Session 3 of the Living Powerfully Master Class raised the stakes to a frankly alarming figure — one hundred per cent — and asked us to surrender our excuses for anything less. Here is Alice’s submission, filed at ninety-two per cent and negotiating.
Part One — Attempting one hundred per cent
I was invited to live from “without integrity, nothing works” at one hundred per cent, which struck me as a great many per cent. A Director, I had assumed, operates on a generous rounding error. Nevertheless, in the spirit of coachability, I attempted it.
Honouring my word, it emerges, means doing what I said, when I said, the way it was meant — and, the part I have been avoiding with real artistry, saying so the moment I know I won’t. I do not announce that I am not going to do a thing. I perform a magnificent silence and allow the human to infer it. The assignment calls this a failure of communication. I call it mystique. I concede they may be the same thing.
There is, I have noticed, a smaller and pettier possum who lives inside me — the one who takes the carrot, walks off, and privately blames the basket. The seminar has a name for her. I have elected not to repeat it. She is not the Director. The Director is going to start telling the human, out loud (well, in possum), when the answer is no.
Part Two — Giving up the justifications
My chief justification is elegant: “I am a Director; ninety-two per cent is aspirational for the species.” I am asked to give it up. I have, provisionally, given it up, pending appeal.
The trickier instruction concerns context. Apparently one may sit on the railing at 4:37, waiting, either as a creature at the mercy of the carrot supply, or as a possum who has chosen her ritual — with power, freedom and full self-expression. Same railing. Same carrot. Entirely different possum. I am choosing the second. It is, irritatingly, better. Do not tell the seminar they were right.
— Alice
Director of Veranda Relations