the ar lena richardson agency
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3x WPFL Super Bowl Champion Monique "the bus" Howard has been recruited to create and implement a Christian summer youth sports program for socio-economically challenged teenagers from Hardy Street and the surrounding community. She holds a Bachelors degree in Criminal Justice.
TSU Coach Bubba McDowell and Green Bay Packer Scout Alonzo Highsmith are counted among the owners of a free web site, www.nationalrecruiting.org, a database of high school athletes connecting them with college recruiters. Ten athletes have received scholarships.
One of our tenured supporters Yolande Lezine was nominated for "Who's Who Among American High School Teachers." She teaches journalism at Madison High School and was working media row at Super Bowl XXXVIII, along with top broadcast and print journalists such as NFL TV's Sterling Sharpe NFL TV and the ever controversial and unstoppable Jim Rhome.
ascoop Longtime legal eagle Zinetta Burney surprised Commissioner El Franco Lee and other king and queen makers, by snatching a Democratic nomination for Precinct Justice of the Peace from political insider, former Houston City Councilman, Al Calloway.
Back
In the Day
January 2003
Bubba McDowell is an Assistant Football Coach at Texas Southern University.
He is a former Houston Oiler and Carolina Panther strong safety. His sons Miles and Trey, strike a pose, while riding in the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Parade in downtown Houston. Go Bubba... Go Trey! .... Go Miles! ... Go .... Candace! .... Go Bubba ... Go ...
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How to De-Clutter Your Life
Want to be more flexible, move more fluidly, expend less energy, experience greater freedom and joy?
Show me a man who walks depressed and heavy and I'll show you a man who is carrying too much weight in his life.
Shed the extra, unnecessary and truly unwanted weight that is in in your life. And what better time than spring to consider slimming your life so you can struggle less, BE more?
Today I'll give you five common types of weight to drop and follow up with five more next month.
(Even my smartest and most successful coaching clients find great opportunity for self-transformation in these areas).
1. CLUTTER / TRASH In your house, in your office, in your yard, in your car is stuff that belongs at the local trash dump OR the recycling center OR the local charity. Get it there and stop storing it. Maybe you grew up learning "waste not, want not." Me too. So from one who knows you:
Why are you wasting space with that stuff that you will never use again?
2. EXCESSIVE POSSESSIONS Do you have several appliances that never see the light of day? How about advanced gadgets and time-saving devices that never have seemed to take the place of a simpler tool? What do you have that is "extra" lying around your life? a third car? an old computer? old magazines and journals? 400 pounds of "scrap paper"? If so, see the instructions for dealing with clutter and trash above.
Something extra you never use is hardly different from old and broken stuff you'll never use either. Give it, take it, sell it, throw it...away.
3. OLD HABITS OR ROUTINES Have any habits, routines or behaviors that served you once, but not anymore. For example, do you store things in places where they are most convenient to your life NOW? Or, do you store things there because that's where the former owner stored them? Do you drive to work that way because it's the best way? Or because it's the way you've been going forever?
Think about how you describe or market yourself, handle confrontations with employees, respond to invitations, get routine tasks accomplished. Does it make sense to do them differently?
4. RELATIONSHIPS Do some people in your life weigh you down by their very presence? Do you dread some people in your life? If so, and the relationship is not tied to blood-relatives or a commitment you've made and need to honor...you have an opportunity to lighten your own life.
5. OUTDATED ACTIVITIES AND OBLIGATIONS Did you say "yes" to something in 1997 that, asked about today, you would say "no?" Are you attending meetings where you no longer belong?
Are you involved with activities, events, organizations what once made sense, but no longer? Time for an exit. Then you'll have time for the stuff in your schedule you've grown to appreciate for yourself only now that you're older, wiser, better.
BOTTOM LINE: Lighten your load and bring more joy to your working and living.
Copyright 2000-2004 Creative Resources, Inc. and Plake & Company All rights reserved
Power Questions:
In
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What
will my life be like with less weight?
Who
do I know who could help me in these areas?
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What ARE "Good Manners?"
Interesting question, isn't it? In the Age of Rudeness, we may be losing touch with what etiquette and good manners are all about.
In fact there may be those among us who
haven’t experienced it. According to a recent survey, more than 50% of
Americans are concerned about the growing rudeness in the U. S.
We assault each other more all the time with upsetting noises, sights,
sounds, smells, and attitude. It’s getting to where we need to protect
ourselves from one another! Maybe it’s getting a little too wild out
there.
Good manners are, first of all, civilized behavior. That’s as opposed
to wild behavior. “He acts like he was raised in a barnyard,” my
mother would say, about some hapless boy who pulled up in front of my
house for a date and just sat in the car and honked.
Whether that was a particular rule in your household, or culture, all
cultures have “rules” and they are learned, not innate. It Italy it’s good manners for a man to greet another man with
an embrace and a kiss on each cheek. Not so in South Texas, where men
stand 3 feet apart and at 90 degree angles to
converse with one another.
All cultures have rules and if you violate them, you’ll be excluded.
Excluded from what? Well, what we all want more of now– to be where
the polite and pleasant people are. Yes?
Emily Post, the Diva of Etiquette, by virtue of her book of the same
name, “Etiquette” (http://www.bartleby.com/95/7.html
)
defined this certain set of people as "Best Society."
"Best Society," she wrote, "is not confined to any one
place or group, but might be better described as an unlimited
brotherhood which spreads over the entire surface of the globe, the
members of which are invariably people of cultivation and worldly
knowledge, who have not only perfect manners but a perfect manner."
“Cultivated,” you see, as opposed to “wild” or “weed-ridden”
or “out of control”.
“Manners” she says, “are made up of trivialities of deportment
which can be easily learned if one does not happen to know them.”
“Manner,” on the other hand, “is personality – the outward
manifestation of one’s innate character and attitude toward life.”
Manners must be really ingrained; a matter of who you are, not how you
are. The attitude must be without thinking, but the particulars require
great thought. It’s always easier to revert to the feral state. Ask
the cat! Miss Post suggests that once we’ve learned it, etiquette
becomes – to those of the Best
Society – “a matter of instinct rather than of conscious
obedience.”
There are those among us who still blurt out “thank you,”
“you’re welcome,” “excuse me,” and “May I?” But there are
a lot more among us who don’t!
Good manners and etiquette are based on
a concept that’s somewhat in disfavor today – being selfless.
“Unconsciousness of self,” says Miss Post, “is the mental ability
to extinguish all thought of one’s self – exactly as one turns out
the light.
Hmmm. You mean put the other fellow first occasionally? Now there’s a
novel idea.
And so “one” – that would be you and I – one does not burp
because it feels good, acting as if no one else was there; or elbow through the queue, because WE are in a hurry and WE matter most;
or talk about our sex lives on cell phones in restaurants as if others
would find it interesting; or shout profanity and throw tantrums because we’re entitled to our anger, to indulge it and
to “let it all hang out,” as if it didn’t stress the listener as much as it stresses us. (Second-hand hostility is as
dangerous to our health as second-hand smoke!)
No, in fact manners is about letting it all hang IN. Keeping some things
inside, quiet, and to oneself, turning down the
volume, slowing down the pace, out of consideration for the other.
Allowing the other person some comfort, some space, some peace.
“A bore,” says Miss Post, “is said to be ‘one who talks about
himself when you want to talk about yourself!’ which is
superficially true enough,” she adds, “but a bore might more
accurately be described as one who is interested in what does not
interest you, and insists that you share his enthusiasm, in spite of your disinclination.” Boring others, then, is an act of
rudeness (and one of my least favorites), because there is not thought
given to the interests or comfort of the other.
“Nearly all the faults or mistakes in conversation,” says Miss Post,
“are caused by not thinking.” Ah hah! Or by thinking only of
oneself.
“A first rule for behavior in society,” she continues, “is: ‘Try
to do and say those things only which will be agreeable to others.”
How far away from this we have gotten!
So, to have good manners we must learn the actions – the
“trivialities of deportment” – and then stop and think when
we’re with others. Then we can avoid being tactless. “… You must not talk about the
unattractiveness of old age to the elderly,
about the joys of dancing and skating to the lame, or about the advantages of ancestry to the self-made,” says Miss Post.
Avoiding being rude, has a lot to do with Emotional Intelligence which,
like good manners, can be learned. EQ requires self-awareness and empathy – the ability to understand how your
behavior affects others (and their feelings). It requires a strong interface between emotions and thinking. Blurting out the first
thing on your mind (“What an ugly dress!) is rarely the tactful thing
to do. To be considerate of others takes Intentionality – intending to
treat others well, and exercising the self-discipline to do it. You
might lower your voice, you know, steer the subject away from unpleasant
things, cover your mouth when you cough ….
It’s easier to be rude. If you don’t believe this, watch two
children at play. They will revert to the lowest level. It’s easier to scream, stomp, grab, jabber, be messy and disorderly, and
scratch where and when it itches, than to stop and think about what
you’re doing, take others into consideration, and act accordingly.
It’s harder to be polite. Of course you’d rather boom your boom box
and enjoy your music regardless of others; have a tantrum when you’ve
been angered; turn the lights on when you come to bed though your spouse
is sound asleep; ignore the customer because it’s all such a chore,
you know, working; or perhaps
even hit someone who annoys you. These are the easiest things to do, and
the most mindlessly satisfying, because you can indulge yourself with no
thought for others.
But what happens when everyone behaves that way? Then we have a rudeness epidemic. And how will we change that? One person at a time! As
Mother Teresa said, when the house is dirty don’t complain or call a
committee, pick up a broom and start
sweeping.
©Susan Dunn, MA, Emotional Intelligence Coach and Consultant,
http://www.susandunn.cc
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