Photo credit: Astrid Jirka

NINETY DAYS TO SPARK IN THE DARK

My doctor thinks I have COVID-19.  I have not been tested and I don’t think I have it. I’m social distancing just in case, and I will share a few details on my symptoms below, since I know some of you will likely be concerned, but the consideration of having Covid-19 has reminded me, what it means to really live, and has given me a new incentive to share the Sparky Operating System with a broader audience.

If you are in my Inner Sparks Circle, the odds are good that you’ve heard me say “You can’t really “live each day as if it might be your last” or you would spend all your time having sex and weeping, but you can and – as much as I don’t like the word — SHOULD live at least half of each day as if it might well be one of your last ninety.”

If you think about what would be really important to you during your last ninety days, it is not about a bucket list. By the time you are in your final ninety days it makes no sense to try to go climb Mount Everest!  What is required is becoming really clear about what matters most to you, or as I say “what is truly important and what is enough?”

About 20 years ago someone asked me for a magazine article to “say something about the ‘Art of Living.” I said “I would not be so presumptuous as to claim some expertise in the Art Of Living but I can tell you one thing that comes to mind: “at least one part of the Art Of Living is knowing how to courageously and gracefully negotiate the paradox that at once life is short and life is long. Sometimes you need to remember that life is long and you do not have to fix everything right now. At other times, it is important to remember that life is short, and you need to stop messing around, acting as if you were going to live forever.

I really am planning to live the next ninety days – about the amount of time most of us will likely be in lockdown—as if they are going to be my last. If they turn out to be my last, I will know I did everything within my control to live my life fully. If they turn out NOT to be my last ninety, I expect that by living my S.O.S. (Sparky Operating System) I will be on my way to crafting a life with as much joy, meaning, connection, impact, gratitude, mindfulness and lyricism as possible. Along the way, I suspect that I will also be able to make my marriage even stronger, my relationship with my daughter better, have a bunch of fun, and have a little bit of positive impact. That would not be a bad legacy to come out of the COVID-19 moment, eh?

Over the course of the past 25 years I have had the incredible honor of being able to serve as a life coach, leadership coach and executive coach to more than 50,000 people around the globe. This has meant that I was also able to share my approach with a lot of people and I kept the parts that worked for almost everyone and got rid of the rest.

I teach people about what I call “getting it together.” How you can integrate self-care with social impact. How you can feed your spark in order to make more possible with and for others. What I have to share is how to “Spark in The Dark.” How to move through anxiety and various kinds of darkness to craft a life of joy, meaning, connection and impact.

Through the COVID-19 crisis over the past month and a half, I have been helping a lot of people understand that now more than ever, it is clear that each of us can choose – in a series of moments – how we want to Show Up in the world and – if we are part of an organization – how we want our organization to Show Up in this moment. I have been inviting all the people I coach to move (way) beyond aiming at “figuring out how to get through this” or even, “looking for the silver linings.” I have been saying: “move from survive, to thrive, to fully alive!”

You may find yourself working from home. Perhaps you had to cancel plans that you were really looking forward to. Maybe – like half the people I am coaching right now and like myself– you are working longer hours than ever, while also home schooling your kid(s).

While everyone and their mother likes to talk about gratitude, “sparking joy,” and the power of narrative, I can lay out for you a specific step-by-step method, in bite-sized morsels to help you actually DO this. Starting today. The whole practice takes five minutes a day – 15 minutes on Friday afternoons. J

My aim is to share a series of short, digestible, actionable, soothing, inspiring posts to help you

make choices over the next 90 days, so that by the time you begin your next chapter your life will have much more joy, meaning, connection and impact than it does today.

What are you going to do to make the most of the next 90 days? Want to join me in my experiment?

Spark On!

* Notwithstanding the tickle I am experiencing at the bottom of my throat, that maybe results in a dry cough a few times a day. Yes, I feel fatigued, but with the combination of homeschooling Tsdia three hours a day, coaching more people around the world than I have ever tried to coach at one time, I think I’m just fighting a normal virus and it’s unfortunate timing that I’ve caught something innocuous in the midst of a pandemic.  But it just means I need to practice the same self-care that I teach.

In the coming days I am going to share with you:

My Good Life Index tool, and learning how to “SparkSurf” daily.

Articulating your own “These Are a Few of My Favorite INGs” collection of the activities that energize you the most, and then spending at least two hours every day engaged in one of your “Top 40.”

Trying out my Story Of the Week practice, which one of my coachees described as “meaning-gratitude-mindfulness-boosting practice meets party game.”

Finding and acting from your own “Sweet Spot For Sparking Change”

The S.O.S. Quiz

Three-GLEE Vision