Last year, I took a Coaching Mastery workshop from Michael Neill.  Here’s an excerpt from his Tip of the Day which really resonates with me.  Michael answers his own question:

“Imagine your funeral (or if you prefer, your 80th birthday). What would you like each of the important people in your life to say about you?

Turns out, I won’t really care if I was successful in the eyes of the world. I’ll settle for being successful in the eyes of Nina, Oliver, Clara, and Maisy!

Here’s what I’d love to hear them say:

He always endeavoured to live what he taught and when it mattered, teach what he lived.

The truth is, we liked who we were when we were with him. We became experts, geniuses, capable, resourceful, funny, loving, caring, and kind.

Eventually, we realized we were that way even without him there.

He was always supportive, but it turned out he was only holding us up long enough for us to get used to the altitude and realize we could fly.”

This is the kind of approach to leadership and management I really, really, really like.

“We are tired of leaders who, rather than asking what we can do for our country, ask nothing of us at all.”

-Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas

This intriguing NY Times article by Natalie Angier hints at ways animals make decisions in groups — from dolphins and whales to elephants and monkeys.

My favorite definition of politics is “of other people,” or more clearly, “The art or science of government or governing, especially the governing of a political entity, such as a nation, and the administration and control of its internal and external affairs.” -Answers.com

In addition to the animals mentioned by Ms. Angier, here’s bees and geese, and plants:

“Bees communicate…by means of a strange dance, called the waggle-dance, that honeybees perform when they return to the hive after a successful foraging trip.  The nectar-laden bee dances on the comb in a circular pattern, occasionally crossing the circle in a zigzag or waggle pattern….

In 1973, Karl von Frisch was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work showing that the runs and turns of the dance were correlated to the distance and direction of the food source from the hive.”

-Steve Denning, The Secret Language of Leadership, page 97 “Why Honeybees Change their Minds.”

“The image that best captured the organizational end state I had in mind for Johnsonville was a flock of geese on the wing. I didn’t want an organizational chart with traditional lines and boxes, but a “V” of individuals who knew the common goal, took turns leading, and adjusted their structure to the task at hand. Geese fly in a wedge, for instance, but land in waves. Most important, each individual bird is responsible for its own performance.”

-from Ralph Stayer’s article “How I Learned to Let My Workers Lead.” 

While in Barcelona, I was told that some ferns will emit a signal — through scent/chemicals, maybe — so that when one fern’s leaves are eaten, each fern sends a signal, down the line of ferns, so each fern’s leaves begin to taste very bitter.  This means that a deer which starts to eat one fern has a bitter time eating any others in that line. 

Howard Bloom’s book The Global Brain is a fascinating and epoch-spanning look at politics back billions of years.

Thanks to ’smitty’ for mentioning this great article by Nora Dunn at Vagabondish.com about eight ways to travel around the world and live for free.

I’m a fan of Couchsurfing and these others sound worth a try:

• Caretaker’s Gazette
• Woofing
• House Carers
• Organic Volunteers
• Couchsurfing
• Global Freeloaders
• Servas
• Hospitality Club