Archive for the ‘The Four Agreements’ Category
The Four Agreements in the Workplace – Class 2 of don Miguel Ruiz’ Wisdom
By Kevin Murray
- Thursday, May 7th, 2009
Don’t Take Anything Personally – the 2nd Agreement from don Miguel Ruiz and The Four Agreements
[to review The Four Agreements in the Workplace - Class 1 - click here]
We’re working with The Four Agreements to see how we use and lose energy in ourselves and our organizations. In this section, you’ll see where much of your energy goes and how to recapture it to deploy for better results in your life and work.
[**BIG VALUABLE CONCEPT DOWN BELOW!!]
In our individual lives we use a lot of energy in a day to support the stories and ideas of who we think we are. We defend. We may argue. We may criticize and gossip about others who don’t agree with our points of view. For most of us, before we begin a path of Awareness, we aren’t really very conscious about the beliefs and opinions that we are upholding. We simply believe them as if they are true. We have faith in them without question. And many of these ideas and concepts are merely points-of-view; they are not necessarily true.
However, there is a big connection between these beliefs, how we hold them, and the emotional and energetic response they create in our own lives. Many times someone will say something in an off-hand way, and we may have an emotional response. Someone may say something about all the rain we’re having. We might have a reaction like “they are so negative, I don’t like negativity like this around me. I’m not like that person.” We may not say anything, but the mind goes automatically into a reaction. The reaction causes physical responses in our body, like tightness, heat and tension. And then our mind interprets the physical response as an emotion, like anger or fear. This begins a feedback loop between the mind and body, and can use up a lot of energy – just because someone noticed that it’s raining!
This is called “Taking it Personally.” Even if what the person is saying really has nothing to do with us, we take it personally. We all do this a lot. The good news is that once we begin to develop awareness of the comings and goings of this responsive mechanism, we can begin to make different thoughtful choices instead of having automatic reactions.
In the workplace, there is an organizational “mind” made up of all the culture, history, beliefs and “how-we-do-things-around-here” just like in our individual mind. We can use our emotional reactions in the workplace to bring more light to the pieces of the Systems mind that could use a little transformation.
I remember a time when I was not happy with an Office Manager in my company. I felt that she was always complaining and telling others about how she was a victim in many parts of her life. She was always complaining. And I started to be “always complaining” about her to anyone that would listen. [Do you already see where this is going?]
After a few months of this, I saw in one sparkling, clear moment, that there was no difference between her complaining and mine. I was taking her complaints personally, even though they (mostly) had nothing to do with me! Once I saw this and got a big laugh at myself, I began to see that I could have a choice when my complaints would rise up. I could say “oh, that’s just old automatic stuff, let me really listen and see what is here and if there is anything for me to do about it.”
I noticed that some of what she was saying, and where she was taking things personally came from holes, gaps or lack of clarity in our business systems. This is the magical insight in this section. If you notice yourself or someone else really taking things personally at work, chances are there is a System issue behind it.
[**This is the Big Idea]
Imagine shifting your own reactions when you see that someone or something isn’t working as you wish in your business. Instead of the automatic reaction of ” this shouldn’t be happening” or “why me?” or “this customer is a jerk” imagine saying “what is the system issue or need behind this?”
Suspending the automatic “taking it personally” in this way allows to you reclaim 50% or more of your wasted energy in a day. (that is a fact I made up.)
But try this and let me know what you find. Please use the comments feature of this blog and let’s create some dialog here with real-life examples. Or email to me at Kevin@earthandlight.com.
We’ll continue this idea and we still have 3 other agreements to tackle. Thank you for being part of this conversation!
Kevin
Click here to go to Class 3 – Don’t Make Assumptions
The Four Agreements in the Workplace – Class 1-inspired by the wisdom of don Miguel Ruiz
By Kevin Murray
- Wednesday, May 6th, 2009
The Four Agreements are powerful tools to unleash one of the greatest assets in any organization: Your Energy! And by extension, the energy of all the others in the enterprise can also be sent soaring. What is possible is not simply an increase in performance (although you will certainly enjoy those) but rather an entire new point-of-view that connects the creative potential of the individual to the mission and goals of the business. And the creative potential I’m pointing to is the profound flowering of an individual that comes from a process of increasing mindfulness and self-understanding in relation to others. Multiply this individual transformation across many people in an organization, and you have a world-class organization.
Whether you are a systems-oriented thinker along the lines of W. Edwards Deming or a fan of The Four Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss, The Four Agreements, by don Miguel Ruiz provides a simple-to-learn, lifetime-to-master set of principles that can create amazing leverage for today’s small business owners, entrepreneurs and professional managers.
When I say “leverage,” I mean greater results with relatively less effort. Another way of saying this is “working smarter not harder.” These days with increasing global competition in all markets, we all need to enjoy greater leverage. Also for individuals, leverage is the way to come back to work-life balance. As we create more results in our work lives more efficiently, we have more time and energy for our non-work pursuits.
The Four Agreements are:
- Be Impeccable with Your Word
- Don’t Take Anything Personally
- Don’t Make Assumptions
- Always Do Your Best
So where to begin? How about almost at the beginning with #2?
The next installment will be about:
Don’t Take Anything Personally
When we first engage The Four Agreements to shift our energy in our workplaces, the first place to look is: where are we using our energy now? One of the places we invest so much energy is in: Taking Things Personally…. To be continued….
Click here to go to Class 2 – Don’t Take Anything Personally
Click here to go to Class 3 – Don’t Make Assumptions
The Four Agreements Class in NY
By Barry Schwartzbach
- Friday, April 24th, 2009
Life Mastery Programs is now offering The Four Agreements Class in Altamont, NY through Associate Teacher Barry Schwartzbach.
The Toltec teachings of Don Miguel Ruiz, as presented in The Four Agreements, paint a vivid picture of how we create our own world based on our beliefs or “agreements”. These agreements, which we have often unconsiously accepted, can be based in fear. Once we make an agreement it becomes part of our belief system which triggers automatic responses to the world around us. If we can recognize these patterned responses, we can begin to change them and make concious choices based in Love, not in Fear. Barry’s intention for this group is to introduce concepts and techniques that enable one to move along ones own path to self-discovery.
Class meets most Saturdays beginning April 11, 2009, 10:00am – 12:00 noon
By Donation
5815 Gardner Rd. Altamont, NY 12009
For more information, directions, and dates of meetings: call Barry at 518.577.9411 or email barry@lifemasteryprograms.com
Tom Brady, Gisele Bundchen, & The Four Agreements by don Miguel Ruiz
By Meghan McChesney Gilroy
- Friday, April 24th, 2009
So I have to admit that I love when I read that a celebrity has picked up The Four Agreements: A Toltec Wisdom Book by don Miguel Ruiz. Most recently I read the May 2009 issue of Vanity Fair’s article “…And God Created Gisele,” (a portion of which is posted online) in which supermodel Gisele Bundchen shared that The Four Agreements, The Mastery of Love, and The Voice of Knowledge were all favorite and influential reads of hers. I also caught (her now husband and New England Patriot’s quarterback) Tom Brady reporting the same in the “Just Throw The Damn Ball, Tom Brady” article in the August 2008 issue of Esquire.
Now the reason I love these celebrity “testimonials” is yes, because it spreads the word about a book that has so inspired my life and the lives of many others. But more importantly, I love how it dissolves some of my perception of who I think a public figure is. I really knew little about Gisele, other than she was a beautiful face on a beautiful body. After reading the article though, I caught a glimpse at her inner beauty – which is quite extraordinary. Much of what she is quoted as saying in the article is full of wisdom. And how cool is it that she is willing to share her wisdom with millions of people? Particularly when someone thinks they are going to be reading about the prom queen marrying the ultimate jock? Or the “scandal” of Tom Brady getting his ex-girlfriend Bridget Moynahan pregnant? Gisele and Tom deftly re-intrepreted a challenging situation by asking, “What good can come of this? What can we learn?”
So as I read the article, I realized that once again don Miguel’s agreements ring true: Don’t make assumptions. I was given the opportunity to look behind a person’s outward appearance. (In case you’ve forgotten, the other three agreements are: Be impeccable with your word. Don’t take anything personally. Always do your best.) If you’d like to see how Gisele has applied these to her life, I highly recommend picking up the latest issue of Vanity Fair.
And as always, I’d love to know how The Four Agreements have worked for you!
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