Thank you, Malcolm Gladwell!

I read Malcolm Gladwell's latest book, OUTLIERS, recently and was so moved by the book that I had tears in my eyes as I closed the cover. What a gift this book is for those of us interested in human behavior and human potential!

He has done an extensive study and reports, and documents well, his findings. His style of writing is so much like talking that I feel I am in coversation with him as I read.

I love the 10,000 hours explanation. I remember trying to explain to my son that if he truly wanted to be a great soccer player, he needed to practice a LOT more. But, as is true to human nature, he had the idea of being one, just didn't have the drive to do the work. What he DID love doing was cooking, creating systems and listening to his own inner voice. Translate that into his current life, and I can easily see why being a chef is his true calling. Since he has now been cooking for 35 years (he started cutting vegetables with me at age 2--using a real knife, I might add (I was a Montessori teacher)--and there is no doubt that he has put in more than 10,000 hours cooking and creating systems for how to improve both his products and his methods. This explains why after almost 13 years as a professional chef, he's now found his sweet spot and a job that truly works for him.

In my coaching, one of the things I find most interesting about people is the seeming difficulty they have in self-discipline. This is why linking whatever we choose to do with our highest values is crucial, because without that, there is no way to force ourselves to stay with the program--be it a diet, an exercise plan, a course of study, a job, a relationship--all the way up the ladder of life activities.

People call it "finding their passion" but I learned from Demartini that passion is only a beginning, and often detrimental state, because it assumes that one side of life, positive or negative is better or preferable to another. This leads to lopsided thinking, and the inevitable result is infatuation and resentment. Since that doesn't interest me except as a passing phase, I prefer to think about fulfillment. My son feels fulfillment when he does what he loves. I feel the same thing with I work with people to help them see more than they saw about themselves and others. It isn't my passion, it is my expression of love in the world, which is fulfillment of my higher purpose.

So, I hope Malcolm sells a lot of these books, and that he continues to explore what makes up show up the way we do. It is an invaluable contribution to the evolution of consciousness.

Wasting Time?

Now that I am fully one year plus into my sixties, I have lately had occasion to look back and wonder about what I've been up to for the last forty years. I have a theory that in our twenties we're trying to figure out who we are and how to be here. In our thirties we work like crazy to build our professional lives, which seems to require a lot of pleasing, obeying the rules, setting up systems and being productive according to the standards of the millieu we relate to.

In our forties, we look around and start wondering if we really want to keep pleasing all those people! We start finding ways to please ourselves. At forty-five or so, we become more discerning about whom we're spending time with and how we're spending that time, but I can now see I was still rather naive about that--even though society considered me an adult, I can see how limited my scope still was at that age.

We turn fifty and look around and realize (about some people) we don't even like them! And after fifty-five, it is highly possible that we no longer give a flip about what others think and move down the life path listening to our own inner voices about what works and doesn't work for us. That doesn't mean we are completely devoid of pleasing others, as I have come to see it is part of the life journey to sort out and sift through relationships and decide what fits at any moment.

So, was any of that a waste of time?

I hear clients moan about their past, musing that they have wasted years going in one direction or another, whether with work or relationships, and regretting having made those particular choices, because today, they see how it could be different. My response is, so what? If they hadn't made those choices, would they be who they are today? I don't think so..........

And this leads me to my two resolutions for this new, unformed year I am embarking on:

• I hereby resolve to embrace and be grateful for what IS, instead of what could have been.
• I hereby resolve to have more fun, live more fully and enjoy being out in the world making new friends and growing new relationships.

I know that many see me as one who already does the above in spades, however, I am the one who lives inside myself, and I know the ways I self-sabotage in both those areas. So, I am making a public commitment (even though I don't actually think anyone else is reading this, but I'm putting it out for the record) that I am aware of my own ways I diminish myself, and I am willing and ready to step beyond that and blossom in new ways this year.

So, the thing about wasting time is this: If I had been "smarter" or "cooler" or more discerning, more careful, more cautious, more reasonable, less impulsive, less carefree, more fearful--I could go on and on--than I was in the past, then I wouldn't have experienced all those amazingly challenging and inspiring situations that led me to the me I am today. So no matter WHAT I did, I wasn't wasting time. I was evolving myself, my awareness, my abilities to live, love and learn in new ways. And for that, I am deeply grateful.