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In This Issue: January 2006
Desert sands
 About ten years ago, I travelled through South America,
and spent some time in the Atacama Desert of Chile. It's
a beautiful and desolate place, the driest desert on Earth
and consists of salt plains and lava flows, mines and flamingos.
I visited San Pedro de Atacama, a small village that was
once the center of the pre-Spanish Atacamanian culture. In
the museum were various remnants of that civilization,
including mummies thousands and thousands of years old.
Coming face to face with those mummies certainly put my
day-to-day struggles
on that trip into perspective.
(My abysmal Spanish
meant that I'd spent three weeks
existing primarily
on coffee and beer,
the two words in my
vocabulary). I
also became conscious
of the dual nature
of a desert. It can be a place of renewal and reflection
and it can be a place of destruction and obliteration.
2006 happens to be the International Year of Deserts and
Desertification. In this edition I'm looking
at the deserts that we have – and are creating – in
our own lives.
Know anyone who's looking for an oasis? Please
forward Outside the Lines (in its entirety please)
to anyone you think
might be interested.
This community grows with your help.
I'd be delighted if you should wish to reprint (for
free) any part of Outside the Lines in your newsletters,
websites, and message
boards. Contact me
at Michael@BoxOfCrayons.biz for
further details.
Michael Bungay Stanier
Principal, Box of Crayons
P.S. For my UK readers, I am coming to London this month
to run workshops on
the 21st and 22nd of the month. You can find out more at http://www.getunstuckandgetgoing.com/upcoming-events.php and
also below).
Don't take my word for it
"I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast
and trunkless legs of
stone
Stand in the desert ...
Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered
visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and
sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor
well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped
on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked
them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these
words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my
works ye mighty and despair!"
Nothing beside remains.
Round the decay
Of that
colossal wreck, boundless
and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."
'Ozymandias',
Percy Bysshe Shelley
"What
makes the desert beautiful
is that somewhere it
hides a well."
Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Isolation is aloneness that
feels forced upon
you, like a punishment. Solitude is aloneness you choose
and embrace. I think great things can come out of solitude,
out of going to a place where all is quiet except the
beating of your heart."
Jeanne Marie Laskas
"New York... is a city of
geometric heights,
a petrified desert of grids and lattices, an inferno
of greenish abstraction under a flat sky, a real Metropolis
from which man is absent by his very accumulation."
Roland Barthes
"As a remedy to life in society
I would suggest the
big city. Nowadays, it is the only desert within our
means."
Albert Camus
"I distrust Great Men. They
produce a desert
of uniformity around them and often a pool of blood too."
E
M Forster
"The desert has its holiness
of silence, the crowd
its holiness of conversation."
Walter Elliot
Having fun?
In the seven weeks since its launch, The Eight Principles
of Fun has been seen by over 18,000 people in 140
countries around the world. Amazing! (If
you haven't seen it yet, then check it out at www.EightPrinciples.com. And
if you like what you see – and I think you will – please
pass it along!)
It's been featured in this month's edition
of the Holistic Business Journal, a beautifully
designed on-line magazine. The journal supports the
creation and running of holistic businesses such as massage,
acupuncture, chiropractic, herbal medicine, etc., as well
as entrepreneurs who seek a more "holistic" way
of doing business. They're offering a month
of free access at www.holistic-business-journal.com/amember/signup.php?price_group=2
(Due to popular demand, you can now buy your own copy of the movie at www.getunstuckandgetgoing.com/store.php).
Deserts and oases
In Roman times, North Africa was known as
the "bread basket" of the Empire, an endless place of abundance
which kept the empire supplied with wheat. No longer. The land is now exhausted
and has been swallowed up by the Sahara.
And although it wasn't until 1949, that the French
scientist Aubreville gave us the language for this phenomena – desertification – it's
not a new problem. Cicero was fretting about it in
his writings over 2,000 years ago, and it's happened
in every continent – from the Dust Bowl in the US
in the 1930s to the abandoned city of Fatehpur Sikri in
India – not to mention in the oceans that surround
them.
It is perhaps a more urgent concern than ever. In
just one current example, in Northern China, the desert
is expanding by 2,100 km² per year. Of that,
just 5% is due to wind blown sand dunes. The rest
is a result of excessive human behaviour: excessive
cultivation, grazing, and gathering of wood for fuel and
misuse of water resources.
Many of us are far removed from these problems, by geography,
lack of knowledge, or both. In fact, in many places
around the world we've just experienced a season
of abundance: presents given, feasts consumed, families
and friends acknowledged and celebrated.
But we also face our own personal encroaching deserts. Here
are some of the ways that we're threatened by desertification.
Removal of natural defences
Environmental barriers against deserts include forests,
coral reefs, and natural grasslands. We have our
own barriers, but they are often in poor repair.
Strong relationships with family, friends and our community. In
North America, I'm particularly conscious of the
shift in retirement planning over the last ten years: from "make
sure you have a strong network of friends and family" to "make
sure you have at least a million dollars in the bank." You
do need financial reserves, but not only financial reserves.
Your sense of joy. Children have such fun. As
adults, we so often scale that back, to be "responsible", "grown
up", "mature." Laughter is a source
of abundance.
Building on Barren Ground
When the first settlers arrived in Australia, they saw
a lush and green land. What they didn't realize
was that the land was ancient and tired, and vast tracts
of the land held very few nutrients. Rural Australians
have been struggling with that challenge ever since.
In our personal lives, the equivalent is doing work that's
not important to you. Regular readers will know the
importance I place on doing Great Work not simply Good
Work (or Bad Work). You can read more about the difference
here: http://www.getunstuckandgetgoing.com/articles/great-or-good-work.php
Over-exploiting natural resources
From over-fishing cod off Newfoundland to chopping down
the forests of the Amazon, we continue to over-exploit
the Earth. In our lives, we tend to do the same.
- Exhaustion from not balancing hard work with rest. Across
the world, the
number of hours worked per year continues to grow, email
and the web make the amount of information we must process
overwhelming
- Taking our family for granted, and expecting them to
provide support and love.
The temptation can be to let the winds blow, and for the
sand to cover up a little more every year. Don't
let it happen. Make sure that 2006 is a year where
your own desert shrinks rather than grows.
SOMETHING TO PRACTICE
Where are you failing to maintain your natural barriers?
- What relationship would you like to strengthen this year?
- What's
one way you can improve your health?
- How will you contribute to your financial reserves?
- Where are you building on barren ground?
- What's Great Work for you?
- What Bad Work and Good Work will you say 'no' to, so that
you can do more Great Work
- What person in your life drains your energy rather than builds it? How
can you remove them from your life?
Where are you over-exploiting your natural resources?
- What will you say 'no' to, to create more space in your
life?
- How are you taking for granted those closest to you – family,
friends, and work colleagues?
Pick a challenge to work with. To support you, you can download
for free the Action
Acceleration Sheet, the self-coaching worksheet
from Get
Unstuck & Get Going …on the stuff that matters.
WANT TO LEARN MORE? HERE ARE SOME USEFUL RESOURCES
Is Your Genius At Work: four key questions to ask before your next
career move, Dick Richards. I've just discovered this
book, and there are a number of useful exercises in it to help
you figure out what's most important to you. [buy: US CA
UK ]
When Things Fall Apart, Pema Chodron. Chodron is one of the
leading American Buddhist thinkers, and this book is a series of
short reflections on face to the challenges that arise when things
go badly for us. [buy: US CA UK]
Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box. The
Arbinger Institute. Powerful thinking about how we create our own
limitations (albeit written in a fairly annoying way!) [buy: US CA UK]
The Answer to How is Yes, Peter Block. A perennial favourite
writer and thinker of mine. In this book, Block challenges us not
to rush to the doing piece before we're clear on whether or not
it's the right thing to be doing. [buy: US CA UK]
500 Ways to Change the World, Nick Temple. A new book capturing
great ways for improving our societies, from giving roses to speeding
drivers in Ahmedabad, India to deterring vandals by playing classical
music from the London Underground. [buy: US CA UK]
International Year of Deserts and Desertification website: www.iydd.com
National Geographic article on the Atacama Desert, including some great
photos: http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0308/feature3/
Articles on soil erosion in China: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PEK336568.htm and
efforts to reverse the trend: http://english.people.com.cn/200601/09/eng20060109_233969.html
Pictures of the Dust Bowl in the US: http://www.usd.edu/anth/epa/dust.html
The UNESCO site on Fatehpur Sikri http://whc.unesco.org/pg.cfm?cid=31&id_site=255 and
photos of the site: http://archnet.org/library/places/one-place.tcl?place_id=1672
Comments? Feedback?
Michael@BoxOfCrayons.biz
Just try and shut me up!
In the next few months I'm speaking in London, Toronto and
New York, as well as my usual "international" teleforums. I
hope you'll be able to join me!
Get Unstuck & Get Going free teleforum. Monday
January 16, 2pm EST. A regular forum I host for this community,
to support you in getting unstuck. Register by sending an
email to admin@BoxOfCrayons.biz.
Branding & Business Models for coaches. London, England,
Saturday January 21. I've paired these two three-hour workshops
together for an event sponsored by the London Coaching Group.
For more details and how to register go to http://www.londoncoachinggroup.co.uk/events
Get Unstuck & Get Going public workshop. London, England.
Sunday, January 22. For further details and to register,
go to: http://www.getunstuckandgetgoing.com/events/london-jan06.php . Price
includes a personalized copy of Get Unstuck & Get Going.
Get Unstuck & Get Going Learning Annex workshops,
Toronto. Wednesday February 15 and Tuesday March 14. Register
at http://www.learningannex.ca/instructor.taf?id=9052
Creating Get Unstuck & Get Going, New York. Wednesday
17 May. Sponsored by the NYC ICF chapter. Save
the date – registration details coming soon!
As you might be able to guess, I love to speak or run workshops
for groups! Read more about the keynote and workshop topics
I offer here: http://www.boxofcrayons.biz/pdf/Keynote_Speaking_PDF.pdf
'The Scribbler'
Returns this month – look for the next edition in your Inbox
on Thursday January 26th with guest writers Tim "Dr Happy" Sharp
of the Happiness Institute and Mike R Jay, "the world's
most innovative coach."
Michael Bungay Stanier helps people, teams and organizations to get unstuck and
get going on the stuff that matters. He is the author of Get Unstuck & Get
Going ...on the stuff that matters (www.GetUnstuckAndGetGoing.com),
a self-coaching tool endorsed by leaders in the coaching and training professions,
and creator of The Eight Irresistible Principles of Fun (www.EightPrinciples.com),
a movie that's taken the internet by storm. He is the 2006 Canadian Coach of
the Year. You can find out more at www.boxofcrayons.biz or
you can contact him directly at Michael@BoxOfCrayons.biz or
+1 (416) 532-1322.
To subscribe to Outside the Lines & The
Scribbler click
here. If you have any trouble accessing
the form, send a blank email here or
to subs@BoxofCrayons.biz.
Outside the Lines is distributed on the
2nd Thursday of every month. The
Scribbler is distributed on the 4th Thursday of every
month. Your contact information is never
traded, never rented, never sold.
©Box of Crayons 2006. Box of
Crayons is a registered trading name of
Maida CC Inc.
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