Tuesday, February 15, 2005

Conversing with Pam Brill

Pam Brill left a very insightful comment for me about the underlying cause of both dysfunctional corporations and verbal abuse issues in school. We exchanged emails about the comment and it turns out that Pam is the author of "The Winners Way" and she was kind enough to send me a short PDF brochure with more details. Having read the brochure I found one very critical take away that I really believe is at the heart of both problems I have blogged about. To quote the brochure "put it all together to engage hearts and minds-your own and others". In my experience people spend to much time either ignoring the heart component completely or let the heart component completely rule their lives. From Pams' perspective the 3 A's, Attitude, Activation, and Attention must be balanced appropriately to the situation in order to better manage behaviors, feelings, thoughts, and ultimately the actions we take. For more details about this please visit Pam's web site "In The Zone". Very interesting reading.

This regular guy believes that most of what plagues us as individuals and even organizations boils down to beliefs which influence our attitudes and this cascades through behaviors, feelings, and our internal thinking. If we believe a change is bad then we find ways to make it so and act to further this belief. The same is true if we believe a change is good, we embrace it and act in ways that cause the change to succeed. Beliefs do not only come from the heart or the mind but are rooted in both domains. Balancing these two is not easy but it can be done as long as we choose to try. Or as my friend Steven would tell me, "Try not. Do. Or do not. There is no try". There are many ways to look at this concept, LifeTraks is another organization that has a spin on this concept, but all of them seem rooted in our beliefs. Beliefs about us, about our situation, or about life at any given moment. Seeing is not believing, believing is seeing.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Eric,
An excellent point. I suggest two books. First, "Change Your Mind * Change Your Life" by Gerald G. Jampolsky and Diane V. Cirincione. Second, "Would You Like ATTITUDE With That?" by Justin Heard. Both books have given me a lot to ponder. BTW, great blog.

Your Friend in Houston,
Mark