Category: Change

The 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.

Pick Your Battles Wisely

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.

Having the Tenacity to Keep Showing Up

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.

How To Help Your Organization Grow By Making Necessary Changes

Good day, team,

This morning I read a quote from Charles Darwin on which I’d like to base this week’s challenge:

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”

I think it’s safe to say that I have seen more radical change happen to my business clients in the past two years than ever before. In some cases, they’ve had to completely change how they operate to stay in business. In others, they’ve had to downsize their workforce considerably or completely reorganize to meet the demands of their customers. And in some cases, they’ve gone out of business altogether.

This kind of radical change causes a natural response of fear and negativity. Most of us know that change can bring about many new opportunities. But, as creatures of habit, we loathe the actual experience when we’re going through it. The uncertainty as we cross into unknown territory can be paralyzing.

Because I’m often brought into organizations to help support them while they’re going through transitions, I admire what GE did four years ago to teach its senior managers how to lead change via the Leadership, Innovation and Growth program it introduced in 2006.

GE’s CEO, Jeffrey Immelt, had decided to grow the company by focusing on expanding existing businesses rather than by making acquisitions. Thus his senior managers had to take a good look at their business segment to see what needed to change in order to grow. Here’s what they did:

* The LIG training was delivered to all the senior members of the business management team to give them an opportunity to reach consensus on the barriers to change and how best to attack them.

* Participants were encouraged to consider both the hard barriers to change (organizational structure, capabilities, resources) and the soft (how the leadership team members individually and collectively behave and spend their time).

* The challenge of balancing short-term and long-term goals, that is, simultaneously managing the present and creating the future, was explicitly addressed.

* They created a new and common language of change, words that became part of their daily vocabulary.

* The training was not an academic exercise: It was structured so that a team would emerge with the first draft of an action plan for instituting change in its business.

All participants accomplished three things before attending the training. They updated their three-year business strategy, or what they call their growth playbook. They underwent 360-degree reviews to get feedback about their behaviors and leadership abilities. And they were assessed as to how well they had created an innovative climate for their employees to be creative and evolve.

GE identified the following attributes of an innovative organization:

1) Team members feel connected to and challenged by their work; they are free and encouraged to try new approaches.

2) Team members feel safe sharing ideas and working with one another (trust).

3) Time is made to share new ideas.

4) Team members see their workplace as easy-going, fun and relaxed.

5) Conflict is seen as part of the reality of work, and team members are encouraged to deal with it openly and constructively.

6) Team members are encouraged to share ideas with each other.

7) There is healthy debate between team members.

8) Team members can made decisions and take action in the face of uncertainty (take risks).

In the training, GE’s senior management team spent a week doing in-depth reviews of each of their businesses, examining what they would need to change to become more profitable and how to become better leaders. They asked themselves questions that would help them reset the bar and start to coalesce around the changes that needed to be made: How do we stack up? Are we really as good as we think we are? Are we walking the talk? Are we leading this business the way we think it should be led in order to optimize growth?

As they worked together, GE’s leaders started changing their ideas, their attitudes, the way they saw their business units, and how they could lead further changes throughout their organizations. They started becoming who they needed to be to lead effective change throughout their teams.

This week, take a look at your team, your work group, your company. Are you being forced to make big changes throughout your business and, if so, how will you overcome the natural resistance to change by your team members? Take some of GE’s suggestions and see how you can apply them to your team.

After going through the training with his leaders and watching how it was implemented over the next two years, Immelt observed, “To pursue growth, you have to give some clear no’s and yes’es, and I would say that what we always struggle with—even at high levels in the company—is too many maybes. Decisiveness is one of the core traits of a growth culture.

“I still have to push, and I think that will always be true. But there are now more people pushing with me. When somebody asks me, ‘At your level of the company, what does a leader do?’ I always say, ‘Drive change and develop other leaders.’ Our training gave me a way to do both at the same time.”

This week, think about what you’re doing to get the most out of your business and your people. Chances are some changes need to be made, and your challenge is to find the best way to lead your team through them.

Have a good week!

Kathleen Doyle-White

Pathfinders Coaching

(503) 296-9249

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

Note: If you want to learn more about this topic, read the article “How GE Teaches Teams to Lead Change” by Steven Prokesch in the Harvard Business Review, January 2009 edition.

Wild Geese and The Changes of Autumn

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.

The Importance of Breathing Life Into Your Organization

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.

Spending Our Time Wisely

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.

Understanding How We Learn

Good day, team,

This week’s challenge is about learning and appreciating the variety

of ways people learn and understand things.

Last week, my husband sent me this paragraph from a great article he

read that touches on this subject. It’s by Pete Warden @typepad.com

from his article “Harness the Power of Being an Idiot”:

“I learn by trying to build something; there’s no other way I can

discover the devils-in-the-details. Unfortunately that’s an incredibly

inefficient way to gain knowledge. I basically wander around stepping on

every rake in the grass, while the A students memorize someone else’s

route and carefully pick their way across the lawn without incident. My

only saving graces are that every now and again I discover a better

path, and, faced with a completely new lawn, I have an instinct for where

the rakes are.”

I find that I learn in much the same way. I recall my high school algebra teacher,

Mr. Johnson, trying to explain the concept of A + B = C to me without success.

He finally sat me down at a desk with 3 different sized boxes and encouraged me

to move them around and assign different values to them. Only then did I begin

to understand the concept.

If Mr. Johnson hadn’t taken the time to try to discover how I learn, I might have

failed my course. And, more importantly, I might never have discovered

how I learn. It’s a real eye-opener to realize that not everyone learns in

the same way. I have had clients, for example, who have suffered from dyslexia

or some other learning disability, and because the way they learn is not readily

accepted, they struggle for many years in school. Making the discovery of

how they learn and adjusting the way they take in information is very liberating

for them.

There’s no doubt that the best computer applications are written by

software designers who take the time to understand how their users learn and

experience their products. Don’t we all want technology that easy to understand

and use?

Your challenge this week is to think about how you and others learn. Do you

take in information and easily find ways to apply it without a lot of show and

tell? Maybe you learn by participation like I do: I have to be

actively involved with the thing I’m learning or participating with

others in an active exchange of ideas to increase my understanding.

Some people memorize information easily and can immediately come up with

the right answers from their vast storehouse of facts and figures.

They learn by lots of input and can often recall all that information at

a moment’s notice. And then there are people who learn things through

their senses and experience the world through sight, sound and touch.

Take a master cooking class sometime, and you’ll discover what I mean.

Most master chefs don’t measure, and they don’t read recipes: They cook

by taste and feel.

If you’re trying to explain something to other people, don’t be afraid to ask

them if they understand you. And don’t be surprised if they take in the same

information in a completely different way. There are as many ways to learn

as there are ideas, and no one way is better than another. Assuming that

we all learn in a similar fashion is one of the unfortunate characteristics of

most educational systems, and when you find a teacher or manager who takes

the time to help you discover how you like to learn, a whole new world opens

up to you.

This week, try exploring how we learn. You might just learn something new!

Have a good week,

Kathleen

Kathleen Doyle-White

Pathfinders Coaching

(503) 296-9249

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

reserved.

Suggestions for Dealing With Negativity

Good day, team,

This week’s challenge is about resisting the power of negativity.

Over the past few months, I have noticed how difficult it is to stay positive in the midst of negativity. There are certainly a myriad of daunting circumstances: natural or man-made disasters, e.g., Haiti’s devastation and the BP oil spill; the almost complete collapse of our monetary system and the resulting recession or depression; the incessant arguing that goes on among our politicians, and the high unemployment rate. Wherever we look, there seems to be plenty to complain about.

Becoming part of the negativity—blaming, arguing and acting out in ways that do not serve ourselves or others—is not the answer. But there are times lately when I feel as though Darth Vader is invading my space: I can hear his heavy breathing next to me; I’m being lured to come over to the dark side.

These are challenging moments. There are times when I want badly to agree with a client who says, “My job sucks, no one appreciates me, and my boss is a loser.” And yet I know that the boss isn’t really a loser. Maybe he or she just did something badly or took a course of action my client didn’t agree with. Whatever the case, the negative attitude that my client holds is certainly not helping, but in the moment of frustration, something in me understands and wants to go along with it.

And therein lies much of the challenge that comes with being a coach. It’s not my job to agree or disagree with my clients, but to help them look at situations from another point of view, so they can see that their boss didn’t wake up that morning deciding to make a mistake, much less intending for things to go awry.

Perhaps because the media focuses so much on what’s wrong in the world, it’s harder to believe that almost all humans want good things for themselves and others. If we sat around the campfire every evening and shared stories about how people had done incredibly beautiful and brilliant things for each other rather than watching the nightly news report or reading the latest news blog, we might find it easier to assume positive intent.

At the heart of this discussion is the matter of trust: trust in others, trust in the universe, trust in your fate. And maybe the reason we’re seeing this pervasive negativity is because, for many people on the planet, it’s a hard time to trust. Somehow, the rules changed in the past decade, and we’re not at all sure what’s at the end of the rainbow anymore. If it is a pot of gold, we’re not even sure what that gold will be worth when we find it.

Many of the things we thought we were moving toward don’t seem to be possible anymore, or if they are possible, they don’t look so attractive. It used to be that owning a home, having a good job and raising a family were considered the keys to happiness. Now, experiencing home foreclosures, the instability of any corporation and the jobs it creates or reduces, and the enormous cost of raising children and their education, many people are not so sure whether these are still the fixtures of the good life.

So here’s your challenge this week. Realize that negativity, doubt and lack of trust are extremely powerful. Resolve not to feed them. When you find yourself suspecting another person’s intentions, try seeing that person from a different point of view. If you have your suspicions, try not to share them with others. Negativity is contagious, and one doubtful thought can infect an entire team, even an entire organization.

Think of all the times you’ve had the best of intentions, yet could not control the outcome, and in the end things went wrong. Remember what it was like when a friend who saw you go through this failure forgave you and had faith in you the next time you tried to get it right. Find that place within you that knows how little control we actually have over external circumstances. Give others the benefit of the doubt and be willing to respect them. That’s what the word really means: To re (do again) spect (from the same root as “spectacle,” to see) implies the willingness to see someone again, and hopefully in a new light.

I am encouraged knowing that we move into the light by being more truthful and transparent. Frankly, I would rather be holding my light saber up to Darth Vader than acting as though he doesn’t exist. I also know that I hold all colors of the rainbow within me, whether they be in light or shadow. Appreciating them in myself and others: Aye, that’s the challenge!

Have a good week,

Kathleen

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

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

Praise For The Capable

Good day, team,

This week’s challenge comes from my good friend and former client Jan
Foster. It’s a poem for all the capable people out there who every once
in awhile dream about being irresponsible, unpredictable and a little
bit bad. Your challenge is to do as the poem suggests: Appreciate
yourself for being so capable or try being a little incapable this
week and see how that feels!

A Prayer for the Capable

And as you stand there
On time and
Appropriately clad for the event
With a high-fiber bar in your bag
And extra pens
Let us take this moment to applaud you.

You, the prepared.
You, the accomplished.
You, the bills-paid-on-time and the-taxes-done-in-March.

You, who always returns the shopping cart.
You, who never throws a tantrum.

While the moody, the irresponsible, the near-hysterical and the rude seem to get
All the attention
Let us now praise you.

Just because everyone always expects you
To do well
Does not make it any less remarkable
That you always do so well.

So thank you.

For picking up the slack
For not imposing
For being so kind
And mannerly
And attending to all those pesky details.

Thank you for your consideration
Your generosity
For always remembering and never forgetting:

That a job well done is its own reward
That the opportunity to help someone else is a gift
That the complainers, the cry-babies, the drama queens, the never-use-a-turn-signals, the forgetful, the self-involved, the choleric, the phlegmatic and the your-rules-don’t-apply-to-me-types
Need you to rebel against in order to look like rebels.

(You provide the lines – for without the lines, what would they color outside of?)

So take a minute
To pat yourself on the back
And say, “Job well done.”
And as you consider someday
Showing up stoned
Or unprepared
Or not at all

And as you imagine someday being imperious
Or demanding
Or the one with the temper

Hear the unspoken “thank you” from a
Grateful nation that is a
Better, smarter, calmer, easier, friendlier and more organized place
Thanks to you
And your dogged diligence.

You are beautiful.
You are precious to us.

You are the hand that stills the water, the wheel that never squeaks, the one we all rely on
And while you probably would have remembered to send a thank-you note,
We forgot.

And just because everyone always expects you
To do well
Does not make it any less remarkable
That you always do so well.

And I would tell you to take the afternoon for yourself
Or sleep in tomorrow
But I’m pretty sure you already have plans.

So just take this very moment right now
To appreciate you
And all that you have done and done well
Even by your own high standards.

And remember:
You are beautiful.

And just because everyone always expects you to
Do well
Does not make it any less amazing, delightful or delicious that

You always do so well.

© Samantha Bennett 2009

Have a good week!

Kathleen

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

© Copyright 2009 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search, Inc., all rights
reserved.