Michelle Cromer

It was previously reported that Bobbi Kristina had disappeared and was reportedly getting high after her mother, Whitney Houston’s nearly four-hour emotional funeral service on Saturday.
Is anyone shocked at this? This young woman has learned from both of her parents that the way to deal with an issue is to meet it head on, HIGH. She has watched for 18 years, as both of her parents abused drugs. And, now her father Bobby Brown is terrified she will do something stupid. Really Bobby? Something stupid? Like do drugs in front of your daughter her entire life? Abuse her mother in front of your daughter her entire life? Have open affairs your daughter’s entire life?
My heart and prayers go out to all the friends and family of Whitney Houston. But especially to Bobbi Kristina who, at 18 is forced to deal with the death of her mother and face her own addictions. I hope she can find help that will encourage her to face this time in her life, head on, drug free. If Bobbi Kristina can, she will have accomplished something neither of her famous parents were able to do.

She is the boss from hell. In the book and later the film, THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA, Miranda Priestly, is the editor-in-chief of Runway magazine. She spends most of her time terrorizing and insulting the majority of her employees, who take it because she is offering a career-starter job with many perks in a glamorous industry. “Details of your incompetence do not interest me,” she calmly says as she asks her assistant to book her a flight out during a hurricane. But while her portrayal of this nightmare boss may be a caricature, her dismissive attitude, complete lack of communication skills, and unrealistic expectations are all too common in today’s workplace. A recent Gallup poll of more than 1 million employed U.S. workers concluded that the number one reason people quit their jobs is a bad boss. Most people will work for a difficult boss at some point in their career.

So what do you do if you have a boss who unreasonably does things like Miranda such as: yells and screams, forces you to work extended overtime, insults and humiliates you personally or in front of others, and blames you when things go wrong? If you can’t leave because you desperately need the job or see it as the next step up in the career ladder, then your best option is to do the best you can in what seems like an impossible situation.

You can’t change your boss, but you can change you.

Having a bad boss doesn’t excuse you from being a good person or a good employee. And good employees manage up. Accomplish this by controlling your response to the boss’s craziness. Maintain your sense of poise, productivity and balance. Practice relaxation or meditation techniques before you allow yourself to respond with anger. Find a quiet place, close your eyes and say to yourself, “I am calm and relaxed, nothing bothers me. I feel healthy, happy and fantastic. Streams of power flow through my veins, all is well.” Put the words you say to yourself in the present. Or close your eyes and take three, long deep breaths before you start screaming like an alien who landed in Roswell.

Bring your “A” game to work every single day. Perform like you have never performed before. My father used to tell me, “If you are a street sweeper, then be the happiest and the best street sweeper in the company.” It is hard for a boss to complain if you’re doing everything right and smiling about it. You will feel better after trying your best instead of complaining. Sometimes the workplace is dirty, unethical and downright nasty, but don’t ever be a part of that. By complaining you’re contributing to the negative environment instead of showing your real value and true work ethic.

Realize that the opportunity in most jobs is not to learn a specific or creative skill, but to learn people skills. This is what will differentiate you and help you succeed over anything else. That’s why you’re actually lucky to have a bad boss! There will never be a deficiency of difficult people at your job or in your life. Use this prime opportunity to your advantage, and remember nothing lasts forever.

Not all of us are suited to be presidents of company’s or inspirational leaders. Most of us don’t realize how difficult it really is to be a good manager. Your participation, empathy, attitude and respect towards your boss will be reflected in how your boss treats you. It is truly the responsibility of the employee to bring out the best in the manager. That is what it really means to, “Boss It Up With Balance!”

What the hell is going on with this republican race? Seriously! New Hampshire results should be in a couple of hours. Though the country is sorely in need of solutions, and the public hungry for real debate, that’s not what is happening at all. What we getting is a monsoon of attack ads, largely financed by the super PACs allowed by the Citizens United decision. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, 264 super PACs have been spawned for the 2012 race and they’ve already spent almost half of the $32 million they’ve raised. Perhaps this disconnect between what people are really concerned about and what the candidates are talking about is why only 17 percent of Americans are satisfied with the way things are going. And, the race is just getting started…

“Culture means to cultivate, both to grow crops that sustain life and to develop the inner resources and natural talents of each person. When a culture forgets this, it will fail to welcome the newborns, it will neglect its own youth, and its old people will cling to lives not fully lived.” -Fate & Destiny Micheal Mead

Close Encounters was on TV last night, that 1977 classic. It occurred to me while I was watching it, that my relatives must be aliens. Seriously. As I watched the ending last night I wondered if a space craft landed in my backyard, would I have the guts to get on board. I think I would. Would you?

The news that Jerry Sandusky was arrested and is now standing in a court room should not come as a shock to anyone. With the sickening allegations of more boys and more rapes, it is just a matter of time before Sandusky will do jail time.

I wonder if he wore Penn State blue? How is it possible that someone…ANYONE.. from the university hasn’t asked him to hand over all his Penn State attire? Where are the Penn State leaders in this deal? Again, no where to be found.

Sunday is my birthday and I ordered myself two birthday cakes, red velvet and a coconut. I bought two because I couldn’t decide which one to buy. When they arrived yesterday my husband got angry and said it was too extravagant. Maybe that is true on some level. But, it occurred to me that my husband and actually most of the people I know live from the outside in.

My husband is concerned about costs and he is striving for security, and who isn’t? However, this “security” that my husband and most seek means that they have enough money to pay the bills. It does certainly include that, but there is a deeper security, one that comes only through a deep and abiding faith, a faith in life, a faith in ourselves, and a deep abiding faith in God. There is no security in life without faith. There is no gratification of feeling of safety without faith.

I don’t think there is anything in us that is separate from God, except our belief. We seem to have that freedom. And if that is true, how can we hope to have security unless that security is based on our own unity with God and our own Divinity?

But how can we hope to have a sense of security if we separate ourselves in belief from that which alone can give it?

Your mind is God’s mind in you, as you. Your spirit is the Spirit of God in you, as you.

Here and here alone is security; here and here alone is peace. It is the wind, the waves, the laughter of my son Sam, the beauty of West Texas sunset, and maybe, just maybe in the joy I will get out of eating two birthday cakes.

Have you ever leaped into something, heart first without thinking of what might happen? Yep, me too. And now I am in the middle of building something out of nothing and I am finding each day brings yet a new challenge. Which is ok, I love the climb, but I also have discovered I need a way to anchor myself, to find my center in a world full of chaos.

I just read where entrepreneurs are more likely to meditate and pray. I wonder why? Does the stress of starting a business drive someone to his or her knees or lotus position? In my case I would have to say yes. I think those of us who take risks have a strong sense they can take matters into our own hands, but we also face risk, unpredictability and uncertainty. I know prayer and meditation are important in my daily life. Both of these practices allow me to face the reality that there is so much in life I have no control over. Actually almost everything.

If you haven’t started a mediation practice, go to my free stuff icon on this site, and download a quick ten to twenty minute practice. Shoot me an email and let me know how you are doing. Start with five minutes and work up to twenty. Just start today, now, no excuses.

I met Steve Jobs in the mid 1980’s and to me; it was like meeting a rock star. I bought all the Apple stock I could afford years ago, thank goodness, and I bet it will be the first trillion-dollar company.

Here are some things you may not know about Steve Jobs. He’s dyslexic. So is my son Sam, so I have Steve Jobs photo in Sam’s room along with Walt Disney, Steven Spielberg, John F Kennedy, and many more successful dyslexic people. From Sam I understand that dyslexic people see ideas in complete pictures. Albert Einstein was said to have “seen” the theory of relativity in a download picture version while taking a shower. What this tells me is Steve Jobs had to overcome a great deal while growing up in our traditional thinking US school system.

Steve Jobs was adopted. His graduate student parents decided they weren’t ready for a child. The biological parents had one request; that Steve be adopted by college educated people. Steve’s adopted parents lied, his mother never graduated from high school, but they got Steve anyway.

His same biological parents had another child, Mona Simpson, who is a famous novelist. Wow. Those parents have some incredible genes!

One semester at Reed College is all the college Steve had, ONE semester!

He’s a Zen Buddhist, he even considered becoming a monk.

Steve Jobs used LSD, something I will not share with my freshmen at USC son August.

The tag line for Apple’s advertising campaign for years was “Think Different.” Steve Jobs certainly has, his whole life.

Thank you Steve Jobs for sharing your ideas and vision with the rest of the world. I will be keeping you close in my thoughts and prayers as you make your new transitions.

On a remote plateau thousands of feet above sea level, there used to exist a place whose chief attraction was the traditional virtues embodied by it culture; warmth, humility, devotion. That place used to be Tibet. When I visited Tibet in the summer of 2005 I discovered a country holding fast to its identity but facing an uncertain future. I just returned from my second trip to Tibet and I found the culture destroyed, the people murdered, and a country with no future.

My son August wanted to go to Tibet after he graduated from high school. I tried to talk him out of it. The trip is hard. Hard physically because Lhasa sits at 13,000 feet and I knew we would travel up to almost 18,000. Hard emotionally because August has never seen what a communist country can do to the powerless. Hard spiritually because tourists are forced to witness the manipulation and extermination of a culture and its belief system.

Chinese military officials supervised our arrival at the Gingko airport. The borders were closed days before our arrival, yet somehow, we still got our visas and made it in. No one on our plane out of Kathmandu was allowed to stay.

Our guide met us outside the airport, which used to be in the middle of empty countryside. Now, government buildings and blood red Chinese flags surround the entire airport. The barley fields next to the broad river are still there, but the surrounding mountains are now filled with tall silver utility polls, stuck on the mountaintop with no regard for the land. Shinny billboards cover what used to be deep blue skies.

As we drove into Lhasa it was clear that what was once the coexisting of several centuries is now only modern China. In the last six years Lhasa has mushroomed from the size of Santa Fe to the size of Phoenix, complete with car dealerships, shopping malls and a Time Square looking video sign in front of the Potala Palace.

“Religion is poison,” Mao Tse-tung had told the Dali Lama in 1954, early during the Chinese occupation of Tibet. After 1959 when the Dali Lama fled to India, the Chinese moved to undercut the power of the monasteries, which owned most of the arable land and loaned money to the poor villagers. Red guards, fired up by Mao’s denunciation of religion, pounded chortens and statues into dust, some of which have been rebuilt but they now embody tawdry kitsch produced by Chinese led restoration efforts in Tibet.

What were obviously missing were all the Tibetan people. I only a saw old Tibetan women, who were routinely shoved off the sidewalks and into the streets by the military which fill the streets with their green uniforms. We were told that due to a hunger strike led by the monks in March of 2008, which enraged the Chinese government, 5000 Tibetans were kidnapped, NEVER TO BE SEEN OR HEARD FROM AGAIN!!  There is a genocide occurring in Tibet and no one knows about it!!

The military march all day and all night up and down the streets carrying weapons. Also crowding the streets are Chinese tourists who have been encouraged to visit Tibet, rather the Chinese Disneyland version of Tibet.

After having suffered Communism, Tibetans now confront a dissolute capitalism, one that seeks arrogantly, often violently, to turn the their culture and beliefs, and the world’s diverse humanity into middle-class consumers. It has been Tibet’s fate to be the laboratory of the cruelest experiments humanity has performed upon itself in the modern era. However, faced with an aggressively secular materialism, the Tibetans may still prove, almost alone in the world, how religion, usually dismissed, and not just by Mao, as “poison,” can be the source of cultural identity and moral values.

I know we all live halfway around the world from this magical and mystical place and you might not think these effects you, but it does in more ways than just “we are all connected.” The Chinese government is murdering thousands of innocent people simply because they are not Chinese, and they are getting away with it! Many Chinese are being murdered because they refuse to “toe the party line. “China is about to surpass America as the next big super power. And, America owes China money! Pick up anything in your home or office and look where it is made, CHINA! By allowing the Chinese government to exterminate Tibet, we just put more fuel in the fire of this big red murdering machine. Please get involved to free Tibet. There are many organizations out there that are trying to help like www.freetibet.org. Buy a tee shirt and wear it or give up coffee for a morning and donate the money you would have spent. If you do nothing else, please pray for the Tibetans. After all, they have been praying for the rest of the world, every single day, for centuries.