Have you ever given something your best
shot and felt you didn't measure up? Perhaps you prepared a meal for
guests that just didn't make it. Sure it was OK, but it wasn't
excellent. Maybe you participated in a sporting event and didn't
place as highly as you would have liked. Perhaps you gave a
presentation that seemed pretty good, but when compared to those of
others seemed pretty ordinary.
I had such an experience
recently. I was asked to facilitate a meeting, something I have done
hundreds of times. This meeting was out of town, with a group I had
never met. I did my homework, talked with representatives of the
group, and prepared an outline for the day.
At the meeting site, I met
with staff and prepared the room. I was excited as I introduced
myself. Then things began to go awry. My facilitation questions
were met with resistance and finally open hostility. Someone said,
“Why don't you just let us discuss without interrupting.” This
had never happened before. I felt like a vaudeville performer who
had been yanked from the stage with a hook, because the audience
booed his performance.
After the meeting, there
were some, “Thank you for being with us,” comments. But that was
it. I left and proceeded to the Amtrak station for my journey home.
While on the train, I
thought long and hard about what had happened. One voice in me was
defensive and angry. It shouted, “They weren't clear in what they
wanted!” “They were biased against an outside facilitator.”
“They were arrogant and elitist.”
Another voice was self
accusatory. “You didn't prepare well enough.” “You don't have
the skills to facilitate people as talented and experienced as
these.” “You should not have taken on this task.”
Through it all, another
voice spoke quietly in the background. “Whatever the reasons for
this discouraging experience, you can learn from it.” “Perhaps
you engaged a task that exceeded your present abilities.” “Maybe
this experience is preparing you for opportunities that you have not
yet envisioned.” “Is it possible that your explicit
vulnerability and lack of defensiveness were vehicles for greater
understanding on the part of the group?”
Then the thought came, “How
is this experience related to 'Living With Soul?'” “What might
it mean to 'Fail with Soul?'”
I remembered the Ray Charles
quote, “Soul
is like electricity – we don't really know what it is, but it's a
force that can light up a room.” Up to now, I had tacitly assumed
that this soul energy was positive and energizing. I now saw that
living with Soul may lead to vulnerability and sadness. Ray Charles
knew this truth. He put it this way, “There's nothing written in
the Bible, Old or New testament, that says, ''If you believe in Me,
you ain't going to have no troubles.” (As you may remember, Ray
Charles gradually went blind between the ages of five and seven from
untreated glaucoma.)
If
living with Soul doesn't guarantee a happy or successful life, what
good is it? I'm beginning to believe that living with Soul helps me
to become more authentic. Authentic people seem to accept themselves
with all their strengths and weaknesses. They don't have to pretend
as much. They don't expend as much energy convincing themselves that
they are more than they really are. They seem less defensive when
confronted with their deficits and less inflated when they excel.
They
are inspiring to be around. When they lead, they are worth
following. When they follow, they embolden those whom they identify
as leaders. They make good advisors because they “tell it like it
is.”
People
who fail with Soul, truly authentic people, are scary to be around.
They needn't tear others down or build them up to gain an advantage.
They don't play the “get ahead” games that our society
encourages. They implicitly challenge these narcissistic patterns by
their very presence. Authentic people strip off our masks and
pretenses. They encourage those around them to grow into their own
personal potentials.
Living
with Soul means that we will fail with Soul even as we succeed with
Soul. In fact, living with Soul challenges the very meaning of
success and failure. It's not about winning and losing. It's about
being all that we are and helping everyone else be all that they are.
This “all” includes all my positive traits as well as all of my
negative ones. This kind of living makes life real and valuable.
Perhaps
my humbling experience was a gift to me and to the participants of
this meeting. Maybe it provided each of us an opportunity to step
out of our personal self-defined little boxes - an opportunity to
view ourselves, the organizations with which we work, and our social
milieu with a new clarity and perspective.
I
would be interested in your stories about failing to meet your own
expectations.
