Resuming the Journey to my Well-formed Outcome

March 10, 2014

It is nearly half past one in the morning, and I am pensive after watching a very beautiful movie, ‘Dead Poets Society’. In it, what the teacher, John Keating tells his students, is still whirling in my mind:

“Carpe diem, seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary. Boys, you must strive to find your own voice. Because the longer you wait to begin, the less likely you are to find it at all….. Break out! Break out, now is the time!”

I have broken out and found my voice. I seize the day firmly listening to what my voice tells me. Helpful events and people materialize in my life and business nowadays. The nagging chatter in my mind, the elimination of which was the outcome for going to the NLP course is now absent. There is now more of music – literally and figuratively – in my life.

I now have an outcome that is already doing some work inside.

Arriving at the outcome and this state was a tortuous journey. Even after coming from Cherai, though I was calmer and more confident, I just had no idea how NLP was going to help me. I felt overwhelmed. That was evident in the first mail I shared with my group, Cheraiseveners, formed to arrive at our individual outcomes and share our journeys in life.

I have written about the journey in arriving at my well-formed outcome in a previous post. I felt proud about it for a few hours till our group leader and my personal coach, Arunima, stepped into the picture. She suggested there is a possibility that my outcome was from a third person perspective.

I realized my outcome was neither final nor well-formed, after all!

Then she bombarded (that is how I perceived, then) me with questions such as:

• What happens when you see, hear and feel yourself as a congruent exemplar in your role as Managing Director?
• In what way would you make yourself accessible to the world outside to show up your company?
• What price are you prepared to pay to achieve your outcome?

There were many questions like these. I kept answering her and she kept on coming at me with more.

I answered her questions as if I were answering an exam paper, very terse, full of myself and embellished with knowledge.

At one stage, I thought I had enough of questions. I started feeling peeved that Arunima did not believe the wonderful outcome I had. Besides, I saw myself as a repository of wisdom (certified by Sue Knight herself) questioned by someone a lot younger.

Looking back, I realize the process of becoming a student again – in a spirit of honest enquiry – was when I really started getting IT. Her persistent questions ensured I made the transition from possessing knowledge to living them from a place of knowing. Before this came about, there was a lot of churning inside, breaking and peeling of layers of hardened positions.

I also understood the way questions are framed, brings out answers from the farthest recesses. Seth Godin wrote about this aspect in his blog a few days back. “A question that avoids a ‘no’, a question that starts a conversation, a question that opens the door to emotion… those are the questions that build careers and create value.”

Colin was privy to the conversation between Arunima and me on google drive. He made his presence felt by making a few very insightful observations about my responses. They revealed Colin to me powerfully.

And, it revealed me from the position of a neutral person – a vantage view I am not very used to.

He suggested I focus on some top level stuff that would enhance the feel good factor. And also to picture myself in the role of the MD, feeling, seeing, hearing… Another thing he told me was changes at the behavioral level alone wouldn’t do, there is a price to pay at a higher level in the hierarchy of logical level change. Then he brought to my notice that I saw things happening in the future tense and besides, I was not associated with many of the criteria.

I sat up when he wrote about my tendency to revel in big chunk thinking, especially when it came to writing in my blog. He said, while working on the criteria, it was necessary to think small chunk. I still haven’t got over that probing question from him,
“So is big chunk metaphor a pattern for you in life? Or do you save that just for writing?”

His recommendation was, I work through all the criteria afresh, on a clean slate, after going through the chapter on “well-formed outcome” in NLP at Work.

I felt vulnerable like never before. And in that state, I went deep into my recesses. And answered each of the thirteen criteria laid out on page 259 of Sue Knight’s NLP at Work. I searched and wrote from my heart.

From there emerged my present outcome.

I am joyous and feel a surge of gratitude as I step soulfully and confidently into my giant self as the Managing Director of Service Square. I feel my company vibrating with positive energy as I touch deliberately all aspects of my business with confidence, power, enthusiasm and poise. My enormous talents and insights fuse brilliantly, to fashion Service Square, brick by brick, as a benchmarked and admired organization for its excellence, values and wealth creation. I am a loving exemplar to my associates who live their dreams, enjoying their work as they create never-ending ripples of happy experiences for customers.

I see myself embracing this outcome and the outcome embracing me, in a blissful twine, in oneness.

Arunima was overjoyed after seeing it. She wrote, “Excellent! Excellent! And…. Excellent!!!!!!”

And I loved the feedback Colin gave me: “…… it is exceptional.  There is nothing to add from your coaches. Great job.”

Apart from the two earlier raw, vague outcomes, I had fined-tuned five more before I arrived at the present outcome with which I am in harmony.

Yet, the truth is, all the six stages which led to my outcome served a purpose. This outcome is meaningful and resonates with me because of the path I traversed through the six stages.

Like it would be incorrect to suggest, it was the seventh sandwich that satiated my hunger at breakfast .

Everything we go through in life is meaningful. Like Sue Knight’s observation referring to my remark about my sojourn in the wilderness for a while. “Yes you do not deserve to be in the wilderness although it is a good place to prepare to be out in the light and shining that light wherever you go…”

This morning, after watching the movie, ‘Dead Poets Society, I opened my mail to see a short message from Helen:

“My wish is for you to believe in yourself the way you believe in other people.”

Hmmm…. These powerful words are sinking in. And making the outcome even more well-formed.

My next post is about how I got to the outcome, by staring at each of the criteria long enough.