Win Harper | Life and Leadership Coach

New Year’s Eve 1993 was one of my favorites.  I was single, I was retired, and I was alone.  I had no interest in going out, so I decided to stay home and clean out my office desk.  That only took about an hour, so I decided to clean up my office, and after completing that, I cleaned up the rest of my condo, including my dishes and laundry.  It was around 11:40, so I ran some bath water and soaked into the New Year.

I entered 1994 without clutter, organized, and clean. I started going to therapy, joined a support group, took a church facilitated 12-step program, and worked at Omega for the first time. And that was the beginning of my journey.

This week we celebrate the end of 2008 and welcome in 2009.  Traditionally this is a time for reflection and resolutions.  Have you been successful in the past years with your promises to yourself?  What do you want to accomplish and be in 2009?  I going to give you an exercise to help you start your New Year.  I found it in the book, “The Art of Possibility” by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander.  The book is wonderful and inspirational, and is filled with leadership and life lessons.  I recommend you get a copy, and read it several times.

In the meantime, here is my version of their exercise that I use in my coaching:

I want you to think about 2009 and what you want to do and achieve. Now, I want you to give yourself an A for the whole year based upon your effort and your accomplishments.

To complete the exercise, I want you to go to this time next year, and look back, and I ask that you write me a letter telling me why you deserved an A.  I want the letter to start with “Dear Win, I got my A because…” , and write about all the insights you acquired, milestones you attained during the year as if these accomplishments were already in the past.  I want you to describe in as much detail as possible how you came to achieve this extraordinary grade.  Everything must be written in the past tense.  Phrases such as, “I hope,” “I intend,” or “I will” must not appear. If you wish you may mention specific goals you reached, but I am more interested in the person you will have become by January 2010.  I am interested in that person’s attitude, feelings, and worldviews after you have done all you wished to do and have become everything you wanted to be.  “And I want you to fall passionately in love with the person you are describing in the letter.”

As you start the exercise use this famous Marianne Williamson quote for motivation and as an affirmation:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Liberate yourself in 2009, and Give yourself an A, YOU earned it. 

In the summer of 1999, I was suffering some pain in both of my shoulders.  This was the result of repeated sports injuries that included a third degree separation.  I was in charge of Campus Support at Omega and part of my job was to move luggage.  That didn’t help.

I could not sleep on either side, only my back and stomach.  Even then when I rolled over I woke up.  That was a difficult summer for me physically, and at the same time, I noticed that my interpersonal relationships were suffering also.  Everyone seemed angry and hard to work with.

In August of that year, I finally went to the doctor and he gave me cortisone shots in each arm.  For three days I was pain free and slept like a baby.  Unbelievably, everyone I worked with became nicer. 

When Elizabeth and I were first married she had a green card as a resident of the U.S.  Almost every time we re-entered the states from our travels abroad, the immigration officer would question her.  Most of them were not nice to her, and one said, “When we issue you a residence card, we expect you to live the United States.”  We were anxious coming into our country.  I then read about a Wayne Dyer technique which we started to use.  As we approached the immigration booth, we would wish the officer “love, laughter, and happiness.”  Immediately, there were no more questions, and the official would simply welcome us back home.

In my leadership training workshops I use “Crucial Confrontations” by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, and Ron McMillan as a reference.

“A crucial confrontation is a face-to-face accountability discussion. Someone has disappointed you, and you talk to him or her directly. When handled well, the problem is resolved and the relationship benefits.”

The techniques are very effective and easy to use, but I have a hard time with the word confrontation.  When I think I am going to confront someone, my shoulders tighten, my hands begin to form fists, and I become anxious.  About two years ago, however, I was reading an article about Crucial Confrontations, and the author used the term, Crucial Clarification.  Eureka!!  Just using the word clarification instead of confrontation changed my approach to the conversation, and the results

A hand moves
And the fire’s whirling takes different shape
All things change when we do.
Kukai, Zen Patriarch.

Sometimes you may feel that others are NOT behaving towards you in the way you want them to.  This is a good opportunity to look at how you are acting towards them.  I suggest that you give what you want to receive.  If some one is not paying attention to you, give them attention; if some one is being disrespectful of you, give them respect; if someone is angry at you, give them kindness.  Wayne Dyer says, “Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.”

Oh by the way I did have an operation on my right shoulder in November of 1999.  Interestingly, the pain in my left shoulder also subsided after the surgery. 

Elizabeth and I are still grieving the loss of our friend Tom.  I have cried a lot this week, and it feels good.  But, there was a time in my life when I didn’t know my feelings, or how to express them.

The first time I knew of this was in November 1968.  I was returning from 13 months in Vietnam, and I was visiting a friend in California before heading home to my parents.  She and her friends had a “welcome home” banner up for me, and a dinner.  I recall being nervous and sweating and having to leave the room a couple of times.  I remember thinking, “how am I supposed to be?”  Am I sad, mad, glad, or scared?  I didn’t know, and I didn’t even know that I could just trust myself to just feel what I was feeling.

I believe a lot of people are like me.  When we were growing up our parents, guardians, teachers, older siblings, and even friends told us how to be.  My dad would say, “Why are you crying, you can’t be sad about that?”  I thought I was, but I guess I wasn’t.  My mom would say, “You must be hot with that sweater on.”  I thought I was comfortable, but I guess I wasn’t. Now I don’t believe parents are trying to negatively affect their children, but I also don’t believe that we really learn anything positive from the statements I mentioned.  I believe we actually unlearn.  We lose our innate ability to trust ourselves.

I came up with the idea that our trust in ourselves and our self-esteem comes from A.I.R.:
Adults telling us how we feel or are, with
Intensity
Repeatedly. 
For instance, if an Adult tells you “you aren’t big enough to do that”, “you are always selfish,” or “you are stupid” with Intensity, and Repeatedly, we believe that we are not capable, we are not competent.  Those thoughts seep into our souls, and play out all of our lives. Think of the last time you made a “mistake”, what did you say to yourself?  How many times have you said, “I can’t do that”, “I don’t want to be selfish”, or “I am stupid.”?  Or maybe your inner critic said, “you can’t do that, don’t try,” “you are selfish,” or “you are stupid.”

In 1988, I started consciously working on myself.  I immediately realized that I didn’t know when I was sad, mad, glad, or scared.  I decided that I would start saying those words to myself when I thought I felt the feeling.  When I thought I felt sad, I would say to myself, “I am sad.”  I would also try to be aware of the body sensations associated with that emotion.  When I became comfortable with each feeling, I would then express them to others.  Here is an example, “When you yell at me (a behavior) like that, I become angry (sad, glad, scared) because I have a need to be respected.” This process helped me understand my feelings and aligned them with the sensations in my body.  I learned to trust my feelings again.  What I was really doing was simply relearning what I and every child was born with.  Watch a child playing:  they are sad, they are angry, they are happy, they are scared.  All this happens within minutes.  They simply feel their feelings and move through them.  Only as we get older are we told we shouldn’t be angry, don’t be sad, you are having too much fun, don’t be a scaredy-cat. 

What was the quality of the A.I.R. in your childhood?  Do you know when you are sad, mad, glad, or scared?  Be the observer and participant in your life.  Be aware of what you are feeling and how you are expressing it, in the moment.  All of our feelings are important and have purpose, and you have a RIGHT to feel and express them.  Feel you feelings!

Tom Murphy died this morning.  Most of you have no idea who Tom was, but he was our neighbor and friend here in Playa.  Tom was larger than life, a legend.  His nickname in Playa was ‘Dos Cervezas Por Favor’, the only Spanish he knew.  When we went around town we always told people we were FOTs – Friends of Tom.  That was the secret handshake, the password, and it always elicited a smile and an open door.  Tom loved life.  He lived it at full speed.  Everyone loved him.

He was a Marine Corps corporal many years ago, and we and his brother-in-law Pat, who was also a Marine, celebrated the Marine Corps Birthday together here in Playa for the past three years.  Tom is in the center of the picture.  That is where he belonged and that is where he liked it.

Tom was a wonderful story teller, a loving father, and a great friend.  He was the most generous man I have ever known.  He paid for every meal we went to, no matter how many people were there.  He was a democrat and a liberal.  We had a great time discussing politics, and world affairs.  He knew how to push my buttons and derived pleasure from doing so.  In the process I learned a lot from him, especially about being a caring human. 

He was a St. Louis Rams season ticket holder, and one time a player gave him a football after scoring a touchdown.  While I never saw that, I can imagine Tom smiling.  He had a great smile.

He was only 67 years old.  I pause and turn to Elizabeth and tell her I love her.  I don’t do that often enough.  I don’t do a lot of nice things often enough.  I don’t tell friends and strangers that I am thankful for their being in my life often enough.  I don’t thank waiters and clerks for helping me often enough.  I don’t look up at the stars at night and think what a wonderful world this truly is often enough.  I don’t marvel at little children often enough.  I don’t take time to talk to older people often enough.  I don’t, as Mary Oliver says in her poem “Wild Geese,” “...let the soft animal of my body love what it loves” often enough. 

This has been a long day of sadness.  I will not forget Tom.  He was a gift in our lives, and I didn’t thank him often enough. 

Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of Roy Orbison’s death.  He was my favorite singer when I was growing up.  While Elizabeth was walking down the aisle at our wedding, I had “Pretty Woman” played over the Church’s public address system.  His songs, which I admit are maudlin, represented the “angst” of my youth in the early 60’s.  I have about 170 of his songs on my IPod:  “Running Scared,” “Crying”, “Blue Bayou”, “I Drove All Night”, “In Dreams”, and more.  Some of them, however, are not good.  In particular, his rendition of “Sweet Caroline” is notably bad.  He had his own style, and a 2 octave-range but it didn’t work for all songs.  There is a story that Johnny Cash once told him to lose the sunglasses, and drop the falsetto voice.  Fortunately, he didn’t listen to that advice.  He was Roy Orbison, and he listened to his own voice.

I just finished reading, “NLP, the new technology of achievement,” edited by Steve Andreas and Charles Faulkner. NLP, Neuro-Linguistic Programming, states that we are either motivated by moving away from what we don’t want or by moving towards what we want.  That means either moving away from pain, discomfort, and stress, or towards pleasure, comfort, and relaxation.  While we use both, one is dominant in each of us.  Normally if you are solving problems you are moving away from pain, and if you are seeking opportunities you are moving towards pleasure.  I count myself among the former, and I am changing that in myself.

Last Sunday on CBS Sunday Morning Show with Charles Osgood, he interviewed a child prodigy violinist.  Mr. Osgood asked the young man, “Do you like to practice?” “No”, he replied, “but by practicing I have the opportunity to perform.”

When Elizabeth was at the International New Age Tradeshow in Denver this past summer, I saw a young couple performing their music - Scott Helland and the Traveling Band of Gypsy Nomads (http://www.scotthelland.com).  I am normally not a live music kind of guy, but I was struck by their songs and their great joy in performing.  I made it a point to see them afterwards, buy one of their CDs, and thank them.  As an aside, I have bought at most 5 music CDs this century.  Scott said thank you, and asked me to attend their next show.  He was genuinely excited about the opportunity to perform and to be seen. 

When I was playing sports, I loved practice.  Unfortunately, I didn’t connect practice with performing or playing the game, so I became a great practice player.  I was solving a problem not looking for an opportunity.  I was trying to become a better player, but not learning how to play better.  My focus was on the moment without a clear vision of purpose. That is my dominant motivation direction, but in 1977 I ran a marathon in 3 hours 53 minutes and 9 seconds.  All my training leading up to the run was focused on a purpose; the opportunity to compete in the race and to complete the 26 miles 385 yards in less than 4 hours.  And I did!

As I said earlier, I am now changing my dominant method of motivation.  I am looking for opportunities.  I am being the observer and participant in my life.  I am being aware of what I am doing and saying in the moment, and looking for more opportunities rather than only solutions. There will always be a need for solutions, and moving away from painful or unpleasant situations, and at the same time, there will also always be opportunities.  What is your motivation direction?  What opportunities are you missing?  Do you have the courage to trust your own voice?