Category: Life Lessons

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

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

You may view this post online at
http://www.kathleendw.local/2010/02/28/coachs-challenge-for-3110/

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

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3/1/10

Good day, team,

Here’s a challenge I wrote awhile ago that I am republishing in honor of the Chinese New Year.

My inspiration comes from the I-Ching, or Book of Changes, which is a Chinese text of philosophy and divination written more than 5,000 years ago. It is organized in hexagrams, or patterns of six broken and unbroken lines. Here is hexagram 49-KO:

“No revolution in outer things is possible without prior revolution in one’s inner way of being. Whatever change you aspire to in your affairs must be preceded by a change in heart, an active deepening and strengthening of your resolve to meet every event with equanimity, detachment and innocent goodwill. When this spiritual poise is achieved within, magnificent things are possible without.”

I have seen the truth of this statement in myself and others. We often make the mistake of thinking that if we could just change our external circumstances, everything would be so much better. If we just had a different job or boss, if we could just live where there’s more opportunity, have a different partner, or more affordable housing, life would be so much more to our liking and we would do a better job of it.

However, real change does not occur from the outside in, but rather, from the inside out. Connecting with and sustaining what is most true within us, listening to our conscience, and having integrity in what we do and how we do it, allows us to find true peace and happiness.

When I relocated to Portland in 1998, I had high hopes of setting up my new life to be happier. But before long, I realized I had brought all of my baggage from California with me, both external and internal. Imagine my chagrin when I discovered that all the internal baggage I had hoped to leave behind was still with me!

For example, I had this notion that the only person I really knew in Portland didn’t want to be friends with me. This was based on some old events from when we were both living in California. I still had some embarrassment about what had happened and convinced myself that because of it, I couldn’t contact her when I moved to town. I didn’t allow myself to even consider that she might want to strike up our friendship again. Much to my surprise, when I ran into her at a store downtown, she was very open and friendly and happy to hear that I had relocated. We began to see each other and eventually talked about past events. She had moved beyond it and had forgiven herself and me. I, on the other hand, had hauled that old baggage up to Oregon with me and talked myself out of a perfectly good friendship. If I wanted to move past it, I had to change my heart and my attitude so that I could let go of the old emotional baggage and be open to a new
relationship with her.

Your challenge this week is to consider what revolution needs to occur in your inner way of being. Are you holding on to some inner baggage that no longer serves you? Perhaps you’re still carrying around anger or resentment about a colleague, even though the situation that caused it is no longer relevant. If you find yourself reacting in the same way to a familiar situation and want to react differently, why not resolve to change how you respond in the future and act upon that vow?

“Joy is not in things, it is in us,” wrote Richard Wagner, the 19th-century German composer and essayist. When we realize that external changes don’t make us happy and instead learn to adjust our internal state, we begin to know the secret of our true nature, which is sufficient unto itself.

Have a great week!

Kathleen

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

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

2/15/10 “Sales”

Good day, team,

This week’s challenge comes from my good friend Jan Foster. She’s the best salesperson I’ve ever known, and so when she sends me anything, I pay attention!

The following is from the article “Building Business” by Leo MacLeod, published in the Jan. 25, 2010, Daily Journal of Commerce.

“During an interview after the University of Oregon beat Oregon State in the Civil War, running back LaMichael James attributed the Ducks’ successful season to “watering the bamboo.” Reporters were stymied by the reference, but in the next room coach Chip Kelly was making it clear: “If you water bamboo in the first year, nothing happens. If you water it in the second year, nothing happens. If you water it in the third year, nothing happens. If you water it in the fourth year, it grows 90 feet in six weeks. You have to keep driving, keep paying, and it will pay off in the long run. And that’s what those guys understand.”

Earlier in the season, Kelly had read “Water the Bamboo,” a book by Greg Bell, a Portland author, speaker and corporate trainer (www.waterthebamboo.com). The Ducks fully embraced Bell’s philosophy, which is a metaphor for patience, persistence and hard work.

What does this metaphor have to do with business development for the built industry? Everything: “The quality of your bamboo will be determined by the quality of your relationships.” Most of the time, consultants and contractors wear themselves out answering requests for proposals. This is still a people business, and people buy from people they like and trust. If you want to grow, nurture your relationships. Get out of the office and reconnect with people. Friends, like plants, require constant attention. Don’t believe that once you’ve grown your network, it will thrive on its own.

Here’s a simple test: Write down the five best champions of your business. When was the last time you thanked them? When was the last time you even called? Effective marketing is not just pumping out proposals. Take care of your vital relationships—they are the roots of your business.

As with giant timber bamboo, it’s common to put time into developing new relationships without any signs of progress or interest. Push your agenda too quickly and you cut off the roots. Be patient and water, and time does the work.

A sales manager of a $200 million design firm religiously called on prospects every month, regardless of their interest. One prospective customer told him, “You know, I need to see you a certain number of times before I’ll do business with you.” The sales manager asked, “How many times is that?” “Maybe you’ll find out,” the potential client answered.

That’s a great story about what it takes to earn trust. Most of us are suspicious of marketing in any form, especially when it’s sporadic and unfocused. Think about what it says about your character, persistence and trustworthiness if you faithfully call on a prospect every month for a year, or even two years? What if you coupled that with a keen interest in that prospect’s business, taking the time to research the situation? After awhile you look less like a self-serving salesperson and more like a potential long-term partner.

In the built industry, there’s a tremendous amount of risk riding on projects, especially these days. There’s a tendency to give up too quickly on the long-term investment needed to build trustworthy relationships.

Author Ford Harding of Creating Rainmakers studied more than 100 rainmakers and found that the only thing they had in common was discipline to stay in contact with their leads. What if the bamboo farmer had simply walked away one day short of seeing all his efforts pay off? Ask yourself if you have waited long enough for the right relationships to grow strong roots. Or did you pull the plug too soon because you didn’t see immediate payback?

“Practice makes permanent.”

The more you work on sales and building your network, the more successful you will become, guaranteed. There’s no seminar or book that will give you the answers. It’s not about being a super salesperson. It’s also not about simply going through the motions of meeting with people.

Bell talks about the importance of “deliberate practice.” He studied the NFL’s Adam Vinatieri, the first kicker to play in five Super Bowls and win four. He practices so seriously that he videotapes every single kick. He pipes in the loudest crowd noise you would find in any stadium. He puts himself in such severe practice conditions that he’s ready for any game kick he faces. That’s dedication to a program.

Do you want to be a better listener? Practice effective listening all the time. Do you want to be a more persuasive presenter at competitive interviews? Don’t wait until the day before to practice. Commit to repeatedly rehearsing what you will say and how you will say it. Bill Gates, Mozart and Michael Jordan all “watered their bamboo.” If you want to be a better marketer, there are no shortcuts to success. Put in the time, starting today.

“Don’t water alone.”

Let’s be honest: the main reason that people don’t put the time into sales or marketing is because they would rather have a root canal. There are a handful of people who actually relish it, but most professionals harbor some resentment that the work won’t come in the door if they simply deliver solid construction documents or a completed punch list. They also know that business development is necessary for success, if not survival.

The good news is that you have plenty of company with like-minded people. Don’t make networking and sales calls a solitary task if you don’t savor it: Bring along a colleague or join a group. Find a way to make it more engaging and rewarding. Bell has created “bamboo circles” of people who realize that they can’t successfully overcome natural resistance to the hard work required without the support and encouragement of others.

So why didn’t the “water the bamboo” philosophy secure a Rose Bowl victory for the Ducks? Bell is quick to point out that this is only Kelly’s first year as head coach and only third year with the Ducks. It’s the fourth year when the bamboo really takes off. If you want results, you have to put in the work, whether it’s on the field or in the office.”

This week, challenge yourself to contact directly five people whom you’ve done business with in the past or had on your list of folks to contact for the first time. Don’t be afraid to make that cold call or remind a former client of your current product or service. If you manage sales people, ask them make the contacts this week. “Your business will grow only as a result of the care, feeding and attention you give it, just like Coach Kelly’s bamboo!

Have a good week!

Kathleen

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

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

2/8/10 “Hunger”

Good day, team,

This week’s challenge is about hunger, as in hungering for something you don’t have. We all understand the typical use of this word as it relates to food. I want to address the spiritual or emotional hunger that can create so much longing within us we will change our entire lives to satiate it. So what is it? Good question. It’s hard to describe what is not tangible, is invisible, seems to come out of nowhere at any time it chooses and is almost impossible to understand with the logical mind.

It can be a longing to belong, a deep desire to be loved, a strong sense that what you’re doing in life doesn’t align with your inner values, an itch you can’t scratch, a purpose unfulfilled, a strong conviction that you must do something about this thing you can’t even describe. I could go on, but many of us know exactly what I’m talking about. And we know the experience of this intuition or conscience—for lack of better words to describe what’s actually happening–how it can awaken us in the middle of the night with a pain in our hearts so devastating we can barely breathe.

Last week, I went to see “Avatar,” and the film went right to the phenomenon I am describing: A man is involved in a project that will result in the extermination of the peaceful beings he ends up living with on another planet. In the course of the movie, he finds his true values and becomes more and more hungry to align his actions with his deepest feelings and beliefs.

I even experienced some of the hunger myself when I walked out of the theater. For more than two hours I was immersed in lush landscapes full of neon colored lights, beautiful background music, and tall, slim, bluish-green people who had a special connection to and appreciation of all sentient beings. I was hit by a deep hunger as I re-entered four city blocks of parking lot next to a shopping mall under grey skies. Who would prefer to live here, I thought. How do I get to that paradise? I was hungry to return to fairyland.

The next morning I read that huge numbers of people around the world have seen this film, many of them more than once. Are they just attracted to the special effects? The storyline is not extraordinary, and the acting is pretty average. What it is about this film that appeals to so many people so deeply? What are they hungering for?

The article went on to say that many of the people who have gone to see the film are experiencing a sort of after-“Avatar” depression. They want what that colorful, beautiful, peaceful place full of beings who make profound heart-felt connections with each other have, and they can’t seem to find it here. That world full of love and light must be so central to our true nature that when it’s represented in a work of art, we gravitate to it.

This week, see what you’re truly hungry for and try doing something about it. We can create a more “Avatar”-like world by expanding our own hearts and having the courage to embrace what we desire. Years ago, I volunteered for the SMART reading program. It fed me in a way that nothing else has since. I miss the emotional food that I received from the loving children I read to each week. Thirteen years ago I changed career paths. I took that leap of faith to be able to do something for a living that was in better alignment with my inner values. Soon after I moved to Portland, I determined to meet people and made myself go to a particular coffee shop in Portland where I would start chatting with someone who looked like they also wanted to make new friends. Sometimes people were annoyed but other times, people welcomed my reaching out to them. With this little bit of courage, I was rewarded with new friends and a richer emotional life. I couldn’t let fear prevent me from expanding my life.

One of my clients pulled himself out of the depths of depression, (both the one he experienced emotionally and the one he left on the seat of his recliner that he escaped to daily). He identified his hunger and changed his life to find that inner joy he had lost touch with. After 15 years of going to the same job, sitting in the same cubicle, doing the same programming job, he found what rekindled his joy and now takes people fishing six months out of the year and does programming the other six months. He had the courage to face that gnawing in the pit of his stomach and created a better way to live his life that offered him the peace and tranquility of nature and an opportunity to share it with others. Is he happier? Without question.I think he saved his life.

As he said to me recently, “I’m not sure I even know who that guy was who hid in the recliner in front of the t.v. every night. My life has changed so completely and I’m so much more satisfied, it seems like someone from another life.”

Have a good week!

Kathleen

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

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

1/25/10- “Beauty”

Good day, team,

This week’s challenge is about beauty: beauty in what we see, beauty in what we do, how we perceive beauty and the effect it has upon us.

I was thinking about this subject today because it was an incredibly beautiful day. I live in the Pacific Northwest, and days of brilliant blue sky and bright sunshine are few and far between from November to June. It’s a long, painful stretch of grey days, often with continuous rain or at least consistently cloudy skies. We do our best to combat the depression that can often come from day after day of rain, but there’s no doubt, it takes a toll on most of us. Even the most avid rain lovers start to complain when even at the end of May, it’s only 45 degrees and still raining.

Today it was 54 degrees and completely clear. I marveled at how blue the sky was, how bright the reflection of the sun on the water, the added lift the warmth gave to every person I saw who was walking around without a jacket or coat, secretly smiling to themselves, thinking that maybe spring was not so far away. All of this right smack dab in the middle of January. Miracles never cease.

Before that day, I had been a bit depressed by recent events: the death and destruction in Haiti, the recent Supreme Court ruling about corporate funding for political campaigns, mud slides in California, the health care bill seeming farther away than ever from passage, the occasional grief that still surfaces in me about my father’s death. I began to feel that the few forward steps we were all able to take last year had gotten reversed and we had been losing ground since Jan. 1.

Today was the complete opposite of that drudgery and depression because the sheer beauty of it lifted me far beyond the doldrums I has been experiencing. This is the true miracle of beauty: It fills us up to new heights, it inspires us, it makes us grateful in a moment for the pleasure we are experiencing.

Years ago, I was sitting in a restaurant with a boyfriend of mine. There just happened to be many beautiful women in the restaurant that evening, and it was almost impossible not to gaze at their faces, their bodies, the way they moved, what they were wearing. Whether you were male or female, you could not ignore the beautiful sights in the room. At one point, I became a little embarrassed that I was staring at a woman whose beautiful face was truly amazing to see. I said to my boyfriend, “Well, a thing of beauty is a joy forever.” He gave me an appreciative smile and said, “No kidding!”

At that moment, a fairly homely woman came into the restaurant. I felt a little sorry for her. She was the ugly ducking amidst the beautiful swans. My boyfriend looked at her and said, “Isn’t it amazing? I’ve never looked at a woman who I couldn’t find in some way beautiful. Look at that woman’s nose: It’s perfectly shaped.” I couldn’t believe his comment. In all that beauty, he was commenting on the homeliest woman in the room. But when I looked at her more closely, I saw that she did have an incredibly beautiful nose.

This week, try noticing the beauty around you. Maybe it’s the curve of someone’s arm or the way a person’s eyes light up when smiling. Perhaps you see the beauty in the face of your spouse as he or she asks you how your day went, or your child’s particular way of showing you love. Try looking out the window more than a few times this week. Even in winter there is beauty: the shape of tree limbs without leaves, the way water reflects many different shades of grey or blue, how fire and heat glow in the fireplace. Perhaps you’ll notice the steam that rises from a freshly brewed cup of coffee or tea and the beautiful patterns it makes as it curls up into the air.

If you haven’t done so in awhile, go to a place that showcases beauty, like an art museum or a park. Find your way to a place that fills you up with its beauty and be thankful for it. Sometimes to lift my spirits I walk into a florist shop and breathe in the lovely scents and gaze at the pretty arrangements.

Confucius said, “Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.” Try noticing the beauty around you this week. I guarantee you, it will change your state and your attitude for the better.

Have a good week.

Kathleen

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

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

1/18/10

Good day, team,

Toward the end of last year, I asked some of my clients to answer three questions in preparation for 2010. Answering these questions is a useful exercise at the beginning of a new year, since they force us to focus on what we want to let go of and what we want more of in our professional and personal lives.

Here are the questions I posed:

1) What would you like to do differently this year (old habits you’d prefer not to repeat; dealing with something you avoided last year; creating an opportunity to innovate)?

2) What would you like more of in your professional life? What do you need to do to get it?

3) What would you like more of in your personal life? What do you need to do to get it?

I also recently read a Harvard Business Review blog (http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/01/three_questions_executives_sho.html) that posed three other good questions:

1) If there was only one thing I could do to improve my business, what would it be and how would I make it happen?

2) If there was only one thing I could focus on to improve my personal performance, what would that be and how would I make it happen?

3) What messages am I not listening to or refusing to confront in my business and personal performance and how am I going to overcome that this year?

If we pause to reflect before embarking on a new beginning, we give ourselves a chance to make better, more intentional decisions about direction, goals and courses of action. We are often so busy with our day-to-day tasks that we don’t rise above the daily to-do list to get a broader viewpoint. These questions require us to think through what’s come before as a springboard for creating a road map for the future. We can review, compare, contrast and analyze possibilities to make important distinctions and, from that insight, better decisions about how to move forward.

If you haven’t done so already, this week ask yourself a few of the above-mentioned questions. The HBR blog encourages the following approach:

“I suggest real interaction with these questions. Don’t just think about them for a minute and then put them aside. Write out answers. Commit to what you’ve written down, and start the year off well.”

Writing your answers down is an excellent way to see if you’re being truthful with yourself. It also encourages more commitment to do what you say you want to do.

January is one of the few times we can demarcate a new start: It’s an opportunity to renew and refresh. Take advantage of this new beginning and ask yourself some good questions. You’ll have a chance to live the questions and the answers all year long.

Have a good week.

Kathleen

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

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

1/11/10

Good day, team,

I fully intended to write a challenge last weekend, but with the death of my father I found myself in a state of silence. Grief stopped me in my tracks, and I made every attempt to stay in the silence it rendered.

There is much to be said about my father. This past week I reviewed the coach’s challenges where I’ve referred to him, and there are many stories, lessons and pieces of wisdom that I attributed to him. But when I think of my father, I realize that he was above all else an exceptional storyteller. And so this challenge is dedicated to my dad and the power of story.

The Institute for Co-Intelligence defines the power of story as follows:

“Stories are more than dramas people tell or read. Story, as a pattern, is a powerful way of organizing and sharing individual experience and exploring and co-creating shared realities. It forms one of the underlying structures of reality, comprehensible and responsive to those who possess what we call narrative intelligence.”

When I was growing up, my father’s storytelling abilities really shined on Saturday afternoons where he told stories to me, my sister and our friends. Our home was the place all of our friends wanted to hang out. My sister and I felt lucky and proud to have parents who were not particularly strict, were open-minded, and seemed to have a great appreciation for what young people were interested in.

My father would sit around the dining room table and tell stories about battles fought during the Civil War (a subject that most teens in the 1960s and 70s would be totally bored by) to an audience who hung on his every word. It was as though we could hear the musket fire or see the sunset over the battlefield. Sometimes he would talk about Socrates, or Leonardo, or baseball, or music or poetry and how these people and things had taught him significant lessons about life. He was a great lover of science fiction, and so there were Saturday afternoons when he would set up a crude solar system—constructed of toothpicks and styrofoam balls—in the middle of the dining room table so we could explore ideas about our universe.

When we gathered with family and friends, my father would often entertain us with off-color limericks that he could recite with perfect accents and timing. We laughed so hard that tears streamed down our faces. On All Hallow’s Eve, he would tell scary stories by dim candlelight that sent my girlfriends and me jumping out of our seats and into each other’s arms for safety. A good Edgar Allen Poe story recited by my dad was not to be missed. Years later, when my dad and his wife, Barbara, ran a bed and breakfast in New Hampshire, many of the guests would remark that yes, the inn was very nice and Barbara’s breakfasts were to die for, but it was Ted’s stories they would go back for year after year. Whatever the subject, my dad had a way of bringing it to life.

I have learned in my personal and business life that storytelling is essential in communicating ideas. Often people don’t understand a concept unless you reframe it in a story they can relate to. Stories help us define our lives and make sense of complicated situations. They allow us to tell the truth about ourselves in such a way that we can be entertained by what might be too painful to admit outright. They give us a way to interpret our lives.

While storytelling serves many noble purposes, it also has a dark side. Stories can be used to mask the truth, to help rationalize destructive or careless actions, to make someone else the bad guy. Over the last decade, I’ve realized that many of the stories my father and I had been telling about each other were not true. These stories were made up from painful interactions, imagined malicious intentions, misunderstandings and inaccurate interpretations of events.

With the help of my stepmother and husband, my father and I set out over the past decade to rewrite some of these stories and reach a new understanding based on love and compassion. We were not always successful, but we did close the chapters on many stories that were never true, but had been given life by our retelling of them over the years.

As a coach, I see my clients tell stories about themselves that are not true and serve no positive purpose. Perhaps they were true at one point in their lives. But an obsolete story, retold to themselves and others, has outlived its usefulness. I often suggest that they change their story to one that serves them, rather than continuing to tell a story that diminishes them. By changing their story, they change their lives.

In his book “The Power of Story,” Dr. Jim Loehr shares this insight:

“Telling ourselves stories provides structure and direction as we navigate life’s challenges and opportunities, and helps us interpret our goals and skills. Stories make sense of chaos; they organize our many divergent experiences into a coherent thread; they shape our entire reality. [Yet] far too many of our stories are dysfunctional, in need of serious editing.”

Your challenge this week is to hear the stories you tell yourself about yourself and others and to stop telling the ones that no longer serve you. Perhaps you work with someone who irritates you: Do you tell stories about that person which put him or her in a negative light? Maybe you tell yourself you can’t do this or that: Is it true?

One of my clients just decided to take a drawing class because she’s been hearing a story in her head for 25 years about not being able to draw. Evidently, in high school, one of her art teachers told her she couldn’t draw well, and she’s been repeating that story to herself ever since.

You may be telling yourself a story that puts someone on a pedestal or portrays her or him as super-human. That perception is sure to fall apart eventually. No one can stay on a pedestal for long. Or maybe you’re just telling yourself stories about family members that are no longer true. Forgive or seek forgiveness. You might be able to finally release these myths.

Over the last year, as my father’s dementia increased, he lost his ability to speak. The great storyteller was finally silent. How much this pained him only he can know. But I understood that my father told stories to hold people’s attention. Perhaps he worried that people would stop loving him if he lost that ability. I like to think that one of the miracles of my father’s illness was he could finally see that people loved him when he told stories, and they continued to love him when he no longer could. It really wasn’t about the stories at all but the storyteller himself.

For me, part of the grace of my father’s death is that now all of the stories are just that: stories. It’s a great relief to release all the tales of shame and guilt, pain and suffering, just as much as it’s a delight to remember those of joy and sharing, love and compassion.

This week, choose the stories that serve you best. You do have a choice: It’s just a matter of seeing the story for what it is, just a story, and then deciding whether or not you want to keep telling it.

Have a good week!

Kathleen

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

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

12/7/09

Good day, team,

This will be the last challenge for 2009, and as I write it, I’ve been reflecting on the opportunities this year has presented. From small business owners to employees of large companies, no one was exempt from the huge challenges the poor economy created for us.

Many of my clients understood they could no longer do business as they had been used to doing for many years. Their management skills seemed to be sorely lacking when it came to motivating a workforce faced with layoffs and no promotions or bonuses, as well as their inability to hire new talent. The fear of losing their best people, who were now working overtime to cover multiple functions, continued to weigh heavily on them, and keeping sales up and expenses down was the order of the day.

In my case, the first six months of 2009 were the worst I’ve experienced in the 17 years I’ve been in business. Ironically, this circumstance forced me to think creatively, and I’m now seeing that by being more open-minded and venturesome, doors have opened for me that I had never considered. As human beings, we are extremely adaptable, and when it comes to figuring out what to do to survive, we can be very inventive.

Maybe this was the year in which you got a new job or went back to school to learn a new set of skills. I applaud you if this is the case. We generally hang on to our current jobs or stay in whatever our familiar situation is when times get tough, no matter how bad they are. Changing in the midst of insecure times is particularly difficult, but the rewards can be great if we have the courage to move in the right direction, even when it seems like the wrong time to do it.

It helps to remember that change is not just one thing, but actually three things: endings, transitions and beginnings. When we change, we always give something up. The loss is often painful, but it also creates space from which something new can emerge. Transitions are usually where the most opportunity arises for us, since we’ve let go of the past and are not yet quite in the future. It’s the scariest phase, but the most exciting! And beginnings are full of all those unknowns that we hoped or dreamed about as we moved through the transition phase. It’s important to remain aware in every stage, because each is distinct and evokes many different emotions and thoughts as conditions, demands and even people change around us.

As this year comes to a close, take some time to reflect on what it has required of you. Think about what you’ve learned and had to put into play. Perhaps you’ve refreshed some of your old ways of doing things. Maybe you’ve become more innovative and benefited by having to re-create your business model. I have a client who decided that the only way to drum up more business was to make many more cold calls. Like most of us, he hates this task, but his business is actually growing right now because of his extra effort.

Whatever the case may be, take time to reflect on what the challenges of this past year have been and how you’ve dealt with them. Give yourself credit for having done the best you could in difficult circumstances. Show your appreciation to the people you’ve worked with during these trying times and don’t forget to be grateful to your friends and family for being supportive when you needed them most. The holidays give all of us a much needed break and many chances to be with loved ones in positive surroundings. Take advantage of these moments and look to the new year with renewed hope that 2010 might bring all of us the peace and prosperity we seek.

Have a good week and Happy Holidays!

Kathleen

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

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