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The Things I Am Sad About

by Walt | Sep 21, 2023 | Success | 3 Comments

I’m sad that I can’t call my dad and hear his voice.

I’m sad that my precious daughter is grappling with an unimaginable tragedy.

I’m sad that my dearest friend and I don’t see each other as often as I would like.

I’m sad that someone dear to me is struggling with horrible addiction.

I’m sad that my mom and I were at odds in the last years of her life.

I’m sad that there is so much hatred in the world.

I’m sad that all of us lost so much in the pandemic.

I’m sad that the wife of a dear client lost her father.

I’m sad that a magnificent glacier on a favorite mountain of mine has disappeared.

I’m sad that I haven’t spoken to one of my sons in months.

I’m sad that we left our beautiful home in Ireland.

I’m sad that so many people have lost so much in Maui, and Morocco, and Libya.

I’m sad that families with children in our affluent valley are without homes.

I’m sad that people are fighting and dying every day in Ukraine.

I’m sad that time seems to fly by way too fast.

I’m sad that injury kept me from doing what brings me joy for so long.

I’m sad that everything I love I will someday lose.

When I write these things – and feel these things – I cry.

Holy tears they call them in grief work.

But really, they wholly suck.

Because I don’t like sad.

(Who does?)

Being sad is a buzzkill.

I like happy.

I focus on the good.

I say upbeat affirmations.

I’m a goal-driven success junkie.

I keep a gratitude journal, dammit.

So, why bother even saying that I feel sad?

Because sad is real.

If you don’t feel the feels, they come out sideways.

In self-medication and addiction.

In anxiety, anger, hatred, violence, and rage.

I lost my dad in the pandemic. He was the best dad. I couldn’t be with him when he died. When I could finally travel again, all I found was a barren lump of frozen ground.

I had such deep sadness. Such loneliness. So much anger.

For two years, I kept it bottled up inside.

Ann would say, “You need to pay attention to your grief.”

I’d say, “Fuck my grief.”

Over and over and over again, like rogue waves, the grief would blindside me and knock me down.

Until unexpectedly (unintentionally truth be told), I had the opportunity – the gift – of doing deep work around my grief. In one miraculous moment, that cloud of darkness was lifted from me.

This from your card-carrying purveyor of toxic positivity:

Sad is an ever-present, constant companion on this our mortal journey.

There can be no happy without the sad.

No light without the dark.

In our grief-phobic culture, we are called to tend to grief. To connect with sadness. To name it. To make (uneasy) friends with it. To be present to it. To really feel it. For ourselves, and for those around us.

In that way, you will become whole.

You can heal.

We all can heal.

A broken world needs that. Now more than ever.

Achieve No Thing

by Walt | Sep 14, 2023 | Success | 0 Comments

Achieve nothing. Kind of like jumbo shrimp.

As I stretched out for my run the other morning, I began to read an article in the Buddhist publication Tricycle on the spiritual pitfalls of multi-tasking.

Tricycle is an excellent quarterly filled with wonderful writings from wise thinkers on such topics as “nothingness” and “meditation” and “enlightenment.”

Turning to stretch my other leg, I noticed that this month’s issue of Success magazine was also sitting on the counter.

I love Success. It’s stuffed with dynamic articles on “business” and “leadership” and “wealth” from leaders and teachers like Sarah Blakely, Jack Canfield and John Maxwell. Like Tricycle, it’s one of the few publications that I read from cover to cover every month.

Strange combination of magazines, isn’t it?

When I look in my library, I see a similar cacophony: a significant collection of books on theology and on Eastern thought; an equally impressive mix of business-related titles written by the likes of Richard Branson, Malcolm Gladwell and Warren Buffet.

Weird.

Maybe.

As Westerners, we are programed for success. Here in the Northeast, we might even say that we are driven for success. And yet, as fellow journeyers along the path, we search to understand the ultimate as well.

The question is: How do you strive to achieve your goals and at the same time stay true to your heart? How do you pay the bills and accumulate the resources to have the freedom you want, and not lose sight of what is truly important? How do you achieve and still stay sane?

Finding the balance is the key, I guess. Although that sounds so trite. And seems next to impossible. Not to mention the fact that “finding” seems to require the “achievement” of something.

It’s important to have goals. It’s necessary to have money. You need to meet your responsibilities. You want to be able to enjoy the opportunities that life presents to you.

And yet, at the end of the day, the person with the most toys doesn’t win.

Darren Hardy, once the publisher of Success, tells the story of visiting a family friend who had accumulated a “staggering fortune” who now lay dying from cancer. As Hardy was leaving, the man called him back to the beside and grabbed his arm. “Don’t miss the point like I did,” he told Hardy. “I wish I’d spent as much time and energy accumulating relationships as I had houses. I wish I had invested my heart as aggressively as I did my money. Only now do I understand true wealth, and none of it appears on a balance sheet.”

When I first started in law practice, the standard to achieve was 1800 billable hours a year. For young professionals starting out today, it is not unusual to hear of expectations of 2000 billable hours and more.

And yet at the end of the path, no one is going to wish they had billed more time.

Achieving. And not achieving. Being.

Jack Kornfield writes, “What matters most is how we live. This is why it is so difficult and so important to ask this question of ourselves: ‘am I living my path fully, do I live without regret?’ so that I can say on whatever day is the end of my life, “Yes, I have lived my path with heart.”

“The quality of your action depends on the quality of your being,” writes Thich Nhat Hanh . He says,

“Look at the tree in the front yard. The tree doesn’t seem to be doing anything. It stands there vigorous, fresh and beautiful, and everyone profits from it. That’s the miracle of being. If a tree were less than a tree, all of us would be in trouble. But if a tree is just a real tree, then there’s hope and joy. That’s why if you can be yourself, that is already action. Action is based on non-action; action is being.”

Oh, by the way, while running on the elliptical, I finished that article in the Buddhist review on the spiritual dangers of multi-tasking. Achieving nothing.

Over and Done

by Walt | Sep 7, 2023 | Success | 2 Comments

Ok people, it’s done.

Summer’s over. The vacation’s behind you. No more lazy lunches. No more casual Fridays.

It’s time to put away the Dockers… and the swimmies. It’s time to get back to it.

Fall is here. Time to get busy; time to get serious.

No more leisure, no more playtime.

It’s time for work.

Uhhh, wait a minute: I object. I don’t want to give up playtime!

It is a busy time of year. But perhaps we can take some of summer with us?

In summer, it seems, time is more expansive; the rules more flexible; the boundaries softer.

And then September comes and – maybe it’s a holdover from going back to school – it seems like the time for fun is over.

We move back into our busy lives, our schedules chock full, shuttling around the kids, out to soccer games and swim practices, with evening meetings, volunteer activities and board commitments.

Many of my coaching clients feel like they’re moving back into the forest fire armed only with their squirt guns; their lives turned into an out-of-control carnival game of whack-a-mole. Reacting endlessly, and breathlessly, to the urgent.

Never really getting to what is really, truly the important in their lives.

And summer slips silently into the rear view mirror with perhaps some vague hope for respite and reprieve on some distant unencumbered weekend… or maybe in February on that “vacation.”

There is a different way.

But it requires that you become a control freak.

That’s right, a control freak: someone who takes control of their lives!

No one else is gonna do it for you. You’ve gotta do it for yourself.

And this means that you need a bit of courage and audacity.

I know. I live it too. Bombarded by unceasing demands and expectations in every area of our lives. Inundated by inputs. Juggling multiple modalities of communication. Over committed and suffused with the anxiety of dropping the ball.

But here’s the truth: the in-box will always be full. None of us will ever get it all done. If you died tomorrow, you’d be replaced.

So why not pay attention to what truly matters?

People ask me how it is that I take so much time away traveling and adventuring. The answer: it’s a choice.

Last year, I took 8 weeks off. There were no disasters. No one missed me. The world went on.

And, damn, it was fun.

So here are some practices to consider before September gets too crazy:

Decide what really, really matters to you. Spend time on that. Get rid of the rest.
Get really good at saying no; if you find yourself saying you “should” do something, you probably shouldn’t.
Carve out time for yourself – every single day. No one else is going to do it for you.
Get up an hour early and enjoy the quiet. Use it to read and write and meditate and create.
Plan your weeks; and plan each day; actually schedule in the time for the things that matter most to you.
Turn off the TV at night and focus on the life you really want.

Here’s the scoop: at the end of our lives, no one is going to wish they spent more time in the office, billed more hours, sold more product, sat on more boards, went to more PTO meetings, or volunteered for more committees. It won’t matter whether you went to one more network group, whether your Facebook status was up to date, or whether you were well LinkedIn. What will matter will be the experiences you have had, the love you have shared, the lives you have touched.

What will matter will be whether you showed up in each and every moment to know the fullness and the joy of your life.

What will matter is whether you have lived without regret.

For that to happen, you’ll need to become a control freak.

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Ready for work that sets you free? Let’s talk! Email me: walt@walthampton.com

And stop by for a visit at: https://summit-success.com/

Doctor No

by Walt | Aug 31, 2023 | Success | 0 Comments

What is essential is invisible to the eye.

— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

I have a confession to make: I’m a huge James Bond fan. I have loved them all in all of their incarnations and inanity, from Connery to Craig.

Dr. No was the first Bond movie, dating all the way back to 1962. Bond was played by the inimitable Sean Connery. Julius No was the villain.

But these days, I tend to think of anyone with doctoral level skills in “No” as a hero.

I gave a workshop recently on mindfulness and work-life balance. As I was getting ready for the workshop, I had a convo with a colleague of mine, Sandy.

Sandy, a lawyer, said, “Walt, I hear you’re giving a seminar on life balance.”

“Yes,” I said. “Are you coming?”

Breathlessly, because Sandy is usually breathless and in a hurry, she replied, “No, can’t, have no time.”

We both chuckled about how ridiculous that sounded. But however ridiculous it may have been, it is, for most, not only irony but truth.

We have no time to get balanced because we’re so out of balance. And breathless.

Saying “no” might help.

If you’re reading this, you are, most likely a person of service. You tend to want to please others and be seen as affable. If you get asked to contribute in some way to a church or school or community event, most often your knee-jerk reaction is to say yes. And if you dare say no, it’s not without some chagrin and guilt.

Parents are particularly prone to “yes.” As parents, we’re hard-wired to want the best for our kids. We’re hard-wired to want to see them happy. Most of the time, in our minds, the “best,” or what we think will make them “happy,” is to say “yes” to whatever the request is. Even when saying “no” may be the “right” response.

Helping professionals are especially at risk. They get paid to come to the rescue. And coming to the rescue feeds their sense of self-worth. The more they say yes, the more meaning and significance they feel. Even when saying “yes” places them at risk for divorce, depression, and burn-out. (Not that I know much about this personally!)

Not only that, saying yes, being busy, is “in.”

How often during the course of the day does this occur? “How are you?” you ask someone. “Busy,” they reply.”

Busy is a badge of honor. Busy is good. If you’re not busy, something’s wrong!

How would it be if someone were to ask you how you were and you were to respond, “Languid.” “Bored!” “Been laying about.” “Haven’t had a thing to do in weeks!” You’d get a look that might suggest that they thought you were on crack.

You gotta be busy. Because to be busy is to be important. To be busy is to have worth.

The problem, of course, is that by continually saying yes, you become stretched too thin, over-extended. Depleted. Worth-less.

I really like the Pareto Principle. It’s also called the 80/20 rule.

Tim Ferriss in his provocative book The 4-Hour Work Week, says, “When I came across Pareto’s work one late evening, I had been slaving away with 15-hour days seven days per week, feeling completely overwhelmed and generally helpless.”

Overwhelmed and helpless ring any bells? I know that I am susceptible to this!

“Faced with certain burnout or giving Pareto’s ideas a trial run, I opted for the latter,” Ferriss says. “The next morning, I began a dissection of my business and personal life through the lenses of two questions:

1. Which 20% of sources are causing 80% of my problems and unhappiness?

2. Which 20% of sources are resulting in 80% of my desired outcomes and happiness?”

What are the 20% of the customers or clients that give you 80% of the headaches? Get rid of them. What is the 20% of your work that gives you 80% of your joy? Focus on it.

Who are the 20% of people who produce 80% of your happiness, who support and encourage you? Who are the 20% who cause the 80% of your angst?

You get the idea. We all take on too much. And much of what we take on is at the margins. Get rid of what’s not working. Do only what is.

Say no more often. Say yes only to what is essential. Say yes to what brings joy.

Robert Frost wrote, “good fences make good neighbors.” Your boundaries matter. They protect you and make you whole.

By eliminating whole bushels of stuff from your life, you open expanses of time that will allow you to rest and renew. To reclaim your sense of purpose. Your sense of wonder. Your creativity. Your very self.

By saying no to what’s not working, you dissipate busyness, you open yourself to the richness and fullness of life.

By saying no, you say yes.

Handcuffed To The Bed

by Walt | Aug 24, 2023 | Success | 1 Comment

Would that it were so!

That might have been interesting.

But alas… it was not my bed…

I was handcuffed to work that was sucking my soul.

I loved law school. The reading, the research, the classroom, the debates, the arguments. All of it.

But within months of graduating, I’d realized that being a trial lawyer was a terrible fit for me.

The constant combat; the unhappy combatants; the hermetically sealed office; the 70 hour weeks.

But I’d come out of school with a mound of debt. I had a big suburban house, a mortgage, 2.2 children and a minivan.

I was really good at what I did; and I made a lot of money doing it.

I liked the money. (I needed the money.)

But my soul was being sucked away.

I was trapped. (Or so I thought.)

Golden handcuffs, the therapist said.

Kinda like trapping monkeys, I later discovered.

If you want to catch a monkey, you cut a hole in the top of a coconut, just large enough for a monkey to slip its hand into. You chain the coconut to the ground, and wait.

Along comes a hungry monkey. It slips its hand into the coconut, and grabs the soft meat of the coconut. But, with its fist now closed, it can’t pull its hand out of the hole.

Boom, you have a monkey.

Which sounds pretty dumb on the monkey’s part, because all it needed to do was to open its clenched fist, let go of the meat, and run free.

But once a monkey grabs hold of something, it’s hard to let go.

So I held on, even though I knew that the job was slowly killing me.

Too many years went by.

I didn’t know then that when I finally found the courage to release my grip, and run free, that the work I would discover would provide joy beyond my wildest imagination. And a wonderful income too.

What are you grasping on to?

What would it be like to let go?