Blog post

Love with no regrets…

One of my favourite t-shirts has this saying on it… Love with no regrets. I am wearing it today as a label. That is who I am…. Love, Nancy Love … with no regrets. I need to wear it from time to time to keep in touch with that part of me that lives in the here and now.

Regrets like worry are a waste of time. That was then. This is now. Let it go.

I remember wearing this shirt in Hawaii and having a half a dozen people read it and give me a smile or a high-five or a “Nice t-shirt!” It is a good sentiment. I am not sure that everyone attaches the same meaning to it as I do. For me means that I don’t want to have regrets at the end of the day or week or month or year or at the end of my days. I want to be able to look myself in the eye and say I did what I came to do.

I have loved deeply. I have contributed two wonderful daughters to the world. I have made a change and a difference in many people’s lives for the good with PULSE. That’s cool. And I get to continue doing that. How lucky am I?

Sometimes I get down on myself for not producing … not finishing the books that I am writing and not completing things. There is so much in my head that there seems to be wrestling match going on to see what will get out first. Setting priorities and schedules and sticking to them is a great plan. Sometimes a plan is just something to base change on.

What I need right now is forgiveness … not regret. ” Okay, Dr. Love. You are behind on your promises. What are you going to do now to make those right?” I have to be gentle and honest with myself today and work my way through the pile so I can meet the expectations of others and myself. My expectation is of course that I meet others’ expectations and I can. Timeliness is key.

What takes you away from the LISTS? When I really think about it for me it is only family and a new obligation to myself and my fitness … ZUMBA. I know that the time that I spend exercising will pay off in great dividends of energy in the end. It is right now a time management issue. No regrets, though because it is time well spent.

Love … with no regrets!!!

Checklists and Coherence

Thank you to those who joined me on yesterdays webinar. The link to the recording will be posted on the events calendar at www.pulseinstitute.com or you can email me and I will send it to you. I also added it to the bottom of this post for your convenience.

I spent a great deal of time thinking about how to address checklists on the broadcast. I wanted to touch on the history of checklists as a tool for people who do their work in conversation. Any agenda at any meeting is a checklist. The PULSE checklists where created to help people in difficult situations remember what needs to be addressed at any meeting or in any form of social exchange to ensure a sustainable outcome. AND it works. It is a proven and fast way to move through a conversation or an email or a novel.

I also wanted to talk about the reason that many people do not use checklists and why I have faced resistance from many of my participants on sticking to the script and the checklist especially when you are first learning how to do this work. Most people think that as a professional you SHOULD know how to do this. Their fear is that the clients will think they don’t know what they are doing. In fact the checklist will give the clients MORE confidence in you rather than LESS. That seems counterintuitive and yet it is true. Ask your clients. Would they rather have someone with the right tools do the job or someone who appears to be wining it?

The other thought that occurred to me as I prepared for the webinar was the result of a book I am reading. The Happiness Hypothesis, by Haidt, is a great book. So far I have learned that happiness = work + love. Of course Haidt’s theories are much more robust than one simple equation. The notion of coherence is explored with respect to cultures and religions and although I am clear that PULSE is neither of those it did occur to me that the PULSE Frame and the PULSE movement to create people with the courage to make a change and the confidence to make a difference, to create peaceful productive workplaces is coherent. What I mean by that is that you can start anywhere with PULSE and learn about it from that starting point. It is true to the values and skills and philosophy at every level. Based on Appreciative Inquiry it is curious rather than accusatory. Based on a Sociological Perspective it studies behaviour not psychology. Based on the conflict theory it uses the skills and the language of mediation to prevent and avoid the need for it.

If you begin with the checklist for example you will find the process, the protocol and the purpose for each of the many and varied situations where a PULSE Frame can be successfully applied to improve the likelihood of a sustainable outcome. Whether you are working with teams or one on one doesn’t really matter. The principals are the same. Using it as an operating system inside any organization leads to significant change on the people side, the so called soft skills side. That is why we promote it as a tool for anyone who does their work in conversation or through social exchange. If you are vicariously responsible for the work of others then this PULSE Frame can help you do your work faster and easier.

If you begin with a study of how people do their work in conversation you can get to PULSE. If you begin with how organizations and teams are structured you can also get to PULSE. Teams form. While forming they experience the Prepare stage. Knowing what questions need answering at the Prepare stage makes that forming easier and faster. Then teams become fractious. This is them Uncovering the title of their story, shedding the emotional attachments to a past that a skillful PULSE professional can negotiate with them. Then teams becoming working teams. Here they work with each other to develop a sense of shared values in the present. They Learn what their criteria for the future are. Then they perform. They are good at what they do. They understand their circumstances and their significance and now they Search for what’s also possible. Then teams reform with a new purpose or they wrap up and move on, Explaining what the next steps will be. The cycle of teams=Prepare, Uncover, Learn, Search, Explain. The cycle of organizations, the cycle of relationships, the cycle of social exchanges can all be represented by PULSE. Understanding the theory behind the checklist is crucial but, believe it or not, not necessary for you to use it successfully. That’s because it is coherent and elegant and effective. Try it. You can download a 30 page document with five kinds of PULSE scripts and checklists from our website or using the links below.

I could go on and on … and I tend to. Sorry. Suffice to say I am excited by what I know about how PULSE has worked in the past, the significance of it in the present and the endless field of possibilities for it in the future.

http://pulseinstitute.adobeconnect.com/p2jutzkylyg/ 40 minute braodcast – Checklists for Every Occassion

For 30 pages of PULSE checklists cut and paste the URL into your browser.

https://db.tt/5g65JCBv

Checklists – For People Who Do Their Work in Social Exchanges

When I first starting thinking about Checklists I associated them with routine and ritual. Now I know that the reason you have a checklist is because something is NOT routine and you do not have a ritual that matches it. Checklists are for those things that are not natural. They are best used to guide you through processes that are counterintuitive like the PULSE Frame.

This week on Friday I will be presenting a free webinar on Checklists and the different applications for PULSE. I have been thinking a lot about the way that I use PULSE and how often I can use it to analyze what went wrong in a social exchange. What did I forget to say or do that I might have got had I been deliberately using my checklist? It is always there. Someone tells someone something from a conversation that I believed to be confidential. Not having spelled that out ( “I would like to keep this confidential until I talk to so and so.”), the other person shared the information with so and so who then made assumptions which he acted on and the inevitable confusion around miscommunication and interpreted intentions ensued.

With something as simple as the PULSE Frame, something I am sooo familiar with, I thought I could wing it. I wasn’t even consciously using my mental checklist. The thing to remember is that although PULSE is simple and easy to use, it is also complex and deliberate. If you miss something you are in danger of creating more conflict rather than avoiding or mitigating it. If you want to keep people in the Green Zone, the friendly zone where relationships are enhanced then take my advice and USE THE CHECKLIST.

It is not always important in every social exchange to state the purpose, protocol and process. BUT you should at least think about why or why not you are doing those things. It is not always important to STATE the five guiding questions but you should have answers for all of them before you complete your exchange. Follow the formula to get sustainable results. When you don’t get sustainable results you can usually trace it back to a missed piece of information or question. Press rewind and try again. This time USE the Checklist.

Here are two versions. One for a two-way conversation and one for a three-way with an intervener guiding the exchange. Make them work for you. They represent a fast and proven method to get sustainable outcomes form any social exchange.

© 2008 Dr. Nancy Love of the PULSE Institute
PULSE Two-Way Conversation Checklist
PREPARE FOR THE PROCESS: “How will the conversation proceed?”
(10 minutes)

PULSE Change – Saving lives with PULSE

How can you change your PULSE? Pulse rates are usually pretty stable and predictable but once in a while your pulse rate changes. What are the triggers for that? Could be physical exertion or it could be emotional response or it could be your brain creating threats for you … real or imagined. What can you do to lower the impact of perceived threat and normalize your physiological response?

One of the most important outcomes of using PULSE to structure your conversations is that you rarely get so excited by words that your PULSE changes. Because you have a clearer understanding about what to do or say and how and why to do it you are less likely to trigger the physiological responses of fight, flight or freeze. You might be curious about what is being said and why. You might find the courage to ask the question in your head and test that assumption you might be making. You might feel confident enough to feel compassion and a real connection with the other party which moves your body to relax, release and relate, thus lowering your pulse rate.

Learning PULSE definitely keeps your blood pressure and your heart rate healthy.

How can I say that? That is a pretty wild claim. How can a Frame for Social Exchanges change your life?

I know that getting excited rather than curious can change your physical state. I also know that remaining calm and in control is a lot easier if you have a plan and a structure for the difficult conversation you are in. When you have confidence in a peaceful sustainable outcome because you know what to do you are less likely to feel threatened by any situation. You are more likely to use your training to de-escalate and resolve thus lowering everyone’s heart rate.

Like the CPR training you took to help people having heart failure, your PULSE training takes you into situations to calm emotional responses so that people can get the blood back into their brains. CPR gets the heart going again. PULSE slows it down.

Fast and Proven Results with PULSE

I am working through Cd’s from Experts’ Academy with Brendon Burchard. He is dynamic and interesting. I like him. Some of the points he makes are insightful and informative and I would like to publically thank him even though I am not finished with my instruction on how to be an expert.

Brendon makes a point about what I would call operationalizing your expertise. He suggests using frameworks and checklists. Hmmm. We do that. He says that one mistake that experts make is to offer conceptual approaches to solving people’s problems rather than the “fast and proven” step by step method. That got me thinking. When I talk about what PULSE is I know I stay at the conceptual level. Rarely do I say ” PULSE is five easy steps for managing any social exchange.” That is what PULSE is… Five easy steps

1. Prepare by setting Purpose and Protocol for the exchange

2. Uncover the Topic

3. Learn the Criteria for a wider future

4. Search the possibilities that meet the criteria

5. Explain a plan of action

You can do this by using five easy and proven questions to guide each stage of the exchange:

1. What is the purpose of this exchange?

2. What do we need to address today?

3. What about that is important?

4. What could be done in a perfect world?

5. What are we/you committed to doing next?

Collecting the answers to these questions gives you a sustainable outcome. The process can be applied in any situation.

Using the PULSE Frame gets FAST and PROVEN results. It improves the quality of conversations, relationships and organizations. It gives individuals the courage to make a change and the confidence to make a difference. It contributes to peace and harmony in the workplace or in the family with a deliberate five stage approach to any social exchange.

Thanks, Brendon, for helping me think through what expertise we have at PULSE and forcing me to identify the operational advantage, not just the conceptual one that the PULSE Frame offers to those who use it.

Canmore 2014 – A PULSE Revival

I love having a place in Canmore and I often consider how wonderful it would be to live in this mountain paradise. It is a winter wonderland right now. Fresh snow has covered the mountain peaks and the roads of course. Skiers are smiling broadly. Motorists … not so much.

While my friends and I were wondering downtown through the shops yesterday I saw two signs that I will remember for a long time. One said “If you were looking for a SIGN, here it is.” The other said “You cannot leave where you are until you know where you are going.” Both are true and thought-provoking … especially if you are considering making a move to a new location.

Canmore has lots to offer. It is has a large active retirement community. It has an institute dedicated to studying aging. It has a new world-class recreational centre. It is next door to the most magnificent National Park in our country. It has four and five-star restaurants. It is an outdoor active place and after a long cold winter it offers a change in attitude toward weather and being out doors. To learn that you only have to look at the clothing stores in town. Not much office wear there. The stores are full of gear for any weather and any outdoor activity. That is very telling.

People move here because people move here. They are active and engaged with nature and the community. What would it be like to live here full-time? Having lived in Grande Cache, another albeit less populated and less famous mountain resort town, I know that life would not necessarily match the utopian image we have for being on permanent vacation in a resort town. But there is a lot to be said for mountain living. Hmmmmm…..

In the past we have conducted PULSE programs here that are very well received by the African and American participants in the program. There may be opportunities to create some interest and attract people to the mountains to contemplate the wisdom of PULSE once again. Here it is possible to meet needs for every BEACH. There is experience for the body, inspiration fro the heart and instruction for the head. A well balanced program that could inspire and instruct through the mountain experience. It is a perfect place for us to study the SHIFT program together. We can create a space where we can become SHARP, HAPPY, INDEPENDENT, FIT, TRUSTING people. SIGN me up. I have seen the sign. (smile)

It seems as if I have just arrived and it is time once again to pack the car and go. I will be back soon for my monthly fix of mountain air, and if we can pull it off, we will plan a get together for the PULSE professionals over the summer in this wonderful mountain paradise. Are you in?

The Wizard of OZ and PULSE

I am not sure why but this morning I have been thinking about the movie “The Wizard of Oz.” I think at the Academy Awards they recognized the 75 th of anniversary of the film. I remember P!nk singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” Maybe that is why it is with me.

The characters …Scarecrow, Tin-man and Lion … were all searching for something. Even Dorothy was looking for a way home. These characters represent our Head, Heart and Body. Scarecrow was looking for a brain. What the Wizard gave him was evidence of his already being smart with a diploma. The diploma gave him the confidence to move forward. The Tin-man was looking for a Heart, ways to connect with other people. The Wizard again gave him evidence that he already demonstrated the compassion he was seeking. The Lion was looking for courage. He wanted to be brave in the face of present danger. The Wizard gave him a medal as evidence that he had already demonstrated courage and bravery. Confidence, compassion and courage. Head, heart and body.

Dorothy, too, discovered that she had had the power to return home all along. All she had to do was click her heels together three times and say …”There is no place like home.” Like Dorothy we all have the power we need within us to make a change and make a difference. We can demonstrate confidence, compassion and courage under certain circumstances but we may not be very good at recognizing our own strengths. Think about a time when you had the confidence to make a change and the compassion and courage to make a difference.

BE the Wizard today. Give someone else evidence that they already possess confidence, compassion and courage. Do it by noticing for them what they may not recognize in themselves. Tell them their own story from a different perspective. They will smile.

What’s important about PULSE …

PULSE is a stance. When we say someone is PULSEIFIED we mean that they can hold a space for others to make decisions in, that they know how to be gentle AND honest and that they can guide a conversation through the emotion of the past through the significance in the present to the possibilities for the future. PULSE professionals can open the field of the future to include more options and opportunities than otherwise were possible. I love the appreciative stance and how it frees people to think creatively and to let go of the old stories they have built and held on to without much evidence for or against their version of things.

We are starting our first on-line training soon. I am excited by the possibilities that it opens for us in the field of our future. Here is another opportunity for people to learn how to manage social exchanges in a peaceful, productive way. More relationships can be improved and the quality of decisions can increase as more people gain the attitudes, skills and knowledge for managing the space between us. they will gain the courage to make a difference and the confidence to make a difference at their desks, using their own computers. Look at us using technology to teach about social exchanges that include digital encounters of the PULSE kind.

Lots of reasons to smile today….

PULSE CPR

Reviving PULSE.

After a couple of less active years where I was working for Parks Canada or just busy writing, it is actually fun to have a schedule and to interact with PULSE professionals again. This morning I did my second 2014 webinar. PULSE Professionals from Red Deer, Alberta and the Washington DC area as well as from Ghana in Africa joined the session to review the Five Stages of the Frame and the significance, the theory and the skills associated with each Prepare, Uncover, Learn, Search and Explain.

Here is the link to the recording. If you have 40 minutes for a quick refresher it might be fun. ( Ignore the right brain/left brain bit…. I think I got it backwards which will not surprise those of you who know me well and know that left and right have never been easy for me.)

http://pulseinstitute.adobeconnect.com/p66aton3eer/

If you have comments or questions I would be happy to respond.

I have new appreciation for CPR – Cardiovascular Pulmonary Resuscitation, having witnessed it in hospital recently, when the patient coded and the staff spring into action. At PULSE it has represented Content, Process and Response; the three aspects of an exchange that influence the outcome and although it can be vital to maintaining relationships, it is not critical to life itself. CPR PULSE style is used to save relationships and revive the space between people and not as a life saving procedure in the case of cardiac arrest.

I do hope that our PULSE will be resuscitated, that it will come back to life. I hope we can reignite the flame for the FRAME that helps people have successful social exchanges. It is still simple yet complex like all of us. Today I reviewed the Process in some detail. In future sessions we will indeed look at the Content of PULSE, the theory behind it and the Response of PULSE, the heart of it, the skills that make it work. Our purpose is to show its relevance in today’s fast paced, digital communications. Lives are changed with one text or one email. If we can use the PULSE Frame to inform not only face to face conversations but also these electronic methods of social exchange maybe we can create a gentle, honest, open , specific transaction that won’t cost us relationships but will work to improve them as we interact using the Frame.

The next session will be on April 4th : PULSE Checklists. I will present and review with you at least 10 specific uses for the PULSE Frame and how to gently shift it to your purposes. The link is on our website www.pulseinstitute.com on the calendar.

Hope you can join us.