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About Your Costume

by Walt | Oct 27, 2022 | Success | 1 Comment

What are you gonna be for Halloween? Who are you going to dress up as?

Masks and costumes. Parties and planning. Fervor, festivities and fever pitch.

Bigger than Christmas is seems.

What is it about Halloween that so excites, that so sparks the imagination?

Yes, fun for sure. The chance to let loose, hide out, switch it up. The possibility of being someone new, something new, someone different from who you are in the hum-drum of each day.

And the truth is that a lot of folks are worn down by the hum-drum of each they. The want new, better, different. Just not the same. For god’s sake, not the same.

So, who do you want to be?

More important: Who are you already… really?

Are you your job? Your role in a relationship? Your hobby, pursuit, passion?

I am an executive coach, high altitude mountaineer, blue-water sailor, adventure photographer, husband, father, business owner… .

But is that who I am… really?

If you have a job and lose that job… who are you?
If you have a marriage and the marriage unravels, who are you?
If you have kids and they grow up and move away, who are you?
If you’re an athlete and you’re injured, who are you?
Who are you when your friend betrays you? When your parent dies? When your business fails?
Who are you in the face of success, failure and change?

Who are you… really?

Your identity. The very core of who you are. What a struggle that can be. Especially for success and achievement junkies… I know a few… They’re the folks who come to coaching… (As for myself, on advice of counsel, I can neither admit nor deny any of the heretofore!)

When you’re not doing, achieving, accomplishing… who are you?

(Yeah, I hate that question.)

Ann and I traveled to Nepal earlier this year… a completely different culture… a completely different pace… If stress and adrenaline are your fuel, you won’t find much there. And without that fuel, we ask, … who are we?

The Buddhists teach: Nothing to do, nothing to be, nothing to have.

Really. WTF? What then?

One of my very favorite stories from the Torah is when Moses comes upon the burning bush. God speaks to Moses from the bush, telling Moses what he needs to be about. Moses, looking for a bit of borrowed cred, asks God for God’s name. God says, “I am who I am.” Tell those Israelites that “I am” sent you.

Maybe there’s a clue here. Maybe when you define yourself with a title, give yourself a label, tie an object to who you think you are, you make yourself small, you limit your (divine) potential.

Maybe, at the end of it all, one more billable hour booked, one more product sold, one more article published, one more email sent, one more race run, one more mountain climbed, won’t really matter.

Maybe it’s ok just to be.

And damn, what an interesting (and unusual) costume that might be!

Happy Halloween.

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When you’re ready to reclaim the you that’s really you, let’s talk. Email me: [email protected]

And stop by for a visit: https://summit-success.com/

Either Love It or Leave It

by Walt | Oct 20, 2022 | Success | 0 Comments

You have to be burning with an idea, or a problem, or a wrong that you want to right. If you’re not passionate enough from the start, you’ll never stick it out. –Steve Jobs

I have a client – articulate, driven, highly educated and talented – whose business is failing.

Because she doesn’t love it.

I have a friend who is having a devil of a time landing a job in a field in which he has worked for years – and excelled.

Because he doesn’t love it.

Love for what you do is the only thing that sets you apart.

Love for what you do is the only thing that will sustain you.

Benjamin Bloom (of Head Start fame), while he was a professor at the University of Chicago, did a study of 120 outstanding scholars, artists, and athletes. He was trying to figure out what made them tick; and even more important, what common factors contributed to their greatness.

He controlled for intelligence; he controlled for family background. He discovered that geography didn’t matter; that race didn’t matter; that socio-economic advantage didn’t matter; and that it didn’t matter whether these folks were ‘naturally smart.’ The only thing – the one common denominator – that distinguished these folks was extraordinary drive.

And the only thing that fuels extraordinary drive… is passion.

A love for the ‘game.’

A love so keen that it propels you out of bed in the morning and sets the day on fire.

A love so strong that you can take the heat, endure the pain, keep the faith, go the distance.

There are lots and lots of sales people, countless Internet marketers, a bazillion coaches, more lawyers than real people, doctors out the ying yang. A nearly inexhaustible selection of authors and artists and plumbers and HR managers and executives and electricians.

Your ‘job,’ your position, is not unique.

But you are.

Over the long haul, you can never compete on price, credentials, ‘novelty,’ flashy ads or noise.

Because at that level, everyone looks the same. Your voice disappears in the landscape.

All noise; and no signal.

But when you’re on fire, you stand out.

When you’re filled with passion, there is no one else who looks like you. No one else who can possibly compete.

When you claim your own authentic voice, there is no competition.

None at all. Your success is guaranteed.

Your energy signature is yours alone. It carries the day.

Here’s the truth: Just because you’re good at something, or have done something for a long time, doesn’t mean you should keep on doing it.

Dale Carnegie once said, “People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing.”

And you can’t possibly have fun unless you’re really feelin’ the love.

Steve Jobs said, “[T]he only way to do great work is to love what you do…. Don’t settle”

You are called to do great work.

Find that love.

Don’t ever settle.

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When you’re ready to step into that work you’ll really love, let’s talk. Email me: [email protected]

About That Nagging Feeling

by Walt | Oct 13, 2022 | Success | 0 Comments

You’re not imagining it.

You’re not fabricating it.

It’s real.

That yearning.

That sense that there’s more.

More that you’re meant for.

More that you’re supposed to do.

More.

The more that will fulfill those deepest longings of your heart.

You’re not exactly sure what it is.

Yet.

It calls you.

Nags you even.

In the quiet of the day; in the darkness of the night.

It’s there.

Whispering.

You want the nagging to go away; you tell it to go away.

Because.

You’re successful.

You have everything.

You’ve made it.

You have more than enough.

You should be satisfied.

Grateful even.

And you are grateful.

But that voice.

Calling you.

To create anew. To begin again.

It won’t go away.

It will never go away.

Because it’s the Creator Spirit within you.

Listen.

Listen to those longings of your heart.

Listen and begin.

There Will Be Tigers

by Walt | Oct 6, 2022 | Success | 1 Comment

“I’m going to stop working in five years,” Peter said. “After I’ve finished paying for my son’s law school tuition.” (This after Peter told me that the average lifespan of a trial lawyer is 57. Peter, a trial lawyer, was 55.)

“I’m going to start the fitness program as soon as my son starts kindergarten.”

“I’m going to go back for my degree when my youngest is out of college.”

“We’re going to take the trip to France right after I finish the next project.”

“I can’t take time off this year; we’re down a staff member.”

“If the house didn’t need painting this year, we’d get away to the Cape.”

“If I could just find a new job and a fresh place to live, I could get out of this crappy relationship.” (This more than six months after we first had this conversation.)

“Before I do the product launch, I need to take the copywriting course and learn SEO.”

“I’m going to finish the book (really I am), but right now I just don’t have the time.”

As a coach, I hear every story there is about why it is that now is not the right time, the auspicious time, the convenient time to do what we feel called to do, drawn to do, really want to do; to do what makes our hearts sing, our spirits soar.

Perhaps out of fear (of success or failure), or convention (what will people think?) or inertia or resistance, we create (artificial) barriers to the lives we really want to live; we imagine forces that must be fought and overcome before we do what really makes us happy. We imagine tigers that must be slain.

I love that old Buddhist story of the monk who is being chased through the jungle by tigers. He comes to the edge of a cliff as the tigers close in behind him. A hundred feet below, six more tigers claw at the base. The monk jumps from the cliff and on his way down grabs for a vine to stop himself. As he hangs by the vine, he sees a mouse gnawing at it. And just in that moment, he spies a fresh ripe strawberry growing out from the cliff face. The monk plucks the strawberry, tastes it and revels in its sweetness. ”My how good this is,” he says.

Here is the truth: Now is all we have. Now is the only moment in which we can create the lives we want to live.

As I write in Journeys, “dreams delayed are dreams denied.”

When we defer the call of our souls, we get angry and sad and bitter and resentful.

And the reality is, a step in the direction of our dreams usually doesn’t require a whole lot of time or a ton of resources or monumental change. We don’t need to throw the baby (or the husband) out with the bathwater. The step forward can be a tiny one.

And then another.

Do what you’ve always dreamed of doing.

Do it now.

There is no time to waste.

There will always be tigers.

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When you’re ready to banish the tigers and create something new, let’s talk. Email me: [email protected]