The Direction of Intention

What’s At The End Of The Tube?

Posted on October 4, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Louise was my seatmate on the flight from Lincoln to Denver. She was on her way to meet friends in Santa Fe and I was making the trek back home from working with my beloved Hastings friends. The plane was still at the gate when she looked at her watch and said, “We’ve only been talking for two minutes and we’re already into the deep stuff.” We laughed because we both knew our conversation would go deeper and deeper throughout our flight.

She was a nurse. During the first half of her career she worked at burn units and trauma centers. She told me it was time to move on when she began to feel more like a mechanic than a nurse. “One day,” she said, “I realized that I was adjusting heart monitors and manipulating multiple gadgets with nine tubes that just happened to have a human attached. It was all about assessment and paperwork.” She was quiet for a moment and then added, “Of course it was all about monitoring the person but over time our focus became more and more about the machines. I missed the eye contact, the human touch.”

I told her that teachers are experiencing the same thing. We have gone so assessment crazy and are so test driven that we’ve lost the center; the purpose is no longer to support the health, wellbeing and growth of our children: we routinely toss out the health and wellbeing part for a higher score. And, as hard as they try, our teachers are more and more required to monitor the machine which means they have less and less capacity to actually teach. It’s worth noting that teaching and learning are fundamentally relational. Assessment is mechanical. Our children are like the patient with hundreds of tubes attached; we’ve lost the essential human contact in our mania for monitoring and will be in an educational death spiral until we return to the human center.

The theme is so common that I can only believe that this assessment frenzy is an expression of culture. What is it that drives us to toss away a vital beating heart so we can put the communal body on life support? Marketers know my buying patterns. Google assesses and optimizes my searches, my preferences are logged, tracked and utilized; we are the most polled populace that has ever walked the earth. We know so much about ourselves and at the same time we know almost nothing. Do you know your neighbors? Is the world as divided and dangerous as the news would have us believe (according to the numbers, it is safer. Do you feel it?)? We are standing in a blizzard of information and as in all blizzards we’ve lost sight of what’s immediately in front of us.

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Give Thanks To The Bunny

Posted on October 3, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Yesterday we went to Elsa’s Adult Care foster home to collect Margaret’s belongings. It was a simple box with several framed photographs, her wedding announcement, a large yellowing photo album made long ago by her daughter-in-law, and an oversized pink stuffed bunny.

When Margaret was early in her disease she volunteered at a hospital gift shop. One day she fell in love with a giant pink stuffed bunny and bought it for herself. She brought it home and for the rest of her life, as the Alzheimer’s slowly took more and more of her, she slept soundly wrapped in the embrace of the very large kindly bunny.

A few years ago, Lora did a photo essay of her mom and one of my favorite photos from the shoot was Margaret tucked into bed, ready for her nap. She is staring into the camera, secure in the embrace was her loving pink bedfellow.

Life is odd. As Lora clutched her mother’s favorite sweater and cried with Elsa, I could not help but stare at that pink stuffed bunny; I was overwhelmed with a deep sense of gratitude for it. It was as if the bunny was the guardian angel that supported Margaret through this final phase of her life. Elsa was certainly the living presence, the loving caregiver. But the bunny heard Margaret’s secrets. The bunny was with her deep into the night. She held onto that bunny like she held onto her life. She loved that bunny into tatters.

I’m certain my personification of this stuffed toy reveals more about me than it does Margaret or the bunny. I was surprised at my affection for the rabbit wedged in the box between photos in frames. I was even more surprised that it was not grief or loss evoked by the pink velveteen rabbit peaking from the box but a profound sense of appreciation that one day, many years ago, Margaret looked at the shelf and said, ‘Oh! I love that bunny.” And this amazing 75 year-old warrior-woman bought herself a stuffed animal that stood almost as tall as she did, and at the end of her day as a hospital volunteer, she carried it home. And, at the end of the day, it was a large pink stuffed bunny that carried Margaret home.

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

Help Marisol

Posted on October 2, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

We just cleared through security at the airport and were putting on our shoes, and belts, and rings; we were zipping computers back in their cases. Several feet away stood a small woman. Later, I would learn that her name was Marisol. She was from the Virgin Islands. She was lost. She was punching the button for an elevator that would not come. She looked straight at me, smiled and said in her broken English, “Help me.”

I stood with her for several minutes at the elevator-that-would-never-come and when we finally gave up, I took her bag and we approached the escalator. Marisol approached the escalator as I might approach a pond of crocodiles. She closed her eyes and stepped boldly, leaving one foot firmly planted on the landing while the other foot landed squarely on the line soon to separate into two different treads. She would have fallen, she expected to fall, but I clutched her as she clutched me and we rode the demon stairs to the bottom and leapt to safety. In addition to a train, we had two more escalators to navigate, each as fearful for her as the first, each a near accident, the result of a fearless closed-eye stepping, clutching and rescue, a ride on modern terror, and a leap to safety.

When we at last arrived at her gate, we left her in the good hands of the gate attendants (how’s that for a metaphor) and walked on to find our flight. As we left Marisol I was struck by her ease – even in the midst of being lost, she easily reached out for help, easily extended to me her trust, easily stepped into something that terrified her, again and again, easily knew that she would arrive where she needed to go. She closed her eyes and stepped.

During our adventure I learned that she was on vacation. This tiny adventurous soul came to Seattle because it was a place that she’d always wanted to see. She made no plan and followed the adventure of the day – I can only imagine she looked at strangers all along the way and said, “Help me.” And, like me, they helped. She was so generous in her request that I would have missed my flight to get her on time to hers. I am certain she altered the course of the day for every stranger that she met.

Marisol expects the world to be generous and so it is. She expects people to be caring, careful, and supportive – and so they are. Marisol sees a world that begs her to come for a visit. And so she does. Easily.

Filed under: Possibility, Truly Powerful People | 2 Comments »

Join The Conspiracy

Posted on October 1, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

As we boarded the plane to Tucson, the flight attendants pulled us aside and in a conspiratorial whisper asked, “Can you help us?” Peaking around the corner, wary that they might be overheard, they shoved a brightly colored package at us and unfolded a piece of paper, a laser print of a photo. The picture was of their co-worker, Diane. “This is what she looks like.” They whispered. “Take a good look. At some point during the flight, will you give her this gift? It’s her birthday.” We nodded as we peaked around the corner, now fully complicit with the surprise. They held up the photo once again and mouthed silently, “Diane.”

As we continued down the aisle we saw her, Diane. Lora leaned forward and whispered, “That’s her! There she is!” We pretended not to stare, acting casual, taking our seats as if we were ordinary passengers. We noticed the eyes of other conspirators, secret carriers of brightly wrapped packages.

Later, in the air, as the beverage cart made its way down the aisle, Diane handed out snacks and passengers handed her presents. There was great laughter with each new revelation. Diane opened her packages in the aisle and showed her new treasure to the giver, her new friends. Later, people rang for the attendant and when Diane came, instead of asking a question or requesting a beverage, they gave Diane her present. The pilot’s voice came over the loud speaker, announcing that it was Diane’s birthday. We knew already and laughed and clapped for her.

Lora whispered, “When should we give her our present?” “Soon!” I responded, looking around to make sure Diane was not within earshot. We had no idea what was in the package, had never met Diane, but now it was “our” present and we were both excited to give it. The moment came when she was collecting trash. Diane leaned forward to gather our used cups and Lora leaned forward and gave her the present. More hilarity. More gratitude. By now, the people on the flight were chatting, the party was in full swing; the flight was a surprise both for Diane and for the passengers.

The line between stranger and friend is so thin. We step over that line when we make the choice to include others as opposed to excluding them. I sat in my seat and watched the generosity of strangers morph into a festival of connectivity; people opened. The capacity for making a day extraordinary is ever-present and so close at hand. It only requires a wee bit of conspiracy to make someone’s day.

Filed under: Possibility, Surprises, Truly Powerful People | 5 Comments »

Reach For The Bully

Posted on September 30, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

There is a theme emerging this week in my conversations with clients and friends: bullies. Bosses that bully, kids that bully, spouses that bully and the culture of distrust that naturally evolves when there is a bully in the crowd.

Here’s a secret to keep in mind if you find a bully snorting in your path: bullies are actually the weakest people in the herd; they need to get their power from other people because they have yet to experience what it is to actually BE powerful. In other words they get power from others because they do not yet know how to bring it; they do not know that they are powerful. Diminishing others is the only way a bully knows to elevate their esteem. It is the drowning man strategy: push the others under so you can keep your head above the water. Bullies, by definition, are drowning.

Drowning people do not think clearly. They are in survival mode. They will do anything; they will sacrifice anything to keep their head above the water. Engaging in a power struggle with the bully only serves to feed the bully. People cowering are like delicious gulps of air to someone who has mistaken control for power – and this is the tragedy of the bully: they’ve mistaken control for power. And once this mistake is made, the road to true power feels like the choice to drown. True power is only available when we stop pushing others under. True power is created with others; no one is powerful alone.

Bullies fear their powerlessness – it is the truth they hide – the motor that drives their need to prove their might again and again every day. If you were drowning, what would you need to feel safe? What would you need to stop pushing others down to lift yourself up?

Filed under: Power, Truly Powerful People | 1 Comment »

Burn Your Trash

Posted on September 29, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Tom’s grandpa, also named Tom – Pa Tom, owned a small country store in the little train stop town of Herald, California. Every Sunday morning when Tom was a boy he would make the trip to Herald and help Pa Tom burn the week’s trash. It was a great event each week, terrific fun for a small boy to burn stuff with his grandpa. When the fire was just right, not too hot, they’d whittle sticks and roast hot dogs for lunch.

Years later Tom and I rode through the countryside in his truck. He was telling me the family history and showing me the places where the stories happened. He showed me where Thomas Lewins was buried; the man who brought his family west in a covered wagon. The journey took seven years. He showed me where Frankie was buried; one of the many lost boys in the story: Frankie, for some reason, was buried in a cemetery away from the rest of the family. His aunts suffered greatly knowing that Frankie was resting all alone. He showed me the Herald store – it’s still there though now is more of a convenience mart than a country outpost.

As we drove he shared his concerns for what he would do with the ranch and this history of his family. There was no one to pass them on to; the city was fast encroaching on his land. I think he knew even then that his time was short; he could feel the dementia descending. He didn’t want to leave a mess.

He stared straight ahead when he told me that he learned a lot about life during those Sunday morning trash burnings. Chief among the lessons that Pa Tom taught him was to take responsibility for his trash; it was wrong to leave a mess for other people to clean. I knew what he was telling me so I said, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” Tom nodded and looked away.

Pa Tom’s lesson was a credo and something we should all embrace: your trash is yours. Do not leave it for others to clean up. However, there is one very important caveat: make sure you know what is trash and what is treasure. Each of us spends our lives wrangling with our metaphoric trash bag – this wrangling provides the spine and substance of our story. And our story is our treasure. Deal with the trash; please do not discard the treasure.

Filed under: Education, Story, Truly Powerful People | Leave a comment »

Invest In Your Feet

Posted on September 28, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

If you don’t count the time I sobbed in a restaurant with Linda Margules, my first public meltdown happened in a shoe store. Shoes have always been problematic for me; I’d rather not wear them at all. I feel as though I am suffocating when I wear shoes. Seriously. I’ve learned to wear clogs and boots sometimes work, too. The key is removability. If I can kick them off in a moment or less, I can wear them. I was always in trouble as a kid because I wore holes in my socks almost immediately.

My meltdown happened at the dawn of my work in corporate America. My friends and loved ones felt that I should, at long last, own some “grown up” clothes. Lora took me shopping and she and Smokey Sally helped me find a few suits. I even bought a tie (confession: I wore the tie once because I felt I had to since I bought it but once it was no longer around my neck I conveniently lost it. Ties are like shoes…). And, since I now had suits, I needed a pair of lace-up shoes.

I knew I was in trouble the moment I entered the store. The place was stuffy and smelled of leather and polish. I couldn’t breathe. The panic was almost immediate though I was able to suppress it until I went down an aisle. I was surrounded by lace up shoes. Lora was talking to me, showing me shoes that she liked but I could no longer understand verbal communication; it was as if her sound track was too slow for the words to take shape. My temples started pounding and I couldn’t make decisions. I kept looking at shoes and all I could see were torture devices, tight prisons, concrete. I know my eyes were darting about, looking for escape because I could see the concern descend on Lora’s face. I think she was asking me what was wrong. I fled. I don’t know if I knocked over other customers or leaped over stacks of shoes; I have no memory of my exit. The next thing I knew I was standing in the street, hyperventilating.

Apparently my identity is invested in my feet. The best advice anyone ever gave me came from a financial advisor. I showed up to work with his team and I was wearing one of my new suits (and clogs). As we left the building at the end of the day he made an observation. He said, “Your clothes can’t mask who you are. You are an artist. You are an unmade bed. That’s why we wanted you. Why don’t you drop the suit and show up as you really are, not as you think we want you to be.” Great advice. I sighed a huge sigh of relief. No shoes necessary.

Filed under: Identity, Truly Powerful People | 2 Comments »

Do You See It?

Posted on September 27, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

One morning last May, Megan-the-brilliant picked me up at my hotel and said, “Before coffee, I have to show you something.” She was excited and I could tell this was a vulnerable offer, she was opening to me and I adored her courage. We drove into the country to an undulating stretch of road and Megan squealed, “Do you see it? Do you see it?” I did. The shadows of electrical lines cast by the early morning sun made a vibrant pattern on the blacktop: the road looked like a heart monitor tape. She giggled as we descended into the strip, riding through the record of a giant’s beating heart. It was glorious and subtle. She turned up the music and rolled down the windows so we would have the full sensual experience of that moment in time. She made a memory. Ten thousand people have driven that stretch of road and few if any saw the shadows. And, because she took a chance to show me, in that moment just before I die, in my moment of my personal life review, I will feel the wind, hear the music and her giggle, as we roared through the shadows like kids through a sprinkler. We were alive.

Megan-the-Brilliant teaches me that it doesn’t take much. Keep your eyes open. Revel in the small discoveries because, if you engage with the moment, there are no small discoveries. Make your memories. You don’t need to travel to France to do it – and, frankly, the grace you give yourself during travel is to open your eyes and see. You drop the idea that you know what’s there and actually look. The same capacity is available each moment of every day of your life. Nothing is ordinary if you decide to see beyond your boredom (your boredom does not exist outside of you).

If I could give the world a gift on this day it would be for Megan-the-Brilliant to pick you up at your hotel. Before coffee she will take you for a treat. Open your eyes as you may miss it. You’ll know it is there when she rolls down the window, turns up the music and asks, “Do you see it?”

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See For Yourself

Posted on September 26, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Someone told me today that I see the world in a different way than any other person they’ve ever met. It was a compliment and I took it that way. And, I couldn’t help think that this is true of every person. No one sees as I see. I cannot see what anyone else sees. They have never been behind my eyes and I will never be behind theirs. Our patterns and beliefs and experiences and expectations have more to do with what we see than anything in our sight line.

A few days ago I passed a man sitting shirtless in the dirt. He was tossing handfuls of dirt into the air and with eyes closed he would look up so the falling dirt would cover his face. Then he ground the dirt into his face. I thought he must be homeless, out of his mind; I worried for him until another man stepped from a doorway and said, “I think that’s enough. You look great now so let’s get the shot.” It brought to mind the day Megan, Jill and I rubbed mud into our hair and on our faces because we were going into a kindergarten classroom with a story of high adventure to tell. Mud made us credible. Many people saw us rolling in the mud and must have thought we were nuts or at least dangerous.

I am consciously changing the way I see. I’ve lived too many of my precious years on this earth with eyes focused only on the negative. I found my worth in pushing back. Once, my friend Roger told me that my darkness could “suck the air out of a room.” He was right. My darkness was sucking the air out of me. And the light, too. I count myself fortunate that I was conscious that my seeing was my choice; my story was my creation. If there was no light in my life then I was to blame.

This earth is extraordinary and the vast majority of people on it at present are well intentioned, deeply caring, and just as clueless as I am. The one thing I know for certain is that I will never know what they see, but I do know that their hopes and dreams and ideas are just as potent, just as real, and just as valid as are mine.

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

Sit With The Tsunami

Posted on September 25, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

565. 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 have lately been craving coffee. Dark and sweet, I find myself staring out the window dreaming of my next cup. This is a phase. Coffee for me is like comfort food. When great change is in the wind, when I am feeling off center or the tsunami coming, I crave coffee.

It is possible to drink too much. Once, while in college, a doctor looked at my finger nails and told me I was close to poisoning myself with caffeine. I wondered why my jaws were always so tight, why I couldn’t sleep at night, and why people thought I was intense. Hours at the drafting table with endless pots of comfort brewing did a number on me. I was always off center when I was younger so I lived on comfort food. It was a great day when I learned that center was something I create, not something I drink.

Now days, when the craving comes, I know enough to brew an especially dark pot, make a cup good and sweet, and take my chair to the beach, and welcome the tsunami. I need do nothing else but welcome what is coming. No running around, no panic story, no avoidance techniques and especially no escape fantasies. Sit, sip and welcome the new. Comfort food is supposed to bring comfort, not evasion.

I read somewhere that when faced with discomfort we will distract ourselves, we will clean the dishes, vacuum the house rather than face our dilemma head on. I’m learning that these distractions are an early phase of the coming storm, necessary preparation, creating readiness, so that when the coffee craving comes, there is nothing left to do, nothing left to clean, but sit in a nice chair, sip the sweet dark brew and enjoy the transformation.

Filed under: Truly Powerful People | Tagged: change, transformation | 1 Comment »

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