This is how life coaches are trained to see their clients, first and foremost–or at least I know it’s how Christine sees me. She tells me all the time.
In a coach-client relationship, this fundamental framework sets the stage for the client’s strengths to shine, even as they struggle mightily with themselves, their circumstances, and those around them. By making this commitment of attitude, the coach positions herself to call forth the client’s highest and best self, and for the client to answer with authenticity, confidence, and agency. The client’s fundamental need for psychological safety in this intimate relationship is satisfied up front and without question, immediately creating space for honest, vulnerable work.
What if we all saw one another this way? What if we at least practiced more awareness of our default opinions, narratives, assumptions, and expectations of ourselves and other people?
As physicians counseling for habit change, as parents guiding behavior and skills development, as leaders coordinating team collaboration and working for collective goals–how often do we look down at those around us, seeing first their flaws, deficiencies, and pathologies? How often with spouses, bosses, coworkers, siblings, neighbors, and people of other races, classes, genders, sexualities, and professions?
Who do we see first as admirable, worthy of respect and reverence? How do we show up differently to these people, compared to others? And how does this impact–no, incite, inspire, or create—how they show up to us?Don’t you find that a person’s vibe precedes them when they approach you?You feel it in your body, no?Our species could not survive, evolve, and dominate without this instinctive, innate sense.How much more could we accomplish, how much more potential could we realize, if we all approached one another with the sincere intention to bring out one another’s best?Or if we each just did it a little more often?
It’s humbling to notice what negative assumptions and narratives I tell about people, and how blind it makes me to their gifts, talents, and contributions. But the moment I can let go these mental chains,I’m free, and I free them, from these unspoken yet deeply held limitations on possibility. If I can choose more often to hold people first and foremost as Creative, Resourceful, and Whole, I know at least my own life will be much better, because I will show up to people joyful and curious.And I bet I can make a much bigger, lighter, and more loving impact in everything I do.
What things—books, movies, songs, mementos, prayers—do you return to often? Why?
Here at the end of another shockingly abnormal year, what calls you to return, beseeches you to center, to ground, to focus, and prepare to engage hereafter from a deeper, more authentic place?
When you look back at 2021, how do you assess intensity, complexity, and relationships? It’s a bit mind-bending for me! For so long now the learning feels as if from a fire hose, and I’m grateful beyond measure for it all. This week I made a feeble effort at assessing my net experience of 2021—positive or negative? How does one even go about measuring this? I quickly settled with satisfaction that it has simply been a year of challenge, learning, and growth. Good enough.
Four blog posts left for the year. I’ll include books consumed below, rather than as a separate post, and I offer the titles without comment. This year I also include content in other media that resonated, in case you want to check them out. Reviewing the list brings me back to the places and times where I consumed the works, and I’m a little surprised to feel comfort, more than anything else. Huh. What story do I tell about that? Maybe learning is my safe and happy place? Maybe as long as I feel like I’m gaining something—information, knowledge, connection, expertise, wisdom—then I can feel secure and confident to handle whatever comes next?
After outputting for 31 days in a row, and then a 6 day GI illness that knocked me down in a big way (be careful out there, friends, there are some nasty bugs going around!), this weekend I felt a deep longing for familiar voices and lessons. I listened again to The Art of Possibility, and I’m halfway through Start With Why. How funny, after all these years, I still manage to come back to the same books annually. They refill my tank, somehow; they comfort me, inspire me. They welcome me like a big, warm, floofy arm chair. With and in them, I relax and breathe easier. Then I feel refreshed, ready to tackle challenges, learning, and growth with renewed enthusiasm.
In my copy of AoP, a picture of me with Ben Zander marks the page that describes Giving the A:
(This practice) is an enlivening way of approaching people that promises to transform you as well as them. It is a shift in attitude that makes it possible for you to speak freely about your own thoughts and feelings while, at the same time, you support others to be all they dream of being. The practice of giving an A transports your relationships from the world of measurement into the universe of possibility.
An A can be given to anyone in any walk of life—to a waitress, to your employer, to your mother-in-law, to the members of the opposite team, and to other drivers in traffic. When you give an A, you find yourself speaking to people not from a place of measuring how they stack up against your standards, but from a place of respect that gives them room to realize themselves. Your eye is on the statue within the roughness of the uncut stone.
An A is not an expectation to live up to, but a possibility to live into.
A photo of Hubs and me marks the page that lists the distinctions of a vision that frames possibility:
A vision articulates a possibility
A vision fulfills a desire fundamental to humankind, a desire with which any human being can resonate. It is an idea to which no one could logically respond, “What about me?”
A vision makes no reference to morality or ethics, it is not about a right way of doing things. It cannot imply that anyone is wrong.
A vision is stated as a picture for all time, using no numbers, measures or comparatives. It contains no specifics of time, place, audience, or product.
A vision is free-standing—it points to neither a rosier future, nor to a past in need of improvement. It gives over its bounty now. If the vision is “peace on earth,” peace comes with its utterance. When “the possibility of ideas making a difference” is spoken, at that moment ideas do make a difference.
A vision is a long line of possibility radiating outward. It invites infinite expression, development, and proliferation within its definitional framework.
Speaking a vision transforms the speaker. For that moment the “real world” becomes a universe of possibility and the barriers to realization of the vision disappear.
Listening to these passages prompted me to wonder about my own vision. What shining light do I see on and beyond the horizon, toward which I march with conviction and joy? It took no time. For my patients, my children, my trainees, people I work with—for everybody—my vision is for us all/each to realize our potential and make our best contribution. We get to define these words and their meaning for ourselves, whenever and however we want—they are intersecting, metamorphosing. The vision’s expression is fluid, and certainly evolves over time. And like a Why and a Just Cause, this vision grounds me in core values, while inspiring me to reach with cheerful, optimistic audacity for possibility. I think it fulfills the vision criteria, and anyway it’s mine and I’m keeping it—for now, at least.
My favorite books always bring me back to my center, my raison d’etre, my Why—to optimize relationships between all people.
What a fantastic time of year to revel in them yet again, to refuel and recharge for the long winter ahead.
Books and Media 2021
Books [Titles in brackets have yet to be finished]
Everything is F*cked by Mark Manson
Burnout by Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski
[Own Your Present by Candace Good, MD]
The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
A Promised Land by Barack Obama
Think Again by Adam Grant
Change by Damon Centola
Who You Are by Michael Spivey
Persist by Elizabeth Warren
Managing Transitions by William Bridges and Susan Bridges
The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean
[Bowling Alone by Robert D. Putnam]
[The Secret Lives of ChurchLadies by Deesha Philyaw]
The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker
The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks
The Culture Puzzle by Mario Moussa, Derek Newberry, and Greg Urban
Tribes by Seth Godin
Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong
Together by Vivek Murthy
Why We’re Polarized by Ezra Klein
The Greatest Love Story Ever Told by Megan Mullaly and Nick Offerman
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Eat a Peach by David Chang
Becoming by Michelle Obama
[A Conflict of Visions by Thomas Sowell]
A Thousand Mornings by Mary Oliver
[Navigating Polarities by Brian Emerson and Kelly Lewis]
Cooked by Michael Pollan
Radical Compassion by Tara Brach
How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan
Caffeine by Michael Pollan (Audible exclusive)
This Is Your Mind On Plants by Michael Pollan
The Half-Life of Marie Curie by Lauren Gunderson (Audible exclusive)
Men’s Health by Daniel Goldfarb (Audible exclusive)
The Wisdom of Joseph Campbell, In Conversation with Michael Toms
[Humble Pi: When Math Goes Wrong in the Real World by Matt Parker]
Stop Walking On Eggshells by Paul T. Mason, MS and Randi Kreger
This Is Not the End by Tabetha Martin, ed (Audible exclusive)
In the Pleasure Groove by John Taylor
The Power of Us by Jay J. Van Bavel PhD, and Dominic J. Packer PhD
Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama
The Art of Possibility by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander
What emotions and attitudes underlie the chronic and automatic narratives we harbor in our lives and relationships? It’s a hard question, and well worth asking. A couple days ago I wondered about stories I tell about someone after recurrent negative experiences with them. But what about stories I tell about other people based solely on my own issues? We each carry around a unique knapsack of biases, overt and occult. They weigh and slow us down; they hinder our ability to connect with one another. What relationships do we miss, damage, or destroy because of them, without even knowing?
So what about the driver who cuts you off in traffic? Conventional wisdom tells us to imagine that they are having some kind of emergency; they are not a bad person. I agree, we should not assume they are ‘bad.’ But let’s imagine there’s no emergency. They drive without regard to others’ safety or traffic law every day. So they’re rude, disrespectful, a menace—that’s another plausible, albeit still judgmental, story. They’re not like us, we’re not like that. So we are justified in our angry outburst at their insolence… And now we’ve given away our peace for no benefit, and we have separated ourselves from another person, if only abstractly.
What do we imagine causes a person to behave—to live—without regard to others? When have we behaved like that ourselves—maybe not behind the wheel, but in other situations? What was driving us to do that? Where is that our default pattern? What self-justifying story do we tell about that? Some would argue that when we knowingly harm others or put them at risk, it comes from our own places of pain. We are wired to survive, and striking before being stricken works well for that. We succumb to innate negativity bias, zeroing in on what could harm us and deflecting or destroying it, before appreciating what helps us, and then attracting and manifesting that. The rude driver cuts us off, we call them a (jerk). Everyone for themselves, check.
What if I tell the story that that person deserves more love and appreciation, more opportunity in life, than they are used to getting? When I behave like that, don’t I have some unmet need that I’m advocating for, however subconsciously and ineptly? What other, more fundamental question, helps us to ask when engaging with people who put us off at first? When I tell a more empathetic and compassionate, or at least less judgmental story about others and myself, how does that affect my general outlook, and then my behavior, my relationships, and my overall satisfaction with life?
Envy. Insecurity. Hurt. Disappointment. Grief. Disdain. Pride. Self-righteousness. Loneliness. Stories grounded in these emotions tell us about scarcity and competition, which may be real, and also incomplete plotlines. If survival is all we can hope for, these stories may suffice.
Generosity. Kindness. Curiosity. Humility. Fairness. Honesty. Connection. Love. These themes paint a different story mural, one with more color and light, and much more depth and complexity. Beyond survival, such stories hold the possibility for abundance, thriving, flourishing, and synergy.
I’m not saying we should whitewash destructive behavior and waive responsibility for any harm we inflict on each other. Accountability and compassion are not mutually exclusive. I do think that we too easily throw each other and our connections away based on behaviors (or opinions, positions, and causes) that do not necessarily represent our whole selves. We tell harsh, oversimplified stories based on sparse information and copious judgment.
Telling more stories is like choosing the wide angle rather than the zoom or macro lens. It gives us an opportunity to see a bigger, more coherent, unified picture. Exploring alternative explanations, beyond our automatic assumptions, enables crucially broader perspective. Applying this practice regularly can help avert myriad conflicts based on miscommunication and misunderstanding, and clear the brambled paths between us. It is yet another vital tool for connection and peace.
Healing Through Connection 