« Just throw your fear away | Main | Find the music inside you »

February 27, 2012

Grant me the courage? Really?

 

     Steve Hardison sent me this YouTube video.

     Can I thank him enough?

     Maybe you have seen it. But watch again anyway.

     It reveals something to me about courage and inner strength. For years, decades even, I have been a fan of the Serenity Prayer's portion that says GOD GRANT ME THE COURAGE TO CHANGE THE THINGS I CAN. Those words were a big part of my recovery from alcohol and addiction… and those words have lived on inside me. You even see them at the top of my website! 

     But not for long. Because I am having them taken down.

     My life these days has proven that those words can be transcended, and I can come from a much more powerful place.  Ken Wilber taught me not to make old beliefs "wrong" but rather to "include and transcend" them. Which I now do with "God grant me the courage..."

     Because I am no longer applying for a grant.

     I've had clients in the nonprofit field who do nothing but apply for grants. Instead of creating major gift relationships, they ask for grants.

     Nothing wrong with that.

     But a nonprofit's income will SOAR when they set aside applying for grants (God grant me!) and transcend that behavior and rise up to creating relations that lead to major gifts.

     I don't need a grant. I don't need to spend my days grant-writing or grant-praying.

     Courage can be built. It's a matter of developing inner strength. Just like outer strength (the body's strength) is built through resistance training, inner strength is built the same way. Resistance training.

     Or, as Ralph Waldo Emerson put it, "He who is not every day conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life."

*     *     *     *     *     *     * 

     A person in one of my seminars came up to me during the break and pointed at the title of my book Reinventing Yourself and told me she was offended by the title.

     "What's so wrong with me that I have to reinvent myself?” she said.

     "You don't have to reinvent yourself," I said. "And nothing has to be wrong with you for you to do it."

     Fear of change is the root of all unhappiness.

     Companies are like this as well --- companies who stay stuck in old ways of being clinging, clinging, clinging as long as they can to comfort zones.

     Like Border's book stores…"We're going to do it our way.  We're not going to try to meet the new age.  Forget the internet.  The internet is just kind of a passing fancy.  We're going to have old book stores with a limited selection of books and nasty customer service people. That worked for us in the past, and we're going to keep doing it."

     Well, Border's is shut down because of a refusal to reinvent themselves.  Now Barnes and Noble isn't totally shut down..yet… because they decided half way through their decline to start reinventing themselves after finally seeing what Amazon was doing and seeing the power of it.  Oops.  Oops, maybe we should do the same.  Look at the Kindle.  Maybe we should create something.  Look at On-line.  Oops, maybe we should offer books on line.

     So, yes, in kind of a catching-up way, they too are now reinventing themselves and is it too late to succeed in a business sense?  We'll see, but for you and me let's not wait.  Reinventing yourself is something that's really fun. And extremely lucrative and profitable. For you as an individual. 

     So what's the answer to the question, Why should I reinvent myself?  It's kind of like you are at the high school reunion, you are sitting at the table and they are playing all the songs that were popular when you were in high school and somebody comes up and says "please dance with me" and you say to yourself and to them "Why should I dance?"  Well, that's an absurd question.  Dance just to dance.  Dance just to have fun.  Go on out there on the floor and dance and you'll see why you should dance.

     The same feeling is true with reinventing yourself.  Reinvent yourself and you'll see why you are doing it...the real fun, the real joy is in reinventing yourself. It isn't in figuring out why.

*     *     *     *     *     *

     I have an apprenticeship opening up. If you want to be my apprentice, contact me at [email protected].  Remember that this is not an internship. It requires a significant coaching fee.. and it requires more than that. It requires that you give yourself to it for a full year and use it to thoroughly learn and master everything I do (with me by your side), and learn to do it yourself forevermore thereafter at a major career level.

     In the full apprenticeship my apprentice receives full access, training and certification in teaching all my seminar material, and full copyright permission to use it as their own. Some apprentices have used a lot, some don't use as much. They create their own.

     I download into my apprentice everything I know how to do as a coach, teacher and facilitator.

     Some of my apprentices also write a book in their year with me, which I edit and coach them through.

     My apprenticeship is a huge challenge and is the equivalent to a coach that medical school or law school is to a doctor or lawyer. It's a big investment, not only of money, but of heart and time commitment.

     Which is why I don't do many of them. I audition people very carefully to gauge their level of heart for this because I don't want to be stuck with an uncommitted person for a whole year. 

     Let me know if you qualify.

Posted by in Coaching |

| | | | | |

Comments

Nike Shoes Australia

Series offer women the ir Roylty Mid VT fluorescence suit, nylon upper mteril before chnge, but silky smooth body of the shoe is then covered with lether, so tht the whole pir of shoes no mtter vision or feel comfortble nd supple.

Posted by: Nike Shoes Australia | June 05, 2012 at 11:23 PM

Jussara

I don't know how you find the time to read as much as you do. Maybe you've adopted the Zach meothd of reading - which I will openly admit I am a practioner of as well. Keep those reviews coming.

Posted by: Jussara | June 04, 2012 at 10:06 PM

Kimberly

Really like the blog, appreciate the share!

Posted by: Kimberly | April 24, 2012 at 12:58 AM

wholesale jewelry supplies

If all other variables are held constant, the originality of the design itself will ultimately determine its value and be the primary source of demand.

Posted by: wholesale jewelry supplies | April 21, 2012 at 06:22 AM

Katie Chapes

Your method of explaining all in this paragraph is really nice, every one be capable of simply know it, Thanks a lot.

Posted by: Katie Chapes | February 27, 2012 at 03:23 PM

The comments to this entry are closed.

Enter your email address

to get Steve's blog by email

Books by Steve Chandler