My dear friend Jan whom I’ve written about in prior entries here and here visited me this past weekend. We met during our freshman year of college and have been close friends ever since. In 1971, Jan transferred to another college for the remainder of her education. I frequently visited her there and became friends with many of her new friends. One woman in particular named Deb was especially fun to be with and very smart. I would spend time with her whenever I came to visit Jan. Although we have kept up with each others’ lives through Jan, I hadn’t seen Deb in probably thirty years. Coincidentally, Deb ended up being in town at the same time as Jan and the three of us had a reunion this past weekend.

Our time together was magical! It was as if no time had passed and yet we each had become older and wiser. It is not a given that aging will create wisdom. However, we each share values of self-discovery, honest inquiry and spirituality all of which can spark wisdom. Our values have held constant over these past three decades and have nurtured us through both our good and our hard times. It was as if we were magically transported back in time to our younger selves and yet able to call on our current wisdom to both question and validate our earlier experiences. For me, there was a quality of time travel. Although I knew that we were all here in my living room in 2009, images and feelings from 1971 combined with retroactive “aha’s” in the present.

After reminiscing about our shared past and catching each other up on the latest happenings in our lives, we spoke about what was important to us. As  I look back on our day long series of conversations, I realize that each conversation was about being in relationship. We spoke of our relationships with our partners, families, friends, colleagues and other significant people in our lives. Our feminine energy naturally focused on our relationships with others and with each other. Our conversations nurtured us, each woman mindful to take the time and space she needed to speak and give the necessary time and space to the others to add their own voices and stories. We wove our web of connection around each other gently yet with great intention for each of us believes very deeply in the power of conscious relationships to elicit joy and growth.

All three of us practice somewhat different spiritual traditions and yet we spoke a shared language that was inclusive and contained space for wonder and unity. We spoke to each other with both sides of our brains and our hearts continued to open to each other. To me this is the opportunity of reunion. We first experience an inner reunion of heart and mind which connects us to our deepest selves and then to the others with whom we have chosen to meet again. Our visit was healing despite the fact that I was not specifically in need of a healing. The visit was enlivening and inspiring mirroring the co-creative spirit we each brought to our connection. And as always, it was fun! When I remember my visits with Deb and Jan they were always filled with laughter no matter how much young adult angst we were suffering at any given moment.

Three thousand miles away in New York, it sounds like many of my high school cohort were also experiencing the joy of reconnecting and seeing the formerly young faces peeking out out of the current older versions of their friends and acquaintances. Classmates who knew each other well 40 years ago hugged each other with gusto. Classmates who previously were shy were embraced in warm welcome. Given all the happy and heartfelt reports on facebook in the past couple of days, it seems as if there’s definitely a yearning for continued relationship and connection. I will definitely attend our next gathering.

Reunions are wonderful opportunities to notice changes, celebrate accomplishments and grieve losses. Reunions can also be bittersweet not only because we can be disappointed by others (or ourselves) but because they are always blatant reminders of the passage of time. However, if my experience of my reunion with Deb and Jan this weekend is any indication, you can also create a space in the present that is timeless. Granted, most high school reunions don’t allow a lot of time or space to deeply connect with others. Yet, if you are intent on creating a profound experience of reunion and connection it takes only one moment of consciousness to recognize yourself in another and another person in you.

More »

A Thousand Words from Ted Chung on Vimeo.

Each time that I watch this video, I feel my deep ambivalence about making intimate connections with strangers. Intellectually, it feels like a wonderful idea. However, when I’m walking outside and someone I don’t know nears me, it takes all of my courage to look them directly in the eye and smile at them. My fear of rejection is so great that I don’t want to risk even a moment of rejection for the possibility of connection. And yet I do. Most times, the other people happily return my smile. They have no idea how much I felt I just risked in offering a simple smile.

And what is a “simple smile”? It turns out that there are several different types of smiles. A “Duchenne smile” (named after the French doctor Guillaume Duchenne who studied facial expressions) is considered to be an authentic smile as it involves the contractions of both the voluntary muscles around the mouth and the involuntary muscles on the sides of our eyes. This signals a rush of genuine spontaneous positive feeling on the part of the person smiling.  A “non Duchenne smile” involves only the voluntary contraction of our mouth muscles and thus can be perceived to be a more superficial or manipulative expression.

Given how much I can fear the rejection of someone simply passing me by, it’s likely that I am offering a “non-Duchenne smile” upon their approach. And yet, I often am greeted with a “Duchenne smile response”. What this says to me is that people truly do want to connect even if their face doesn’t always mirror their deepest desires.

What if most people are just like me and are afraid to take to the first step? What if we all would love to be smiled at and genuinely welcomed by everyone we meet during the day? Acknowledged for simply being present to one another rather than being greeted and welcomed in order to make a sale.

For thirty years, every morning during commute traffic, Joseph Charles, “The Waving Man” stood on the corner in front of his house on Martin Luther King Boulevard and Oregon Street in Berkeley, CA with his signature large yellow glove and daily waved to and wished commuters and pedestrians a good day while telling them to “Keep smiling!” Whenever I passed him in the morning it was impossible to resist his good humor and joy at connecting with me. He definitely got a “Duchenne smile” in return from me. When he died at the age of 92 his simple acts of good will were noted not only in Berkeley but throughout the nation.

For me, the most poignant moment in “A Thousand Words” is when the guy notices that the woman is looking at him and quickly turns away. I have done that so often. I make up that he didn’t want her to think that he was flirting with her. And yet, as we find out later in the film, she is surreptitiously very interested in him. I have turned away because the moment has often felt like it was too much. I felt like I would burst with the excitement of being seen as well as my hope to be known in a silent interchange.

Turning away became so habitual in my earlier life that I still can do it without thinking. The gift of this film for me is to remind me to stay present long enough to connect to a stranger, even if it is only for one moment. Most likely, that will be the extent of our interaction. Should a need arise to talk, we can do that. However, what is most important is that I have opened myself and allowed myself to be vulnerable thus creating one small opening in the world for another soul to be known and seen.

Where do you turn away?

What allows you to stay?

Notice how many times you’ve smiled at others today. What was the impact of the smile on you and on the others?

More »

Connection is the engine that fuels the power of The Opportunity Game. Cultivate your internal connections (your personal aha! moments) and your online and offline interpersonal connections. These can spur any number of unexpected opportunities. A great example of connection leading to opportunity occurred for me earlier today. A student of mine contacted me for help in regard to a coaching issue. I answered his question quickly and easily. He gratefully responded although he also bemoaned the fact that there was no specific place to go to receive answers to the type of question that he was asking. Immediately, I saw an opportunity that would benefit me and other coaching students who had similar issues. I could resurrect an old online column that I had stopped writing a couple of years ago that specifically responded to these very sorts of questions. While my student was the one who made the initial connection, as a result of our conversation this afternoon, I will create an opportunity for myself that will be mutually beneficial. Acting on this opportunity will then create numerous other opportunities for me that I can’t even foresee today.

Exploration is another integral part of The Opportunity Game and contact improvisation. A master player of The Opportunity Game is continuously exploring him or herself as they play the game. It requires patience and fortitude to look within. Some players easily notice their strengths but find it much harder to own those areas which they find troublesome. Other players consistently look at what is lacking in themselves yet have great difficulty owning their strengths. Many players resist both sides at various points in the game. Having the courage to honestly explore what is true for you is essential in mastering The Opportunity Game.

I have found that for an exploration to be potent and meaningful, explorers must be curious. What is the purpose of the exploration? Will I meander along the route or am I trying to reach a specific goal? Just how curious am I being anyway? The quality of the questions that we ask ourselves and others will determine the efficacy of the responses we receive. Don’t cheat yourself by asking small questions. As the poet Rilke suggested to a novice poet, “Live your questions now, and perhaps even without knowing it, you will live along some distant day into your answers.”

As the video below shows, contact improvisation is an intimate activity. The Opportunity Game is also an intimate activity. How much you are willing to risk in order to “live into your questions” and create connections of beauty?

More »

Duh! Of course to win any game you must intend to win. Consistent wins are not a matter of chance. You must know your game inside and out, know your strengths and weaknesses and practice your skills everyday. However, as any winning athlete will tell you, your mental game is just as important as your physical game.

And this is where intent is most important. When you make choices in your life, how many are truly intentional and how many are made with minimal awareness or care about impact? Most likely you make big decisions with great awareness and smaller decisions with lesser awareness. Now imagine what your life would be like if everything you did or chose was made from conscious intention and awareness.

Think of something that you desire that you either don’t yet have or haven’t yet achieved. How important is this goal for you? Have you made it your Number One priority? If it is not yet your Number One priority, what would be different if it were?

What is your Number One priority?

As an example, writing this blog post is an important priority for me today. Rather than reading the newspaper, doing a crossword puzzle or surfing the web, I’m writing this article right now. I have made it my Number One priority for the morning. In the scheme of things, writing one blog post is not that big a deal. I could write it this morning or even this evening. However, this blog post is in keeping with my goal to launch The Opportunity Game by January 1, 2010. Now that I’ve made The Opportunity Game my Number One priority for this year, everything I see or do is filtered through the lens of The Opportunity Game. Thus, writing this post becomes an important priority for me. I’m being intentional in my approach to how I spend my time.

I’m also being intentional in how I think about my world. One of the most important lessons playing The Opportunity Game has given me is that every moment presents an opportunity to engage with someone or something. Will I show up in the moment and connect with it? When you connect with the present moment you have any number of possibilities at your disposal. Opportunities abound that I never noticed before.

What if you lived your life as if each moment counted? What if you were intentional about your moment-to-moment life? What opportunities could you create that weren’t there before?

More »

Ten and a half years ago I was diagnosed with a very lethal form of cancer. Because ovarian cancer is particularly hard to detect in its early stages most women die of this disease. I was lucky to have experienced several particularly searing pains that allowed the cancer to be treated relatively early in its development.

During my treatment, I decided that there was no point in having a tragedy if I couldn’t make it work for me. To that end, I used this brush with death as a personal growth experience. Then I decided that there was no point in having cancer if I couldn’t help other newly diagnosed people to successfully navigate their treatment decisions and outcomes. Finally, I decided that there was no point in having cancer, if I couldn’t use it to support my coaching business.

In that moment, I had an inspired idea. A golden moment, if you will. I realized that every moment presented a unique opportunity. The moment I was diagnosed with cancer, my attention was on that first syllable of “diagnosis” – die! Actually, the next several days were focused on that scenario. However, another moment soon arose when I saw a different scenario. I would live and live like I had never had lived before. Each moment suddenly mattered. Each moment represented an opportunity to connect, to grow, to savor life in all of its fullness.

Thus I started developing The Opportunity Game. Regardless of whether the moment is filled with adversity or riches, it abounds in opportunity for us all. I realized that my response to cancer was not just a matter of good medicine and luck. I was thriving in a way that I hadn’t before cancer opened me to all the possibilities of life. Through my travails I learned how to nurture my resilience, creativity and community. If I could learn to thrive under life and death circumstances, I could assist others to learn as well. Even better, I realized that one didn’t have to be dying to be fully alive. We just have to remember to step into reality and say yes to the present moment.

For many, cancer is a death sentence. For me it was a golden moment and a birth of a beautiful business opportunity. The path has not always been clear or easy. In the process I lost my hearing, was unable to work for a year while I was deaf and I have had to have two surgeries to restore my hearing via cochlear implants. The Opportunity Game was born in adversity and is nurtured to fullness by my values of connection, personal growth and service to humanity. It is an alchemical process that turns our mettle into gold. Come join me in playing The Opportunity Game!

More »