Simplify

Do you ever find that your life is over-complicated? The various responsibilities that we take on, people we have to deal with and possessions that we own, make our lives complicated. I swear that if only we automated everything at work and didn't have people involved, things would get done so much more quickly and efficiently! To complicate matters even more, there's our own thoughts that bombard us like a swarm of bees (apparently 70,000 of them per day), constantly re-playing what we need to do, what we haven't done, who did and said what to us, what we're worried about etc. We can easily become tangled in a thick web of unnecessary complication.
 

I was reminded twice this week about the power of simplicity. Firstly, my colleague shared with me his presentation called the 'Simplicity Project' which he based on Edward de Bono's book 'Simplicity'. After sharing and talking about the concept of simplicity with his team, they reduced their long, arduous and complicated communication chain in Operations to a simple and more productive one.

The irony being that often we don't realise how complicated we have made things for ourselves until we are made aware of the power of simplicity.

Secondly, while on an early morning walk with my two dogs and my Dad who, with my Mum, is over in Bali from the UK, he was amazed to see how simply the rice famers lived and yet they seemed happy. Their homes were a few makeshift tents made out of plastic fertiliser bags, supported by branches of wood, with a couple of stones to make a fireplace for cooking their rice.  One Balinese woman was washing her clothes in the stream that flowed into the rice fields and another woman was standing there naked washing herself. Such a simple, basic life and yet these people go about their daily lives smiling and content. My Dad couldn't understand how they could look so happy and care free when all they have is a 'home' made out of a few plastic bags, a handful of grubby looking clothes and one or two battered pots and pans.  My response was their life is so simple, they have few possessions to worry about and so they can be happy.

Life is so much easier and enjoyable when we simplify it. Hence a short blog from me this week! Hope you like it.

"As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler, solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness."
Henry David Thoreau

Keep it simple!

Janet

Pray, Eat and Get Very Wet

You may have heard of Elisabeth Gilbert's international best seller that has hit Bali like a tsunami. If you haven't read the book or seen the film, it's about a woman who leaves her husband to find her true self and she does this by eating in Italy, praying in India and finding love in Bali.  My version is a little different as I found myself praying for my safety and getting very wet last weekend.  I did, however, eat well.

Have you ever done something that goes against your conventional self, but you know that if you don't give it a go, you'll never know?  When my family and I moved to Bali, we had a dream. We said "Let's move to Bali and buy an old jeep so that we can go exploring." It took us 18 months to work out whether this would be a wise move, to build the right connections and to save enough money. Last week we were bold enough to make the move and purchased a 1966 soft-top Toyota Land Cruiser 'jeep' from a trustworthy and highly reliable source (most important to do this Bali).  Our reliable source's name is Jon and he is fanatical about this vehicle, having purchased it himself a few years ago and 'done it up' until it was time for him to pass onto somebody else who could have just as much fun in it.

We decided to take the jeep into the mountains at the weekend.  As we were preparing to leave it was raining. This, in my experience, didn't bode well for the mountains. "Rain in mountains?" I slowly and loudly asked our Balinese staff member so he would understand.  He looked at me blankly for a few moments and responded "no rain," as if he knew what he was talking about. I was dubious. Regardless, we set off on our adventure.The engine of the jeep roared like an army truck. We bounced along the pot-holed roads like a mechanised kangaroo as my husband fumbled to drop down a gear.  We blasted past the endless stream of motorbikes and threatened to steam roller any slow vehicle that came into our vision. I ducked and dived, pressing my foot hard on the brake as I pretended to drive on the passenger side. The windscreen wipers furiously clicked as they tried to keep up with the vast downpour of rain, until one of them had enough and flew into the air. I couldn't see out of the passenger side anymore and maybe it was just as well. While attempting to look through the fogged up and rain patterned windscreen, I resorted instead to praying that we would 'make it' alive.

As we approached the base of the volcanic mountains, our five year old daughter shouted "look Mummy, there's smoke coming out of the mountain." I hoped that it wasn't volcanic smoke and could see that we were about  to climb into a big, white cloud that was so full of rain, it would be like going through a high pressure car wash. One hour later we arrived at our destination feeling a little worse for wear and very wet. The good news was that we had stayed at this destination before -Puri Lumbung Cottages - even though the accommodation was basic, the food and service was excellent. We enjoyed some late lunch and with true optimism set off for an afternoon tour of the area in the jeep in the still pouring rain. My husband suggested that we visit the Giant Tree, which was only 3km down the road. Quite a few more kilometers, landslides and floods later we gave up on finding the tree and more importantly tried to find our way back. As the torrential mountain rain thumped against the canvas roof, leaked though the passenger door and I still prayed for our lives, I quite frankly didn't care whether I saw a giant tree or not. To distract ourselves from getting lost in the jungle, we decided to play a 'name the jeep' game. Our 12 year old daughter unanimously won and our jeep was now called 'Jenny Jeep or 'JJ' for short. She had been well and truly bathed in the tropical rain as part of her initiation ceremony.

That night the unabating rain continued to beat down. While shivering in bed fully clothed and feeling very damp, I wondered why we didn't take 'JJ' for a trip along the sun drenched coast lines of Bali. Where would the sense of adventure and fun be in that though?

The next morning, the rain had temporaily stopped. As we looked out over the panoramic views of the green tree mountain valley, we noticed an extra large tree. The Balinese waiter confirmed that it was the Giant Tree.  It was gigantic and towered above all the other trees, like a skyscraper.  How we missed it, I do not know.

The rain obviously distracted us.  Similiar to life, we can get so consumed with what else is going on, we fail to see what is staring us in the face!

While checking out I mentioned to the receptionist that it looked as though it was going to rain.  She agreed with me and said "it's been raining for the last year."! There was no chance that we were going to hit a heat wave, so we drove further down the mountain to where all the fresh strawberries were grown. We feasted on lots of strawberries, bought a kilo of fresh strawberries from a trustworthy source and then were tempted to buy some beautiful, plump red strawberries from a couple of female street vendors for a great price.

We were proud of our tough negotiating skills, but as we drove off discovered that we had been conned. What looked like two layers of strawberries was only one. The bottom layer was stuffed with cardboard!

Ah well, we still had fun inspite of the rain and being conned. Who needs love when you can pray, eat, get very wet and still laugh.

'Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own sunshine.'
Anthony J. D'Angelo

Janet

Out of My Control

Do you ever have times when things seem out of your control? I'm sure you have experienced these situations, like me. Although we like to feel in control, some things happen that we weren't expecting and are out of our control.  What's the best thing to do in these situations? Focus on what we can do which is within our control. Rather than dwell on what can't happen, focus on what can.  We can't control everything, but we can control one fundamental tool that we all have readily at our disposal. We can control our response to whatever comes our way.

Take last week, after a few days of working in Singapore, I was ready to be with my family in Bali. I planned the day of my return perfectly.  Work meetings in the morning, followed by meeting up with a friend at the airport for a sticky bun and coffee, before smoothly checking in for Bali.  As my friend and I said our farewells, he commented "Hope your flight isn't cancelled because of the volcano." I laughed. I checked in my luggage, walked through immigration and went to the departure lounge early to call a friend.

While chatting, waiting to board, I overheard a message, "Due to the volcano, this flight will now be cancelled." Why didn't they tell us earlier?  My first reaction was total denial.  What about my family?  They are in Bali and I have no way of reaching them.

I attempted to look on the bright side while observing the whole lounge full of tired, pasty looking people who had travelled from Europe to escape the cold winter and see some Bali sun. The bright side didn't last long as I selfishly thought: they had their families with them, if this volcano lasted as long as the Icelandic one, it could have been a while before I saw mine.

Lucky for me, my friend invited me out with her that evening, so rather than go back to the office and feel sorry for myself, I changed my response and used the opportunity to catch up with a good friend.

Ironically, I suggested to my husband who had gone on an earlier flight to swop suitcases as I had the heavier weight allowance. Now I was stuck in Singapore with his suitcase and he was on his way to Bali with my underwear, clothes and all my computer and mobile phone wires. I phoned the airline help number that had been given to me.  It was Friday evening, the help line answer phone said 'this office is closed until Monday'. How helpful. I phoned the airline office in Europe and was told that they booked me on an alternative flight for the next day, departing at 4.30pm. Later that evening I received a text from my husband "Customs were surprised to find tights in my luggage! Do you work in Bali? the inspector asked" Oops!

The next day I decided to make the best of being alone in Singapore and went to the gym (at the weekend so quite a feat).  My successful workout on the treadmill made me feel virtuous, so I planned a healthy lunch and took some fish out of the freezer.  I checked the status of my flight by calling the same number as the evening before and received an unhelpful response that I was making a call outside of European working hours.  Eventually I found an alternative number and managed to speak to a human being. He confirmed my 4.30pm flight. I calculated that I had enough time for a leisurely lunch and could make my way to the airport within plenty of time. By pure fluke, I checked the airline's internet site to see the status of the flight. My eyes nearly popped out of my head, when I saw that my flight had been brought forward by 2 hours and I should have already been at the airport.  I chucked the still frozen fish back in the freezer, grabbed my passport, ticket and bags and made a frenzied run for the taxi. The taxi driver sensed my urgency and we drove a fast and furious pace to the airport. En route, I realised that there was no information about which terminal to go to.  I decided to take pot luck. Pot luck was against me and I was in the wrong terminal.


I ran to the other terminal to find a huge queue and with only 2 check in desks open. I meekly joined the end of the queue and attempted to look cool, calm and collected.  A husband and wife couple behind me had luggage tags for the same cancelled flight as me. I gathered we would be ok. It turned out they were ok but I wasn't.  When I reached the check in desk, the assistant told me that there wasn't a booking for me. I froze in panic.  The assistant pointed me in the direction of another queue. I dragged my heavy luggage behind me and tried my best to make eye contact with the clearly harassed check-in assistant who already had a queue of irate people in front of him. The poor, young guy was running all over the place, picking up his phone, standing up and down, leaving us all in the queue and returning looking even more harassed.  When it was my turn to talk to him he told me that there was no booking. I politely, with gritted teeth, told him, that I had already discovered this with the other check-in assisant and told him to do something about it, as my airline had definitely confirmed I was on that flight.

He put me on stand-by. As the clock ticked by, I became more tense and wanted to scream. Finally, with 15 minutes to spare, he received a phone call and confirmed a seat for me. With the countdown ticking, I sped though passport control, saw a sign which said 14 minutes to get to my gate. At a frantic run, the journey to the gate seemed like the longest ever, as the travelators stretched into the horizon. The sign at the gate flashed 'Gate Closing'. Made it. The couple who were behind me at check-in cheered when they saw me on the plane. I collapsed in my seat, the sweat pouring off my forehead and my heart palpitating as if it were going to explode. As the plane started moving, I smugly smiled to myself thinking 'What a great adrenalin rush"!

For the first time in ages, I landed in Bali in the daylight. With its green rice terraced fields, undulating hills and mountains covered in a green carpet of tropical trees, Bali looked beautiful. I was excited to be back. By the time I got home, I was the last to turn up for a dinner party I had organised with friends and their response was 'only in Bali'!

So another life lesson. Things happen that are out of our control. We can't control everything. There are external forces that can sometimes prevent us from having what we want. This philosophy has been around for years:-

"It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters." Epictetus 50-120


As the song goes by Jack Johnson, which played on my IPOD when I was on my own at the gym, sometimes you have to staple it together, call it bad weather and move on.


Janet

You Get What You Give

After a month in urbanised Singapore, I've returned to country living in Bali for 3 days, before going back again to run a week of workshops and coaching in Singapore.

I did have reservations about returning to Bali after my highly comfortable month in the city with all its modern trappings, conveniences and my familiar old haunts. Once I'd got through the airport to the car, I remembered I'd always chuckled at the sign that welcomes you to Bali. As the cars, motorbikes and other vehicles queue up to pay the airport car park exit fees, the sign welcomes you to Bali as paradise, a sentiment I am not always aligned with. This time, for some reason, I noticed that the sign actually said 'Your gateway to paradise'. Had they changed the sign? I joked with my husband, no wonder it doesn't feel like paradise at times, it's only the gateway!

This sign left me wondering where paradise could be and I concluded that paradise is a feeling that can only exist within us. You get what you give. If I believe that Bali is paradise, then this is what I'll get. If I believe otherwise, then I'll get that too. Like a boomerang, it will come back to you. It's all to do with the power of our minds and how we perceive things. A friend of mine told me that 2011 was going to be a tough year. "It will be tough if you think it will be" I responded.

While mulling over the words 'paradise', I did recognise that Bali has certain temptations that lure me back, a bit like a boyfriend or girlfriend that you know isn't quite right for you, but you still can't resist. I'm pleased to say that I was pleasantly surprised at how good it felt to be back in Bali. I'm now familiar with the sights, sounds and potholes. The beauty of Bali's landscape has never ceased to amaze me and what I truly like is the feeling of open skies and spaces.  Bali has a rule that does not allow buildings to be built higher than a palm tree (15 metres apparently) and for a change I find myself agreeing with one of the rules that the Balinese government has set.

I had been already reminded of the importance of 'you get what you give' last week while working in Singapore. In our training we refer to this as 'communication is the response you get.' I used to think that if somebody didn't understand me, it was their problem and my response was that they were:-

A. Not interested.
B. Had a different (wrong) opinion.
C. Plain stupid.

The old me usually settled for option C. Now after years of personal and professional development (and making a fool of myself on quite a number of occasions) I realise that I was the one with the problem and not the person whom I was attempting to communicate to. 

Over the last week, I've experienced quite a number of situations where 'you get what you give.' As I waited for a taxi to take me to my training location, I found myself thinking "I feel awful that the poor taxi driver who picks me up has to take me such a short distance." I changed my thoughts to "I have all this video and training equipment so the taxi driver will have to lump it." I then consciously refined my thoughts to receive a better response and changed my words to "I'm sure the taxi driver will be happy to help."

Sure enough the taxi driver treated me in the same way as if he were taking me on a long airport run. He quickly helped me with the suitcase and equipment bags and didn't complain at all when I asked him to take me a couple blocks across the city. I was so impressed with his response at the end of our short journey, I apologised for the small fare, gave him the feedback how impressed I was with his response to my request and thanked him for being so helpful. He told me that it wasn't a problem at all.

Another situation was when I was waiting at the American Club in Singapore for a coachee to join me. I was quietly minding my own business when a member of staff approached me.  "Excuse me, are you waiting for anybody?" he asked. I'm not sure whether his communication style influenced my reaction but I immediately felt as though I shouldn't be there, as I wasn't a member. I explained that I was waiting for somebody and to my surprise he offered me a cup of coffee. His offer was so unexpected that I automatically declined. Then he asked me if I would prefer tea!  I declined again as I had just had breakfast. It was cold sitting directly under the air conditioning, so based on his kind communication, I asked for a cup of hot water instead. His simple, kind gesture enabled me to respond favourably and made me feel good for the rest of the day.

Over the years, I've learned to adapt my communication so I do get the response I'm looking for and this has worked to my advantage on numerous occasions. On Sunday night, for example, when I was kept awake until 2am by the local temple ceremony, the gamelan (an orchestra of gongs, xylophones and rows of tuned metal bars that are struck with a mallet) and the priest were going for it hammer and tongs over their exceptionally loud, loudspeaker. The din reverberated like a Hindu version of a night club.
In moderation I enjoy the sound of the Balinese gamelan that chime across the fields, like a local version of the familiar sound to me of church bells in the British countryside. As I tossed and turned my head on my pillow, it felt like a mallet was striking my head. I tried desperately to find the quietest side, hoping to be deaf in one ear and ended up with the pillow over my head. I very often ask my coachees "what is the feedback telling you?" and decided, on this occasion, to listen to my own advice and quickly change my response, otherwise I was going to have a bad night. I reminded myself that 'you get what you give' and resolved to enjoy the sounds resonating across my bedroom, rather than be annoyed by them, and was soon successfully lulled to sleep.

A word of warning. Be careful not to let down your guard and go back to your old habits. It's so easy to use expressions that we've picked up over the years. At the weekend when my family and I popped over for delicious tea and cake at our friend's house, they enquired whether I had any more snake troubles. I explained that a snake hadn't been spotted at our villa for over a month, the exact time since I had been away. I joked "knowing my luck one will turn up now I'm back". Needless to say that evening a baby cobra decided to make its presence known at our home! You get what you give.

While coaching last week, I came across the following framed verse that was in the ladies toilet of the office I was in and I want to share with you all of you, lady or not:-

Live like today is your last day,
Love like you've never been hurt,
Dance like no-one is watching.
-Ron Hall

Learn from life's lessons and remember that you get what you give.

Janet

What Can Possibly Happen Next?

Have you ever wondered to yourself 'What next?' After a succession of events, you wonder what else could possibly happen? This is certainly how I felt when we had a succession of snakes arrive at our villa.  The more we focused on them lurking around in our territory, the more they arrived en masse, which is inevitable when I was almost stalking them. There's a saying that attention goes where energy flows.  No wonder I couldn't help but think to myself 'whatever next?'! Surely this was the ultimatum and nothing worse could happen?  There's no chance of the Bali tiger popping in as it is now extinct (apparently it wasn't people but the snakes who made them extinct.  The snakes frightened the baby tigers so much that the mothers stopped having babies). I was hoping that now I can live alongside snakes (at a distance and as long as I don't find one in my bedroom, like the time I found vermin droppings and urine stains in my bed while I had been away for a few days), this would be the end to all shocks, worries and surprises in Bali.

More recently while staying in Singapore, my temporary escape to city life made me feel protected by hiding in my ivory office tower which is 10 floors above any wild life that lurks around at ground level, so I didn't need to worry about what was happening in Bali. I could simply shrug off all responsibility and if a snake or any other strange creature of the tropics appeared at our Bali home, in my absence, it wasn't my problem. Well I was wrong. Another problem or for want of a better word 'challenge' emerged in Bali, one which I wasn't expecting and I couldn't shrug off all responsibility, simply because I wasn't there . So another life lesson for me. My Bali life could still catch up with me in Singapore.

I expect you're wondering what this challenge was? It all started with a frantic email sent by our team assistant in Bali.  It was marked as urgent and said 'Cream missing'. Cream is our Bali dog. We adopted her as a puppy and she has been with us since the start of our new adventure in Bali. While we were enjoying the New Year's celebrations in Singapore, Cream had gone missing. We have two Bali dogs and they were both afraid of the New Year's Eve fireworks that noisily cracked and exploded in the neigbourhood. It transpired that on this same evening, two cows had gone missing in the neighbouring field and some stray Bali dogs that usually 'hung around' the local neighbourhood had also disappeared.

It felt like an Indonesian version of Cruella De Vil had kidnapped our dog, two cows and some other local, street roaming Bali dogs. I thought of our well-fed, fat, posh Bali dog mixing with the male 'tramp' dogs or ruffians as my Mum used to refer to and years later, I can now understand her concerns about who I mixed with! My mind wandered all over the place about what could have happened to her. I read between the lines and interpreted our assistant's message as it was all over.  This is Indonesia, someone had stolen our dog and she wasn't coming back. We had to prepare ourselves for the worst. My mind wandered further. Knowing that dog is eaten in Bali and our Cream was as fat as a pot-bellied pig, she would make a wonderful meal. I couldn't take it any longer and decided that we couldn't sit back and accept her destiny, like a jury's verdict that hadn't listened to a fair hearing.  We had ways, means and resources to do something about it. I asked our assistant to talk to everybody in the neigbourhood, to contact our local Banjar (they are like the local mafia, they have eyes and ears open everywhere, have a strong say about their village / neighbourhood and will help protect you, provided you pay into their fund), the dog rescue centres, the vets and to display posters with a reward.

As the days went by and my angst increased, I started to assume the worst. My 10 year old daughter quite rightly told me not to be 'negative' and that she would turn up. This simple and straightforward comment reframed my thinking and quickly put me in a positive state of mind. Sometimes being an adult can get in the way of us remaining positive. Young children have a wonderful innocence and lack of preconceptions, that can get in the way of adults thinking the best. On the fifth day, my 10 year old daughter informed us that she had dreamt Cream had returned and I thought to myself 'I wish it could be that easy.' At precisely 6pm that day, after I had dropped off my daughters for a sleep-over with some good friends and jumped in a taxi, I noticed a text from Bali on my phone. Our assistant was pleased to inform me that Cream had returned all on her own. She was dirty but healthy. I happily shared the good news with my taxi driver, who reciprocated my happiness with a furrowed brow as if he were a little perplexed why I was so ecstatic about a dog. I called my friend and could hear my children leaping with joy at the good news. I phoned and sent texts to all the people I had told about my misfortune which was quite a few people. What a relief!  As they say, all is well that ends well.

The next day after months of abstinence from the gym and with no children around in the morning, I decided to attempt my walk/jog on the treadmill. As I listened to my IPOD, all the songs reminded me of my early morning walk/jogs in Bali with our two dogs. It just wouldn't have been the same going out with our one dog. It would have been like having lost a leg. There would have been no verbal obscenities as I attempted to get our wildly excited and bouncing dogs under control on their leads. There would have been no tangling up of leads and bodies, as if we were playing a game of 'twister' on the narrow rice paddy lanes. There would have been no two dogs crossing over and causing total mayhem as something sparked their interest on the other side and no tripping me up in the process as I dodged the pot holes.  How dull that would have been!

I couldn't stop smiling on the treadmill and it reminded me how good it is to get out, do some exercise and get active, rather than let things spiral down into a dark, lethargic 'thinking the worst state'. The life lessons I learned were to stay positive, keep moving forward and think the best outcome, rather than let our adult experiences and preconceptions influence us to think the worst. There's an English proverb that says:-

"Worrying is like sitting in a rocking chair. It gives you something to do but it doesn't get you anywhere."

I spent far too many days sitting on that rocking chair, worrying about the fate of our dog. Luckily, I had a happy ending to get me off it. Even if the prospects don't look good or the ending isn't what you wanted, get off that rocking chair, think positive and enjoy the now, rather than worry about what next.

On this blog, I've included the song that played on my IPOD that made me smile on the morning when I returned to the treadmill. The words 'The best in life is free' resonated with me.  Enjoy your special moments, memories and remember to think the best about what could possibly happen next.

Janet

Ace of Base, Beautiful Morning: