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Perseverance is a superpower

Someone I know well has been working hard on an enormous, daunting project for a very, very long time.

The project was ambitious. The predictable obstacles were many. 

The romance and the vision of the outcome was compelling, though, and it was clear that there was only one thing to do: 

Embark. Begin. Make it happen.

Years have gone by. Obstacles have been surmounted. AND, new, bigger obstacles have emerged.

Some of that time, the objective was clear. The necessity of the next task was evident. The will to do it was unquestionable. “The Way” was a no-brainer.

And some of that time, the failures were all around. The futility was apparent. The temptation to give up, ubiquitous. The voices of the naysayers and the resigned … they drowned out everything.

In those times … when despair rules … that is when we reach deep.

And hey, let’s get real. Sometimes in those dark moments, we continue because, well … the alternative is just unthinkable. I mean, we can’t see the Promised Land, but we don’t have a better answer, so we keep going.

This person I know well, this loved one, has seen, today, a turning point.  A transformational place where all past efforts have combined to create a new reality. What was once merely a static display, a dream, has become What Is. The predictable, almost-certain future changed into something else again, something entirely new, a future that wasn’t going to just happen. 

There will never be a return to what was before. An egg, once cooked, is never going to be uncooked. A person, once transformed, will never go backwards.

What am I trying to say, here? It’s this:

There is part of us that wants change. The status quo will not do. Something must alter or we won’t go on.

There is also a part of us that craves predictability, and safety, and stasis. 

These two aspects of our being are both essential. And they must be reconciled.

There is a place we reach for, for the strength to go on, to do the next right thing when all the evidence says we are wasting our time.

Perseverence.

Perseverence is a superpower.

We may not all be world-class, brilliant minds. Hell, the law of large numbers says few of us are. 

We may not all be Picasso. Or Shakespeare. Or DaVinci. It couldn’t matter less.

What matters is that we keep showing up. That we persevere. 

“But, Preston, I have given up so many times! Obviously, I lack what it takes.”

To which I say: Yeah, me too. Felt that. Many days. Sometimes it’s a moment-by-moment thing. I’m pretty sure Picasso, Shakespeare, and DaVinci had to go through it too.

Just keep showing up. Again.

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My older brother and his wife bought a boat. The idea was that they could live inexpensively, and retire now from their careers of 25+ years, and travel, and explore, and get off the ground to discover something new – a new life, a new reality, something new within themselves.

They did their homework. They looked at boats for a long time. They bought an older, affordable, fixer-upper of a boat. They moved aboard. They hauled out to make some repairs and get the old girl seaworthy. 

They found problems. Big ones. One after another.

That was almost 9 years ago. For 9 years they lived out of the water on this boat as they worked it out and tackled one problem after another. Summers, falls, winters, springs, stuck in a boat yard. Ups and downs? They had them. Black periods of despair? They had them. Challenges with no solutions? Many times. Stress? Don’t even go there. Sometimes, the dream, the life, just looked like it couldn’t happen.

Last month, on the highest, full-moon tide of the month, they put their ship back in the water. And their world changed. The boat is not complete, there is more to be done – but it floats. It runs. It can leave the dock, and they can experience life aboard for the first time … a foreshadowing of the life to come, this time of their lives they envisioned from the outset. 

Overnight, the never-ending, fixer-upper, black-hole of a project became something else. It became the dream made real.

They did not live happily ever after. There is no such thing, except in fairy tales. New problems come along. Things break, things wear out, rust never sleeps. New people, places, and things – even wonderful ones – are disruptive and require adjustment and growth. 

Isn’t that the story of us humans? It’s … kind of what we do.

Perseverence is a superpower.

If the thoughts in this article are interesting to you, maybe we should talk about it. Send me an email and let’s connect. pblarus@gmail.com

Significance

This post from Seth’s Blog (May 5th) caught my eye (https://seths.blog/2023/05/the-new-way-of-work/). And I followed the link in the last word on the last line of the last paragraph — and was inspired.

Among the points he makes: He polled 10,000 people in 90 countries and asked the same question: “What makes a job the best job you ever had?”

You might expect that people would say things like, “I got paid a lot.” Or, “I didn’t have to work very hard.” Or, “I didn’t have people telling me what to do.”

But those were not among the top answers. The top answers were, “The work I was doing mattered.” And, “My efforts were valued.” In other words: significance.

People often say that “today’s workers” don’t have the same work ethic that people had once upon a time. More than one of my corporate coaching clients has said that talent is hard to find, and when they do find it, they have a hard time competing for their services … there isn’t money enough in the budget. They take another job, somewhere else.

The good news is, people don’t value money above all else.

The bad news is, giving people what they do want — significance — isn’t easy. Company culture isn’t easily changed. What HAS worked in innovative companies, says Seth, is “to create the conditions for people to do what they knew they were capable of.”

Easy? No. Worth it? Yes. Especially when you consider the alternative.

Check out the blog, follow the links, watch the short video, and if something about it rings true for you, why not talk about it?

Fill in the blank: “The ocean is ___________”

Complete the following phrase: “The ocean is …

What did you write? The ocean is … salty? Cold? Vast? Teeming with life? Scary? My favorite place? The last place in the world I would want to be?

“The map is not the territory,” said a great scholar.* Put another way, he said, “The word is not the thing.” Others have said “The menu is not the meal.”

And the ocean is not the words you or I use to describe it. So vast is it, so diverse, so complex, that we can not capture with mere words even a tiny cross-section. The chemistry of it, the color, the species living in it, from the microscopic to the mighty– the incredible sheer abundance of it — defies our language to capture it.

And yet, we believe we know it, and believe the truth of the labels we apply to it.

How do we do this in our own lives? We have labels and shorthand and abbreviations of thought and meaning, like “There is just not enough time,” or “Money is the root of all evil,” or ______________ (fill in one of your favorite parent’s favorite sayings here).

We need these abbreviations to make sense of a world that, like the ocean, is too vast for our comprehension. But let’s also understand that a label can only take us so far. And we can become captured by a label and mistake it for reality — and find ourselves stuck inside of that.

What does this mean for us, trying to eke out a happy life on this big hairy planet? And what does it have to do with coaching?

Sure, coaching is often about performance and accountability and plans and processes. AND it is also about examining the labels we have assigned to certain things, circumstances, and people in our lives … the things we hold to be true, but which hold us back from following through on our plans and processes.

We like the familiar, the safe, the predictable. It’s human.

AND, we thrill to the unknown. We wonder what if. We strive to break free and do something amazing.

Often we find that what is preventing us from that is a limiting belief that we were only barely even aware we had! We need others to help us see these beliefs, which is why humans travel in packs. A professional coach is your partner in discovery, trained specifically to help you uncover these limiting beliefs.

The map is not the territory. The word is not the thing. I find that comforting. It means that there is so much more available than is readily apparent, and that is exciting.

If you’re interested in talking about this article, I’d be interested too. Let’s connect.

  • * Alfred Korzybski, 1879-1950

One step to improve your ability to solve problems

First off, I have a problem with the modern usage of the word “problem” and all the freight, meaning, baggage, and connotations that come with it.

The dictionary (Merriam Webster) says this:

Problem –

  • A question raised for inquiry, consideration, or solution
  • An intricate unsettled question
  • A source of perplexity, distress, or vexation
  • Difficulty in understanding or accepting (“I have a problem with that.”)

Today, we often speak of problems in a negative sense. There it is: that’s my problem with “problem.”

Side note: Sometimes when you say a word over and over again, it begins to look weird and you feel like you don’t know the word anymore! This is happening to me right now with “problem.” I searched the internet and found out this is called “semantic satiation.”

Back to the problem at hand: my problem with “problem.”

It’s just that we see problems as negative. As if a good life is a problem-free life, some smooth road with no curves or pot-holes, where we arrive at the other end with our clothes unwrinkled and our minds untroubled.

What if a good life means a life where we grow? Become better humans? What if now, problems have a purpose?

If we already knew how to solve them, problems wouldn’t be problems. “Problem” just means, I don’t know how to do this – yet. Problems bring growth right along with them as part of the package. 

What if we make a decision, in our heads, right now, to see problems not as something that happens to us, but rather something that happens for us?

Is this just wordplay? I don’t think so. 

By shifting our perspective on problems, we remove some of the baggage that can come with them … like, why did this happen? What is wrong with me? I’m angry this happened! How dare so-and-so cause this problem for me! I don’t need another problem! I’m too busy with these other problems to take on this problem!

I’m not saying we can avoid these feelings sometimes. And here is the point and the promise of this short article:

I am saying that the energy we give to these feelings is energy we don’t have available for growth, and that if we can shift our perspective quickly, we can get on with forward motion. Why not see problems differently and embrace them as a necessary part of growth? 

I don’t know, maybe we need to find another word for “problem.”

What do you think of this?

There’s an old saying that if something is going to funny someday, then it’s funny today. Maybe the same is true for problems: if someday this problem is going to be looked back on as a growth opportunity, then it’s a growth opportunity now.

What I am “afraid of” is …

Fear is one of the big things that hold us back from doing what we want to do, and doing it to our full ability. It makes us hesitate, second-guess, pull back from the pivotal moment when the right action could make the critical difference. It sabotages our success instead of ensuring it.

Oddly, fear has its roots in self-protection. The fear reflex is designed to keep us safe from serious harm, and in cases where danger is real — facing down a sharp-toothed predator in the wild, for example — it has its upsides.

Few of the many things we fear in our industrialized society will actually cause us serious harm, though. We fear looking foolish, or being embarrassed, or being wrong. We fear failure, financial insecurity perhaps. These may be uncomfortable, but they are not dangerous.

And … they have not actually happened yet!

I mean that fear is usually based on anticipation that something bad will happen — something that actually does not yet exist. And fear is happening to us at a pre-verbal, unintentional level. Meaning, the fear is not based on a clear-eyed assessment of what is, and all the factors present in the situation. It is a knee-jerk reaction.

Will the worst happen? Who can say? What is the worst that can happen? Is the gain worth the risk? What can you do to maximize chances of success and minimize excessive risk?

Our patterns of fearfulness are actually preventing us from meeting the challenge we seek, from finding the growth we want. Fortunately, we don’t have to stay blocked by fear.

Coaching is not a deep and wrenching exploration of the roots of our fear. What it is, is a clear strategy leading to concrete steps for understanding your own fear and creating a personal success plan to stay conscious and powerful instead of at the mercy of your reflexes. It needn’t take long. Most people get life-changing results in a short time.

Will you eliminate fear, always, 100%? No, and it’s not reasonable to expect to. But if fear is running the show instead of your best and highest potential, it’s worth getting it sorted out better!

What coaching is not (and is)

Since there is not really a common understanding of what coaching is, and lots of confusion and misconceptions about it, it might be helpful to say a bit about what it is not.

Coaching is not advice. A coach does not tell you what to do, or how to do it. They may indeed have studied relevant skills and may enhance coaching with some practical how-to, but this is not the focus of coaching.

Coaching is not education or training.

Coaching is not therapy. In fact, if therapy is indicated, it is the coach’s responsibility to refer the client out to a qualified professional.

Coaching is not encouragement, though it will likely include it.

Coaching is not support.

Coaching is not friendship.

Coaching is not coercion, or carrot-and-stick motivation, or accountability — though it may include accountability if the client wants it.

So, if coaching is not any of these things, what IS it?

Coaching begins with exploration. What is eating you? What gets your goat? What do you love and want more of? Where do you want to be in a week? A month? A year? What’s working, and what’s not?

Coaching is about you and what you want.

Coaching is sometimes about hearing something that no one else in your life would say to you.

Coaching is about being able to say things you never even knew you knew, to someone whose only goal is to help you move forward where you want to go.

Coaching is about a safe and confidential place to do all that — to explore, to express — and to plan, and to execute and tune the plan. (I mean, we may love our families and our friends, AND we have to realize that their advice and suggestions may be just a tiny bit colored by how your growth and change will affect them, and who can blame them?)

Coaching is about a fresh take on something you have gotten so used to, you can’t see it. If you can’t see the forest for the trees, coaching is about climbing a tall tree and looking.

If you don’t like heights, let’s try another way of looking at it.

In my teens and early 20s, I was making extra money learning the trade of auto mechanics in a local repair shop. I made lots of mistakes, which is normal when you are learning something new. The owner, Tom, or the top mechanic, Brad, would keep an eye on me, and make suggestions, offer a tip, lend a special tool.

One afternoon, Brad heard me cussing about something that wasn’t going together right. After watching me for a minute, he said, “I know what’ll help.”

Brad went over to the wall, pulled a work light out of its reel, and came back with it shining very brightly. “If you don’t have enough light, it’s no wonder you’re missing a lot of stuff.”

That observation radically improved how I fixed that car, and every car I worked on after that, and has changed my life in countless ways ever since.

Coaching is kind of like that.

What do you think? Have you ever experienced that kind of coaching, the kind that went beyond advice? The kind of coaching that gave you a tool you’re never had before, something you got to keep for good?

And what if you did?

Willpower? Forget about it

“If you’re required to exert willpower to do something, there is an obvious internal conflict.”

Full stop. Period. Hold up a minute.

This quote is in the introduction to Willpower Doesn’t Work, Benjamin Hardy, PhD, psychologist and author, and it is a doozy.

We are inundated with self-help advice that tells us to “just do it.” Think about weight loss, getting healthy, saving money, switching to a more rewarding career path, writing that book: who among us hasn’t had a goal, and not reached it? And thought of it as failure, felt like we weren’t as good as those other people who are succeeding, not as strong, or smart, or pretty, or lucky?

And repeated that cycle more than once?

I know I have.

Hardy says we’re thinking about this the wrong way. He says the problem comes before the goal, in the foundations that underlie the goal.

Specifically, one or more of these things are likely:

  • we are not clear enough about what we want
  • we don’t want it enough
  • we are not invested in our selves and our dreams
  • we have neglected to purposefully create a supportive environment for those goals.

Get these things straight, and the need for willpower (pushing, external force) gets replaced by desire (internal pull towards).

And success becomes a natural outcome rather than a forced task.

What do you think? How true is this?

And what could you accomplish if you got clear on the foundations underlying your goals?