Practicing Gratitude

Do you have a gratitude ritual that you’ve developed in your professional and personal lives? 

If not, then I’d encourage you to consider one. And if you do, then please consider commenting on this post and sharing what you’re doing.

I’ve been trying to couple my gratitude focus to my morning journaling. Sometimes I’ll write down my thoughts in my journal. Other times, I’ll just let some of the prompts in my journal inspire my thinking and reflection. But my ritual surrounds my mindfulness, reflection, and daily journaling activities.

Journal Prompts

I thought I’d share some of my gratitude-centric journaling prompts—

What was the best part of your day yesterday?

What are you looking forward to today?

What is the one thing you can do to make tomorrow even better?

What are three things you are grateful for right now? How do they bring joy to your life?

Who are three people you are grateful for right now? How do they bring joy to your life?

What is one ritual you currently use to practice gratitude?

What is one ritual that you will add to your practice?

Wrapping Up

There’s nothing magical about being grateful. It won’t solve the climate crisis or improve D&I across corporate America. But I’ve found that centering on being grateful on a day-to-day basis has made me a better agile coach and an even better person.

PS: I want to thank Saralyn Hodgkin and her Practice Your Leadership newsletter for inspiring me to write this.

Stay agile my friends,

Bob.

Additional articles with more ideas for gratitude rituals…

• https://www.agile-moose.com/blog/2021/4/16/every-day-wake-up-and-ask-yourself

• https://www.mindful.org/an-introduction-to-mindful-gratitude/

• https://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/40-simple-ways-practice-gratitude.html

Internal Agile Coach as an Employee

This idea came out of another Moose Herd discussion. 

The situation where (sometimes) an agile coach can get lost in their role and forget to be themselves. To move from being:

Coach Bob, who has to “show up” as an agile coach every minute of every encounter of every day;

To simply…

Bob, who coaches, but who also is an employee, colleague,equal partner, and human being. 

There’s potentially a huge difference between the two. For example, the latter allows me to:

• Vent if I need to, or complain to my boss;

• To get overly excited about an idea;

• Not have to say…Yes, and… all of the time;

• Not having to look for deeper meaning or revealing the system;

• To passionately disagree with someone;

• My emotions to surface, to get defensive, overreact;

• To have a bad day; to have a great day;

• To not want to coach now, today, this week;

• Be real, be genuine, be ME.

Wrapping Up

The key idea here is for agile coaches to not get too “wrapped up” in their role to the point where they are always the coach or always coaching. To allow ourselves to occasionally step out of that role and become us. To not be afraid to express ourselves, to ask for help or a break, to not always have to be “coaching clients”.

Let that run around your mind as a coach and see if it resonates. Reflect on times when you’ve been coaching when you actually shouldn’t be coaching. And think about giving yourself permission to stop doing that.

But there I go again, always coaching…

Stay agile my friends,

Bob.

Spending Your Own Life’s Energy

Oluf Nissen posted the following on LinkedIn:

I think I've figured out why I have a certain distaste for both consulting companies and American-style capitalism. Both are essentially about not spending your own life energy to get a "return", but benefiting from others' life energy being spent continuously for your "return" or reusing life energy spent by someone else in the past. It's sort of the ultimate inequity. And both are essentially lazy. And don't get me wrong, I love lazy. Just not this kind. Expressing this distaste has limited my career options in the past. So, this is quite risky for me to put out there. 

And I thought I’d share it as a thought experiment for everyone.

I’ve been mulling it over ever since I read the post. It’s made me think of:

• Where am I spending my life’s energy?

• Am I getting the returns I expected from those investments?

• Am I using/reusing others’ life energy without care, awareness, intention, or appreciation?

• Do I need to increase, decrease, or renew any of the above?

I think these thoughts align with a post I did a while back about bullets. You might want to read that one as well.

Wrapping Up

Where are you spending your life’s energy and are you being lazy with others’ energy?

Stay agile (and energetic) my friends,

Bob.

Am I…in the Arena?

A few years ago, I wrote a piece about internal vs. external agile coaches and the possibility of being “pickled” as an internal coach. The first one was the primary point and the second was a response to the large number of comments the first received. As I recall, this was one of my most widely read and reacted to articles.  

Here are links to the two articles. You might want to give them a quick read for context for this one…

• The Trap of Being an Embedded Coach

• The Trap of Being an Embedded Coach – Following Up

• And to explain a bit more on pickling – The Hammer and the Pickle

Several internal coaches in my network, all of whom I know and respect, were taken aback by these posts. I remember one in particular as really being moved by them. And not in a positive way.

I was reading a newsletter the other day and the following quote was mentioned as part of an article that was warning of too much criticism on the web nowadays and reminding us of the need to ignore our critics.

Theodore Roosevelt quote:

“It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

And it hit me. Hard!

Not that I was wrong in my embedded agile coaching posts, but it reminded me that I had forgotten a very important point.

In The Arena

To all of the coaches who were touched and influenced by my articles, I solemnly take my hat off to you in respect and support.

You all, whether you are pickled or not, are IN THE ARENA. And I am NOT.

Which is something that an external coach or consultant, like myself, doesn’t always realize nor respect enough. We’re often critical without stepping onto your field and being side-by-side with you. In your arena.

Wrapping Up

As an external agile coach, the quote reminded me of two important things:

1. To first, always approach my criticism with positive intent, empathy, and an understanding of the arena that everyone is in.

2. Secondly, to try very hard to partner with my clients, stepping into their arenas to better my understanding of the field of play. From a player’s perspective.

And to hope that I too can occasionally step onto and into a variety of ARENAS to become a better Agile Coach.

Stay agile my friends,

Bob.

Your story...

We are our stories.

No. These are not stories that surround us or that are told about us. These are the stories that we tell ourselves, that we share in our heads. Stories of… 

• I am not good enough

• I am not skilled or experienced enough

• I am not smart enough

• I am not strong enough

• I am not…enough

Instead of those, perhaps begin telling yourself different stories, stories of…

• I am magical

• I am complete

• I can do this

• I am resilient

• I am unique

• I can survive this

• I can overcome this

• I am complete and I am…enough

When do you tell these stories?

All of the time. Quietly and continuously. One story at a time, shift from ‘not’ to ‘am’ stories and become what you truly are.

Stay agile my friends,

Bob.

BTW: this blog post contains a nice graphic around our old versus new stories - https://rgalen.com/agile-training-news/2019/2/25/the-leadership-circle-initial-thoughts

Every day, wake up, and ask yourself...

who am I standing on the shoulders of (family, friends, colleagues, experts), and acknowledge them...

what difference will I make today, and make it...

what am I grateful for today, and celebrate it...

who am I grateful for today, and thank them...

what do I dream of accomplishing tomorrow, and take a step towards it...

who can I hug (in-person or virtually), then hug them...

are you doing what you love, and if no, then take a step towards it...

what can I unlearn today, then unlearn it...

what baggage or bias can I reduce today, then release it...

who can I help today, then help them...

do I need help today with something, then ask for it...

what can I do to be kind to myself today, then do it...

what one thing do I need to do today, then do it

what am I worried about, then let it go for just today...

have I walked in nature and been thankful for the greatness of it. If not, then take a walk…

have I hugged myself today, if not, then hug yourself...

what is the one thing I could do today to bring me joy, then do it... 

Every single day is a chance to begin anew—to learn, to grow, to make amends, to renew. Don’t waste it!

Stay agile my friends,

Bob.

I don’t see HOW this HELPS?

I became aware of Neil on Software just the other day via a LinkedIn post from a colleague. He referenced the “How to Deal with Difficult People on Software Projects” work that Neil has shared. I went through it a bit and I need some of your help.  

Why?

Because I simply don’t get the value. Yes, it’s—

• Creative

• Snarky

• Novel

• Interesting

• On the surface, pretty cool, with neat graphics…

But is it helpful? I’m struggling with that.

Is it helpful to stereotype people in software projects? To put them in boxes and categorize them?

When people are incredibly complex beings in themselves. And, it’s not just that individual complexity that I find unique and uncategorizable, but nobody works in a vacuum. Individuals are part of organizational systems. With all of the increased complexity that it brings to bear.

Is it helpful in guiding my individual learning and growth? Is it helpful in guiding my interaction in organizational systems? And, importantly to me, is it helpful in meeting people where they are and with respect?

Perhaps you can help me in the comments on this post. Because right now, I’m pretty well triggered and not getting the value proposition…

Stay agile my friends,

Bob.