A Show of Tiny Hands, Please?

The Texas Nonprofit Summit in Austin last weekend, sponsored by Greenlights for Nonprofit Success and the OneStar Foundation, brought together 700 of my closest, like-minded, do-gooder, non-profit amigos –- all eager to do better in an age of making do with less.

One of the breakout sessions that I enjoyed was “Lighting a Spark: Volunteer Engagement for Maximum Impact and Effectiveness,” with Rosa Moreno-Mahoney and Sarah Jane Rehnborg.

If you’ve ever had to recruit people to accomplish a goal, you know that they’re not knocking down your email pinging pick me, pick me! It’s more about having to burst through call screening and email dodging to pluck them out of a self-imposed identity protection program.

Many people suffer from volunteer fatigue. We often ask too much of too few.

But there's a smarter strategy to engage but not tire out those raised hands: in micro-volunteering, the requestor provides a task, the volunteer brings the skill, does the work, and gets out: small time blocks, big benefits.

When you plan up front, understand the gifts your volunteers can share, task them to achieve specific results, provide them the authority and tools to accomplish their missions, and then close with some praise and lessons learned, you complete a successful cycle.

We’ve all experienced good volunteering and bad volunteering.

In bad volunteering, it’s a cluster crash. Three people BELIEVE they’re in charge. Half the supplies are missing or no one has skills to use the tools at hand. Keys have ambled off in absent-minded pockets. At least two people rearrange the supplies for the task because the stapler belongs on the left, even if you’re right-handed. There’s no water or web connections, the bathrooms are locked or, it’s 103 degrees and the steaming port-a-pot stalls were emptied last Thursday. No one has a cell number to call for direction -- but if you could dial any number at all, it would be to a cab to speed you away from that hell. Three dozen tacky Tweets and Facebook unfriendings later, you’re enemies for life.

In good volunteering, you show up, there’s a person in charge who knows what they are doing and, better yet, has a clear plan for what you should be doing. The needs and capacities have been considered and there’s a shared measure of a successful outcome. There are snacks and enough to drink. People say thank you and mean it. The group works cooperatively, goals are met, and everyone parts satisfied with the group’s accomplishments.

With planning, in-depth skills assessment, and delegation, the latter can be history not fantasy.

What was your last volunteer outing? What it something you gladly attended, or did you slouch toward the commitment? If you had the day to live over, would you do it again?

Keynote speaker Linda Crompton, President and CEO of BoardSource, wowed us when she stated that nonprofits will need 80,000 leaders by the year 2016. That’s a lot of leaders organizing a lot of volunteers to serve a lot of needs in just six short years.

Well, that’s if that Mayan calendar thing is wrong.

Of Butterflies and Cockroaches

My husband and I recently treated ourselves to a night at Zach Theatre for Mary Zimmerman's "Metamorphosis," a production that wrings an interesting twist from Ovid's classic tales of transformation.

Upon booking our seats, we were warned of the splash zone, an indicator that this wouldn't be your average night out on the planks. In the center of the theater, the Whisenhunt Stage cradled a luminescent aqua swimming hole. Overhead, perfectly choreographed aerialists in long spans of white silk climbed, soared, and spun with mesmerizing grace and strength.

Though we sat one row above the splash zone, we still got sloshed a bit from the diving actors. They did not follow the adage: Say it, don't spray it.

When I hear the word metamorphosis, images switch from flittering butterflies to Kafka's dark tale of Gregor Samsa transforming into a giant cockroach. A monarch butterfly takes around five weeks to complete its four life stages. An American cockroach can live up to two years.

Either way of going through "the change," you end up with six legs.

Dorothea Brande wrote, "Old habits are strong and jealous." We struggle more with change than do the butterflies, resistant in our habits and habitats. It takes just one quick, brave poke through with our antennae for us to launch ourselves and soar to new perspectives.

Are you ready to burst from your chrysalis? What's the tastiest "host plant" that nurtures your transformation? Where will you let the wind take you this fall?

On their way to becoming butterflies, our caterpillars spent their summer vacation mowing down our host plants of dill, fennel, and parsley. Our salads have been lackluster, but its been our most glorious butterfly season ever. Besides, my seeds for next year's herbes fines are ready for their encore.

The Screech of an Arching Eyebrow

On my nightstand is The Fifth Agreement, by Don Miguel Ruiz and Don Jose Ruiz, with Janet Mills. This is the latest in the popular Four Agreements Toltec wisdom series. If you aren’t familiar with these books, they are a collection of life principles from the Toltec society of artists, scientists, and healers in central and southern Mexico.

While the Agreements are not a religion, I have found that if I follow them faithfully, life just works out better and with a lot less calamity.

The Agreements came into my hands nearly a decade ago, when, in a difficult work situation, I needed a new approach for navigating a too-long string of spirit-killing days. Succinct and direct, the minimalist guidelines are:

1. Be impeccable with your word.
2. Don’t take anything personally.
3. Don’t make assumptions.
4. Always do your best.

Like the board game, Othello, these agreements take about a minute to learn and a lifetime to master.

I greatly benefitted from practicing the first four, so this summer, I’m eager to explore the challenges in the new book, The Fifth Agreement: Be skeptical but learn to listen.

Be skeptical. The power of doubt is alluring. I like questioning things, having learned to do this early in life. Before I entered first grade, I once asked my mother, “If it’s on TV, it must be true. They can’t lie on TV can they?” This was when I first heard the screech of an arching eyebrow.

Did you know the word gullible is not in the dictionary? Screech! Gotcha!

Discerning when to be skeptical is a lifelong challenge. How do we carefully consider the cacophony of incoming messages and identify what’s distorted or true – those twisted fibers so difficult to unravel?

On the zero of the spectrum: a child’s arms wrapped around your neck with sweet “I love you’s” in your ear. No skepticism allowed.

There’s doubting, and there’s being questioned or doubted, a dimension of skepticism that’s suddenly uncomfortable. That’s where practicing the previous four agreements comes in handy. If you’ve done the work, you’re centered and sturdy for the journey. When someone probes your pronouncements, you’re in sync with the integrity of your words. Let them question away.

Learn to listen. I’m all ears for good advice on listening in a world where you can’t hear yourself think over pod players, multiple speakers barking over themselves, the poly-pummeling of pocketbook-plundering promotions, and multi-tasking minds scurrying to get past one another so they can get home and multitask some more.

Listening may be more difficult than skepticism, but it can be practiced into fruition, and become quite fun. Removing the roadblocks is challenging but essential. When shyness creeps over me at a gathering, I shift my thinking to: This might be my only chance to understand that person’s perspectives. It’s easier to engage and open your mind when you are on a mission.

Listening involves receiving whole points of view without judgment, pro or con. Per Toltec wisdom, we each live in a dream world where we each create our own truths, some beautiful, some detrimental. No two people exist in the same dream. This perspective is as exciting as it is frustrating – depending on whether you’re fascinated by others’ visions, or you’re time crunched to create your own truths of the moment.

What will you be skeptical of this week? When will you make time to really listen? Who’s been a good listener for you?

The Fifth Agreement may not be summer beach reading, but I’m ready to kick the sand out of my ears and explore some new perspectives on truth. I doubt I’ll regret it.

And the Horse She Wrote in On

Last weekend I volunteered at the annual Writers’ League of Texas Agents Conference. Over 300 writers came from all over the U.S. and beyond to attend professional development sessions and to pitch their books to agents and editors. The amazing stories-behind-the-stories of these tenacious authors brimmed with hope and conviction.

At the luncheon where keynote speaker Calvert Morgan, with HarperCollins, shared “The Top Ten Things You Should Know about Publishing,” I sat next to author Lynn Reardon who runs the non-profit organization LoneStar Outreach to Place Ex-Racers. LOPE, as it’s called, helps find new homes for retired racehorses.

I probably didn't know ten things about horse racing, but I learned that these animals, like greyhounds, need homes and opportunities to transform their lives – and their new owners’ lives – and build new careers for themselves.

Lynn’s terrific book, Beyond the Homestretch: What I've Learned from Saving Racehorses, offers inspiring stories of several horses that have lived on their ranch. Her own tale of bounding from an accounting career into a Texas rancher role is a fantastic feat for a woman who didn’t even learn to ride until she was an adult.

It struck me how writing is both an endurance race and one of skill: jumping the obstacles that block the track (e.g., the exploding calendar) and navigating turns and changes of direction. At times we need to trade our sunglasses for blinders to stay focused. Yet every paragraph moves us four hooves closer to the finish line.

Lynn writes of a persistent sense of being an impostor while learning the ranching trade. Many beginning writers feel the same, fleshing out stories and re-tweaking dialogue until the voice is clear and authentic. They slash, tweak, edit, and trim their way into lean story-telling machines. Every deletion is a riding lesson toward perfecting a consistent rhythm and stride.

She shares that the horses constantly teach you life lessons, especially about facing your fears and pushing your limits. Showing up with courage, whether in the stall or at the page is the only option to realize your dreams.

As a young rider, I slid off or was bucked off more horses than I stayed on – to me, all saddles hide an ejection button somewhere in the horn. I never became fearful, always swinging right back on, until the day I climbed into a friend’s pasture, and, without provocation, a mare they were boarding decided she wanted to kill me – not hurt me, kill me. My friend gigged her horse and backed him in between us, and I bolted over the fence to safety. Years later I forced myself to help a friend groom her Arabians, and it took weeks of rhythmic brushing, stroking, and proffers of apple nibbles to break my fears.

Writing is like this: it takes courage to climb atop a bucking 700 pound manuscript and hold on through revisions, critiques, pitches, and rejections. The brave writers and their tenacious desire to tell their stories inspires and teaches us to grip the reins, hunker down, and gig that bronco across the finish line to publication.

When was the last time you flew out of the saddle when working toward a goal? What prompted you to climb back up and keep course? How did you face your fear and conquer it?

I’m planning to visit LOPE this summer to meet some of the characters in Lynn’s book that still live on the ranch. With any luck, I won’t be run out of the corral. Of course, there’ll be a carrot or twenty in my pockets to help make new friends.


http://www.lopetx.org/
Horse Tales blog: http://lopetexas.typepad.com/horse_tales/success_stories/index.html

Soil and the City

It’s the end of May and already it’s too hot. Too hot to do much except gulp frozen spoonfuls of Texas peach ice cream in the air conditioning. It’s about choosing brain freeze over brain melt.

Nonetheless, as the thermometer whipped past 95 degrees, I spent half my day outside on the porch repotting plants, digging and mounding and squinting as rivulets of perspiration and bug repellent tracked into my eyes.

With the last dip of the sprinkling can, I was head-to-foot in Miracle Grow, having repotted some two dozen plants, and grinning from dirty nose to dirty toes. Every plant looked so cheerful: so grateful to exhale and settle into their new diameters, so thrilled with the extra wiggle room for their roots.

My mission was to spruce up some bushy new plants to decorate my office, so every weekend this month I set out with different friends also courting new fronds. Who wants to meet for cocktails when you can plant shop?

Walking into a nursery is like strolling into a magnificent chocolates shop. I ooh and ah over all the plants and apologize that I can only take a few of them home. By the end of repotting, stacks of empty containers mound like discarded bonbon wrappers. I get giddy thinking of trays of annuals and perennials lined up just for me. Think Flat Week instead of Fleet Week.

If I’d penned it, I’d have the “Sex and the City” ladies star in “Soil and the City,” hunched over damp, earthy nursery tables instead of racks of vintage designer clothes. They’d be drooling over 8” glazed pots instead of 4” Manolo stilettos. Instead of being dressed in haute coutre sipping pinkish cosmos in thin-stemmed crystal, they’d be in cushy gardening clogs clinking Ball jars of brown compost tea.

Like all intimate relationships, some plants require lots of attention and face time. It takes a little prodding with my husband to get past the “just fines” and get him to open up about his day. Full eye contact and a smile works every time. I also know that when he says he’s watered the potted plants, he’s been waving about a garden hose like an elephant bathing in a stream. Some get a little, some get a lot. I have to poke a finger in each one and ask them if they’re thirsty.

My husband does not talk to our plants. I always do; and I can tell they are listening: they answer me with blooms and buds and magical overnight growth. He thinks I'm one pickled pepper shy of a jar.

At one of my favorite Austin eateries, Casa de Luz, you pass through a lush green canopy of bamboo and stroll up a bricked path until you reach the vegan restaurant. The food is delicious, but I most relish the transformative wandering under the cooling branches. You’re relaxed, forgetful of the traffic snarls, and perfectly at peace by the time you’ve reached the restaurant steps.

What’s your favorite place to connect with nature? Where do you go to transform yourself? If you talk to your plants, what do you say to them?

Tomorrow I'll flash the lingering dirt under my fingernails like fabulous jewels, kind of a Miracle Grow manicure. Sitting amid a jungle full of plants is like being surrounded by diamonds at Tiffany's. So many cuttings, so little time.

Memories of Mela

On my nightstand now is a book written in 1966 by Alan Watts entitled The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are. I’m an avid reader of leadership books, and when one recently cited many of Dr. Watts’ quotes, I was intrigued to pick up a copy from our local library.

Dr. Watts was a British philosopher, writer, and speaker who introduced and popularized Eastern philosophy to Western audiences. As a writer, he was an early master of the sound bite, as demonstrated in the many provoking quotes in this slim book. An excerpt that resounded with me:

“Real travel requires a maximum of unscheduled wandering, for there is no other way of discovering marvels and surprises, which, as I see it, is the only good reason for not staying home.”

When I contemplate the “Who Am I Really” question, I could simply let my wallet do the talking, overstuffed with dog-eared artifacts that prove I am who I am: as a driver, a voter, a reader, and a shopper.

But who I am really is a tally of the many life roles I play in my relationships. Along with wife, friend, and slave to cats is one I call Discoverer. What better way to find out who you are than to explore other cultures and lifestyles?

Economic times being what they are, it’s fortunate that we have a plethora of multi-cultural opportunities here in Austin to experience worlds outside our own. Recently I gathered with friends to attend the annual Mela celebration at the Barsana Dham, a Hindu temple and ashram sitting on over 200 acres of beautiful Texas hill country.

One of the largest Hindu Temple complexes in North America, Barsana Dham is a savory treat every spring with its fluttering fields of red poppies bowing in the wind. Under the most perfect azure sky, we were greeted by hundreds of rose bushes abounding in blooms--an astonishing gift from Mother Nature after our unusually difficult winter of extended freezes.

The word mela means fair, and every year near the last weekend of April, throngs gather for this festive welcome to spring and wander the open air shopping bazaar, win prizes playing games, ride in a Clydesdale-drawn carriage, pose for a fast flourish of mehndi flowers, and wince while excited children batter the rabbits, chickens, and baby pigs at the petting zoo.

One special treat of the fair is sampling the authentic dishes they prepare. To dine in their indoor cafeteria, you plop your shoes outside on racks or in piles and cross the threshold barefooted into an exotic world of sultry, spicy cuisine. From their Northern and Southern India menu options, we bought and shared a variety of vegetarian specialities including crisp roti, dosas, lentils, and rice. We drank the thick and satisfying mango lassis, black pepper lemonade, falooda (rose milk), and chai. For dessert we nibbled on gulab jamun, fried milk balls in a rosewater and sugar syrup flavored with cardamom seeds.

On the performance stage, a kaleidoscope of stunning saris swirled about on the colorfully swathed dancers. Both traditional and modern songs vibrated across the grounds, with the audience nodding in rhythm as an ensemble of young performers pounded out a Bollywood hip-hop routine to “Jai Ho,” the theme from the film "Slumdog Millionaire." Jai ho roughly translates as “victory to thee,” and its jubilance perfectly lifted the day's spirit.

What do you consider a really great reason for not staying home? What recent adventure taught you more about yourself? Where does your Discoverer self lead you?

It was a challenge to stay clear of the roving acrobats on stilts, but I’m glad we stepped out of our homes and transported ourselves to India for the day. In coming together, we learn that we are far less separate than we may have believed.

Laughter Yoga

Someone in our neighborhood just got a new trombone and is blowing it like a depressed elephant.

When I first heard it, I thought there’d been an outbreak from the zoo. Then, the more I listened, the more I could discern the great effort behind the bellowing.

It’s mostly in the afternoons. When it starts, I visualize some kid losing a lung in a rented and dented piece of brass. So far, there’s no real tune evolving, just a series of toots and hoots in the key of confusion.

One person’s ear pollution, another’s joyful noise?

Laughing, to me, is one of the genuinely joyful sounds we share, so last weekend when a friend invited me to join her in a Laughter Yoga class, I decided to give it a try.

After all, Readers’ Digest has expounded for years that Laughter Is the Best Medicine. It seems there’s some truth to it after all. Per the Laughter Yoga International web site:

"Laughter Yoga combines unconditional laughter with Yogic breathing or pranayama (breath control)…. The concept of Laughter Yoga is based on a scientific fact that the body cannot differentiate between fake and real laughter. One gets the same physiological and psychological benefits."

At the onset, our leader explained the breathing techniques and informed us of the physical benefits of laughter on the body: increasing oxygen in the blood and endorphin activity, lowering blood pressure, and generally reducing stress while boosting well being.

You have to be pretty gung ho-ho-ho to get down and giggly with a group of strangers, especially in the belly laugh pose, where you lie head-to-tummy like a folded gum wrapper chain while everyone belts out a hearty laugh. Who knew you could get this much bouncing without a stack of quarters in a cheap motel room?

It felt silly and odd, for sure, but the breathing exercises were deep and clarifying. The good vibrations seem to melt away the muck and help you put things in perspective, just like a double-up guffaw with a close friend after you’ve been too stressed over the small stuff. It’s the lightness of laughter that lifts us and gives us the energy to keep going.

Have you laughed today? What incited your last great belly laugh? With whom did you share it?

I’m thinking our budding trombonist's parents could use a little Laughter Yoga before they employ a little forced pranayama on their prodigy.

http://www.laughteryoga.org
http://women.webmd.com/guide/give-your-body-boost-with-laughter