Out Of The Blue

“As long as we have some definite idea about or some hope in the future, we cannot really be serious with the moment that exists right now.”

- Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind

• Out Of The Blue

• Zen Of Coaching (An online course for coaches)

• Half-day Retreat, August 2nd

• A Favorite Quote, Pema Chodron

My therapist often begins our sessions with the same question: So, Marc — what has come to you out of the blue this week?

I’ve come to appreciate that question. Because the answer, more often than I would have predicted, is: quite a lot.

New clients. Speaking invitations. Unexpected doors. And, of course, new challenges, and sometimes losses. And once, several years ago, a phone call from a Google engineer asking if I wanted to help create a mindful leadership program at Google headquarters. A single out-of-the-blue call changed the trajectory of my life.

None of it was planned.

The Myth of Certainty

When my daughter was 17, I overheard her talking with two close friends about the anxiety and fear of not knowing what their futures held. At some point, she offered what she apparently considered comforting wisdom:

“My dad is in his fifties and he has no idea what he’s doing — and he doesn’t seem stressed about it at all.”

She was right. At that point I had just left as founder and CEO of Brush Dance, the publishing company I had built over fifteen years. I genuinely didn’t know what came next. And rather than rushing to fill that space, I made a deliberate choice: to remain in not-knowing for three to six months. To wait. To let something emerge rather than force it. I felt a great deal of discomfort with this approach.

That willingness turned out to be one of the most generative decisions of my life — not because it led anywhere I could have predicted, but because it created the conditions for something surprising to take shape.

It is both humbling and clarifying about being held up as a model of not-knowing.

The Space We Rush Through

Most of us are taught — implicitly or explicitly — that life is something we can map out. Set a goal. Make a plan. Execute with discipline.

That approach has its place. Envisioning and planning are really important skills and activities. But they leave out something fundamental: much of what shapes our lives arrives through events we did not choose and cannot control. The opportunity that appears unexpectedly. The relationship that changes direction. The loss that reorients everything.

We don’t always discover our path in advance. We discover it by walking it.

Most meaningful transition move through three phases: an ending, a period of not-knowing, and a new beginning. We are reasonably comfortable with beginnings. We can, with effort, accept endings. But the middle space — the not-knowing — is where we struggle. It is ambiguous, unstructured, and without guarantees.

So we rush through it. We grasp for premature certainty — forcing decisions, clinging to old identities, reaching for clarity that hasn’t yet formed.

But this middle space is not empty. It is generative. It is where something new is quietly taking shape. None of us likes being uncomfortable. I don’t. And yet…

Practice

What has come “out of the blue” to you this week?

Share

(From my garden in Mill Valley.)

Zen Of Coaching. An Online Course, beginning October 23rd

Zen of Coaching is a transformational program for executive coaches and leaders who want to deepen their presence, expand their impact, and build a coaching practice rooted in wisdom, not just performance. Blending Zen principles, mindfulness, and real-world leadership experience, this course—created by Marc Lesser, the Zen teacher and CEO who helped bring mindful leadership to Google—supports you in cultivating stillness, navigating complexity, and coaching with greater authenticity, clarity, and purpose.

Half-day Retreat, In-person (Mill Valley) and Online, Sunday August 2nd, 9:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.

In our world of busyness, of more/faster/better, this half-day retreat offers time to stop, reflect, and renew. Together we’ll follow a gentle schedule of sitting and walking meditation, a talk, and some discussion. Anyone looking to begin or deepen a meditation and mindfulness practice is invited to attend….If you continue this practice, eventually you will experience the true existence which comes from emptiness.

A Favorite Quote

“Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.”

- Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart

Warmest regards,

Marc