Tripping Point!

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There are seeds of destruction in all of us that will bear only unhappiness if allowed to grow. -Dorothea Brande (1893-1948) American writer and author of Becoming A Writer.

This week I had the privilege of working with some great people during a real estate conference. Although I have done these many times before, each event seems to give me a much deeper understanding of what keeps people back from being their best. I have said many times before that no matter what the system or vehicle being taught, the real challenge will always involve the “operator”. In other words no matter how proven a method or system may be, it’s always difficult for a new user!

That clearly begs the question, why? But I’m not referring to the obvious fact that learning anything new poses it’s obvious challenges, rather that deep inside each one of us there seems to be a ‘tripping point’!Malcolm Gladwell’s fantastic book, The Tipping Point discusses why things just seem to suddenly click and take off…but what about the converse?

Have you ever had a moment in your life where you thought you were making progress and finally getting somewhere and then the bottom fell out? How about all those people that work a life time to accumulate a level of wealth just to see it evaporate in the latest economic catastrophe? How about that relationship that you’ve been involved with for years that seems to collapse over night?

What the heck is happening? How can this happen? We follow “the rules”…you know, the ones that tell us hard work will get us through anything and everything…”just persevere” they say! While I find that an admirable characteristic and embrace it in my own life, I’m realizing that there is something deeper that could be causing this self destruction!

After the conference this week, I had a visit from several clients who wanted to continue some private work we had begun spontaneously while sitting on a floor outside the main room. You could feel in the moment that a chord deep within had been struck…this was no ordinary “what’s wrong with my business” discussion, rather the long hard journey of a young man finding his way in life.

Challenged as a boy with certain learning disabilities this guy had been labeled with a variety of “causes” for why he had never truly experienced “mainstream success”. Well that just rips right through me when I hear all the terms we use to box people into a corner in life…I’m not claiming to be anything other than a master of common sense, but it should have been obvious to anybody these labels were keeping this guy down!

Within minutes of talking, his high IQ was obvious to me…he picked up on the subtleties of what I was saying in the blink of an eye and responded intelligently within seconds. So what was “wrong”? Where was the big “problem”. Was it intellectual, was it environmental, familial…because of course we all feel more comfortable when we can blame something.

Well I refused to go there! All I could see in front of me was a really smart guy who was trying to find his way in life. A young man who had like most of us gone through an education system that showed him where to be, what to do and when to go…a virtual step by step system. Well the majority of us have been through the same steps and quite frankly it’s a very safe, sheltered place. We know exactly what is expected and especially in this guy’s case because he went to schools especially designed for his particular challenges!

BANG! It hit me like a freight train when he told me about the first experience he had in a “mainstream” school…he said it was the worst experience of his life! But was it really I thought to myself? For the first time in his life he was forced to survive! He was simply experiencing what it’s like for all of us! I was absolutely no different when I went off to college and was even more challenged once I graduated and had to figure out what in the world I was going to do with my life! What an overwhelming prospect!

So there it was right in front of us clear as day…we all were just afraid of what’s next…and that’s exactly where the tripping point starts. We panic about everything…what job, in what industry, what relationship, where do we live and worst of all how do we pay for all this?? No wonder why I felt like my crazy dog Buffy chasing her tail! (Revisit: http://freethinkingtools.com/index.php?s=Just+Breathe)

So how do we break free from this trap…step one is relax! Make a differentiation that these decisions are not life threatening! Use accurate thinking to assess what is real. The key point that I discussed with this young guy was expressed with a simple question: what’s wrong with being you? See, he was so caught up in giving back to all those who had helped him along the way that he was forcing himself to do things that were not congruent with his natural strengths…and worse, he was harboring incredible guilt for not making it happen! Crazy and unacceptable really…but we all do it!

When we finally parted that day, we all realized that we need to play to our strengths. We all need to do the things we are meant to do…and don’t start whining that you don’t know what that is or that you can’t because you can’t make a living being you…baloney! Those are all rationalizations and are doing nothing more than perpetuating your stumbling performance! So before you set out on your life’s journey give yourself a big selfish embrace and just be you and I bet you’ll step right over the next tripping point no matter where it shows up!