WordFood

WordFood - how we feed or starve our realtionships

- Julia Hubbel

Julia’s ability to get this group of type-A executives to engage in true networking was incredible. She is truly skilled at motivating the group to engage and interact with each other, and her openness and honesty really come through.

— Shelley Stewart, Jr.,
Senior Vice President of Operational Excellence and Chief Procurement Officer, Tyco

June 23, 2013

Change the Conversation

Everyone deals with a whiner or complainer at some point. We may have married one. Often that person is someone we hired, maybe even a boss. This is a person who finds something wrong with everything and everybody. Perhaps they feel useless, and their way of getting back at the world is to complain. The truth is that you and I aren’t privy to their inner thoughts. We just don’t know what’s really going on inside them, what pain they are feeling or what motivates their behavior. All we have is what they do. And often, it can be pretty annoying.

There are lots of choices. You can leave the room (except if it’s your boss). You can shut the person out or ignore them. You can avoid them. You can cut that person out of your life if it’s a friend or someone outside your family. Much of this is avoidance on our part. There’s a very real potential that you’re part of the problem, and it takes some courage to look at where something you’re doing- or not doing- may be causing this person to express frustration. They may need something from you, ranging from communication, affection, support, coaching. Try to listen past the whining and really hear what’s being said rather than the complaining tone.

Another approach is to call this person on their behavior. Do it gently. We’re all 100% responsible for the results we have in our lives, and we draw our circumstances to us. There are no victims here. So if this person is complaining all the time, what exactly are they unhappy about? They created their world, their circumstances. They own it. Without hitting them over the head with this,  you can point out that they have complete control over their circumstances and their world through how they feel about it. What window of perspective they choose to use. The situation doesn’t change but how they view it can shift in an instant.

As soon as someone  sees where they own the problem, the circumstance, they can take responsibility. This is powerful WordFood. This changes them from being a victim to being the owner of their situation. They can see that what they created is actually teaching them important lessons, even making them stronger. And that they have choices, which we all have, in any situation, the choice to see and feel differently about what is going on in our lives.

When you invite your whiner to step outside themselves and see differently, you are feeding them powerful WordFood. It allows them to make a fundamental choice about how to be proactive instead of reactive. And for you, it’s a reminder of how positive WordFood reinforces these concepts for yourself. Not everyone will listen, but your inner self will hear, and respond. And sometimes, that is enough.

June 5, 2012

WordFood Character Fiber

Some of the best sources of feedback we have come from our critics, and for those of us who pay people to give us this guidance, this can be very humbling.

Last year I wrote my third book, a big fat tome that I called “Exchange.” I whipped it out in a few months, very much in love with my own verbosity and eloquence, sure that this was going to be a world changer. My editor loved it too. I invested thousands in the editing and proudly handed it over to my coach, Orvel Ray Wilson.

He struggled through the first few chapters and called it a piece of crap. “Arch, arrogant, finger pointing and many more choice words,” he said. “It’s beneath you. You can do much better.”

I was deeply hurt and very offended. Or I should say, my ego was wounded. How dare he blast my masterpiece?

The truth is, he was right. I had gotten so swept away by my topic that I had failed to check in with him as I normally did to make sure my feet were square on the ground. They weren’t. Part of me knew it and the other part of me sulked.

I am regularly humbled by people smarter than I am. I’ve been wise enough to hire a few of those people to coach me. I’m not always smart enough to keep them close to my creative process so that I don’t give birth to a Frankenstein monster.

Those who offer us critiques (and possibly damage our oh-so-delicate egos) give us a chance to rethink, redirect and reconsider. As I take on the considerable task of rewriting Exchange to make it the humble, gracious book it was intended to be, I am reminded of how lucky I am to have a book coach who will tell me that what I write is junk. It is hard to hear but it is the simple truth. What he is entrusting me with is the courage to go back and do what he knows I am capable of doing: a much better job.

WordFood talks about Character Fiber, one of the key kinds of WordFood that we need from those we love every day. This is what gets us up and over the obstacles in work and life. Sometimes it can be bumpy for our self image, but those who support us and believe in us deliver the goods, and aren’t afraid to tell us the truth.

Our contributions in life demand it. Our little egos will recover. Here’s to those who provide us with the WordFood to do our best.

Powered by WordPress