What's RIGHT With You Today?

Ever notice that people are quick to ask someone else - or think to themselves - "what's wrong" much more often than they ask or think "what's right"?

I wrote a post last March called "How's Your Head?" which kind of talks about this topic. We are so conditioned in our lives to notice what isn't working, what we don't want, what we don't like that that's what is always at the forefront of our minds. I admit, thinking of what I really DO want is not that easy for me. But if we can start noticing the times/places/people who really cause us to feel joyous and engaged, we can start thinking about setting ourselves up to be in more of those places than the ones that drag us down.

My friend Dave showed me his mindmap earlier this week for a new book he's working on and just seeing that diagram (it was on a sheet of flipchart paper, so it was huge!) was very inspiring for me. As he was able to trace his thought patterns and physically show me the connections, his engagement and inspiration just naturally called forth those same emotions in me. We talked about the Sigmoid Curve (see the previous post reference for that info, too), and flow, and energy, and money, and abundance, and the past, and all kinds of great ideas were generated. We spent a good portion of our after-dinner time trying to name his new book, which was a blast in itself.

I really understand - no, I really KNOW - what Margaret Mead meant when she said:

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

And I would add "engaged and passionate" to her "thoughtful and committed." Invite someone else to join you in a new level of dialogue. A good place to start is with:

"Tell me what's RIGHT in your world today."

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Speaking of mindmaps, here is a great example of a mindmap (I'll have to write more about this technique in the future).

I took the liberty of publishing Graham's mindmap here under the permission granted to Wikipedia. (Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. Subject to disclaimers.)