Awareness

Witness As Being

/ Jeff Hora / Leave a comment
Image by Alex Carabi

While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. “This,” he said, “is what you have heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” He replied, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. – Acts 1: 4-9 NRSV

When I carry forward what I wrote about earlier on what “witness” means in various contexts into this text, something jumps out at me: the phrase that I used to hear when I was much younger, “Let’s go out witnessing!” seems misplaced…

Being a witness isn’t an activity I set out to do or accomplish. I am a witness by virtue of experiencing God’s Spirit and power in my life. Jesus didn’t say “y’all go out witnessing to the world!” He said, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (emphasis is mine)

The text above mentions receiving power in the Holy Spirit twice before then telling the disciples that they will be witnesses. Certainly this doesn’t mean that NOW God will start to work in their lives, NOW God will start to demonstrate His power……God’s been working in their lives for quite awhile! The Holy Spirit living in Love and Power through and from them into the world around them heightens their awareness of what they have experienced. The Spirit gives them the loving insight into what that might mean to those around them, and the wisdom to recognize the dire need for God’s Grace in each and every one about them. They each learn how to express their experience, both in love and in restorative justice, that allows their witness to show, not themselves, but our loving and graceful God to that person.

Being a witness isn’t something we train up to do. We are witnesses. There are things we can learn from our community, from spiritual friends and others that can lead us to be more sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s work, and perhaps, more wisdom about being the witness that God has placed us in this life to be, right now, with this person……but the central experience is your experience with God in your life.

Prayerfully consider your rich relationship with God, and present that as an open book through which the Spirit breathes grace for others.

Witness Existence

/ Jeff Hora / Leave a comment
Witness
Verb or Noun?

I have spent a lot of time lately studying and pondering the role of a witness in our world. I watch a lot of police procedural shows on TV (think “Law and Order” for example…) and so I thought I’d develop my own definition first before heading over to Dictionary.com. Here’s what I came up with:

A witness is an individual who has seen and/or experienced something about which someone else wants information. Despite the differences any number of witnesses might have in individual perceptions, strength and reliability of memory, and the ability to clearly express themselves, it is expected that, from “honest” answers, a clearer picture of what really happened develops. The picture builds greater certainty in what this “something” is/was.

So then, if only out of curiosity, I went over to Dictionary.com and compared what was there with mine:

verb (used with object)

  1. to see, hear, or know by personal presence and perception – e.g. to witness an accident
    1. to be present at (an occurrence) as a formal witness, spectator, bystander, etc. – e.g. she witnessed our wedding

verb (to be used without object)

  1. to bear witness; testify; give or afford evidence

noun

  1. an individual who, being present, personally sees or perceives a thing; a beholder, spectator, or eyewitness
    1. a person or thing that affords evidence
    1. a person who gives testimony, as in a court of law

…and so on. You get the idea.

The first thing I noticed is that, generally, a witness is first and foremost, someone who actually experienced something and then can share that experience. The witness’s story is what gives the event credibility in the eyes of others. As others (the “cloud of witnesses”) tell their stories and these stories lend further credibility to an event, the more likely those who are trying to find out what really happened (the event….) find the event believable for themselves.

So the idea I arrived at is that you don’t set out to become a witness.

You are a witness, by virtue of the experiences you have. Others are more interested in your story than in a lecture, especially in these days when “words are cheap” but living experiences are real.

Consider your experiences of God, what that relationship does in your world, and how God’s love is lived from you into this world. Witness.

Being: Salt

/ Jeff Hora / Leave a comment

“You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.” – Matthew 5: 13 (NRSV)

For quite some time now I have been fascinated with incorporating “being” in my life and awareness. This hasn’t been easy, nor is it ever “done.” (I know I’m using quotation marks a lot here, but bear with me…)

A term and concept that has gained a lot of attention is mindfulness. This is an aspect of being that I include in my dialogues, but my growing understanding and experience of being (I’m dropping the quotation marks for that word at this point…) is only part of it.

Mindfulness, to me, is being fully aware of the moment in which I reside, at any given moment. It implies a certain kind of attention that is neither cast backward nor forward. One way of looking at how I apprehend being at this time is kind of mindfulness without the attention. Let me explain further….

Continue reading →

Listening: Attention or Intention?

/ Jeff Hora / Leave a comment

Attention Listening

Listening

“PAY ATTENTION!!!!!”

In your life, how many times have you heard that phrase, either from someone else or your internal voice? Shutting out distractions like noise, devices or the torrent of thoughts and imagination that the Buddhist tradition has termed the “monkey mind” seems nearly impossible. We slap ourselves internally in some fashion, and try to refocus on the speaker. This can be just as jarring as the distractions themselves!

Mindful Listening is really not about attention. It’s about intention. Let me explain how I understand and experience the difference.

Continue reading →

Mindfulness and Taking Stock

/ Jeff Hora / Leave a comment

Mindfulness

Mindfulness

This past week was a good and difficult one.
One of the hard bits was working to get five + days of work done in three, as I had scheduled Thursday and Friday off to celebrate my anniversary and birthday. I work to do this every year and have been pretty successful to date, although banishing work from my mind is always a challenge as an entrepreneur. Still, it was good to get away from the screens and focus on each day and the moments each held, along with the commemoration activities.
I focus on this set of events for a couple of reasons.
First, I wish to celebrate life and relationships, and this is another way to mark them as memorable and life-giving.
Second, this particular birthday gives me pause. I am now the age my father was when he was consumed by cancer and died. That, along with the near approaching anniversary of the death of my younger brother in two weeks, I am particularly aware of being present in each moment and how this manifests itself in my “normal activities”…..”normal activities” being the usual, rather mundane things of every day.
You may be thinking (if you’ve read this far..), “Why is he writing about this on a business blog?” A fair question…

Continue reading →

Innovation and Dialogue

/ Jeff Hora / Leave a comment

dialogue innovation

Dialogue

How much of innovation is an Isaac Newton-like moment (mythically alone and the apple drops on your head….”AH-HA!”) and how much is something else entirely?

And what IS that something else?

I wrote another article asking if innovation was dead. Looking at the world around us, it seems a mixed set of answers. Some things like Artificial Intelligence (AI), driverless cars and certain kinds of other technology seem to beg the question that innovation is alive and well. But we still have stubborn problems as a culture and a world that seem to defy innovative answers. Some of these problems are so monumentally complex that just trying to confront or define them is hard enough (think eradication of hard poverty, cures for things like cancer or diabetes, nuclear proliferation, economic inequality, how to have a positive outcome with whatever the heck is happening to global environment, etc….).

Getting to a more manageable level, like your business, how do you:
  • keep from being a follower when it comes to coming up with new and different ways to attract customers
  • improve and create new products and services
  • grow your business in scalable ways
  • stand out from the crowd of competitors
and the like?

Going it alone can seem attractive. It can feel like, unless you come up it, it’s not really your innovation or idea. This is a real danger for solopreneurs, as innovation is not the same as churn, and this churn is where many of us live and work. Surrounded by shifting tasks, fluid schedules, never-ending revisions of services and offerings….it can SEEM like Innovation at times, even if it’s just a new way to get through the day in one piece!

It’s not.

Continue reading →

Your Job and Your ONE THING

/ Jeff Hora / Leave a comment

Job

The Job

“It’s not just a Job….It’s an Adventure!”

That was a marketing tag line for the U.S. Navy a number of years ago. A frequent comment among my fellow sailors at the time was “Is this the job part or the adventure part?”

The whole of these two concepts came up to me recently in a conversation I had with a mentor of mine. We were going over his long career, and he mentioned that he felt he never really had a JOB. I asked him what he meant, and he shared that his idea of a job was something that you pretty much had to drag yourself to, every day, like it or not. There was not much life in it, and any correlation between it and the conviction that he was doing something good, right, and worthwhile was nonexistent, or, at best, extremely minimal. He felt that all that he had done never went to the level of being a JOB for him.

After about four hours of dialogue and catching up (I hadn’t seen him for over 4 years…), I drove away mulling over this idea.

Did I ever have a JOB, by this definition?

Continue reading →

What Are You Really All About?

/ Jeff Hora / Leave a comment

[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”]

blind men and elephant

The blind men and the elephant

Remember the old fable about the blind men and the elephant? Each one of them touched a different part of the animal and conjured up a description of it that was wildly different from the others’, based on their personal experience.

Stay with me….

I have had an experience like this with my business recently. Instead of being blind, though, it’s more like I was up-close-and-personal with my section of the elephant. All I could see clearly was the bit right in front of me. In my desire to really get a good look at where I am and where I’m going, I tried stepping back a bit, but really only got a wider view of the broadside of the elephant, though. I needed to back WAAAAAAAY up to really see it as an elephant….er, as my business.

I am fortunate. I just got back from almost two weeks’ worth of vacation on a lovely tropical island. Lots of beach time, lots of “spare room” for my mind to unwind, and little to no “screen time” to distract me (THAT was nice!). It took most of the vacation for my mind, at all levels, to unwind and back-off enough to not only see the elephant, but discern if this was the elephant I wanted and have been working for / toward for years.

This is humbling, and an eye-opener…

One consideration I confronted was “What do I consider success?” This is a tougher-than-you’d-think question. It is beyond revenue, recognition, client-lists, board and committee memberships, or mission statements. It is “What am I about?” and “Why do I do this…..really?“

This requires me to go deeper into my reason for being. If I truly believe the importance of mindfulness and the present moment, this must be reflected by my business. As a consultant (which holds for any small business owner…), I really AM my business. So, again, what am I about?

Continue reading →

FOCUS: How Do You Compare Awareness vs. A Noisy Internet?

/ Jeff Hora / Leave a comment

[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”]

Awareness

Awareness

Moving from Awareness (I sometimes call it Discoverability…) to Reputation, and then to some kind of Economic Engagement (Sales, Donations, etc…) is a well-known path for many businesses.

The first stop on this journey is gaining Awareness of your business. Sadly, there are still a number of businesses who feel and act as though the best way to get attention is to YELL A LOT ONLINE! This number is shrinking, but they are still there. What the rest scatter into are versions of:
  • Semi-random posts based partly on the business and partly on when whomever is managing the online activity has time or interest to post something. Hence pages that will have four posts in one day, and then go 3 months before the next one.
  • A steady stream of “We’re Great! Everyone Says So!” and “Buy Our Stuff!“. These folks generally post a lot, and descend into “Internet Noise” pretty quickly…
  • The “Cats Rule the Internet” strategy, where a large number of posts are entertaining GIFs and Videos of Pets, People and Fun things, but without any balancing of content that’s valuable to the customer, except for those who find filling their day with looking at this kind of stuff valuable. May drive a l lot of traffic, but no business.
  • Patterns that ALMOST come together into a coherent plan, but lack the real strategy to make progress in their marketing and business goals. Sometimes the owner is a regular use of some channel like Facebook, and so knows kind of what others do, but hasn’t worked through how that looks for her business.
  • Some solid execution plans that are moving the needle for the business and producing value. These companies are intelligently investing in and leveraging digital/social media to MAKE MONEY.

Continue reading →

How Important is Unsurpassed Genuine Tenacious Persistence?

/ Jeff Hora / Leave a comment

[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”]

Tenacious Persistence

Tenacious Persistence!

I am reminded of the role of tenacity this week.

Many kinds of dogged persistence crossed my path. In my business, I worked with several clients working through tough business problems. Despite the distraction of the holiday season, each is determined to make headway on each particular challenge. There have been some “stall points” along the way, thanks to old processes colliding with newer, better informed efforts. Nonetheless, each is steadfast in their desire to get the older processes and mindsets either altered to the newer ones, or discard them. This is not easy (particularly when older process are personified and actuated by existing team members who have “always done it that way, and it works kinda OK…”), but the little successes along the way are proving the value of the work, and provide the fuel for the tenacious spirit they display.