Supercoach - Michael Neill [70]
When I was first learning to become a coach, my favorite stories were about the Taoist sages who used to wander from village to village in ancient China. Although these sages held a variety of jobs in a disparate array of professions, they lived in such harmony with themselves and the world around them that whenever they passed through a town, disputes would resolve themselves and problems would be “dis-solved” in the clarity of their presence. Without necessarily working directly to help others, these sages were simply a helping, healing power in the world.
As your understanding of the ten secrets deepens, you’ll become like one of these ancient sages—or at least their modern equivalent, a supercoach! While this will bring you untold joys in your life, it will also bring an interesting new responsibility. . . .
The Helper’s Dilemma
“Happiness and a meaningful life come from making
differences. But this is the most important rule to follow:
always make the differences you can make, not the
differences you would prefer to make but can’t.”
— Lyndon Duke
Once upon a time I used to walk out in front of a group to deliver a talk or a workshop with the simple intention of sharing the best of what I knew from my heart. If people liked it and acted on what I suggested, wonderful; if they didn’t, well, that was a shame, but “no harm, no foul.” But as the years have gone by and more and more people have heard me speak and my books and tips and radio shows have brought me some measure of reputation and authority, I notice that people are now willing to act on my suggestions simply because they’re my suggestions. They’re more likely to bypass their own inner wisdom in favor of my clever catechisms, using my ideas not as catalysts for their inspiration but as a temporary replacement. “After all,” one recent seminar attendee said to me, “you’re you, and I’m only me!”
This came to a head for me recently when I was speaking at the United Nations to a small group of delegates, spouses, interns, and friends. The talk was an exploration of cultural mythology and how it impacts our pursuit of success and happiness. Afterward, as often happens, people came up to me seeking guidance about situations in their personal lives, ranging from diplomatic issues to weight loss to child rearing. But when one young person approached me wanting to know whether I thought she should “break free of cultural mythology” and give up her virginity before marriage, I found myself face-to-face with every helper’s dilemma:
The more successful we become in our desire
to make a positive difference in the world,
the more capable we become of doing damage.
Do we press on with a willingness to “kill one, save many”? Or do we mute ourselves, following the Hippocratic dictum to “first, do no harm”?
I’m a man of my time, so I get my inspiration as often from the movies as I do from ancient philosophical treatises. And I’ve found my own resolution to this dilemma in the Frank Capra film It’s a Wonderful Life. In it, Jimmy Stewart’s character wishes he had never been born, and his wish is granted. An angel named Clarence guides him through a vision of a world where his voice has never been heard. And in the darkness of that vision, he becomes reacquainted with his light and the difference he was born to make.
So here’s the best of what I know, shared from my heart:
You have a wisdom inside you—listen for it and give it voice.
You have a light inside you—feel its glow and let it shine.
You have the power to speak and act and make things manifest in the world—let your wisdom and light guide you as you do.
With love and thanks,
Michael
Acknowledgments
On my wedding day, a man I had never seen before came up to me and said, “You owe me, you know. If it wasn’t for me, your wife would never have been born.” Slightly worried I was stumbling across a dark family secret just moments after joining the family, he went on to tell me his story.
He had