Saturday, June 28, 2008

Get Focused

One of the best things coaches do with clients is to focus attention. Apart from an awareness of what is happening in the here and now, no real change is possible. In coaching we seek a judgment-free awareness, also called mindfulness, in order to promote mobility. When the mind is distracted or filled with evaluations of what "should" be, we push ourselves and others in ways that are counterproductive to learning and growth. Only through judgment-free noticing do we gain the freedom to play around and learn from experience.

This past week one of my clients sent me a link to Maggie Jackson's New York Times blog entry regarding her new book: Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age. Here's the link:

http://shiftingcareers.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/10/attention-must-be-paid

I encourage you to read the book if you're ready to go deeper. Two startling factoids: (1) The average knowledge worker switches tasks every three minutes, and once distracted, takes nearly half an hour to resume the original task. (2) Interruptions and the requisite recovery time now consume 28 percent of a worker’s day.

What does Jackson recommend? "The first step is to learn to speak a language of attention. The exciting news is that the enigma of attention has just begun to be mapped, tracked and decoded by neuroscientists who now consider attention to be a trio of skills — focus, awareness and executive attention. Think of it this way: You can be "aware" that you’re in a beautiful garden and then you can "focus" on an individual flower. The last piece, "executive attention," is the ability to plan and make decisions."

The coming dark age is not inevitable; not, that is, if we learn to cultivate a "renaissance of attention". And that gives me a whole new frame about how to think about our work in the world as coaches. We are the handmaidens of attention and that, I submit, is a destiny work claiming.

Coaching Inquiries: Where is your attention right now? How could you bring it back to here and now? What evaluations are running through your head about what's good and what's bad? How could you set those aside in favor of what's happening? How could you become fascinated with the present moment, whether you like it or not? Who could join with you in this "renaissance of attention"?

We invite you Email Us or to use our Contact Form to arrange for a complimentary coaching conversation with your own LifeTrek coach.

Saturday, June 21, 2008

The Butterfly Coach

When we went to Bosnia, a conversation about gypsies in Europe meandered its way to a conversation about the reserves and reservations for indigenous peoples in North America. Our hosts were quite surprised to learn that there were such things and wanted to know more than we could tell them about the histories, cultures, and politics of these peoples. To learn that many are still referred to as "Indians," perpetuating Christopher Columbus' historical mistake, was even more surprising.

Yesterday I attended the annual powwow at the Mattaponi Reservation in Virginia. It included people from across the continent presenting Native American dancing, drumming, food, and crafts. We had a delightful time among wonderful hosts. On the way home we listened to a recorded radio program featuring Sharon Sun Eagle, a member of the Mattaponi community, whom we met at the powwow. You can listen to the hour-long program yourself, including stories and songs, by going to the archives of Revolutionary Radio in Williamsburg, Virginia.

Forty minutes into the program, Sharon Sun Eagle tells the story of how the turtle got its beautiful shell. Although you should really listen to the story yourself, here is a quick synopsis:

When the world was created there were many streams and rivers that blessed the land, the people, and the animals. Everyone had a gift and everyone was grateful for the gift they were given. One day a turtle was napping on a log, in a stream, when suddenly a blue jay came, swept down, and drank from the stream. Seeing the turtle, she started to laugh at the turtle because of its plain, ugly shell. Blue jay showed off her pretty colors and said, "Turtle, I am so glad that I am a blue jay and not you, a turtle."

This made turtle feel very bad about being himself, a turtle. This happened again and again with other animals, each of whom compared their appearance and abilities to the turtle. That made turtle feel even worse about being himself, a turtle.

Turtle was known to be a dreamer because he spent so many hours sleeping on his favorite log in the sun. He started to dream about who he could be, since he no longer wanted to be himself, a turtle. He dreamed about blue jay. He dreamed about red fox. Then he awoke to see a beautiful butterfly who was not mean and who was happy to have a conversation with him while enjoying the warmth of his shell.

Turtle told butterfly about how he wanted to be anything but a turtle and he asked butterfly to come every morning to tell him how wonderful it was to be a butterfly. Butterfly was happy to agree, with only one requirement. "I will be happy to tell you how wonderful it is to be a butterfly, but only if you also tell me how wonderful it is to be a turtle. You can go places under the water that I cannot go. You can see fish and plant life that I cannot see. You can feel safe and warm inside your shell when the hawks come. And you have such a strong heart beat that it can last three days after you pass into the spirit world. If I tell you the gifts that Creator has given me, each day, you will have to tell me how special it is to be a turtle."

So every morning turtle and butterfly would visit. When fall came, the butterfly announced that she would have to leave. Turtle was sad but butterfly said that, "My spirit would always be with you." Turtle didn't understand, but he knew that butterfly would never lie. The next morning turtle was lonely without butterfly, but when blue jay and red fox came they both stopped and marveled at how beautiful turtle had become. The pattern of butterfly's wings had been imprinted on his shell, and from then on all turtles have had the pattern of butterfly on their shells.

Butterfly left turtle not only with beauty but with a powerful teaching that we should all remember: in Creator's world all of us have different strengths and different gifts. This makes up the beauty of creation. We are all very different but we are all very special. So when you see someone different, look for their strengths and the special gifts that Creator has given them. We must honor and respect our differences; then we can be strong together in the sacred circle of life.

Coaching Inquiries: How do you feel about your strengths and gifts? Where have they taken you? What can you remember as to when you used them well? Who could you share your stories with? How could you come to better appreciate and celebrate diversity? How could we all be strong together in the circle of life?

We invite you Email Us or to use our Contact Form to arrange for a complimentary coaching conversation with your own LifeTrek coach.

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Into The Wild

As coaches, we often work people who want to reorganize their life around a dream. First we get clear about the vision, then we get it to sink in deep, until finally it takes hold and irresistibly draws people forward. Along the way we brainstorm a variety of creative strategies and give people empathy as they struggle through the tough spots. At its best, coaching empowers people to transform their lives into new creations. Every time it happens, it's a true wonder to behold.

You can imagine, then, my fascination with the story of Christopher Johnson McCandless, who graduated from Emory University with honors in June of 1990 only to give away all his possessions and to pursue his own path of self-discovery and self-sacrifice. Few people will share his vision of finding himself through losing himself, but all people will appreciate his sense of being pulled forward by something larger than himself. The story is compelling, tragic, haunting, engrossing, riveting, and sensational. And it contains plenty of universal life lessons, such as his conclusion, after four-months alone in the Alaskan wilderness, that happiness is not complete until it's shared.

McCandless' story was first told as an article in the January, 1993 issue of Outside Magazine by Jon Krakauer, author of the best-selling book Into Thin Air. You can read the article online in the archives of Outside Magazine. Last year, in 2007, Krakauer developed the article into a book called Into The Wild which was then made into a movie with the same name by Krakauer and Sean Penn. Although the movie takes some liberties with the story, it nevertheless captures the essence of the story in moving and dramatic ways. I encourage you to rent or buy the DVD and watch the movie. It will make you think about your own life, what's important, and what's pulling you forward into the wild of your own future. One can't ask for more than that from a film.

Coaching Inquiries: What vision of life are you holding right now? How could you make it more wonderful? What transformations have to happen in order for your vision to be realized? With whom could you share the journey? What's stopping you from starting right now?

We invite you Email Us or to use our Contact Form to arrange for a complimentary coaching conversation with your own LifeTrek coach.

Saturday, June 07, 2008

Peace Flame House & Park

We're back! Back from our trip to Greece and Bosnia, that is. We had a wonderful time with wonderful experiences, conversations, and learning. The 10th International Conference on Education in Athens included a lot of sight-seeing, so in addition to the Conference we got to experience some Greek restaurants, islands, and even the start of the legendary long-distance run from Marathon to Athens. As a marathon runner myself, you can imagine my joy of seeing where it all began (not to mention the historical significance of the Battle of Marathon itself).

From Athens we spent more than four days in Bosnia & Herzegovina with our foreign-exchange "daughter," Dina. After spending a couple days in Sarajevo, the capital, we went south to Mostar and then north to Tuzla. It was our first experience of being in an Islamic country, replete with the calls to prayer of the muezzins, five times a day, from the minarets of the many, many mosques that dotted both the cities and the countryside. We were pleased to be reminded to take breaks and to reconnect with life.

In Tuzla, which experienced the horrors of war from 1992-1995 not long after the country hosted the 1984 Winter Olympics, we stumbled upon Peace Flame Park & House sponsored by the Peace Flame Foundation of the Netherlands. Here is how they describe their purpose:

"The aim of the foundation is to contribute through the raising of awareness to the inspiration of people in post-war areas on the individual as well as on the collective level. It does so by helping us to remind ourselves of our qualities: to care, to inspire, to accept responsibility, to create and to love unconditionally."

In Tuzla, it does that through a Park and House that serve as "a meeting place for the people of the Tuzla region to find and bring peace within each other. This is initiated by organizing activities which contribute to personal development and the relief of trauma in a way that sustainable peace is stimulated on an individual and social level."

"The organized activities are of great variety to meet the local needs. The consist of various workshops, training courses, individual consultation and seminars containing themes and activities like healing arts, creative and much, dance, and drama therapies, capacity building, education, inspiration, meditation, promotion of human rights, strengthening of civil society and democracy, minority awareness, and more."

You can read more by visiting them on the web at www.peaceflame.nl and www.kpm.ba. Given my own interest and involvement in the work of Marshall Rosenberg and the Center for Nonviolent Communication (NVC), www.cnvc.org, it brought me great joy to learn that NVC has a presence in Tuzla. In fact, they had an NVC training on the calendar for just this past week. People really can learn to appreciate each other through all manner of differences and difficulties. It would seem that Bosnia & Herzegovina is setting a great example for us all.

Coaching Inquiries: What is your own experience of appreciating people regardless of who they are and how they express themselves? How are you contributing to mutual understanding and world peace? How could you make yourself more available and present in the process?

We invite you Email Us or to use our Contact Form to arrange for a complimentary coaching conversation with your own LifeTrek coach.