Walt Hampton, J.D.

Creating the Work & Life You LOVE

When You Come To The End Of The Road

by Walt | Mar 23, 2023 | Success | 0 Comments

I came to the end of the road, and stopped.

Because it was the end of the road.

I could go no further.

The North Atlantic ocean sprawled in from of me.

Waves crashing.

The sea spray an ominous green, carried on a bitter winter wind.

The retreat center on the spit.

Warm and inviting.

Cozy and quiet.

And still.

I came to be still. Because I’d come to the end of the road, and could go no further.

A necessary action. (Or inaction.) Stopping.

If you’re anything like me, you’re busy. You’ve got a lot going on.

Responsibilities. Obligations.

Jobs. Bills to pay. People to care for.

The slipstream (vortex?) of life.

The problem (coaches ought to say “challenge”) for me is that I love my work; I love the people I’m privileged to serve, and love all the things that I get to play at: running, climbing, adventuring.

Life is an action sport for me.

A lot of doing. A paucity of being.

Oh sure, I have my morning routines. My journal practice, meditation, reflective reading.

It all sounds good (sane?) until those practices themselves dissolve into the slipstream.

Then unwittingly they become still more doing.

Until I get to the end of that road.

Before the pandemic, I’d schedule regular days away at a retreat house. (A favorite the Weston Priory.)

I fell out that rhythm of things, to my detriment.

Until this month. I reclaimed that practice.

A day. Away. Away from the office; away from the house; away from the Zoom room; away from the emails, text messages, notifications and alerts; away from the din of the interweb, and the siren call of social.

When I teach meditation, I often use one of those holiday snow globes as a metaphor to describe what happens when you meditate: Life shakes up the globe; and when you sit in meditation, the flakes begin to settle.

A retreat day (a day of recollection or reflection) allows everything to settle.

You’re able to renew your clarity and focus; reconnect with your heart; and reclaim that deepest part of you.

The divine within you that calls you in the stillness.

Give yourself a day.

Be still; and know.

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I can help you find the time for you. Let’s connect. Email me: walt@summit-success.com

Be This Owl

by Walt | Mar 16, 2023 | Success | 0 Comments

He’s captured their hearts; grabbed their attentions; and piqued their imaginations.

Millions are following him.

Why?

Because Flaco broke free.

Flaco. The Owl. Who lived in the Central Park Zoo.

Until, a vandal cut a hole in the wire mesh of his enclosure.

And out Flaco flew.

There was a great outpour of consternation at first.

Flaco looked pretty scared and tentative.

He had a hard time with the whole flying thing.

Because after all, he’d lived in a tiny cage nearly all of his life.

He was fat, and out of shape.

And didn’t have any clue how to find food.

People worried that New York wouldn’t be kind to this wayward bird; that Flaco would get lost or hurt or die of starvation.

But within two weeks, Flaco got strong.

He flies quite well now; like an owl!

And appears quite confident; indeed, dare I say, happy.

Because Flaco in free.

And isn’t that what you want?

To break free of the drudgery, the grind, the mundane, the run-of-the-mill.

To get out from underneath the constant hustle, the debt, the hermetically sealed office, the deluge of social media, the non-stop onslaught of text messages, notifications and alerts.

To become unencumbered of responsibilities; unfettered of the expectations of others.

Unchained.

Uncaged.

Free.

Finally free.

Is that a pipe dream?

A thing that only owls get to do?

I say not!

Oh sure, you’ve got responsibilities.

A job. A family. Groceries. A house or apartment. Bills to pay.

I get it.

I was a single dad who raised three boys on his own, for a dozen years, while managing a law firm and endeavoring to keep my shit together.

But you can take small steps toward freedom;

Carving out oases of time for yourself;
Keeping yourself healthy and well;
Avoiding the siren call of more stuff;
Eschewing credit card debt;
Taking long weekends; and mini-vacations.

And, the most important of all: create work that gives you a great life.

Way too often, I see people try to cram life into the cracks and crevices of 60 hour work weeks. Which is to say, too many people live just to work. I say, build the work – craft it mindfully and intentionally – so that it is the vehicle for your amazing life.

I say: Be Flaco.

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Being Flaco can be tough. Often it necessitates someone who can help you cut that wire mesh that holds you captive. I’ve got some great shears. Let’s talk. Email me: walt@summit-success.com

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

A Deadly Sin That May Be Good

by Walt | Mar 9, 2023 | Success | 0 Comments

I was miles into the race when she ran up behind me and matched my pace. I didn’t know her. But she clearly knew me.

“I loved your Facebook pictures from the Grand Canyon,” she said. “I envy your lifestyle.”

“Yeah, thanks, it’s pretty fine,” I gasped as I crested the hill.

She peeled off to the right.

If I hadn’t been hypoxic in the moment, I would have said more.

I would have said that envy is good.

Envy is a voicemail, a text message from your heart.

Envy tells you that there is something that is lacking, something that you want, something that your Spirit seeks, something that would bring you joy.

I would have said to her that you need to listen to your envy.

What’s it saying?

What’s not working? What needs to change? What needs to be subtracted? What needs to be added in?

What are the goals you are not attaining? What are the dreams you are not fulfilling?

Yeah, my lifestyle might be good. But what are you thirsting for? What is it that you want; that you really, really want?

Know your envy, befriend your envy, understand your envy. Deconstruct your envy. Hear its siren call.

And after you’ve snuggled with your envy for a bit, harness its energy.

Put it to work.

Too often envy can be turned inward; and become bitterness, resentment, victimhood.

Know that envy calls you higher.

Get clear. Take action. Grab hold of the life you want.

Envy is not a deadly sin. It is a gift.

Get busy. Use it.

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… and if you want help getting to that life you really want, then let’s talk. Email me at walt@summit-success.com

When The Shit Hits The Fan

by Walt | Mar 2, 2023 | Success | 1 Comment

It happens all time.

Things go wrong.

The car breaks down; the power fails; the basement floods.

Your key employee gets sick; the copier breaks; your computers are hacked.

What will you do?

Do you know?

Because here’s the truth: things will go wrong. The shit will hit the fan.

Finland has a government commission. Its job is to imagine everything that could go wrong. It meets once a month, and prepares for the imagined disaster: chemical spills; fuel shortages; power grid failures; natural disasters of all shapes and sizes.

A number of years ago, before 2019, the Finnish commission imagined a respiratory disease pandemic. Finland was ready for Covid.

Fires, earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, and blizzards happen with some regularity. Yet many countries, communities, and businesses are blindsided. Again and again.

Ann and I are Wilderness First Responders. Every two years, we re-certify our training. Because when we’re out in the backcountry, deep in the wilderness, high on a mountain, the consequences of not knowing what to do when things go wrong are pretty significant.

We imagine scenarios, and talk through how we’ll handle them. We keep a robust med kit in our backpacks, and in the car.

In business, we know that the computers will go down, the internet will get wonky, that the websites will get corrupted, that the SaaS will go bump in the night.

Do we like it when it happens?

Of course not.

It may throw us off our game. But it doesn’t shock us.

Because we’ve got a plan; and a process.

Because shit happens.

What can you imagine might go wrong in your biz?

What can you do to get ready?

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Growing and scaling a business means creating systems and processes that not only will make your day-to-day life much easier, but also creating systems and processes that will allow you to be prepared for when things go wrong. We can help. We have an extraordinary team of businesses coaches. Email me: walt@summit-success.com

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

Run Your Biz Like Climbing Ice

by Walt | Feb 23, 2023 | Success | 1 Comment

I want you to think about running your business like you’d think about climbing a frozen waterfall.

It’s not likely the first analogy you’d jump to.

But stay with me here.

Ice climbing is cool. (Sorry, I couldn’t help it.)

Frozen waterfalls especially so.

But this activity, which is a particular passion of mine, tends to be fraught with pitfalls for the unwary: like falling ice, sharp axes (I put one through my lip once), pointy crampons, lacerations related to pointy crampons, frostbite and hypothermia.

Then there’s this thing called a single point of failure.

When you’re anchored into the ice, you want to be sure that you’re anchored by more than one ice screw. Because, if you’re anchored into the frozen waterfall by just one screw, and that screw fails, well, then you’re kinda screwed. If you catch my drift.

So the principle: Never, ever have a single point of failure in your system.

True in ice climbing.

True in business too.

It was a beautiful summer day. (Not ice climbing season.) I was in a beautiful, boutique hotel, on a main thoroughfare, in a well-traveled resort town, broadcasting a webinar to an audience of about 600.

Suddenly the internet dropped out. And the power.

A construction crew out front, doing sidewalk work, accidentally cut the power main.

Luckily, I had a back up roaming router, and a power pack. Voila, back online.

Now we travel with the roaming router, a satellite router, a power pack and a solar panel.

Because our business depends on it.

Across our business, we are constantly assessing for and protecting against single points of failure: in team, tech, communication, systems, and processes.

My invitation to you: Where are you vulnerable in your business? Where are you dependent on a single person or system or piece of technology? What backup can you create? What can you do right now to protect against that point of failure?

Single points of failure can be fatal in climbing.

They certainly can leave you battered and bruised in biz.

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Want help growing and scaling your business? We have an extraordinary team of coaches. Email me for a no-obligation convo: walt@summit-success.com

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