Self-Confidence versus Self-Questioning

Posted on January 17, 2012 by MentorBoom

“In order to do this work you need two things in about equal measure: self-confidence and self-questioning.”  John, a psychologist and business consultant

In the mid-90’s I was working with a small group of fellow family business consultants on a case with a large family in the midwest.  Since there were about 35 family members involved in ownership and some of them in management of the enterprise, we needed a larger staff to do all that was necessary to gather, analyze and format all the data and conduct the meetings.

There was a good bit of contention in the family because some of them felt marginalized and excluded from the decision making process.  A lawsuit was threatened by one branch of the family which could have broken up the family wealth, the operating company and eventually the relationships for generations to come.  The lead attorney for the family called on us to help head this off.

One of the staff we used was a young psychologist  from Cleveland named John.  Over dinner on our first night I expressed my reservations about handling all the moving pieces and my concern that if we failed the consequences would most likely be severe.  My projection was that John didn’t have these same fears.  However, he looked at me and said, “In order to do this work you need two things in about equal measure: self-confidence and self-questioning.”

A light went off for me.  Since I was fairly new to this type of work and was then in the M.A. program working toward my master’s degree, I felt a little shaky.  I thought all the other consultants with advanced degrees and more experience were immune from these feelings.  What I learned that night was a lesson that has stayed with me ever since, we all feel lacking from time to time whenever we’re in challenging situations.

I realized I was leading, way too often, with my self-questioning.  This was not serving me well, nor was it serving our clients.  I learned during that consultation to lead with my confidence.  I had studied mediation, intervention strategies and theory but my main qualification was my 15 years of practical experience of working with my father in an industry dominated by family owned companies.

Since that time, John’s advice has served me well and I’ve learned to apply it to other situations and circumstances in my life.  For instance, when I’m teaching or doing a presentation for a trade association, I try to remember that I am the expert in this subject, I know what I’m talking about and others are there because they want to know more about it in order to help their clients or their own situations.

Think about times when you feel shaky in a situation.  Are you leading with your confidence or your questioning?  It’s imperative to have both, but if you are always questioning yourself and everything you do, you are handicapped and less than useless to those you wish to help.

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The Language of Ignorance

Posted on January 13, 2012 by MentorBoom

Recently in a debate, Jon Huntsman spoke a phrase in Chinese; he has subsequently been skewered by some in the media for this unforgiveable sin. A clip of Mitt Romney shows him saying what his name is in French, “Je m’appelle, Mitt Romney.” Shocking! The critics have even reached back to a clip of John Kerry saying something in French during an election campaign a few years ago, as if this is treasonous.

All of this just goes to show that there is a drive toward the lowest common denominator. How can this country survive if we are not engaged with the world? How chauvinistic (oh, sorry that’s French as well) is it to expect everyone else (tout le monde) to speak English while we blithely ridicule those who’ve taken the time and effort to educate themselves?

We’ve been warned since the founding of this country that a dumbed down populace is the greatest threat to our democracy. Now we are proving it. An ignorant populace is more easily provoked into unthinking fear and vengeance and the scariest part is that fearful people are more easily led to war, discrimination and brutality.

We’re seeing it now. When educating ourselves to be better, more informed people of how the world works and our place in it is belittled, we are skating on very thin ice.

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A Lifetime of Change

Posted on January 10, 2012 by MentorBoom
                                                  Things do not change; we change. Henry David Thoreau

Those of us born in the Boomer generation have seen more change in a decade than our ancestors did in a long life.  The years of our generation encompass the development of technology that is truly astounding.

I’m shocked sometimes when I have to give my birthdate to some 20-something customer service rep or doctor’s office receptionist.  How did it happen that some much time has passed?  I remember, as a very small child, watching my grandfather’s television set with enraptured family members, and we were just watching the test pattern, waiting for Ed Sullivan to start.

In my teens I worked in a textile mill in the summer for $1.33 per hour.  It was hot, grimy and dangerous work, but I loved the paycheck.  I had no expenses except what I wanted to spend my $45 weekly take home pay.  Then I realized, the other people working there had to support a family on about this much money.  It helped shape my thinking about the world and made me realize getting an education was really important for me!  Within a generation, almost all those jobs were shipped to Mexico and Pacific Rim.

In my 30’s, working in our family textile business, I got my first computer, an Apple IIe.  With this amazing tool I could more accurately and quickly assess inventory status than ever before, but, of course, my brother-in-law and I had to write the simple software program that allowed us to do that.  The 3 year old computer I use now has more capacity than a not-too-old mainframe of just a few years ago.

As a fledgling musician and music lover, the invention of stereo was like magic.  It’s hard to believe nowadays that there was a time when monaural sound was the norm.  I remember listening very carefully to the early demonstration albums of stereo capability, mezmerized as a train whistle moved from one place to another as if it were running right through my skull from one ear to another.

The pace of technological change continues to soar but the basic components of so much of it were invented and perfected within our own lifetime.  I read once that the Sunday NYTimes contains more information than a man of 100 or so years ago encountered in a lifetime.  Our children and grandchildren these days are born data ready.  They are born into the understanding of what has gone before and it is they who will carry forward the push for innovation and newness.

“Plus ca change, plus c’est the meme chose” is how the French say “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”  Amidst the enormous change experienced in our lifetimes, the human spirit continues as it always has, seeking community, love, health, meaning and joy.  While the pace of change is so fast that we often only see it in retrospect, we can choose to accept and grow with it, or we can fight it, shrivel and retreat from life.

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A Resurrection Story

Posted on January 6, 2012 by MentorBoom

For the past 3 years I’ve been privy to and part of a resurrection story.  War is hell and we have many, many wounded veterans to show for it.  We see them on street corners begging.  We hear about the wards full of physically and emotionally damaged men and women who’ve gone to “serve their country” only to come back with scars, seen and unseen, that will haunt and plague them for the rest of their lives.

One such example from my era is my friend Bart.  Bart comes from a middle class family just after WWII.  Both parents were severe alcoholics and Bart was raised in large part by an abusive woman who was the built-in servant and nanny for the family.  While in college, the first time, Bart was going nowhere fast so one day he walked into a Marine recruiting station during the height of the Vietnam war and enlisted.

Fast forward 40+ years.  Bart was a fine soldier/warrior whose main mission as an officer was to make sure, to the best of his ability, that the soldiers under his command got back on the plane at the end of their tour in one piece.  During that time Bart was awarded several Purple Hearts and other commendations.  For months he lived in the jungles where “Bob Hope and the USO never made an appearance.”

As he got older, Bart’s own alcoholism raged while he worked in a responsible job in the world of finance.  After a nasty divorce and troubles with his children, Bart hit bottom.  I was with him when he went over the edge and it was troubling and scary.  I was scared for him and for me during that evening.  I realized that he was a Marine, no matter how drunk, and that he could cause me a lot of damage if he lost his wits and turned against me.

We kept in touch afterwards, but it was not pretty.  As fate would have it, his body basically collapsed and shut down.  He checked into a V.A. hospital and stayed for nearly 2 months of tests and treatments, including a month of detox and group therapy.  Unlike for many other, Bart made it through and since that time has climbed back out of the deep hole and rebuilt his life, even having insights unlike any I’ve heard from him, ever.

It’s a beautiful thing.  I love Bart.  He’s a wonderful, captivating storyteller, a very intelligent man and a dear friend.  It has been so gratifying to see him emerge from the fog of war and the fog of alcohol to resurrect himself.  He still has his bad days, as we all do, but the trendline is positive and accelerating over the past 2 1/2 years.  Never before have I experienced such a turnaround with someone I know, it has been a truly inspiring resurrection that gives hope to me and many others!

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The Meaning of Any Communication. . .

Posted on December 30, 2011 by MentorBoom

Setting: 23rd floor apartment, Battery Park City, NYC

The View: The Hudson River, Verrazano Narrows Bridge and the Statue of Liberty

This beautiful vista was the backdrop for a series of meetings I attended back in the late ’90’s and until just a few days before 9/11/2001.  I was a freshly minted M.A. in a field of psychology and organizational development just testing my wings at high level coaching in the financial center of the world.  It was heady stuff and I realized I had so much to learn, on the fly.

Kathryn Williams led the meetings.  She is a clinical psychologist who made a name for herself as an executive coach, helping high level leaders deal with the myriad of challenges they face.  Kathryn is also an accomplished NLP (Neurolinguistic Programming) practitioner.  One of the key tenets of NLP has to do with communication, both verbal and visual.  How a message is delivered is sometimes more powerful than the message itself.

I was often guilty of looking out the windows during these sessions because I’d never seen the city from that vantage.  In the right light, it was magical.

Kathryn was talking as I snuck a peek at the Statue of Liberty in the fading light, but I heard her say: “The meaning of any communication is the response I get.”  I stopped in my tracks.  I had certainly never thought such a thing.  My communication was flung out into the world without much thought.  Suddenly it struck me–there are enormous consequences to my words and actions, both for good and for ill, AND those consequences can be readily assessed by the response I get from the object/person of my communication.

From that time on I carefully observed people with whom I was communicating to see if I could discern how they were reacting to my words and body language.  Over the years I’ve become more astute at interpreting others’ responses.  I’ve learned, imperfectly and regularly, that the more aligned my words are to my motivation (what I’m saying and why I’m saying it), the more authentic I am and the more positively others respond.

http://1to101.com/Body_Language

http://changingminds.org/techniques/body/body_language.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro-linguistic_programming

http://www.neurolinguisticprogramming.com/

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Three Filters

Posted on December 29, 2011 by MentorBoom
I look at everything that comes into my life through the three filters of health, love relationships and work.
                                                                                                                                                                      William Webb

Many years ago when I was beginning to feel my way into this new work I do, I met William Webb.  We were introduced through a mutual friend who was also his client.  In retrospect, at first, it probably seemed that  I forced myself on him.

William was tall, thin and somewhere near 65-70.  Part of his mystique for me was that he would not talk about age.  When someone brought up the issue of age he would smoothly change the subject.

I invited him to lunch a first time and it didn’t happen, but I was persistent.  Finally, after a few attempts we met for lunch at a popular diner that was his favorite place.  It was cheap, the food okay but canned, and populated by lots of business folks making their connections.  When we met I could feel his hesitancy to meet with me.  What was I going to ask of him?  What other demand might someone be making of him?

The thing was, I wasn’t asking for anything except what he had in his head, easily available, non-proprietary, and helpful to me.  I wanted to develop a practice of my own and I liked his approach to consulting and coaching from what I’d heard from some who knew him.  I wouldn’t be competing against him in his specialized niche.

Our first meeting went okay, but remained at a fairly superficial level.  I contacted him again.  He accepted and the second time we had lunch together he told me something that’s stayed with me ever since, a technique for evaluating the things that came into his life.

William responded to something I’d said by saying: I measure everything that comes into my life through 3 filters.  Whatever it is, an experience, a relationship, an opportunity, an obligation, or anything else, must pass through these filters.  If it doesn’t pass, I can’t afford to have it in my life.

The first filter is my health.  How does this thing affect my physical, emotional, psychological or spiritual health?  If I feel it will have a negative impact, I can’t afford to have it in my life.  Likewise the filter of relationships, does this thing negatively impact my love, work or friendship relationships?  If so, again, I can’t let it in.  Finally, the third filter is my work.  How will this thing impact my work?  If it could have a detrimental impact on how I do the work that supports and fulfills me, I can’t have it.

Just a few weeks ago, at a small art and craft gallery open house, I saw a man in the next room.  After a double and then triple take I walked up to him as he approached where I was standing.  I said, “William?” and he said, “Yes.”  I reintroduced myself and reminded him of our lunches together nearly 20 years ago.  He remembered some of that and I reminisced about some of our mutual friends.  I said how well he looked and he thanked me and said, conspiratorially, “I’m 86 now.”  I said, “You never would talk about that before.”  He reminded me how he would change the subject in the past, but it seemed now that he was proud he’d made it this far and was still engaged with the world.

I said, “Your 3 filters must have worked pretty well.  I’ve used those with clients and in presentations over all these years and people seem to find it a helpful way of looking at their lives.”  He said, “I’d forgotten all about those; I got them from somewhere else.”

So, whoever you are out there who came up with this concept of how to look at the events and circumstances of our lives, thank you, and William thanks you as well.

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The Mystery of the Baalbek Stones

Posted on December 26, 2011 by MentorBoom

Place: Baalbek, The Beka’a Valley, Lebanon, 50 miles northeast of Beirut

Time: 5,000-10,000 years ago

At a time when the world was emerging from a prolonged ice age and paleolithic hunter/gatherers with wooden, bone and stone tools roamed the earth, the foundation stones for the temple complex of Baalbek were being quarried, hewn to precise dimensions and hauled up impossible terrain to be unerringly placed high on a stone wall.

We all know about ancient stonework and the marvels that were created throughout history, because some of them still exist.  Almost every other form of ancient construction has eroded away.  We marvel at the pyramids and the 2.5-3 ton stones used to build the largest of them, but few stones of ancient Egypt compare to what is found at Baalbek.

Much of the credit for the stonework is given to the Romans who built the temple complex called Heliopolis on the ancient site.  But, the foundation stones upon which their temples are built were there perhaps thousands of years before.  The weathering on the massive limestone foundation blocks (note the guy sitting there for scale) indicates a much older origin than the columns and carvings of the Romans.

Imagine a fully loaded C-130 cargo plane weighing in at approximately 150+ tons.  How could primitive people possibly transport, uphill, something that massive?  Now imagine that the load is approximately 6-7 times that much, say 1000 tons.  Not only was the load quarried and smoothed to precision, but it was then somehow transported up a 3800 foot hill with no evidence that ramps or steps ever existed.  Eventually  3 stones in particular, called the trilithon, were raised 30 feet up the wall to fit with other stones.  This is exactly what happened at Baalbek.

What history have we lost from our ancient past?  Has high culture and technology existed on earth for much longer than we have imagined?  Will we ever know how seemingly impossible feats were accomplished that cannot be replicated even now with our most advanced technology?

And, by the way, there is an even larger stone of about 1200 tons (2,400,000 pounds) quarried but not moved.  It is claimed that this is the largest building stone ever quarried.  There is also local native history that calls the platform on which all else is built, “The Landing Place.’  What landed there and when?  The enigma deepens.

http://sacredsites.com/middle_east/lebanon/baalbek.html

See: Ancient Aliens, The History Channel, Season 3, Aliens and Sacred Places

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The Unholy Trinity

Posted on December 14, 2011 by MentorBoom

                              “Sin, guilt and fear, the unholy trinity” Kenneth Wapnick

It was about 20 years ago when I heard this idea from Dr. Wapnick.  He said that we are all conditioned by society, the church, and even by our families, to feel that we are sinful beings.  Even the idea of original sin makes us believe that we are sinful to our very core.  The fire breathing southern ministers of my youth poured it down on us each Sunday.  There’s a very good reason for this conditioning, from society’s point of view; we’ll discuss it in a moment.

If I can be made to believe that I’m sinful just for showing up on the planet, it follows that I am also guilty.  What other choice do I have?  As my old friend Arno used to say, “As far as I know, I didn’t ask to be born.”  But since I am here, he would remind me repeatedly, “I don’t have to apologize for the ground I stand on or the air I breathe.”  I don’t believe we are inherently sinful, or guilty.

If I’m feeling guilty, either existentially as a function of who I am, or feeling guilt imposed from some outside force, I am less than whole, less than fully alive.  It is easier to manipulate or have your way over someone who feels guilty.  People heavily into guilt generally volunteer to punish themselves rather than face the wrath of someone or something unknown.  We punish ourselves in many ways, do we not?

Fear rules the guilty mind.  Conspiracies and threats come from every corner.  Fearful people are more easily manipulated.  Look at today’s political and economic situations.  High level manipulation has raised the levels of fear, making for a more docile and pliable mass.  We look for someone or something to help us feel safe from the fear we feel.  This inevitably opens the door to hucksters of every stripe.

It’s true on the mass level and the individual; the more fearful I am, the more I seek safety in someone or something I feel might offer me protection, but always at a high price.  Fundamentalism requires my free will.  Security concerns have transformed police officers into paramilitary troops to insure those in power can continue to rule with fear.

The only person I need to convince of my innocence, rather than my guilt, is myself.*  How would your life change if you no longer felt sinful and guilty for simply being human?  It is the only way to break the chain of this unholy trinity of sin, guilt and fear.

*See Billy Joel perform “An Innocent Man” @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=exSD7rHVI4U

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Gossip

Posted on December 9, 2011 by MentorBoom

                           Talking about someone not present is gossip. Buddhist wisdom

You see all sorts at the Y where I go swim everyday.  Every skin color, body type and temperament are on full (excuse the pun) display in the locker room.  One guy used to spend the whole time in the steam and shower area picking dead skin off his hands.  Yuck!  I thought.  At least I’m not like him, but, alas, a couple of years later a similar affliction came my way.  Once I got to know the man, Jim, I found him very likeable and authentic.

Lesson here?  Too many to name, of course, but the short version is: Don’t judge others unless I’m willing to judge myself by the same standard.

Here again, the conundrum, I am my own harshest judge.  Don’t punish me God, I’ll do it myself!  I can only see in others that which exists in me.  Otherwise, how would I recognize it?  There would be no resonance.

In Buddhism there is a precept of not speaking of others’ faults.  If you don’t have something good to say about a person, don’t say anything at all.

It’s difficult to do.  For one, knowledge is power; it’s a commodity sometimes as valuable as legal tender.  If I know something someone else doesn’t know, I’ve got some power in the situation.  For another, we get to assuage our fear of our own fragility by saying, “At least I’m not like him.”  A juvenile, but pervasive response (see above).

Most importantly, however, is the feeling that by spreading gossip about someone else, I’m developing closeness or intimacy with the person with whom I’m sharing it.  It’s a method of protecting myself from the dangers of intimacy by buffering it with a story of someone else!  What games we play.

Next time you’re tempted to talk about someone else, pause.  Take a moment between stimulus and response to consider the implications of your next words.  How would you feel if someone said this about you?  What if my words were to come back to haunt me (as they often do in gossip)?

Our lives get full of pollutants over time.  Our spirits do also.  One of those that might be easiest to eliminate is gossip.  Speak of others only as you would like to be spoken about.  Life will feel lighter.  A sense of camaraderie can emerge as we realize: We’re all in this together, and we’re all doing the best we can.

Namaste

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Ask, Expect, Believe, Receive

Posted on December 2, 2011 by MentorBoom

                          “You’ve got to have something to look forward to.”  My father, often.

The young mother and son were traversing the pedestrian crosswalk as I left the Y.  She had just picked him up at childcare after her workout and they were happily on their way to lunch, until . . . the meltdown.  Son suddenly felt he was going to be happier sitting on the white stripes on the roadway than being pulled along by mom.  By the time he was picked up and hauled away, it was clear that it was not his preference to leave.

In my office, for years, I’ve posted bits of wisdom on shelves and desktop.  One such bit of wisdom says: ask, expect, believe, receive.  In the incident above, son began asking for something other than what was happening.  He was not getting his way and he had honed in very carefully on what he preferred.  Since he wasn’t getting his way, he was making his displeasure known.

Remember as a child how when you really wanted something for Christmas you could picture it so vividly that it became almost real to the touch.  You could feel the freedom of your own big, shiny bicycle.  You could feel the licks of the puppy you wanted so much.  We expected those things to appear for us!  We lined up our expectation so vividly that while we were sometimes disappointed, the aliveness of expectation itself felt great.

Once our expectation becomes our belief, we are on our way to the manifestation of whatever we desire.  Beliefs are patterns of thought.  What we think about, predominantly, will become our experience.  If a pattern of thought makes us feel better, we will follow it and we will reap the harvest of it, for better or worse, until it no longer feels good.

We receive what we put out into the Universe.  Anger begets anger; love, love.  Gloomy beliefs leads to a gloomy life experience, and, say what you will about Pollyanna, it seems that a series of joyful beliefs about life creates a much more joyful ride.

We’ve all done a lot of asking, but I think the expectation lags behind.  Just as we did as children we need to hone our expectation and belief.  The nexus of expectation and belief is where the magic of leavening occurs, where all the ingredients are blended.  Whatever we expect strongly and put great thought to becomes our belief.  Our strong beliefs become our thought forms, and our thought forms become the manifestations we receive.

Notice your preferences, those things you really desire.  You are putting those out into the world in search of fulfillment.  Our job now is to learn to expect what we want and to believe it so fully that we begin to find signs and get feelings that tell us we’re on the right track.  Living with positive expectation and belief is the way we learn to reclaim how it felt to be a child, living in a world of big possibility.

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