When I read Tracy A.’s newest piece, Top 10 Things Between You and a Great Life, it felt eerie.

I thought, “This girl’s been reading my mail!”

Because, at one time or another, I’ve fallen into every one of these traps. And I bet you have, too.

Having them listed and explained eloquently, as Tracy does here (reprinted with permission), is a powerful resource for motivational behavior change… I expect to review the list often. Just to remind myself of the tempting and almost automatic habits, cop-outs and defensive behaviors to work around.
– ken winston caine

Top 10 Things Between You and a Great Life

by Tracy A.

If you’re not living the life you dream about (and if you’re like most people you’re not) then identifying what’s getting in your way could be the most valuable way you’ve ever spent your time. Here are the Top 10 Things that come Between You and a Great Life!

1. Playing it safe.

One of the hardest things for most people to do is to risk the level of success they’ve achieved in order to reach the next level, but playing it safe isn’t the way most people dream of living.

2. Being comfortable.

We all have a desire to coast at times but settling into your comfort zone is a death knell for an extraordinary life. Where in your life are you choosing comfortable over greatness?

3. Avoiding rejection.

If you’re like me you’re OK with taking risks as long as they’re not too risky! I’m not a big believer in jumping off cliffs and building wings on the way down; I just don’t believe that life has to be that frantic but I do know that my fear of rejection is one of the fears that I still struggle with and it’s been eye opening to take a look at how it really gets in my way.

4. Procrastinating.

We tell ourselves some fantastic stories to increase our level of comfort with not getting off our duff and going on there and really scuffling it up on the (more…)

Learn to ask, “What’s not wrong here?”
– Thich Nhat Hanh

by ken winston caine

Here’s a magical question that changes EVERYTHING! Practice asking it of yourself throughout your day.

Especially ask it when feeling overwhelm, upset, frustration, and so forth. The question:

How would you like to feel right now?

Put it in the first person form, of course. That is:

How would I like to feel right now?

And be perfectly honest — and really, really sure of your answer.

And then: (more…)

“Never say ‘OOPS.’ Say, ‘Ah. Interesting.’”

(Grabbed from the tagline on a post by a writer screen-named The Cyberwolf.)
–ken winston caine

Am I standing in my power or am I trying to please another?
–Debbie Ford
The Right Questions, HarperCollins, 2004

Will this choice bring me long-term fulfillment or will it bring me short-term gratification?
—-Debbie Ford, The Right Questions, HarperCollins, 2004

by ken winston caine

Towns and cities could cut electricity use significantly — simply and painlessly.

Almost overnight.

All they have to do is to commit to quit trying to light up the night as though it is day.

Turn off, or turn down, street lighting, building lighting and after-hours electric signs on businesses. (This was decreed by President Nixon as national policy during the first oil embargo in 1973, alongside more drastic measures such as gas rationing and a national 55 mph speed limit.)

Cutting street lighting has been shown to CUT crime. (More on that in a moment.)

Bring back the night.

Bring back the stars.

If cities would turn off just every other streetlight, on alternating sides of the street, immediately they would cut streetlighting energy use in half. And cut the cost of streetlighting in half.

Why is no one thinking like this at a time when greenhouse gasses produced by coal-and-other-carbon-fuel-fired power plants are destroying the planet’s equilibrium and by extension, our current and future quality of life … and simultaneously, world-wide, we are facing an energy shortage?

Instead, power companies are calling for more power plants and, at the same time, (more…)

by ken winston caine

The questions you ask and choose to explore shape the outcomes you achieve. The trick is to ask powerful questions.

They cut to the chase. They move you forward quickly and smartly.

Asking powerful questions is at the heart of “coaching” as it was developed by Thomas Leonard. And I’ve been collecting lists of powerful questions, or coaching questions, for 11 years — ever since I was first exposed to Leonard’s approach.

But simply being armed with a mile-long list of powerful questions does not make one a good coach. Or guarantee you magnificent, rapid, sustainable personal success. The good coach and the smart achiever know how to ask the right type of question at exactly the right moment.

Better, I think, to understand what a powerful question is, so that you can instinctively pose one when it is needed, than to have a long list of questions to sort through. (Though a list is valuable.)

So what is a powerful question?

The best explanation I have come across comes not from the world of life coaching or business coaching or corporate coaching, but from pioneers of The World Cafe process, Juanita Brown and David Isaacs.

They write, on their website, that a powerful question has eight defining characteristics: (more…)

by ken winston caine

Do projects always take longer to complete than you expect?

I know they often do for me.

Big Idea Coach Jim M. Allen has three cool tips for fixing that. I’ll share one of them here. He says, (more…)