Some Grounding Thoughts on Flying - Excerpt

Finding Balance

Achieving balance is something I always said I wanted but quite honestly had no idea what it meant or how to achieve it.  Through yoga I have developed a better understanding of balance in a tangible way.  Balancing on one foot in a tree pose for example, requires that the standing foot is rooted in all four corners of the foot. Energy travels upward from there, lifting the knee caps, thigh muscles and into the rib cage. Hips are evenly balanced across the body, as are the shoulders. The neck follows the spine. On the mat, in order to achieve balance, we are constantly in a state of grounding and lifting, pushing and pulling and contracting and expanding.   This is true off the mat as well. 

In order to find balance, it is important to understand that balance is also about being aware of what we give and take, and what we are holding onto and letting go of. 

Holding onto something is easy, because it is something that we hold near and dear.  We hold on onto our values, our principles and our beliefs because these are part of our self-constructed world view.  We are usually holding onto something because it has some emotional attachment for us, like religious beliefs, or even a teacup that belonged to a family member. 

Letting go is difficult because it requires dismantling the reasons for holding on.  Letting go of beliefs that no longer serves us changes our world view.  Letting go of a tea cup can represent letting go of a person.  Letting go of a habit, like smoking for example, means letting go of something you have come to know and trust, even if it is damaging.   

In the strategic planning realm, where I have facilitated mergers, I have observed that all manner of invisible attachments are present in the room, that keep us from moving forward.  We need to clean out the closet of our lives, and determine what to keep and what to toss in order to make room for more.  Here are some things worth considering. 

Abdication versus Engagement

When I was a corporate planner early in my career, I could see how powerful it would be if the people who came to work every day actually believed in what they were working for.  With that in mind, I created and implemented planning systems that would inspire people to commit more of themselves to their work or employer. I remember describing it as bringing themselves to work.  I thought that if a person brought even 80% of himself or herself to work, and if everyone was able to do that, the organization would successful beyond all measure. Some organizations can achieve this, but not all organizations deserve this level of loyalty. 

I gave of myself passionately and freely to my work and to my employers.  I was a stellar employee every day. My children can attest to the hours that I spent working, even at home, right up until the day I back out of my parking stall, and said `no more`.

During my years as a strategic planner, we would measure employee satisfaction annually.  Loss of personal control is one of the greatest stress factors at work and in life.  When we feel like we are not in control of our destiny, we begin to feel nervous because at that point, we become vulnerable, like a sitting duck, or a flamingo without a flock.   When you combine the loss of personal control with a culture that does not inspire trust,  the result is a very bad work experience for the employee and very likely poor performance for the company.

From a personal standpoint, there is a fine balance between doing a good job and building a positive reputation and abdicating or relinquishing control to another.

Even though I could see how important it would be to inspire people early in my career, the further up the mountain I travelled in my work, the less control I had, partially because I was more committed in terms of  time invested and money. 

There were times when I made deals with myself, hoping to persevere my pay cheque, like many of us do when we find ourselves at the precipice. I saw the signs that a storm was building, but I rolled the dice and hoped for sunny days.  Eventually I left, but not everyone does.  To those who choose to stay, I would say, be healthy, have interests outside of work that are not dependent on work, and let work be work and nothing more.  

The Identity Conundrum: Who I think I am

Loss of identity is one of the reasons that we stay too long.  We are defined by and receive status from the job that we do, or the title on or business card, or the pay cheque that we receive.  The day that I fell from the sky and began to fade to white, I felt like I had something I had worked so hard to build and nurture.  My job title was who I thought I was.  hen I decided not to return to that world, that part of my identity was gone as if it never existed. As if I had never been there.  I became, for all intents and purposes, invisible and irrelevant, with the stroke of my own pen. I felt as if I had been eradicated from the world that I gave over 20 years of myself to build.  This was not in my plan. 

I began this book with the question, Who do I think I am, because I truly had to begin there again in order to begin again.  I had to rethink about the concept of identity, unattached from the roles and titles that say something about what we do, but not who we are.  The answer to the question, Who do I think I am, is a mystery to me some days. I do know that I am bigger than a business card. I am the way the I show up in the world, and so I try to focus on showing up in a good way and helping to make a difference in the lives of others with the gifts that I have to offer. 

Being an observer in your own story.

Writing is  my way of quieting my mind and making sense of the world. In the course of learning to fly again, I attempted my write myself to freedom, to find the words that would set the story and me free once and for all.  I wrote every single day about the story that changed my life and caused me to question myself on all levels.  I spent more than a year writing.  Admittedly, it began as an exorcism of sorts, to eradicate the experience from my memory. As if writing it down would store it somewhere else, instead of in my memory.  

As I stood back one day, I could see that I was telling the same story over and over again.  It was the story that would not end. No matter what I did, the anger that I was feeling was colouring the sky in my world and stopping me from living.  I had to find a way to make sense of it all and be heard so that the anger would subside and I could live.  

Writing my way through this retrospectively was like being upon a blocks in a Downward Facing Dog for 15 painful minutes.  The more I wrote, the more I experienced what happened, the more questions I had. How could this happen to me? Why did I let it happen to me?  Why am I alone in this story that has no end?  What is it that I am supposed to be learning from this experience?  Why can’t I just let myself fall? Why can’t I just pretend this never happened? 

The more I wrote, the more I could see my part in the story, the more I began to take back control of my own life and story.  I had become an observer in my own story, a perspective which helped me to answer questions.

The perils of flying in reverse.

As an observer, I could see that my perspective was holding me back from moving forward. I thought it was the crescendo of my career; the day the bodacious lady sang, (to upgrade a poorly articulated cultural euphemism that should be banished from language). It was not the crescendo after all. It was the opportunity to move forward, and take with me what serves my life and leave behind the beliefs that had become blinders.  

It was day that I discovered that people, regardless of their titles or pay cheques, are human, and that we are each capable of less than noble or heroic deeds, and that we choose our actions consciously, so we are accountable. It was the day that would lead me to the place that I was yet to be, the place that was waiting for me.  

Birds do not fly in reverse. We can only fly forward.  The key to flying again is to stop telling the stories of the past, and discover the new world for the first time again.  

Live Good Intentions.

Beneath the blue sky and the vision, flows the river of intention. When it is filled with the best intentions and actions, it is good. When it is bad, it is just stinky. When it comes to intention, a leader’s visions and intentions must be articulated, demonstrated and upheld at costs.

Intention is a powerful statement that creates clarity about the future, focus on what matters, and how to get the ducks in a row. Intention comes to life in culture and treatment of people, especially.   In the corporate world, most employees do not participate in the creation of intention, nor do they see the words. But they feel it in their work experience and in the actions of their leaders.  

Intentions are like mirrors. One of my mentors used to say, `You are what you do`.  In other words, nothing is an accident, each action is telling of who we are and our intentions. 

I think it`s apparent that people who have a positive impact on others have good intentions.  These are the people who become the leaders and visionaries of our time. They are the Nelson Mandelas, the Mother Teresas, and the Steve Jobs of our time. These are the people who we follow and look up to for answers.  They are natural born leaders, not because of their title or pay cheque, but because of their intentions and their deeds.

Mini Rant 

Good leaders create good teams and positive work environments.  The job profile of the leader should include demonstrated skills in leading people and creating environments where people can be successful. Those who cannot should not be called leaders or employed as such.  But that`s just me.

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