Training
Team Building
Coaching
Consulting
Speaking

Contact Us

413-423-3900
info@quixoteconsulting.com

If you know someone who would enjoy this issue, click the link below to forward it to them.

Quest Quote

“Only the ideas that we actually live are of any value.”

- Hermann Hesse

Quix Pix

Every month we will share some of our currently favorite books, music, movies and TV shows.

Movies

Lars and the Real Girl –
Any movie that has the main character reading Don Quixote out loud to a ‘love doll’ gets our vote. You’ll see some great parallels between Ryan Gosling’s superbly performed Lars and the illustrious wandering knight our company is named after. And you’ll see the magic of how a group of people can be transformed through one person’s quixotic ‘madness.’

Pocket Poem

Small enough to fit in your pocket, big enough to be of use.

Optimism
by Jane Hirshfield

More and more I have come to admire resilience.
Not the simple resistance of a pillow, whose foam returns over and
over to the same shape, but the sinuous tenacity of a tree: finding the
light newly blocked on one side,
it turns in another.
A blind intelligence, true.
But out of such persistence arose turtles, rivers, mitochondria, figs—
all this resinous, unretractable earth.

Good News

Take a break from the bad news headlines. Canadian boy floats unharmed down river on toy truck! Click here to read!

Thanks to Quixote consultant Jerry Riverstone for finding this great story.

Have you read some good news lately? Send us a link and spread the good news!

This month marks the 20th year of my working with teams and individuals, researching, coaching, and speaking.

While the bulk of my work has been with corporate audiences large and small (from individual coaching to speaking to groups of 500+), I’ve been lucky enough to work with and perform for all segments of the population. My work has taken me to non-profits, colleges, schools and nursing homes. Although it’s not my nature to calculate exactly, I estimate that I’ve trained around half a million people at this point!

I invite you to learn how to be At Your Best, also the title of my forthcoming book. It’s a synthesis of my 20 years in the fields of strengths, positive psychology, music, resiliency and engagement.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to give my best these past 20 years. I hope you will join me on the quest to be at your best!

On with the quest,
Rob Fletcher

Memories

200 people playing Beethoven’s Ode to Joy perfectly in unison during a Play the Blues program.

Kids bursting through the door and people giving them a standing ovation, tears in their eyes, during the Charity Bike Build.

Leading a night hike for kids from the Bronx in the woods in upstate NY. They were scared of tigers and also thought it was hilarious that I would be afraid in their neighborhood at night

50 ft up on a zip line platform in a huge, swaying oak tree with first-year lawyers working as one unit to give everyone a ride, and smiles all around.

Cancelled flights, late nights in airports, delays, and lines everywhere – for rental car shuttles, rental car offices, hotel check-ins, luggage check-ins, security. And small kindnesses from strangers to remind me of the goodness of life.

The intoxicating thrill of getting a large group of people to wildly cheer – the first time was at the start of a Show Me the Money program in the Cayman Islands

Click here for the complete Topic of the Month.

How much of your time is spent doing what you do best? At Your Best is designed for groups and individuals who want to dramatically increase their specific contributions by giving their best and living a strong life at work and at home.

Our emphasis is not so much on changing the work you do, but rather changing how you do the work you do. We’ll look at existing work and job descriptions, and look at ways for you to be happier, stronger, more effective, and more productive in your existing role. We’ll look for ways to spend more time doing what you do best, what you naturally excel at, and what you love within existing frameworks.

Identify your talents, build them into strengths, and become the consistently high-performer you were meant to be. By uncovering your strengths and seeing real-world examples of them in action, you will build a database of talent that you can access to target project roles for maximum efficiency and engagement. By engaging these strengths you will be able to give more effort, more enthusiasm and achieve better results.

At Your Best targets three ‘sweet spots’ for maximum engagement:

1. The Fun Life – Increasing your happiness, savoring, sense of play and delight
2. The Strong Life – Using your strengths to enter a zone of effortless productivity that psychologists have termed flow.
3. The Meaningful Life – Focus beyond yourself whether it’s your work team, a common goal, your family, community, or spirituality

For a complete program description, please click here.

StrengthsFinder
Thanks Rob. It is helpful to think about focusing on our strengths and understanding each other more from that perspective.   I think we all have better insight on how we can function even more effectively as individuals and how we can work even more effectively with our colleagues. 
- K.L., Executive Director, Summit Health Care

Quix Tip

At Your Best - Back to the Future

Think about your life in the future.  Imagine that everything has gone as well as it possibly could.  You have worked hard and succeeded at accomplishing all of your life goals.  Think of this as the realization of all your life dreams.  Now, write about what you imagined.”

(From the work of psychologist Laura King, this positive view of your goals has been shown to improve goal clarification, give a sense of control and boost psychological well-being.)

Set aside 20 minutes for this.  If you’d like, repeat the following day.

20 years = 20% off!

In honor of Rob’s 20 year anniversary, send us your ‘Back to the Future’ vision. We’ll give you 20% discount on At Your Best if you book it any time in the next 20 months, coaching, training or speaking! Send to info@quixoteconsulting.com

Statisticity

Q. Increasing the level of gratitude in your life...*

1. Enhances positive feelings but does not diminish unpleasant emotions
2. Enhances positive feelings and diminishes unpleasant emotions
3. Has no effect on either positive feelings or unpleasant emotions
4. Enhances positive feelings but also increases unpleasant emotions

Panza's Proverb

"Feared oblivion defeats the surest hope for a life of happiness."

Sancho Panza, Don Quixote’s squire, was famous for his proverbs.

Spread the Word

This is your monthly word challenge. Identify the correct definition for the following word. Once you know the definition, spread the word!

Tucket

1. A small fold
   
2. Flourish on the trumpet
   
3. Berry-producing bush found in Australia
   
4. To hoard