Stephen Covey wrote some years back about the virtue of striving for a win win in negotiation.  He talked about working towards a balance between consideration and courage to get to an outcome which suits everyone.  I’m still dubious.  If negotiation is needed at all there is no win win without compromise, and in a lot of business and personal negotiations, that compromise is usually surrendered by the person with the least positional power.  How do we overcome the positional verses personal power dilemma?  How different it would be if we could flip a switch and look at ourselves and our negotiations from a position of personal power and not need to com-promise, but to all work towards the “promise of comm-unity"?

Success = Results

In what feels like a life-time ago, I had an experience of feeling good about my confidence levels and how I was delivering presentations.  I was getting my message across to my audience and I was getting great feedback...from most people.  But I did not ‘fit’ the corporate formula.  The feedback I was getting from my manager was telling me something different to what I was hearing and feeling from my audience – so who did I believe?  Funnily enough I started to believe my manager and thinking that I was no good – that I said ‘fantastic’ too many times.  I started to believe the crap, listen more to my critic than my coach and my results started to decline.

It took getting into a metaphorical ‘hot air balloon’ to get some perspective on what was happening.  It took some real separation.  I had to get some distance to see what the actual story was and to regain my sense of reality.  My reality – and not someone else’s critical view.

Trusting my own gut and moving in the direction I feel is right for me – trusting that the rapport I am feeling and the response I am getting from my audience is right; knowing who I am and feeling good in my skin – this is where the personal power is.

Tomorrow is my birthday and it’s the first birthday I have had without a parent.  I didn’t get a card in the post; I haven’t had a phone call for over 2 months.  There is a big gap in my life – no doubt.  How tricky it is to move through change.  Really my Dad was an old man.  He was 86 when he died, a pretty good innings especially given his numerous health challenges.  His death was not unexpected and I had time to prepare.  Seriously I don’t know that any of those factors make the grief any easier, or the missing any less, or the sink hole in my life any smaller...but there’s the thing.  Had that been my father in his bed when the earth opened up and swallowed him out of the blue, with no warning and no excuses would I feel any different?  Absolutely have no idea!  The reality is its all relative.  Change is change is change; it is a certainty and a necessity.  How we approach it and run with it is the challenge.  Staying present to what is seems to be the key.  As my beautiful friend Teresa says – stay current with the current of your life.  A surrender for sure.  Let go and trust in the current.  I will never have a card from my parents again, nor a phone call, but I did have them and I am grateful for that.  I can leave that experience in the past and take the knowledge of the past that I had into the present that I am now creating.