Shae Hadden

Success & Failure

What is your purpose?

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I used to believe life was about using your talents. I hated uncertainty, chaos, and unpredictability. All I had to do was figure out what my talents were and develop them. Then life could be neatly organized into 3 boxes: before, during, and after career. As in, preparing to work (education), working, and retiring from work. Success, according to my youthful definition, involved moving through all 3 boxes with my creative talents and financial resources relatively intact. 

A few years after graduating from university, I realized that education and work overlap. You work to learn. And then you must keep learning and developing yourself to keep up—no matter what field you’re working in. Then about a decade ago, I started meeting Baby Boomers who were working beyond their official retirement.

The walls between all three boxes collapsed. My definition of a successful life disintegrated. I’ve been reconstructing ever since.

Today I appreciate the capability we have as human beings to choose and to create. I can choose why I’m here. I can create my own definition of success.

This week I heard about the Japanese concept of “ikagai”, a reason to get up in the morning. A reason for Being that gives you satisfaction. A purpose you can bring to every moment that makes your dance with life juicy and joyous.

With an ikagai, you can cherish unpredictability—instead of fear it—and welcome new, perhaps unconventional definitions of success.

My ikagai is to help people articulate their ideas.

What’s yours?

 

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Bestselleritis

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“B is for bestseller.”
Mark Haddon

I’ve spent some time over the last month listening to several experts sharing their experience writing best-selling books. I figured I might as well see what wisdom resonated with me—after all, these individuals have become gurus by succeeding at selling many, many books over time. A few tips later, I’ve got cauliflower ears from listening to hours of talking heads on headset … and a new realization.

There must be a lot of people out there looking for help with starting, finishing and promoting their book. Eager people who have their hearts set on writing a bestseller—and only a bestseller. Otherwise, how could these experts be in such demand for sharing their expertise on how to be wildly successful in the book industry?

I define this compelling aspiration, this writer’s condition, as “Bestselleritis”. Symptoms can include:

  • Ÿ  A burning desire to be on the NY Times Bestseller List
  • Ÿ  An initial belief that bestsellers happen overnight
  • Ÿ  An obsession with what it will be like to be famous
  • Ÿ  Recurring conversations about writing a bestseller
  • Ÿ  An allergy to writing
  • Ÿ  A file folder of great story ideas
  • Ÿ  An archive of incomplete manuscripts
  • Ÿ  A fully booked schedule for the foreseeable future

Wisdom from people who have gone before can be helpful in dealing with this condition. I’ve learned that the following pills, although sometimes hard to swallow, can further alleviate uncomfortable symptoms.

  • Ÿ  Be committed to writing. Trust the process and stay focused.
  • Ÿ  Be disciplined. Do the work.
  • Ÿ  Be humble. Admit you don’t have all the answers.
  • Ÿ  Be willing to give up other things in life. Put aside distractions and take the small steps, day after day, that add up to success.

At the end of the day, completing and promoting this book is my responsibility—and mine alone—with or without expert help.

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Questioning Change

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“Remain introspective and open about your theory of change.”
Joe Brewer

I have great compassion for leaders today. They have to interact with multiple, complex systems as they are changing. And time and time again, we watch them successfully enroll people to participate in changing the world and then, just as unsuccessfully, see their grandiose plans to make things better play out in strings of failures.

What are we missing?

I’ve been thinking a lot about this in the last 3 weeks. Joe Brewer’s words have stuck with me….perhaps because they run so contrary to the way many of us relate to change. Growing up, I was taught to make sure I’m asking the ‘right’ questions and then find the ‘right’ answers. As if there was a right and wrong way to deal with things. Fine for simple basics like homework and high school relationships. Not so fine when it comes to the intricacies of adult life and the systemic breakdowns we’re witnessing in the world.

When it comes to complex, inter-related systems that are rapidly changing, the ‘problem/solution’ mindset seems to be falling short of what’s needed. 

Take a medical emergency, for example. When you have multiple health issues going on at once and something out of the ordinary happens, you want the doctors to look at as much of the picture as possible. It’s as if you intuitively know just looking at one or two facts will be insufficient. You want the doctors to keep asking questions, to keep looking at and paying attention to as many things as possible. If they don’t, widespread systemic breakdowns—or even death—may be in your future.

The same applies to creative projects. The challenge for me now in writing this book is to continue to question all my assumptions, ask powerful questions, be open to new inputs and new insights. This dynamically creative thinking space is where, I think, I can better grasp the complexity of coaching. Where I can let go of old mental models that no longer work. Where I can keep learning and adapting the book’s content to the changes happening in the world.

Perhaps the same applies to leadership. If we as leaders can remain skeptical about how the world is supposed to work and stay with the discomfort of not having a ‘quick fix’ solution, we may succeed in creating a world that does work.

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Dancing with Uncertainty

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“Uncertainty and expectation are the joys of life. Security is an insipid thing.”
William Congreve

It’s amazing how many years I’ve coasted along without taking time to re-focus and get clear about what I want in life again. Ever since I can remember, I longed for the security of living a pre-planned path, of having my life happen in a specific way. But deep down, I really wondered who this person called Shae was, why things didn’t always work out the way I’d planned, and what I was doing that was wrong. Ah, youth!

It pays to be clear—at any age. And clarity, especially in times of uncertainty, is an access to power. Being clear is the first step towards choosing freely.

For a while, I thought it was information that was missing for me to be clear. So I focused on learning. I eventually discovered that, more often than not, when it comes to fundamental issues in our lives like personal and relationship concerns, data doesn’t cut it. Relationships take two, and the only person we can ever change is ourselves.

The challenge is two-fold:

  1. We’re hardwired in our culture to resist change, and
  2. It’s extremely difficult to confront ourselves.

For a long time, I thought there was something ‘wrong’ with me because I couldn’t get my chosen path in life ‘right’. So I tried therapy for a little while to figure out what was unresolved and unhealed from my past and make things ‘right’ in the present. But what I really wanted to do was shift the future I was living into: a future that looked very much like my past. The future is not normally the domain of the therapist.

It wasn’t until I met and started working with a master coach that things began to get clear for me—including what I wanted for my future.

Now the various coaches I have relationships with have my permission to ask me the difficult questions I tend to avoid. I know they won’t provide me with answers and silver bullets. But they do help me observe my thoughts and review the outcomes of my actions without blaming me or making me wrong. With them, I feel safe looking at different perspectives and possibilities for my future. They are trusted partners with whom I can engage in generative dialogue without fear of manipulation or coercion.

Now, being attached to a specific way for my life to happen seems limiting, even dangerous.

I’m dancing on the edge of uncertainty as if it’s as sharp as the edge of this glass canoe.

And here’s where things get REALLY clear.

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Staying Power

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“Burning desire to be or do something gives us staying power – a reason to get up every morning or to pick ourselves up and start in again after a disappointment.”
Marsha Sinetar

My author friends warned me about writer’s block. They had me read books about dealing with my own resistance to writing. They quietly shared about the weird things that happen in your life to teach you what you need to know for your book. The “Why did I ever begin this?” doubts. The setbacks. The life challenges that interfere with your plans.

Experienced all these. Thanks. Enough already.

But no one talked about a crazy madness that compels you to move forward, someway, somehow, no matter what happens. When all reason and logic says stop, put this aside, do something else, take a break. Step away. And you just can’t.

The Universe seems to conspire to have it that way with this book.

The very minute I thought of throwing in the towel this week, a publishing company called my cell with an invitation to contact them about my book. (Thanks very much, I already have a publisher.)

And then I had a wonderful conversation in which a businesswoman told me she doesn’t even think in terms of failure. She just keeps learning…and eventually succeeds. What great coaching!

Tomorrow, this book is the reason I’m getting up.

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Coach Me!

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“The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full potential… these are the keys that will unlock the door to personal excellence.”
Confucius

My conversations this week with several high-performing executives weave together desire and humility. Take a sincere desire to learn and grow in service of something greater than yourself. Add the humble wisdom that you need to have someone you can trust showing you what you cannot see about yourself. Shake and stir—and you’ve got a powerful aperitif for coaching.

The high achievers I’ve been speaking with have already succeeded at stepping up to new challenges, starting new enterprises, dealing with constant change, and managing teams. But at some point, each of them recognized they needed to deeply engage with their leadership style or presence if they wanted to continue achieving and accelerating their results.

Their commitment to lead their companies in these uncertain times and deliver value to all stakeholders is unshakeable.

Their desire to be coached matches their desire to succeed—no matter what their circumstances.

Whenever people come to coaching with this “Coach me!” attitude, coaches have an opportunity to contribute fully.

A coachee who is committed to contribute the best of who they are, to become whomever they have to be in order to fulfill their commitments in the world, and to empower others to develop their full potential. This type of person inspires me to contribute my best to empowering them—and to become the best coach I can be.

Interesting reciprocity there….

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