Here’s a picture of me standing under the thrusters of the rocket that went to the moon. Kathy and I were visiting the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and the sights were truly amazing.
I had no idea the rockets were that large and complex. We were astonished by many sights at the NASA site and vowed to return soon to get an even longer tour.
Two days after we got back home to Arizona we put on "Apollo 13," the great Tom Hanks movie about the near-disaster voyage to the moon that was rescued so heroically.
Amazing what human minds can do when working together for an exciting mission. Contrast those brilliant, demanding and courageously sober explorations of space with the hangover our nation is experiencing from the banks and Wall Street having been on a reckless credit bender, borrowing and leveraging drunkenly, buoyed by the intoxication of personal financial gain.
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One of the reasons the visit to the shuttle launch sites in Florida was so much fun was because we had no expectations.
We were curious. Yes. And both Kathy and I were fascinated by everything astronautical. The inspiring, heart-stopping documentary, "In the Shadow of the Moon¸" was an all-time favorite.
But we didn’t expect much of anything as we drove through the marshes and the swamps along Cape Canaveral to get to this space center. When you have no expectations, you can really be blown away.
My visit to Florida was only partially a vacation. The rest was devoted to delivering a seminar to leaders of a prominent semi-conductor company. The leaders had come in from all over the world for their annual convention and I had them for four hours.
Our main subject was expectations. How leaders fail when they carry expectations. And how they succeed when they drop all expectations and replace them with agreements.
Expectations are toxic and cowardly. Agreements are healing and courageous.
When leaders expect things from their people, anxiety sets in immediately. No one enjoys trying to live up to another’s expectations. In fact, they begin immediately to rebel against those expectations.
This applies to personal life as well. The more expectations you have of your romantic partner, the worse the relationship gets.
A client of mine recently sounded very depressed as I was talking to him. I asked him to slow down and tell me what was really on his mind.
“I had a fight with my wife yesterday,” he said.
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“You know what that’s like, I’m sure.”
“Actually, no. Kathy and I have never had a fight.”
“Come on.”
“No.”
“You’re just saints, or what?”
“We just don’t fight. No interest in it.”
“Aren’t fights supposed to be cleansing? Purging?”
“You tell me.”
“I feel awful.”
“There you go.”
“How do you avoid it?”
“Do you have a best friend? A real good buddy?”
“Yes.”
“Do you ever fight with him?”
“Not really.”
“Same principle.”
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I talked to my wife-fighting client about expectations. If he had no expectations, he could never be upset.
If you have expectations of someone—your spouse—your employee—only two things can happen. 1) They meet your expectations, which means you feel nothing because it was what you expected. Or, 2) They don’t live up to your expectations so you are DISAPPOINTED. There are a lot of very disappointed people in the world because of this toxic thing called expectations.
There is a way out ...stay tuned and I’ll continue this in the next blog. (And you’ll enjoy that blog all the more if you expect nothing from it.)
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Here is a photo of Rob Owen (in China, with friends), a friend and mastermind coaching client of mine who is also a talented college teacher and VP of IT at the prestigious Microchip Technology company.
Rob has written a wonderful piece about coaches and being coached called
CIRCLES in LIFE which I urge you all to read. You can click here to access it and read it........Wonderful insights into the nature of coaching and mentoring and how we humans help each other succeed.
Exactly right. This is Obama's Last Stand. Unless Obama wins the next one. Then he's the Comeback Kid! No matter what, this cucaus absolutely seals his fate until the next primary. And the same goes for everybody else.Hire me, cable news!
Posted by: Halina | October 26, 2012 at 10:24 PM
Thank you again for your blog posts. I promote your work everywhere I can make a post.
It is so obvious that everyone needs these insights and positivity - now more than ever.
Since many people, young and old, who need coaching either don't know how to find help, or can't afford a professional coach, it is important that we reach out and help one another.
Take a breath and see what's right with your world and re-direct attention toward the beauty and the possibilities that are always around us.
Go beyond "positive thinking" and see for oneself that all possible possibilities exist simultaneously. Which one we choose is entirely up to each one of us. First see there is a choice - then consciously choose the one that will produce the result we want in our life. Do this every day at each one of the crossroads we arrive at moment to moment.
As the song goes: "row, row, row your boat gently down the stream - merrily,merrily,merrily - life is but a dream"
Choosing to live the dream conscioulsy and refusing to live constantly reacting to a a dream, or nightmare, imposed upon us by others who feed off of fear,is the key.
Posted by: Tom Wall | October 06, 2008 at 08:40 AM