Example of How Not to Coach Someone

In an interaction with another person during a weekend workshop seminar I was struck by the number of assumptions the other person made of me; who I am, what my background and experience is, what my strengths and weaknesses were in relation to the course we were taking, what I should be working on. It was fascinating to me to watch this unfold, especially since this other person continually made references as to what I should do without ever verifying at all if I might have already done what was being suggested.

I was told of books I should read that I have already read, courses I should take that I have already demonstrated advanced proficiency in, techniques I should learn that I am already certified in, people I should meet and network with that I have already met, etc. This person took an attitude of judgment towards me and talked at me from an assumed higher level of experience, rather than communicate with me from an attitude of respect and interest.

It was so blatant and continuous that I could not even react to it. Instead I realized that this other person was actually providing me with a fantastic opportunity to experience how not to coach someone. I decided to let this person have whatever opinion they chose to form about me that satisfied their need and simply use the interaction as a learning lesson for myself.

Coaching from a perspective of judgment, believing you already know everything about the client and what they need to be doing, without ever asking or verifying what they have done and are doing is dis-empowering. Talking at a client from a perspective of being at a higher level of accomplishment, instead of listening powerfully as an equal and asking permission to question powerfully with curiosity, is dis-empowering.

I found it interesting that the more this person talked at me, told me what I should be doing, the more calm and focused I became in listening to what they were saying and not saying, requesting permission to communicate with them and asking questions of them that elucidated for me what their background and experience was. I found this to be empowering for me.

Expanding my structures so far out to the horizon that they seem to not exist.

In a class on goal setting, as part of defining my goals I volunteered that I like the energy and freedom that come from having well-defined and organized structures. The facilitator asked if my description seemed a bit left-brained to me and if I would describe being this way most of my life. I agreed that it did and I was okay with this. Instead of reacting to the term left brained, I chose to take ownership of it. I described the steps I am taking to work on achieving my goals and why it is working for me.

I described that as far as including intuitive, right brain thinking into my processes, what I have been doing for a while now is working to change my structures from narrow, restrictive to pushing, expanding; moving them outwards to create a larger and larger space for greater possibilities to enter my life.

So one of my current goals is to push, expand my structures so far out to the horizon that they seem to disappear, to not exist; to create an empty space larger than any vision I can imagine or construct and not fill it up. One that is so much larger than any vision I have of myself that I create the possibility of falling up to higher potentials of achievement and actuality.

In combining right and left brain thinking in this manner I am more confident and relaxed with not knowing How this growth and change will happen. I am creating the structures that are working for me now, expanding them as far as I can out to the horizons of my vision; to create as large a space as I can to attract to myself new potentials for growth greater than anything I can imagine, and leaving the space empty to be filled in whatever way shows up to be appropriate towards achieving my goals.

Switching to Mozilla Firefox

I have switched from using Internet Explorer v7.0 to Mozilla Firefox today in an attempt to create a more useful experience blogging. Up until now I have had technical glitches using WordPress with Internet Explorer and I am hoping the Firefox browser will provide a better flowing experience.

Over this past weekend I had an experience of using Coaching and NLP skills with two students I was instructing in a Hypnotherapy Workshop. I saw that the Coaching and NLP techniques I’ve learned flowed naturally, almost without my realizing that I was using them with these two students. It provided me with the opportunity to interact with these students in a much more beneficial way for them and for myself than I would previously have been able to.

I had the very positive experience for myself that it did not matter what the outcome was, the interaction was not about me. I did not feel the need to fix anything, provide advice or my opinion and it did not matter what they chose to do with the questions and information I provided. Most importantly, I was relaxed and felt equal to both of these individuals who actually had more general hypnosis experience than I. I naturally built rapport, asked questions from my curiosity, acknowledged, validated, celebrated, encouraged, asked permission, offered different perspectives and so on.

I saw that I was genuinely curious with what they expressed as difficulties they were having professionally. I found that this curiosity created the opportunity for me to be objective and impartial, to create a large space for us to have a meaningful interaction in and to relax and let go of any concern that I did not have enough training or experience to coach them properly. I was not worried about the coaching process. The curiosity I had naturally brought up appropriate and meaningful questions and kept the process moving forward in a valuable way for all of us.

I left feeling neutral and complete. I had no feelings of having fixed or not fixed anything. I had no feelings of guilt or failure or any other negative burden or judgment of my performance. I actually did not care if they chose to use or not use anything I had questioned, said or offered. This was a very different experience for me.

My doubts that I am ready to start coaching faded greatly as a result of interacting with these two students. I realized that the self-doubt and judgment that I allowed into my beliefs as to whether I was ready to coach disappeared in the process of doing it. By focusing on genuinely being curious, everything else fell into place for me.

Coaching Model Rough Draft

1. Visioning – Creating the End-Result Vision!

2. Discovering – The Processes & Resources Available & Needed.

3. Aligning -  Beliefs, Values, Strategies, Processes & Systems.

4. Balancing – Time, Energy, Resources for Maximum Energy Output.

5. Reframing – Perspectives to align & balance to your vision

6. Integrating - Strategy, Structure, Resources into Action Process.

7. Acting 

8. Supporting

9. Completing

12 Signs of a Spiritual Awakening! – from International Hypnosis Federation – 4/2007.

 1. An increased tendency to let things happen rather than make them happen.

 2. Frequent attacks of smiling.

 3. Feelings of being connected with others and nature.

 4. Frequent overwhelming episodes of appreciation.

 5. A tendency to think and act spontaneously rather than from fear based on past experiences.

 6. An unmistakable ability to enjoy each moment.

 7. A loss of ability to worry.

 8. A loss of interest in conflict.

 9. A loss of interest in interpreting the actions of others.

10. A loss of interest in judging others.

11. A loss of interest in judging self.

12. Gaining the ability to love without expecting anything in return.

NLP is one way of looking at, or filtering the world. There are different generations of NLP out there, each with their differences.

These are some of the Major Suppositions of NLP that I find interesting. Try them on and see how they fit. You are free to agree or disagree with any of them, after all, they are just a point of view. Perhaps you’ll even take what is useful and valuable to you and use it. Perhaps you’ll choose to discard the rest. Enjoy!

1. We are always communicating.

2. All behavior is communication (an organism cannot not communicate or respond).

3. The highest quality information from another person is behavioral information.

4. Every behavior can be useful in some context.

5. The worth of the individual is held constant, while the behavior can change.

6. The meaning of the communication is the response that you get.

7. We experience the world uniquely, through our 5 senses, it is the “how” we structure the meaning of reality, the map we create of our own reality.

8. The map is not the territory, and people respond to their map of reality, not to reality itself. We can only interpret reality through our senses & experiences.

9. The ability to change the process by which we experience reality is often more important than changing the content by which we experience reality.

10. Experience has structure. We can accomplish anything if we break it down into small enough chunks and model it.

11. Anyone can do anything! If one human being can learn a skill or ability, it is possible, through modeling, for another human being to learn that skill or ability. 12. The element in a system with the most flexibility wins, or at least will usually be the controlling element.

13. People already have most of the resources they need to be successful.

14. It is better to have choices than no choices.

15. People always make the best choices available to them.

16. There is no failure, there is only feedback.

17. If what you are doing isn’t working, do something else. When you find out what works for you, do more of it. When you find out what doesn’t work for you, stop doing it.

“It is impossible to walk rapidly and be unhappy.”

Mother Theresa

Clutter & Learning

 Did you know that being disorganized has a negative effect on your ability to learn? Procrastination, misplacing things, keeping track of your finances, misfiling papers and photos, and finding balance in life. For more info see the link to the right.  http://outofchaos.ca/index.php

FOCUS VS. FOLD

The concept for this power tool is derived from my personal life experience and information I have learned from my teachers in the areas of spirituality, the martial arts, and NLP.

Throughout our lives we are provided with many opportunities and challenges, some people would say they are one and the same. When faced with an opportunity in our life, how do we employ our thoughts, feelings, and actions; our time, energy, and resources; our attention and intention, our desire and will? Do we Focus or do we Fold? Likewise, when faced with a challenge in our life, how do we employ our thoughts, feelings, and actions; our time, energy, and resources; our attention and intention, our desire and will? Do we Focus or do we Fold?

Do we Focus and bring to bear all the tools and experiences available to us to discover, attract and achieve the maximum potential possible from each opportunity or challenge that presents itself to us so that we may keep moving and growing? Or do we Fold, become overwhelmed, shutdown and get stuck in place?

Although I have placed Focus and Fold at opposite ends of the continuum for this power tool, they are not static. Each is more like a dial, with various settings, which can be positive or negative depending on the perspective in which they are used.

A camera can be set to many different focus points, or perspectives, depending on the need. Focus settings can be near or distant, narrow or panoramic, clear or fuzzy, sunny or cloudy, day or night etc.

Our own Focus settings are also variable. For example, do we focus on moving towards goals or away from pain, do we focus on the internal or the external, on the general or the specific? Do we focus on sameness or difference, on being independent or part of the team? Do we focus on randomness or order, on thinking or doing, on the past, present and future or just now? Do we focus on being responsible and accountable for our life or on remaining a victim? The list can go on and on. Choose your own focus settings as well.

We need to learn which Focus setting, or perspective, to use to meet each opportunity and challenge we face in our lives so that we may continue to move forward and grow towards reaching our maximum potential.

When we Fold in the face of an opportunity or challenge we believe is beyond our ability or capability, for whatever the reasons, real or imagined, we become overwhelmed, shutdown and get stuck. This is a matter of being locked on only one setting, or perspective of the Fold dial.

A tree being whipped by a furious storm learns to fold to the wind to survive the challenge so that it may reach its leaves to the sunshine that follows. Many types of vegetation fold their leaves to survive the challenges of heat and cold. A poker player learns to fold his hand to stay in the game and keep his/her opportunities of winning alive. An army folds into the night to escape its enemy and survive to keep its opportunities alive, and to fight new challenges. There are many settings to the Fold dial. We need to remain open to perceive them and choose which to use.

By learning to recognize whether we are taking the perspective of Focus vs. Fold in a given situation, and what dial setting the perspective we’ve chosen is centered on, we can then decide whether or not it is a valuable one for us to take; one that makes the best use of the opportunity or challenge present. If not, we have the option of adjusting the dial settings to create the maximum potential benefit for ourselves from each opportunity and challenge we face.

Focus vs. Fold offers a powerful perspective that can be used by anyone to make great use of the many opportunities and challenges present in every aspect of their life to move forward and continue to grow. I am using it in mine.

Furthermore, I believe the concept of Focus vs. Fold can be a useful complement to the Power Tools. As I continue to study the different Power Tools and participate in the related teleclasses I am continuing to explore how to develop this concept further.

Your feedback is welcomed and appreciated.

Bruce Paye

“A Coach is your partner in achieving your personal goals, your champion during turnaround, your trainer in communication and life skills, your sounding board when making choices, your motivator when strong actions are called for, your unconditional support when you take a hit, your mentor in personal development, your co-designer when developing an extraordinary project, your beacon during stormy times, your wake-up call if you don’t hear your own, and most importantly: your partner in living the life you know you’re ready for, personally and professionally.” – Thomas Leonard