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Imagine if you had a garden that gave you all sorts of good things to eat.  You could grow zucchini, cucumbers, celery, lettuce, but for whatever reason, you couldn’t grow tomatoes.  Year after year, you try, you work hard at it but the result of your effort is always the same – little to no tomatoes.  Because you can perceive your garden from the rest of the world, at some point, you’d recognize that what’s lacking in your life – tomatoes – is not to be found in your garden.  You could continue to stubbornly work hard to grow tomatoes in your garden, or you could move on.

If you look around at the world, there are many things that are lacking for people.  For some, it’s adequate food and shelter.  For others, it’s peace and safety.  For others, it’s an overall experience of joy and fulfillment.  And yes, there are some, who don’t experience anything missing from their lives.  Mostly, we have just accepted this state of affairs – how it is – as a fact of life.  The result is we continue to work hard to combat the things we don’t like or search for the things that are missing from our lives.  Never does it seem to cross our minds that we are looking for these things in a garden where they just won’t grow.

Now this may seem rather cynical if you think that the garden I’m talking about is life itself.  Before we leap to the conclusion that life is the culprit, there’s another question to consider and that is, “What if it’s not life that is creating the experience we’re having, instead it’s our way of life?”  Here I’m not talking about the way of life in America or in China or in India.  I’m talking about all of it – a way of life on this planet.  If we can begin to recognize that there is a way of life – a holistic system – we’ve created that is giving us what we have, then we begin to ask questions like, “How do we design a new way of life to give us the things we are looking for?  How can we design a new garden to give us all the things we already have plus the thing we want – tomatoes?”  Or as I ask it in my book A Life Worth Living, “How do we design a way of life where good things happen naturally for people?”

We’ve spent our lives trying to get our “garden” to grow the things we want.  It’s time to at least consider the possibility that the way of life we’ve created is simply not designed to give us everything we want.  This doesn’t mean we have to trash what we have nor does it make how we’ve lived wrong.  There is no right or wrong in this question.  There never is in the realm of design.  There’s just “what is” – the results we have.  The question isn’t whether what we have is right or wrong; the question is whether what we have is what we want.

And if the challenge of inventing a new way of life seems daunting especially when you look out at all that we’ve already created in the world, just remember that creation begins in thought not in physical space.  The place where you need to make space for your creation is not out here in the world, it’s in your mind.  You don’t need to run off into the wilderness to find a new way of life.  You don’t need to spend your life convincing others to join you in your creation.  The light bulb existed in Edison’s mind before it ever existed in physical reality, and he created it without seeking permission or agreement from anyone else.  All you need to do is make space for a new question, a new inquiry, something like “How do we design a new way of life where good things happen naturally for people?”  

All you need to do to begin is to make space for a new conversation.

There’s nothing wrong with the question, “How?”  So it’s not that “How do I become more effective,” for example, is an inherently bad question.  It’s that we keep asking the question “How?” as if we don’t already know how to create what we want, but we do.  How do I know this?  We created what we’ve got.  And at one time, what we’ve got was what we wanted. 

Right now, your life is an outcome.  You have the job you have, the relationships you have, the amount of money you have, and so on.  But that’s not all there is to the outcome of your life, right?  There are also the unintended consequences of what you created.  You worked hard to get that promotion and now that you’re the boss, you’re forced to deal with issues that you didn’t bargain for and couldn’t have imagined.  Plus, with your new raise, you finally bought a house, but now you are stuck in that promotion you no longer want even though there’s another great opportunity out there but the salary for that opportunity won’t allow you to make the mortgage payment.  Consequence after consequence of the choices we make in our lives just seem to pile on, and our lives are spent in one form or another trying to survive those consequences.  We’re so quick to identify what’s wrong that needs fixing, but seem to become tongue-tied if someone looks us in the eye and asks, “What do you want?  What do you really want in your life?”

Why is that?  Here’s my answer: we’ve come to believe that we don’t know how to create what we want.  There’s this subtle conversation in the background of our minds humming along saying something like, “There must be something wrong with me.  If there weren’t something wrong with me, I wouldn’t have this life.  I should have known not to take this job or marry this person or buy this house or have kids.  I should have known, something is wrong with me, and I’m not to be trusted.”  So when that person looks us in the eye and asks us that dreaded question, “What do you really want?” it’s very likely that we don’t know because we’ve spent so much of our time and energy just trying to survive our lives with very little time devoted to really thinking about what we want.  Or we do know what we want, but are too afraid to say because after all, we’re not to be trusted with our lives. 

The thing we seem to forget is that we wanted the job, we wanted the house, and we wanted the relationship, AND we got those things.  We created those things in our lives.  Sure, we didn’t want the unintended consequences of what we’ve created, but rather than just create what we want from where we are; we beat ourselves up for not being able to predict the future.  Guess what?  There are almost always unintended consequences.  There’s always something that comes out of what we create that we weren’t anticipating and/or didn’t want. Instead of just including unintended consequences as part of the result – part of the creative process of life – we resist them.  We’ve made these consequences mean that we don’t know how to create, and so, we live stuck with what we don’t want; instead of joyously creating what’s next.  And if that doesn’t sound like much of a choice to you, if the thought of creating what’s next for you seems more a burden than a joy, then all that means is you’re experiencing the impact of the cultural story we’ve inherited around creating our lives.  You’re listening to that voice saying something is wrong with you, and “Oh by the way, all one has to do to know that something is wrong with me is look at my life.”

What if nothing is wrong with you?  What would the implications be of that conclusion on how you live your life?  What would you stop doing today that you only do because you live like something is wrong with you?  What would you start doing today that you’re not doing because you’re certain something is wrong with you?  What things have you been putting off just waiting for the day that you’re fixed?

What if you know how to create what you want?  What beliefs about yourself and about life would just fall away if you could really get that you know how to create what you want in life?  

And that’s really the point, there’s a world of thought that lives on in your thinking consistent with the beliefs, “There’s something wrong with me and I don’t know how to create what I want.”  There’s a world of concern that naturally arises with those beliefs and that world of concern gives the life you lead moment to moment.  This is not some abstract theory.  Look at your life and examine how many things you do day-to-day that result from the fact that you’re sure something is wrong with you and you don’t know how to create what you want in your life.  The ironic twist is this all results not because you don’t know how to create; it results because what you’re creating is the world of “there’s something wrong with me and I don’t know how to create what I want.”  

So I ask again, a question I’ve asked many times before (and will continue to ask).

I’m looking you right in the eye.

“What do you want to create?”

Would love to hear from you.

So what is this blog really all about?  Why am I asking you to spend your valuable time reading what I’ve written?  Simple.  I’m committed to changing the world.  Well, more accurately stated, I’m committed to inventing a new world and I want to participate with others in the fulfillment of that vision.  In the first several posts, I’ve shared some ideas about how to create a better future.  I’m committed that this blog become more than that.  I’m committed it become a place where the future can actually be created. 

People seem to have a really big problem with the idea that in order to create something new, we must begin to talk about something new.  I guess it’s understandable given the quality of conversation most of us have become accustomed to combined with the fact that we are facing such seemingly overwhelming challenges that require us to act today.  How do we really create something new while so much is flying at us?   The confusion arises because for some reason we’ve decided that it has to either be one or the other.  Either we deal with what’s happening today or we sit around talking about the future.  Of course, today takes so much of our focus that talking about the future has become a joke to us.  “Oh great, we’ll all sit around and talk about a great future, and then we’ll just go back to dealing with the same crap.”  How about this?  We deal with today and talk about the future … and we don’t confuse the two.  And as far as what’s happening today, one of the simplest things we can do is to begin to talk about it differently.  Commiserating, complaining about, arguing with the way that it is does nothing to change it.  Neither does avoiding it or denying it. But neither does allowing it to dictate what you want to create in the future.  

So how do you talk about what’s happening now in a way that breaks the cycle?  You speak authentically about it.  The best part is you don’t need to have someone to talk about it with; you can do this on your own.  Just sit down and write how your life is authentically occurring for you.  “I’m really concerned that I’m going to lose my job” or “My son is such a drag on our family” or “I can’t count on my boss to do anything to back me up.”  Most of us haven’t been taught to be authentic with our thoughts and feelings, and so we go through life wrestling with all this pent up, negative emotion that continues to get more and more suppressed. 

And when I say be authentic, it’s not in the way that we typically think of authenticity.  We’ve come to associate being authentic with verbally puking on someone else (e.g., “It’s time I tell Joe what I really think of him”).   The type of authenticity I’m talking about includes being responsible for the fact that whatever you’re dealing with in life is your issue.  The people around you probably really don’t care what you think of them or about your opinions of how they should be living their lives.  The purpose is for you to get free; the purpose is not to trash the people in your life.  So you don’t have to tell your spouse, “I just don’t love you anymore, but I’m too weak to leave you,” just say it to yourself.  We seem to be afraid that if we say these things, say how it really is for us that the world will come crashing down or we’ll actually have to do something about what we said.  In fact, I think this is why we resist talking about the future, “Man, you want me to create a future too.  I’m already overwhelmed just trying to deal with what I’ve got on my plate.”  Talking is talking.  Other action is other action.  Talking about it, even to yourself, creates an opportunity for you to get clear about what you want to create in the future.

When you resist life – including how you feel about life - you’re arguing that it (whatever “it” is) should be some other way than it is.  Your particular brand of arguing may look like complaining or commiserating or it might just look like quietly going through life having given up.  The result is you spend your life in a state of resistance and this keeps your mind all tied up in knots.  Your mind isn’t free to invent what you want because it’s so occupied with resisting what is.  Being authentic allows you to get clear about how the world is occurring for you.  It allows you to fully and freely state what’s true for you in this moment of your life.  If you’re afraid of losing your house, your car, your job, so be it.  If you can’t stand the sight of your husband, your boss, or even your child, so be it.  When you can authentically state where you’re at then it opens up the possibility of asking the question, “Ok, so that’s where you’re at, that’s what’s authentic for you, those are the limits you see, … now … what do you want to create?”

And that’s really the question I’m posing with this blog.  The world is in the state it’s in, what do you want to create?  It seems like everywhere you look there’s more crisis - there’s war, hunger, poverty.  Got it.  What do you want to create?  We created a world that has a lot of amazing tremendous things in it, and yet it still doesn’t really work for most people?  If that is what’s authentic for you, I hear you.  What do you want to create?

“I want to create a better world, but I don’t know how (or I don’t think it can be done).”  Excellent, you want to create a better world, and you don’t know how (or don’t think it can be done).  Very good, you know what you want and you’ve identified some limitations.  You’re clear about where you’re at and how the world occurs for you.  “I want to make a difference in the world, but I don’t know where to begin.”  This is how you begin.  You begin by speaking authentically about where you are and then from there, ask the question, “What do I want to create?” and dwell in that conversation on your own or with others.  Dwell in that conversation again and again and again and again.  Be willing to not know for 100 or 1,000 or 10,000 conversations until something new arises and you know.  And of course, don’t just do that, live your life.  Deal with what’s happening today, and face it without resistance.  Just don’t confuse doing that with having a conversation for transformation.  And if at some point, you begin to resist what’s happening in your life, speak again authentically about how it is for you.  Write it down, acknowledge it, and then ask the question, “What do I want to create?”

I invite you right here, right now to begin a new conversation.  I invite you to stake your claim to the future.  I invite you to keep your eyes wide open, look right at the world as it is and deny nothing about it.  And then in the face of it, say something else.  The future is born in a declaration.  What’s the future you’re declaring? 

What do you want to create?

In the earlier post, “What creates a transformation?” I looked at how a declaration of what you want can be a key to causing transformation.  In that post, I said that making a declaration wasn’t the end of the creative process, just a key element to it.  So once the declaration is made, how do you create the future?  Simple. You take action.  There’s no mystery here.  Want to learn to play the piano, go sign up for piano lessons.  Want to learn to ride a horse, go take riding lessons.  Want to find a spouse, then start dating.  Want to have a new house built, go talk to contractors.  Want to start a business, lose 100 pounds, or find a new job, then take actions consistent with the future you want to create. 

This may not seem very transformational.  We know that to create anything in our lives requires action, yet knowing that it requires action and actually taking action are two very different things.  There are likely several or many areas in your life where you know what to do, but you aren’t doing it.  The past is whispering to you.  “You can’t take piano lessons, you don’t have the money.”  “You can’t have a relationship, you’ve failed at three already.”  What is that chatter describing?  It’s only describing outcomes.  Three failed relationships is not evidence for anything about the future.  You have the amount of money you have; it may not be enough to take piano lessons, but it is what it is.  Now you know that to take piano lessons, you need more money, so create the money.  “Oh wonderful, I’m already working two jobs just to make ends meet, and you want me to create more money.”  What is that chatter describing?  Again, it’s describing an outcome.  What keeps us stuck is not the condition; it’s our relationship to the condition.  It’s the chattering about “what is” that keeps us from moving forward. 

So how do you quiet the chatter?  Simple.  You declare the future.  This is something you’re going to have to experiment with, but the bottom line is the past will continue to chatter in your ear unless you say something else and say it powerfully.  Your mind can smell a lie a mile away. You mind has to know that a different future is possible and that you (not your boss, your spouse, your parents, your government, but you) are going to create it.  This is not a mindless practice of chanting what you want over and over again hoping that it will somehow magically appear in your life; nevertheless, it’s transformational. 

No transformation?  Then you haven’t said it in the way that I’m describing here.  The past is still lingering and sapping the power from your words. When you make the declaration of what you’re going to create in this way, it cuts through the past like a knife.  You’ll experience yourself letting go of the past as it lets go of you.  The lid of the default future disappears.  The illusion is cast away.  With the past quiet, your mind will naturally begin to think about and focus on how to create what you want.  Whatever comes up, do it.  You don’t need to do it right now today, but you must put it in existence to be done or at the very least, clearly declare that you’re not going to do it.  Just don’t resist.  Resistance is a product of the past.  Don’t try to fool yourself.  Like I said, your mind can smell a lie a mile away.  The moment you waver, your mind will jump on it and say, “See, it’s all bullshit.  You can’t have what you want,” and it will start chattering again, and will continue to do so until you say something different.

Does making this declaration guarantee success?  No, but if you look, failure isn’t what makes life hard.  Failure is just an outcome.  Possibility is killed in your life as a result of listening to the chatter.  It comes from living in the cage of “I can’t have what I want.”  No, success is not guaranteed, but that’s okay, because neither is failure the problem.  Standing still is.

In the end, transformation isn’t about success or failure or how we feel; it’s about what we see as possible in our lives.  I’ve used everyday things people want to create to make the point, but the ultimate point isn’t about creating those things.  This conversation is about creating a new way of life on this planet – a way of life where good things happen naturally for people, and the one thing I’m very clear about is that to achieve that end we have to get better at creating, period.  The world we want will not come about by fixing, resisting or otherwise manipulating the world we’ve already created.  It will come about in only one way: by creating it.

Part 1   |   Part 2   |   Part 3    |    Part 4

Creating the Future

In their book, The Three Laws of Performance, authors Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan discuss the idea of a default future: “Our default future consists of our expectations, fears, hopes, and predictions, all of which are ultimately based on our experience in the past.  Incidents from the past live on as prediction, giving us our default future.”  When you don’t see the present moment (and all of your past for that matter) as just one possible outcome, you get drawn into it and it feels like what you have is all that’s possible.  Life has that quality of being “just the way it is” and it’s all it’s every going to be.

What robs you of joy and effectiveness in life is not that something is missing about you or your life.  It’s not the lack of something; it’s the addition of something – a default future.  As Zaffron and Logan tell us your default future is just your past resurrected.  Masked as your default future, your past becomes the lid that seals you tightly into a box you’ve created – the box called your life.  But as we’ve seen, it’s all an illusion.  This is not the true nature of things.  There is no default future.  There is no lid.  There is no future.  There’s just what you’re creating in this present moment.

This doesn’t mean that there are no limits to life.  Any box you create exists inside a bigger box labeled “Life” and life certainly has limits.  If you look though, you really don’t need to worry about the limits of life.  For most of us anyway, the things we want are not outrageous demands of life.   We’re not looking to press the limits of life.  We’re just looking to have a satisfying life experience.  For that, all you need to do is to master taking the lid off, see the illusion of your default future and then invent a future that gives life to your life. 

The point of this series wasn’t to reveal the secret of life.  It was only to distinguish a piece of the puzzle that often goes overlooked.  I think it’s an important piece, a key even, but it’s certainly not the only one.  It is though one of those more challenging pieces of the puzzle to see and fit in place.  

You know, not an edge piece … a middle piece.

Part 1   |   Part 2   |   Part 3    |    Part 4

A Moment in Time

If all of life is actually lived in the present moment, then it makes sense to examine the present a little more closely.  The question I want to delve into more deeply is “What exists in a present moment?”  We already know that in our own subjective experience, we have these “things” called our past and our future, but what about what’s going on out in the world?  Imagine we could stop time and examine one “frame” of life – the world at one moment in time.  What would we see?  We’d see life, right?  We’d see houses, cars, roads, people, desks, trees, rakes, and ditches.  We’d see food, televisions, guns, tanks, buildings, and jewelry.  We’d see people being shot and killed in war.  We’d see other people dying from starvation.  We’d see others sitting on their private yacht in the Caribbean while others sit at work talking on the phone.  We’d see outcomes.  In any snapshot of life, in any moment, what exists is just a set of outcomes.

How did we arrive at the outcomes?  We end up at the outcomes of our lives based on the decisions and choices made over time in the past.  This moment you’re experiencing right now is a product of the past.  You’re reading these words because I decided to write them at some point in the past.  You’re reading these words because you decided to buy a computer at some point in the past.  You were able to buy a computer because you have a job.  You have a job because you went to college and because some person or persons decided to establish the organization you work for, on and on.  Every present moment is just a set of outcomes; outcomes that resulted from past thinking and action. 

This point, while obvious is nevertheless significant because, in life, there’s what is – the outcomes of life – and then there’s what you think about what is, and how you relate to it.  In reality, your life is just an outcome.  Your past is just filled with outcomes.  Today is just an outcome.  Tomorrow will be just another outcome.  Say whatever you want about it; it ain’t gonna change.  We don’t related to (and therefore talk about) our lives as outcomes.  We talk about our lives like something is wrong with them.  Something is always happening in our lives that shouldn’t be happening, when the reality is that whatever “it” is, is happening, and we spend our time trying to fix and change what already is!

Yes, of course, that people are starving is a horrible thing.  Yes, of course, your boss being abrasive is annoying.  That your child is failing algebra is cause for concern.  Relating to something as an outcome doesn’t mean you’re stuck with it.  In fact, just the opposite is true.  It’s when you don’t relate to it as an outcome that you become stuck with it.  Begin today to see all that’s happening before your eyes as a mere outcome.  Right now, stop fussing over the state of your life.  All of it is just life catching up to what was said (and thought) at some time in the past. If you understand and master this, quiet all the explanations for why it is this way, and stop fixing life, then you open the possibility of really of creating a different future.

Part 1   |   Part 2   |   Part 3    |    Part 4

The Past and The Future

In our collective understanding of time, the past is yesterday and the future is tomorrow.  The past is the moment that just was and the future is the moment in front of us.  Those definitions of time are absolutely valid and it’s not my intention to challenge them.  I will however challenge them as being incomplete.  Rather than look at the past and future as mere points in time, we must begin to more deeply understand another relationship we have with the past and the future - as things.  

Think about it.  Don’t you often talk about the past as “my past”?  Or hear a friend talking about “his future”?  Things like “My past has been really difficult” or “Her future is bright” are spoken as if we are saying, “This couch is uncomfortable, but that chair is delightful.”  In this way, when we talk about the past or future, we are speaking of them as objects, things.  Intellectually, of course, we know that the person whose past has been challenging is really only extrapolating specific events from his or her past, and then generalizing the experience.  Still, when we talk about the past and future in this way, we are objectifying them.  We are doing this, despite the fact that neither exist.

Yes, things happened to you in the past and yes, things will happen to you in the future, but when does the actual happening of the events occur?  It always and forever occurs in a present moment.  Ten years ago, when your child was born, the actual happening of the birth was a present moment that occurred ten years ago at a particular date and time.   Today, in this present moment, you now think and talk about your past – the birth.  Two months from now, if you’re going on vacation to Maui, all you can do today is think and talk about your future.  The actual happening of that future will occur (if at all) at a present moment of time two months into the future.  So, it’s really interesting to begin to notice that we have these things – the past and the future – that occur as real to us as a couch or a chair, when in fact they don’t exist in reality at all.   The only moment of time that exists in reality is the present moment of time (as far as we know today).  And what we do in virtually every present moment of time is we think or speak about these things – the past and the future.

Now remember, the point of this conversation is to impact your ability to create what you want in your life so we want to capitalize on the relationship we have with the past and the future.  We’re not going to stop thinking and talking about them.  There’s nothing taboo here that we’re trying to get rid of; we’re just going to learn to more fully recognize the past from the future.  And the best part is developing the ability to see the past from the future is something that can be mastered over time.  Once you fully see it, you see it and your life is changed forever.  While at first, it might seem challenging, you’ll find that it’s much, much easier to master than spending your life trying to fix who you are.

Part 1   |   Part 2   |   Part 3    |    Part 4

Imagine if you couldn’t tell the difference between a pen and your watch?  Or a key and a telephone?  Or your child and your boss?  If you couldn’t do these things you couldn’t live.  You’d be asking your child for a raise and your boss to pick up her toys.  This would result in an obvious loss of effectiveness in life.  And of course, there’s a whole world, a contextual world behind all of these things.  To use a pen effectively, you have to know how to write, which means you have to know letters, words, and sentence structure.  You have to know paper.  To use a watch effectively, you have to be able to tell time.  You have to know what time is!  My point is there’s a lot going on in the processing of life, but one thing that allows for you to understand and use all these different things is an ability we all take for granted – the ability to see one thing from another.

This may seem like a silly idea, but consider this – the areas in your life where you think you’re not effective (and are afraid you’re never going to be) result simply from the fact that you cannot see one thing from the other.  In this series, I’m going to delve deeper into this idea, but I want to be clear about something right from the beginning.  Any explanation is only intended to help you see one thing from the other.  Don’t confuse the explanation with the phenomenon itself.  As ridiculous as it may seem, we all have aspects of our lives where the way we live is like trying to tell time with a pen, or trying to unlock a door with a telephone.  We’re confused about what we’re dealing with, and it is this and this alone that leads to our inability to create what we want.  

And one last point, the immediate (and freeing) implication of this idea is that any loss of effectiveness doesn’t have anything to do with explanations like not being disciplined enough or smart enough or assertive enough or really “anything” enough.  In other words, you are not broken (and so you can stop trying to fix yourself)!  In fact, the more you try to work on these things, the worse you make it.  I’m not saying that people don’t have natural gifts and talents, as well as inherent deficits and weaknesses.  What I’m saying is that those things are not the source of creating what you want.  If you attempt to write a bestselling novel with paper and a spatula, it doesn’t matter how much talent you have as a writer.  You’re not going to write anything.  Explanations like “I’m not ______ enough,” while true in some cases, mostly have become the default explanations to compensate for the fact that we simply haven’t learned that the critical ability is the one that lies behind the talent – the ability to see one thing from another.

The good news then is once you begin to get a hang of this, it really will be as obvious as “Oh, I’m using a plunger to drill a hole in my wall.  Duh, let me get my drill.”  You’ll make the shift and boom, your power and effectiveness will be restored, and that world of default explanations and trying to fix yourself will be left in the dust, while you move forward creating what you want.

So just what is the one thing from another that we’re not seeing?

There are undoubtedly many answers to this question.  Here’s one way that tends to go unnoticed:  You create a transformation by declaring possible what doesn’t seem possible to you.  You say what you want authentically without apology or resistance.  This may be hard to swallow especially if you’re thinking that you’re not even sure you know what you want.

Consider that you do know what you want.  You always know what you want.  Look at your life, are there things you have in your life right now that you don’t want? It’s only possible to know that you don’t want them because you have a reference point for what you want.  If you have a dissatisfying marriage, you know you want a satisfying one.  If you have a job you hate, you know you want a job you love.  It’s really not rocket science figuring out what you want.

So why does it seem so difficult?  In our culture, not having what you want has become the norm so we forgot that in order to have what you want, the first thing you have to do is ask for it.  You have to declare, “I want ________ (whatever it is that you want).”  Instead of asking for what we want in life and creating it, we engage in all these really odd behaviors consistent with a race that believe they can’t have what they want.  For example, instead of declaring what we want, we bitch and complain about how it is.  Or instead of creating what we want, we try to fix, change or manipulate the situation or others involved so it will somehow magically be what we want.  Some of us live lives of quiet desperation just hoping someone will save us, or worse, hoping for a quick, easy death.

I mean think about it.  If you have a piece of cake and you want a slice of pizza, there isn’t anything you can do to make that piece of cake into a slice of pizza.  There’s no magical, mystical cake into pizza transformation machine.  More importantly, you know that if you want a slice of pizza, then go get a slice of pizza!  Yet, in these other areas of life, we somehow ended up thinking it worked differently and so we spend our time trying to make people or situations into what they’re not rather than just creating what we want.

So yeah, transformation is created by asking for what you want.  Period.  Creation doesn’t end there of course.  You still have to actually create what you want, but the great thing is rather than live that life of quiet desperation or hope; you live a life of transformation.  When you make a declaration of what you want without apology, resistance or even knowing how you’re going to accomplish what you’ve declared, you step out of the world of “it’s not possible” and voila, transformation occurs.

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Beginning in 1999, I really began to reinvent my life and to engage in a quest to understand the answers to my new question about natural action.  I was working as an attorney for the state and had begun studying in the field of coaching taking training at Coach University and Corporate Coach University.  Later, I also studied the work of the Gallup organization on talents and strengths and the work of David Cooperrider who invented a field of study known as Appreciative Inquiry.  I started my own part-time coaching practice and sought every opportunity I could to train, coach or consult in my job with the state.

Then in 2002, I had an epiphany and a whole new possibility was born for me. 

My epiphany didn’t come about in the most expected of ways.  I always imagined such an experience, if it happened to me at all, would happen while calm, in the space of love or enlightenment.  Instead, it came in the space of anger and rage.  I had been in my boss’ office and to be honest with you, I don’t even really remember exactly what we were talking about.  All I remember was when I left, I was mad, raging mad.  I went back to my office and threw the file we had been working on across my desk.  I don’t know what compelled me, but I pulled up a blank email.  I stared at that blank email – the nothingness of it provoked me.  There was all I was experiencing in that moment and then there in the email, there was nothing.  Nothing – the space of creation, the space where something new is born.  Nothing – a concept I had learned about at Landmark.  There it was staring me in the face saying “Choose.”

I began to write, and I wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote.  I wrote like I was reaching for something.  At the same time, I felt like something was writing through me.  Something happened to me that day.  I’m not even sure what.  It’s not as if some calm came over me or I stopped hating my job, but I articulated the future, what I saw was possible in life in a way that I never had done before.  Later, I shared the email with my wife and her response was simply, “This is a whole new world.  I can see a whole new world in this.”

I’ve spent the last 7 years refining the world that was born that day.  In fact, I still refine it, but the best articulation you’ll find to date is my book A Life Worth Living.  That email became a seminar that my wife and I led for a couple of years that then became the book.  Funny thing is, I didn’t even see a book in that email at first.  It took two years, until 2004, before it hit me that the email was the basis for a book.

By the end of 2004, I had officially transitioned into the training field.  In the sense that I had a full-time paying job working as a trainer for the same state agency where I worked as an attorney.  I took a pay cut to make the move, but I felt it was a measured risk.  New York State Civil Service rules provide for a “hold” on a former job for one year so I always had the option of going back.  During that year, I almost went back to legal a couple of times, but I just couldn’t do it.  How could I go back?  I was making the best of my job as a trainer, but they weren’t interested in transformation.  I felt like at least I was in the ballpark.  It just had to be a step forward.

Turns out, it was.  In March of 2005, I gave a presentation to an association of state trainers.  My presentation was on Appreciative Inquiry and the possibility of using such an approach in state government.  At the conclusion of my presentation, a man, Alan Alcon, approached me and said he really liked my work.  He was from the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and said they were doing some work he thought I’d be interested in.  I was so clueless at the time that I didn’t even get he was hinting at the possibility of a job for me.  By the fall of 2005, I was working for the DEC and a little over a year later after both of my bosses retired; I was promoted to the position, Director of Training and Organization Development.

Is what I’ve accomplished extraordinary?  I don’t know.  Some tell me it is.  It doesn’t really matter to me as I stand at the cusp of a new beginning.  The one thing I will say about my journey is I live what I’ve written about and discovered.  I’m not claiming that what I’ve written is the answer to life.  I’ve discovered as much if not more since completing the book as I did in the 4 years or so it took to write it.  Is my life perfect?  Not even close.  I still hate getting up on Monday mornings like I have for my entire life.  There’s still plenty of room to grow.

So what’s different?  Understanding is no longer my default choice for living.  Yes, I still ask questions and I still seek to understand.  I still get stopped by old habits and confronted by new fears.  The biggest difference for me is I’ve taken what I’ve learned and I’m living it.  And it’s not even that I’m living “it” that’s significant.  What’s significant is that the future that’s in front of me is to really live fully, participate fully in life.  It took me 39 years to understand that the only thing worth understanding is nothing, and then from nothing, you really can invent your life.  I can’t wait to see what else I invent; what else you and I invent together.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my story.