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Sight Unseen

by Walt | Feb 7, 2013 | Journeys, Success | 1 Comment

I love ice climbing on frozen waterfalls. Often you can hear the water rushing underneath. You can almost sense the motion. It feels alive.

But what happens when you can’t sense the motion? What then?

I received an email from a coaching client late last week. She felt frustrated. She’d made a lot of progress in 2012; scored a lot of victories. Now, though, she said, she couldn’t see much forward progress. She felt like she’d lost momentum.

I wondered aloud whether it was just the season of things.

The late great thought leader Jim Rohn spoke of the seasons of change; the seasons of our lives that always come; those season that always repeat themselves. The rhythm of things. The springtime of planting and new life; the summer of cultivation and care; the fall of reaping and the harvest; the winter of darkness, contemplating and planning.

The seasons of things. Interconnected. Locked in balance. Necessary one to the other.

I look outside my window at winter’s frozen landscape here in the northeast. There doesn’t seem to be much of anything going on. But I know on some particularly warm day, not many weeks from now, flowers will bolt from the ground. And spring will be here.

Not by accident. Not without the work of winter.

Spring doesn’t just happen. Stuff’s going on in the ground even now.

Momentum. Just unseen.

I asked my client whether she was continuing to do the work… attending to her daily practices; whether she was ‘showing up’ even though she didn’t ‘feel the love.’

“Of course,” she said. Which was the right answer. (At least as far as her coach was concerned.)

Because, as I’ve written many times, it is the showing up, even in the face of failure – and especially when we can’t see the progress – that matters most.

The small, tiny, incremental, perhaps imperceptible, steps over time. The ulta-marathon of life.

We might say we hate the winter. But the winter always comes.

And so the spring.

I told my client (and myself): Do the work. Keep at the work.

Hold fast the vision.

And trust more.

Just trust. In the rhythm of things.

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Fall Down Seven Times. Bleed A Bit.

by Walt | Jan 31, 2013 | Success | 1 Comment

Fall down seven times, get up eight. – Japanese Proverb

Abe’s been in the news quite a bit lately. Spielberg’s movie about his presidency will likely win all sorts of awards. And there have been countless articles about his management and leadership style.

I think it’s Lincoln tenacity that captivates me most; his willingness to keep on keepin’ on, even in the face of catastrophic failures: employment failures, business failures, election losses, the death of his sister, the death of his son. He fought depression; grappled with a divided nation; stood by an unpopular cause; and was witness to defeat after bloody defeat in battle.

And still he kept on going.

I love knowing that the legendary Michael Jordon didn’t make his varsity basketball team in high school when he first tried out. He wasn’t good enough. Over the course of his career, he missed more 9000 shots; he lost more than 300 games.

And still he kept on going.

Edison’s tenacity is almost cliché: 10,000 failures on the road to success.

Thank god he kept on going.

This past week, my friend Lonnie Dupre, a renowned and indefatigable polar explorer, was spit off Denali (Mt. McKinley). Raising money for environmental advocacy, he was hoping to become the first ever to reach North America’s highest summit in the dark of winter by himself. Battling arctic darkness, ferocious winds, and temperatures so low that flesh freezes in an instant, he’s gone back there three times to pursue his goal.

And he’s kept on going.

Benjamin Bloom, a professor at the University of Chicago studied 120 exceptional artists, athletes and scholars looking for the common denominator of mastery and greatness. It turned out not to be intelligence or family background. It turned out that there was only one common characteristic: extraordinary drive, the willingness to keep on going even in the face of setback and insurmountable odds.

All of us will face loss and defeat along the way. All of us will fail.

No one escapes.

As I tell Ann when we’re running trails: You will fall and you will bleed.

It’s what happens next that matters most.

Sexy. Not.

by Walt | Jan 24, 2013 | Success | 0 Comments

I had the absolute worst run ever last weekend.

It wasn’t very long; it wasn’t very cold. It was the same damn course we always run.

But I was slow; it was painful; I never loosened up. And when I was finished, I felt as if someone had beaten me with a 2 x 4.

The next run might be painful too. Or not. Who knows?

It doesn’t really matter.

Because here’s the scoop: At the end of the day, there is only one core principle of success.

Doing the work.

We coaches love to have fancy templates for goal setting, and mind maps and vision boards… and all sorts of stuff that helps folks get clear and excited and juiced up about where they’re going. And juiced up and excited is good. But the bloom comes off the rose pretty fast.

I looked around the gym on Friday. Most of the newbies had disappeared. Right on time.

Few folks who even bother to resolve make it beyond the 1st of February.

Because doing the work is hard. And it just ain’t sexy.

Of course the “why” is important. But if you’re crystal clear about your “why;” why it is you want to bother; why it is that the result really matters; why it is that you really care; then you’ll stay the course.

Nietzsche said, “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”

So claim your “why.” Know it well. And then shut up and do the work.

George Leonard who wrote that great old book Mastery using the metaphor of Akido practice said that the only thing that really mattered on the road to mastery was showing up on the mat.

Julia Cameron, author of the Artists Way, said that a writer’s only obligation was to show up on the page and write.

Nike™ in its venerable campaign would say, “Just do it.”

Run the miles
Lift the weights
Follow the plan: the eating plan, the financial plan, the weight-loss plan.

Discipline’s a dirty word. So call it practice. Or whatever.

Just show up and do the work.

Because that’s the only way it will get done.

Sexy. Not.

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Blind Spot

by Walt | Jan 17, 2013 | Success | 0 Comments

I love my Subaru Outback. This is the fourth one I’ve had.

It’s fuel efficient, comfortable, and roomy; it’s great over rough terrain. It’s reliable in the snow and cold. And for all of our crazy outdoor activities, there couldn’t be a better vehicle.

Except that it has a blind spot.

Left hand side. Behind the driver’s seat. You could hide a panel van in it. And on more than one occasion, a van or two has hidden there.

Of course, I’ve learned to deal with it.

I pay particular attention to that blind spot.

A good thing to do: pay attention to the blind spots.

You see, we all have them: Places where things don’t work quite as well as others; places that could use some improvement; places that, if they are ignored, could result in incidents and accidents.

If you look at the major areas of your life,

Career/business
Finance
Relationships
Health and Fitness
Spiritual/Emotional
Community Contribution; and
Celebration

you’ll undoubtedly latch onto one or two in which you excel.

We like those places; those places where we find our ‘wins;’ where we feel valued for our expertise; where we consistently feel at the top of our game. And because we like those places, we tend to spend a lot of time there.

And if you glance down the list again, you’ll land on one or two areas that could use some work, that tend to trip you up.

Blind spots.

One of my blind spots tends to be ‘Celebration.’ As an (over) achiever, I’m prone to ‘ticking off’ accomplishments, and moving on… not really stopping to appreciate, acknowledge or celebrate the attainment of the goal.

No matter where you are on your journey, you’ll find one… a blind spot.

Oprah, one of the wealthiest, most successful women on the planet, has a bind spot: her health and fitness; her weight has been an albatross for years.

No one escapes.

And here’s the truth: it’s easy to ignore our blind spots. It doesn’t feel good to turn the light on those places that need some care. (It’s much more fun to spend our time on where we rock and roll.) But when we do, even for just a bit, we can up our game – improve our lives – immensely.

And avoid the panel van.

What will you work on this week?

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I don’t know: Maybe it’s the tree that’s the real problem.

Buried Treasure

by Walt | Jan 10, 2013 | Success | 0 Comments

I talk a lot about the F* word.

In fact, it’s one of my very favorite words.

Fun.

But my F* word, it seems, isn’t always fun or fanciful for folks to hear about.

In fact, I frequently find that discussions of fun can make folks downright frantic – fretful and frenetic!

Case in point: I had finished speaking to a professional association and was in the back of the room signing books. A man approached. He was in his mid-forties; a bit overweight; still dressed in his jacket and tie at 8:00 in the evening. He was pale and wide-eyed… and nearly breathless.

“I have a serious problem with what you just said,” he nearly yelled.

In a moment of panic, my mind raced back over the keynote I had just delivered, scanning it for what might have been upsetting, unsettling, unnerving, controversial.

While I certainly have the capacity to cross the line from time to time, I couldn’t think of a damn thing.

What seems to be the problem?” I asked.

Now, even more wide-eyed, and even more breathless, he blurted: “I can’t remember what’s fun.”

And – seriously – I thought he was going to cry.

The theme of my talk had been the importance of nurturing ourselves; of re-creating ourselves; of re-capturing a grand and exciting vision for our lives. I had ended it with a call to arms of sorts: “Reclaim the fun, reclaim the laughter, reclaim the joy.” (Kinda mainstream stuff I had – erroneously – thought.)

But this man couldn’t remember the fun; he couldn’t remember what once brought him joy.

And in that moment he had confronted an abyss that can overtake even those of us most vigilant.

Buried as he was (and as so many of us are) in the responsibilities of his work, his marriage, his children, the bills , the boss, the clients, the cholesterol, the mortgage, the tuitions, the parents, the in-laws, the blood pressure, the e-mails, the voice-mails, the text messages, the in-box, the out box, the lawn, the snow plowing, the never-ending demands and expectations that are the fabric of our lives… .

He had forgotten. What was fun. And he had freaked!

Luckily, it’s not hard to find the fun. I took him aside to the corner of the room. And quietly connected: