My 1st Project With altMBA (Seth Godin)

Have you ever wanted to do something for years but can’t seem to find the time? The event is compelling, the trip inspiring, but the timing just isn’t right?

For years I’ve wanted to attend Seth Godin’s altMBA.

I heard about the potent impact it has on people, but I could never find the time. But with the pandemic in full swing and my dating life on full pause I decided to take on this challenge not to get anything specific, but to have fun and get back into the mode of creation.

As I take on this challenge I want to share with you some of what I’m learning so you can consider what is possible when you step outside your comfort zone and do the thing you’ve wanted to do for so long.

How altMBA Works –

altMBA is a 30 day SPRINT And they aren’t kidding

You “ship” 12 projects in 30 days – that’s 3 projects a week.

Some of these projects you do alone, some of them you do working with a small group, but the idea is to learn by doing, by staying engaged, and getting feedback.


My commitment to altMBA My core commitment to altmba is to have fun, to learn, and to connect.


PROJECT #1

The first project for altMba was all about goals. How to set them and how to present them in a compelling way.

Because my commitment is to have fun I thought of goals like an investment.

I choose what I want to create and I have to convince myself that this thing I want is worth the investment of time and money.

For me, that meant creating a “PITCH” to convince myself that I should invest in this goal. The goal for me was to publish a book for new coaches. A book I have already written by the way, but haven’t gotten out into the world yet. *

So I treated myself like an investor and made the pitch which you can watch below

Any goal you make is an investment.

An investment of the most valuable resource you have. Your life. If you’re going to take on a goal, you need to make sure it’s a sound investment.

Why wouldn’t you treat this as the biggest pitch of your life?

https://vimeo.com/465642777

I hope my pitch inspired you in the same way it inspired me. Your life is so valuable, invest wisely, but once you do, go ALL IN.

Then I got some AMAZING feedback on my post.

The main things people mentioned were about WHY I was the one to write this book? Why did I care about it? What is the book really about? And what might I create in publishing it?

What it helped me see was that even when I am enrolling myself in a commitment I HAVE to keep why I’m the right person or why I’m doing something at the center.

I also learned that doing all of this is FUN and can be fun. It’s so easy for us to make things super heavy and significant instead of simply just enjoying the act of creation itself.

*Since this was written, the book has been published. Learn more here.

 

What does nature want?

I stand at the top of a hill staring down into the ocean Which pulls and presses at the smooth rock below This green-blue void has eaten away the earth

What does nature want?

The snow piles up on the back of ducks in a lake It weighs down the branches Of mighty proud oaks Until they crack and fall

What does nature want?

The rain falling endlessly turning earth to mud and green thick leaves cover every inch around me a wall of vines and chaos as unknown creatures slither through the cracks

What does nature want?

the stream whispering falling slowly over edges sprinkling the sunlight back up into my eyes the forest golden with the late day tiny bugs skitter across the surface

What does nature want?

You call me to come and play with you And yet threaten to kill me Like a friend with joy in one hand and a knife in the other enchantment and deep respect I know you want me to live To press my feet into your soil To spread my eyes across your vast openness To listen, with my rapt attention as you pour wind through everything around me Every moment I spend with you is both the answer and the question

What does nature want?

 

3 Reasons Why You Don’t Believe In Your Husband/Boyfriend’s Crazy Idea

Why You Don’t Believe In Your Husband/Boyfriend’s Crazy Idea

“He’s got this incredible vision for the future, but the problem is that I just don’t believe in it. It feels like a pipe dream and I feel like I can’t tell him that.”

Her face was so earnest and I could tell how much she loved her Fiance. He was a good man and she wanted kids. Because she was pushing 40 she was reluctant to find too much fault or take the risk of trying to start over with someone else.

She wanted to believe in him, but the vision he created (while inspiring) just felt unreal.

She told me about how he was struggling to get clients for his practice, how he’d sit on the couch for hours, how she had paid for coaching programs and consultants but despite her support he was floundering.

Of course she was already successful in their shared field which made his stuckness even harder to bear.

This wasn’t the first time I’ve seen this. A powerful, confident woman who loves a man who disappoints her and yet with all of her heart she wants to love or believe in him.

Why does this happen? Here’s what I’ve noticed . . .

1. Men Are Encouraged To Dream Big Before They’ve Really Grown Up

The heroes in the world of men are big thinkers. Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Tim Ferris to name a few. They have these iconoclastic playboy images that makes them the poster children for freedom and power. But they also embody a perpetual adolescence that can seem incredibly appealing.

For all of it’s problems, earlier times celebrated the stability and reliability of the common man. The man that provides for his family, works a stable job, coaches baseball, and fixes cars. Yes this image of men was also sexist, racist, and privileged, but in our desire to modernize masculinity we have also infantilized it.

Today, what gets left out is the need for men to be mature adults in their relationships. While it’s a good thing that men have been dethroned as the dominant providing force in their families, men have managed to toss off the need to be mature and capable adult partners in many cases staying as perpetual man children for an indeterminate amount of time.

And the ‘men’ that most men hold as heroes only perpetuate this problem. Men tend to focus on Big Dreams goals and ambitions or reject the idea of responsibility altogether, and the result is the same: they avoid this simple, mundane, and powerful practice of creating and/or co-creating a life of integrity, depth, and partnership.

2. MEN HAVE CONVINCED THEIR PARTNERS THAT THEY ARE FRAGILE

Part of this rests on the reality that masculinity is actually a pretty fragile construct. While our society has expanded to accept femininity as being expressed in many forms (from Britney Spears to Sheryl Sandberg) masculine status is easier to lose. Men are brutal on one another in the realm of using threats of lost masculine status as a tool to bully and control other men and many women are no different.

With all the progress we’ve made with women in the workforce, men who stay home with their kids are still looked at sideways. Of course this doesn’t equal in any way shape or form the disadvantages women have to face, but men are very present to the fragility of masculinity. Combine this with the BIG THINKING obsession many men hold and you get men who feel pressure to be iconoclasts while at the same time being secretly terrified of being castrated.

Then, they bring this whole rats nest of BS home to their partners by asking them to treat them as fragile little boys for whom the slightest criticism will cause them to collapse. They will revert into boys playing video games and getting stoned. The resultant numbing that shows up becoming the punishment for their partners expressing exasperation at how immature and unrealistic they were being.

Anyone in partnership with this kind of man will find themselves in a bind. Do I go along with their pie in the sky idea that I know is doomed to failure? Or do I criticize them and risk having to clean up the pieces of their delicate egos?

The result of all this is that many women and men relate to their masculine partners as fragile making it hard to criticize or talk about their dreams and purpose in any meaningful way.

3. FAKING BELIEVING IN BIG DREAMS CAUSES PARTNERS TO NOT REALLY TRUST THEIR PARTNERS

Faced with these shitty options many partners choose to pretend or fake belief in their partner’s bad ideas for a while until their belief reserves are totally depleted. What ends up happening is that their belief in their partners also falls apart.

Now not only are you humoring your partners crazy ideas but you start to humor them as well and usually start looking for the door.

BUT IT CAN ALL BE PREVENTED or at least stopped if you make a small shift.

STOP BELIEVING IN YOUR PARTNER’S STUPID IDEAS

Women and other partners of these kinds of men, it’s not your job to believe in their stupid or even great but unworkable ideas. Your partners aren’t really that fragile and they do have greatness within them.

What they really need is someone who believes in them. Who stands for the greatness, maturity, warriorship, and leadership within them. Not at the expense of practicality and equality but in alignment with it.

The trick is to simply focus your belief on them, their capability to vision and create a life for themselves. Encourage that, speak to that, and if you’re lucky they’ll start to step into that.

The alternative: lying to them until you’re exhausted and disappointed beyond repair OR coddling them by taking control of their lives like some weird co-dependent mother figure helps no one. Men don’t have to go back to being weird, dominant, sexist, jerks to be powerful.

They are (despite the evidence) capable of being both powerful, sexy, leaders and also conscious, deep, woke leaders.

It’s not your fault you don’t believe in their stupid idea. It’s also not totally their fault they’re concocted one. You’re both playing a game invented by unconscious men who managed to create some success.

 

Go First

It’s always easier to wait. For the other person to say I love you.

For the other person to apologize.

For the other person to admit how they’ve been wrong and stupid and childish

But don’t do the easy thing go first

Say I love you. Even if you’re not sure they’ll say it back.

Apologize even if you might be the more wronged party

Admit that you messed up screwed up and acted a fool

It takes a spoonful of humility and a bucket full of grace

But when you do go first and say

the thing that takes courage you can lead others from fear and doubt

into love and grace

and it all starts with going first

 

What Would I Love, What Would I Limit

Mostly people create from limitation or from dreams. Both are powerful, but both ignore the possibility of the other side.

When we live in dreams we imagine more freedom means better, when we live from limitation we think more clear boundaries means better. But seeking safety in a world that’s never safe or absolute freedom in a world where we’re tied to physical bodies doesn’t honor the wholeness of life. Which is part freedom, part limitation.

Instead, we can create even more when we sit at the feet of each teacher. Figuring out what we dream about and then trying to bound up those dreams into a plan, as well as creating strict limits and then working to fill each little square with as much life as possible. Both can be places of beautiful art and brilliant innovation so long as we remember that it is both the endless possibility of life and the proud presence of our mortality that gives life its sweet seasoning.

 

What Are You Willing To Create Bad Art For?

Most people would be willing to write a book if they knew it was going to be a bestseller.
Most people would be willing to go on a blind date if they knew they would fall in love.
Most people would even be willing to run into a burning building if they knew they could save a life and survive the experience with only minor injuries.

If the outcome is guaranteed the risk is minimal.

But choosing to do something, anything that really matters is risky.
In fact the more meaningful it is, the riskier it often becomes.

This is especially true of making art. Most people will never read this blog post. I doubt it will end up in the great books of history, but I’m writing it anyway.

I have a commitment to serve those walking the path of awakening: leaders, CEOs, working mothers, high school students. It doesn’t matter to me.

If you’re on the path I am committed to serving you.

I put in a few hours a week to write posts that will serve people on that path.
Some of them are not very good. Some are perfectly fine. Every now and again I write something truly transcendent and even then most people won’t read it.

I am willing to write bad posts that no one will ever read to serve my commitment.
I hope the posts are good, I try to share them with the world, I hope you’ll read them.

But my commitment is steadfast and enduring.

So the question is . . .
What are you willing to create bad art for?
What work are you willing to do even if it’s obscure and affects only a handful of people?
What are you willing to risk, to do something that matters?

 

With Them Vs Against Them: How Justice Relates To Leadership

Our system of justice is adversarial. The state tries to convict the accused of their crimes, the defense tries to protect the accused by challenging the state’s case. It’s through this system we have decided that justice is done.

Many people use a similar process in their lives. They make an accusation against the world. They cast themselves in the noble fight for justice and the world is their adversary. When you do this you are always against people.

You are up against the other people looking for a parking space, up against the other people lining up to buy groceries, up against the people who disagree with you, and up against the people you love to be more right, safe, and justified.

But if you’re against someone you can’t ever really be with them. Which is why leaders are always finding a way to be with people. You and I are here trying to get home. I can let you into my lane, because we are working together. You and I are here trying to buy food, so I motion when a new lane opens up. You and I are trying to give and receive love together, so I take responsibility, I share my needs, I am willing to be vulnerable first.

Leadership, true transformational leadership asks us to get with people, to stand with them and for them. So long as you are up against people your capacity for leadership will be limited. So long as you are with people facing the challenges of life your capacity for leadership increases.

 

Your Desire For Control Is Super Normal and Totally Absurd

I get it, we all want things to go a particular way. We get this image in our heads about how things might go, we dream, or we imagine. Part of what makes us so incredible is our ability to imagine, plan, and execute.

Just look at the pyramids, the Suez canal, the vast and complex organization of vaccine distribution. Sure it’s problematic but it’s incredible all the same.

So your desire for control is totally normal. Nothing could be more human than a desire to have things go a certain way.

And of course, it’s also totally absurd. Life with all of its wildness, its complexity, its variability laughs in the futile attempts to control it. And even if you make an exception for the wildness of nature, people are just as challenging.

We can hardly get our partners to load the dishwasher the way we want or even agree on the right way to put flowers into a vase. Much less get people to love us the way we want or listen to our well-reasoned arguments about how stupid they’re being.

At the foundation our desire to control is a desire to feel safe. If it goes this way and if it looks the way we want, we will feel good and we will feel safe.

We long for this because being in control gives us the taste of what we imagine God or the gods might feel. A sense of sovereignty and domain.

The irony is that we then go wonder at nature, which has been placed in a way we never could have imagined. A miasma of rock worn down by rivers, trees growing from seeds thrown about by the wind. We love nature for its wildness, but struggle when that wildness enters our lives.

Wildness in society is called instability, insanity, and it is crazy making.

Perhaps we’d all be better off if we could relax. Let the flowers be placed in the vase a different way, allow the ants to crawl on our balcony with awe, accept that some people in their wildness don’t need to change, though we may need to spend less time with them.

Perhaps we can understand that our desire for control is normal and not make ourselves wrong for our urges to have things be a certain way, and at the same time, perhaps we can relax just a bit and let go of things needing to be a certain way.

There is a freedom in sitting in this tension that embraces our human desire and laughs at the comedy of it all. This is a freedom brought to us by equal parts, faith, surrender, and humor.

It’s a freedom that is the punchline to the joke that we were created with a deep desire to control in a world that mocks even our most basic attempts to control anything at all.

 

You Decide What Happens To You In Life

For most of my twenties stuff just happened to me.

I got fired from my sweet touring job because the drummer was an asshole. My girlfriend broke up with me because some guy snaked her out from under me. My car broke down because some asshole wanted me to drive on a bumpy road with their girlfriend to see some stupid rocks.

This is how life went for me. Things would go poorly and I would blame someone else.

Then when I was 28 I moved into a monastery. I thought I was just going to be there for a few months. It would be a good story to tell to women I met on other adventures.

But the first time I had tea with a Zen master something shifted.

We were talking about the challenges I felt I had in life, the woes that had befallen me, the people who had done me wrong. At one point I said, “I have a hard time connecting with people, because I’m so much smarter than most of them. I just don’t know how to do it sometimes”

🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️

I cringe every time I think back on that moment. But the Zen Master didn’t flinch.

He said to me, “Consider Shizen (the other Zen Master at the monastery), she’s one of the smartest people I know. She’s a doctor, she’s written several books, but she connects with everybody.”

The words stopped me in my tracks. I had a few objections, but slowly I let it sink in. I was making this shit up. I was being a victim to myself, my life, and to everything that happens to me.

Slowly I began to change how I felt about my life and I began to see that I can decide what happens to me. And here’s you you can too: ​

REALIZE THAT YOU DON’T HAVE CONTROL

The illusion of control is the ego’s greatest lie.

One of the things I started to see when I meditated for hours a day was that I largely don’t have control over what happens in my life especially when it comes to what other people do, think, or say about me. I can certainly change my response, my relationships, and my choices going forward but I found that I didn’t actually have control over most of it.

Life happens, people change, sometimes you find love, other times you find loneliness. Your choices still matter but it doesn’t change the simple truth that much of life occurs outside of our ability to influence it.

As I began to accept them, I was able to relax. Instead of life being this personal drama where everything was a vast plot point in my own story, I began to see so many events like gravity. They were things that were just happening vs things that were happening to me. ​

GET PRESENT TO YOUR IMPACT

You affect people and your life more than you realize.

As I spent time mindfully watching myself with other people I started to notice that the way I listened to people made a difference. When I looked at them with a subtle judgment about the way they told a story, they felt it. They would share less, they would be more cautious.

But when I tried to listen more deeply, and be more present without objections or inner dialogue people opened up to me. They shared more of themselves. They actually became more interesting to listen to… And I started to want to listen to them.

When you start to notice how what you do affects others, you may start to notice that there are certain things you want to do differently. You want to be more interested in what your boyfriend is saying. You want to be more patient with other drivers. You want to be a bit different because you can see how what you’re doing has an effect.

I found this kind of desire so natural and powerful. It wasn’t a need to change myself to please someone else, it was a desire to be different with life so that people and life would be different with me.

MOVE FROM BLAME TO RESPONSIBILITY

Not everything is somebody’s fault, but anything can be your responsibility.

For most of my twenties, I looked for people to blame and I usually found someone.

But as I sat in silence in the monastery trying to practice compassion, I made a simple mistake. If it wasn’t their fault, if it was unkind to blame others, then maybe the solution was to blame myself.

I can distinctly remember hours of weeping in the midst of self-woe at how I had screwed up my life. It was my fault my girlfriend had cheated, my fault I had lost that job, my fault that my friends had treated me poorly.

My love of drama hadn’t changed; it had simply turned back in on itself. It took me a while to see that the drama wasn’t helping. I was still playing the same blame game I always had. So I let it go.

I began to see that for most things I had a part to play in how they went, but so did the people around me. Yes, I had treated my girlfriend’s love for me lightly and yes she had decided to start seeing someone else. Yes, I didn’t communicate clearly with my friends and yes they made assumptions because it was easier that way.

The more I let go of blame the more at ease I felt. But I didn’t stop there.

I also began to see that I could choose to be responsible for things. If I wanted to have a better relationship with my mother I could make sure we talked, even if she wasn’t the one who was going to call me. If I wanted to be safe when I drove, I could give other drivers more space.

While there was no ONE person to blame for anything, I could make myself the ONE person who was going to try for things to go differently this time.

And once I made myself that ONE person, I was able to create what I wanted.

 

My Whole Team QUIT! And How To Let Go

I’ve been thinking a lot about the choice to let go of something. Hope, people I care about, how I want things to be…

SOMETIMES LETTING GO SEEMS EASY

I recently took Facebook off of my phone and Ipad. I rarely go on to check it, just to post and share.

This didn’t feel that hard to let go. I notice an urge to go back and check it sometimes, but generally I just don’t, it’s that simple. If I can survive the urge I stay with letting go.

SOMETIMES IT FEELS HARD BUT GETS EASIER

Recently my amazing assistant told me she wasn’t happy. At first, I tried to figure out a way to get her to stay but I don’t want someone to work for me if they aren’t happy. So we agreed to give it the weekend.

Over the weekend I stayed up SUPER LATE working really hard out of fear and panic. But I eventually saw what I was doing. I relaxed. I accepted. I let go.

So on Monday when my other assistant said she was quitting too it was fine. I felt some fear and I accepted it. I ended up talking to the last remaining member of my team on Wednesday of that week and we got clear it was time for him to move on as well.

I let them go. I was scared. I was sad. But it just felt like what wanted to happen. I relaxed and let go.

SOMETIMES IT FEELS IMPOSSIBLE

There are a few things in my life I continuously struggle to let go.

The need to try really hard.
Remembering my ex.
Dreaming about my future partner.

All of these feel impossible to let go of. Especially in the moment.

Pushing really hard is easy for me. Life has often felt like a bare knuckle boxing match and I just need to punch my way through.

Over and over I see myself doing this and I let go, but it comes back again and again.
I’ve sort of given up on the idea that this will ever go away completely.

Every time I feel resistance, I feel sadness. Part of me wants to reminisce, part of me wants to let go, part of me wants to feel grief.

Slowly I let go but there’s often pain. Even in the clarity of the path ahead.

Finally I often dream or fantasize about who I might be with next.
Having children.
Making love.
Laughing together.
The simple feeling of peace waking up next to someone.

Again and again, I try to let these go.

These are especially difficult because the fantasies often feel really good.
Sometimes they’re painful because it makes me feel even more lonely now.

But slowly I let them go.

MOMENT TO MOMENT

Moment to moment these things seem like they never move at all.
At times I feel overwhelmed and hopeless.

But when I look back I see them slowly shift and melt.

I work less hard than I used to.
I go long stretches without thinking about my ex.
I forget about the fantasies and am just here in my life.

In these moments patience is the hardest thing for me to muster
I want to let go faster.
Which generally has me hold on harder.

But slowly, gently. I am learning to let go.