Life Coaching and Career Coaching

Have you ever had an epiphany?

Here is a simple story about Henry. Henry had one.

Henry is a simple man. He has a good paying job, a nice home, stable marriage and friends. He is in good health. Henry has no opinions of his own, only what the media and others tell him.  He does as he is told.

Henry is an ordinary man who worries about money, his job, the economy. He worries about his marriage and what people think about him. He worries about his health, his age, his lack of energy. He has unrealized dreams.

“I just don’t have that old spark.” He tells himself.

One day this past Spring, Henry’s wife said. “Henry, Time to mow the lawn.” So Henry went to his shed and got the lawn mower out. Since this would be the season’s first cutting, he decided to check out the mower.

He checked the gas tank. It was nearly empty. Retrieving the gas can, he filled the gas tank and replaced the gas cap tightly.  He pushed the primer button several times and then pulled the crank cord.

Nothing!   He pulled again.  Nothing!  Again, and Nothing!

“Better prime it again,” Henry said.

He pushed the primer several more times. Then he pulled hard on the crank cord. The engine coughed, puffed a cloud of blue smoke, then it died.

“Blue smoke!“

Henry tried again but to no avail.

“Better check the oil.”

He opened the oil cap, pulled out the dip stick, and wiped it. He put it back in, then withdrew it. The stick showed full. The oil was clear. He put the stick back tightening the cap.

“Huh! “He thought. “Gas — Ok!  Oil — Ok! What else could it be? “

He tried to start the engine again, still nothing.

“The engine isn’t catching.” “Spark plug!?” He had had this problem before.

Henry went back to the shed and returned with a spark plug wrench. He disconnected the spark plug cap and with the wrench, he pulled the old spark plug and inspected it. The tip was black with carbon.

“Ah! This must be the problem.”

He took a rag. Put some gasoline on it and wiped the spark plug and cleaned the points. Smiling to himself, he reinstalled the plug, reconnected it. Priming the engine again — he gave the crank rope a hard jerk

Cough, cough, Nothing!

Now Henry was getting very frustrated and angry. He had had this mower for 10 years. He did all the things people told him to do to keep it running. He fed it gas, he change the oil when needed, and he cleaned the spark plug. These had always worked, just like they told him.

“I don’t need this,” “I don’t need this.” He felt totally defeated.

He began to worry, “Will I have to buy a new mower? Or may be I have to spend a small fortune to a small engine repair service — if I can find one?  He looked at the old machine once more.

Henry called his wife to come out and look at the mower. He was afraid she wouldn’t believe him when he said the mower wouldn’t work.

She walked around the old machine and noticed a panel cover attached by screw. “What’s this for,” she asked.

Henery had not “seen” or noticed it before. He got a screw driver and unscrewed it. The cover folded down and revealed a metal screen sealed with a blue rubber gasket around the edge. He removed the screen and inspected it. On the back was accordion folded paper filter. A layer of dirt, grim, flecks of grass and leaves bonded by oil, and water, had collected on the surface. It was thickly layered in between the paper folds.

Suddenly, he knew what to do!

“It can’t breathe!”

Taking the screw driver Henry cleaned out each fold. Thick mats of crud fell out as he passed the screw drive down the fold. After removing the crud, Henry reinstalled the old filter.

Henry tightened the screw on the cover. He primed the engine, and pulled the crank rope.

BANG, POP, a cloud of blue smoke, putt, putt putt, putt putt putt, ROAR. PurrrrrRRRRRRR.

The engine jumped to life. As he pushed the machine around the yard, he smiled.

“I’ll have to buy a new one when I finish,” he thought. Henry had had an epiphany.

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What is an epiphany?

It is “A sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience.”

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Reflecting on his discovery, Henry realized that his spirit, was like the mower’s air filter. It was clogged with the crud of his accumulated worries, doubts and other people’s opinions.  Henry determined to clean his spiritual filter so that he could start living and breathing again.

Have you had an epiphany? Would you recognize one if it happened?

Janus says

Sometime it takes a comment or observation from someone else to trigger the revelation, insight or epiphany in you. This is what a life coach can do for you.

Give it a thought.

If you have questions, please contact us.

Why is a life cycle approach a powerful tool for evaluating and planning your life experience?

A recent news story ,  “Recession might make young investors gun-shy”, reports on studies that show people who start their investing or continue to invest in their retirement plans today in the depressed stock market stand to gain in the long term while those who invested at the height of the markets stand to loss if they withdraw today.

I can relate to this. Years ago I had the opportunity to be employed in an organization that offered a retirement program. I contributed to it regularly and stayed there long enough to become vested in the program. The small personal investment I made through my contributions were doubled when I became vested.

Over the next 30 years this initial investment grew. And while I have not contributed to the plan since leaving the organization — today that plan has accumulated enough value to provide me with a cushion in my retirement.  Had I started investing 5 years ago, or even 10 years ago, I would not have weathered the recent economic meltdown.

Just as investing at the right time can make a big difference in later retirement or family plans, any decision we make will have a differential playoff depending when we start or stop some action or activity.

Taking up golf when you are in high school or college will open opportunities that starting at 50 will be closed to you. Waiting to have children until your late 30’s or early 40’s will produce a different experience and challenge than having your children at 15, 25, or 30.

The choices you make, and when you make them, strongly impact your life course and your chances for success and failure.

Sometimes it seems like we are in control.  Other times, it seems like fate is in control. We exploit our opportunities. We withdraw or defend ourselves against threats. Our hopes and  fears are made real by what, when and where we exercise our choices.

We are always making choices in our daily lives. More often than not, these are made in the spur of the moment and with not much thought about the longer term consequences. This is our habituated behavior. This is not only natural, but it has had survival value for our Homo sapiens ancestors as well as the modern shopper.

But not today, not in the emerging global economy and cybernetically networked virtual world of  human/machine interface.

An event that once traveled slowly over relatively short distances, now travels instantaneously globally. Choices made in a moment of passion or despair and soon forgotten, now become sealed in the global memory forever, or at least until someone pulls the plug.

The life you want to lead and the life you live are determined by how you use your time and when you use it.

I speak from personal experience. If we are not aware of the natural cycle our life is following — we risk losing out on many of the joys and challenges that life offers.

When we say that YOUR LIFE IS YOUR BUSINESS, this what we mean. Your life up until this moment is a record of what you have done — it is your balance sheet in the game of life.  Do you know your score?

Have you taken the time to check your balance sheet?

Janus says

Maybe it is TIME that you did.