One Conversation Can Change………wait for it………Everything

Of all of the “things” that I have encountered in my life, and there are a few, there is one thought, one idea, one experience, one notion, one piece of knowledge that excites me more than any other.  It is the single bit of knowing, that when I recall it, when I allow it to really be present and be fully alive for me in the moment, it immediately expands my outlook, my view of the future, my capacity for possibilities, exponentially larger.

It’s such a simple thing too.  It crept up on me.  I wasn’t looking for it, in fact I was actively resisting it when it happened.  Then, all of a sudden, there it was.  My future was instantly different.  My outlook altered.  My box expanded, or blown right off of me really.

One conversation can change everything.

Your life is going in a certain direction, a fairly predictable trajectory, and then that one conversation happens.  It may be with yourself, or it may be a “conversation” that you read, but most often it’s with another human being.

My favorite, the one that really set me on fire and put me on a new and completely unknown, unexpected, unpredictable path for the rest of my life happened with one of my favorite people in the world.  This person has known me since the day I was born, has always cared for me, looked after me and because of that I had an immeasurable amount of trust for them.

Within that trust of my listening, I was told a story about a conversation they’d had with another in which the story teller made themself completely vulnerable, at risk, and authentic.  They were willing to put everything that they had in life up until that point on the line, including the relationship itself, in the interest of having a complete and authentic relationship.

Listening to this story, and hearing the vulnerability and the willingness to risk everything for the sake of what could be, moved me.  I’d never heard a more courageous story before, and very few since.  I wanted that kind of courage. I knew in that moment that living my life without that kind of courage would mean that I had barely lived at all.  Hearing this story altered what I knew about life, how it could go, how it should go, how it would go.  It changed me.  It made possible the kind of relationships that I could have, that I do have in my life.

It was a moment of truth.  Listening to that story, sitting on the edge of my seat, I could hear a pin drop.  I could hear my audible gasp, being in awe of the power of the spoken word and its ability to evoke a response deep within the recipients of those received words.  Its ability to move me to action, to melt the most hardened heart, to presence compassion, truth, love and being in a moment in time. 

Have you ever had a conversation that changed everything?  I’d love to hear about it if you did.  If you haven’t, I’d love to have one with you.

With Love,

Ed

Power

I’ve been at a loss for a few weeks now about what I really wanted to communicate next.  It’s not that I haven’t had ideas and it’s not that I haven’t started drafts, but they haven’t quite been what was at the forefront of how I wanted you to know me.  After all, it is my intention that this blog is not just a personal space for sharing who I am, or a professional space for creating dialogue with potential clients, rather I intend the blog to accurately reflect all of these things.  If I’m being true to who I am and really being authentic, there will be no difference between personal and professional me.  At the same time some conversations may not seem relevant on one level or the other at least in the current “terministic screen” of social media.  As a reforming technologist, I do believe that someday there won’t be an online me or a real world me, there’ll just be me.

This entry then is about power.  First off, power has scary connotations to it, especially when I tell you that I want more power.  If I want more power, in today’s worldview, it’s implied that I will be drawing power from you leaving you with less power.  This is where being love present and experienced makes a difference in our relationship.  If I have more power, you also have more power.

I want you to know that I want more power.  I want power to share your experience with you so I can be left altered by the offers you’ve made me (as my Improv OD friends would say) and I want power that comes from you allowing me to exist with you within the space that you occupy.  I want power that comes from you granting me gracious listening where I get to be larger than I could have ever known myself to be without your love and power.  With that power and love, you get to be larger than you’ve ever known yourself to be.  This is the kind of power that can only be created within the conversations that we generate with each other.  And given that this blog is a one way dialogue I want to say enough to pique your interest without creating too much of a persona.  In time, we’ll need to speak with each other to create who we are to each other.

Currently I’m reading a book called The Boundaryless Organization about making hierarchical structures more permeable and it speaks to many of the kinds of power that we experience within organizations and the way the existing model of power really limits our ability to be innovative, flexible, quick and integrated within business and how much of this model comes from the natural hierarchy that occurs within families.  It’s an older book, but as usual I’m finding many insights into many of the phenomenon I experience in my day job, in my side businesses, and in my family and other relationships.

Concepts such as Complex Responsive Process and the amazing Patricia Shaw book Changing Conversations in Organizations which I read prior to my Europe trip a couple of months ago were laden with these aspects related to power that I’ve been attempting to articulate in conversations with people for quite some time now.  The groundwork that is laid by the concepts for organizations being nothing more than conversations that have occurred and are currently occurring should be required reading for all human beings.

Obviously, or maybe not so obviously, my first foray into this type of thinking came from my exposure to Werner Erhard’s work when I was nineteen years old.  I have received a great deal of conversational opposition throughout the twenty odd years since I first participated in that conversation from people close and not so close to me and I believe that opposition explains much of my current participation through academia seeking a different way to frame what was so obviously learned from that participation that seemed so difficult to explain.

Power.

I want you to consider that you want more of it.  If you’re alone right now say it out loud.  Go ahead and say it.  “I want power. I want lots of power.”

It’s why we chase status, money, relationship, religion and sometimes when we feel like we’re just not getting what we need we chase things to numb our powerlessness.  When our relationships aren’t working because we don’t have enough power we go outside of them, and when we’re not getting the power we need at work we find new jobs, and when we’re not getting the power to take care of our families we band together and occupy something.

Unfortunately, many of the ways we seek power within our existing worldview are still playing by rules created by the people who have power in that worldview.  I’m fairly certain that I’ve been able to generate some access to power in ways that don’t fall within those rules.  I know they’ve been working for me and I need to start to find out if it’s possible to share those with other people.

If you’re interested in having power and want to have a conversation with me about creating it together send me a message.  I’d love to chat about it.

With Love,

Ed