As I prepare to go to the ICF Conference in London, I am pondering how to truly capture what I would like to give to people who want to become better coaches.  It keeps coming back to not knowing.

Here is the ad that came into my mind.

Coaching.
Not Knowing Certification.
All you have ever wanted to not know in one course.

That ad would certainly weed out the information junkies. The text and workbook could be blank. I could issue a stopwatch and have timed exercises in which the student strives to know less and less as the session continues.

If we were in some science fiction future, there could be mid-term and final cranial examinations to assess percentages in our brains — judgment space vs open curious not knowing space.  Like the current craze for %  body fat, there would be a lean version not knowing brain that people would strive for, and then take pride in achieving.  But oops, that slips into judgment space, doesn’t it? Tricky….

@Jan Elfline 2012

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Jan is a visual, creative and performance master coach.

"In classrooms, and on calls, people turn lumps of thought into gold, like modern-day alchemists. They pull rabbits out of hats, and I get to watch them do it. Learning is magic.

Creativity has interested me as long as I can remember, and I continue to puzzle over related questions: How is it that people are so inventive?  What sparks creativity?  How does a person craft an idea into something physical? What process in the mind leads to an invention, a musical composition, a manuscript, or a theatre production?

In addition to my EdD, I am a Master Certified Coach through the International Coach Federation and an NLP Master Practitioner and Trainer. In May, 2013, I will have had a coaching and training business for 20 years. I have taught seminars on coaching and creativity in businesses and at private institutes in North America, Europe and Asia. I now teach near Chicago, St Louis and at Hopewell near Bloomington, Illinois."
 
www.janelfline.com