People say I've been
successful
in
sharing
the possibility
Werner's work
makes available. That's nice. But look:
"successful"
may not be the best word for this. Yet we can all relate to what it
distinguishes here. So
"successful"
is good enough for jazz. "Effective", on the other hand, may
work better. Either way, the end result was the same: people got from
me what could be newly possible for their lives.
Trusting
this, they registered to participate in
Werner's work.
Then after they graduated, along with being delighted with everything
they got, they realized that they probably underestimated what's really
possible ie the magnitude of what it really makes available.
Werner's
work and what it calls forth, can't be explained in the colloquial
sense of the word "explained" - not unless you're OK with
"'Caterpillar?' being explained by 'Butterfly!'".
Explanations
drive
transformation into the realm of
stories
where it simply doesn't work well. That said, there are indeed certain
critical ideas which form the steel frames / structures / supports for
the distinctions of
Werner's work,
and I've been
successful
in distinguishing some of those ideas too, many of which are
exquisitely abstract, in ways that can be heard and gotten, and in ways
that open up what may become possible if the entire spectrum of these
ideas are considered.
What I've noticed in all of the above, is that real
success
in
enrollment
has got very little to do with enumerating what people could get from
Werner's work
(and we do enumerate this, so everyone will know what's at stake). It's
got arguably even less to do with explaining the abstractions of
Werner's work
(instead, we distinguish them - but in their rightful
place: in
the Forum
itself). And it's got almost nothing to do with having
people understand the ideas and distinctions of
Werner's work
(to review a page taken from
the Forum
itself, there's the proviso that understanding is actually the booby
prize). No, almost all
enrollmentsuccess
comes down to one thing: who you're being. Period. If
transformation is going to have any value at all, it will
show up
in who you're being, and less in how deftly you wield the material.
I'd like to
share
two examples of this. Here's the first one:
I started Werner's work in
South Africa.
I went there in 1979, delivered the first ten guest events there, and
enrolled
the first one thousand people there. Upon arriving in Cape Town where
I'd completed my university education nine years earlier, the first
thing I did was visit family and look up old friends. We sat around
talking, drinking Rooibos tee. I had no strategy for what was
about to happen. Rather, I noticed it seemed to unfold just in the
process of life itself. People said to me "You're different than
when we last saw you", and "Something has changed about you", and "What
happened to you?". They were naturally curious, intrigued, enthralled.
They noticed I was a being anew. It all began out of that space: the
transformation of an entire country. All of it.
Here's the second one: at the end of one of those seminars at the
Newlands Hotel, a man came up to me, and said in a thick
boer accent "You spoke for an hour. I didn't understand
anything you said.
Whatever you've got, I
want it.".
That's
enrollment.
He didn't understand anything I said. But he got the possibility of a
new way of being ie a new
presence
for himself and his life from who I was being. That's what he
heard. That's what he wanted.
Listen:
wanting this quality, is universal for people. It's arguably the single
common denominator
that unites us all in the face of our plethora of differences. It
called to him louder than anything he understood.
Be authentic. Be vulnerable. It's alright to
share.
Be
generous.
Keep your integrity in. Don't get stuck in the significance of it all.
Honor your word.
To be transformed is to be all of the above - and more. Ultimately it's
in who you're being that people are
enrolled.
And as for your understanding of the critical ideas which are the steel
frames for the essential abstractions of
Werner's work,
and whether you're
brilliant
at
sharing
them
lucidly
or not, in that they only have a meagre, passing interest.