People as Game Changers

This holiday season presented me with an opportunity I seized – to make time to reflect on the trajectory of my life and what seems to have contributed to its shape and direction.

When you’ve been around as long as I have (almost 75 years), there’s a lot of data to potentially sift through. It’s been a fun tour and I came to a profound (for me) realization – my critical moments revolved around a few people who showed up in my life, then altered where my life was going and how it occurred for me. Not events but people. Perhaps you could do a similar exercise if you wanted a shift of perspective?

If you’re interested in getting a historical glimpse of my personal/professional life, with commentary, read on. Otherwise, skip to the end for the punchline and the invitation.

This is what I came up with. There were five watershed relationships that shaped the course of my life

(1). The first person I thought of was someone I met while in the Navy and stationed at the Naval Air Station in Key West, Florida, in 1968. This was during the Vietnam War and I was lucky enough not to do a tour(s) of duty overseas. Lyle Weaver was a civilian, a gay piano player, USO Tour pianist who traveled the world, and also a gourmet cook, more than 40 years my senior. We met on South Beach, grabbing sun and surf and striking up a conversation by chance. We continued to run into each other and take the opportunity to chat.

Over the time I was stationed there, Lyle became my friend. This was significant to me for several reasons. At that time and for at least ten years before, I didn’t have any friends and wasn’t a friend to myself – I was estranged. That Lyle would choose to have me as his friend was meaningful, opening up my curiosity about what he saw and was drawn to. Though I never got an answer, the opening was enough to shift my view of myself. I began to tell different stories to myself about what might be possible in my life. Those translated to new ambitions. I now wanted to do something with my life that would make a difference for others, as Lyle had with me. I went back to school (where I had flunked out), completed my undergrad degree, then my grad degree, and have been making that difference (servant leadership with others) for more than 50 years.

(2). The next person on my shortlist was Judy Hale. I met her in 1979 when she attended a workshop I was delivering on NLP and change. Smart, curious, and energetic, we chatted over coffee afterward. She shared about herself, her emergent professional career, and the professional organization, the National Society for Performance and Instruction (NSPI) she belonged to. As she described it and its purpose and values, they resonated with me. I made a decision there to seriously consider changing careers. Two years later, I joined NSPI, and two years after that, I switched careers to solving human performance problems in organizations. NSPI, now ISPI, has been my professional home for 40 years. Judy has been a friend and colleague for at least that long.

(3). A learning approach I took, starting in the 70s, was to identify master performers and subject matter experts in areas I was interested in developing myself and learning from them. In the early 80s, this had me connecting with three Chilean educators: Fernando Flores, Julio Olalla, and Rafael Echeverria. Their company ran workshops around the country on different performance improvement topics, including sales, operations, and communications. They took an ontological approach, steeped in philosophy and philosophy of language.

Julio was of special interest to me. He was the person who demonstrated coaching principles and skills from the front of the room, working with participants and producing seeming miraculous shifts in perspective, attitude, and behavior. (“When I grow up,” I would say to myself, “I want to be like Julio.”) I also met Bob Dunham, a protégé, who later would become a colleague and friend.

I took numerous courses from them over nine years, getting schooled in ontological distinctions. When the three of them went their separate ways in 1991, I followed Julio and took his newly formed organization’s (Newfield Network) coach training program. It was excellent and the first chance I had to formally learn several very powerful models that shifted the world as I saw and thought about it. I was a mentor coach for the programs and the models continue to inform the ways I engage in life.

(4). Two years later, I was still getting over a recent divorce. Part of my support system included having monthly dinners with friends of mine, Tim Maloney and his wife, Judy. For five successive dinners at a Thai restaurant hole-in-the-wall, Tim asked me if I was interested in attending an introductory event offered by Landmark Education Corporation (LEC). His wife was an instructor there. Each time, I gracefully deflected and declined the invitation. The sixth time Tim made the same offer, however, I found myself responding differently. I wondered what Tim saw about me and this program that had him persist in asking. Since I didn’t have an answer, it prompted me to accept the offer.

This led to eleven years of attending and participating in LEC programs, with extraordinary learning, self-leadership development, and relationship building. I even became a global master coach for one of the senior communications programs for seven years. I also made and sustained several best friendships that have gotten stronger over more than 25 years.

(5). More recently, I met a colleague, Joe Slatter, at a Birkman Method Assessment conference in Houston in 2014. I attended his session on something he called Better Practice and was grabbed by the elegance and relevance of what he distinguished. It warranted a further discussion afterward and we hit it off famously from the start. I could see a possible future together worth pursuing and have done so since.

We have become excellent friends, colleagues, and thought partners. Our collaboration has taken many forms and become the basis for a start-up working relationship and channel partnership to deliver leadership development (mostly leadership coaching) services for one of Joe’s clients.

His work has infused my ways of thinking, observing, and acting. My clarity and congruence have deepened as a result. My adaptability and agility in thinking have expanded considerably while my ability to remain connected and unattached has also improved. I now have given myself permission to speak (more) authentically, responsibly, and with compassion. In doing this, I’ve gotten (more) out of my own way to be of service to others.

I love the trajectory. And the process I went through to arrive at this perspective. I also can see that at each of these five intersections with new people in my life, I brought curiosity and an appreciative perspective that energized my engagement and what I could learn along the way.

What about you? What’s your perspective? Have you made time to take stock? If so, what did you discover and what, if anything, did you do with that information? Seems like a great opportunity.

As always, I’d love to hear what you want to share. Let’s do this.

#selfleadership #designyourlife #powerofreflection