Sharing Your Heart is Part Timing... Part Art!

The greatest asset to me in my personal and professional life has been self-awareness.  It has also been my greatest weakness.  Sometimes I have it and other times I don’t.  Self-Awareness is defined as the ability to see recognize and control your emotions in highly stressful situations.  Many times we let the emotion push away logic.   Anyone who has ever been in a relationship or a heated argument understands this concept.  It is the fight or flight response.  Sometimes we fight back when it’s not in our best interest long term.  One of my favorite authors, Dale Carnegie once wrote, “You can catch more flies with a drop of honey than you can with a gallon of gall.”

I want to apply this theory of self awareness to dating.  We will not be talking about losing control in an argument but rather losing control in a dating situation.   Have you ever dated anyone who made you lose your cool factor?  I once had a crush on a girl in high school who took away my “filter” for shareing feelings that should be shared until a socially acceptable time.  It seemed like I just vomited out my feelings with no regard for how it would affect my chances with her or not.  And here is the worst part…. I knew it was happening as it spewed forth!

Okay so here is the story.  I had a crush on a girl named Jessica(Note: the names in this story have been changed to protect the privacy of those involved.  Ha ha I have always wanted to say that!)She was a cute little thing and all of my friends had a crush on her at one point or another.  We called her the ‘untouchable’ because she really didn’t seem like she was interested in dating anyone.  Jessica and I became good friends my Junior year and we shared an English class.  For our end of the year project we had to spend 25 hours doing something English related.  We had just finished a section on poetry and since I was into rap and hip-hop at the time I decided that I would write some poetry or do some rhymin’. 

So I wrote a bunch of cheesy poetry about things like Oreo’s, insects, and sports.  But some of my stuff was deeper.  For my final project I shared some of my lyrical miracles with the class.  Afterward, Jessica told me that she thought I was talented and asked me for a copy of my poems.  Like any enterprising young man interested in wooing a girl I gave her a copy. 

A few weeks went by and it was now in the early summer.  One night while running around the school track, I had this crazy idea that I should tell Jessica just how I felt about her.  My emotion kicked in and told my brain that it was worth it.  That logic didn’t apply in this situation. 

So I drove home and scrawled out the worst love poem you have ever read.  I mean it was terrible!  It compared her to a thief; a thief who had stolen my sleep, my thoughts, and my heart!  For some reason I thought that this would be a good thing to share with her.  We had never even been on a date.  Women always love it when people spring their feelings on them with no warning right? 

Anyway she had told me what time she would be coming home from a church campout so I knew that I could leave it on her porch.  So I grabbed some flowers out of my neighbor’s yard, jumped in my stick-shift minivan.  Destination….. drop zone.  I pulled into the cul-de-sac with my lights off and slunk up to the doorstep, dropped the poem and the flowers and tore off towards the car. 

Now it is important to note that I did not sign the poem…. But I might have written it in the same font and style as the other poems that she had.  It didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure out what was up.  Anyway I got about halfway home and my emotion finally subsided to a point that my logic kicked in and I realized what I had done.  I threw the van into low gear, pulled a u-turn and screeched the tires as I headed back towards her house.  I had to go back for it!  I realized for the first time that maybe sharing my feelings was a little premature!   She was a good friend and not interested in dating anyone, let alone me.

I sprinted to the front door only to find the flowers and poem missing.  I was too late.  I drove home ever so nervous.  I thought I would pretend that it never happened.  Pretending doesn’t make it so.  A week or so went by and we hadn’t talked.  Finally we made contact and I could tell that she knew… it was awkward so I fessed up.  I told her I was sorry and that I don’t know what got into me and asked if we could put it behind us and pretend that it never happened.  I also asked her to destroy the evidence. 

She told me we could put it behind us and that she had already thrown the note away. (Ouch!!!  That hurt but I was glad the evidence had been disposed of so it took off some of the sting).  Anyway, a year later, I went over to my friend Steve’s house and he mentioned that he had just come from Jessica’s house…. He had a sly grin on his face and started laughing as he blurted out, “I read your poem!”  She had kept it!  Although I don’t blame her on bit!  That is high powered blackmail material! It was too good not to share!  

Anyone else have some good stories to share?  I am thinking this would be a good idea for a book or a compilation of stories!  I would love to hear your stuff!  

Brain Vomiting

I am an office supply store Junky!  Something about buying new pens and new pads of paper increases my heart rate and motivates me.  I can't tell you how many leather bound journals and pens I have purchased....  This week I was convinced by one of my mentors to buy a nice fountain pen.  He wrote a book about how personal letters can make all the difference in business and in life.  So I bought one (I am embarrased to say how much it cost me!).  But In all honesty it has paid for itself already!

With my new fancy pen in hand, I decided to just let my thoughts spill out onto paper about a number of different subjects.  In some cases I just started writing and the rule was that I could not stop to think about what I was jotting down.  With this continual vomiting of ideas onto paper I ended up solving some of the problems I was having at work, found a great new marketing idea, and solved a personal problem that I have been struggling with.  

I have done this exercise a few times in my life but should probably do it more often.  Have you ever tried brainstorming on a computer screen?  It is difficult...because we don't think left to right in our heads all of the time.  Our mind works like a search engine and recalls information that sometimes appears unrelated on first glance.  If we let our concious mind filter our thoughts then we often hamper our creative problem solving ability.

Are you struggling with a problem or stuck in a rut.  Get a nice pen and a fresh sheet of paper and let your ideas pour out onto the page in the form of continuous writing, mind maps, pictures, random thoughts, etc.  You can organize your thoughts into usable information later.  But sometimes you need the creativity that comes with Chaos to find the problem.  

Does anyone have any good experiences or insights into this method of problem solving?  I would love to hear about them if you do.  

Become a Better, More Valueable Human Being!

Okay everyone... I have not been so diligent at my blog these days.  Mostly because we have been trying to put together a marketing campaign at work that will eventually become part of our main website campaign (when the final version is created and edited).  

Many of you have been asking me where I work or what I am doing.  Well the answer is that I am working as the Director of Business Development for a company called iLearningGlobal.  And we help people become who they want to both professionally and personally by giving them access to the best training and education they can get online.  

We are a new company and only about 5 months old.  Our website is www.iLearningGlobal.tv.  We are attracting the highest caliber of people including CEO's, Entrepreneurs, as well as the ultimate calling.... the stay at home mom! Anyway, for those of you interested in personal development, sharpening your skills, and increasing your effectiveness as a human, you should check this out.  

I have completed the rough draft of our basic message.   And I would love to get some feedback from anyone who has the time to look at it.  If you want to see what I have been working on go to www.influencinglives.com.   

If you do check it out I would love to get some market feedback on it to see what questions in general people have.  Did it leave you confused in any point?  What were you feelings about it?  And what would you do to make it better?  If you wouldn't mind dropping me an email at jake.randall@yahoo.com or leaving a comment below I would appreciate it.  Let me know what you think....