I have often thought of the Pareto principle, which is also known as the 80-20 rule, which explains that for many events, 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. Joseph M. Juran, a 20th century management consultant, named this principle after the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who noticed that 80% of the peas in his garden came from 20% of the pea pods. Pareto further discovered that 80% of the wealth from many countries was owned by just 20% of its population. Juran applied this principle to business, suggesting that 80% of your sales come from 20% of your clients.

Many other applications of this powerful principle have since been found. Richard Koch, author of “The 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Success by Achieving More with Less”, notes that hundreds of thousands of people have found this principle to be useful, not only in their work and careers, but also in the whole of their lives.

As Wayne Dyer notes, “When you change the way you look at things, the things that you look at change.” By deliberately choosing to focus on and be grateful for all that is going well in our lives, our lives can become an upward spiral of joy and fulfillment. I hope you, too, will choose to focus on the 20% of your efforts that are accounting for 80% of your success in all aspects of your life and that your life will become all that you are hoping it can be.

A debate is currently raging in business journals about multitasking. Some decry that by multitasking, you are doing a poorer job at each of the tasks. Others argue that executives (and moms) literally cannot do their jobs if they were to focus on single tasks sequentially. I believe that the optimal path is to discern which tasks you do easily and to mash them up readily. Save your concentrated attention for important things that require single-minded focus.

How do we concentrate in a world of Twitter, email, and text distractions? It takes great discipline, but I encourage you to set aside dedicated time to aim your laser attention on your career, book, hobby, or project until the rest of the world fades from your awareness. Runners, skiers, and race car drivers know that in moments of peak concentration time disappears—your mind works at the speed of light, making connections and integrating information from all parts of your brain.

Distinguished Professor of Psychology, Mihaly Csíkszentmihályi, describes this state of low as, “being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time lies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you’re using your skills to the utmost.”

Prof. Csíkszentmihályi believes that the “low” experience brings people an optimal level of happiness. Too little mental stimulation — we become bored and depressed. Too much — we become worrisome and anxious. Find an optimal level of engaging work that challenges you, pour passionate attention into it, and you have a recipe for a happy, fulfilling life.

I found it especially important to do this when facing challenging situations. Recently, my husband Tony and I were headed to the airport with our son where we were returning from a family trip. We had not given ourselves much time to return our rental car and get to our gate before our plane took off. We knew the rental place was a little bit away from the airport and assumed there would be good signage to guide us. However, as we approached the airport, we did not see any signs indicating where we had to go. We passed the airport and decided to take the next exit, do a u-turn and approach the airport from the opposite direction. As we did this we saw a sign that read, “Rental Car return next exit”. When we approached the exit, at the last second Tony did not turn off, saying that he thought this was not really an exit. I immediately felt concern about how little time we had and I was fairly certain that we were supposed to have turned off there. However, instead of becoming upset, I remembered my vow to myself and silently asked for the most benevolent outcome for all concerned. I remained calm and told Tony what I had asked for. Just then we saw another sign that said, “Rental car return exit here”. We managed to quickly return our rental car, catch a waiting bus back to the airport, pass rapidly through security and arrive at our gate just as our section was boarding the plane. I marveled at how much smoother things had gone by my staying focused in a positive direction.

I hope you will join me in asking for the most benevolent outcome for all concerned and that your life will also become more joyful and fulfilling as a result.

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
Margaret Meade

Creative thinkers choose to venture beyond logic and embrace non-logical possibilities. A creative mind is comfortable thinking logically and illogically; it can adopt multiple viewpoints and integrate challenging situations without judgement or emotional reaction.

Professor Robert Sternberg, renowned psychologist in the field of human intelligence, recently visited UTD and spoke on the topic of creativity. Sternberg believes that creativity is not some innate mental gift, but rather, a conscious skill to create novel and useful ideas. Sternberg suggests that creativity begins with a decision.

I also believe that anyone can think creatively. Once you master the skills needed you’ll find that, with practice, it becomes second nature. The first step in creative thinking is to discover the edges of your ideas—what assumptions and limits are you placing on the problem? Now you are ready to redefine the problem. When you can turn the problem around in your mind and see it from all viewpoints, you will uncover new possibilities that previously did not exist in the landscape of your mind. When a new viewpoint reveals a solution that is both novel and useful, then your creative solution has been “discovered”.

Training and fostering your creative mind is the path to both success and happiness.

Happy creating!

Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said. “One can’t believe impossible things.”
“I dare say you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass

It’s easy to blame the media for the secularization of our holidays (“holy days”). Headlines scream about how much money will be spent on “Black Friday”, and how many “shopping days” remain before Christmas. Even movie releases are characterized by how much money is earned: “Bambi grosses $10.2 million this weekend!”

Let’s not blame the media for reporting on mundane news—that’s their choice. It’s our responsibility to remember the meaning behind the rituals and holidays in our culture. Do you need CNN to remind you to be grateful on Thanksgiving Day? Of course not!

As the creator of your life, you decide how to celebrate the holidays…and every other day. You decide whether to gather in spiritual communities and celebrate those things that cannot be measured in dollars and cents. You decide whether your heart is half empty, half full, or overflowing with gratitude.

Sometimes attention gets stuck on mundane matters — the 401K, the mortgage. Yet, we know that these things are impermanent creations of the world and like all things physical, they will pass.
When we are grateful, we see the best in what has been given to us; our hearts open and we experience a glimpse of divinity. When we are appreciative, our attention springs forth from our infinite core and radiantly blesses our world.

Holidays are your opportunity to share intangible gifts with your loved ones, colleagues and customers. Being grateful is not just an exercise in “happy thoughts”; by seasoning your consciousness with gratitude, you become a light, a bodhisattva, that helps relieve suffering in the world. There is no higher calling.

Gratitude opens a crack in consciousness that lets grace in.
—Harry Palmer, Author of the Avatar Materials

Recently my daughter was studying at Starbucks when she got into a conversation with a woman, who was clearly happy and excited about her life. She told my daughter how she had been afraid of losing her job. Someone then introduced her to Mary Kay Cosmetics, which she loved, and she decided to become an Independent Distributor. A few months later she was so successful that she had just earned a car from the company. She did indeed end up losing her day job, but by then she was all set with her new business. She took what could have been a very negative circumstance (losing her job) and transformed it into something wonderful (finding an exciting new career). Her enthusiasm was contagious and my daughter came home excited and uplifted by her.

I encourage you to look for opportunities and to seek creative solutions to life’s challenges. Focus on what is possible and what is under your control. The results may leave you pleasantly surprised and help you to find the joy and fulfillment you seek. Also, it can allow you to become a beacon of light and hope to others.

Love & Light,
Felicia Weiss

P.S. I hope to see you at the February 27-28 Fort Worth Wellness Expo. This is an inspiring and uplifting event designed to help people mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually. Here you will find “something for every body, mind and spirit”™.

Many go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.
—Henry David Thoreau

]]> http://HolisticNetworker.com/1048/opportunities/feed/ 0 http://HolisticNetworker.com/914/remembering-andre-williams/ http://HolisticNetworker.com/914/remembering-andre-williams/#comments Mon, 28 Sep 2009 11:42:39 +0000 Felicia Weiss http://www.holisticnetworker.com/wp/?p=914 Around 7:00 PM (Central Time), on Monday, June 22, dear Andre Williams, at the age of 50, left this earthly plane. Andre had spent over 2 months in the hospital due to a faulty heart valve and a stroke. His leaky aortic valve allowed fluid to flow backwards into his heart and lungs. It was thought that the infection of the heart’s pericardium probably put off spores that infected his kidneys, lungs and heart.
Tony and I were very fortunate to have known Andre for several years. He was a longtime fan of the Wellness Expo in Addison, where he helped promote and support the Ananda Meditation and Yoga Center by being a positive ray of light at their exhibit booth. Andre always arrived with a big smile and greeted us with a big hug. His positive attitude and winning ways meant so much to his friends. He was greatly loved by all who knew him. Andre was the kind of person who remembered the little details of your life and he would ask about things that mattered. He also had a great love for his son, Kenny, and was proud of him and of his many accomplishments.
Some people make the world a better place with their joyfulness, thoughtfulness, and kindness. Andre was such a person. His love of life and physical presence are greatly missed.

]]> http://HolisticNetworker.com/914/remembering-andre-williams/feed/ 0 http://HolisticNetworker.com/930/its-for-the-best/ http://HolisticNetworker.com/930/its-for-the-best/#comments Mon, 28 Sep 2009 11:34:59 +0000 Felicia Weiss http://www.holisticnetworker.com/wp/?p=930 Recently my son and I were driving to an event together. We had allowed extra time for traffic. Surprisingly, every light we approached was green and although it was still rush hour, we did not experience any traffic. When we were less than 10 minutes from our destination, I told my son that I had not anticipated us to have such clear roads and that it looked like we were going to arrive a bit earlier than planned. Before we could decide what to do about this, on a part of the highway where I had not expected any slow down, we were suddenly experiencing a delay. I actually welcomed the traffic, as did my son, and we agreed that this was perfect. Now we would arrive at our event at the appointed time. He and I chatted happily about how this had worked out quite well. I marvelled with him about how if we were in a hurry, this same event would have felt quite stressful.

So often in life it is our interpretation of what happens to us rather than what actually occurs that makes all of the difference. When several people experience the same event, there are frequently as many different viewpoints as there are people involved. Sometimes what starts out feeling like a loss turns out to be a great blessing. For example, missing an airplane flight can be quite upsetting, however, if the plane were to crash, then missing the plane would prove to be quite fortunate.

It is up to us how we choose to view our lives. By focusing on the positive and on what is working, we can experience a more joyful existence. Surrounding ourselves with people who share our values and our vision and who also elect to view life in a happy manner can lead us to experience much fulfillment. I hope you will appreciate how much control you really do have over how you experience your life and that you will allow yourself to trust that things work out for the best.

Love & Light,

Felicia Weiss

“The first question I ask myself when something doesn’t seem to be beautiful is why do I think it’s not beautiful. And very shortly you discover that there is no reason.”
-John Cage

]]> http://HolisticNetworker.com/930/its-for-the-best/feed/ 0 http://HolisticNetworker.com/998/zen-mind-beginners-mind/ http://HolisticNetworker.com/998/zen-mind-beginners-mind/#comments Mon, 28 Sep 2009 11:33:36 +0000 Tony Cecala http://www.holisticnetworker.com/wp/?p=998 On a hot summer day in August, I started doing yoga again. It had been at least 5 years since I had done any serious work. I felt like I was in someone else’s body. Weak and inflexible, my body strained to do beginner poses and I found myself often resting in “child’s pose” during class.

This summer, I also began reworking our internal business processes at Holistic Networker. They too, had become rigid and in lexible. Forms for the Wellness Expo didn’t readily handle multiple venues. Our website, too, which elegantly promoted a single expo, now needed a redesign to handle multiple shows in multiple locations.
In both cases, I found myself back at square one. In handling my body and my business, the feeling of being “out of my game” was very real to me. As I’ve grown older, I’ve grown accustomed to being an “expert” in my domain. In my yoga practice and my business I was, once again, a “newbie” — starting anew and relearning my way to a new expertise.

Zen monks recommend that we undertake all our endeavors with a “zen mind”—a “beginner’s mind”. In the west, we call it an “open mind”. In practice, it really means more than just being open to new ideas. We must be able to discard old ideas — even good ones — that don’t fit our everchanging situations.

If we follow nature’s example, we would be reinventing ourselves and our businesses in real-time, not just when the environment changes dramatically. In this way, we can gradually accommodate new information, growing and evolving continuously. Unfortunately, as adults, we tend to resist change and we see things as they have been previously categorized (psychologists call it “hardening of the categories”). Thus it may seem that Twitter is “just online texting”, and blogging is “just MS Word online”, but actually, we are in the midst of a revolution of new ideas and procedures regarding work, business, career and right livelihood.

Keep a “beginner’s mind” and you’ll be prepared to accommodate new information and change at an accelerated pace. I do believe that humans are getting smarter, faster, stronger, and wiser.

]]> http://HolisticNetworker.com/998/zen-mind-beginners-mind/feed/ 0 http://HolisticNetworker.com/753/radical-transparency/ http://HolisticNetworker.com/753/radical-transparency/#comments Wed, 17 Jun 2009 16:14:43 +0000 Tony Cecala http://www.holisticnetworker.com/wp/?p=753
Thanks to the internet, search engines, and social media we now have the ability to monitor, catalog, and track our interactions, our friendships, our writings, and our transactions. While this radical transparency can be frightening from a privacy perspective, I believe the benefits are transforming society for the better. Have you considered how greater transparency affects your life? Your career?

No area of the economy has been as dramatically shaken by transparency as ecommerce. Not only do price engines help you find the best deals, but user-generated reviews take the risk out of buying online. Before Amazon, buying a book required driving to a bookstore and quickly skimming some pages before purchasing. Today, Amazon gives you a glimpse inside the book, and offers you dozens (sometimes hundreds) of reviews written by other readers. If a book (or product) doesn’t live up to the publisher’s hype, you will know.

Radical transparency is also affecting your career whether you are aware of it or not. Just a few short years ago, a resumé was the center of the job-search universe. This document told the story of your professional career. Today, potential employers depend on the search engines to discover a more complete story about you. What do you look like on the internet? Have you posted anything of value? What has been written about you? What do you write about others?

Your online and offline life are no longer separate. Recommendations, praise, comments, and criticism of you and your business are being posted to blogs and microblogs (Twitter), social media, and business rating sites (Yelp.com has over 6 million local restaurant reviews). If you participate in online forums, then you’re already familiar with rating systems that filter out “trolls” from “good Karma” users who consistently post helpful information and supportive advice.

These online ranking/comment/review systems all contribute to a transparent society where your recommendations are readily available to potential friends, colleagues, and employers. If you are a person who provides value to the world, and treats others with respect, you will certainly benefit from these new “Karmic” review systems.

Tony’s presentation at WordCamp Dallas 2009 covers these topics and more.

Update: Here’s a fantastic presentation by Joey Shepp that spells out these ideas more deeply:

Open Brands: How Twitter is Pushing Radical Transparency in Brand Management

View more Microsoft Word documents from Earthsite Team.

---

image credit: http://www.sxc.hu/profile/speedy2

]]> http://HolisticNetworker.com/753/radical-transparency/feed/ 0