iMindShift with Steve Chandler

TO SPEED UP...SLOW DOWN

     Roy Evernham, the highest-rated crew chief in NASCAR (The National  Association for Stock Car Racing) was once crew chief for racing superstar Jeff  Gordon. Evernham's motto is, "To speed up, slow down."

     "I still have to prove this principle to Jeff sometimes," said Evernham. "I'll say, 'Go out and bust me a lap.' He'll drive the car hard, really work it. He'll mash the pedal on a straight-away, drive down into a corner, and mash the pedal again. Then I'll say, 'Now, take it easy and drive a smooth lap.' And by letting the car do the work, he actually improves his time."

     One slow thing at a time is a strong way to live. Being focused is a strong way to live.

    Richard Sloma explains it in his book No-Nonsense Management:

     Pardon the cliché, but General Custer could have become one of our most famous military heroes if, somehow, he could have forced the Sioux nation to attack over the hill one at a time. Supremacy of the seas was guaranteed for the British when Lord  Nelson maximized and exploited the technique of  "crossing the 'T' " so as to allow all of his ships to fire broadside at each enemy ship as it appeared next in line. Look at problems as adversaries. Summon all your forces and deal with them one at a time.

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                                    BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND

    Based on the success of the recent Steve Chandler Coaching School held in Phoenix I am opening a new school that begins October 10. Like the last school, this school will admit only nine coaches. (And you can also be a consultant, public speaker or counselor to apply....) Remember that the school will not teach you how to coach. There is no "certification" because it's not an entry-level "how to." 

     This is a school for building a prosperous practice. How to get clients, how to get bigger and better clients, how to expand services for existing clients, how to increase fees without losing business, how to manage time and resources so your practice can be stress-free with plenty of time off....etc. To receive my CD "How To Double Your Income as a Coach" simply email me… and to apply to this school, email me as well (100Ways@Compuserve.com).

     We had nine coaches and consultants from England, North Carolina, California, Minnesota,  Colorado, Ohio, Washington DC and all over the globe in the first school....and they are now participating the rigorous six-month accountability portion of  the school. Although October seems far away, it is not ... and this school will fill up very quickly.... the fee is $9,000, with  $4500 due up front and the other half when you  successfully complete six months after the opening two days….you will be live in Phoenix October 10 and 11 AND back again to finish April 10 and 11 of 2009.  We will focus, in the weekly accountability program for the six months between, on doubling your income.

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               "When Fate throws a knife at you there are two ways to catch it--by the handle, or by the blade."

                       ---Chinese saying

     Bad news from corporate. Good news from home. Bad news from the world of baseball. Good news from my best client. Bad news from my daughter's school. Good news from my doctor. Bad news from the evening news. No wonder we are crazy. No wonder EVERYONE isn't bipolar swinging from the opposite poles all day of bad news/good news.

      And to further complicate things, a lot of what I thought was bad news last month actually turned out to be good. Bad news that my grandfather fell and hurt himself became good news that he's in a retirement village he now loves with better safety and assisted living. Bad turns to good. And oh no! Good turns to bad! That promotion I got pushed me into a department I hate with responsibilities that scare me to death! Good turned to bad!

    So why not just suspend all judgment. Why not slow things down so that I can always catch the knife by the handle. If it's the bad news knife being thrown at me, I can handle it because I know I can convert it to something good…eventually, if I give it half a chance and a little imagination. And if it's the good news knife I can catch it with mature wisdom and realize that there's always more work involved than is immediately realized in any good new thing, and I'm ready to do that work.

THE CURSE OF EXPECTATIONS

     I was talking with my friend Fred Knipe (pictured here) about the power of Byron Katie's work, and how beautifully her process called The Work dismantles negative beliefs we hold about ourselves and others and life and death. Once I stop believing those thoughts, my mind clears up and there is no more stress. The story about anxious, frightful life is gone. And I am free to act and create anything I want. Or just relax into quiet bliss.

    Most of my life I have done the opposite. I have scared myself with stressful beliefs about time, death and money. And how people don't "get" me. None of that was ever true. Yet believing it was true made me a negative believer.

    In talking to Fred about all this I whimsically sent him this….something I think I heard Katie say once….or something like this…that would be good words for my tombstone:
                                          Here lies a stressful believer
                                   who created hell on earth for himself
                               and others out of his unquestioned system

     Fred wrote back that that could be on everyone's tombstone, and that they could just start making generic tombstones with those words on it. And then Fred said something profound and strange (and very beautiful):  "The coyote has no tombstone. Because the coyote never has a bad day. Neither does the coyote have a good day. Hungry all day is not a bad day.  Napping all day full of rabbit is not a good day.  Because the coyote has no judgment. He does not evaluate. No "good for me, bad for me". He avoids harm and seeks benefit without evaluation, so for him there is neither time nor eternity.  People are the only ones who evaluate, and they never stop. It may seem a curse, this process of deciding everything, of pushing all experience through a buzz saw which divides into good and bad, but the curse finally lifts when the evaluation machinery is turned back on itself.  When the experience of evaluation becomes the subject of evaluation, it becomes clear that without judgment we would become like the coyote.  Our capacity to enjoy would be shrunk along with our capacity to worry.  How endlessly engaging and thrilling and glorious it is to let things matter when we have finally judged that they truly don't."

     What does Fred know about the coyote? Are you kidding me? He is a four-time Emmy-award winning writer for PBS's show, The Desert Speaks. He has written about all the desert flora and fauna. But never quite this deeply.

     Fred also writes songs and performs comedy for a living, and if you EVER need a good laugh to pick you up, go to his website and click on one of the many hilarious little routines he does there as his comic alter-ego Dr. Ludiker. Go here: www.fredknipe.com.

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    Stories get in the way of real life experience.  When I teach leadership courses in organizations I contrast two types of leadership:  1) Managing agreements versus 2) Managing expectations.

    Expectations are stories we believe about how others should behave.  The more expectations I have the more I set myself up for disappointment in life.

    But with no expectations, there can be no disappointment, only loving life as it is.

    "I expect you to clean your room!"

    Imagine yourself hearing those words.  A knot forms in your stomach.  Your throat tightens a little.  Your chest feels like someone is pushing on it.  You begin to explore the consequences of rebellion.  Because people rebel against expectation.

    That's why creating agreements is so much more effective.  No expectations, just agreements.  Two people co-author the agreement in the same way that John Lennon and Paul McCartney would co-author a song.

    Parents live in a constant state of anger and anxiety when they expect so much from their children.  I know a woman I will call Courtney who walks around all day riddled with expectations for her children.  She has even more expectations for her husband.  So she is miserable.  And if she died tomorrow her tombstone would say, "DISAPPOINTED."  Because that would sum up her life.

    Take, though, the example of a different wife and mother I know named Alexandra.  Alex has no expectations.  All human behavior is an amusing surprise to her.  And her son's room is clean.  How is that possible?  Because she has an agreement with her son about the room.  She and her son respect each other.  They also like keeping their word with each other.  It's easier to live with confidence and happiness that way.

    Her son's favorite action heroes keep their word, too.  It's a matter of honor and grace.

    The stories we have in our mind about how other people should be keep us from loving them and being amused by them.  Our stories become expectations that convert thoughts to bad feelings and soon the whole body is riddled with expectations like a body riddled with cancer.

    No expectations means no stories and no disappointment.  It keeps the mind clear and open.  The mind that is open will shift, and keep shifting upward in a spiral toward ever higher levels of spirituality and amusement.

    The great novelist Vladimir Nabokov was the first person I know of to point out that a spiral is a liberated circle.  A mind riddled with expectations is nothing more than a vicious circle.  Stories about how others don't appreciate me swirl within this vicious circle.  Soon my mind is stuck and grinding and whining like a sports car stuck in first gear crying out to be shifted.

    My own mind cries out to be shifted when I'm in some vicious circle story about how you should be acting.  SHIFT and the circle is liberated.  It is now a spiral . . . opening languorously upward, in a heavenly swirl and there is no upper limit.

    In the courses I teach on mindshifting I use Nabokov's observation that a spiral is a liberated circle.  I draw the vicious circle of an unshifted mind on the white board.  Then I draw a spiral.  Up from fear and anger and worry and resentment.  Up toward creativity, compassion and spirit.  There is a gold mine up there at the top and beyond the gold mine there is even more . . . things too wonderful to even talk about in linear language, and sentences that have beginnings and endings.

IF YOU'RE NOT BUSY BEING BORN

"…he who is not busy being born
is busy dying."
            ~Bob Dylan

     I'm in the airport waiting to go to Albuquerque….I see people chasing their imaginary needs and wants like they might chase moths - trying to catch relationships, money, new cars, granite countertops and validation of their excellent parenting but losing themselves in the chase.

     I do this too? Oh yes. Looking for my glasses while I'm wearing them.  Looking for love in all the wrong places.  Not understanding the word "within."  So I draw my sword and seek kingdoms in distant lands.  But the kingdom is already here.  It's the kingdom within.

     So I'm here in Albuquerque working with my clients at Honeywell so that the technology of the mind can match their peerless technology on the factory tour.

    The mind can use the technology of optimism as a proven process to open up creativity and thinking skill.

     Or it can buy into the common (erroneous) wisdom that says optimism is something you're born with.  A sunny disposition!  A happy, glad-handing idiotic beaming, smiling false front of upbeat mannerisms.

     Actually, optimism is a powerful, precise, teachable tool for unlocking the right side of the brain-and all its wonders.

     Dr. Martin Seligman conducted studies of over half a million people for 20 years.  He scientifically validated two important findings in those studies.  1) Optimism is more effective than pessimism and 2) Optimism can be learned.

    Shocking.  It can be learned!  Aren't we stuck with our personalities?  If a person is moody, is she not permanently moody?  As permanent as her blue eyes?  Crying in the rain?  Like always?

     Goodness, no.  When you read Learned Optimism you learn that you can dispute-DISPUTE!-any pessimistic thought that appears, like a rain cloud, across the sky of your mind.

     Dispute it.  Challenge it.  Question it.  Make the case for greater possibility.  Make the case for more options open to you than gloom.

     It's as if you had a higher self that you don't call on much.  Except in a huge crisis.  But if you called on it more and more, it would grow.  It would reveal itself to be the real you.

     That pessimist in you is a very small part of who you really are.  Really. Or, as Dylan sings in his parody of fruitless self-sacrifice:

Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child's balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying

SCREW FEAR...LET'S RIDE

    The first part of our School for Coaches is over, after two intensive  days of learning how to build an excellent coaching practice. The ultimate coach Steve Hardison and his wife Amy joined us for an hour and gave us one of the most glorious reality-checks we've ever experienced.

     Being authentic and real is hard for so many people. They leave beautiful reality behind chasing status and appreciation from other frightened egos who are chasing the same thing. Byron Katie has said, "Personalities don't love --- they want something."

     Or, as Robert Godwin has written, "If you look at the Bible, or the Upanishads, or the Tao Te Ching, there is only one diagnosis, which is that human beings live in falsehood, alienated from the Real. They habitually confuse what  is ephemeral and valueless with what is transcendent and of eternal value. With  his consciousness either compacted and ‘frozen’ or exteriorized and  dissipated, the spiritually untutored man is hypnotized by appearances and wanders from sensation to sensation until falling into the abyss at the end of his daze, wishes to ashes, lust to dust."

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     The bright and valuable marketing consultant and coach Scott Young brought a Harley Davidson ad from a newspaper to our coaching school that we pinned to the wall. Our theme was fearless coaching and the ad said it all: WE DON'T DO FEAR.

     It also said this… “Over the last 105 years in the saddle, we’ve seen wars, conflicts, depression, recession, resistance, and revolutions. We’ve watched a thousand hand-wringing pundits disappear in our rear view mirror. But every time this country has come out stronger than before….If 105 years have proved one thing, it’s that fear sucks and it doesn’t last long.”

     And down below on the page next to the HD logo it says, "So screw it. Let's ride."

     Yes. That's just exactly the mind shift we are looking for. And it is true, fear does not last long. Because nothing (that you can describe with language) does.

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    And let's finish with these wonderful words (sent to me in a recent email) from the marketing genius Jay Abraham who knows the economic scene better than anyone:

    "The current economic downturn is creating a business building bonanza for a few lucky business owners. Seriously, it's a ‘mother lode,’ profit-yielding, income multiplying, wealth-building Grand Slam Home Run for you!”

     You just need to know what steps to take to claim your monster-sized financial reward. Today's "beaten down" competitor marketplace is the perfect time to get fantastic growth from whatever business you're in. The possibilities available to you right now are no less than "wonderful."

     Think about it. After several years of prosperity -- where almost anybody could make a living in just about any business venture -- now a handful of people like YOU can have all the competitive advantage.

     You may have felt like an underdog in the past - because you were small, or you didn't have a bundle of capital to spend on marketing, promotions, sales force, etc.

     Well, guess what? Your smallness becomes a huge advantage in a business climate like today's. Why? Because you can move fast. You're not shackled with huge overhead, payroll or employees that can kill you financially.

     You can shift gears, repositioning all your efforts and energies, almost instantly...and harvest the "treasure chest" of profits the market is eager to reward you with."

       Can we hear him?

YOU CAN SHIFT GEARS. YOU CAN SHIFT GEARS.