All I Really Need to Know I Learned at the 3rd Annual Cool Coaching Campout
Last month, my buddy Drew and I hosted the 3rd Annual Cool Coaching Campout. I want to thank all the campers for an insightful kickoff to summer. I thought it might be fun to share with you some of the things I learned that weekend.
1. Any event that has fun as its underlying theme will serve to evolve you faster than all the classes, workshops and self-help books you want to take on.
“Hard work never killed anybody but why take the chance?” ~Edgar Bergen
2. When strangers come in to your life with a sense of playfulness, you get to look at yourself in new ways.
“We find comfort among those who agree with us--growth among those who don't.” ~Frank A. Clark
3. New people bring new questions.
“What do you get when you cross an insomniac, a dyslexic, and an agnostic? Someone who lies awake all night wondering if there really is a Dog.”
4. And speaking of dogs, cooking outside with two dogs patrolling the perimeter makes for fast cleanup.
“If you think dogs can't count, try putting three dog biscuits in your pocket and then giving Fido only two of them.” ~Phil Pastoret
5. Ohio, Ontario and Michigan can connect in more ways than geographically.
“Two may talk together under the same roof for many years, yet never really meet; and two others at first speech are old friends.” ~Mary Catherwood
6. When eight people want the rain to stop, it does.
“There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” ~Albert Einstein
7. Don't discount the guy who describes himself as “driven.” He has an interesting story to tell.
“You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.” ~Dale Carnegie
8. It's often more fun to paddle in circles than to just go downstream.
“Do the common thing in an uncommon way.” ~Booker T. Washington
9. An ex-Marine can coach by the seat of his pants.
“When I hear somebody sigh that ‘Life is hard,’ I am always tempted to ask, ‘Compared to what?’” ~Sydney Harris
10. When you put a bunch of people with different rhythms, ways of being and internal clocks together, the fire just can't go out!
“Spring is nature's way of saying, ‘Let's party!’” ~Robin Williams
It's quiet in my backyard now. The dogs are lying in the sun and waiting for me to take them for a walk. I enjoy the peace and serenity. No sounds but that of the creek bubbling on its way to the river. But there's a part of me that misses the laughter, music and outrageous questions that energized every moment of the 3rd Annual CCC. Thanks to Jen, Kemp, Brian, Julian, Deb, Dan and Drew for shaking my life up for one very fine weekend.
The picture on this page is from a paddling trip my friend Deb and I took to Quetico a few years ago. The old car was sitting along the portage trail. We were tired and hungry and had some distance to go before we could set camp. Even so, we hopped in the car and spent a ton of time trying to get the camera hanging just right in a tree so we could set the timer and get the pic. With a little creative play and a lot of laughing, that time out made the rest of the day a breeze. Beep beep!
The dictionary defines a goal as ‘the result or achievement toward which effort is directed.” It's that word “effort” that bothers me. Here's the interesting thing I've discovered about goals. The more effort I put towards a goal, the less perfect my present becomes. And the less perfect my present is, the more goals I set. Goals can be seductive and cause me to strive.
Let's say you're on a well-worn forest path. The goal is the large oak tree at the end of the path. Many have been there before you so you believe if you just follow the path, with effort, you'll reach the goal too. It's a long trek and not everyone has survived the journey so you become extremely focused on the goal and you plan methodically, day-by-day, hour-by-hour, step-by-step, your journey. In order to take this exhausting journey, you believe that nothing, but nothing, can distract you from your goal. Do you make it? Maybe, maybe not. But in your determination and your striving, you purposefully put on blinders to keep you from distractions. You gear yourself each day with a work-hard attitude in order to attain your goal.
But distractions are the very thing that makes the present so rich. Perhaps one of the distractions is another hiker who has already reached the goal tree. He would tell you, if you had taken the time to listen, that this goal is not worth the effort. It is old and fading and it is no longer able to support you. But in your desire to reach the goal, your head is down, focused on each step you take on the path, you ignore or totally miss the hiker. Perhaps the distraction is another path, less worn but obviously starting to be used. But in your nose-to-the-ground mode, you pass right by, never knowing that this path leads to two oak trees, just as beautiful as your original oak goal and a much shorter trip.
I'm not suggesting you let go of all wants and desires. In fact, have a ton of wants and desires. Desire any little old thing that comes to mind and intend for it to happen. But then let go of your attachment to it. That's where goals foul us up. When we take that desire and turn it into a goal, we become attached to the outcome. That very attachment puts us in striving mode and the striving robs us of our enjoyment of the present. Desires and intentions are a more relaxing knowing or sureness that unhooks us from the striving. And with this, action comes from inspiration rather than a set of defined steps you have determined you must take to reach the goal.
If you're willing to approach all you want with desire and intention, no stop along the way or altered path is a mistake. What freedom!
“When the future becomes far more important than the present, the destination holds more importance than the journey.” ~Thomas Leonard
"To live only for some future goal is shallow. It's the sides of the mountain that sustain life, not the top." ~Robert Pirsig
“We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal, and then leap in the dark to our success.” ~Henry David Thoreau
All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then Success is sure. ~Mark Twain
A very cool coach, Andrea Wistar wrote this one and sent it my way. Enjoy!
Things I Can Choose to Be at any Moment that I am Not
or
Loose Cannon and Proud of It!
Weird title, huh? What it says is that a chosen behavior should not be confused with a state of being; i.e. I can choose to be lazy without describing myself as a lazy person. And more to the point, I should be able choose to be lazy without risking being called a lazy person by you. Here's an example – if I'm “taking a break,” and therefore am not responsive to your request for action, you may describe me as lazy. Is that because of what I really am, or is it a reflection of the fact that at this moment I'm not conducting myself as you would like me to? Or to put it another way, you may describe me as lazy when my relaxed behavior is interfering with your agenda for me. And the flip side is that if I were in high-energy mode, you might describe me as hyper if you felt like relaxing. So, it seems that often the word being used by the speaker says not much about the character or condition of the person about whom she's speaking, but speaks volumes about what the speaker wants from the other person at that moment. Below are a few more examples.
1. Wishy-washy
I'm wishy-washy when I choose not to make a decision or take an action in the time frame that suits you. If you think the decision or action requires the same amount of thought that I do, you might refer to me as circumspect.
2. Selfish
If I do something that appears to put my own wants ahead of yours, I may be described as “selfish.” If you think I have been victimizing you by behaving as a martyr and I unexpectedly do something that promotes my happiness and releases you from guilt, you are glad to see that I've finally taken responsibility for my own well being.
3. Hard Ass
If I hold a firm position that is difficult for you to respond to, I'm tough. If I hold that same firm position and you agree with it, I'm decisive and strong.
4. Long-winded
If I'm talking after you've lost interest, I'm long-winded. If I'm talking for the same amount of time about something you are interested in, I'm spellbinding.
5. Permissive
If I let someone do something that you disapprove of, I'm permissive. If I let someone do something that you approve of (although others may disapprove), I'm open-minded.
6. Nit-picky
If I notice detail that you overlook or think is insignificant, you will say that I'm nit-picky. If you rely on me to work at the detail level, you praise me for my great attention to detail.
7. Pushover
If you see me “give in” on an issue where your stake was damaged by my decision, you call me a pushover. If you see me “come around” on an issue where your stake was improved by my decision, you call me responsive.
8. Stubborn
If I am holding to a position which you do not agree with, you proclaim that I am stubborn. However, if I am steadfast in my beliefs or my actions, and those beliefs and/or actions are consistent with yours, you identify me as committed, persistent or principled.
9. Loose Cannon
In a meeting where most everyone is participating in primarily linear thinking, my “off the wall” idea may cause the group to refer to me as a loose cannon. On the other hand, in a situation where there has been a persistent problem and nothing we have tried has worked, I may be heralded for my “out of the box” thinking.
10. Impulsive
I do something unexpected and apparently without much deliberation which you disapprove of, and I am labeled impulsive. I do virtually the same thing, but instead you approve of it, and all of a sudden I am wonderfully spontaneous.
11. Opportunistic
I “beat you to the punch” with an idea or contact that appears to advance my career at your expense; you'd probably be holding back in characterizing me as opportunistic. But if I employ the same strategy and you are my partner in experiencing the benefits, you might be more likely to say that you are fortunate to be aligned with someone who is politically astute.
12. Secretive
If I am withholding some sensitive information that you are interested in getting, you may say that I am secretive. However, if you are the person whose sensitive information I am guarding, you will be glad that I am discrete.
If you're trying to heed the now popular advice to avoid taking things personally, it may help to keep in mind the possibility that when someone describes you in negative terms, it's often more a statement of what they want than of who you are.
I've been reading Lynn Grabhorn’s book, “Excuse Me, Your Life is Waiting” and I must admit I'm inspired. Grabhorn says “we create by feeling, not by thought.” And, “What we feel is what we get.” What we're “vibrating” out is an exact match to what we will attract in. If we are feeling good (she sometimes calls it “buzzing”) and attach a want to that feeling, we get what we want. Anyway, once you're in a place of “buzzing,” and knowing what you want, the next thing to do is follow what she calls a “hit,” the idea that comes in to your head to take an action, follow a path, make a change, do something, choose.
This is pretty contrary to the way we traditionally decide to handle a want. Big or small, we most often think about what we might want, weight the options, develop a plan and then move forward, carefully. Or, if the want is urgent, we start pushing and striving. Grabhorn calls this “Hi Ho Silvering.”
So during April, I've been playing with “buzzing,” “vibrating” and acting on “hits.” I’ll admit to you that I approached all of this with some skepticism. Believe me, the word “buzzing” alone is enough to put fear in the heart of a recovering adrenaline junkie. But it's spring and I'm in an experimental mood. And I'm not good at making decisions anyway.
It's mushroom season here in Northern Michigan, a time I look forward to all year. And it's also a time when the outdoor chores grow exponentially each day. About a week-and-a-half ago, I was raking the yard and “buzzing” like crazy just because it was a beautiful day, I was outside, and with each passing minute, the yard was looking pretty good. I moved to a patch of wet leaves and got triggered by the smell of musty earth to drop the rake and head for the woods to look for the elusive morel mushroom. Now, admittedly, this particular “hit” may have been genetic as much as anything else (I come from a long line of morel hunters). But I was feeling good prior to the idea and it felt like a hit to me. I’d been getting regular mushroom email reports from my buddies and had not heard much promising news. Someone had found two, someone knew someone who knew someone who had found 24. All pretty low counts to get me to stop doing those never-ending spring chores. Here's what I got from that hit. 227 morels (2 lbs.) in two-and-one-half hours. Not bad.
Now I'm intrigued enough with this attraction thing to take Grabhorn’s suggestion to start choosing one thing each day I can switch to when I recognized my thoughts are heading south or I'm just doing what she calls “flatlining.” I started practicing switching to feeling good at the drop of a hat.
As most of you know, I've been doing quite a bit of clutter clearing. A lot of what I'm clearing out has some value and so I decided to check out eBay and see what I could do with some of this stuff. As soon as I got on eBay, it became apparent that I’d need a digital camera. Oh, well. One of the links on eBay was to another web site called eappraisals. This site will look at a digital picture of your item and give you an idea of what it might be worth. When I got to eappraisals, one of those damn pop-up windows was in my face. I really hate them and always close them immediately. But this one was a chance to win a digital camera and I was feeling good enough to say, “why not?” I registered on the last day of the contest and about two days later I got an email saying that out of over 50,000 registrants, I’d won! Yikes! The last thing I won was a cake when I was ten.
Okay, I'm really interested in this “buzzing” thing now. 224 morels when I was feeling good anyway and then a digital camera when I had decided to incorporate good vibrations as regular routine in my day. But what about those times when I'm really down and need to turn it around. Can I do that?
I was having a particularly bad day last Monday. A few days before I had my feelings hurt, I snapped at a good friend and another friend had allowed me to carp and grouse about it for a few hours (not a favor according to Grabhorn). All in all, I was feeling pretty unlovable. “Okay, Deb, let's see you turn this one around.” I started to put myself into a feel-good place and immediately got a “hit” to go to the grocery store. Of all places! Those of you who know me know I HATE to shop and grocery shopping is the worst. My idea of shopping is to put anything I need on a list and let someone else do it. And there were really only three things on the list. But, I went. I got to the store, grabbed a cart and headed for the milk and orange juice. In front of the cooler, right in the way, were a man and his three-year-old son. Grumble, grumble. I decided to try to squeeze past them and only said, “Excuse me” because of the three-year-old. You know, polite example, blah, blah, blah. Well, as soon as I said it, he perked up and proceeded to tell me he had learned “excuse me” at school from his teacher. We actually had a ten-minute conversation (well, he did most of the talking, I just asked questions) and I felt my funk begin to lift. As I said good bye to this charming child and was moving on down the aisle, he turned around and said, “Oh, and I love you.” Funk totally gone now!
And here's the really cool twist. I was feeling so good, I decided to come home and reschedule a doctor's appointment for the next day that had taken me a month to get but was contributing to my funk because it was smack dab in the middle of a day off. Now, this I would normally not do because it's just too irresponsible to cancel at the last minute when others are planning on you. I was on my way to the phone to make the call when it rang. It was the doctor's office needing to reschedule and apologizing to me!
So that's my little experiment, for what it's worth. Grabhorn is much clearer than I am about why feeling good works so well in attracting what it is we want. I'm still wondering if good vibrations were attracting like vibrations or I just put myself in a place of feeling good to the point where I was more apt to notice and enjoy what was coming my way? I don't know and I don't care. The bottom line is, it really doesn't matter, does it?
“There are no facts, only interpretations.” ~Friedrich Nietzsche
“When you shut down your inner dialogue, you are shutting down your inventory of all the things that offend you.” ~Wayne Dyer
“It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.” ~Henry David Thoreau
“Too often, the opportunity knocks, but by the time you push back the chain, push back the bolt, unhook the two locks and shut off the burglar alarm, it's too late.” ~Rita Coolidge
I have had more than my share of exciting times and I'm grateful for every one of them.
There was the time the bear came into camp at 11:00 p.m. and we listened to him consume two weeks worth of food for two people and a dog in only six hours. At 5:00 a.m., when it became obvious he had run out of goodies, we paddled our canoe out on to a very dark lake. He was still there when we went back at 7:00 to try to recover some of our gear. Probably because he'd also managed to polish off a flask of Kahula. And the time I was paddling solo on a large Canadian lake. The wind came up so strongly it was impossible for me to get to shore. I just held my own for several hours. After dark I was briefly grateful to land on an island I thought would be my refuge only to find it had been recently consumed by fire and there was no place to even sit down, let alone set camp. I've spent countless hours walking my canoe through low water rapids, carefully calculating each step, taking minutes to move 10 feet forward. And I can still barely think about the time I flooded my Jeep in a beaver pond.
People are always saying to me “I wish I was that adventurous” when they listen to my stories. But I’d like to make a distinction. Don't go to the dictionary, this is my distinction and I'm being a bit contrary again.
To me, adventure requires only awe, inspiration and appreciation. Seeing a black bear and her cubs walk a cliff on the opposite side of a lake from where I'm camped is adventure. Having a bear in camp is an adrenaline-induced learning situation. Quietly watching a moose as he steps into a lake on an early foggy morning is adventure. Having that same moose block my passage while paddling a narrow creek is an adrenaline-induced learning situation.
I’ll never stop going into the wilds and exposing myself to the risks that sometimes come. I have to admit that I'm a recovering adrenaline junkie and occasionally need a fix. But in my day-to-day life, adventure is merely an attitude to take action in order to inspire awe, appreciation and inspiration. It's a choice to not look at something the same old way but to approach it with curiosity. Adventure helps me write this newsletter, adrenaline just gives me good campfire stories.
The Top Ten Ways to Add a Little Adventure
1. Adventure Can Be Simple
Too often we think of adventure as this big thing we have to plan and put together. Arrangements need to be made, schedules coordinated, time secured, etc. Now that can take the adventure right out of adventure! Adventure can be as simple as just stepping out your door with no plan in mind.
2. Hang Out With An Adventurer
Do you know someone who has an adventurous nature? Spend some time with them. Adventurers love to lead others into uncharted territory.
3. Adventure Is An Attitude
Get that and you will find adventure in everything you do.
4. Go To The Wilds
True, adventure can be found at work, home and even in a good book. But in the wilderness, your senses become more acute. You'll smell, see, hear and feel more. A sun-soaked rock can feel as good as a down-covered bed; a light breeze or a cool lake as good as a full body massage; a campfire more wonderful than turning up the furnace; a field of flowers or just plain old earth more scent-filled than the best perfume. The best place to start with adventure is to let you body sense where all adventure comes from, the wilds.
5. Move Your Body
You'll see this in most of my top ten lists. Your body knows more than your mind ever will. Hone it.
6. Be A Child
When you were five, adventure came naturally. What did you love doing at that age? Do it. Yes, this may mean you'll have to get in the sandbox, on a swing, hang from the monkey bars or lead the cat around by a toy at the end of a string. (Hint: Kittens and puppies can teach you a lot about adventure)
7. Take The Dog For A Walk
Let him or her lead. See The Top Ten Reasons To Take Your Dog For a Walk
8. When The Directions Say Turn Right, Turn Left
9. Make Choices In Seconds
Not, hours or days. If you can't decide in a few seconds, then choose not to choose. Let it go as though you never had the choice.
10. Find a Creek and Follow It
Upstream, downstream, it doesn't matter
“We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures that we can have if only we seek them with our eyes.” ~Jawaharial Nehru
“If they give you ruled paper, write the other way.” ~Juan Ramon Jimenez
“You have to stay in shape. My grandmother, she started walking five miles a day when she was 60. She's 97 today and we don't know where the hell she is.” ~Ellen DeGeneres
“When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I've never tried before.” ~Mae West
“We turn not older with years, but newer every day.” ~Emily Dickenson
