Diane Bolden’s Synchronistically Speaking

The lights are dimming and the crowd begins to hush. Music blares from all corners of the dark, expansive room. A spotlight illuminates the stage and cuts a circle in the red velvet curtain that falls from the ceiling above. In front of that curtain are proud parents and antsy siblings squirming in their seats, eager to be entertained. And behind it are nervous school children with hearts pumping and nerves tingling.

Last week my daughter was in a variety show along with a myriad of other students at Hopi Elementary School. They practiced for months. And I was one of a myriad of parents that toted children back and forth from rehearsal to rehearsal where the kids gradually perfected their acts and readied themselves for the spotlight. Finally their time had come.

As with every talent show, there were those who burst onto the stage with contagious energy and bright smiles, soaking up every ounce of the experience. And there were others who walked onto the platform and suddenly shrunk inside themselves, painfully aware that an entire auditorium of people were staring at them, watching and waiting expectantly.

I couldn’t help but think how every one of us has likely been in both categories at one time or another. Maybe not in a talent show, or on any kind of stage at all. But in our own everyday lives. In the theatre of our work, in the arena of our interaction with others — colleagues, customers, bosses, friends and acquaintances. Sometimes we rise to the occasion and we are present, effusive, bright and shining with enthusiasm and warmth. And other times we wither and withdraw — intimidated, nervous, awkward and doubtful.

In the latter scenario, there is no judge more critical than the one that lives in our own heads. Allowing it to hijack our attention, we quietly exit the scene while our bodies remain, vacant and taking up space. We nod our heads and smile, hear what others say and even comment sometimes. But we are far more engaged in an internal dialogue that has us believing we are not good enough, that we must be a little more of this or less of that. It has us planning and evaluating what we will say in response to a person who hasn’t even finished speaking, their words eclipsed by the roar of preoccupation going on between our own ears.

This is a dismal state to be in. In the midst of all the cruel self-judging, that part of us that is brilliant and loving, warm and engaging in whatever way is uniquely ours is dismissed. Or perhaps disallowed. How could we let it come forth while we banter about in our heads that we need to be anyone other than who we really are?

At the variety show, I really don’t believe the audience would judge a poor kid standing speechless or stuttering at the edge of the stage — but rather would cheer him on, showering him with beams of encouragement and love, silently wishing for him to loosen up, forget about the audience and have a little fun just being himself. And perhaps it is that way in our arenas as well.

When we withhold ourselves, we cheat others of experiencing the brilliance of who we really are. But before we cheat them of it, we cheat ourselves. Many of us are taught and conditioned to be humble and avoid the appearance of arrogance. But we confuse arrogance with self love, which is actually a prerequisite to humility. True arrogance is the product of someone who has no self love, and tries desperately to convince others he is superior and worthy of the very thing he denies himself of.

True humility occurs when we embrace our own greatness and love ourselves in a way that we don’t have to worry about how we are coming across or what others think of us, because we already know we have value. In embracing our own value and allowing our brilliance to shine, we light the way for others to do the same. It is this brilliance that will transform our world, that brings with it the creativity and ingenuity to rise up to our challenges and allow us to do things we never thought we could. Far from being self absorbed, sharing our brilliance in this way is the most generous and loving thing we could do for others. But before we can do it for them, we must do it for ourselves.

So the next time you find yourself engaging in a vicious dialogue that has you believing you are anything less than who you are and keeps you from bursting onto the scene, recognize that for what it is — an old pattern that isn’t doing you or anyone else any favors. The less you feed that dialogue, the less “self absorbed” you are and the more generous you can be with your brilliance. The audience begs you: come onto the stage, forget that you are being watched, have a little fun being who you really are — and show us all how to truly shine.

Have you ever found yourself stuck in a lousy place, just not sure how to pull yourself back up?  When we get that way, often times we tend to focus on things that will just bring us further down – evidence that supports why we have good reason to feel lousy.  But every once in awhile, we open our eyes to find simple gifts that have the power to snap us out of it and bring us back to a better place.  This week’s video is about my experience with a dear friend, who did just that for me many years ago – in a way that I will never forget.

Here’s what I said in the video…

There was a time in college I remember coming home just so down – in a really bad place. I had just taken an exam and I was sure I just totally blew it. And I think I was behind on several papers… and the guy I had a crush on didn’t even know I was alive… and I just felt terrible!

I came back and my roommate was there and I thought “oh this is great – I have somebody to unload on”. So I just pounced.

“Oh listen to what happened to me today, and then I did this, etc., etc., etc.” And I was just in my thing.

My roommate turned around – and I wasn’t sure what she was doing, so I just kept talking at her. And she turned around [with a hanger wrapped around her head and a perfectly serious face] and just said “oh yeah, I’m sure that was really hard, yeah…”.

To this day, when I get all hung up in my stuff, I think back to my little hanger head roommate and I realize that when we think everything is falling apart and nothing’s going to get better, there’s always something somewhere that will make us smile – and sometimes it’s just right in front of us.

Make the most of what is right in front of you.

Have you ever bought a piece of exercise equipment that ultimately became a place to hang your laundry? How about fresh vegetables that rotted at the bottom of your refrigerator while you ended up consuming fast food instead? Do you have any “how to” or personal/professional development books on your shelves that you never actually finished (or read at all)?

Sadly, I can answer yes to all of these questions. I also own more cookbooks than many gourmet chefs do – most of which have unfortunately never seen the light of my kitchen. It’s a mysterious phenomenon. I buy all of these things with good intentions, and it feels good to purchase them, as though I am one step closer to achieving some kind of goal for myself. But somewhere in the execution stage, things often go awry (or never go at all).

This is not unlike what many of my clients experience when they are in the midst of trying to make a change. They know what they want, and in some cases have read articles and books or attended classes to learn step by step processes – and even made some progress. But for whatever reason they often find themselves falling back into old patterns that keep them from achieving the success they seek.

Perhaps it is a leader in the midst of trying to be more strategic that gets sucked into doing operational tasks that should really be delegated to others. Or someone working on channeling his passion and energy into influencing people by inspiring them gets frustrated and ends up relying on his authority (or his temper) to get what he wants. Whatever the change that people seek, they are bound to experience resistance and frustration in the midst of transitioning from an old pattern into a more productive, constructive and effective one.

The good news, I always tell people, is that if you are frustrated that you have been unable to make progress, you have actually made more progress than you realize.

At the very least, you have recognized that your current behavior is simply not working for you anymore, and are immersed in feeling the negative impact that behavior is having on your effectiveness. Without experiencing the pain of a behavior we want to change, there is very little likelihood that we will be motivated to do what it takes to get where we want to go. And the first step to making any kind of change is to become aware of the patterns and habits we are currently falling into, so that we can interrupt the knee jerk reaction that compels us to keep engaging in them.

You see, the part of self improvement that most people are accustomed to is that which entails learning a new skill. As Abraham Maslow pointed out many years ago, we start out in a phase of unconscious incompetence, where we don’t even know what we don’t know. In this phase, we may believe the change we want to make should be easier than not. My preteen kids, for instance, believe they can drive cars because they do it all the time in their video games.

The second learning stage we reach is conscious incompetence, where we realize how very little we actually do know – which is what will happen the first time my children actually get behind the wheel of a real car (just like it did for me so many years ago). This is a painful and often humiliating phase that makes reverting back to the habits and patterns we do know – but are trying to move away from – all the more enticing.

The third learning stage is conscious competence, where we begin to achieve success in learning and executing a new skill – but we have to work at it, sometimes peeking at our notes to remember what to do next and/or how to do it correctly. I remember that when I learned how to drive a stick shift, I initially had to tape a diagram onto the dashboard that reminded me where each gear was, and make each shift with deliberate and focused intention.

The fourth stage is unconscious competence, where we know something so well, we no longer need to think about it much – which is where most people are when they attempt to text, talk on the phone, eat and do all kinds of other crazy things while they are driving. We get to the place where the thing we are doing comes so naturally , we may even feel as though we could do it in our sleep.

While this four stage learning process is often acknowledged as being vital to learning new things, we often overlook the fact that making a change also requires us to unlearn old things. In other words, the behavior most people are trying to change is so engrained that they are at the stage of unconscious competence with it: it kicks in without them even realizing it – because to a large degree it is on automatic pilot.

Until we learn to dismantle the old behaviors, the impulses and conditioned actions will always threaten to override our deliberate efforts at implementing something new – especially if it flies in the face of what we did before.

Q. So how do you dismantle old behavior?

A. You have to start at the phase the old behavior is at (unconscious competence) and move backwards.

Before we can make the change we seek, we have to become aware of the degree to which the old behavior kicks in without us even realizing it. And once we realize it, we have successfully moved down the ladder from unconscious competence to conscious competence – where we are doing what we are doing, but with awareness. This is exactly the phase people are at when they feel consumed with frustration at not being able to make the change they seek. They have begun to realize just how strong their impulse to do what they’ve always done is and how often it kicks in. Combine this with the frustration people experience at the stage of conscious incompetence while becoming proficient with a new behavior – where they are painfully aware of just how much they don’t know – and it’s no wonder people have such difficulty making lasting change.

But the intersection between conscious competence with an old behavior, and conscious incompetence with a new behavior is the very threshold at which change happens. If we can just stick with it long enough and continue to pay attention, we can catch ourselves in the midst of engaging in an old behavior and interrupt the pattern. The more often we do this, the better we get at it – and eventually we can move the old behavior from conscious competence to conscious incompetence – where we are deliberately choosing not to engage in it anymore. At the same time, we can move up the ladder with our new behavior – from conscious incompetence to conscious competence – the stage at which we achieve some success with applying what we are learning.

The bottom line is that change is hard. And it takes time. We need to give ourselves credit for showing up and keep on plugging away. Thomas Edison once said, “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”

I like to tell a story in my workshops that illustrates the process of making a change. You may have heard it before:

A guy walks down a street and falls into a hole. He is not happy about it and feels like a victim.

The next day, he walks down the same street and falls into the hole again. He is frustrated with himself, because he knew better.

On the third day, he walks down that street, begins to fall into the hole again, catches himself, and manages to avoid it.

On the fourth day, he walks down the street, sees the hole and consciously steps around it.

On the fifth day, he walks down another street.

Will Rogers once said, “If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.” I would echo his advice and add – become aware of the fact that YOU are holding the shovel. Use it to get yourself out of the hole. And before too long, you will learn to take another street.

The above article contains excerpts from my book, The Pinocchio Principle: Becoming the Leader You Were Born to Be, available on Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com.

Businessman on ladder photo by Ambro.