Tag Archives: learning

More Than A Dream: MLK’s Call to Action

by on January 17, 2005 in Creative, Work

More than just a U.S. Federal holiday or a day off from work, Martin Luther King Jr. Day is an opportunity for us to deeply consider critical social and political issues. What’s disturbing is how Dr. King’s words still describe the world we live in today, even though they were written and spoken nearly 40 years ago. For instance, consider his sermon titled "Beyond Vietnam," delivered on April 4, 1967, in New York City’s Riverside Church:

The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of people normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

Yet, more than just considering these words, our challenge is to choose our path carefully and take action. What change do you want to see? Start in your home and move outward: "Think Globally, Act Locally."

For more excerpts from Dr. King’s speeches, visit: MLK Jr. In His Own Words

Allowing for Serendipity

by on January 15, 2005 in Creative, Life, Media

It’s funny how events sometimes happen in our lives, almost as if they have been planned and directed by someone else. Sort of like being in our own Truman Show. For instance: You sit down for a cup of coffee at Starbucks expecting to just be with yourself, but joyfully, you’re pulled into an amazing set of conversations that entertain, inform, even alter your worldview. It’s serendipity and when you’re open to all that the universe has to offer, it can lead to really great stuff.

As an aside, when I looked up the word serendipity at dictionary.com to make sure my spelling was accurate, I discovered the word’s origin:

We are indebted to the English author Horace Walpole for the word serendipity, which he coined in one of the 3,000 or more letters on which his literary reputation primarily rests. In a letter of January 28, 1754, Walpole says that “this discovery, indeed, is almost of that kind which I call Serendipity, a very expressive word.” Walpole formed the word on an old name for Sri Lanka, Serendip. He explained that this name was part of the title of “a silly fairy tale, called The Three Princes of Serendip: as their highnesses traveled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of….”

I like that…making unexpected discoveries through accident and sagacity. Here’s an idea for allowing serendipity into your life:

Ditch the script. Some of us have an easier time living spontaneously than others. That’s okay; we’re all made up differently. But, we all have the capacity to be spontaneous. If you find surprises and the unexpected scary, find the place where you are comfortable and hang out there. Notice what it’s like, what you are feeling and sensing. Then take a step toward discomfort (sort of like that first step into a cold pool of water). Again, be aware of what’s going on inside you and what’s going on outside. Take your time, but resist the urge to immediately go back to comfort. True growth occurs in places of discomfort.

What else has worked for you? Where else have you experienced a moment of serendipity in your life? Here’s hoping you make another accidental discovery today.

Just to Be Enough

by on January 6, 2005 in Creative, Life, Media

I’m now back to the point where I can blog again. I traveled with my family to my parent’s home in West Virginia and then to Colorado to celebrate the end of 2004 with my wife’s family. Part of my wanted to take my laptop with me, but a more urgent voice asked me to leave it at home. I’m glad I did. I spent more time relaxing, reading provocative works, and most importantly, spending time with my wife and girls. I also started to sketch again – a creative outlet that I left dormant for too long. The challenge will be to continue these new habits as I return to familiar settings.

Off on a tangent…I’m a member of Toastmasters International. Each meeting there is an inspirational opener and for last night’s meeting a fellow coach read an excerpt from The Dance by Oriah Mountain Dreamer. The reading focused on the idea of "just being enough" and I was hit by some provocative questions and thoughts.

Our culture exalts the over-achiever, the individual who painstakingly achieves a high level of self-improvement, the person who rises from a log cabin to public greatness. Its our driving myth of accomplishment and its also a cult. Next time you’re at Barnes and Noble (or better yet, find an independently owned bookstore), take a look at all the books devoted to Self-Improvement. There are so many self-help gurus out there telling us we can be more: more confident, more loving, more outgoing, more wealthy, more thin…well, you get the picture. It’s all about more.

What if you and I are ENOUGH just as we are. Right now. We don’t need to be MORE. How does this change our reality? We have enough love, enough money, enough self-worth. We can stop chasing after the illusion that MORE offers. Our wholesale buying into the ideals of ambition and upward mobility have not led to greater happiness. Unfortunately, for most of us, just the opposite. But like the mouse in the wheel, we keep running forward only to be stuck in the same place we started.

As I further listened to the reading, I quickly wrote a question: is improvement the same as learning? The answer I came to is no. It is possible to accept that we are enough and continue to learn at the same time. Learn more about who we are, not who we should be or who others want us to be. It’s time to just grow to be enough.

How My Children Have Influenced Me As A Coach

by on September 26, 2004 in Life

During lunch a couple of days ago, a friend asked how I came to be a coach. As I recounted my winding career path since graduating from college, I realized there was one critical milestone in the journey: the birth of my first daughter. Her coming into this world wasn’t quite planned and it forced some replanning of my proposed future, as well as my wife’s future. Yet, in this period of reconsidering what I was all about as an individual and a professional, I asked myself one deeply soulful question that has continued to guide my life: What kind of father do I want to be?

The answers have provided a foundation not only for my personal life, but my professional life. I remember the first week of knowing that I was going to be a dad; I was terrified by all the changes that were going to need to take place…getting a solid job with health insurance (I was in graduate school at the time), finding a good place to live, etc. Then, this experience was further deepened when I started to consider all the changes that I would need to make as a person. At one point, the anxiety of it all was just too much and I started to run (physically) as hard as I could. I ran out of my basement apartment and kept running along street after street, through park after park, until I couldn’t go any farther and fell into the grass. From this exhausted state, I asked myself what kind of father do I want to be and then the answers started to appear.

I wanted my child to know love, to know integrity, to know playfulness, to know commitment, to know that this world is a good place filled with good people, to know that we can love our work. And the way for her to know these things are to see them modeled.

The process of asking myself this question did not end prior to her birth, but continues to guide me today. As my children grow, so do I as a father. Being a dad has provided another powerful layer of purpose to my life. To wrap up, I believe that my children are an incredible influence on me as a man and as a coach.