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The Downside of Comfort
Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “Unless you do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.” This week’s video post recaps a brief conversation I had with my youngest son that gave me insight into why it is so hard to move beyond that which we already know — and what we have to lose if we don’t. It’s amazing what you can learn from your kids — and a pair of old, gnarly sneakers. Tweet
Here’s what I said in the video:
My son pulled these [sneakers] out of the trash the other day. He said, “Mom, why did you throw these away, I love these shoes!”
“Really? This is why I threw them away.”
“But Mom they’re so comfortable and I love them and they’re black and they’re great and they’re all worn in.”
“But sweetie, if it rains, your toes are going to get sopped. And you can’t run as fast as you want to in these. And you can’t play kickball without injuring yourself.”
He insisted on wearing them. He dug them out of the trash and put them on one day even after we bought him new shoes.
But you know, I get it — because we all have our habits that are comfortable and easy and familiar. And we want to keep doing them, even when they don’t serve us anymore.
Sometimes comfort keeps you bound. Dare to move beyond it.
For more on moving beyond your comfort zone:
The Pinocchio Principle: Becoming the Leader You Were Born to Be 
Taking Your Leap, Part I & Part II
Bridging the Gap Between No More and Not Yet
From Disaster to Master
Have you ever noticed that some people have a knack for making amazingly difficult feats look easy? Maybe it’s the dancer that seems to merge so completely with the music that it seems to actually come through her. Perhaps it’s the chef that chops and sautés and gently folds ingredients together in such a way that they become an impressive creation of mouth watering art. Maybe it’s the speaker that gets up in front of hundreds or even thousands of people and uses a combination of words and emotion that transcend language and reach right into the hearts of everyone present, leaving each person somehow transformed.
Wouldn’t you love to reach that level of mastery in your own life? I would. I once heard someone say, “Every master was once a disaster.” Over the four plus years that I’ve been learning karate with my kids, I have certainly had my share of embodying the disaster part of that expression. I can also tell you that those who truly pursue mastery — and seem to the rest of us as though they have already arrived — rarely (if ever) use the word “master” to describe themselves.
This week’s video post features a lesson I learned through my experience in the karate dojo that gave me insight into the pursuit of this thing called mastery – that can be applied to everything we do.
Here’s what I said in the video:
[The first part of the above video] was just a small part of a martial arts sequence called Kata. The first time I saw black belts doing that three or four years ago, I thought “there is no way I will ever be able to do anything like that”, but gradually I learned. And I wasn’t able to learn it all at once. I had to start out by learning what a U-block was and how you punch, and how do you do a center knife-hand (which I still need to work on). And then I was taught the sequence — what comes after what.
The first time I did the sequence it did not look like a dance. It did not look like a kata. It looked like a choppy series of techniques that I hadn’t quite mastered yet. I had to think about every single thing I was doing and what came next and whether or not I was doing it right. And I was completely in my head.
Only when I did it enough times, over and over and over again was I able to forget about thinking and trust that my body knew what to do, to lose myself in the drama — and really that’s what the Kata is — a simulated fight against attackers. That is when it really came together for me.
It is so similar to what happens with us whenever we learn something new. We always start off looking a little silly, a little foolish and feeling a little stiff and certainly not smooth or fluid or graceful — and maybe think we’re never going to master it. But over time, the more we practice, the more we build confidence, the more we’re able to trust that we really do know what to do.
Then we’re able to get out of our heads and come from our heart. And that is when our work becomes our art.
For more on mastery:
The Pinocchio Principle: Becoming the Leader You Were Born to Be
In Search of Greatness: Finding Your Zone
Dancer photo by Alexander Yakovlev from BigstockPhoto.com.
Unhatched
This week’s video post is a short and rather candid one. It was a Wednesday morning and my coach/videographer and I were preparing for a day of shooting videos. I was telling her about something that was bothering me and the fear that it brought about —and before I knew it, she hit the record button.
Since the topic of our conversation was the butterfly habitat that I have been blogging about for the last couple of weeks (see On the Verge of Transformation and On the Brink of Change), I thought perhaps it was fitting to go ahead and post this one too. Maybe it’ll strike a chord with you.
Here’s what I said in the video:
One thing that bothered me this week is the butterfly cocoon (chrysalis) that had yet to hatch never hatched. And I realized it’s not going to hatch. So I took it out to the garden and laid it there.
I didn’t realize how much it bothered me until one day I was running and all of a sudden this ball of emotion came out and I realized that what I am most afraid of is being the caterpillar in the cocoon that dies in the cocoon and never emerges — that has undergone a transformation but kept it so hidden that the world never gets to see that.
I feel all of this energy coming inside of me that I think is a result of taking the downtime and asking the questions, and working through my demons – and getting some clarity on needing to be a voice and needing to really help people and get out there and talk about this stuff that everyone is going through, but nobody seems to want to admit.
There’s part of it that’s guilt, like I don’t feel like I’m doing enough. And I was gripped by this intense moment of sadness that if I deny this call, I’m going to end up like that butterfly in the cocoon that never hatched. And, I think that would be the saddest thing in the world and so that was my prayer that day – “God please don’t let me die in the cocoon”.
For more on change and transformation:
The Pinocchio Principle: Becoming the Leader You Were Born to Be (book)
Busting Out of the Box (workshop)
On the Verge of Transformation
Taking Your Leap, Part I & Part II
Bridging the Gap Between No More and Not Yet
Confused mind picture by ktsdesign from Bigstock Photo.
On the Brink of Change
Are you at your wits end in your job, career, relationship, life in general? Experiencing delays, frustration, confusion, and even a little fear? Well, you might be closer to achieving something amazing than you think.
My last post, On the Verge of Transformation, featured an interview with a caterpillar. The above video continues the play by play in the life of a caterpillar, only this time from the inside of the cocoon (or chrysalis, if you want to be technically correct). I hope you enjoy it!
Here’s what I said in the video:
My daughter has this butterfly pavilion that we’ve been raising butterflies in. It’s been days since all the other chrysalises hatched. In fact, we let nine butterflies go out in the garden the other day. But there’s one that’s still in there, in its cocoon. We look at it every day hoping that we’ll catch it as its just emerging and it’s still in there.
I know it’s not dead because when I push on the side of the habitat, the chrysalis shakes gently, which is something that I learned they do to ward off predators. And, I can’t help but think how often we feel this way: we’re in this cocoon, there’s all kinds of change that’s happening, we’re not really sure which direction is up, and we’re the last one. For some of us, it takes longer than others.
If you’re feeling like you’re stuck in the cocoon, I think it’s probably very uncommon. And uncomfortable.
I read a story about a man who actually saw a butterfly trying to get out of the cocoon and used scissors to try to gently help the butterfly out. The butterfly fell out of the cocoon and it’s body was small and shriveled. It just kind of stumbled around on the ground and was finally just still.
What this man learned later was that to get out of the cocoon, the butterfly has to encounter the resistance. In the act of bumping up and busting out of the cocoon, the butterfly’s body fills up with fluid that it needs in order to spread its wings and be free and to turn into the beautiful creature that it is.
It’s such a great reminder to us that just when we feel things are at their darkest, and everything’s closing in and you just can’t take another minute of it — maybe that’s when we’re the closest to actually being ready to bust out. And maybe instead of thinking of all the resistance as overwhelming and exhausting, we can think of it as that final push we need to give in order to just break through into something wonderful that’s just been waiting for us.
For more on change and transformation:
The Pinocchio Principle: Becoming the Leader You Were Born to Be (book)
Busting Out of the Box (workshop)
On the Verge of Transformation
Taking Your Leap, Part I & Part II
Bridging the Gap Between No More and Not Yet
Crazy businessman picture by Stephane Durocher from Dreamstime.
On the Verge of Transformation
Do you ever feel like you are in the middle of some kind of transformation, but not yet clear on exactly where you are going and what form things are going to take? Speaking from my own experience, it can be a bit unnerving when you are in the thick of it. You may feel as though you’ll never find your way through.
They say it helps to find inspiration from those who have gone before you. On that note, the above video, On the Verge of Transformation, features an interview with a caterpillar. I hope you enjoy it.
Here is what I said in the video:
These live caterpillars came in the mail the other day. My daughter is going to start a butterfly habitat. And when they arrived they were really little — teeny, tiny things. Just a couple of days ago, they started climbing up to the top. You might be able to see, they are starting to hang from the lid.
And I found myself staring at these guys the other day as they were still caterpillars crawling around, wondering if they had any idea what is going to happen to them — that their whole life as they know it is going to end — and if they felt fear. And I wonder, if I could interview a little caterpillar, what would it tell me if I said,
“Hey, do you have any fear about what’s going to happen to you?”
He’d probably look at me and say “Why would I have fear?”
“Because everything you know is about to end.”
And he’d probably say, “Says who?”
And if I said, “But you have no idea what’s going to happen!”
And he could say, “Neither do you.”
And look, they are totally surrendered. If ever there was a position of surrender, it would be hanging upside down while your entire body dissolves into mucus and nothingness and is completely reconstituted — and then to have to find your way out of the chrysalis all on your own. And yet, they do it all the time. It’s part of nature. And they have no fear.
The thought occurred to me that we are always going through our process all the time too. And we get scared, because we have stories about all the things we are going to lose and all the stuff we are going to suffer at. Yet, maybe we can take a cue from the caterpillar. Maybe I can have a little bit of comfort and faith in knowing that just totally surrendering to the process could result in something fantastic and beyond anything I ever could have imagined.
For more on change and transformation:
The Pinocchio Principle: Becoming the Leader You Were Born to Be (book)
Busting Out of the Box (workshop)
Taking Your Leap, Part I & Part II
Bridging the Gap Between No More and Not Yet
Photo by Colin Stitt from Dreamstime.
The Downside of Going it Alone
Have you ever come smack up against an old assumption that was just plain wrong? The above video features a story about a painful lesson I learned years ago when I thought I could (and should) do everything on my own. It was probably the most embarrassing thing I’ve ever done that didn’t involve falling down or tripping over something.
Here’s what I said in the video:
Years ago I worked at a hospital and I was teaching classes to help clinical professionals work through all the changes they had to make when managed care hit. These people had a lot of change to make. There was a lot emotion involved. They had to completely reinvent the way they saw patients and did all the things that they had done for years. There was a lot of resistance.
And I remember I got this idea that perhaps it would be helpful for them to see how others have worked through this. So I decided I wanted to make a video and I got approval to make a trip to one of the sister hospitals whose staff had already begun making the transition. I managed to find one of the oldest cameras around at the time. It was so huge, that the VCR tape actually fit in it. You can imagine the contraption and all the gear I had to carry.
I finally got to the hospital. We had a conference room arranged. I managed to coordinate and have all these people show up in this one room. I asked them questions that got on tape their reaction and their coping mechanisms and their pain – and the way in which they were able to take something that turned everything they knew on their head and work through it. It was heart rendering. It was moving. It was beautiful.
I singlehandedly worked the camera, I asked the questions, I tried to zoom in on people’s faces when they talked, and I spent a whole day doing this videoing. I came back and I edited it myself. Granted – I knew nothing about filming and editing videos. I had to use the camera in order to do editing, cutting and pasting with my VCR.
When I got back and had my finished product, everybody crowded around and we put the tape in the VCR and hit play. I was just devastated. It was horrible. And I remember watching it and just feeling my heart sink. Because all those stories that almost brought tears to my eyes as I was filming them – the sound quality was so poor, you couldn’t even hear people talking. The camera was shaky. The editing was horrible. And I was just so embarrassed.
That happened years and years ago when I thought I needed to do everything myself and had a lot of fire in my belly, but for whatever reason, I was very resistant to asking for help. And I learned such a valuable lesson from that. What I learned and how I have benefitted from that experience is that I have allowed myself to let go of the things that I thought I needed to do myself and enjoy working with people that have skills that I don’t, who can get almost even more excited about my ideas than I am — and see things that I didn’t see — to make it richer and allow something to be created that is far better than anything my little mind could ever have imagined.
So here’s my question for you, “What great idea are you sitting on, and who do you need on your team to make it happen?”
Picture by Diomedes66 from Dreamstime
