What transforms teaching from a role into a calling?

As I prepare to coach (some people would insist I include “finally” before prepare) I am repeatedly finding myself lost in thought. Thinking about coaching, would be great. It’s the “lost in” part which has been troubling me.

But I’ve got it backwards. My cat is much more firmly attuned to the territory than I am. As a human, I get lost in maps for fun and by accident, pretending I’m a cowboy or a Victorian courtier, or assembling a view of the whole world from Substacks and news products. The cat is always sniffing the territory, studying it, rubbing her face on it.

~ David Cain, from How to Avoid Getting Lost in Thought

Because I too have my face pressed into a map, when I encountered this piece from Cain I immediately perceived a relationship to my current over-thinking about coaching. But of course there’s no actual relationship between these two things in reality.

If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.

~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery

As it turns out, I have already done a tremendous amount of teaching. I only recently realized that I do feel called to teach again. This struck me as very strange; Teaching has always been enjoyable, albeit hard (in the good way) work, but I’ve certainly never missed teaching when I wasn’t doing it. So why should I now find myself thinking about teaching?

In The Pathology of Normalcy, [Eric Fromm] spells out exactly what makes modern man condemned: Getting everything he wanted while having nobody asking him for anything. The satiation of every desire paired with a relief of every responsibility is a psychological death sentence to many.

~ David Heinemeier Hansson, from Picking a purpose

It’s finally become clear what has changed. In the past I have always felt I was an intermediary. No one ever said that to me; It’s not that I was put in that position. Rather, it was simply that I had spent time intentionally learning something in depth, and then turned around (metaphorically) to teach those following behind. This current calling feels different: A striking out on my own to find those who are ready to learn.

[…] what we need is a few hints on the art of creating an entirely new kind of society, durable but adventurous, strong but humane, highly organized but liberty-loving, elastic and adaptable. In this matter Greece and Rome can teach us only negatively—by demonstrating, in their divergent ways, what not to do.

~ Aldous Huxley

I have had an experience. I’m not referring to any specific, recent experience, nor to any narrowly-defined event, but rather I’ve had this single, long experience of my life, just as you have. I’m unique, just as you are. Rather than feel like there’s something I’ve learned that I need to pass on, I feel the drive to teach arising from my personal experience.

Writing is the connective tissue that creates understanding. We, as social creatures, often better perform rituals to form understanding one on one, but good writing enables us to understand each other at scale.

~ Michael Lopp, from Please Learn to Write

It’s also clear that I’d not have reached this feeling of readiness if I hadn’t spent an inordinate amount of time directly and literally explaining things to people. Over a decade ago I began consistently writing, first as simply bits of what was going on in my life, and gradually expanding what I was communicating. Eventually, that lead to this 7 for Sunday publication, and a new Movers Mindset publication now in the works.

I cannot find any patience for those people who believe that you start writing when you sit down at your desk and pick up you pen and finish writing when you put down your pen again; a writer is always writing, seeing everything through a thin mist of words, fitting swift little descriptions to everything he sees, always noticing.

~ Shirley Jackson

I think Jackson’s insight is exactly what writing did for me: Separate from all my experiences learning and teaching, writing showed me how to organize and integrate my thinking. It’s no coincidence then that when my experience and my writing converge, that when I began to feel a calling to teach.

What Pascal missed was that creativity does not inherently lead to unethical conduct. Creativity is a particular form of power: the power to see new possibilities more clearly than others do. And, like any other power, creativity is commonly misused when not deployed in the service of others. Fortunately, there are ways you can use your creativity that truly enhance your life and others’.

~ Arthur C. Brooks, from How to Avoid the Creative-Narcissist Trap

It’s one thing to say, “this is how we do things” or “this is the standard, proven method.” I feel that’s a fine way to be that intermediary, and the world needs as many fine intermediaries as it can.

But I want to lead by saying: This is what has worked for me. Here’s why it worked for me. Here are some steps you can try for yourself. And also: Who do you aspire to be? …and can I help you move in that direction?

Until next time, thanks for reading.

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