acquired goods that can in turn lead us to misery. I also like how Dyer focuses on eating. I have eaten many times after I was sated only later to regret it both in terms of how I felt afterward and the ineluctable weight gain thereafter. I am constantly reminded of the joy of eating just enough, wanting just enough, and being contented with everything.
How do I reconcile all of this with plastic surgery? Easily. I have many individuals who are obsessed with plastic surgery or become so. They know that I will only engage in things that will help them look and feel better about themselves but not in excessive things that waste money and create unchecked boundaries of ongoing want. In fact, I help guide them to what would be the best thing to make their external selves a reflection of their inner selves. We have talked about that in previous blogs. I am in love with the creative work in facial cosmetic enhancement because done in moderation and with skill and artistry, you can create a beauty that lovingly radiates to all those in their proximity.
The Power of Intention Part 4 of 10: Abundance
March 5, 2009 by dr. lam · 8 Comments
I think living in these times of perceived scarcity, this blog will have some degrees of universal relevance. I am not necessarily the best exemplar of this, but I am working toward an intention of seeing only abundance and that God and the universe will provide everything that you need in times of difficulty. Believe in the power of abundance and you will begin to see that you have more than enough for your needs.
When we read the newspaper (which I still do every day to keep abreast of world events), we get immersed in negativity and are controlled with the ideas of scarcity. Today, you can’t escape the news that we don’t have enough and we are limited by those thoughts. I truly have been blessed by all of you in that I am still booked out for 3 months and have overflowing abundance. I feel as if all of you out there are connected with me and are connected in a fundamental way to my practice and my staff because we are all in an extended family. I thank you for your loyalty to LFP and to me. You are all part of my family, and I want to encourage all of you to see the abundance in the universe rather than the scarcity.
I hope that this blog serves as an antidote to the negative press out there, a small oasis and a tiny beacon to all those who have ears to hear it. I believe that the manifesto of LFP is to seek and attain all that life was meant for you and designed for you. Of course, for all of you that are in a perceived state of absence whether it be health or finances, look at what you have and attract abundance by focusing on it instead of what you don’t have.
Rhonda Byrne’s book, The Secret, is obviously famous for collectively putting many authors’ ideas under one cover and discussing the law of attraction and how we attract abundance or scarcity by our thoughts and intention. I would like all of you out there to take a day (always start with an easy unit of time) and begin to see abundance in front of you, intend it deeply and attain that abundance. Today, go out there and look for all signs of abundance. Help another person out there who is focused on scarcity see his or her own abundance and be thankful for it!
Leadership Gold Part 10 of 10: Making Critical Decisions
February 27, 2009 by dr. lam · 4 Comments
There is no time that a leader shines (or sinks) than during a crisis situation. As Maxwell says, 95% of the time, you don’t need a strong leader but that 5% is when the team rallies around the leader or dismisses him. Churchill is perhaps one of the shining exemplars of stepping up to a leadership role when the crisis in Europe was at England’s doorstep. Churchill’s entire leadership was defined by his wartime role in getting Britain to victory.
Decision making during crisis times can be very difficult. When Steve Jobs stepped in to Apple in 1997, he was confronted with a profound crisis that was about to unravel the company he founded. His leadership during this time of peril pulled Apple from the brink of disaster and infused the company with a newfound creative direction in computer design and entering the world of music that was unchartered but necessary.
Fortunately (or unfortunately), I have not had major crises, but I have had too numerous to count smaller crises in my organizations. I think one of the defining things that a leader can do is cut a valuable player when that individual bucks against the culture and causes a cancer to envelope the organization. If the leader can align the individual into the fold, then the day is saved. But if the leader cannot, the individual can destroy the morale of the company and undermine the credibility of the leader. No one person is too valuable to the organization to let go. This is a difficult thing to understand for any leader but one that I have learned and relearned the hard way for all of my organizations. The culture is king.
There is a game that I have played on EO retreats called the “green tail” or also start, stop, and continue. It is a hard one to play but should be played when there is already a deeper level of intimacy in a group and when one can “not take something personally” as one of the 4 agreements we talked about. The idea behind this is that if one person thinks you are doing something wrong, then perhaps that person is wrong and not you. If two people think you are doing something wrong, then it just might be true. If three people think you are doing something wrong, then it probably is true. The idea of the green tail is the same. If one person thinks you have a green tail, you may or may not. If two people think you have a green tail, then maybe you do. If three people think you have a green tail, then you better turn around and check. In the exercise, everyone in the group writes anonymously on a card what they want you to “start doing, stop doing, and continue doing” then they pass all the cards to the person about whom the card is written. It is not an easy exercise. I continually ask my staff if I have a green tail because I want to make sure earlier before it is too late when I need to cut off the green tail.
Maxwell calls this the “Bob phenomenon”. He had an employee whom everyone thought was just dreadful. Of course, his name was Bob. Bob obviously did not think he himself was terrible. However, who was wrong? Of course, Bob. One of the critical roles of a leader is not to let a Bob survive in the organization if he is behaving like Bob.
Leadership Gold Part 2 of 10: Leading Yourself
February 17, 2009 by dr. lam · 8 Comments
Most oftentimes a leader is focused on leading other people without truly realizing that the most important person to lead and also the most difficult is himself or herself. The reason that I write these blogs is as an exercise to get myself better as a leader. They are life lessons for me first. If I cannot lead myself, I will have no followers following me.
Most oftentimes, we do not work at self-improvement but look at everyone around us as needing work. Maxwell says that when we criticize someone else, that is called constructive criticism. However, when someone criticizes us we call that destructive criticism. I am certainly not perfect at taking criticism, but I am a lot better today than I was even last year and last year I was better than the year prior. Remember from the 4 agreements, “never to take anything personally”. That is very important in this case. Too often when we judge others, we judge them by THEIR actions, whereas when we judge ourselves we judge ourselves by our intentions. This two-tier system of criticism leads us to failure because we never meant anything by what we did or so we rationalize, but that person certainly should have known better. We must strive to create a harmonious congruity by how we perceive ourselves and others.
Maxwell, a former preacher, still says that he ultimately does not trust himself to lead himself. That is why he has established external accountability for his actions. That is why I wrote about accountability a couple of weeks ago and why I emphasized how I am accountable to other business leaders/owners in my EO forum group. How have you made yourself accountable? To whom? What interval?
We as leaders (and that means all of you too!) must hold ourselves to a higher level of accountability. Linda, who is my spa director, asked me last year why I have apologized to my staff for seemingly small infractions, and I explained that as a leader I hold myself to a higher level of accountability of who I am and who I should aim to be. There is no other person that can truly hold you to that level of accountability than yourself.
When we first lead ourselves, we can then have a chance at leading others around us. I have learned a lot about real-life leadership this past year and have worked even more diligently at becoming a more centered leader. By virtue of that, my patients and my staff and everyone around me has benefited. I must start with myself. You must start with yourself. We must start with ourselves. I look at my readership as part of my extended team at LFP because I would love for all of us to grow as humans in our common fraternity.