The Direction of Intention

Truly Powerful People (128)

Posted on July 17, 2011 by davidrobinsoncreative

128.
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 see what we believe. Then, we search the world for the data (proof) that supports our belief. In this sense, truth is relative. What is true for you is not necessarily true for others. Like you, others are scouring the world for proof that what they believe is the truth. Everyone is telling themselves a story. Each story is beautiful, relevant, and unique to the teller and so they assume it is truth. What binds us is not a single truth but our capacity to story ourselves.

The difficulty is not in multiple truths, multiple stories; the challenge arises when there is the expectation of one truth. When I believe that your truth must match my truth, that my truth is the way and yours is inferior, that I must convert you to my truth, then we are on an untenable path.

We step into the dark woods and get lost with idea that there is one truth and it exists outside of us and we must find it out there somewhere. This notion separates us from our capacity for transformation; it requires us to doubt our inner truth while spending our days searching for something that is with us all along.

There are many ways. There are many truths. If there is a single story it is something we create together in our active search for proof that supports what we believe.

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Truly Powerful People (127)

Posted on July 16, 2011 by davidrobinsoncreative

127.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Last night Michael told me that he used to run because of the head-space that he entered. He said, “I haven’t found that kind of meditative place in any other form of exercise or sport. It’s like the crap just fell off and I was clear and present and alive.” That’s why I used to run, too. The exercise was great but the presence was holy.

On the radio this morning I heard a surfer say that presence was the reason people surfed. He said, “Surfing requires a relationship with the present moment.” He added, “On the board is when you are most alive.”

It is in the present that you are most alive. I think this experience of presence (aliveness) is the meaning behind every religious symbol. It is the place beyond the-story-that-you-tell-yourself or as Michael said, the place where “the crap falls off.” It is the middle place, the middle way. It is the space between the pair of opposites like male/female, good/bad, right/wrong, heaven/hell: story is only possible when dualities (separations) are known. Presence is a kind of unity; it is the middle way, not past or future, not this or that, it is the place beyond story.

Parcival attains the grail (presence) when he sets aside his role and sees what is in front of him instead of what he thinks should be there. He is no longer striving to become, he is no longer invested in the past.

Many religious symbols are made of the intersection of two elements: the Star of David is the meeting place of two triangles, the cross is the intersection of a horizontal and vertical axis: at the place where striving meets becoming is a sweet spot called now. The bodhi tree has branches that reach to the heavens and roots that stretch to touch the center of the earth; the sitting place of illumination (presence) is between the two.

In the Garden of Eden there is a second tree, the tree of everlasting life (unity, presence). The first tree is, as we know, the tree of knowledge (duality, separation) and having been booted from the garden (birth) we spend our lives trying to find our way back to that place that knows no separation: life is what we do between this pair of opposites.

There are many paths to this state called presence. No amount of doctrine will get you there (doctrine requires separation). It is available to all people, all of the time. It is not a place of arrival. It is your natural state and is available when the crap falls off. Some people catch glimpses of it on a surfboard. Michael caught sight of it while running. Where do you find your middle way?

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Truly Powerful People (126)

Posted on July 15, 2011 by davidrobinsoncreative

126.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Every year for the past three years I have been privileged to co-teach a class with Alan Seale. It is for coaches who desire mastery. There is a potent exercise from the class that I periodically do for myself because I never fail to gain an important insight or uncover something that I need to reconsider or let go.

The exercise goes like this: look around your life and imagine that you created all of it. What if you and only you create your love relationships, your friendships, and your casual relationships? What if you create your work situation? What if you create your physical health? What if you create your spiritual wellness? What if you create your financial situation? Your angst, your dissatisfaction, your fear,…what if you create it all? What do you see as a creator? You might even go so far as to imagine that you create the political situation in the country; that you participate in happenings in the world.

As creator, what are you happy about creating? What are you unhappy about creating? What would you like to change – assume that you have the capacity to create and the capacity make changes to your creation; what prevents you from changing what you dislike? What insights are available when you entertain the notion that you are creating your world?

Of course, the kicker is that you are creating your world through the story you tell yourself. What possibilities blossom when you accept that the story is in you, you are not in the story?

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Truly Powerful People (125)

Posted on July 14, 2011 by davidrobinsoncreative

125.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Truly powerful people empower others. They empower others because doing so empowers them. It is an infinite game: a game that is played to be better and better at playing. There is no win/lose in an infinite game; there is mastery. It is a game of power with others. Play to empower others and you will empower your self.

The shadow of that statement is also true: play to limit others and you will limit your self. Win/lose games are finite games; they are played to win so the game ends. All play stops and someone must lose. It is a game of power over others. It is possible to become better at winning when playing finite games but mastery will be out of your reach.

(for more read James Carse’s excellent book, Finite and Infinite Games)

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Truly Powerful People (124)

Posted on July 13, 2011 by davidrobinsoncreative

124.
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 question, “What do I want to create?” is hard for most people to answer. It is hard because it is assumed that the answer is an outcome, a thing (a noun).

If the assumption beneath the question is a verb, if what you want to create is a better life (a better relationship with yourself), a quality process of living, then it is easily answered.

If what you want to create is a better life it is useful to recognize that life is not something you will get to tomorrow. Life is not something you create later. Life is the process that is happening now while you are fretting over the thing you want to create.

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Truly Powerful People (123)

Posted on July 12, 2011 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

What are your strengths? Have you stopped to consider what you do well? What do you love to do? Make a list of what you love to do and what you believe are your gifts. Make a list of your strengths. Enjoy it. Brag to yourself. Try it.

Is it possible to identify your strengths separate from your needs?
Make a list of the things you think you need. Embellish this list; have fun with it just like you did in making your list of strengths. Compare your list of needs with your list of strengths.

Now, throw away your list of needs. They are not useful but chances are this list dominates most of your time and focus. It is useful, creative and productive (not to mention generative) to focus on your gifts and build upon your strengths. If you want to create something new, your strengths will help you. Placing your focus on your needs will generally lead to lots of excuses.

Bring your strengths to the party. They are far more interesting than what you think you need.

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Truly Powerful People (122)

Posted on July 11, 2011 by davidrobinsoncreative

122.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Here are some thoughts from Ana-the-wise (with my comments in parenthesis):

Pure intention comes when you allow that you are the most important person, when you stop relying on others to find your value (your intentions split when beneath every action runs a river of need for others to give you your value; your intention splits and becomes, “to seek my value in others”).

Value what you do. Value your self. You have all the elements you need to create for yourself what you desire. No one is going to recognize your value for you – value can’t come to you if you don’t value yourself first and value your opinion of yourself above all other opinions of you.

Valuing yourself is really a question of being, not a question of doing. Your value has nothing to do with your achievements. You are unique in the universe before you ever do a thing.

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Truly Powerful People (121)

Posted on July 10, 2011 by davidrobinsoncreative

121.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Mark is traveling the United States and Canada this summer with a documentary film crew. He is asking about changes in the way people are doing business, about how the changes in the world are impacting the way business is done. He is on a quest looking for a heart in a world of business that denies the existence of heart.

His quest might at first seem a fools errand until you consider that old assumptions like “business is business” or “time is money” are outdated industrial era notions. Admittedly, these old saws are still held everywhere by CEO’s and political leaders; it is not uncommon for the leadership, invested in conserving, to be the last to let go of what was and notice that the world has changed. It has changed.

In fact, change is the only constant. Efficiency is now an aspect of relationship, not of the clock. Revolutions are facilitated through Facebook. Disgruntled customers and employees tweet their discontent. Happy customers and employees tweet their satisfaction. Social responsibility is profitable (there are departments of social responsibility with vice presidents of social responsibility in many large companies). People buy green, buy free range, and attempt to be carbon neutral.

Business can no longer afford to pretend that it operates in an ethical free zone. Business is not just business anymore. It impacts people’s lives, the environment, and the future. The world has eyes and ears as never before: cameras in every phone, networks of individuals that know no borders, and an insatiable 24 hour news thirst that delights in sharing scandal.

The smartest thing business can do is to loosen its tie, unbutton its shirt, and check to see if something is beating in there. Mark believes contemporary business is like the Tin Man following the yellow brick road; it can’t go on living without a heart.

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Truly Powerful People (120)

Posted on July 9, 2011 by davidrobinsoncreative

120.
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 story you tell yourself about yourself is a creative act; it is something that you do. The story that you tell yourself about yourself occupies most of your waking hours; it is one of the fundamental actions of your life and whether you recognize it our not, it is an act of creation. You are fundamentally creative, creating yourself with every story you tell, every experience you interpret, every yearning you imagine, and every memory you re-play. At the inception of every action you take is the story you tell yourself about yourself.

You cast yourself in this story that you tell and you play many roles in the story. Some of the roles you like to play, some you do not. Whether you like them or not you agree to play all of the roles. You don’t have to play any role that you do not agree to play.

In the theatre, a character (a role) is defined by how you do what you. The actions you take (the verbs) identify you, not the name (the noun): teacher, mother, friend…, are meaningless labels until the actions are considered. A role is not fixed, it is not a singular thing; it is fluid, variable, and dynamic. You are fluid, variable, and dynamic. Your actions give substance to the roles that you play.

If you want to know the story you tell, the roles that you play, take a look at the actions you take. You are the storyteller of this story. What actions and agreements do you like to play? What agreements and actions do you want to change?

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Truly Powerful People (119)

Posted on July 8, 2011 by davidrobinsoncreative

119.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Sarah told me over breakfast that she’s spent the past few years making some changes in her life. One day she woke up and asked herself, “Is this the person I want to be? Is this the way I want to live my life?” Her answer was no.

The truth is I’d tried to get out of having breakfast with her. I hadn’t seen her for a few years and I didn’t much like her. The young woman I knew needed drama. She needed attention. She lived behind a big wall, screaming for attention and hiding when she received it. In the past, I always felt tired after spending time with her. She thrived in her brokenness.

In the woman sitting across the table this morning I saw none of that. I saw someone who’d given up needing the opinions of others to define her self. I chatted with a woman who was as interested in the lives of others as she was in her own path. I experienced the generosity of spirit that was there all along, the availability that comes when someone at long last puts down their idea of who they should be and allows who they are to be seen.

I do not underestimate the courage and tenacity it took for Sarah to allow herself to be seen. I left breakfast feeling the simple joy in having met her at last. I like the person she is so much more than the person she pretended to be for so long.

Profound life change begins when you are ready to ask the simple questions.

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