A Vision Board

We are already half-way through 2009.  How are you doing on those New Year’s resolutions and goals you set for this year?

Writing down your goals can be very powerful, but making them “visible” can help you focus even more energy on getting what you want.  Creating a vision board can help you make your goals visible.

Get a piece of posterboard, a pair of scissors and a glue stick.  Search the web for images that match your goals and post them on your vision board…and hang it in a spot where you see it often.  Give it a shot and see what happens.

Mystic Grits

It is often said that if you can conceive it, you can acheive it.  Over eight years ago DJ Mitsch started writing a book with a working title, “Mystic Grits.”  With great persistence and ongoing support from her circle of friends, the book has become a reality. Check it out on Amazon…Mystic Grits

Water Cooler Coaching

Coaching opportunites can come at any time in the workplace, often with those casual conversations around the water cooler.  The Pyramid Resource Group created a web-based program known as Water Cooler Coaching a few years back, and that concept has been reborn in the form of a radio show featuring Master Coach DJ Mitsch.  Interviews with DJ by popular radio host Kitty Kinnin can be heard locally on most Monday mornings here in the Research Triangle area.  Links to Kitty’s show and other information can be found at www.watercoolercoaching.com.

Wisdom

Some notable figures describe one of the central ingredients for coaching. Wisdom. Enjoy!

 

www.wisdombook.org

It’s not reality; it’s only your brain

Contributed by Coach Marcia Reynolds, MCC, PsyD

The brain’s primary job is to protect you. Therefore, most people tend to be pessimistic. They see the worst case scenario and conjure up all possibilities when the worst occurs (and the media loves to play into this drama).

In times of downturns, chaos and fear, what can you do to keep your head above water? Many people are doing quite well. I am having my most successful year ever. What can you do to rise above the muddy waters to stay in the light of possibility? Here’s a few quick ideas:

• Stay away from people who only talk gloom and doom. Then make sure you have a “community of climbers” around you who want to keep climbing up the mountain together. They will see where to grab and place their feet in order to get to the top where others only see a wall.

• When you look at your checkbook or the price at the gas station pump, shift into gratitude to decrease the fear and anger. What do you have that most people in this world do not have? What possibilities lie before you?

• Where will the world be in ten years really? Remember that ten years ago we were just figuring out how to access the Internet and use cell phones. What is the real potential that is moving behind all this crazy stuff that is tossing and turning our world? What gift lies in this moment that will change your life forever? What great things lie ahead? What can you do right now to make the changes work for you?

Tell your brain, “Thank you for protecting me, and I am fine.” It’s only your brain. It is not the truth.

Proud

Contributed by Affiliate Coach Kathy Baske Young, PCC

In the mid 70’s I was transferred to Minneapolis.  This was a big deal for me…my first time living away from home; a sales position in a company that only had a handful of women salespeople; and I even worked in the same office building where my idol, Mary Tyler Moore worked.  When at the beginning of each episode they sang “girl, you’re gonna make it after all.” I just knew it was for me.  In fact, and I’m a little embarrassed to admit this, I actually did stand on that now famous corner and threw my hat up over my head.  I felt empowered…and it felt good.

 

Fast forward to a few years ago when the Botetourt Athletic Club opened up near my house.  Lots of exercise options and I ventured into virgin territory for me…I tried out the Body Pump class.  For those of you not familiar, this is a weightlifting class, and amazingly,,,I fell in love.  I was lifting a bar bell for an hour, and slowly but surely increasing the amount of weight I could lift.  It was incredible.  I’m telling you that as a woman, lifting weights gives you a sense of power that is amazing.  Once again, I felt empowered (but in a different way), and it felt good.

 

Anyway, during the cool down they played this amazing song called “Proud”.  If you can imagine, you’ve just finished an hour long workout, you are aching all over, and this woman with a powerful “Cher” voice asks “What have you done today to make you feel proud?”  And you know what?  Coming to that class and working out hard with weights made me proud.  I started listening to the rest of the lyrics…

 

Still so many answers I don’t know

Realize that to question is how we grow

So I step out of the ordinary

I can feel my soul ascending

I am on my way

Can’t stop me now

And you can do the same.

 

And I thought, what a wonderful theme song for my life.

 

You see, it was only a few months earlier that I stopped making New Years resolutions.  They never seemed to be more than an “I should” list, and they seldom energized me or really spoke to what was in my heart.  I didn’t need a resolution…I needed a theme song…something that resonated with me on many levels.

 

I have read that there are three stages…

• What they want from you
• What you want for yourself
• And what wants you.
  

 

The Mary Tyler Moore theme was perfect when I was in phase two – what I wanted for myself, but I was feeling the gnawing feeling that comes from the latter…what wanted me?  Why was I here?  And when I heard the words “what have you done today to make you feel proud”, I knew I found my new theme song.  Was I proud of the work I did today?  Was I proud of the way I treated people today?  Was I proud of how I contributed to making this a better world?  Was I proud of how I was using my God-given talents?  Wasn’t that what mattered?  Wasn’t this a better measure of success than losing weight, or trying to keep my office neater, or any of the other resolutions I tried and failed at?

 

Since then, every evening before I drift off, I review my day against those words…What have I done today to make me feel proud?  That’s a question that only I could answer …and that answer had to come from my heart.  It wasn’t something anyone could give me.  Some days I do feel proud, some days I am disappointed.  And I pray for another day to do better.

A Conversation from a Master

Pyramid President and co-founder DJ Mitsch recently attended a conference in Asheville, North Carolina called a “Conversation Among Masters.”  Over 100 of the world’s most experienced professional coaches were in attendance.  Phyllis Haynes, host of studio1network.net interviewed DJ at the conference and produced this video…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GBMLvsjKdE

Orient to the Environment

This is the sixth and final installment contributed by Coach Doug Silsbee.  The following is adapted from Presence-Based Coaching, Doug’s new book coming this Fall.

I am an introvert. I know I’m in an extroverted line of work, and I really enjoy presenting to workshops and large audiences. Still, I really have to work with myself to show up and be authentic in front of an audience. My preference is to hang out at the refreshments table and eat cookies!

My anxiety is always most intense in the half hour before going on stage. Once I’m in it, it’s fun and easy. But, I can suffer during that last thirty minutes!

A helpful way to get myself present, relaxed, and ready is to orient myself to the surroundings. I survey the audience in advance, looking for friendly faces and people I know. I look around the room, noticing the lighting, the details of the décor, where I’m positioned in the room. When I go up on stage, I don’t jump right in. I take a few seconds to survey the audience from the podium, and to see what the room looks like from there. When I begin, I begin in a deliberate way.

This orienting is fundamental a biological process. When we constrict our attention to focus primarily on something that we’re anxious about, that anxiety tends to expand and fill our awareness even more. When we orient to the larger surroundings, our attention relaxes and softens, and the biological organism that is us feels safer, more resourceful, and more ready for whatever comes next.

Practice orienting. Next time you enter a meeting, for example, deliberately scan the room, taking in every person in there, and the surroundings as well. Let yourself relax into the surroundings, feeling that you belong there. See how it changes the feeling of being there.

Or, if you’re coming into a one-on-one conversation that might be challenging, orient yourself before and during the conversation. Let your attention broaden and soften to include other things than the person and agenda that are foremost. It’s not that you’re avoiding the person; you’re simply placing the person and the conversation in a broader context, and perhaps lowering the stakes a little so that you can be more relaxed and more resourceful.

 

 

 

Frame it Larger

This is the fifth installment contributed by Coach Doug Silsbee.  The following is adapted from Presence-Based Coaching, Doug’s new book coming this Fall. 

When we’re locked into a particular view of an interpersonal situation, we are usually convinced we’re right. Unfortunately, the other person is equally convinced that she’s right! Someone once wisely asked, “Would you rather be right or married?” It’s a reasonable question. Yet, giving up our story sometimes kicks in every survival instinct we have.

The authors of the wonderful book, Difficult Conversations, talk about entering such a conversation from the “third story.” This requires finding a view of the situation that is neutral, accepting, and larger than either story separately. This new story transcends and includes both the individual stories. Neither person has to be made wrong, and the larger, more inclusive story provides a greater and more presence-based view.

Instead of “You said X and I say Y,” the larger view begins with “You and I seem to see this in very different ways, and both of us are convinced we’re right. Yet, we have to come to agreement and move forward. How can we work together to bridge this gap?”

Consider a disagreement that you’ve had recently with someone. What’s your view? What’s the other person’s view? And, how can a larger view describe the overall situation such that no one is made wrong, and the disagreement is framed in a larger context more likely to lead to resolution?

Now, step into that larger view. Reside firmly in it, so that it becomes your felt perspective, rather than simply an intellectual construct. Let this be your truth in the situation.

Presence often results from the instantaneous recognition that a situation is bigger than we thought. There’s always a larger interpretation; finding it frees us from the restrictions of our usual view of a situation, and often reveals new possibilities for action.

 

 

 

Orient Your Values

This is the fourth installment contributed by Coach Doug Silsbee.  The following is adapted from Presence-Based Coaching, Doug’s new book coming this Fall. 

A client was recently challenged on a project. My client was conflict averse, and strongly tended to keep people around, hoping that they’d turn around. He was struggling with a key management hire that wasn’t working out. His new hire was not moving fast enough on a key element of the project; frustration was building in others.

During this struggle, my client directed his attention to the value he placed both on having a high performing team, and to the significant contribution that this project stood to make. While he was uncomfortable with letting his new manager go, he recognized that the manager was never going to contribute at the level that was needed, and the entire team and project were struggling as a result. His connection to the value he placed on the team and the goals of the project placed the personnel decision into a larger context.

With this new context, my client recognized that it was time to make the change. In fact, the conversation came as a relief to the manager, who had felt a bit like a drowning man with few options. They were able to work out an equitable solution with mutual respect.

Experiment with this. Consider a current situation that’s confusing to you. For the sake of practice, don’t pick a major moral crisis or breakdown!

Simply choose a decision that you face that feels complicated. Pause and identify this situation….

 Now, remember what’s important to you in the situation. Consider what values are at stake, and what values are represented by each of the possible options in the situation. Consider how the decision that you make right now is, in fact, an opportunity to live those values. Consider how you might look back from a year out on this decision, and how you might view yourself with hindsight if you choose A, and if you choose B.