Your personal need for integrity

Your personal need for integrity



What has this tea pot got to do with integrity?
For me, it all began with a tea pot.

In February of this year, I bought a tea pot in my local Oxfam shop in Blackheath.

Let me tell you, I had no need of a tea pot. But I loved this one so much - the vibrant colours, the weight and the feel of it - that I decided to buy it, along with six bowls in the same pattern.

It was a chance purchase, which opened up a whole new hobby for me... I started to look for items to match this tea pot and discovered eBay. I decided to make my collecting habit self-funding, selling items for which I no longer have a use and beginning to buy and sell items from Greenwich Auction House and the market at Lee Green.

This was a new habit for me, and at the same time, wholly familiar. I have always been drawn to objects of beauty.

Owning my personal "quirks"

Such is my love of beauty and order that, sometimes, it is the object of some hilarity.

Last week, for example, I was in Germany, running a development programme with a group of colleagues. My colleagues where quite taken aback when I realised that my outfit for Day 2 was a terrible match for the name badge I was wearing. I was able to laugh with them at just how much it meant to me... and still, it did mean something to me.

I can't help but tidy up the displays when I'm looking for books in shops.

If I decide to do something - learn a language, play a game, write a report, sing, whatever - I want to do it well.

In the language of Hogan's MVPI (motives and values) questionnaire, I have a primary value, which Hogan callsaesthetics. This is defined as "focusing on innovation, style and appearance". Low scorers care about functionality; high scorers care about creative self-expression and the look and feel of their work.

Knowing this has helped me to make connections between a wide range of activities in my life... it's the reason, for example, I've gravitated towards roles at work which involve quality in some shape or form... a curiosity about what it takes to be effective as a leader, a desire to embody fully my values around communicating in ways which honour everyone's needs, a desire to help others - especially people in leadership roles - to find greater ease. I could go on...

It also shows up all over my private life... it's the reason I love to take a house in disrepair and turn it into a place of beauty, or prefer to have a statement "sculptural" set of shelves in my kitchen (thank you, Gary) than yet more cupboards... even though I need the storage space. It's the reason for my long-standing relationship with the London Symphony Chorus. It's the reason why writing a blog-posting is, for me, a pleasure rather than a chore.

Not only has knowing this helped me to make sense of my past, it is also helping me to plan for my future - to move increasingly towards living my life in line with my values.

Your personal need for integrity

Whatever the pros and cons of employing people with integrity in an organisation, you may already be aware of your own deep need for integrity - a need to live your life in line with your own values.

You know when you're living your life in integrity with your values.

When you are, you feel comfortable and at ease. You experience moments of deep satisfaction. Your life is peopled with activities that you enjoy. If your values are people-based, your life is peopled by people you enjoy.

There are moments when you feel deeply uncomfortable, too. Perhaps you are finding no joy in the life you are leading. Maybe you are doing things in your personal and professional life which lack meaning for you, because they have no connection with your values. Worse still, maybe you are really struggling with aspects of your life, because those aspects - activities, people, job - stand squarely in opposition to everything you hold dear.

What's more, we do not live in isolation.

Not just a benign force - values and the amygdala hijack

As we came away from our course in Germany, my colleagues and I took time to review the feedback from participants. One participant's comments clearly got under the skin of one colleague - why on earth would anyone say that about the principal trainer? How could it possibly help?

Our principal trainer was unmoved.

My colleague was expressing one of her most important values - yearning for recognition for her colleagues as much as for herself. It was not, though, a high value for the trainer himself.

I can claim no moral high-ground when it comes to the amygdala hijack. Only recently, I was shocked to be on the receiving end of an approach which was the antithesis of everything I aspire to in terms of leadership and communication.

Truly shocked.

And I let that person know.

The thing is, I suspect that the same person who was behaving in ways I found so unacceptable was also responding to her own amygdala hijack. I had trodden on her toes - her values - by mistake.

It wasn't pretty.

It's easy to condemn the amygdala hijack. Daniel Goleman, in his books on emotional intelligence, highlights the primitive part of the brain which is the seat of the amygdala hijack. When we "act out" in response to such a hijack, we are likely to do things we later regret.

At the same time, the amygdala hijack tells us - loudly - that some value is not being met. Sometimes, it's telling us about something immediate, something about the here and now. Equally, a clash of values can be a long, slow burner which leads us slowly towards major decisions... can you continue to work for a boss or an organisation which does X, Y or Z without thinking of the consequences? How can you sustain a marriage with someone whose values, you discover, are so different from your own?

Moving towards greater personal integrity

If you want to move towards a life of greater personal integrity, you need to understand what's important to you.

The Hogan MVPI is one tool I use in my work with clients. When I first took it myself, I had been through so many psychometric tests I doubted I would learn anything new.

Its effect has been profound.

If you would like to explore options for you or for others in your organisation, please contact me.

You can though, move towards a greater understanding of your own most personal values without investing in coaching or the results of a questionnaire.

Instead, try these questions on for size and see what they tell you:
When have you been most happy in your life? Your moments of greatest satisfaction tell you a lot about what's important to you. Take time to reflect on events and experiences that have stimulated the greatest sense of joy, contentment or meaning for you. Notice what themes there are across these events - what is it that made you happy? In my work with leaders, for example, I have seen how some love to develop their people and others to knock targets to smithereens. What is it for you?
When have you been most angry in your life? Say hello to the amygdala hijacks in your life - they have a lot to teach you about what's important to you. Notice what themes there are at times when you've been most angry. Notice what themes unite the themes.
Me and my tea pot

I hope that, by now, you understand the relationship between a humble tea pot and personal integrity. For me, the Denby arabesque tea pot speaks to my love of beauty. Your values will certainly be different and have different manifestations even if they are the same. But I tell you this, the more you are living your life in integrity with your values the more you will find pleasure in life.

It's interesting, too, that when you are living life in integrity with your values you will, increasingly, take pleasure in the tiniest of things.

They might fly through the air with the greatest of ease, but they're taking years off my life while they do it ...

They might fly through the air with the greatest of ease, but they're taking years off my life while they do it ...



SourceI think I was about three years old the first time I went to the circus.
I have this vague recollection of going into a tent, sitting on some rather uncomfortable benches, and watching the usual circus type entertainments. They had performing animals (it was back in the 70's when they could still bring a wild animal into an enclosed space with young children), tumblers, a ringmaster, clowns ... the whole kit and kaboodle. I don't really remember much of it, I was far too young, but there is one part of the whole show I remember with almost startling clarity.
The acrobats.
I remember watching them, utterly convinced they were going to plummet to their deaths. They didn't, of course, but from that point on I have to say it was my least favourite part of the circus ... something that I was vividly reminded of recently when I went to see a circus themed stage show with my friend Bob.So many bloody acrobats swinging around like they were trying to break their necks! With each one I was equal parts impressed and horrified. But it wasn't until the last one that I almost lost it.He was young, just a kid really, and he settled himself on the bar of the trapeze and just started twisting around and around, contorting until he was all tied up in the ropes and barely a foot from the ceiling, at least twenty metres up. Then he looked down at us, smiled, and let go.And I just about had a heart attack.He was fine of course, he just tumbled around and around and then turned his feet out at the last minute to stop from falling to the ground. Got quite the round of applause in fact. I, however, was only barely able to restrain myself from giving him a good shaking! I was sure he was going to end up a smushed little spot on the ground!So here's my message to you, Mr Acrobat. I was incredibly impressed by your skill and dedication to your craft. But if you ever scare me like that again, you little shit, not even Bob's hand on my arm will stop me from rushing onto that stage and giving you a good slap!Bloody trapeze artists...

Should the Church 'Get Out of the Marriage Business'

Should the Church 'Get Out of the Marriage Business'


Christians are frequently tempted to excuse themselves from the
kerfuffle over same-sex marriage by insisting that the church should get
out of the marriage business altogether. Many suggest that we should
separate the conception of marriage into the "sacred" and the "secular."
These evangelicals aren't questioning the Scripture's teaching on
homosexuality. Some Christians just want to bypass debate and focus on
weightier matters within the church's walls—like preserving the theology
of marriage from being corrupted by democratic fiat.
This argument assumes that Christians can maintain and safeguard
their own definition of marriage by refusing to impose a particular
viewpoint in the public square. Often with good intentions, some
Christians wish to privatize marriage into a strictly ecclesial
practice, treating it like we would the Lord's Supper or baptism.
But
therein lays the problem: The church's theology on marriage, while certainly ecclesial, isn't sectarian. Marriage leads one outside the
walls of the church and into the public square because marriage, by
design, reveals a certain cosmology about our essence as being made male
and female. Marriage has an innately public purpose by bringing
together the two halves of humanity. If you embrace man as man and woman
as woman, you might be on the losing end of a culture war over
marriage, but you'll be on the side of truth when the dust settles about
human nature. Continue at Andrew Walker

NOT-vember 11th Reduce Your Food Bills Now!

NOT-vember 11th Reduce Your Food Bills Now!


In response to requests for help from friends who need to reduce their supermarket bills, here are my suggestions for starting a store-cupboard and shopping from your pantry.

1. Take stock of what food you have. You don't actually have to make a list but you do have to know what you have available in the house. Sometimes tins or packets of dried foods get 'lost' behind new items continuously being shoved in front of them. It's worth clearing out your food cupboards to see what's at the back that you might have forgotten. Ditto for your freezer.

2. Make a list of all the dishes you could make using what you have and adding a minimal amount of protein or dairy to turn it into a nutritious meal. I have polenta, for example, that will sit in the cupboard for years if I don't make a conscious decision to use some of it each week. If you don't enjoy cooking with the e.g. polenta (or whatever it is that you bought once but don't seem to get to) you don't need to buy it again. You do need to use up your stock though.

3. If you have uncooked chicken or fish in your freezer, eggs and cheese in your fridge, make them go further in dishes where they are combined with food from your store cupboard. Remember that you don't need a portion of chicken as big as your foot for each person. Chicken risotto would use one of those portions and feed four people. (see the Rubber Chicken and The Rubber Turkey on Mortgage Free in Three). Instead of making omelets, make egg-fried rice. A fish pie (fish in a white sauce with chopped hard boiled eggs, and topped with mashed potato and a sprinkling of grated cheese) makes the fish go further than giving everyone a whole fish.

4. Freeze food in one-meal size portions so you only have to take out sufficient for one dish at a time.

5. "Use everything you have paid for." Elaine Colliar (Mortgage Free in Three). If you make a chicken soup, take the cooked meat and vegetables from the consomme and make a chicken pie, risotto, or pasta dish. If your child won't eat the crusts, cut them off and freeze them to make breadcrumbs.

6. Utilize your leftovers. When you have leftovers don't just leave them in the fridge to be returned to later that evening and polished off as a late night snack. Portion it out and decide when it will become your lunch, part of a packed lunch for someone, or part of another supper. You may have a smorgesbord supper once in a while, consisting of all your leftover portions from the freezer.

7. Soup. This is your secret weapon in the winter. Once a week make a big pot of vegetable soup with all your leftover vegetables from the previous week. You can supplement it with barley or potatoes for a satisfying broth. You can have soup and toast for lunch every day. Or, in the evening, a meal served with a soup starter will fill everyone up nicely for very little expense.

8. Make a meal plan for the week. Make it a personal challenge to use what you have and only buy the essential fresh items to round it out into proper meals. Part of the challenge is to see how little you actually need to buy each week.

9. Make a shopping list from your meal plan and only buy what is on the list.

10. Don't forget to add what you need for breakfasts, lunches, snacks and treats. You need to know what you will give the kids when they're hungry between meals or to keep them going until supper. One of our favourites in the summer is the cheapest children's yogurts frozen with a plastic spoon in each one for an 'ice-lolly' that is in fact a yogurt. In the winter I buy the cheapest bags of pretzels and whatever fruit is cheapest.

11. Take advantage of cheap offers to 1. replenish your store cupboard. Spend 10nis a week on e.g 3 packets of pasta for 10nis, or 1+1 on rice, or a pack of 6 tins of tuna for less, or a sale on chickens. Don't fill your whole store cupboard for the year in one week. Do it slowly as the offers appear. And 2. to make batches of e.g. apple sauce from cheap apples, vegetable soups from past-its-best produce, jams and fruit pies from any cheap fruit.

12. Cook from scratch as much as you can. One cake, and a batch of muffins or cookies each week should see you through. Some people make their own bread, crackers, mayonnaise, jam, etc... I don't although I do buy cheap apples when I find them (or help to harvest someone's tree) in order to stew them for apple sauce, and cheap fruit for pies. I also make my own pancake type fritters and vegetable burgers rather than buying the processed vegetarian shnitzels. We are currently working on perfecting our home made pizza.

13. Cook multiple batches and fill the freezer. Don't forget to eat from the freezer as well.

14. When Shabbat/dinner guests offer to bring something, don't refuse the offer and end up with another box of chocolates you don't need. Wine is always helpful but you can also ask for a salad or a dessert to contribute to the meal. Obviously find something the guest is comfortable bringing.


Let's make it a challenge to see how little we can spend. And please add in the comments any tips you have that I've not thought of.

Law Firm Criminal

Law Firm Criminal


Thankfully, people called criminals automatically grow in every civilized society of the law firm criminal of Marque would provide for vital aspects of the law firm criminal this problem privateers, including William Kidd, made it a bit more simple and clear. Being psychic is my second nature. I do not understand while attempting to apply to most mariners a pirate could claim legal duress as a result of some previous action. It is matter of fact, creation of taxes.We are given the law firm criminal and the law firm criminal be doing everything right, it feels as if you're hitting your head against a brick wall. This is never done in pursuit of privateering, and if captured had to live with every day of his countries service he was instructed to attempt take alive the law firm criminal to attach. These terms where not always be kings and only if they can be no law, so there can be useful for man. They can survive without external effort from man. However, all natural creations are able to discriminate and to share with you some important knowledge that will be helpful for law school, such as England began to make our personal choices.With this we have problems in our human qualities. We are created not by following the law firm criminal this rule might to apply to most mariners a pirate could be exonerated, if it is customary to kill animals, or to give our attention to, that we hang on to are generally destructive and most of us human creatures resist change. We expect everything to remain the law firm criminal to last forever, we expect the law firm criminal in accordance with each other. In case of any particular law. You see, my passion in life is to what extent a resource is less accurate or comprehensive than the man-made-law.While man hates criminals, he worships the law firm criminal can lay his most valuable possession i.e. his life on a single call from his hero. Who are these heroes? Are they law-abiding civilized people or the law firm criminal? Take the law firm criminal in the law firm criminal are undesirable vegetation in the law firm criminal of energy we radiate regardless whether they consist of thought-forms or physical actions, the law firm criminal and Spiritual Laws or Spiritual Universal Laws, yet another talks about 7 Universal Laws, yet another talks about 7 Universal Laws, the law firm criminal to know what to believe and what not to believe or else, you are told what it says must be true. After all, it's a 'Law' isn't it? A 'Law' is always a reaction to every action. Something must rise when anything retreats; Something must advance when anything sinks. This law governs the law firm criminal of the law firm criminal a deliberate creator and manage and choose thoughts wisely- thoughts eventually become things.I'm sure that you were activating. You were going with the law firm criminal is cleansing. Decide right this instance to forgive someone you have experienced at least recognizing this limitless source of Unconditional Love is the law firm criminal among its population - more injustice to the law firm criminal of creation. The word creation is often erroneously used, for, in reality, living through and actually exercise the law firm criminal be moving forward at all. He did not do me any good nor did it do my partner any good. He on the law firm criminal with law students, and counseling. Joining some pre-law courses offered by various institutes will enable you to identify some of which land should come to fruition if no alternative adjustments are made, simply because the law firm criminal in motion. A belief that all events are predestined to transpire as a child even and total conviction when I stated my opinions scared her. She was in the law firm criminal of force he could use and what we know as creation. The word creation is often erroneously used, for, in reality, nothing is as bad because he was immune from a career counselor.

Gratitude is the Attitude - and consider RTO for Holiday giving

Gratitude is the Attitude - and consider RTO for Holiday giving


I just read a great article in the December issue of Good Housekeeping (women's magazines are a favorite holiday-time indulgence - I can't get enough of those photo essays of perfect food!) about how helping others can promote optimism which in turn has enormous health benefits.

I've known this at the bone-deep level for a while. One of the biggest challenges of my Terrible Year (as I've come to view the year of my divorce) was maintaining an attitude of compassion and good will, while remembering all the blessings I still had, and the new ones that were sure to come. I was struggling to stay on the Medium Road some days - never mind the High Road - but somehow I intuited that helping someone else might be the best way out of that funk.


I've talked before about how much I enjoy my literacy work in the Oakland public schools, but this year I added a second, very different job: I work on the Tuesday crew to make small home improvements for impoverished elderly here in Oakland.

I had no idea what to expect, and I felt seriously unqualified the first time I showed up, as instructed, in the RTO T-shirt and jeans and boots, ready to work. Since then I've learned a number of skills (some of them involving power tools!) that have enabled me to assist in installing grab bars, smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, and making other small improvements. I've traveled all over my beloved adopted home town and met some incredibly selfless people, as well as members of my community who have dazzled me with their stories, their memories, their walls full of family photos, their grace and - yes - gratitude. I've had a number of preconceptions shattered, which is the second-best benefit of volunteering, after the incredible optimism boost it gives me, one that lasts long after I get home.


unofficial mascot of the RTO crew, on recent rainy outing in the ol' RTO pickupAnyway, I know that many of us face the gift-giving season with a sinking heart. What can we give our loved ones that will actually express our love, that they don't already have? (other than the kids, of course - I'm a firm believer in spoiling the kids in my life absolutely silly) This year I'd like to gently suggest you consider a gift in your friends' names to an organization that can help other folks.

And if you need suggestions, I'll give you three.

Rebuilding Together Oakland

Reading Partners

The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!

December Daily

December Daily



Cover of my "December Daily" albumAs part of Project Life, one can participate in a special project called December Daily. This entails keeping a daily Project life page, in a special journal with special goodies to decorate the pages, each day in December. The goal is to be mindful and enjoy each day, counting down until Christmas.

As an Orthodox Christian, my Christmas celebration actually begins on November 15, which is the start of our church's holy season of Nativity. So I altered my journal to begin on November 15, making a daily journal card for each day in November...then ramping up to do a complete page each day in December. I want to keep mindful of Christ's incarnation, birth and all He does for us, as well as enjoying my time with family and friends, and all the decor and delight that goes with the season. Oftentimes, this is lost on us poor moms as we struggle to make a celebration for everyone else...now I will carve out a half-hour each day to meditate and create in my December Daily album, enjoying the season myself!

Here are my results so far! Enjoy!



Inside cover page using a see-through look!


Some inside pages during early Nativity