The last video encouraged us to think about how coachable we are. Here we give coachability some context, why is it important? Well authenticity is absolutely key. Recognising your values and expressing them externally has to be at the heart of any change process. It’s the art of coaching. Otherwise we will experience resistance, and ultimately it’s fake.
Our personal energy has a part to play also. The 5 energy sources of soul, body, heart, mind and spirit easily map the triggers for
Continue Reading
Five years ago I published my first book – It’s Not About The Coach. To celebrate in this video I am breaking new ground – this is a shot of me actually delivering a workshop! Live action, raw and real. And what’s more this is the 1st of 7 videos that are coming your way on a weekly basis. Read and watch all 7 and you’ll have all of your coachability questions answered.
Introducing an It’s Not About The Coach workshop with
Continue Reading
If you are not into sci-fi and action movies you can quickly ignore my references to The Matrix. But the point is that when you are performing at your very best you are ready for anything. Once perceived challenges will either show up as opportunities, or they won’t even register on your radar.
A rehash from one of the films quotes might go along the lines of…
Q – ‘What are you trying to tell me, that I in next weeks meeting
Continue Reading
The CIPD has recently developed a 1-day Building Resilience course and I’d like to offer you a free place on the pilot-course, scheduled for Wednesday 25th October in London. I’ve co-designed the course and I’ll be at the pilot also.
The Building Resilience course will be available to the public from November (normal price £495 + VAT). But the pilot is totally free! Here is a quick overview…
The demands of the modern working environment often call upon us to do more with less.
Continue Reading
Cultures evolve and develop over time; values emerge, sometimes forgotten, sometimes sustained. Culture transports value, as do coaching conversations. We all engage in culture whether we know it or not, whether we like it or not. Which is why it is important to define the subtleties of what’s around us.
If it’s true that ‘culture eats strategy for breakfast’ then it will devour coaching in an instant. Therefore, it is misleading to refer to coaching and culture in the same breath.
Continue Reading
When we are in the zone, losing track of our time and of ourselves we are in essence getting high. The rich cocktail of neuro chemicals kicks in and we strive to recreate the mindset, environment and creativity again in the future. We also get high when we are helping others. The reward and feeling is so great we look to repeat it – helpers high.
A quick shortcut to this flow state might involve helping a colleague at work, flashing
Continue Reading
Flow is sometimes referred to as the most addictive (natural) state on the planet. If there was a pill we could pop that quickly engineered flow then we’d all be taking it. Of course there isn’t, instead we have to train from the inside out. But over time we can develop our flow fitness. An awareness of flow and how to enter (and exit) these states with relative ease. Amassing the marginal gains of meditation, exercise and gratitude to name but a
Continue Reading
According to a recent study (in the US) teenagers find flow…
13% of the time they spend watching TV.
34% of the time they spend participating in hobbies.
44% of the time they spend playing sports/games.
They key word here is spend. Time is an investment, and we need to spend it wisely. Compared to watching TV sports/games are 3 times more likely to engineer a flow state. But here’s the kicker, the teenagers in the study actually spent 4 times more time watching TV (passive) than
Continue Reading
Many of my postings describe what flow is; that effortless state where time dilates allowing learning and creativity to accelerate. However, this posting brings forth flows nearest neighbours – flight, fight and freeze.
These three are common experiences before we kick into flow. They can form part of the struggle phase that builds our ‘fitness for flow.’ We respond by wanting to hit the ejection button, get out as soon as we can even if the way down poses risks. Or
Continue Reading
The state of optimal performance doesn’t come out of thin air. Instead it operates as part of a cycle. Sometimes we get lucky and stumble across it, but I’d much rather engineer this cycle so that I can perform optimally almost at will. The cycle consists of 4 stages…
Struggle
Release
Flow
Recovery
We have plenty of struggle to overcome, so today I want to take a somewhat comical look at release. Here we need to decompress and break away from the norm. Otherwise we
Continue Reading
