For the past 3 weeks, I’ve been bonding and enjoying my twin sons, August and Lito. It has been one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. I have learned so much about myself and my boys.
Many told me that it would change everything in my life, but honestly, I can’t remember what my life was like before these two.
It’s magic… it’s natural… it’s perfect.
As I engage in this experience, I want to revisit my manifesto. Let’s look at the tenets…
#1 Pursue Fearlessly, Embracing Failure Is a Teacher
Of course, beginning to raise children is a difficult journey of trial and error. That will continue to come to pass, I’m sure. Where I am having a relevant experience with this is with marketing.
The short explanation is that I began a blog that explored uncovering human identity. The blog was called, Who Are We?, – you may just be on the blog right now. When I began coaching, I already had some of that infrastructure in place, so I decided to call my company Who Are We? Coaching. Well, you can see the issue there. It sounds like the question mark should be after the word ‘coaching’ in the title. So I’ve shortened it to WAW Life Coaching. This is difficult to say and even more difficult to explain.
So I will rebrand the business to simply Ryan Watts Life Coaching. I will also create some clarity around the offers. I’ll only offer coaching packages (as opposed to courses to start) but will use the curriculum I’ve created where it can make an impact.
This is a good example of how failing is a road towards clarity. Eventually, I will find the flaws in this plan and continue to get clearer.
I also intend to speed up the failure. I have learned the extent of how important it is to help others actualize their potential. I also would love for my business to develop to a degree where the 2025 end date I have set for my day job comes sooner. I’d love to be here with my boys as they grow up.
So I’ll try to fail faster! The main influence of this probably has to do with the next tenet…
Prescription: Fail Faster
#2 Connect and Engage With Relationships
I’ve had some great relationships with some wonderful people. But I haven’t had the experience of being so in awe of another as I’ve had with my partner carrying twins to 38 and a half weeks! She was amazing throughout the whole experience. She knew how she wanted it to go, and we made it happen that way. She made the right choices for her and our boys at every step. She has the best instincts for this whole maternal business. She is just all about these boys.
Post-partum, she’s been a champ. Not once a complaint or so much a gripe about anything. As a matter of fact, before getting on a call the other day, I opened my desk drawer to find a beautifully written letter with her recounting the experience of the first two weeks with the boys and me. I just really lucked out with this woman. She is supportive, tough, she doesn’t let me off the hook, but she doesn’t nag. She’s just…wow. Just, Wow. And now she’s given me two boys with whom I want to have the deepest relationships of my life.
On top of that, I’ve felt this openness to support others. My life has just turned out so much better than I ever thought. I want nothing. I want to bring others to a place of joy and ecstasy. I’ve learned that rejecting an offer of support shuts others out of your life. I’ve also learned that offering support can do more than a lot for someone else.
Prescription: Offer Support, Accept Support
#3 Be Authentic
I’m not sure what to note here, but this just comes easy. One of the things that I’ve noticed about having the boys is that I look different to myself. I have a natural instinct to love them. And they look like me. I have another natural mechanism that makes me not love how I look (and not just me, it’s a human feature). I’ve discovered the former to work against the latter. It’s just…a shift. A change. A transformation in perception.
This has opened up a feeling of buoyancy that I have not experienced. It has allowed me to move further into the realm of being and out of the realm of doing.
Prescription: Be the Beauty You Seek
#4 Allow Love
As one might expect, this comes easy here. The boys’ mother and I are starry-eyed for each other and the boys. I think the thing that most surprised me about the experience is that although I understand that my partner and I did things that caused her to become pregnant, the process of making these two was taken over by something greater.
Nature…
It was not me who placed the individual cells together, specializing and splitting to make two perfect beings. It is something else. I can feel its presence. I can feel my powerlessness to its force.
I’ve described myself as agnostic and atheist in the past, but perhaps more recently, agnostic. Through the birth of my sons, I have new access to life. A new joy about its mystery.
The other side of the coin is that I’ve come to believe that the main function of the human ego is raising children. We see ourselves in them. I’ve alluded to this already. Our desires, hopes, and dreams are all connected to the experience of raising children. But I am reminded that this is ego. They are their own people who will have their own journey. I’ll play a smaller role than I desire. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to keep trying to be the difference-maker. And here, ladies and gentlemen is the biological drive that has caused the thriving of our race.
But the experience is akin to falling in love or intoxication. The experience is transcendent and miraculous.
Prescription: Allow Love To Allow The Miraculous
#5 Experience Deeply
I believe the point driven home by the season of my life is that each day is precious. There is a finite amount of time we have for one another and for everything we wish to experience.
As my partner and I celebrated our boys’ two-week birthday, we teared up that they were already so much bigger than the day we brought them home.
Each day, good or bad, is worth experiencing for what it is. And the sentimentality that we feel about days past is only proof that they were days well spent.
Prescription: Find the Beauty of now
#6 Go Public
Here I am. I want to be open and vulnerable with anyone who can relate to the journey I am on. I was inspired by others on their journey. I hope to do so here as well. I have begun doing impromptu Facebook live videos. I’ve completed two, but I want to capture the real human things happening in the world of mental health and coaching.
It wouldn’t be ethical to post a recorded coaching session by any measure. So, this can work as a proxy for the power of coaching.
Prescription: Show Up Often
Thank you.
Who are we? 
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