The Life That's Waiting For You
By Sharon Teitelbaum, MA, MCC, Sharon@stcoach.com

There's an old story about a British shoe company, in the early 1900'ss, that sent two advance salesmen into a third world country to investigate whether that country could become a market for the company's shoes. The first salesman telegraphed back to the home office: "No market here. No one wears shoes." The telegram from the second salesman read, "Fantastic opportunity. No one wears shoes yet."

We create our own reality, based on what we see. What we see is limited by our own idiosyncratic perspective and blind spots. We are all capable of expanding the way we see: it's a learnable skill.

When I work as a coach with that first shoe salesman (and we're all, in some ways, that first shoe salesman), part of my job is to ask if he'd be open to hearing how another person might interpret the same data. "The data" being the barefoot people he witnessed. If he's open to it, I tell him what the other telegram said.

One of the most charged situations that an "other interpretation" can illuminate is a mid-life turning point, which sometimes manifests as a crisis. Many people initially interpret the turning point as, "I am a failure." I'm loosely translating here, but essentially that's how people read it.

• The Harvard MBA who expected to be a company president by this stage in her life perceives the closing of her division and her receipt of a severance package and outplacement services as "the stink of failure."
  
  
• The environmental engineer in his forties who worked tirelessly at the national level on water quality issues has suffered his second heart. He "gets," finally, what he's been hearing for years from his doctors and loved ones: he MUST reduce the level of stress in his life. He is heartsick on two levels, for he knows he must leave his job even though he didn't make "the difference" he expected to make.
  
  
• Perhaps the third example is about you.
  
  
  • You expected to be married with children by now and you're not.
  • You thought you'd somehow be more of a major player in your field than you're turning out to be.
  • You had such promise during your student days - where are the amazing impacts you were going to have?
  • You wanted to pay for your kids' college years the way your parents did for you, but now you see that as a financial impossibility.

These are real disappointments, every one of them. I won't pretend they aren't. Believe me, I've had my own. But at some point, after you've grieved your loss and disappointment, -- then what? Then you can either tell yourself the failure story or you can tell yourself a different story, one that offers you greater possibility. "Possibility is always one sentence away," says Ros Zander, co-author with Ben Zander of The Art of Possibility.

We get so attached to the way we expect our lives to look. When they don't look exactly that way we think we've failed. The ugly duckling feels like a freak for a while... but eventually becomes a swan. If he remains obsessed with his failure to be a duck, he will never live fully as a swan either.

Joseph Campbell writes, "We must be willing to get rid of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us." There's a life that's waiting for us, but we can't see it or live it if we're completely taken up by our failure to meet the external standards with which we've become obsessed.

When we're in "failure mentality," we're like the first salesman, unable to see the opportunities in front of us. We're also unable to see and appreciate our successes. If we don't see our successes, we can't fully own them, let alone leverage them and build on them.

Suppose our environmental engineer moves to the private sector after his second heart attack. As part of a firm that consults on local construction projects, he develops a process for bringing multiple, opposing stakeholders into agreement. His process is adopted at the national level, allowing for much more efficient enactment and implementation of excellent environmental legislation. Ultimately, he has great impact in his field... but not in the ways he was striving initially for. And, perhaps also not in ways he even knows about at this time.

Who are your role models? Did their lives lead directly to whatever you admire about them? Did Michael Pollan know from the start of his career that he would become an important scientific journalist in America today writing about our food system? Was food his original focus? I doubt it. Lance Armstrong started out as a runner and swimmer, not a cyclist. You may know other examples of an indirect path toward a particular end.

Where are YOU using arbitrary external measures as standards that you're failing to live up to? How might your life be different if you let go of those arbitrary standards and started living more fully into your actual possibilities? What is the life that's waiting for you?

COACHING TIPS:
Here are some actual behaviors you can put into play.

MONITOR your own mental state as you go through your days.

NOTICE when you judge yourself negatively for not living up to some external standard.

ASSESS the standard you're using to measure yourself. Is it absolutely valid? [I used to measure my success as a trainer/presenter by audience size. My arbitrary standard was a 1000-person audience. Since my audiences were always (way!) less than 1000, I always felt I was unsuccessful in that arena. At some point I ditched the 1000-person audience standard. I'd still like to get there, but not being there now doesn't make me a failure as a trainer/presenter/businesswoman.]

IDENTIFY other standards that might be more useful and valid, particularly standards you are already meeting or achieving. [I started noticing other factors about my audiences besides size. My audiences are made up of the right people: high calibre, truly interested in the topic, ready to put ideas into practice, willing to participate, ask hard questions, laugh at the funny moments, etc. My audiences comprised a wide range of identities: lawyers, engineers, midlifers, medical school faculty, alums, parents, financial services professionals, marketing gurus, entrepreneurs, teachers, executive directors. They gave me positive evaluations. People came up to me afterwards and told me how useful and meaningful the content was for them. I started appreciating that qualitatively, my audiences were perfect.]

START USING the other standards.

REST ASSURED this will not keep you from working hard or striving toward your dreams and goals.

OBSERVE your own behaviors that result from the above. It's likely there's more to appreciate. [As I've accepted my typical audience size (15-250 people) as "just right," I've had the courage to do more powerful work with them, to be bolder and stronger with my message.] What you appreciate appreciates: it will grow.

TAKE NOTE of what you have learned from this.

If you would like to do some intensive, short-term work to learn about your blind spots, examine the standards you hold yourself to, or learn to see more expansively, consider a round of coaching. Schedule a no-fee initial meeting with me to get your questions answered, including whether coaching is for you. Email me at sharon@stcoach.com some times you could schedule a 30-minute phone meeting and I'll get back to you.

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Copyright 2002-2008, by Sharon Teitelbaum, all rights reserved.
Sharon Teitelbaum, www.stcoach.com, Master Certified Coach

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