Hero’s Journey

Patience is an art - and the key to success

The ice cool man knows that everything will pass. He can deal with loss, overcome disappointment, even withstand torture, because he knows that this too shall pass. The secret is to not spend energy on wanting it to pass, but to simply know that it will. Too much wanting the future to come sooner – to arrive now! – causes us distress, causes us to lose the balance of our minds, causes us to lose patience, and to give up.

The wise man knows how to wait, to observe the situation as it is, without judgement, without wishing it would pass, without wishing it was something other than it is. This is possible, and not easy. It means holding your mind steady in the present, not letting it perform like a spoilt child, either liking or disliking everything it sees, always wanting something or wishing something away.

Persistence is the child of patience; success, the inevitable result of persistence.

In this state of mind, a batsman can stay at the crease for more than a day while his team is losing, a prisoner can endure torture, you can stay fixed on your goal no matter what obstacles are in your path. Persistence is the child of patience; success, the inevitable result of persistence. Make your success inevitable by trusting that your current struggles, too, shall pass.

Trying to hold onto things as they are and have a different experience of life at the same time is like trying to sit when you stand. It’s like the child who, hands already full, reaches for another toy, then realises she would have to give something up. Let’s say the thing she chooses to give up is at the bottom of the pile she already holds; she would have to let go of everything, regather what she wants to keep, and add the new thing.

When life is no longer fulfilling, it’s impossible to hold on to all that you have and squeeze fulfilment out of it. You have to let go of something, maybe everything, see how things fall, and regather what you can – what you still want to. Chaos is a necessary precursor to a higher level of order. It’s the dip you have to go through to get the rewards that you seek.

Getting through that dip requires courage, commitment, a definite goal, the belief that taking these particular actions will get you to that goal, and the willingness to handle and endure the chaos that ensues.

People who promise success and fulfilment seldom tell you this. I like to ask my clients before they jump: Are you ready for the consequences? Are prepared to take responsibility?

There’s plenty to laugh about, if you’d only let yourself see it

Surely this one should be fun! After all, everybody loves to laugh, right? Funny then, that we should use so little of the material nearest at hand to laugh at – ourselves! If you’ve paid attention to the content of good comedy, or the banter among men in a pub, you’ll know that it’s funniest when it takes our most unconscious social cover-ups – the things we do that we pretend we don’t do – and exposes them.

We pretend to like things we don’t like,
to impress people we don’t even know.

We laugh easily at ourselves when we’re in a group, but single me out – as good comedians often do to the poor bloke in the front row – and I feel uncomfortably exposed; I start to blush and defend. Mostly, my taking myself seriously is about upholding appearances: We pretend to like or believe things that we don’t in fact like or believe; we do this in order to look good for people we don’t like – or often don’t even know. If someone points this out, we’ll fight to defend the appearance rather than let the truth come out. If you can laugh at yourself, you can be more available, more authentic, and ultimately more happy – and more ready to laugh at yourself.  

Bad news can come in any form and in any measure; even the tiniest grain – even an imagined grain – of criticism is often enough to open a giant trapdoor in your psyche and let out every ounce of energy and motivation that you have for a project. (OK, not everyone; there are those who, like some politicians, are so thick-skinned and resilient that bad news bounces off them like bullets off an American tank. It was true for me, though; I had zero tolerance.

I’m glad to be able to report that there’s a way out of that spiral. I had read for years that you could choose your thoughts, and I scoffed at the notion. Your thoughts just flood in and they provide reliable truths about your reality, I argued. An insight, followed by years of conscious practice, got me to the point where I could actually choose my thoughts and therefore my reality, moment to moment, all day long. Next I’ll be working on changing the ones I have when I sleep. Sweet dreams!

Look at your enemy correctly and you’ll see your teacher

OK, so there’s one thing even harder to do than giving up being right. That’s to take the lesson that comes with it. The flipside of the being right coin is making someone else wrong – let’s call them our enemies, although often they’re actually our friends, even family. It’s amazing how fast a lover or business cohort can become an enemy, and it’s very satisfying, when a business deal or a marriage goes sour, to spend tons of energy keeping them on that enemy pedestal by making them wrong.

If you engage sincerely you will get an unexpected answer

Linear thinking says that things happen because of something else that happened in the past. Quantum thinking allows this possibility: that things happen to prepare us for something else that’s going to happen in the future. So when someone does you wrong, the thing to do is to give up blame and instead ask, What lesson can I learn here? What future could this be preparing me for? Maybe it’s to read the fine print next time; maybe to do your own quality checks. If you engage sincerely you will get an unexpected answer, and when you get it, the next thing is to thank that person for having been your teacher. Difficult? It’s the most difficult thing of all to do, and that’s precisely why it’s so powerful.

Words are an instrument for me to get you to see what I’m seeing. Until someone – using words – explains a Picasso to you, it’s a bunch of cubes; Mozart, a bunch of very pretty sounds. Enough words, and the form starts to make sense, or take on meaning.

It’s by the words that I use that I see myself too. I describe myself to myself using words. If I change the words, I change myself. But I can’t just change the words, because I don’t know which words to use, or how to order them. I can pull big, fancy words out of the financial press, rearrange them and string them together, but it won’t make me any the wiser about money. I can rephrase words I use about myself – many do, they’re called mantras – and they won’t make me any more happy or successful. I need the right words, in the right order. I need a word mechanic, just as a diesel truck needs a diesel mechanic.

Coaching is a specific language; it’s words ordered in a specific way to make a difference to the way you describe yourself. Done correctly, it can give you the meaning of yourself; it can turn all your lights on.

Maintain the integrity of who you say you are

In scientific terms, a system has integrity when it is whole, complete, unimpaired: there are no leaks, in other words. If an electrical system loses its integrity – even for a millisecond – the whole thing shuts down. A bucket will run empty through even the tiniest hole. Human beings are individual systems operating within larger collective systems. Human systems are created by agreement, and we use language to do that – the spoken word. A system is compromised when a word is given, and not kept, whether to yourself or others, explicitly or implicitly.

 The man who sticks most strongly to his own code, wins.

What’s the first thing that happens if a man doesn’t keep his word? He feels bad, his energy drops, he starts to beat himself up – all his energy leaks out. Enough damage already, but then he starts to negotiate with himself to make it OK; he finds reasons to justify and let himself get away with it. This keeps him down. He would regain his power if he owned up to himself what he has done – if he cleaned up his mess. Be gentle – with yourself and others – but don’t compromise, because the man (and the team) who sticks most strongly to his own code, wins. If you don’t believe me, read the biblical story of Samson.

Life is perfect, and suffering is a perfect teacher. If something repeatedly doesn’t work in your life, you can be sure there’s a lesson to be had there. There are natural laws and you’re simply not obeying them. To bring yourself in alignment with those laws is a delicate, tricky business. You try this, try that, until you find what works.

If you make it life’s fault, then when life comes right for you, you call it luck and you miss the deeper lesson. When you make yourself responsible, then you have the a-ha! moment – and you’re less likely to repeat the mistake.

If you’re in the intensity of something not working in your life, stick it out. Stand in that intensity, take responsibility for being the cause of everything that happens in your life, and wait for the lesson to become clear. I know this because I’ve tested it.

Something else I’ve tested: Suffering is resistance to feeling pain. When you can be with pain you can see the perfection in all of life; the student in you shows up; you’re available for the lesson, and things start to flow again.