What is it? In plain, simple terms, they have a guiding story for realizing their dream.

What does such a story do? It grounds and contextualizes actions. It describes where we have come from and points toward where we are headed. It may even describe milestones along the way. Most importantly, it normalizes the difficulties and pain invariably faced as we seek our dreams.

My question is this … Do you have one? A story for your dream I mean. You see I’m convinced it would be incredibly powerful if everyone did.

Imagine actors on stage without their script, wondering aimlessly along with little or no intention, sort of making things up as they went along. Operating without an explicit story is purposely giving ourselves a serious handicap.

Now here’s the thing that may surprise you though. I think it is best if your story does its own telling. What I mean is that a true guiding story will come to you over time almost without effort. Your job is to pay close attention so that when it arrives you don’t miss it.

It will reveal itself first through your every day loves and desires. What do your feet do when they have a choice? Watch them and they will give hints about your story.

And what do your hands do when they are free to simply write what they want to write? What they must write! The trick here is that you’ve got to start a habit of writing regularly if you want to be ready when your story comes.

For me, I had a piece of my story come through as a narrative poem. Not really surprising as I dearly love poetry. Here below is what was delivered up to me a bunch of years ago. And yes, of course I did a little editing but the piece itself came to me pretty much the way it was first published.

Oh and one other thing. Not much question here about the dream or what is required of me. I am still working on living this story more and more fully each day, week and year. It is going to take me a really long time to live this story fully … like the rest of my life.

On The Occasion of Speaking
Out Against Rarefied Poetry
for Judy … by Dale Biron

OK, OK, all right. I’ll tell you this much -
It’s high time poetry came tumbling down
To the crowds, to the folks I mean.
Ask me? What kind of poetry I would
Like to see in this world? Right, well imagine
A super market, the checkout man I mean,
Those thick, stubby fingers, a wedding ring
Swollen on permanent, skin thickened by hard work
Handling the groceries of thousands, reaching
For a pack of poems, right beside the razor
Blades and the cigarettes and I don’t smoke either,
But the people that do smoke need
Poems just as much as me. Yes, I want
Practical, hard working, truck-horse poems,
In this world, and ads for those
Poems too right along side the Kleenex, and the Ajax
That fill those Thursday flyers in the daily paper.
I want to see a holiday sale on William Stafford,
Yeats maybe, Mary Oliver and that fierce German,
Rilke. I want to see the CEO of Exxon
Quote Emily Dickinson in the Annual Report!
And of course in schools too, I want poetry
Vending machines, where the real thing
Isn’t sweet syrupy water, its Rumi. I want
To see scalpers working the stadium where
A football game has been cancelled for lack of
Interest, yelling, “Yo! Seamus Heaney, Wendell Berry,
Yehuda Amichai, right here, two good seats left folks.”
I want to see MTV break all those rating records
On the night they feature Anna Akhmatova.
I want to see CSPAN cover the annual convention
Of ex-congress members who are now active poets.
But most of all, and I mean most of all, its this:
I want to turn to you stunned, my mate-women, on
Any old average, candle-lit night and touching
the softness that is your body just before making
love and say to us: My God! Neruda was right,
“Sometimes a piece of sun burns like a coin in my
hand” when I realize how much I love you.

PS: I would be delighted to hear about your own experiences with your guiding story. Have you written some or all of it down? How did it come to you? In what way is it helping you realize your dream?

PS PS: For those who have followed this blog for a while … first of all Thanks! Second, I want to experiment at times with providing written poems in place of my typical videos. Traveling for a few weeks gives me a chance to experiment with this new form. Of course many new videos are planned and will be coming right along in future posts.

They come from across the room or desk or conference room table. There is a sender and a receiver. Both know.

They happen quick and in many flavors, but the meaning is always the same.

I don’t believe what you are saying. I don’t believe you know what you are doing. I’m being sold a bill of goods here. No one believes this can really happen the way you say, etc.

But here’s the thing. It doesn’t have to be this way. The truth may sting if it’s hard but at least it is true and there to be lived any way. People can handle it.

In fact, if people feel that their leaders “are true” as today’s piece describes, then they are just fine with it . . . even with the tough stuff.

Ready? Wait. Here it comes . . . while many factors are important, I’m convinced that more than anything, it is failure. That’s right, the excessive fear of good old fashion flops, face plants and fizzle finishes. It is our unwillingness to fail that secretly binds us to a life of blandness and ho hum creations. And this goes for all aspects of our lives: work, home, hobbies, relationships, etc.

I mean without a healthy dose of failure acceptance, how will you ever get the practice you need? How will you learn the habit of attitudinal resilience? How will you gain more grace than grimace if you can’t allow yourself to experiment with clever stumbles and much needed falls?

Recently I had the pleasure of speaking to a group of “C” level executives from around the world as part of a week-long executive development program called EduVenture.

Of course this group of leader participants brought an amazing array of wisdom and experience to this program. They were impressive! One of the things, however that they particularly wanted to understand more fully was the creative spirit practiced by our very own SF Bay Area Silicon Valley companies . . . where failure is not final and certainly not fatal.

At least not fatal to the careers of bright dynamic leaders who understand that nurturing big bold creative ideas requires taking big bold creative risks.

This week’s piece by Linda Hogan has these amazing lines at the end with a metaphor that lets us know exactly what we must risk to be truly creative.

To enter fire, be dry.
To enter life, be food.

Want to be creative? What to innovate? Want to put a ding in the universe, as Steve Jobs was so fond of saying?

Then we must risk our truth. We must risk our old way of thinking. We must actually risk being food for something greater than ourselves. We must risk failure to be bold. For to fully risk failure is to fully set our most creative juices free!

Because when fear shows up, it can also be a door into exactly where we need to go. It might just be a signal for that challenge in our business or personal lives we absolutely need to take on.

Fight, Flight, Freeze . . . all those moves are built into our DNA. And yet, with practice, intention and precious time to choose, we can sometimes take the road to that wonderful alternative. Sometimes, just sometimes, we can stand right there in the fire.

So the conversation you’re putting off? Have it. The creative project you know will bring you pleasure and profit? Grab it now. Or even that job or business you need to quit (or start). Do it smart, of course but do it. Or lastly, that time with loved ones you keep saying you’ll carve out of a to-do list that snarls every time you hint at working less . . . Oh yes, do that too.

Here is a brief piece that speaks a little to this business of standing in the fire.

Imagine you are having an important conversation. Maybe you’re trying to enroll someone in your plan, or your idea perhaps or your product or service. Maybe you’re in a leadership role in your personal or business life and having influence on others is critical.

Now lets say you are talking away, attempting to make whatever point you have on your mind. Many times in this mode, we are more or less following an internal script that we feel puts our idea or offer in its best light.

But let’s say, as so often happens the person we’re speaking to interjects a question mid-stream into our comments. They could ask just about anything. They might ask:

Are there other ways to use/interpret/support this idea?
Do you offer only what you described or … ?
Is that really the only reason that … ?

Again the list of possible questions is infinite. But thankfully the wisest most respectful way to respond is not. In fact, these four words work wonders:

Why do you ask?

That’s it. Plain. Simple. Effective. One little question shows that we are actually listening and paying attention to something outside our own head. Namely the person we are talking with.

Think about it. When we are in one of those full bore moods of “saying” what we came to say, we often make a quick assumption about why the person is asking the question and (without taking a breath) simply address whatever we assume they mean. Truth is … we don’t know!

Sometimes we might want to add just a tad more to our four words. When I’m teaching or training or coaching I will often give a very brief response and then use the four magic words to test my assumption.

Though in some cases, I might be close in my understanding. I never fully understand what they mean until I ask. Now don’t get me wrong, like all us human beings I am fully capable of not using this simple four-word question. It takes intention and vigilance for sure. Like anything, practice helps!

This week’s video and poem makes this point in a rather creative way. Pay attention to what is right in front of our faces … that is the essential message.

I mean beyond all those roles that we normally use to describe who we are. You know: wife, husband, parent, coach, attorney, doctor, CEO… Do you know what you actually love to do? And to think about when you have the freedom to dream? And do you also know what you want to get better and better at?

Passion naturally shows up in our lives when we understand and work with our deep core patterns rather than against them.

As a coach and teacher, I have long been interested in helping people discover their core patterns and strengths. And then to leverage those patterns and strengths in ways they never imagined. I’m also very interested in what kinds of tools are needed to help us maintain our passion especially in difficult times.

Obviously, I believe that powerful words in the form of great poems and stories (like the one in this blog and others here) can act as talismans to help us remember our goals and deepest intentions. And given all the ways our passions can be cooled, forgotten, derailed and otherwise lost along the way… we need every trick we can get.

So if you truly want a job in your own personal passion factory, you need to know your own patterns, know your loves, and know what relights your fire when it goes out.

But the body that is fully “centered” (as they say) can perform techniques brilliantly and beautifully no matter the speed. So what’s the point that we can use to help us in our business and personal lives?

Just this. In Aikido to be “centered” is really to have skillfully connected the body and mind. It is doing what Einstein meant when he told us that no problem can be solved at the level of thinking that created it. He was talking about paradox. He was talking about healing and transcending the everyday paradoxes we all face. He was talking about making both/and our mantra.

So on the mat, when I was centered I had the feeling that everything was slow and easy even though others watching would objectively describe the action as fast and hard. On the mat when I was centered, I could take bone-crunching high falls that felt like gently rolling in deep grass. It really felt good, but it shouldn’t have.

How does this work? I’m not sure, it just does. Perhaps it was that Aikido has a wild promise at its core. It begins with the impossible goal (aka paradox) of demanding that “no one get hurt” especially the person that is attacking you! In fact, there is a wonderful principle in Aikido which says that he who has the mind to fight… has already lost. Pickle yourself in that thought for awhile!

So what paradoxes in your business or personal life do you need to heal and transcend?

• Perhaps you must finally take control by giving it up?
• Make faster decisions by way of slow, deliberate reflection?
• Handle the hardest challenges with the softest skills?
• Increase your freedom by giving yourself more boundaries?
• Fall in love with your work so you can finally leave it?

Remember, what you are looking for is really looking for you. And when you are centered, transcending paradox and conundrum without effort … it will find you.

Homework: Take about fifteen minutes. Think of a paradox you are currently working with. Grab a comfortable seat with your posture good but not rigid. Take a few deep breaths and concentrate for a moment on the center of your body, just below your navel. After a few minutes take out pen and paper and just begin to write like crazy about anything that comes to mind regarding your paradox. Don’t force anything. Don’t try. But don’t let yourself off the hook either by just rehashing the old solution. For me I like to add reading a poem or two to this exercise, especially ones that have lots of surprising metaphors and paradoxes built in. If you decide to do the homework, let me know how it goes. But one caution … you may start to like this exercise and just do it for fun.

But here’s the thing. I’ve never seen anyone step into a big bold “yes” without having to say “no” to a whole bunch of other things. Say “yes” to integrity for example and you will have to say “no” to all kinds of shortcuts. Shortcuts that look pretty enticing when we are tired and feeling despair.

I’m featuring here a short piece by William Stafford. It is simply called “Poetry” and can help to remind us what is at stake when we make bold promises to our selves and others.

He ends the piece with these few lines:

Sometimes commanders take us over, and they
try to impose their whole universe,
how to succeed by daily calculation:
I can’t eat that bread.

My question for you is this… What bread can you not eat? And what dream or goal might you actually achieve by keeping your “no” sacred?

HOMEWORK: If you want, you can take this idea for a test drive. Let me suggest a little homework. Think about the most important goal you are working on right now in your work or home life. What is that big “yes” you have said? And how are you doing with that big bucket of “no”s that is always so necessary? Lastly, if you do try the homework, let us all know how you do. Enjoy!

Are you doing what you love? Do you know what that would look like? And do you have a plan to get there? And if the answer is no to all those questions… Bummer!

But have faith. It is there. The answer is inside you. Great stories and narrative poems can help tease it out.

In my 20-plus years as a leadership and executive coach I have learned a handful of irreducible, core principles. At the top of the list is this: As a leader-coach we must create the best environment possible for for each individual to learn, grow their skills and fulfill their greatest potential.

Then we must let the person who needs to do the work … in fact, do their own work. Indeed, to have their own experience, that is the way.

In a great poem like the one featured here by William Stafford, I call this characteristic “Walk-In-Ability” and it is what makes a great poem great. And it is what turns a great poem into a great teaching tool for leaders.