Walt Hampton, J.D.

Creating the Work & Life You LOVE

It Will Hit The Fan

by Walt | May 9, 2024 | Success | 0 Comments

It happens all the time.

Things go wrong.

The car breaks down; the power fails; and the basement floods.

Your key employee gets sick; the copier breaks; and your computers are hacked.

What will you do?

Do you know?

Because here’s the truth: things will go wrong. The shit will hit the fan.

Finland has a government commission. Its job is to imagine everything that could go wrong. It meets once a month and prepares for the imagined disaster: chemical spills; fuel shortages; power grid failures; and natural disasters of all shapes and sizes.

A number of years ago, before 2019, the Finnish commission imagined a respiratory disease pandemic. Finland was ready for Covid.

Fires, earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, and blizzards happen with some regularity. Yet many countries, communities, and businesses are blindsided. Again and again.

Ann and I are Wilderness First Responders. Every two years, we re-certify our training. Because when we’re out in the backcountry, deep in the wilderness, high on a mountain, the consequences of not knowing what to do when things go wrong are pretty significant.

We imagine scenarios and talk through how we’ll handle them. We keep a robust med kit in our backpacks and in the car.

In business, we know that the computers will go down, the internet will get wonky, the websites will get corrupted, that the SaaS will go bump in the night.

Do we like it when it happens?

Of course not.

It may throw us off our game. But it doesn’t shock us.

Because we’ve got a plan; and a process.

Because shit happens.

What can you imagine might go wrong in your biz?

What can you do to get ready?

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Growing and scaling a business means creating systems and processes that not only will make your day-to-day life much easier, but also creating systems and processes that will allow you to be prepared for when things go wrong. We can help. We have an extraordinary team of businesses coaches. Email me: walt@summit-success.com

The Final Frontier

by Walt | May 2, 2024 | Success | 4 Comments

I’ve been puttering in my garden. I love my garden. But I find puttering to be a challenge.

You see, I’m a big believer in action: Doing, achieving, accomplishing; moving like a shark lest I perish from inertia.

Steeped, as I am, in the cultural paradigm that, in order to succeed, I need to work longer, harder, and faster, it is difficult for me to slow down.

Puttering sometimes seems aimless; pointless; and wasteful.

But it’s not.

By puttering, I open up space for myself. I allow my mind to relax. I give myself the opportunity to think, reflect, create… and be.

Just be.

Every business leader we consult with, and every professional we coach wants more time; they want – they yearn – for space.

The greatest crisis of our age is not terror in the world; it is the terror that we allow within ourselves.

The greatest crisis of our age is not that we don’t have enough, but that we have too much: too much information; too much noise; too much stimulation; too much to do.

The greatest crisis of our age is that we have lost touch with that place of quiet, that still points within us.

We’ve lost the capacity to sit still, to be still, to know the beauty and the grandeur of the here and now.

We’ve lost the capacity to be: To just be.

When you give yourself the gift of quiet, when you open up that space, your sense of possibility expands. You see the opportunities that you miss when you are racing to that imaginary finish line.

When you allow your mind – and your body – to relax – ideas flourish, insight lights, and you create the ground for moments of “ah-ha.”

Commander Mark Divine, author of The Way of the Seal, teaches that we need the power of silence in order “to set the conditions to win.”

“Silence creates the space for you to think and thus see reality more clearly.”

“If you’ve ever noticed how good you feel after coming out of nature after an extended stay without your cell phone and laptop,” writes Devine, “here’s the reason why: It’s because you’ve slowed down enough to quiet your outer mind, allowing your inner wisdom to poke it’s head out a bit.”

And it is that inner wisdom that truly sets you apart; that allows you to excel and truly succeed at extraordinary levels.

Habit 7 in Stephen Covey’s celebrated business classic, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is Sharpen the Saw. “Sharpen the Saw means preserving and enhancing the greatest asset you have—you,” Covey said.

Self-care, self-renewal.

Opening up space.

Puttering.

Lost In The Museum

by Walt | Apr 25, 2024 | Success | 0 Comments

It’s one of the great museums in the world: the Uffizi in Florence, Italy. Filled with some of the most famous works on the planet by some of the most extraordinary artists to have ever lived, like Raphael, Sandro Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Titian, and Michelangelo.

I went there and wandered around for an entire day. But I missed a LOT of the good stuff.

Because I didn’t have a guide.

A guide would have made the entire experience so much better. A guide would have known where to go and when to go; where the secret nooks and crannies were; where the underappreciated pieces were hidden. A guide would have had that deep knowledge and perspective that would have enriched and enlivened all of it.

I told myself that I was smart and didn’t need a guide.

I was wrong.

A wise guide is essential.

In a grand museum.

In business and in life too.

A coach is that wise guide who can help navigate the myriad challenges of a busy professional career, the roller coaster of entrepreneurship, and the inevitable upheavals that come in times of change.

A coach knows the pitfalls for the unwary; the scary places to avoid; and where the hidden gems are hidden.

A coach is that sounding board with that knowledge and perspective that we all need.

And when things are bleak, and it all seems dark and foreboding, a coach will light the way for you.

Life is better with a coach.

We have some of the best coaches on the planet.

Isn’t it time you had one?

I should have known better at the Uffizi. Good coaches have coaches. I’ve had a coach for the last 16 years. I know how good it is to have a wise guide. Email me. Want to see if the time is right for you to have a coach? Email me walt@summit-success.com

When The Madness Stopped

by Walt | Apr 18, 2024 | Journeys | 0 Comments

The horrific conflict in the Middle East. Russia. Ukraine. Iran. Climate crisis. Reproductive rights. Racism. Economic strife. Cultural unrest. Political rancor.

Nonstop doom.

Except. For a moment last week. A very brief moment.

It stopped. Across a large swath of the United States, it stopped.

The awe and wonder of the total eclipse of the sun.

In the stillness of the eclipse, the usual cacophony of societal noise—traffic, chatter, the omnipresent buzz of the digital—was overtaken by a collective silence. It was as if the earth itself had inhaled and held its breath, uniting everyone in a spell of tranquility. This pause was not just a break from the sun’s rays but from the relentless divisions that often define our days.

A reminder of our shared home. A reminder that we are all passengers on the same planetary spaceship, dependent on the same air, the same water, and the same fragile sphere.

Despite it all; despite the vast diversity of cultures, languages, and beliefs, there exists a fundamental human instinct to connect, to understand, and to appreciate the mystery and beauty of the universe. The eclipse was a natural magnet that pulled us from our individual orbits into a sacred, shared experience.

The challenge, of course, lies in harnessing that brief unity that we felt into sustained action. If we can stand together and look up in wonder, can we not also face our global challenges with the same solidarity?

Imagine what could be possible if the spirit of the eclipse could inform our everyday interactions. This isn’t about erasing our differences but about emphasizing our commonalities—the dreams, hopes, and fears that we all share. It’s about recognizing that, like the sun and the moon, we too can align in ways that are both beautiful and transformative.

Perhaps we take inspiration from the sky and remember that beneath the temporary shadows, we humans have the potential to find enduring light. Let’s not wait for the next eclipse to find reasons to come together. Every day offers us opportunities to bridge gaps, build understanding, and foster unity. It is crucial, now more than ever, that we lean into this potential, seeing not just with our eyes but with our hearts and minds. Together, under one sky, there’s no limit to what we can achieve.

Peace to you.

Taking The Easy Way

by Walt | Apr 11, 2024 | Success | 0 Comments

I was out on the rock face at about 11,000′ enjoying the view. The climbing was fairly straightforward, and flowed easily, even though I didn’t know the way.

My climbing partner was 100 yards below me and to my left in a narrow cleft. He was trying a different approach and it wasn’t going well. I could hear him grunt… and swear from time to time. And occasionally I’d hear the scatter of rockfall.

After nearly 45 minutes of struggle, my partner emerged below me, conceding at last that the route that I was on was the right one.

I’ve thought of this scene countless times over the years. Usually, when we’re trying too hard – whether in the mountains or in life – we’re off route.

The right way is not always without difficulty. But there is a natural flow and unfolding when we’re on the path we should be on.

“We are rather like whirlpools in the river of life,” writes Charlotte Joko Beck. “In flowing forward, a river or stream may hit rocks, branches, or irregularities in the ground, causing whirlpools to spring up spontaneously here and there. water entering one whirlpool quickly passes through and rejoins the river, eventually joining another whirlpool and moving on. Though for short periods it seems to be distinguishable as a separate event, the water in the whirlpools is just the river itself.”

Suffering, Joko Beck suggests, arises when we pretend that we are not the river; or when we wall off and dam up our own small eddies.

I think suffering arises when we paddle upstream.

Years ago, I took my boys to Disney’s Blizzard Beach. Encircling the outside of the park is a “ride,” a gently flowing river. You sit in an inner tube – and float along.

I’m not very good at Blizzard Beach. I get antsy. I want to paddle. Maybe even change direction. If there were Blizzard Beach police, I might go to jail.

Many of us like to pretend we’re in control. That we own the river. That through cleverness and craft, we can navigate and forge the way. Maybe even force the way.

But constant paddling saps the spirit and tires the soul.

Dan Millman writes, “Surrender involves getting out of our own way and living in accord with a higher will, expressed as the wisdom of the heart.”

What if we didn’t have to struggle?

What if we could trust the river, surrendering to the Great Flow of our lives?

What if the easy way was The Way?