My world has been kind of small this past week.  It isn’t that I haven’t listened to the news, or texted friends and family, or gone to dance, it’s just that I’ve been alternating between time at our home and at our daughter’s home.  I’ve kept a pretty flexible schedule so I could help out when I was needed.  For the record, it’s been kind of awesome.  And also, for the record, I know this stage of needing me is almost over.  And also, for the record, the small man at the centre of this small world I’ve had makes me feel like my world has also become much, much larger.
 
I love human behaviour.  I love learning about people, understanding what makes us behave the way we do, and using this learning to help me move toward being the person I want to become.  I do my best to apply the learning to my own life as well as to share it with my clients.
 
One of the things I’ve been reading and learning about lately is the idea of feedback.  We all receive feedback in our lives, both professionally and personally.  We’ve been taught that we need to be able to accept and incorporate the feedback we get from others.  Feedback is popularly presented as constructive feedback, making us feel like not only is it for our own good and for our own positive growth, but also like we should accept it and incorporate it because it has been given with such good intention and with a generous spirit.
 
In the Playing Big course I’ve been taking, I’ve learned a very different perspective about feedback.  Try this new idea out:
 
Feedback tells us nothing about ourselves.  It only tells us about the person giving the feedback.
 
Hmm.  Now that’s a shift.  We have been so conditioned to accept the idea that feedback is valuable and that it informs us about what we should do that it might be hard to digest this.  When we know that people who are offering feedback are doing it thoughtfully, we might worry that if we do not accept their feedback, we may damage our relationship with them.  Often this results in our substituting their ideas for our own intuition, creativity and common sense.
 
Imagine that an author or musician submits a piece of work to a publisher or producer.  Imagine that this work is rejected outright.  It may even come back with some ‘constructive’ feedback for the author or artist.  If the author or artist is to believe that this feedback is the truth, he or she would believe that the person giving the feedback had the ultimate say about how this work of art would be received.  I can think of many examples of books and songs that have been rejected on first (and second and third) submissions, but that later went on to become best sellers and top forty hits.  Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by JK Rowling was rejected by 12 publishers before being picked up by Bloomsbury.  Dr. Seuss’, And to Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street was rejected 27 times before it was published.  The songwriters of ‘Since U Been Gone’, made into a hit by Kelly Clarkson, was originally written for and rejected by Pink.  It was subsequently rejected by Hillary Duff, and was finally turned over to Kelly Clarkson.
 
What is the explanation for this?  Did the story or song change as it went from one submission to the next?  No.  In fact, in these cases almost nothing was changed by the artist between the time of the rejection and the time of the success.  Thus, it is safe to conclude that the original feedback given did not tell the artist anything about their work. It did not tell them that their work was not good enough, although that may well have been how they felt.
 
If only they had known; feedback tells us nothing about ourselves.  It tells us information about the person giving it.  It may have told them that this person was looking for something different.  It may have told them that this person was having a busy day and did not take the time to give the submission adequate attention.  It may have told them that the person did not have a professional preference to this kind of work.  What it should not have told them was that this piece of work was not ‘good enough’.
 
The same is true of positive feedback.  I have stood in many dressing rooms and been told by a kindly salesperson that a certain piece of clothing looked great on me.  But when I got home and pulled it out of my closet to wear, I just did not feel good in it.  Their feedback really had told me nothing about myself. It did tell me something about them.
 
On Amazon we can find feedback for almost any book.  Often a rave review is followed by a scathing evaluation.  Clearly, neither should inform the author about the true worth of the book.  When we, as consumers, offer feedback, we do not inform the company about the actual product.  We do inform them about our preferences.  It is up to them to decide whether we are an important part of their target audience.
 
As Tara Mohr has taught me, the key to receiving feedback is to listen to it, incorporate that which is strategically useful, and ignore the rest.
 
In our personal lives we receive a lot of feedback about a lot of things.  This week, even in my small world, I have received plenty of little tidbits of feedback from others about how I should approach this grandparenting thing. At one time I would have listened, assumed there was truth to the feedback and even tried to incorporate it into my behaviour.  I now try to approach it with curiosity.  I say to myself, ‘That’s interesting.  Is it useful to me?  I wonder what this tells me about that person?’
 
As you enter the upcoming week, notice a place where you are receiving feedback.  Rather than accepting it as some kind of proof of your worth, approach it as a detective might and see if you can come up with ten things it might tell you about the person offering the feedback.  Make some of your ten things outrageous; this allows you to accept the feedback with a sense of humour and with the perspective that it may not be the ‘truth’.
 
Elizabeth creates and facilitates custom workshops for corporate, public and private groups.  She provides leadership coaching for individuals and groups.  Contact Elizabeth to learn how to trust your own inner voice and to recognize feedback as information offered to us about the giver.
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Finally.  A real-life miracle.  You hear of these things but it’s hard to really, truly believe them until you witness one with your own eyes.  Ours came in the form of Benjamin; a tiny, perfect, much anticipated, overwhelmedly-loved baby boy, delivered to Matt and Kaitlyn.

Kaitlyn had asked me to be with her at the hospital for the delivery, in case she needed me.  Of course, I said yes.  What other answer could a mother give to this kind of request?

And, so it was that I found myself alone at about 2:30 in the morning, in the waiting area of our beautiful new hospital.  Kaitlyn and Matt were together and managing well.  I knew that when the time came, Matt would text me if they needed me.

Sitting in the silence of the hospital I had only my thoughts to keep me company.  And although I felt and looked calm, it wasn’t long before my Inner Critic noticed that I looked lonely and she came to keep me company.
Although uninvited, my Inner Critic had no trouble settling right in and making herself feel right at home.  She started off with what I believed to be some very valid questions and observations:

      What do you know about this; you’ve never helped deliver a baby!
      You should have read more; you don’t know what to do.
      What makes you think you are qualified for this job?

‘Wait a minute!’, I thought.  ‘Nice try.’  I recognized this as the voice of my Saboteur, my Inner Critic, and I knew that this voice did not represent my true self, convincing though it sounded. 

As I sat with myself I was thinking about a coaching tool that I could use in this moment and then  I remembered; My Inner Mentor.

Just as we each have an Inner Critic, who has the very specific, if often misguided job of trying to keep us safe by stopping us from trying new things (especially things that can be emotionally dangerous), we also each have an Inner Mentor.

Our Inner Mentor is like a wise version of ourselves. She exhibits the wisdom and the qualities that we are trying to grow into, 20 years in the future.  We never actually become our Inner Mentor, this is not the goal.  However, she always holds wisdom for us, and her wisdom often surprises us with it’s simplicity and uniqueness. 

Whenever I get quiet and try to access mine, she shows up in running tights.  She is often heading out for a run.  She is self-assured, but not arrogant.  She knows herself and she trusts herself.  And she knows me and wants only what is best for me.

A huge difference between our Inner Critic and our Inner Mentor is how they show up.  Our Inner Critic shows up uninvited and feels delighted to offer her thoughts and opinions without any prodding.  Hers is the harsh, often rude-sounding voice.  She speaks in black and white.  She would never say, ‘This could be a bad idea’. She says, ‘What were you thinking? This is a disaster!’  She has no trouble stating the same thing over and over like a broken record.  Although she doesn’t always sound truthful, she is so loud and certain, that we tend to believe her.

The Inner Mentor, on the other hand, does not enter our mind unless we invite her.  She is never rude, she never interrupts, and never feels she needs to repeat herself.  She is compassionate and sensible.  She offers her opinion and allows us to ponder it.  She may have a sense of humour; she always has a sense of safety and love.

And so it was in the quiet of the waiting area that I asked my Inner Mentor what I needed to do.  ‘Do?’, she responded, ‘You don’t need to do a thing.  Just be.’

And so it also was that when at five o’clock the text arrived from Matt asking me to come in, that I calmly gathered my things and made my way to Room 17, Highwood River Hallway.  I had to smile as I read the overhead sign naming the hallway to which they had been assigned.  Kaitlyn had been born in High River, through which travels the beautiful Highwood River.  It felt like a full circle moment.

My Inner Mentor was right.  For the next few hours I simply needed to be.  It turns out that both Matt and I are pretty good at this.  And wonderfully, there was no room at all for any Inner Critics in the room.

There is a lot of noise in this world; a lot of opinions and ideas and suggestions about what we should do and how we and who we should be.  It’s easy to let these voices drown out the quieter, but surer, voice of our true self.  This voice is always available to us, if we find a quiet space and invite it in.

Benjamin has been sleeping in my arms as I’ve written this blog.  We’re trying to give his mom some time to sleep.  The peace of a baby sleeping gives just the space we need to quiet our minds and hear some wisdom.  He holds all the promise of the good things in life.  I believe he already has all the tools he needs to do anything he desires in his life.  I am imagining that this is the same feeling that my Inner Mentor has about me.  True, deep, pure love.

This week, as you are facing a challenge, take time to get still with your thoughts.  Invite your Inner Mentor to offer her ideas and listen carefully for her answers.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘What would my Inner Mentor have to say about this?’
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Elizabeth creates and facilitates custom workshops for corporate, public and private groups.  She provides leadership coaching for individuals and groups.  Contact Elizabeth to learn how to access your Inner Mentor as you travel your most important journey of all; the journey of your life.

I feel like I’ve been spinning my wheels this week.  It’s not like I don’t have a full list of things to accomplish.  It’s not that I’m unmotivated.  Or even that I don’t know what to do first.  It’s more just a feeling of being unsettled.  So even when I’m working hard and even when I’m checking things off the list, I’m not really savouring the journey.  I’m not settled.  In the olden days it might have been said that ‘her nerves are bad’!

I don’t know where this old expression came from, but it seems like it used to cover a whole host of vague issues that had no other label, and it certainly makes me chuckle to think about it.  It took me back to a memory I have of a long-ago trip.
When I was a young girl, one of the things our family did was to drive to New Brunswick each summer to visit our grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.  Both of my parents were born and raised in New Brunswick and the summer was their chance to ‘go down home’ to visit their parents.  We were just the lucky passengers who got to spend precious summer days with our beloved cousins.  The summer right after Mom died, our Dad continued with this tradition.  With six little kids in tow, ranging from 3 to 14 years old, he loaded us into our station wagon, hooked up the homemade trailer, handed the road map to our oldest sister Mary as he proclaimed her to be the official ‘navigator’ for the trip and we were off.  We always took three days to drive the distance and this year was no exception; day one took us to Cornwall, ON, day two to Trois Rivieres, QC, and on day three we arrived at ‘the farm’.

I don’t have a clue how my Dad summoned up the energy or will to undertake this trip alone, but if he had any doubts about how we would manage, he never let on.  On the first day as we approached Toronto, Dad reached down beside him and produced a tin of mints he had stored there.  He was delighted with himself as he made quite a production of telling us that these were ‘nerve pills’ and that they would help us to calm our nerves as we navigated our way through the maze of expressways around Toronto.   We each gleefully took a mint from the tin and passed it on.  Of course, we were thrilled to be in on this wonderful strategy he had concocted.  Looking back, the truth was that he needed us to have something to keep us quiet as he and Mary tried to figure out how to guide us past this huge city.  The ritual was repeated with the same sense of excitement as we were piloted past Montreal the following day.

In a similar way, he turned what must have been an overwhelming, and lonely, trip for him into an adventure for us as we were each assigned jobs to do when we stopped by the side of the road to make lunch and when we camped in the evening.  We gathered wood, fetched water, set up the trailer and one extra tent, knowing that Dad needed our ‘help’ and yet also feeling like we were part of a great adventure.

It’s interesting as I look back; I know we had a wonderful time in New Brunswick that summer with our cousins.  I know that we loved being with them.  But above all else I recall from that trip, it was our journey in the car that stands out in my mind.  From the ‘nerve pills’ to rescuing a couple of motor bike riders caught in the ‘tail end of a hurricane’ in Quebec, to spending his last dollars on ice cream cones on the way home, it felt like a very big adventure.

This was far from what would be considered a perfect family vacation, but over the years as I’ve thought about it, this trip and others like it gave us far more valuable gifts than ones our Dad couldn’t afford to buy.

I’m sure our Dad could not even picture how he was going to get through those first few years of being a single parent.  I’m sure he couldn’t picture how he would find someone to care for us when he worked shift-work at the factory.  But what he did know, and what he taught us by example was that the journey is much more important than the destination.
So often in life, we try to map out our goals and our plan for success.  We believe that if we get all our ‘ducks in a row’, they will swim nicely in the direction we plan for them.  In reality, often, no matter how we plan, sometimes we end up staring at a map of our life that doesn’t even have street names we recognize.  We might think we should be turning right onto the Street of Success, when in fact we find ourselves turning left onto Crisis Crescent instead.

This week, I was sent a poem by the instructor of the course I am taking, Tara Mohr, and this sentence jumped out at me:  The curriculum is given, not chosen.

Oh, how true.  We may choose our goal, but we often do not get to choose our path.  Our job is to set goals, to make plans, to have ideals and dreams, and then to embark with open arms on the journey that takes us there.  We set goals, not for the achievement of the goal, but for discovering who we will become on the journey toward the achievement of those goals.

I know that some of my unsettled feeling this week comes as we await the birth of our first grandchild.  I so want to write this script.  I want to ensure our daughter is safe as she navigates this upcoming birth.  I want this baby to be safe and healthy.  I want to feel in control.  Yet, the absolute best thing I can do, is to embrace these days of waiting, and to decide how to make the journey, not the outcome, one that I love and am proud of.  And perhaps go in search of a tin of ‘nerve pills’.

Each of you will be involved with many, many journeys in your life.  What journey are you needing to embrace this week?
My inquiry for you this week is ‘How will I embrace this journey?’
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Elizabeth creates and facilitates custom workshops for corporate, public and private groups.  She provides leadership coaching for individuals and groups.  Contact Elizabeth to learn how to navigate your most important journey of all; the journey of your life.

Happy 2018!  It is hard to believe that our earth has completed yet another full revolution around the sun, and yet here we go, ready or not!

I found it very hard to say goodbye to 2017.  I loved this past year.  It wasn’t that there weren’t a few bumps in the road, but it was a year that had me looking forward to one Canadian adventure after another.  I brought my love affair with Canada out in the open this past year and I loved every minute of exploring her beauty.  From coast to coast, from tiny villages proudly displaying their fame (like Elliston: Root Cellar Capital of Canada), to the Capital City proudly showing off her parliament buildings, to forested mountains and cascading waterfalls, to dancing with my beloved Chinook Country Dancers on Canada Day; I loved it all. 

Far beyond simply seeing the sights though, my love of this year also stemmed from simply being on an adventure with Jim.  The Canada 150 theme kept us moving forward and kept us watching for something new to do and figuring out how we could do as much as possible. It was as if we had a north star to guide us.  I’ve always found that when I have such a star in clear focus, my world feels more in balance.

So here I am, only a few days into 2018, already feeling untethered, and a bit off balance, figuring out how to leave behind a year that I loved so much. 

It has been this leaving behind feeling that has me thinking about how to approach this New Year.  While I was driving home this morning, I thought that surely a life coach who has so many tools in her tool box could find a tool to help with this.  What questions would I ask a client, I wondered?

Since I was trained to, as often as possible, ask questions using the client’s own vocabulary, I thought that the two questions that were begging for me to ask myself are, ‘What are you looking forward to leaving behind?’ and ‘What are you ready to explore this year?’

In terms of things I am willing to leave behind, I can think of a few things that I could travel more lightly without.  One would be for me to leave self-doubt behind.  Without this in my backpack, I will be able to challenge myself, both professionally and personally, without listening to, and worse yet, believing, that little voice that chimes in whenever I dare to make a brave step in a new or different direction.  When I silence this voice, I can picture my updated website with a brand new professional photo of me, I can picture the successful webinars that I have planned, reaching people across this land, I can picture myself crossing  finish lines at several races, both running and cycling, that I have on my radar and I can picture using my voice to do some good in this world.

I also feel I am ready to leave judgement behind.  I have noticed that I can tend toward having strong opinions at times; especially when there is some kind of value involved.  I also know that if I offer my judgement early in the conversation, the conversation will not continue as it might have.  What I find interesting is that I do not do this with clients, I do not do this when facilitating workshops and I did not do this as a professional educator.  I know that by not doing this, I give others the opportunity to explain their thinking and feel safe doing so.  I often even learn something.  Conversely, when I speak too soon, or too strongly, I notice that I stifle this same feeling of safety.  And I very rarely learn anything new when I am busy listening to myself.  

Finally, I would like to leave some of my old stories behind this year.  These are the stories I have made up to keep my life nice and tidy and safe.  These are stories that convince me of why things are how they are and why they will likely never change.  I have told myself these stories so often that they begin to sound like truth.  It is time for some new stories in my life.  These will be stories of success, of new talents, of new skills, of risk-taking and of embracing opportunity.

I am very lucky to have had a year I loved so much that it is hard to leave.  I am also very lucky to have a completely blank year stretching out before me, waiting for my embrace.  Bring on 2018!

What are you willing to leave behind as you begin this new year, and what are you brave enough to embrace?

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘What serves me best; holding tight or leaping?’

Elizabeth creates and facilitates custom workshops for corporate, public and private groups.  She provides leadership coaching for individuals and groups.  Book a session with Elizabeth to learn how to create the opportunities you are craving.
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