Yesterday I had lunch with Sara and Brooke. Sara is my wife. Brooke works with me in our business, and has for a number of years (God bless her, because it hasn't exactly been the straightest or easiest path, and her patience parallels Job).
We are not often able to get together. Sara and I live in Santa Fe, Brooke in Salt Lake City. But yesterday, there we were, sitting together for lunch at the foot of the Wasatch Mountains.
If you have been following this blog, you know that I am working through a bit of a personal and professional catharsis--I am figuring out my way forward in how I work with leaders. I met with Sara (who is now becoming active in the business) and Brooke to talk about this blog, my products and services, and where I am going.
That lunch affected me profoundly. I will post here using as the basis a revised excerpt from a private post I sent to my sister and ardent supporter, Marian. Perhaps it will give you a bit of a feeling for what yesterday was for me: a turning point. One more step in fighting for the clarity I lack, by listening to the women around me (who often bear an inconvenient truth) that I initially resist...
"I learned two things from lunch with Sara and Brooke yesterday.
"One is that as I write my book I must also tell my story to “ground” it and to make it real. That may be a BFO (blinding flash of the obvious) to you, but it wasn’t to me. I was just going to present the information. How did this come about? Interesting...
"Sara initially took me to task by saying I needed a real, tangible PRODUCT, like a nutritional supplement, or a widget, something, and build a business around that, and then share what I learned in building it. While I resisted her and what she was bringing :(, I could also feel through the resistance that she was on to something. (I am still amazed at the power of stepping in to what I resist, if even I drop the slightest bit of resistance.) But I told her that I didn’t have the time (a year or more) or the energy (or interest) in selecting, manufacturing, marketing, selling and supporting a "tangible" product like that.
"So she dug deeper in her self and sorted it out, and said that what she was feeling was that my current product is not sufficiently grounded because my product is separated from my experience. Given that I have been an aggregator of information, now that made sense to me. So what she was saying is that my real product (and what people are interested in) is my story, my experience, and what I have learned. Then, in sharing what I have learned, I can share my approach, techniques, etc. Then what I give is in context of something very real--my own experience.
"That was a bit of a thunderclap. And left me feeling very anxious! You see, I have never really valued my own experience, so I have always depended primarily on providing information, techniques, etc. or sharing my clarity as my primary value.
"What occurred to me is the problem with that is that once we depend primarily on that--something that is not us--we then can begin to share things we haven’t actually done our self. That then takes us out of integrity—our words are not fully seated in our experience, and I think others pick up on that. Our words do not ring with the power of truth, and even though the concepts can be spot on, they “bounce” off the minds of others. Others are not fully comfortable with our concepts nor with us, because our experience and our concepts are slightly out of synch, slightly ajar.
"So Sara queued this up, and I saw Brooke search her feelings and concurred. Now, this changes everything for me. With the way that I work, with the way that I will blog, with the way I approach life. With the way I will write the book. Suddenly, it feels as if I have a lot less to offer. That wasn't what I was going for. :) But it also feels like the right way forward. It immediately changed the quality of the meetings I held for the rest of the day. Validation of direction comes in the most subtle ways. Like a whisper registers in a silenced mind.
"The other thing I learned is that what I am to do, and how, is still mostly unknown to me. The blog is helping me sound that out. And even though I do not know exactly what it is that my work will look like in the realm of leadership and emotional intelligence, the only way to move forward is to use fully what I have right now in my own hands--and that includes my life experience. And in it all, I must apply everything I think I "know" in my own life and work, and then to share that with others. It is an authentic path, it feels exciting, and it also scares me to death. Out from behind the facade...
