A live coaching transcript from the Optimize Coach program (hosted by Brian Johnson) in which participant Daniel asks about the metaphor of "holes in the sail." Scott Barry Kaufman and Daniel explore how lack of clarity, conflicting goals, isolation, and unexpected events can create "holes" that impede growth, and they emphasize examining goal hierarchy, moment-to-moment mindfulness/error-correction, and prioritizing process over rigid goal fixation.
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The content you're about to hear was captured during a live coaching session in the Optimize Coach program multiple times every month. Coaches Connect live with Brian, Michael, Alexandra and members of our world class luminary guest faculty for wisdom, guidance and encouragement. For more head to Optimize Me coach.
Thank you. I had a question regarding the beginning of the talk which was talking about the holes or deficiencies in your boat and then talking. Nobody mentioned or I had the idea of what about holes in the sail and or both. Because everyone's still a human being on the ocean and everybody requires the guidance and reassurance and safety, etc. So I'm curious if we could have a brief dialogue on it.
No one's ever brought up the question what if you have holes in your sail? I think it's a really great question. I'd love to see hear more about how you perceive that. So let's say you're really moving towards growth, but your growth decisions. Can you tell me what that means to you to have holes in your sail in my metaphor?
Well, I think it would be lacking clarity. Let's say you're heading off to shore and you see 10 lighthouses and you're heading and you go which one's mine? And so you sort of confused about that or what else? If you had love as a growth molecule and what happens if you don't have the community support or the people around you and you're isolated or experiencing isolation? That's a hole. You don't have a vision for yourself. You don't have the feeling of a vision or the imagination is more or less, you know, wishful thinking fantasy. We could come up with probably a bunch more in a longer dialogue, but you could.
Well, Daniel, you just wrote a book on the spot. This is wonderful. You could write a book Holes in the Sale and I think it probably would sell well. I think that the lack of clarity issue. Are you a coach, Daniel?
I do some coaching and now I'm just up in my game in the optimal coaching. So that's going to be for myself and for others.
Yes, because as you know as a coach, this lack of clarity issue is one that is just almost everyone, virtually everyone has suffers from this to a certain degree and not knowing exactly which values to make the core values opposed to the ancillary values then. And there's the whole idea of the goal hierarchy which I talk about in the purpose chapter where we can have a disintegrated goal hierarchy. I think that a big key to the to when you have holes in your sale is to take a really good examination of your whole goal hierarchy. You know, we have lots of goals in our lives, but they don't all have the same priority. And some of our goals get in the way of our higher priorities. They actively pull against it. And you ideally want a goal hierarchy where everything is harmoniously feeding into everything else. And if you have something that really is jutting out there, you know, like, really just doesn't fit or jive with the harmony of your soul. And I think that, you know, this is what, this is what I think a big part of self actualization is creating a harmonious whole unit or a whole sailboat. So I think that you can have holes in your sail, as you say, or you can have certain aspects of the sail that is so jutted out that the boats become so lopsided that it's not moving in the direction it wants to move in. Do you see what I'm saying? Because it's.
Yeah, I like that. And I also, I also. Something sparked in my head was, you know, when you're sailing, sometimes if the winds are too strong, then it can actually tear a sail. So it's kind of like a person's events can tear a sail in them and leave them without a sail to even lift up or to repair while the boat is sinking, if the boat's sinking at the same time because of their deficiency holes. So now we're dealing with a lot of people that are in that experience. And I know what Mike might chime in here would be helpful is, you know, it's the moment to moment choice to find out what's the priority to meet the need.
Yeah, there's the mindfulness component you just brought in there, you know, of being able to do error correction on the spot. But I think there's also just a. An acceptance that even if you have holes in your sail, sometimes that's not. That's a feature, not a bug. You know, sometimes it's a compass or information that maybe you're moving in the wrong direction, you know, And I think having that flexibility to be able to change course, like moment to moment is a really important form of flexibility that isn't as discussed so much in the goal attainment literature or the, you know, you know, those who are just so focused on goals. I. I have another. Another tweet. I only speak in tweets, by the way. You know, I think everything I say can. I can reduce it to Warner Brothers.
Right. Tweety Bird, maybe that's Warner Brothers.
That's my nickname, Tweety Bird.
But I know we'll bring in the Coyote and Roadrunner, so that'd be nice.
But I said something to the extent that I think goals are overrated. You know, the focus should be the process and, you know, looking at the process and focusing. See, okay, where, you know, where. Where holes popping up. If you're so focused on the goal, you might overlook the holes that are popping up during the journey. And that's not good because you'll reach the goal and then not enjoy it.
We hope you enjoyed that. Part of a live coaching session from the Optymyze Coach program. For more info, head to Optimize Me Coach.
