Author: Toku

by Toku on Meditations

What To Do When You Don’t Feel Like Doing Anything

This article contains affiliate links which means I may make a small commission if you use the link to purchase.

This morning I woke up and found myself lying in bed scrolling through Instagram. I’m not supposed to do that. I’m a powerful coach, a deep spiritual practitioner, a human being on purpose, but that’s what I was doing.

Each year I take most of December off and I enjoy these slow mornings where I can do my practice or watch TV. Work on a new book idea or simply read one for hours in bed. I love my Decembers and yet, each January when it comes time to return to work, I don’t feel like doing anything for about a week.

I don’t feel like checking my email, starting a new project, exercising, or getting on client calls. My body feels like an object in perfect stillness at the center of a frozen universe. It doesn’t want to move, think, or put in effort in any way.

This is where I found myself this morning. Knowing that with a few clicks, I could continue my marathon of The Office, or lose myself in shopping for a valentine’s day gift, or just look at pictures of other people doing stuff.

And when I find myself here I have found a few ways to get myself out.

STEP 1 – Get out of bed.

I can literally go anywhere else in the place I’m staying. The kitchen, the bathroom, the couch in the living room. Just the simple act of getting out of bed moves my energy. It takes me from horizontal to vertical, from inert to active. It can feel like a hard step (even though logically you may think it shouldn’t be hard) but getting out of bed really helps.

STEP 2 – Make the bed

I know, super lame. But making a bed reduces the chances you are going to get back into it. And it invokes your adult mind. Your day matters. Your bed matters. You are preparing your bed for when you will meet it again tonight. At the end of the day you’ll look at your bed and remember that you love yourself. You have set the stage for sleep.

Sleep that will happen later. Not now. Because now there is a day.

STEP 3 – Drink Something (not alcohol)

Water, tea, coffee, juice, it doesn’t matter, but you get bonus points for preparing something to drink. Drinking is a ritual. I spend 10 – 20 mins making coffee every morning. I hand grind beans. I measure water. Yes I’m a bit of a snob about coffee, but this ritual makes a difference to me.

I am preparing something for myself. I am preparing myself for the day. Plus it’s a simple and embodied activity. It is NOT on a screen. It is in the physical world. I boil water, measure beans, time the brew. All of these things are here in this world, where your life is.

STEP 4 – Do something that turns on your mind and/or body

Either one of these works. I mean both are better. But the key is to read something that turns on your mind or do something that turns on your mind or body.

If you’re going to read, pick a devotional, or maybe something on meditation. Bonus points if the chapters are short and inspiring. Anything by Pema Chodron* is great. Or Zen Mind Beginner’s Mind*. The Book of Awakening* is Dope. I even wrote a devotional for coaches, which you can pre-order right now.

Just read something that makes you think. Not the news. Not Facebook. Probably not even a blog post. Something that invites your mind into a deeper experience of yourself.

Same with exercise. It doesn’t have to be intense. Yoga, tai chi, gentle stretching. I love the stuff put out by Gold Medal Bodies. But just move, for 10-15 mins. Anything is better than nothing.

You are invoking engagement through movement. You are creating momentum which can carry you into the day.

STEP 5 – Write or draw something

Do morning pages or write a post about not wanting to do anything. Or just journal for 5-10 mins. Both exercise and reading have a quality of receiving. This is why you need to move very gently into creating.

You don’t have to write or draw anything good. Crap is fine. Maybe even better. The point is to shift. From laying to standing. From mental space to physical space. From preparing to moving. And then from receiving to creating.

So create something. Anything. It can be small. I write little poems sometimes.

The dog upstairs
barks with a low and yearning tone
I hear her
calling for the woods
through the plate glass window
that separates her
from the wild and the past

It’s probably not a great poem. It doesn’t matter. I created it. Now I am creating.

STEP 6 – Begin your day

You’re ready now. You’ve warmed up. You are already doing something. And now that you’re doing something you can do something else.

You could review your tasks for the day, you could work on the hardest one, you could answer your email. Whatever it is. You can more easily move from doing to doing.

And what if you get stuck?

Now you have 5 things you can try to get back on track.

  1. Stand up
  2. Prepare something for later
  3. Drink something
  4. Move or read
  5. Create something

As I move throughout my day I use these simple tasks as a way to bring myself back. Back from the land on inertia and indifference.

You were not made to lay about. You were made to give your gifts to the world.

All it takes is a small reset to remember.

*This article contains affiliate links which means I may make a small commission if you use the link to purchase.

 
by Toku on Mindset

You Are Wrong About Freedom

I talk to a lot of people who long to be free. They want to express themselves, travel the world, live in the moment, go with the flow, and experience life as a boundless possibility.

I get the desire for freedom because freedom seems to offer so much possibility. And a lot of other things we want have the promise of freedom wrapped up in them.

Wealth is really about the freedom to buy any experience or item you want. Attractiveness gives you greater freedom to choose partners. Confidence gives you the freedom to take risks and be yourself.

But even though freedom is compelling I found that people who seek freedom rarely achieve it. Because . . .

When it comes time to do work, they don’t feel like it. When it comes time to invest energy into a big project, their doubts arise. When a relationship is challenging, they’re looking for the exit.

But the missing piece in all of this is the freedom to commit.

If freedom is all about the ability to choose what we want, then having the ability to NOT exercise our freedom is an integral part of that ability.

I’d say it’s at least 50% of freedom and it may be the most important half.

How we relate to commitment –

Often the way we relate to commitment is that it’s a trap. It’s something we say we’re going to do, a person we promise to be with, a project we’re going to complete and then immediately we feel the restriction of that.

What a moment ago was a choice, now is a prison.

Many of us have felt the burden of the commitments to school, a partner we no longer love, or a project we don’t really care about anymore. This burden can make us feel like commitment is never a good idea and always a trap.

But this is a very basic understanding of commitment.

If you look up various definitions of commitment you’ll read words like dedication, and engagement. But you’ll also read words like obligation and restriction.

Both are parts of what a commitment is, but what makes the biggest difference is how we relate to our commitments.

If you choose to take your commitment and turn it into a parent. Into a thing that is oppressing you.

That’s how it will feel. And then freeing yourself from that will feel liberating.

I made a commitment to work. But work feels hard. I’m afraid my writing, coaching, or whatever will be bad.

So I’ll rebel. It will be like a kid when I snuck a cookie from the jar. It will feel so good.

Except when you do this over and over again, you’re not free.

The freedom you’re creating is an illusion.

You built a prison and escaped from it.

But the cycle repeats again and again.

The path out.

The pathway out of this is to make a commitment. Not as an obligation, or should, but as a choice from a part that is deeper than the part that seeks a sort of false freedom.

When you do this you may actually experience a whole new kind of freedom. The freedom of commitment.

At the monastery, I never had to decide when to wake up. That freed me up to focus on practice, to be engaged with my life. I was free from that choice because of my commitment. Some mornings I love it, others I hated it, but the freedom was there either way.

Part of why I ask for a minimum of 6 months of commitment in my coaching is the freedom that it offers.

We’re not wondering week to week if we’re doing this. We’re here. We’re in. Stuff will come up, but we’ll face it together.

For me, that offers a very deep kind of freedom. A kind of freedom that is only possible on the other side of commitment. It took me a long time to learn this and it still shows up from time to time.

I don’t want to write when I said I would. I wonder what it would be like to be with someone else when I’m in a relationship. I dream about having so much money I wouldn’t ever have to budget or plan I could just get what I wanted.

But when I look at people with a lot of wealth, or fame, or beauty. Not many of them seem really free to me. In some ways many of them seemed the most trapped of all.

I’ve learned to understand that while the first kind of freedom feels good in the moment, over time the freedom commitment offers is even better.

It’s the freedom to choose and be with my choice. It’s the freedom to be with the hard parts of life without needing it to be different. It’s the freedom to find new ways to empower what’s happening and truly live in the present moment, even when that present moment is challenging.

So for me, there’s no freedom without commitment. Not random or obligated commitment. But the kind of commitment that comes from a place deep inside of me.

 
by Toku on Mindset

How To Lead When Things Fail?

I’ve worked with executives in a range of fields, from the entertainment industry to advertising. I’ve seen a lot of incredible successes, but I’ve also seen my fair share of spectacular failures. And what I’ve noticed is that failure brings out the best and worst in leaders. It’s when the blaming and complaining starts, but it’s also when the best leaders do their best work.

While it would be easy to give you a list of 5 things great leaders do when they fail, the biggest difference actually comes down to one thing.

They own it.

They admit that they failed; they look failure in the eye; they come to terms with it; and they feel all the anger, frustration, sadness, hopelessness, and grief that comes along with it.

And they don’t just do this when things don’t work out. They actually start from here.

Before they begin the project and take the risk, they accept that failure is part of leading. They know the plans won’t always pan out and they come to terms with that.

What’s even more amazing is that they do this without losing any of their enthusiasm. They aren’t like some founders that are all hype and talk, whose egos are so fragile any mention of defeat will cause them to collapse. Rather, they look at failure right in the eye and smile.

It’s not that they know they’ll be successful—they know success is always a mix of skill and
luck—they simply choose to be responsible for leading if that happens. They choose to lead if the storm comes. They choose to lead no matter what.

It’s so simple and yet what so many leaders miss. Leadership isn’t really about leading when things go well. It’s about leading no matter how things go.

 
by Toku on Skillset

My Simple Cheat Sheet to Customer Service

Mostly we look at customer service like we look at cleaning out our garage; it’s something we have to do. The mess piles up. People complain. We want our customers to be happy and yet we find them impossible to please and incredibly annoying at times.

All of this happens because of the way complaints or upsets occur to us. Mostly complaints and upsets occur as something that is being done to us or happening to us.

We hear the feedback and before we know it, we’re assessing if we agree or disagree with it. We’re looking to see if this is our fault or not.

If it is our fault, we feel bad but it may not stop us from getting defensive.
If it isn’t our fault then we either get really defensive because MAN is this not on us OR we put on an act for our customers.

We pretend they’re being reasonable, we act as if this is our fault (even though it’s definitely not).
But whether or not it’s our ‘fault’ there’s a better way to relate to customer service.

Customer service is about being with our customers.
Whether they’re being reasonable or not. Whether they are right or not.

If you choose to have customers, you take the risk of dealing with unreasonable people.

 
by Toku on Mindset, Skillset

Why I Make My Bed in Hotel Rooms Now

When I worked as a roadie I never made my bed in hotels. Sure I would pick up trash and try not to leave the room as a total disaster (something I wasn’t always effective at), but I never made my bed.

After all, I thought, they’re just going to strip the sheets anyway.

Then I noticed how it made me feel.

I noticed that when I left my room, I felt a bit sad, a bit like a slob, a bit like I don’t really care about myself or my bed.

So I started making it. No military corners or tight lines, but I’d place the pillows in a good place, pull up the comforter and fold it over.

As I sat there and looked at my bed, it felt complete.

Leadership at times is like this, it’s making a bed that someone else will simply mess up.
It’s being something and creating something in the face of that very thing being undone.
Right now as our world is going through so much, you may see this great being undone as a reason not to lead.

When in fact, it’s when we need your leadership the most.

 
by Toku on Mindset, Skillset

Be With Complaints Like Rain

If you have a baby, it’s going to cry, and if you lead people, they are going to complain. This isn’t a diss on people.

It’s not that people are whiny, but quite the opposite. Our capacity to deal with tremendous challenges and adversity is incredible, but we also complain.

We complain because we’re not happy.
Because we don’t know what to do.
Because we feel like we don’t have power.
Because we want to be seen and loved and listened to.

The challenge for you as a leader is how to respond to these complaints.

“Yeah yeah I hear you”, without really listening
“OMG I HAVE TO FIX THIS”
“This complaining is SO annoying”

But none of these will get you anywhere.

So instead, be with complaints like rain: let them tell you the weather and show you where new leadership is ready to grow, while also letting it roll off of you.

Rain isn’t personal. And even when it seems that way, complaints aren’t either.

 
by Toku on Mindset, Poetry, Skillset

How To Discover Your Life Purpose In 3 Easy Steps

Each year at the monastery we did a retreat all about discovering your life’s purpose. It was a whole week of sitting in deep meditation, completing exercises about what our lives meant to us and asking ourselves why we were here on this earth.

My last year at the monastery I decided I was really going to go for it during this retreat. I was determined to discover my life’s purpose so deep, true, and powerful that I would have no doubt what my life was really about.

So I sat like my hair was on fire, I dug deep with each of the questionnaires I filled out, and I searched each part of myself to discover what my true life purpose was.

But nothing happened. All I found was fog. A deep and unrelenting fog that covered over every answer that I sought. It seemed like the more I dug, the more I probed, the more I searched for answers, the further that answer moved away from me.

This fog lasted for months and my meditation became like a dry desert devoid of life and insight. I felt hopeless, angry, lost, confused, and desperate for anything else to arise. But nothing did. The field of my purpose was vast and empty.

Then one day during meditation I gave up and something shifted, my purpose arose in me from a place I didn’t even know existed.

It’s so simple and yet each time I say it I go back to those hours on the cushion, that moment of clarity, and the expansion of my heart.

And I’d like to give you a little taste of that as well. Which is why I want to share with you a simple process to discover your life’s purpose.

STEP 1 – Study Purpose

To start, you need to study purpose and what it means to have one. A great place to start is the first chapter of Steven Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People – Start with the End In Mind.

In this chapter, he invites you to do a simple exercise where you imagine yourself at your own funeral and you consider what people might say about you. It’s a confronting exercise but a deeply powerful one.

But don’t stop there. Consider other ways to discover your purpose. Write your own obituary. Sit in meditation with the question ‘Who am I?’ on every inhale allowing space for any answer to arise as you exhale.

  • Read Voice of Vocation by Parker Palmer
  • Read Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
  • Read the War of Art and Do the Work by Steven Pressfield
  • Read Siddhartha by Herman Hess
  • Read Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron
  • Read Ruling Your World by Sakyong Mipham

Find other books and read them. I’ve read all of these and more. Become a student of purpose. Do ALL the exercises and the writing, reading isn’t enough you have to dive into purpose.

You may find that you have a clear purpose or mission statement, you might stumble on something deeply profound. If you do, write it down, sit with it, enjoy it, play with it, and be with it. Don’t worry about if it’s the right or final answer. Just be with it and see what happens.

STEP 2 – Thrash

If you’ve got a purpose statement or a purpose nugget now, great. If not, that’s ok too. Pick one. It’s ok if it’s a bad one, but pick something you’re going to practice with. Choose it powerfully.

Then put your whole life behind it.

If your purpose is to save the whales, then join organizations about saving whales, read books, do fundraising, talk about it with your friends, do letter writing campaigns, protest, and take trips to see whales in the wild.

If your purpose is to become a great writer, write every day, read every book on writing you can get your hands on, hire a writing coach, study other writers, take a writing class, analyze your own writing, and fight the demons of resistance. Write, write, and write some more.

Whatever you choose, put your whole life behind that choice. Really go for it.

Thrash like a maniac.

At some point, your purpose may lose its juice, if it does, stick with it a bit longer. If it doesn’t get stronger after the dip, it may be time to let it go. See if there’s something deeper there, if not, just choose another purpose and throw yourself into it.

At some point, you’ll see something. I can’t describe what it will be. It’s different for every person. It may not be a moment of total clarity, but something will happen and when it does, notice.

Write down your purpose. You’ve got a nugget now. A nugget defined by thrash and life, not just some theory of purpose.

A note of caution: phase 2 can take years. It doesn’t always, but be patient and diligent through this phase.

STEP 3 – Turn your purpose into a question

To be honest, a purpose is sort of meaningless. Your purpose may be to give a voice to children who don’t have one or to bring more magic into the lives of everyone you meet. My purpose is to serve those walking the path of awakening in a deep and fundamental way.

These are great purposes, but they are just bars. Bars which you measure yourself against. A good purpose is often a high bar and at times can feel intimidating, so turn your purpose into a question.

  • How can I give a voice to children who don’t have one?
  • How can I bring more magic into the lives of everyone I meet?
  • How can I serve those walking the path of awakening in a deep and fundamental way?

Then begin to answer that question with your life. Don’t worry about it being a BIG answer.

Sometimes the answer will be small. I can serve awakening by being kind to my server at a restaurant. By offering an acknowledgment to someone who upset me. By writing an article and posting it to my blog.

Sometimes the answer will be big. I can serve awakening by writing a best selling book, having a life changing conversation with a powerful leader, or founding a spiritual center.

Don’t be afraid of the big answers. Don’t overlook the small one.

Turn your whole life into an answer to that question. Become the answer.

Get to work

That’s it, that’s the magic formula. I get that it might feel daunting. Life is daunting. It’s this vast span of decades with no clear instructions. It’s this blink of an eye experience that vanishes before we expect it to. Life is a paradox and a question. What will you do with me?

But it’s a worthy question to ask and answer.

Without my purpose, my life wouldn’t mean much, not because my life wouldn’t offer value or have an impact on those I care about, but because I have to decide what it means.

My purpose is my choice. My life is about awakening, for myself and for others. This is my task.

Doing the work is worth it, even (and most often) when you don’t think it is. So get to work.

 
by Toku on Skillset

Stop Endlessly Coaching Your Team

Your job as a leader is to help others to become leaders themselves.

—

In my experience as an executive coach working with leaders from all over the world, 90% of your on-the-ground leadership happens inside of conversations.

You set goals, people go to work, and stuff goes wrong. Sometimes you correct a problem one time and that’s it. The team gets it and they fix the problem for good.

Sometimes the problem keeps happening. When it does, it DRIVES YOU CRAZY!!! There’s new problems all the time, so the old problems that stick around can be infuriating.

Most of the time, as a leader, you do a crappy job at these conversations, partially because of frustration and partially because you’ve never really practiced them.

So I’m going to break down step by step the exact process I’ve taught people to use when they talk to their distracted co-founder, their smart but underperforming coder, and even their kind but fumbling assistant.

Not only will this framework help you be more calm, but it will greatly increase the likelihood of not having to have as many of the same conversations over and over again.

You are going to need to start by learning how to talk to people.

How to Prepare for a Why Does This Keep Happening Conversation

You’re likely going to have your own thoughts and feelings about an issue or person before you talk to them. As a leader, it’s important that you address and put aside your personal feelings before entering into a conversation so that you can successfully hear the other person and move forward together. Do the following to get yourself clear and prepared:

1. Let go of being right – If you’re a human being, you are probably pretty sure you’re right about what’s wrong and how to fix it. Especially if there are issues with the other person. The team member may be lazy, inattentive, out of integrity, or at least some version of hopeless. I know you want to be right about them and that’s OK. In order to prepare, you need to start by trying to let that go. Assume that you don’t have all the information and don’t know exactly what’s going on. Then, assume you are at least as responsible, if not more than they are. If you struggle with this, make sure you do the next step.

2. Process your emotions – There are bunches of ways to do this. You can write things out, bang on pillows, or you can simply have a venting session. The idea is that you express or write down ALL of the thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations that come up when you think about this person or situation. Get them all out without filtering, in a safe place. Write an angry email (don’t address it or send it) or talk to a trusted advisor. Coaches are especially helpful for something like this.

3. Just the facts, ma’am – Once you get the feelings out, next write down just the facts of the situation. Like the things a camera could record. Word for word what they said. Moment by moment what happened. Try to notice any judgments or assessments. Descriptors like slow, dumb, incompetent, and late are all assessments/judgments. Try to be as clean as possible. If you notice more feelings come up, go back to Step 2 and get them out. That’s OK to do.

4. Get clear on your side – Try to look at what you could have done differently and what you can be responsible for. If it was 100% on you, why might that be the case? It’s probably not all your fault, but it probably isn’t 100% theirs either. Your ability to point to your mistakes will open up a safe space to admit common problems. Remember, taking responsibility is part of your job as a leader.

How to Structure Coaching Conversations

Once you’ve prepared and are clear on your end, you’re ready to actually talk to the other person. Here is a framework for the conversation that will help you to sit down with them most effectively and move in a direction you both want to go. These steps are best done in order. No matter how much you want to get your perspective across first, I’ll urge you to listen before sharing. (Note: This sample conversation comes after previous conversations addressing the same problem. Don’t get hung up on that. The structure can be used at any time.)

1. Set the context – Be simple, direct, and state the outcome you want. Get on their side and look at the problem together.

  • “Hey I wanted to talk with you. I notice that we keep having the same problem crop up again and again. I don’t really want that to keep happening and I imagine you might also feel like I’m nagging you. I want to talk about it so we can see what the breakdown is and find a way forward.”

2. Identify the problem – Refer back to the ‘just the facts’ process. Explain what you understand is happening. Take time to pause and see if you missed anything.

  • “So here’s what I’m noticing. When I ask you about the sales numbers you express enthusiasm and yet we have missed our target 5 times in the last 90 days. I just want to check in. Do I have that right? Was I unclear on the targets at any point? Or are we on the same page that the targets were clear and we haven’t been hitting them?”

  • “I also want to be clear that we’ve talked about this 3 times. I’m sure I could have been better in those conversations but I just want to make sure that I’m not confused that we’ve tried to address this in the past.”

3. Find out what’s missing for them – Get their take on why this keeps happening, listen to their experience, reflect what they say, and acknowledge that it makes sense. Do this even if it doesn’t make sense from your perspective. Try to get into the world view from which it does make sense.

  • “So I want to understand here. It sounds like sometimes you feel the targets are unrealistic and that I haven’t heard you when you’ve said that. Do I have that right? Ok, yeah I get that, that makes sense. It’s a hard conversation to have when we feel targets are off. I get that.”

4. Share your experience – After checking in with them, share your experience and take responsibility for your part in it. Refer back to your responsibility list or anything the team member brought up. Be honest. Be vulnerable. Don’t be a jerk. Share your feelings without putting blame on them.

  • “Are you open to hearing my experience? Great. Well, I struggle to know how to talk to you about this. You’re always so optimistic, which I really love, but it feels like we’re not on the same page about the numbers. I find myself often feeling wary before we talk and frustrated afterwards. I can see now that I haven’t taken the time to make sure you get why the numbers are what they are. I’ve also hid my frustration, which isn’t really fair to either of us. I’m sorry about those things. And I want to be able to have frank discussions about our numbers with you.”

5. Discover solutions together – After getting their buy-in, look at the problem together and come up with possible solutions or ways forward.

  • “Ok, how might we move forward in a better way? I really want our relationship to work and having the same conversation, again and again isn’t much fun for either of us. What solutions do you think we could employ?”

  • “Great, I think a mid-week check-in is a great idea. That way we can get ahead of the numbers before we’re too far behind.”

  • “I’d also like to create a set structure for how we deal with not hitting the numbers. I’d like to look at the numbers on Friday and then go through a few questions like, what impacted your numbers this week? What isn’t working? What can we try to improve things?”

6. Create agreement, recap, and acknowledge – Finally, once you’ve got some concrete steps, agree to what you’re going to work on and when, recap the discussion, and acknowledge them. Don’t skip the last part. Show them you appreciate who they are for the company and that you have their back (so long as you actually do).

  • “Great, so we’re going to do these two meetings and the questions I recommended and we’re going to start next week. Are you still a yes to those two? Great!”

  • “It also sounds like we were missing each other when we talked. You secretly thought the targets were unrealistic and I wasn’t being honest about my frustration. We each saw what was missing and we’ve come to some agreement on how to move forward.”

  • “I just want to close by thanking you for your candor. I know these conversations can be tough and I appreciate you being so honest with me.”

7. Follow up and inspect what you expect – Once the conversation is over, follow up with a brief write-up and, most importantly, DO WHAT YOU SAID YOU’D DO. If you want to not have the conversation again, stick to your commitments and check-in that they hold up their end too.

Conclusion

That’s it. Simple and direct. If you begin to prepare yourself for conversations with your team — especially conversations that have you emotionally charged — and take time to set context, listen, find what’s missing, and discover solutions together, you’ll start seeing incredible progress from your people. It’s a practice you can start today.

 
by Toku on Uncategorized

Can You Sing About Sales in Italian?

I decided to write a poem and adapt it into a short Italian aria.

(Which yes I will sing to you at the end of this post)

The music comes from another aria about lost love.

Because lost love has taught me a lot about sitting in tension.

The Art of Sitting In Tension

About 4 years ago I met a girl at an entrepreneurship summer camp. She was pretty, smart, and funny. We became friends and over the course of a few months, I developed feelings for her. She liked me but she wasn’t sure about long-distance (I lived in Portland, she lived in NYC).

Two days after our first date (outside of LA) I bought an overnight plane ticket to New York and showed up on her doorstep with roses. I told her I was moving to the city and asked her if she’d go out with me.

I remember the whole plane ride I sat in the tension of what she might say when I arrived.

–

About 8 months after that I asked her to marry me. I hadn’t planned on asking her. I mean the thought had crossed my mind, but I was going to wait for a few more months. And then I just decided. I dug through a box, pulled out my grandmother’s ring, and proposed.

It’s funny, most proposals don’t have much tension. Most people know the answer, but this felt different. I remember sitting in that tension as she looked at the ring and me.

–

Over the next two years, things shifted. Slowly at first, though if I’m honest the cracks were always there. We started fighting more, it became harder to communicate, she revealed she was more ambivalent about having kids than I had originally thought.

We had good moments, but it was hard. Probably harder than a 2-year-old relationship should be. But I was committed. I had proposed, I had chosen her, even when things were hard, I didn’t want to give up.

The Beginning of The End

One day during a couples coaching session, it hit me. She was hurting. I was too. I gave it some thought and wrote her a letter suggesting we find a way to end things. It took me two weeks but I finally read it to her. She took a couple of weeks and finally said she agreed.

We took 3 months to say goodbye. We divided our stuff. We did a small ceremony in our empty living room. And then it was over.

The tension that got created when I gave her that ring, finally released.

What this has to do with Sales

When I teach coaches about sales, I talk about the power of a proposal. The possibility it holds.

Inside this vision of the future you create with someone is a tension with the way things are now, a tension created from the resistance that we have to overcome.

This tension is a powerful force that creates both fear and clarity.

If you’re not grounded and honest, fear can easily take over.

Some salespeople use this fear to push people across the line.

Scarcity, pain point selling, hard closing tactics.

But if you slow down, this tension reveals everything.

It reveals the things that matter to you.

  • Things like wanting to have kids.
  • Things like a fear that things can’t change even if you try.
  • Things like how you have different visions of the future.
  • Things like a doubt that you will actually rise to the occasion when it finally arrives.

If you can sit with someone in that tension, you can sit with them in the very fire of change.

The important thing to remember is that any exit is a good one so long as you choose it powerfully.

You could say I failed to get married.

You could say our relationship failed.

But in some ways, our proposal, the tension, did exactly what it was meant to do.

We saw how we were no longer able to see the good in one another.

When our plan shifted, other things shifted too. At least for me, I found it much easier to love her and see her beauty when I took a future together off the table.

She was and is an incredible person. She’s just not my person. And I’m not hers.

The tension revealed that.

This is what is possible with sales. At its best, you see the best in me:

  • The insight, skill, and talent I can bring to the table as a coach.
  • The features and benefits of your signature product.
  • The talent and experience you have as an employee

And I see the best in you:

  • The commitment, openness, and passion you bring to the table as a client.
  • The drive you have for serving your customers and solving your toughest problems.
  • The culture and vision you have as an organization.

If it’s a fit, if we can defeat fear and create an incredible relationship. We create a commitment that becomes the foundation for change.

If it’s not a fit for either one of us for whatever reason, we say no and we walk away.

Ideally, we do this from an empowered kind of place.

Not an apology. But a choice.

If we can do that together, the tension serves its purpose.

It clarified and helped us to see what’s important.

But no matter the answer we have to sit.

  • We have to propose.
  • We have to choose to see the best in one another.
  • We have to have the courage to say yes. (hard)
  • We have to have the courage to say no. (even harder)

This is why I love sales.

It’s also why I still believe in wild, crazy, passionate, romantic love.

I am probably a sucker, but I have slowly learned that I don’t sell myself in love.

What I sell is a vision of the future.

And the vision I’ve got is one of adventure, play, romance, passion, and the beautiful simplicity of life.

I think I’ll find a buyer.

And until then, I’ll sit in this lovely tension.

The same tension I invite every person I coach.

To sit inside.

Love,

Toku

And here is the aria –

And here’s is the poem it’s based on –

To see the good in someone. Simply for being themselves Is a sacred gift To sit in the tension of commitment Is an act of courage and love Easy with an open heart Impossible in thought and comparison

–

Riconoscere il buono nelle altre persone. Solo per ciò che sono È un sacro dono Sostenere la tensione del fervore È un atto di coraggio e amore Se hai un cuore aperto è facile Se ti perdi in pensieri e confronti è impossibile

 
by Toku on Skillset, Uncategorized

7 Questions for Every Writer

It’s easy to go on an endless chase for likes and popularity, but more and more I keep returning to a fundamental question.

Who am I as a writer?
What do I want to say to the world?

So I offer this mostly to myself and maybe for you to consider as well.

How will it change people?
I want to change people –

Seth Godin says all marketing is about bending culture and I guess some part of me wants to change people, to change the way they think about life, about themselves.

My life’s purpose is to serve those walking the path of awakening. I want to wake people up, to life and to what’s possible. So this is what I want from my writing.

Does it change people? Does it wake them up? Or is it simply a distraction?

How will it change you?
I want it to change me –

When I write about my life I truly begin to understand it, it’s probably why my writing often feels like a stream of consciousness. I process as I write.

I want my writing to change me, the way I think, the way I view the world. If I challenge myself as a writer I will also challenge my way of thinking. I’ll become better. I’ll be more kind, more loving, more open, and more wise.

Is this writing making me better? Is it pushing me? Is it challenging the way I think?

Will you make art?
I want to make art –

I’ve wanted to be an artist my whole life.But I can’t paint, I can’t draw, I can’t code. It took me a long time to see words are my code and the reader’s mind is my canvas.

I don’t just want to write to inform or compell, I want to write to make art. I love reading other people’s writing because I can see the art of it. I want to do that, I want to keep making art, to write in a way that get something done with brilliance

Is this art? Is it creative? Can I say it with fewer words? Can I articulate it more clearly?

What will you leave?
I want to leave something –

I’m going to die. We all are. My writing too will also die. Few books and writers live on. But I still want to leave something.

I have an image in my mind of my grandchildren holding a book I wrote. Maybe it’s a book of poems, but I’m not sure yet.

I’ve read writing by both my grandfathers. It’s just these little snippets, but they are so lovely. It’s like they’re reaching across time.

It would be cool if my books lasted generations, but really I’d be fine if it just survived in my family. A small thing to leave, even though nothing really lasts.

Is this what I want to leave? What would I want to write that would matter 100 years from today? What about me is important to know? What have I learned I want to pass on? How might it help?

Can you love it?
I want to love it –

I don’t need to always love the process of writing. Sometimes it’s work. But mostly I want to love it. I want to feel the words flow out of me onto the page, even if the page is just 1’s and 0’s. Even if the writing is terrible.

Are you enjoying this? Are you inspired? Are you creating beauty? Are you seeing the beauty you’re creating?

Who will read it?
I want you to read it –

This can’t just be about me, it has to be about you too. I care about what you want, what you want to change, and what you want to be different about your life.

At the intersection of your concerns and my insight is where a conversation can happen. Even if my half is on the page and your half is in your mind;I want us to talk. And that means making a guess at where you are and doing my best to meet you there.

If I do this well we can meet each other even if we never meet.

What do you care about? Why should you read this? What might make you turn away? What can I say that would help you?

Will you write?
I want to write it –

At the end of the day, there is simply a commitment: to writing, creating, and spending the time crafting words. I am a writer. I almost don’t need anything other than that.

Writing can be its own justification. Like the best kind of love. You don’t love to get something or to give something. You love to love. You live to live.

As circular as it is, there’s a truth to it I can’t explain. Maybe that’s why I’m a writer.

Are you writing? Why not? What if you started? What if it being bad was ok? What if just writing was enough?

To be a writer.

It sounds so significant and grand, but it’s also humbling. I get to join this conversation. I likely won’t be the loudest voice, or the most poetic, or the most successful, but I can still add my part, my words, my love, my commitment to the mix.

This is who I am as a writer.

Who are you?