Finding Fuel For The Journey

This morning I came across this quote in the Early To Rise e-mail newsletter:

“Envy comes from people's ignorance of, or lack of belief in, their own gifts”
~ Jean Vanier

Scroll down to “The Most Stupid of Vices” by Alexander Green and read his take on envy.

I have printed the quote and taped it to the side of my printer right next to my computer. I am not drawn to it so much for its focus on the folly of envy, but the emphasis on each person’s ability to have the life we think is restricted to only a select few, when we rely on ourselves.

The road to creative solo entrepreneurship is about finding our unique gifts, talents, passions, and values and designing work that aligns with them. But more than that it is about finding the strength and ability to do things we never thought we could, or would have to.

Earlier this week my younger son was saying he wished that we would find a pirate ship filled with sunken treasure, or win a jackpot, so we could be rich. I asked what he would do with the money. He said he would build a huge house with a video game room and a movie room. I tried to point out the extra work and extra expense of a huge house, but he wasn’t really paying attention. The best I could come up with was to give him a blessing.

I told him that, rather than have a lot of money to buy things that would bore him quickly, my wish and hope for him is that he learn how to find work that he loves and start his own business so he can take charge of his future. That way he will have the power in himself to generate money when he wants something. He won’t have to sit around waiting for an unlikely act of fate. Instead, it will be up to him, and that will be much more enjoyable and rewarding.

He got a little down, saying he had no idea what kind of business a nine-year-old could start. As we talked about it he thought maybe he could design things out of LEGOs and sell them. The idea was laid aside and he hasn’t brought it back up, but I’m glad he’s beginning to think about this at nine.

The conversation with my son happened earlier this week. The quote from Vanier showed up in my world today. They point to the same place. When we don’t see our own gifts and our own power, we resent and envy others and blame them for holding us back. When we look at what we want and think, How am I going to do that? we feel abundant, capable, and generous.

There is a next level to this thought, but it’s a little more vague. Some people who want to change their lives, especially related to work, say they want to be self-employed but seem to be waiting for someone else to design them a j-o-b and hand it to them. I think part of that comes from the mentality of not seeing our own gifts and our own power. Some, however, won’t take the steps for other reasons.

I think a lot of people see the effort and work involved in starting even a part-time small business and get overwhelmed. They see it as a drain on resources. The best analogies I can come up with are driving a gas-guzzling car with high gas prices, or camping for a few days away from civilization. You wind up thinking and planning from the point of limitation and scarcity. You think, If I do that, will I have the gas to go do this? or maybe, If I use up all my water on this hike, I’ll just barely have enough to get by until the day I leave.

If you do something that is aligned with your gifts, talents, and passions, energy will flow into you. It will be emotional and spiritual energy. Sure, you’ll still get physically tired if there are physical things to do, but you won’t wind up drained. If you spend a lot of time and effort on something that doesn’t connect with your soul, your emotional and spiritual energy can get tapped out pretty quickly.

I think this is the point of view that keeps a lot of people from trying something out. They think it has to be the exact right thing before they put in the time and energy because they’ve only got this one shot. They don’t realize that working towards an authentic life will restore them and recharge them.

I also think, based on this powerful quote, that they don’t realize how much they can actually do. They don’t see that, if something is important in a way that touches their core, they will find the way to make it happen. They don’t realize they have enormous reserves when it comes to resources for deciding, acting, and making things happen.

Obviously, part of “they” is “me.” I feel a lot of resistance with some ideas, thinking I might wind up putting in too much time and effort only to see it flop, or only to find out I don’t really want to be doing that kind of work long-term. I come from the mindset that I have to get it right, or pretty close to right, because I will run out of gas if I go too long without quick results. I forget that trying out new things is pretty fun a lot of the time, and I forget that I won’t really know if some things are a good choice for me until I try them. To quote my nine-year-old son (in his optimistic version of the saying), “You can’t like it ‘til you try it.”

I’m still learning I don’t have to be sure I’ll be hugely successful at something in order to try it out. I’m re-learning that I’m going to struggle with things and be pretty crummy at a few while I’m learning them. But that’s the joy of mastery. If it’s easy at first, there’s no elation when you conquer it. If it’s a quick and open road, there’s no challenge.

I’ll leave the idea of the quick and open road to the “Make 6 Figures In 7 Days!” crowd. I prefer the reality of the struggle, because it’s the way of the journey, and the journey is the only reason to go anywhere.

May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,

Steve Coxsey

Resistance???

Lately on the Fast Track Your Dream forum there have been discussions about the idea of resistance. We’re trying to figure out what it is and what it isn’t.

Here goes. Resistance refers to an internal inertia, that inner ball and chain that keeps you stuck in a rut and away from taking on risks. Risks can be too--risky. According to Barbara Sher, this rut-resisting urge is a very primitive form of fear. It keeps us from venturing into dangerous territory so we won’t be harmed. It’s a survival thing going back to primitive man. It’s also about as dumb as primitive man, and doesn’t distinguish between risks like dying and risks like being confused and embarrassed while learning to do something new.

I’m not sure myself if it’s a primitive man thing, but I do like to think of resistance as a primal response that keeps us afraid of change and comfortable with the known. But the known gets boring, so we decide we’re going to jump out of the rut and make some changes! Then resistance says things like, “It’s kind of cold. Wouldn’t you rather stay inside where it’s warm?” and “Who do you know at that group you want to visit? You’ll probably be lonely and you won’t fit in.” It also says, “You should probably organize those files before you try something wild and crazy like writing an article.”

The twist that we’re bouncing around in discussions at Fast Track is that sometimes we resist doing things for perfectly good reasons. We might resist taking a step because we know it’s something we’re not very good at it. The ideal solution would be to ask for help or pay someone to do it for us, but we don’t think that’s reasonable so we try to make ourselves do it. Sometimes we resist a step because it truly is too risky, such as quitting a job and then looking for something more interesting to do. The group also realized we might resist change because something about the direction isn’t right. Maybe it’s a little off course, maybe the timing’s not right, or maybe we sense we’re doing things out of order. It’s a gut feeling, our intuition holding us back without us understanding why.

That’s my theme this week. I finally bought Book Yourself Solid by Michael Port. Early in the book he talks about figuring out who your ideal client is. Pardon my mirth. This was a big stumbling block for me during my Coaching course. I don’t know who my ideal client is. I haven’t even believed it’s reasonable to think about it and to limit my business to those people. I’ve always believed I have to find a way to work with whoever is willing to pay for my services, with my only limits being highly offensive people and those who won’t pay or keep appointments.

I discovered I don’t have a lot of enthusiasm for getting clients. I worry I’ll have to work with people who drain my energy and frustrate me. I don’t want to “book myself solid” yet because I’m afraid I won’t enjoy it very much. So I’m finally going to define my ideal client. I’ve never given myself that freedom, never believed I could choose. It’s about time I figure out who I can do my best work for and get excited about meeting them.

I’ve also been worried I’ll have to spend so much time on individual Coaching that I won’t have time to explore lots of other ideas I have for my business. I had planned to focus first on getting Coaching clients and then on other ideas. I’ve decided to change my plan. I’m going to spend some time each day thinking about other, future areas of my business. And I’m going to dream big.

May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,

Steve Coxsey