Introduction
As adults in our society, we are presumed to be competent and productive in many arenas: for example,love, career, relationships and family, personal responsibility,communication,making and keeping commitments. But where and when were we supposed to learn about and get coached in these subjects?
Ironically,traditional educational methods do not teach us to be proficient in many of the arenas that are the greatest sources of satisfaction, joy,and accomplishment in adult life.It turns out that learning about the issues that fundamentally define adulthood has been, for all of us,pretty much a sink or swim proposition. With no formal curriculum to help, we have had to learn the hard way,on our own, through the school of hard knocks.
The Lifespring educational methodology is a breakthrough in adult education. It provides a scientifically validated structure for you to get behind the everyday business of living, dedicate yourself to your deepest commitments, and act more effectively in the areas of your life that matter most to you.
Lifespring is an organization dedicated to furthering the highest aspirations of each and every human being. We are committed to serving people in a special way that enhances personal dignity, responsibility,accomplishment, and freedom. Lifespring is for people who are committed to accomplishing extraordinary results while celebrating the profound privilege and exhilaration of being alive.
I promise that as a result of your sincere participation with Lifespring, whether through training sessions or this book, you will discover a new spectrum of possibilities for your personal fulfillment and accomplishment. Lifespring gives you an opportunity to shift your ability to think and act effectively in the face of a wider range of challenges.
Your personal goal may be to enhance specific skills or abilities, or to further explore that unnameable mystery of the human experience which is essential and sublime. No matter what your motivation or particular concerns are, you can count on your involvement with Lifespring to support you in taking actions that enhance the quality of your life in important and meaningful ways.
THE LIFESPRING BASIC TRAINING
This book contains a majority of the content of the Lifespring Basic Training. Of course, the actual training, which consists of groups of 150-250 people interacting together with a common purpose, is impossible to recreate with ink on paper. To have the kind of breakthrough that happens for people in the Basic requires doing the Basic; there is no replacement. However, this book presents the same material in a way that you can have access to breakthrough in your own life whether or not you participate in the Basic Training.
Explaining the training is a problem given that it is either unlike anything else you have ever experienced, in which case you will have difficulty relating to what I say about it, or similar to something else you have experienced, in which case you are likely to make incorrect assumptions about it.The value in reading this book, as in the Basic Training-and in life-depends on your full participation and your willingness to experience something unpredictable.
NONTRADITIONAL EDUCATION
What does Lifespring's nontraditional educational methodology accomplish that traditional educational models don't?
The issues that determine the quality of adult life are not fully accessible intellectually; they also need to be experienced. Lifespring's method of education is experiential. Our curriculum addresses issues that require experience to be understood. These are issues that all adults face: communication, giving and receiving feedback, honesty, commitment,dignity,knowing what is important to you and acting on it effectively, personal responsibility, living with vitality and passion. Rather than getting information through lectures, being forcefed facts and figures, you participate in the learning process; you are teacher and student, observer and observed. Rather than the “school of hard knocks," you can explore those issues in a safe and supportive learning environment by participating in games and exercises that are metaphors for life and,therefore, experiential in nature. For instance, rather than being told about the concept of honesty, you are put in a situation that allows you either to be honest or not, to examine your behavior and to experience directly the effect your behavior has on others by observing their reactions and getting their feedback. From that experience, you can learn something about honesty in other areas of your life. Observing yourself in action can bring to the foreground beliefs and behaviors that you don't norma'ly notice, but that absolutely influence your effectiveness and satisfaction.
In the context of traditional learning,if you engage in assertiveness training, you can expect to come out with tools to assist you in being more assertive and confident; if you take a time-management course, you will be told how to better manage your time; if you take cooking lessons, you will get information about being a more proficient cook. These are the promised results of traditional educational models: to give you information and/or teach you to manipulate your behavior so as to have life be “more, better, different.” However, if traditional education were 100 percent effective itself, why then would you ever take another class in time management or read another book about better relationships? Didn't you learn it already? Why would you still be struggling with the things in life that you are struggling withdidn't they have books and classes about those things when you were in school? The thing is, life rarely occurs the way books or lectures tell you it does.
There are countless examples of situations in life that are completely unlike how you were taught they would be. Take your first date or your first kiss, for example. Were they anything like what you were led to believe they would be? An example from my own life that demonstrates how different real life is from how they teach you it's going to be was the birth of my daughter. She is our third child,and was born at a time when natural childbirth was an available option. My wife and I took our Lamaze classes every week and we were excellent students-we knew everything there was to know for a smooth, loving, fulfilling birth. Then she went into labor. No problem-off to the hospital we went. To any of you who have experienced the birth of a baby, I don't need to tell you how different it was from anything we had been taught. One of my more sentimental recollections is of the moment when my wife screamed, “Get me drugs, now!" The classes were informative and helpful, but we could not have anticipated or mastered the demands of the real life event until we were in it. It's like the difference between reading a book on biking and getting on a bike. If all you've done is read the book, the first time out on the bike is going to be a struggle. But, once you've actually ridden, you will always have that experience to draw upon. It literally becomes part of you. Likewise, once you have struggled with the personal lessons you need to learn, you will be equipped with the experience and the practices that can maximize your effectiveness and personal fulfillment in all circumstances, in all areas of your life, forever.
Lifespring and traditional education can complement each other in practical ways.The Lifespring methodology is designed as a vehicle not for improving on the rational, information-based structure of traditional education, but for pioneering within that tradition.A broad and balanced educational menu will best support you in breakthrough.
Richard Linowes, a professor of business at the American University in Washington,DC,remarks that, "One of the things I really was fascinated by in the course is that it's a different methodology for teaching. It's different from anything that I have experienced, even in some very fine schools. I would say that this weekend course was better than any course I took in any university I ever attended, including several years at Harvard Business School. As an educator,I look forward to this being part of mainstream education as soon as universities are prepared to offer it. I think this kind of training should be offered by the YMCA, by church groups, by universities-right now, it's offered by a company called Lifespring."
INQUIRY AND NEW POSSIBILITIES
The most relentless enemy to learning is what you already know. This is a pretty radical statement. For most of us, schooling focused on information, logic,and answers as the cornerstones of learning. Virtually every investigation or inquiry was undertaken to arrive at a concrete conclusion, and to expand our reservoirs of factual knowledge. Accuracy and style of presentation were the keys to success. In contrast, the Lifespring trainings open another avenue for learning. They are inquiries which provide opportunities to explore what is invisible in most educational settings: how you think; why you see the world the way you do; what your predetermined assumptions about life are; and how your interpretations determine your identity, your behavior, and your accomplishments. We don't offer you answers or techniques, give you assignments, or test you on your recall. We engage you in a uniquely thought-provoking and stimulating journey into new territory.
The work we do at Lifespring is not about what you know, being right about what you know,acquiring more knowledge,providing answers, or acquiring on-the-job skills; it's not about filling in the blanks of what you know you don't know. This work is about uncovering new possibilities-expanding the opportunities available to you by allowing you to think and act in innovative ways. This work is about what you don't know you don't know.
“Possible”means being within the limits of ability, capacity, or realization;what may be done or may occur according to nature, custom, or manners; something that may or may not occur. Possibility,then,isn't some cosmic fantasy,hope,or wish.
It takes the conditions of a specific time and place in history to open up new possibilities. Space travel is a good example. Would flying to the moon have been possible for prehistoric human beings? No. Given their interpretation of the world, the possibility of space travel was not yet opened. Obviously the technology was not available, but more importantly, prehistoric human beings had no vision of or concern for getting to the moon. As we define it, possibility is grounded in temporal reality.
Possibilities are distinct from options; a possibility is something that doesn't exist, but could be invented, while options already exist. Lifespring's effectiveness is based on our ability to open up new possibilities through inquiry and invention rather than merely proposing answers or presenting finite options.
Although, by definition, what is possible is bound by the limits of what already is, we are less likely to be available to possibilities if we are searching for specific, absolute answers. There are no obvious or absolute answers to the complex questions of life. The conversation that engages you in questioning is one that allows for possibility and creativity. Inquiry for the sake of contemplation, however, is not the destination of our journey; it is merely the vehicle that will help transport us. Contemplation alone does not generate action. You must harness your insights and consciously apply them to your practices in order to manifest what you say you want.
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Like anything in life, the value for you in this process will depend on your participation. There Is No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. If you want results,it will take your own blood, sweat,and tears. You are smart to seek out the proven technology and expertise that can guide you and accelerate your progress; but always be aware that,in the end, the responsibility for your accomplishment is yours alone.
The great gods of excellence, accomplishment, and fulfillment don't care if you have a conceptual grasp of some good ideas and profound insights. Concepts and insights can be valuable steps in the process of transformation, but they are not sources of action, and alone they will not beget the rich harvest that our work is designed to generate. Excellence and fulfillment will come to you when you participate at a new level, and then require yourself to press out again to the next level.
So, what does "to participate at a new level" mean? For one thing, you will have to discipline yourself to quiet your opinions and judgments, and really listen, opening yourself to the possibility that there is always something new to learn. This does not mean that you must agree,understand, or approve, but merely that you be open enough to admit that you may not have all the answers, question your own assumptions, and be willing to entertain other points of view. Listen and consider with an open mind the ideas and questions posed here. But don't stop with this book. Listen and receive newly every person and every event in your life. So often we automatically approach situations combatively in order to protect our interests, demonstrate our superiority, or avoid feeling dominated.Instead, train yourself for a new approach. Enter every conversation or situation with these thoughts:“I wonder what this person/situation can teach me”; “I wonder whether considering this point of view could make a difference in my life”; “It would actually be exciting if I were wrong about X,Y, or Z!" Thus,one way of participating at a “new level” is to operate as though your experiences actually were new. Pretend that you are a beginner at life, anxious to gain from everyone else's experience. God gave you two ears and one mouth for a reason.
To give you an opportunity to listen for miracles, every other chapter of this book is the real-life story of a Lifespring graduate. These graduates represent the 300,000 who have completed the Lifespring Basic Training. Although those included in these pages tend to be high-powered professionals, one of the beauties of the Basic Training is that you will find people from very different social backgrounds echoing the very same themes about what it is to be a human being. The stories told here and the experiences of Lifespring graduates from all walks of life illustrate that,in the midst of all the abstract philosophy,the benefit of transformational work consists of the simple miracles that happen in people's lives as a result.
There are tangible ways you can assist yourself to operate at a new level. For example, devise ways to keep yourself conscious of the process throughout the day. Place notes in strategic places in your home, office, car, wallet. Choose a certain word each day that will remind you of your commitment every time you hear or speak it. Change something about your morning routine so that at the beginning of every day your automatic patterns are gently interrupted. Experiment with how you interact with people. For instance, if you notice you are avoiding someone, go talk to that person; if you usually only talk business with someone, ask about his or her family or recreational activities. The purpose of these experiments isn't to make any particular point, but merely to allow for new possibilities in your relationships with people, possibilities that may be blocked by routines into which you automatically fall.
Finally,I recommend you keep a journal. Throughout this book there are lists of questions to guide your personal inquiry. Answer them -they will be the most valuable part of this process if you are disciplined enough to use them to prompt your thinking. Take the time to answer them thoughtfully, and write your responses in the journal. Also, use your journal for recording spontaneous thoughts. Don't labor over what you are writing or how to write it. Just sit down and let it flow freely. It doesn't matter if you never read it again. The process of writing is a potent tool for revealing and focusing deep thought processes and experiences.
Most importantly,to maximize the value of this process, share yourself,your life,and what you are learning with others.The single most powerful tool for creation is conversation. Allow people to see aspects of you that you haven't previously made available. People are dying to be related to openly,authentically, straightforwardly,vulnerably. Take the initiative. It will contribute to them as well as to you. Congratulations on demonstrating your commitment to life. Whatever your reasons for picking up this book, you have an opportunity to earn great rewards. I say “earn” great rewards because this is not the lazy person's guide to enlightenment. There are prices to pay and work to be done. There is no easy way to transform your life. The path may be simple, but it isn't easy.
MY COMMITMENT
I am committed to your producing extraordinary and tangible results in all areas of your life. I am committed to your developing your relationship with yourself so you can count on yourself in a new and meaningful way. The goal of this process is for you to have a new sense of mattering, so that you participate in your daily life in a way that produces unrivaled satisfaction,aliveness,and accomplishment.
Consider the following scenario as a metaphor for my purpose. There is a guy, Jimmy,whose mother calls up to him one morning in order to get him off to school on time.Jimmy doesn't answer. He pulls the covers over his head, hoping that she will forget about him. Minutes later, Jimmy's mom calls up to him again. His breakfast is getting cold. Jimmy debates whether it might not be beneficial to develop a sore throat about now. Finally,Jimmy's mom runs up the stairs,into Jimmy's room, and sits down on the bed next to him. She shakes him gently. He yawns and stretches, pretending to still be asleep.Jimmy's mom tells him to get out of bed and hurry up and get ready for school. Jimmy looks up at her and desperately pleads with her to let him stay home. He claims he can't take another day therethe teachers don't like him and the kids tease him.Jimmy's mom insists that he go to school.“Why?" he retorts. She responds with two reasons:“One, you're 40 years old. And two, you're the principal.”
Similarly,the technology presented here is a wake-up call.It's about getting out of bed and seeing the world somewhat differently than you have been seeing it up to this point. While the above story is facetious, it is entirely possible for you to be functioning and yet be essentially asleep to what's possible in some areas of your life. Just as for Jimmy, there may be a price to pay for “getting out of bed” and facing your life with commitment and passion. But by getting up, you make available an array of possibilities that wouldn't otherwise exist for you. Furthermore, in areas where you consider yourself to be effective already,a new vision for your future could lead to even greater success.
I am dedicated to your effectively transcending the level at which you now operate. Since you are the player, winning the game of excellence is up to you and no one else. You must assume total ownership of this project. You must decide that the rewards are greater than the prices you might pay. You must be clear and specific regarding the potential future value so that you will continue in the face of inevitable breakdowns and setbacks. Finally, you must be willing to question yourself-willing to put aside your own system of interpretation and subordinate your own already existing beliefs for the sake of the inquiry.
Human beings are social beings by nature and, therefore,exist in relation to each other.Whether directly or indirectly, our interactions with each other are the source of empowerment and worthwhile accomplishment. I stand for your accomplishing what matters to you.
CAVEAT
A word of qualification: My approach here is very black-and-white. Life, however, is full of gray. I caution you against taking what is written here and accepting it as “The Truth," or trying to make a formula out of it. It won't work in real life when you are faced with the “maybes.”
On the other hand, I encourage you to go all the way in exploring and examining the questions and ideas presented here. Try arguing the opposite point of view when you disagree with or don't understand something. Out of that exercise, you will create new possibilities for yourself.
Lifespring is not interested in telling you what to think,but, rather,in allowing you to see for yourself what your thinking is.This opportunity to see and reinterpret what was previously transparent to you provides new choices and new freedom for effective action in all aspects of living. What I never request is an unquestioning acceptance of dogmatic philosophy. Quite the opposite.I am requesting that you question everything I say, and more importantly, everything you say.