Author: Kathleen Doyle-White

Good morning, team,

I read a quote in “Wired” magazine recently that I want to share with you this week. Shai Agassi, the man quoted, has created an audacious plan to put electric cars on the road. These cars are not hybrids: They are totally electric. Agassi also wants to create a nationwide grid of charging stations to plug them into. His story is interesting, and you can read about him in the September 2008 edition of “Wired.” But back to his quote.

When the fellow who interviewed Agassi for the article asked whether he was worried about competitors, Agassi looked at him like he was an idiot. He replied, “The mission is to end oil, not create a company.”

I’ve been thinking about this statement all week. It made me wonder how many companies were created for a particular mission and then, because of competition, the founders lost sight of their mission and let the companies become something else. Look at the banking industry. Banks were created to lend money to people so they could build homes, create businesses and work toward a better life. Remember when the local bank loaned money to farmers so they could grow more crops and feed more people?

Look at the banking industry today. It still lends money to people, but the industry has become so competitive that it’s much more about sales than service, with disastrous results. Financial institutions that no more than five years ago were worth billions of dollars have just collapsed due to greed and mismanagement.

When I started coaching 10 years ago, I was completely jazzed about the potential changes I could help facilitate in companies. Many of my clients were going to work disheartened and disengaged. It had become too hard for them to get anything done in environments rife with politics, where people put up obstacles in front of each other so they could win their next position. Think of how much healthier the work environment would be if we could encourage people to focus on the core business and work together more successfully as a team.

Years later, when someone asked me, “What’s your competition doing and how do you plan to flip this company of yours if you can’t leverage yourself?” I was shocked. I hadn’t started coaching people so I could create a company to flip, and I had never thought about competition. I started coaching because I believe in the service it offers to make the world a better place. I figured that for all the people and companies who needed a coach, there was plenty of work to go around.

People could argue that my mission won’t create a good retirement fund for me. But they would need to understand my interpretation of what a good retirement fund consists of: By acting in service to others, I feel incredibly abundant and know that I have more than enough of what I need.

Your challenge this week is to explore how far away you’ve come from your personal mission just for the sake of competing. If you own a business, examine whether your emphasis still matches that of your original mission. Are you still as passionate about what got you started in the first place? If you work for a larger company, what are you doing each day that furthers the original mission of the company and are you still excited about it? Are your external efforts aligned with your internal desires? What’s meaningful to you in your job?

Maybe you don’t think you are in a position to ask yourself these questions. My clients often say to me, “I don’t have the luxury of doing what I love, I have to support a family and send my kids to college.” But I do think that each of us has an opportunity to work with others to add more value to the world (and I don’t mean just monetarily). Competition has its place. However, if it’s become your main goal and has taken you away from doing what you originally set out to do, try putting your focus back where it belongs.

You may just find that by refocusing on what you originally set out to do, you actually become the best at it without trying to be better than anyone else. And you might just change the world for the better as well.

Have a great week!

Kathleen

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

© Copyright 2008 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search, Inc., all rights reserved.

Good day, team,

Among other things, September is a placeholder month for me. That is, it’s the month when I stop to review how the year has gone so far and what my intentions are for the last quarter of the year.

I developed this habit when I went into business for myself years ago. It’s wise to stop periodically to see how you’re doing in relation to the goals you set, the intentions you had, and the business you have developed. It also helps to review what you’ve achieved and where you continue to get stuck.

September is also the glorious season of Indian summer. As the days grow shorter and the light gets longer, we move into autumn with one last, great burst of heat and light. It’s a time to reap what you’ve sown, to harvest what’s grown since springtime.

Your challenge this week is to assess the fruits of your labors so far this year by asking yourself three good questions. Here are mine:

1) What progess have I made toward the goals I set for myself last December and January and what’s left to do?

2) Where do I get stuck? What prevents me from moving forward?

3) What makes the most sense: Do I continue to try to achieve the goals I set for myself? Do I need to realign my priorities so that I’m working on what’s actually happening now and not just an idea of what I thought was supposed to be happening this year?

Sounds like more than three questions to me, but that’s what I love about questions: As I formulate them, I often find some answers within them!

If you’re really having a tough time meeting your goals, try setting a very small one and accomplish that. Every time we achieve a small goal, it makes it much easier to achieve a larger one. I tried this recently by setting a goal of keeping the top of my desk clean for a week. It made me feel really good by week’s end that I had done so and also enabled me to get something done that I hadn’t been able to finish previously. Small gains create the kind of attitude and energy we need to accomplish larger tasks.

Whatever you do, enjoy this Indian summer. Use the energy of harvest and abundance to feel good about what you have accomplished this year. This season will be over before you know it and different opportunities will arrive with the coming of autumn.

Have a great week!

Kathleen

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

© Copyright 2008 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search, Inc., all rights reserved.

Good day Team,

Here’s one of my favorite challenges that I’m often asked to republish.

The coach’s challenge for the week is about the 8 attributes of supportive communication. Please see below. They speak for themselves.

8 Attributes of Supportive Communication

� Problem oriented, not person oriented – focus on how problems and issues can be changed rather than on people and their characteristics (”How can we solve this problem”, Not “Because of you this problem exists)

� Congruent, not incongruent – focus on honest messages in which verbal statements match thoughts and feelings (”Your behavior really upset me”, Not, “Do I seem upset? No, everything is fine.”)

� Descriptive, not evaluative – focus on describing an objective occurrence, describing your reaction to it, and offering a suggested alternative (”Here is what happened, this was my reaction; here is a suggestion that is acceptable”. Not, “you are wrong for doing what you did.”)

� Validating, not invalidating – focus on statements that communicate respect, flexibility, collaboration, and areas of agreement (”I have some ideas, but do you have any suggestions?” Not, “You wouldn’t understand, so we’ll do it my way.”)

� Specific, not global – focus on specific events or behavior, avoiding general, extreme, or either-or statements (”You interrupted me three times during the meeting.” Not, “You’re always trying to get attention.”)

� Conjunctive, not disjunctive – focus on statements that flow from what has been previously said and facilitating interaction (”Relating to what you just said, I’d like to raise another point.” Not, “I want to say something (unrelated to and/or regardless of what you just said.”))

� Owned, not disowned – focus on taking responsibility for your own actions by using personal “I” words (”I have decided to turn down your request because…” Not, “You have a good idea but it wouldn’t get approved” or, “I liked your proposal, but Kim said we should use another.”)

� Supportive listening, not one-way listening – focus on using a variety of appropriate responses; with a bias toward reflective responses, (”What do you think are the obstacles standing in the way of improvement?” Not, “As I said before, you are making too many mistakes. You’re just not performing.”)

Try using some of these suggestions in your communications this week. You may find your listeners to be much more open and willing to continue the conversation!

Have a great week!

Kathleen

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

© Copyright 2008 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search, Inc., all rights

Good day, team,

Lately, one group of my clients is going through a particularly stressful time. From what I can see, their stress is a result of uncertainty about the company’s direction and confusion about who’s in charge. This is a deadly combination for people trying to understand what they’re responsible for and where they fit in, not to mention for getting results.

The state of mind that often prevails in stressful environments is disengagement. Frankly, it’s just too difficult to work in a place where you don’t know what you’re working toward, so you just show up every day, and you don’t commit to anything: It’s not safe to do so. Entire work forces can become unproductive in these circumstances, so I think it’s important to understand more about what’s actually happening to us when we become too stressed.

Here is an excerpt about the chemistry of stress from “Social Intelligence and the Biology of Leadership” by Daniel Goleman and Richard Boyatizis; it appears in the September 2008 edition of the Harvard Business Review. (The entire article is well worth reading.)

“When people are under stress, surges in stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol strongly affect their reasoning and cognition. At low levels, cortisol facilitates thinking and other mental functions, so well-timed pressure to perform and targeted critiques of subordinates certainly have their place. When a leader’s demands become too great for a subordinate to handle, however, soaring cortisol levels and an added hard kick of adrenaline can paralyze the mind’s critical abilities. Attention fixates on the threat from the boss rather than the work at hand; memory, planning and creativity go out the window. People fall back on old habits, no matter how unsuitable those are for addressing new challenges.

“Poorly delivered criticism and displays of anger by leaders are common triggers of hormonal surges. In fact, when laboratory scientists want to study the highest levels of stress hormones, they simulate a job interview in which an applicant receives intense face-to-face criticism—an analogue of a boss tearing apart a subordinate’s performance.

“Researchers likewise find that when someone who is very important to a person expresses contempt or disgust toward him, his stress circuitry triggers an explosion of stress hormones and a spike in heart rate by 30 to 40 beats person minutes. Then, because of the interpersonal dynamic of mirror neurons and oscillators, the tension spreads to other people. Before you know it, the destructive emotions have infected an entire group and inhibited its performance. Leaders are themselves not immune to the contagion of stress. All the more reason they should take time to understand the biology of emotions.”

Your challenge this week is to check your stress levels and try to regain balance for your heart, mind and body. Perhaps you’ve noticed a tendency to disengage when you’re at work. If that’s the case, try finding one particular thing you really love doing and focus on that for awhile. Passion naturally re-engages us, and lends us a new source of energy. Maybe you find yourself becoming negative toward your co-workers. Try getting some exercise at lunchtime to counter these feelings: Burn off that extra negative energy you’re experiencing. If you find that your behavior is having a negative impact on others, try asking for help. Allow someone you’re close to on the team know that you’re having a hard time and could use help seeing things in a more positive light. Experiment with meditation techniques. Recent studies have proven that daily meditation reduces high blood pressure, high levels of cortisol, migraine headaches, and a number of other high stress symptoms.

Whatever your experience of stress, remember that it’s not just your brain that does the work: A healthy body and an open heart are necessary to face each day as it comes, with all of its successes and failures. If you’re running at a deficit, figure out what you need to do to turn that loss into a gain. And chill out from time to time throughout the day. It might just help you think more clearly and creatively while it supports your body’s ability to be stress free.

Have a great week!

Kathleen

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

© Copyright 2008 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search, Inc., all rights reserved.

Good day team,

Once awhile in your career, you have a rare opportunity to work on an assignment that is life enhancing. When I was asked last month by the board of director’s at St. Mary’s Home for Boys in Beaverton, Oregon to help them find a new executive director, I knew it was just this kind of opportunity. But, I didn’t really understand how rare it was until I met with 15 of the courageous people who work at St. Mary’s last week to get a better idea of what they thought was needed for the director position and the kind of person they’d like to see in the job. But first, here’s a brief description about St. Mary’s.

Founded in 1889, St Mary’s offers residential treatment and services to boys at risk between the ages of 10 and 17. Treatment plans include individual and group therapy, counseling, training sessions, juvenile sex awareness program, and aftercare services. Physical, social, emotional, and spiritual programs are also conducted. Cognitive, behavioral, and relationship treatment approach is provided. The curriculum includes reading, language, computers, art, life skills, health, and physical education.

I cannot begin to explain all of the emotions I experienced while I was there this past week. I am still digesting much of what I saw and learned. But I did come away from the experience knowing how vitally important it is that St. Mary’s and other institutions like it exist and how much they need our support.

The staff members I met were very open and honest in our discussions and gave me more information than I expected. They also gave me the great privilege of having lunch with the boys and to attend a student’s graduation. What these children have survived is unspeakable. I honestly cannot imagine a world where the kinds of abuse and neglect these children experience exists. But it does happen and often, in our own communities. St. Mary’s embraces these children with safety, security, sensitivity and sanitation as their underlying values in practice and for most of these kids, it’s the first time in their lives they’ve had any experience of these four things, let alone 3 meals a day, a roof over their heads, and an education.

The statistics prove that these kids have a much greater chance for success when people on the outside volunteer to mentor them. It only requires about one hour a week, but it improves these kids lives forever. While I was there last week. some drama coaches were there volunteering to give the kids acting lessons; there was also a play writing workshop going on. All of these activities were conducted by local people volunteering their time and energy for the children. And, the kids just loved it. When I saw the joy on their faces at lunch time I knew that this kind of activity was essential to their healing and the importance of it was priceless.

As a coach, I see clients all the time who are trying to find some inspiration in their daily lives. They want to be happier or to move in a direction that gives them joy and abundance. They are often looking for more meaning in their lives. In that search, people try to find happiness by delving deeper and deeper into their own psychology. They work so hard to try and fix what’s wrong and then become narrowly focused and obsessed with themselves. This doesn’t bring any joy at all. As one client said to me recently, ‘ All of these thoughts about myself are driving me nuts and it’s all the same old stories, over and over again.”

One of the best remedies for this kind of psychological and emotional trap is to be of service to others. Your challenge this week is to serve someone by volunteering your time and/or energy on their behalf. It doesn’t mean you have to become an official volunteer; there are small ways in which each of us can serve others every day if we try to make that kind of service a priority. Perhaps you clean up after someone at work or set a goal to spend more time reading to your children each day. Maybe you do actually sign up for a mentoring program or to serve meals to the homeless. If you can spare some extra time during your week, investigate ways in which you can volunteer that time to benefit others. In Oregon we have the SMART reading program, Habitat for Humanity, Meals on Wheels, to name a few. Perhaps your company has a program that allows you to take some time from work to do volunteer work during the week. Whatever it is, find ways to broaden your emotional life and reap the rewards of serving others.

This past week I realized, yet again, the importance of extending my heart and hand to others. The world is very much in need of us and we are very much in need of experiencing the good we can bring to the world. Extending your loving kindness to others is a sure way to experience it in yourself. At the end of the day, isn’t that what life is all about?

Have a great week!

Kathleen

Good day, team,

The title of this challenge could be “atttitude is everything.” I continue to be amazed at how our attitude has everything to do with how we feel about ourselves and our lives. Here are some examples of friends whose lives have changed recently and how the changes have altered their attitude.

My friend Kimberlee realized her lifelong dream this past year by buying a home in France. Ever since she was a young child, she has dreamed of this event. After working full time through most of her adult life, she now lives in France in her new home. But having just moved there, she’s living without furniture till it arrives. She’s also living in a construction zone while the house is being renovated. When I last read her blog, she had written, “First off, imagine undertaking home repairs and renovation with someone who doesn’t speak your language. Extraordinary patience, especially—cough, cough—for a male… [smiles]. Not only that, I am sleeping on a ‘mattelasse’ he has loaned me until my bed arrives and using a one-burner camping stove for coffee and such.”

Kimberlee was very successful in her career. She had grown quite accustomed to living in comfortable surroundings, be it her home, beach house, or nice hotel rooms (having traveled a lot for business over the years). In her American life, she never would have put up with sleeping on a mattress and making coffee on a hotplate each morning. But she’s now living her dream come true, and that’s made her quite willing and happy to endure whatever hardships she encounters, knowing that someday she will have the home she has always envisioned. Her attitude toward creature comforts has changed, and what would normally be intolerable circumstances are more than bearable in light of this change.

One of my previous clients works for Morgan Stanley. Two years ago, he sent me an e-mail with a picture attached of his new multimillion-dollar condominium in New York City. He was overjoyed to have finally reached the kind of financial success that allowed him to live the kind of life in New York that he had always desired. He dined at the best restaurants, had his shirts and suits hand-tailored, had season tickets to Knicks games, and frequently went to the best Broadway plays and nightclubs. I began to worry about him raising his standard for quality of life too high when he complained that because his local dry cleaners had gone green, he could no longer get his shirts cleaned in 24 hours. He was becoming incredibly spoiled, by my view, but he felt entitled to his lifestyle, particularly since most of his co-workers were experiencing the same success and had similar attitudes.

Today, he’s lucky to still have a job. His salary is a quarter of what it was, his condominium sold for quite a bit less than what he paid, and he’s living in an apartment that’s much smaller than anyplace he’s ever lived. I reminded him the other day about his disgruntled attitude about the green dry cleaners, and he replied, “Now I feel lucky when I come upon an unoccupied machine in the laundry room at the apartment building and I have enough quarters at the same time.” His sudden change in fortune has changed his attitude dramatically. Two years ago he felt entitled to immediate service and was angry when it didn’t happened. Today, he’s grateful to be able to accomplish his chores himself.

Your challenge this week? Take a look at your attitude about your life and the way you live it. Have you lost your ability to be grateful for some of the simplest things? Have you been forced to adjust your living standards, given current economic pressures, and struggle with old attitudes that cause you to resent your current circumstances? Do you believe that because of your title at work, you’re entitled to certain privileges and perks that you don’t really need, but have grown accustomed to?

Instead, try cultivating an attitude that serves your current situation. Experiment with changing your circumstances so that you can change your attitude. I used to think I couldn’t cut my use of electricity. So I experimented by stringing a clothes line and hanging my laundry. My electricity bill went down. More important, my attitude changed about doing my laundry. It was nice to go outside to hang it, it folded better when it was dry, and my sheets smelled incredibly good when I made the bed. (I even found that my clothes lasted longer: Dryers are hard on clothes.)

Whenever I feel disgruntled and ungrateful, I try to remember this story.

A Buddhist monk once traveled to the next village to help his brothers. While he was gone, his small home burned to the ground. As it was burning, a friend from the village found the monk and told him what was happening. They ran to the home site and arrived as the last few bits of wood turned to embers. The monk’s friend looked at him with tears in his eyes and exclaimed how sorry he was that the monk had lost his home. The monk stood in silence for a moment and then, as he gazed up at the sky, proclaimed, “Ah, now I have a much better view of the moon.”

Take a hint from the Buddhist monk: It’s all in your attitude!

Have a great week!

Kathleen

Good day, team,

This week, the Olympic games start in China. I’ve been watching the games on television ever since I can remember. I’m not necessarily interested in all the sports that are showcased, but I always marvel at how well-trained and highly disciplined the athletes are who make it to the competition. In reading about the upcoming events in today’s paper, I was thinking about the spirit of competition and what makes some people more competitive than others.

Competitive comes from the Latin word “competere,” which means to meet, coincide, be fitting, and to seek or ask for. Our English definition is as follows: to strive to outdo another for acknowledgment, a prize, supremacy, profit, etc.; engage in a contest; vie: to compete in a race; to compete in business.” Perhaps that’s why we use words like track meet. A competitive event actually has something to do with meeting with another to engage in a contest of some kind.

Anyway, back to my original question; Why are some people more competitive than others? In “Now, Discover Your Strengths,” Marcus Buckingham identifies competitiveness as one of the possible 34 traits a person can have. There is some truth to his observation. Some people spend their lives striving to win in almost everything they do. That’s not true of all of us, so I have to believe that some people are just predisposed to this kind of behavior. Growing up in a highly competitive family greatly influences a person to be more competitive. A friend of mine on the East Coast grew up with some of the Kennedy children. She told me that almost everything they did was in competition with other members of the family or close friends. Joe Kennedy brought up his children to be highly competitive, and we can see from history that it’s a trait that has put many of the Kennedys into high positions in business and politics.

A few years ago, my mother joined a shuffle board team at her retirement community. She was very excited, going on and on about how she had done so well in her first game and how much she was enjoying it. I said something like, “Gosh, Mom that’s great exercise for you.” She replied sharply, “I don’t do it for the exercise, I do it to win!” I suddenly realized that my mother had always tried to be the best at whatever she did, and striving for that brought her the most enjoyment. This trait often shows up in me in my inability to lose gracefully. I don’t always have to win, but I sure hate to lose!

Many of us work with people who are highly competitive. Working on the same team with such people can be difficult. Their overwhelming desire to always win leaves very little room for failure, and it’s hard not to feel judged as the competitive person continues to raise the bar and set standards that are often hard to meet. But most competitors love doing whatever they need to do to win, and their inspiration can carry a team much farther when the going gets tough. Somehow the greater the challenge, the more these competitive people dig in and ramp up their skills and energy level to try to meet it and then overcome it.

This week, see if there are people you work with or know who are highly competitive. Try to appreciate their dedication and strong desire to win. If you have a competitive streak, ask yourself what brings it out in you? When you become more competitive, is it for yourself or for the team? Do you try to use your competitive nature to help your teammates, or do you often try to overpower them? How can we use competition to work together in a more healthy and productive way?

This week, as the Olympics begin, enjoy the spirit of competition in its finest form. We’ll have the opportunity to see the winners and the losers and the lessons they learn from their extraordinary experience as they compete on the world stage.

Have a great week!

Kathleen

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

© Copyright 2008 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search, Inc., all rights reserved.

Good day, team,

This week, I bring you part two of last week’s challenge, the second part of J.K. Rowling’s commencement speech, to Harvard’s 2008 graduating class, about the importance of imagination. I’ve printed most of it below because, in all honesty, I couldn’t leave out anything she said: It’s so compelling and beautifully written. It’s lengthy, but worth it.

“You might think that I chose my second theme, the importance of imagination, because of the part it played in rebuilding my life, but that is not wholly so. Though I will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in a much broader sense. Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared.

“One of the greatest formative experiences of my life preceded Harry Potter, though it informed much of what I subsequently wrote in those books. This revelation came in the form of one of my earliest day jobs. Though I was sloping off to write stories during my lunch hours, I paid the rent in my early 20s by working in the research department at Amnesty International’s headquarters in London.

“There in my little office I read hastily scribbled letters smuggled out of totalitarian regimes by men and women who were risking imprisonment to inform the outside world of what was happening to them. I saw photographs of those who had disappeared without trace, sent to Amnesty by their desperate families and friends. I read the testimony of torture victims and saw pictures of their injuries. I opened handwritten, eye-witness accounts of summary trials and executions, of kidnappings and rapes.

“Many of my co-workers were ex-political prisoners, people who had been displaced from their homes, or fled into exile, because they had the temerity to think independently of their government. Visitors to our office included those who had come to give information, or to try and find out what had happened to those they had been forced to leave behind.

“I shall never forget the African torture victim, a young man no older than I was at the time, who had become mentally ill after all he had endured in his homeland. He trembled uncontrollably as he spoke into a video camera about the brutality inflicted upon him. He was a foot taller than I was, and seemed as fragile as a child. I was given the job of escorting him to the Underground Station afterwards, and this man whose life had been shattered by cruelty took my hand with exquisite courtesy, and wished me future happiness.

“And as long as I live I shall remember walking along an empty corridor and suddenly hearing, from behind a closed door, a scream of pain and horror such as I have never heard since. The door opened, and the researcher poked out her head and told me to run and make a hot drink for the young man sitting with her. She had just given him the news that in retaliation for his own outspokenness against his country’s regime, his mother had been seized and executed.

“Every day of my working week in my early 20s I was reminded how incredibly fortunate I was, to live in a country with a democratically elected government, where legal representation and a public trial were the rights of everyone.

“Every day, I saw more evidence about the evils humankind will inflict on their fellow humans, to gain or maintain power. I began to have nightmares, literal nightmares, about some of the things I saw, heard and read.

“And yet I also learned more about human goodness at Amnesty International than I had ever known before.

“Amnesty mobilises thousands of people who have never been tortured or imprisoned for their beliefs to act on behalf of those who have. The power of human empathy, leading to collective action, saves lives, and frees prisoners. Ordinary people, whose personal well-being and security are assured, join together in huge numbers to save people they do not know, and will never meet. My small participation in that process was one of the most humbling and inspiring experiences of my life.

“Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people’s minds, imagine themselves into other people’s places.

“Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally neutral. One might use such an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as to understand or sympathise.

“And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.

“I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do. Choosing to live in narrow spaces can lead to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the wilfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid.

“What is more, those who choose not to empathise may enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.

“One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.

“That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people’s lives simply by existing.

But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people’s lives? Your intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received, give you unique status, and unique responsibilities. Even your nationality sets you apart. The great majority of you belong to the world’s only remaining superpower. The way you vote, the way you live, the way you protest, the pressure you bring to bear on your government, has an impact way beyond your borders. That is your privilege, and your burden.

“If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped transform for the better. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.”

Your challenge this week is to allow your imagination to envision how your life and the lives of others could be better. Give yourself free license to dream. When we spend most of our time checking off our to-do list as we get things done, we become efficient but boring. Take a moment to give your heart and mind free time to imagine what you would be doing if you were sublimely happy. Maybe you think about creating something beautiful for yourself and others, like raspberry tarts! Or maybe it’s something much larger, like the woman who decided that every child should have a pair of pajamas to wear to bed and at last count had collected 8 million sets to distribute to kids who didn’t own a pair.

Whatever it is, listen to your imagination and allow whatever flight of fancy you conjure up to take wing! Give the power of your imagination an opportunity to become reality.

Have a great week!

Kathleen

Good day, team,

Last month, 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 that 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 finally found her light at the end of the tunnel when she ended up in the most dire conditions. And, in doing so, she was finally 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 some thing 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. I notice more bike riders and pedestrians on the streets of Portland as a result of rising gas prices. 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 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 week!

Kathleen

Good day, team,

Today’s challenge is about customer service.

Last Friday morning I was out and about by 7 a.m., running errands for an off-site I was hosting for a small, local team of very talented design and sales people who deal with the public in a retail store every day. I scurried around purchasing fruit, pastries and coffee so that we could have a bit of breakfast together before we started our agenda for the day.

Since I don’t have a large coffee pot, I decided to go to Starbucks and purchase what’s called a coffee traveler. It’s a cardboard box that’s lined with heavy-duty aluminum foil into which they put a large pot of coffee. I’m not a huge fan of Starbucks products, but for this kind of event, the coffee traveler is a great invention.

I walked into the store and was greeted by a young, smiling woman who asked if she could help me. I told her what I needed. She asked how many people I was serving. I told her and she suggested that I buy two coffee travelers to ensure that I had enough. Then she asked me what kind of coffee I wanted. I replied that one strong coffee and one a little lighter would be good. She suggested I take a seat, as she would need to make the coffee fresh and it would take about 10 minutes. She also asked if I wanted a free sample of anything while I waited. I said no, I had already had my coffee that morning.

What happened next was simply amazing to watch. This woman was a true artist at her work. Every movement she made was just right: not too much, not too little. Her ability to maneuver coffee pots and filters, coffee beans and grinders, water pitchers and thermostats was a marvel to me. She was extremely efficient and focused without expressing any negativity about her tasks. She didn’t seem stressed when other customers tried to interrupt her while she was waiting on me. She even responded with a smile and managed to multi-task, making sure that anyone who addressed her was immediately taken care of by her or someone else. Her demeanor was professional and easy-going, efficient and flexible, directed and approachable. Her actions were like watching a beautifully executed dance. She was a joy to watch!

As she was finishing up my order, she asked if I wanted half and half as well. She packed up cups, lids, stirring sticks and sugar packets in the same bag with the half and half. She asked if I needed help to my car with the coffee travelers and bag. I said no, it would be good for my triceps for me to carry it all myself. She laughed and flexed her arm (sort of a “We can do it” move) that created a small emotional moment between us.

Before I left the store, I told her what a pleasure it had been to watch her and that my view of Starbucks had just been altered by the experience. She said, “I really love my job. I’ve been doing this for awhile and finally found my niche. I like the company, and they’ve been good to me. Each day, I try to intentionally treat each customer the way I like to be treated. And, frankly, I’m pretty picky.”

She thanked me for noticing. I replied, “No, thank you for such great service!”

Your challenge this week is to take her advice. Think about how you like to be served and then try approaching each task with intention and focus. Try doing everything with a sense of abundance and joy. Whether it’s stacking papers, making coffee, creating a strategic plan, doing complex mathematics, or cleaning your desk off, every action can become a joy if the person doing it has the right attitude and energy.

As I left Starbucks, I realized that it’s not where you serve but how you serve that makes all the difference.

Have a great week!

Kathleen