Please extend your pointer finger and shake it as if you’re lecturing someone — saying something like, “You shouldn’t do this, this and this! Do that, that and that!”

Now, look at your hand and count how many fingers are pointing at the person you’re lecturing and how many fingers are pointing back at you.

Unless you’re missing a digit, you should see one finger pointing at the lucky recipient of your lecture and THREE fingers pointing back at you.

You may want to pay attention to that the next time you’re lecturing someone.

Author Debbie Ford in her book, The Dark Side of The Light Chasers, writes that this practices is a really handy way to notice our “shadow” — the stuff we haven’t integrated in our own lives that, unfortunately, we tend to project onto others.

She tells us to “attend our own lectures” because, more often than not, whatever lecture we’re giving someone else is the one WE desperately need to attend. The next time that we put our professor’s cap and start lecturing a loved one, co-worker, or a perfect stranger, pause for a moment and imagine yourself as the student that is diligently taking notes on your own lecture. Start doing whatever it is that you are lecturing others about.

Start living with passion about the things that you enthusiastically are lecturing others on!