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What Matters Most

June 11, 2015 //
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Living life deliberately and leading others effectively depend on doing what matters most. Each of us defines this differently, which accounts for our unique contributions to the world.

At the heart of what is most important to each of us are some bed rock principles that serve as an internal GPS to keep us oriented in our daily dance of living. The same is true of organizations. Leaders who are focused on what matters most cultivate cultural norms that enable their teams to deliver with congruence the value promised to customers.

As a coach I work with individuals and organizations that are momentarily overwhelmed or stymied. Often, these are busy clients for whom unforeseen events land on an already extended schedule. I dare say it happens to each of us at some point. The result is a crisis, and in the fog of the moment we lose our bearings.

I have found that one of the most effective tactics is to have clients revisit and clarify their values. It sounds so basic, and it is. At the same time, it is very effective in breaking through the muddle to focus on the essentials. When life gets too complex, we need a way to simplify, to return to basics.

For each of us there are 3-4 core values that matter most in our lives. If we are momentarily overwhelmed or seeking clarity in making an important decision, reclaiming and reaffirming them can provide a lens that helps us see our way through.

What are the four values that matter most to you?

Categories Coaching, Leadership, Personal Growth

Jewels In Adversity

May 28, 2015 //
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Bob MacArthur

Her doctor found a lump. His boss fired him unceremoniously. At midlife she realized that in putting family first she had neglected other important parts of herself.

Episodes of loss of direction, health, livelihood or relationship – when the old ways are no longer available or no longer serve us – can literally be life changing. If we don’t let them overwhelm us, they can redirect us to a path that is more true and fulfilling.

Exiled by his brother, the duke in As You Like It reflects on his humiliation and new way of being. He concludes that the disheartening elements of his crisis

…are counsellors that feelingly persuade me what I am. Sweet are the uses of adversity; which like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head. (Act II, Scene 1, 10-14)

In the lore of Shakespeare’s day the toad had venom associated with its ugliness. It also held healing power in its temple, the precious jewel of which the duke speaks.

What can we learn from the circumstances that challenge us to our core? Having been dealt a few setbacks in my life, I see how much those times served to persuade me who I am today.

Calamities provide the opportunity to re-imagine and redefine who we are and why we are here. They impel us to return to the basic questions of what brings us meaning and joy in life. Facing into these difficulties with a sense of inquiry can lead to new, forgotten or neglected answers. These are the jewels inherent in the anguish of crisis. We can discover them, if we choose.

What precious gems do you see for yourself in your times of adversity?

Categories Coaching, Personal Growth

Change Your Mind?

April 23, 2015 //
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We often use the phrase I changed my mind to explain a minor shift in behavior like switching our choice of entre at a restaurant. When is the last time you changed your mind about something important like your livelihood, your lifestyle or a relationship?

Part of my work in coaching is to help people break through an impasse that is blocking them. Most of us hit these walls when we are overwhelmed by too many to-dos, confused by conflicting demands, immobilized by opportunities or sometimes just stuck in a rut.

Whatever the reasons given, our way is usually blocked by a mindset. I’m too busy. I’m not good enough. I don’t deserve it. Do any of these ring true for you? If so, is it time to begin changing your mind about something important? Here are a couple of suggestions for starters.

A rut is a routine on steroids; a mindset is an attitude. You can begin to change both by replacing chunks of your daily routine. Start with a small step and build on it. If you spend 30-45 minutes on social media each day, replace 15 of those minutes searching websites, books or magazines for phrases or images that convey your vision of the change you wish to make.

Start a journal. Add a single entry each day – one quote or picture you have found that inspires you and moves your energy toward your vision. Keep it simple. One consistent action over the coming month will become a new routine.

As you gradually modify other routines, you will transform your attitude and the messages you tell yourself. Shifting your mindset can lead to changing your life.

Categories Coaching, Personal Growth

Giving, Getting, Taking and Receiving

April 16, 2015 //
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For her bed time story one night this week our six-year-old grandchild chose The Giving Tree. As is often true the simplicity of a child’s tale taps the complexity of an elder’s painfully acquired perspectives.

First published fifty years ago Shel Sliverstein’s story has been interpreted in a variety of ways from a parable of unconditional love to the “me” generation’s exploitive narcissism. (The boy takes everything – fruit, branches and trunk).

When I asked what she liked about the story, our granddaughter had two answers: the tree kept giving and giving and the boy kept getting older and older until all he wanted was to rest on the stump that remained.

The story offers several questions for our reflection. To what extent do we give? To what extent do we take? How do we receive?

Have we identified what it is that we have to give in life? Do we give freely without expecting anything in return? Do we give “it” all away because that may be safer than risking the request for reciprocity?

Do we take without considering consequences, oblivious that the day will come when there is nothing left to take, or, as those of us who are seniors fear, there is little more to give?

Do we take without appreciation? The boy never thanks the tree, although she takes joy from his childhood play in her branches and his periodic visits through the years.

After every gift the tree provides, the narrator reports: “And the tree was happy.” Was it that she was fulfilling her destiny? Was it her unwavering commitment to relationship? How open are we to receiving such bountiful grace?

Categories Coaching, Growing Older, Personal Growth

I Think I Can, I Think I Can

February 26, 2015 //
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The chant of the little engine that could is a child-like reminder of the role expectations play in performance. Henry Ford put it this way: Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t–you’re right.

In training for my coaching certification I was introduced to a model developed by the Self Management Group. Performance is the result of the interaction of Talents, Opportunities and Habits. Talents are our inherited potential. We can develop it up to a point. We can prepare ourselves to take advantage of Opportunities, but we are dependent upon if and when they come along. The greatest leverage in the performance equation comes from our Habits. The dynamics over which we have the most control, habits influence whether and how we expand our talents and manage opportunities.

There are two kinds of habits that influence performance, habits of thought and habits of behavior; our attitude and our effort. Pulling a long train of cars up and over a mountain pass was a huge challenge for the little engine. With an optimistic attitude and a sustained effort she did it!

Returning to expectations, how many of us limit our potential by expecting too little of ourselves? And how many of us pass on the sustained effort it takes to pull an apparently heavy load?

Let’s ask ourselves. What train load of cars awaits our engine? What attitude will serve us best in hitching up? What will it take to move forward each day a little bit at a time until we reach the top of our mountain pass?

Categories Coaching, Leadership, Performance, Personal Growth

What Wants To Happen Here?

February 5, 2015 //
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Do you remember the last time you were blindsided, when your words or actions or those of others caught you by surprise and threw you off-balance? Maybe it was at home, or maybe it was at work. Maybe it was in a special relationship or in your role as leader. Like a troll springing suddenly from under the bridge of our routines, it can happen anytime or any place, usually when we’re least expecting it.

It happened to me this week in a very mundane set of interactions. The details are less important than the fact that the episode triggered a response from my darker energies. The shadow followed me around most of the day…until a familiar question seeped into my funk: “What wants to happen here?”

It is an excellent coaching question that I first encountered several years ago in a workshop facilitated by Alan Seale. Through his teaching and coaching Alan encourages us to tap into the energy of our feelings in order to discover the potential that waits. Seeing and honoring the potential provides a powerful antithesis to the apparent negative block of the moment.

The question acknowledges at least two things. First, whatever we are doing or feeling isn’t working for us, probably because our ego has taken over. Second, maybe things are not working for us because there is a greater potential waiting to be released. Alan characterizes that greater potential as our soul and its mission, which may be 180 degrees from our current impasse.

The next time you’re stuck or surprised by your troll, it might help to ask yourself, “What wants to happen here?” Seeking the answers may open a whole new horizon.

Categories Coaching, Leadership, Personal Growth, Spirituality

We stand at a new doorway…

January 16, 2015 //
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Krista Tippett’s On Being post for the New Year featured the thoughts of two people whose writing is special to me and whose presence in person both calms the troubled spirit and troubles the complacent mind. Parker Palmer writes:

We look with uncertainty to the year ahead. But if we wrap our lives around life-giving questions — and live our way into their answers a bit more every day — the better world we want and need is more likely to come into being.”

He then frames the questions from the poetic insights of Anne Hillman:

We look with uncertainty beyond the old choices for clear-cut answers to a softer, more permeable aliveness which is every moment at the brink of death; for something new is being born in us if we but let it. We stand at a new doorway, awaiting that which comes… daring to be human creatures, vulnerable to the beauty of existence. Learning to love.

Palmer then asks himself and us five life-giving questions. Which do you choose to answer as you stand before the doorway that beckons this coming year?

How can I let go of my need for fixed answers in favor of aliveness?

What is my next challenge in daring to be human?

How can I open myself to the beauty of nature and human nature?

Who or what do I need to learn to love next? And next? And next?

What is the new creation that wants to be born in and through me?

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Categories Coaching, Spirituality

Who Defines You?

July 20, 2012 //
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The presidential campaigns employ a powerful strategy: define the opponent before he can define himself.  Better to be seen on the offensive than defensive!

A twist on that dynamic raises a life lesson I encounter in coaching. Too many of us accept someone else’s definition of who we are and then spend most of our energy on defense. Should we be surprised that our lives are out of alignment?

Of course, we have been defined by others since our childhood beginning with our parents and siblings. Soon, it is our teachers and peers and advertisers telling us who we are and who we should be.  Our acceptance of these messages becomes our story. Repeated often enough, we accept the story as our destiny. It defines us.

Unfortunately, like the political campaigns these stories are often based on others pointing out our deficiencies – lack of looks, lack of smarts, lack of ability, lack of ambition. They tell us these things out of anger in the moment or to put us down in order to build themselves up. Too often we accept the messages. We give the power to others to define us.

Creating our own narrative is the most sacred task we have been in given in life.  The key to writing a new history begins with a decision to leave the “lacks” in the past, acknowledge our innate power and step fully into it.

We can begin by answering these questions.  What do I care most deeply about? What are the things I do well? What is the story I want to create for myself and live now?

Categories Coaching, Leadership, Personal Growth

Fix it…or not

July 6, 2012 //
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I am a problem solver and a doer, and when it comes to seeing people wrestling with life’s challenges I tend to want to “fix it.”  In part it may be a guy thing, or it may be related to my temperament.

As a coach and a caregiver, however, I have to check myself, because this tendency does not serve me or my clients well.  It is more important for me to help them clarify their challenge(s) and their options and then hold the space for them to choose their course.

The same applies to our more intimate relationships.  If you are also a “fixer,” today’s meditation from Mark Nepo in The Book of Awakening is a good reminder to us.

“Frequently, this reflex to solve, rescue, and fix removes us from the tenderness at hand.  For often, intimacy arises not from any attempt to take the pain away, but from living through together; not from a working out, but from a being with.  Trust and closeness deepen from holding and being held, both emotionally and physically. 

I’m learning, pain by pain and tension by tension, that after all my strategies fail, the strength of love waits in receiving and not negotiating; in accepting each other and not problem solving each other; in listening and affirming each other, not trying to change or fix those we love.”

Categories Coaching, Personal Growth
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