With the title of this week’s post, VIM Executive Coaching, is reaching far back to early television history, and a black & white kinescope we discovered of a game show involving thousands of peanuts. Please don’t think we are alluding to executive compensation but to peanuts you might eat at the ballpark!
We watched a YouTube video of a kid’s quiz show circa 1956. It was all pre-digital, of course, and certainly from a more naïve time.
A young man, perhaps 12-years old, was dressed in baggy overalls and led to a large Plexiglas booth. The game was called “Find the Magic Peanuts.” The objective was simple: they would dump a bunch of peanuts in the booth. If he found the red painted peanut, it would be a $25-dollar prize, the blue peanut was worth $50, but the gold-painted peanut was worth the amazing total of $500.
It all sounded simple until the stage-hands stood on ladders and started dumping boxes and boxes of peanuts into the booth. To the contestant’s credit, the red peanut was easily found. He dove around, over and under piles of peanuts and found the blue, but try as hard as he did, he could not find the elusive gold.
Time ran out. Game over.
Touch your pocket
Outside the booth, the host asked the contestant to touch the breast pocket of the overalls. Lo and behold, there was the golden peanut prize!
Naturally, VIM Executive Coaching could not ignore the opportunity to turn the old-fashioned remembrance into a business coaching fable. Many of our executive leader clients come to us after years of significant feelings of defeat and disappointment. They tell us they have tried coursework, numerous seminars, “a million podcasts,” and workshops on top of workshops. They admitted they could never quite seem to break through.
We asked: “Have you tried working on your authentic self and building on that base?”
The answer, typically, was “No, what good would that do?”
“It would do plenty.”
For, the most authentic thing about striving to be true to oneself and to be mindful, is to turn on an inward path and to work on that. It is a journey to understand one’s positive attributes, not dwell on negatives about oneself, to fully understand the miscues and cultivate strengths and not dwell on weaknesses.
The work, you see, is the equivalent of finding the gold peanut right where it always was; close to the core, close to the spirit of what and who the executive is capable of being.
Easy to get overwhelmed
The true value of the executive moving toward authenticity is that they learn to avoid the clutter, easy answers and self-judgment. The amount of executive leadership content on and off-line, is much like anyone getting overwhelmed with thousands of peanuts or rhetoric or confusion that simply doesn’t help to advance a career.
VIM Executive Coaching treats every client with respect and understanding. We never add to the clutter. There is a lack of judgment. We start with every client where they are. Our mindset and vision are geared toward showing the executive that with guidance, compassion and mindfulness training, there are meaningful changes an executive can make to become a highly effective leader.
There will always be hindrances to leadership (thousands of peanuts, if you will), but with mindfulness and authenticity, there are greater opportunities to find the gold closest to you, and within you.