Imagine walking through a rose garden. The flowers in full bloom. The warm air rich with floral perfume.

Are you smiling or sneezing?

It depends on your immune system. Some people’s immune systems defend against roses. Put them in a rose garden and their immune system goes into full defense mode. They don’t inhale the beautiful perfume. They sneeze, tear, and wheeze.

Their immune system detects the rose scent as a threat, an alien invader to be kept out of the body at all costs.

Most people have the same reaction to feedback.

[Read more →]

One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.

– C.G. Jung

Everyone has a shadow.

A part of the psyche, the soul, that is unacknowledged, disowned, and unaccepted.

You can’t really get rid of the shadow. But, you can deny it. This denial causes those disowned aspects of the self to appear “out there” in the world and particularly in other people. Those qualities that you react to most strongly in others – both weaknesses and strengths – are clues to what lies within your own shadow.

Who is a person that triggers strong emotional reactions in you?

What is it about this person that you “can’t stand”? How are you like that?

Or that you “deeply admire”? How are you like that?

My friend Gary Winters, besides being a great leadership coach, is a talented keyboard player. Though this is not through any fault of his own.

“My parent’s forced me to take lessons and practice,” Gary told me. “I fought them tooth and nail. I would rail against what they were doing ‘to’ me.”

Now, he’s grateful. When he sits down at the keyboard to play, he thinks fondly of what his parent’s did ‘for’ him. This is often the nature of a “developmental opportunity”.

What is a developmental opportunity?

It’s a situation, relationship, condition that puts pressure on you to develop your:

• Skills – so you can take more powerful, courageous actions in the world
• Character – so you can more completely and authentically express your gifts
• Consciousness – so you can resolve obstacles in ways that promote greater personal integration and collective solidarity

[Read more →]

Here’s a check list to help you become a better student of your inner obstacles.
Think about a current “learning edge” challenge. A situation where outer challenges and inner challenges meet. One that tends to push your buttons and activate your reactivity.
Then, review the list below and notice which of the phrases most closely reflects your reactive patterns.

Inner Obstacles List

[Read more →]

Imagine a room filled with pianos. You go up to one piano and play a “C” chord. As you strike the keys the sound fills the room. Your piano is vibrating “C”. But, it’s not alone. If you look inside all the other pianos, you find that they too are vibrating a “C” chord. You didn’t have to touch their keys. Because, all the “C” strings on all the pianos in the room are humming in sympathetic resonance.

Your nervous system is “wired” like a piano.

[Read more →]

Several years ago, my son’s friend Torrey Meister was visiting from Hawaii. He had this novelty item:  Big Mouth Billy, a foot-long bass attached to a faux wooden plaque.

Like something a fisherman might mount on the wall. Except this trout could sing.

There was a button on the plaque.

When you pushed the button, the fish wagged its tail opened its mouth to sing, “Take me to the river . . . ” At first it was funny to watch the mechanical fish and groove along with the song. But, soon it was boring, tiring and irritating. We’re all a bit like that plastic fish.

We’ve all got buttons.

[Read more →]

Before a rock band launches into a song, the drummer “counts them in”. That’s what it’s called when the drummer strikes his sticks together and grunts “One-and-Two-and . . .” He’s establishing the beat and kicking the song into gear.

Without that kick-start, the band would be floundering its way into the rhythm of the song.

That’s why you need to “count” yourself into your day – each morning.

[Read more →]

Learning edges come in different forms.

They are always, however, the place where inner & outer challenges meet.

Your learning edges are really invitations to step more deeply into life. And this isn’t some abstraction. It’s not a lofty ideal.

Crossing your learning edge is grounded as deeply in everyday circumstances as it is in your soul.

So, crossing your learning edge might mean:

• Making a phone call you have been putting off
• Talking to your boss about what you really need
• Accepting responsibility for your contribution to a problem
• Taking a risk that moves you towards the work that matters
• Having a heart-to-heart conversation with someone you have resented.

When you look at other people poised with sweaty palms at their learning edge, you may think: “It’s simple, just step forward.”

But, this is because they’re inner challenge isn’t yours. The outer requirements of the learning edge, while possibly complicated, are rarely what hold us back. It is the inner tensions, the inner conflicts, the inner stories that give us pause.

That’s why, poised at your learning edge you may decide to wait for a better time to step over.

Waiting for this better moment can be a long, long, wait.

Because, life conditions – at work and in your personal life – are always in flux. The right moment, the safe, clear, certain moment is a construct that constrains movement. When you look out at your situation, there’s always something that could be a little clearer, a little safer, a little more certain.

It’s always in the midst of life’s not-quite-rightness that you step forward.

It’s within the unsatisfactory and unsettled conditions that you move across your learning edge.

Hey, it’s called “learning” for a reason – because you’re learning how to be more courageous, congruent, clear, and compassionate. If you wait for an unambiguous signal from the world – it will rarely appear.

As long as you’re poised on the safe side of your learning edge, the world will always present a mixed message – both “welcome” and “stay back”.

The mixed and broken nature of the world is your invitation to leadership.

You can’t wait until you feel more together because this will never happen on the safe side of your learning edge. Although your first steps may be clumsy, without finesse or grace, you step forward nonetheless.  It’s your own unfinished nature, your own not-quite-rightness with which you act.

The incompleteness of the world and your own incompleteness fit each other.

Your need for wholeness and the world’s need for service complete each other.

Take that step.

And let me know what you learn.

I received this email from a coaching client:

“After our talk I have really been noticing how uncreative my workdays are. “

His comment reminded me of something my grandmother used to say – whenever I was complaining about life not going my way. She’d say, “The truth will set you free,” and then she’d pause before adding, “but first it will make you very uncomfortable.”

Then, she’d laugh.

I didn’t find her insight funny.

Though over the decades, I’ve come to appreciate it more and more. The pathway to greater freedom, creativity, and contribution often passes through Discomfort-ville.

So, if you want to be free of self-limiting patterns of thought, speech, or action – be prepared for the discomfort that comes from increased awareness.

It’s like an ad my son and I saw on T.V. the other night.

It was for some kind of facial hair removal device costing $14.95. And it came with a lighted mirror with 5 times the magnification power of a normal mirror. The whole idea of such an up-close and personal look at my facial pores and hairs sounded . . . well . . . uncomfortable.

It takes awareness to instigate substantive change.

[Read more →]

There’s a piece of flagstone in our backyard that’s loose. It sticks up just enough so that, if you’re not paying attention, it’s easy to stub a toe.

So, everyone in my family’s learned to walk around it. We zig-zag across the yard avoiding the offending bit of flagstone and keep our toes safe. This zig-zagging kind of works. Our toes don’t stub. But, of course, the flagstone isn’t getting addressed.

We often do similar zig-zagging in the workplace.

[Read more →]