Alistair Cooke had a flair for connecting seemingly unrelated themes and events in his BBC Letters from America. We have been here in the US for twelve days now, mostly in the snow. We arrived at the tail end of a huge snow storm. There was a foot of snow in my sister in law’s garden. After about ten days it had just begun to disappear with the help of a huge rain storm when the temperature suddenly dropped and dumped another 22 inches of snow on Long Island. So, most of these twelve days we have spent around the kitchen table, talking, watching the winter Olympics (you would not believe how much curling we have seen), surfing the web, eating and drinking wine. Adam’s Tweets have become a series of Tweets from the Kitchen, which would rival Alistair’s letters any day.
And I have been reading. Despite the snow we did manage to get into the city and I picked up a pop philosophy book called How Philosophy Can Change Your Life – 10 Ideas That Matter Most. I don’t really like the book, but I do like some of the things in it. For example I like the idea that “ideas are the building blocks of our lives – they help us find our way and our direction” and “it does not tell you what to do or make demands” .. it is a wake up call. This is the kind of coaching I advocate. Coaching where we do not impose our theories on others, where we do not super impose our reality over someone else’s.
People aren’t really interested in accomplishment. They are interested in what accomplishment will bring them. Security, peace of mind, a sense of well being. When we focus on goals and achievement we are focusing on the fridge when the stove is faulty.
We all know two things – one, life is really pretty simple if we can get ourselves out of the way and two, the relentless search for happiness and fulfillment through materialism is a race to nowhere.
In the end coaching is about simplicity, about independence from endless desire for more stuff, about unshackling ourselves from the dominant stories of what people say success means and reconnecting to the things that actually make a difference – kindness, empathy, generosity and possibility.
America is many things – some great, some not so great, but for sure it is a country of possibility. That was often the theme of Alistair Cooke’s Letters from America. In his words – “People, when they first come to America, whether as travelers or settlers, become aware of a new and agreeable feeling: that the whole country is their oyster”.
This weekend we are in Philadelphia, visiting friends we have known for over thirty years. Philly was the first capital of the USA, home of the Liberty Bell. It has a long and proud tradition of diversity, freedom and liberty. My good friend David is a businessman, originally trained in law. He is waiting for a point in his life when he will have time to write. I said the moment he is waiting for is now. I invented a new possibility – an international writing group over the internet using Skype. Anyone else want to join?
More when we get back
Mo
