Inspired Project Teams

Some recent feedback from one of my students helped me step back and see the field of project management, and my role as a PM trainer,  in a whole new light. His words were truly inspirational. To share this inspiration, check out my blog post at my other website, Michael Greer’s PM Resources:

• Project Management: “A Technology of Manifestation…”

I’m taking a bit of a holiday from my work on this blog. However, you might be interested in my post from last month’s collection on The Best Free Training. The object of the game:  Learn to meditate and be able to generate your own mini-vacations as needed! It includes info and links to free resources:

Yearly Vacation? Why Not a Daily Vacation? — Learn to Meditate!

URL — http://www.bestfreetraining.net/?p=1999

Enjoy!

Weary of all the negative, nasty, contentious noise and ranting that passes for news or commentary these days, I just published a permanent page on this blog titled:  It’s OK!
(See main menu, just under banner above.)

Please check it out and post your Comments that provide evidence that things are OK in your world! (And, since I intend to maintain this page as a permanent feature linked to the front page, please return to it whenever you get new good news and post it in another Comment.)

Topics discussed on the page include:

• Why, despite the media rants, things are generally OK!
• How optimistic teams are more likely to succeed.
• How your brain is pre-wired to help you collect bad news if you choose to do so.
• Evidence (and links to more evidence) that things are generally OK

The point of all this: To succeed as an individual or as a project team, you need to have an optimistic outlook. And such optimism is a choice. And it is also a habit that can be learned. So this new page is designed to help you begin to develop the habit of finding evidence that: It’s OK! … and to share that evidence with the world.

Again: Please add your Comments at the end of the article and help us all focus on good news!

Audio: 10 Specific Actions That Can Help You Become Happier
[Time - 25:10, File Size - 24.6 MB]

In this post, we focus on the individual instead of the team. After all, teams are made up of individuals. And when individual team members are happy, there’s a good chance the entire team will be  happy! But how can anyone become happier? To begin to answer this question, I share 10 specific actions that I’ve taken to create more happiness in my life. (And I hope you will share your suggestions in the Comments section at the end of this post.)

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Here come the holidays! And that means all kinds of family events with family members setting goals, playing roles, and trying to get things done together as big, often unwieldy, teams.  In many ways, families have much in common with formal business project teams.  In this post, we examine some similarities between families and project teams and suggest some podcasts that might help you create more inspired family teams.

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Audio: Consciously Choose Your Attitude [Time - 17:10, File Size - 16.1 MB]

Your attitude is that collection of feelings that you bring to a situation or to a relationship. If the prevailing attitude of your project team is negative, cynical, or hopeless, then there’s a good chance your project results and work processes will reflect that bad energy. On the other hand, if you and your team feel positive and enthusiastic, then you’re likely to have a better work experience and produce higher quality work products. So a project team’s attitude can make or break the project. But what can you do about something as intangible as your attitude?

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Audio: Be the Change You Want to See [Time - 11:25, File Size - 10.8 MB]

“You must be the change you want to see in the world.” -  Mahatma Gandhi

“I can’t hear your words because they are drowned out by your actions” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. Men will believe what they see.”  – Henry David Thoreau

“… if you want joy, give joy to others; if you want love, learn to give love; if you want attention and appreciation, learn to give attention and appreciation; if you want material affluence, help others to become materially affluent.”  Deepak Chopra in The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success

All these quotes point to the same powerful truth that has become an aphorism: Actions speak louder than words. What’s more, implied in all these bits of wisdom is the deeper truth that when you take a heartfelt action, especially one that is rooted in giving of yourself, you somehow release into the world the same sort of energy that propelled you to take this action. The result: Other people resonate to your energy and begin to replicate your behavior. By being (or manifesting) the change you wish to see, you are actually releasing forces that conspire to bring about more of this change in the world.

OK. That sounds a little cosmic, right? Well, here are a couple of examples that will make this all a bit more real.
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Audio: Take the Risk [Time - 16:50, File Size - 15.8 MB]

This post is all about getting outside your comfort zone. It’s about encouraging you to run with open arms to embrace that somewhat scary opportunity that you see in front of you. If you can imagine it… if you can see it clearly… if it gets you excited as a possibility, then it may be your destiny to make it a reality. As Ralph Waldo Emerson says: “There’s nothing capricious in nature, and the implanting of a desire indicates that its gratification is in the constitution of the creature that feels it.”  In other words, the very fact that you can imagine a new path or a new invention or a new way of being indicates that it is part of your larger life’s purpose to manifest it.

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Audio: Trust Your Judgment [Time - 14:45, File Size - 13.9 MB]

“A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages… Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.”  Ralph Waldo Emerson in Self-Reliance

“… the best in every business do what they have learned to do without questioning their abilities — they flat out trust their skills, which is why we call this high-performance state of mind the ‘Trusting Mindset.’ Routine access to the Trusting Mindset is what separates great performers from the rest of the pack.” — John Eliot in Overachievement

“Skill in any performance, whether it be in sports, in playing the piano, in conversation, or in selling merchandise, consists not in painfully and consciously thinking out each action as it is performed, but in relaxing, and letting the job do itself through you. Creative performance is spontaneous and ‘natural’ as opposed to self-conscious and studied.”  Maxwell Maltz in Psycho-Cybernetics

“By banishing doubt and trusting your intuitive feelings, you clear a space for the power of intention to flow through.”  Wayne Dyer in The Power of Intention So, do you trust yourself — really trust yourself — to come up with that creative leap, that exactly appropriate solution, that powerful insight that maybe no one else can generate?

The message shared by all these great teachers… indeed, by many other great philosophers… is that to achieve anything great you must trust that voice which lies deep within you and is trying to be heard. Read the rest of this entry »