I have had the joy of being with you this past week: several of you shared meals with me and we met in ways I know I will remember. I hope you will, too. Thank you. Given the time I would have enjoyed such an opportunity with each of you. During your first session with me I told you I would give you my notes from each of my talks. If you read this letter today or in ten years it is all ok with me. People do what they are ready to do. Keep them. See how well they age. Remind yourself that I repeatedly said I am addressing the future you.
Day One I tried to tell you how unique and beautiful you are. This is not an older adult attempting to convince you of something adults generally want you to believe. As I said I really have never met – 50 countries and thousands of people later – anyone, anywhere who is not beautiful. Yes, I have met people who have done really ugly things and done a few myself, but, you (we) are beautiful. Get to know any human by listening, really listening, and I believe you will soon agree with me. We talked about leadership: I said Leadership is a Function, a role, not a position. If your motive in becoming a leader is to see your name at the top of a list or to be the boss, your distorted motive will be your constant hurdle. Leadership is about who and what you are and what you do within a community. It is not about status. If it is the status you seek, your drive for recognition will persistently contaminate your leadership. To lead others effectively it is necessary to know what you are good at and what you are not good at. Work at your strengths. Accommodate your weaknesses. Both are yours for the long-haul.
I encouraged you to consistently define yourself. If you don’t, someone will. Resist the natural anxious urge to define others. Become an expert in your own behavior. Resist the natural (anxious) urge to be an expert in the behavior of others, especially those who annoy you. Listen more than you speak. Make sure you are hearing, not waiting to talk. I closed saying Self-Leadership has by far the greatest impact on how effective you are as a leader. If you can’t lead yourself you can effectively lead nothing and no one.
Day Two I emphasized your (and my) uniqueness. I urged you to find within the depths of where your hearts, minds, spirits, souls meet (see it as a kind of Venn diagram) the beautiful “place” generally referred to as the SELF. YourSELF is beautiful, it’s as unique as your fingerprints, your voice, and your personality. It is shaped by your family history, your DNA, by enduring joyful and nurturing experiences. It is shaped also by trauma, by loss, grief and so much else. This SELF is resilient. The Self wants to be well. It self-repairs (given conducive conditions). It is not Selfish to find and love and know yourSelf. I would suggest it is selfish NOT to. People who avoid Self-Awareness because they consider it selfISH are usually people who put stress on leadership teams and on friendships and battle with boundary confusion – “I am I, you are you, we are we, Let’s not confuse the three” – Remember? It’s corny BUT if you live it, it will save you a LOT of pain and therapist bills!
Day Three I emphasized your God-given desire for Autonomy. It’s part of your humanity. To desire self-directedness (AUTONOMY – SPACE, ROOM TO MOVE, freedom to be yourself) comes with your birth package. When it is unfulfilled – or ignored – you will be discontent. You have a similar God-given desire for Intimacy. This is part of your humanity. We all want some closeness, to belong, to be part of. Accepting that these Dueling Desires live within you and recognizing they are present in all the people will make it easier for you to welcome both into their legitimate place within your life. You (and I) really grow up when you (we) meet these needs in yourself AND understand that others are similarly driven. When your best friend chooses to be alone (wants Autonomy) it is not a rejection of you (necessarily) if you, at the same time, want Intimacy. Remember, you cannot LOVE and CONTROL the same person.
This afternoon (Thursday) and Day Four, I left you with eight things I would tell my younger self:
Save, and never touch, one third of all the money you earn. Few people regret having saved from an early age. Few things upset adulthood as well as financial pressures.
Honor your family and extended family relationships above all other relationships. If you are a brother or a son, a niece or an aunt, be the best one you can be.
Learn to live without blaming others. While others are indeed imperfect, blaming others for anything will seldom get you to where you really want to go. There are exceptions which I made clear (I hope).
Forgive, truly forgive, but remember. To forgive and forget is often foolish and even impossible. Remembering is not the same as holding a grudge. There are exceptions which I made clear (I hope).
Find your VOICE and hold onto it. Finding your voice means figuring out what you want your life to say. Only a small portion of finding your voice has to do with actual words.
Every unfortunate or bad thing that happens to you will ultimately offer you a choice. Will it become SEED (for growth) or STONE (resentment or hardness)? Seed will be most helpful to you. The choice will always be yours.
Pursue (chase) education even over romance. Few people regret having a sound education.
Gain understanding about your power, the power that comes with being human. Treasure it; Protect it, Deploy it. Use it for its intended purpose only.
I have loved being with you. Thank you. I especially enjoyed the Talent Show and the party. I loved watching your amazing capacity to have fun and I particularly enjoyed seeing some of you who arrived earlier this week appearing shy and withdrawn having the time of your lives.
Rod
Dad, Uber Driver, International Speaker and Newspaper Columnist
There are a few ways I can tell when an unwell client is gathering strength and becoming well……
He begins to speak up. He resists “falling into line” and acquiescing to others when he’d previously kept his mouth shut and conformed to the expectations of others.
She starts to think things through. She turns consequences and ramifications over in her mind before agreeing with or accepting my suggestions. She trusts her own insights more than she trusts her therapist’s insights about her.
He develops a growing “bird’s eye view” of his life. He begins to see with greater and greater clarity how seemingly “small” decisions of repeated healthy choices rapidly usher in larger positive outcomes than can be anticipated.
She begins to enjoy the rewards of making difficult but healthy choices. She wakes up most days with growing anticipation despite her substantial challenges.
He sees and feels more and more courageous and confident about his own life even while appreciating the humility required of those who desire to live meaningful lives.
She expresses thanks and appreciation for her life despite its struggles and anticipates being an agent of hope to others with similar challenges.
I enjoy moments when life places me with people of diverse cultures. I love it when individuals are sufficiently comfortable to discuss the power that culture has in shaping our lives and our perceptions.
Mary is amazed that Anvi met her husband for the first time at their wedding. Mary is further surprised that Anvi says she is happily married. Anvi tells Mary she could never have been brave enough to pursue a “love marriage.” Anvi says her parents, whom she does trust, know her better than she knows herself and therefore knew what kind of man she would want to marry.
John is amazed to hear that I’m willing to respect women leaders. John is even more surprised to hear I raised two babies without women to change their nappies (diapers). He tells me I insulted the men of his culture by doing “women’s work.”
Sunmi is confused at hearing June is unwilling to give up her career to take care of her aging mother-in-law. She expresses that such a choice in her culture would be considered unusual.
A child, to the annoyance of some of the adults, interrupte his mother while his mother is talking. The mother considers it perfectly “normal” for a child to exhibit such behavior and is unaware that a child interrupting an adult in many cultures is considered gross disrespect.
Respect is placing high value on privacy, even, perhaps especially, between and among people who are very intimate with each other. The deeper and greater the intimacy, the greater the need for individual space, even opportunities for extended solitude.
Respect is listening, it’s having the willingness to focus on what another is saying without correcting, interpreting, or interrupting. It’s developing an eye for what another may need or want and looking for ways to serve one another. It’s having an eye for mood and occasion, the ability to read a moment and to sense when strong emotions may call for deeper understanding.
Respect is having an ear for what is not said. It’s the capacity to read between the lines, to discern what may be uncomfortable to express. It is developing an ear to honour what another finds painful, the ability to understand that loved ones may hide pain, may want pain concealed, from some, but not from all.
Respect is found in the appropriate use of touch, touch to affirm, the kind of that says “You are not alone,” and expresses warmth, declaring the pleasure it is to share life with another.
Blending families, smoothly and successfully, is not easy.
Each family imports its own set of norms and expectations into the new family configuration and these norms and expectations will inevitably clash. Each person, too, brings expectations into the new family quite apart from what the rest of what his or her original family brings to the party. There will also be remaining scars from the sequence of events that made blending two families possible in the first place.
Blending families calls for super-maturity from the marrying or newly married adults.
They are called to lead in such a manner that all the members of the newly constituted family’s voices are heard and opinions are respected, irrespective of age.
The adults will be wise to avoid blaming others like a former spouse or former in-laws for the inevitable difficulties that will arise.
The adults will be wise to avoid disciplining other people’s children, even if he or she is newly married to the children’s mom or dad.
The adults will be wise to avoid believing the children – no matter what they may say when wanting to please the parent – want this new family as much as the newly married adults do.
The adults will be wise to speak well of the parents who are excluded from this new blended family.
If you fall in love (or are friends) with a man or a woman who reveals having had a very difficult childhood there are a few things of which you may want to be aware.
Keep in mind that I am only one voice in a vastly explored arena. It is usually a good idea to get lots of insights from several sources.
Sad thing is that if you have already fallen in love you probably won’t be looking for help.
If you are, it’s because you’ve already begun to see how tough it is to love tough-historied people. (I rather like my euphemism).
“Troubled” or “unsettled” are pejorative terms.
Avoid them.
People from tough backgrounds can be very exciting, motivated and “world-changing” people.
If you are going to be partners you have to learn and understand what kind of music is playing in their heads and hearts and how they dance to it or turn it up or turn it down or turn it off (if they ever can).
They will often be way ahead of most people in terms of being street wise. They have had to be. They have been watching, negotiating, recruiting, debating and have had to have an eye for undercurrents for so long such behaviors are a way of life for them.
They will usually be cunningly intelligent but also possess zero desire to bring harm to you or others.
More about this sometime….
Artist: Trevor Beach – google him or find him on Facebook and buy his art. The above and another hangs in my office. I enjoy the idea that an artist named Beach seems only to paint Ocean Scenes.
It’s never too early to model and teach children about personal responsibility. There are people of all ages who persistently refuse to assume it for their lives, treating it as some heretical or selfish notion:
It is not selfish, unkind, or “unchristian” to expect people of all ages to be responsible for themselves. Of course there are exceptions like the ill and elderly.
It is usually unkind and selfish and “unchristian” to expect others to bail us out of the consequences of our own irresponsible behavior.
Teaching personal responsibility is more modeled than it is taught, but it must also be taught and talked about.
The sooner a person assumes full responsibility for his or her life the better. The evolving plan, beginning at birth, will hopefully have children fully prepared to be responsible for their lives by age 15 or 16.
If we rescue and enable others (especially those whom we love) we deny them the joy of taking responsibility for their lives and endorse a message that they can’t get on without us.
Rescuing, saving, running interference for a sibling, parent, child teaches that person a way of life and sets the rescuer up for a lifetime of rescuing. Avoid behaviors you are unwilling to perpetuate.
If you’re toying with the idea of an extramarital affair or with the idea of cheating on your partner, may I caution you? Affairs are seductive. They are seductive, not because they woo you into false intimacy, but because affairs lure you away from your crucible of authentic growth, your committed relationship. This is where maturity and fulfillment are available.
An illicit relationship won’t teach you anything worth learning. It will reveal you as one who lacks integrity. It’s a character issue. It’s not about getting the sex you need or the companionship you crave.
If your marriage is not working an affair won’t enduringly help.
The one who is toying with the idea of an extramarital affair is unlikely to even read, let alone heed these words. Attraction is powerful. It’ blinds. The victims of infidelity can seem propelled on a course of self-destruction. The heat of the chase, the heat of the moment, the rush of the deceit and the intricacies of the cover-up can feel like amazing love. It’s not.
Go home. Make right with your spouse, or do whatever you need to do.
An affair won’t heal a lonely heart or help your troubled marriage. It’ll further damage both.
Love leads to listening, freedom, warmth, care, and mutual support. It’s sharing dreams; it’s facing challenges together. It’s pooling resources for mutual benefit. It’s providing a safe place for each other and for any children with whom you share your life.
Love is not love when:
Coercion is threatened or used
There are attempts to seclude or cut off from family and friends
Betrayal is threatened or used
Love is used to trap, manipulate, or possess
Confinement is threatened or used – car keys hidden, doors locked, plans cancelled without consultation or knowledge
Privacy is denied (rooms, cupboards, purses, phone, computer, email, conversations)
Traps are set to test fidelity
Stalking, watching, tracking of any manner is threatened or used
Attempt at important talk repeatedly escalate to shouting matches
Violence of any kind (physical, sexual, emotional, psychological) of any degree of severity is used
Warmth, kindness expressed to others (old friends, family, former colleagues) is given as the reason for jealousy and conflict
When the use of alcohol or legal or illegal substances deplete mutual resources and lead to aberrant behavior or conflict
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