“GET IN THE CAR!”
“GET IN THE CAR!!!”
In case you don’t recognize it, that’s a quote from me, yelling at my kids outside of a Star Wars store this weekend. Like, full-on yelling. In the parlance of our times, I’d “lost my cool.”
We went there because it was fun. You know, fun! Yay! Star Wars! Toys! We’d spent about ten minutes squeezing our bodies around glass display cases and mismatched tables covered with Jedi action figures and imperial speeders. The shop looked like it had been last tidied a Long Time Ago.
The yelling happened on the sidewalk outside the shop after we’d bought $16 worth of toys, with one of my kiddos wanting to see if we could go back in to switch his choice to a different toy.
My answer: Absolutely not. Totally unacceptable. And when my kids resisted, the yelling came: “GET IN THE CAR!”
So why did I take a fundamentally delightful experience and make it miserable?
It’s a good question. I’m glad you asked!
I’ll get to that.
But first, let me just tell you how sick I am of personal growth.
I’m done with it! I’m ready to “arrive,” to be… if not enlightened exactly, at least not a jerk to my kids.
I want to be done growing — and serve the people I need to serve in this world through my business.
And I’m ready to show up with kindness and grace in my personal life (see above for the opposite of this).
There’s a saying that “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.”
Enter Amba, who is… well, she’s a badass. 🙂
She’s built a decades-long practice as a teacher and a coach. She works with global organizations like HP and local ones like Seattle’s family-run grocery chain, Town and Country Markets. She helps leaders tap into their creativity from a place of wholeness and care for themselves and others.
Regular readers will know that I interviewed her on my podcast a few months back. One of the things that we chatted about was Amba’s course (and related book of poetry), Crossing Thresholds.
Crossing Thresholds is a book of poems Amba wrote while staying off-grid in Isle Royale National Park in Lake Superior. It’s also a guide on crossing one’s own threshold — how to pass from the known to the unknown to remake one’s relationship with something.
For Amba, the book sprang from a personal journey. While she was on Isle Royale, connecting with nature, she was also creating space to remake her relationship with her adult daughter.
When I learned that, I honestly felt like someone had punched me in the stomach. Not because she was doing that work (yay for evolving relationships), but because… gosh, shouldn’t she be done with this kind of work? Shouldn’t she, well, be grown?
A few weeks after we recorded the podcast, I shared my dismay.
She just laughed! “Well, of course you’re not done! You’re never done! But growth is what keeps things interesting.”
Well, shit. So I guess I have to keep growing.
My personal journey to grow my awareness started when my first kiddo was about to enter this world and I was diagnosed with testicular cancer. A week before his birth, I had a “radical inguinal orchiectomy,” which are the fancy words my surgeon used to describe removing my ball.
I doubled down on personal growth when my former wife and I started the process of a collaborative divorce (“collaborative,” to clarify, does not mean “easy” or “fun”).
Now I’ve crossed those thresholds. I’m in a fantastic partnership with a woman who I deeply love. Together, we’re raising three amazing kiddos, and we’re in the process of moving in together.
The most significant difference I notice from these years of work is increased compassion for others and myself, particularly when I don’t show up the way I’d like to.
Like on the sidewalk outside of the Star Wars shop.
Here’s what happened: the owners are fervent anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers, something that I only figured out as we walked past a sandwich board in front of the shop touting anti-deep state beliefs.
I’ll share my views here: I think that the science is clear and they’re wrong; Covid is a product of biology, not a conspiracy from the deep state.
I don’t think their beliefs make them evil, just misguided. But, in their confusion, they might harm others (including my kids). And I’m not OK with that.
So we were heading into a place that made me feel fundamentally unsafe. Now, it was well-ventilated, and we were all masked, but every part of me wanted to get in and out as quickly as we could (which doesn’t work so well when you’re with kiddos whose average age is six).
So, in short, I was freaking out. After we’d spent a few minutes in the shop, and my kids had chosen their toys, it was just too much for me when my oldest son asked to switch from the spaceship he’d chosen to another one.
To be clear, he almost certainly could have switched. This wasn’t the kind of place with barcodes and price tags. Rather it was the kind of place where the owner would have thought for a second and said something like, “Well, I suppose that’s OK.”
But I was done. I had been containing my freakout… until it exploded. Hence the yelling.
For me, this is my threshold to cross, my opportunity: how do I advocate for myself from a place of being in a relationship with others? How do I speak my truth softly?
This is my opportunity.
But what does all this have to do with you and your work?
Everything.
Because whatever your opportunity for growth is, it’s yours as a person.
The You who’s impatient in line at the grocery store because the clerk is taking forever is the same You who interrupts a colleague who’s in the middle of forming a thought.
The You who’s uncomfortable dealing with strong feelings from your spouse or kid is also challenged when coaching a colleague through a difficult challenge.
We all have these opportunities for growth (after all, that’s what keeps things interesting).
And growth is not linear, which is why the process of stepping through a threshold is so powerful.
So if you’re interested in exploring what’s next for you, I encourage you to register here for the free mini-course.
It’s this Thursday, August 26, 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM (Pacific time). But if you can’t attend live, no worries – there will be a recording sent around after.
Whatever shift you’re working to make, this may be the opportunity to make it.
When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.
So are you ready? Register here.
P.S: Amba’s free mini-course is a preview of her Fall course on Crossing Thresholds, which she’s offering this September and October over six consecutive Tuesdays: September 14, 21, 28, October 5, 12, AND 19 from 10 AM–12 PM Pacific Time. I’m enrolled in Crossing Thresholds and thrilled about the journey.
P.P.S: As I mentioned above, I’m an affiliate for this course. That means I’ll get a commission if anyone signs up for the full course. I’ll never promote any work I don’t believe in — and in this case, I’m paying for the course, too, so I’ll be there right beside you.
Being an affiliate is something new for me (and, it turns out, something new for Amba too); let me know how it lands with you.
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