UNEXECUTIVE

Unconventional coaching for extraordinary people

What does nature want?

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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?

Go First

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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 Are You Willing To Create Bad Art For?

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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?

Your Life Is Art

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No one signs their name anymore. Not really. We make a half-assed squiggle with our finger on a digital screen. We scribble our name on documents, the letter collapsing and falling over.

I’m the worst at this. Except when I went to vote by mail. Then my signature was pristine, perfect, and crisp. I wrote it with care because it mattered. Because I knew someone was watching.

You might think that how you sign your name doesn’t matter. After all, the card company isn’t going to check it. The barista or waiter isn’t either. Even when I write “check ID” on the back of my cards almost no one asks.

And as a stand-alone occurrence, it probably doesn’t matter. After all I’m not singing the declaration of independence or the constitution.

Recently I started to notice this trend in myself, towards convenience, speed, and efficiency. It started to bother me. Because my life, your life is not a thing to be dispensed with, to be scribbled off.

Your life is art. Or it can be.

Last month I had a virtual date. At first, I thought I’d order us dinner. Maybe get some flowers delivered to her house. But then I realized that I could make art with it. So I made a website. Nothing too complex, it only took me an hour or so.

The website guided us through the date. I gave us a structure. The date itself became a form of art. I shared it with a couple of other people who were helping me out and they were both moved by it.

Over New Year’s weekend I went hiking. And the conversation I shared on that hike was art. It was about couples who go hiking. We spent a few moments together laughing and taking in the scenery. We weren’t concerned with the mileage or exactly how fast we wanted to go. The hike itself became art.

When I cook, I feel into the food. I cut the onions, making sure the carrots look uniform. I try to add different colors of sweet potatoes. I think about a garnish. So that when the dish is done, there’s texture, shades, and so much more. The food itself is art.

This is what it means to make art with life. Sometimes it’s dramatic, a bold gesture, a full on production. And sometimes it’s incredibly subtle, like how you sign your name on a digital pad.

Making art with your life is possible, here’s how.

1) Notice what you don’t notice:

There are places where all of us take things for granted. The way our love kisses us in the morning. The way you make your coffee. The way you brush your teeth. These places are rich repositories and opportunities to create art with your life.

Your relationships are filled with small moments of unconsciousness and routine. So simply start noticing what you don’t notice, what you step over, and what you take for granted.

2) Look at it from a new perspective:

There are things we get through and there are things we create through. We get through waiting for the plane to board. We create through writing a birthday card for someone we love. We get through washing the dishes. We create through cooking a special meal as a treat for ourselves.

Everything that is a ‘get through’ moment can become a ‘create through’ moment.

I learned this really well when I worked in the kitchen at the Zen Monastery I lived at for two years. In kitchen practice everything we did was infused with mindfulness and compassion. We cut carrots with love. We stirred pots with deep presence.

I swear you could taste it in the food. And you could certainly feel it as you cooked.

What we were doing was no different than what is done in commercial kitchens all over the world, but it felt different.

We took a perspective of wonder, curiosity, and attention to what we did.

After you notice what you didn’t notice, try to look at it differently. See if you can see it as an invitation into creation. Ask yourself how could I create through this?

3) Answer the question “How could I create through this?”

The next step is simple. You answer the question, with an I could.

I could write poems at the bus stop.
I could connect with my Uber driver.
I could draw a small masterpiece on the coffee shop Ipad.
I add a garnish to my dinner.
I could really connect with my beloved as we say goodbye.
I could be fascinated by my child’s day even if it’s so simple.

You don’t have to do all of these things. You don’t have to do any of them. This isn’t about finding what you ‘should’ do or the ‘right thing’ to do. That’s not the nature of art.

This isn’t painting by numbers.

You’re just looking at what you COULD do. If making art with your life is new, you can spend some time here. Just dreaming. Thinking of things to try. You can’t stay here, but it’s a good start because you’re opening up new possibilities for yourself.

Slowly carefully lovingly let yourself be open to what’s possible.

4) Try something . . . anything

Once you’ve gotten a few ideas one will call to you. For me, the one that scares me or lights me up and turns me on the most will speak to me. So now it’s time to try it out.

I’ll be honest at first you’re going to be a bit awkward and clunky. You may get some weird looks, but you should try it anyway. You’ll realize you can survive being a bit silly and absurd. And often it will go way better than you can imagine.

Not all art is a success, but that’s not the point of art. The point of art is to create something new, to express something, and to allow that something to blossom and wither in a moment.

So try something. It’s ok if it’s not the boldest thing, it’s ok if it is super bold, but just try.

5) Learn and refine

Now that you’ve created something and put it into the world, refine it. Draw a different kind of sun on the coffee shop Ipad. Add a smile to your present goodbye kiss. Ask your kiddo about their day at dinner instead of when they get home. Try rosemary instead of thyme as the garnish.

Artists don’t just paint one painting and stop. They create and recreate. They try again, they add something else, they take something away.

The reason why learning and refining are so important is that they help you move from a moment of expression to a practice of it. Instead of making art an event—like an anniversary dinner—it becomes part of the ritual of your life.

This is the final step and it is the one you have to keep making again and again.

I realized that you might be wondering why you’d want to do this?

Why not just have a nice dinner with your partner once a year?
Why not just squiggle my name on an Ipad?

For me, the reason is simple. Life is the most rare and precious commodity you have. Especially your life. You’ve only got so many days, so many moments, so many chances.

It’s like you’ve got a box of crayons and they’re wearing down all the time and you never really know when you’ll get to the bottom of them.

So what do you want to do with them? You can squiggle your signature. Die of boredom waiting for the bus. Resent and cling to routine out of a need for control.

Or you can make art with them. Over and over again I’ve chosen art and I’ve seen the people around me who I most admire do the same.

So please choose to make art. It can be simple even mundane art. But even then, it will still be art.

And at the end of your life you’ll be so grateful that you chose to create through it.

How To Discover Your Life Purpose In 3 Easy Steps

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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.