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.

A person’s character underlies every decision, every comment, every action a person takes. And nowhere has character been more lacking than in the events that led up to, and the current dealing with, the mortgage debacle and financial crisis that we are now facing in the United States. I’m not about to get on a soap box regarding this matter, enough pundits are doing that ~ I’m more interested in what we can take away and apply to our conduct in life and business.

So what is character? It’s defined by the dictionary as the combination of qualities or features that distinguish one person, group or thing from another; the combined moral or ethical structure of a person or group; moral or ethical strength, integrity, reputation. So our character both defines us and sets us apart.

Our character is based on our belief system ~ and our beliefs are based on truths we have come to acknowledge and accept. The key question is, “Are your beliefs based on a solid foundation or does your ‘truth’ fluctuate with the situation?” The latter used to be called situational ethics, meaning decisions were based on the shifting sands of whatever was deemed to be truth at that moment ~ or should I say what your perception of the truth was. Perception can be faulty.

Faulty or ever-shifting perspective means fluctuating or inconsistent ethics which translate into inconsistent behavior. I call this lack of character.

A person of character is someone whose belief system is rock solid, and who displays a set of characteristics that take others into account and are not based on purely self-centered motives. A person of character is someone who can be counted on to act a certain way.

Can your customers, business associates and strategic networking partners count on the consistency of your character? Are you consistent? congruent? trustworthy? rock solid? or do you shift based on the business discussion-of-the-moment or how desperately you want the deal?

In my October newsletter which posts on October 6th, I will write about creating a personal board of directors to help you walk the walk, talk the talk and more.

Every March, teams of sled dogs run an 1,100 mile race across the state of Alaska in as little as nine days, often enduring heavy blizzards and temperatures down to minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit. After 10 years of studying these animals, Michael Davis of Oklahoma State University attributes their long distance stamina to a unique ability to “reprogram” their bodies’ reaction to stress.

Cell damage occurs during athletic activity and it normally takes the body a day or two to recover. This process is repeated every time the body is subjected to physical stress. Unlike human athletes, after the first day of activity, racing sled dogs are somehow able to adapt their bodies not only to the repeated physical stress but to other bodily stresses as well. This remarkable adaptation means no further damage to their cells during the race, which accounts for their amazing endurance.

Very successful entrepreneurs are like endurance athletes. Some, like ex-quarterback Fran Tarkington who has started 15 businesses to date, are serial entrepreneurs, taking up the challenge of starting new businesses again and again. Some, face incredible odds just to get one business successfully off the ground. The question is ~ what makes some entrepreneurs successful while others fail given the same set of circumstances?

Like the uber racing sled dog, I think that these endurance entrepreneurs are able to adapt to, and reprogram themselves to deal with the inevitable stresses that come with the territory. Whereas the dogs adapt physically, these entrepreneurs adapt attitudinally. In the face of difficult odds and even failure, they are able to reprogram their attitudes. They survive on a diet high in self-reliance yet surround themselves with mentors, deal with the facts, craft and execute a plan but are flexible when necessary, and believe in themselves. They are able to take the hits but remain passionate and committed because they have both the inner and outer resources to preclude self-damage.

(I will be publishing both a new post and October’s newsletter next Monday. Information on Iditarod Sled Dogs from Jeanna Bryner, livescience.com)

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.