David Emerald
The Power Of TED*
*The Empowerment Dynamic
Copyright © 2016 by David Emerald.
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KINDLE EDITION
Cover and Interior Design by Robert Lanphear
Illustrations by Obadinah
Ebook Formatting by Keigh Design
To all the Challengers, Coaches, and Co-Creators in my life
Contents
Copyright
Foreword by Lisa Lahey
New Preface for the 10th Anniversary Edition
Chapter 1. A Fateful Meeting
Chapter 2. The Dreaded Drama Triangle
Chapter 3. A Drawing in the Sand
Chapter 4. The Victim Orientation
Chapter 5. Another Friend
Chapter 6. The Creator Orientation
Chapter 7. Dynamic Tension
Chapter 8. The Empowerment Dynamic
Chapter 9. Shift Happens
Chapter 10. A Fond Farewell
A Note from the Author
Questions for the Journey
Appendix
Acknowledgments
Suggested Reading
About the Author
Foreword
BY LISA LAHEY
Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
—Mary Oliver
I’ve shared Oliver’s line with many people over the years. When I do, three observations emerge:
1) People agree on one point: each of us has one life.
2) People tend to respond positively or negatively to the quotation; few people respond neutrally.
3) Within those two reactions, there is significant variation in why people feel as they do.
Some people are delighted by the question’s reminder that their lives are in their own hands, while for others, it is a novel but wonderful idea that they could actually plan to do something with their lives. Other people feel ashamed of not being able to answer the question, and others are angry with the presumption that they can plan their lives. Still others laugh at the word “precious,” feeling quite clear that there is nothing precious about their lives at the moment. Instead, life feels like a weight, a fight, or worse. Some feel so beaten down that they say it seems foolhardy to even imagine being in charge of their own lives. You may have had another reaction.
I’ve come to see people’s responses to these sixteen simple words as a window into two essential ways we see ourselves and our lives. Broadly speaking, one way is to see ourselves at the mercy of those around us, and the other is to see ourselves as having agency over our lives. We can move back and forth between these two mindsets, though people seem to operate predominantly from one or the other.
As if it wasn’t enough of a burden to experience oneself at the mercy of others, I’ve noticed that many people who feel this way are also suffering, feeling stuck, thinking badly of themselves (often quietly—though some people cover that up with their anger), and are almost always on their own, by themselves. They find it hard to ask for help for many different reasons, including not admitting to themselves that they need help and not wanting to appear weak by asking for help.
Asking for help is hard. After all, we live in a culture in which the tacit message is that we “ought” to be able
to handle such challenges ourselves. This notion is mistaken.
As a developmental psychologist, I can tell you that our individual development needs to be nurtured, and that an ideal environment is one that both supports and challenges us. Too often, we go without both of these conditions.
If I could wave the proverbial magic wand on behalf of each of us becoming our best selves, I would make it so we could ask for help and we could do so before things go terribly wrong, or before we feel overwhelmed and excessively stressed from being in over our heads. Without someone else’s perspective, we tend to go around and around, repeating our default patterns and getting nowhere (except perhaps to feeling worse about ourselves for our lack of progress).
Help is here, in this gem of a book. In this short, fast-paced and wisdom-packed parable, Emerald takes us by the hand and lovingly shows us how our psychological default is to operate unconsciously from a state of fear and to take on different drama-based roles as a result. He helps us to see how living out of fear not only keeps us small but creates a dynamic in which we keep others small as well. In other words, we limit our own potential as well as the people around us. We lose a connection to our vision and purpose. Emerald helps us understand the variation of people’s responses I’ve described here, and how any of us can move from believing and reinforcing the belief that we have no agency in our lives to a belief that we are the only ones who are in charge of our lives.
Because this is counter-cultural, I want to repeat that developing our capacity to take responsibility for our lives is an achievement that needs to be cultivated. If we did so, we would be able to use our one wild and precious life to create something meaningful. We would be available to support other people to do the same. And together, we might intentionally participate in our communities (in our home, our work, our neighborhoods) to do something bigger than any of us individually could. Dare I say that we could together create peace?
If all this sounds lofty and impossible, let me say it this way: If we could develop our capacity to plan and live our lives fully, we would feel less like victims, helpless to solve the problems other people make for us. We would no longer feel so exhausted from fighting, feeling badly about ourselves for not fighting back, or for believing that we are not good enough. We would have energy to create more of the life we want.
So read this book. Let Emerald take you by the hand. Remind yourself that he has walked this very path (as have I). And go find the community, even if it is just one other person, to provide you with what you want, need, and deserve.
When it’s over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
—Mary Oliver
Lisa Lahey Ed.D., Cambridge, MA
Harvard Graduate School of Education
Minds at Work
New Preface
FOR THE 10th ANNIVERSARY EDITION
“This book changes lives.”
That message has been communicated countless times over the past decade through emails, during workshops, at speaking events, in on-line book reviews, and in casual encounters when people learn that I am the author of TED*.
And countless times I have been left almost speechless. I will share the reason why in a minute.
From all reports, TED* has impacted marriages, improved relationships between parents and children, informed pre-marital counseling, and healed multi-generational family drama. It’s been used in middle school and high school curricula, in college social work and psychology classes, in addiction treatment programs and groups, in diabetes education and other chronic health challenge situations, in community poverty outreach and training programs, and in church youth and book study groups. It’s been beneficial for the community of Rwandan immigrants who fled to the United States after their country’s 1994 genocide and their work of reconciliation between Hutus and Tutsis. TED* has been widely deployed in leadership academies, by leadership teams in organizations, and has become the cornerstone of company cultu
res.
And these are only examples that have been brought to our attention. There are others we do not know of.
Here’s one illustration. A gentleman who looked to be in his early 40s stopped by our book table at a recent conference. “I have been looking forward to meeting and thanking you for writing this book—it saved my marriage.” He proceeded to tell me a story of sitting in a hotel room in his home town, estranged from his wife, holding a book a friend had given him, recommending he read it that night. He laid down on the bed, he said, and didn’t get up until he was done reading The Power of TED*. The next day he called his wife, apologized for his part in the drama of their marriage, and said he wanted to create a new relationship.
I didn’t know what to say or do, so I did and said what I have so many times: I stood, shook his hand, put my hand on my heart and said, “Thank you, I am so grateful that TED* has touched your life.”
Beyond that, I am nearly speechless in such encounters because I often don’t feel worthy of the praise simply because, like everyone else, on a daily basis I, too, am seeking to live the principles and practices contained in this story of David and Ted and Sophia walking and talking along the shore where surf meets sand—and where the human experience meets our spiritual essence.
You see, the ways of thinking, relating, and taking action contained in this book changed my life as well—and continue to. For me the old adage is true: we teach what we most need to learn.
The Story Behind the Story
The time has come to share a little of the genesis of what eventually became The Power of TED*.
At a critical time in my life, I faced all of the realities that the character David faces in the story. While working with a psychotherapist (a healthy choice when facing such challenges in life), I learned about the Karpman Drama Triangle and its roles of Victim, Persecutor, and Rescuer.
Then, one fateful morning, as I was sitting engaged in my morning “quiet time” ritual—a practice of some combination of inspirational readings, prayer, silence, and contemplation—a moment of surrender surfaced and silently I said to the God of my understanding, “I am ready to relinquish my Victim stance in the world, but I need to know what is the opposite of Victim?” Immediately the word “Creator” came into my awareness. While I did not actually “hear” a voice, I can understand how some could say they do. My eyes flew open and I drew a deep breath. It was an utterly unexpected personal epiphany.
That morning began the journey that eventually led to TED*.
Looking back, many seemingly miraculous meetings and events took place—too many to detail here. I can attest to the famous observation made by W. H. Murray (The Scottish Himalayan Expedition [1951]:
“The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision which no one could have dreamed would have come their way.”
Among them, for me, was learning of the work of Robert Fritz shortly after my morning epiphany and engaging in his “Technologies for Creating”; and then, not long after, meeting Bob Anderson, my dear friend and colleague for now over a quarter-century who, through our shared passion for leadership development, introduced me to the mindsets and models of the Orientations contained in the story; and over a dozen years ago meeting Donna Zajonc, my wife, business partner, and the “Mom” of TED* who first encouraged me to take that personal epiphany and begin to share it with others.
Given my more than three decades of community and organizational communication, leadership and organization development, it would have been easy to write a more traditional, nonfiction leadership book. (And for those for whom such an approach might be more appealing, I suggest your start with the Appendix, which contains a narrative outline of the concepts contained in the story.)
Instead, the spirit of TED* intervened. The Call was to write a fable about Self Leadership. For this is what I have come to learn, a lesson I am reminded of almost daily: the way we lead our own lives has everything to do with the quality of leadership we bring to our most important relationships, our families, our organizations, our communities, and—now, more than ever—our world.
As I write, our human family seems to be careening toward the ultimate choice point: will we continue the downward spiral of fear, reactivity, and drama or stop, pause, and choose to upgrade our way of being in relationship with one another as Creators capable of honoring and respecting our essential unity with all its splendid diversity?
It starts with me and you and how we lead our own lives. My prayer is that TED* touches and enriches your own life so that, in turn, you can help others.
David Emerald
CHAPTER 1
A Fateful Meeting
From the bench where I sat overlooking the beach, it seemed I could see forever. The ocean spread out in a blue expanse, undulating its way into infinity. Yet I couldn’t really enjoy it. Inside I was constricted. The surf, some hundred feet below the bluff on which my bench sat, normally would have sounded soothing. Its calm was lost on me as I struggled with an insistent emptiness inside.
It had been a particularly painful period. The bloom was, indeed, off the rose. A couple of years ago, my wife and I had bought the perfect suburban starter home, nothing lacking but the white picket fence. We had envisioned it as the place to start our family; for so long we had dreamed about having children. Then, months after the untimely death of my dad, with whom I had been very close, we received word from our doctor that I was infertile. Not only had I lost Dad, but now I felt that I was the victim of my biology. To my mind, the link between generations—first between me and my dad, and now between me and the child I had dreamed of fathering—was permanently shattered.
After months of anguishing over options, my wife entered her grief and withdrew from our fragile marriage, unwilling to consider adoption or medical alternatives. Feeling abandoned and alone, I descended into despair as we separated and, eventually, divorced. I was bereft.
Everywhere I looked, my life hurt. Tears filled my eyes and the beauty of the beach before me became even more obscured. I had always assumed I would have a family when the time was right, and that the marriage vows of “in good times and bad” would see us through any trials and tribulations. Not so. The time, it seemed, was never, and the vow proved to be conditional. I lived a good moral and ethical life. The questions swirled and tumbled through my mind: “What sort of karma is this? What seeds have I sown to reap this unjust penalty? Why me?” The void felt as big as the sea before me.
I took my pen from the clasp of my leather-bound journal and opened it to a new page. This repository of my thoughts and questions and yearnings had been a constant companion over the years. Journaling had become a way of processing my experiences, and I was grateful for the insights that often emerged.
As I wrote, emotions washed over me and my rational mind found its still, small voice. Instead of answering my questions, it simply whispered that this was the hand I had been dealt. Life was challenging me to find a way through what seemed to be a life of powerlessness and victimization.
In this struggle between heart and head, inwardly I cried out to Spirit, “I’m sick and tired of feeling so small!” And in that moment, I chose to surrender my stance as Victim. But for the life of me, I didn’t know what to replace it with. “What,” I wrote, “is the opposite of Victim?” If the crashing waves contained the answer, I didn’t understand their language.
In that moment I closed the journal and returned the pen to the holder that served as a clasp. Closing my eyes, I breathed deeply, savoring the salt air. Again I inquired, “What is the opposite of Victim?” This time the response was immediate: “Creator,” the inner voice announced.
“The opposite of Victim is Creator.”
I felt a chill course up my spine, and I took a deep, full breath of sea air. Suddenly there emerged a feeling I had not had in a very long time. A fresh se
nse of hope began to make itself known. I sat for a few precious moments drinking in the sounds of the surf and the release that accompanied the revelation of this new and different way of being in the world.
I wondered, “What does it mean to know that the opposite of Victim is Creator? What do I do now?” I knew I had to stay open and receptive to whatever guidance might be forthcoming.
A New Friend
I don’t know how many minutes I sat there, enveloped by the sounds and the scents of the sea, before I heard the faint sound of footsteps on the sandy path leading up to the bench.
When I opened my eyes again, I saw that someone had silently joined me on my seaside bench. He sighed, “What a sight. It’s hard not to be inspired from this vantage point, wouldn’t you say?” All I could do was nod. I managed a slight smile.
“Hi, I’m Ted,” he said, extending his hand. “Mind if I sit here? I don’t mean to intrude.”
I shook his firm, friendly, and strangely familiar hand. “David,” I simply said.
I had come to that bluff overlooking the sea to contemplate, to try to make some sense out of the unexpected twists and turns my life had taken. It seemed that a new choice was being offered me, though I was anything but clear about what it all meant. My emotions were caught in a crosscurrent between grief and hope. Despite the new direction I had been given from within, I felt disoriented.
And now here was this friendly stranger beside me. He had a walking stick—more like a staff—that he held with both hands between his knees. I couldn’t tell if it was fashioned from the branch of a tree or if it had been a long piece of driftwood that may have washed up on the beach. In any case, it was worn smooth except for a few knots that appeared like dark eyes along the shaft.
We sat there in silence for a long time. I didn’t know it yet, but I had just met a teacher who would help me answer some of the most important questions in my life. It was the beginning of getting to know Ted.
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