What Box?^®

Like so many people around the world I have been watching the Olympics in Athens the past couple of weeks. The talent of the Olympic athletes is totally amazing to me and I think this is a great deal of the reason I watch them so intently. The athletes’ quest for perfection got me thinking about perfection as a goal. I thought about what my friend Nolan Bushnell, the founder of Atari and Chuck E. Cheese Pizza, said about perfection. He said, “The pursuit of perfection leads to stagnation and then eventually to paralysis.” This is something I remind myself of when-ever I am getting too perfectionist oriented. I can understand the desire for perfection to be the goal at the Olympics, but in everyday life I think we fall prey to the idea that we have to be perfect in every way . . . and so does everyone else. Aren’t we all “perfectly imperfect” just as we are? When we are being the best we can be, is that not also perfection?

If I were a baseball player my batting average would be something like .169. I miss more baseballs and strike out way more than I hit the ball, never mind a single, double, or a home run. Kristen, my wife, is laughing right now because I have used baseball as a metaphor. The only sport I really enjoy is a good Formula car race. The thing is that the baseball metaphor could not be much better. After all, what other activity rewards a person so well for getting it right less than 30% of the time? You have to swing at a lot of balls; we are talking a lot of balls, before you connect with one in a meaningful way.

In my life I have made more mistakes, messed up more situations than I care to remember and, in general, have struck out more than I have connected. I have been depressed and felt tremendous hopelessness in my life as a result of some of these mistakes. The difference is that instead of giving up or developing a pessimistic attitude towards life, I have learned from these mistakes and embraced the opportunities within them. By looking at how I contributed to the mistakes I have uncovered new perspectives on how to move forward with my dreams and aspirations. Each time I just had to find the courage to remind myself that I am “perfectly imperfect” and that everyone makes mistakes.

I can remember one such experience as if it happened yesterday. In 1995 I was starting some of my very first consulting gigs and was hired by the Board of the Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford University. For this project I was hired to graphically facilitate the Board’s yearly strategic planning session. In graphic facilitation I support groups to think more visually by facilitating them through traditional meeting processes while capturing the ideas developed during the meeting visually on a wall. I do this is with a hand full of colored markers and a piece of paper approximately four feet wide by twenty feet long. With these simple tools I translate the ideas generated during the meeting into images that are easy to understand. Not only am I drawing pictures representing these complex ideas live and in real time, I am capturing key thoughts in words. This particular Board made up of some of the most prestigious doctors in the world were very focused on my mistakes this particular day.

Being a dyslexic, words are always a bit of a challenge. Even when I know the word and how it is spelled I will simply misspell it. You can only imagine what happens when the words are coming from a doctor’s vocabulary. As we all have experienced at one point or another when a doctor is speaking in doctor talk they do not always speak English. As I misspelled the first word the meeting came to a halt because it had to be corrected. I reminded them that, “Hey, this is hand made. Let’s focus on the content and not so much the accuracy because we can correct the spelling later.” No such luck. As the meeting continued the words got harder and harder and I misspelled more and more often. By the time eight hours had passed I actually had to hold back the tears because some of the Board members were so totally focused on the spelling being correct before we could move forward with the meeting.

When I finally got back home I was thinking, “What am I doing this for? I don’t need this torture. Forget this crap.” While I was venting and sitting on my bed stewing I picked up the dictionary I always keep close at hand. I started looking up the words I had misspelled and began writing them down. I was thinking, “I will never misspell this word again,” and proceeded to write the words I had misspelled in front of all those Board members over and over and over – kind of like the way teachers have kids write on the chalkboard. The process of writing those words gave me confidence and I realized that instead of giving up my work as a graphic facilitator I could write down the words I consistently misspell and learn how to spell them correctly on a regular basis.

After 11 years and graphically facilitating hundreds of meetings I continue to misspell words, only now I have learned how to not be so hard on myself and remind myself that I am “perfectly imperfect.” What could be more perfect.

What are your experiences with perfection?

Let me know what you think.

Dear Sean,
I automatically presume that if I give something to someone, they will give me something in return – I buy someone a beer, they buy me one in return. What is the method I can use to freely give without expectation?
Puzzled

Dear Puzzled,
Thanks for the note.
One of the best ways I know to freely give is what some people call “random acts of kindness.” My friend, Andy, always pays for the two people behind him when he crosses the Golden Gate Bridge each day. Kristen and I at random times will buy dinner for another couple without letting them know who has paid for it. When you let go of expectation a whole other world of possibilities opens up for you. Keep the faith.
All my best,
Sean

Until next week, remember the only boxes that exist are the ones you create for yourself.

I was sitting around the other day thinking about what I would write and submit for this week’s edition of What Box? Anyone who knows me knows that I visually represent my ideas and create lists, lots of lists. In this case I was visualizing a list of possible topics I would write about next. Karrie at Mooney’s jokingly calls me, “Sean Pen” because every time she sees me I am illustrating my thoughts in one of my notebooks. Currently this list has grown so much that now I have enough ideas to fill the pages of The Chronicle for a couple of years. Still, nothing was inspiring me enough to put it down on paper. Writing for me is kind of like creating art. You just never really know when the inspiration to create will hit.

So I let it go for a while, giving me time to allow for inspiration to take hold.

While I was letting go, I kept thinking about my relationships: relationships from the past, current relationships, new relationships, timeless relationships, life altering relationships, business relationships, imagined relationships, all my relationships. I thought about how fortunate I have been to experience so much love through being in these relationships. I started thinking, “How the heck have I created so many meaningful relationships in my life in such a short period of time?”

The art of relationship was certainly not learned from classes in school. I mean, why Relationship Building 101 is not a required course taught in school from kindergarten on is not clear to me. There is quite possibly nothing more important in life than the attainment of relationship building skills to support our personal growth and the attainment of our dreams and desires. We all need help and support and the only way I have found to gain that is through building and retaining meaningful relationships.

I believe I learned the art of relationship by being around adults a lot while growing up. When I was not in school I was with my mother working on legislation in support of challenged students. If not with my mother and her cronies, I was with my father at his architectural firm drawing floor plans. Or I was out at social gatherings with my parents interacting with adults, experiencing and talking about adult things. It must have been strange to be one of my parent’s friends with their kid always hanging around being engaged and engaging them. Looking back now I realize these experiences accelerated the development of my relationship building skills.

For me the art of relationship is about giving more than it is receiving. When I go for a relationship I am very focused on learning about that person, what motivates them, what their dreams are, and how I can support them in their quest. Sometime it just means listening. Now as a man this is not always easy, because, like most of us men, we have a tendency to want to fix things. I always have to remind myself that I have two ears and one mouth and to use them accordingly. Just so you know, I figure it will take the rest of my life to get this one right.

When you give of yourself without the expectation of getting anything back from a relationship you will, in the end, gain more from the relationship. It may sound strange, but when you go after a relationship only looking at what you will gain from it, you lessen the power and rewards of developing a long and meaningful relationship.

So many of us are influenced by society’s unrelenting desire to ask, “What have you done for me lately?” Turn this ineffective thinking around and ask, “What can I do for you today?” I bet you will see that your whole world changes for the better and that in return for all you give you will receive that much more. How can you sow the seeds of meaningful relationships? How can you go for the relationship that is about giving instead of taking?

In the end, a long-term meaningful relationship is about both giving and taking. I like to look at it as bank account. The more you withdraw or take from the relationship without depositing, the less confidence, influence and trust you have in the relationship. The more you deposit, give into the relationship, the more confidence, influence, and trust you have in the relationship.

Until next week, remember the only boxes that exist are the ones you create for yourself.

Let me know what you think?

Dear Sean,
I am a strong-willed parent with 2 equally strong-willed teenagers. Your story in “One Fish at a Time” was inspiring. What can I do as a parent to support and encourage my kids through the difficult teenage years?
Signed Anonymous

Dear Anonymous,
Thanks for the note.
Kids need to be challenged. Focus on understanding their passions and dreams and find ways you can support them to achieve what they see for themselves. Focus on the positive. Small words of encouragement are a powerful way to show you are interested and care. Remember, you are the parent and kids need the structure of parenting to learn the life skills to succeed in our increasingly complex world. They will be on their own before you know it.
Stay strong it is not easy being a kid or a parent today, that is for sure.
All my best,
Sean

Until next week, remember the only boxes that exist are the ones you create yourself.

Have you ever heard the story of the man walking down a beach that is covered with starfish as far as the eye can see? In the distance he observes a boy throwing starfish back into the ocean as fast as he can. After walking quite some distance across thousands of starfish he asks the boy, “What are you doing?” “I am saving the starfish from dying,” the boy says. The man responds, “Look how many starfish there are. How can you possibly make a difference?” The boy responded without hesitation, “I am making a difference for this one.”

One starfish at a time is how he was making a difference and you can too.

I have been like a starfish on more than one occasion. Back in Junior High School I was given one last chance to make it through the traditional learning system after being removed from over eight schools in my educational career. Yes, eight schools. Almost everyone had given up on me. I can still remember sitting outside the principal’s office in the 5th grade, for yet another time, when he said, “Sean you will either end up being a multi-millionaire or in jail, because you just seem to want to make your own rules.”

The teacher who decided I was worth saving in the eighth grade was Frank Interbitzen and he was hell bent on seeing me make it through at least one level of school without being removed. You see, up to that point I had not even been able to stay enrolled in one class for the entire year, much less my entire schedule of classes without being moved or removed. One day at the beginning of the school year he sat down with my mother and me to discuss what topics interested me. At that time I was totally obsessed by dinosaurs and nature. You know, the kid with dinosaur toys all over the place. He thought for a while and said “Let’s enroll Sean in the biology class and see where that takes him.” Not even Frank could have been prepared for what happened next.

The school administrator that was already working hard to put me into an alternative education class environment said, “There is no way this kid can be enrolled in the biology class. How can you even think he could perform well when he can’t even get through a basic English class, much less biology.” With help from my mother, Frank persevered and pushed it all the way to the heads of the school district and put his job on the line in support of this wild-eyed kid.

All of the sudden I was sitting in a biology class with some of the best students in the school. I was very nervous and totally unsure of my self at the time. One of our first projects was to dissect a frog and boy did I take to that like a, well, a frog in water. For the first time that my parents could remember I was studying. All I could think about was my biology class. To the surprise of all the naysayers, I just could not get enough of that class and even ended up mentoring other students after hours on how to conduct the delicate dissection process. Guess what? I passed the class with my very first “B”.

I had done so well that I was one of the top students in the class and nominated as one of twelve students to be in the advanced biology class the following year. In this biology class we would spend a good part of the year dissecting a cat and identifying all the major muscles and other amazing body parts. It was fantastic and I ended up graduating from all two years of Junior High School.

Looking back on that pivotal moment in my life I realize Frank Interbitzen probably saved my life. He did not have to do what he did and it certainly did not look like a good bet from the history he had to go from. In the end he saw something in me that others did not. Except for my mother, he realized that I was not being challenged enough to stay focused on the subjects at hand. Frank, wherever you are now I am so grateful you were willing to throw this starfish back into the ocean of life. There are so many more stories of how Frank kept at it with me, but those will have to wait for another day.

The boy throwing the starfish back into the water saw life and death at the physical level. My teacher saw life and death for me at the mental and emotional level. Both enabled life to continue and be enhanced to a greater level.

Where do you see that you can contribute to life enhancing possibilities in the lives that you affect?

Let me know what you think.

Until next week, remember the only boxes that exist are the ones you create for yourself.

Discovering life’s purpose is not a new concept. Since the beginning of time man has been searching for the meaning of life. Why am I here? What do I want? Who am I? Where do I want to go and how do I get there? Way down deep in our hearts we all want to find and fulfill our higher purpose.

For so many of us we have put our lives on autopilot. We eat, breathe, shop ’til we drop, work at jobs we hate, watch television, and if you are like the Lake Bum, drink the day away. Not that I don’t drink my fair share, just ask Mooney. It is just that there has to be more to life than finding happiness and joy when the next American Idol airs or when buying the next trendy thing that only ends up in our closet collecting dust in a matter of weeks.

The whole idea of “I will be happy when. . .” is the way many of us live our lives. I will be happy when I make my first million. I will be happy when I own my house on the lake. I will be happy when I get that dream job. The reality is happiness is not something that happens to you. Happiness is inside of you right now. Discovering and living your life’s purpose will support you in living a much more fulfilling and happy life.

So what does it mean to discover life’s purpose? As one of my mentors, Mr. Rogers would say, “You are unique and special. There is no one else like you in the world.” Because of this each of us has a purpose and a reason for living that is uniquely personal. Living a life of purpose reflects who you are deep inside; your beliefs, your values and passion for living. It is all about following your heart and doing what you love to do with passion and purpose.

The Danish thinker Soren Kierkengaard wrote in his journal the following little gem. “The thing is to understand myself, to see what God really wants me to do; the thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live or die.”

Sometimes it takes a life altering experience to jolt us out of our superficial day-to-day lives and search for purpose. September 11, 2001 was just that life-altering day for many people around our great country and the world. Prior to that day many people were satisfied going through life doing the same old thing they had been doing for so many years before. The shock of the events that unfolded on September 11th caused many people to re-evaluate their lives and search for deeper meaning.

I happened to be in Manhattan on September 11th scheduled to facilitate a political town hall meeting at Windows on the World on the 109th floor of the World Trade Center at 8:30 am on September 12th. The town hall did not happen and I could not get back home to Grand Lake fast enough. As timing would have it, Kristen, my wife and I ended up rounding the corner at Kelly’s Corner Store in Zena at the exact same time. As we almost hit the store running to hug each other, we cried and promised each other that from that day forward we would focus our lives on doing activities with meaning and purpose, activities that make a positive difference. We did and are doing just what we promised, but as that date slips into the cobwebs of history I find that I don’t have that same passion in the belly as the first few months following September 11th.

Living a life with purpose takes constant practice, evaluation, and patience.

Living a life with purpose does not mean that you have to be involved in some great discovery or tremendous idea. Instead, it often rises from a commitment to be faithful to even the most undervalued of tasks.

“Leaders of the State of the World Forum determined that the most important jobs in the world are parenting, teaching, and healing,” writes Laurie Beth Jones in The Path. “If you are parenting, teaching, or healing others, consider your mission among the most important in the world.” It is not all about going after the money. Instead, when we are doing work that adds value and improves the quality of life for others, we are doing life’s work. Perhaps this is why people like to help each other. Subconsciously they know that through doing good for others they are coming closer to achieving their life purpose.

So how do I discover my life’s purpose?

Life is about choices: good, bad, happy, purposeful or void. Living a life of purpose is a lifelong journey and there are many components that require considerable processing to live that life. Here are just a few creative exercises that will support you to start along your path to a life of purpose.

Follow Your Passions

Get out a piece of paper and write down those things in your life that get your juices flowing and motivate you into action. Jot down all your passions no matter how out of this world they may seem. Now that you have your list, are you doing any of your passions or are they on the back burner? If you are already following through with some of your passions, how can you do more of what you love? If you aren’t following through with your passion, how can you start changing your life and fulfill your inner most desires? When you follow your passions everything else in life will naturally flow to you and you will be that much closer to living a life of purpose.

Follow Your Intuition

Whatever you call it, a hunch, a gut feeling, or luck, following your intuition will put the power of your subconscious mind and a lifetime of experiences to work for you. Just think of it as having your own personal advisor by your side at all times. And hey, it’s you.

When faced with a tough decision, take all the information you can find, no matter how large or small. Once you have sifted through the information, sit in a quiet relaxing space with this knowledge and see what pops up for you. What does your intuition share with you? What do you sense would be the best direction to go? Do any new and unexpected solutions come up for you? How will you use your intuition?

Remember, your intuition is always working towards your greater success and deepest desires.

Where Do You Want to Go?

Setting a vision for where you envision your life 20, 30, even 40 years from now is important in determining how it will turn out. Remember, every significant change or innovation began with a vision. So what is it that you want to accomplish in your life? Write it down and visualize it. It will give you a clearer picture of where your life is heading.

Focus On The Positive

Keeping a positive attitude and approach to life may be one of the best methods for supporting you to live a life of purpose. Positivity is contagious. People want to be around people with a positive attitude. Positivity is like a magnet and attracts what it is you most desire in life and supports you to create joy in your life. What could be more rewarding?

Let me know what you think.

Until next week, remember the only boxes that exist are the ones you create yourself.