Different Drummers

I came across this excerpt from David Keirsey's book, Please Understand Me II, in an old email today and thought I would share it with you. 

These words resonate pretty strongly with me at the moment as I try to understand the beat of another's drummer and they similarly try to understand the beat of mine. It can get pretty hairy sometimes because we can both be stubborn, but there are lessons in the words below that I will endeavor to take to heart in my less stubborn moments. 

Different Drummers

If I do not want what you want, please try not to tell me that my want is wrong.
Or if I believe other than you, at least pause before you correct my view.
Or if my emotion is less than yours, or more, given the same circumstances, try not to ask me to feel more strongly or weakly.

Or yet if I act, or fail to act, in the manner of your design for action, let me be.
I do not, for the moment at least, ask you to understand me. That will come only when you are willing to give up changing me into a copy of you.


I may be your spouse, your parent, your offspring, your friend, or your colleague. If you will allow me any of my own wants, or emotions, or beliefs, or actions, then you open yourself, so that some day these ways of mine might not seem so wrong, and might finally appear to you as right -- for me. To put up with me is the first step to understanding me. Not that you embrace my ways as right for you, but that you are no longer irritated or disappointed with me for my seeming waywardness. And in understanding me you might come to prize my differences from you, and, far from seeking to change me, preserve and even nurture those differences.


Amen.

How Dogs Think vs. How Cats Think

A bit of pet humor for you today

Soooo true....

Give Everyone An A: The Art of Possibility

In recent weeks I have been employing a little trick I learned from the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic, Benjamin Zander with great success. In his book, The Art of Possibility, Mr. Zander takes a decidedly positive approach to personal and business relationships and, among many other lessons, asks you to give everyone you meet an A right off the bat. They don't have to earn it, you just give it to them with your whole heart, and see what magic unfolds. 

It has been some time since I read the book, but the lesson of giving everyone an A has stuck with me and proven extremely helpful with a difficult working relationship. I will read the book again and write a more in-depth review a bit later, but in the meantime, here is a video I found on YouTube to whet your appetite. He is a delightful man and I hope you will be moved to learn more about him and his work.

Benjamin Zander - Giving An A