Reality check time. What do YOU need to make more time for? And WHEN will you make it?

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What's your story?

Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 06:05 PM | Comments (0)

A 5:28 story of the time I overslept before a big presentation to 200 bankers. I learned something very valuable that day and I am honored to share it with you.

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Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 10:19 AM | Comments (0)

HERE'S AN INTERESTING STATISTIC: The "click through" rate on negative headlines is 65% higher than positive headlines. People are far more curious about the negative than the positive. Parents, by the way, respond to their children with 10 times more "NO" statements than "YES" statements. No wonder why so many movies and TV shows are so full of conflict, violence, negativity, and scandal.

Actually, I am not all that surprised. The fairy tales we grew up on all have a dark side (the monster, the demon, the boogeyman) and kids want their parents telling those same stories over and over again.

On some level, its not just voyeurism or obsession -- it's catharsis -- part of our cellular journey, going from darkness to light.

That being said, there's a cultural tipping point to all of this, whereby too many of us are focusing only on the glass being half empty and calling our conclusions "social activism" or "being realistic". Methinks, a better balance is required -- the ability to keep our eyes open to the destructive forces so we can respond in intelligent ways, but WITHOUT becoming negativity junkies, losing our center, our sense of the possible, and the kind of personal, daily renewal required to be IN the world, but not OF the world.

Remember, the LOTUS grows in the MUDDIEST of waters. Moving out of the country is not the answer, nor is hiding in our houses. Conversely, demonizing the "other" creates only reactivity and resistance. There is a middle path here, folks and we have not yet found it.

Remember, there are some extraordinary exemplars in human history of those who have taken the high road: Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jesus and many, many others who no one has ever heard about -- maybe even the person sitting next to you on the bus.

Ultimately, it gets down to each breath, each thought, and each action. We have a choice every moment of the day. I like what Buddha supposedly said about the mind (and I paraphrase) "There are approximately 2,000 thoughts every second. I have slowed my mind down enough to be able to tell you what the last two were."

My question to you is this -- something Gandhi suggested: "How can you be the change you want to see in the world?"

And getting down to the bare basics... how can you, in your home life, work life, and community life, be an embodiment of the kind of clarity, kindness, compassion, wisdom, and honesty you'd like to see our so-called leaders embody?

PS: Just saw this great quote from Prem Rawat on a friend's FB feed: "Fight the fight you want, yes. Be a warrior for justice and peace, but first, fill your own cup with joy or you're not going to be clear and able to accomplish much to make the world a better place."

Photos: Jesse Ditkoff
International Day of Compassion and Kindness
Tell a different story
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Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 07:07 PM | Comments (0)

Every human being, no matter what path they walk, skip, hop, or jump is a fountainhead of wisdom -- a deep well of insights, brilliance, and lessons learned. This wisdom, however, is often buried beneath the flora and fauna of our daily lives and, because it is, the full value of what we know to be true often remains unexpressed.

The good news? Our deepest wisdom is always available to us. It's just hiding. And where it's hiding is in our stories -- those memorable moments of truth we've all had that have, contained within them, meaning and inspiration worth sharing.

One of the simplest ways to get back in touch with the deepest part of who we are is a Wisdom Circle, a lightly facilitated sharing of life stories that provides the safety, guidance, and inspiration for participants to reconnect with best of who they are.

Lead by Mitch Ditkoff, author of the award-winning book, Storytelling at Work, LifePath's first-ever Wisdom Circle -- to be offered on January 18th in San Miguel de Allende -- promises to be a fun, engaging, life-affirming experience for everyone. Two hours long. Enrollment limited to 15.

More info

Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 04:02 PM | Comments (0)

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Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 01:30 PM | Comments (0)

Storytelling at Work: The Book
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Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 11:54 AM | Comments (0)

Many organizations say they want to create a bold new future for themselves -- and that is laudable -- but all-too-often their future-oriented efforts are launched without fully understanding their present reality. As a result, their forward thinking efforts are often ungrounded, unfocused, and unwieldy.

Bottom line, if you want to arrive at a new destination, it's useful to know where you're starting from. Which is precisely why Idea Champions is happy to announce that it is now offering its clients a simple way to assess the WHAT IS of their organization.

Idea Champions' Current Reality Check Up is a highly effective needs assessment process that provides senior leaders with deep insight into the mindset, perspective, and needs of their company's workforce. Metaphorically speaking, it's a kind of organizational X-RAY that reveals what exists beneath the surface -- strengths to leverage, weaknesses to address, and opportunities to explore.

The Current Reality Check Up goes well beyond the realm of traditional surveys. Surveying, in fact, is only 20 percent of what's included in our needs assessment efforts. The other four elements? 1) Individual and group interviews with a cross-section of your employees; 2) Tacit Knowledge Mining (i.e. identification of best practices and success stories; 3) Analysis of Senior Leaders' poll projections compared to actual results and: 4) A written summary that distills down the best of what we've learned and provides a selection of easy-to-implement, low-cost recommendations.

Our survey designers and interviewers are experienced human process consultants with only one purpose in mind -- and that is to discover what is really going on in your organization. We have no axe to grind, no hidden agendas, and nothing else to sell. Our sole aim is to provide you with the clearest possible picture of what is going on in your enterprise so you can make intelligent choices, going forward.

The benefits of our service are many: Your senior leaders get the input they need to go beyond their own C-Suite assumptions and inertia. And employees get engaged and informed simply by being asked to share their opinions on issues that matter to them. Indeed, there's nothing quite like being asked "What do you think?" to increase a person's level of engagement and buy-in -- especially if they know that Senior Leaders are committed to doing something different in response to what employees think and feel.

If you've got a big conference coming up, a company-wide initiative to launch, a transition to go through, or simply want to raise the bar for employee engagement, begin your efforts by understanding what is. Your ability to clarify what's next will then emerge organically -- with the least amount of wheel spinning and wasted effort.

The next step? Call us at 845.377.0222 or email (Val@ideachampions.com)

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Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 07:53 AM | Comments (1)