My simple rules are:
What’s important to me are people, relationships, connecting, building things with people, community, growing myself and others. I think at the moment, I’m focusing on growing as a coach + consultant, and on loving what I do.
To look at how I got to my rules, it’s probably simplest to look at each one:
Offer clarity + choice …as opposed to offering advice to clients, or offering nothing, or not knowing where to start. It’s meant to be humble place to start (I hear this, I see these as your options), and hopefully empowering for the people in my life.
Say the hard thing …as opposed to saying the easy thing. This is hard, and I struggle with it, but every time I do, I am rewarded a clearer conscience and often more intimacy and trust in my relationship. As a consultant, I never again want to skirt the elephant in the room.
Remember to play + pray …as opposed to waking up one day and realizing that i haven’t spoken to God in a month or that I can’t remember the last time I had a really good laugh. As intensely as I attack the world, I struggle with balance, and yet I’m not happy and who I want to be when these are missing.
Hold space for greatness …as opposed to settling, or allowing those I love to settle. As a coach and a friend, I think it’s my duty to hold the potential for awesome for those around me and for myself. People rise to it.
These are all really about the times when I’ve felt most alive. I have this crazy notion that I am at my best when I’m doing these things; my work is to hold on to them and actually use them to guide my life right now.
My Simple Rules:
My personal simple rules are:
Here’s my story. The above is who I am becoming more every day. Based on my former behavior, you would have observed in me the following pattern:
Clarifying my mission by establishing for myself the top simple rules has helped me change the pattern of my behavior and grounded me in my most authentic self.
This is the set of rules I discerned while attending the recent Forum on Human Security in Caux, Switzerland. They express the spirit of the occasion.
These are my simple rules:
My simple rules for difficult discussions or for moderating internet forums (i.e., intrinsically difficult discussions) are:
Here’s the set of 4 I currently use in my life. There is significant overlap in my wording and form with the HSD Institute’s – which I recognize and appreciate. They not only work for me but there are certain words, like “Attend,” where I first resisted the word and then came to understand it well enough to recognize its deeper values.
The items under the four are statements I use to help me explore the rule in various circumstances.