Coaching – The Thrivable Society

Pragmatism

It may seem like I am an optimist and the whole thrivability effort is full of utopian idealism. I am sure, for me, that is not the case. I am a pragmatist. While I love exploring, if the exploration doesn’t result in something that matters and gets tangibly completed, I feel like I wasted the time. And I abhor wasted time.

Back in September at SOCAP, I was speaking with Whitney of Culture Counts. She has a personality assessment tool, and pointed out that I was primarily someone driven to learn, share, and do what matters. This, of course, flattered me, so I decided it was accurate.

At The Agency, which we just launched, I talk about being bold, pragmatic, and inspired. I carefully chose these three things because I think each alone is a lost cause, but together they are an unstoppable force.

Inspiration – infused with spirit, from a refreshing perspective, forward-looking.
Bold – a real stretch or leap, requires courage and fearlessness, significance.
Pragmatism – getting it done, working with what is.

Pragmatism is about creating a feedback loop from practice to theory and back to practice again. Looking at whole sections of my life, I can see my drive for this. Like when I decided to leave academia because it wasn’t enough about practice in the world at large.

There is a figure eight, cutting back and forth between getting things done and reflecting on what is the right thing to get done based on what has worked.

I can only tolerate so much debate and minutiae before I have to ask: what are we doing? But then, I can only tolerate so much doing before I have to ask: is this the best approach? Is this thought through carefully? Are we using what is known to inform wiser action? I love process, but only process that leads to results and action. Being, and mindfulness feel very important to me. And yet, if being isn’t leading to doing, then it seems like a pretty narcissistic practice.

Dance. Hold the tension between. Watch for indicators of being too far in one direction or the other, then correct course.

Getting what matters done requires a solid focus on getting things done, and a wisdom to know what to do and how to best do it. And that is what The Agency is all about catalyzing.

Catastrophe Thinking

by Thriver

I am pretty sure my entire life has been lived under the hovering cloud of the apocalypse. Sure there were moments of possibility – the fall of the wall, the election of Obama, the end of apartheid in South Africa. But mostly the global events we hear about focus on the end of civilization as we know it, albeit in small chunks at a time. It is still framed as disaster…. we are losing what we had and aren’t moving into a better world (except in small isolated ways). From AIDS to Bird Flu, from Rwanda genocide to Sudan and Burma, nuclear proliferation, the Gulf Coast disaster 2.0 (and Katrina as 1.0), Haiti (and so many other earthquakes, mud slides, volcanoes, and other weather/geological disasters for humans) – plus economic crisis and climate change, the extinction of so many species, and the war on terror (which just grows fear and terror) all converge – even for those of us who don’t watch the news. There is overpopulation, sex slaves, and child mortality issues as well as deforestation, crumbling infrastructure, and coach potatoes living in suburban nightmares. There are activists working cancer into their bodies with their martyr-like dedication. There are those in sedated near oblivion – zombie-living. There are hedonic wealth-seekers facing doom with greed and opulence. This is the story of crumbling and disintegration. Our globalized post-modern world tumbling through catastrophes.

We tell this story, and we have been telling this story, for my whole life. And the fear-mongering started long before I was born – the the cold war threatening nuclear annihilation for half a century.

I am tired of this story. I am tired of seeing faces worn down with the contraction of fear. I am weary of the negativity and desperation driving people to hate, divide, hoard, and fight. I am sick of finding out my government is justifying killing people in order to obtain more resources (because, I guess, we are in such a state of lack!).

We victimize ourselves, and in that suffering, we victimize others with our trauma.

Enough. Put it down. Don’t believe the hype. Don’t fight for a world you already gave up on.

Look for the flower emerging in the sidewalk – life pressing through without complaint or blame to assert its urge for sunlight. Nature is incredibly resilient and adaptive. Work within the world we have to co-create the world we want. Focus on what is going well and right, and encourage more of it. Breathe and be the serenity prayer.

Do not deny the brutal facts before us, but know that you see those facts through a filter of the story you are telling yourself (and others) about the world. You can transform that story and see those facts in a fresh light – from a different vantage point. Turn on the thrivability light, and recognize that life gives rise to more life. Never before in human history have we known a greater wealth of possibility.

After three days in Philadelphia discussing philanthropy and philanthropic strategies for transformation, I feel deeply convinced and inspired by a model I can see of thrivable philanthropy. Gerard calls it evolutionary philanthropy, and there might be some subtle distinctions. However, let me explain. And then I hope it will be more clear why our stories about our world could shift to transform our experience of it and the world itself.

Let’s call charity the work that we do to address immediate needs of others who can not, for whatever reason, care for themselves. It is as if you are standing on a riverbank, see a baby floating downstream, and you rush out to save the drowning child. Only, there are not enough people pulling drowning babies from the river, and the babies have suffered from being in the river. Our hearts break open. Some savvy volunteer wonders aloud – “who is tossing babies in this river?” And a crew of helpers decide to go upstream to find the cause. And they discover a system out of balance allowing babies to land in the river. They decide to change the system and set up programs to help mothers and advocate for social justice. We call this social change and social justice work. Still, babies are floating down the river. The philanthropist supporting this work starts to wonder – huh, what impact is my giving having? I want babies to stop ending up in the river – this is madness! And the social justice worker says – well, we think we have decreased the number of babies in the river, but this is a complex adaptive system so I can’t name all the causes and effects! I can’t clearly attribute your dollars having saved babies without acknowledging other programs and the dynamic changes in the system in which our town operates, babies are born, the economy shifts, and nature takes her course. We might have even changed our baby counting practices in a way that changed how many babies we can account for, which skewed the numbers giving an artificial bump. But we are not sure.

Then a thinker stands up and says – it is the very culture and beliefs in which we operate that give rise to these systems that aren’t taking care of all these babies. And the philanthropist has to choose now – either fund better metrics to know whether there is an impact… or fund cultural shift. And there are still babies in the river, and everyone’s hearts break open knowing it and seeing it. And they are sad.

Transforming culture takes longer, it is harder to measure, the complex dynamic system of it all makes it next to impossible to attribute agency clearly. And, it is where the greatest possibility for creating a culture that ever more deeply transforms itself, cares for each other and the whole, and enables the world we want.

Change your story.

5 Ways to Save Yourself from Relationship Overwhelm

by Thriver

photo credit: 1Happysnapper (photography)

Social Media is transformative and magnificent. It is also time consuming for most people, and it can lead to relationship overwhelm. You find so many amazing people out there who share your belief, interests, passions, and humor.

If you are trying to create more space in your life for what matters most to you, here are 5 ways you can save yourself from relationship overwhelm.

Time allocation. Create office hours – during a set time, you connect to people. Maybe it is 8-9am or 4-5pm every day. Maybe it is 2 days a week. How many hours do you want to give it? Maybe you have 5 hours a week, and you track how many you use. Experiment to find the method of time management that fits you and your lifestyle. Do what works.
Rings of priority – who is in the center, who is on the periphery? Make sure to give time to those people that really matter. Filter your social media feeds, so you always can see what they are up to. Be clear with yourself what your criteria are for being near that center loop of connections. The periphery is important too, as a resource for bringing in new information. Find balance for yourself. Don’t cut it off…but don’t get lost there either. What will help you hold that? Is it a container of time? A medium of communication?
Make a request. Share with your network your aim to manage your relationships so you can be a better friend and contributor. Say something like, “I cherish you and the wonderful connections I have, AND, in order to be a better friend, I want to be more careful about how I am giving attention. Can you please consider if contacting me is urgent, important, or valuable? I hope this helps us improve the quality of our connection.”
Make REGULAR sacred space – no tech, all family, or even all alone time. Hold it as your recharge time. Budge anything on your calendar before you give this up. Think of it as your morning oatmeal. Without it, you can’t bring your best self to the world. I don’t mean sacred as in religious practice. I mean sacred as in – never give this up. You are too important in your life not to make time for yourself. I have done this for years, and found it really rewarding. Oh, and do communicate to your connections that you have this boundary so they can respect it. They will hold it ONLY to the degree that you take it seriously.
Think in longer time frames and make daily decisions on those frames (and not the minute to minute ones). Think of what you want your life to be like over the next 5 years. What can you do today that helps you have that life? What is un-necessary, superfluous, repetitive (doing it twice or more isn’t adding value or enjoyment)? Imagine wiping your calendar completely free. No obligations. What do you want really and truly to add back in? (This often happens when you have a major crisis happen – it gives you permission to start over.)

“What are you going to do with this one wild and precious life?” ~ Mary Oliver

Open Wide

by Thriver

When I was pregnant with my daughter, I was determined to have a drug free and very conscious birthing process. My son had been 10 and a half pounds. Giving birth to him in a handful of powerful pushes both tore up my body and freckled my face with broken blood vessels. I was half dazed with pain-killers, and I was certainly not fully present to the experience.

photo credit: bachmont

How, I wondered, am I going to navigate this better? So I read a bunch of books – on meditation and visualization as well as birthing. One of the relevant things I learned is that we often respond to pain with fear, which makes us contract. In childbirth (and in the body in general) this means that the muscles tighten up. Which leads to more pain, which leads to more tightening… just when we need to be most open and relaxed. We go against ourselves.

I had learned, as a young horsewoman, to relax my body. To send a message to the animal that it can relax too. So I had some small sense of what this was like. For childbirth, I had to ramp that up significantly. I practiced relaxing every part of my body. I did breathing and meditation exercises. I did yoga, hoping to make my body more supple. I wasn’t one of those highly structured people that did things at set intervals, but I kept at it in my meandering but persistent way.

I succeeded. I thought of the pain as warmth, turned it in my mind into warm light. My daughter was born on this ray of light. I do not think of it as pain at all, although you might say my neurons were firing that way. I was very aware and present to it. I was grateful for the gift of her and treasuring each moment (without judgment, for what it was).

Now I use this process in other domains of my life. When I feel fear and want to contract, I intentionally open and release. When I feel my needs are not met, rather than shutting down or closing up – or telling stories about it – I become more direct and precise in making requests or sharing my experience. Sometimes it takes a little time to turn around, but I always get there.

photo credit: h.koppdelaney

I get that it seems contradictory. Yet, I have to say it works so well so consistently. That doesn’t mean I don’t experience fear or contraction. I do. It just doesn’t stay around very long. Usually within hours if not minutes, I can shift to being more wide open, curious, and direct.

How do you navigate contraction in your life? How do you transform it? How did you learn how to do so?

Body Image

by Thriver

I was conversing with a good friend last night, and the subject turned to looks. I said something then that I want to share with you now.

People in general are so self-conscious about their appearance. There are millions, if not billions, of dollars spent on appearance. And yet, over and over people get together and fall in love. Not because people are perfect. But because when one person loves another, they admire that person for who they are (we hope). The lover embraces the other. Finds beauty in the shape of a belly button, the curve of a collar bone, the bend of a knee, a dimple in a cheek. The lover, admiring the partner, gets this sort of feedback in way too many cases, “but my x is y.” My thighs are too fat, my nose too long, my eyes too small, my arms too thick or too thin, and on and on. This is most often the case with women, but men do it too.

What in the world is going on? The lover admires, and in response the beloved says, “don’t admire me, I am not what I wish I was.” Rather than letting the lover admire, we put on costumes that conceal. As women, we put on makeup to conceal, to make theater of our appearance. Costumes are great. We need them. They indicate expectations we can have about behavior Costumes are fun to play with. (Wear the wrong costume, and enjoy the way others are disturbed in their expectations.)

photo credit: adampiggott

The woman says, “I don’t want you to see me without my makeup on.” Oh really? The lover can’t peak behind the curtain and get a backstage view of the star?

When we complain about our looks, what we are really saying is, “the lover should not love me as I am.” or “I don’t love myself as I am.”

I really love burlesque. There is something so exquisite about a person, of whatever shape and size, totally flaunting their sexuality as it is, with no excuses. I want that for you. Maybe not the public spectacle part, but the flaunting what you got for your beloved. Focus on your assets and play to them.

Ask yourself:

for whom do I want to be different than I am?
Why?
What does that get for me?
What does that get for them?
What need does that meet in me?

Note: Who am I to give you this? Let me reveal a bit about me. Very few people notice this about me, but I have a congenital bone deformity. That means, from the time I was born, the bones in my arm have been crooked. I have scars showing the work done to improve it but not fully “correct” it. I would never say, “my arms are too flabby” when there is something much more noticeable – that I can’t do anything about – which makes me “flawed” in the model perfect sense. And then let me tell you this even more revealing bit of information. Never once. Not ever. Not even in the slightest. Over the last 25 years of relationships has anyone ever even hinted that they like all of me, except that. I have had guys want to adjust my bike handles for me, so they work better. I have had guys ask what surgery would make it more functional. But never once did anyone ever say, in any permutation of it, “this is so unattractive” or “I don’t love that part of you.” And if that is something a lover accepts – the right ones – the ones that love me….the ones that love you as you are… then I think they will also accept your thighs, your nose, your eyes, and all the rest of you too. Don’t insult their love and ardor by demeaning the glorious object of their desire. Love your body, as it is, as the lover beholds it, with eyes filled with admiration.

It is one wild and precious life you have, and this is the body you have for it. It is a miracle. Millions of years of life begetting life led to you and your body. What a marvel! As it is.

Happiness

by Thriver

I bet, if you read or know me, you probably expect me to advocate for happiness.

photo credit: Jasmic

I don’t.

Here is why.

If you came to me and said, Jean, I want more than anything to be happy. This is what I would do:

Give me everything you have. I am going to flog you.

“But, Jean!” I hear you say.

Happiness is a relative state. If you want to be happy tomorrow, then making you really miserable today can lead to that. So if tomorrow I then don’t flog you and return some of your things to you, it is likely that you will be happy! (Timelines may vary.) Do you see how incredibly messed up that can make us?

I have been bothered by the idea of happiness for a long time, but it wasn’t until I started reading Satisfaction by Gregory Berns MD PhD that I understood why. He explains how people who win the lottery don’t usually have enduring happiness. And how people who suffer traumatic loss find happiness. Happiness does not come about at some permanent threshold of having or knowing. It is by judging where we are now against where we recently have been. It is something we choose. Something we get by deciding what we want to notice about our present and what we want to compare it to in our past (or imagined future for that matter).

This resonates too with what I learned through NLP Coach training. I can shift to a state of happiness through several means – creating a different context for what I am focused on, a different perspective to view it from, or bringing to the present a state I have experienced in the past or can imagine experiencing in the future. It is all about setting the terms for the comparison.

Fulfillment, satisfaction, flow, these are terms that have more depth and meaning in them. These are more accurate descriptions, I think, for the desired state we want to achieve at a personal level.

Free Tasty Technicolor Treats Creative Commons

CC: Pink Sherbet Photography

I am not interested in living in a happy world. And I think in many ways the problems we face today are created by efforts to live in a happy world. Giving our kids candy makes them happy. Maybe playing video games all day makes some of us happy. Is that a good measure of the world we want? Does that lead the system to create a harmonious flow for individuals and our collective? I want to live in a fulfilling world of flow. Don’t you?

Zero-Sum Games

by Thriver

Have you ever heard of zero-sum games? How about non-zero sum games? For those of you who have not heard of zero-sum games, allow me to briefly explain and share some links. It comes from political and economic theory, and it means if wins are plusses and losses are negatives, the equation will end up with zero. Think about money. We start with zero, Alfred borrows 10 so he can buy widgets from Zeno. Alfred gives Zeno the 10. Alfred has -10 and Zeno has +10, and the system has zero sum.

While there are lots of games we play that actually add up numbers, such as football, in the end one team has more points than the other and is therefore the winner. What matters is not how many points but the difference between them and who has more. This zero-sum game mentality shows up in our behaviors toward each other. Do we act as if my having something means you can’t have it? It puts us in a competition mind frame, and we behave like opponents.

What if there are non-zero sum games? Can we, as humans, transcend the competition mindset and behave cooperatively? What if there are games where helping you do well helps me do well? Sure, there are lots of places we interact where this is appropriate! I have always been surprised that business plans have competition analysis and yet don’t adequately describe the cooperation network the organization will be embedded in.

The real question I want to address here, now that we know a bit about zero-sum and non-zero sum games: how do we work in non-zero sum ways when people we need to work with operate from a zero-sum mind frame?

First and foremost, trying to change others through argument or explanation often just makes them defensive and resistant. I suggest a two-prong approach.

Use their zero-sum mentality to your advantage – and the advantage of the group. Ask where the zero-sum games are – because they exist, and point these zero-sum minded folks to those opportunities.
Demonstrate success of non-zero sum approach. Model what you want to see in the world. Be the change you seek. Through demonstration, others can see the success that comes from it. What they are truly after is success.

That sounds all well and good in an abstract theoretical way. But the situation at hand is not an ideal – it is a specific. And likely in that specific, you, my non-zero sum friends, are on a board of an organization having to navigate decisions about the organization with a zero-sum thinking collaborator, for example. What do you do?

photo credit: Evil Erin

First I want to talk about body work. So much of what we communicate happens in the body rather than through our words. Avoid sitting across from people who want to act oppositionally. Sit beside them. When they talk about a problem, be sure they gesture toward a shared space in front of them rather than at you. Imagine that they are playing dodgeball as if they were one of those tennis ball launching machines – stay away from the physical space they are launching at with their gestures.

Second, I want to talk about a model of understanding interpersonal dynamics. I use this model often when talking about relationships between people. The diagram, at right, shows two people, A and B, as well as a third node – the WE of A and B. Zero-sum thinkers usually think of their connection as the gray line from you to them. Helping them think beyond zero-sum involves helping them understand the WE connection. When we are in the AB relationship, we still use words like: I, me, mine, you, yours. When we are in the WE of AB, we talk about: we, our, ours. These pronouns point to what we have together in the relationship. demonstrate WE language. Start with you and the zero-sum person. As the language becomes reflected in their statements, you can begin to expand the WE to include others. Keep expanding until you reach we as a community (or what level you need to be at for the group objectives).

Next I want to share a bit about facilitation questions. Our zero-sum thinkers say they want to do something. Ask, “what will that get for you/us?” When they give an answer, ask again, “What will that get for you/us?” First, this helps them feel heard. They have the attention. Be sure to ask in a kind and inquisitive way, because they will quickly intuit if you are asking in order to undermine them. Remember, they think in competitive ways. When you get to a gem – something that is common ground for the collective – in the answer you get from the “what will that get for you/us” THEN ask, “how else might we be able to get that?” Bring in others to help answer that.

This is a brief introduction to ways to navigate zero-sum thinking. We can continue to explore, especially with specific stories. If you have specific needs you want to discuss, we can discuss your issues in a private context via my coaching services.

I would love to hear ways you have navigated zero-sum thinkers in the comments or on twitter (@nurturegirl).

Transformation Kit

by Thriver

Recently I got a late evening call from a good friend. A crisis had emerged. In 5 minutes I packed and headed over. Well, I brought beer, because this friend and I often met for beer and conversation. And I also brought chocolate. A girl knows in times of change, a good bar of high quality organic dark chocolate is a necessity – both for the incredible yumminess of it as well as the chemicals they say it triggers in the brain. I brought nuts. Several kinds. I didn’t know how long our conversation would last. Protein is important. I wanted an easy snack that could act as a supplement or get one over a skipped meal. You get the point – it was a 5 minute grab bag of essentials.

Nurturing is most critical and visibly necessary at moments when our lives take a drastic turn quickly. In truth we can use nurturing all the time. Personally, as someone willing to ride the edge, I have fallen off the edge more than once. I have my little patterns now for recovery, as many of us do. Some of the patterns are about giving into the darkness and despair enough to feel it thoroughly. Some of the patterns have emerged from successful tools I have used for recovering. So, I am thinking about developing something of a Transformation Crisis Nurture Girl Kit.

To nourish the body

list of items to have on hand and what each is for
list of stretches and other body care ideas and how they help

To nourish the heart

activities and exercises to tap into love
resources on the heart, love, and friendship

To nourish the mind

inquiries and challenges for thinking about situations differently
quick reference guide to non-violent communication process

To care for the spirit

list of inspirational quotes – the wisdom of those who have passed this threshold before
ways to clear space for spiritual reflection

photo credit: S?ndy

Suffering in transition is a sign of our care and attachment. Having tools at hand for mediating our experience and challenging ourselves to grow and evolve can be invaluable.

What would you want to have in your Crisis Kit? And what do you do – and how are you being – when you or a loved one experience radical transitions?

The Power of Coaching

by Thriver

Five years after going through coach training, I am reflecting on how much it has impacted my life. I mean not just in terms of clients I have worked with, but in terms of how it has impacted what I have done. I was explaining to my coach today how it has grounded me.

During times of transition, I used to feel like there was a freefall into an abyss. What I thought was true shifted and my hooks on the world melted away. I would lose my place. I always managed to land on my feet and make something of my transitions. However, the chaos rippled through many spheres in my world. I am, once again, in a space of transition. There has been a limbo state for a few years, working on projects, working on self, working on my spirituality, working through my divorce. And oddly, despite all the upheavel in the last few months and the shift I sense is coming, I feel grounded. I might, at times, lay down on the foundation floor instead of standing proudly on it, but there is no abyss I am falling through.

Coaching gave me the tools to look around – where am I at right now? What can I learn from the past to get closer to where I want to be? What do I most want? How do I prioritize what I want? Knowing the gap between where I am and where I want to be, what do I want to do to bridge that gap? When will I do that? And how will I know I am making progress? These are often big questions. And they don’t get answered in a day or a week. They evolve. And while they evolve, coaching offers tools for managing my headspace and heartspace in the process.

How do I not take things personally? How do I navigate conflicts? How do I leave behind beliefs about the world and relationships that are not working for me? Coaching gives me these tools. My particular coach training also relied heavily on Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). They work incredibly well together. Coaching is aspirational – dream bigger dreams, believe in yourself and others as whole, creative, and resourceful. NLP is a set of best practices on how the brain works. Or how the brain and the body actually work. It doesn’t aim to have an overarching theory of psychology, instead it assumes that what one person can do, another can do. The trick is being able to perceive how. Its practices can range from body and eye movements to strong visualization tactics. Together, coaching and NLP reinforce each other’s strengths.

Coaching has given me answers to the questions I pose above. And the question I haven’t addressed is what that means for me. What did I do or achieve because of this work? There are many things that are too personal to share, and I will give a short list of some I can share:

came to terms with a failing marriage and successfully ended it while maintaining a solid relationship to support my children’s well being.
created and evolved my own business. I work on my terms with clients I admire, striving not for high returns but for deep alignment.
have regular, solid and sacred time with my children and family.
repeatedly decided to attend events (such as SoCap) or achieve milestones and developed creative ways of making them happen.
developed an international network of support and care, making me more resilient and more open to possibilities.
learned to listen deeply and proactively to others, which is a gift in itself.
set and achieved audacious personal and business goals in terms of what I did/do, who I am with, and what benefits I receive.
healed enough to love fully, openly, compassionately, and resiliently. Able to communicate effectively across any range of emotion.

I still have lots of room for improvement.

I have always been courageous – committing myself to a vision and willfully making it real no matter how uncharted the territory. So that isn’t new or about coaching. And I have always been committed to approaching life as a journey to grow through and experience deeply. Coaching and NLP gave me a toolset for acting upon my core self and in ways that I want to show up in the world. And I am deeply and profoundly grateful.

Huge thanks to my coach and dear friend Jill Palermo and to my trainers specifically Tim Hallbom and Jan Elfline. And very hearty thanks to Drake Zimmerman and Dan Rose for encouraging me on the path.

Making Bold Leaps

by Thriver

Very rarely in life do we encounter clear decisions points – two roads diverge. The majority of our decisions are slow arcs following trajectories we have set for ourselves. How, when we have the opportunity to make a marked shift – a bold leap, do we muster the determination to do it?

Extreme leaps of Parkour

From experience with others and myself, I offer you one possibility:

Be clear about the benefits and consequences of both or all choices. When the choice you want is clear, image the future that this choice brings – what do you imagine it smells and looks like to be in that future?

Place yourself into the future, taking in through your five senses, the experience of it. How does it feel in your body? Did you shoulders settle? Did you shift into a more desirable state? Higher energy? Less tension? Experience it. Then, imagine accepting the consequences as worth the opportunity. Does it still feel vivid and viable?

Look back at where you are now and see the path emerging from that time of decision to the time of experiencing the rewards of the decision. Know that it is possible. And that, if it matters to you, a path will form.

Come back to the present moment of decision. Feel the imagined future pulling you toward it. You stand on the precipice of your future. Fall into it. Get a running start with small steps, if that helps,…and then let the gravity of the future vision pull you towards it. leap into your new path. A leap is part jump and part fall. Once you jump, the falling it effortless.

How have you made bold leaps? What have you learned about yourself? What bold leap will you take next?

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