Here is a very interesting and engaging talk by Pamela Meyer on how to spot liars using scientific research. And it’s got nothing to do with that old children’s saying ‘liar, liar pants on fire’.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Image: photostock / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

On Michael Bungay Stanier’s Box of Crayons website, there’s a great video called “The Eight Irresistable Principles of Fun”

Do visit the website and watch the video – we’re sure you’ll find some inspiration in it! :) As the website says:

“The Eight Irresistible Principles of Fun is a rallying cry to infuse our lives and our workplaces with fun. People need to stop wasting time and energy and start doing the things that really matter to them.”

But for those who’d like a quick summary, here are the 8 principles. Take together they’re great advice for life!

1. Stop hiding who you really are.
2. Start being intensely selfish.
3. Stop following the rules.
4. Start scaring yourself.
5. Stop taking it all so damn seriously.
6. Start getting rid of the crap.
7. Stop being busy.
8. Start something.

Change has a considerable psychological impact on the human mind. To the fearful it is threatening because it means that things may get worse. To the hopeful it is encouraging because things may get better. To the confident it is inspiring because the challenge exists to make things better.

(King Whitney Jr.)

If you are reflecting or planning for 2012, here are some wise words to consider. Particularly – What, Where, When, How, Why, and Who.

Six Honest Men

I keep six honest serving-men:
(They taught me all I knew)
Their names are What and Where and When
And How and Why and Who.
I send them over land and sea,
I send them east and west;
But after they have worked for me,
I give them all a rest.

I let them rest from nine till five.
For I am busy then,
As well as breakfast, lunch, and tea,
For they are hungry men:
But different folk have different views:
I know a person small–
She keeps ten million serving-men,
Who get no rest at all!
She sends ‘em abroad on her own affairs,
From the second she opens her eyes–
One million Hows, two million Wheres,
And seven million Whys!

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)
The Elephant’s Child

This dog’s antics are a lovely metaphor for how smooth and effortless training and facilitation can feel when they’re going well  …

We figure we should hire him – as long as he doesn’t go to sleep on the job! :)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Whether you work with young children or have children of your own, it’s always a joyful experience to share time with them in movement and play. Their smiles and laughter are a rich reward.

We experience this ourselves, with children in primary schools, through our Pozitive Kidz are Happy Kidz programs.

And it’s certainly a universal experience …

You don’t have to speak the language to smile at the joy the children are sharing in the two videos below from Russia. One is a physical education class at a Siberian Cossack System school, the other a more formal dance class.   In both, the children’s fun and pleasure is contagious!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here is a very moving video! It is the story of Baxter, the “therapy dog” – a furry and compassionate member of the Pawsitive Pals Pet Therapy Program at a hospice and palliative care unit in San Diego.

Baxter lived to the amazing age, for a dog, of 19½.  And right to the end of his own life, he provided comfort and companionship to human beings who were facing the end of theirs.

Click here to view the embedded video.

You can read more about Baxter in this article: Memoir Follows Baxter, a Therapy Dog with a Healing Touch.

Baxter may hold a record as the oldest therapy dog, but he was by no means the only one.  There are many others whose comforting presence is helping people most in need of such comfort. Here are a few websites where you can learn more:

Therapy Dogs (Wikipedia)

Therapy Dogs International (United States)

Delta Society (Australia)

Therapy Dogs United (United States)

Pets as Therapy (UK)

DOGS Victoria (Australia)

Lead the Way: Animal Assisted Therapy (Australia)

Helping Paws – Canistherapy  or Helping Paws (in English) (Czech Republic)

Who would have thought that Mad Mimi – with a name like that – could be such a a jewel of a find to help me preserve my sanity! :)

Our Starlink newsletter celebrates its sixteenth birthday this month – which is quite an achievement I suppose. :)

It began as a paper-based newsletter back in November 1995 and has seen several changes over the years – to the point where all our subscribers receive it electronically.

For the last few years, it has been in the form of an html newsletter – with a downloadable pdf file every second month, containing additional resources. As anyone who produces a newsletter would understand, producing both formats has been time-consuming!  And recently we’ve realised Starlink needs to be improved again so it’s ‘mobile-friendly’. More and more folk are reading their emails on mobile devices, after all.

So … as the ‘techie’ in our partnership, I went  back to the drawing board to work out how to produce mobile-friendly email and web versions as well as the pdf file.

Wrestling with all the html, css and php coding, as well as other desktop publishing tasks needed for the pdf file  …  well, I was starting to go pretty crazy!  :)

It was obviously time to rethink our approach. And also time to transfer our newsletter distribution to an email/newsletter service provider, so we’d have the capacity to track distribution more effectively as well.

Here’s what I did and why Mad Mimi was the best solution I found …

I went back to some research I’d done for a client a while ago, in relation to email marketing and newsletter service providers or programs. There are so many of these programs with so many variations that it’s hard to compare apples with apples! Many have ad-supported free services – but we didn’t want the ads.  And the fee-based versions all vary widely in their features, cost per mailing and other factors.

I revisited my ‘short’ list of 20 to review them again and update their pricing and features etc:

Email and Newsletter Service Providers Research (Excel)

Email and Newsletter Service Providers Research Explanation (Word)

At the end of this rather complex and time-consuming journey and after testing a handful of the services myself, I found that Mad Mimi  stood head and shoulders above the rest!

Why?

Not only is it very reasonably priced, but it is definitely one of the easiest to use. It has a simple drag and drop interface that requires none of the complicated coding I’d been doing previously. Mad Mimi also has a huge collection of online help articles, tips and ideas explained in clear and simple terms.

And as for the customer service I received – it could not have been faster, clearer or more friendly! The questions I emailed to their support team were answered very quickly – often within minutes. It seems that, no matter what time it is here in Australia, there’s someone from Mad Mimi waiting patiently to check and respond to emails. :)

Our first Starlink newsletter using Mad Mimi has now been created – and is shortly to be distributed to our readers.

I’m delighted there’ll  be no more desktop publishing work or complex html or css coding needed for each issue!  We can concentrate on the most important thing – researching content that will be useful, thought-provoking, inspirational or fun for our readers.

And I know that, whatever issues may arise or questions I may have, the fantastic support team at Mad Mimi will be there to help.

So thank you Mad Mimi … you have saved my sanity! :)

Please note: We’ve been so impressed with Mad Mimi that we’ve signed up for their affiliate program and the links in this post are affiliate links. If you happen to decide that Mad Mimi is a service you’d also like to use, and you’re happy to give us a little support as well, that would be great. :) However if for any reason you are opposed to affiliate programs, you can use this direct link to the Mad Mimi site instead. 

Here’s an inspiring TED talk from Simon Sinek.

Who would have thought the way to inspire action could be such a simple concept … though certainly not simple to do!

Listen to his explanation of the ‘golden circle‘ and going ‘from the inside out‘.

There are leaders and there are those who lead. Leaders hold a position of power or authority – but those who lead inspire us. Whether they are individuals or organisations, we follow those who lead not because we have to but because we want to. We follow those who lead not for them, but for ourselves.

Click here to view the embedded video.

We’ve just finished running our third Essence of Appreciative Inquiry workshop and yet again, our segment in which participants share their stories in pairs on a particular theme had a significant impact for some in the group.

And for one person it was a powerful transformative experience!  We usually find this happens for at least one or two people in each workshop.

We could take the credit for being ‘fantastic facilitators and trainers’ but really all we do is create the space in which people can have deeper conversations with the potential to create transformation.

Our ‘Essence” workshops are packed with a variety of activities to engage, challenge and entertain participants throughout the two days and we usually allow up to one hour for the deep conversations segment. When we tell people ‘you’ve got an hour‘ you can almost hear them thinking:

‘One hour!’

‘What I can find to talk about in a whole hour?’

‘This is going to be a long time.’

We then ask the pairs to go where ever they feel comfortable to share their stories. Very few, if any, stay in the room. Most wander off to whatever pleasant environment they can find nearby such as a coffee shop, park, bench seat, or gazebo.

During that hour we wander around occasionally and see  every pair engaged in a deep conversation. We can’t hear what they say and we observe for only a few moments before moving on. But we always can see their relaxed and engaged body language – people are nodding their heads, leaning forward, smiling and looking reflective.

After an hour they are usually still deeply involved and we have to remind them gently to return to the room. Even then some take a few minutes extra because the conversations they are having are highly significant for them.

Why do deeper conversations have the potential to produce transformation?

Well, here are some of the reasons:

• People’s stories are about what matters to them
• They have the time to relax and share those stories
• The environment they choose helps elicit sharing as opposed to a standard ‘training room’ which can be sterile
• There is privacy. The stories they share are between two people, whereas a group discussion (far more ‘public’, no matter how small the group) can inhibit deeper conversations

Some facilitators and trainers may find it difficult to allow a whole hour in their program for ‘having a yarn’. And if they do use paired conversations they may only allow 10-20 minutes – which is okay if time is very tight. We still use shorter paired converations if the workshop is a relatively short one.

But through our experience in longer workshops we have found that one hour conversations have a significant impact.

Once you start a deep conversation, you start the process of transformative change. And isn’t this what most facilitators, change agents, managers and leaders are trying to do?

As Meg Wheatley once said:

There is no more powerful way to initiate significant change than to convene a conversation. There is no power equal to a community discovering what it cares about.