This is the story of the most significant thing I’ve ever done for me.
In 1982 a Dallas businesswoman named Thelma created her own personal growth seminar company called Choices. Her partners in the early days were Phil McGraw (as in Dr. Phil) and his father. She still runs these seminars in Dallas and Vancouver, despite approaching the age of 80.
In 2002, Thelma’s son Eldon branched out and created a seminar company of his own with his mother’s blessing. He called it Choices II.
I invested in a real estate project in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee developed by my long-time friend and business partner Randy. Eldon wanted to host his seminars in Randy’s chalets. This was a big opportunity for Randy, because the seminars would be held several times per year, including during the off season.
Eldon had only one condition: Randy had to attend the seminar. Eldon reasoned that if Randy understood what was happening in the seminars, they would have a better working relationship.
This was how I found myself at the local Applebee’s listening to Randy tell me about this seminar that changed his life and how I had to attend it. I was skeptical and didn’t really want to go. But it’s hard to say ‘no’ to Randy, so Jamie and I both made plans to attend. I figured I’d gain some benefit simply because I was taking time away to work on myself. I didn’t have big expectations.
It’s hard to explain what the seminar was (and is) all about. Everything they taught could be found in a self-help book. You know, those books that have practical exercises at the end of each chapter that people always skip. The huge difference between reading a self-help book and attending the seminar is that the seminar has you practice those skills experientially. Whether it’s in large groups, small groups, or one-to-one, participants share with each other and get to see how others respond. It’s tremendously healing.
I’m tempted to tell you about everything you would learn by attending the program. Instead I’ll tell you what I learned by attending the program.
I discovered that people weren’t put on this earth to judge me. They were too busy worrying about themselves.
I learned that people felt the same way I did. I got to see their insides. On a human level, they matched my insides. I had always compared my insides to others’ outsides, and found myself lacking. But I wasn’t alone, and I wasn’t uniquely defective. In fact, I wasn’t defective at all, though it would take many years for that fact to sink deeply into my heart.
I found that the main reason I was depressed was that I lacked connection with other people. At the time, I had my family but nobody else I could truly be myself with on a regular basis. I realized this was a major factor in my depression, and I needed to get out of my comfort zone to forge new connections.
The program offered the opportunity to volunteer, and I eagerly signed up immediately after I finished the program myself. At the age of 42, I had found my calling and my purpose. My own path of personal growth involved connecting with others and helping them discover their own healing.
Eventually I would assume every leadership role in and out the room: small group facilitator, coordinator, large group facilitator, team captain, mentor, donor, board member, board chair, and president.
I got a little ahead of myself by listing those last four leadership roles, so let me back up a bit. After several months, Thelma withdrew her support for Eldon’s program. So Eldon reorganized under the name Adventures and continued on without her support. I continued to volunteer for Eldon’s programs.
After about a year, the program started to have issues with low attendance. So I started donating money for scholarships to people who wanted to attend but lacked the means.
At some point, my support crossed the line from healthy to unhealthy. I didn’t realize it then, but it is possible to enable an entire organization. I use the term ‘enable’ in the same sense that a family can enable a person’s drug addiction or other bad behaviors. In this case, propping up the organization so it would not fail was keeping the organization from taking its own hard steps toward self-sufficiency.
Eventually word got around that “anyone who actually pays to attend the program is an idiot.” It was time. I withdrew my financial support.
I did so knowing that the organization would have to lay off its employees. So on the day the employees were laid off, I rehired them and created a non-profit organization to continue the program. We called it Foundations Workshops.
I’m certain that Eldon and his family felt they were victims of a coup. I would have felt that way if it happened to me. All I can say is that there were reasons I took this action that I will not air out like dirty laundry in this forum. I still feel I did the right thing. But the better way would have been for me to not put Adventures in a position where they were dependent on my financial support in the first place.
Unfortunately I had not learned that lesson yet, as Foundations was now dependent on my financial support. We did have several good years with our largest attendance. We expanded into Canada. We helped jump-start a spinoff organization in Chattanooga, Tennessee called TrueYou.
Eventually attendance at Foundations and TrueYou declined as well, and I found myself in a familiar position. As we say in the workshop, “Mistakes are repeated until learned.”
After laying off the staff for a second time, Foundations became an all-volunteer organization operating only in Portland. Its only ongoing expense is the monthly fee on a storage locker. We plan several workshops per year, holding the workshop in a local hotel. If we don’t get a minimum number of participants, we cancel that particular workshop. Now free from my financial enabling, the program is finally self-sufficient, and has been on stable financial footing for several years.
My involvement in Foundations has been life transforming. It’s better to give than to receive, and I’ve been privileged to give for 15 years now. My Master’s Degree in Positive Psychology and Certificate in (personal) coaching flowed directly from and were motivated by my involvement in this program.
I’m now the most experienced facilitator in the program. After facilitating well over 100 workshops, I’ve become quite effective in the room. I’m very proud of this. I only wish I had the opportunity to apply my skills more than a half dozen times per year. I’m actively looking for opportunities to coach and facilitate other groups.
Even more important are the many people who I get to connect with on a deep and personal level. I know I can tell them anything and they will not judge me. They know the same is true about me. Many of the letters in my Six Months project are to people I met through Choices II, Adventures, Foundations, or TrueYou: Rick, Ron, Savannah, Carla, Bret, Janice, Jeff, and others.
Although my personal growth has not gone in a straight line pointing upward, I can always look back a year or two and see how far I’ve come. The truly scary part (in a good way) is that the more I grow, the more opportunities I see for continued growth. My Six Months project is one of those opportunities. Thank you for joining me in this journey.
Leave a Reply