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The Real Guide to Avoiding The Cliff

by Walt | Dec 12, 2013 | Success | 0 Comments

In life itself, there is a time to seek inner peace, a time to rid oneself of tension and anxiety. The moment comes when the striving must let up, when wisdom says, “Be quiet.” You’ll be surprised how the world keeps on revolving without your pushing it. And you’ll be surprised how much stronger you are the next time you decide to push.”
— John Gardner

I pushed the throttle forward and hurtled even faster toward the cliff.

Then I stopped.

Not because I really wanted to. But because I had promised myself I would.

I returned once again, last week, to the Weston Priory, nestled on a remote hilltop in northern Vermont. To rest; to re-create; to renew. (I set as my intention to do this four times a year; this year I made it there three times.)

Going completely off the grid to a monastery, especially at this time of year, can be tough duty for an achievement and adrenaline junkie like me.

But what I know for sure is that the stopping is essential to the going.

We – all of us – are bombarded by inputs, and demands and expectations. We’re inundated with voice mails and text messages, emails and faxes. Everyone and everything competes for our attention. And with our “smart” phones, we’re always “on.”

One day melds into the next as we labor under our self-imposed illusions that if we can but accomplish just a little bit more, pack in just a little bit more, respond to just one more request, satisfy just one more customer, cart the child just one more place, buy just one more gift, send just one more card, then we’ll be able to rest.

Culturally – and individually – we’re weary. Add in the holidays – and societal tragedies – and, at the end of the day, most of us feel worn pretty thin.

We forget how important – how essential – renewal is.

Rest days are a key component of high-altitude mountaineering. Recovery is a critical piece of athletic training.

Bears hibernate; trees go dormant. The natural world knows how to rest. The seasons have a rhythm to them. We not so much.

We keep on pushing on.

I finished on wonderful book while on retreat: Life Entrepreneurs by Christopher Gergen and Gregg Vanourek. It resonates so profoundly with the work I do: empowering extraordinary living. Its essential message: “We can fashion a life that is purposeful, self-directed and aligned with who we truly are – providing us with opportunities for challenge, contribution, and fulfillment.” We get to design our lives. We get to choose.

It’s a hard-driving book filled with fascinating profiles of highly successful, remarkably creative leaders, innovators and entrepreneurs. It explores all of the nuances of extraordinary lives. And it captures a core component of success, one overlooked by nearly all gurus, coaches, and achievement “experts:” the need to stop; to renew; to re-create.

Speed kills. “We ignore the basics of our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being at our own peril.” Make renewal “a cherished habit,” the authors say.

Not all of us need to go off the grid to a monastery for four days at a time (although I highly recommend it!). But there are practices and “habits” that you could explore that might allow for some breathing room. Here are some things that you might want to try:

Turn off your electronics for a day (or even just an hour!)
Explore a regular mediation practice
Take a yoga class
Do some aerobic exercise every day
Walk in the woods or along the shore
Avoid your email in-box in the morning
Work in block time to avoid the interruptions
Don’t multi-task (it doesn’t really work anyway)
Take regular vacations, long weekends, and mental health days
Learn to say ‘no’ more often

Even though this time of year often feels frantic and out of control, even though we’re fond of telling ourselves that we’ll get to the important stuff after the holidays, there really is no better time to pull back to nurture yourself. No one else will do it for you. (Check out the recent talk I gave on this.)

The authors of Life Entrepreneurs remind us what John Muir once said: “I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.”

When you go in, you’ll find how much more there is of you to step out with – to share with the world.

You can avoid the cliff.

All you need to do is stop.

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The great “cliff” face of Mt. Hunter in the Alaska Range.

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This is an encore of a post first published on December 27, 2012. With thanks and gratitude for the wonderful words of wisdom from by friend Gregg Vanourek.

How To Crash and Burn By Year’s End

by Walt | Dec 5, 2013 | Success | 1 Comment

December can be a crazy month. It can feel like an energy vortex sucking us forward at warp speed only to dump us out breathless and exhausted sometime around the end of January. It’s pretty easy to wear yourself out so that there’s nothing left at all.

If you want to crash and burn, I can teach you how!!! (Based on graduate-level experience!).

Here’s what you should do:

Go to every holiday party

Wander aimlessly in a crowded, noisy mall

Buy token gifts because you ‘should’

Decorate until you drop

Surf the net for all the deals

Don’t miss any sales

Buy lots of ‘toys’ so you’ll be loved

Max out all your credit cards

Drink a lot

Eat a lot

Say ‘yes’ to every invitation

Send a ton of cards

Network until you drop

Bake a lot, especially if you need to lose some weight

Work late every single night

Drive every deal to conclusion

Update your ‘status’ often

Tweet frequently

Link-In a lot

Put your ‘diet’ off until ‘after’ the holidays

‘Think about’ a fitness program… in the New Year

Surround yourself with chaos and with noise

There is, of course, another way. But it requires some deliberation and some courage.

Say ‘no’ more than you say ‘yes’

If you think you ‘should,’ you probably shouldn’t

Think gifts of service and of presence rather than more ‘stuff’

Connect deeply with those who matter most

Guard zealously your health and wellness

Beat your neighbors to the punch and join (and go to) the gym today

Protect your boundaries

Take lots of time for you

Know – with certainty – that, if it doesn’t all get done, no one dies

December is a wonderful month to get quiet. To reflect… on what went well… on where we could improve.

December is a wonderful month to plan for the year ahead.

December is a time to be present, to share ever more deeply the gifts that are yours alone to share; to celebrate the birth of Love into the world; to mark the return of Light.

Or, for sure, you can crash and burn.

You get to choose.

How To Get It All

by Walt | Nov 28, 2013 | Success | 0 Comments

There is a fundamental success principle: What we focus on expands.

When we focus on what’s working in our lives, we get more of what’s working.

When we focus on what’s good, we get more of what’s good.

When we focus on our blessings, we get more of what blesses us.

Of course the principle works in the inverse as well.

When we focus on what’s not working in our lives, we get more of what doesn’t work.

When we focus on what we don’t want or like in our lives, we get more of what we don’t want or like.

When we focus on the negative, more negative stuff shows up.

This is the law of attraction at work in its most powerful sense.

So here’s how to get it all: Be grateful.

Focus on the good.

I start every coaching session with these questions: What’s been working well? Where have your ‘wins’ been since we last talked?

And a practice that will absolutely transform your life? A gratitude journal. Every day, writing down three things that you’re grateful for.

We all have things to be grateful for, regardless of our circumstances, regardless of our challenges: our hearts that beat in our chests; our lungs that breathe in the air; our minds that have the capacity to process information faster than any super computer on earth; the sun that rises every day to warm us; the rains that fall gently on the earth to sustain us. We do nothing to deserve these; and yet they are blessings beyond measure.

Meister Eckhart once said, “If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.”

Surrounded as we are by the demands of our work, the stressors that overwhelm us, the inescapable economic pressures, and the global turmoil of politics and terror, it’s easy to become pessimistic, it’s easy to ‘go negative.’

But there is so much beauty in the world. So much to be hopeful about. So much to be grateful for.

Deepak Chopra teaches: “Gratitude is the doorway to abundance.”

And it is.

So today, and every day: Have an attitude of gratitude. And you will have it all.

How To Properly Clean The Toilet

by Walt | Nov 21, 2013 | Success | 1 Comment

“You need to clean out the stream,” Barry said.

Barry is our ‘man.’ He takes care of our little cottage in Ireland.

Clean out the stream? Who cleans out streams, I thought. Streams take care of themselves!

So I ignored Barry.

And then the rains came. And the yard flooded.

When the rain finally stopped (which, by the way, isn’t often in Ireland), I went out and walked along the stream that crosses our property. Sure enough, it was in pretty bad shape. Years of neglect had left it full of debris: rocks and trees and logs and clumps of leaves; brambles and branches choking it off.

It definitely wasn’t flowing very well.

(Perhaps you can see where I’m going with this?)

So out I went with by bow saw and shears (when it wasn’t raining… which, did I mention, isn’t very often in Ireland?). For days, I cut and cleared, and standing in the midst of the stream with my (brand new) Wellingtons, I pulled all sorts of junk out of the steam.

And the stream flowed again. It was beautiful to look at. I could hear the sound of it from the house trickling through the property. And when it rained, the water ran deep and swift.

It was clear.

We allow out lives to get choked off too, just like the stream. With projects and tasks and to-dos and worries. And pretty soon, things aren’t flowing very well.

It would be a good idea (says Barry) to clean out the stream.

There are some really great ways to do this that don’t require a bow saw… or Wellingtons.

Journaling: I don’t think that there is any more powerful way to unclog one’s head than the practice of journaling. Julia Cameron, who wrote The Artist’s Way, prescribes what she calls morning pages: Three stream of consciousness journal pages the very first thing in the morning. Like flushing the toilet of the mind, she says. But whether you journal first thing in the morning or at some other time of the day, a regular journal practice allows you to take all of those swirly things that make your mind feel cloudy and mushy and move them out onto the page. It’s an amazingly freeing experience.

Meditation: This used to be thought of as some ‘fringe’ thing that only whackadoos, new agers or Elizabeth Gilbert on a field trip did. But the science is pretty compelling. Meditation calms and clears the mind. Think about one of those old winter snow globe things that you had as a kid: You’d turn it upside down and shake it up; all the ‘flakes’ would swirl around; and then when you set it down, all the flakes would settle. And the globe would be clear again. That’s what meditation does: it settles and clears the mind. And the practice over time will have a profoundly grounding impact on your life.

Aerobic Exercise: Being actually in your body, whether through walking, running, biking or swimming, moves you quickly out of the madness of your mind and connects you again with the earth. And even if you find yourself back in your head as you move over the ground, thoughts and feelings flow more smoothly. Aerobic exercise is, of course, wonderful for your health and physical wellness. But the oxygen that you feed yourself and the hormones that you stimulate will refresh and renew your spirit as well.

With all of the pressures that daily life serves up to us, it is easy to forget that, in order to bring our highest and best selves to the world, we need to nurture ourselves first. So that we can flow.

Take some time: clean out the stream.

It’s Just A Bad Hair Day

by Walt | Nov 14, 2013 | Success | 0 Comments

I’m old; I’m fat; I’m out of shape; I’ve lost my edge.

At least those were the stories I began to tell myself.

I pushed on. Turned out it was just an off day.

Some days are like that: Some days, it feels as if someone has poured cement into my running shoes. On other days, I flow like the wind.

All of us have days when it flows; and days when it doesn’t.

The problem is that, when it doesn’t flow, we tend to think that it “means” something; that something’s wrong; that’s something’s broken; that the magic has vanished. We get dark and despondent. We think it will last forever. We get discouraged. We want to quit.

The truth is: Some days it just doesn’t flow.

And it doesn’t mean a damn thing.

This is true in writing, in business, in finance, in relationships, in art, in music. Shit, I’m fairly certain it’s true in everything.

Some days, it’s just a bad hair day.

Thankfully, there’s a remedy: Show up the next day; and the next. Pretty soon it will flow again. Just as long as you haven’t given up.

I recently heard an audience member ask best selling author Theresa Ragan what the secret to her success was, what her secret was for being so prolific. She said that she showed up every day, “put her butt in the chair,” and wrote.

Julia Cameron in her book The Artist’s Way said that our only job as creatives is to “show up on the page;” to be present on the canvas.

George Leonard who wrote the book Mastery using the metaphor of his Aikido practice said that our only job on the path to mastery (in anything) is just “to show up on the mat.”

This means showing up in the practice room, the board room, the laundry room, the bedroom; this means showing up in the classroom, on the track, in the studio, no matter what happened yesterday; or the day before; or the day before that.

Whether it flowed brilliantly; or not.

The judging, the evaluating, the questioning, the hand wringing, the self-deprecation: they’re all just distractions; they’re all just a waste of time and energy.

Our job – our only job – is to show up and do the work.

The rest will take care of itself.

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This is an encore of a post first published on November 29, 2012.