The witches in Shakespeare’s Macbeth were referring to their potion when they said Fire burn, and cauldron bubble. Their heavy, solid metal cauldron could withstand the heat. But throw it into a glassblowers’ furnace, where glass is kept molten at 2100 degrees Fahrenheit, and the cauldron really would bubble.

Watching glassblowers work in their industrial studio invokes more than a passing thought of magic. They create pieces that are translucent and colorful, majestic yet fragile. They balance the classical elements, combining earth, air, and fire, while keeping water at bay. It’s modern-day alchemy.

The Alchemists’ Beginnings

Clifton Crofford, Kevin McGehee, and Mark Alexander wrangle the elements at CMA Glassblowing Studio. They’ve had their own studio for about four years in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. They trained together for many years at the glassblowing hot shop at the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA).

None of them entered college planning to study glassblowing. Two of them were studying graphic art and the other was studying architecture. Each of their degree plans called for an art elective. Glassblowing was interesting. Working with fire sounded very cool. Turns out they were right.

Playing With The Elements

In a hot shop, molten glass is kept in a furnace that is always heated to around 2100 degrees. Since most things melt at that temperature, the basin for holding the glass is made of a special ceramic. Glassblowers reach into the furnace with long poles that have holes through the middle for blowing. They swirl the amount of molten glass they need onto the pole and start working it.

Working it includes spinning it, blowing air into the center for expanding the shape, and expanding it while the glass is in a mold to give it a certain shape like fluting. As the glass being worked starts to cool, the glass artist puts it back into the middle of a smaller furnace called a glory hole for a few seconds to heat it back up and then continues working it. Glory holes are kept close to 1600 degrees Fahrenheit. In front of each glory hole, support frames are mounted on metal tables with wheels on tracks that are attached to the floor. The pole with the glass is laid across the support frame so the glassblower can move the pole deeper into the furnace and pull it out by rolling the table on the track.

Cool Tools

Glassblowers use metal tools on the molten glass to help give it shape while they spin it. They use heavy shears for cutting the ends of strands of the fluid glass and other tools for twisting and shaping the strands. They have small sheets of glass that look paper-thin which they can heat and add to a project when they need handles, rings, rims, or color. These steps are done as quickly as possible because it’s important to keep the glass from cooling. If it cools too quickly it cracks, but if it heats too much it loses the shape it has taken.

And they get to a use a blowtorch. It’s a large diameter, high intensity gas torch that blasts like a flamethrower. It’s used for heating up a piece being worked when it’s not feasible to return it to the glory hole.

Dramatic To The End

Obviously a hot shop stays very hot, even with great ventilation. Near the furnaces, where the glassblowers work, it gets well over 100 degrees and often over 120. The heat causes the glass artists to sweat, introducing another dangerous element to the mix. A single drop of water on a tiny portion of a piece being formed will cause a small crack. A crack makes the whole piece unstable so a single drop can ruin it.

Pieces that make it successfully through the twisting, blowing, shaping, forming, and clipping are put in a special cool-down box. It starts around 910 degrees and goes through a ten-hour cycle to drop to room temperature. Only after the end of the cool-down cycle will the glassblower be able to tell if a piece is stable and whole. Even the colors may change slightly during cool-down. This means after the blasting flames and the sweating and the tiring physical work, there is still mystery and uncertainty. The artist doesn’t get to find out until the next day exactly how each piece turned out.

Hooked

The glass hot shop at UTA worked its alchemy on Cliff, Kevin, and Mark during their introductory classes. Their elemental interests and talents were refined and clarified and their distractions started to burn away. Each returned to the hot shop for more classes and eventually shifted his focus in school to glasswork. Through years of training at the university they got to know each other well. When it was time for them to set up their own operation, they went into business together.

UTA had just upgraded its hot shop when Cliff, Kevin, and Mark were ready to set up their own studio. Since they helped with the renovation at UTA they knew how to put together a hot shop. They were able to build their own equipment, including a cool-down box made out of a converted cooler from a convenience store. They started with an empty shell, built it out to install the furnaces, and made everything they could by themselves. That saved them a lot of money.

The Artists’ Model For Business

Early on they focused on creating some pieces that were functional but artistic and others that were sculptural and artistic with no specific function. Their business model was to sell their work through high-end galleries. They were seeing steady progress for a while, until the economy stalled. High-end sales were down about twenty-five percent this past Christmas.

This disrupted their long-term plans in a big way. The guys work at the hot shop in the morning and have other jobs in the afternoon and evening to help pay their bills. The shop doesn’t generate enough profit to provide a full-time salary for each of them but they had been moving closer to that point. The collapse of high-end artistic sales got them to reconsider their business model.

The Entrepreneurs’ Model For Art

They started focusing more on custom work. For example, they have created pieces used by exclusive retailer Neiman-Marcus in their jewelry departments. They partner with large-scale designers who want sculptural glass for buildings. This allows them to create enormous and elaborate structural pieces without incurring the cost of installing or insuring the pieces. They meet with the designer, get the basic guidelines, agree on a price, and then get to create.

They are partnering with another designer by creating long organic pieces that will hang from a gigantic chandelier. They are making some smaller artistic pieces for a colleague to use in her booth at an exhibit. The blown pieces will add balance to her cut glass work. They are also creating sconces and fixture covers for a lighting company. They were chosen to do that because they are able to replicate shapes that are brought to them, including other glass pieces.

Elements of Success

This model has been effective in two significant ways. First, focusing on custom work has brought in more immediate revenue. Second, they’re able to spend their time doing what they love doing and are best at: blowing glass. The reputation they are building is based on their exquisite work with glass. They won’t have to venture into high-end art sales or architectural installation or starting a lighting fixture company to be successful.

Finding a way to keep their focus on the glasswork has energized Cliff, Kevin, and Mark. They’re able to see how they will grow their success through this model until the studio provides a comfortable living for all of them. They’ve discovered the power of partnering with people who are good at sales, marketing, and project management, which would be distractions if they had to do them. They are free to work from their gifts, talents, and passions, which are the elements of real success.

The sixth chapter of How To Talk So Kids Will Listen is the final chapter introducing a category of skills and is the final unit in the training series. It’s titled “Freeing Children From Playing Roles.” I like to think of it as freeing children from limiting their lives into little boxes or deep, narrow ruts.

The problems with expanding children’s occasional patterns of behavior into a role may be pretty obvious, but they’re important enough to merit an overview. First, children are growing and developing and changing rapidly, but labeling them usually doesn’t acknowledge that fact. So the eight-year-old girl who has started learning about cleaning up her supplies and work area at school might still be regarded by her family as the five-year-old who leaves toys all over the house. When her mother says “She treats every room in the house like it’s her closet” or “This one was born to be rich; she expects a maid to pick up after her,” her daughter’s growing maturity is ignored and discounted.

Second, labels and roles become self-fulfilling. A child who hears that she’s lazy, or that he’s hard-headed, will start to assume that’s how he or she will act. Thoughts like “That’s how they think I am so it must be true” or “That’s what they think of me so I might as well act that way” make the label true by default. Children rise and sink to the level of our expectations. They may not hit the highest standard we set, but they are elevated when we truly believe they can accomplish great things and their achievement goes up. They can fall to the level of our negative expectations much more easily, not only meeting but often exceeding them.

The third glaring problem with labels and roles is the implied criticism that belittles the child and diminishes self-worth. There’s not much about “hard-headed” or “lazy” or “sloppy” or “forgetful” that feels good to a child.

Faber and Mazlish have many suggestions in the chapter for interrupting the pattern of expanding occasional behavior into roles with negative labels. One is useful to parents ready to make a change. We can consciously and intentionally look for opportunities to point out when our child’s behavior disproves the label. For example, with a child who has been put in the “lazy” role, we look for opportunities to comment on initiative and effort. We say, “Heather, I noticed you made your bed and put up your toys after breakfast. That’s what I call diligence.” If you think your child doesn’t understand the word diligence, just say it with excitement and enthusiasm and see how quickly she figures it out or asks what it means.

Another recommendation they give is to help break the cycle when your child has internalized a negative role and consistently sees himself or herself that way. Parents become a living scrapbook and historian, able to call on memories that refute the negative label. John says, “I’m too clumsy to be good at any sport.” His dad reminds him how careful he was helping with a woodworking project and how he rides his bike for hours at a time. Dad’s not arguing or disagreeing, which John can easily discount. He’s providing real evidence that John knows is true, and he’s doing it with love and respect which stand as champions against the negative words John thinks about himself.

Have I Mentioned I Love This Book?

Following the training units on the six areas of improving your relationship with your children through new skills, Faber and Mazlish include a chapter that pulls the skills together for more complex situations. They respond to questions mailed in from parents over several years. They take on some pretty tough situations and give examples of applying these skills with challenging kids.

This book and the system it describes are the best starting point for parents wanting to improve their interactions with their children. The system respects children’s developmental needs, strengthens parents’ communication skills, and nurtures relationships between parents and their children. It lays the foundation for life-long character in children. Other parenting books and systems are good, but none is as heart-focused, comprehensive, practical, and effective as this.

The difference is the spirit of Dr. Haim Ginott, the child psychologist who trained and inspired Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish. They shared his passion for mentoring children. He passed along his commitment to honoring and valuing children. They soaked in his teaching, applied it, lived it, and found clear and direct words to explain it to others. The result is an engaging, easy-to-read book that is both simple and profound.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable: be honest and frank anyway.

© Copyright Kent M. Keith 1968, renewed 2001

We all have a face we wear in public. Some philosophers and psychologists refer to this as an act or a façade because it’s meant to show people what you want them to see and hide some of your less likeable qualities.

The façade changes depending on the situation for most of us. We might be very friendly and try to look interested in the details of a fellow churchgoer’s recent experience. We might be focused on fun, joking and teasing with our teammates and opponents in the bowling league. We try to look knowledgeable and professional when we talk to clients.

But as leaders we feel a unique pressure to look competent and together and are often on guard against anyone seeing our weaknesses. This can dictate that we have the “leader façade” in every situation if we think there’s a slight chance one of our team members will be present – or even if a friend or family member of a team member might be present. Boy does it get tiring!?

The common misconception is that maintaining an appearance of being together and in charge will give us status and power. We have information available to us to see that isn’t true but we’re reluctant to use it. When we see a leader who always looks calm and competent we tend to think we’re seeing an act. When we have a leader in a social group, like a volunteer organization or a church, who is always pleasant and always competent, we feel distant.

We are all more inclined to follow someone when we connect with that person’s heart. We can’t easily connect with a heart when it’s hidden behind a well-heeled façade. We connect with someone when we identify with that person. We are inspired to follow someone when we see flaws and foibles plus strength and intention and character to rise above them. We are especially inspired to follow someone who has a powerful vision that flows from his or her heart and resonates with us. There is no resonating happening in a façade.

The true power of a leader comes from authenticity. It comes from being a full and complete person who knows himself or herself and is learning to be comfortable with all those facets. It comes from being comfortable with one’s own limitations and quirks, and from having the empathy to extend grace and acceptance and forgiveness to others for their limitations and quirks. It comes from sharing a real path of struggle and failure and success which others can emulate. It does not come from presenting an untrue picture of success and competence that denies human nature.

I can remember staff meetings with our child care and preschool teachers where we spoke from the heart about our vision for the center and what we wanted it to be for the children and their parents. When we were honest about our limitations, whether they were financial or based on a lack of information in a certain area or our inability to “do it all,” the magic happened. Our staff members who shared our vision wanted to be part of it. They looked at how they could get training or made suggestions for doing things on a tight budget and offered to give more of their time and effort.

When we admitted our limitations, we opened the door for them to become powerful.

And it will always be so. Other people will not have the opportunity to extend us grace or compassion or help or guidance until we admit our flaws and weaknesses. And most people are much more inclined to step up and improve a situation through their effort and involvement than they are to follow an unblemished façade of perfection.

Making authenticity a priority has obvious benefits for your psychological health and your spiritual balance. It gives you focus to make sure you don’t over-schedule yourself with too many activities. It helps you establish your priorities and stick with them. But it also brings an unexpected benefit.

Living an authentic life means taking charge of your goals and the standards you set for success. It means letting go of concerns about status, which can be a huge drain on resources and a huge pressure on you.

Status goals may push you to seek promotions to get more responsibility and higher pay. Authentic goals may free you to see that you enjoy working directly with or for clients but you don’t enjoy managing people.

Status goals may have you striving to afford the European luxury car. Authentic goals may free you to be content with a late model used American or Japanese car.

Status goals may tell you the older boat you have should be replaced with a new, more powerful jet boat. Authentic goals may help you realize you go boating so rarely it works better for you to sell your boat and rent one occasionally with a group of friends.

Status goals may convince you that you need a graduate degree to be prepared to start a part-time small business as a contractor or consultant. Authentic goals may show you the path to develop your expertise in a more suitable field through your passion and natural curiosity.

Status goals may pressure you to trade up to the larger house in the newer neighborhood. Authentic goals may help you see that paying off your mortgage more quickly and then investing the equivalent of a mortgage payment will bring you more financial freedom and peace.

Status goals may have you going with friends every week to the newest movie theater paying top dollar for tickets to the latest movies. Authentic goals may have you planning which movies you actually want to see and choosing to see them for a discount at matinee times or at older theaters.

The money, time, effort, and other resources you expend pursuing your authentic goals will feel like a good value, not like a huge sacrifice. The money, time, effort, and other resources you expend pursuing status goals will often feel wasted.

You can’t get enough of what you don’t really need. It’s in the U2 song Stuck In A Moment. It’s also in a lot of the literature on addiction treatment, so much so that I can’t recall where I first heard it, although my best guess is from John Bradshaw.

When you pursue things that don’t really suit your authentic self, you experience scarcity and feel deprived. When you pursue things that align with your authentic self, you feel abundant.

That’s a liberating idea.

Elephant Burgers is usually about different ways to approach large or ongoing projects and break them into achievable steps. It’s about accomplishment. But what happens when something is important to do, but it isn’t a project to complete?

My son has a study unit at school called “The Basic Needs of Man.” We’re all familiar with the concept. For survival you need food, clothing, and shelter.

Shelter can be a huge project, like building a house. Our neighbor had her small frame house demolished a year and a half ago to build a larger brick home. After many delays, she last said she hoped to move in at the end of March. They still aren’t finished. But when they are she will have a beautiful new home. The project will be over and shelter will only require occasional tasks, like maintenance and cleaning.

Clothing can be a project, too, like sewing a shirt or pair of pants. Even shopping for clothes can be a project if you have to choose a wardrobe for a new situation, such as snow skiing or professional speaking. But between episodes of shopping or sewing, clothing just requires small tasks, like washing and ironing or trips to the dry cleaner.

Food is rarely a project, except for special events. It requires some planning and preparation to make at home, adding a stop to your list to bring home take-out, or scheduling time and allotting money for eating out.

We pay even less attention to water usually, but it’s a much more immediate need than food. When we get thirsty in a public place we look for a water fountain. If we’re running errands, usually in our cars, we can stop at a store to buy something in a paper cup or a plastic bottle. At home we just open the fridge or get out a glass and fill it up.

We have a need that is more compelling even than water. It’s air. We have to breathe all the time. We can’t go very long without it. But unless we’re scuba diving or launching into space we don’t think about having air with us. We don’t even think about breathing most of the time. We just do it.

Think about the things that are important to you that parallel physical survival. These would be things that you need for spiritual health and emotional health. They’re things we easily bump out of the schedule because we don’t feel the immediate thirst, or hunger, or cold.

Our physical bodies are good at stating needs. Our emotional and spiritual selves are much less direct. We suddenly realize we are very bored and disconnected, or very lonely, or drained of energy, and are surprised by it until we think about how we have treated ourselves.

Your emotional and spiritual selves need regular attention and care, like your body needs water and air. You need quiet time, time for connecting, time for challenges that cause you to stretch and grow, time to grieve and let go, time to rejoice, and time to explore inner stillness. Unless you’re focusing on a spiritual journey, none of these things are likely to be on your schedule.

But you need them like you need water and air. They’re just not as demanding as the physical needs. We have to remember to schedule time each day for drinking in and for breathing in what we need emotionally and spiritually. It’s key to good self-care.