Letting IT find YOU

Have you ever felt lost in your life?  Frustrated?  And anxious to find something.  And ever felt that your search has become a task in itself, and a constant struggle..?

So how would it be to stop trying so hard?  To trust that the answer or solution will come, somehow?

What do we tell children to do if they get lost when we are out together?  “Stay where you are.  I will find you.”  

Can you picture yourself and the answer you seek walking round in circles, up and down different supermarket aisles, just missing each other like some surreal farce, getting more and more panicked?

Consider the description in David Wagoner’s poem, Lost

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you

Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,

And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,

Must ask permission to know it and be known.

The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,

I have made this place around you,

If you leave it you may come back again, saying Here.

No two trees are the same to Raven.

No two branches are the same to Wren.

If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,

You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows

Where you are. You must let it find you.

So how might you create the conditions in your life where the answers, or the good things you seek, might turn up?  How might you stand still for long enough for them to find you? 

Please share your thoughts or email me to explore this idea further.

Is Greatness Relative or Absolute?

I recently attended a session where the participants were asked to consider their ‘greatness’.  It prompted some interesting discussion, not least around a fear of rejection or of being somehow separate from others if they were to become great.  

What this highlighted was that, for many of us, it is difficult to think about one person being ‘great’ without that somehow meaning that someone else is ‘less great’.    It means that we resist stepping into our greatness for fear of being alone. 

So what if being great is not about being better or best.  What if it is about bringing our own unique gifts, and the whole richness of who we are, into whatever we do.  And what if it were possible to step into greatness and at the same time become MORE connected than we have ever been.

As long as we see our becoming great as somehow overshadowing others, that shadow will keep us in darkness too.  And fear or shame may stop us in our tracks.

Yet, as Marianne Williamson says in A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles: 

‘as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.’ 

How could you be great and foster greatness in others?

Please share your thoughts or email me to explore this idea further.

The Poetry of Coaching

"the shape of words like the shadows

of doves, settling." 

from Translation, Jane Griffiths

This coming weekend, I will be speaking at the Euro Coach List Conference near Bristol, UK, about the parallels between coaching and poetry.  Unusual bedfellows?  I don’t think so.  

Language is a crucial part of any coaching process.  Our self expression is a bridge between our internal and external worlds.  As a coach, I pay close attention to what clients say and how they say it. Together, we listen for their authentic voice.

Using ‘clean’ language, carefully reflecting and repeating the client’s choice of words, can enrich coaching.  And there is a growing understanding of the use of particular language tools, such as metaphor, in the coach’s repertoire.

As a poet as well as a coach, I have always been interested in the power of particular words, phrases and images to evoke feelings and clarify thinking.  I increasingly find myself using snippets of poetry, and poetic imagery in my coaching.  This can be especially powerful for clients who most value new ways of seeing their challenges, over practical help with planning and actions.

However, I believe the link between coaching and poetry goes further than this.

The language and forms of coaching and poetry have much in common; they are non-directive, open, often rhythmic, involve ‘showing’ not ‘telling’, and are about what ‘might be’ as well as ‘what is’.  Poetry and coaching have a shape but not a rigid structure.  Both create a space in which we might overhear something important.

Thinking about my coaching practice, I have gained clarity and focus from finding a way to see it; in other words finding a metaphor for the way I work.  Many people, including coaches, describe their work in part through different metaphors.  For me, seeing my coaching approach as poetic has given me greater insight than reams of ‘how to’ text books.  Consciously employing poetic devices has strengthened my practice and yielded delightful and surprising results.  Above all, it feels authentic. 

"What can anyone give you greater than now,

starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?"

from You Reading This, Be Ready, William Stafford

Please email me for a copy of my presentation, or to explore this idea further:  

sam@differentdevelopment.com

Stay Curious

I recently worked with a young woman who felt herself to be on the edge of something.  It was dark; a huge void; something she might fall into and be lost.  It was clearly terrifying.  Yet the more she ignored it, the scarier it became.


So I ENCOURAGED her to be curious; to wonder what might be in it; beyond the dark.  She found the courage to gaze, unflinching, into that void.  And through the fog of doubts and self criticism, she saw the source of her own creativity.  In her mind's eye, the void became a well from which she could draw.  In many ways no less scary, but empowering and motivating...


We are often tempted to avoid the things we fear.  When our children tell us about the monster under the bed, we want to say that it isn't there.  Yet research suggests that children overcome their fears best when encouraged to explore them.  By following their curiosity, sneaking glances at first to find out what colour it is, how long its hair, how smelly its breath, they gradually find the strength to look the monster in the eye.  


Similarly, with our inner demons, as long as we only catch a glimpse of them, or they stay on the edge of our hearing, they retain their power.  Get curious - unpick what they say, what voice they use, perhaps how ridiculous they look - and we gain control.


Our fixed thinking can trap us in old stories and fears.  Using what Seth Godin* calls a 'fundamentalist' approach, we consider first if something fits with the story we tell about ourselves before taking it on board.  In this way we accept at face value all that reinforces our beliefs, and reject that which challenges us. In contrast, staying curious means exploring first, finding out what is true - what works - and building it into to an evolving story.  Here there is growth and opportunity.


Curiosity may have killed the cat, but I believe it is a life giver.


If you are curious to find out how our coaching and workshops can help, please get in touch.


* See Nic Askew's fabulous film of Seth here http://www.nicaskew.com/2011/10/curious/

Defeat by Greater Things

In my last blog, I talked about the importance of finding work that you truly love.  Or indeed, of allowing it to find you.

When we are doing something we truly love, when we are in that flow, we can often get a sense of something else taking over.  We have a sense of ease, of letting go of the need to control everything.

The japanese potter,  Shoji Hamada, a huge influence on British studio pottery in the 1920s, talked about this power in his work.

"If a kiln is small, I might be able to control it completely, that is to say, my own self can become a controller, a master of the kiln. But man's own self is but a small thing after all. When I work at the large kiln, the power of my own self becomes so feeble that it cannot control it adequately.  It means that for the large kiln, the power that is beyond me is necessary.  Without the mercy for such an invisible power I cannot get good pieces.  One of the reasons I wanted to have a large kiln is because I want to be a potter, if I may, who works more in grace than in his own power.  You know nearly all the best pots were done in a huge kiln."

Might choosing an endeavour that is part of something greater, allow us all to work more in grace than in our own power?

The German poet Rilke also urges letting go in his poem, The Man Watching.

“What we choose to fight is so tiny!

What fights us is so great!

If only we would let ourselves be dominated

as things do by some immense storm,

we would become strong too, and not need names.”

Our daily battles in work can become so all consuming, that we lose track of the real prize.  Often these battles are about ‘the small stuff’, and winning them feels like firefighting.  Instead, we need to focus on what Jim Collins calls ‘Big Hairy Audacious Goals’.  We may not achieve them all, but we will have set our sights on the right things, and in stretching to them, we will grow.   Again from Rilke, 

“Winning does not tempt that man.

This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively,

by constantly greater beings.”

What greater things might you chose to be defeated by?

Don't Settle

What was it about Steve Jobs that created the kind of international loyalty that has people frenetically tweeting and posting about him, following his death yesterday at the age of 56?

Lickable (sic) as Apple’s products are, I don’t think that’s it.

Our esteem for leaders and people of influence is based more on the how rather than what, of what they do.

For many, Jobs’ life was emblematic of possibility - born out of wedlock, put up for adoption, dropped out of college - begging the question, “what’s my excuse?”

He challenged people to find and do work that they loved:

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma." 

Above all he said to people “Don’t settle.”  

Many of us work in environments and organisational cultures that repress our vitality, our curiosity, our youthful innocence; and we collude, allowing this part of us to emerge only outside work, or in the snatched escape of holidays that we dream of for months.  Yet this denies us fulfilment and reward in the very place where we invest most of our energies.  Ironically, it also leaves our organisations, colleagues and customers impoverished.  Many of our unique skills and insights have been left at the office door.

This is echoed by Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet,  

“Work is love made visible.

And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.

For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man's hunger.”

If you are not fulfilled - being all that you could be - at your current work, how might you find what you truly love.  Or how might you allow it to find you?

A Place To Stand

What is it that you stand for?  

The greek mathematician Archimedes, demonstrating the principle of a lever, said that he would move the whole world if he had a long enough stick, and a place to stand.

So often, when we have a new task or role to live up to, we focus on the tools we will need.  Most training and development centres on improving our skills.  New organisations concentrate on getting the structures and processes in place.  But unless we are really clear about what we are trying to achieve; where we stand; what is important.... it is like poking at the problem with a stick.  Sometimes a very big one.  Without a place to stand, we have no purchase.

Knowing what we stand for gives us a place to come back to when the way is unclear.  It gives us a language with which to engage with others in authentic debate.  In organisations, getting really clear about a shared purpose - finding a common landscape - is key to success.

Working out what we stand for is more than deciding what we think about something.  Where we stand is not is our heads.  It is where we plant our feet.  We often say that we are committed to something, and yet it plays little part in our lives.  We might believe in or think about lots of things that are important to us; but what we are committed to is what we are doing right now.  Is what you are doing now the thing you say you are committed to?  And if you are not truly committed to some of the things you think about - the shoulds and oughts that you give yourself a hard time over -  maybe its time to let them go?  Maybe this would give you space to really commit to something?

As William Hutchinson Murray, deputy leader on the 1951 Everest Reconnaissance Expedition, said 

"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back-- Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too.”

Murray’s love of mountaineering, and his determination to write about it, may have helped him survive three years in prisoner of war camps during world War II. While imprisoned, Murray wrote a book entitled Mountaineering In Scotland on the only resource available - rough toilet paper. The manuscript was found and destroyed by the Gestapo.  His response was to start again, despite the risk of its loss and his poor physical condition.  He was so malnourished that he believed he would never climb again. The book was finally published in 1947.

Do you have a place to stand?    If so, what does it give you?   If not, how might you find one?

Speak What You Know To Be True

Last week I went to see A Celebration of Harold Pinter, Directed by John Malkovich, and ‘Performed’ (although this is hardly the right word) by Julian Sands.  At times speaking in Pinter’s voice, Sands shared anecdotes, selections from Pinter’s poetry and lectures, and snippets from Lady Antonia Fraser’s deftly titled memoir Must You Go?  Above all, Sands shared his esteem for the one of the 20th Century’s greatest playwrights.  It is a very personal account, delivered in an intimate and effusive style that has brought mixed criticism.  I loved it....  

Moreover, it prompted me to watch Pinter’s nobel prize acceptance speech, which Sands quotes from in the piece.

“I believe that despite the enormous odds which exist, unflinching, unswerving, fierce intellectual determination, as citizens, to define the real truth of our lives and our societies is a crucial obligation which devolves upon us all. It is in fact mandatory.  If such a determination is not embodied in our political vision we have no hope of restoring what is so nearly lost to us — the dignity of man.”

Pinter recorded his lecture as he was too ill (with cancer) to travel to Sweden to deliver it.  His physical frailty and the strain in his voice are obvious and poignant.  But his wit is razor sharp; his prosody engaging; his words piercing; his passion irrepressible.  His views (especially on American foreign policy) are uncompromising, and no doubt discomforting to many.  He was not afraid to speak up.

And of course, Pinter understood the power of speech and the undercurrents of quiet.  His plays are renowned for his use of silence; and the Pinter pause.  

Pinter himself described two silences. One when no word is spoken. The other when “a torrent of language is being employed”. Beneath both of these silences, there may be things unsaid.

Today human rights activists across the world mourn the death of Troy Davis, executed after 21 years in prison in Georgia, USA.  The silent vigils held just before his killing by lethal injection shout loudly of outrage.  The obfuscating rationales for not granting clemency conceal a moral vacuum; and the twittering debates about when it is and isn’t OK to kill, only obscure.

As Pinter said, “So often, below the word spoken, is the thing known and unspoken.”  What do I know?  That this was wrong.  

To speak, clearly, what we know to be true - surely that is our obligation.

The Sweet Territory of Silence

As well as the outer voices we express, we all have inner voices too.  Some of these are not really ours.  They are the nagging voices of fear, regret or embarrassment.  The voice of a teacher, parent or boss who shamed us.  The envious voices of others who demand “who do you think you are?”.  Some of us call these our Gremlins.  As a coach and facilitator, I am often asked to help people to challenge these voices.  To chuck them some peanuts.  To tell them where to get off.....

We also have our own, genuine, inner voice.  The one that reflects the meaning we place on our experiences and the lessons we have learned.  The one that has guiding wisdom to offer. It is more subtle and less heard than the one we usually employ in public, especially in the workplace.  It often gets ignored and may be forced to get our attention in different ways - though a gut feeling, a sense of separation, a longing, or the physical ramifications of stress.

In my own experience, this voice is more lyrical and questioning.  Perhaps more poetic.  David Whyte describes how a poet: 

“tries to overhear himself 

say something, 

from which

in that silence,

it is impossible to retreat.
-- River Flow: New & Selected Poems 1984-2007

A coaching relationship creates the space in which a client can overhear herself.  At other times the coach picks up something the client says but does not really hear.  Notice that overhearing is different to hearing.  It is a snatched moment.  A glimpsed insight.  Something we might easily have missed in our busyness or business.  

Perhaps we could all make more space for this kind of silence in our lives.  Perhaps we would hear something really important.  Silence can be frightening.  It can feel like being alone.  It is unpredictable.  But there is comfort in it too.

As Gabrielle Roth says, in her powerful book Maps to Ecstasy:

‎ "In many shamanic societies, if you came to a medicine person

complaining of being disheartened, dispirited, or depressed,

they would ask one of four questions. When did you stop dancing?

When did you stop singing? When did you stop being enchanted by stories?

When did you stop finding comfort in the sweet territory of silence?" 

Voice (1)

I have noticed what seems like a recurring theme in my recent coaching sessions. Three of my clients in particular have highlighted issues that are fundamentally to do with how they express themselves through their voice: a newly promoted manager looking for a way to embody her new role and find a different vocal (and metaphorical) tone in her interactions with the team and her new peers; an experienced manager wanting to create the right impression in advance of (yet another set of) organisational changes - and wondering how he ensures that the clear thinking in his head is credible and convincing coming out of his mouth; and the emerging writer, looking to give voice to his story and characters without being overwhelmed by them.

As the key way that we engage with others, our voice is a bridge between our internal and external worlds. Our words — how they are chosen, strung together and expressed — have the ability to clarify, influence, persuade, motivate and inspire. They have a significant impact on image and long-term success.

As a coach, I listen carefully to what clients say and how they say it. Together, we explore the significance of what they say, and I reflect back my experience of hearing them say it. Their physical voice provides a window to their thoughts.

But using the abstract or connotative idea of ‘voice’ to explore a client’s sense of self provides another dimension. The concept of voice is closely related to our sense of identity. In choosing the voice we use, for example as leaders, we are saying something about the kind of person we want to be seen as. If this voice is to be heard as authentic, it must reflect our actions; the kind of person we are. If it doesn’t, however much we might admire those we would model ourselves on, we will struggle to “make that noise” (as described in Anthony Minghella’s book, Minghella on Minghella).

We talk about compelling voices as ‘resonating’ - having a certain quality of sound that is deep, full, and reverberating. But resonance also relates to the impact of our words; the ability to evoke or suggest images, memories, and emotions. A resonant voice will integrate inner values with outer behaviours; whereas a dissonant voice just doesn’t “sound” right.

Add a Comment to share your experience, or contact me via sam@differentdevelopment.com to find out more about exploring your Voice

First Footing.......

Welcome to the new blog from Different Development.  I will be sharing news, resources and my learning from our new creative development company, and from my forthcoming book on Leadership.  I hope you will find something interesting, thought-provoking, inspiring, or just plain fun over the coming weeks.  Do sign up for updates, and get in touch with any feedback.


Do something different today....!


Sam