Can You Get Your Autobiography On A Page?

How would you condense the themes and patterns of your life into a short story? What have you consciously worked on to change about yourself? Where are you at with radical acceptance? I love Portia Nelson’s Autobiography:

Autobiography in Five Short Chapters  By Portia Nelson

Chapter I

I walked down the street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I fall in I am lost… I am helpless. It isn’t my fault. It takes forever to find a way out.

Chapter II

I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I pretend I don’t see it. I fall in again. I can’t believe I am in the same place. But, it isn’t my fault. It still takes a long time to get out.

Chapter III

I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I see it is there. I still fall in… it’s a habit. My eyes are open. I know where I am. It is my fault. I get out immediately.

Chapter IV

I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I walk around it.

Chapter V

I walk down another street.

How Do You Hire For Agelessness?

Hiring for agelessness is based upon someone’s consciousness, their perspective, their ability to shift from me to we. The individual is focused on how we can create something great together. These are ageless attributes.

You may know someone who, at twenty, is fearful, domineering and stuck in their ways. Or, perhaps you know of a sixty or seventy-something who is as vibrant, vital and eternally curious as your five year old? Passion, wonder, the ability to work collaboratively knows no age bounds.

These are all qualities that are core requisites for working in the 21st century: the age of speed and technology. It’s up to the user how they manage themselves to make the best use of this environment. They either lead themselves to more fragmentation or more wholeness – leveraging their own wisdom and that of the collective wisdom, their teams or families.

Solving our complex problems today requires an integration of different disciplines and a sense of how to creatively bring together seemingly disparate factors or factions. We can’t afford any less of our whole selves showing up to the party. You hire for agelessness first and foremost by paying attention to the individual in front of you, not just what the packaging looks like or what their resume says. It’s a brave new world.

Why is Change So Hard? Realistic Strategies and Compassion Required.

Dan Heath quotes a psychological study where two group of people are given different kinds of foods – one cookies, the other radishes. They are then asked to solve an insolvable puzzle. The high sugar group lasts 2 1/2 times longer than the vegetable group. I am a leadership/change consultant and a trained holistic health counselor/therapist so - I wonder if the radish group realized earlier on that the puzzle was unsolvable since they had healthy food in their systems!

I agree that change requires enormous energy and self control. We have so much energy to expend before we need to replenish, and so much self control before we have a meltdown. Individuals (and organizations) have a limited capacity of how much and what kind of change they can handle. You start with your desire, will and some advice/support on how to change. Then you try. If you don’t get the desired results, you either modify WHAT you are trying to change or HOW you are doing it. Change requires will, action and experimentation. To keep trying requires commitment.

Change is hard because energy and attention are finite resources. It can be easier when we realize that it is about creating different neural connections and/or rewiring well-grooved neural pathways in the brain (changing a habit).

Focusing your attention, repeatedly over time, literally changes the chemical circuitry in your brain. True, sustained change is hard because we often don’t “get it right” on the first, fifth or fiftieth time and we need encouragement, support and tools to stick with it until our brain gets with the program!  Staying focused on the positive, the outcome you want, versus what you are not getting, is the key. It’s as simple and hard as this.

© Copyright 2012 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved.               www.sagelead.com

What Gets You To Action?

Yesterday I talked about making sure you have accurately assessed yourself – WHY you are putting off action.

Here are some strategies to address the root causes of why this happens:

1. For fear: Identify similar tasks where you have been successful in the past to bolster your confidence. Focus on the present possibility of success and try to stay with that versus jumping ahead to the implications of success. Stay present. Enjoy the ride!

2. For worrying about what others think: ask for support and feedback from your “fans” on what you do well. Remind yourself about what you do well by creating a list of successes, and know that you can only control yourself. Put on mental blinders: It’s not your business what people think of you. Your job is to do the best you can with the matter at hand.

3. For being overwhelmed: work with your boss, coach, peer, spouse or friend to talk out loud to “de-whelm” yourself and make the project or task more manageable: break it down into smaller, step/step tasks; ask them for guidance, coaching, suggestions as to what to do or how to do it; ask for helpful resources (books, articles, websites, training).

4. If you don’t like the task: delegate it, if you can. If not, then find a way to make it fun: play music, dance, doodle, give yourself a reward after key milestones and upon completion.

5. For fear of loss: acknowledge the loss – what you loved about the previous project or team, make plans to (re-) visit if appropriate and/or say good-bye.

These are some brief suggestions to get you started. (I’ve done whole seminars just on procrastination!). The key is to identify one of the above solutions or create your own – and try it. Don’t delay. 

© Copyright 2012 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved.               www.sagelead.com

What Keeps You From Action?

We all have moments – hours, days or weeks – where we are putting something off: a task or a project. It could be making a phone call to someone confronting an issue, starting a project, or doing the last step to finish a project.

Considering what “it” is that gets put off, you first need to give yourself a proper diagnosis – to delve into why you keep putting “it” off – before you can create an action plan around it. Today we’ll talk about the diagnosis and tomorrow we’ll talk about how to address it.

Typically there are two root emotions that allow procrastination to grow. They are fear and loss.

1. Fear falls into two categories: fear of failure or fear of success. We have these fears for a number of reasons. To name a few:

2. We are worried about what others think.

3. We are overwhelmed and not sure how to manage or prioritize the project - we don’t know WHAT to do or where to begin; we don’t know HOW to do something; we don’t believe we can do it or have something of value to offer; if we succeed more will be expected of us in the future. We are thinking of all of this at once!

4. We plain just don’t like the task.

5. You might think “loss” is an odd thing to have on this list. But sometimes you could be putting off finishing a project because you love it so much and don’t want it to end. All endings are beginnings and all beginnings are the end of something that came before. You might not want to start a project as it signifies leaving another project team behind or going to a different office building. By putting it off, you don’t have to deal with the loss of that project or group.

If you are frustrated with yourself and want to get yourself to action, ask yourself is your procrastination due to one of these reasons? When you answer yes, then you can start brainstorming how to address it. If it is none of the above, then ask yourself: Am I really being honest? Why won’t I do this task? Keep asking why until you get to the core emotion or reason. If it’s not one of the above, what else is it?

© Copyright 2012 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved.               www.sagelead.com

Distinguishing Between Positive Psychology and Coaching

I’m hard pressed to find a difference. Both are focused on what is good and positive and building on this for positive results.

“Positive Psychology is the scientific study of the strengths and virtues that enable individuals and communities to thrive…This field is founded on the belief that people want to lead meaningful and fulfilling lives, to cultivate what is best within themselves, and to enhance their experiences of love, work, and play.”

This is a departure from the traditional field of psychology and traditional therapy which emphasizes mental illness or what is wrong with us.

The International Coaches Federation (ICF) “defines coaching as partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.” This definition was buried deep in their website. This organization is a valiant effort to set up some kind of standards so unschooled or inexperienced people can’t hang out their shingle and declare themselves a coach.

Both disciplines focus on building on what works, what our strengths are. Neither is focused on what is broken.

ICF defines the distinction between therapy and coaching as:

“Coaching can be distinguished from therapy in a number of ways. First, coaching is a profession that supports personal and professional growth and development based on individual-initiated change in pursuit of specific actionable outcomes. These outcomes are linked to personal or professional success. Coaching is forward moving and future focused.”

Therapy can say all this, especially positive psychology-based.

“Therapy, on the other hand, deals with healing pain, dysfunction and conflict within an individual or a relationship between two or more individuals. The focus is often on resolving difficulties arising from the past which hamper an individual’s emotional functioning in the present, improving overall psychological functioning, and dealing with present life and work circumstances in more emotionally healthy ways.”

This is a description of some modalities of therapy. At my last count there are over 250 therapeutic modalities, with positive psychology being one of them.

“Therapy outcomes often include improved emotional/feeling states. While positive feelings/emotions may be a natural outcome of coaching, the primary focus is on creating actionable strategies for achieving specific goals in one’s work or personal life. The emphasis in a coaching relationship is on action, accountability and follow through.”

Both therapy and coaching should focus on insight, behavior change, actionable strategies and outcomes with positive emotional states if they are doing their jobs effectively. How can you heal someone without enhancing positive emotions? How can someone achieve their goals if they are negative?

In terms of coaching, I don’t know how you can help someone have and be more of what they want in their life or work without dealing with their feelings.

In the marketplace of free enterprise – does it matter what someone calls themselves as long as the consumer goes in with their eyes open and is clear on what they are getting and feels that their Coach or Therapist has given them a service of value – has joined with them in their process to help them move their life forward in ways where they are achieving their goals and thriving?

Regardless of your profession – all of life and work is a healing process to help us be more of who we can be – more whole – fulfill our potential. We are all fragmented in some way or not as “good” as we can be. Each professional practitioner has pieces or elements that help us get more of what we want in work and life. They have similar training and toolkits around deep listening, client relationship building. They may have different theoretical models and frameworks, which do factor in, in terms of orientation and approach to the work.

The disciplines use some different language that appeals to different audiences. Does it matter if they are essentially talking about the same thing? Targeted language is important. Could it be that it comes down to what label someone is comfortable with?

© Copyright 2012 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved.               www.sagelead.com

Coaching: What Distinguishes It From Therapy?

The field of coaching as a structured profession is new and loosely defined. I’m an experienced business and leadership coach. I am also a trained therapist.

I left the field of therapy at 27 to go into business. At that time, one of my clients who had schizophrenia said to me, “Well you are an okay therapist but you are too young. Go out in the world and get some life experience and then you’ll be a good therapist.” When I told my other client I was leaving, she said, “I hope you drop dead.” And then hung up. So goes the life of a therapist! Lol.

Having now worked in business for over 20 years, I found my clients words to ring true – not dropping dead!  I can attest to the richness of my work and life experience making me a better coach, counselor, and consultant.

The clinical training I received has been invaluable in my coaching and facilitation work in terms of:

1. Understanding what is required for significant, sustainable behavior change.

2. Understanding group dynamics and how to best leverage them to facilitate insight and learning.

3. Having an appreciation for how many people are “in the room” when talking with a client.

4. Understanding how to keep boundaries between “my stuff” and my client’s “stuff” in service of what is really helpful for the goals of our engagement and their development.

I have been in many industry discussions focused on differentiating the distinction between therapy and coaching – and have yet to find a clear definition that is accurate and concrete. I heard it said, “While coaching holds that the client is whole, resourceful, capable and creative, therapy does not.” Many therapists would take exception.

When you are working with “the worried well”, the lines are gray. The overlap is both coaches and therapists work in the realm of emotions. Today our problems are more complex so require both head and heart, thoughts and feelings.

While many therapists lead with emotions, they may also work on left brain strategies to heal their clients. With matters of the heart, you can’t always hold the results to a timeline and the cathartic process can be charged and messy. Coaching work is time bound, to monitor and measure results. While coaches may lead with left brain approaches, they need to address emotions in order to get at the roots of sustainable change. All true change takes place in the context of safety and trusted relationships.

To me, the bottom line for coaching is: have the coach and coachee created an alliance of the client’s design that will help him or her achieve their goals? Does the coach have a diverse toolkit that can help his/her client see and feel the possible and make real, measurable progress against it?

Is the coach serving as a safe sounding board. co-strategist and giving their client timely, candid feedback? This is the heart of coaching. Nothing more, nothing less.

© Copyright 2012 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights Reserved.               www.sagelead.com