Hello Pinkies. Dana here, with something I wrote on the plane as I left California in early March.
I’ve had a magical time on the West Coast last week. Many things made it wonderful, but as I sit on the plane on the next leg of my journey, I am distilling down what gave it such energy for me. I’m a people person and so it’s no big surprise that it was the collection of amazing men and women I met in personal, professional and social contexts. Many, but not all, were swirling around Lissa and Owning Pink, but I’ve met a lot of people in my years and this bunch was unique in a very special way. Every person I met, including Lissa herself, was completely without pretense. And let me tell you, there is nothing in the world more gorgeous than a human being who owns who they are today, while also owning the fact that they are still on a journey to learn and grow and become.
These people were from all walks of life and between the ages of four and fifty-five, they were living and playing and writing and creating world-changing businesses. When I say they were without pretense, I mean that they were self-confident and also open about what they still had to learn. They weren’t afraid to ask for help and they weren’t afraid to hear advice. I am tempted to give Lissa great credit for having fantastic friends (which is true!), but it was more than that and extended to people I’d known for years who somehow seemed different this time. Why were all the people I met so open?
Reaching Out
Having so many conversations about where we were and what we need to grow got me thinking that in my business life, I work with many different kinds of clients and the most successful ones make good use of a Board of Advisors (sometimes, but not always, this is also a Board of Directors). The advisory board members are recruited by the president or executive director to provide him or her a special perspective they know they can’t get from people closest to them – such as customers, investors or employees. These leaders reach outside their immediate circles and align themselves with outside advisors who have knowledge and experience that can bring them a much needed outside perspective on their business and themselves.
This isn’t just a business leadership skill, it’s also a personal leadership approach I see very effective people use in their daily lives as well, regularly reaching out to people they trust and being authentic with them so they can see themselves through their friends’ eyes. I’ve done this very intentionally for the last ten years or so, myself.
I didn’t used to do this, by the way. Many years ago I was seeing a therapist because I was a young working mom on the path to burnout and beginning to careen off balance. After beginning to get my emotional legs under me, I realized I was beginning to see her as a friend instead of a therapist, someome I could chat with about what had been going on in my life and get some perspective back.
About two sessions after I came to this realization, she asked me,“Do you have any friends?”
Surprised, I said , “Sure! I have tons of friends.”
She smiled and asked, “Do you ever talk to them?”
I blinked. “No. I really don’t have time.”
She smiled more broadly. “Why don’t you make time for them?”
Two weeks later I gave her a hug and released myself from therapy, promising myself and her I’d come back if I ever needed to. Though I’ve thought about it a few times over the years, I’ve never been back because, in part, I’ve created an interlocking circles of friends who I make a point to see regularly, both in personal and professional contexts. This doesn’t mean that my therapist wasn’t a good investment (she absolutely was, believe me!). But that therapy had a limit. Once I became emotionally capable enough to reach out and make myself vulnerable to people I trusted in a new way, I no longer needed therapy. When I did this, I discovered a whole pleathora of personal development opportunity in the people that were already around me.
Opening Up
Today, my advisory teams are large and diverse. My advisors include friends I’ve met while kibuttzing on the soccer field as our kids chased butterflies instead of soccer balls (i.e., a while ago!), and they are former clients and people who I simply admire for their personal strength and journeys. I really value their perspectives on my life and I enjoy supporting them because in doing so I learn more about myself.
But this last trip, and the amazing people I met, were not just an accident. I’ve been on lots of trips and met lots of people before without having met so many who were all so open, in many cases, with someone they barely knew. When I look at the one common element in each interaction that delighted me this trip, I see only one consistent variable: me. And I realize that while I’ve been collecting my advisory teams around me for years, I’ve only recently opened myself to others in a way that encourages their deeper openness to emerge and feel safe.
The difference lately in my outlook is beyond nonjudgment and it’s beyond acceptance (both of which I’ve practiced intentionally). On this last trip West I practiced my magical eyes and seeing people with love – not just a few people or difficult to love people – but on everyone I met. And it worked. It drew out the most beautiful part of each person for them to be, and me to see.
The Accidental Benefit of Seeing With Magical Eyes
And here’s my ah-ha! At Owning Pink we like to use Magical Eyes to make others feel seen and support their healing, but I don’t know if these people even needed “healing,” and I don’t know yet what affect my magical eyes had on them. Now I realize is that I don’t really need to know. What I’ve learned is that it had a strong and wonderful affect on me. I am lighter. I am happier. I am enriched by these wonderful people who allowed me to see them with love. As I open myself up more and more with my new and old advisors, I expect to continue this happy spiral. I can’t wait!
What about you? Have you used your magical eyes? Have you used it on difficult people and “easy” people? Have you noticed the difference it makes on how you feel?
Stumbling into magic,
Dana
