Some divorces end peacefully – usually these marriages were peaceful. Many divorces end with resentment and battles over money and kids to ensure the pain continues well after the marriage is over. In such cases the unexpressed hurt and conflict was lurking just beneath the surface all along.

Business partnerships can be the same way. Lives can be the same way. Often someone who dies peacefully, accepting death as inevitable with no one to blame (yes this is loaded with a belief about the serendipity and synchronicity of life) reflects the way a person lived their life.

I am thinking about Joe Paterno. I hope he is remembered for his care and inspiration to his players and for his amazing success as a coach. I also hope he is remembered for the grief he felt about boys Sandusky allegedly took advantage of. And for his willingness to be interviewed, practically on his deathbed, in order to express his remorse.

I think it’s interesting that the Paterno era at Penn State ended with an event that brought a focus on the business of college football and how the machine had such a huge blind spot.

It is useful exercise to think about how you want things that you are in the middle of now, to end. What do you want to make sure is preserved? What do you want to celebrate in terms of what the relationship or team or organization stood for?

Use this vision for the end to determine what you need to do now to ensure the ending is what you want it to be?

My answer was “no”. Of course, it would be great to be more focused, have full access to memories, and learn how to play golf and the piano with mastery without all the hours of practice. I just wonder how long the satisfaction would last.

The mind is overrated. With as much emphasis as has been placed on the mind since the Enlightenment or whenever Descartes said, “I think, therefore I am”, has not necessarily led to a consistent level of ideas that sustain the human race or Earth. Sure, the mind has resulted in the computer, Internet, and the iPhone but it has not prevented conflict and environmental blind spots.

A pill that puts my grey matter on steroids might just feed the beast that gets me over-thinking things. I can see some real downside to such a pill.

I told my friend that my idea of an attractive Limitless Pill is one that would allow me to tap into the full capacity of my heart. How could you go wrong with full access to your capacity to love? How could you go wrong with infinite love and acceptance? I don’t think I would get bored with that. I don’t think I could get in trouble with that.

Now that I think about it, why do I need a pill to fully access my heart? Is it that we come into this world with unlimited access to our heart and that access decreases with time?

Short of a pill, how do we access more of our heart–or should I say, how can remove the accumulated blocks to our native state?

For Williams, she not only hates tennis, she hates anything physical,–especially working out. Her favorite activities: “Anything that involves sitting down or shopping.” She says she is excellent at these things and doesn’t understand how she ever became an athlete. She says exactly what Agassi used to say, “I can’t live without [tennis].”

No doubt deeper patterns are driving the people in these examples. A lot is understood about them when you understand their relationship with their fathers.

We will all face existential crises at some point in our lives. One of the hardest of such binds is the dilemma: A) do I want to be happy or B) do I want to stay in the game? Do you want to be happy or stay in a bad marriage? Do you want to be happy or keep a well-paying job? Do you want to be happy or risk being rejected for choosing the road less travelled?

Happiness and fulfillment are choices but these choice sometimes involve letting go of something.

Do you really want to be happy? It’s ok to say “no.” If you say “yes”, then follow your heart. By this I mean align your life with your core values. These vary from person to person but they include things like connection, service, truth, adventure, and respect.

This alignment can mean changing what you are doing. Often it can mean changing who you are being. The first being an external change, the other an internal change.

I’d love to hear others’ take on this dilemma.

Here’s another example. This summer, while backpacking in Yosemite National Park with my family, I really wanted to see a bear. Bear sightings had been on the decline for years due to park ranger rules and education such as the requirement for backpackers to use bear canisters to store food and the many warning signs about fines for improper food storage in campgrounds. Yet, sure enough, there I am opening my tent flap at 1:30 in the morning and seeing an 800 pound bear twenty feet away. The next morning, my wife said, “Stop thinking about and saying you want to see a bear; or say you want to see one from at least a few hundred yards away!”

Whether it has to do with money, career, speaking engagements, or relationships, my ability to manifest what I want is confirmed all the time. So much so that I take my intentions and my thinking seriously. I notice that when I don’t have a vision for my day I fall into old thinking and behavior patterns that often don’t serve me well. In the absence of a conscious vision, unconscious ones take over and fear-based or limiting thoughts shape my day.

Take my weekend visions or example. I like my weekends less scheduled and a lot slower then my weekdays. I also want a few quality connections with my family on the weekends because I don’t get a lot of this during the week. If I don’t hold a clear intention and start my Saturdays and Sundays visualizing my day my weekends are less fulfilling. Not only do I need to have a clear intention, I need to share it with my family. If I don’t hold and express my intention, the weekend flies by, everyone goes in their separate direction, and I am in a funk by Sunday night saying to myself, “Where did all that time go?”

I think our intentions are powerful but don’t take my word for it. Start looking at events and trace their roots back to what has been on your mind. I think you’ll find a direct connection.

Intentions help manifest your future because they encompasses three things: clarity, commitment, and faith. Intentions draw your attention to the clear and specific outcomes you seek. Your physical, emotional and mental energy then follows your mind’s attention. Your commitment to anything will attract supporting resources – this has a metaphysical or spiritual component to it that Goethe wrote about. Faith that your intention is powerful (and you may have to do a little-fake-it-til-you-make-it trials at first until you  believe this process works) removes skeptical or cynical thinking that can sabotage your vision.

What are your intentions for 2012? What kind of year is going to be? As you do your planning for the year, be specific. What do you want in all four quadrants? Meaning, what do you want to accomplish, what do you want to learn, what relationships do you want to invest in, what kind of man or woman do you want to be? Creating categories for your desired accomplishments will help jog your thinking about what you want to change in the year ahead. Examples of categories include vocational, financial, health, and service. You can use this process for various aspects of your business and leadership.

If you want to put your intentions on steroids, here are four steps that will make your vision for 2012 a reality:

1. Commit your intentions to writing.
2. Visualize yourself having realized your intentions. Like an athlete preparing for a event, picture, hear and feel in your body what it’s like to experience what you want – make the intention for the future a present-tense experience.
3. Share your intentions with others (this is a great New Year Day’s tradition to have with your family–or to do at your first staff meeting in 2012).
4. Have faith. This means catching yourself in the act of thinking about what could go wrong, how everything is random, why your intention isn’t going to happen, or the downside risks if you actually get what you say you want.

Blessings on your intention-setting process and on a powerful 2012!

I want to thank Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior.

I want to thank my teammates, they make me look better than I am.

I want to thank the fans for supporting me.

Remember, I don’t watch much news so I many only have the gist of this but you get the idea.

This talented athlete (yes I know he doesn’t throw like Elway) is humble.

And don’t get distracted by the Jesus thing. You insert your words for referring to something bigger than yourself. For the synchronicity of life that makes things happen the way they do – things could be so different (I mean like, a lot worse) and you are not in control.

This Broncos thing is a great metaphor for CEOs to try to get their heads around. Results are not coming because of the skills of the leader or the personality of the top guy. John who? Fox is getting little attention. Before it was all about Shanahan and people wondering if Josh McDaniel would be wearing his hoodie on game day.

Tebow is having an impact because everyone is stepping up their game. He works so hard it is hard for that not to be contagious.

The truth is Tebow is making others look better than they are or as good as they are because teammates are pushing themselves harder and taking his lead to focus on something bigger than themselves.

For example, do you think there is a connection between how much energy you have and how easily and cleanly you express your emotions?

Do you think there is a connection between how rested you are and your emotional state?

Is there a connection between how you relate to your past experience (e.g., shutting out painful memories vs. moving toward them) and your physical health.

Does repressed anger cause depression? Heart conditions?

Does emotional trauma cause back problems?

You know where I am going with all this and your know my answers to all these questions. Stop looking for “research” to allow you to avoid holistic healing and healthy living. Pay attention to your thinking and your emotions as they affect your physical health.

I sense this Sandusky thing is extra-ordinarily painful for Joe Paterno. Not the firing and going out on a down note but the actual events, the impact on the young boys – this is what will hurt most.

Joe has not seemed to age. He is 85 – is that his real hair color? Probably not, but still, what a testament to how doing what you love can keep you young.

But now what? I hope I’m wrong, but the fact that he was diagnosed with lung cancer days after he was fired and earlier this week fell and broke his pelvis are not good signs about where his health is going.

And yet it is never too late and we are never too old to learn, to transform, to be humbled and to one day die complete.

Now we know Penn State for having ruined a party. The party of letting sports programs dominate academic institutions. What Penn State may become famous for is exhibiting our shadow side.

A shadow is a part of you that you would rather not look at or “own” so you repress it, deny it exists and in the process its power and influence over your life grows–your ability to see or control your shadow increases the more you stuff it in your unconscious.

There is a golden side and a dark side to a shadow. For example, pedophiles have a shadow and the more they deny their urge or keep their attractions secret because they feel ashamed of themselves, the more likely they will act out and not seek help or support. They may prey on someone and not even be conscious they are doing it or not not see any harm in doing it. After a while our shadow controls us and without anyone around to point it out to us, our shadow will continue to control our lives and we will become blind and numb to its influence.

Meanwhile, there may be some wonderful qualities that get disowned and wrapped up in our shadow. It’s different for everyone, but I am guessing that for a pedophile (many of whom have been molested themselves) their heart, innocence and vulnerability have long been stuffed into their shadow side.

We spend our lives compensating for our shadows. If we are insecure we climb the corporate ladder, build power and try to convince ourselves and others we are powerful and often abuse power in the process. If we question our attractiveness we show off in order to be seen or we get small assuming no one is interested. We inflate or deflate as a result of our shadow.

We blame everything and everyone around us for the results of our shadow behavior–”This is not about me!”

Another word for shadow is blind spot. It’s something that develops not just with individuals but with collectives. The collective behavior that gave rise for the need for Civil Rights laws is a good example.

We all have a shadow. All teams, organizations, and cultures have shadows. Too much of something, too much zeal, too much patriotism, too much unquestioned passion for a position or value that blocks the ability to see the big picture or see the other side of an issue are all warning signs that a shadow is at play. The lack of compromise in politics reflects disowned shadows.

For the Penn State situation they get the painful prize for winning the shadow award for 2011:

• Right in the middle of a manly sport where men are supposed to be tough there is a man who is fondling young boys.
• An entire university built for the purpose of academic growth becomes dominated a money-making or business aspect side of the institution.
• A man who catches his colleague doing something he is not supposed to be doing gives up his power and chooses to say little or nothing.
• Students worship a man who, after he is fired for not reporting a crime or at least predation on innocent kids, students defend him and take issue with those holding him accountable.
• Joe Paterno, like Tiger Woods, was famous, powerful and a man who people projected their hero-worshipping. That was a lot to take and the inflation that resulted made Joe put himself above the law and most likely his own core values.
• The role of football at Penn State grew too important, too big, too sacred, inscrutable cow and the cause of a big blind spot.
• Many men gave up their personal power when they didn’t report Sandusky’s behavior–in the process they showed how weak some part of them was. I include in this group the university president who, at the moment, is still in his position. The only explanation for that is that he was so important compared to Paterno no one really cares about him.

So what to do now?

I think Penn State should try life with a few weekends without football, just to reflect, to regain perspective. Given I don’t think that’s happening any weekend soon, I think the Penn State situation can serve as a wake-up call to look at our own shadows. Especially as leaders.

Where are you either abusing or giving up power in your life? When are you justifying what you are doing instead of speaking up or otherwise being true to yourself and your core values?

What is your shadow? What are you defensive about or unwilling to challenge about your life, your beliefs. What is your blind spot? My guess is you may have to look around to find the answer to this. Your kids and wife won’t tell you what your real shadow is – they are too invested in it. Who will tell you that you need a breath mint, that you are self-sabotaging or that you are the source of the problem you are convinced lies elsewhere.

I’m going to turn off the TV for a while and look at my shadow. There is a Paterno or Sandusky in some form that lives inside of me and I don’t want to deny this so much that I take a big tumble over my shadow.

I also love watching the sports journalists try to get their heads around Tebow. They wrote him off when the Bronco’s drafted him. They wrote him off early this season and, like the sports writer for the Wall Street Journal, have had to back-peddle. They were so focused on Tebow’s talent they forgot the impact he has on the team, the Broncos organization and the the fans.

Tebow plays his heart out and it’s contagious. He creates momentum. He is a leader. He is an engaged team player. He aligns his team.

My hat off to Bronco’s coach John Fox for taking a gamble and betting on the team vs. the best player.

I don’t think it was just a memory lapse, there is something deeper going on. I don’t think Perry is promoting his beliefs. I think he is memorizing speeches – that lapse was not something that was in his heart in the first place.

More entertaining and frightening – do a search on YouTube for Perry – have you seen his speech when he was either overly medicated or drunk?

Once again, we are choosing among the tallest Pygmies. Looking at the field of Republican candidates for President I wish I could get behind Obama as I had five years ago but that program isn’t working either.

The mediocraty and lack of compromise that characterizes American politics is not only bad for government but bad for business and society – China does not have to do much to win this race, just watch us do ourselves in.

Hope lies with business leadership and grass roots efforts. Now more than ever we need business leadership with heart and courage.

We all have blind spots or a “shadow” that holds unconscious material that at the worst possible time rises up and bites us in the behind. We yell at our kids, we rationalize living in conflict with our values or worse.

Knowing the how we deceive ourself is not only the way to be an authentic and effective leader it is a spiritual practice.

Attached is article I sent to subscribers of my monthly Musings on the topic. Click on the word Musings.  Take a look if you haven’t seen it.