Category: Coach’s Challenge

5/17/10 “Renewal”

Good day, team,

This week, the message of renewal and regeneration is coming through loud and clear. It started mid-week when our daughter delivered her second baby. Upon holding him in my arms, seeing him for the first time, I marveled at the miracle of new life. Nine months had passed, and here was this robust and beautiful baby boy, arriving with all the hope and expectation that only a newborn can bring.

This weekend, I found myself herding a mother turkey and her 14 newborn chicks into a safer place after a truck passed by and sent all the chicks running to and fro on the road in a panic. Again, I marveled at how quickly these precious little chicks were adapting to their new environment and how vulnerable they are to life’s perils.

This morning, I read in the Sunday paper about the explosion of Mt. St. Helens that took place in Oregon in 1980 and the regeneration that has occurred since then. On that day 30 years ago, a column reaching 15 miles above the Earth pumped out volcanic ash for more than nine hours and darkened the skies for more than 100 miles. Today, the emergence of plants and animals from that destruction has amazed scientists and biologists alike.

Finally, I read an excerpt from a graduation speech President Obama gave at Notre Dame University. He said, “Ours is a history of renewal and reinvention, where each generation finds a way to adapt, thrive and push the nation forward with energy, ingenuity and optimism.”

So, having gotten the message, this week’s challenge is about renewal.

Here are some thoughts on the topic from the book “Leadership and the New Science” by Margaret Wheatley.

“Renewal is a time to tell the truth about what is so, and then to face that truth. It is the time to heal our selves; to remember who we are. And when we remember who we are, we bring our authentic selves forward.

“Renewal is a time to surrender what is no longer useful. There is often an aspect of death in renewal, as letting go may require the end of a way of thinking or operating, the end of a product line, closing down a factory, letting go of a dream. The very act of renewal is a surrender of doing. Renewal may or may not be experienced as struggle, depending on how attached we are to that which no longer serves us. Edith Weiner, in ‘Six Principles for Revitalizing your Planning,’ explains that ‘the initial key to effective strategic thinking is not learning, but rather forgetting. It requires unlearning and the shedding of old, misguided assumptions.’

“Once we let go, we often experience a sense of release and new energy. We also experience a sense of spaciousness. The often irresistible temptation is to fill that space immediately, as not knowing may be very uncomfortable. This space is best used as a time of questioning and allowing. This space may last a moment, a week, or several months or more in time. This space is the rich, fertile ground out of which true vision emerges.

“Here are some of the most common forms of support that exist during the renewal process:

–Collegiality and cooperation: friendly association with co-workers who are cooperative in their actions and constructive in their observations

–Acceptance: acknowledgment and approval

–Advocacy: backing and endorsement

–Permission to fail: leeway to make mistakes and learn from them

–Information: news about the business and the organization

–Feedback: data about one’s abilities, prospects and reputation

–Flexibility: options to tailor a job to one’s own strengths or circumstances

–Stress relief: reducing anxiety and tension by accommodating family and other outside demands, and preventing on the job hostilities

–No limitations: allowing people to take on as many challenges as they wish and to support them in stretching themselves so they are no longer limited by false ideas about what’s possible for themselves, their teammates or the organization.”

This week, your challenge is to apply some of these forms of support that naturally occur during the process of renewal. See where you have the opportunity to create something new, either in its own right or by transforming something old. Spring is a wonderful time for creating new life, new ideas and new approaches. Our ability to renew and regenerate ourselves and others is infinite. Take advantage of the season at hand and, as the president suggested, push forward with energy, ingenuity and optimism.

Have a good week,

Kathleen

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

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

5/10/10

Good day, team,

This week’s challenge is about trying to communicate with people who don’t speak the same language we do and how we manage to get our message across even when we don’t understand the words.

Over the past few weeks, we have had friends visiting from France, and I have been reminded again of how important it is to spend time with people foreign to us. It’s so easy to think that the way we think and live are the same all around the world. People from elsewhere show us new ways to see and do things.

One of our guests doesn’t speak English, and my French is very elementary, so it’s been challenging to communicate. I’ve found myself relying on gestures and tone of voice to get my messages across. It’s been fun to attempt new French words by stretching my brain to find any kind of Latinate word that might be the root of an English or French word we’re trying to speak to each other. Surprisingly, many words in the two languages appear similar, but their pronunciations are so different that they’re unrecognizable.

Nevertheless, as human beings, we are masters at using every possible skill we possess to be understood. Last evening, I found myself making the motion of digging a trench to explain how we might dig up some dirt in the garden. And this morning, I was making the sound of bacon cooking to try to explain part of the breakfast menu. Along with these antics come much laughter and embarrassment: We are used to understanding and being understood without trying. But the truth is, we often communicate something very different than the words we are speaking.

When we have to rely on gestures, facial expressions and tone of voice, we realize how much we communicate nonverbally. How many times have you sat in a business meeting and heard someone saying one thing while his or her facial expressions convey a very different sentiment? Isn’t it interesting that, even over the phone, when someone stops listening to you, you can feel it? When my daughter-in-law tells my grandson, “Owen, you need to pick up your toys,” she uses a different tone the first time she says it than the third time. The words may be the same, but Owen finally realizes that he’d better pick up his toys this time or he’s going to be in trouble.

This week, notice your gestures, your tone of voice, and your facial expressions when you communicate. Do you use your hands a lot when you’re trying to emphasize something? Maybe your tone of voice becomes very different when you’re trying to communicate a sense of urgency. Pay close attention to the communication styles of the people around you. Does their tone of voice change depending on who they’re dealing with or what they’re attending to? Perhaps you see that peoples’ communication becomes more relaxed when they’re with their own team or their friends compared to when they’re with people they don’t know as well.

Whatever the case, try seeing how consistent you are in your communication. Do your facial expressions represent the same message that’s coming out of your mouth or are you sending out mixed messages? Are you using the right words to convey your message? How do you know if people actually understand you? You may find yourself resorting to the sort of charades I did last evening, acting out digging a trench, but if it helps others understand you and it’s more fun, why not try a new way to get your message across?

Have a good week!

Kathleen

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

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

May 3, 2010

Good day, team,

Back by popular demand, here is a challenge written in April 2005 that I’m republishing.

This week’s challenge is about the opportunities that lie in each problem.

I’ve been reading a book recently about the 1918 flu pandemic. The doctors and scientists who struggled to find a cure had to spend many years studying the problems that caused the disease. Most failed. Some who worked on finding a cure became frustrated by their lack of success and quit their search early on, claiming that the flu was actually a form of pneumonia, a disease they thought they understood.

But the doctors who didn’t become discouraged by failure after failure and who continued to study the problems created by the disease made many discoveries. These led to numerous breakthroughs in medicine that eventually changed the way all doctors understand bacterias and viruses and how to treat them. And one doctor actually discovered DNA, the foundation of our genetic design. This doctor was never discouraged by any problem he confronted. When a problem arose, he would try to solve it. In so doing, he would discover more problems and try to solve them. This went on and on for 40 years! Eventually, in his 70s, he discovered what he never anticipated finding and changed the course of history.

His experience teaches me how powerful opportunities can arise from problems. If we persevere when we can’t find easy solutions, we are empowered to make new discoveries.

While visiting a client last week, I saw a quote on the wall near her desk that expresses this thought so well:

“Every problem has hidden in it an opportunity so powerful that it literally dwarfs the problem. The greatest success stories were created by people who recognized a problem and turned it into an opportunity. You’ll find that every situation, properly perceived, offers opportunity. As fast as each opportunity presents itself, use it. No matter how tiny an opportunity it may be, use it. You’ll find new frontiers when you have an open mind and a willing hand.”

This week, consider the problems confronting you. Don’t be afraid to investigate them. Try considering new solutions or ask another team member for suggestions. If you’re becoming discouraged, look at the problem from a different perspective. Remember the doctor who kept looking for solutions and didn’t give up in the face of more problems.

Albert Einstein wrote, “A problem cannot be solved at the level of consciousness in which it occurs.” Perhaps a change in your awareness will help you find a better solution. Try being more present this week and see if a good solution is right in front of you.

Have a good week!

Kathleen

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

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

4/26/10 “Legacy”

Good day, team,

Last weekend my family celebrated my father’s life at a ceremony at the Exeter Chapel, in Exeter, New Hampshire, where my Dad attended prep school in the 1930s. There, in this sacred and beautiful space, friends and family gathered to honor him and say our final good-byes.

As part of this week’s challenge, I would like to share an excerpt from the speech I gave about my father and what he left me. I offer it in hope that it will encourage each of you this week to ponder your legacy.

“To me, my father’s legacy is more than what you read about in his obituary. It’s not just where he went to school or what job he had or which organizations he supported. You won’t hear about it in the stories we tell about him. He didn’t create a philanthropic foundation or leave us a fortune or even leave us with only happy memories. There were many times throughout my life when we fought bitterly, judged each other severely, and hurt each other painfully. But, in the end, the legacy my father left me was to never be afraid to search for the truth, to find that kernel of light and love that exists all around us. He would often remind me that ‘the unexamined life is not worth living.’ He knew that in our constant drive to understand the external world, we often missed what is our greatest birth right, our ability to know the truth that lies in our heart of hearts and in our souls.

“My father always encouraged and inspired me to continue to be the explorer I was born to be. Although this didn’t guarantee that I would always find the right path, or become a high achiever, or leave the world a better place, it did insure my ability to keep that inner fire alive—and stoked—to feed that insatiable desire to see what’s at the heart of it all, whether it be in the light or the dark, and to live the questions. Upon telling him about my discovery of the no-thing, he seemed quite content and genuinely happy for me.

“You see, he was always an explorer himself. This was the guy who subscribed to ‘Astounding’ magazine for as many years as it was published and kept every single issue. He wrote amazing science fiction stories long before ‘Star Trek’ was televised. He questioned what he read in the newspaper each day and never stopped being amazed by the phenomenon of life in its simplest and most complex forms.

“He was never afraid to question our position in the universe or talk about whether God exists. And, for all his political conservatism, I believe that within his internal life, he embraced a kind of liberal freedom that showed up in his ability to accept everything that came his way. Ironically, he was as adamant about sticking to his daily routine as he was about allowing his thoughts and emotions to fly free. More importantly, he was able to love life to the fullest, whether it was in the sip of a good scotch, the telling of a good story, watching a perfectly thrown baseball, playing golf with his buddies, or listening to a favorite piece of music with his beloved wife, Barbara.

“When I asked him once whether there was a heaven or hell, he replied, ‘I believe that we make our own heaven or hell on this earth.’ Those of us who knew him well know he had both of these experiences in his lifetime. But whatever the case, he was never afraid to question what it all meant. This is the legacy I hope to leave to my grandchildren: four beautiful boys who look to their Nana and G-Pops for inspiration and the courage and freedom to explore the mysteries of life. Four beautiful boys who, although you never met them, Dad, will have been touched by you, nonetheless.

“On the day before he died, Barbara called me to tell me he was dying. I remember her saying that for the past three days, every person who walked into his room received the same reception. Now no longer able to speak, and perhaps knowing the inevitable, my father would take the hand of each visitor and hold it up to his cheek. In a moment of true intimacy, I like to think that my father was able to experience the great mystery he encouraged me to seek no matter what—the light and the love which burn eternally bright.”

This week, ask yourself, “What will I leave for the people I’ve worked with, the people I’ve loved and the world at large?” Your challenge is to give some thought to your legacy and see if you’re living the life that you’d hoped would create.

Have a good week!

Kathleen

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

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

4/12/10 “Different Leadership Styles”

Good day, team,

This week, David Brooks, columnist for The New York Times, reminded me again how different leadership styles can be successful in his editorial “The Humble Hound.”

We all know typical maverick leaders who aggressively hit for the home run each time: They are aggressive, charismatic and super-confident. But we also know how risky that kind of leadership can be. If you go for the home run every time, you’ll more often strike out; these kinds of leaders often produce volatile corporate results.

In his editorial, Brooks refers to Jim Collins, the author of “Good to Great” and “How the Mighty Fall.” In researching his books, Collins found that many of the reliably successful leaders combine “extreme personal humility with intense professional will.”

Brooks calls this kind of leader the humble hound (I appreciate that Brooks refers to the leader as she rather than he in the article).

“She thinks less about her mental strengths than about her weaknesses. She knows her performance slips when she has to handle more than one problem at a time, so she turns off her phone and e-mail while making decisions. She knows she has a bias for caution, so she writes a memo advocating the more daring option before writing another advocating the most safe. She knows she is bad at prediction, so she follows Peter Drucker’s old advice: After each decision, she writes a memo about what she expects to happen. Nine months later, she’ll read it to discover how far off she was.

“In short, she spends a lot of time on metacognition—thinking about her thinking—and then building external scaffolding devices to compensate for her weaknesses.

“She knows the world is too complex and irregular to be known, so life is about navigating uncertainty. She understands she is too quick to grasp at pseudo-objective models and confident projections that give the illusion of control.

“She spends more time seeing than analyzing. Analytic skills differ modestly from person to person, but perceptual skills vary enormously. Anybody can analyze, but the valuable people can pick out the impermanent but crucial elements of a moment or effectively grasp a context. This sort of perception takes modesty; strong personalities distort the information field around them.

“Because of her limitations, she tries to construct thinking teams. In one study, groups and individuals were given a complicated card game. Seventy-five percent of the groups solved it, but only 14 percent of individuals did.

“She tries not to fall for the seductions that Collins says make failing organizations: the belief that one magic move will change everything; the faith in perpetual restructuring; the tendency to replace questions with statements at meetings.”

Brooks refers to the “ethos of stagehands who work behind the scenes. Being out when the applause is ringing doesn’t feel important to them. The important things are the communal work, the contribution to the whole production and the esprit de corps.”

This week, take a look at your leadership style. Are you acting like a lion or a humble hound? Are you quick to change things and expect your team members to always be on their toes by responding with a sense of urgency? Do you pride yourself on having the reputation of being aggressive, daring and self-assured? Are you being overly analytical by challenging everyone’s thinking, including your own, and missing what’s right in front of you in the moment? Would people describe you as humble and patient or as being bullish in your thoughts and actions? When was the last time you said to a subordinate, “I really need your help”?

Whatever type of leader, manager or supervisor you are, try to see the value in being versatile in your leadership style. This week, experiment with different styles. If you usually lead meetings and are often vocal in them, try letting someone else lead the meeting and staying quiet so you can listen. Take Drucker’s suggestion and write down your decisions, reviewing them months later to see how good they turned out to be. Maybe you experiment by being more active and aggressive if you normally are not. It might be a good surprise for people around you to see you behave differently. They will be less apt to make assumptions about who you are if you don’t fit the same picture they’ve already painted of you.

Good leadership requires authenticity and consistency as much as it benefits from versatility in thought and behavior. Try exercising that versatility this week and see what the results turn out to be.

Have a good week.

Kathleen

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

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

* The coach will be out of town the weekend of 4/17/10. The next challenge will be sent out 4/27/10.

4/5/10

Good day team,

This week’s challenge is about bullying. I’ve been reading about a young Irish girl who this past year moved from Ireland to Massachusetts, where she began attending a local high school. Soon after she arrived, she started to date a popular senior who was also a star on the school’s football team. Not long after, some of her fellow students, particularly a clique of girls, began bullying and abusing her. I won’t go into the details about how extreme the hazing and physical abuse was, but I was shocked and saddened that no one stepped in to help this girl. The bullying reached such an extreme that she committed suicide.

This story is especially meaningful to me because I had a similar experience. In the middle of my freshman year, I was transferred to a high school in Canton, Ohio, where we had just moved. I was 14 and frightened to be in a new school filled with nothing but strangers.

Before long, one of the seniors, a popular, good-looking boy who was the star quarterback on the football team, started being very attentive to me. Many of the girls at the school began calling me names and leaving swear words on my locker. They would whisper about me as I walked by or wait for me to go into the bathroom and then push me up against the wall and make threatening comments. If I tried to sit with others at lunch in the cafeteria, whomever I sat with would get dirty looks from these girls and eventually move away from me.

I became more and more isolated and frightened as they ramped up their bullying. At one point, one of them invited me to join her in the side yard of the school, behind the custodial building, to look at some cool pictures she said she had of the Beatles. I desperately wanted a friend, and so I naively joined her and was quickly encircled by a group of angry girls. They shouted and yelled swear words at me as they menacingly passed a cigarette around, which they threatened to burn me with it if I didn’t leave the football star alone. They told me to go back where I’d come from, that I was trash and no one at the school or in the town wanted me and my family there.

Fortunately, another senior boy overheard the girls taunting me and ran over to save me from the angry mob. I cannot begin to explain the relief I felt as he put his arm around me and walked me away from the middle of the circle. I’ll never forget what he told them: “You think you can threaten her, but you have no idea how strong she is. I wouldn’t continue to provoke her if I were you. She’s much stronger physically than she looks, and she wouldn’t hesitate to knock one of you out if you push her too hard.”

The following week one of the girls followed me into the bathroom and tried again to push me up against the wall. I gave her a strong right hook to the chin, and she dropped to the floor. I was not bullied or harassed again.

The point of my story is not to challenge you to punch someone out if they bully you, although I do recognize that there are times in life when you have to stand up for yourself or become a victim to the destructiveness of others. But I think it’s of paramount importance to see who the bullies are in your school, your organization, your team, your company or your family and take a stand against this behavior.

In my case, the kind of bullying that took place was obvious. But often that which takes place in our team or our families is more insidious. It can take the form of continual negative comments about other team members or creating doubt about someone else’s competency. This may not be as obvious as shoving or shouting, but it can be just a destructive when we continue to gossip about others or be overtly disrespectful of them.

As I wrote in a previous challenge about setting healthy boundaries (http://www.kathleendw.local/2006/10/14/coachs-challenge-for-october-15-2006/), workplace bullying is much more common than we think. It can come in the form of expressing undo negativity toward another, intentionally excluding others from team activities, or ganging up on someone. It can also come in the form of domination by withholding information or not actively engaging and contributing to the work. When people act inappropriately, it’s important to let them know such behavior won’t be tolerated. The emotional health and safety of an organization depends on direct and clear communication when someone has trespassed on a professional and/or personal boundary.

This week, be on the lookout for bullying and take a stand against it. Don’t be afraid to let others know that it’s unacceptable and won’t be tolerated. Sometimes it’s as easy as just reminding them of how gossip never has a good outcome and that no one feels good when they find out others are gossiping about them. Maybe you let someone know that certain actions are destructive and the results will only make the situation worse. Perhaps you have to counsel a colleague that continued bullying of a co-worker will result in your having to write her or him up for disciplinary action. Perhaps you can invite a sexual harassment trainer to your company to also address bullying, verbal harassment and emotional abuse.

If you are the victim of bullying, do not hesitate to seek help. Talk to your manager or human resource representative to alert them to the situation. In one case, a woman I worked with had to go through three levels of management in her company before someone finally took action against a bullying teammate. Because of her determination and courage, the company instigated more appropriate policies for bullying in the workplace and not only created a much healthier work environment but saved itself from a potential lawsuit.

Whatever the case, make sure you take action to create an environment that is free of bullying, one of the most frightening experiences a person can undergo—companies and teams that tolerate it are unsafe and non-productive.

Have a good week!

Kathleen

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

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

On Apr 3, 2010, at 10:25 AM, Kathleen Doyle wrote:

3/29/10

Good day, team,

I am pleased to offer as this week’s challenge the weekly sales thought from Nick Miller*, president of Clarity Advantage Corp., a sales consulting firm in Concord, Mass. (http://www.clarityadvantage.com/). Nick writes one of these columns each week and since I’m on his mailing list, I receive good sales advice from him every Sunday. I always appreciate his writing, but the following suggestion in particular stuck out as useful.

“Ready Comprehension”

“In which we are reminded to listen beyond the point at which we think we know the solution to a client’s problem or challenge.

“Packing some boxes for the office move that’s two weeks away, I found my 25-year-old copy of “Dune,” one of Frank Herbert’s inspiring, disturbing science fiction novels. Through his novels, Herbert wrote about several themes, including governments, power, and knowledge. In one, he wrote (read this slowly), ‘Ready comprehension is often a knee-jerk response and the most dangerous form of understanding. It blinks an opaque screen over your ability to learn. The judgmental precedents of law function in that way, littering your path with dead ends.’

“The first sentence is worth reading again. ‘Ready comprehension is often a knee-jerk response and the most dangerous form of understanding.’ In the sales world, we tell our clients and prospects, ‘My experience helps me understand your challenges and recommend solutions that will help you reach your goals.’ We ask questions, looking for familiar patterns and business issues. Finding one, we think eagerly, ‘Ah, I see the picture’ [our ‘ready comprehension’] and expertly pronounce product information and stories about our success with other clients [our judgmental precedents].

“When we work from our ‘ready comprehension’ experience in this way, we risk the ‘opaque screen’ blinking over our abilities to learn because we leap to conclusions too fast, based upon our judgmental precedents. Limited by the opaque screen, we stop asking questions once we think we have enough information to support pitching an idea or a product. We hear ‘objections’ [the ‘dead ends,’ in Herbert’s quote] when we recommend solutions that don’t fit because we responded based on ‘ready comprehension’ rather than digging for deeper understanding. Herbert wrote elsewhere, ‘The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something that we don’t understand.’

“To serve our clients best, we must discover things about them that we may not understand and for which they don’t have ready answers—e.g., asking questions about their goals, strategies, personal and business values, policies and preferences, and trade-offs among alternatives. Such discussion creates new knowledge leading to recommendations that are different and more valuable than those our competitors may suggest.”

Your challenge this week is to watch out for “ready comprehension” and try waiting a moment before you jump to conclusions, make assumptions or just act as though you know it all. Be prepared to dig a little deeper and question your reflexive answers and assumptions.

Have a good week,

Kathleen

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

*Many thanks to Nick for allowing me to reprint this. If you’re interested in receiving his weekly sales thought, you can access it on his Web site: http://www.clarityadvantage.com/. You can contact him directly if you’re interested in finding out more about his services.

Nick Miller
(office) 978-897-5665 (mobile) 508-733-3754
Clarity Advantage Corp.
(c) Clarity Advantage Corp., 2010. All rights reserved.

3/22/10

Good day, team,

Spring has officially arrived and along with it spring break—that week each year when schools and even some companies take time off to relax. It’s a wonderful time of year to just enjoy the warm, breezy weather and everything that’s beginning to bloom.

Even if you don’t have any official time off, spring can be a great time of year to give yourself a little personal break. Allow yourself to just be, and let all of your thoughts and emotions fall away so you can experience a true moment of peace.

This week’s challenge is not a challenge but a suggestion for you to allow yourself this peace. Wherever you are, take a moment to close your eyes, take a deep breath and just be with yourself for a few moments. When a thought comes up that tries to distract you, don’t grab hold of it—let it go. If an emotion arises, allow it to rise up and pass away. Nothing is so important that we have to think about it all the time or dwell on our emotional responses to it. Thoughts and feelings will always come, but it’s only when we put all of our energy and focus into them that they take on more life.

We spend most of our time rushing from one thing to the next, taking care of this and that, working to figure out problems and achieve our goals—doing, doing, doing. We are all so very busy in our external world. Internally, many of us are plagued by thoughts of inadequacy, jealousy, envy, anger, fear and depression. As we rush around, our inner heart of hearts is hoping we can take a few moments to just come home and be still. It’s nurturing this stillness that ultimately will help us find our radiance.

Return to your breath. Feel your feet on the floor or your seat sitting in your chair. Relax and let go of all your thoughts and feelings—no troubles, no worries, just a wide, deep, quiet spaciousness that exists.

This week, grant yourself this gift for however long you are able—a minute or an hour, it doesn’t matter. You may find you enjoy it so much that you give yourself a few moments of peace and silence each day.

Have a good week!

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

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

3/15/10

Good day, team,

This past week, I’ve been thinking about craving and aversion. By craving, I mean that feeling of great longing, wanting or desire. By aversion, I’m talking about a strong feeling of dislike, opposition, repugnance or antipathy. Many of us have these opposite experiences almost daily, and the effect they have on us is significant.

My father used to caution my sister and I by saying, “Everything in moderation.” Frankly, for many years that sounded far too conservative for me, and although I may have heard my father’s words in my head, I didn’t hesitate to act wild and crazy. Throwing caution to the wind was fun—who cared what the repercussions would be? Doing something in excess was great while it lasted, but I almost always paid for my lack of caution later. I recall once receiving a bill from I. Magnin (a high-end department store in San Francisco) for around $4,000. I certainly didn’t make the kind of money that could support that level of spending, but I had a terrific time in the store satisfying all my cravings, buying whatever I wanted. My subsequent aversion to the bill was predictable and as extreme as the excessive spending was. Giving in to my cravings was pretty easy when I was in my twenties—I had the energy to recover from my adventures. But as I got older, the aversion to the hangover, the unpaid bills or the damage I’d inflicted on others became harder to experience. My father’s advice actually started to make more sense. I realized that doing things in moderation did make life a little easier to manage.

Even when practicing moderation, we still experience these swings of craving and aversion. Ever try dieting? It’s a great example of flip-flopping between craving what you’re not supposed to eat and then having a major aversion to yourself when you finally devour that forbidden food. How about doing a little home improvement? Ever notice how the more you improve, the more you need to improve? You change the carpet in the living room and suddenly the furniture looks old and drab. You paint the bathroom and the need for new fixtures screams out to you. We can easily become caught up in the duality of the craving and aversion dance. Giving in to either extreme can be painful.

Maybe you see that no matter how much you buy, it’s never enough. No matter which car you drive, relationship you’re in or grade you achieve in school, it’s just not quite good enough. Over time, this dissatisfaction with people and things creates an aversion to our own life, and we find ourselves in a constant state of frustration and unhappiness. There is no peace of mind where there is constant dissatisfaction and an inability to accept what is.

Your challenge this week is to see where this phenomena plays out in your life, then try exercising moderation. Do you see it come up in your work? Are you consistently craving better results from people, better quality products, more money or more acknowledgment from others? Are you never satisfied? Has your craving for these things turned into a permanent aversion to anything that is less than the perfection you crave?

Give yourself a break this week and try not to let craving and aversion rule your thoughts. These feelings will come up, I guarantee it, but you don’t have to give in to them or allow them to dictate your actions. You may find your week is more peaceful and restful if you accept what is and allow yourself to be satisfied.

Have a good week!

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

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

3/8/10

Good day team,

This week’s challenge is about overcoming obstacles.

Out for my daily walk this week, I marveled at how plants manage to overcome so many obstacles as they grow and blossom each year. Take daffodils, for example—the courageous little flowers, brave enough to start popping up before spring has even sprung. They endure rain, hail, sometimes a dusting of snow, frost, fog and myriad other difficulties, from animals trampling them to people picking them. Nevertheless, the daffodil overcomes these obstacles and continues to shine its happy yellow trumpet to passersby.

I have been watching my husband do the same at our property out in the Columbia River Gorge while digging a large trench for laying some pipe. Toward the end of the trench, he encountered a huge boulder embedded in the path he needed to follow. It was far too heavy to dig out, so he decided to break it down into smaller, more manageable pieces. The boulder was basalt—a very hard stone, which doesn’t break easily and rarely breaks where you want it to. He used a sledgehammer and chisel to find seams and weak spots that he could turn into larger cracks. After hours of work, he broke off four large but liftable pieces. However, the remaining rock was still too big to move, so he tried to pull it out with his truck. When his tires just spun, he attached a winch to a large oak tree and finally—triumphantly—pulled the heavy stone out inch by inch.

Both the daffodils and my husband’s efforts got me to thinking about how we react when we encounter obstacles in our daily lives. Herein lies this week’s challenge. What kinds of obstacles are you facing? How do you overcome them? What techniques can you use to get past the things that seem to always get in your way, trip you up when you are moving along, and stubbornly remain immovable no matter what you seem to do?

Trying to unravel a large obstacle all at once can be overwhelming. When I’m confronted with a problem, I try to break it down into smaller pieces. By dealing with them one at a time, I have a greater chance of eventually solving the larger issue.

This week, identify an obstacle you’re dealing with and see if you can reduce it to manageable chunks. Focus on the smaller pieces one at a time. It might be helpful to talk through your problem with a co-worker or family member. We often become so identified with an obstacle that it blinds us from seeing the solutions for getting past it. One of my friends suggested that I try to see what’s on the other side of the obstacle. Visualizing what things might look like if the obstacle was gone can help to find the solution for getting around it, past it or, in some cases, underneath it.

As in my husband’s case, sometimes it takes a level of determination and true grit to get the obstacle out of the way. Whatever the obstacle is, stay the course and try not to let it defeat you. You just might find that all at once, it has disappeared and the way is open to you again.

Have a good week!

Kathleen

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

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Best regards,
Kathleen Doyle-White
Pathfinders Coaching
(503) 296-9249

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