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Catching Up

Catching Up

I’m coaching a 47 year old woman, and the truth is she has become a real friend.  She said something last week that of all people I wouldn’t expect her to say, “I’m not good enough.” But that’s not where the conversation began, it started with, “James, I’m gaining weight again.” “What’s underneath the weight gain?” I asked her. “I don’t know.  But, there is something bigger here.”  Then she started laughing, hearing what she just said, “I’m not talking about me… I guess what’s bigger here is that I’ve not made myself a priority.  Everything and everybody else seems to get my time, and I don’t take care of myself. “What has to shift,” I asked, “for you to be a priority? And that is when she said it, ”I have to believe that I’m worth it.  It sounds weird, but believe that I’m good enough.” People don’t say that out loud even if they feel it.  And she kept going, “I feel tarnished and damaged.  And when...

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Valuable

Valuable

A business owner I’ve coached for three year said to me, “I had a lull in my week, and my first thought was, ‘Uh-ho!  If I’m not busy, I’m not going to make enough money!'” But then she laughed, “James, that’s ridiculous.  Busyness doesn’t make me money.” “What makes you money?” I asked. She paused. And then she said it, like she finally meant it, “My value.” When I  grew up, I lived in a little town in Sonoma County, the wine country of California.  I rode my bike all over those hills, but it was the general store that had my bike parked out front most often.  Red vines for 5 cents.  A nickel was really important to me when I was kid. “But James, you know what just hit me?” this woman said, “I have to stop thinking that if I’m busy, I’m valuable.” Now I was curious and so I asked her, “What makes you valuable?” There are questions in life that we don’t have quick answers to....

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Created Space

Created Space

I was speaking at a leadership retreat, and right in the middle of an afternoon session on relational leadership, I said, “Let me show you.  Let’s demo this, who wants to volunteer to come up and talk about something you want to move forward on?”  Nobody moved, except their eyes, looking away.  Crickets. Finally a guy at one of the side table said, “Oh, alright.”  And as he got up the group of leaders broke out in a nervous applause. We sat on 2 chairs in the front of the room and I said, “How do you want to use this conversation?” “I need to learn to let go of control of the people I manage.”  he said. Wow!  That’s real.  Impressed with his honesty in front of his peers, I asked, “What’s the picture of you letting go of control?” He was quiet for a moment… then he said something so profound, “Letting go is me not holding onto people. I need to become a catalyst for more...

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Launching People

Launching People

After dinner is wrestle time in my house. My kids and I get on the floor and it’s a free for all.  Often Blake will say, “Daddy can you make us fly?” Do you know what that is? Yeah… I lay with my back on the floor and my feet up in the air and my kids sit on my feet and I launch them into the air, higher than they could ever jump on their own.   They love it! That’s what great leaders do… get on their back, stick their feet up in the air and they launch people… higher than they could go on their own.  They serve by launching and their people love it! Launching people is really big. I was training a group of leaders and I told them this story of making my kids fly.  As I got done with the story, a guy, probably in his forties, interrupted me and said, “James, I can remember my Dad doing that with me as a...

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Eating With 85 Year Old Women

Eating With 85 Year Old Women

“James, I’m eating dinner with her in the cafeteria at the care home and she thinks we are at a reception on a cruise ship.” One of the guys I coach told me, “I never eat dinner with her for an hour and a half, but I just had a sense that this was a special time.  So I lingered.  And with her dementia, she was out of it most of the conversation.  But there were three statements that she said, in the midst of lots of random incoherent thoughts, but those three things I don’t think I’ll ever forget.” I was on the edge of my seat. “This frail old women looked me in the eyes from across the table, she was peering into me, and said, ‘You don’t have very many years to do what you’re supposed to do…’ And then she went on talking about the dancing happening around her. We kept eating and then again she looked right at me, ‘Keep it short… those things...

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