Great news! The articles and assignments I was reading for the Finding Your True Calling study group were the wrong ones! The wrong page numbers were sent out by mistake. So all that muckiness wasn’t necessary, and thank goodness I can forget about it. Except I can’t, and I shouldn’t.
Showing posts with label finding your calling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label finding your calling. Show all posts
Monday, September 22, 2008
Monday, September 8, 2008
If Money Were No Object, How Big Would It Be?
I signed up to participate in a group through the
Fast Track Your Dream program. We’re going to be reading through a collection of articles and essays titled Finding Your True Calling. I read through this book several months ago and tried some of the exercises, but not all of them. I skimmed over one in particular, but this week I’ve been focusing on it seriously.
The purpose of the exercise is to help people hear what they’re drawn to, what their heart enjoys. It’s a simple enough idea, but it’s deceptively tricky. It goes like this.
If you didn’t have to worry about money, what would you do with your time? After taking time off and traveling and relaxing, how would you want to spend your days?
The premise is a person who doesn’t have to work will still want to be productive and will be free to do things that express natural gifts, talents, and passions. The problem with the premise is that it’s really hard to let go of considering money.
I’ve tried different versions of this, but I get distracted by rabbit trails. One version I used was to imagine winning the lottery and having enough money to generate a huge income, say a million dollars a year. When I think about it, I get stuck on how I would set up managing the money, how I would choose people to advise me, and how I would donate big portions of it. That turns into real work, having to learn about more complex investments. I wonder if I would enjoy that part and might discover a passion for investing in commodities or small cap stocks, or if I would really like being a venture capitalist. I completely lose the point of the exercise!
When I think about the giving part, I wonder if it would be better to set up a foundation and support certain organizations, or if it would make more sense to travel to see the work that different organizations are doing and just give directly to them, or if I would find unmet needs and be moved to set up an organization to serve those needs. I take my pretend philanthropy very seriously!
I tried this exercise from another point of view. I imagined I had a wonderful inspiration and wrote a best-selling novel and would be getting big royalty checks and just stick them in some kind of trust fund and have a big flow of income. What would I do then? I started imagining how I might write a second book and make even more money!
A couple of times when I’ve set aside time for entering into this thought exercise I wind up thinking of the things I would do with a huge income, like screen in the front porch and build an outdoor kitchen in the back yard. I start daydreaming about new cars and travel destinations. Again, I miss the point.
When I think about plans I have for building a coaching practice and adding training and information products around career choice and entrepreneurship, I find another obstacle. I realize that for the exercise to be effective I need to add, You don’t have to worry about marketing your service or product, because your reasonable efforts will definitely be effective. I needs this because I start out imagining setting up training workshops and not having to worry about the income, but I get pretty disappointed thinking about nobody showing up!
I am learning much about myself, and I’ve only written a small portion of it here because some of it is still pretty personal and a lot of it isn’t totally clear yet. I know that the more I stay with this exercise the more I’m discovering my limiting thoughts, false preconceptions, and fears. I realize I need to bring my thoughts about risk into awareness so I can evaluate them and make them more realistic. I see more and more where I automatically filter my own gifts, talents, and passions through the “practical” lens, which takes a way a lot of their power.
I recommend trying different variations of this exercise. They can guide you in your own journey to discover your authentic work. And they can point to your thoughts and beliefs about money, scarcity, abundance, and security, which are important to uncover when you’re trying to embrace liberty and live with intention.
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
Fast Track Your Dream program. We’re going to be reading through a collection of articles and essays titled Finding Your True Calling. I read through this book several months ago and tried some of the exercises, but not all of them. I skimmed over one in particular, but this week I’ve been focusing on it seriously.
The purpose of the exercise is to help people hear what they’re drawn to, what their heart enjoys. It’s a simple enough idea, but it’s deceptively tricky. It goes like this.
If you didn’t have to worry about money, what would you do with your time? After taking time off and traveling and relaxing, how would you want to spend your days?
The premise is a person who doesn’t have to work will still want to be productive and will be free to do things that express natural gifts, talents, and passions. The problem with the premise is that it’s really hard to let go of considering money.
I’ve tried different versions of this, but I get distracted by rabbit trails. One version I used was to imagine winning the lottery and having enough money to generate a huge income, say a million dollars a year. When I think about it, I get stuck on how I would set up managing the money, how I would choose people to advise me, and how I would donate big portions of it. That turns into real work, having to learn about more complex investments. I wonder if I would enjoy that part and might discover a passion for investing in commodities or small cap stocks, or if I would really like being a venture capitalist. I completely lose the point of the exercise!
When I think about the giving part, I wonder if it would be better to set up a foundation and support certain organizations, or if it would make more sense to travel to see the work that different organizations are doing and just give directly to them, or if I would find unmet needs and be moved to set up an organization to serve those needs. I take my pretend philanthropy very seriously!
I tried this exercise from another point of view. I imagined I had a wonderful inspiration and wrote a best-selling novel and would be getting big royalty checks and just stick them in some kind of trust fund and have a big flow of income. What would I do then? I started imagining how I might write a second book and make even more money!
A couple of times when I’ve set aside time for entering into this thought exercise I wind up thinking of the things I would do with a huge income, like screen in the front porch and build an outdoor kitchen in the back yard. I start daydreaming about new cars and travel destinations. Again, I miss the point.
When I think about plans I have for building a coaching practice and adding training and information products around career choice and entrepreneurship, I find another obstacle. I realize that for the exercise to be effective I need to add, You don’t have to worry about marketing your service or product, because your reasonable efforts will definitely be effective. I needs this because I start out imagining setting up training workshops and not having to worry about the income, but I get pretty disappointed thinking about nobody showing up!
I am learning much about myself, and I’ve only written a small portion of it here because some of it is still pretty personal and a lot of it isn’t totally clear yet. I know that the more I stay with this exercise the more I’m discovering my limiting thoughts, false preconceptions, and fears. I realize I need to bring my thoughts about risk into awareness so I can evaluate them and make them more realistic. I see more and more where I automatically filter my own gifts, talents, and passions through the “practical” lens, which takes a way a lot of their power.
I recommend trying different variations of this exercise. They can guide you in your own journey to discover your authentic work. And they can point to your thoughts and beliefs about money, scarcity, abundance, and security, which are important to uncover when you’re trying to embrace liberty and live with intention.
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
Monday, September 1, 2008
Labor Day
My day to post this entry will be Labor Day. That’s a day set aside to celebrate the labor movement and workers’ rights. It’s also a day many people see as the official end of summer – at least the more relaxed vacation season. For many it’s the start of the year, since school is back in. It’s back to work time! What a rich irony for those of us who are creating work around our lives instead of fitting our lives in around work.
Our older son has gotten an after-school job at the local grocery store. He has soccer practice and games (I think I’ve mentioned that a time or twenty) that limit his availability so he’s tried to be very clear about when he’s available to work. His one certainty was that he wouldn’t work on Sunday. It’s a family day and it’s very often a soccer game day so it was off the table.
When he checked his schedule for the week on Saturday it was the same as the previous week. He saw it while working that evening. When he came home he said he would have to go up after his soccer game Sunday to change it because of soccer practice conflicts. When he got home from his game on Sunday around 5:00, he had a voice mail on his phone saying he was scheduled to work from 3:00 to 11:00. He quickly showered and rushed off to work without any food – he hadn’t eaten since around noon on the way to the game – and without the chance to have water or a sport drink with him at work.
I don’t want my son hating his job. I want him to be treated with some basic respect and decency and I want him to connect earning money with his goal of having his own car. I even want him to see the value of increasing his earnings through education and specialization and entrepreneurship. But I don’t want him to hate this job!
We told him that, if they don’t get the schedule worked out where he won’t be working right after he’s been playing soccer, he’s going to have to quit the job. The scheduler said what she was told about his availability and what he told the manager during his interview were different, but it’s straightened out now. In one week of a part-time job he’s experienced the essence of the drudgery of corporate America. Poor communication, insincere commitments, and passing the buck so the lowest guy on the ladder carries the responsibility of other people’s mistakes. Eureka!
My wife told me many people she’s talked to in the past few months who have high school and college age kids working report similar stories. Their sons and daughters are given schedules that don’t match what they’ve said they’re available to do, and they’re expected to work or they’ll risk losing the job. A friend of mine has been hearing similar stories, as well.
I’m getting feisty! The labor movement brought significant improvements to the workplace, but it’s still a workplace. The sense of an adversarial relationship between employees and supervisors lives on in too many places. Even a high paying job with great benefits is still “a gilded cage,” as my friend Henry says.
I have a renewed passion for spreading the American revolution by helping people find their calling, discover how they bring value to other people, and make their living doing something they love. Whether that’s a creative job with a lot of freedom, self-employment, a small business, or multiple profit centers, it’s freedom from being treated like a number. It’s the freedom to respect what we do, and to work with honor and dignity. It’s the freedom to own our own work and take charge of our lives. The ultimate labor movement is entrepreneurship!
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
Our older son has gotten an after-school job at the local grocery store. He has soccer practice and games (I think I’ve mentioned that a time or twenty) that limit his availability so he’s tried to be very clear about when he’s available to work. His one certainty was that he wouldn’t work on Sunday. It’s a family day and it’s very often a soccer game day so it was off the table.
When he checked his schedule for the week on Saturday it was the same as the previous week. He saw it while working that evening. When he came home he said he would have to go up after his soccer game Sunday to change it because of soccer practice conflicts. When he got home from his game on Sunday around 5:00, he had a voice mail on his phone saying he was scheduled to work from 3:00 to 11:00. He quickly showered and rushed off to work without any food – he hadn’t eaten since around noon on the way to the game – and without the chance to have water or a sport drink with him at work.
I don’t want my son hating his job. I want him to be treated with some basic respect and decency and I want him to connect earning money with his goal of having his own car. I even want him to see the value of increasing his earnings through education and specialization and entrepreneurship. But I don’t want him to hate this job!
We told him that, if they don’t get the schedule worked out where he won’t be working right after he’s been playing soccer, he’s going to have to quit the job. The scheduler said what she was told about his availability and what he told the manager during his interview were different, but it’s straightened out now. In one week of a part-time job he’s experienced the essence of the drudgery of corporate America. Poor communication, insincere commitments, and passing the buck so the lowest guy on the ladder carries the responsibility of other people’s mistakes. Eureka!
My wife told me many people she’s talked to in the past few months who have high school and college age kids working report similar stories. Their sons and daughters are given schedules that don’t match what they’ve said they’re available to do, and they’re expected to work or they’ll risk losing the job. A friend of mine has been hearing similar stories, as well.
I’m getting feisty! The labor movement brought significant improvements to the workplace, but it’s still a workplace. The sense of an adversarial relationship between employees and supervisors lives on in too many places. Even a high paying job with great benefits is still “a gilded cage,” as my friend Henry says.
I have a renewed passion for spreading the American revolution by helping people find their calling, discover how they bring value to other people, and make their living doing something they love. Whether that’s a creative job with a lot of freedom, self-employment, a small business, or multiple profit centers, it’s freedom from being treated like a number. It’s the freedom to respect what we do, and to work with honor and dignity. It’s the freedom to own our own work and take charge of our lives. The ultimate labor movement is entrepreneurship!
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
Monday, June 9, 2008
Ruts With Ornate Wood and Polished Brass Handrails
We got back from the desert Wednesday and I spent the next four days thinking about Spongebob. My kids love the show so I’ve seen a few episodes. From time to time the little guy starts shriveling up because he’s out of the water. That’s how my brain felt. I think it was the slowest to dry out and the last to rehydrate.
My slowly drying brain may be part of the reason I felt so out of it when I thought about my business during the trip. Another reason was the setting. We were in Scottsdale most of the time, staying in a resort hotel. It’s hard to relate to authenticity and people striving to improve themselves mentally, interpersonally, and spiritually in that setting. I realized my drive for authenticity and self-expression was nearly drowned out by the power of the communal rut – of affluence.
Driving past the Mercedes dealership, then the Jaguar dealership, then the BMW dealership and the Range Rover dealership, it’s easy to develop the mistaken belief that fine living is a motivation for people to become solo entrepreneurs. In reality, many of the people enjoying that affluent lifestyle have high-paying jobs and spend a lot of time worrying about keeping them so they can protect their income.
On another level, affluent living not only pushes people to live in ruts to pursue and keep high-paying jobs, it also dictates the rut for enjoying the affluence. The stores, the restaurants, and the resorts all tell us This is how affluent people enjoy their money. Fit in by liking golf, spas, high-end shopping, expensive restaurants, and deserts artificially turned into tropical oases. It’s what all the “cool kids” are doing! Then fit in by getting into the high-paying job rut, and fight like crazy to stay there because it’s tough competition.
This rut thing gets even worse. Over Sunday dinner with my wife’s family we were talking about a news report that Joanna Rowling, Harry Potter creator and billionairess, gave a commencement address at Harvard and there were protests. It seems the ivory tower snobs consider her a second-rate talent and would have preferred someone more literary.
Joanna Rowling is one of my heroes. She had a story to tell and she committed herself to writing it and getting it published. It is, by most accounts, the best-selling book series of all time. At a time when people were giving up on getting kids to read, thinking we had to “dumb down” books and shorten them, kids started reading novels again. As new books came out, longer than before, the kids kept up. Some learned the joy of marathon reading, staying up for hours reading through hundreds of pages.
What a failure! That poor woman will never make it.
I doubt Jo Rowling set out to be a huge financial success with her writing. She probably dreamed of making a million dollars, but could she have conceived of making a billion? She followed her calling and expressed her gifts and talents. She did what she was born to do, and people appreciated it so she was rewarded.
Some trailblazers are making a living, just getting by, but having a great time being rewarded in many other ways. Some have surprising episodes where they make a lot of money and then see the lean times. Some slowly learn more about generating money and increase their pay over time. And some have spectacular financial success and enjoy it so much they do it over and over.
The key difference is the purpose. If they are chasing ways to make money, they are in a rut and they will stay in a rut. They will make money in a rut, they will spend it in a rut, they will be flashy in the rut, they will go into debt in the rut, and they will be afraid of leaving the rut to find themselves.
The trailblazers are discovering and expressing themselves. When they succeed, it’s out of the rut. They spend or save their money as they wish, and they don’t fear losing status and a rut lifestyle so they don’t have to hold back and give up their dreams. They’re free to pursue their dreams and create their own success, by whatever standard they want to measure it.
They know that a rut with beautifully accented handrails is still a rut, and they just won’t settle for that.
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
Updated 06/10/08 with the Rowling address video links:
My slowly drying brain may be part of the reason I felt so out of it when I thought about my business during the trip. Another reason was the setting. We were in Scottsdale most of the time, staying in a resort hotel. It’s hard to relate to authenticity and people striving to improve themselves mentally, interpersonally, and spiritually in that setting. I realized my drive for authenticity and self-expression was nearly drowned out by the power of the communal rut – of affluence.
Driving past the Mercedes dealership, then the Jaguar dealership, then the BMW dealership and the Range Rover dealership, it’s easy to develop the mistaken belief that fine living is a motivation for people to become solo entrepreneurs. In reality, many of the people enjoying that affluent lifestyle have high-paying jobs and spend a lot of time worrying about keeping them so they can protect their income.
On another level, affluent living not only pushes people to live in ruts to pursue and keep high-paying jobs, it also dictates the rut for enjoying the affluence. The stores, the restaurants, and the resorts all tell us This is how affluent people enjoy their money. Fit in by liking golf, spas, high-end shopping, expensive restaurants, and deserts artificially turned into tropical oases. It’s what all the “cool kids” are doing! Then fit in by getting into the high-paying job rut, and fight like crazy to stay there because it’s tough competition.
This rut thing gets even worse. Over Sunday dinner with my wife’s family we were talking about a news report that Joanna Rowling, Harry Potter creator and billionairess, gave a commencement address at Harvard and there were protests. It seems the ivory tower snobs consider her a second-rate talent and would have preferred someone more literary.
Joanna Rowling is one of my heroes. She had a story to tell and she committed herself to writing it and getting it published. It is, by most accounts, the best-selling book series of all time. At a time when people were giving up on getting kids to read, thinking we had to “dumb down” books and shorten them, kids started reading novels again. As new books came out, longer than before, the kids kept up. Some learned the joy of marathon reading, staying up for hours reading through hundreds of pages.
What a failure! That poor woman will never make it.
I doubt Jo Rowling set out to be a huge financial success with her writing. She probably dreamed of making a million dollars, but could she have conceived of making a billion? She followed her calling and expressed her gifts and talents. She did what she was born to do, and people appreciated it so she was rewarded.
Some trailblazers are making a living, just getting by, but having a great time being rewarded in many other ways. Some have surprising episodes where they make a lot of money and then see the lean times. Some slowly learn more about generating money and increase their pay over time. And some have spectacular financial success and enjoy it so much they do it over and over.
The key difference is the purpose. If they are chasing ways to make money, they are in a rut and they will stay in a rut. They will make money in a rut, they will spend it in a rut, they will be flashy in the rut, they will go into debt in the rut, and they will be afraid of leaving the rut to find themselves.
The trailblazers are discovering and expressing themselves. When they succeed, it’s out of the rut. They spend or save their money as they wish, and they don’t fear losing status and a rut lifestyle so they don’t have to hold back and give up their dreams. They’re free to pursue their dreams and create their own success, by whatever standard they want to measure it.
They know that a rut with beautifully accented handrails is still a rut, and they just won’t settle for that.
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
Updated 06/10/08 with the Rowling address video links:
Monday, June 2, 2008
It’s Hard To See The Ruts From The Twisting Road
Can you feel it? It hangs in the air, like the stuffiness of a closed-up room on a hot, humid day. It’s the pressure to compel graduating high school seniors into a college degree plan, and to compel college graduates into their nicely defined job-boxes.
Having “crossed over,” not only being self-employed but committed to work that helps other people have creative careers and be self-employed, I’m aware of this force all around me. Parents and family and friends of family emanate anxiety when they hear a graduate is still undecided, not sure of the next step. A high school graduate may not go to college right away in the fall. There are quiet gasps and scandalous looks. A college graduate may spend time pursuing more interests to find the right path before choosing a career. What will this do to the balance of nature? Will the earth’s magnetic poles shift, or will our planet wobble in its orbit around the sun?
That collective force acts as if personal freedom and creative choice will bring ominous results. But today’s articles in USA Today sound much more ominous.
“Slow times mean pay cuts for many” tells us bonuses, commission, and tips are falling. “Fuel prices drive some to try four-day workweeks” tells us that some businesses and government agencies are taking the drastic step of cutting back to four-day weeks. Scandal! How do we dare change a work pattern that is several decades old?
Traveling on the Twisting Road takes me above those ruts, so far above that sometimes I forget they are there. From the Road, it looks like you can work on a project at a reasonable pace and finish it, choosing a schedule based on when you are most productive. Up here I see that sometimes work requires a lot of focused hours, and sometimes it’s fewer, less intense hours of follow-up and coordination.
On the Road I bring my laptop when I’m out of town to be able to write the articles for my newsletter and publish them. I don’t spend time working on ongoing writing projects while I’m away, but I still spend a little time to keep up with my publishing schedule. I was even able to attend my advanced coaching class by teleconference today.
With so many of us changing our career focus to do something creative and meaningful in the middle of our lives, isn’t it inevitable that young adults will be more inclined to spend time finding authentic work before they settle into a job-box? It seems likely, and it seems right. At the point of greatest freedom and fewest obligations to hold them back, they can take a little time to find their gifts, talents, and passions and design work that expresses them and honors their values.
We’re in Phoenix for my niece’s high school graduation. I gave her the collection of books I recommended in a recent article in Chasing Wisdom. We also included a gift card, which she found right away, but as she looked through the gift bag she excitedly withdrew Barbara Winter’s Making A Living Without A Job. She was very excited and exclaimed, “Look, Dad! He knew!” They then joked about how she doesn’t want to have to work, but I’m still hopeful that it’s a wish not to be trapped in a boring job-box more than a wish to be able to amble through life with plenty of money and no deeper purpose or focus.
Up here On The Twisting Road we occasionally see people stuck in ruts and reach down to help them up. But many have lived in the ruts so long they can’t imagine there is safety, or provision, or even oxygen outside the rut. If we spread the message to young adults, before they get too settled in their ruts, maybe they’ll hop on the Road and choose blazing trails over wearing ruts into the same old paths.
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
Having “crossed over,” not only being self-employed but committed to work that helps other people have creative careers and be self-employed, I’m aware of this force all around me. Parents and family and friends of family emanate anxiety when they hear a graduate is still undecided, not sure of the next step. A high school graduate may not go to college right away in the fall. There are quiet gasps and scandalous looks. A college graduate may spend time pursuing more interests to find the right path before choosing a career. What will this do to the balance of nature? Will the earth’s magnetic poles shift, or will our planet wobble in its orbit around the sun?
That collective force acts as if personal freedom and creative choice will bring ominous results. But today’s articles in USA Today sound much more ominous.
“Slow times mean pay cuts for many” tells us bonuses, commission, and tips are falling. “Fuel prices drive some to try four-day workweeks” tells us that some businesses and government agencies are taking the drastic step of cutting back to four-day weeks. Scandal! How do we dare change a work pattern that is several decades old?
Traveling on the Twisting Road takes me above those ruts, so far above that sometimes I forget they are there. From the Road, it looks like you can work on a project at a reasonable pace and finish it, choosing a schedule based on when you are most productive. Up here I see that sometimes work requires a lot of focused hours, and sometimes it’s fewer, less intense hours of follow-up and coordination.
On the Road I bring my laptop when I’m out of town to be able to write the articles for my newsletter and publish them. I don’t spend time working on ongoing writing projects while I’m away, but I still spend a little time to keep up with my publishing schedule. I was even able to attend my advanced coaching class by teleconference today.
With so many of us changing our career focus to do something creative and meaningful in the middle of our lives, isn’t it inevitable that young adults will be more inclined to spend time finding authentic work before they settle into a job-box? It seems likely, and it seems right. At the point of greatest freedom and fewest obligations to hold them back, they can take a little time to find their gifts, talents, and passions and design work that expresses them and honors their values.
We’re in Phoenix for my niece’s high school graduation. I gave her the collection of books I recommended in a recent article in Chasing Wisdom. We also included a gift card, which she found right away, but as she looked through the gift bag she excitedly withdrew Barbara Winter’s Making A Living Without A Job. She was very excited and exclaimed, “Look, Dad! He knew!” They then joked about how she doesn’t want to have to work, but I’m still hopeful that it’s a wish not to be trapped in a boring job-box more than a wish to be able to amble through life with plenty of money and no deeper purpose or focus.
Up here On The Twisting Road we occasionally see people stuck in ruts and reach down to help them up. But many have lived in the ruts so long they can’t imagine there is safety, or provision, or even oxygen outside the rut. If we spread the message to young adults, before they get too settled in their ruts, maybe they’ll hop on the Road and choose blazing trails over wearing ruts into the same old paths.
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
Monday, May 26, 2008
Is This A Confession?
An authentic life includes authentic work. Authentic work helps you realize your dreams. It comes out of your gifts and talents and excites your passions.
That was an idea so radical but so obviously true that it grabbed me in a bear hug when I first read it expressed in one of Barbara Sher’s books. I’m hearing it expressed more often now, showing me the power behind the truth of the statement. The first step in finding authentic work is to reconnect with your gifts, talents, and passions, and dreams.
Which is why I can now proudly talk about my “guilty pleasure,” a popular reality show that helped point me to what resonates with my soul.
Don’t stop reading when I tell you it’s American Idol. My discovery of how parts of the show spoke to my core self is proof that you can get to your deepest interests by following wherever your interests lead you.
It wasn’t until the start of this year’s show, season seven, that I took the time to think about what the show taught me about myself. I first got drawn into the show when it started its second season. I was on a business trip in Florida and saw lots of signs about the show, focusing on Simon Cowell being a “monster.” Then I saw the television ads of his harsh comments, plus out-takes of auditions. The humor drew me in.
The format of each season’s earlier episodes is to show the audition process. The producers choose from a variety of comical, strange, interesting, and empathetic people and create short features to introduce them. That’s a joy for me because I love documentaries. The focused features on individual contestants are developed by editing real, unstaged or barely staged footage into a story with a particular viewpoint and emotional tone. That is the heart of documentary filmmaking.
The early episodes include excerpts of auditions of some of the more talented contestants interspersed with the outrageous ones. So while the humor and documentary storytelling draw me in, I start to notice potential waiting to be realized. That’s the big one for me. My passion is advocating personal growth and development, participating in the journey from discovering potential in its unpolished form to seeing it expressed in amazing accomplishments. When people face their fears and stretch their wings to find out what they are capable of doing, I celebrate. So by the time the outrageous auditions are over, I am invested in watching which people will commit to the work of challenging themselves to grow beyond their previous self-imposed limits.
That’s when the documentary quality of the show shifts. From that point on, the individual tales are about people struggling to rise out of poverty, adversity, and lives planned for them by boxes-and-ruts thinking.
It’s also the point where a distinction arises between people who have decent talent but are pursuing fame and wealth above anything else, and those with talent who find joy in developing and expressing it. The former have arrogant attitudes and shun the hard work, blaming others when they fall. The latter find a way to do the best with the challenges they are given. In a few amazing instances some transcend a challenge by finding a very personally expressive and unique way to present a song from their artistic perspective.
The show is cheesy – it’s contrived, inauthentic, and corny at times. The contestants have to perform songs from before they were born in small groups for auditions. They have to perform medleys of songs in musical review style as a group during each results show. Then they are criticized when their individual performances on competition night sound like a show on a cruise ship or at a theme park – a musical review. They are limited to a certain collection of songs by one artist or in one genre, and then they are criticized when they sound like the original. But they are also criticized if the performance is too unique, straying from the way the song was written.
But in the midst of all that unnecessary and inherently conflicted chatter, and the variety show quality of a lot of the “filler” segments, there are beautiful jewels. This year Brooke White sat at the piano and sang Let It Be, and then cried with obvious joy as Paula Abdul – yes, jokes aside, she is capable of amazing insight – put into words what Brooke was experiencing. She was doing what she was born to do, and what she had been planning and striving towards for years, by performing in front of a large live audience and millions watching by television. Paula said, “This is your dream. You’re living it right now.” Brooke melted.
Runner-up David Archuleta provided a few gems along the way, too. His performances of Imagine and Angels were amazing from a seventeen-year-old. His performance under the highest pressure, the night of the final competition, was pretty close to flawless. When he sang Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me I thought he had just given the performance that would make him the winner.
But winner David Cook was the best gem of the entire season. Early on in live competition, he took risks with his song choices, and he used different arrangements of songs in a way that let him express his own artistic style very clearly. Throughout the voting portion of the show, he was increasingly a strong artist, a compelling performer, and a singer who knew his voice well enough to rely on his strengths to express a song and connect with the audience. During the final night of competition he was a little rough and his voice a little raw, but he had already shown the courage of expressing himself as an artist, so people were eager to vote for him.
David Cook was a bartender working in Tulsa, Oklahoma when his brother asked him to accompany him to the auditions in Omaha. He did it to support his brother. During the initial screening round, the producers talked to him about auditioning. He said he hadn’t come to audition, but they talked him into it.
Every time he received critique from the judges, he made eye contact, he listened closely, and he responded with humility. When he was praised, he expressed gratitude. When he was criticized, he never argued or challenged. He displayed maturity and strong character. And each week he got better.
Now he’s going to be doing what he loves and sharing it with millions of people. What’s not to love about that?
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
That was an idea so radical but so obviously true that it grabbed me in a bear hug when I first read it expressed in one of Barbara Sher’s books. I’m hearing it expressed more often now, showing me the power behind the truth of the statement. The first step in finding authentic work is to reconnect with your gifts, talents, and passions, and dreams.
Which is why I can now proudly talk about my “guilty pleasure,” a popular reality show that helped point me to what resonates with my soul.
Don’t stop reading when I tell you it’s American Idol. My discovery of how parts of the show spoke to my core self is proof that you can get to your deepest interests by following wherever your interests lead you.
It wasn’t until the start of this year’s show, season seven, that I took the time to think about what the show taught me about myself. I first got drawn into the show when it started its second season. I was on a business trip in Florida and saw lots of signs about the show, focusing on Simon Cowell being a “monster.” Then I saw the television ads of his harsh comments, plus out-takes of auditions. The humor drew me in.
The format of each season’s earlier episodes is to show the audition process. The producers choose from a variety of comical, strange, interesting, and empathetic people and create short features to introduce them. That’s a joy for me because I love documentaries. The focused features on individual contestants are developed by editing real, unstaged or barely staged footage into a story with a particular viewpoint and emotional tone. That is the heart of documentary filmmaking.
The early episodes include excerpts of auditions of some of the more talented contestants interspersed with the outrageous ones. So while the humor and documentary storytelling draw me in, I start to notice potential waiting to be realized. That’s the big one for me. My passion is advocating personal growth and development, participating in the journey from discovering potential in its unpolished form to seeing it expressed in amazing accomplishments. When people face their fears and stretch their wings to find out what they are capable of doing, I celebrate. So by the time the outrageous auditions are over, I am invested in watching which people will commit to the work of challenging themselves to grow beyond their previous self-imposed limits.
That’s when the documentary quality of the show shifts. From that point on, the individual tales are about people struggling to rise out of poverty, adversity, and lives planned for them by boxes-and-ruts thinking.
It’s also the point where a distinction arises between people who have decent talent but are pursuing fame and wealth above anything else, and those with talent who find joy in developing and expressing it. The former have arrogant attitudes and shun the hard work, blaming others when they fall. The latter find a way to do the best with the challenges they are given. In a few amazing instances some transcend a challenge by finding a very personally expressive and unique way to present a song from their artistic perspective.
The show is cheesy – it’s contrived, inauthentic, and corny at times. The contestants have to perform songs from before they were born in small groups for auditions. They have to perform medleys of songs in musical review style as a group during each results show. Then they are criticized when their individual performances on competition night sound like a show on a cruise ship or at a theme park – a musical review. They are limited to a certain collection of songs by one artist or in one genre, and then they are criticized when they sound like the original. But they are also criticized if the performance is too unique, straying from the way the song was written.
But in the midst of all that unnecessary and inherently conflicted chatter, and the variety show quality of a lot of the “filler” segments, there are beautiful jewels. This year Brooke White sat at the piano and sang Let It Be, and then cried with obvious joy as Paula Abdul – yes, jokes aside, she is capable of amazing insight – put into words what Brooke was experiencing. She was doing what she was born to do, and what she had been planning and striving towards for years, by performing in front of a large live audience and millions watching by television. Paula said, “This is your dream. You’re living it right now.” Brooke melted.
Runner-up David Archuleta provided a few gems along the way, too. His performances of Imagine and Angels were amazing from a seventeen-year-old. His performance under the highest pressure, the night of the final competition, was pretty close to flawless. When he sang Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me I thought he had just given the performance that would make him the winner.
But winner David Cook was the best gem of the entire season. Early on in live competition, he took risks with his song choices, and he used different arrangements of songs in a way that let him express his own artistic style very clearly. Throughout the voting portion of the show, he was increasingly a strong artist, a compelling performer, and a singer who knew his voice well enough to rely on his strengths to express a song and connect with the audience. During the final night of competition he was a little rough and his voice a little raw, but he had already shown the courage of expressing himself as an artist, so people were eager to vote for him.
David Cook was a bartender working in Tulsa, Oklahoma when his brother asked him to accompany him to the auditions in Omaha. He did it to support his brother. During the initial screening round, the producers talked to him about auditioning. He said he hadn’t come to audition, but they talked him into it.
Every time he received critique from the judges, he made eye contact, he listened closely, and he responded with humility. When he was praised, he expressed gratitude. When he was criticized, he never argued or challenged. He displayed maturity and strong character. And each week he got better.
Now he’s going to be doing what he loves and sharing it with millions of people. What’s not to love about that?
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
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