Nov 20, 2019
In this episode, I interview author, speaker, coach, and consultant Marilyn Paul. Marilyn is the author of two books: It's Hard to Make a Difference When You Can't Find Your Keys: The Seven Step Path to Becoming Truly Organized and An Oasis in Time: How a Day of Rest Can Save Your Life. We cover these two topics, getting organized and resting, both with an eye on how this can help in a Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous world.
In the first portion of the interview, Marilyn shares her own story of discovering how her disorganization was impacting others around her, and how this realization led her to making big changes in her life and habits. She asks us to consider what it is costing us to be disorganized, and she talks about what it costs organizations to constantly rely on the "hero" to swoop in at the end and save the day. Marilyn shares practical advice, including how to get started if you are struggling to take the first step. She encourages us to really connect with why we want to get more organized, our vision of what life would look like if were to be more organized, and how our current reality is holding us back.
We then shift into her more recent work, the value of getting rest. She again shares her own story of realizing how exhaustion and burnout were normal to her, that is until she attended a Shabbat dinner at a friend's home and started to see unexpected benefits in the rest of her life. She began to build more "Oasis Time" into her life, and has now made it a weekly practice with her family. Marilyn encourages us to revel in this oasis time, spending time doing the things we "never seem to have time to get to" in our busy lives. We talk about the benefits of rest, two of which include feeling more joy and experiencing more awe in our lives. She also talks about how the lack of rest is impacting how leaders lead and how organizations make decisions in complex situations. She again offers practical advice on how to get started on the road to more rest, encouraging us to start with one hour/week and then building from there.
Here are links to Marilyn's website, and links to her books: