I find myself doing the same exact things. Often times can’t walk away from a project or an escalation at work until it is complete, even when I am no longer being efficient at working on the project. There is a little too much ego involved, “I am a person who always gets it done”, is something that often runs through my mind. The words from this chapter made me realize that there is no sense in pounding your head against a brick wall just to prove that you have a hard head. This is something that eluded me for so long because I wanted to be perceived as a problem solver. But what good am I doing for anyone, especially myself, when I end up taking other peoples’ monkeys home with me to mess up my house. By laughing it off, and attacking the problem without fear of judgment, the problems seem to resolve themselves. Great post!
On Saturday, September 11th, Jeff Kohls wrote:
Sometimes I believe in fate.
Sometimes I believe in chance.
I'm not sure which vehicle it was that placed The Art of Possibility in my hands, but it seems to belong there in so many ways.
I'm going to discuss the Rule #6, the Calculating Self, and Central Self.
Last week, I read a Tweet from a member of my PLN that stated, "I try not to take this place too seriously." I thought for a moment, wow, what a concept. Here I am, in all of my busy, high stress, time-managed glory, dealing with high school students, family relationships, graduate school work, leadership committees, assessments, irate parents, and car issues, and these 9 words that are so simple, rang an internal gong so loud, it frightened me. Then, I read about Rule #6.
You see, I tend to be a driven individual, often narrowly focused on the outcomes as opposed to the contributions. After all, it is the contributions that make the outcome. When facilitating a student-lead project, I'm very, very serious, and tend to get irate at the smallest problems or issues. The focus of the chapter is to lighten up, use humor and laughter to "get over ourselves," while keeping in check our calculating selves which could impede progress. The Zander's make a great point that "children grow up in a medium of language and have a long, long time to think. A child comes to think of himself as the personality he gets recognition for or, in other words, as the set of patterns of action and habits of thought that get him out of childhood in one piece." Habits remain from childhood into adulthood and become very difficult to break. This is me.
As adults, especially ones in a field where we are charged to care for the youth of our great country, we have a responsibility to be honest to our students, no matter what age, our clients, and our selves. How can we do so if our calculating self, our pride, our egos get in the way. Zander's go on to say, "when one person peels away the layers of opinion, pride, and inflated self-description, others instantly feel the connection. As one person has the grace to practice the secret Rule Number 6, others often follow. Now, with the calculating self revealed and humored, the central self shines through."
The most important paragraph in these three chapters, to me, is the final paragraph of the 6th Practice:
"When we follow Rule Number 6 and lighten up over our childish demands and entitlements, we are instantly transported into a remarkable universe. This new universe is cooperative in nature, and pulls for the realization of all our cooperative desires. For the most part it lies a bit above our heads. Angels can fly there because, as you may have heard, they themselves lightly. But now, with the help of a single rule, so can we."
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