When we approach life with a beginner’s mind, we let go of being an expert.
My friend Marc Lesser is building his platform for his new book Seven Practices of a Mindful Leader by sharing excerpts in a series of e-letters. This one, which uses simple questions to help move toward a more open, beginner’s-mind-way of improving our work, resonated with me. Thanks, Marc.
"One of my favorite exercises when coaching executives is to ask them to describe their work, or a particular project or key relationship, from 2 perspectives:
- the perspective of failure (what’s lacking, not going well, and/or failing) and,
- the perspective of success (what’s working well, going better than expected).
"I find value in doing this exercise myself. I can describe my work life as incredibly successful or as lacking (or even failing). On the one hand, I’ve founded and been CEO of 3 companies - that feels successful! On the other, all of the companies grew more slowly than originally projected, and one nearly went bankrupt when the 2001 dot-com bubble burst - failure! I have led mindfulness trainings worldwide, and lead an engaging weekly meditation group; I’ve helped lots of people – success! But there’s so much suffering and need in this world and I’ve barely made a dent in that – fail."
Article: Don’t Be An Expert