Show Up Sleepy

Posted on June 7, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

810. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

I began my career in the theatre and have never lost my distaste for doing meetings or classes before 10am. “It’s insanity,” I grumble to myself as I try to get my synapses to fire before they are ready. A humane culture would not expect its citizens to be coherent until their third cup of coffee. Theatre folk have it right. A late night dinner and bacchanal follows the performance. It’s the middle of the night before they wind down. Sleeping in is the norm. Sleeping in is the expectation! Morning rehearsals never start before 1:00pm.

All winter I teach a course with Alan that begins at 8am on the west coast. During those dark winter mornings, hours before the sunrise, when even the most enthusiastic bear is deep in hibernation, it is tough to shake consciousness into gear. Often before class I stand out on the deck hopping in the frigid cold morning air to snap me into coherence. My neighbors think me mad. Don’t tell Alan. Desperation is the grandmother of invention.

So when I was asked to do an early morning free phone seminar for the International Coaching Federation Leadership series, I asked, “How early?” It turns out that in the summer the sun rises really early so early feels late. No coherence snap necessary! I told the host that my topic would be “Coaching a Growth Mindset” – because it sounded good. I figured that at 8am, even with decent prep, I’d still be slightly dazed and almost anything would fly out of my mouth. That might terrify most folks but I’ve learned that I’m a better presenter when I take the brakes off my thought. Letting my mouth fly allows me to learn from myself since what I say surprises me, too.

Morning mind is a gift. It relaxes the inner editor. Here’s a secret: most people want a presenter to be coherent so they assume coherence. People want you to succeed. And, when you show up to share your thoughts, when you put down the need to be clever and simply share, you are always coherent. Just to hedge your bet, tell the callers that you are a circular thinker and it is possible that you might lose them (in my case, it’s true!), so open to questions at any moment during the call. Encourage relationship. Open. Treat people on the call as allies in a process of transformation with you. Finally, remember that prep is a lifetime affair, not something you do the night before. You already know all that you need to know. Prep gives shape but has nothing to do with depth or capacity or worth or value. Remember that you have something important to share (note: share, not say) and no one on the planet can share it like you. Do great prep the night before and then let it go: know that the moment you start the call, something better will roll out of your mouth because there will be people present with you. You will be in relationship with people who want you to share with them. They are not judges or critiques. They are community. No amount of prep can put you in relationship; only showing up can do that. And sleep is optional.

Filed under: Random, Truly Powerful People | 4 Comments »

Be In The Hallway

Posted on June 6, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

809. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

This morning Arnie made me laugh out loud. We hadn’t talked for some months and I was recounting the amazing pilgrimage I have been on throughout the winter. Doors have been closing, sometimes abruptly while other doors, previously locked, open easily. He reminded of a phrase his mother used to say: the universe doesn’t close doors without opening others – but it is hell waiting in the hallway!

Last August on the shores of a lake in New Hampshire, Donna emerged from the woods looking for me. She had some things that she needed to tell me. She knew that I was standing in the metaphoric hallway and that it was hell. All the doors were closed and I was feeling stuck. She told me to sit still. She reminded me that it does no good to pound on the doors when they are closed to you. It might feel good to rail against the doors but the effort is fruitless. Doors do not feel pain. The only shoulder I was breaking was my own. Donna is wise and told me great stories of the doors she’d pounded in her life and none of them ever opened again. Doors close for reasons that are never apparent at the closing. Doors close so you will look elsewhere. In time, a new door presents itself so, in Donna’s words, “You may as well enjoy the limbo.”

She offered me another notion that helped me sit still in the hallway. She said, “You are like me. In your life you have callings and there is always a space between the calls. You won’t hear the new call until you enter stillness.” So, I sat in the hallway. It was hell. And I was still. From this place, almost nine months after that day on the beach, I am now grateful that the old door closed because the new door is more amazing than anything I could have imagined. It is ripe with potential. I can’t believe I pounded on that old door for so long. I can’t imagine what life would be like now if that old door had not closed.

Sitting in the hallway is another way of saying, “Have faith.” Faith is not an abstraction when you are in the hallway. It is really easy to yammer on about faith when you are comfortable. Step into the hallway, sit in hell, and faith is a concrete experience – if you can get quiet. Enjoy the limbo and know that a door will open eventually. It always does when you stop pounding. As Donna implied, stop fighting for what no longer serves you. Let the door close and BE IN THE HALLWAY. There’s magic behind another door and it will open if you let it.

Filed under: Awakening, Gratitude, Metaphor, Truly Powerful People | 1 Comment »

It Matters

Posted on June 5, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

808. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

From the department of subtlety in language comes a submission from Skip. During lunch today (His email said, “Meet me for a black and tan. We’ll call it late lunch or early dinner.”) During “lunch” he told me about a speaker who made the distinction between a student and a learner – to make the point that our systems of education (higher and lower) are not about learning. To be a student and to be a learner are not the same thing at all.

The distinction is in the assumptions beneath the words. The word “student” implies the need for teachers, curricula, etc. The deeper implication is in the necessary action: it is ‘other-directed.” The word learner, on the other hand, requires no teacher, no agenda, nor a curriculum. The necessary action is self-directed. The action can be facilitated, it can be mentored, it can be shared, but the imperative is within.

Why, you ask, does this matter? Isn’t this just splitting hairs?

Last year Skip and I met at a conference for educators on reinventing learning but in Skip’s words, it was not about learning at all. It was about reinventing teaching. The organizers were educators so their assumption set necessitated students and teachers in an expert driven relationship. The teachers know. The students receive the knowing. No learning required. There were incredible conversations that day and few had to do with learning.

Learning is a pursuit. It is a discovery path. There is nothing passively receptive about learning (note: the moment you separate content from method you end all learning and enter the realm of student/teacher).

It matters. The way we ask the question determines the possibilities we see or don’t see. None of our current questions in the field of education have much to do with learning. I walk in many worlds and in the business realm I regularly hear these phrases: “Why don’t my employees take any initiative?” “They expect to be rewarded for everything?” “It’s impossible to critique anything because they take it so personally.” “Everything needs to be an ‘atta-boy!” “They might do just what you ask but never go beyond the prescription.” Frustration abounds.

Well. We get what we create. Students look for permission, color inside the lines, need approval and fixate on their grade. Learners embrace challenges, step across lines, and know intrinsically whether or not their work is good. It matters.

Filed under: Education, Language, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Let Go

Posted on June 4, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

807. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

The world was different when I woke up today. For weeks I’ve been wading through some confusion. Big questions yawned in front of me like a field of shifting boulders; the geography would not stand still so my maps were meaningless. I’d watched the boulders shift for weeks. I feared stepping into the field. All I knew to do was to watch. And, in my sleep last night, finally, the pattern emerged. The path was crystal clear. All that was required was to let go of a dream that I held dear. I had to say good-bye to an ideal. Holding the dream was at the heart of the shifting boulders. The moment I let go, the boulders stood still. The path was simple, clear, and necessary. I let go during the night. I awoke to a different world. I sighed. The inner quiet returned.

It’s a paradox when you discover that your dream is also your restriction. Or, perhaps it is more accurate to say that the attachment to a specific form of the dream is restricting the flow, limiting the possibilities. Dreams can take many forms. Most of the time I know enough to hold the dream and not the form. This time, the little kid in me stamped his feet and cried, “I want that one!” Why can’t I have that one? When I paid attention it was clear that every step on the path that I desired required pushing. I was forcing a direction and the energy pushed back and was hurting me. And as I pushed, as I forced the path, the only visible impact was to hurt those I wanted most to love. I realized that I was hurting everyone. I was hurting myself the most. The boulders started shifting because I was pushing. The resistance stopped my forward motion. I became too tired and scared to walk. I wanted my dream in a specific form and no other. The boulders moved faster and became more lethal.

And then I let go. To hold on would be to do more damage. To keep pushing would only cause those that I love more pain. When I let go the boulders not only stood still, they disappeared.

To what dreams do you cling that might be the source of your turmoil? What ideals are so lofty that they cannot reach good soil in which to take root and grow? Are you unknowingly sourcing your own discomfort? What are you forcing to happen when all indications are that it shouldn’t happen? What might show itself if you let go? What might come forward if you stopped pushing? In transformational presence coaching we talk about partnering with the energy; to partner with energy one must first listen to it. To partner requires paying attention to what is, not what you want to be.

I know these things. I teach them. And, I learn them again and again. The world always changes when we stop pushing long enough to sit down, survey the field, and listen. The hard work is rarely about the creation of the new. The hard work comes with admitting what is necessary to let go.

Filed under: Love, Truly Powerful People | 4 Comments »

Make Better Mistakes

Posted on June 2, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

806. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

I heard this phrase today and loved it: Make better mistakes tomorrow. The idea, of course, is that growth and learning come from making mistakes. There really is no such thing as “right,” just as there is no single answer to any question. There is “better.” There is “improvement.” There is growth and learning and mastery. Words like “right” or “expert” or “perfect” imply an end. They ignore context. They presuppose a single solution. The only moment you get it “right” is the moment you die. And, I hope the moment after you die there’s a voice just behind you that whispers, “Wasn’t that a hell of a good ride?” And, an appropriate response is, “So, what do you want to do now?” You might also scream, “Where am I?” but I am a firm believer that the question you ask determines the possibilities that you see so better to ask an open ended question. Everything is a process.

The ‘Long Body” is a term found in some Native American traditions. It refers to the many forms your body will take between birth and death. At what precise moment did your body transition from infant to adolescent? You can identify a date and a time but they are arbitrary. Your body is always in motion, always in process, always changing and transforming. I once had a conversation with someone who poo-pooed the word “transformation.” They said they’d never seen anything transform. I asked them if they’d ever looked in a mirror but that tactic got me nowhere. Transformation happens every moment of every day. It is the most common of experiences and the most miraculous when we see it. Look at the weather. Find a field and watch it for a year. You can’t believe the explosion of life that happens in a simple garden. Pay attention. You are surrounded by transformation all the while you are transforming. Life is in motion. Nothing is static.

Making mistakes as a life credo will allow you to try new things. It will take the fear out of stepping into unknowns. It will facilitate motion. What’s the worse thing that can happen? You’ll make a mistake and learn something. And, if you’re really good at it, you’ll make better mistakes tomorrow than you made today. It’s worth a try.

Filed under: Education, Perspective, Truly Powerful People | 6 Comments »

Find The Funny

Posted on June 1, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

805. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

This weekend is the official launch of my cartoon FLIP. It’s intended for entrepreneurs but I think everyone in this world is entrepreneurial so it’s really for everyone. I’m particularly fond of FLIP because I am new to the world of founders and business creators so I’m like a curious 2-year old always asking, “Why?” Why are they so afraid to talk to people? Why do they keep their ideas locked in a vault? No one creates alone.

Very few people actually have the gumption to turn an idea into a business. The one thing the data tells us is that relationship is central to success (hmmmmm, just like the arena of education! Educators/politicians also ignore at their peril the fact that relationship is central to student success. Too bad we can’t test for it. If I were drawing a cartoon about education I’d start with what is testable and what is not. You either have to laugh or cry when you see the zoo we’ve created and called “school”). In the age of the internet, does intellectual property have any lasting value? In the age of the internet, things move too fast and people are too connected to pretend that relationship doesn’t matter or to silo their ideas. Through FLIP I have discovered that I have the perfect eyes to find the funny in a world that takes itself very, very seriously.

I find this world gorgeous and serious just gets in the way.

I’ve found that the funniest material comes from the places where we are most invested. For instance, in the world of incubators/accelerators (now, tell me that you don’t find those terms funny!) status is a big deal. There’s lots of investment in status. Therefore, there’s lots of fun to be found in the status games; there are those players that know they are playing and those that do not. Isn’t this true in all aspects of life? When I take a step back I see how hysterically funny my life really is – particularly where I am most invested and unconscious of the game that I’m playing.

Someone once told me that the inner monologue was the mother lode of comedy. Take a step back and listen to all the ridiculous fear/horror stories you tell yourself. They are funny if you don’t invest in them. Follow the investments and you’ll always find the funny.

Filed under: Perspective, Play, Truly Powerful People | Leave a comment »

Shout Shhhhhhhhh!

Posted on May 31, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

804. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Today I’ve had three separate conversations about how badly I suck at community building/business and marketing (the same stuff in my case). I am – it seems – the master of one-way communication. Do you know that over 13,000 of you read this blog over the course of the year? Several hundred of you read it each day. Some of you tell me when a post rings a bell for you. Sometimes you reflect your stories back to me. It is a discipline to me, a meditation. I love to write about the magic I see. I love to rail against the education system or write about what makes me weep. Even when I feel that there is nothing more to say, when I sit down to write, something always pours out.

Do you know that I’m a coach? Do you know that I help people everyday to open their stories, move through their blocks, and step into their power (thus, the name of my business, Truly Powerful)? This blog is an extension of my work in the world. I don’t think to say it because I assume that I’m shouting it. Raquel dope slapped me this morning and told me I never ask for help getting the word out into the word. I think I do…but apparently not. When I took Kevin Honeycutt’s amazing launch class for speakers, he gave me my all-time favorite feedback when he said, “You shout ‘shhhhhhhhhhhhh.” So, if you know anyone who’s blocked or not fulfilling their purpose, send them to me. I do it for organizations, too and who doesn’t know a constipated organization? I could use a few more clients. How’s that for an ask? Of course, Diane reflected that I rarely make a strong ask. I shout shhhhhhh in my marketing, too. It’s in my nature. I am boldly quiet.

People often reflect that they have a hard time finding me. “How is that possible?” I ask myself. Could I be any more out there in the world? Carol recently reflected that, in addition to being the master of one-way communication, I am a marvel of deflection. Ask me to tell you about myself and I will inevitably tell a story of triumph about another person. I love helping people to their triumphs! Message: if you come looking for me I’ll point you to someone else. Last week Skip and I gave away over 30 hours of time to budding entrepreneurs. Skip is a gold mine of information, wisdom and insight. Literally. I am a transformer of perception and consciousness. If you want to meet your purpose and light it up, I’m your man. When we were bemoaning our dearth of income and empty seminar attendance I asked myself, “Why would anyone ever attend any workshop we give when they get it for free everyday…”

Did I also mention that I am a slow study? Alan told me once (not a direct quote) that perhaps no one hires me because everyone is my friend. I like people. People like me (mostly…there are a few who would stone me if given the chance). So. Truly Powerful People teach what they most need to learn. Take off the brakes. Shout it from the mountaintop.

Help me make this a conversation. Share your stories with me so I might share them with the other 12,999 people looking in. I welcome your stories of my ineptitude (they show me that you love me;-) or tell me about the mountains you move everyday. We’re all doing it. You are wise and heart-centered and deserve to know each other.

Filed under: Random, Truly Powerful People | 3 Comments »

Share A Meal With Jakorda

Posted on May 30, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

803. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Jakorda Rai sat behind me. His hands on either side of my head, he read my energy just as he’d read the other students who previously sat before him. Unlike the other students he did not progress to the second phase of diagnosis. Instead, he simply tapped me on my right shoulder and through a translator told me that nothing physically ailed me. My challenge was to open my story. As if to emphasize his diagnosis he tapped me again on the right shoulder and repeated his instruction. Open your story.

Later I would return to his house compound and participate in a ritual. He initiated me into his family temple. I became one of his family line. Only now am I understanding the import of that gesture, the gift that he gave me. The high priests brought me in to his temple and then Jakorda Rai sent me back into the world to open my story. Before I left his house compound he invited me to come back back. Through the translator he said, “Someday come back and share a meal with me.” I thought I’d be back within a few years. More than a decade has passed.

What does it mean to have an open story?

Artists – and by artists I mean all people who are conscious of their actions and choices – flourish when the emphasis in life is moved from “answer seeking” and placed on “question engagement” – the capacity to explore and engage, to sit solidly in uncertainty: that is the environment (and I think it is an internal environment) necessary for humans to flourish and fulfill their creative impulse.

I’ve posted these words before and decided to post them again. My dear friend Sam asked me to describe under what conditions an artist flourishes and this is what I wrote in response:

It is perhaps too simple but this is what I know and experience: the artist in me becomes present (it is all about presence; artistry is not something you do as much as something you are) – there is no past or future, just what is before me (and in me) in that moment and we are not separate: the poem or the painting or the story and I are one fluid thing. The world (my seeing) moves from nouns to verbs, from object focused to process focused. When I am present the environment, my seeing of my environment, comes “alive;” the colors are more intense, the sounds and textures of my space richer and clearer. I guess, in my artist self, there ceases to be a separation between me and my environment, I am not moving through a day, I am in the day. All concepts of “time” disappear. I am the creator, the creating, and the created.

This is what it means to have an open story. And now that I know, now that I am an open story, I remember that I am long over due to share a meal with Jakorda Rai.

Filed under: Awakening, Body, Emergence, Power, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , , | 1 Comment »

Take A Look At Strider

Posted on May 29, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

802. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

He was formidable walking down the hill toward the waterfront. Wrapped in a grey blanket that made him look like a Jedi knight he took bold confident strides. He was a paradox: homeless and determined, aimless and intentional. People parted and opened a path for him even before they could see him. They felt him coming. He was a force.

For a moment I felt as if I was watching two worlds overlap. His grey blanket-cape swirling through a crowd of reserved business-casual wear. He was the most alive person on the street and the most fearsome. He was striding beyond the rules. He didn’t care if he was hit by a car or ran over a tourist. He didn’t care and the freedom of not caring was dangerous. I could see the message in his pace: no one cared for him so why should he care for anyone. He was experiencing the worst punishment a tribe can deliver: he was cast out. He did not belong.

I knew he had no destination because I recognized the force that drove him. He wanted his life to be different. He wanted a break, an opportunity, anything that looked like hope. And there was none in sight. He was pissed at his life choices. All he could do in this moment was walk and walk fast, hard, and determined and burn off the fury. It would either make him feel the vibrancy of his life or exhaust him and either way he would emerge from his walk in another mindset. He would find hope or fatigue and sleep. He would live another day.

As I watched him descend the hill, knowing that he would simply turn and walk right back up again only to descend one more time – a modern day Sisyphus – I also realized that the folks in business-casual were probably doing the same thing only with less awareness but with a modicum of hope. Someone cared about their actions. Someone cared that they showed up. They had a place to go. The strider did not.

Last night, I had yet another conversation about the need to create community and connectivity – this time with a maker of software. My fascination with this conversation began nearly 15 years ago in school with the ongoing ever-present conversation about creating community. I hear it in one form or another almost everyday. Here in a metro area of almost 2 million people we feel the need to create community and that can only be true because we do not experience it beyond the superficial. A community cares for the health and well being of all of its members. A community does not place the interests of the few above the values of the whole.

I have been walking since January AND I have places to go. If I do not show up at Carol’s before midnight I get a text. Judy checks in with me. Horatio and Arnie want to know how I am doing. Megan reminds me to eat and throughout the day tugs on the lifeline to see if I will tug back. I am loved. I have been meditating on this thing called home that has evaded me or that I have avoided (I don’t know which) and the strider shook my meditation like a snow globe. I think I will find home because I am determined to create it. I wonder if any of us will ever really know a greater community? The man in the cape swirled down the hill and people parted, they glanced but mostly did not give him a second look. Outcasts are ordinary. Not belonging to something bigger is an everyday occurrence. Do you feel it?

Filed under: Random, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , | 5 Comments »

Lower The Drama

Posted on May 28, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

801. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

“It’s the reason we invest in all the drama and gossip!” she said. “Wrap yourself in drama and people will see the drama and because they see the drama they can’t see you. Drama is a smokescreen. It’s a way to hide.” And then she laughed and added, “At least that’s what I’ve discovered about myself. And, even better, all that good yummy drama not only keeps others from seeing me, it keeps me from seeing me. And isn’t THAT the point.”

We are the last people to see ourselves. Horatio reminded me today that I am an easy target. “People take advantage of you,” he said. “You don’t see it but those of us that care for you do see it.” I wanted to protest but he was right. I don’t see it and I am always surprised and disappointed when it happens again. How could I not see it?

What do we do to keep from seeing ourselves? What do we do to keep from being seen? What stories do we tell? What games do we play? What addictions do we claim? We beliefs do we hold.

Her parting question was priceless: “Imagine what people might see if there was no layer of drama to obscure their view? What might we see in ourselves if there was no gossip to distract us?”

Filed under: Seeing, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , | 2 Comments »

« Previous Page — Next Page »
  • buy us a coffee :-) Thank you!

  • visit the studio melange at kerrianddavid.com

  • The Seer available on Amazon.com

  • Lucy & The Waterfox is also available on Amazon.com