Over the past few months I have collaborated with a number of respected pet professionals as well as a few individuals who's humanity is to be admired. These individuals have learned how to take the good with the bad and create systems that nurture not just their businesses or causes but also their lives.
Today I am featuring Brian Burton. He is Co-Founder of Instinct Dog Behavior & Training LLC, which is the largest dog training company in NYC.
Caring for animals and empathizing with their owners can create a wear and tear on ourselves that can leave us burned out, compassion fatigued, or worse. Yet to add insult to injury, we don’t just have to the bare the scars of our work, we have to bare the scars of wounds delivered by our colleagues.
We live in a reactive world. Instead of controlling our lives we leap from notification to notification. We stop for alerts and redirect our attention in their direction. We call ourselves multitaskers when really we are just giving less and less of our attention to a million voices until we are left going through the motions with no thoughts or creativity left to address the demands.
Like bumping into an old significant other you grew apart from long ago, you feel queasy, distracted, and avoidant. You out grew it for a reason. You know better now than you did then about some aspect of the relationship. You’ve moved on and you don’t want to go back. So what do you do when you’re faced with your past, or worst, have to commingle for an extended period?
Alarm goes off - open phone and check email. A lull in a conversation - open phone and check email. Perused Facebook, Instagram or Snapchat, now check email. If any of these sounds familiar, then email is controlling your life in ways that are actually detrimental to your happiness as well as your professional success.
I really like the level for forgiveness and support that comes from such a simple system. I actually sat myself down one day when I was frustrated with how I was recording and getting things done and it gave me the clarity and kindness to change. Very empowering!
Who cares if this game is silly, weird, or crazy popular. Care about the fact it has reinvented gaming and provided us with much needed a vehicle for the human need for interaction and exercise. Be excited for the future of games and how they can continue to heal us and make us whole.
I'm not a dieter. I hate trendy food cults. But it is true that you are what you eat. Food effects us deeply and it's effects are not just instantaneous. What we put in our bodies has ramifications for days, weeks, and even months. While food is out of your system in about a day, what it does to your mental and physical health can send you spiraling out of a self care routine and into a very damaging place.
Sometimes all we have is 10 minutes. In fact I usually have to convince myself I have 10 minutes. It's so easy to pull out my phone and lose myself in emails, Facebook, Twitter, Periscope, or whatever else is clawing at my attention. Yes turning it all off, for just 10 minutes can make a huge change. However turning it off isn't so easy.
The depth of our being is equal to our resilience. The faster forward we travel the shallower we become. The thinner the commitments, the shallower the connections, till life turns transparent. And then when we fall it all comes shattering down like broken glass.
