#10: Sundance 2010
This blog from Pip has me think about all the times I have the opportunity to turn a seemingly negative circumstance into a positive...and perhaps even grow internally from it. As a sensitive person and "a feeler", I can relate to this piece on many fronts. Maybe next time I feel upset when my roommates say no to trying my funky green smoothies I whip up from time to time, I can INSTEAD think how often these wonderful people I live with remind me that my conscientious meals actually inspire them to live healthier themselves. That notion in itself holds enough joy for me! Thanks Pip.
- Amanda
SUNDANCE 2010
I think I am finding that hearing “no” provides me an incredible moment to advance relationships.
This is a story with a happy ending…
I remember vividly in May of 2010 getting off the interstate on to a back road just about 20 minutes away from the tiny mountain oasis of Sundance, Utah where we were just about to host our second annual gathering of 30 dear friends to be offline for three days to work on our craft as investors.
I LOVE Sundance.
I looked forward to this time and space with friends ALL YEAR LONG. I couldn’t wait to see each and every person.
And as I was driving I checked my voice mail.
I learned of two last minute cancels from amazing people.
I was so so so bummed out.
It was like hearing that dear friends at then last minute wouldn’t make it to a wedding.
I put on a brave face as best I could during the next couple hours of recovery… but I was bummed out!
I only confided my disappointment to Kelly back home.
I have been told that youngest children are often most susceptible to creating specific visions and the resultant temporary heartbreak that comes when real life doesn’t accommodate. Or maybe all seven billion of us are susceptible. I don’t know. I do know that there have been times when I am on the other side of this situation that I have been reluctant to say “no” to others and an invitation I received by email can sit awaiting my reply for longer than is helpful.
Five or six years ago, I found I would “brace” for last minute cancels prior to different gatherings. A survival mechanism of sorts. I loved bringing people together in community and “cancels” and “no’s” came with the territory.
Along the way, a friend once said that they didn’t want to tell me “it doesn’t work" because they didn’t want to hurt my feelings.
How thoughtful of them.
But… I wanted to work to create a much better space for “it doesn’t work.” I wanted people to be fully supported to say “no” easily around me.
I started a new “discipline”. For me a “discipline” is a method for overcoming a habit or reaction that I don’t think is in my best interest.
The discipline I picked was to consider that the moments when people told me “no” or “I have to cancel” or “it doesn’t work” were THE BEST POSSIBLE moments for me to build trust and advance relationships. My thinking was this: If that person KNEW I was a HUGE FAN of theirs regardless of a mere “no” they might more richly experience my interest in them was not conditional. If it was so obvious how I cherished them when they told me “bad news” we would grow closer. I would give up my attachment to the content of the moment for something way way bigger. With that context, this discipline proved pretty easy on my part.
Of course I LOVE when it works for people to join in. But far more significantly, my interest in others is not conditioned or restrained by that.
So I started getting GREAT at responding to “no’s” and “cancels” and “it doesn’t work”. I would take time to respond to their “no’s” with great energy and deep empathy that took the attention quickly away from any reactionary disappointment. I would offer that “life is long” and there would be much more ahead. Much more to come. These were truths for me.
In this space of “no” I found that so much possibility existed. A “no” even became a fully exciting opportunity!
…And a funny thing happened in short order.
The prior disappointment vanished as my instincts grew to take care of others and advance our relationship.
…Pip
Pip Coburn pcoburn@coburnventures.com
More than anything I suspect I am driven by “community”. Across the past 15 years, I have grown to realize that most any success or fortune I have had in the work I do I have re-invested back into my activities such that I spend more and more of my life with people I adore and admire and just loving being around and working on a whole bunch of things that I am incredibly excited about. I like to study monumental change at the levels of society, marketplaces, organizations and most significantly… people. I like to study culture deeply. I like to attempt to create culture. I like processes and helping others advances their processes and being trusted deeply. My wife Kelly is both supportive and probably confused by what I do for a living which makes two of us. My greatest joy in my work is when I have the chance to draw from two decades of intense work in order to perhaps help someone have a break through.