Go ahead and “look stupid.” But don’t be stupid. Do it anyway. Do the thing that matters. I’d rather be an idiot for my dreams than a measured colluder, an accomplice in the defeat of them.
TAMA KIEVES (journal entry)
I hear about people who “fell into things” just like that. Sure, they tripped and fell into a bucket of money or a happy marriage. Why doesn’t that happen for me? When I stumble, I fall into a briar patch. Then it starts hailing. Then my therapist has a migraine, an aneurysm, or a hair appointment and can’t meet. Maybe ever.
TAMA KIEVES (journal entry)
You may think that happy, successful people shot up like beanstalks, knowing exactly what they wanted to do. They drew up the perfect plan on crisp white paper, not a grape jelly or red wine splotch in sight. They got it done, then sailed right along into instant manifestation land. They’re lying on a white beach in Bora Bora beside turquoise water right now—near a bonfire of self-help books.
But people who are living fulfilled lives aren’t lucky. There is a common denominator, a simple technology at play. I call it the genius code. It’s moronically simple and sometimes diabolically hard to do. It’s this: No matter what, they took one step in the direction of their hunch or desire. They kept taking steps.
It’s one step that leads you everywhere. There is always a next step. You may want a guarantee before you take it. But the step is your guarantee.
I’m not a fan of quantum leaps that involve actual leaping. As far as I can see, it’s the daily nuances that matter more than one big push. It’s the willingness to consistently follow the iota of guidance when it prompts you. The smallest suggestions matter, just like over time, raindrops carve canyons and ideas transform nations.
Besides, there are no small steps when it comes to listening to your truth. You are either following what you know or following your doubt. It’s practically the meaning of life, and you get to practice it in every single instant.
Will you listen to the small nudges of intuition or will you choose small-mindedness? Over time, choices compound just like the interest on savings or debt. Good choices lead to more good choices. Sad choices lead to more sad choices. Momentum builds momentum.
“It’s one step that leads you everywhere. There is always a next step. You may want a guarantee before you take it. But the step is your guarantee.”
I’ll give you an example. I wanted to be a paid speaker at this one conference that, well, let’s just say in layman’s terms, hadn’t given me the time of day, though I did get a spiffy form rejection letter—complete with a sales pitch to attend the conference at full price. A friend of mine got invited to go camping with some of the organizers and he invited me and my partner, Paul, to join him. I want to meet the organizers on that trip, I thought immediately. It felt like a ray of clarity. Then came the cold feet: It would be a long drive, time away from actual income-producing work, and days spent with individuals who obviously saw me as chopped liver instead of prime rib—or prime time.
“Have you no self-respect?” whined my ego. “Why would you want to go with people who didn’t invite you to their conference?” I started waffling. These are the moments of truth that will make all the difference. This is where your life gets created. It all comes down to which internal voice you listen to. I don’t know about you, but for me, resistance, the force that overrides my instincts, often barges in like the secret service, doing damage control for my ailing self-esteem. But this kind of “damage control” does damage.
Now, to clarify, I want to avoid humiliation at all costs. I’d say that it is practically one of my prime directives in life. But then there’s this other me, I’ll call her Yoda-Tama, all emotionally healthy and farseeing, who cannot bear even the thought of regret.
She—and I—just can’t stand the idea that maybe I had a chance and I didn’t love myself enough to take it. Yoda-Tama quotes the comedienne Lucille Ball, who said, “I’d rather regret the things I’ve done than regret the things I haven’t done.” So, to stay true to myself, I am willing to go beyond my own self-consciousness—and act conscientiously on behalf of my instincts and desires instead.
Thank goodness on that day the sun was shining or maybe some passerby had smiled at me or I’d watched a great movie the night before—who knows?—because I had a clear thought, a good thought about going on this camping trip. I do have self-respect, I thought to myself. I respect my instincts more than my inhibition. I just felt like my friend inviting me on this camping trip was like the Inspired Master of Ceremonies throwing me a line. I took the cue and packed.
On the trip, I met Carol, one of the organizers, and told her how much I wanted to present a workshop at the conference. “I’m sorry, Tama, the speakers have already been selected,” she said definitively. Then she smiled. Now, this may just have been a smart move on her part—you know, be nice to the desperate person in front of you and all, since you’re going to be stuck in the wilderness with her for a few more days. But I took it as the dead bolt being released.
“Stay in the conversation.” I remember hearing that phrase from a sales coach years ago. It meant never just fold when someone says no. Go deeper. Go wider. Find out what the no is really about. Find out if you can meet the person’s hesitation with information or a resolution that works out even better.
Now, normally, I love this kind of junk about as much as I’d love having an MRI or colonoscopy. It feels pushy to me, like when a telemarketer calls and “stays in the conversation” until you find yourself lying to him ever so slightly about having a fire in the house—or screaming profanities about his company, his children, his dog, just so you can hang up and get back to your Nonviolent Communication or knitting with a Jesus group.
But then again, we’re talking about your life here, everything that matters to you. It’s worth just having a little more communication when you can. Your life deserves the extra poke at possibility. You don’t know what ideas can arise. Maybe it goes nowhere. But your life is worth a conversation. It’s not about being pushy. It’s about being purposeful. I’m asking you to stay true to what you want and find out what’s available.
“I’m happy to speak for free,” I volunteered. I knew I really wanted to be at that conference. I had this white-hot feeling that I belonged there. “Well, at this point,” she said, “I’m sorry, but there’s not even any meeting rooms left for workshops, since they’re all in use.” She went back to eating some baked beans off her paper plate, poor woman, assuming I’d let her chew.
But my inspiration, knowing sense, messiah complex, or whatever it was just wouldn’t quit. I spoke from the place in my core that loved the work I do. “Maybe I could offer an optional workshop during lunch, maybe outside, allowing people who wanted to drop in.” A butterfly flitted nearby and Carol looked at me in a way that let me know she was done with me, but not done in the I’m-annoyed-and-never-want-to-see-you-again way. “Let me see what I can do,” she said.
So get this. She called the next week. A conference room at the hotel had opened up. I don’t know how and I didn’t ask. Then Carol said that while they still couldn’t pay me, they had decided to cover my travel expenses. I was thrilled.
At the conference, the video team picked my workshop to film, which gave me more exposure and also professional footage I could use in my business to promote my speaking.
After the conference, Carol surprised me. “I didn’t feel right not paying you,” she wrote. “So please accept this check for your wonderful workshop. I’ve gotten such great feedback.” But that wasn’t the end. It was only the beginning.
Some other conference organizers saw me speak at this conference and invited me to speak at their coveted event in San Francisco. At that event, I met a woman who invited me to lead an all-day workshop at her organization in New York City. Someone saw me speak at that event and invited me to speak to a large audience in Seattle. I’m not even
telling you about the clients I got from these experiences or the individuals who then showed up at retreats. Or the national reporter who called me after a Seattle bookstore clerk (who’d seen me speak) had recommended my book to her. I am not making this up. It’s years later. And that bright coin is still rolling down the hallway. And that’s just the connections I know about.
And I think to myself: What if I hadn’t listened to that first hummingbird hunch to go on that camping trip? What if I’d ignored the desire to talk to Carol? Or what if I had stopped, understandably and politely, when Carol said they had already chosen their speakers? I would have missed so much. And as one of my clients has reminded me, “I would never have met you and found my dreams.” This adds another layer to the intricacy. By following our intuition, we play a part in a larger plan that involves the good of others too. That can throw a curve ball of guilt at you. And I’ll use anything that works.
The literature of success is filled with people who just kept taking steps toward what they wanted. The creative genius Walt Disney was famous for his sense of perseverance. For example, he wanted to make the book Mary Poppins into a film. But Pamela Travers, the Australian-born British author, refused. I’ve read that Walt Disney visited Travers at her home in England for the next sixteen years. That is staying in the conversation. Most of us would be lucky to remember there was a conversation. You know the end of this story. And generations of viewers get to see what Walt Disney had seen all along.
And let me tell you about Ray Bradbury, the famous science fiction writer. He shares his story in a great book called Zen in the Art of Writing. One day the young Bradbury, at the time living in a thirty-dollar-a-month apartment, felt moved to take a walk on the beach. Strolling, he glimpsed some debris that he creatively imagined as the skeleton of a dinosaur. That night, he got out of bed and wrote a short story about a hulking beast. He ended up selling that story to The Saturday Evening Post. The film director John Huston read the story and asked Bradbury to write the screenplay for his film Moby Dick. Because of working on Moby Dick, Bradbury wrote an essay that got read by the 1964 New York World’s Fair people, who he says “put me in charge of conceptualizing the entire upper floor of the Federal Pavilion.” Because of that pavilion, the Disney people hired him to write the script for Spaceship Earth, the attraction featured in Epcot’s iconic sphere. You see where this is going.
What if Bradbury had decided to turn on his equivalent of Netflix instead of walk on the beach that first day? Or what if he hadn’t gotten up to write that short story? What if he’d thought, I need my sleep, I’ve got CrossFit in the morning?
When you hear stories like these, it’s so easy to see how each step is needful and clicks like a domino. Bradbury walked on the beach when the impulse struck. He ignored the sale on men’s leather belts at Macy’s. He got out of a warm bed and wrote the words that became the story. He didn’t say, “Maybe tomorrow.” Or “Once I get the kids through college, organize the toolshed, handle my fear of success, finish this sudoku and this unopened bottle of scotch, and consult with my financial adviser and life coach.” He didn’t ask, “Where’s that going to go? He followed the tingle of invitation, or in his case the moan of a dinosaur. He took the step.
When it comes to your next steps, follow your intuition. Keep the ball rolling. Move the chess piece forward and stay in your game. You’ll see things differently. You’ll unleash new brain chemistry. And you’ll experience a spike of integrity, no matter what.
Every step is an answer to a prayer. Every step is a devotion. Every step is a pledge: I will serve. I will listen. I will honor. I allow life to reveal itself to me in masterful increments. I allow the Creative Mystery to instruct me in a step-by-step strategy I could never foresee. I will not waste the guidance. I obey my guidance instead of my resistance. I will not squander chances.
This is a practice. This is a dedication. This is real progress. This will make all the difference.
TURNING POINTS:
It’s One Step That Leads You Everywhere
It’s one step that leads you everywhere. There is always a next step. You may want a guarantee before you take it. But the step is your guarantee.
There are no small steps when it comes to listening to your truth. You are either following what you know or following your doubt.
Over time, choices compound just like the interest on savings or debt. Good choices lead to more good choices. Sad choices lead to more sad choices.
To stay true to myself, I am willing to go beyond my own self-consciousness—and act conscientiously on behalf of my instincts and desires instead.
Stay in the conversation. . . . It’s not about being pushy. It’s about being purposeful. I’m asking you to stay true to what you want and find out what’s available.
By following our intuition, we play a part in a larger plan that involves the good of others too.
Every step is an answer to a prayer. Every step is a devotion. Every step is a pledge: I will serve. I will listen. I will honor.
I obey my guidance instead of my resistance. I will not squander chances.
REMEMBER WHEN YOU GOT IT RIGHT
We are conditioned to let go of the inspiration, to say it wasn’t real. But the practice is to let go of the negation, to say that wasn’t real.
TAMA KIEVES (journal entry)
It is better to believe than to disbelieve; in so doing you bring everything to the realm of possibility.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
Do you ever feel like you’re not making enough progress? (I’m just so psychic, aren’t I?) Well, you might have this crazy idea that success is a static condition, like a solid redbrick house. But I believe progress is a series of moments, individual holy stars beaming in a black moonless sky. I’d love you to claim your shining moments.
Every day, I work with coaching clients involved with different stages of creating their own empires, healing from the inside out, finding their true note in their organization, or just climbing out of a paper bag. And this much I can tell you: No one is always doing great. No one ever feels as though she is selling every doughnut in her doughnut shop. But everyone has had at least one inspired moment when life just works. And that’s the gold I hunt for—the moments when the truth prevails.
An inspired moment is the Universe’s way of introducing you to yourself. It claims you. It authorizes you. An inspired moment teaches you who you really are. You’ve had them. It’s a moment when you knew you were born under a red star and meant to do something outrageous or purposeful and significant. It’s the moment when you knew you had to have a child or move across the world. It’s a moment when you knew everything would be okay, even though you had no clue how you knew.
Inspired moments are the times when you connected with your true blueprint—a quiet wisdom or boundless love. These were the moments you felt improbably free and complete. These are the moments you felt as solid as a redwood, even when you were teetering on a dusty footpath at the edge of the world. These inspired moments are real. But if you do not feed them, they cannot feed you.
To live an extraordinary life is to trust your inspired moments more than you trust in anything else. I don’t care if you have felt as though since that time nothing came of it. Or that you botched up your chance. I want to know what you knew when you knew. That’s your soul’s knowing. That’s your true story—not so much the form of what was going on but the feeling. Yes, this practice flies in the face of a culture gone mad with warnings and intellectual hesitation. Most of us are reminded to heed our limitations more than our inclinations. But you don’t have limitations. You have limiting beliefs.
Let me offer you an example. To become a professional speaker, I had to get past my limiting beliefs. I’d had a lot of fear. For years, I’d be panting at the thought of certain kinds of speaking—not in excitement, mind you, but more like your average house cat jimmied into a carrier flying dow
n the highway.
“You see this speck,” said my friend Paula, as she pointed to some pockmark in the wooden table. “That’s your fear about speaking.” I wanted to interrupt her and tell her that no, really, my fear was Godzilla with a toothache, marching through Midtown Manhattan, roaring and crushing skyscrapers into origami. She pointed to the speck again. “That tiny, tiny nothingness is all it is.”
Then, like magic, I suddenly had the image of a canker sore, a tiny white dot in your mouth that feels like a rock concert in a phone booth, intense and overwhelming. I got it. The speck wasn’t my identity. It wasn’t the full-time me. It wasn’t me! And it wasn’t the truth about what I could have in life. It was a loud and angry dot. It felt like all of me at the time. But it wasn’t.
There is another me who speaks. She is clear and natural and connects with the audience, as though she’s reaching across the kitchen table passing the biscuits. She is in her element. She is goddamn sunlight.
I flashed on one of those moments. Years ago, I spoke at a high-end women’s leadership event. I was on fire. It was unspeakable what happened in that room—but you know me, I’ll speak of it. I’d tell you I got a standing ovation, which is true. But really I think I got an infusion.
Still, I’m embarrassed to share that I’d allowed the angry dot to make my speaking career decisions for years. I held shabbier visions for myself. I sided with the frightened me. I didn’t see this as fear. I saw this image as my true, albeit diseased, identity, the one I secretly spoon-fed and soothed in the basement while people mistakenly praised my abilities.
Psychology experts have coined the term “impostor syndrome,” in which high-achieving individuals do not believe in their achievements, and rather feel as though they are scamming the world. If you’ve ever felt this way, I’ve got news for you. Fear has been scamming you. It’s the fraud. It’s the one in the shiny cheap suit hustling you to believe in its sad portrayal of your possibilities. It’s selling discouragement by the truckload on every street corner in the world.
Thriving Through Uncertainty Page 23