Win Harper | Life and Leadership Coach

Win, I love this job! You know, writing you every day.

Do you know how I got it?

No, besides being the Universe and getting whatever I want.

Yes! I just started doing it.

And that’s all anything takes.

  The Universe (http://www.tut.com)

I get a message from the Universe everyday.  Well, I was surprised to find out the Universe does not work on weekends, but Monday through Friday it is the first thing I read in the morning.  The above was today’s message.

What do you want to do? 

As the Universe says, just start doing it, and trust yourself and the Universe.  Here are two pretty smart people who believe that: 

“When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”  Paulo Coehlo, “The Alchemist

“Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.”  Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The second best time is now.”  Be Thankful today, and get started on the rest of your life now.

I am taking a 6 week course called, “Coaching from the Heart.”  It combines coaching and Non-Violent Communications; to me this is the best of all worlds.  This is my first coaching class in too many years, and I am loving it.  Part of the course is to coach others and to be coached.  While I have been a life and leadership coach for 10 years, I am learning a lot from being coached.

The first session I received was on values.  Values are who we are and what we do, and one way to uncover them is to talk about a peak experience in your life.  A peak moment is defined as a time when life is flowing and easy.  It doesn’t mean there are no challenges, but in those moments you don’t dwell on them, you move through them.  I chose the first season I worked at The Omega Institute for Holistic Studies in the summer of 1994, and with the help of my coach, I came up with the following values, in no particular order:  Connection, teamwork, community, authenticity, simplicity, respect, freedom, purpose, contribution and growth.

After the session, as I was pondering these values, I remembered 4 other peak moments in my life:  In 1961 during my senior season of High School football, the summer of 1964, 1976-79 when I was training Marine Corps second lieutenants, and 1990-92 when I was the project manager for the Army-Marine Corps program to develop Unmanned Ground Vehicles.  In each of these instances, I found that the above values were present.  I then thought of challenging times in my life, and the first thing I noticed was that only about ½ of those values were being honored by me, and I was not happy and probably not productive.

In another session, I confirmed my life purpose:  “I am the round table at which the community gathers to nourish itself.”  During the session my limiting beliefs and blocks came up.  I want to coach more people because I believe in the process, I want to contribute more, and I have received personal benefits from being coached.  I, however, don’t advertise my services because at times I don’t totally own the fact that I am a coach.  With some excellent coaching I was able to acknowledge that coaching is in my nature, and it fulfills my life purpose.  Further, when I am coaching I am honoring the above values.

So, in order to facilitate my growth as a coach and the growth of my coaching practice, I am lowering my monthly fees to $250 from $350 for my blog readers.  I ask that you consider accepting me as your coach or recommending me to someone who is ready to be coached.  Remember, I offer a complimentary 30 minute session as an introduction to me and my coaching style.

Contact me!  Coaching is good and it really works.

“Good fences make good neighbors.”  Robert Frost, “Mending Wall.”

Recently I helped a friend build a fence in his backyard.  We are both frequent Habitat for Humanity Volunteers who normally require close supervision, but we did this by ourselves. 

I am proud of the fence, and the work reminded me of some of my life lessons.

I was reminded about how much I have learned from working at Habitat.  My first lesson came in 1993 when I was helping some other volunteers replace studs in a wall.  I was handing tools, nails, and wood to the man who was doing the work, and I was content with my duties.  After about a half an hour, however, the man says, “Win, I want you do replace the next one.”  I froze in place.  I meekly asked, “What if I screw it up?”  He replied, “Well, we will simply do it over.”  Wow, simply do it over!  No recrimination, no shaming, no sarcasm; we would just do it over.  That was hard for me to imagine because until then I didn’t know that was a possibility. Aha!

I was reminded of what I learned in 1996 while going to ACOA meetings (Adult Children of Alcoholics).  The first meeting I attended I cried the entire time.  The meetings are always started with a reading of “The Problem.”  This is a description of the characteristics of an ACOA, and I was deeply moved because I felt seen.  When I heard the words I felt vulnerable and safe, and I allowed the years of pain to flow from me.

At the 3rd or 4th meeting a member who was acting as the facilitator began his portion of the meeting with the words, “Good fences make good neighbors.”  He said that ACOAs either have high walls that cannot be penetrated or no walls where that allow in everyone and everything.  A good fence protects you, and at the same time allows you to interact effectively with others.  They are boundaries.  BOUNDARIES!  I had heard the term, but never really understood what it meant until then.  That was another “Aha!” moment for me.

Here are some helpful definitions:
Good fences make good neighbors. 
Good neighbors respect one another’s property. Good farmers, for example, maintain their fences in order to keep their livestock from wandering onto neighboring farms. This proverb appears in the poem “Mending Wall,” by Robert Frost.  From the Cultural Dictionary on line.
Boundaries
The emotional and physical space that we place between ourselves and others. Setting proper boundaries is important to our mental health. When appropriate boundaries are not set, we run the risk of becoming either too detached from or too dependent upon others.  From About.com.

One of the reasons I am a good coach is because I have been where many of my clients are, and I know that because they are naturally creative, resourceful, and whole, they too can overcome the obstacles that are preventing them from living more fulfilled lives.  Developing good boundaries is the first step, and that is done by learning to ask for what you want and to say “no” to what you don’t want.

I was watching America’s Funniest Home Videos the other night, and there was a dog approaching a doorway where the owners had just removed a screen door.  The dog put out its paw to check if the screen was still there.  Even with evidence that there was no screen the dog would not go through the doorway.  Similarly, our friends have a dog and an invisible fence.  After two years, the dog is sometimes let out without her collar because it will not go near the “invisible” fence area.  I have heard that when young elephants are trained they are chained to a post in the ground.  Later, once the chain is removed the animal will not move because it believes it is still anchored. 

The screen door, the invisible fence, and the leg chain are learned limitations.  In coaching, we call these limiting beliefs because they keep individuals from achieving their full potential and getting what they want.

How can you tell if you have limiting beliefs?  Do you say you “can’t” do something, or do you make excuses for not doing something?  For instance do you believe any of the following?

I don’t want to be rich because rich people are greedy and mean.
I don’t want to be a leader because they are authoritative and don’t care about their employees.
I am not smart enough, and/or I don’t have enough experience to get that job.
I am not lovable.
I am a klutz and I always break things.
That someone or everyone is pushing your “buttons?”

Does any of this sound familiar to you?  Is there a doorway you won’t go through because you believe there is a barrier there?  Is there an “invisible” fence confining you to a small area of your life?  Do you remain where you are because you believe that you are still anchored by your childhood or your old belief system?

I have helped many people overcome their limiting beliefs.  One person was afraid of “confrontations” so she did not speak up or share her ideas.  I suggested that she change her confrontations to “clarifications.”  Within minutes she was liberated from her limiting belief, and was able to express herself freely with everyone.  Isn’t it time that you stopped living small and shared your greatness with the universe?

“Man is the only species that has the privilege of refusing its own blossoming.”  David Whyte, Poet and Author

I heard David Whyte say this about 12 years ago, and it has become the basis of my coaching.  A deer reaches its full potential as a deer, a flower reaches its full potential as a flower, but we have free will and we can make choices, and therefore we sometimes do not reach our full potentials.  At times, we make decisions or choices that are not in our own best interest, because we are not conscious of our blossoming.  In coaching, reaching your full potential, blossoming, means that you are living your life purpose, and your Life Purpose is the natural impact you have in this world.

While in Costa Rica a couple of years ago, I watched a hummingbird pollinating flowers.  What surprised me was that after furiously hovering while pollinating the flowers, the humming bird landed on a branch and rested.  I had never seen a hummingbird be still.  Similarly I watched some bumble bees fulfill their life purpose pollinating flowers on the café deck at Omega this summer.  I was fascinated by their focus.  Again, they were doing what they are designed to do.  I like to nature and this week I had the opportunity to watch deer, chipmunks, and birds as they are preparing for winter; they were all doing what they are designed to do, continuing to “blossom.” 

Once more, David Whyte describes this process of living your life purpose best in his Crossing the Unknown Sea:

“You are like Rilke’s Swan in his awkward waddling across the ground; the swan doesn’t cure his awkwardness by beating himself on the back, by moving faster, or by trying to organize himself better. He does it by moving toward the elemental water where he belongs. It is the simple contact with the water that gives him grace and presence. You only have to touch the elemental waters in your own life, and it will transform everything. But you have to let yourself down into those waters from the ground on which you stand, and that can be hard. Particularly if you think you might drown.”

Imagine what your life would be like if you knew what you were designed to do, knew where you belonged, and were moving towards your elemental water, your life purpose, effortlessly.  What if I told you that you do know all this, and the reason you are stuck is because you are afraid that “you might drown.”  A life coach can help you to live the life you were designed to live, to blossom, and to live a fulfilled life.

I wrote my Life Purpose statement in 1998, and it has been the driving force in my life since.  What is your Life Purpose?