By Annie Gelfand CPCC, MCC
MMC guest blogger & this months (9/28) guest master coach

Have you ever done this? The same thing over and over again hoping for a different result? I have.

I have tried so hard to understand my past. So many of our helping professions focus on the past. They think that by delving in deeply, they will loosen the attachment and give space for something different.

And that definitely has a place – until it doesn’t. Ultimately I reached a point where focusing on the past stuck me there. I finally got that doesn’t change anything. The past is over. Telling the story over and over keeps you stuck in your story – until you find that place where you are truly free from the past – where all the emotional turmoil and limitations you bought about you and the world around you is unseated.

This is not to say to the past has no relevance. On the contrary. What can you take away from the past that will change your future?

What choices do I have now that I never had before? What if I create my future with every choice I make today? What if all choices create your tomorrow? What tomorrow can I create with my choice today that will create beyond this reality?

Copyright Annie Gelfand 2016 All Rights Reserved

One Surprising Secret and Three Tips for Listening Masterfully
by Lyn Allen MCC
MMC guest master coach and blogger

Multi-dimensional listening is the ability to hear simultaneously on multiple levels and to track multiple threads in what you are hearing. You listen consciously rather than unconsciously, and use listening as a form of mindfulness practice.

The most surprising thing about multi-dimensional (masterful) listening? It requires you to listen to yourself.

Yup.

You need to be both observer and observed. (Remember – mindfulness practice.)

Listening consciously means you notice your own thoughts, beliefs, needs and reactions as they surface during the listening. It also means being aware of (translation: present with) what’s alive and running for you prior to listening.

In other words, what backdrop is in place before you attempt to fully hear another person? What inner noise or static is eating up your bandwidth, keeping you from being fully present in ways required for conscious listening?

When you practice being fully present with and attentive to yourself, you go beyond hearing the words being spoken by someone else. You will likely also hear:

• What their mood and perspective is, what their underlying beliefs and needs are. (Coaches, you might recognize this as listening to “who” the person is, not just what they are saying.)
• Opportunities to deepen discovery, to get to the core of what’s really going on, and to take critical next steps in a path of personal or professional development.
• Equally as essential, you will hear how your internal eco-system influences your listening at any given time, how it shapes your interpretation and how it limits or expands understanding.

How to expand your capacity for listening multi-dimensionally? Here are a few of the foundational elements of conscious, masterful listening from my Essential Coaching Skills program:

• Cultivate your capacity for being fully present, first with yourself in the unfolding now as a basis for how you are present with and listening to others.
• Practice listening to yourself and practice compassion as you notice what’s present within you.
• Practice listening from deep within you rather than simply from your head; allow your entire body to be a receiver of the signals being sent to you by others, especially as you practice listening.

Copyright Lyn Allen MCC 2016 All Rights Reserved

Lyn Allen MCC

Named by CNN’s iReport as one of America’s top coaches, Lyn Allen, MCC, PMC, has been a pioneer in the coaching field for 20 years. One of the early Master Certified Coaches, Lyn has served as a member of the Assessor Team in credentialing for the International Coach Federation, and as a faculty member for several coach training programs.

In private practice as a coach since 1993, Lyn was a member of the original faculty and advisory board of CoachU, and part of CU’s original curriculum development team. Also a graduate of the pioneering Coaching With Love program, she has mentored and trained coaches around the world since 1994.

She co-authored two of the earliest publications in the coaching field: Closing the Gap in Management, and the audio, Coaching From the Heart. Lyn now provides continuing education programs for certified coaches, including her pioneering work in the use of image-based language to enhance client learning. She also offers a free monthly call for coaches-The Heart and Soul of Coaching.
www.coachesfinishingschool.com
www.lynallen.com

photo by Gualberto107 freedigitalphotos.net

Listen Till You No Longer Exist
How to honour the deepest aspects of self and others in our listening

Christine McDougall MCC
(MMC guest master coach and blogger)
 

“Forgetfulness of self is remembrance of God.” al-Bistami
Rare is our experience of being heard. Really deeply, wholly heard. Yet we remember those moments….when we were witnessed by another human, in our wholeness.

To listen to another is one of the highest gifts of respect we can ever bestow. Priceless in magnitude. Costing only our need to have an answer, or be right, or smart… or to be heard and understood ourselves. To listen to ourselves…the call of our soul…is the highest gift we can give ourselves.

Listening is a complex art form, requiring senses that transcend the humble ear. It requires daily practice, ever and always moving towards the next phase of mastery, never quite within our grasp.

In its most simple form, to listen utilises the sense of hearing.

Be still, hear the sounds around you in the exterior world. The bird call, the wind in the tree’s, the sound of the keyboard as I type, the very low electronic hum of the computer.

Going deeper, into our interior, we might be able to hear our breath, our heart beat, even our organs moving, our stomachs digesting, or our body signaling pain, stress, or discomfort. If we really listen to our physical body, we will hear that it needs food, water, clothing, comfort, attention-even right down to the type of food, the level of attention.

At this stage we have transcended sound and tapped into wisdom that comes from years of paying attention to the finest subtleties. Few of us have paid enough attention, given enough time, to the hearing of the needs of our physical, emotional and spiritual bodies. (See the article on physical intelligence)

We have lost, or indeed never found, the most precious connection we have – hearing the call of our souls. Hence we have lost connection to our very selves.

In the world of ~out there~ where our relationships are built, our work is done and our lives are lived, to work at improving listening skills is one of the most fundamental of all of the essential skills and critical to conscious communication.

And it is a skill, to be learned, honed, practiced, critiqued, developed.

To listen is the dual of speaking, and together they make the whole of conversation. One cannot exist without the other. And yet our world spends more time speaking. Do you also?

We are afraid of silence, of stillness.

‘Conversation’ comes from Latin, means the act of living with – “to turn about” with. Conversation requires at minimum two. Either the speaker and the person hearing as two entities, or the speaker and the listener within a single entity. If I am in conversation with myself, often times I am speaking to myself-endlessly, without pause. Yet few times do I actually hear the words. Few times am I still long enough to hear the endless and nauseatingly petty interior self chatter. My self talk lives so far below my conscious awareness, like the hum of the cars on a nearby freeway, or the sound of waves when living by the beach.

Self awareness includes the ability to hear with acuity to this ongoing hum of words and thought. To catch ourselves in the inner conversation, to eavesdrop on our deepest darkest secrets, and in so doing surface them into our awareness. This is the very act of becoming conscious. To listen to our inner self at the deepest level.

Conscious communication requires the deepest hearing without compromise.

Ask yourself when you last felt someone heard you at this level, transcending all of their petty self issues of criticism and judgment in their overall willingness simply to hear YOU?

Do you yearn for this level of conversation? Communion?

When did you last extend this courtesy of really hearing another? How often do you and your significant others listen to each other at this level?

How often do you listen to yourself with this level of attention? What would you hear if you did? Are you nervous about what you may hear? That your job leaves your soul cold, that your relationship needs intensive care, that your health is in dire straights? That you have lost connection with your spirit? That you are lost…and have no idea how to find you…

Our highest act of service in listening is to give up self. When we do this in our conversation with self, we give up what we want to hear, what we think we should hear, and all of our judgments about what is right, wrong, good and bad.

When I am eavesdropping on my soul, I need to get past my noisy, always chatting mind, passed the conditioned thoughts, passed my righteousness, and into the bedrock of truth. I need to access the part of me that is steady, all wise, all knowing, ever present. And yes, what I hear could be very scary. I might have spent my life going right, and I may need to go left.

The truth, no matter how frightening, will prevail in the end, and I can either heed it now, or suffer the days, months, or years of denial. As the poet David Whyte says so eloquently…”Bankruptcy may be something your soul has been secretly engineering your entire life.” In my ability to hear my truth, I will find my liberation, my ability to be aligned with how I live my life and all that I am.

When I am in a conversation with another, listening until I no longer exist means to transcend myself in the conversation. To NOT have the conversation be about ME. I need to be able to get passed all of my personal issues, my need to be right, liked, smart, good, nice. In order to do this my focus needs to be entirely on you, and my deepest intention and desire is to inhabit your world to the level of understanding and intimacy that will be felt profoundly by you.

You, the speaker, will know that you have been completely heard, completely understood, and in the process, given absolute grace as the speaker. I do not need to agree with you, however, you will know that I have heard you at the level of soul.

In my work with entrepreneurs and leaders, I create the field where I am privileged to be present to words and feelings that might have been surfaced for the very first time. I witness Truths, callings, yearnings, questions..the unspoken…The beauty of this…that when we speak the unspoken, when the unspoken is witnessed, everything shifts, and moves towards light. Listening to another, to the fullness of their humanity…this…this is to commune, to experience connection that transcends words.

Those who know this experience know its worth.

@Christine McDougall 2016 all rights reserved

About Christine McDougall MCC

I am a leader in co-creating profound personal and social behavioural change models that benefit the individual and the surrounding community.
“Christine’s ability to work with clients and navigate the darkest and most restrictive parts of themselves to create the clarity necessary for their personal success is second to none.  With two decades of coaching and behavioural change management experience, Christine work has been entrusted by some of the world’s most intelligent entrepreneurs through to those in the grips of their deepest dark night as well as corporate organisations desiring transformational change."
www.223am.com

Are You Sabotaging Your Success?
By Dr. Marcia Reynolds MCC
(MMC guest master coach and blogger)

I recently had a company hire me to increase the emotional intelligence of their leaders because the employees were stressed, making mistakes, losing business, and arguing more than helping each other. It was hard for me to make appointments with the leaders because they were so busy. I quickly learned there was an unspoken expectation that all employees, especially the leaders, be “always on.” One leader told me, “Until we get out of this crisis, things like relaxing and family time will have to wait.”

What the leaders didn’t understand is that the ability to act with emotional intelligence is impaired by sleep deprivation, poor nutrition, noise pollution, excessive conflict, money problems and a shortage of friends.

Nothing I say, or any other tips you read in leadership books and articles, will work for you if you don’t rigidly take care of yourself.

So before you read this or any other article on leadership or coaching success, go for a walk. You can’t give good feedback, inspire others, facilitate new ideas, or strategize your way out of a paper bag if your brain and body aren’t functioning well. No matter how smart you are, your stressed biology will sabotage your success as a performer and a leader.

Working harder can hurt your success

The lack of sleep alone blunts your ability to see the positive side of situations. According to the studies cited in Tori Rodriguez’s article, Why Sleep Deprivation Makes You Crabby, the lack of sleep not only triggers you to overreact to annoyances, you lose the ability to react with positive feelings to good events. It’s nearly impossible to be compassionate, encouraging, and optimistic when you are tired.

Then there are the contagious effects of stress. Not only are humans designed to pick up and feel negative emotions, according to social dominance research whatever the leader feels will have the greatest effect on the people in the room. If you are angry, agitated or disappointed, other people will take on your negativity and uncertainty. They will become anxious, defensive or shut down even if they came into the room feeling good.

Poor eating habits come at a cost to the brain. Gastrointestinal inflammation from a diet of processed foods are tied to depression, lethargy and other mental disorders.

Studies have demonstrated the negative effects of worrying about money and of having few or no friends to talk to when problems arise. On the flip side, spending time with friends doing enjoyable activities gives your body and brain the recovery time it needs to re-energize.

What you can do now

Although it’s unlikely that the pace or intensity of work will change anytime soon, you can take steps to strengthen your personal foundation so when you try to implement leadership techniques, you increase your chances of success.

1. Disconnect. The McKinsey Quarterly suggests that “always-on, multitasking work environments are killing productivity, dampening creativity, and making us unhappy.” What can you do to totally disconnect from work? Focusing on fun, being alert to the gifts of the moment, and caring for others outside of work in a way that makes you feel good can help.
2. Be mindful of your eating and exercise. Kim Scott, who teaches the power of Radical Candor, says that she realized the most important thing she could do for her employees was to go for a run every morning. “You can’t possibly give a damn about other people if you don’t give a damn about yourself,” Scott says. Success starts with eating well, regularly exercising, and making sure you get a good night’s sleep.
3. Call a friend. Biologically, when you socially connect with another person, you activate the brain regions that improve health and increase creativity. Having a good friend to call is a major stress release. Just be sure you talk about and do things that make you happy and laugh. Don’t just find people who will commiserate with you. If you don’t have friends to readily call on, look to connect with people in your professional associations, in classes at your local universities and colleges, and even at your gym.
4. Model and encourage well-being practices. While stress can be contagious, the converse is also true: your well-being and optimism will spread to others. Share what you are doing to uplift your energy and mood. Encourage others take time for exercise and other renewal activities, and make sure calendars aren’t packed so tightly that no one has time to breathe. Build buffer time into schedules so people can work at a manageable pace.

Bottom line, when you are healthy and happy you enable higher performance, engagement, and creative thinking. Take care of yourself and encourage others to do this as well to improve success at work and in life.

@Dr. Marcia Reynolds 2016 from her Brain Tip Newsletter

  _______________________________________________________________________________

Dr. Marcia Reynolds MCC, president of Covisioning LLC, is fascinated by the brain, especially what triggers enthusiasm and innovation. This fascination has led her down many roads in her desire to stay on top of the shifts in employee engagement and leadership development. On this journey, she wove together three areas of expertise: organizational change, coaching and emotional intelligence. She is able to draw on these areas as she works with her latest passion—changing the conversations leaders have at work. She feels the most effective leaders help people think more broadly for themselves. When leaders have powerful conversations that change people’s minds from the inside out, the workplace comes alive with an eagerness to discover what is possible.

http://​www.outsmartyourbrain.com

image by Stuart Miles freedigitalphotos.net

A Celebration Cocktail Each Executive Should Know How to Mix!
by Judith E. Glaser

Great leaders identify, measure, recognize, and reward meaningful efforts and achievements--and celebrate often with the people involved. 

Why should managers and leaders celebrate more?

Creating a feeling of celebration helps meet people's needs for inclusion, innovation, appreciation, and collaboration. Our brains are designed to be social - and the need for human contact is greater than the need for safety. The research by Matt Lieberman and Naomi Eisenberger, scientists at UCLA, has shown that feeling socially excluded activates some of the same neural regions that are activated in response to physical pain, suggesting that social rejection may indeed be "painful."

Those companies practicing celebrations as part of their conversational rituals open up their employees to make them feel part of the company's common success, enable them to have the confidence to challenge the status quo, take ambitious initiatives, and share their creative ideas with others. 

How might the disciplined practice of celebration change the culture of a company?

From my study of The Neuroscience of WE™, and my work with executives, I know that celebration has a big impact on individuals, teams and companies. It literally works wonders in the brain.

Scientists are learning that our brain is more changeable than we ever imagined--our brains exhibit neuroplasticity. Our brain neurons can change their physiological properties in response to outside factors. That is how babies develop and learn. As we grow older we do not lose that ability to learn and modify our responses to things that happen. In fact, we now know that a percentage of our genes, can be impacted by the environment - these changes, called epigenetic changes, are part of neuroplasticity as well - however they open up a whole new set of insights about the power of conversations to change fundamental and long lasting changes to our character - yes nurture is as or more powerful than nature.

The Ingredients of Healthy Celebration Cocktails

Neuroscience explains what impact you as an entrepreneur can have on healthy physical and emotional changes of your team by having positive celebrations and intelligent conversations.

Celebration Conversations elevate the level of such "feel good" chemicals as oxytocin and the endorphins - neuropeptides produced in the central nervous system. Their release into our system gives us a sense of well being, creating a safety space that enables us to experiment, take risks, learn and handle the challenges of growing the business.
Serotonin that is boosted by cheering and pleasant conversations is widely known for transforming lazy people into enterpriser, low performer into go-getters, and skeptics into supporters. For individuals or teams, serotonin adds focus, support innovative or disruptive solutions, increases motivation and can even transform stress into success.
Researchers found that by having positive conversations during celebration time you trigger basal ganglia system that releases the neurotransmitter dopamine. This chemical communicates with the brain areas in the prefrontal cortex to allow people to pay attention to critical tasks, ignore distracting information, and update only the most relevant task information in working memory during problem-solving tasks.

What Makes Us Feel So Good?

Recent studies by numerous researchers show that the basal ganglia facilitate learning, with dopamine important to the process. One way that these behavioral routines are encoded is by the processing of reward information.

Wolfram Schultz, a principal research fellow at the University of Cambridge in England, studies how the brain processes reward information. "When something is really good, you go back for it again," he says. " Thus, by praising the accomplishments a leader, we are contributing to creating healthy behavioral patterns that will be repeated more often. Celebration and dopamine is a reward to our brains like treats are to animals.

•    While elevating the level of "feel good" hormones with positive conversations, the level of cortisol is significantly lowered. Cortisol has been shown to damage and kill cells in the hippocampus (the brain area responsible for your episodic memory) and there is robust evidence that excessive cortisol shuts down learning, creates anxiety attacks, can cause depression, and premature brain aging.

•    The words of acknowledgement, encouragement and support, especially when granted to a person under much stress, calms her amygdala mediated response - of fight-flight-freeze - allowing her to move into a more thoughtful and calm state.

When we converse openly with others, we are sharing our inner world, our sense of reality, to validate our reality with others. We are measuring the levels of trust in our relationship to determine whether we can partner with others. The quality of our conversations depends on how open or closed we feel at the moment of contact. The neurochemical reactions in our brains drive our states of mind, and these affect the way we communicate, how we shape our relationships, and how we build trusting relationships with others.

When we receive public praise and support, we unlock these powerful set of neurochemical patterns that cascade positive chemistry throughout the brain. Highly motivated employees describe the feeling of performing well as an almost drug-like state.

When this state of positive arousal comes with appropriate, honest, and well-deserved (sincere) praise, employees feel they are trusted and supported by their boss. They will take more risks, speak up more, push back when they have things to say, and be more confident in their dealings with their peers.

Judith E. Glaser is CEO of Benchmark Communications, Inc. and Chairman of The Creating WE Institute. She is an Organizational Anthropologist, and consults to Fortune 500 Companies. Judith is the author of 4 best selling business books, including her newest Conversational Intelligence: How Great Leaders Build Trust and Get Extraordinary Results (Bibliomotion, 2013) Visit www.conversationalintelligence.com; www.creatingwe.com; jeglaser@creatingwe.com or call 212-307-4386.

Follow Judith E. Glaser on Twitter: www.twitter.com/CreatingWE

Photo by LKuni freedigitalphotos.net

How to Embrace the ZEN of Masterful Coaching
by Fran Fisher, MCC  (MCC guest master coach and blogger)

The simple secret is: masterful coaching has more to do with who you are being than what you are doing.

“The best way to do is to be.” – Lao Tsu

Guiding Principles for Highly Masterful Coaching

• Being leads doing.
• Learning is central.
• Deep caring is the key context.
• Transformation is the purpose.
• Empowering feedback is essential.
• Deep listening is the key competency.

Highly Masterful Coaches Are Being:

• Confident exploring the unknown, taking risks, and calling forth the client‘s greatness.
• Spontaneous in the present moment with the client, and to the whole of who the client is being – a completely connected observer.
• Focused on eliciting the client’s learning and finding a more powerful sense of self.
• Trusting at the level of unconscious competence.
• Willing to be transparent, authentic, and vulnerable.

Inquiries to ponder:

• Who am I being that calls forth my client’s greatness?
• Who am I being that elicits trust and intimacy?
• Who am I being that challenges my client’s personal/professional growth edges?

@FranFisher2015 all rights reserved

Fran is a passionate champion for the transformational power of coaching! Her vision is a world where everyone is living true to the essence of who they are. She is a Master Certified Coach, recognized as one of the pioneers of the coaching profession - a published author and international speaker. www.franfishercoach.com

Photo by Criminalatt at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Coaching Dominant Executives: Taking the Tiger by the Tail
by Teresa Pool MCC (MCC guest master coach and blogger)

 It seems that, after a decade of coaching and developing coaches, everyone wants to be an Executive Coach.  They invest five figures into a quality training program; fill their coaching toolkit with strategies, programs and assessments; then work their way into the VP and C-suites.  Many are high-end consultants, credentialed HR or LD leaders, or executives themselves – all with years of C-level experience.  But even they can still hit the wall when it comes to coaching dominant executives.   The old rules don’t apply and the shift from expert to coach can be tough to make.

We don’t need an assessment to tell us who qualifies as a dominant executive.  No nonsense, no fluff, ‘get the job done or get out of the way’.  If you are in the way of their target, you can become the target.  Integrity and good communication skills can soften the blow, but you will never mistake their intent to win.  The higher you go in a company, the more prevalent they become.  Their drive to succeed propels them upward everywhere they go. 

The challenge for coaches comes from the high expectations and powerful personalities dominant executives bring to coaching.  Fortunately the ICF Coaching Competencies are still the gold standard for coaching dominant executives.  The secret is in how we apply them.

Establishing the Coaching Agreement:  Dominant executives are target-oriented, focused on a goal.  It is important for coaches to use the coaching agreement phase of the session to clearly understand what the client’s goal for the session is.  “What specifically do you want to leave with today?” is a good place to start.  Letting them dive right in to the coaching conversation is a recipe for failure.

Establishing Trust and Intimacy with the Client:  This competency is all about creating rapport with your client.  Dominant people judge competency of others by how direct their communication style is and how effective they are at getting things done.  Bringing a soft, supportive style to the call isn’t going to accomplish this.  Match their tone, pace and focus.  Keep chit chat to a minimum.

Coaching Presence:  Let your confidence shine through and be an equal partner with your client.  Don’t take a back seat or take the lead.  The first they won’t respect and the second they won’t tolerate.  They want a coach that is as willing to take risks and “tell it like it is” as they are.  Not a battle of egos but an interesting challenge of the minds.

Active Listening:  Dominant executives are used to doing the talking and their coaching relationships are no different.  Ask some powerful questions and turn them loose!  Use this listening time to gather information below the content: their idiosyncratic phrases, meta programs and strategies, the story beneath the story.  They will give you all the information you need to coach them effectively.

Powerful Questioning:  This is the competency you must excel in with your dominant executive.  Stick to safe, action-oriented or formula questions and you’ll be back on the bench.  Each question should make them think, challenge the status quo and rock their world.  Take risks.  This is what is missing in their world; people willing to stand up to their power and ask the hard questions.

Direct Communication:  Now it’s time to use all that information you gathered in Active Listening.  Reframe what has been said in a new way.  Be a bold mirror for what you see going on.  Use their language and language patterns for maximum impact.  Explore new territory using their metaphors and existing strategies.  With curiosity and non-judgment, you can go where others can’t.

Creating Awareness:  For dominant executives, this is the value of coaching.  They are smart cookies, which got them where they are today.  They don’t need your ideas or plans or even weekly accountability.  They need the “AHA!” moments that they can run with.  Powerful questions and challenge for thought are what creates awareness, so put all your efforts there.

Designing Actions:  If you find yourself spending much time in action design, you probably haven’t made an impact in awareness.  Few dominant executives pay a coach to co-design an action plan; their staff is full of people who can play that role.  Once awareness is achieved, the dominant executive will generate action so fast you’ll have to jump out of the way.

Planning and Goal Setting:  It is your job to keep an eye on the overarching coaching plan while the client drives the course of each session.  This is about beginning the coaching program with specific goals and measures and taking checkpoints along the way to measure progress.  Dominant executives usually have their targets top of mind so the real value is in the coach furthering clarity and staying on the same page with them!

Managing Progress and Accountability:  Don’t let these powerful executives delegate responsibility for their progress (to you) or ignore their commitments.  While these dominant clients like to maintain control of their direction and use of their time, they appreciate the coach holding up the mirror for what they said they wanted to achieve.  The occasional look-back and progress recognition is also helpful for these forward-focused leaders.

By recognizing the unique needs of powerful, dominant executives, you can use these competency tips to be an equally powerful coach-partner.  May the force be with you!

© 2010 Transitions For Business. All rights reserved.

Teresa J. Pool MCC, the President and founder of Transitions For Business, helps her clients achieve their full potential.  A human behavior and communication specialist, Teresa’s work as a coach, consultant, speaker, strategic facilitator, and workshop leader has motivated thousands to be their personal best. In addition, she inspires change through her published articles, television and radio appearances, and two leadership guides: Focus in the Midst of Chaos and Communication DISCovery. Teresa is an executive coach in UTD’s Executive MBA program and serves as an instructor, supervisor and examiner in their Executive Coaching program.   Teresa is dedicated to serving the coaching community as a former President of the ICF North Texas Chapter and provides coaching competency training for ICF credential advancement.

www.transitionsforbusiness.com

Photo via FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Assumptions
A Contributing Factor to Miscommunication

By Amorah Ross MCC
MMC guest Master Coach 3/26/15 & blogger
Originally posted in Amorah's August 2015 Newsletter Adventures in Awareness

Over the last month or more, I've noticed that within each coaching conversation my clients and I were unraveling assumptions from facts related to the session’s topic area. As we traced each assumption backward and finally unearthed the simple facts, we were astonished by the different choices that became visible. With each conversation, I became more curious about my own ‘assumption habits’ and have been observing them with fascination.
 
A case in point: a couple of weeks ago I had a telephone interview with a potential client who had contacted me about coaching. During our conversation, I took notes as I typically do and wrapped up by asking when she would be making her choice of coach. She said she had some company arriving the next week and would make a decision by the end of that week. I asked her permission to contact her if I hadn’t heard back from her in that time, and she said, ‘yes’.
 
Putting a reminder on my computer to call her back in a week’s time, I set aside my notes and went about my other business. The day the reminder popped up, I made an unconscious assumption that if she hadn’t called me back by then she had probably hired another coach and perhaps felt awkward to let me know. Armed with that ‘conversation’ I decided NOT to follow up with her, yet my gut gave a wrench and wouldn’t settle down for the next day or so.
 
As often happens for me when I’m in curious self-observer mode, during my contemplations and musings I took note of my gut’s uneasy reactions, seeking what had 'disturbed my inner silence'. And, as ‘luck’ would have it, in going through some papers on my desk I uncovered my notes from that conversation. As I reviewed them, my heart was again touched as I read her reasons for seeking a coach, the dreams she wants to fulfill finally and remembered the earnest yearning in her voice. Not only that, as I saw my notation about contacting her, I felt ashamed that I had not followed through on a promise I made to her and myself – not my usual professionalism.
 
With that realization, I picked up the phone and called her, saying I was following through with her as I’d promised and was curious about where she was in her decision-making process. To my utter delight, she said her final step in making her decision was to see who of the coaches would follow up with her;j our coaching partnership begins after I return from vacation the end of next week. I’m very much looking forward to the opportunity to support her next steps toward birthing those precious dreams of hers. Needless to say, my gut has settled down now that an actual conversation took place rather than the 'illusionary conversation' my inner saboteur concocted in my head brain.
 
Because I simply can’t help myself, this has prompted even more curiosity within me about assumptions (mine and others) and the role they play in communication or miscommunication. As I move through my days over the coming weeks, I’m staying aware and practicing catching any assumptions earlier and earlier in their progression. I’m eagerly gaining the visceral awareness not only of when assumptions are being made but also taking notice of the impact of those assumptions on my mind, body and spirit.
 
Finally, I’m taking responsibility for making an assumption by starting with, “My assumption here is…”, Or, “I assume…” in my speaking and email. This verbal and written responsibility has supported clarity in several conversations recently, for which I’m grateful.
 
CONTINUING THIS ADVENTURE INTO AWARENESS
How about you - what role do assumptions play in your thinking and reactions to people and situations?

I invite you to consider this question and, as you do, notice what new awareness emerges from within you. And please remember to have FUN on that awareness adventure into the question, okay?

Happy exploring!
Amoráh

@Amorah Ross 2015

Amorah's work is to support her clients in bringing their soulful humanity out so that it serves as the guiding light for all that they do. Never again must their humanity get buried or compromised amid the often-conflicting demands of the various roles they inhabit day by day. 

Passionate about celebrating human wholeness as our birthright, Amorah is a Transformative Coach for those who choose to show up in their careers and live their lives from their authentic core essence and beyond the limitations of traditional thinking. 

Amoráh is an ICF Master Certified Coach, a certified Mentor Coach, and a seasoned coach trainer. A professional coach since 1997 and coach trainer/mentor coach since 1999, Amoráh also serves as an ICF credentialing assessor and on the ICF Global Standards Core Team. She served 3+ years on ICF’s Credentialing and Program Accreditation Committee, and was its Vice-Chair in 2010. Amoráh lives near Seattle with her husband of 45 years and their 2 miniature dachshunds.

Amorah co-authored the book Roadmap to Success: America’s Top Intellectual Minds Map Out Successful Business Strategies, a compilation of articles on strategies & tools for personal and professional success. She has also had published numerous articles on coaching.

www.amorah.com

Hear Margie Heiler MCC Coaching

Wednesday July 22, 2015 12-1pm EDT