You are not in a rehearsal. You are in the show called “life”.
You are the main character and your role is to live
– Ronit Baras
It is an amazing experience to be an educator because teaching is to giving like learning is to receiving. We teachers have the greatest learning while we teach. My meeting with John was living proof of this concept. I published a newsletter about worth, which had a wonderful impact on many readers. I received many encouraging and supporting responses. Since then, I have told so many people about John and helped them find the answer to the big questions in life that I would like to share it with you and thank John for giving me one of the best lessons in my life. I hope you take the learning from it too.
You see, coaching is the art of questioning one’s life. In this sense, I have been a coach since the age of 12. Why do we do what we do? Why get up in the morning? Why go to school? I had hundreds of questions and I thought life was a journey of searching for the answers.
John was a man we met at our coaching stall in a festival. He was an HR manager and a musician in his spare time. About six months after we first met, he called us and wanted to ask us some questions about becoming a coach. He came with his partner and for over 2 hours, we talked about courses for coaching. Since Gal had researched the coaching industry to a scientific level (he is digital), we had loads of information to give John and we did – names, prices, timing, web sites – the whole lot. John wanted a job related to his HR experience that would allow him to have some time to express his passion for music. I needed two hours of conversation to see myself in John. When he talked about music, his body lit up and there was a smile in his eyes. It was beautiful to see. I think he took me back to being 12. “Why do we do the things we do?” “What motivates us?” Many questions popped up and my inside coach woke up.
“What is the thing that makes you get up in the morning? What drives you?” I asked John. He looked surprised. “If you could choose the thing that is the reason you are here in this life, what would that be?” I kept asking. When I asked it, I knew the answer.
It was quiet as if I threw a bomb on the table. John thought about it for a while. We were all very quiet, trying to answer that to ourselves. Then John smiled and said without hesitation “Music.”
We all have a purpose in life. That is the thing that makes our heart beat fast with excitement, the thing that haunts us, no matter what.
In this quiet moment, when all four of us looked for the thing that motivates us, I could feel my heart speeding. Writing and education can make me get up in the middle of the night. It is as if we all have a mission to complete. Knowing your mission is a very empowering feeling. But the more I thought about it, the harder it got. If just by asking the question we can find our purpose, why do we spend so much time, effort, money and energy on the way to achieve it?” We go to school to have good grades, to be able to enter university, to be able to graduate, to be able to get a good job, to be able to get a good salary, to be able to save some money, to be able to take some time off. Time off to travel, to write a story or sing a song, to draw a picture or play a flute. What a waste!!!
I looked back on life and counted the waste. If we get what we focus on, then no wonder we get the ability but not the fulfilment. We master the art of enabling ourselves to get things on the way and we are certainly able to enable, but not to reach.
I think that in some way I felt responsible as an educator. We focus on enabling the kids to take the journey, but we never teach them to reach the mountains. We teach them to practice their life, rather than teach them to live it. We promote never-ending rehearsals. Life is all preparation for a far away purpose that they cannot even see on the horizon. Then we are surprised that when they finish school they do not know what to do with themselves. They know how to prepare, but do not know for what. When they are older and want to put a stop to this never-ending quest, they need a lot of courage to stop using their greatest skill, the one they have been practicing all their lives, preparing. I think at that point, I realized the power of coaching. I looked at John and understood my purpose much better. In coaching, we help people to stop preparing and start playing the show of life.
John left and sent us an email that night. I am writing this to thank him for the great lesson he gave me.
The questions that will help you shift from “rehearsal” to “live performance” are:
- If I had all the money I wanted, what would I do?
- What is the thing that excites me most?
- What drives me?
- What is the reason I get up in the morning?
- What is my purpose in life?
- On my deathbed, what will be the thing I will most regret not doing?
You need to answer these questions to yourself. If you find them hard, let them go and then come back to them. The answers will come (here is a free download with some answers).
When you make decisions, choose the “show” option over the “rehearsal” option. Ask yourself “will this get me to the destination?”
If you need some help with your purpose and your decisions, contact us.
Remember: Happiness is a choice!
