Sep 05

Out From Behind Our Masks

I have had a terrific weekend. Saturday I took a Norwegian friend out for a day-long trek into the Anza-Borrego Desert in the Jeep. It’s a beautiful place, rugged, remote, expansive, humbling. I find it a tonic for the ceaseless ruminations and pressures of an urban life.

Yesterday and today I worked a lot on school work - many more hours than anticipated. I am not sure if the pre-work for the upcoming course is ridiculous in volume or I’m obsessive in my approach to it.

I received an email with pictures from a past client cum friend who is living her dream out in Maine. Once again she was knee-deep in a whale necropsy - and front and center when releasing rejuvenated seals. What an inspiration.

And, I finished three books. They are:

1. Between a Rock and a Hard Place - about Aron Ralston’s battle for life during a six-day entrapment in a Utah canyon after a 1000-pound boulder pinned his right hand against the canyon wall. He liberated himself after amputating his hand. His story is not just about survival; it is about stipping away the noise of life and getting to the really important stuff.

2. Many Lives, Many Masters - about a Yale-educated psychiatrist, who, as director of the department at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami helped a woman plagued by anxiety attacks and phobias overcome them via past life regression.

3. Travels - a compilation of essays and short stories by Michael Crichton. He reveals himself as more than an entertainer; he is a deep thinker with insights about the human experience acquired by deep, if unintended, introspection. Let me tell you, he’s not always happy with what he’s found, and that makes him very human to me.

This book contains the best first line of a book I’ve ever read: “It is not easy to cut through a human head with a hacksaw.” If that’s not a grabber, nothing is!

Freedom
After all three of these books, the whale dismemberment pictures, and the desert excursion with my friend, even the schoolwork, I feel very satisfied. Admittedly, I’m a bit of a thinker and I much prefer learning and intimacy with a few people to large crowds and loud parties. But more than that, I feel like something is happening in me. I see people all over the place working diligently on pursuing what is most right for them - and doing so in ways that help other people.

Risk to be Free
Now I must admit there is a bit of a risk in putting this online, because some people think a “business coach” should be all business. But, I believe knowing the man makes truly knowing the businessman possible. In fact, it is not until we allow ourselves to drop the mask and reveal our true selves to the people around us that those people know something meaningful about us at all. For that matter, it is the only way we truly know ourselves.

There is freedom in knowledge. There is freedom in faith. There is freedom in fighting against death. There is freedom in helping other creatures. There is freedom in intimacy and openness. Freedom from what? From the feeling that who we are and how we live are separate. Freedom from leaving this world not ever having been really known. Freedom from the prison of having made ourselves unknowable. It seems that the crux of living (and therefore working) is about how much of our hearts and minds we can mobilize for the help and aid of other people.

I think the essential freedom people really want is to be deeply known by another person and to deeply know themselves, also. Maybe that’s a digression.

What the heck has this got to do with executive coaching or small business development - I don’t fully know. It’s on my mind and in my heart right this second - and it seems right to put it out there for us to think about together.

Another Digression - or Maybe Not
I read that some 50 countries have offered to help the citizens of our Gulf Coast region recover from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. In responding to the offers, our Secretary of State made a statement about how we were accepting the offers in an order which gave priority to help from less-wealthy countries. She said it was because (approximation) people need to know that giving is a good thing, even if they are not of substantial means.

This is not a political idea I’m making here - I’m gonna let it rip unhindered:

That was an incredibly selfish thing to say. The gracious thing to do was to say, “Thank you. We are grateful for your help. We need and appreciate it. We are hurting and we are touched by your friendship. Thank you.” It seemed that for once we should have turned the propaganda machine off and just been humble and grateful.

You wouldn’t say to a friend, “Thank you for your offer to help. Because I think it’s important for you to feel as though you’re helping me, I’ll accept your gift,” would you?

I think this is an example of refusing to come out from behind a mask. We missed an opportunity to be truly courageous and free just then…and truly connected with our friends. Masks can be such dastardly things.

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