Dear ones;

This week I was selected as a “Driver of the Month” at work, recognized for a job I had been co-creating for several weeks. I believe this wouldn’t have been possible before hanging out with Ariel & Shya and being encouraged to really go for excellence whether or not I agreed with the directions I got from “management.” So thanks!  This feels great!

This is how the story appeared to all 700+ members of my division, my picture included:

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Hi all,

I just had the privilege to participate in the Freedom to Breathe/ Art of Being a Healer. It was truly magical and I feel great.  I feel so alive and centered.  Cool story, I am in the airport waiting to board a plane.  When I got here, I wanted to work on a strategic presentation that I will be presenting on January 5th and 6th. I knew that I could channel this energy into completing a project that is really important to me. I felt so clearheaded that I knew the words and ideas should come to me. (more…)

Editors’ Note: Our friends Caitlin & Rod, a husband and wife team, produced a brilliant and incredibly beautiful video that has just premiered in New York and we wanted to share the story behind it and how transformation and the Kanes’ work impacted their experience of creating this project.

Caitlin is a world-renowned Costume Designer whose work in film, opera and theater has appeared in venues including feature films,  the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Metropolitan Opera. Rod is a wildly talented actor whose work has been described by the New York Times as “dynamite,” “Physically precise and emotionally surprising,” and “kaleidoscopic”.

From Oct 18, 2011:

Hey Everyone;
Several months ago, we sent out an email entitled ‘Transformation (and Handel) Rocks’  – explaining our upcoming project and including some pictures – well…

We are very excited to now announce the launch of our music video!
(Click on the photos below to view larger versions.)

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Dear Friends,

Thank you for your kind words from my last e-mail about my trip to Bangladesh. Well, I have now finished my training here in Dhaka at the Room To Read Organization. It was awesome! I’ve made friends with a group of terrific, passionate, dedicated and inspiring group of people. On my first day, I met with each of the senior managers and asked what they do, and what they were struggling with and what they were interested in learning. I just listened to them and was interested and I got great stuff. And just by my listening, I was able to allow their own passions to bubble up to the surface. I knew after that first day what topics to cover.

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Hi Everyone!

Just wanted to update you about some cool things that have been happening in our collective worlds : )

1) Fun is Not a Four Letter Word,” an excerpt from our book How to Create a Magical Relationship is featured on the Pittsburgh Better Times home page: http://www.pittsburghbettertimes.com/fun-is-not-a-four-letter-word/

Feel free to post a comment, share it on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc… (more…)

We just took the Transformational Time & Project Management seminar with Ariel & Shya Kane at the New Yorker Hotel on 34th Street and 8th Avenue in NYC.  Wow, we are all so excited about what we experienced and created together.

Humor, passion, fun…what does this all have  to do with the projects on your to do list?  A whole lot more than we all thought.  Here are a few things we discovered: (more…)

Hi Guys,

I have just spent 2 amazing days in London with my work mates who are based up in Scotland and who came down to London for our “team cultural away days”. The trip was paid by our 2 bosses who said it was a reward for the great work we’ve been doing. We stayed at the famous 5 star hotel “The Ritz” and had amazing lunch there, then our company hired a professional choreographer only for us and we learned to dance to Rihanna’s “I’m the only girl in the world” song. In the evening we went to a comedy store and watched stand up comedy. The following day we hired a studio and a private drum instructor who showed us how to drum to samba tunes and we finished our trip by having “traditional afternoon tea” which is very british at the famous Savoy hotel in London. Here’s some videos of our trip and our team from the dancing and the drum sessions:
Dancing at Pineapple Studios
Samba Drumming Session

The reason I’m sharing this is not to show off but just to say that I would have never found this amazing company and job if I wouldn’t have learned from Ariel & Shya Kane, how to be “in the moment” and be a “yes” to life. I still remember that before Costa Rica 2010, I was not happy with the job I was in and thought “this wasn’t it” and a future job will be better! In Costa Rica I learned to be in the moment and to be a “yes” to life and that whereever I am and whatever I do is important. When I landed in NY on my way back to London from the Costa Rica trip in 2010, I had a text from a recruitment agency that was offering me a job for a gift voucher company. My first thought was “no” I don’t really want to work for a gift voucher company, it didn’t fit my agenda and didn’t “sound” good in my ears! However having learned to be in the moment in Costa Rica, I said yes and just showed up to the interview! The moment I met my Manager and I had the interview with her, I knew that this was an inspirational lady with an amazing job to offer and I wanted to work with her! It wasn’t about gift vouchers ie the product, it was all about this person (my manager) and what I could learn from her as she was so inspirational and she’s also into personal development and really cares about us employees and our personal development. I never had such an amazing feeling before where I just knew that this is the right job for me, it was as if my intuition said YES YES YES!!!
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I just took part in my first weekend workshop with the Kanes in Hamburg this past weekend. It was a truly amazing experience that radiated out into different areas of my life, and I’d like to share some of that with you.

I’m a teacher at a secondary school covering grades 5 to 12. I love my job, but I often find it quite exhausting and I’m stressed out a lot. In class, there are usually about a thousand things that you have to keep in mind, so mentally I often juggle several things simultaneously. A lot of the weekend, however, was about listening. Real listening. And on Monday I noticed how little actual listening there is at school. We all talk all day, every day – but listen? Hmmm.

So on Monday morning I listened to what my students had to say. Wow! A completely new experience that is hard to express, but I’ll give it shot: I was so much more relaxed and present in the moment. I didn’t do a thousand things at once, but instead I was there. No more, no less. And it felt like all of a sudden, I could breathe and let go and be there for my students. The atmosphere was much calmer and we ended up having so much fun together. I realized that finally, I get to pay attention to what really matters, i.e. my students. They also blossomed in a way. Up to that point, I had only experienced that effect in reverse, like when I brought my bad mood with me into class because the students in the class right before drove me up the wall and I didn’t manage to get rid of it, so the students of the next class were on the receiving end of something that wasn’t their fault at all. Yet this week it became clear that that’s not the only way it works; my calmness radiates in a way that changes everything. No, not changes – transforms (I still have to get used to the terminology).

This transformation is not limited to my job. Monday night I talked to my sister on the phone. We are very close, even though she lives close to Frankfurt, so we phone a lot. She is a teacher too, and a sizeable chunk of our conversations used to be taken up by a certain dynamic where she vents all the things that are annoying about her school/students/principal and then I join her by supplying examples from my own school (and believe me, there’s plenty of ground to cover – teachers are experts at complaining, after all). So Monday night, she complained about lots of things and I listened and realized that apparently, she needed to vent. And then – I realized that I didn’t have to join her in complaining. There wasn’t anything to complain about. Amazing!

All of this feels sooooo good. Relaxed and exciting at the same time. I’m itching to find out what else is happening in my life if I let it. This is thanks to the Kanes (as everybody who reads this will know and appreciate), but also thanks to the people at the workshop creating such an intense weekend full of profound conversations with wonderful people that still resonates with me in many ways.

Thanks!
A Teacher from Hamburg, Germany

Moin moin,

Ich habe am vergangenen Wochenende meinen ersten Wochenend-workshop mit den Kanes erlebt. Es war eine unglaublich tolle Erfahrung, die in die verschiedensten Bereiche meines Lebens strahlt und da Dinge bewegt, von denen ich einige mit euch teilen möchte.

Ich bin Lehrerin an einem Gymnasium. Ich liebe meinen Beruf, aber ich nehme ihn oft auch als extrem anstrengend wahr und bin meistens ziemlich gestresst. Im Unterricht sind ja oft tausend Dinge gleichzeitig zu regeln und im Blick zu behalten, so dass ich mental oft mehrere Dinge jongliere. Am Wochenende ging es ganz viel um Zuhören. Wirklich zuhören. Und am Montag ist mir aufgefallen, wie wenig wir in der Schule eigentlich zuhören. Wir reden den ganzen Tag, alle, aber zuhören? Hmmm.
Also hab ich am Montag früh mal zugehört, was meine Schüler zu sagen haben. Wahnsinn! Eine völlig neue Erfahrung, die ich schwer in Worte fassen kann, aber ich versuch’s mal: ich war so viel entspannter und einfach in dem Moment präsent und habe nicht mehr tausend Dinge auf einmal gemacht, sondern war da. Mehr nicht. Und es war auf einmal, als könnte ich durchatmen und loslassen und auf meine Schüler eingehen. Die Atmosphäre hat sich so entzerrt und wir hatten so viel Spaß zusammen ­ und ich hatte das Gefühl, dass ich endlich das in den Blick bekomme, was eigentlich wichtig ist: meine Schüler.

Die sind irgendwie auch aufgeblüht. Bisher kannte ich den Effekt so deutlich nur in der anderen Richtung, nämlich wenn ich schlechte Stimmung mit in die Klasse schleppe, weil mich der Kurs direkt vorher auf die Palme getrieben hat und ich das nicht in der Pause ablegen konnte, sondern es dann auch noch die nächste Klasse abgekriegt hat. Aber diese Woche wurde deutlich, dass es auch anders geht ­ dass meine eigene Gelassenheit so ausstrahlt, dass sich alles verändert. Nein, nicht verändert ­ transformiert (ich muss mich an die Begriffe noch gewöhnen).

Das ist auch nicht beschränkt auf den beruflichen Sektor. Am Montagabend habe ich mit meiner Schwester telefoniert. Wir haben sehr engen Kontakt, auch wenn sie bei Frankfurt wohnt, und telefonieren sehr häufig. Sie ist auch Lehrerin, und ein erklecklicher Teil unserer Telefonate bestand aus so einer Dynamik, dass sie sich bei mir auskotzt, was der Schulalltag ihr schon wieder alles an Arbeit beschert hat und wie unmöglich ihre Schulleitung ist, und ich dann beisteuere, was bei mir alles nervig war (und da gibt es im Schulalltag eine ganze Menge, schließlich sind wir Lehrer Weltmeister im Nörgeln). Am Montag hat sie sich also beschwert, über alles Mögliche, und ich habe ihr zugehört. Und gemerkt, dass sie das offensichtlich gerade alles mal loswerden muss. Und dann ­ habe ich gespürt, dass ich aber gar nicht darauf einsteigen muss. Es gab nichts zu nörgeln. Unglaublich!

All das fühlt sich so gut an. Entspannt und spannend gleichzeitig. Es juckt mich total in den Fingern, herauszufinden, was noch alles Magisches in meinem Leben passiert, wenn ich mich dafür öffne. Das verdanke ich den Kanes (wie allen klar ist, die das hier lesen), aber auch den anderen Leuten, die an dem Wochenende dabei waren, denn das intensive Wochenende mit so vielen tiefgehenden Kontakten zu wunderbaren Menschen klingt immer noch nach.

Danke!
Ein Lehrer von Hamburg

Dear friends!

We had such an easy workshop this weekend. It was so cool for me to see how much I was habituated to working on myself that my mind kept wanting to come up with some problems, so that I could get up in front of the group and create some drama. With a room full of 91 participants you really have to get into action if you want to speak, but none of my “problems” were real enough to act on.  So I just kept pulling myself back into the moment, getting used to the fact that I don’t need fixing and I didn’t need to create a drama to get something out of the weekend.
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