Chapter 13

The Best Way to Teach Is to Be!

Every day we make the choice about where and how we will spend our day. We decide whether we want to be a Flipman, and when we do, we become far more aware of the Pit behaviors of the people around us. It can be hard to resist the temptation to judge them. I hope no one reads this book, then walks up to the first energy sucker he or she meets and says, “Hey, Pitman, I’ve got some ‘feedback’ for you!” I’m sure we all realize by now that this is about working on our own stuff and not about criticizing someone else. When we’re busy criticizing someone else’s backyard, we’re usually allowing weeds to grow in our own.

One of the most annoying things we can do to someone is to become the Pit Police! I don’t know too many people who respond well to someone being overly critical of their behavior. It all comes back to our intention. If we want to pass harsh judgment on a person’s behavior by labeling them a Pit Person in public, then we’re probably the one who should be wearing the Pitman name badge! If our intention is to help someone see his or her limiting behaviors with respect and kindness, then we will usually find the most appropriate approach to use.

We may have the best of intentions to “save” the Pit People in our lives, but we must remember that no one can help those who are in their Pit; they have to help themselves. When we give up the illusion that we’re the reason someone climbs out of his or her Pit, we move from the dangerous rescuer role into the more successful empowerment role. The same applies to us: no one is going to save us. It is our choice, our dialogue, and our behavior that place our foot on that first rung of the ladder. For now, the best thing we can do is to “get this” for ourselves. Of course we can offer advice and guidance to another, but the choice to change is not ours, it’s theirs. The most powerful way to influence another person is through our actions. People follow what we do, not what we say, and being is the outcome of doing — so the best way to teach is to be.

Be loving and respectful as a parent, if you want more loving and respectful kids.

Be present and attentive as a partner, if you want the same from your partner.

Be hardworking, honest, and participative as an employer, if this is the behavior you want from your employees.

Be peaceful, kind, generous, and forgiving, if you want a more peaceful, kind, generous, and forgiving world.

We all need to find that Flipman warrior within us. If you think about it, what is a warrior? A warrior is respectful. A warrior has honor, and a warrior slays a dragon only if there is a dragon to be slain. If there’s no dragon in front of the warrior, he or she puts down the sword. Warriors do not go out and fight just for the sake of fighting, but if they need to stand there and deal with the challenging moments in their life, they do it.

Some of us can become negative when we’re learning new things or letting go of outdated behaviors, reactions, or responses. This process is a bit like having to walk through a wild, uninhabited jungle that’s in front of us. Imagine massive trees and wild weeds and a whole impenetrable-seeming jungle. All we have as a warrior is our sword (our Flipman courage, honesty, and faith), and as we continue, the only way out of this jungle is through. We can’t go around it. We can’t go over it. We can’t go under it. We’ve got to go through the jungle. So we slash through the jungle. We cut the weeds in front of us. We bring down the limiting beliefs that are blocking our path, and when we look back, it’s basically a cleared area. Once we’re through the jungle, we actually come to a lovely, open grassy patch where we can rest. Isn’t that how life happens?

When I’m right in the middle of my “jungle,” I sometimes think, “How much longer is this jungle going to go on for? How much more do I have to learn? Why is it so frustrating? Why can’t things be easier? How am I going to be able to keep coping with this pain? When will this pass?”

I soon realize that if I just get on with the task at hand, go into the pain, and deal with whatever issues come up, I will always come out on the other side to the grassy patch. I always come out to somewhere where I can rest. The grass is just a past jungle that we’ve already mastered. So it will always be there for us. We’ll always come to a place where we can rest.

Pain Is a Pathway

One of the most powerful epiphanies I have ever had was when I realized that pain offers the doorway to our breakthroughs. Would it not make sense then to learn how to do pain well? Think about every area of life — if we want to be fit and healthy, we need to experience the pain that can come with working our bodies hard and saying no to the foods that are unhealthy, while we grow new neural pathways that love the taste of delicious, healthy foods.

What about financial freedom? By working through the pain of delayed gratification, we learn to wait until we can pay for something instead of getting ourselves deeper and deeper into debt, which invariably causes much worse pain. What about our relationships? If we want to take our relationship to the next level, there is bound to be pain involved — especially with those tough, honest conversations. And what if we run a business? There is always pain if we are implementing a new strategy or policy, or even if we’re just asking our people to produce more.

Change of any kind can cause pain, and because of that, most of us have learned to fear change. Pain is part of the process, and by trying to avoid it, we just prolong the inevitable. The faster we learn how to experience the pain, push through it, and learn what action we have to take, the sooner we will come out the other side with much more wisdom, resilience, and gratitude for what we have achieved and received.

Fear Is Just a Feeling

Our physical body uses pain as a warning sign to pay attention. Does it not make sense, then, that our emotional body is sending us an important message as well? So many of us let our fear of pain paralyze us from moving forward, yet that fear really is just a feeling to be managed.

Fear is one of those words that most of us use as a reason for not achieving our goals, for not going through the jungle. I mentioned this in the beginning of the book as the excuse I used for not doing the recordings for Lynn, the client who wanted them as an aid in her grieving process. Guess how I perceive fear now? As a massive beating of my heart, a pounding in my chest. A feeling! That’s what happens in my body when I’m fearful. So I’ve decided that whenever I’m fearful, my greatest job in that moment is to just manage my heartbeat. And the best way I know to do that is through breathing — deep, long, slow breaths. There have been times in my life when my anxiety and fear were so great that even breathing hurt. But I kept doing it because I knew that my greatest task in that moment was to manage my heartbeat. And sure enough, calmness returned, and I was OK — just as you will be.

This is the journey of a person living a Flipman life. Pitman urges us to just give up, doesn’t he? He seduces us into thinking we can have an easier life: “Just accept things the way they are. That’s the way it is. Don’t dredge up the past. It’s not your fault. You should get revenge for what was done to you. Someone has to pay for this! Don’t they know what you’ve been through?”

Maybe the “jungle” for you is a tough conversation that needs to be had. Maybe it’s something you need to face within yourself. It may be a situation in which you need to state your truth, or it could be some part of your past that you need to accept and forgive. The greatest thing about all of us is that our soul needs to evolve, and surrendering to our personal evolution is like giving it oxygen. Whatever we need to deal with is not going to go away. It will keep coming back to hit us harder and harder, until we face it. And what a great role model you’ll be for all those who follow you — the seen and the unseen.

It’s worth saying again: The best way to teach is to be!