I have been leading a webinar for quite a while, and it has always been brilliant, both to participate in and to lead.
It has always delivered on the promise:
- show you what’s missing in an area of life, something that you can do something about so you can get unstuck and have that area of life be a lot better… and consequently all of your life.
- Effect you so strong that it would get you, or a lot of you, finally get off your ass, and into action.
It’s worked for years… and this past weekend it didn’t.
I have now spent hours looking, and finally I see it. I see what happened. I see what I did differently. I missed the most important job of the workshop…
Unless you see, clearly see what it cost you, on the long term, not to take an action, you won’t do anything.
Instead of showing people, each person, what it is costing them if they don’t change that area, if they continue doing what they are doing, and having the attitude that they are having, I didn’t… and then no action happened. People didn’t see it, and they didn’t do anything. Big loss…
If I could go back and do it over, right now, I would do it in a heartbeat… because my own selfishness, and my own lack of generosity cost these people a chance that may not come again: having the crystal ball that shows them where they are heading.
The movie, It’s A Wonderful Life, works on this exact principle.
The angel comes down and shows the hero, played by James Stewart, what life would be like if he had been never born. And the horror of that brings James Stewart out of his death wish, and return to his family, to his life.
When you are in a situation that is tolerable, you do what you do, you have the attitude that you have, and nothing will change unless something shocks you out of it.
You will continue to hope, day dream, or take timid actions, to try to fix the situation at best you can.
And you don’t understand why your life is going south.
Your life is always going south. Always.
And gifts like an angel showing you the results, are rare.
The workshop I lead on the weekends, is designed to do that… when I do it the way it is meant to be lead, when I don’t do it my way (ungenerosity!)… like this past Saturday and Sunday.
When thing go reasonably well for you, you don’t see that things are always going south. You need a gift, a crash, to stop and look.
- The woman who learned to manipulate the situations in her life by not talking… calculatedly waiting to say something…
- The guy who will continue being distracted and take weeks to do what others can do in an evening…
- The woman who will continue trying to make everything perfect, and fret, and get done very little…
- And the guy who is craving companionship but can’t relate to much anything people say…
If they continue to be the way they have been, life will get worse for them.
- The woman, eventually will stop her calculated silence, because it is against her nature: she needs to shine…
- The guy who is always distracted will never have time to play his guitar, or feel ok about socializing, because his school work will always sit heavily on his conscience…
- The guy who can’t relate will be lonely and because other people want to be able to talk and be related to, or they will leave…
It’s an art to take people to the specific south of their circumstances, and I didn’t do it well this weekend.
Why? In my superiority (opposite of generosity!) I forgot about it. I rushed through it. And didn’t realize I did that until later on Sunday.
I didn’t mention the last guy who feels unappreciated. Because he is a hero, and nobody acknowledges it. And this pressing need to be the hero, to show it to everyone, will make him the persona non grata everywhere, because unless someone allows you to shine, you won’t want to be with them, do you?
Generosity was missing for him, among other capacities.
Really, look in your heart, and tell me how you feel about the “take charge of type of” boss, husband, friend, who never allows you to shine, to do anything meaningful? The guy who wants to talk because he doesn’t want to hear what you have to say?
For a minute it is nice… but after the minute it is like “what am I? chopped liver?” they ask it in the Northeast…
I have a lot in common with the last guy… I have a strong need to shine.
And sometimes when the need to shine is bigger than the desire to make a difference, I lead disastrous webinars…
I’ve learned my lesson. How? I could see it, in hindsight, what was missing in my leading… Because in my imagination I took my life all the way to “south”, when no one wants to come any more… when no one wants to talk to me any more…
And it was horrifying.
You are asking what was the missing “thing” I could have there? It’s generosity. Generosity of spirit.
Allowing YOU to shine, and allowing me to shine. At the same time.
I have the spiritual capacity of generosity open only 40%… I have it on, so I can do the exercises to expand how brightly I allow you to shine… I’d love to turn it on all the way to 100%.
Now, that is a project it is worth failing at. Failing like: I promised 100%, but I only got to 80%… Those are the failures I love.
Wouldn’t you?
Why this webinar, why am I so adamant in leading it?
I lead these webinars to ferret out what is the missing capacity, the perfect match to the area. What is the capacity that if it were turned on and kept on, would completely transform not just that area, but your whole life.
If you leave the webinar without asking for that capacity to be turned on, you leave with an insight. And an insight, unfortunately, is a dime a dozen… It is near impossible to act on an insight unless you have that specific capacity.
Don’t be mistaken: successful people have more capacities than people with less capacities. That is the invisible reason why they do better in life.
Now, that the magic of having me turn on a specific capacity is available, everyone can become more successful.
Unless…
I have seen a few ways people don’t get more successful after the activation of a spiritual capacity:
- they think the turning on the capacity is enough and they don’t do anything differently afterwards. After 3 days of non-use, the capacity turns off.
- they immediately ask for another capacity, a capacity that is not needed but sounds good… and they can’t practice it. They decided that they know better…
And there is a third way people shoot themselves in the foot: they try to turn on the capacity themselves.
In life, capacities only turn on in life or death situations, and most people don’t have that kind of life.
Using the exercises that keep on an activated capacity, will not turn the capacity on.
Why? Because the exercise is doing, and the capacity is being.
All capacities are spiritual capacities, all capacities enable you to be in a certain way. Said in another way: have a certain attitude.
Generosity can be pretended, but the beingness of generosity won’t be there.
Practicing the actions of generosity without the beingness… that is what we call pretense.
Pretense: The disease of the 21st century.
One success story: what did he do different?
One of my clients went from seven capacities, insufficient for his new role as a company owner with employees, to 19 capacities. From fretting, being scared, avoiding, hiding, to having a presence, doing what’s important, insight, and if he continues, eventual success.
What is different about him?
He decided that the future of the company going south is scary enough to get off his ass and ask me to gradually give him what he needed so he could avoid that totally predictable future.
It’s taken two months… Is he done? It’s entirely up to him.
But as you can see from my only 40% open generosity capacity: there is always more north to go… Or was it west? lol
Useful links: Spiritual Capacities
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