Category: Life Lessons

11/22/10 “Benefits of Failure & Imagination”

Good day, team,

At a client’s request, I’m resending a piece that I originally sent in 2008, from J. K. Rowling’s commencement address to Harvard’s graduating class. This is part one; I will send part two next week.

In 2008, J.K. Rowling, acclaimed author of the Harry Potter novels, gave the commencement address at Harvard University. She called her talk “The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination.” When I read it, I found it so inspiring that I wanted to share some of the best parts with you.

First, a bit about her background, as context. J.K. Rowling’s parents both grew up poor, so they insisted she study subjects in college that would land her a great, high-paying job. She, on the other hand, wanted to write fiction. The two parties compromised on her pursuing a vocational degree in modern languages. But once in school, Rowling quickly switched to majoring in classics.

Though the decision weighed heavily upon her, her passion was so great that she continued to write stories during her lunch hours. Unlike her parents, who feared poverty, Rowling feared failure, and she actually ended up attracting it in significant ways. Here is an excerpt from her speech:

“Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it. So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless. The fears my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.”

However, the author found a light at the end of the tunnel when she ended up in the most dire conditions. And, in doing so, she was able to realize her destiny.

“So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

“You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all—in which case, you fail by default.

“Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above rubies.

“The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more to me than any qualification I ever earned.”

Your challenge this week is to face your fear of failure and decide not to let it overtake you. Take your fearful state of mind and heart and use it propel you into doing something you love or to find alternative ways to live. For example, a friend of mine and her neighbors recently planted a city garden to offset the cost of food. She never realized how much she loved getting up early in the morning and going out to plant or harvest what she grows. My neighbor has already lost 10 pounds and is feeling better than ever now that she bikes and walks to work. A client has finally quit a job she hated for years to pursue her dream of painting watercolors full time.

If we take Rowling’s words to heart, we can begin to see these changes in fortune as an opportunity to gain something new rather than to lose or to fail. Decide for yourself what path you would like your life to take based on your passion for it, rather than the fear of failing at it.

At the end of her speech, Rowling quoted from the great Roman philosopher Seneca. As you face your fear of failure this week, remember his words:

“As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.”

Stay tuned for next week‘s challenge for the second subject of her speech, the importance of imagination.

Have a great holiday week, everyone. We all have lots to be grateful for!

Kathleen

Kathleen Doyle-White

Pathfinders Coaching

(503) 296-9249

© Copyright 2010 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search, Inc., all rights reserved.

11/15/10 “Choose your Battles”

Good day, team,

The coach’s challenge for this week is to pick your battles wisely and examine what you’re fighting for. In our determination to prove ourselves “right,” we often lose our ability to see the big picture and in turn lose sight of our ultimate goal. That is, we may win the argument, but lose something more valuable in the meantime. I remember my high school debate coach saying that if you use all your energy to win one argument, you may run out of resources for the rest of the debate. It may also be the wrong argument to sacrifice to the competition and, in the end, you will have won the battle, but lost the war.

Each day at work, we face many challenges and opportunities with our fellow team members. We often agree on the ultimate goal but have completely different ideas about how to achieve it. We often find ourselves arguing about different ways to do things or become irritated because we think someone is doing something the wrong way. It’s our natural instinct to try to correct mistakes. This impulse leads us to compete or lobby for what we think is right. But do we consider the ultimate price we pay just to be right? Are we distancing ourselves from our team members as we try to prove something to others?

Focus this week on where you’re currently at odds with someone or something at work. Ask yourself these questions:

1. What am I really fighting for?

2. What am I trying to prove or win?

3. How does this altercation relate to the overall goals we have for our team?

4. If I win this battle, does it get me closer to achieving my ultimate aim?

5. How can I think about this differently, so that my actions are more productive and less confrontational?

6. What can I do to neutralize this situation rather than escalate it?

Consider other approaches that may be more beneficial in the long run. Sometimes restraining ourselves on matters we feel strongly about requires much more effort than allowing ourselves to fight for what we think is important. In the end, it’s the consistency of our efforts and desire to have the whole team succeed that wins the day!

Have a great week!

Kathleen

Kathleen Doyle-White

Pathfinders Coaching

(503) 296-9249

© Copyright 2010 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search, Inc., all rights reserved.

11/8/10

Good day, team,

I have a confession to make. I’ve rewritten this week’s challenge numerous times and still don’t feel satisfied with the quality of what I’m writing. So rather than send out a piece that is not particularly good, I’m now exploring my real challenge: following through on the commitment I made six years ago, to publish one every week, even when I’m not inspired to write.

Years ago I took a writing workshop with the poet and writer David Whyte. I remember him saying, “If you commit to being a writer, then you need to discipline yourself to write. Each morning, I return to my desk and writing pad. Sometimes I sit for an hour or so with nothing written on the page. Other times, I can’t write the words down fast enough. But what’s important is that I return each morning to write.”

His advice surprised me. How could that daily discipline exist in the same mind as the incredibly powerful images his poetry evoked?

I had thought of artists and poets as people who went though their lives waiting for a moment of inspiration to overtake them. Then they went into a frenzy in some cold, cramped, solitary space, drinking gallons of coffee and working feverishly late into the night with no regard for food or sleep so that their masterpiece could emerge before their inspiration was gone. It never occurred to me that they could apply the discipline of showing up each day to create with the same energy others would use to show up at a regular job.

Recently, I heard this same message while sitting in a large conference room surrounded by hundreds of bank employees. We were listening to a speaker who was the first woman at the bank to achieve the high position of executive vice president. She talked about what she had done over the years to succeed. What she said struck me powerfully:

“At the end of the day, the most important thing I’ve done in my 26 years with this organization is to keep showing up. When I worked as a teller, a supervisor, a manager, a vice president, a senior vice president and now as an executive vice president, each day, I just show up, sometimes without the slightest idea of what I’m doing or how I’ll get through the day.”

Although it came from two completely different sources, the advice is the same. And so each week I sit at my computer, and sometimes the words come so quickly that my fingers can barely move fast enough to keep up with them. Other times, I sit and gaze out my office window at the lovely wisteria that frames the windows, or the brilliant coral leaf maple trees that show off their seasonal colors of brilliant greens in spring and summer, deep ochres and reds in autumn, and the delicate, woody, bare boughs of winter, waiting, waiting for the words to come.

Your challenge this week is the same as mine: to have the discipline to continue to show up in whatever work you do so that if the inspiration comes, you’re there to experience it.

Upon winning one of her many Wimbledon titles, the great tennis star Steffi Graf was asked, “What’s the most important thing you do to be such an excellent player?” Graf replied, “I practice. For as long as I can remember, I go out each morning and I practice. Some days I play reasonably well, and some days I can barely make the right shot. And then, on rare occasions, I just throw the ball up to serve, and something else takes over. I’m no longer in charge. Some energy takes over, and I watch myself, as if in slow motion, move in exactly the right way to hit the ball in the sweet spot, with the perfect swing. Then I watch the ball sail through the air and land in the perfect spot. In that moment, I know that every hour of practice has made that magical moment possible.”

My challenge is to keep practicing, to keep writing in the hope that, one day, magic will take over and the perfect words will write themselves onto the page. I know I can’t make it happen, and I know I can’t hold onto it if and when it does. But I also know that if I don’t show up every day, I’ll miss it.

Have a good week,

Kathleen

Kathleen Doyle-White

Pathfinders Coaching

(503) 296-9249

© Copyright 2010 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search, Inc., all rights reserved.

10/25/10

Good day, team,

This week’s challenge is about the benefits of shaking up our normal patterns. I just spent two weeks immersed in French culture and cuisine, and the greatest gift of this vacation was the opportunity to do everyday things very differently.

Try speaking a foreign language for two weeks: That alone will help you see yourself and your world from a different perspective (three years of high school French was not much help). Take two hours for lunch each day dining on some of the finest cuisine in the world or walk everywhere you want to go in a large city. Find yourself in a toilette without any toilet or ordering a steak medium rare and having it served raw. Become totally lost and be forced to ask a complete stranger for help without speaking their language (in our case, this always lead to a positive experience as the French are always so willing to help and have a wonderful joie de vivre!).

Each of these experiences gave me the chance to be more awake, to be out of my comfort zone and struggle to make something work or to be understood. Although it’s irritating, it always forced me to pay attention and provided the opportunity to notice aspects of my surroundings I never would have seen if I were in my normal daily routine, like the way light falls through a hotel window in the afternoon after a luxurious nap or what a carpet of ferns looks like in the early morning on a search for mushrooms in a French forest.

Every time I travel, I experience a wonder and innocence that get lost in my regular life of work, chores and responsibilities. I know this doesn’t have to be the case, and I’ve tried many times to jolt myself out of the low hum of work life, but the more familiar my life, the more asleep I seem to be. Fortunately, I find myself in a business where my clients tend to awaken me with their comments, stories and observations. Being present to them is my most important job, and it never ceases to amaze me how much I am inspired by their sincerity and hard work.

This week, try changing how you do things just enough to wake yourself up. You don’t have to travel halfway around the world to be more aware of your surroundings. Knowing how easy it is to take our lives for granted, try spending some time doing the dance a little differently so you can remember how much you enjoy it.

Here’s a lovely quote from Gresley that speaks to my point:

“Our object in traveling should be not to gratify curiosity and seek mere temporary amusement, but to learn, and to venerate, to improve the understanding and the heart.”

And another from Mark Twain:

“I have traveled more than anyone else, and I have noticed that even the angels speak English with an accent.”

Think about what you can do to shake things up a bit and notice what otherwise gets lost in your day. Or, better yet, start planning your next vacation and do some research about where you’d like to go and what you’d like to see.

Standing in front of Notre Dame in Paris last week, I noticed that the entire front of the cathedral has now been completely cleaned and restored. When I visited two years ago, much of the front was covered in scaffolding. There in front of me, the late morning light shone on the beautiful faces and figures carved out of off-white, pink-hued stone. The entire structure is such a thing of beauty that it took my breath away. In that moment, I realized how fortunate I was to be there. Now my challenge is to bring that appreciation to the more mundane moments in my life.

Have a good week!

Kathleen

Kathleen Doyle-White

Pathfinders Coaching

(503) 296-9249

© Copyright 2010 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search, Inc., all rights reserved.

9/27/10 “Wild Geese”

Good day, team,

While out for my daily walk yesterday, I heard a seasonal sound. I looked up to the sky to see a flock of geese flying overhead. Ah, I thought, autumn has arrived. This is a favorite time of year for many of us. I often have a sense of relief when autumn arrives. There’s a message within the season that tells me that the long days of sun filled activity are drawing to an end and I have permission to draw inside and to reflect upon all of this past summer’s activity.

I must admit, I’m like a bear. The desire to hibernate for a long season seems very appealing to me. Winter is around the corner and maybe this year I’ll have a chance to burrow into my den, snuggle up next to my papa bear, and have a nice long sleep!

In celebration of the season, I want to share one of my favorite poems with you. It’s called “Wild Geese” and it’s written by Mary Oliver, one of our best contemporary American poets and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for her poetry. This week’s challenge is in any part of this poem that speaks to you.

*Wild Geese*

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese,
high in the clear blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are,
no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

~ Mary Oliver

Have a good week!

Kathleen

Kathleen Doyle-White

Pathfinders Coaching (503) 296-9249

© Copyright 2010 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search, Inc., all rights reserved.

9/20/10 “Spirit”

Good day, team,

This week, I’ve received two messages that reinforce each other, one from a client and one from a speaker whose lecture I hope to attend.

In our coaching session this past week, one of my clients said, “I don’t see myself as a particularly spiritual person, but I’ve been working on changing my attitude. I’ve decided to choose to be more positive at work and to see people and difficulties in a more positive light. I think this will help me psychologically and spiritually at work.” I couldn’t agree with him more.

My client’s use of the word spiritual makes a lot of sense in this context. The word “spirit” derives from the Latin word “spirare,” meaning to breathe. So one interpretation of the word spirit is to breathe life into something. When we are inspired, we are likely to have more breath in us. For example, when we see something beautiful, we gasp and say “Ah, that’s so inspiring!” When people say, “It took my breath away,” what they actually mean is the inspiring event stopped them in their tracks and then filled their heart and lungs with energy.

The most inspiring leaders or managers are the ones who breathe life into their teams and projects. They do this by expressing their enthusiasm or confidence in the team, posing a difficult challenge, executing in a spectacular way, or just being particularly compassionate or appreciative toward the people they work with. These actions give their teams a boost and encourage them to re-engage.

I found the other message in an announcement about an upcoming speech by Ellen Raim for the Women’s Center of Applied Leadership here in Portland: “Work happy: Your success depends on it.” She’ll focus on three areas in her speech:

• Working with the attitude, outlook and mindset for success

• Framing difficulty in a positive light

• Building lasting relationships and connections in the office

Again, I see a similar message: choosing to be happy and framing difficulty in a positive light. One of my consistent aims in dealing with others is to assume positive intent. This tenant has helped me more than anything else to see people in a new way, regardless of what has happened in the past. Of course, the difficulty is that often our behaviors do not match our intentions, and in dealing with our own and other peoples’ behaviors, our greatest challenges arise.

This week, try choosing to be positive rather than negative about whatever you’re working on. There is always a silver lining in what appears to be an ominous cloud, and finding that brightness can inspire you in your own life and lift the lives of others.

Have a good week!

Kathleen

Kathleen Doyle-White

Pathfinders Coaching

(503) 296-9249

© Copyright 2010 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search, Inc., all rights reserved.

Coach’s challenge for 9/13/10 “Time”

Good day, team,

As I sat gazing out the window this morning, coffee in hand, I noticed the twins who live across the street heading out for their first day of school. When we moved into this house seven years ago, these girls were toddlers. Now, here they were, looking so grown up, one dressed in a cute plaid skirt, knee highs and sneakers (do we still call them that?), the other in jeans, bright pink boots and a jacket that had a big “C” sewn on the back. (The “C” stands for Cordelia, and her twin’s name is Hortense. Unusual names, but, I think, very distinguished!) How happy and hopeful they looked as they moved forward toward another year of experiences, friends, learning and activities!

What struck me most as they passed by my window was the passage of time, which is the subject of this week’s challenge. Marcus Aurelius wrote, “Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away.” I pondered this quote as I watched the twins walk to the bus on the corner. In seven years, these two have grown up to be young girls; where have I been all of this time?

I’ve noticed that people who raise children tend to have a better sense of the passage of time than people who don’t. Children change so fast and so drastically, from week to week when they’re infants, from month to month when they’re toddlers, from year to year in their first decade. In contrast, the passage of 10 years for someone without children may seem to be a time when he or she doesn’t seem to change very much. But growing children demand very different kinds of attention and care as each year goes by, and parents are continually amazed at how quickly they grow in such a short time.

The value of this observation for me is to see how much I’ve changed over the years and to not take it for granted. One of the blind spots in most human beings is our inability to observe ourselves. We look in the mirror and see the same person, day after day, year after year. Often it isn’t until you notice the first grey hairs, or see wrinkles that don’t go away, or take twice as long to heal from a cold, that you begin to realize you’re actually getting older! With this realization, there’s often the accompanying thought: “What have I done with my life? Have I been wasting my time? What happened to the last 10 years? They went by in a blink!”

This week, take a good, long look at yourself and see how you’ve changed. Perhaps age has brought you more understanding, or a more even-tempered disposition, or some patience you didn’t have a few years back. Maybe you’re in a completely different job or family situation or residence than you were five years ago. How have you adapted to these changes over the years? I think it takes consistent effort and a positive attitude to make our way though this life with a small bit of success and happiness as the result. Taking all that for granted doesn’t give us the opportunity to clearly see what we have become.

We give value to the time we have by using it wisely, and we also give value to ourselves. I like to think of it as putting gold coins in jars. How many gold coins have I put in the family jar today? Or the job jar? Or the exercise jar? Or the television jar? Do I spend my time (my gold coins) wisely, or does time spend me? This week, I’m resolved to spend my time more wisely and not take the benefits of that good use for granted. George Matthew Adams wrote, “We cannot waste time. We can only waste ourselves.” See where your gold coins are spent this week and by week’s end, enjoy the benefits of your investment.

Have a good week!

Kathleen

Kathleen Doyle-White

Pathfinders Coaching (503) 296-9249

© Copyright 2010 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search, Inc., all rights reserved.

8/23/10 “Blame”

Good Day Team,

The subject of this week’s challenge is “blame”. As you may remember, I have sent this challenge out about every six months since I started writing the challenge. Blaming others is so prevalent that I find it useful to remind myself and others what a waste of time and energy it is.

The definition of blame is, an expression of disapproval or reproach. It usually involves one person disapproving of what another person is saying or doing. Blame often goes beyond the disapproval stage and becomes a judgment or opinion on the part of the person who is blaming. It is then left to the person being blamed to respond in some way. Their response is often negative, since none of us enjoy being disapproved of or being seen as having done something wrong.

In “The Four Agreements” , Don Miguel Ruiz, the author, has a wonderful way of addressing blame. He writes, ‘the biggest assumption that humans make is that everyone sees life the way we do. We assume that others think the way we think, feel the way we feel, judge the way we judge, and abuse the way we abuse. We are afraid to be ourselves around others because we think others will judge us, victimize us, abuse us, and blame us as we do ourselves.”

We can see that blame arises when we take things personally and then make assumptions about others. This week, try seeing blame when it arises in you and then try not to project it out onto others. When we realize that nothing good comes from blame and that no one, including ourselves, enjoys the experience, we can have an incentive to catch blame and stop it before it becomes our reality.

“People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are they who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them.” George Bernard Shaw

Have a great week!

Kathleen

Kathleen Doyle-White
Pathfinders Coaching
(503) 296-9249

© Copyright 2010 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search, Inc., all rights
reserved.