Category: Coach’s Challenge

Good day, team,

This week’s challenge is about authenticity. Last week, I had the fortunate experience of watching a wonderful video clip at the end of the ABC evening news. As you may know, many of the major news broadcasters are trying to add a bit of positive news at the end of their evening programs to finish on an uplifting note. In the midst of all the bad news they report, I think it’s a nice change to have them focus on a feel-good story.

That evening, ABC showed a video of Susan Boyle, the middle-aged, single, unemployed Scottish woman who sang on the program “Britain’s Got Talent,” the English equivalent of our “American Idol.” Out she came onto the stage, looking as dowdy as you can imagine but with a good sense of herself and a twinkle in her eye.

The judges sounded incredibly cynical and judgmental when they asked her their basic questions, members of the audience rolled their eyes, and there was definitely a sense that this woman fit into the category of some old frump who was going to make a fool of herself. Until she sang the first note.

Susan Boyle sang “I Dreamed a Dream” from “Les Miserables,” and I found myself crying, clapping and cheering along with all the other audience members on the show. She was amazing, and the judges were blown away by her performance. Everyone was humbled by their misjudgment and negative attitudes about her when she first appeared on the stage. We all know you can’t judge a book by its cover, and never had this truism been more apparent.

I thought about why this performance had touched me so deeply, and why it is having the same effect on so many others. At last count, more than 12 million people had viewed Susan’s performance on YouTube, and many of us have had the same response. Just go to YouTube and type her name, and you’ll see what I mean.

So what’s going on here? Perhaps we are so starved for something truly authentic that its rare experience touches us deeply in our hearts and souls. Some part of us knows when we are acting falsely, and we suffer terribly as we watch ourselves being someone we’re not or doing something we don’t truly believe in.

It’s not only painful to watch ourselves being inauthentic, it’s also painful to watch others do so. Last week a client mentioned to me how hard it is to watch some of her co-workers trying to be someone they’re not. A sensitive, beautifully feminine woman puts on a “I’m really a tough guy” act. A senior manager covers up his fear of appearing less intelligent than he hopes he is. A financial executive assumes an attitude of power because she controls the numbers, meanwhile having hidden crucial financial information to make herself look good.

We have all created these false personalities to survive whatever environment we found ourselves in. But our external situations change, and when they do, we need to ask ourselves whether that particular personality continues to serve us, or just alienates others and make us look foolish.

In a culture that for decades has thrived on looking young, acting cool, wearing the newest styles, and glorifying being thin and hip, Susan Boyle was a breath of fresh air for being exactly the opposite of all those traits. She allowed all of us to feel good about exactly who we are, regardless of what anyone else thinks.

Your challenge this week is to observe how you “act” with others and see if one of those assumed personalities no longer serves you. Ask yourself what’s preventing you from just being who you are. Try not to impress others so much with what you think they will like or approve of, but rather, allow your own essence to emerge and see if you don’t get a better response.

One of my favorite quotes, enscribed by an unknown author on a grave marker at Boothill Cemetery in Tombstone, Arizona, reads

“Be who you is,

‘cuz if you ain’t

who you is,

Then you is

who you ain’t.”

Have a good week,

Kathleen

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

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

Good day, team,

It’s spring again out at our place in the Columbia River Gorge, and buds are busting out all over. The daffodils are just beginning their final nods, the balsam root and lupine are waking up, and the lilacs buds are beginning to show their purple flowers.

As I sat on the porch yesterday admiring the renewal of life in this beautiful place, a small grey digger squirrel darted out in front of me. These tiny pests are the bane of anyone’s existence out here. They’re not bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, but scrawny and beady-eyed, and they wreak havoc wherever they can. One weekend last year, we came out to the ranch to discover the front lawn was covered with pink stuff that looked like cotton candy. It was fiberglass insulation the grey diggers had pulled out from under the house and played with just for fun!

Anyway, back to my moment on the porch. That pesky little grey digger reminded me of my own mind. That is, there I was, sitting peacefully, enjoying the moment, but at any time, some pesky thought could arise that wanted my attention. If I wasn’t careful and followed that thought, the next thing I knew, I wouldn’t be in that moment anymore: I’d follow that grey digger-like thought right down into some nasty little hole that might be hard to get out of once I was in there.

I often tell my clients, “The part of you that is observing your thoughts is not of them.” So if I’m sitting there peacefully, and I see a thought pop up that wants to distract me, I have about a nanosecond to decide not to follow it. I can say instead, “Nope, you nasty little thought, I’m not going to give you any attention, I’m not going to follow you. I’m going to sit right here and be in this moment, and you can just keep going without me.” Believe it or not, if I catch it before it catches me, the thought usually just disappears into thin air. And that’s the funny part: It came out of thin air to begin with.

Not giving your thoughts so much power is a liberating experience. After attending many silent retreats, I’ve learned this truth over and over again. When you go on a silent retreat, you make an agreement with yourself. No matter what comes up, you just stay seated and you watch. And you watch and you watch, and you breathe, and you itch sometimes, and you weep sometimes, and you just stay in silence. Pretty soon, the thoughts that come up and try to lure you away just disappear, and the the itches go away, and the tears go away, and the anxiety, and the anger, and the sadness and the joy: It all just rises up and passes away.

So this week my challenge is to remember what I’ve learned about the tricks my mind likes to play on me and to stay silent and not let the thoughts take me away from where I am. I offer you this challenge as well. Try staying silent for a few moments each day and watch. Try not to react to everything that wants your attention. Stay calm and centered in yourself. Try not to give yourself away to every little thing that comes up and wants all your energy.

Remarkably, life will continue on just fine without your having to comment on every part of it. In your silence, you’ll discover a well of love and safety within yourself that cannot be disturbed by anyone or anything unless you let it.

Let the grey diggers try to create havoc! I’ll not have it, at least not this week.

Have a peaceful week,

Kathleen

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

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

This week’s challenge was written in October 2007. At the request of a client, I am resending it.

Good day, team,

A quote from Pema Chodron, a Buddhist nun, has stayed with me over the past week. She writes, “The essence of bravery is being without self-deception.”

The quote reminded me of a situation in which I had greatly deceived myself. I was working for a high-tech company in Silicon Valley as a human resources manager. The company grew rapidly, from 60 people to 1,200 people within 24 months, and was experiencing record profits when suddenly the CEO made a bad decision to completely change the direction of the company. Within six months, it spiraled toward bankruptcy.

At this point, the board of directors intervened, removed the CEO, and brought in a new COO, a man who was known for reducing spending and coordinating large layoffs. He was positioned as the guy who could save us. We were told that he would help the company focus on its key products, reduce expenses and scale down appropriately.

One of the first things the COO did was meet with the human resources managers to let us know what was coming so we could orchestrate the layoffs. There were two other managers in the department who had been there longer than I had and who were more specialized in their human resources expertise. I was the generalist who had helped recruit and hire many of the employees. The new COO told us that he wouldn’t need three human resources managers for a company of about 100 people, so only one of us would survive the layoffs. To make matters worse, I learned from the COO’s administrative assistant that the new company, that was being described as smaller and more focused on key lines of business, was actually being prepared for sale and a few people (including the new COO) would pocket a lot of money when the deal went through.

The competition that ensued between my team members and me was ugly; we all fought to save whatever territory we thought we owned and did our best to ingratiate ourselves with the new COO.

At the same time, I felt very bad about what was happening to the company and the people I had helped hire. Many employees had families who depended on them. Yet here we were, sitting in meetings looking at lists of names and treating the people as if they had no history, no families, no value, even though I knew what they had sacrificed to make the company successful.

I also knew how much they believed in what the company had been doing before it changed direction. People had felt great pride in their work and the company’s initial vision and mission. They knew they belonged to a company that valued them, and they worked hard so everyone could profit.

Now, all of this enthusiasm and team spirit was gone. The atmosphere went from open and creative to secretive and unproductive. When a manager walked into the lunchroom, people became quiet. When the human resources team met with anyone, people would walk by the conference room and avert their eyes: They didn’t want to see what was going on. The negativity that permeated the building was intense. Paranoia began to increase, and even those who thought they were in the know, part of the inner, executive circle, began to question each others’ motives.

What I witnessed in myself was something I have always regretted. In the midst of the competition to keep my job, I did whatever was necessary to win the approval of the COO and the managers who bonded with him to keep their jobs. I watched myself do things that I didn’t believe in. I repeated the party line, even when I knew what I was saying wasn’t always true. I convinced others that the company’s new direction would be better for them and that, even though we had to let some people go, the new company would be better for it. I remember saying, “Don’t worry about them. They’ll easily find other jobs. It’s a good economy, and they have plenty of experience.” But in my heart I knew that finding new jobs would not be easy, that ultimately the company was being put up for sale and that, in the end, everyone would lose their jobs and benefits.

Ultimately, I understood that no matter how much I deceived others, the greatest damage I did was to myself. My level of self-deception was deep. I kept excusing my actions and telling myself that sustaining my lifestyle, my family and my position was more important than the inner voice that reminded me of the truth. I didn’t have the courage to be honest with myself and act upon my convictions.

I look back at that time and see someone who was afraid of losing her job, her income and her life. I also see that I was losing my integrity.

In the end, I was chosen as the only remaining human resources manager. I remember what one of my fellow managers said as she left: “Well, congratulations. Now you just have to live with yourself.” At the time I thought, “Sour grapes,” but in my heart, I felt the truth of her assessment.

The company was eventually sold. The people who did it for the money pocketed much less than they thought would get. They blamed the employees, the board of directors, the company’s advisors, etc., and went away thinking that, for all the effort they had put into it, it wasn’t worth it. What they never saw was that whatever amount they got in the end could never satisfy their greed. And I don’t think it ever crossed their minds how much damage they did to the spirit of the company, its people and its customers.

Your challenge this week is to express yourself with forceful grace in situations where you have been deceiving yourself or hiding from yourself and others, even if it just means having the courage to tell yourself the truth. It may be a situation at work where you are afraid to express yourself, but know that avoiding the truth or hiding from it is no longer acceptable to you. Perhaps there’s something happening at home that you know needs attention, but you’re avoiding it and telling yourself that it will just go away or change on its own, even though you know it needs addressing. Whatever the situation, be gentle with yourself and courageous at the same time.

There’s a wonderful metaphor here about the lion and the lamb, but that’s another story.

Have a great week!

Kathleen

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

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

Good day, team,

This week I’ve been trying to figure out whether all the bad news we’re hearing about the economy is educating us or making things worse. We have more access to information than any other generation before, and so are more informed, but this plethora of information also colors how we think about events.

For every bit of bad news I read, I can also come up with a number of positive interpretations. But I have to work to turn my perspective around. For example, Powell’s Books (now the biggest book store in the U.S.) decided not to go through with a planned $5 million expansion, even though the company had financing for it. But because of a recent 5 percent drop in sales, Michael Powell didn’t think it was prudent to expand right now.

My first thought was, what bad news. Think of all the people who would have benefited from the jobs created: the architect, the builder, the banker, etc. But then I realized it’s not such a bad idea for Powell’s to think about better ways to use the space it has and support sustainable growth. Maybe it means more job security for the people already employed there if they have to do more with less. And taking a conservative approach sets a good example for future generations of the Powell family members who hope to continue running a successful business.

If I had taken the news on face value, I would have run the risk of believing a partial truth, that is, just one view of the situation. But if I consider the same situation from different viewpoints, I can often find underlying benefits.

It also helps to seek out good news in the midst of all the dire reports about the economy. One such example is the article I’m including here, “Four Reasons Why Ford May Be the Company of the Future,” by Tony Schwartz, president of the Energy Project.

“If you could look inside the inner sanctum at Ford, what would you expect to see? Anxiety? Panic? Despair?

“The economy, after all, is getting worse not better. Monthly car sales in the U.S. have continued to drop precipitously. Ford has lost market share during the past year and reported $5.9 billion of losses in the last quarter of 2009.

“But if you spend a day with CEO Alan Mulally and his top executives, as I did recently, what you discover is a group of people who are laser-focused, hopeful, proud and incredibly passionate about the mission they’re on—even without retention bonuses or long-term incentive plans.

“Here are the four reasons I believe Ford is modeling how companies of the future ought to operate:

“1. Creating value by valuing people. Alan Mulally is fiercely realistic about the steep challenge Ford faces, but he’s infectiously upbeat about their ability to meet it, and he makes the people around him feel good, including about themselves. He truly understands that only positive emotions fuel sustainable high performance and that the more valued people feel, the more they’re freed and inspired to create more value.

“2. Transparency rules. My colleague Annie Perrin and I began our day at Ford at 8 a.m. by attending Ford’s weekly Business Plan Review, which includes all of its senior executives around the world. Outsiders are regularly invited to observe the meeting. Every executive reports any new information that might influence Ford’s overall revenue projections, or any other part of its plan. Mulally operates on the assumption that the truth will set you free, even when it hurts.

“3. Personal responsibility. The day we were there, one Ford executive described a significant shortfall on a particular projection. It was the sort of acknowledgment that might have prompted high drama in many boardrooms. In this case, the executive simply went on to list the ways he intended to address the shortfall over the coming days and invited other suggestions. No energy was wasted in wringing hands or avoiding responsibility or assigning blame. The focus was entirely on solutions.

“4. A mission worth believing in. Mulally believes that ‘to serve is to live,’ and he has rallied the notoriously factionalized and siloed Ford around a shared mission that is simple and compelling: make Ford the leader in quality, safety and fuel efficiency.

“Public opinion may not have caught up yet, but the company has made significant progress on each of those fronts. Consumer Reports last month recommended 70 percent of Ford’s vehicles, for example, versus 17 percent of GM’s and none of Chrysler’s. Ford’s cars have significantly improved in reliability, and the company has an aggressive commitment not just to hybrids, but also to plug-in electric cars and to equaling or exceeding its competitors in fuel efficiency in all classes.

“In the midst of a perfect storm, Mulally has created a culture in which his team is working together closely to create a new kind of company. When the economic clouds finally do part, these executives have a shared conviction that they’ll emerge, along with Toyota and Volkswagen, as one of the three truly global automobile companies.

“I’m not about to bet against them. I haven’t owned an American car in 20 years, but after a day hanging around Mulally and his team, I intend to buy a high-mileage electric Ford as my next one.”

This article encouraged me because, in the midst of great challenge and adversity, a car company executive is rallying his troops and making smart business decisions to accomplish a mission that will benefit many people. He’s using his motto “to serve is to live” as a way to conduct his life with integrity and meaning.

Your challenge this week is to find ways to think positively about what’s happening economically by seeking out optimistic ways to interpret difficult situations. Perhaps you can’t hire someone for a new position but have to think of new ways to train your existing workforce so they work more efficiently. Maybe you plan a celebration at work or at home and think of more creative ways to make it happen, like having a potluck. I have been creating new payment arrangements with some of my clients to make it easier and more equitable for both of us during these lean times. Think of giving your people a mission that’s simple and easy to believe in, something that will allow their passion and commitment to transform much of what is negative into a positive.

As my grandmother used to say, “Try turning lemons into lemonade.”

Have a good week,

Kathleen

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

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

Good day, team,

This morning when I awoke, I found that the music I had listened to yesterday was still in my head and my heart. My husband and I had attended a wedding, and then last evening we went to hear a tabla drumming master.

The wedding ceremony was beautiful, full of memorable moments. But I was left with two distinct impressions: the incredibly beautiful voice of the man (thank you, Kevin Walsh) who sang during the ceremony and the joy I saw on the faces of the bride and groom when they turned to their friends and family at the end of the service.

Later, at the tabla player’s performance, there were dancers and other entertainment, but again I woke up with the memory of the music.

I often think about what in my life leaves the most memorable impressions. If I sit in a meeting for an hour, what am I left with? Often, it’s the expression on someone’s face, or something they said that resonates with me, or the way the light filters into the room.

I also wonder about what goes unnoticed, slipping away as the seconds click by on the clock. Unfortunately, many moments pass when I’m drifting in my own imagination, distracted, or just in a state of dullness I refer to as “a low hum.”

But music wakes me up, even when I don’t like it. It soothes me when I do love the sound and transforms my state in ways that are a mystery to me.

This week’s challenge is about music or art in any form that serves you in that way. What transforms you, gives you that feeling of being uplifted and inspired and changes you in the moment?

My associate Kate Dwyer sent me the following article this morning, coincidentally, about music. It’s an excerpt from a speech by Karl Paulnack, pianist and director of the music division at Boston Conservatory, welcoming the freshman class. (If you’re interested in reading the entire speech, send me an e-mail, and I’ll attach it in my reply.)

“The first people to understand how music really works were the ancient Greeks. And this is going to fascinate you: The Greeks said that music and astronomy were two sides of the same coin. Astronomy was seen as the study of relationships between observable, permanent, external objects, and music was seen as the study of relationships between invisible, internal, hidden objects. Music has a way of finding the big, invisible, moving pieces inside our hearts and souls and helping us figure out the position of things inside us. Let me give you some examples of how this works.

“One of the most profound musical compositions of all time is the ‘Quartet for the End of Time’ written by French composer Olivier Messiaen in 1940. Messiaen was 31 years old when France entered the war against Nazi Germany. He was captured by the Germans in June 1940, sent across Germany in a cattle car and imprisoned in a concentration camp.

“He was fortunate to find a sympathetic prison guard who gave him paper and a place to compose. There were three other musicians in the camp, a cellist, a violinist, and a clarinetist, and Messiaen wrote his quartet with these specific players in mind. It was performed in January 1941 for four thousand prisoners and guards in the prison camp. Today it is one of the most famous masterworks in the repertoire.

“Given what we have since learned about life in the concentration camps, why would anyone in his right mind waste time and energy writing or playing music? There was barely enough energy on a good day to find food and water, to avoid a beating, to stay warm, to escape torture—why would anyone bother with music?

“And yet from the camps we have poetry, we have music, we have visual art; it wasn’t just this one fanatic Messiaen: Many, many people created art. Why? Well, in a place where people are only focused on survival, on the bare necessities, the obvious conclusion is that art must be, somehow, essential for life. The camps were without money, without hope, without commerce, without recreation, without basic respect, but they were not without art. Art is part of survival; art is part of the human spirit, an unquenchable expression of who we are. Art is one of the ways in which we say, ‘I am alive, and my life has meaning.’”

Your challenge this week is to figure out what makes you feel alive and do more of it. In my case, I think I’ll play a piece of music that I particularly enjoy each morning this week before I read the newspaper or go online. Or perhaps I’ll play the music afterwards so that whatever information I take in about how bad the economy is, or how our politicians continue to criticize each other, or which local people were arrested for their terrible deeds, the music will serve to inspire me and give me a better chance at having positive experiences throughout the day. Perhaps you can listen to your favorite radio station on your drive to work or on your iPod if you take the bus. It always makes me happy when I pull up to a stoplight and see someone in the car next to me singing at the top of their lungs and rocking out to a tune that fills their heart with joy.

Whatever it is that gives you that spark of life, realize that it’s not just worth doing, it is essential to your physical well-being and emotional survival. Find time to build it into your day. It will change you, I promise!

Have a good week,

Kathleen

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

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

Good day, team,

Last week I visited my father at his new residence, an upscale assisted living center called Falmouth by the Sea, in Falmouth, Maine, on the Atlantic Ocean. I could write extensively about my experience of the place, the situation my father is in, and my overall impressions of what happens to people who grow old and infirm and end up in these kinds of facilities, but honestly, I’m still digesting much of what I experienced. Perhaps some of my impressions will make it into future challenges.

That being said, a column I read in the New York Times yesterday got me thinking about my father and one of the gifts both my parents gave me as a child. The title of the piece is “No Picnic For Me Either” by David Brooks. You may recognize that phrase, since it is attributed to Barack Obama’s mother. Evidently, the young Obama was struggling in school, and his mother decided to wake him up at 4:30 a.m. to tutor him. When he complained about getting up so early in the morning, her comment was “This is no picnic for me either, buster.” Brooks points out the two traits in this scenario that are necessary for academic success: relationship and rigor.

This anecdote reminded me of my father and the kinds of sacrifices he and my mother made in raising my sister and me. I look back now and see that the quality of the relationship they had with us and the rigor they put us through helped us to value the results that come from working hard and challenging ourselves. We were encouraged to make a contribution to the greater good, and my parents tried to set an example by doing the same in their own lives.

I recall my father driving many hours to some historical spot in New England, while my sister and I complained bitterly in the back seat, wanting to be anywhere but in a hot, muggy Plymouth station wagon, searching for the exact spot where some historical battle had taken place that was key to this country’s success in winning the Revolutionary War.

Once Dad found the spot, he stood on the grassy knoll in his Bermuda shorts, black socks and wingtip shoes and narrated the story of what had happened there and why it was so important in winning our freedom from the British.

I can still hear him say, with great passion, “Just think about it: Right here, our soldiers pushed the British back and held their position. If it hadn’t been for that resistance, we might not have the right to vote!”

We thought he was weird back then. We rolled our eyes as he spoke and hoped we could soon drive to the nearest ice cream parlor for some relief. But years later, when I was sitting in a history exam, it was that particular battle that I wrote about, with so much eloquence I got an A for my final grade. At that moment, I greatly appreciated my father’s rigorous efforts to try to teach my sister and me experientially, rather than just telling us to read the next chapter in a history book.

My experience in coaching and training has taught me that relationship and rigor are fundamental to the success of anyone’s personal and professional development. Many managers insist that their team members attend training, but if the managers don’t create a strong relationship with them and have a rigorous way of helping them apply that training in their day-to-day jobs, the training is lost and the dollars misspent.

Your challenge this week is to focus on creating better relationships with your people and finding rigorous ways to help them engage more fully in their jobs. Part of this effort is letting people know that there are consequences to their actions. In my father’s case, he would often quiz us after one of our outings (over food, thank God) about what we remembered. The positive reinforcement we received from both of our parents when we came up with the right answer was reward enough. And, conversely, if we spaced out and allowed our bad attitudes to prevent us from paying attention, the follow-up conversation was not a fun experience, and we inevitably felt stupid and left out.

In working with team members, many rewards come from adding extra rigor to the way things get done. How about setting stretch goals for your team members and checking in with them each day to see whether they’re going above and beyond what’s normally expected? Maybe you create a competition so that people are rewarded for thinking of new ways to use a product or service. Perhaps it’s time to take them out of the office and engage them in a team activity so they come back the next day refreshed and willing to re-engage after having had a different way of connecting with each other.

In the end, working hard, being held accountable, and getting recognition for the results of that hard work make everyone on the team happy. But it’s an even more enriching experience if the people you work for take a passionate interest in you, and invest in your success by showing you how deeply they care about your continuous improvement. Statistics show that when times get tough, people naturally come together to help and support each other. The smart companies I work with are using our current economic hard times to strengthen their one-on-one relationships with their team members and putting more energy into challenging them to do a better job.

In the case of Obama’s mother, we see that she cared passionately about his future and was willing to make the extra effort to help him realize that future. She was also disinclined to put up with any of his bellyaching about it. I think that attitude served him well.

Have a good week!

Kathleen

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

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

Good day, team,

As I was reviewing some of my earlier coach’s challenges today, I saw one I wrote in July 2007 that seems relevant for this past week. Here it is.

This morning I happened upon an article about Dr. Albert Ellis, a noted psychotherapist who died last week at 93. Dr. Ellis focused much of his psychotherapeutic treatments on action; that is, rather than overanalyzing everything, he encouraged his patients to take action regarding their emotional and psychological states by accepting who they were and not delving too deeply into the reasons why they were that way. He wrote more than 75 books with titles like “How to Stubbornly Refuse to Make Yourself Miserable About Anything,” “How to Keep People from Pushing Your Buttons” and “How to Make Yourself Happy and Remarkably Less Disturbable.”

Dr. Ellis’s advice reminds me of the importance of staying sane in our daily lives by dealing with the internal dictator that tries to tell us all sorts of ridiculous things. For example, some of us walk around all day with internal thoughts such as “I’ve got to do this. I’ve got to do that. I should have said this to that person. I need to be more like that. I ought to be more organized. I should be more attractive, intelligent, witty, popular and personable. I ought to be more assertive. I need to be less aggressive. I’ve got to speak up more. I really need to keep my mouth shut.” Some of us “should” on ourselves all day long!

This mind chatter makes us crazy. And if that’s the state of mind we harbor most of the day, we tend to project that same state onto others. It often takes the form of judgment and blame: “He should do this. He should do that. They ought to know better. They should treat us more fairly. She should be more sensitive. She ought to be more personable,” etc., etc.

This week, try to give yourself a break from thoughts and attitudes that lead you to continually judge and blame yourself and others. Ellis wrote, “Not all emotional disturbance stems from arrogant thinking, but most of it does. And when you demand that you must not have failings, you can also demand that you must not be neurotic…and this only makes you nuttier! Neurosis still comes mainly from you… . And you can choose to stop your nonsense and to stubbornly refuse to make yourself crazy about anything.”

Often the simple practice of trying to think of how we can serve others, either at home or at work, will take us out of the subject of “I am the center of the universe” and expand our thinking.

Continually thinking about myself provokes my arrogance. When I spend more time thinking about the well-being of others rather than entertaining thoughts about myself, I am a lot happier, and life is much more rewarding and interesting.

Have a great week!

Kathleen

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

Note: I’ll be on vacation next week, so there won’t be a challenge for the week of 3/9/09.

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

Good day, team,

I’m reading a wonderful book, “The Three Marriages: Reimagining Work, Self and Relationship,” by David Whyte. Here’s a quote that best describes what the book is about.

“We have the remarkable ability as human beings to fall in love with a person, a work, or even, at times, an idea of ourselves.” He asserts that our current understanding of work-life balance is too simplistic. The ways in which we think about our work, relationships and inner selves seem to frustrate and exhaust us. Whyte argues that it’s impossible to sacrifice any one of these aspects of our lives without causing deep psychological damage and invites us to examine each marriage with a fierce but affectionate eye. He explores these three parts of our lives with profound observations and conclusions that I’m finding eye-opening and provocative.

The conclusion Whyte comes to in Chapter 6, “Opening a Tidal Gate: The Pursuit of Work Through Difficulty, Doubt and Distraction,” is at the heart of this week’s challenge. He writes, “In building a work life, people who follow rules, written or unwritten, too closely and in an unimaginative way are often suffocated by those same rules and die by them, quite often unnoticed and very often unmourned.”

This conclusion spoke loudly to me as a coach. Many clients have come to me for guidance in finding a life, as though they’ve lost the life they had; they tell me they can’t remember the last time they felt any joy in their lives or that they’re feeling a depression so deep they seem to be completely lifeless.

One man has asked me to share his story in hopes of helping others. When I began working with him, he was no longer able to get out of his recliner. That is, he had reached a point in his life where all he did was go to work and then come home and return to his recliner in front of the television. His wife served him his dinner there, and he slept in it all night. He was beginning to worry that he might wake up one morning and not be able to convince himself to go to work, that he might stay in his recliner 24 hours a day and one day not be able to get out of it at all.

When I asked him questions about his work, he would often say, “Well, I just fly under the radar. No one really notices me, and I just go about my business and always follow the rules. I don’t make waves, and people just leave me alone.” And when I asked him what made him happy, he couldn’t remember.

This experience is not as unusual as you might think. By living our lives without any real desire, the fire within us dims and, eventually, can go out. If we’re always following the rules and not allowing our imagination to challenge the status quo, we disengage and our lives become stale.

It took my client awhile to remember when he had last felt genuine joy and happiness. These memories had become locked up and hidden under layers of always being responsible and reliable, always doing the right thing. As we worked together, he began to remember the joy he experienced when he went fishing as a young boy. When he spoke about those days, tears formed in his eyes and a smile spread across his face. I could see his desire begin to reawaken his heart.

My client began to use his vacation days to go fishing. At first, he went by himself, but after awhile he began to invite friends and colleagues. After awhile, he brought pictures of the fish he caught to put in his cubicle at work. His wife started learning about fish preparation and wines that go best with certain fish dishes. He even made up a sign at work that read “Gone fishing” when he needed quiet, concentrated time in his cubicle and didn’t want to be disturbed. His colleagues laughed at his quirkiness, but they were happy to see him re-engaged and no longer depressed. My client began to connect his work, his relationship and his inner self around his love of fishing, and it reignited his joy in life.

Today, he is semi-retired. In the summer, he works at a children’s camp where he teaches the kids to fish. During the rest of the year, he writes articles for fishing magazines when he’s not out fishing himself.

Your challenge this week? Don’t be afraid to build a work life that includes those things that keep your inner fire alive. Maybe you haven’t spoken your mind lately and feel the need to disagree and have your views heard. Experiencing a moment of your own courage can light your fire in an instant. Perhaps you love flowers: Make sure you have them on your desk where you can see them each day. How about challenging yourself to use your creative imagination to improve a project you’re working on, or suggesting to your team members that you all try taking a different approach to solving a problem? How about allowing yourself to fail or to be wrong just for the sake of experimentation? If necessary, spend some contemplative time figuring out what used to make you really happy and try incorporating that into your daily schedule.

As a child, I used to spend many hours in the basement dancing to all kinds of music. I made up steps and tried them out. Sometimes I would just turn circles; other times I would pretend I had a handsome dance partner who whisked me across the floor. Now when I’m feeling depressed, I plug in my i-Pod headphones and dance a few steps to lighten my load. It always works, and even if people see me, they don’t seem to mind.

“Follow your bliss,” counseled Joseph Campbell. And I say, once you know what it is, find a way to live it.

Have a good week!

Kathleen

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

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

Good day, team,

The title of this week’s challenge could be “Grateful for Less.” I’ll tell my story, and then you can decide.

Years ago I lived in Venice, Italy, for a year. I wanted to live in Europe for an extended period of time, in a place where the locals demanded that I speak their language, that had fine wine and excellent cuisine, great art, easy access to water, a place that would require me to live my day-to-day life differently. Venice was perfect.

Soon after I moved there, it became obvious to me that living in a place without automobiles was very different. You have to walk everywhere. Aside from the occasional water taxi, you are completely dependent on your body to get you from place to place. You also have to carry everything on your person. This not only keeps you in great shape, but it slows you down, limits the number of places you can get to within any given day and means that you try to purchase everything in small amounts. None of this going to the store and buying a jumbo box of anything. Because you have to carry it home, small is the perfect size.

I was also living without a washing machine or dryer (the Italians think that clothes dryers are unsanitary), so once a week I had to hand-wash all my clothes and hang them out the bathroom window where my clothesline hung. There is an art to hanging laundry in Venice, and if you live on the third floor of a 14th century building and you don’t get it right, your unmentionables end up in La Signora’s garden on the first floor. It’s a terrible way to get to know your neighbors, believe me.

Since there were no big supermarkets around and each store had its own specialty—the bread shop, the meat shop, the pasta shop, etc.—it took me awhile to figure out where I was going to get laundry detergent. After I had made many inquiries in broken Italian, my neighbor finally took pity on me and escorted me to the one store in my neighborhood that sold detergent. She warned me, “The detergent boat arrives on Wednesday late afternoon. First thing Thursday morning, you have to be here bright and early to get your box of detergent; otherwise, they’re sold out by noon and you have to wait another week.” Imagine how strange this was for me as an American. We can buy detergent 24 hours a day in any size box with a long list of choices—bleach, no bleach, liquid, powder—at the price point we want.

So early the next Thursday morning, I went down to the detergent shop. A line had already formed. I waited there thinking, “I can’t believe I’m doing this to buy soap,” and trying not to look impatient (most Italians think that all Americans are impatient). When I finally got into the shop, I saw the wall of detergent boxes. There was only one kind in one size, small by American standards, but good if you have to carry it home. I purchased my box of detergent and triumphantly headed for home. Accomplishing the simplest of things when you live in a foreign country is always a victory.

All year I repeated this ritual and actually began to appreciate the rhythm of the experience. It was like hearing a familiar piece of music, and each Thursday morning when I stood in that line, I felt like I belonged there.

One year later, I was back in Northern California after my year abroad. On my second day home, I was jet-lagged and shocked by how fast everything and everyone moved (especially the automobiles). I had no food and a suitcase full of dirty clothes, so I headed off to the grocery store.

I wandered into the nearest Safeway to make my purchases. Imagine how strange this was: The aisles in the store were wider than the streets I had walked in Venice. The store was the size of an entire Venetian neighborhood square, and the shelves were filled with huge amounts of everything. As I made it to the detergent section in a daze, I began to peruse the soap offerings on the shelves. There were so many kinds of detergent I could not possibly read all the specifics on each box, let alone make a choice. The entire experience began to make me anxious, and I started to cry. Finally, in the midst of all the boxes, I realized what a waste of time it was for me to read detergent boxes to compare ingredients and prices. How depressing and confusing! I quickly grabbed the box closest to me and made my way to the check-out.

As I fumbled in my pocket for a few dollars, the clerk asked me, “Did you find everything you needed?” I mumbled something obscene in Italian and quickly left the store.

What did I learn? That the experience of access does strange things to our psychology. We always tend to want more, but when we’re given too many choices, we get more and more confused and less satisfied with the results. There’s never enough, even when there’s so much that we can’t possibly use it all. The list of things we want to buy, improve, get a good deal on, etc., is never-ending, and so, as we acquire more and more, we become less and less satisfied.

Your challenge this week is to try living with less. Look at your stuff—in your garage, in your closet, in your office, in your refrigerator or kitchen cupboard. How much is there that you never use? And when you go to choose something, is it difficult to do because you have too many choices? Try limiting the amount of stuff you use this week and see what happens. Experiment by going to the store and buying the smallest amount of something and see how long it lasts. Two weeks ago I bought a jumbo bag of pretzels, because they were the best price. I’ve only eaten about a handful, and even though I’ve tried to keep the bag closed (by a special clip from Safeway designed to keep jumbo bags of stuff fresh), they’re now going stale.

The architect Mies van der Rohe pronounced that in buildings “Less is more.” I found out that maxim is also true for life in general. See what you think.

Have a good week!

Kathleen

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

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

Good day, team,

At the end of last year, I received a holiday card from one of the people who helped redesign my Web site. Her name is *Lyza, and among her many talents, she is also becoming an accomplished printer. I don’t mean digital printing, I mean learning how to print on an old press using traditional printing methods.

The card she sent was an example of her most recent project, and what a gift it was! It was a pleasure to hold it in my hand: Beautifully printed words on a vanilla-colored hard-stock paper with a nice look and feel.
As I read the message on the card, I recognized it as the work of Lao Tzu. In case you’re not familiar with him, Lao Tzu is considered the father of Chinese Taoism. He lived in the 6th century B.C.E. and is the author of the Tao Te Ching (The Book of Changes). If you’re not aware of him, I encourage you to read some of his writings. They are filled with timeless philosophical messages and beautiful poetry.

The card read:

True leaders
are hardly known to their followers.
Next after them are the leaders
the people know and admire;
after them, those they fear,
after them, those they despise.

To give no trust
is to get no trust.

When the work’s done right,
with no fuss or boasting,
ordinary people say,
Oh, we did it.

Lao Tzu (Verse 17 from the Tao Te Ching)

This interpretation comes from Ursula LeGuin, a famous contemporary author who lives here in Portland.

I read the card and I must admit, at first, I didn’t completely understand it. I understood the part about trust and those two lines were printed in red, so they jumped out at me. But the first two lines still puzzled me. So I put the card on my desk in a place where I’d see it each day and decided to wait until I had some time to actually think about it.

Today, I had some extra time to reread the card, and I finally did understand the message. But I also had to ask myself if the first two lines were true. I thought about the people I’ve known in my life whom I consider true leader and it dawned on me that there is some truth to these lines. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that they were not known by their followers, but these leaders were known to people in much more subtle ways than you would expect. That is, they didn’t come across as “the boss,” nor were they heavy-handed in any way. They didn’t elicit fear from or intimidate team members, and they were often not the greatest salespeople in the room. They just had a way about them that made other people want to be around them. And they were really good at making decisions that enabled the entire team to be involved in the process. I don’t mean they always achieved consensus, but people wanted to participate with them in whatever they were doing. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that generally everyone who knew them wanted to be a lot more like them.

True leaders inspire people to want to work, to want to be better, to want to get involved. They have a way of increasing our desire to be more than what we are, and they show us what we can become. If they do this in such a way that, in the end, the team gets the credit, then everybody comes out on top.

Your challenge this week is to identify what leadership qualities you have and how your qualities benefit others. If you’re in a leadership position, how would the people who report to you describe you? Would they say that they fear you? Or maybe they would say that they admire you. Do you trust the people who work for you? Do you trust the people you work for and with? Do you notice that when you don’t trust people, they’re leery of you as well? How often do all the team members feel that they’ve been an integral part of your company or project’s success because, as their leader, you inspired them to fully engage?

This week, try focusing on your leadership qualities and skills. Find out how much of the work is about you and how much is about the team. Be honest with yourself. Try moving out of your comfort zone by trusting people you’re not exactly sure about and see if it helps the relationship you have with them. I think we can all strive, as Lao Tzu said, to feel that sense of mutual success “When the works done right, with no fuss or boasting.”

Have a good week!

Kathleen

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

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

* Many thanks to Lyza Danger Gardner with Cloud Four for sending me the card and inspiring me to write this challenge. To see the card, click on this link: http://flickr.com/photos/lyza/3105948822/in/set-72157607176565799/.