"The truth will set you free, but first, it will piss you off."

-- Marianne Williamson

Perhaps because the truth has the ability to make someone angry many of us avoid speaking it. In a survey of 40,000 Americans, 93 percent admitted that they regularly lie at work. An article in truth in the workplace in Fast Company surmised that for employees, telling the truth could jeopardize their careers; for managers, it could mean facing difficult issues. Which might be why Warren Bennis found in his book, On Becoming a Leader, that many top leaders rely on the candid opinion of their significant others rather than those of their employees or colleagues.

But there is as much truth in action as there are in words. Jim McCann, an entrepreneur and founder of 1-800-Flowers was a pioneer in the use of toll-free numbers and the web in selling products to customers. He was quoted in Fast Company as saying, "My first rule of communication -- whether it's an e-mail, memo or half-day briefing -- is "Tell me in the first sentence what you would have told me in th last sentence.'" In other words, get to the point. By knowing the objective of the conversation or proposal, McCann could listen more effectively and actively to the details. It's like seeing a film or reading a book for the second time. When you know where it's going, it's easier to read or watch for its deeper meaning.

Gaining vision and insight sounds like a tranquil pursuit, but in reality, it's a volatile process. Most of the time we really don't want to look for that deeper meaning, content with the first answer we come across. To continue digging for the truth could mean confronting and questioning our own perceptions and behavior. And this usually leads to change, never easy.

The truth will piss us off because it is likely to reveal more of ourselves than we wish to know. But by facing it, and letting it guide our future thoughts and action, the truth will eventually -- and thankfully -- set us free.

By Liese Gardner

Oprah got it right by calling the epiphanies we experience in life "aha moments." Because if she called them what they really are -- such as "moments that rocked my world," or "ideas that made me rethink everything I know about myself" -- she'd scare off half her viewers from ever seeking change.

And yet, even that which rocks our world doesn't necessarily bring change to us overnight. The "aha moments" are really flashes of lightning that hit our hearts and minds then work their way through our entire system until real change actually occurs.

For me that lightning bolt hit on a random Tuesday night years ago when several friends took me to see Marianne Williamson speak. This was at the height of the AIDS epidemic and she had been working with people infected with HIV, holding workshops on The Course in Miracles (a method for choosing love over fear) and building a reputation not as a healer, but as a guide for people moving in that direction.

I came to the lecture with no expectations. I left reeling with thoughts and emotions. I felt alive and although I wasn't sure HOW to do it, I knew I COULD create the change in my life for which I longed. But in the end it wasn't my "life" that changed. It was me. And that one very simple thought is at the crux of Williamson's teachings.

External forces don't change. How we perceive them and react to them does. Therein lies the miracle.

I was fortunate enough to hear Wiliamson speak many more times after that up until 1994 when she moved away from Los Angeles. Each time she amazed me with her insight and her ability to start with one small idea, take it to a global, then cosmic level and finally circle back to the original thought perfectly and without notes. I have never seen a better speaker. But it wasn't her technique; it was her energy and her message.

Her message was -- and is -- extremely powerful. So much so that many people have attributed the well-known quote "Your playing small does not serve the world" to Nelson Mandela. In actuality, it is a quote from Return to Love, the first of many of Williamson's books to become a New York Times bestseller. Here is the full quote, the perfect sentiment for this time of year. An inspiration and a guide for how to refuel after we empty our minds of old thoughts and perceptions that hold us back.

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world.

There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

 -- Marianne Williamson, Return to Love

A GIFT FOR YOU!

In the spirit of the holidays I would love to give a copy of Return to Love to a reader of Fuel: Passions That Drive Us. Just leave a comment here over the holiday season and I'll randomly draw a name from those comments on January 5. If you don't want to, or can't, leave your name with an e-mail link so I can get in touch with you, just check back on the 5th. I'll post the name of the winner then and you can get in touch with me.

Update on Tuesday, January 5, 2010 by Mecca

A Return to Love Giveway Results

A random drawing of names this morning decided the results of the giveaway... Desiree Patterson was the winner of a copy of Return to Love. Congratulations!

Thank you to everyone for your wonderful comments and for reading Fuel.

Have a wonderful, warm, inspired and passionate New Year!

Liese

 

Albert Einstein was referring to matter when he said that our separation from one another is an optical illsion, but his statement applies to so much more than atoms. According to social anthropologists who track this sort of thing, our sense of self has been changing for years, becoming more changeable, less centralized and more multidimensional.

Yet certainly Einstein or these scientists could not have foreseen the social media tools that have done so much lately to push this change along. And I doubt they would have an easy time embracing a tool called Twitter but I think they would "get it." To be honest, the name itself is a roadblock for anyone at first, accompanied by the disbelief that anyone would care what they had for breakfast.

And yet, I've found a certain gestalt of humanity as I log on and watch ideas, thoughts and links pour in through the columns of Tweetdeck (a tool used to organizeTwitter posts). And I'm not alone. In last week's Time magazine cover story, Steve Johnson put my feelings into wordswhen he wrote: "Twitter turns out to have an unsuspected depth ... an ambient awareness...The social warmth of all those stray details shouldn't be taken lightly."

And here's the kicker. In addition to the information and people I found there, Twitter opened up the real world for me. I began relating to people as if we were on Twitter. At the market one day a woman asked me what brand of bacon I likedand the random exchange seemed so normal (trust me, for Los Angeles, it's not) that I knewTwitter had changed me to trust that she really DID want to know. Our conversation started at bacon and expanded to a brief exchange of histories that gave us both a glimpse into one another's live.

As our sense of self decentralizes through small shifts in perception such as this, our view of others changes too. If we hold the mirror of compassion up, rather than a wall of obstacles, it becomes easier to see our own faults and greatnesses reflected in one another. Similarily, yet on a far larger scale, the spiritualist Marianne Williamson wrote, "The holiest of places are those where ancient hatred has given way to love."

That can apply to our hearts and minds as we open them to reshape the most important tool we have in our social media arsenal -- ourselves.