The purpose of the ChaosOver Program is not really about being organized! You see, unto itself, organization has no intrinsic value whatsoever. While many consider organization to be an ‘end’, truth be told, organization is solely a ‘means’, a vehicle, to take us where “we say” we want to arrive in our careers; in our family lives; in our personal lives.

The idea of living one’s life with, at our mortal ending, having no regrets…aha, that is a life fulfilled.

This particular Blog is geared to our personal life, however it is an example that equally relates to our careers and our families. While the following, recently published newspaper article, does have to do with my own life, please understand that it is to support the “I say” that we want to accomplish in this lifetime of ours in order to truly experience fulfillment and joy.

How the Big Brother Magic Cuts Both Ways

Philadelphia Daily News
Daily News Opinion Columnist

LEN MERSON paused thoughtfully when I asked what made him decide over forty years ago to become a Big Brother to a boy in need. “I can tell you,” piped up Allan Lewin, the self-described ‘Little Brother’. “A little kid is a great chick magnet.” “Yeah, it was either him or a puppy,” Merson laughingly agreed.

It’s a funny routine, one of a thousand things they have done together in a relationship that has lasted over four decades and has had a profound effect on both of their lives.

“Allan and my daughter, Jessica, are the two people that I trust most in the world,” Merson said.

“I remember writing a paper my first year in college about the people who influenced me,” Lewin said. “Len was one of the three who mattered most”.

Lewin and Merson are Exhibit A in the case Big Brothers/Big Sisters likes to make for mentoring. Lewin, who heads the Lee’s Hoagie House chain throughout the Philadelphia and surrounding areas,, and Merson, who runs an information-management business, with offices in California and Hawaii, both agree that neither would be who he is today without the other.
“Allan is a significant investor in my business,” Merson said.
“I go to him for business advice all the time,” Lewin said.

It was more than anyone imagined way back in 1967 when Lewin’s mother took him to Big Brothers/Big Sisters to see if they could find a man to hang out with him a couple of times a month.

“My parents were divorced,” Lewin recalled. “My mother was wise enough to know that I needed a male role model. “I just figured I’d meet someone who would take me places”.

That’s about all any young person fortunate enough to meet a mentor through the program expects. If it were nothing more than that, it would still serve a purpose for kids like Allan from single-parent homes.

Big Brothers/Big Sisters released a study last month that reveals a much more tangible benefit of their mentorship matches. According to results of the cross-sectional study by Harris Interactive:

-Adults who were mentored as children were seventy-five percent more likely to have graduated from college.
-Thirty-nine percent more likely to earn at least $75,000 a year than peers who had similar backgrounds.
-More than half the former “littles” who took part in the study grew up in single-parent homes with less than average incomes.
-About two-thirds reported that they had achieved greater success than children they grew up with who had no mentors.
-The study simply lays out in statistical terms what we know intuitively:
A child who has the benefit of a relationship with a responsible adult
is far more likely to succeed than if he didn’t have it.

Hundreds of children, particularly minority boys, can’t find ‘Big Brothers’. Many chapters had to stop taking applications last year despite a growing need.
NOTE: The ‘Big Sisters’ organization is in need of mentoring skills for many ‘Little Sisters’ in our communities as well.

Matches were easier to make when Len met Allan. Len felt the need as much as Allan did. “I had terrific expectations.” Len said. The results were even better. Allan was a great kid, mellow, insightful, interested in everything I showed him.”

What really made it work, they agree, was a third party, Len’s horse at the time, ‘Navajo’, an Appaloosa Quarter horse. “Allan got involved in everything. He cleaned the stables with me; we didn’t just ride”, Len stated.

But Allan didn’t realize how close they had become until he fell during a bicycle accident and broke his collar bone. “Len was at the hospital in minutes,” Allan said. “That was surprising”.

It all should have ended two years later when the company Len worked for transferred him to San Diego and then to Hawaii. But he and Allan spent summers together in San Diego and then Hawaii even after Len became a mentor to another Little Brother from the projects in Honolulu.

“I had this Jewish kid from an East Coast city and a Hawaiian boy from the projects,” Len said. “They got along great each summer. Both were great kids and are friends to this day”.

The three of them still get together a few times a year and speak to each other at least once a week.

The magic does indeed cut both ways.

The very derivation of the word ‘disease’ is understood by simply placing a hyphen between the first ‘s’ and ‘e’, thus creating the term: ‘Dis-Ease’.

Insurance companies, health benefit consultants, major corporations, the medical community have now recognized that stress (negative) is the leading cause of illnesses and the astronomical cost of health care in our nation today.

Cardiologists, emergency room physicians and nurses will tell you that most heart attacks take place late Sunday night/the early morning hours of Monday. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure this one out. The worry, concern and stress begin building up for most by Sunday afternoon.

Stress in our family life and our personal life notwithstanding, we spend a majority of our waking life at our workplace. This has within it, the ‘First Generation of Stress’. Couple this with the fact that our incomes, which support our personal and family lives, are derived from our work. I refer to this as the ‘First Generation of Stress’.

Due to our country’s current economic condition there is, what I describe as, the ‘Second and Third Generations of Stress’.

This ‘Second Generation’ emanates from those many businesses that have had to downsize. One of my clients recently told me that, due to the slowing of his construction company’s business, he had to lay off two tenured staff members.

Even with business at this slower pace, the staff still had to pick up the responsibilities, duties…and knowledge…from these two ex-staff members. In my interviewing the remaining staff, each one told me how this has increased their stress levels greatly.

As if this wasn’t enough, the ‘Third Generation of Stress’ is the most damning. This is due to our nation’s employed getting up to go to work each day with their very first thought, “Is today the day that I am going to lose my job?”

In dealing with the ‘Second and Third Generations of Stress’, pep talks, platitudes and affirmations such as “This too shall pass”, “Worry is an insult to God”, while not to be discounted, do in fact require a great deal of faith and trust. It would be foolish to forget, especially at this particular time, that we do control our thoughts.

NOTE- This would be a good time to read (or re-read) my blog post  entitled ‘The Power of Intention’.

It is essential to remember just how many times, in each of our lives, we have looked into the face of impending doom only to discover that we did, in fact, make it through.

I fervently believe that this current economic situation we are all facing will ebb. Yet, we will still be left with the ‘First Generation of Stress’.

The ChaosOver “Live” Program, as well as the LIVING CHAOS FREE E-Learning Platform, are each dedicated to PRODUCTIVITY ENHANCEMENT (measurable) and STRESS REDUCTION (affecting our personal and family lives as well). Ironically these two results- the heightening of productivity and the lessening of stress- have been, for the past thirty-six years, my personal mission with well over 77,000 people around the world.

The ‘Power of Intention’ has been the most significant realization of my adult life. Since 1973 I have spoken in my presentations around the world of the conscious and the subconscious, and how far more powerful our subconscious is in each one of us. Yet, we spend the majority of our lives rarely tapping into the strength and resolve of our subconscious. We are basically unattached to our subconscious mind, let alone believing that it has significant power.

I believe that our intentions come in two “flavors”; the Intention “I say” (conscious) and the Intention “Actual” (subconscious). I know how many times my words, which can come so easily, speak of what I intend, however that outcome is not always the result. Take for example the all too frequent commitment to stop smoking (“I say”), or lose undesired weight (“I say”). More often than not, the battle is lost before it has begun. Why do you think this is? Not only have the circumstances leading up to these ‘failures’ been set up, they have most likely been planned this way (in our subconscious mind) from the very beginning.

On the day you have decided to stop smoking (forever this time, right?) you decide to clean out your closet. While going through your jackets, you discover an old cigarette left there. You have a quick conversation with yourself and ultimately give yourself permission to smoke that cigarette. OK, so you blew it for today. You’ll start again tomorrow. And what happens when tomorrow comes?

You actually overslept on the day of an important interview for a new job. One that you “said” that you really wanted to have. Now think about it. You really didn’t want that job did you?

Jack has just lost his job due to downsizing. He is devastated. Now let’s flash forward two months and we see that Jack has a new position that has been his life-long wish for a career. He readily acknowledges that if his job not been downsized, he most likely never would have left the job he had.

Do these examples sound familiar? In each of our lives there are experiences similar to these.

This is not to state that our ‘Intentions’ can never be aligned. In fact, if you notice the title of this Blog is the ‘POWER’ of Intention. We truly do have the POWER. The more open, introspective and honest we are with ourselves, the more we become capable of seeing just why, so many times, we would have intended a result that is so different from what we have said we wanted.

If our Intention equals our Result, then this would mean that our Result reveals our true Intention. I know that this may be hard to accept, however, if one would care to know their Intention-Actual, one would simply need view their result. Of course if the result is a positive one, hey, this meant that my Intention-“Actual” was aligned with my Intention-“I say”. However, if the result is one that is less than desired, then few would own up to the idea that this must have been their true intention.

Why are we so willing to accept responsibility for actualities in our lives aligning with what we “say”, yet not taking responsibility when they don’t align? Wouldn’t this be just two different sides of the same coin?

In the workshop portion of the ChaosOver program, I make the following statement: ”We actually set ourselves up to not only allow chaos to exist in our lives, we go out of our way to MAINTAIN the chaos”. As the participants in my program first hear this, I know all too well that their first reaction is “He’s nuts, why would I ever intend to have chaos in my life?” NOTE-The answer will be provided in a further Blog, however for now, see if you can be open to think of at least three reasons why you, and I, would seek chaos as such a result.

The moral to this is to trust that your subconscious mind only becomes a conscious partner when we acknowledge, heed, and trust, the POWER of our intentions.

One of the world’s greatest pool players of all time is Willie Mosconi. What made Mosconi so adept at the game was not simply that he could shoot a ball into any pocket on the pool table, rather his uncanny ability, as a result of shooting his last shot, to have that little white cue ball in the perfect position for his next shot. In other words, Mosconi was a master of what I call ‘Next Step Mentality’.

How often do we find ourselves driving up to the home of a friend and suddenly realizing that we forgot to bring that special bottle of wine? Or being invited, with weeks of notice, to your boss’s home for a Sunday barbecue and failing to tell your spouse until the morning of the party.

Imagine the salesperson for a large and reputable hotel chain closing the biggest convention contract in the history of the hotel. As a result of this contract the hotel will be completely sold out for five days, eighteen months from today. However, in the exuberance and celebration in the sales department he neglected to inform the reservation department of the new contract.

The consequence…a catastrophe just waiting to happen and “I’m sorry, I forgot” just isn’t going to cut it. Here’s how ‘Next Step Mentality’ comes to your rescue:At the moment you’re logging the dinner at your friend’s home onto your electronic or paper calendar, for let’s say, 7:00 P.M., directly prior to that time, log the reminder ‘Bring that 2004 Russian River Valley Pinot Noir’.
At the very second that your boss is inviting you and your spouse to that Sunday barbecue, log on the evening section of today’s calendar “Talk to Mary regarding our availability for barbecue at Bob’s on the 24th”.

The hotel convention contract pending disaster could have been easily averted by the salesperson. As the client was signing the contract, the salesperson needed only to log on today’s calendar “notify reservations of Acme Freight convention”. Just another example of ‘Next Step Mentality’.

The rule of thumb is in asking yourself the following questions:

• Who would need to know what I have just learned?
• Who could benefit from this information?
• Who could be of help to me with this information?
• Who will appreciate the respect by my providing them with this communication?

You will come to find that this Next Step Mentality will soon become habitual.

You will see yourself thinking in such a way that your cue ball will always be in the perfect position for your next shot.

Whether we have a home office as the primary venue to conduct our business or simply as the area to pay bills, sort the mail, etc., it needs to adhere to some very important guidelines.

Keeping in mind that in many homes there are space limitations, nevertheless your home office should be in a location that is as private as possible. In other words, a living room where you entertain or may have family members talking or watching t.v. is not a good place. The very last choice for your home office is your bedroom. The visual connection as well as the energy runs in great contradiction to the purpose of this room.

When you picture yourself entering a sanctuary or a temple, what would you bring as an offering? You would most likely bring fruit, incense and flowers. I am sure that you will agree that it certainly would not be trash or materials emanating from chaos.

Most home offices have the desk, the file drawer and equipment located in one area. Yet the files, the paperwork, the mail, the bills seem to take on a life of their own as they spread themselves beyond the ‘office’ area. They have journeyed to the dining room table, the kitchen counter, the top of the dresser and nightstand even into the garage (which is why the car is parked in the driveway).

What has happened is that the sanctuary has been desecrated. That place designed and intended as a place of respite has been trashed.

Our program deals with the handling of every bit of information you come in contact with, be it paper-based, electronically-held, verbal requests, etc, so as to have instant retrieveability of this information. Your commitment needs to ensure that all (as in 100%) of the paperwork and materials remain within the physical confines of your work environment. In my own home there is not so much as a paperclip (quite literally), that ever trespasses beyond the physical space of my office area.

In this way your home becomes that temple to experience peace, to commune with family and friends and to re-energize you for the following day.