I confess to a little life-reflecting this morning. So far, this quote by Edith Wharton is the quote of the day. She probably wasn’t think about Christmas when she wrote it, but it fits.
“In spite of illness, in spite even of the archenemy sorrow: one can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in big things, and happy in small ways.”
A few years ago I was in London during Thanksgiving. Or as it’s known there, Thursday. Having planned ahead, my American friends and I were equipped with a large candle in the shape of a turkey. And we placed it in the center of the table at the Indian restaurant we picked for the big dinner.
Our waiter approached with a smile, and with that lovely, lyrical East Indian accent, looked at our candle and asked, “What is the peacock for?” “It’s not a peacock,” I think I sounded defensive, “It’s a turkey.” Unfazed, eyebrows still up, he continued, “What is the turkey for?”
We explained Thanksgiving to him and found an immediate ally who was clearly well-acquainted with the concept, and helped us to create an evening I’ll never forget.
Since that Thanksgiving, I have been delighted to cross paths with more and more East Indians, most of whom have come to my homeland as pilgrims. I respect that, like all pilgrims, “they are people journeying in a foreign land.” But what I love and am grateful for this Thanksgiving is that each one of these people makes me, and America, better.
What I see in people like Nick and Priya and Astha are some of the virtues and values I admire most: Bravery, sweet humor, ambition, balance, social intelligence, kindness and clarity. (I know there are probably annoying Indians, I just haven’t met any yet.)
In other words, having each one of these Indians in my life makes me a better pilgrim too. I loved the further definition of “pilgrim” I’ve placed below, and I hope it challenges and inspires you too this Thanksgiving Week.
“To journey without being changed is to be a nomad.
To change without journeying is to be a chameleon.
To journey and be transformed by the journey is to be a pilgrim.”
Mark Nepo
I’m sure you’ve read this quote before: “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Socrates said that at his trial for heresy.
Friday is my birthday. In fact it’s a particular birthday. I first thought about this one as a kid, “Someday, when I’m really really old, my birthday will be 11-11-11. I wonder who I’ll be, what I’ll do, where, how and with whom?”
Maybe questions like that have prompted me to use my 11-11’s through the decades since to do a soft little review of things. In recent years, I’ve written a one-page exercise to reflect on—and now I offer it to the amazing clients and coaches I work with. (I tend to work with kindred spirits who are as as deeply interested in sculpting a great life as I am. You’ve probably landed on my mailing list because you’re like that too.)
This month I’m including my exercise for you use the next time you are inspired to do your own “soft little review of things.”
What I know is this. When you find a way of following the moving, growing target of your own “sweet spot”, life becomes an adventure. And you begin to experience your own sense of “calling” for your years on the planet.
And that’s a blessing.
Click on the boat to go to “Finding Your Vocare Intersection”
In the inbox this morning was a note from one of my favorite entrepreneurs. Steven has turned a passionate avocation into a business, and he wrote, “A year ago today, we were exhausted from three years of work…And a year later I’m still exhausted, but energized and cautiously optimistic that we might actually make it to a 2nd anniversary!”
Then he went on to talk about his dreams going forward for “Seattle’s 1st distillery since prohibition.” And then he thanked his customers and supporters and talked about how much fun he was having.
Malcolm Gladwell talks about mastery of anything requiring about 10,000 hours of focus, passion, practice, course corrections, set-backs and learning from experience. And I always add, “If you actually arrive at 10,000 hours, you are doing something you love and feel passionately about. No one could pay you to take the ride to mastery otherwise.”
So here’s a question as you launch into a new week:
We are wired for stories. Stories are featured in our best moments of learning, we tell them to calm ourselves down, to join with other people, to make sense of things and to honor the few decades we get on the pebble.
Here’s one of mine—and I share it with you in hopes of hearing one of yours.
Ten years ago this week Kari and I and some good friends were in rural Tuscany learning to paint with water colors. Idyllic, huh? We were in the small hill town of Pienza when I sensed the mood in the central square of the village shifting from content and peaceful, to alarmed. People began to huddle, and I walked up to a fellow painter who had turned noticeably pale. “Our nation has been attacked,” she said quietly, uneasily. Nearby, I heard a soft Italian voice, “Tragedia.”
With no smart-phones to consult, we joined the cluster around a television in a nearby bar and watched the crash of the second airplane. Together–Italians, Americans and Australians and Brits—we stopped breathing and then we gasped and groaned. After a few minutes, noticing that the tv reporters were nearly as speechless as we were, an Englishman said to no one in particular, but to all of us, “There’s a chapel across the way. We should go pray.” And we did. Our little temporary, international tribe crossed the narrow street and entered a small church where hundreds of candles were already burning. And in my life, the calming, the making sense and the honoring began right there.
What’s your 9/11 story? I’ve never heard one that didn’t help me know the teller better. Even if (like me) you’re being careful to not watch too much media this week, I encourage you to tell your story—write a little bit about it on my blog, or just find a few of the people in your life who want to know you better and tell them.
Like me, you are wired for stories.
I spent yesterday afternoon with a dozen people who are in my corner.
I bet you know the type. They cheer when you walk in, expect you to be your best most of the time and don’t write you off when you mess up. Not that they won’t tell you. And they would defend you in public. You share stories from years ago and talk about being younger next year.
I have long believed that the people most likely to be in my corner are the ones with whom I’ve worked hard, played hard or been scared to death. On purpose. These particular people qualify because for years I trained and competed with them as a competitive rower on Seattle’s big lakes.
So here’s my big coaching question this month: With whom are you intentionally working hard, playing hard or getting a little scared? People don’t just end up our corners via the passing of time. We earn them–and they earn us. Click here to read more.
I may need to get back on the water this summer. A little more work, a bit more play and a few good risks would help to keep fresh the treasure of these people in my corner.
My all-time favorite TV detective died today.
For most of the hour, Peter Falk’s Columbo would watch and listen and take in information. And then he would pay a visit to the always-dapper-and-dismissive guest villain. Ever so gently, he would begin to muse about his conclusions. And then came the moment. Columbo would start to leave and then he would turn, pause, raise an index finger scrunch up his face and say, “Just one last thing . . .” This came just before he calmly explained to the bad guy what crime he’d committed and how he’d done it.
As a young woman watching in the 70′s, I watched and learned.
Click here to see the master in action . . .
Rest in peace Mr. Falk.
I just spent a few minutes listening to Conan O’Brien’s commencement address at Dartmouth College last Sunday.
If you don’t have time to just laugh, go to16:16. At that point, if you’re like me, you’ll stop and listen (for the next 7:31) to a good man who has just walked through his own reinvention. From necessity to a happy ending/new chapter. Cool stuff.
I love learning which is good because my clients, and the coaches I train and mentor are always hot on my heals with their own insights.
Two topics are always front-and-center for me: How can we understand and solidly unleash our signature strengths, and what is the difference between change and compliance. Check out these two terrific (and easy) reads–both have inspired me.
1. Positivity by Barbara Fredrickson. This author is also a researcher who writes about the whats and hows of deliberately building a positive point of view. The pay-offs can be huge in our ability to be smarter, more resilient and have more access to our strengths and areas of mastery. Pretty readable for a researcher.
2. Switch by Chip Heath. This is the best book I’ve read this year on how people change–and how leaders can help them to. The author borrows a very remember-able analogy that I will think of the next time try to give direction to a large, powerful, emotional, impulsive, intelligent animal (human or otherwise).
You can find these two and some of my other favorites on this page. Here comes the sun!
I work with people who want to get un-stuck in big and little ways. And I’ve just about concluded that that most of us are stuck on something somewhere in our lives most of the time:
One of the best ways I know of to tackle stuckness is to join with a tribe of other pilgrims who will challenge and support you. That’s what happens routinely in SeattleCoach groups. A new one (focused on coach training) launches in July. Be in touch and I’ll tell you more.
“Power is revealed not by striking hard and often, but by striking true.” Honore de Balzac
Yesterday morning we all woke up to a slight change in the balance of good and evil. Some of us celebrated, some of us were sober, just about all of us recognized what it took for President Obama and ultimately those twenty-four Navy Seals to “strike true.” I’ve had my differences with the President at times, but as I looked at that photo of him watching the operation, I saw the unedited focus and poignancy of a man striking true, and I felt grateful.
In our own ways today, each of us will have a chance to bring an appropriate calculated risk to an opportune moment. To “strike true.” Maybe it will arrive in the pause of a conversation that could use a powerful question. Or a hard truth. Or a public acknowledgment of someone’s character. Those times come to us most days, quietly and steadily. We just have to keep breathing, preparing, listening and then pray for eyes to see and ears to hear so that we don’t let them pass unnoticed.
This ability is at the practiced and prepared heart of any great coaching.
I guess it’s true that we fear what we can’t predict, so businesses and government agencies scramble to promise us “no surprises”. They know that we love predictability–especially when we’re not in control. Neurologically and socially we’re built for paying attention. My friend John Medina, author of Brain Rules says our ancestors kept two questions handy, “Can I eat that?” and “Can it eat me?”
But when the volume of reporting includes waves of speculation, (“Should you be worried?!” “Could it happen here?!”) we face, in the words of Gordon Crovitz in today’s Wall Street Journal, a data tsunami. We hate not knowing but then get swamped with the fix! So the questions become, How do we stay calmly resilient enough to recognize a true emergency? And how do we use that same calm resilience as a filter to let in useful information along with happiness and possibility and good surprises and growth opportunities?
The longer I live and the more people I listen to, the more I think of “calm resilience” as a spiritual practice. I think it involves:
No matter what their agenda, I find myself working on this stuff with all of my clients. Most of them are very fast-paced and very smart, so I promise them that if they practice these things, they will get even smarter (also happier).
via Seth Godin . . .”We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood — it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, “Too late.”
Coaching has been defined as a profession for only about fifteen years–but everyone knows that coaches have always been a part of the human experience.
Coaches today reflect the spectrum of what they have always been: Sages, story-tellers, ministers, teachers, counselors, philosophers, mystics, gurus, managers, advisors, shepherds, spiritual directors, consultants, confidantes, leaders and nags. And since way before a pharaoh hired a young shepherd forty centuries ago, I think it’s always been in our DNA to pay attention to, and even seek out, the good ones.
So, I’ve wondered, what is it about our times that has increased the demand for professional coaches–and for leaders who can coach?
Here’s my hunch this month: When I sit down with an individual, a team or a group, I almost always invite them to take a moment to slow-down and breathe. I tell my high-tech Seattle clients that this will make them smarter, so they do it.
The built-in delays of human life have pretty much gone away, and we’re not adjusting to that very well either neurologically or socially. How’s this for a metaphor: One of the coaches I’ve trained is working with the US Military to address PTSD in returning soldiers. She notes that in the past, soldiers who fought together came home together—even the injured ones—on troop ships. Those built-in weeks to rest and decompress and heal in the unhurried company of comrades is emblematic of what we don’t have as much of anymore.
And our lives and relationships pay a price until we examine what the heck is going on. That’s, I think, where the leadership of a good coach begins. I help people to change their rhythm and to pay attention to their craft, to their friends, family, sleep and restlessness so that they can be deliberate with their next steps.
I’ll write more next month. If this strikes a chord with you—either because you are being called on to coach, or because it’s time to find one for yourself, give me a call.
Here are this month’s “best-of” ideas: Things that got me to slow down, listen, learn and/or laugh.
Speaking of how our use of time is changing, this RSA Animation will challenge you (especially if you have young children in your life).
And, speaking of time, Everything’s Amazing and Nobody’s Happy is just plain funny.
Best dog name (of a giant shaggy black poodle): Hagrid
Someone told me this week that she had figured out a good gift for a friend who’s going through a tough time this Christmas. “I made a list of the things I’m good at,” she said, “And I offered it to her.”
Her story is a parable of one of the central dramas of our lives: to find out what we’re good at, and then to be generous with what we discover.
My hope for each of us is that we regularly turn everything we know about being good friends and leaders on our own lives: Ensuring that we are deeply satisfied in our work and that our closest relationships become an enduring source of happiness.
From my tradition, I wish you a Merry Christmas, and with it, some fun, mystery, joy and gratitude, and maybe even a surprise glimpse of a generous Creator.
Upcoming Coach- Training Options
Accomplished leaders and managers are becoming great coaches. If you’ve been curious about this, be in touch. Two new cohorts will launch in the coming six weeks. There’s more on my Coach Training page.
And if you’d like to provide your organization with a condensed workshop of essential coaching skills, click here to find out more about our “Manager-As-Coach” (MAC) training.
Coachy Hunch #1. Look us in the eye. Watch our body language. Learn about listening to your gut. I know you’re supposed to watch the ex-ray machine and make us take off our shoes and the rest of the drill and that sometimes when you look at us we don’t look very happy with you. But here’s the deal: if you don’t “listen” with all of your senses and all of your intelligence, maybe you’ll tend to get more grudging compliance than actual bad guys. Remember that customs agent in Port Angeles, the one who caught the Millennium bomber ten years ago? She simply noticed that the driver of the last car on the last ferry of the day from Victoria was “fidgeting, jittery and sweating.”
Coachy Hunch #2. Remember that the vast majority of us are allies. There must be ways to use that fact more. All good working relationships are co-created.
Coachy Hunch#3. Safety and freedom are more dynamic and adjusting than they are fixed and flawless. In this dangerous world bad things happen, but if we value resilience more than perfect execution we’re always ahead.
Do that stuff and you’ll get more lasting respect from us as your allies than you will lasting blame when bad things do happen.
Talented people keep showing up in my office on the dock, on their way to and through the big changes in their lives.
And word I find myself using with them as they deepen their character, leadership and goals is the word, Grace.
When I was a kid, Grace was used of an American princess (also what my brother would say if I tripped). Since then, I’ve heard Grace used to describe God’s nature, human artistry and elegant behavior. It is almost always present in the finest coaching, leading and managing. True Grace seems to be big enough to be recognizable across the bio-psycho-social-spiritual spectrum.
This letter goes to hundreds of very wise men and women. And I’d love to hear your take on Grace–how you recognize, experience and cultivate it in your own work. If you have a quote, a conviction, a belief or a story please comment!
I’ve always been intrigued with the idea of getting a horse to like me. Or trust me. Or teach me. Or not bite me.
We were horse camping a couple of weeks ago and I tried out some of my theories on this big, smart, opinionated mare.
I noticed in my three days with her that we did best when I told her where I wanted to go, but then trusted her wisdom about our pace and possible next steps. I practiced being calm and playful and clear. And I trusted her to be calm and confident and clear in her own way as we moved forward.
There was still a lot of snow in the North Cascades, and some cold creeks to cross, but she clearly knew the best places to put her big feet, and when she stumbled, I know I looked more shocked than she did.
Through the years, I’ve come to believe that a good coach is someone who helps you pay attention to what you need to find out about–or get better at–so that you can travel where (and how) you want. Somewhere along the trail, it occurred to me that the big girl was quietly conducting a demonstration. Plus I’m pretty sure she liked me.
Here I am with my first Coach in nineteen-fifty-something. I’m lucky enough to still have this guy in my life, and I still learn things from him. I’ve learned from his example as a solid business success, and as a man who is about to enter his sixty-second year married to his best friend, still having fun. And I’ve also learned from his style.
I remember one summer evening a few years after this photo was taken when we collaborated about a big moment with another vehicle in my little life. Was it time to remove the training wheels? Did I want to? If/when I fell, he knew I could manage it. He explained the process and I don’t remember worrying, or over-thinking things. I do remember what happened next.
I remember climbing onto what would soon be the new normal. I was ready. And I was in what I still recognize as “The Goldilocks Zone” for taking a risk: not too big, small; hard, soft; hot, cold–but just right.
I remember my Dad running beside me and holding on, as I experienced the dynamics of balance and pace and movement. And I remember when he invisibly let go of my seat and then cheered as I rode away from him. And I remember that perfect visceral blend of risk and success as I joined him in the whooping, speeding through the warm summer air.
Maybe you’re remembering your own training-wheels moment. In mine there are lots of coaching metaphors, and not a day passes that I don’t use one of them. My Father’s style still helps me to grow and learn and move into my “new normals.” Happy Father’s Day Dad–and to all of you other Father-Coaches. Your influence is lasting.
