A personal reflection coming up to birthday time.

Air-journeys provide invaluable thinking space. This article started life on a flight to Helsinki in early June. The two-hour flight from Heathrow provided me with just about the right amount of time for a brief helicopter-view of my world.

 

In a few short weeks, I will be celebrating my last forty-something birthday. My thoughts therefore turn to "things of some significance", for example:

• What is my life about ?
• What do I want to spend more time doing ?
• What should I be thinking of moving away from ?
• What might the vision for the future look like ?

(And yes, I did wonder if it was appropriate to do this reflection in the form of an article. Some self-disclosure is inspiring; some more is just in bad taste! I console myself with the thought that you, dear reader, have the solution to my dilemma right there in your hand: if you find this sort of reflection distasteful, feel free to move the mouse up to the "Back" button of the browser, and zap.)

Decades have usually been significant for me. At the age of 20, I left academia (degree in Philosophy, ah, now the secret is out!) and jumped aboard the early technological revolution in my native Ireland. Well, sort of "tumbled" aboard really, it just happened. Vision or foresight had nothing to do with it; necessity was the order of the day. On Maslow's hierarchy, we were firmly grubbing about on level one: basic needs.

 

My 30th was celebrated on the shores of the Mediterranean ....at work. I was engaged on a pan-European project with BP, as a contractor / interim-manager, rolling out a system to a reluctant network of sales and distribution companies. To say that it was a cultural baptism-of-fire would be an understatement, but it was a lot of fun, great for my confidence (of which I had very little up to my late-20's), and enabled me to pay off the first mortgage a few years later.

 

My 40th coincided almost exactly with my move into business coaching. I decided that another decade of technology was not for me, no matter how high the extrinsic rewards might be. So I facilitated an MBO and bungee-jumped. As it turned out, the aircraft was flying a lot lower than I thought; the dot com bubble didn't last and by the end of 2001, I was counting my lucky stars to have been out before it popped.

 

The journey so far had encompassed one marriage, two children, three countries of residence, four houses, and five countries of work. So perhaps it's not surprising that burnout happened in 96, followed by divorce in 97, followed by lots of questioning about life in general. (And yes, this is the highly-edited version!)

In a very real way, life really did begin at 40. The past decade has easily been the most thrilling part of the ride. Though if anyone had told me this in my thirties, I would never have believed them

 

Being an avid fan of the "Wilbur grid", I just could not resist summing up the highlights accordingly. (You saw that coming, didn't you?)

Life is lived wholeheartedly, sometimes to the brink of overwhelm and exhaustion. I often wish there was more time to go running in the forest or have an impromptu coffee with a friend.

 

Over the past decade, friendship has been the big area of neglect. I have half-dozen great friends scattered around Europe, and I wish had more time with them: for good old agenda-free, fun, understanding conversations. Whether in a cafe, or a kitchen, or on a walk, those moments are among the finest there are.

Call me sad or arrogant, if you like, but I don't crave any more achievement. The world's applause quickly dies away, and an hour later you are back in your hotel room. I know from experience that it's the feeling when with oneself in those alone-spaces that ultimately matters. I genuinely don't care what scores go on the feedback sheet, but I do care passionately about what happens to people afterwards.

 

Sometimes, I care too much. For example, it haunts me that I cannot stay in touch with hundreds of former clients in the way I would like to, and be more up-to-date with what is happening for them. I hate it when I meet someone whom I don't recognise, (as happened this morning) even though it appears we had a deep and meaningful conversation only 12 months ago. Of course, the risk of appearing indifferent is part of that concern, but what's even harder is my inability to keep track of the ripples of conversation, and the many amazing human-beings I meet along the way.

 

I know I have to let go, but it's easier to say the words than to live the reality. I want to let go in lots of ways; for example:

• To let go of value - to trust that no matter how much "hidden value" we ever find, there will always be more than we can ever know about. And conversely, there will be some value we wanted to produce together, and we didn't, and that's part of life too.
• To let go of ownership -to know that people will (continue to) clone what we are doing, to trust and encourage that (and hope they make it better), rather than be discouraged or disappointed by a (perceived) lack of integrity. If the result is more "sustainable growth", so what.
• To let go of delivery - to facilitate alliance partners, colleagues, and licensees doing more of the coaching and training so that I can leverage whatever talents and influence we may have here to develop further an integrated approach to sustainable growth.
• To let go of work - and just spend more time in the forest, meeting friends, reading, surfing, writing, learning, home-life and doing all the things I enjoy. This of course includes work - which is fine - but sometimes "the tail ends up wagging the dog"!
• To let go of building a traditional organisation - which I play with from time to time. Everything I want to do can be done using associates and a virtual team-structure.
• To let go of some bad habits around Belgian chocolates etc. Though I am fitter than ever, these mean there is "more of me" than there was at forty. If I am to do the same again in the next decade, I might be losing sight of my shoes by sixty. And we don't want to go there!

This year, I have been making more and more time for development, "financed" (in a time sense) by less leisure and holidays. And I have been happy to do that; I love what I do, and as Charles Handy remarked, why should I therefore confine myself to a five-day week? When work is play, we never have to "work" again.

 

As well as more time with friends, I want to do more of this development: reading, going to conferences, trying out new approaches, writing and creating, playing with new media, research.

 

This means some delivery and "management" and "stuff" will have to go. There will be less and less time spent on email. There will be more saying No to certain types of work or certain types of clients. And equally, there may be some experimentation in new areas.

As Eckhart Tolle describes, the present moment is the only reality there is. In a sense, this entire article is unreal: that 30th birthday looking out over the Mediterranean is no more, and my speculations about the future are simply speculations.

 

And yet ...there is a certain reality in recollection, too. Our own stories have a certain power. Most of the time, we are building the road as we walk on it; and when we stop and wipe our brow, and take a moment to look up (backwards or forwards), we become conscious that it is a road, and not just an arrangement of bricks.

 

In that moment, of course, it is the recollection that is the experience. And if I were to make a wish for the decade ahead, it would be to live wholeheartedly in whatever present-moment experience I am in. Whether the activity is running or recollecting, meeting or meditating, speaking or listening, I would like to be more fully present in that moment.

 

Throughout my 40's, I have become increasingly interested in the spiritual side of life. Not the New Age stuff (which I treat as full-blown flight from reality) and not the theological stuff (do the words recovered-Catholic ring a bell?). I'm referring to that deeper presence that some people have, irrespective of culture or occupation, which means they are no longer about themselves, their Egos, even their stories. They are the people who provide a hint of something else.

 

(To clarify: I am not referring to that staring, intensive look that some professionals try to cultivate as a mark of depth and wisdom. They have just been on an NLP course, and they want you to know how ATTENTIVE they are) I'm talking about a different kind of presence, that is not in any way affected or intrusive, and that is massively rewarding to spend time in.

 

So my birthday wishes in a few weeks will be just: presence. Not just birthday presence, but everyday presence. Not "looking-at-my-watch" presence. Not "let's see-what-else-I-can-pack-in" presence. Not "what-if" presence. Certainly not "for-the-effect" presence. Oh, and not "OK, what's the action-plan" presence, either!

 

Just being there. Wholeheartedly doing whatever I'm doing ... even when that is nothing.

© John Niland, Success 121, June 2008.