Stay Curious

I recently worked with a young woman who felt herself to be on the edge of something.  It was dark; a huge void; something she might fall into and be lost.  It was clearly terrifying.  Yet the more she ignored it, the scarier it became.


So I ENCOURAGED her to be curious; to wonder what might be in it; beyond the dark.  She found the courage to gaze, unflinching, into that void.  And through the fog of doubts and self criticism, she saw the source of her own creativity.  In her mind's eye, the void became a well from which she could draw.  In many ways no less scary, but empowering and motivating...


We are often tempted to avoid the things we fear.  When our children tell us about the monster under the bed, we want to say that it isn't there.  Yet research suggests that children overcome their fears best when encouraged to explore them.  By following their curiosity, sneaking glances at first to find out what colour it is, how long its hair, how smelly its breath, they gradually find the strength to look the monster in the eye.  


Similarly, with our inner demons, as long as we only catch a glimpse of them, or they stay on the edge of our hearing, they retain their power.  Get curious - unpick what they say, what voice they use, perhaps how ridiculous they look - and we gain control.


Our fixed thinking can trap us in old stories and fears.  Using what Seth Godin* calls a 'fundamentalist' approach, we consider first if something fits with the story we tell about ourselves before taking it on board.  In this way we accept at face value all that reinforces our beliefs, and reject that which challenges us. In contrast, staying curious means exploring first, finding out what is true - what works - and building it into to an evolving story.  Here there is growth and opportunity.


Curiosity may have killed the cat, but I believe it is a life giver.


If you are curious to find out how our coaching and workshops can help, please get in touch.


* See Nic Askew's fabulous film of Seth here http://www.nicaskew.com/2011/10/curious/

Defeat by Greater Things

In my last blog, I talked about the importance of finding work that you truly love.  Or indeed, of allowing it to find you.

When we are doing something we truly love, when we are in that flow, we can often get a sense of something else taking over.  We have a sense of ease, of letting go of the need to control everything.

The japanese potter,  Shoji Hamada, a huge influence on British studio pottery in the 1920s, talked about this power in his work.

"If a kiln is small, I might be able to control it completely, that is to say, my own self can become a controller, a master of the kiln. But man's own self is but a small thing after all. When I work at the large kiln, the power of my own self becomes so feeble that it cannot control it adequately.  It means that for the large kiln, the power that is beyond me is necessary.  Without the mercy for such an invisible power I cannot get good pieces.  One of the reasons I wanted to have a large kiln is because I want to be a potter, if I may, who works more in grace than in his own power.  You know nearly all the best pots were done in a huge kiln."

Might choosing an endeavour that is part of something greater, allow us all to work more in grace than in our own power?

The German poet Rilke also urges letting go in his poem, The Man Watching.

“What we choose to fight is so tiny!

What fights us is so great!

If only we would let ourselves be dominated

as things do by some immense storm,

we would become strong too, and not need names.”

Our daily battles in work can become so all consuming, that we lose track of the real prize.  Often these battles are about ‘the small stuff’, and winning them feels like firefighting.  Instead, we need to focus on what Jim Collins calls ‘Big Hairy Audacious Goals’.  We may not achieve them all, but we will have set our sights on the right things, and in stretching to them, we will grow.   Again from Rilke, 

“Winning does not tempt that man.

This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively,

by constantly greater beings.”

What greater things might you chose to be defeated by?

Don't Settle

What was it about Steve Jobs that created the kind of international loyalty that has people frenetically tweeting and posting about him, following his death yesterday at the age of 56?

Lickable (sic) as Apple’s products are, I don’t think that’s it.

Our esteem for leaders and people of influence is based more on the how rather than what, of what they do.

For many, Jobs’ life was emblematic of possibility - born out of wedlock, put up for adoption, dropped out of college - begging the question, “what’s my excuse?”

He challenged people to find and do work that they loved:

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma." 

Above all he said to people “Don’t settle.”  

Many of us work in environments and organisational cultures that repress our vitality, our curiosity, our youthful innocence; and we collude, allowing this part of us to emerge only outside work, or in the snatched escape of holidays that we dream of for months.  Yet this denies us fulfilment and reward in the very place where we invest most of our energies.  Ironically, it also leaves our organisations, colleagues and customers impoverished.  Many of our unique skills and insights have been left at the office door.

This is echoed by Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet,  

“Work is love made visible.

And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.

For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man's hunger.”

If you are not fulfilled - being all that you could be - at your current work, how might you find what you truly love.  Or how might you allow it to find you?