Ann Lewis

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Yikes!  I am getting worried.  What's up with all of my self centered life?  I have become entirely aware that I spend most of my day focused on myself...... well, mostly.  I mean, I take care of stuff at the farm, then work and yada yada yada.  For example, about lunch time today, with the morning having been spent mainly on automatic self centered work, I started asking myself, where's your "doing good"?  And of course, I had to streeeeetch for an answer.  Here's what came up:

I took a Brighton (there I go, all about the brand name) address book and calendar in and gave it to my assistant.  Why did I count this as "doing good" you ask.  Well, in the past, I probably would have just kept it, thinking "how cute, I may use this sometime, so I'll just keep it".  But by giving it away to someone who will use it, isn't that "doing good"?  If this counts as "doing good", I'm in luck!  Having a tornado rip your home and life apart has shown me one thing real clear:  I have too much stuff!!!  Time to give it away, not sell, give.  I have a warehouse full of stuff that will, hopefully, make a lot of folks happy!  I'm gonna get right on it.  Quit hoarding stuff that I may one day use. 

Good thing number 2:  I bought a co-worker lunch.  OK, not too big a deal, but just wanted to get it in.

Good thing number 3:  I did an exercise with my management team around strength based leadership.  We all took the Strength survey at www.authentichappiness.com.  Then we had a transparent (new buzz word of the year) discussion.  It was cool and definitely was "doing good" at work!  Lots of smiles, friendly joking and laughter among a group that has not been too lighthearted in the past!

I'm discovering that thinking consciously about "doing good" and acting on it is like exercising an atrophied muscle:  it's not very comfortable and very awkward at first.  I hope it gets easier!