Before you can meet your needs, you should examine the people, places, things and actions in your life that drain away time, energy, emotions and resources away from meeting those needs. This would be anything in your life that you are putting up with, find annoying, getting in the way, or affects your attitude.

Make a list of at least 10 of your energy drainers, annoyances and tolerations that you experience daily or only occasionally. Do not avoid listing someone or someone because you feel that he, she or it cannot be dealt with ~ write down everything. If you have more than 10, write them down too. Truth be told, we all can list a whole more. Don’t forget to write down the source.

Example: energy drainer = waiting in line / source = slow or insufficient number of clerks

In my November newsletter published Saturday, November 1st, I will address dealing with your energy drainers, annoyances and tolerations in a proactive way, and with meeting your needs. You can receive my newsletter and read my newsletter archives by clicking on the button at the top left column of this page and providing your contact information.

We all have needs. They are normal and natural. The trouble comes when we do not acknowledge those needs. Further confusion arises when we are unable to distinguish between a bona fide need and a want/desire.

So what’s the difference? There is no easy, quick answer since wants often disguise themselves as needs. It take a willingness to be honest and soul-searching about this. Here’s a quick checklist.

Needs:

• Are essential to our well-being.
• We feel an intense attraction towards.
• We experience a feeling of relief when filled.

Wants:

• Are unessential to our well-being.
• We feel an intense attraction towards.
• We often do not feel relief when filled or relief for only a short time and then we desire something else.

Here are some examples.

Needs for security – safety, protection, stability, information, clarity, honesty, commitment to meet obligations, financial security, authority.

Needs for intimacy/relationship/connection – be listened to, needed, loved, touched, helped, included, cherished, appreciated, connected to a group, to collaborate and communicate, be connected to something greater than self.

Needs for achievement/attainment – to create, accomplish, strive for, perform, have peace, attain calmness, be busy, be responsible, be perfect, be spiritual.

Wants – usually newer, bigger, better (you fill in the blank-often a material thing including money, possessions, etc)

How do you recognize an unmet need?

• Track your emotions. When you discover patterns of “downer” emotions, you might be on the trail of a need.
• If a need is unmet – often feel frustrated, fearful, disappointed, hurt angry.
• If a need is met – feel pleased, excited, challenged, relieved. Needs are pegged to the core of who we are.

Try writing down your top ten needs. Then narrow it down to your top five.

Next blog – meeting your needs.

The world’s financial crisis makes me stop and take notice of my own personal operating capital. I’m not talking about money, I’m talking about the inner resources that I drawn upon daily. I’m talking about the basis from which I carry out my day, make decisions, plan for the future, treat others, and generally live out my life. Not only am I asking what these resources are, I am asking how do I refill and refresh those resources.

In business, it’s dumb and destructive to ignore a company’s finances. It’s a proven statistic that many new businesses don’t make it because they are under-capitalized. It’s also a proven statistic that without adequate on-going funding, a business is doomed to fail, regardless of the number of years it has been operating. It’s just good business sense to keep an eye on inflow and outflow of cash.

In life, it’s equally dumb and destructive to ignore your own operating capital. Do you take care of your health? your spiritual needs? your intellectual growth? your personal relationships? Do you even know what you need in order to be a fulfilled, self-actualized human being? Do you know the difference between a concrete need and a desire for your life?

I will be writing about differentiating between a need and a want, and identifying your own needs, in next Monday’s blog, October 20th.

I just finished reading ~ and I quote from the back cover ~ “the national bestselling rags-to-riches story of an advertising executive who had it all, then lost it all and was finally redeemed by his new job.” I think that blurb has it a bit wrong. The author, Michael Gates, was redeemed not by his job, but by his change of heart resulting in a change of attitude. His new job was merely the catalyst of that change.

Gates was born into privilege. Doors opened for him simply because of his pedigree, his education, his membership in an exclusive club. In mid-life, he is fired from a lucrative and high-profile position from a very successful advertising agency, and in the process loses his family, his lifestyle and his identity.

Broken and desperately trying to hang onto the illusion of his old life, Gates jumps at an entry level position at Starbuck’s. In the process of learning a new job, working with people he would formerly never have associated with, Gates gradually faces old demons, learns to take new risks and rebuilds his confidence.

But he learns much more. He learns to live from and follow his heart. He says, “The gentle love and peace and happiness I felt now I had never experienced before. Maybe the mistakes I had made — causing so much damage — had also helped me to break out of my comfortable cocoon to get out to a world much more full of life and light.” (p206)

So what’s my point? This man experienced a significant break-through to a better life because he experienced a significant change in self-awareness and what truly mattered to him. Gates came to understand his value and purpose by facing challenges and learning from change. Change that initially was outwardly imposed by circumstance but became inwardly imposed when he realized how out of touch he had been living in relation to his real self.

And that’s my point. By not being fully aware of, and in touch with, your true self; by living a life based on expectations of others, you are merely sleepwalking instead of living a vibrant, balanced, purposeful and rewarding life.

The book? How Starbucks Saved My Life, a Son of Privilege Learns to Live Like Everyone Else, by Michael Gates Gill, 2007, Penguin Group, NY,NY

Creative thinking is open-ended, often original, non-judgmental and unpredictable. On the contrary, while risk-taking can include a measure of creative thinking, it also involves analysis and a prediction of the outcome. It’s important to understand the distinction between the two, otherwise, the early stages of creative thinking will be unnecessarily hampered by risk assessment. That comes later.

Creativity involves a break from conventional, tried-and-true ways of thinking, exploring and operating. This separation gives your brain and/or your team the space to breathe, to craft new approaches, concepts and products. The goal is to provide an environment in which free exploration and expression of creative thought are encouraged.

The focus of your creative thinking should be in areas that are suitable for your business. If you are in the fashion world, you wouldn’t be thinking of better ways to prepare fried chicken. That chicken, however, may be the result of a session on how to create a talked-about gala that will launch your new summer line.

“Rules” of engagement to begin the creative process:

• Openness not restriction of thought
• Allow for limitless possibilities
• Judgement free
• No pre-determined outcome
• “Reach for the moon”
• Perfection not allowed
• Willingness to lose face, lose control, experience failure

When you are ready to drill down and focus, that’s the time to implement your risk analysis. (Refer to my September 2008 newsletter, Coaching Risk Taking, in the Resources Section of my website. If you aren’t already signed up to receive or access my newsletters, you can do so on the top left column of this page.)

For further information, including a list of references, refer to www.stressdoc.com/creative_risk_taking.htm

I believe that we all come equipped with an in-born creativity. It never ceases to amaze me how naturally creative little kids are. If allowed, they are continually in a state of inventive thought and action. I think that our natural creativity gets squelched when it comes up against conformity of thought perpetuated by socialization, our public schools and other lock-step systems. Certainly, without these systems, anarchy and chaos would rule, but somewhere along the way we threw out the baby with the bath water.

Creativity is the hallmark of innovation. Imagination is the starting gate for change. I like the way John Maynard Keynes puts it ~ Ideas shape the course of history. William Blake said ~ Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of imagination and What is now proved was once only imagined.

Powerful words. Powerful concept. Powerful force. Creativity is to be embraced, not distained or held at a fearful distance. Our brains thrive on a heady and seemingly contradictory mixture of creative and “safe” thinking. Boredom sets in with too much routine. Too much chaos sends us diving for security. However, an essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid of failure.

A person needs a little madness, or else they never dare cut the rope and be free. ~ John Maynard Keynes. It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all. ~ Edward de Bono.

Creative thinking is particularly important in today’s global economy. The old-think of business as usual just doesn’t cut it anymore. I read that over fifty percent of the 500 largest companies in the U.S. have in-house programs focusing on problem-solving or creative thinking. New-think companies actively encourage the continual flow of new ideas. In other words, they encourage an entrepreneurial spirit within a corporate framework.

Nobody talks of entrepreneurship as survival, but that’s exactly what it is and what nurtures creative thinking. ~ Anita Roddick.

In next Monday’s blog, I will write about strategies for incorporating creative thinking.

My husband and I recently attended an exhibit featuring glass artist, Dale Chihuly. If you aren’t familiar with his work, google his name. There is great disagreement in the art world as to whether Chihuly is an artist, a craftsman or a mere technician, but that academic debate does not impact my astonishment and sheer enjoyment of what this man and his team of collaborators have done, and continue to do, with blown glass. As we walked from room to room looking at dazzling, extremely colorful displays of glass work, the word creative kept coming to mind. This man, building on the vision of glass artists before him, has caused me to look at art glass in a new and very creative way.

It also got me to thinking, just what is creativity anyway, and is it confined to the art world? So the first thing I did was grab my trusty dictionary and look up a few related words. To create means to cause to exist, bring into being, originate, to give rise to, produce. Being creative is having the ability or power to create things, characterized by originality and expressiveness, imaginative. A creator is one that creates. Creation means the act of creating.

I couldn’t find a single definition that made “art” the sole vehicle or end product for creative thought and action. Sure, there was a reference to “expressiveness” and “imaginative” but those words do not exclusively belong to the domain of the art world. Certainly architects can be expressive. Inventors are imaginative. And the list goes on.

So creativity is thinking outside the box. It’s looking at something familiar and tweaking it. It’s also inventing whole new things, thoughts, actions.

Next Monday I’ll look at the relevance of creativity in life and in business. In the meantime, check out a press release from John Hopkins University that “sheds light on the creative improvisation that artists and non-artists use in everyday life.” Entitled This Is Your Brain on Jazz: Researchers Use MRI to Study Spontaneity, Creativity, it can be found at www.hopkinsmedicine.org/press_releases/2008/02_26_08.html

We all have different risk quotients. For example, I can jump out of a plane with gay abandon, parachute-free, enjoy the ride down and face the dire, most likely lethal, consequences when my adventure comes to its inevitable abrupt end. Or, I can acquiesce to my fear of heights and steadfastly refuse to even get on the plane. Or, I can take sky-diving lessons from a reputable source, learn how to safely negotiate my return to earth once I’ve jumped into thin air, and joyfully let gravity take over.

The first choice is based on an acute lack of anxiety, fear and self-preservation. I could get extremely lucky and land on something that lets me walk away alive and mostly intact, but the odds are undeniably against me next time I pull this incredibly stupid stunt.

The second choice could be based on real or imagined fear or experience, but whatever the underlying reason, there’s a good chance my automatic reaction keeps me frozen, unable to do much of anything that requires a height-related activity, whether it’s viewing sunrise from a mountain top or using a gift certificate at the spa on the 15th floor of a skyscraper.

The third choice is what I call an intelligent, calculated risk. I’ve gathered information, assessed the potential liability and benefits, gotten needed training and partnered with a reputable, experienced organization to undertake this possibly life-threatening but definitely thrilling adventure. Sure, there’s a risk that I might land awkwardly and break a leg or my chute won’t open at all, but I’ve calculated the risk and decided it was relatively safe and a risk level I was comfortable with.

So do you know your personal risk quotient? Managing anxiety and fear is a big piece of your risk profile. Last week I blogged on the underlying biological, cognitive and learned aspects of these twin emotions. Addressing how to deal with the biological basis is not in the purview of this blog, nor within the realm of my expertise. Sound medical advice from an experienced professional is needed to address a possible chemical imbalance. By the same token, contact a health professional if you are dealing with a dehabilitating phobia, fear or anxiety that stems from past life experience. This blog assumes that you are willing and able to deal with your anxiety, fear and risk quotient.

Here are some basic tips on upping your risk quotient:

1. Make the decision to be less risk-adverse. Sounds like a simple step, but it really does start with your personal buy-in to make a change. “I’m going to fulfill my long-held dream of skydiving even though I’m afraid of heights.”
2. Make the decision to be risk-smart. Just deciding to be risk-adverse could result in your becoming risk-prone, not necessarily a good thing. Being risk-smart means you’ve done a risk anaylysis — gathered the facts, weighed the facts, assessed the upside and downside potential (applied Dr. Ben Carsen’s Best/Worst Analysis) — and then created an objective action plan. “I’ve taken lessons from a reputable skydiving school.”
3. Make a decision to face your control quotient. You can’t control all things at all times just like you can’t foretell future outcomes with absolute certainty. Yet fear of loss of control freezes too many from moving forward even after a positive risk analysis. So recognizing and understanding your control quotient is crucial to upping your risk quotient. It helps to look at how you deal with unpredictability; what has worked for you in the past and why; what hasn’t and why. And sometimes, at the end of the day, you just have to let go. “I’m going to jump out of the plane and trust that my properly prepared parachute will open, give me an exhilarating ride and then return me safely to the ground.”
4. Make a decision to face your fear. Focus on exactly what is bothering you so you can develop an action plan to deal with it. Journal if necessary to let your emotions play out and access whether they are rational or irrational. If you are feeling a general sense of anxiety, try to label it as a specific fear of something so you can then deal with it “I get an overall sense of uneasiness when I’m at an airport. Hmm, I’m afraid of heights, airplanes fly high, hence, I’m uncomfortable at airports.”

In my September newsletter, published Monday, September 1st, I will continue the theme of risk-taking. Topics to be covered will be productive risk-taking in the business world and further tools to up your personal risk quotient. Make sure you’re are signed up to received my newsletters and access the newsletter archives.

In my mid-September newsletter, published September 15th, I will cover a Christian perspective to risk-taking.

As for my next blog, meet with me on Monday, September 1st for Coaching Creativity.

Last Monday’s blog included a series of inspirational quotes on risk-taking that elicited either excitement or terror depending upon the reader’s personal risk-taking profile. Today, I’ll address two emotions that often hinder our willingness or ability to take a risk — anxiety and fear. Most of us are no strangers to this pair of emotions, but it’s helpful to work from a basic understanding of these feelings before addressing the role they play in your own risk-taking profile.

The English language is full of idioms to describe anxiety, fear and nervousness such as break out in a cold sweat, have butterflies in your stomach and nerves of steel. Anxiety is defined by the dictionary as a state of uneasiness or distress about future uncertainties, apprehension, worry; intense fear or dread lacking a specific threat. Fear is defined as a feeling of alarm or disquiet caused by the expectation of danger, pain, disaster or the like.

While they sound similar, there is a distinction between anxiety and fear. Anxiety is “a vague, unpleasant emotional state with qualities of apprehension, dread, distress and uneasiness.” It is not pegged to a specific object. Fear, while similar in feeling is different in that it is object-specific. In other words, anxiety may be felt over not knowing how to handle a difficult situation, while fear might be felt when someone puts a spider in the palm of your hand.

Anxiety and fear can be further understood from biological, cognitive and learning perspectives. In the simplest terms, the biological basis for these two emotions rests in the relationship between Gamma-Amino Butyric acid (GABA) and benzadeapines. In a nutshell, behzadeapines regulate the amount of GABA needed for sufficient neural transmission. When the biological components are imbalanced, unhealthy anxiety and fear-related disorders may develop, and professional medical advice may be needed in dealing with them.

The cognitive basis for eliciting fear or anxiety are primarily threefold: loss of control, inadequate coping responses, and personality traits. (1) Real or perceived loss of control. Feelings of helplessness and inadequacy often arise in the midst of unpredictable or uncontrollable events. (2) Inadequate coping responses. A real or perceived inability to adapt to a threatening or unsettling event. (3) An individual’s personality traits. Anxiety can be transitory tension and apprehension in response to a specific event, or it can be an “enduring, consistent behavioral characteristic” that defines someone’s response to a stressful situation.

From a learning perspective, anxiety is an acquired or conditioned drive that creates an avoidance response, a response which is reinforced by a subsequent reduction in anxiety (Mowrer, 1939) Fear is an avoidance response to pain. In repeated laboratory studies, rats learn to avoid pain by steering clear of a specific activity that cause the pain, or by participating in a specific activity that prevent pain.

“High levels of anxiety and fear can lead to impaired psychological functioning, intellectual errors, and disturb concentration and memory.” Moderate anxiety “can be used as a motivation to change oneself or adapt to the situation.” Low anxiety could place one in jeopardy due to an inadequate understanding of the situation at hand and possible outcomes.

To bring this discussion back to risk taking, your personal risk profile will be affected by a combination of your biological, cognitive and learned responses to anxiety and fear. So thrill seekers either have a very low level of anxiety and fear, or they have developed coping mechanisms that allow them to forge ahead in the face of these twin emotions. Risk adverse types have a high level of anxiety and fear, or are unable to develop coping mechanisms, and will shun feelings of anxiety and fear at all costs. Most of us will fall somewhere in the middle and our healthy approach to anxiety and fear allow us to take a leap into the unknown.

For a more in-depth discussion on the biological, cognitive and learning perspectives of anxiety and fear, go to the California State University, Northridge website from which the quotes in this blog were taken www.csun.edu/~vcpsy00h/students/fear.html.

To learn more on English idioms relating to anxiety, fear and nervousness go to www.learn-english-today.com/idioms/idioms-categories/anxiety-fear.html

Next Monday I’ll blog on upping your risk quotient.

Famous and not-so-famous people have been quoted on the value of taking a risk. For them it boils down not to choosing risk, but to choosing life.

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by, and that made all the difference.” — Robert Frost

“The dangers of life are infinite, and among them is safety.” — Goethe

“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do …men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” —Helen Keller

“Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.” — Robert F Kennedy

“Let’s make a dent in the universe.” — Steve Jobs

“Progress always involves risk; you can’t steal second base and keep your foot on first.” — Frederick Wilcox

“Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go.” — T.S. Elliot

“Often the difference between a successful person and a failure is not one has better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on one’s ideas, to take a calculated risk — and to act.” —Andre Malraux

“The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing and becomes nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn and feel and change and grow and love and live.” – Leo Buscaglia

“Most people can do extraordinary things if they have the confidence or take the risks. Yet most people don’t. They sit in front of the telly and treat life as if it goes on forever.” — Philip Andrew Adams

Next Monday I will blog on the two emotions that affect our personal risk quotient.