Something happened for my birthday this year that I never saw coming: The Canadian Tenors sang "Happy Birthday" to me. It was definitely a "top five" moment and the combination of their four voices focused on the celebration of my entry into this world was the sweetest sound I'd ever heard. It was like a dream. Surreal to say the least and something I'll continue to process for some time to come.
When I was driving back from their concert with my wife Tania and business partner Aly, it occurred to me that that night and everyone in it was the result of a single choice I made more than 22 years ago.
I was in the second year of design school taking a course on entrepreneurship in the MBA school. Hal Thompson came to the class at the request of our professor to give us some real world perspective. Hal was a gold medalist from both the engineering school and the business school he attended and as a young man had been exposed to a roller coaster of business experience. At the end of his lecture, he handed his business cards out to the 24 students in the class (23 MBA candidates and me) with the offer to spend an hour with whomever called him. I thought that if someone of his calibre was giving away free hours, it was a no-brainer. It turns out I was the only one who called.
When I started my first business–an industrial design consultancy–Hal was my mentor. Several years into that enterprise, I complained to Hal that I was lacking a sense of purpose and he introduced me to a company called Context Associated, which offered a series of personal growth courses.
In the second course in their series, I met and promptly fell in love with Tania. We've been married over 15 years.
After I completed all the courses I fell in in love with the personal growth business and bought the rights to market the courses in Calgary. That venture ultimately did not succeed but I met Aly in one of the courses and ended up hiring Phil from Context to be my coach.
I moved out of the seminar business and into the coaching business and Phil introduced me to one of his clients called Tom.
I did a good job coaching Tom and Tom introduced me to John. Their families vacationed in the same area every summer.
I did a good job coaching John and John introduced me to Dave. They were professional colleagues.
I did a good job for Dave and Dave introduced me to Richard. They were also professional colleagues.
I did a good job for Richard and Richard introduced me to Brett. They had done some deals together.
I did a good job for Brett and Brett introduced me to Jeffrey. Jeffrey manages the Canadian Tenors. The Tenors are becoming very successful and Jeffrey wanted Aly and I to coach them. Like any other kind of elite performers, the Tenors are facing the challenges typical of success and Aly and I started coaching them on the day I turned 46. Which is why they sung to me. That result was the last in a series of alternating chances and choices: things I had no control over mixed with things I had absolute control over.
Here is a video of our work with the Canadian Tenors:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkqiXSCHo34
I can only imagine where this thread of introductions and connections will go next.
So the moral of the story is this: if someone offers you an hour of their time take it. You could end up with a dream wife, a dream partner, dream clients and four guys singing to you like you were in a dream.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Friday, November 12, 2010
False positives and true negatives
Albert Einstein, while being primarily known for his keen fashion sense, hairstyle and oh, of course, that e=mc2 thing, would have been a great blogger had he been alive now.
He is the source of some very deep philosophy about life, as is the case for most great physicists, and his snappy quotes are some my favourites, up there with Emerson, Thoreau and Bush (the latest George W. one being something about "maybe I did make some mistakes".)
Einstein once said that you can either come from "fear or faith".
People make many decisions and do many things out of fear and many of those fears are not founded on reality.
I was once caught in an avalanche and nearly had the breath snatched out of me. This qualifies in my mind as a legitimate fear, linked directly and immediately to my actual death. The irony is that I was not really afraid, just calm, and this has been true for most of the life threatening experiences I've had in the mountains or behind the wheel.
Most of what I'm afraid of is vastly more abstract and fuzzy. I am afraid, in the low ebb sort of way, of amounting to nothing, of getting Alzheimer's and of being eaten by a shark, not all at once mind you, but if I do amount to nothing and get Alzheimer's, a shark attack might be a good way to end up with a swift death and a final write-up in a newspaper. I'm also certain that if I managed to get Steve Jobs' iPhone number, upon hearing he was shopping for a coach, I'd have a difficult time dialing the phone. And don't even get me started about the prospect of singing in public (secretly also my biggest rockstar fantasy.)
In the way I like to think about personal growth, people have four main fears: failure (and paradoxically success), rejection (which includes abandonment and all sorts of social shunning), criticism (humiliation, embarrassment, judgement) and loss (of money, health, life itself). It's a stunning to think about all the misery, value destroyed and opportunities lost to improve the human condition due simply to our natural tendency to avoid situations we think are painted with these fears.
I think the only viable alternative to fear is contribution, and here's where faith enters. Leaders show up when it's time for something to change. A leader sees something missing and thinks up an innovation to fill the gap and resolve the problem. There is so much working against a new innovation that it's remarkable that anything ever changes. In the face of these daunting obstacles to change, the leader must dig deep and find the sometime faint heart beat of the self-confidence, self-trust and self-security required to keep going on the sometimes cold and dark path to abetted future.
In the purity of my aspiration for a better future, I am not afraid. Such is the stuff of courage and the dance with danger.
He is the source of some very deep philosophy about life, as is the case for most great physicists, and his snappy quotes are some my favourites, up there with Emerson, Thoreau and Bush (the latest George W. one being something about "maybe I did make some mistakes".)
Einstein once said that you can either come from "fear or faith".
People make many decisions and do many things out of fear and many of those fears are not founded on reality.
I was once caught in an avalanche and nearly had the breath snatched out of me. This qualifies in my mind as a legitimate fear, linked directly and immediately to my actual death. The irony is that I was not really afraid, just calm, and this has been true for most of the life threatening experiences I've had in the mountains or behind the wheel.
Most of what I'm afraid of is vastly more abstract and fuzzy. I am afraid, in the low ebb sort of way, of amounting to nothing, of getting Alzheimer's and of being eaten by a shark, not all at once mind you, but if I do amount to nothing and get Alzheimer's, a shark attack might be a good way to end up with a swift death and a final write-up in a newspaper. I'm also certain that if I managed to get Steve Jobs' iPhone number, upon hearing he was shopping for a coach, I'd have a difficult time dialing the phone. And don't even get me started about the prospect of singing in public (secretly also my biggest rockstar fantasy.)
In the way I like to think about personal growth, people have four main fears: failure (and paradoxically success), rejection (which includes abandonment and all sorts of social shunning), criticism (humiliation, embarrassment, judgement) and loss (of money, health, life itself). It's a stunning to think about all the misery, value destroyed and opportunities lost to improve the human condition due simply to our natural tendency to avoid situations we think are painted with these fears.
I think the only viable alternative to fear is contribution, and here's where faith enters. Leaders show up when it's time for something to change. A leader sees something missing and thinks up an innovation to fill the gap and resolve the problem. There is so much working against a new innovation that it's remarkable that anything ever changes. In the face of these daunting obstacles to change, the leader must dig deep and find the sometime faint heart beat of the self-confidence, self-trust and self-security required to keep going on the sometimes cold and dark path to abetted future.
In the purity of my aspiration for a better future, I am not afraid. Such is the stuff of courage and the dance with danger.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
huckers and stackers
When I was growing up, my mother always kept stacks of of stuff on the kitchen counters. She kept things on the logic that they might be useful one day and the carefully catalogued vertical pile was the organizational mechanism of choice.
Curiously, my first wife employed this same style of household storage with countless piles of stuff piled about the house. Ditto for wife now. There is no horizontal surface that does not feature items perched upon each other in groups of at least two.
I am not a stacker. I am a hucker. I would rather repurchase an item I have thrown out on the unlikley chance I'll need it again. Without the influence of a stacker in the house, my horizontal surfaces would be completely free of sequenced vertical organizational structures.
This leads me to the cruel irony that huckers and stackers tend to marry each other, and so each is forced to learn to reconcile their dipolarity.
The universe is not without a sense of humour.
I am, by the way, raising a daughter who is, not surprisingly, a stacker. She too will marry a hucker and will have the opportunities for personal growth that that offers.
Curiously, my first wife employed this same style of household storage with countless piles of stuff piled about the house. Ditto for wife now. There is no horizontal surface that does not feature items perched upon each other in groups of at least two.
I am not a stacker. I am a hucker. I would rather repurchase an item I have thrown out on the unlikley chance I'll need it again. Without the influence of a stacker in the house, my horizontal surfaces would be completely free of sequenced vertical organizational structures.
This leads me to the cruel irony that huckers and stackers tend to marry each other, and so each is forced to learn to reconcile their dipolarity.
The universe is not without a sense of humour.
I am, by the way, raising a daughter who is, not surprisingly, a stacker. She too will marry a hucker and will have the opportunities for personal growth that that offers.
Monday, October 11, 2010
an unusual definition of honesty
When my kids were growing up, we'd often talk about moral dilemmas and what each might do to resolve them. It was my way of talking about my values with my children.
I have a clear definition of stealing that applies to physical items, computer software, music downloaded on the internet and if I'm careful magazines. If I have not paid for something and I do not have the owner's or author's permission to consume the item, that's stealing.
Both my kids have no songs on their iPods that they did not pay for. Neither do I. I've paid for every piece of software on each computer I own. It's a respect I have for people who create things. I honour intellectual property.
I wrote a column at Alberta Venture Magazine for a few years back called "the business of life". As part of the arrangement, the magazine acquired full rights and ownership to the articles I wrote for them.
One day, at Chapters, I saw a copy of the magazine and went to my column and read the article.
My kids were with me and so I asked them if reading the article constituting shoplifting.
I'm not always careful in my definition of stealing as it applies to reading magazines in Chapter's, which is, strictly speaking, shoplifting.
But then I pointed out to the kids that I wrote the article. Then how could that be stealing? It's stealing, we concluded because I sold the rights to the article and thus it was now not mine. When I consumed a product without payment and without permission, I was, once again, strictly speaking, a thief.
It's an extreme example, but it's in the extreme examples that we discover who we are, really.
My definition of an honest man is one that knows when he's lying, cheating and stealing. Since we are all, in even some small way, liars, cheats and thieves, it's good not to fall down the slippery slope of justification. (If you question this logic, consider this: if you've ever driven over the speed limit, you are a cheater; if you've ever told someone they look good in an outfit that they didn't, you are a liar and if you've ever read a magazine in a Chapter's without paying for it, you are, like it or not, a thief.)
I have a clear definition of stealing that applies to physical items, computer software, music downloaded on the internet and if I'm careful magazines. If I have not paid for something and I do not have the owner's or author's permission to consume the item, that's stealing.
Both my kids have no songs on their iPods that they did not pay for. Neither do I. I've paid for every piece of software on each computer I own. It's a respect I have for people who create things. I honour intellectual property.
I wrote a column at Alberta Venture Magazine for a few years back called "the business of life". As part of the arrangement, the magazine acquired full rights and ownership to the articles I wrote for them.
One day, at Chapters, I saw a copy of the magazine and went to my column and read the article.
My kids were with me and so I asked them if reading the article constituting shoplifting.
I'm not always careful in my definition of stealing as it applies to reading magazines in Chapter's, which is, strictly speaking, shoplifting.
But then I pointed out to the kids that I wrote the article. Then how could that be stealing? It's stealing, we concluded because I sold the rights to the article and thus it was now not mine. When I consumed a product without payment and without permission, I was, once again, strictly speaking, a thief.
It's an extreme example, but it's in the extreme examples that we discover who we are, really.
My definition of an honest man is one that knows when he's lying, cheating and stealing. Since we are all, in even some small way, liars, cheats and thieves, it's good not to fall down the slippery slope of justification. (If you question this logic, consider this: if you've ever driven over the speed limit, you are a cheater; if you've ever told someone they look good in an outfit that they didn't, you are a liar and if you've ever read a magazine in a Chapter's without paying for it, you are, like it or not, a thief.)
Thursday, September 16, 2010
kryptonite
I've had numerous near death experiences as a climber and have fortunately graduated to the ranks of "old climber" from that of "bold climber". While I have no interest in repeating any of these experiences–some things are fun only the first time–I am very grateful for what I've learned about myself in the process of surviving them.
I recently had my fifteenth wedding anniversary with Tania. She was not a climber when we met, but she has become a superb climber over the years.
Just after our engagement and prior to our wedding in the spring of 1995, I took her on an alpine rock climb up Mount Edith, just outside of Banff. it was supposed to be easy and straightforward. it was not.
The route up the mountain and the way down were convoluted and complicated to say the least and we ended up off route on a part of the mountain that no one ever goes on purpose. As we were descending what appeared to be a viable way down, our rope got stuck and I abandoned it thinking we were just a short distance from the ground.
I continued to scramble down a gully, searching for a way down to the ground when I got to the top of an overhanging cliff 50 metres from safety. By this time it was 11PM and starting to get dark. We were caught between two overhanging cliffs. With no rope there was no way to go either up or down. I called up to Tania who I had anchored to the rock on a small cliff and said: "we're fucked". She started to cry. Here she was in her first season as a climber with her new fiancee stuck on a mountain that no one new we were climbing in an area that no one would think to look. Grave danger. Is there any other kind?
We had two headlamps, a powerbar, half a litre of water and a small amount of extra clothes. I gave her my pants and stuck my legs in our climbing pack and we settled in on our little ledge for the night. The ledge was just deep enough to sit in but only wide enough for three of our four ass cheeks. As the night turned cold, we tossed and turned quite restlessly. I kept waking up from what I thought were nightmares into the actual nightmare and as the night wore on I pieced together an escape.
I decided to leave the powerbar and water to the morning so that my brain and body would be functioning at its highest possible level. I was the more experience climber and when I saw Tania crying the night before, something clicked inside of me. I moved into a mode that I can only describe now as extremely "manly". Something primitive took hold and I needed to save the woman I loved.
The key to to rescuing ourselves was of course rescuing our rope. The night before when the rope got stuck, I reached up and cut as much of it as I could reach thinking that even a small amount would be useful to our scramble down. When I scrambled back up in the morning to the overhanging cliff where we had left the rope, it had shrunk back up the cliff face well above my reach (ropes stretch a lot when we slide down on them).
To retrieve the rope, I needed to climb about 3 body lengths of slick overhanging rock, several grades of difficulty above my climbing level. I then had to bat man my way up the rope another 30 metres to where it was stuck, the whole time hoping that the rope didn't suddenly get unstuck with me hanging on it (with the resulting fall to my death.)
Obviously, as I'm writing this, the story has a happy ending and it turned out to be the most seriously chivalrous romantic deed of life. It required a combination of emotional strength, physical skill and intellectual cunning I would not have guessed I was capable of. The thing that I have learned about myself from this and other extraordinary circumstances is that when the shit really hits the fan, so to speak, I'm the kind of guy you want around. I don't panic. I don't fall apart. I get calm and creative. I get the job done.
We all have strength that we maybe don't know we have because it's seldom called upon. But it is in all of us and we are all more capable than we realize.
And, we all have our Kryptonite–that person, circumstance or thing that zaps our personal power.
Mine is simple and it comes when someone challenges me on the price I charge as a professional coach or an invoice I have delivered and they are questioning the value. This is particularly true if I have been delivering or will be delivering the kind of heroic support that I do under very demanding situations.
It would be kind of like Tania saying to me after we got back to the car from our Mountain Edith adventure: "you think you saved my life? Whatever."
I recently had my fifteenth wedding anniversary with Tania. She was not a climber when we met, but she has become a superb climber over the years.
Just after our engagement and prior to our wedding in the spring of 1995, I took her on an alpine rock climb up Mount Edith, just outside of Banff. it was supposed to be easy and straightforward. it was not.
The route up the mountain and the way down were convoluted and complicated to say the least and we ended up off route on a part of the mountain that no one ever goes on purpose. As we were descending what appeared to be a viable way down, our rope got stuck and I abandoned it thinking we were just a short distance from the ground.
I continued to scramble down a gully, searching for a way down to the ground when I got to the top of an overhanging cliff 50 metres from safety. By this time it was 11PM and starting to get dark. We were caught between two overhanging cliffs. With no rope there was no way to go either up or down. I called up to Tania who I had anchored to the rock on a small cliff and said: "we're fucked". She started to cry. Here she was in her first season as a climber with her new fiancee stuck on a mountain that no one new we were climbing in an area that no one would think to look. Grave danger. Is there any other kind?
We had two headlamps, a powerbar, half a litre of water and a small amount of extra clothes. I gave her my pants and stuck my legs in our climbing pack and we settled in on our little ledge for the night. The ledge was just deep enough to sit in but only wide enough for three of our four ass cheeks. As the night turned cold, we tossed and turned quite restlessly. I kept waking up from what I thought were nightmares into the actual nightmare and as the night wore on I pieced together an escape.
I decided to leave the powerbar and water to the morning so that my brain and body would be functioning at its highest possible level. I was the more experience climber and when I saw Tania crying the night before, something clicked inside of me. I moved into a mode that I can only describe now as extremely "manly". Something primitive took hold and I needed to save the woman I loved.
The key to to rescuing ourselves was of course rescuing our rope. The night before when the rope got stuck, I reached up and cut as much of it as I could reach thinking that even a small amount would be useful to our scramble down. When I scrambled back up in the morning to the overhanging cliff where we had left the rope, it had shrunk back up the cliff face well above my reach (ropes stretch a lot when we slide down on them).
To retrieve the rope, I needed to climb about 3 body lengths of slick overhanging rock, several grades of difficulty above my climbing level. I then had to bat man my way up the rope another 30 metres to where it was stuck, the whole time hoping that the rope didn't suddenly get unstuck with me hanging on it (with the resulting fall to my death.)
Obviously, as I'm writing this, the story has a happy ending and it turned out to be the most seriously chivalrous romantic deed of life. It required a combination of emotional strength, physical skill and intellectual cunning I would not have guessed I was capable of. The thing that I have learned about myself from this and other extraordinary circumstances is that when the shit really hits the fan, so to speak, I'm the kind of guy you want around. I don't panic. I don't fall apart. I get calm and creative. I get the job done.
We all have strength that we maybe don't know we have because it's seldom called upon. But it is in all of us and we are all more capable than we realize.
And, we all have our Kryptonite–that person, circumstance or thing that zaps our personal power.
Mine is simple and it comes when someone challenges me on the price I charge as a professional coach or an invoice I have delivered and they are questioning the value. This is particularly true if I have been delivering or will be delivering the kind of heroic support that I do under very demanding situations.
It would be kind of like Tania saying to me after we got back to the car from our Mountain Edith adventure: "you think you saved my life? Whatever."
Friday, September 10, 2010
notes on selling coaching
1. Coaches in general make less money than other professionals.
2. A successful coaching practice is the result of both great coaching skill and great selling skill.
3. Many great coaches are not successful in business because they lack a sales attitude.
4. Great selling is both transactional and relational, requiring both masculine and feminine energy.
5. Selling is the coaching I do before I’m hired.
6. The objection that the prospect has to the coaching is the objection that the prospect has to their own personal and business growth.
7. The objection lies not in the prospect but in me the coach.
8. The objection that the prospect has to my coaching is the objection I have to selling.
9. Selling is an act of leadership. If I change my mind, my prospect is free to follow.
10. When I step up and take the lead, my prospect looks for reasons to buy.
11. When I step down and don’t lead, my prospect looks for reasons not to buy.
2. A successful coaching practice is the result of both great coaching skill and great selling skill.
3. Many great coaches are not successful in business because they lack a sales attitude.
4. Great selling is both transactional and relational, requiring both masculine and feminine energy.
5. Selling is the coaching I do before I’m hired.
6. The objection that the prospect has to the coaching is the objection that the prospect has to their own personal and business growth.
7. The objection lies not in the prospect but in me the coach.
8. The objection that the prospect has to my coaching is the objection I have to selling.
9. Selling is an act of leadership. If I change my mind, my prospect is free to follow.
10. When I step up and take the lead, my prospect looks for reasons to buy.
11. When I step down and don’t lead, my prospect looks for reasons not to buy.
Friday, July 23, 2010
top five experiences
Last year, Tania and I and our friends Chad and Adele spent the day walking the beach in Malibu. At the end of a beautiful day of sun, surf and conversation with great friends, we started rooting around for a place to eat. We went to a wine store first to stock up on spirits (spiritual growth is very important to me) and I found a vintage bottle of Krug Grand Cru. This champagne is very expensive and is almost impossible to find in Canada, so it's a great treat on a special occasion. Due to the US recession it was on sale for 50% off. A no-brainer. We asked the vendor to recommend a restaurant and he told us to try "Nobu" across the street, but warned us that it can take two weeks to get a reservation. We troddled off across the street, Krug in-hand to negotiate a reservation. Perhaps it was the fact we are Canadian, or it was the champagne we asked them to chill for us, or it was Chad's Black Amex. I don't know. But they let us in for an hour later. (I think it was the Canadian Factor.)
We asked the waiter to simply "bring us your best best stuff". I like going to a restaurant this way. The staff bring their signature items and we never know what's coming. We ate wave after wave of the most interesting sushi creations, drinking the bottle which the wine vendor said would be a "spiritual experience" (it was), watching celebrities eat all around us, and then finished with a chocolate spring roll. We all agreed it was a top five restaurant experience. For me it was the top one. Hands down.
My favourite concert was watching the Barenaked Ladies do an a cappella version of their most complex song "one week". My favourite musical moment was having the Canadian Tenors sing happy birthday to me (surreal but nice.)
My favourite sports moment was when Canada won the hockey gold medal in this recent olympics.
My favourite relationship moment was the first six hours of my romance with Tania and more specifically the first time I looked her in the eye.
My favourite business moment was finding out a client had rescued his marriage from the brink of a nasty divorce.
Children being born. Travel. Professional achievements. These are the highlights of our lives, what makes life worth living and what the stretching and striving is all about. The list is a dynamic thing and cultivating the presence of mind to actively seek out these experiences is the logic behind a bucket list.
It's possible to have a top five list that changes every day, if not every week, month or year.
For help with your bucket list go to http://www.stepup.net/
We asked the waiter to simply "bring us your best best stuff". I like going to a restaurant this way. The staff bring their signature items and we never know what's coming. We ate wave after wave of the most interesting sushi creations, drinking the bottle which the wine vendor said would be a "spiritual experience" (it was), watching celebrities eat all around us, and then finished with a chocolate spring roll. We all agreed it was a top five restaurant experience. For me it was the top one. Hands down.
My favourite concert was watching the Barenaked Ladies do an a cappella version of their most complex song "one week". My favourite musical moment was having the Canadian Tenors sing happy birthday to me (surreal but nice.)
My favourite sports moment was when Canada won the hockey gold medal in this recent olympics.
My favourite relationship moment was the first six hours of my romance with Tania and more specifically the first time I looked her in the eye.
My favourite business moment was finding out a client had rescued his marriage from the brink of a nasty divorce.
Children being born. Travel. Professional achievements. These are the highlights of our lives, what makes life worth living and what the stretching and striving is all about. The list is a dynamic thing and cultivating the presence of mind to actively seek out these experiences is the logic behind a bucket list.
It's possible to have a top five list that changes every day, if not every week, month or year.
For help with your bucket list go to http://www.stepup.net/
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