December 28, 2006
a carol on Christmas Presence
What a difference a year makes.
One year ago this holiday season, I didn’t send out a single card. What could I say to far-flung friends that wouldn’t end the year on a down note? While generally known as a positive person, privately I can lose myself in worries, doubts, and negative thoughts just as well as the next guy. If I couldn’t bring myself to say anything nice, well, I just wouldn’t say anything at all.
Maybe next year would be better.
It is. Thankfully things have improved enough that amid the baking, shopping, wrapping, packing, and partying I chose to do this year, I decided to pull out my collection of after-Christmas cards and send them the week before New Year’s. As I opened one half-used, half-priced box, a stray card from an acquaintance fell out on the floor, and with it, a single-spaced letter I had intended to read after last year’s holiday rush had passed..
My heart stopped when I saw the post-script.
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Posted by Carol Goldsmith at 03:10 PM | Comments (0)
November 28, 2006
a carol on Easy Listening
Has anyone ever told you, "You're not listening," or "You didn't hear a word I said"? Most of us think we're pretty good listeners - that is, until we're put to the test.
I was tested back at the turn of the century in my very first coach training class. Twenty other students and I sat in a semi-circle facing a pair of chairs. In the left chair sat one of our two instructors. In the right sat a fellow student coach. The student was told to coach the instructor on a real-life issue while the rest of us actively listened and watched.
As the coaching proceeded, the second instructor quietly roamed the back of the room. Then suddenly, without warning, she would come up from behind and tap one of us lightly on the shoulder. That was our signal to stand, walk up to the student coach, take his or seat, and pick up the thread of the coaching conversation exactly where it was leaving off.
Sound easy? Not if you're listening to the stuff in your head.
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Posted by Carol Goldsmith at 09:31 PM | Comments (0)
November 20, 2006
a carol on Giving Thanks
It is the first Thanksgiving of the new millennium: Thursday, November 21st.
In a matter of hours, millions of Americans will sit down to a lavish holiday table of turkey, dressing, green bean casseroles, Parkerhouse rolls, and pumpkin pie, and eat so much that (despite our good intentions) we’ll barely have enough energy left to waddle into the family room and flop down in front of the big-screen TV for a long afternoon of football.
And yet, before raising that first fateful fork, most people will pause to give a moment thanks…thanks for the many things they’ve been given, and thanks for the many things they have lost.
My friend Patricia lost her mother last night, one week before Thanksgiving Day. Just four months earlier, Patricia had lost her doting father, as well. The shock of one parent's passing had barely registered before the other followed his path.
Single, without children or siblings to lean on, and now without the parents she held so dear, Patricia could be forgiven for feeling sad, abandoned, even angry, this holiday season. She could rail against life’s injustices and pity her lonely condition.
Such feelings could overtake anyone. Such feelings could last a long, long time.
Yet such is not the case with my friend Patricia. For she is blessed with the indomitable spirit of her parents, and endowed with a precious gift that every human being possesses: the ability to give thanks.
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Posted by Carol Goldsmith at 11:31 PM | Comments (0)
October 24, 2006
a carol on Anchors Away
An anchor means different things to different people. To me, as a neuro-linguistic coach, an anchor is a conditioned response to an external trigger. An old melody that takes you back to the high school prom, or a smell that puts the taste of Grandma’s apple pie in your mouth, are anchors that can carry you far away. To Richard, a U.S. Coast Guard instructor, an anchor means something else entirely.
Or does it?
Recently Richard was teaching a young Coast Guard recruit about safety on the seven seas. “If a sudden storm comes up and a huge wave hits you broadside,” Richard asked, “what do you do to keep the boat upright?”
The young recruit snapped to attention. “Throw out an anchor, SIR.”
Richard nodded his approval. “And what would you do if another wave hit you port-side?”
Again came the answer: “Throw out an anchor, SIR.”
“OK,” said Richard, a bit wearily. “Now a third wave comes up and smacks you hard on the starboard side. What would you do then?”
“Throw out an anchor, SIR.”
Richard’s question was triggering a conditioned response in the inexperienced lad. Trapped in a neuro-linguistic box, he reacted as predictably as Pavlov’s salivating dog to the sound of a bell, or my car’s squealing tires when a roadside ice cream stand appears.
Richard eyed the young recruit. “Let me ask you something, son. Where are you getting all those anchors?”
“The same place you’re getting all those waves, SIR.”
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Posted by Carol Goldsmith at 09:58 PM | Comments (0)
October 10, 2006
a carol on Forgive and Forget
The Bible tells us to forgive and forget. What would our Constitution say?
If you’re part of the moral majority on Capitol Hill, you might forgive the sins of fellow lawmakers and promptly forget all about them. That’s how it seems to most voters these days. Take the political scandal du jour: the abrupt resignation of six-term Florida congressman Mark Foley for sending sexually solicitous electronic messages to under-aged male pages on the Hill.
House members admit to knowing of Foley’s “inappropriate” behavior as far back as 2000. Yet they allowed him not only to run for re-election, but to co-chair a politically prominent committee: the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children. No kidding.
Many prominent politicians have been outed, ousted, or incarcerated in the countdown to the mid-term elections. There’s former House Majority Leader Tom Delay of Texas and his golfing buddy, Buckeye Bob Ney (who chaired the all-powerful House Appropriations Committee), both caught in the widening bribery web of convicted super-lobbyist Jack Abramhoff. L. “Scooter” Libby, Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, indicted for lying under oath about revealing the identity of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame. Rep. William Jefferson of Louisiana, who stashed $90,000 in cold hard bribes in the back of his home freezer. And my personal favorite, California’s Randy “Duke” Cunningham, who hand-wrote his menu of prices for political favors right on congressional letterhead. Example: a $16 million defense contract cost a $140,000 bribe and $50,000 for each additional million, plus a luxury yacht (later christened “the Dukester”).
Mr. Misdeeds Goes to Washington.
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Posted by Carol Goldsmith at 08:22 PM | Comments (0)
September 10, 2006
a carol on Happy Anniversaries
Today’s date marks an anniversary of unhappy memories. No, not that anniversary. My wedding day. Twenty-nine years ago, I married Tom in a tiny steel town in southeastern Ohio. We chose the long Labor Day weekend for the ceremony so we’d always have an extra day to celebrate. Would that we had chosen another time.
On our wedding night, word reached our dream destination of Columbus, Ohio, that my new husband’s closest cousin had drowned in a speed boating accident. The rest of our honeymoon seemed like a wake as we waited for Rick’s body to surface. Nine years to the night later (again in Ohio), I was awakened at 1 a.m. at my mother’s house when her shaven head hit the bathroom floor. An aneurysm had burst in her brain for the second of what would be three times. I didn’t expect her to survive the ambulance ride.
Now, here it is nine anniversaries later, and we’re back in Ohio for the eighth annual draft of my brother-in-law’s Fantasy Football League.
This isn’t exactly a fun-filled date.
Certain dates on the calendar trigger negative emotions that are linked to embedded memories. Just yesterday morning, a telephone operator tripped a neurological wire when she confirmed my order of a belated anniversary gift, adding, “Your merchandise will arrive on 9/11.”
Long pause.
I don’t know what went through the operator’s mind, but mine flew back to that fateful morning in September 2001as I was getting ready to take Tom to the airport. My mother (now 86 and still living with us) ambled into the bathroom as I was drying my hair.
“A plane just flew into the World Trade Center,” she said.
Mom isn’t known for her accurate reporting. She must be watching a TV movie, I thought. “Not now, Mom. I’ve gotta get dressed and go.”
She shrugged and shuffled back to her room.
A minute later the phone rang. My friend Darlene. “A plane just flew into the World Trade Center,” she said.
I switched on The Today Show just as the second plane slammed into the other twin tower and burst into flames. Katie Couric reported that a third hijacked plane was still on the loose, heading straight toward us in Washington, D.C. American Airlines flight 77 — a flight we’d taken from Dulles many times. We walked out into our yard, looked up, and listened as a military jet pierced the silent clouds. That movie memory still plays in my mind.
Now it’s five years later. My brain is a jumble of jagged images and thoughts. How will I react to this anniversary? How will you?
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Posted by Carol Goldsmith at 12:33 PM | Comments (0)
August 24, 2006
a carol on Gut Reactions
Over coffee, a person I’ve met three times proceeded to tell me all about…me. “I don’t know you very well,” he admitted before telling me in detail how I tick, “but I’m very intuitive.”
Could a person be intuitive…and wrong?
That question first occurred to me a few years ago when a fellow coach began treating me oddly. Where once she’d been friendly, she now seemed aloof. The obligatory coach-hug was stiff and forced. I knew not to take it personally (having read "The Four Agreements" twice).
Then one day I got an email from her, flaming me in public for a question I’d posed to a list-serve. I couldn’t imagine what had upset Leigh-Ann. We set up a clarifying phone call.
Turns out, Leigh-Ann felt I had disrespected her at a workshop she had taught the year before. Each student had the chance to work one-on-one with either Leigh-Ann or her mentor, Louis — a man she had praised to such grand heights that I couldn’t miss the opportunity of working with him. When my turn came and Leigh-Ann looked my way, I motioned for her to take the man next to me, instead.
Leigh-Ann saw things differently. “You waved me off with your hand and said NO!”
Could I have possibly behaved like Marie Antoinette?
“If I did that, Leigh-Ann, I apologize. My recollection is that I motioned toward Bill and said, ‘Take him first.’ Since I’d worked with you before and he hadn’t, I thought it would be a good learning opportunity for me to experience Louis. It wasn’t my intention to dismiss or insult you.”
Leigh-Ann was unmoved. “Don’t give me that,” she objected. “I’m very intuitive.”
Could she be intuitive…and wrong?
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Posted by Carol Goldsmith at 07:53 AM | Comments (0)
August 07, 2006
a carol on Judging Amy
The story you are about to hear is true. The names have been changed to protect my client (and allude to the title of a courtroom TV show).
Amy felt judged by her colleague, Judy, who hadn’t said a word to Amy all day. According to my client, it all started in the Monday morning management meeting when The Boss announced that he and Amy would call on the firm’s biggest client next week. Nobody EVER accompanied The Boss to a client meeting. Especially not someone new to the firm. Judy outranked Amy by a good two years.
Immediately after the management meeting, Judy marched into The Boss’s office for a closed-door, high-volume exchange that ended with Judy storming down the hallway and theatrically slamming her office door.
Everyone was walking on eggshells now.
“I feel terrible,” Amy lamented. “We’re supposed to be on the same team, and now Judy won’t even look at me. She’s upset at where she is in her career, and I’ve come along and made things worse. She sees me as a threat.”
Amy was judging Judy now.
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Posted by Carol Goldsmith at 03:56 PM | Comments (0)
July 11, 2006
a carol on Curses, Foiled Again
"I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!" shouted Melinda, pounding the steering wheel every second syllable. "I knew I shouldn't have come this way. Dammit. I told myself not to take 395, and what did I do? Now we'll be late. Sh_t."
What a tirade, I thought to myself. OK, so Melinda zigged when she should have zagged. She saw the string of traffic and turned right into it anyway. Yelling about it won't change a thing. Except her mood. My mood. And over time, my opinion of Melinda.
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Posted by Carol Goldsmith at 09:19 PM | Comments (0)
March 01, 2006
a carol on Intelligent Outcomes
It's quarter past two. The chairs are empty, except for the handouts I've placed on the seats. Where in the heck is the audience?
I poke my head out of the conference room and spot a meeting planner wandering the halls. She looks at me sheepishly and admits, "I'm sorry, but the luncheon speech ran long, and now the whole afternoon's been smooshed."
This isn't the outcome I had in mind.
I'm supposed to be doing a 90-minute session on a coaching model that I call The Intelligent Outcome.â„¢ Unlike the old S.M.A.R.T. goal model that's been around for years, The Intelligent Outcome ensures that people get what they want -- and want what they get -- by satisfying six key criteria. Those criteria are what make The Intelligent Outcome "smarter than the average goal."
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Posted by Carol Goldsmith at 04:28 PM | Comments (0)
February 21, 2006
a carol on Imagine That
Imagine that you're throwing a party in your home for 75 people, at least 20 of whom are staying overnight. Imagine that you've been planning, shopping, cleaning, chopping, and preparing for this party for weeks on end. Imagine that at 8:00 pm sharp, you kick into perfect-host, just as the first guests ring the doorbell. Then imagine that at 8:35, a virulent virus kicks you right in the stomach and sends you running upstairs to the loo. You begin praying to the porcelain god.
Brenda couldn't have imagined worse. Yet that's exactly what happened to her at her son's engagement party.
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Posted by Carol Goldsmith at 06:58 PM | Comments (0)
February 02, 2006
a carol on Groundhog Day
Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow this morning, and I saw the movie "Groundhog Day."
In Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, every February 2, hordes of tourists and TV cameras converge on this sleepy burg to see if America's most famous rodent will emerge from his hole and spot his rumpled silhouette, thus signaling six more wintry weeks. In the movie version, Bill Murray wakes up every morning to the clock radio announcement that today -- like everyday -- is Groundhog Day.
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Posted by Carol Goldsmith at 02:07 PM | Comments (0)
January 17, 2006
a carol on Private Lives
Poor Aunt Helen, as we always called her, has passed away in a nursing home. With her mind and mobility all but gone, poor Aunt Helen lived only to smoke. It was her one remaining choice.
She'd experienced a lot in her 85 years: women's suffrage, the 1929 stock market crash, the Great Depression, World War II ( "the war to end all wars"), the wars that followed, the Civil Rights movement, draft-age youngsters getting the vote, Roe v. Wade, the Watergate break-in, the fall of a president who wire-tapped himself.
We never discussed these public events or how they affected her private life. What did she think of prayer in schools, affirmative action, welfare, tax cuts, Social Security, universal health care, gun control, the death penalty, euthanasia, a constitutional right to privacy?
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Posted by Carol Goldsmith at 04:50 PM | Comments (0)
