The Direction of Intention

Exit The Mind Field

Posted on November 6, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

607. 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 self-judgment that I often hear from clients, “I should be in the world in a more dynamic/expressive/productive way. I am not fulfilling my potential.” Probe a bit deeper and inevitably I find that there is also a world-view supporting the self-judgment: “I live in a minefield.” I love this term, minefield, or, as another client used to say, more to the point, “mind field.”

How can you possibly expect to fulfill your potential if you believe you live in a field of mines? If you exist in a minefield, you step lightly if you step at all. The expectation to fulfill potential does not match the world-view. In a minefield, survival is the best you can do.

The expectation of fulfilled potential comes from the desire to be in the world in a different way. The question is rarely about potential and is usually about safety. A child that does not feel safe will not play. An adult that does not feel safe will not bring their best offer; they cease to express. To be more dynamic/expressive/productive you must first decide to exit the minefield. It is not fulfilled potential but freedom of movement that we seek; “fulfilled potential” is an abstraction; freedom to move and breathe and speak is tangible.

Identify the mines. Do you compare yourself with others? Who? Why is this other person the standard bearer for your life? Have you set an absurdly high expectation or invested in the notion of “perfect?” Who set the bar that is impossible to clear? Whose permission do you seek? What story do you wrap around your choices? There are legitimate minefields in this world and then there are mind fields. Learning to distinguish between the two is a great first step. If you are truly in a minefield retrace your steps and get out. If you are in a mind field, retrace your steps and get out. Reclaim your safety.

The rivers of creativity cannot flow through you if you are afraid to move. Potential is not a vessel to fill it is a quality of movement in your life.

Filed under: Awakening, Metaphor, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: safety | Leave a comment »

See Again

Posted on November 5, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

606. 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 got new glasses today. I had great vision until I was 45 and then, just as a prophetic optometrist predicted when I was 21, the world went fuzzy. I denied the existence of my first pair of glasses until one day during a workshop I thought a team wrote on their flip chart, “All new hires should have babies.” I walked closer to the flip chart (rather than put on my glasses…) and discovered that they’d actually written that new hires should have buddies, not babies. I was both relieved and distressed; what else was I misreading?

It amuses me when I bust myself in full-blown story attachment. In my brown-eyed family, I am the only member with green eyes. I was the only member gifted with perfect vision; not only do I have green eyes but I do not need glasses…that was the story. I do not need glasses. I am an artist with perfect vision and that is a gift. With glasses, I thought the gift was revoked. I must not have used it well. I was, with glasses, somehow less special. I knew that the story of my glasses was ridiculous and existed nowhere outside of me, but I told it anyway.

And then I learned through my new fuzzy sight that my gift was not my vision; it was my vision.

The first time Joe saw me wear my glasses he said, “Oh, thank god! Now you at least look smart!” Over time I grew accustomed to wearing them when I needed to read flip charts or drive. Pulling them from their perch on the collar of my shirt I’d put them on and think, “Time to look smart.” It became a game, like Clark Kent running into his phone booth and coming out as superman; I’d turn around and put on my glasses, spin around and be a few points smarter than before. “I need some more smarts,” I’d think, spinning around, and re-emerging wearing my smart eyes. And then, I realized that glasses work like a mask or a clown’s nose: they are transformational and allow an infinite number of new characters to come through: my glasses worked just like a clown car!

So, picking out my second pair of glasses today was an event. Since I now recognize that my gift is not my vision but my vision, and I have a unique opportunity for new characters to emerge through each successive pair of glasses, I went to the most special place, Eyes On Fremont, to pick my new look, my new superhero persona, my next clown car of personalities.

Watch out world! I can see again. And, with my new look came a new superpower though I must not tell what my new superpower is (hint: I am less smart in my new mask but speeding bullets have nothing on me now!); superpowers must remain incognito until needed.

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

Seek

Posted on November 4, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Master David Miller just sent his update-my-life newsletter and at the bottom he included this quote:

“Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those that find it.” Andre Gide

I cheered and clapped my flippers! As someone who has done an insane amount of seeking in his life I was gratified to know that other seekers have also found nothing. And, more to the point, “not-finding” is in fact, the point of seeking.

The great thing about science is that there is always another question. Math is a language we’ve invented or discovered (a chicken and egg debate above my pay grade) that is used to describe our universe; no answers there! Math is also nice for balancing your checkbook or keeping track of how many widgets were sold; it’s a great a way of notating music. Math is the language of pursuit. Chase math down the path and it will lead you to strings and quantums and bubbles…more and more questions. History is never about answers though we pretend that there is a definitive narrative as if we only have one brain and a single set of eyes. At the heart of every seeker is an artist asking, “I wonder what would happen if…?” Mystery upon mystery, question upon question: why then have we constructed an education system dedicated to reducing everything to an answer?

Given my steadfast belief that education is about seeking and not about finding – or put another way – education is about asking questions and not about having answers, I propose a simple step that could revolutionize education in America (note – I wrote “step” and not “solution” as to seek a solution is to reinforce the notion of finding a truth): remove the emphasis on the answer and reinforce the quest. That’s it. A local simplicity to leverage change in a complex system.

This is how I’d do it: first grade would start at night around a campfire with the entire community present, the children closest to the fire. Some old grizzled elder would tell the story of a quest, an ancestor that faced monumental odds and severe hardship and returned to the community with a scroll of questions stolen from a cave guarded by monsters. And since that day every member of the community has been in pursuit of the truth within the questions. All the adults would nod – an impossible task and the community now needs fresh eyes for the questions. And then the elder would give each child a copy of the scroll and ask them for their help. The next day, a teacher would ask, “Where should we start?” The next evening, a parent would ask, “What did you discover?”

Since we are so dedicated to our need to test I wave the white flag of compromise and suggests that the scroll given to the children is the one-and-only standardized test the children will ever receive. It is given on the first night of their new life in school, not with an expectation of answers but as a launch pad for the greater test of their capacity to pursue. Of course, the questions would be designed so that there was no single answer possible, each question would lead to more complex questions; and isn’t that a great definition of “truth?” It’s a treasure hunt. It’s life training. And they, like us, would need each and every member of the community to fulfill their unfulfillable quest.

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

Dance In The Paradox

Posted on November 3, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

604. 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 of my favorite paradoxes lives in these two seemingly conflicting statements: 1) you can only know yourself through the eyes of another, and 2) what others perceive is none of your business; your business is to attend to what you perceive. I believe both to be true.

An infant that lacks touch and attention will die. An adult that lacks touch and attention might live but they will certainly twist, warp, and wither. They will wonder why they live; survival alone on a deserted island is untenable unless there is hope of one day seeing, touching, and knowing another human being. It is the desire to connect, the fundamental need to connect with another that gives us life and purpose. If you are seeking for greater meaning take pause and look at those miracle people that surround you. Everything else is an abstraction. On your deathbed you will review your relationships, not your portfolio.

We are, at the end of the day, a relationship, fluid and dynamic. We are the story we tell of what just happened. We are a story we tell of what we desire to happen. And the “happening” always involves relationship to someone. Think about it: who have you deemed it necessary to know that you are successful? Whose values do you carry forward?

Occasionally we are present with what is, not looking forward or backward but just here. And here, in this place beyond story, it is clear to see that there is only dynamic, flowing relationship.

Our folly is in believing that we are one thing, a fixed singular identity. A separate fixed singular identity. We are none of those things: separate, singular, or fixed. Choose one day this week and pay attention to how many roles you play. Beyond father, mother, daughter son, uncle, niece, nephew, friend, boss, commuter, there are roles you play as you dress, walk down the street; whose eye do you want to catch? What is the story you tell to strangers at dinner parties? Who are you in public? How does that change in private? What about in good days? How does it change when you are feeling down? Who do you want to be? Who are you afraid that you are? Answer six phone calls and pay attention to how you change based on who’s on the other end of the call. Our actions are driven relative to the others that we include in our story.

You are a dynamic relationship and the most mysterious relationship you will ever have is with yourself. And therein lives the paradox. No one can truly know you; no one will ever stand and see through your eyes or know fully what you really think – so their opinions about you have nothing to do with you. What they think is filtered through their lives and expectations. They can’t even really see you through their filters and role assignments. Only your opinions have to do with you because only your opinions originate in you. So, how do you choose to story yourself?

If it is true that you can only know yourself through the eyes of another it is also true that you can only know yourself through what you perceive. To know yourself you must at some point step into the mystery of yourself and on that journey there is no guide to hire. No one can tell you what to find, where to look, or what to believe. Virgil cannot escort you into that cavern. You must step into the vastness of yourself by yourself, and define the kind of relationship you want to have with you. You must see yourself from your own point of view. And recognize that even that is a story.

As I recently read, “truth is not fact.” You are not a fact. You are a truth and truths can only be found dancing in the paradoxes.

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

Look Before You Throw

Posted on November 2, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Just a few moments ago, I stood up from my desk, slid open the glass door, stepped out on the balcony with my laptop, and prepared to hurl my computer into space. Luckily, I have an odd sense of humor so, before I actually pitched the offender to its death, I did what they do on television and threatened it first. “Are you going to tell me what I want to know?” I whispered coldly. At first my computer was silent so I cocked my arm as if I was about to throw it like a Frisbee and the poor device screamed and begged for mercy. It relented and helped me with my task (as it was supposed to do in the first place). So I brought it back inside to the desk… but I did not close the door. I wanted it to know that the flying-off-the-balcony option was still on the table.

I was gratified that it relented but somehow felt dissatisfied. I wanted to hear the smash. I wanted to feel the triumph of actually pitching the offending computer off of the balcony. And that’s when the idea hit me: stunt doubles! My computer should have a stand-in for those dangerous moments when it confounds me and provokes my wrath! I would have pitched the stunt double off the balcony without a second thought. I would have danced a happy jig the moment it smashed to the ground! And the threat would still be there for my real computer. While dancing I’d look at my real computer and say, “Did you hear that? That will be you if you keep messing with me….” Who knew that technology would bring out my inner Al Capone.

Recently, I was in the Verizon store. On the counter was a box of smashed iPhones. The purpose of the box on the counter was to encourage new buyers to get the insurance offered by the store. I was waiting so I asked for the stories of the smashed phones. The young man behind the counter grinned and took great relish telling me the gory accounts of iPhone demise. Some were clearly accidental. Others were very suspicious. For instance, what would need to happen for you to “back your car over your phone?” What sequence of events would lead you to “drop your phone off an overpass?” Or, my personal favorite, “…a friend, (a Sumo wrestler, apparently), stepped on it.” MM-hmm. Technology brings out the inner Al Capone in us all. Had the iPhone owners suitable stunt doubles, their phones may have lived to see another day.

Megan-the-Brilliant is tough on technology. I’ve only known her for a few years and have already seen her drown her phone (twice), drop her phone on hard tile (suspicious, don’t you think?), smash the glass in a manner yet to be explained (she rolled her eyes and said, “It just happened.”) I’ve even seen her work a backroom deal for smashed glass replacement because she didn’t want to explain yet another time why her phone was broken (during the deal I pretended that I was the look-out. It was thrilling). Imagine the relief she would feel with a box of stunt doubles. She could experience the joy of drowning her phone and not have to fear the dubious looks from suspicious Verizon employees.

Just as in the movies, a stunt double does not cost nearly as much as a star. I could affordably pitch my laptop off a balcony several times a day and still be under budget. Of course, my inner lawyer would impose a warning label on my inner Al Capone: I imagine the warning label on the stunt-double jump suit would read: Always look before you throw, use caution when smashing your technology. No wonder I’m conflicted!

Filed under: Random, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: technology | 1 Comment »

See The Dalai Lama

Posted on November 1, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Standing in Trader Joe’s waiting to check out with my groceries, I watched the courageous moms wrangle their rambunctious kids while shopping, corralling chaos while trying to pay. Moms in Trader Joe’s have endless patience. They know how to make a grocery store fun. I was third in line so I had some time to watch and that’s when the thought occurred to me: what if we treated all kids, every single child, like they were the return of the Dalai Lama.

I mean no disrespect as I recognize that the Dalai Lamas are believed to be the manifestation of The Bodhisattva of Compassion. When the previous Dalia Lama passes, there commences a search for the reincarnated spirit: a child is identified, recognized and raised as the special spirit reborn to continue their service to humanity.

I do not know where these thoughts come from: what are the odds of thoughts of courageous moms in Trader Joe’s and the Dalai Lama colliding in my mind? Astronomical. But they did.

Isn’t the little being running around in too cute shoes, pulling peanuts off of shelves, a special spirit come to serve humanity? I want to see that notion, that intention, as the design principle driving what we do in the schools. I do not want to see a factory milling children for a lifetime of work in factories. I am sick to death of the conversation about standards; could we have a lower common denominator?

The teachers that I know and love want the same thing that I want; they recognize that each little spirit entering their classroom world is special, unique beyond measure. And yet their hands are bound, they are threatened and paid by the board foot of standard produced. Recently my dear friend Robert watched his son work through an endless sequence of worksheets. Robert said, “I can’t help but wonder if this is good for him, if this learning by rote is the best we can do?” His question was rhetorical. He, like the rest of the nation, already knows the answer. Treat them like lumber and they will act like lumber. I work with many organizations and a common complaint is, “Why are our new hires so incapable of thinking for themselves?” There is no mystery here, only a monumental case of denial.

Who might they become if we held them as exceptional, attended to their spiritual growth (note: I’m not talking about religion), and taught them that their lives mattered to the health and well being of a world that needed their strongest offer. What if they knew, as the Dalai Lama knows, that they carry a flame that reaches back generations and how they conduct their lives will send ripples through many generations to come?

It seems so simple and begins with recognition.

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

Be Like Charlie Brown

Posted on October 31, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Sometimes I worry myself. Last week I was flying through O’Hare airport. I had a fairly long lay over (and isn’t THAT an interesting term!). I was tired. It was dark outside; in airports during the winter 6:00pm and midnight feel like the same thing, just as in old age homes prunes and iced tea taste the same. It’s odd. So, it was midnight or something. My eyes were fried so I couldn’t read. Besides, I was the kind of tired that, if I lay down during my lay over, I’d wake up and my flight would have left me behind. So I was walking and looking at stuff.

Here’s the part that worries me: I saw a sandwich. I wasn’t hungry but I knew my flight was approximately 5 hours long and I could imagine myself getting hungry before the plane landed. And what if the plane never landed? I should have a sandwich. Here’s more of the part that worries me: at the Airport Fresh food stand, where nothing is really fresh, where I saw the sandwich, the sandwich I saw, the sandwich I chose was sitting all alone. There were others further down the shelf, but this one, this lonely little sandwich, sat all alone. It was too small to compete. The other sandwiches were muscly things wrapped tightly in plastic; they were bursting to get out of their wrappers. My sandwich was the runt of the litter, sliced chicken breast with red bell pepper. It was destined to be an engineer. And since no one was talking to it, since it had been abandoned by the in-crowd, I bought it.

As I walked away from Airport Fresh, I had a realization: I am Charlie Brown! My ghost costume has too many holes! On this day of All Hallows Eve I will get rocks instead of candy in my plastic pumpkin head trick-or-treat candy bucket because I projected a story (my story?) on a lonely sub-standard sandwich that a host of other discerning travelers were wise enough to leave behind. I chose the Christmas tree with few branches and no needles because I thought it needed a home. Or, an alternate narrative: mainstream sandwiches bore me and I am much more interested in the deviants in society. More projection perhaps but one with a healthier turn: I chose that narrative.

After all of that, I will not tell you what horrors I suffered when I actually got hungry on my flight. That sandwich pleaded with me for a long time and I had to explain that it had a purpose to fulfill. And, as difficult as the path might seem now, it would thank me later. It went quietly. So I think – all in all – it was a very worrisome affair. Spooky even. Ghoulish when you consider what happened to that poor lonely sandwich.

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

Say What You Mean, Mean What You Say

Posted on October 30, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Don Miguel Ruiz’s 4th Agreement is: Be impeccable to your word. Say what you mean and mean what you say. What was most striking to me, most curious, the first time I read The Four Agreements, was the connection Don Miguel Ruiz makes between being impeccable to your word and self-love; he writes that being impeccable to your word is the most self-loving thing you can do.

I think and write often about the power of language. What we think is what we create. The labels we assign to people and experiences are more potent than we know. Our language is not passive. And, it is another step beyond the notion of language as powerful to language as self-love. How can being impeccable to your word be the most self-loving thing that you can do?

For some reason, this question was on my mind during my late night flight from Chicago to Seattle. I was too tired to read. The flight was not full so I had plenty of space, empty seats all around me. I let my mind roll around language and self-love. When you love yourself you have no need to hide, to manipulate, to justify, to deflect, or judge or diminish. You have no need to change the thinking of another person. That is not yours to do. You no longer have any need to control what others might or might not see, might or might not think. What they perceive is none of your business. Your business is to attend to what you perceive. And, what if your perception was rooted in the absolute love of self? What would you perceive? What would you say? What would you no longer need to say?

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

See The Orca

Posted on October 29, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

599. 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 orca came to the end of my street today. Two pods! Or, at least that is what the excited onlookers claimed. There is an organization that follows the movements of the whales and they’d arrived with a sack of binoculars. People generously shared the binoculars and took great delight in pointing to others the location of the whales; the customary tides of not-talking-to-strangers were momentarily reversed: the crowd beckoned to passers-by. Unsuspecting dog walkers were surrounded by excited orca watchers; “You’ve got to see this!” they exclaimed.

As I stood there looking at the people look at the whales, I couldn’t help but wonder if the orca knew what they do to us. Do they know that a simple swim-by jolts us into simple presence; we not only see them but we are suddenly capable of seeing each other. I imagined the orca woke up this morning, stretched, had some coffee and discussed which human pod needed an intervention. It was our good fortune that today they chose the pods in and around Elliot Bay.

Last night at a dinner party we talked about how difficult it is for Americans to discuss complex topics. A professor of law told us that his conservative students never share their opinions for fear of being ridiculed. He said they are hooted out of class if they share an unpopular belief. We claim territory too soon. We fight. We choose sides and argue for our point of view, skipping over the part where we listen to each other, the part where we offer each other the grace of difference.

The orca must have heard our conversation last night. They must be listening to our political non-conversation. I hope they are scheming about how to reach the inland human pods. It is a joy to see what a little orca intervention can do.

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

Choose Your Practice

Posted on October 28, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

In preparation for our class I was reading Alan’s book, Create A World That Works, and read a passage that I’ve read at least five times but never before registered. This time, it was the passage that stood out, the passage that stood up and said, “Hey!” The chapter is about stillness and the passage that hollered is a kind of equation that goes something like this: the more inner chatter you experience, the more you will try to control your outside world. Or, flip it over: quiet your mind and you will quiet your need to control things that you can’t control.

The inner world and the outer world are not separate affairs. One of the Hermetic Laws is, “As within, so without” and I understood the concept in story terms: quiet the racket inside and you will not live a life of racket on the outside. Yet, I hadn’t understood it in terms of the impulse to control. It makes sense to me: a life full of racket is a life full of the frustrated attempt to control things that you can’t control – which feeds the internal racket. It is a feedback loop.

I worked with a group this week and we played with the concept of “controlling what you can control and letting the rest go” – as it applies to personal and organizational health. A healthy person, a healthy organization is not invested in things beyond their control. They focus their energy and action where it is most effective. They are not invested in what other people think or see or feel; those things are beyond their control. They are invested in and responsible for what they think or see or feel. Their worth is in their own hands and not in the hands of others. Inner chatter, what you think, is a controllable. Every meditation and self-help book on the planet has clues about how to quiet the inner chatter. Add this to the pile: let go of what you can’t control, care more for what you think than you care about what others think. Chatter is a pattern and so it quiet; it is simply a matter of the practice you choose.

Filed under: Awakening, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: control, meditation, pattern, stillness | Leave a comment »

« Previous Page — Next Page »