This Blog’s For You

Every month I hear amazing stories from you guys about your wins, setbacks, contemplations, learnings, connections and transformative conversations. And not a week goes by that I don’t want to pass along one of those great stories. This stuff is just too rich not to get more air time! So I’m creating this blog as a place for you to bring your learnings and questions, hunches and conversations.

You’ve probably noticed that I’ve loaded up my website, www.seattlecoach.com with the kitchen sink: information, resources and ideas. If that’s the library, the blog is where I want to invite you come for coffee and conversation.

Throughout my life I’ve led groups where members have learned stuff from me. But my group members have also challenged, supported and inspired each other. It’s the challenge, support and inspiration that bring the magic to our growth. I want to see if we can create that dynamic now, not only in my in-person and teleconferencing groups, but via this blog.

So this blog’s for you. I invite you to share what you’re learning with this wider forum. If you’re just beginning your work of major transition and growth, welcome aboard!

To start, think about your own transition. Are you a) in the middle of one, b) just finished one, or c) have this sneaking suspicion that one is right around the corner. And then post your response!

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Listening to Your Restlessness

Have you ever stayed in a job just a little too long? Ignored your restlessness? Here’s how you do it.

Staying too long usually begins with some great experiences: Good people, opportunity and challenge, maybe some interesting travel. But you keep growing and changing—and maybe your company doesn’t grow and change in the same direction or depth. So you get a little uneasy and restless, and you start thinking about the whats and wheres and hows of your next steps. But you’re stubborn and loyal. So you decide to stay a little bit longer, trying several strategies over a period of months or even years.

Speaking from experience, I stubbornly tried the following strategies in my own staying-a-little-to-long-in-a-job phase several years ago. In retrospect, they were each necessary and refining in my own desires and process.

1. I questioned myself. “Come on Patty! Just comply with the way this place works.”

2. I tweaked my responsibilities. I found ways to spend more of my time doing the parts of the job I was still excited about.

3. I tried to keep learning skills and depth of character—even in the face of things that I was having a hard time reconciling.

4. And I tried just making other parts of my life better and richer so that I could demand less of my work hours.

Though each of those strategies was useful for a time, none was a permanent fix. In the final year or so I began to find ways to respect and pay attention to my restlessness in some new ways. Then I began to turn my stubbornness towards my own next steps which included leaving graciously and entering a new chapter of my life’s work.

If you can relate, or if you have questions, I invite you to join this month’s SeattleCoach Conference Call.

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Quote of the Month

In a Norwegian fairy tale, a hero comes to a crossroads where there are three signs. The first sign says, “He who travels down this road will return unharmed and unchanged.” The second says, “He who travels this path has the option of returning, and may or may not returned unharmed and unchanged.” The third sign says, “He who travels here will never return and will most assuredly be profoundly changed.”

Which road would you choose this month?

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Super Tuesday

IN THIS ISSUE:

• Feature: Super Tuesday

• Story of the month

• Quote of the Month

• Q&A

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Super Tuesday

It’s Super Tuesday and, like you I’ve been listening to candidates’ speeches—listening for the stuff I can get behind. No one candidate has a corner on my personal market, but these are some of the convictions that get my Coach-like attention when I hear them:

1. The world, and our individual lives, works best when we each take personal responsibility for our “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. (Much better than delegating or abdicating that responsibility).

2. The best products and services are produced by people who are doing #1.

3. The most fulfilling compensation (financial and otherwise) results from #1 and #2.

4. And it’s necessary to invest in staying safe from beliefs and philosophies and actions that focus on blocking, controlling or destroying #1, #2, and #3.

Knowing you, you’ll have your own convictions to add, but those four are on my mind this Super-Tuesday morning. Let me know what you think.

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Story of the Month: Points #1-#4 in action

The little beach community where there’s been a Burgin Beach House for most of the past forty years experienced a hurricane on December. For two days the wind blew steadily at 85 mph, gusting to 130 mph. Most people lost power, trees, news and the ability to travel for most of a week. They leaned on each other as the work of rebuilding began to come into focus.

In response, a few citizens called a “Storm Community Open Forum”, and 350 of their neighbors showed up.

They met in the elementary school and broke into twenty-four small groups discussing everything from trees to emergency supply kits to how to keep track of their senior citizens and people with disabilities. Also they had a potluck. To read their story and their next steps as a community, check out their blog: www.eyeofthestormforum.blogspot.com.

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Quote of the Month

“Do one thing everyday that scares you.”

Eleanor Roosevelt

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Q&A

Ask the Coach . . .

Do you have questions about working with a coach, or just pursuing more happiness in your life? Please send them to me. I can’t do this Q&A thing without your Q’s.

Q. I don’t live in Seattle. Can I still work with you?

Dear “SeattleCoach,”

I’ve looked at your website and think we’d be a good match to work together. But I live on the East Coast. Is there anyway the phone could give us a solid enough connection?

Thanks,

Dan

A. Dear Dan,

Good question. The short answer is a resounding “yes!” Part of my training as a coach has been to listen more deeply than I ever used to—for words as well as for everything else that we use to communicate (energy, pauses, wonderings, etc.) I compare it to the skills that I imagine blind people must have to develop. Let me know if you’d like to run this question by my clients in Europe!

Be in touch,

Patty

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The Top Five Most Requested Articles From 2007

Here’s a list of the top five most requested–and used! articles from 2007.
If you’d like to request a copy, just click HERE and tell me which ones you would like me to send you.

1. “How to Have a Hard Conversation Softly”
2. “Four Ways to Set the Stage for a Great Relationship”
3. “The Six Stages of Change When You’re Re-Focusing Your Life”
4. “Getting to ‘Whoosh’: The Magic and Momentum of Inspired and Consistent and Well-Supported Effort”
5. “Finding an Amazing Intersection: What to Look for in a Great Job”

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My Top 5 Non-Food Christmas Delicacies

This month: My Top 5 Non-Food Christmas Delicacies

Welcome to my Monthly “Top 5.” Every month my goal is to roll out five tried-and-true ideas, observations, suggestions or hunches that you will find creative, useful and brief.

At Christmas, I turn into a committed softy. Over time, I’ve learned that it’s best to just indulge my sentimentality by whole-heartedly and intentionally watching, reading and listening to stuff that I know will help me to a) laugh, b) be child-like, c) have tears to my eyes and quietness to my heart or d) all of the above.

And I love recruiting others to join me.

Now that you know that about me, and maybe share my fondness for embracing human sweetness along with your Christmas cookies, this month I’m revealing my “Top 5 Non-Food Christmas Delicacies”:

1. I listen to John Henry Faulk’s ‘Christmas Story’. First recorded and played on National Public Radio over thirty-five years ago, they still get requests for it. Some think it’s a little politically incorrect, but it makes my list anyway. Every year. Here’s the link: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1115979. Bet you’ll cry too.
2. I watch “A Christmas Story”. Produced in 1983, it’s the story of a nine-year-old imaginative dreamer in the weeks before Christmas in the mid-1950s. This will make the most sense for you if you’re over forty-five years old. You’ll remember.
3. I read—aloud with friends if I can pull an audience together (takes about forty-five minutes)—The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson. How do the ‘worst kids in the history of the world’ end up in the church Christmas pageant? And why can’t anyone stop them from participating? And how is it that everyone (including firefighters, church ladies, the Reverend and the sanctimonious) ends up calling it ‘the best Christmas pageant ever?’ The book is better than the movie. You’ll laugh.
4. I watch “A Charlie Brown Christmas”. First produced in 1965, the music is right up there in my book with my favorite Carols. If you want to follow along, the Christmas Story Linus reads is found in the Bible in Luke Chapter 2. If possible, watch this with a child.
5. And in case you thought she could only be a cynical wise cracker, a young Dorothy Parker wrote in 1928, “The Maid-Servant at the Inn.” (i.e. the inn that had no room for Mary and Joseph):

“It’s queer,” she said, “I see the light
As plain as I beheld it then,
All silver-like and calm and bright—
We’ve not had stars like that again!

“And she was such a gentle thing
To birth a baby in the cold.
The barn was dark and frightening—
This new one’s better than the old.

“I mind my eyes were full of tears,
For I was young, and quick distressed,
But she was less than me in years
That held a son against her breast.

“I never saw a sweeter child—
The little one, the darling one!—
I mind I told her when he smiled
You’d know he was his mother’s son.

“It’s queer that I should see them so—
The time they came to Bethlehem
Was more than thirty years ago;
I’ve prayed that all is well with them.”

Here’s to a Holiday season that invites us to experience all of the loveliness and poignancy of this wonderful life we’ve been given.

Now, since I’m a coach and always interested in action, email me one of your own favorite “delicacies”!

As always, you are welcome to call me and schedule a complimentary thirty minute conversation. We’ll talk about how a good coach could support and challenge you as you move into 2008.

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Practicing Thanksgiving Out Loud

This Month: My Top 5 Ways to Practice

Thanksgiving Out-Loud

Sometimes the Holidays have a tendency to be more external than internal—more busy and superficial than about our hearts and relationships. Of all the Holidays, I think our best chance to get it right is Thanksgiving.

Here are my “Top 5” ways to practice Thanksgiving out-loud in your relationships.

1. Acknowledge them. This means commenting on their character: the core that has helped them to create a life you admire. Call, write a note or just look them in the eye and tell them how cool you think they are.
2. Celebrate wins and milestones. This is where the toasts and the high-fives come in. (It’s possible to do this on the phone.)
3. Appreciate their effort and thoughtfulness. The more specific the better.
4. Believe and expect that these people have gifts for you. They do. Think about what you would look like if you walked in the door on Thanksgiving looking like you expected that.
5. And if you’re a person of faith, take yourself on a walk. And as you breathe in the crisp fall air, thank God for being an affectionate, challenging, creative and steady companion.

Now, since I’m a coach and always interested in action, I challenge you to be ready to take the risk of trying one of these when the moment comes. I guarantee it will–you will recognize it when it does.

As always, I’d welcome the chance to schedule a complimentary thirty minute conversation with you. We’ll talk about how a good coach could support and challenge you as you move ahead personally and professionally.

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Taming the Critical Voices in Your Head

As I work with smart, successful and motivated leaders, I’ve noticed that every one of them wrestles with an inner critic. This is a little nagging “gremlin” of a voice whose job is to resist real change. I bet you have one too.

Here are five common messages I hear from my clients’ “gremlins.”

1. “You’re not that (good, smart, disciplined, loveable, etc.)”

2. “ You’re too (old, young)”

3. “You’ve always been (a bad listener, impatient, sloppy with money, etc.)–it’s just the way you are”

4. “You can’t make a change in your career now—think of (your parents’ dreams for you, your mortgage, your years of education, etc.)”

5. “This is just too big of a challenge for you. You’ll (fail, be embarrassed, do something disastrous, etc.)”

These gremlin voices are persistent and can be convincing. Sometimes they even speak in the first-person voice. But they are not nearly as big and compelling as your soul’s truest, highest best voice—and if you’re a person of faith, they’re not as big as God’s either!

Here’s what I ask my clients to do with their critical voices: Give that voice something to do, some other place to be–imagine asking it to physically put itself elsewhere.

One of my clients is a pilot. A good one. She’s so good that her company gave her a new aircraft to fly. That’s when her critical voice got busy (see message #5). “So,” I said. “What do you want to say to that voice?” My smart, successful, motivated client thought for a moment and then, with a combination of authority and mischief, she said, “There’s an old airplane on the far side of the field that no one ever flies. When I’m getting ready for a flight in the new aircraft, I’m going to tell that gremlin to go sit in it, maybe make airplane noises. I can’t have him going up with me.”

Like this pilot, you may have to repeat the instructions frequently at first, but that critical voice in your head will comply, especially as you continue to move forward in the direction of the growth and challenge and change you desire.

Call me to schedule a complimentary thirty minute conversation. We’ll talk about how a good coach could support and challenge you as you move ahead.

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Calming Yourself Down

In most crowds it’s easy to pick out the people who regularly work out or play. Others can see it and even sense it in their energy and relaxed ways.

Being able to calm yourself down is a little like that. If you practice regularly, you get good enough to do it well both when you choose to and when you have to: when you’re scared, stressed, angry, upset or even panicky.

Here are my top five steps for calming yourself down:

1. Put both feet on the floor or even better, the ground.

2. Sit or stand in a way that helps you feel balanced, with your core muscles supporting you, your shoulders relaxed—lots of room for your lungs to work.

3. Breathe. I start by exhaling completely through my mouth and then inhaling quietly through my nose for about four counts. Then I hold my breath for around seven counts before exhaling for around eight counts. Make a whooshing sound for extra credit.

4. Now do that a few more times.

5. Finally, express a bit of gratitude for something large or small in you life.

I practice this little exercise often, personally and with clients. Try it out. I think you too will find you’re calmer, less reactive, and more able instead to choose what you will do next. That means that friends, family and colleagues will benefit too. Plus, as one of my wise client points out, “When I calm down I think my IQ goes up!”

To download images, articles and ideas from my past newsletters, go to my online library: http://www.seattlecoach.com/articles&resources.html

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What will you do next? (Part 4)

In my most recent newsletters I’ve talked about the fact that even if you’re great at living each moment with gratitude and in line with your values, big questions live in your soul, inviting your attention and focus—especially after a couple of decades of living as a grown-up.

This spring, with the help of my clients, I’m thinking about five of the biggest questions and how they may relate to “what you do next.” Here’s Question #4: “Is it time for a second act?”
The first round of career decisions we all made was a few years ago—maybe even a few decades ago.

My first real job was as a seventeen year-old assistant to a bunch of battle-hardened public health nurses who served the skid-row neighborhood of Portland, Oregon. After long mornings of visiting and treating homeless men with tuberculosis, alcoholism and “venereal diseases,” they’d walk up the stairs to our ancient office, drop their notes on my desk and growl, “Come on kid. Let’s go have lunch.” That’s where my education as a coach, mentor and counselor began, as I leaned over formica table tops in the coffee shop downstairs to soak up their stories and their attention.

There’s been a second and a third act for me since then, but I can trace the line of my growth and convictions all the way back to that sweet/crusty bunch of originals. Even so, each new act was a major transition that required focus and support.

You’ve got your own versions of this story. Try writing down parts of it and pay attention to how you feel about what you’re doing now.
1. who paid attention to you?
2. what were the setbacks you learned from?
3. how did you get clear about your gifts, temperament and abilities?when did you know you were moving (or being moved) into your “next act?”
4. where are you in relationship to a transition now? In one? Just finished one? Do you see one approaching?

If the question of a second or third act strikes a chord with you, call me for a free initial consultation.

I’ll be back in touch with question #5 in a couple of weeks.

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What will you do next? (Part 3)

As a veteran coach, counselor and consultant I hear people ask themselves that question a lot. Maybe not out loud, but a lot. And when we do (I include myself here), it’s usually related to how we can live with more satisfaction and generosity than ever.

“What will you do next?” is usually related to life’s big questions. This spring I’m thinking about five.

In my most recent newsletters I’ve talked about the fact that even if you’re great at living each moment with gratitude and in line with your values, those big questions live in your soul, inviting your attention and focus—especially after a couple of decades of living as a grown-up.

Here’s Question #3: “What do I feel passionately about?”

Here’s a great “backdoor” question that might help you answer that question, particularly in the context of what you presently do for a living:

“Other than money, how do you like to be compensated?

Do you like lots of immediate acknowledgment? To work alone? To work outside? To be a member of a consistent team? To start projects from scratch—building something from nothing? To improve on what already exists? To have lots of opportunity for further training? To travel a lot? Or not?

. . . you get the idea.

Think about these questions:

Work-wise, how do you love to be compensated—in addition to your paycheck?
How often does it happen?
Any restlessness?
What will you do next?

I’ll post question #4 in a couple of weeks.

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What will you do next? (Part 2)

As a veteran coach, counselor and consultant I hear people ask themselves that question a lot. Maybe not out loud, but a lot. And when we do (I include myself here), it’s usually related to how we can live with more satisfaction and generosity than ever.

Usually when people call to work with me as a Life Coach, they’re asking one or more of the big questions and, along with it, “what will I do next?”

In my newsletter two weeks ago I said that even if you’re great at living each moment with gratitude and in line with your values, there are questions that live in your soul, inviting your attention and focus—especially after a couple of decades of living as a grown-up.

I’ve noticed five big ones. Question #1 was, “Is my life a success?”

Here’s Question #2: “Where have I achieved mastery?”

If competence is a matter of ability and training, mastery is competence infused with your gifts and excitement and desire to do more.

A client last week was talking about what she’d probably need to do next for her professional development. She was bored and so was I—and I told her so! She stopped, took a deep breath and began to take our conversation in a new direction. I listened and watched her energy rise as she leaned forward, and started to describe how she could turn an “unofficial” area of mastery into a viable calling.

Mastery begins with noticing some things: What do you just love to do—even if it’s hard work? What do people thank you for? What keeps you up late in conversation and reading? Once you notice the roots of your mastery, the cultivation begins in earnest. Like success, is never accidental. And like success, the most important thing is what you do next.

Think about these questions:

1. what do you think you are–or could be–really good at? How do you know?

2. what will you do next?

I’ll post question #3 in a couple of weeks.

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What will you do next? (part 1)

As a veteran coach, counselor and consultant I hear people ask themselves that question a lot. Maybe not out loud, but a lot. And when we do (I include myself here), it’s usually related to how life could be even more satisfying than it is.

Even if you’re great at living each moment with gratitude and in line with your values, there are questions that live in your soul, inviting your attention and focus—especially after a couple of decades of living as a grown-up.

I’ve noticed five big ones. Here’s the first—I’ll write about the next four in the weeks to come.

1. “Is my life a success?”

What happens when you ask yourself that question? Does someone’s face come to mind? Or your investments? Or a diploma? Or a professional success? Or a big achievement from a few years ago? Or the way you regularly use your gifts and abilities, or . . .

If your life is a success, it’s never accidental. And if it continues to be a success, the most important thing is what you do next.

A professor called me last week after listening to a college recruiter interview his son. “What are you good at?” The recruiter had asked. “What do you enjoy? What do you long to do more of?”

I could hear this man smiling through the phone, “Listening to those questions,” he said, “I realized that my son had clearer answers to those questions than I do.”

Think about these two questions:

1. what happens—in your heart, mind, gut–when you wonder about the success of your life? and
2. what will you do next?

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Getting to Whoosh

Being a solid relationship with a skilled coach is all about creating action and sustaining change. Its hallmarks are not so much breakthroughs or epiphanies, but consistent, disciplined, inspired effort. The goals are simple, relevant, well-defined and passionately held. It’s true for sports and it’s true for life.

I’m a competitive rower. Three or four mornings a week, I’m on the water from 5:00 until 7:00am, training with twenty other women who are my friends. When it comes to rowing, the “what” is important, but it’s the “who’s” that keep me encouraged, laughing and coming back.

It occurred to me the other day during a 2000 meter piece through Seattle’s Montlake Cut, that what wins races is simply the ability to take about 200 consistent, disciplined strokes through the water, in steady rhythm and strength, getting momentum to work for you instead of against you. This is what I call “getting to whoosh.”

Whether you’re alone in a “single” or with seven other people in an “eight,” you usually can’t point to the single stroke that wins or loses a race. The best you can do is to say that “it seemed like somewhere between 1000 and 1500 meters, we made a move.”

At the start of a race, it’s nerve wracking. The rowers sit ready in their boats at the line, trying to get their shoulders to relax; mindful of the four other shells alongside filled with equally nervous rowers. Their boat is at a dead stop, lined up, ready for the signal. At this point all momentum is all against them.

Then the official shouts through a megaphone, “All boats are ready. Attention. Go.” And the rowers begin the disciplined, consistent process “getting to whoosh.”

The first strokes are strong, short and quick, using the blades of the oars to pry the boat through the water. Lots of noise and splashing. Lots of nervous energy. Twenty strokes down, and the boat’s moving. Lots of good effort, but there’s no whoosh yet.

Then everyone remembers to breathe, the coxswain, steering the course from the stern of the boat, shouts the command to “Lengthen.” And together, the rowers slow their stroke rate, reaching back with even more length and strength to scoop more water, and the boat evens out and picks up speed. The rowers are tempted to hunch over and wrestle the strokes with their shoulders, but they’ve been coached for this moment. They rely more on the biggest muscles they’ve got. They sit up tall, breathing evenly, focused on the push with their legs.

The boat wants to go fast. Racing shells are built for speed. The rowers know this and begin to settle into a consistent race pace. Thirty-two strokes a minute. Staying long. Staying together. Sitting up tall. Relaxed. Breathing evenly. Matching the power from seat to seat. Trusting each other. Consistent. Disciplined. No whoosh yet, but the rowers trust that it’s coming.

Right about here, the temptation is to start looking around. Where’s the competition? How are they doing? Who’s ahead? Starting to get tired.

But the rowers return their focus to their own race. Consistent. Disciplined. And then they begin to hear it. Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh. Then they feel it. The momentum has turned. From a dead stop, those first one hundred strokes have brought up the speed and lifted the boat through the water. As the rowers roll forward for each new stroke, the wheels on their seats roll evenly, not breaking the momentum, but cooperating with it.

Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh. They bring up the stroke rate as they burst into the final sprint, and through the finish line.

Which strokes win the race? None of the rowers could say. What they will tell you is that in the final 500 meters, if they are rowing well, it’s a combination of skill, challenge, amazing effort, and a bit of magic as the boat runs beneath them. With whoosh, the strokes of the oars cooperate and sustain momentum, but momentum seems to have taken on a life of its own.

Like a competitive rower, people who are working hard to refocus their lives engage in lots of consistent, disciplined effort, usually with very little fanfare. But when the magic of “whoosh” begins to take hold, they know it. And they celebrate not only with their coach, but with the “who’s” that have helped to make their experience of life rich.

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