My Mother in 1955 - This is a picture she sent to my father when he was stationed in Japan. This is what I think she looks like in heaven as when we die I would like to think we revert back to how we looked in our twenties.

By Michelle LaBrosse, PMP

For those of you who may have been following my blog posts regarding my mom’s recovery from brain cancer, I’m sorry to report that one of the by products of brain cancer led to her demise.   She suffered her final seizure on February 7 that rendered her essentially brain dead and she passed away six days later.   Seizures from brain cancer are not caused for the same reasons as seizures from epilepsy.  And they are not necessarily something that will happen to everyone - unless they have brain surgery.   The one drug that may have been able to have stopped the seizures due to the glutamate reaction was not approved for brain cancer and I could not get any of her physicians to take a chance on it.   My mom led an exbuerant, and inspiring life filled with laughter and love.   We held a celebration of her life last weekend.  Here is the link to her tribute video my friend Jody Kasch helped create.

Lessons Learned - here are my take aways from my foray into brain cancer land with my Mom.

1. Get to the Bruzynski Clinic at the first diagnosis of brain cancer.  The sooner you get these folks involved in cancer recovery, the better chance of success.

2. Do not do a brain biopsy for a diffuse glioma - this caused far more problems than it solved.  The neurosurgeon was quite persuasive in his pitch on why we should do a very invasive biopsy saying “I certify neurosurgeons in NY and I would not certify a neurosurgeon who would not do a biopsy for brain cancer.”   Well then of course most neurosurgeons in NY certified by him would take the same position.

3. Give up sugar, adopt a ketogenic diet, avoid as many environmental toxins as possible, stay away from cholesterol lowering drugs that impact your liver, and do the tumeric root and mushroom capsules daily.  I did a blog post on what I learned about recovering from brain cancer here.

4. Always have hope you will recover - my Mom did the best when she was hopeful.  Only hang around with people who also believe you can recover.

5. If a drug has been shown to work for a co-morbiity factor (the seizures), find a doctor who will prescribe it.  Here is a copy of the peer review paper that shows how the drug sulfasalazine, approved for Chron’s disease, can suppress seizures from brain tumors. glutamate-release-by-primary-brain-tumors-induces-epileptic-activity

6. People who develop brain cancer need strong caring advocates as they develop deficits due to their condition.   Simple things like feeding themselves becomes very difficult and even if they look like they can still feed themselves, start making them very small simple meals throughout the day that are easy to eat to insure they are getting adequate nutrition.   They also may lose “executive functioning” gradually over time - this requires care and finesse to gradually take over without being intrusive.

7. Enjoy your life and the people in it while you are healthy.  Go for it.

As part of its December theme to “Reduce Workplace Conflict,” The Project Management Professionals (PMPs) at Cheetah Learning (http://www.CheetahLearning.com) are offering Tips, Tools and Deals that make businesses more productive and efficient. Among them: Cheetah’s “Negotiation Tip Sheet,” which helps firms set the stage for launching successful projects.

Jacksonville, FL (PRWEB) December 14, 2011

In the fall of 1988 Bobby McFerrin’s mega-mellow “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” became the first a cappella song to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Its lyrics included the phrase: “In every life we have some trouble. When you worry, you make it double.”

To help avoid that “double trouble,” Cheetah Learning, Project Management Institute’s 2008 Provider of the Year, is offering a free Worry-O-Meter download that helps businesses calculate an employee’s risk tolerance, and, in so doing, create an environment where it’s less likely that conflict can take root and flourish.

The Worry-O-Meter is being made available as part of Cheetah’s December goal to “Reduce Workplace Conflict.” It can be accessed and downloaded by filling out the form on the company’s home page at http://www.cheetahlearning.com/.

First-time visitors who sign up can also access Daily Tips, Tools and Deals, which include these valuable free items: PMP Exam Prep SmartStart Guide, PMP Practice Exam, the 2 PDU Skills Assessment Course and Getting Started with PM Guide.

Michelle LaBrosse, CEO and founder of Cheetah Learning, says the Worry-O-Meter is a great tool to gauge the risk tolerance of project team members.

“For some people, uncertain times trigger a sense of impending doom rather than a sense of incredible excitement,” LaBrosse said.

Cheetah’s Worry-O-Meter helps businesses identify issues of concern, determine the probability they might occur, assess the impact if they did occur and (most importantly) create a countermeasure – to either prevent the issue from taking place, or determine what could be done if it happens.

“People have different levels of risk they can tolerate on projects based on their experience, the importance they place on the outcome of the project, and their personality,” LaBrosse explained. “Find out your project team members risk tolerance levels to better understand how and why they perceive risks facing your project.”

To help businesses tackle obstacles like worry, risk and conflict, LaBrosse writes a monthly column titled the “Know How Network“. She also shares tips and thoughts at Twitter.com/MichelleCheetah.

For more information about Cheetah Learning and its various training offerings, call toll free in the U.S. at (888) 659-2013. Outside the U.S., call (602) 220-1263. To sign up for a variety of free tips and tools, use the online form on the Cheetah home page at http://www.CheetahLearning.com.

ABOUT: Cheetah Learning is a Project Management Institute Registered Education Provider and is International Association of Continuing Education and Training Certified. Cheetah was awarded the Project Management Institute Professional Development Provider of the Year for 2008 for the significant contribution it made to the field of project management with its accelerated approach to teaching and doing project management.

As Hall of Fame catcher Yogi Berra once observed, “If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll wind up somewhere else.”

Berra’s comment aptly summarizes why some projects fail: “The first mistake teams make that causes numerous arguments as a project progresses is not coming to agreement about their basic objectives.”

That sentence is the opening statement on “Conflict Resolution Tips,” a free download offered by the Project Management Professionals at Cheetah Learning as part of their December theme to “Reduce Workplace Conflict.”

For access to the “Conflict Resolution Tips” download, as well as a variety of other Daily Tips, Tools and Deals, fill out the form on the Cheetah home page at http://www.cheetahlearning.com/.

Resolving conflict is just one facet of what helps produce the speed and efficiency of “The Cheetah Way,” Project Management done correctly. That means one of the first steps in avoiding situations where people’s emotions explode is to “Kick off a project the right way from the beginning.”

“Watching fireworks light up the sky awakens the wonder in us all,” explains Michelle LaBrosse, CEO and founder of Cheetah Learning, “(but) when fireworks light up a conference room and team members are ready to explode, it can be the true test of your Project Management and leadership skills.”

To help businesses tackle obstacles like conflict on an ongoing basis, LaBrosse writes a monthly column titled the “Know How Network“. She also shares tips and thoughts at Twitter.com/MichelleCheetah.

Among the Cheetah tips regarding conflict resolution:

“What you focus on is what you get.”

“What gets measured gets done.”

“Differing expectations are the root cause of all conflict.”

“When you move from interactions riddled with conflict, you can move towards becoming a high performing team.”

For more information about Cheetah Learning and its various training offerings, call toll free in the U.S. at (888) 659-2013. Outside the U.S., call (602) 220-1263. To sign up for a variety of free tips and tools, use the online form on the Cheetah home page at http://www.cheetahlearning.com/.

ABOUT:
Cheetah Learning is a Project Management Institute Registered Education Provider and is International Association of Continuing Education and Training Certified. Cheetah was awarded the Project Management Institute Professional Development Provider of the Year for 2008 for the significant contribution it made to the field of project management with its accelerated approach to teaching and doing project management.

Michelle LaBrosse, PMP

Initiation - I started making my own almond milk over the summer when I was working with my Mom to help her cure brain cancer.  Not that almond milk in and of itself is a cure for brain cancer, it’s just part of an overall healthier diet.  My Mom is lactose intolerant and she liked the care and attention that I was putting into her diet to help her as well.   It was easy enough to do so I’ve continued making it for friends and family.

Planning:

Ingredients

2 cups raw organic almonds
Filtered water

Tools

Blender
Clean dish cloth

Execution

1. Soak the almonds overnight in the filtered water.
2. Drain the water and rinse the almonds.
3. Put the almonds in the blender and cover with more filtered water.
4. Pulverize.
5. Strain the mash through a clean dish towel into a bowl.  Squeeze out all the liquid.
6. Put the mash back into the blender.   Repeat steps 3 - 5.
7. Refrigerate

Monitor and Control

The almond milk lasts for about a week in the fridge.   When it’s cold, it tastes pretty darn close to actual milk, and has a lot fewer calories.  It is lower in protein than regular milk (8g regular milk to 1g for the almond milk).   It tends to separate in the fridge but a quick shake brings it back.

Lessons Learned

For a treat, I heat up the almond milk with cardamon, cinnamon and nutmeg.

Download Cheetah’s FREE PM Career Start-up Guide

If surveys taken on a regular basis over the past 30 years hold true, business owners and the managers who serve them spent between 25 and 40 percent of their time in 2011 resolving conflicts – and they can expect that trend to continue in 2012.

That means multiple billions of dollars in lost revenue – from missed days and distractions, to decreased motivation and burnout, not to mention litigation or even sabotage when things end up going wrong.

But not everyone agrees it has to be like that, particularly team members at Cheetah Learning (http://www.CheetahLearning.com), known as “The Leaders In Accelerated Project Management Training.” They believe that Project Management done correctly (“The Cheetah Way”) helps significantly reduce conflict.

Among their key points:

• Kick off a project the right way from the beginning.
• Set up a charter so that team members start off on the same page.
• Develop relationships that prevent destructive conflict from derailing the project.
• Define conflicts that could impact performance.

Those and other points can be found in the book “Cheetah Project Management, The Fastest Way to Reach Your Goals,” published by MAKLAF Press, ISBN-10: 0-9761749-5-2.

“The first step in conflict resolution is to establish the ground rules that deal with conflict up front, setting the stage to move quickly through conflict when it occurs,” says Michelle LaBrosse, CEO and founder of Cheetah, Project Management Institute’s 2008 Provider of the Year.

“When conflict does occur, it takes only one calm person to prevent it from escalating and to move toward a quick resolution,” she adds. “If done routinely when problems are still small, this method prevents any conflict from developing into a more destructive problem.”

To bring attention to the issue and help resolve the problem, the Cheetah team has made “Reduce Workplace Conflict” the company’s theme for December. Additional information can be found at Blog.CheetahLearning.com, which includes Daily Tips, Tools and Deals “to transform conflict from destructive experiences to growth experiences.”

“Conflict can be an opportunity to learn good habits that will enable teams to obtain long-term sustainable peak performance,” Cheetah’s CEO said.

To help businesses on an ongoing basis, LaBrosse addresses issues like conflict in a monthly column titled the “Know How Network” as well as in a quarterly magazine that can be found at http://www.cheetahphast.com. She also shares tips and thoughts at twitter.com/michellecheetah.

For more information about Cheetah Learning and its various training offerings, call toll free in the U.S. at (888) 659-2013. Those outside the U.S. can call (602) 220-1263. To sign up for a variety of free tips and tools, use the online form on the Cheetah home page at http://www.CheetahLearning.com.

ABOUT: Cheetah Learning is a Project Management Institute (PMI) Registered Education Provider and is International Association of Continuing Education and Training (IACET) Certified. Cheetah was awarded the Project Management Institute Professional Development Provider of the Year for 2008 for the significant contribution it made to the field of project management with its accelerated approach to teaching and doing project management.

.

As a project team, it is important to develop the guidelines on how you are going to hold meetings. This greatly increases the productiveness of those meetings and reduces conflict.

http://www.icontact-archive.com/zvi55WNmFZrxs5wh5c8smENPAsdi-Snm?w=2

Michelle LaBrosse, PMP

A few years back on a road trip through Alaska I listened to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance where the main character works through his serious neurosis by completely focusing on his motorcycle and how and where it takes him through life. As I figure out my way from the dark existence I find myself in with this sisyphean task of taking care of my Mom with brain cancer, I was reflecting on how my journey is similar to what the main character experiences in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Talking with my friend Zienna yesterday about the quagmire I’m in, she said, “You are only in a quagmire because you are living in your ego. “ She went on to explain a three phased egoic model based on either being a rescuer, a prosecutor or a victim. And I could tell which one I was being based on how I was feeling. If I was feeling over burdened, I was playing the role of rescuer. If I was feeling angry, I was playing the role of prosecutor and if I was feeling self-pity, I was playing the role of victim. WOW – I am living all three roles in this situation I find myself in. No wonder if feels so dark and yucky here for me.

Rising Above the Insanity of Eldercare

Last year based on David Hawkin’s book, Power vs. Force, I assembled an energy of emotions matrix. In Hawkin’s book, he shows how our emotions carry energy. And the more positive your emotion, the more energy and positive influence you have in your life. I created a summary that showed a return on investment based on emotional energy. The more positive emotion, the more of a return you got back living in that emotion. According to Hawkin’s this impact is logarithmic. The lowest level positive emotion is courage (which is the absence of fear) and Hawkins placed that at a 200 level. Anything below that level, and whatever emotion you are experiencing is giving you a fractional return on the energy you are investing. In my company we coined this “living above the line or living below the line.” The line being the demarcation of positive vs. negative emotional energy. I naturally live at a fairly high level of emotions – the your success is my success level. So for every moment I spend living at this emotional level, I get a 10,000 times return on investment. I am learning more how to live at higher levels, and I get glimpses of how to do that here and there – especially in meditation.

So creating a mind map of Zienna’s egoic model, I thought, hmmmm this feels a lot like a below the line existence. No wonder if feels so dark to me here. I decided to create an above the line mirror of the egoic model. I call this the love triangle (ooooh – that doesn’t sound so good). In the love triangle, you have partner, advocate and victor. In the partner role, you feel energized, in the advocate role you feel hopeful and in the victor role you feel you are winning. In this model, you feel that you are one with others that you are all in this together and that we will prevail.

In the Buddha Brain book, the authors talk about one of the causes of suffering is hatred. Hatred breeds in an environment where you feel it is us vs. them – a divisive situation. This is what exists in the below the line existence of the egoic model. In the love triangle, it is an inclusive existence that increases individual capacity to love others. The way I can tell the difference – when I’m living below the line in my eldercare responsibilities I feel burned out. When I’m living above the line, I feel inspired. (Inspired enough to share my experiences with others).  The main way I am going to stay above the line in this situation is to make taking care of myself the priority over taking care of others.   The only way I can be there for others is to be there for myself, first.

I am writing this on the plane heading back earlier than expected. On the first leg of this flight, I was disgruntled and disheartened. I was enjoying settling back into my home and regaining some semblance of “normalcy” in my life. And I was rekindling some great friendships that had taken a back seat to the chaos of my life. I was enjoying getting on with my life and did not want to head back to angel duty, yet.

Something shifted for me between planes. I remembered Bill Murray’s Ground Hog’s day movie where he has to live the same day over and over and over until he finally starts to enjoy and accept his strange fate. It’s only then that he wins the girls heart and gets to move on to Feb. 3^rd. Seeing that I was born on Ground Hog’s day, can the same experience be happening with me here? That until I learn how to enjoy and accept my fate as the lead angel on this tour of duty, nothing will change with it or for me?

I got on my next plane with a “bad” number for boarding the Southwest flight. It was a number where your only choice is a middle seat. The one choice I did have was which middle seat. That was good enough for me. I was happy. I picked a row with a sweet looking older woman in the aisle seat and a friendly grunge looking 20 something guy at the window. Like Bill Murray did when he was stuck repeating ground hog’s day, discovering the small choice I had in this situation helped me reignite my inherent joie de vivre. I had a blast with my row mates on the flight – probably because I was back to my natural state – happy. Lets hope I can remember ground hog’s day as my cure for caregiver burnout. I’m ready to go back to my angel duty with a spring in my step and a smile on my face.