The Art Of Authentic Window Cleaning

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The Art Of Authentic Window Cleaning

Two things that inspire me are people who have found their passion in life and people who use that passion to become masters of their craft.

Sandy Hutcheson, who founded Cochrane Window Cleaners thirty years ago, inspires me.

He just spent the weekend washing our windows. A true gentlemen with an uncompromising work ethic, a meticulous attention to detail, and an unyielding commitment to excellence, Sandy makes window cleaning an art.

More than a mere service provider, he is an artist whose passion extends beyond the physical act of cleaning. It encompasses a deep respect for someone’s home and a genuine desire to enhance their surroundings.

He wasn’t here to wash windows. He was here to help us see the world more clearly.

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What would you like from your parents?

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“What would you rather receive from your parents: a rich financial inheritance with no character and values, or character and values with no money?” I’ve learned that with character and values you can create wealth and much more.

This week I’ve been sorting through some stuff we’ve accumulated over the past fifty plus years, sorting the wheat from the chaff.

Inside a tattered cardboard box I came across a treasure: a scrapbook that my father compiled from 1939-1949. It contained a summary of the early years of the Rotary Boys’ Town in Calgary. Countless photographs, newspaper articles, and detailed stories filled the pages. The book gave me a taste of the impact the Rotary Club and my father’s leadership had on the youth in Calgary during that decade – and the unimaginable ripples that would circulate outward from these experiences.

Going through the scrapbook reminded me of the inheritance of values and character embedded in me. The joy of choosing service over self-interest. The value of contribution, connection, compassion, and community. The importance of pride in one’s work. The beauty of humanity.

Thank you, Dad. You couldn’t have left me a better inheritance.

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The Leader’s Navigator Podcast

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My daughter Hayley and I have been doing a podcast together since June of 2022. We have a wonderful time together and have shared over 60 episodes.

If you haven’t listened yet, we would love to have you pop by and check out a few episodes.

Some of our most recent topics include:

• Episode 61 – Finding Your IKIGAI – where your gifts and passion intersect with your contribution to the world.

• Episode 60 – Clarifying Your Values, Home, and the Authentic Journey

• Episode 59 – Finding Yourself in a World of Unrealistic Expectations: The Push for Perfectionism and Pressures of Popularity

https://theleadersnavigator.podbean.com/

What’s the difference between tension and relaxation?

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I hate to admit it, but I have spent a good part of my life trying to live up to an image to impress others. I call it impression management.

It’s exhausting managing impressions and constantly regulating myself. There’s a constant fear of doing something that doesn’t correspond with the image I am trying to project.

The problem with living in fear is that it overpowers creativity, joy, inner peace, and spontaneity.

There’s a Zen saying: Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are.

I guess this is a reason why I have spent a good part of my life teaching about authenticity. That which we are best able to teach others is what we are most in need of developing within ourselves.

Your phone is not your friend.

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“People have always tended to be the servants of their technologies.” -Marshall McLuhan

Many couples have come to me for counseling who are actually “too married.” That is, they have an “enmeshed relationship,” characterized by a lack of boundaries, loss of individual identity, and fear of abandonment. In essence, they have no relationship with themselves separate from the relationship with the other.
They are entangled in each other’s web.

Indicators of an enmeshed relationship become obvious when I ask people to separate from their phones for an extended period. Solitude – time alone with your own thoughts – creates anxiety. Fear of missing out. Nervousness. Unease.

For those in enmeshed relationships, the strategy is to step away from the relationship and begin developing your identity away from the relationship. It’s paradoxical: the more you “need” the relationship, the more you need take a break from it.

I advocate the same strategy for those enmeshed in the relationship with their phone. Living an authentic life means developing a relationship with your interior self and the world around you.

Cal Newport offers three strategies I’ve adapted to combat having your phone be your “constant companion”:

  1. Use the phone foyer method. When you come home from work leave your phone, plugged in, by your front door in the foyer. If you need to use it, you have to go to the foyer and use it there.
  2. Do at least three things every day outside your house without your phone. Run an errand. Walk the dog. Visit a friend. Go to dinner. You don’t have to divorce your phone, just practice having an identify without it.
  3. Make your phone less interesting. Take off of it any app where someone makes money off of your attention when you tap on it. Devices and digital media were never designed to meet our emotional needs. They were designed as a tool – for sharing information and communication.

Your phone is not your friend. Your phone is a tool.

How to hold yourself accountable to be authentic.

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Authenticity is when your actions are a full expression of who you are in a way that contributes to the world. You are in alignment with what life wants from you. The Authentic Way is the awareness that you don’t need to change yourself; you need to come home to yourself.

Words I hear used to describe what it’s like to be authentic, at home with yourself: happy, confident, peaceful, free, brave, calm, inspired, appreciative, alive, fulfilled, ‘you lose all track of time.’

Words used to describe when how you live is not the real you: exhausting, anxious, depressing, sad, irritable, stressed, lonely, disengaged, empty, lost.

How to hold yourself accountable to be authentic:

  1. Decision. Like any choice to change your life, it starts with a decision – a firm resolve to live your life authentically.
  2. A Benchmark. Have a sense of what authenticity feels like to you: have a vision of what “coming home” means to you. Know you’ll be “off course” much of the time in a world that expects much from us.
  3. Community. Authenticity is a lonely journey but it can’t be done alone. Community can come in the way of teachers, guides, confidants, and coaches – those who support you and hold you accountable to be who you are.
  4. Self-Reflection. The authentic journey is a contemplative journey. Reserve time on a regular basis to turn off technology to attend to the voice from within.
  5. Journaling. Regularly writing down your emotions, reflections, dreams, values, progress, and gratitude, can help keep you connected to your authenticity.
  6. Feedback. Be open to how you are impacting others. Stay humble. Being teachable is a core quality of authenticity.
  7. Uniqueness. Create a list of ways you come home to yourself, nourish yourself, and attend to these regularly (e.g. spending time in nature, with good friends, with animals you love, reading books, cooking, going to museums or the theatre, etc.)
  8. Service. Authenticity means bringing your gifts to the world in a way that makes the world better – even in some small way. Be sure you are intentional about making a difference.