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Posted April 30th, 2009 by Judith Cohen, MCC, CPCC
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Posted April 30th, 2009 by Judith Cohen, MCC, CPCC
The past couple of days, I have been hearing a lot of people voice fears about the recession in general and how it might affect them in particular. It’s easy to get caught up in the anxiety. Our economy is in major flux and chaos. Corruption is rampant and few legislators have the guts and the will to tell the truth and clean up the messes that are facing us. Every day there is some new story about a bank’s insolvency, more people being laid off and businesses shutting down. However, if we don’t let our fears engulf us, there are great individual and societal opportunities awaiting us amidst our personal and collective crises.
I love to play with words and I can’t help but notice that the first two syllables of the word “recession” are re and cess. Taken together they form the word “recess”. According to Dictionary.com’s primary definition, recess is “a temporary withdrawal or cessation from the usual work or activity.” Now, there’s an opportunity if I ever saw one! Just the chance we have all needed to stop, take stock, look around at the wreckage and begin to re-vision a more equitable and sustainable path for ourselves and others. Read the rest of this entry
Posted April 24th, 2009 by Judith Cohen, MCC, CPCC
How would you react if you were greeted this way by a group of people you had never met? How long would it take you to open up and receive the welcome these strangers had planned for you?
Thinking about the numerous times I’ve flown into the JFK International Airport not expecting to be met by anyone that I knew, I know that my first response would be denial, “No, this welcome is not for me,” and I’d immediately correct their mistake. When my “Welcome Committee” persisted, I would no doubt become more assertive in my refusal to accept their gift. My second response would then be to actively convince them that they had mistaken me for another Judith. Only after these generously welcoming people refused to take “No!” for an answer would I finally surrender and receive their gift with open arms. Why would I expend so much energy to refuse a welcome? Read the rest of this entry
Posted April 21st, 2009 by Judith Cohen, MCC, CPCC
I initially wanted to label this post: Opportunity Is A Contact Sport! However, upon thinking more about contact sports and their proclivity for injury and damage, I decided that contact improvisation would be a much better and more “opportune” metaphor. According to Wikipedia.com “contact improvisation is a dance technique in which points of physical contact provide the starting point for exploration through movement improvisation.” This notion of connection and contact is so inherent to The Opportunity Game it is quite easy to overlook it.
Connection is the engine that fuels the power of The Opportunity Game. Cultivate your internal connections (your personal aha! moments) and your online and offline interpersonal connections. These can spur any number of unexpected opportunities. A great example of connection leading to opportunity occurred for me earlier today. A student of mine contacted me for help in regard to a coaching issue. I answered his question quickly and easily. He gratefully responded although he also bemoaned the fact that there was no specific place to go to receive answers to the type of question that he was asking. Immediately, I saw an opportunity that would benefit me and other coaching students who had similar issues. I could resurrect an old online column that I had stopped writing a couple of years ago that specifically responded to these very sorts of questions. While my student was the one who made the initial connection, as a result of our conversation this afternoon, I will create an opportunity for myself that will be mutually beneficial. Acting on this opportunity will then create numerous other opportunities for me that I can’t even foresee today. Read the rest of this entry
Posted April 20th, 2009 by Judith Cohen, MCC, CPCC
A man is slowly walking down the street, his head is facing down, his back is bent forward and he is seemingly unaware of anything but the sidewalk beneath his feet. There are people walking toward him and behind him but he plods along neither greeting nor stopping for anyone. If I were to ask you how this man is likely to be feeling, what would your response be?
I have used this scenario over and over again and nine times out of ten, people tell me that the man is depressed or sad. “What is the evidence for this?” I ask. People answer, “His head is facing down and he’s not looking at anyone. Plus he’s walking very slowly and not particularly aware of his surroundings.”
“On the contrary,” I reply. He’s actually very excited. His head is down and his back is bent forward because last month as he was walking down the same busy street he found a lottery ticket. Nobody claimed the ticket and he won a million dollars. He thinks that if he was lucky once, he could get lucky again. He may be greedy but he’s certainly neither sad nor depressed, merely dedicated to his task. Read the rest of this entry