OUR 'COMMON LANGUAGE'?
Today, I looked back at the friends, brothers, and sisters that I had the opportunity to accompany in their personal development and leadership potential when they attended training/coaching/sessions at my community-sharing over 10 years.
Participants come from different countries, they speak different languages, they have different occupations, they have different family backgrounds, ...; but when they speak the same language – it seems there is no difference.
I often use English – the language most participants know – in the training/coaching/sharing sessions. I remember when I did an event in England in 2017, there was a participant – like a dear sister in her 40s who often came to my sharing sessions. She didn't talk much, her eyes made me feel like she was avoiding me and she was watching and watching - probing. Sometimes this triggers a thought in me – ‘am I sharing something unconvincing’? For nearly 20 years of her childhood, I was taciturn and often avoided people for fear of being labelled. Then when I left the village, I learned to talk and learned to share - and my favourite principle is to be truly confident - to be yourself, sincere and value-focused. When I saw the sister’s eyes, despite the occasional ripple of anxiety, I shifted my focus to shared values.
To my 5th event, the sister still came. During one of the training activities, I approached her and suggested that the sister discussed with me. I asked her - what brought her to my training. She was silent for a while and then said, “I've always wondered, what makes you do this, train people in a language that's not your native language, you don't really speak English well, you're young, you come from a developing country - Vietnam…, I always wonder what gives you that courage”. When I heard her sincere words, somewhere, was the small voice I used to hear speaking to me. I also saw a deeper desire in the sister - things that were troubling her. I looked at her and said, “Thank you. You, and everyone here is the reason - thinking that I can give something of value to everyone. I find it more important than a small voice - the fear of not being perfect. I also have a teacher, who encourages me, to do it even though I'm afraid, even if it's not good, to look back and improve myself, every day; I have seen you at this event many times. What keeps you coming, what do you advise me to do better?” I asked her.
She said, “Sometimes I don't fully understand what you're saying, sometimes I feel uncomfortable about it, but the positive energy, the feeling that you want to help people, and the people who come here – even if it's not your native language but with the same 'personal development' language – I find that 'personal development' language connects me with everyone.”I met her again in another program , she was the one who got up to share her thoughts with everyone – something she wanted to do for a long time, but was afraid of being judged for using a language that was not her native language. And that day, she chose to use the common language, 'personal development'.
When we use the language of self-improvement, we get to live life to its fullest potential and create something good - dare to dream, dare to act, to appreciate challenge – to love, give, live decently. Then, we have no distance, no more judgment, we resonate in order to act and create sustainable results.
