It's Hard to Let Go

I coach people all the time about how enterprise level organizations work. We can't just run around and change things. There's a process. We need to operate within processes and systems because there are more people, varying priorities, and you can't just run around and change things.

Only, this morning, I wanted to do that. I wanted to do something fast. I saw something that needed fixing and I just wanted it fixed. So I started poking, asking people for things, doing it all backwards from what I should have done. And then I caught myself, shut up, and accepted that it would be handled in time.

Trust the Process

Watch just a minute of this clip. I've got it cued up to where I want you to begin. Watch up until 4 minutes, 24 seconds when Scotty talks.

In the scene, good ole Captain Kirk is onboard the ship as an observer, a dignitary, not as the person in control. The young guy (played by Alan Ruck) is the captain here. Only, Kirk is champing at the bit to jump in, to do what he knows how to do. He's not trusting the process.

Life sure seems to be handing me this lesson over and over again lately. It's saying, "There's a flow, a process, a way things can go, and maybe once in a while you should just let that happen."

Patience. (grrr)

I'm Not Here to Teach Right Now

Today, I caught up with my friend Cara Lumen. She fit me into her schedule for a catch up, and we ended up talking about a program she signed up to take. When she arrived at the experience, the person teaching was a well-intentioned novice. Meanwhile, Cara had years and years of experience on the subject the other person was there to teach. She almost jumped in, but she stopped herself.

"Then I remembered, 'I'm not here to teach right now. I'm here to be the student," and we can always learn."

Every conversation I have with Cara (and we've known each other for ten years now) feels like a big pile of revelations. I leave our talks feeling like I ate a delicious meal. She's so smart and thoughtful.

We all have to be the student sometimes. I've got lots of places where I have to do this right now. So many places in my life and at work where I have to accept the flow, trust the process, let go.

Practice is the Tool

The famous Shambhala Buddhist nun Pema Ch?dr?n said something to the effect of "Buddhism is a tool to use once we recognize repeated opportunities to practice." (Totally a horrific paraphrase of a much more eloquent way she said it.) Something in life happens. We get a chance to respond. How we respond is an opportunity to practice our intentions. How do we want to respond?

The idea is simple but I feel it's profound. I'll give you a real world example.

I've read in many places that the really successful people all have morning rituals that they stick to rather fervently. This involves eating the same thing every morning for breakfast.

In my small smooth monkey brain, I tend to think, "No way! I will eat whatever I please for breakfast. You're not the boss of me."

My belly, however, filled with all kinds of knowledge, and decades of experience says, "If you eat something random, I'm going to give you a random result. Maybe everything will be fine. Maybe I'll make you sit on the toilet in between every meeting. Feel like rolling the dice?"

Me: yes!

I have to let go. I have to accept that maybe my belly would appreciate it if I ate the same agreeable and useful meal every morning. I've got a friend who's done this for decades, eaten the same thing. I won't say who. (Rhymes with "schmob schmatch.") And he never has random belly moments. He knows what he's eaten. His belly knows how it will respond. My boss is like that too, I'm told.

Practice. I have the opportunity to practice letting go and doing what I know will be better. I can practice letting go.

Focus on the Reward

That's the lesson I'm still not taking on board yet. But I have an idea. I'm going to focus on the reward.

The reward of operating in the enterprise process is that there are so many capable and wonderful hands to lighten the load and get far more done than I ever will as an individual. The reward of being the student is an obvious one. The reward of eating the same meal every day is to stop playing gastrointestinal roulette.

I think that's how I'll be able to let go. I'll accept that even greater rewards come with that process.

I think that's how to get through this, to practice, to be even more than I am right now. It's to accept that the process is the reward and that the reward is knowledge and understanding.

I don't know. Is that what you think, too?

Chris...