Drop & Go!

Saturday morning phone calls are not good. A loved one is dying. A loved one died. In the same morning! Hours later, animals have in-home care, teachers have been contacted for assignments because of missed school, airline tickets have been purchased, rental car secured. Supportive phone calls have been made to those in pain. Action.

What I notice is the ability to act without any barriers. Just do it. Go. In order to drop everything and go requires healthy relationships with school officials, equipment for studying on the go, flexibility. To drop everything requires money in the bank, a suit that fits, prescription medication in supply. To drop everything requires flexible relationships with clients, clear plans with contractors in the yard, and everything functioning at home so there are no worries. An awful lot of preparation goes into being able to drop everything and go. And I am grateful we can do so. We work hard to be able to do so.

When you think about dropping everything in your life and going...anywhere...for any reason...what do you notice? Can you do it? Are you ready? Can you transition from early morning coffee to deep sadness and concern without having to be in stress first? What would it take for you to be this free? What does it mean to you to be able to say "I will be right there" and just go? What do you need to do in your life in order to be spontaneous and free, when you want to and when you need to? How free are you, really?

Family in LA and family in HI...I am on my way!

Invention

My son announced at dinner last night how he was going to apply to be a high school mentor for the spring. I responded by telling him how happy I am to see him finding his "leader" voice. He agreed. I asked him what it was about the mentor program he found so interesting that he would want to commit to it. What followed was a quiet moment of deep thought and then he said he wants to teach younger kids what he has learned, what he knows about navigating the early months of high school. Wow... a leader and a teacher. Great work, son!

One of the many things I love about having a teenager is how he is always inventing himself and reinventing himself. He is in a constant state of exploration. In fact, some of our greatest conflict arises when he gets into a stuck place and forgets to "try on" the various alternatives to being stuck. He has everything to gain from finding out and exploring and discovering and uncovering who he really is in his world. His life is his own blank canvas to fill (really!).

I love to watch him discover aspects of himself previously unknown. Today he is a young leader, a team mate, a classmate, a friend, a volunteer, a student council member, a student who struggles learning foreign language and thrives learning sciences. He likes his food prepared a certain way, enjoys his own brand of humor and music, has his own style and interests. And he is so different today than how (and who) he was even a year ago. The process of growing and becoming never stops with him. Tomorrow will be another day of unfolding, to be sure.

Parenting, right now, reminds me there is something very useful about daily discovery and invention. There is something really valuable about staying unstuck, open, willing, curious. There is something quite incredible about being able to change looks, behaviors, goals, ideas, minds in mere moments and not having to wait endlessly for process to unfold. We can mix and match our roles and talents and personal characteristics; there is no one way to do or be anything. He gets that who and how we are in the world can be of our own design because he has always been supported in this pursuit; I am still trying to figure this out. An essential lesson I learn from my leader/teacher son is that change, adaptation, reinvention, exploration, and discovery do not have to be radical acts; they just are. I hope he never loses this idea.

What about your life/relationships/partnerships/organization is of your own design? What would reinvention look like? What do you notice about how you are as a leader and how the next generation closest to you leads? What are you reminded of when you are with them? What does change mean to you? What's easy about it? What's the challenge? What of the ease or challenge is about you or the change itself? What can you recall of the moment when you went from daily invention and adaptation to routine and safe? What would an instant, in this moment, no time for process, curiosity driven reinvention of yourself/your attitude/your job/your role look like...right now?

Go!

P.S. I am reminded that my son has often said he wants to be "an inventor" when he grows up. Little does he know how he already is one!

Just Curious...

When are we ever not in relationship? Think about it. People, spouses, friends, children, siblings, neighbors, team mates, colleagues, in-laws, staff members, our pets, clients. And then there's money, nature, homes, illness, cars, sport teams, musicians, classmates, servers in restaurants, the President. Everywhere we turn, whether for moments or a lifetime, we are in relationship with something, someone.

For me, today: I am in relationship with my spouse, my son, my pets. There will be relationship with my contractor, my client (a fundraising department of a non-profit organization), my financial adviser, my car, my son's doctor. I will greet neighbors when walking the dog. I will meet up with my son and his friends when they volunteer at a senior center later this afternoon. We are planning to eat dinner out tonight so there will be some restaurant personnel and money to be with. Over the course of the day there will be many e-mails to respond to and phone calls to answer. And there will be dozens of other relationships to navigate. Relationships are everywhere.

What do you notice about who and what you are in relationship with today? What do you notice about yourself when being in relationship? Which relationship really satisfies you, creates ease and happiness? Which relationship causes stress or anxiety or bores you? What do you find most challenging about being in relationship? Since we can never not be in relationship, what does it take to be more present to them, intentional about them, and skillful in them?

Enjoy the day!

School Days

Last night was back-to-school night at my son's high school. Hundreds of parents shuffling from classroom to classroom, listening to teachers describe grading procedures, attendance policies, methods for contacting them, on-line grade reports, and course outlines. Good times!

And while I really hope my boy is taking in the high quality academic teaching he is offered (I am sure he is), I have to admit, there is some really solid teaching adorning posters hanging on the walls in his tenth grade classrooms:

• Make somebody's day.
• Ignorance is not an excuse.
• Choose your attitude.
• Be wise, protect your eyes.
• The expert in anything was once a beginner.
• Just because something is difficult doesn't mean you shouldn't try, it means you should just try harder.
• Reading can take you to the top.

And my personal favorite was a set of posters asking:

• Who am I in the world?
• What is right and wrong?
• How do I communicate effectively?
• How do I recognize/understand/interpret differences?
  

Look around yourself...right now...in this moment. What do you see? What will you learn from what is around you? What are you being reminded of right now? What meaning will you make of the images/sounds/feelings in your space at this moment?

Now back to class!

Being Big!

This is Maria. Extraordinary Maria. Maria is the instructor of the aqua-fitness class I take three times per week at the local Jewish Community Center. I have never been a gym-person, a pool-person, an exercise-person but Maria makes it all possible. She is motivating. She is creative. She is highly trained, professional, and a learner herself. And what I notice about Maria--more than anything--is her absolute commitment to each student living a great life by feeling good and exercising with personal rigor.

Today, in class, something happened. Our exercise program was far more psychological than physical (although the physical workout was excellent). Maria wanted each student to be big today... really BIG. She wanted our movements to be intentionally big, wider, longer, deeper. She wanted attention paid to each movement, making them mean something...awareness. Through the entire class, in between shouting instructions and demonstrating techniques, she repeated: "be big...come on, you can do this...get big, get long...think about your movement...you benefit more from big...be big..."

I found myself fixated on my big-ness, my ability to get more from my workout than usual. I heard Maria really pushing me to a bigger place, to a bigger result. It was as though she was diligently pulling each student towards his/her greatest goal. My goal felt possible. My goal was clear. I was going to be BIG.

At times, all we need is someone reminding us we can be big. At times, having someone hold our bigger goal for a bit while we do the hard work is really useful. At times, the geography of being pulled forward is much more powerful than being pushed. Being reminded I can be more, I can be bigger resonates deeply for me. Knowing someone is looking after my whole life, keying into my values and sense of purpose, and holding me bigger than a workout or my day, is incredibly motivating.

Who holds you really big? What does it look like? What does being small look like in your life? Take that smallness and make it big; what do you notice? What would you like someone else to hold for you for a moment so you can do the work of being big? What holds you back from asking? The opposite of big doesn't have to be small; it can be complacent, bored, unhappy, inefficient, lazy, and a myriad of other things. If you're not big right now, what are you?

Off to my day...my really BIG day!

An Invitation

Patience, please

Go to "the Google" (that's a George W. Bushism) and type in "change" and watch you computer nearly crash from over-processing. Climate change. Coins. Obama and change. Change agents. Change theory. Change process. Change models. Sustainable change. Social change model. Technology of change. A case study on epic change. It goes on and on. Over 1, 080,000,000 hits when you put "change" in the Google!

So what do we know about change? It's hard work. It is painful at times. It takes time and resources. Change, for the sake of change, is not change. Sometimes the change you get is bigger than the change you set out to create. Change is fluid. Some people respond really well to change, welcome it, embrace it. Sometimes change is very clear, easy and other times it is a murky, messy process. Change is a forward action...it propels you from where you are to someplace new...for better or for worse. Change will always be a part of our lives, until we die, and even then, change will carry on. Hold on!

It seems everyone I know is in a state of big change right now. And nerves are raw! And I wonder: What do you like about change? What do you need to address in your life before the change occurs? How do you stay with the process when you want to run? How does your attitude about change affect the way you do it? What do you recall about your best (or worst) change experience? What is it that you do that makes the process of change so do-able (or not)? What kind of leader or shaper or follower of change are you?

There are few topics to ponder that are this big. In my experience, if change were a ledge, many people (and organizations and teams and relationships and families and communities and countries and associations and neighborhoods and...) are perched up on the edge looking out and over, some ready to soar and others afraid to move, a few dangling over the edge being held by bloody fingernails, a few crashing to the bottom, and a few others who are turning from the edge and running.

Where are you on the ledge?

Enjoy the weekend.