Big thanks to Shirley Anderson, a coach colleague of mine. She introduced me to a wonderful idea put together by an organization called StoryCorps. StoryCorps created the National Day of Listening, a designated opportunity to sit with a loved one, neighbor, friend, teacher, etc and learn about their life. Through conversational interviews, people will share their memories, their hopes, dreams, joys and sorrows in a recorded conversation with the intent of creating an audio (or written) keepsake.

Here’s what Shirley had to say in her email to me:

“I’m a fan because I neglected to capture these stories from my parents and grandparents and those stories are lost forever … my great-nieces and nephews … and even their parents will never know what it was like for their blood ancestors to come to America as an immigrant.  How precious are those stories of my grandparents and their heroic journeys.

I have lunch weekdays with a group of people who are anywhere from 5 to 20 years older than I am.  Nearly every day there are stories about their lives growing up on farms in this area.  It seems impossible that they and their families survived conditions I’ve only read about.  None of them had the advantages my parents were able to provide for me and my siblings by moving to the city.   They don’t feel like they missed anything, though.  There’s no anger or regret.  If anything, it’s a quiet pride.  Yes, I’m going to start recording them.  The only challenge is to keep everyone from talking at once. It’s a true privilege to know them.”

I often think about the legacy I am leaving to my children and how they will remember me and talk about me to others. Part of what I’d like to leave them with are stories about their ancestors, family members and close friends. It is important to me that my children and the generations to come will feel connected with their heritage and know the background from which they’ve come. Thanks to StoryCorps, this will be the year for me to start capturing these stories!

StoryCorps has lots of tools and information to help anyone plan for their keepsake conversation. I found their Great Questions list particularly helpful to design my interview guides. Here are a few of my favorite questions, meant to be asked to a parent or grandparent (other relatives may be relevant also):

• What was your childhood like?
• Who were your favorite relatives?
• Do you remember any of the stories they used to tell you?
• How did you meet mom/dad?
• What was my mom/dad like growing up?
• What are your dreams for me?
• Is there anything that you’ve always wanted to tell me but haven’t?
• What lessons has your work life taught you?
• If you could do anything now, what would you do? Why?

And, if you happen to be in one of the major cities hosting National Day of Listening events, there will be Mobile Storybooths where you can make a reservation and go with your loved one to record their stories.  The full details can be found on here.

Let me know if you participate in any way. I’d truly love to hear about your experience. I’ll share mine in a future blog. Peace to you and yours as you celebrate this Thanksgiving. I am grateful for my many blessings, of which I include you, my reader, colleague, client, friend.

Better Because of you; a positive movement to share the many things, ways, and people that are making our lives a little better.

Need some inspiration? I recently stumbled upon a cool new “movement” called Better Because. Founded by Ginny Hutchinson and Cathy Haffner, Better Because is about making a positive difference and bettering the lives of people throughout the world. One way they do this is through educational grants. Another way is by providing weekly inspiration and stories via their “Better Because e-Message”. Check it all out at their website: http://www.betterbecause.com/

I love receiving their weekly messages among my “daily grind” emails (except the ones from you, of course!). I can always use a reminder that joy and happiness are found wherever I choose to look for them; in the little things and the everyday moments. Better Because’s ideas are right in alignment with the philosophy of Appreciative Inquiry (Ai), which is the paradigm behind much of my coaching and organizational development consulting. Ai focuses on possibilities, on what’s working or what’s good about a situation, and on what those involved want to create together to move them towards their desired future.

I wrote about Ai in two previous blog posts, which you can read here:

Appreciative Inquiry, part 1

Appreciative Inquiry, part 2

So what and who make your life better? Tell them today. And tell me too; you can post a comment here on my blog.

This resonated for me the first time I read it years ago and still does today. Enjoy an oldie-but-goodie from Robert Fulghum:

All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at school.

These are the things I learned:

• Share everything.
• Play fair.
• Don’t hit people.
• Put things back where you found them.
• Clean up your own mess.
• Don’t take things that aren’t yours.
• Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody.
• Wash your hands before you eat.
• Flush.
• Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
• Live a balanced life – learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
• Take a nap every afternoon.
• When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.
• Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
• Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup – they all die. So do we.
• And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned – the biggest word of all – LOOK.

Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.

Take any one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if we all – the whole world – had cookies and milk at about 3 o’clock in the afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap.

Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess.

And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out in the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.

Sherpa in Nepal

In 1997, I named my new company, Sherpa Higher Performance. It came about as the result of a really fun, multi-day brainstorming session with a few trusted colleagues, who graciously gave me their time. Our brainstorming process took us through discussions about our values, what impact I wanted to make on the world (or at least my little corner of it), and a listing of about 100 adjectives describing the people I anticipated would become my clients. We threw all those words, concepts, beliefs, and meanings into the air and somehow, “Sherpa” landed right in front of us. When it happened, it was clear as day.  And I have referred to myself as a sherpa, personally and professionally, for over a decade now.

What is a Sherpa? The Sherpa, according to Wikipedia, are an ethnic group from the most mountainous region of Nepal, high in the Himalaya. In Tibetan shar means East; pa is a suffix meaning ‘people’: hence the word sharpa or Sherpa. Sherpas are world renowned for their hardiness, guidance, and expertise on mountaineering expeditions up the high peaks of the Himalaya Mountains. When capitalized, Sherpa means the ethnic group. When written uncapitalized, sherpa generally means “guide.”

The metaphor of myself as sherpa has become my “true north,” the standard I use to make decisions regarding direction, purpose, new services, new clients, etc. The metaphor continues for me as I share some personal beliefs and values with the Sherpa people: humility, perseverance, importance of belonging to and contributing to one’s community, to name a few.

As a sherpa, I serve my clients by guiding them to a higher level and helping them reach heights they would otherwise not have reached on their own.

Who is a sherpa (or possibly, Sherpa) in your life? How does this person come alongside of you and encourage you to reach higher, to keep going?