Winter Thoughts

About a week ago or so, grey clouds blanketed my city, a wet mist and sometimes rain fell steadily, a very damp chill settled into the air, my bones, and my hardwood and tiled home, and winter firmly announced its arrival (at least by Central Texas standards). About this time, I noticed that my thoughts and feelings started to cloud over a bit too. As the dreary weather continued for many more days, I noticed that my and other people's vibrational frequencies were sinking lower and lower. We were all spiraling downward a bit, some more than others.

As I increase my own self-awareness, I am developing the ability to observe my internally generated negativity from a third person perspective. Standing in the place of an observer of your own thoughts and feelings can sometimes be enough to interrupt them and allow you to shift to a higher, more positive energy level. But this past week I struggled a little longer -- unable for several days to let go of my critical thinking about a number of issues: several relationships, my coaching business, finances, my children. This thinking did nothing to improve any of these issues and certainly created low-level anxiety and somberness.

I have been studying and learning more about how humans use thought, and conducting numerous informal experiments with my own experience with thinking and my observation of others. While our minds are one of our greatest assets when used in an intentional, focused fashion to learn, study, reason, communicate and solve problems, it is also one of our greatest liabilities. If you haven't noticed, your mind bombards you with approximately 65,000 thoughts a day. You may think you are in control of your mind and thoughts, but it is really the other way around. The mind runs on incessantly, on autopilot, unless we affirmatively develop practices and techniques to quiet it down.

When the mind is in the autopilot mode, it is at best an unfortunate, unconscious barrier to connecting with our intuition, inner creativity, wisdom, and the peace and lightness that accompanies being truly present in the moment. Instead of focusing specifically on the task right before us, whatever it is, we run through our list of things to do, or the conversation we need to have with our partner about the kids' schedule, or the lyrics of the song we just heard on our iPod. This kind of thinking doesn't result in any real negative experience or feeling association, but it does deprive us of a very peaceful and joyful sense that we would otherwise experience by being completely focused in the present moment.

Farther down the spectrum, the mind actually creates incredibly negative interpretations and stories that we grab on to as truth about otherwise neutral facts and circumstances that we observe through our senses. While we might be able to readily acknowledge this statement when we see someone experience some pretty severe paranoia, we probably don't see as easily the ways that we create negative, false interpretations about everyday occurrences -- the email our boss sent us, the tone in the help-desk technician's voice, our partner's quietness, our friend's failure to return our call, the neighbor who never says "hi" when we pass on the sidewalk. The degree to which we engage negative interpretations about people and circumstances, and the events that trigger this thought process in us, depend in large part on the often unconscious assumptions and beliefs that we have developed about the world over time.

One objective of the coaching relationship is to bring to a client's awareness their assumptions and beliefs about themselves and the world that are serving as obstacles or roadblocks to their development and achieving what they desire. Even without a coach, we can begin to look generally at whether our world-view assumptions and beliefs serve us in a positive way. What I mean by "positive" is whether your thoughts cause you to experience the world as a safe place, filled with abundance, and full of possibility. Or do you see the world as unsafe, with scarce resources, and fraught with obstacles and limitations? Do you believe that people are basically good or evil, coming from a place of goodwill or ill intent? Even if you believe that you fall on the side of "positive" thinking, you can still increase your effectiveness in the world and experience more joy and less negativity by closely watching how you use thought, and by developing practices to become more present focused.

Fifteen minutes a day of quiet, present moment contemplation can have a tremendous, positive impact on our moods and energy. Doing yoga, tai chi and other similar mind-body integration practices have the same effects. But for those that can't seem to make room in their day for these activities, there is another practice you can develop that doesn't require any more time and will yield some of the same benefits.

Throughout your day, as often as you can, focus only on what is immediately in front of you -- the task or activity that you are at that moment engaged in. In the shower each morning, bring your awareness and focus to each of the discrete tasks you do rather than the meeting you have later that morning. If you are in the car, turn off the radio (and the Blackberry) and focus specifically on everything associated with driving: the feel of the steering wheel, the hum of the motor, the cars directly in front of you. Turn all of the most mundane tasks -- unloading the dishwasher, folding laundry, mowing the yard, taking out the trash -- into opportunities to practice present moment awareness. I predict that you will find it very difficult to do. But the more you practice, the easier it gets and you will start to crave the sense of peace and relaxation that flows.

Contemplating and undertaking change in our work and life is a challenging process that can be navigated most successfully with increased awareness of ourselves. Noticing how we use thought and developing practices to turn our mind off "autopilot" will greatly enhance our effectiveness.

Wishing all of us sunny skies and warm-weather thinking.
Teresa

Possibilities

I have been reading a new gem of a book - The Art of Possiblity -- by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander.  I stumbled onto this book in an unusual place (a clothing store) while Christmas shopping and it became one of admittedly several items I treated myself to while I was hunting and gathering presents for others.  It was originally published by the Harvard Business School Press in 2000 and then published by Penguin Books in 2002.  

The word "possibility" has been crossing my path over and over again since I decided to embark on my new career and life journey.  I suddenly hear friends, coaches, ministers, politicians, and business leaders using it.  I see it referred to in books and articles I am reading.  I find myself saying it in a variety of different conversations and contexts.  I suspect that this word has always been in my environment, but is just now coming into my consciousness; similar to the experience you have when you buy a new car and suddenly begin to see how many people drive the same vehicle.  Or when a woman becomes pregnant and she starts to see dozens of pregnant women on a daily basis. 

When I began to think about the word "possibility" in more depth, I first wanted to see how it was officially defined.  According to one dictionary, possibility is something that is capable of happening or occurring; capable of favorable development or potential.  One of the outcomes that clients can typically expect to experience with a professional coach is the ability to envision new possibilities for themselves that they weren't previously able to see or embrace.  Often these possibilities are created from the same set of circumstances that previously presented obstacles for the client and were a source of discontent.  

The Art of Possibility gives readers a number of tools for transforming apparent roadblocks into new pathways.  The Zanders' premise is that "many of the circumstances that seem to block us in our daily lives may only appear to do so based on a framework of assumptions we carry with us.  Draw a different frame around the same set of circumstances and new pathways come into view.  Find the right framework and extraordinary accomplishment becomes an everyday experience."  

It is interesting to me that the book was commissioned by the Harvard Business School Press for a business as well as a lay audience.  But what fascinates me is that Rosamund and Ben work primarily in the arts.  Ben is the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, and is also a gifted teacher and communicator who often speaks to corporate executives and other leaders around the world.  Rosamund comes from a background of family therapy, but also facilitates conflict resolution in the corporate world.  She is also an accomplished landscape painter.  So I was intrigued to learn what the Harvard Business school thought these two individuals had to say about "possibility," as well as explore further the institution's apparent acknowledgment that the synergy created at the intersection of the arts, business and personal growth is important in shaping the leaders of our corporations, and the future of our global markets and society.  

The Zanders outline a set of 12 practices that individuals can implement that are designed "to initiate a new approach to current conditions, based on uncommon assumptions about the nature of the world."  They posit that based on historical transformational phenomena -- like the Internet or major scientific paradigm shifts -- transformation happens "less by arguing cogently for something new than by generating active, ongoing practices that shift a culture's experience of the basis for reality."  So the practices they present in the book are not intended to be for mere self improvement, or to achieve incremental changes.  But they are instead designed to cause a total shift of "posture, perceptions, beliefs, and thought processes."  I will attempt to describe briefly three of the practices that I found particularly attractive -- Rule Number 6, It's All Invented, and Giving an A.  

The Rule Number 6 practice is first illustrated in an engaging and amusing story-joke that reveals its essence as "Don't take yourself so g___damn seriously."  In all circumstances, we are admonished to lighten up and by doing so we might just light up those around us.  When we practice Rule Number 6, we invite more play and fun into our lives.  We also begin to shed certain less desirable aspects of our humanity -- pride, entitlement, the tendency to look out for Number One -- and open ourselves to the possibility of meaningful connection and cooperation with others.  The Zanders share several anecdotes involving a musical performance, a contract dispute, and "The Best Sex Ever" game to illustrate the power of Rule Number 6.  I hope over time I can encompass a little more Rule Number 6 into this Blog.

It is terribly hard to convey the rich meaning of each of the practices without simply wanting to copy major pieces of text from the book.  The book contains such a unique blend of personal anecdotes, parables, jokes, excerpts from literature and other writing conventions that my own words to describe its themes seem exceedingly ordinary and ineffective.  I will continue to quote from the book directly and paraphrase to some degree and hope that I haven't gone too far over the lines.  

The concept with It's All Invented is that at a very fundamental level, our experience of the world is created from our brain -- from our thoughts and feelings.  No matter how objective we try to be, the mind constructs.    So if "it's all invented anyway, we might as well invent a story or a framework of meaning that enhances our quality of life and the life of those around us." This doesn't mean that you can simply wish new circumstances to magically appear in your life.  But you can choose underlying assumptions that support and enhance what you desire.  When I presented the very metaphysical supposition that your thoughts create your reality to my very rational, logical, scientifically-inclined husband the other day, and asked him whether he thought this was true, he said simply "of course."  So much for my thinking that I was bringing astounding new revelations to his attention.  

But the practice described in The Art of Possibility explores a slightly different concept than what is being written and discussed in great detail concerning the latest research into the mind-body-life connection (i.e., change your thoughts, change your life).  The Zanders' focus is on the network of hidden assumptions and meanings that we all bring to our interpretation of the world and the people we encounter.   It appears to me to be similar to the "Ladder of Inference," which is a model for problem solving and understanding human behavior articulated by noted business writers Chris Argyris and Donald Schon in their book Theory in Practice.  If you step back from the beliefs that you have developed (and the story you have invented based on those beliefs) and look at what assumptions you are making (probably even unconsciously) about a situation, you can choose to invent a different set of assumptions that when applied to the situation allow for the possibility of a different choice and outcome.

The practice of Giving an A has several layers of meaning, but it is fundamentally about assuming the best in others and viewing them as coming from a place of ultimate potential and possibility -- even absolute actualization -- rather than a place of deficiency or having to prove their worthiness before we will accept them or legitimize them.  I think a great way of implementing Giving an A is in the context of conflict with an important person in our life.  If you can assume even in the midst of their stubbornness, their arrogance, their lack of empathetic responses that at their core they are a person who is doing their best and probably coming from a place of good intention despite outward appearances in the moment, you let go of the labels you project onto their behavior (e.g., stubborn, arrogant, uncaring) and create a space and an opportunity for them to shift into a place of cooperation and connection.  We have little if nothing to lose by trying this approach, as our other strategies for managing conflict (e.g., assigning blame, becoming defensive) have likely yielded little satisfaction or meaningful resolution on either person's part.  

A large portion of the chapter is devoted to Ben Zander's often humorous description of his first experiment in Giving an A to his musical students at the beginning of the semester.  The only condition he put on their grade was that they write him a letter immediately, but dated at the end of the semester, that described what they did to earn the A.  By allowing his students to project an A onto themselves (and their work and performance in his class) at the beginning of the semester, they were able to actually manifest this A work as the semester progressed.  

One of my favorite sections of the Giving an A chapter is titled "The Secret of Life."  Ben Zander shares an endearing anecdote that illustrates how one student's experience with Zander's Giving an A experiment also revealed the inherent brilliance and truth of It's All Invented.  Mr. Zander explains that a few weeks into the the first semester of giving an A he asked his class how it had felt to them to start the semester off with an A, before they had to prove themselves in any way.  A young Taiwanese student raised his hand and explained:

"'I was Number 68 out of 70 student (in Taiwan).  I come to Boston and Mr. Zander says I am an A.  Very confusing.  I walk about, three weeks, very confused.  I am Number 68, but Mr. Zander says I am an A student...I am Number 68, but Mr. Zander says I am an A.  One day I discover much happier A than Number 68.  So I decide I am an A.'

(Ben then observes that) this student, in a brilliant flash, had hit upon the secret of life.  He had realized that the labels he had been taking so seriously are human inventions -- it's all a game. The Number 68 is invented and the A is invented, so we might as well choose to invent something that brightens our life and the lives of the people around us."

I experienced my own encounter with It's All Invented in my first year of law school. Having historically been at the top of my class, or very close, in both high school and college, it was initially quite disturbing to receive several fairly low first semester grades, which would count anywhere from 20-30% toward my first year final grades.  I struggled for a number of days, maybe even weeks, with my new "less-than identity" -- an average student in several classes.  I questioned, at least briefly, whether I had made the right decision going to law school.  Finally, one day I thought to myself:  I liked myself before I received these grades.  I thought I was smart and capable the moment before I saw these grades.  How could I have suddenly changed because I opened a piece of mail?  Well, of course, I hadn't.  So I decided to mentally reinvent myself as a like-able, smart and capable law student again.  And sure enough, I was.

Like Ben Zander did with his students, I am going to give myself an A for the work I will do as a coach over the course of my life.  I earned this A because I invented a new career and life-framework for myself, and I shared my experience and vision with others who also became wildly happy and successful, and I ardently practiced Rule Number 6.

Teresa