Coaching Wizardry

Metaphors to live by

Here are some of the most powerful metaphors that we use to explore, to learn about, to make sense of life.

Dancing as the adventure of being alive

"... and the invitation opens up another a new metaphor: of life as a dance.  Dancing as the adventure of being alive.  Which brings us back to the question: will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the dance?"

From the post: Won't you join the dance? An invitation

Ease up on your golf swing

"I could see from reading on that the metaphor of golf for life worked on lots of levels: you always learn something new; it can be difficult, challenging, fun and rewarding.  But the bit I really loved was that advice to ease up on your golf swing..."

From the post: Golfing as a metaphor for life

The path we are travelling

"But looking too hard for the one, true path can create its own problems.  You can find yourself fixed on finding 'the' answer rather than noticing and enjoying where you are.  The path that is unfolding under your feet.  The trail you have left behind.

And it can leave you focused on the path that other people have created, the 'shoulds' of other people's expectations, or the trails that others have blazed, rather than the path that is distinctly yours.  Focused on external pointers and signs, rather than trusting your instincts and intuition to find your way."

From the post: looking for the right path

Lessons from the art of juggling

"I know, I know, it doesn't take Einstein to read and apply the lessons from the art of juggling as a metaphor for life.  In fact, I'm constantly amazed by the relevance of each learning point for other areas of life, of work, of learning where I've got temporarily stuck.

The trick is deciding you're not going to stay there.  Not stopping after the first juggulation.  Moving on when you're stuck.  Resolving to keep throwing the balls."

From the post: the art of juggling - keep throwing the balls

 

Happy butterfly day

I got the chance to see the Warhol exhibition the other day.  It was good - well laid out, with enough space to enjoy and admire some of his most iconic work.

One of the pictures that I loved the most though was this one that I found tucked away in one of the lower-ground exhibition rooms.  It's called "Happy Butterfly Day".

What a lovely concept.  It got me thinking about how nice it would be to say this to people.  What kind of day we'd be celebrating.

I think for me "Happy Butterfly Day" would mean a celebration of:

• everything that was colourful and beautiful in the world

• the amazing diversity of human life

• the wider world that we live in, recognising that our actions, our butterfly wings, can make a difference (for good or ill) in other parts of the world

• people who have the courage to step out of the chrysalis

• the importance of flapping our wings and flying free

That's what the picture, the words, the idea mean to me.  What does it say to you?  I'd love to know!

Happy Butterfly Day to you all.

Looking for the right path

I don't know if you've ever found yourself looking for the 'right' path?  Wondering if the life that you're living, the choices that you're making are taking you in the 'right' direction, being true to yourself, living the life that you were 'meant' to live?

The search for the path is a recurring theme in poetry and literature, in writings about religion and spirituality, in the world of personal development.  It's something that many people say who come to coaching for the first time - precisely because they they have lost their way.

But looking too hard for the one, true path can create its own problems.  You can find yourself fixed on finding 'the' answer rather than noticing and enjoying where you are.  The path that is unfolding under your feet.  The trail you have left behind.

And it can leave you focused on the path that other people have created, the 'shoulds' of other people's expectations, or the trails that others have blazed, rather than the path that is distinctly yours.  Focused on external pointers and signs, rather than trusting your instincts and intuition to find your way.

Hilda Carroll reminds us today that when we are lost, when we need directions, the answer is to trust our intuition.  One of the people she quotes is Alan Alda, who encourages us leave the path of what's known and allow ourselves to be lost.

You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover is yourself.” ~ Alan Alda

You'll find the same theme being developed in the wonderful 'Monkifesto' that Adam Kayce at Monk At Work has just published.  (The Monkifesto encourages us to apply intuition at work, but the questions would work for anyone looking for that path.  It's based on a series of short, simple statements and questions plus stunningly beautiful photography).

He asks us to:

Imagine you're walking through a forest.
You've got books and maps to show you where to go...
But what do you do when they fail?

The only thing we can trust is our intuition - our sense of connection, our sense of ourselves.  Because sometimes (always?) there is no right path. 

Which takes me back to an excerpt from 'Entirely' by Louis MacNeice.  Pinned up on my notice board to remind me not to get too hung up on the search for the right path.

"And if the world were black or white entirely
And all the charts were plain
Instead of a mad weir of tigerish waters
A prism of delight and pain
We might be surer where we wished to go
Or again we might be merely
Bored but in brute reality there is no
Road that is right entirely."

No right road.  Just us humans, tiptoeing our way through the mysteries of the forest.

Thanks to free-stock photos for the forest photo

A burst of music

"The dance" is one of my favourite metaphors for life - or rather for life lived out loud, for the adventure of being alive. 

Every so often I stumble across a quotation that captures that feeling, that mood of the dance of life just perfectly.  Here's a favourite that I came across recently, from the Scottish philosopher, Thomas Carlyle.

"Every day that is born into the world comes like a burst of music and rings the whole day through, and you make of it a dance, a dirge, or a life march, as you will."

I wonder if you can hear that wild burst of music today?  And if you are ready to join the dance?

Time to get out of the elevator

I had a timely reminder the other day of the way that we can get trapped - unwittingly - in our own metaphors.  I was talking to my son about possible career moves in the future, and admitted my concern that I would be taking a step down from where I had been before.  With the wisdom of the young he protested "Where's the lift?! You need to get out of the elevator!"

His comment made me laugh - and startled me out of the frame that was still shaping my thoughts, even after my unpredictable career moves, development of coaching skills, insights from the world of NLP into the impact of limiting beliefs... yes even after all that one powerful metaphor still had a hold on me, namely that a career can only go one of two ways, up, or down. 

How about a new, and more resourceful frame, that frees us to make career choices based on what we love, what we're good at, the way we want to live, the contribution we want to make, the patterns we discern about our purpose in life, rather than bumping up and down in a metaphorical elevator created by other people. 

A different narrative that frees us to discover what happens when you step out of the lift and set off on a different path, taking a spiral staircase maybe, or a flying carpet to adventures new...

Riding the tightrope of life

I love it when people tell me their stories.  I never cease to be amazed at the things that 'ordinary' people live through, cope with, or indeed manage to transform into a totally different story. 

I was gifted two such stories last week.  I got talking to a businesswoman and we drifted onto the subject of her family.  She told me a heart stopping story about the illness her young daughter was living with and the impact this had on their lives.  But it was a story told without self-pity, designed not to shock but simply to explain.  A tale not of sorrow but of courage and patience and love.  Laced with comic episodes and told with smiles, not tears.  I could only step back with wonder at the ability of this family, this woman, to transform a terrible experience into something positive, and good.

Later the same day I was chatting to a Big Issue vendor.  Just up from London he was keen to talk, trying to work out how best to engage with the Edinburgh shoppers.  His story was also a roller coaster affair, a reminder of how quickly life can unravel once one part of the marriage-work-home equation starts to unravel.  But this man was an optimist.  It was good to be in the fresh air of Edinburgh, selling in front of the Castle, looking across to the crags on Arthur's Seat.  It would soon be Festival time.  He was a busker, a unicyclist, a juggler.  If he could just find the money to get his unicycle up here there was money to be made in the summer.  Always new balls to be thrown, a different tightrope to ride.

Two different faces of Edinburgh, two completely different stories.  What linked them together was the attitude of the story-tellers.  They had reframed what to most of us would be end of the world circumstances.  Chaos and catastrophe.  Things falling apart.  The end of life as we know it.  Taken that old story and transformed it into something new: a story of courage, and optimism, of persistence and love.  A belief in possibility.  Not looking back, never looking down: riding the tightrope of life.

Golfing as a metaphor for life

I'm no golfer so I've never really thought about golfing as a metaphor for life before.  However when I stumbled upon a post at Verve Coaching headed "Ease Up and Don't Swing So Hard!" I was immediately struck by the metaphor - and keen to read more.

Perhaps it was something in the words that struck me, that feeling of recognition when you sense that a particular phrase has been written just with you in mind...

I could see from reading on that the metaphor of golf for life worked on lots of levels: you always learn something new; it can be difficult, challenging, fun and rewarding.  But the bit I really loved was that advice to ease up on your golf swing:

When I relax, limit the height of my back swing, and allow the club head to fall naturally in a gentle and controlled arc toward the ball, I get better distance and accuracy than I can imagine or understand.

What a lovely metaphor - and great advice whether you're wanting to improve your golf swing or learn how to glide more effortlessly through life...

Creating a new metaphor for creativity

Is this the end of the light bulb as our stock metaphor for bright ideas?  Roger von Oech, creative thinker extraordinaire, has just announced

the death of a long time metaphor for creativity and innovation: the light bulb.

His argument is that the metaphor at 125 years old is now past its sell by date - and that concern for the environment means the traditional light-bulb image won't be acceptable in the future.  He's also laid down the challenge to all you creative thinkers and bright sparks to come up with a new metaphor for creativity. 

This is a great chance to share your ideas and creative genius with the world... or just to browse the comments and suggestions that other people are coming up with. 

Will any of them have the staying power of the light bulb though?

(Thanks to Free-Stock Photos for the broken light bulb picture)

Won't you join the dance? An invitation

Some of you might have been intrigued by the question at the top of the coaching wizardry screen:

"Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the dance?"

You might have recognised it as the refrain from Lewis Carroll's Lobster Quadrille - a beautiful gentle poem, and an invitation to join the dance.

I love the idea of offering an invitation to join a different world - whether it be through coaching,  NLP, writing for self-expression or finding ways to tell a different version of your story.

It reminds me of the very famous "Invitation" written by Oriah Mountain Dreamer, a poem that went flying around the world when she first wrote it.  And you can understand why - it's a piece of writing that once read you feel compelled to pass on.   You'll see what I mean from this short extract...

... It doesn’t interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive...

And the invitation opens up another a new metaphor: of life as a dance. 

Dancing as the adventure of being alive.

Which brings us back to the question: will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the dance?

What's a sun-dial in the shade?

I've been bumping into the wisdom of Benjamin Franklin this week.  It started with a great piece by Brian Clark at Copyblogger analysing the relevance of Franklin's pithy sayings for modern day marketing needs.  For example point number 3:

“An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.”

Benjamin Franklin was a true Renaissance man, and as a polymath accomplished much in the fields of business, politics and science. In these days of hyper-specialization, it’s ironic that the broader your knowledge base, the better your odds of not only providing remarkable products and service, but also of devising innovative ways to reach out to your target audience.

This post got me writing a piece on another of Franklin's great sayings:  “Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing”.  Then I bumped into him again when I was setting up the software to start reading my feeds (prompted by one of the posts in Mike Sansone's excellent 'newcomers guide to business blogging') - it was a news feed reminding us of the anniversary of his death (17 April 1790).

Anyway by this time I was getting intrigued and had a bit of a rummage around the "quotes" sites.  Another connection - I found that the clock inscription on time that I'd written about a few weeks ago was based on a Franklin quote.  Here's the whole thing:

"Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that's the stuff life is made of."

And the sun-dial?  Well I'd been thinking for a while about a friend who has a most amazing talent that she's not quite ready to share with the world.  I'd been trying to think of a story or a metaphor that might encourage her to go for it.  And I think this short, straight to the point comment might just do the job:

"Hide not your talents, they for use were made. What's a sun-dial in the shade?"
 
Any other favourite Franklin quotes out there you'd like to share?

A metaphor for change

I don't know if you've ever felt stuck in a situation - like you can't see which way to go next? 

Here's a simple coaching technique to get unstuck again, using the magical power of metaphors.  Using three simple questions you can transform your view of the situation and work out what you want to do next.

All you need to do is identify a metaphor (or a few metaphors) for your situation, then ask yourself a few questions about it.  I'll use a recent example of my own to help illustrate how it works.

Coaching and stories: the untold story

I don't know if you've been wondering about the connection between coaching and stories?  The more I explore this the more connections I can see but for now I'll focus on three main ways that they go together.

1.We can make use of existing stories to gain insight into a situation.  This gives people a fresh perspective, opening up new possibilities for change.

2. As coaches we spend a lot of time listening to the stories that people are telling - telling other people, and telling themselves - and start to pick out what's important to them in those narratives: their values and beliefs, what's precious to them, what might be holding them back.

3. Stories are a metaphor for life.  You'll hear people using this metaphor all the time: "he's really lost the plot", "I can't wait to move into the next chapter" and so on.  And coaching is all about breathing new life into that story. The story that you are inhabiting now, and the story you want to be living - and telling - in the future.

Maya Angelou once said:

"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you"

For me that isn't just about telling the story of what's happened to you or what you've been doing up to now.  It's about having the confidence to tell the story of who you are and who you want to be.  The person, the life, the story that is deep inside you: waiting to be told.

What's coaching like? Metaphors for meaningful job descriptions

It’s so hard to find good definitions of coaching.  There are technical definitions of course, and lots of discussion about the difference between coaching and mentoring, or coaching and counselling.  But nothing that really does it justice.  Nothing that would explain to someone what is likely to happen.  Nothing to be honest that would make me get out of bed in the morning to go and coach. 

So we dream up our own definitions…write fantastical job descriptions...find metaphors that add a touch of magic.  Here are some of my current favourites (I'll explain what they mean to me later!)

* Training Jedis

* Electrical engineering

* Computing wizard

* Translating service

It would be great to hear from other coaches about definitions that work for you.  Do you have a favourite job title?  Could we construct some more fun definitions of coaching?  What are the metaphors that you coach by?

What is NLP? The 18th Camel

There are many definitions of NLP.  None of them capture it perfectly.  I think NLP must be a bit like a jelly that is hard to pin down (but good to eat….and you’ll know it when you see it!).  It is based on a set of presuppositions which are the central principles of NLP.  They are not claimed to be true or universal.  They are called presuppositions because you pre-suppose them to be true – almost like choosing to believe them – and then act as if they were true.  This is a good way to start learning about NLP – maybe you could ‘try on’ the different presuppositions and see which ones speak the most to you – make you feel more confident maybe, or relaxed, or perhaps a little strange, or uncomfortable, or intrigued, or just curious to learn more…

Richard Bandler defined NLP as an attitude and methodology that leaves behind a trail of techniques.  John Grinder said it is an accelerated learning strategy for the detection and utilization of patterns in the in the world.  Some people say it is the influence of language on our mind and subsequent behaviour.  Or you could say that it is learning to read maps – your own and other people’s – and the art of changing those maps, playfully and lovingly, to create more choices and open new doors. 

Or you might say that NLP is like the story of the 18th camel...

What's a metaphor?

Metaphors make comparisons.  They compare one thing with another - often something quite unlike it in a literal sense - in order to illuminate.  You might remember metaphors as examples of figures of speech when you were learning about literature.  But they are not just something that perform a function in literature.  We use them all the time.

Metaphors are great at communicating meaning - in particular multiple or ambiguous meanings.  Metaphors take us beyond one meaning and open up new possibilities and avenues.

Here are some great metaphors for metaphors from Joseph O'Connor's NLP workbook:

"A metaphor is like shining a coloured spotlight on an object, making it appear to be a different colour, or like taking a piece of music and transposing it into another key while making it more elaborate.  The tune is the same but the expression is different.  A metaphor can be like a breath of fresh air in a stuffy classroom."

Metaphors have an important role to play within coaching and NLP.  Milton Erickson - whose work had a profound influence on the development of NLP - used metaphors, stories and analogies to access a client's unconscious resources, bypassing conscious resistance and allowing the client to make connections at a deeper level.