Who are the mentors who have helped you?  Did they challenge you, push you to move beyond your limitations – imagined or real? Or did they just console you?  Did they expand your universe or just reinforce your existing beliefs?

There is a lot of confusion about how a coach is supposed to help you. If you are looking for someone to talk to, to simply feel better about yourself, then you’re not looking for a coach.  A coach will challenge you to make changes towards permanent positive change, new ideas, and new behavior. They will also give you the specific tools so that you can do it. They will hold you accountable to put those tools to use, and to keep using them. Anything less, and you are cheating yourself.

There’s also big myth about self-sufficiency, and self-determination,  and a false idea that we should all be able to go it alone. There’s confusion about independence and interdependence. There’s a difference between being pushed out of your comfortable nest, and being able to fly with exquisite skill. A good coach will push you beyond your comfort zone and give you the skills to thrive there.

The most accomplished and successful leaders in every field have always  been mentored. Professional athletes have coaches, effective organizations have consultants, even great spiritual teachers have advisers and guides! Artists, writers, musicians, scientists, entrepreneurs, inventors .. you name it .. the best of them acknowledge the life-changing impact of their mentors,

Why would you imagine that you deserve less, or could achieve your best with less?

Perhaps you run your life by other myths, that you’re not good enough, or that you don’t deserve it, or that you can’t afford it. But your logic is backwards. You become good enough by stepping up, you come to deserve it by claiming it, and ultimately, if you want to become and do what you’re truly capable of becoming and doing, you can’t afford not to get the help you need and deserve to make it happen!

The work of a coach is not to help you feel comfortable with your limitations, real or imagined. It is not even to help you understand those limitations, however valuable understanding can sometimes be. It is to help you  focus your energy so that you move beyond those limitations altogether, and to sustain that movement so that you, and everyone around you benefits.

.. And aren’t all limitations imagined ones anyway?

So, are you coachable? Ask yourself:

1. Can you learn? Can you let go of what you thought you knew? Can you listen and take action based on what you hear? Can you stand directly in front of the things you have avoided because they terrified you, and learn from your fears? Can you trust .. which means, can you trust yourself, your dreams, desires, ambitions? Can you trust that life works for you, not against you, as soon as you start living and thinking for yourself.
2. Can you change? Can you risk losing what you thought you depended on? Can you risk losing who you thought you were? Can you risk failing in order to achieve a greater and deeper success. Can you understand that true success is not a zero-sum game. When you win, everyone can win? Can you get out of your own way? Can you stand face to face with those old fears and trust that they may be your greatest teachers, not just something to ‘overcome’, but true guides and teachers.

A few years ago I began working  with mentors who really challenged me to question my own belief system and the self-imposed limitations that were playing out in my life, as well as in my work as a teacher and mentor to others.

I realized that I had a ‘sacred’ duty to provoke, challenge, and question even more than I had been .. and to provide concrete tools, practical perspectives , and real-life skills with which people might sustain permanent change in an ongoing way. Anything less than that was merely misplaced kindness!

Genuine kindness sacrifices temporary comfort for long term achievement and ongoing, ever-evolving, fulfillment and creativity; to become a true reflection of this wild and marvelous adventure of living!

Sometimes it flows, sometimes not. Sometimes it rings true, sometimes not. Sometimes it is enthralling, scary,  predictable, or dull. Sometimes it is a dream come true? Sometimes you have to pinch yourself. It is so amazing that you have to accept that you live a charmed and blessed life; and sometimes you forget.

Without our stories, the world is about as interesting as a technical manual on a subject you know nothing about.

We learn through stories. Even hard facts must be transformed into metaphors, images, and stories for us to remember them. Children love stories because that’s how they learn to be in the world. We all love stories because of the new possibilities they present to us.

There are two kinds of stories: stories that limit us, and stories that expand the boundaries of what we imagine is possible. Possibilities must be imagined before they can be realized. Possibilities come to us first as stories. Limitations are negative possibilities, and are imagined in the same way.

A story that bursts through the limits of what was once imagined can liberate us from whatever story we may have been telling ourselves. “I can’t.” “I am too this or that.” “I always seem to mess it up.” “The world is too this or that.” “Too many people are suffering. I will only make it worse.” “People are unkind.” “Someone will rescue me.” “I am too young.” “Too old.” “Too smart.” “Too dumb.” You are whatever you say you are. You can be the exception to whatever it is you imagined others may have said about you.

A young woman in Kenya who saved scores of girls from genital mutilation because she herself had been mutilated. A dock-worker in Poland who catalyzed the downfall of the communist regime. A Burmese woman, Aung San Suu Kyi, who continues to tell a story about democracy and self-determination for the people of Burma. Under house arrest for decades,  she continues to inspire the world. How many examples are there of people who changed the lives of others. They did so by creating a story that was bigger than any of the limitations that might have consumed them.

The best healers and teachers teach us stories about what is possible. In the history of all people are stories about taming demons and monsters and making them into allies; and stories about transforming impossible tasks and accomplishing them. We make meaning through stories.

What story are you telling yourself, which when you change it now, changes everything about what is possible for yourself and for the world.

Do stories change hard facts? You bet they do! Is there still work to do? In Haiti, Pakistan, Iraq, and in your own life? Of course.

The question is simple. What stories lead you to say, “Yes, I can” so that you are empowered to do that necessary work of transforming your life and the life of the world?

• life,
• business,
• education,
• relationships,
• spiritual well being,
• emotional health.

Do you ever forget that what now seems obvious was once a revelation? Or that some of the most basic things in life are things you most easily take for granted, then forget about, then remember, then forget again, over and over again.

Ideas and principles that have been around forever are still brand new when you get them for the first time; or when you get them again in a new and deeper way. Like peeling away layers to rediscover something new about what you thought you had understood. This is the nature of the two basic principles here.

Basic Truth~Principle Number One. Hamlet said it, in a moment of desperation, “there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” Alfred Korzybski also said it so clearly that it is now an axiom, “the map is not the territory.”

We each live with different models of the world. You could say that we live in different worlds, with different maps, and often with entirely different ways of thinking.

One of the wonders of the world is that despite our different models of the world, and our different points of view, we still manage communicate with each other at all!

If you want to be a good parent, friend, salesperson, communicator, teacher (and you’re not a member of a cult where people are encouraged to hold the same basic model of the world) then respecting others’ values, point of view, assumptions, predisposition, and taste will stand you in good stead.

In short, respect the way other people view the world, however different from your own point of view that may be.

Basic Truth~Principle Number Two. Everything we experience is filtered through our emotions. and our attitudes that both inform and are informed by them. This includes the expectations we have of the world and of ourselves. It includes how we respond in times of difficulty.

It means that children learn best when they are happy, safe, and held in high regard. And of course, the same is true for adults.

We tend to fulfill what is expected of us, including and especially what we have learned to expect of ourselves. The world and the people around us also tend to respond to us according to our expectation of them.

When things go wrong it is better to treat the experience as a lesson, to pick yourself up, and move on.

Blaming yourself or others won’t help. Asking “what can I learn from this?’ will!

Explaining and justifying the situation won’t help. Asking what you can do differently next time will.

Indulging in self-pity, anger, resentment won’t help. Evoking a sense of gratitude for what you still have will!

In short, maintaining a positive attitude and a positive emotional state will always work to your advantage. And it will benefit everyone you come into contact with.

Two basic truths to live by:

• The map is not the territory; and
• Live at cause, not as a victim.

Then I ask “Do you know what a Cultural Creative is?” Most people, even though they have not heard the term before have a pretty good idea what it means. They also identify with it, “Oh yes, that’s what I am.”

Wikepedia suggests that a quarter of those living in the US are Cultural Creatives, slightly less in Europe. Who’d have thought!

There are green Cultural Creatives, there are high achievers in business who are Cultural Creatives – embracing ambiguity, and thinking outside of conventional norms.

Cultural Creatives are by nature free thinkers. We may have specific ideals and values orientations, but we are flexible and don’t generally join groups. Nor do we identify ourselves as Cultural Creatives – affirmed by all the people who had not heard the term before.

It’s a label that works well for our times. Gone are the days of singular class identity, singular ethnic affiliation, at least for some of us. If you identify as more than one thing – an artist AND a social activist AND a contemplative. Or if you are am Entrepreneur AND a poet AND a serious advocate for alternative energy – then you are also probably a Cultural Creative.

Cultural Creatives value authenticity, social justice, creativity, sustainability, feminism, plurality, independence, spiritual practice outside of the bounds of organized religion, education, volunteerism… Add your own. If you’re reading this the chances are you are a Cultural Creative, or know one.

So what’s the point of this new label? As always, to add a little clarity. I remember one friend whose face lit up in excitement, “Oh yes, that’s what I am, a Cultural Creative!” It was comforting for her to have something to identify with even though she didn’t ‘do’ groups or identify with any particular demographic. She was a Buddhist meditation teacher, a writer, of mixed race, a free thinker.

Now she could condense it all into the single phrase, “I’m a Cultural Creative!” at least for that moment.

More at http://www.manzanitavillage.org

Then there are those who accept change only when they must.

How we change is our own responsibility and our own choice. Change is not good or bad in itself. We each look for happiness after our own fashion.

There’s an idea in many circles that real change is hard – personal change, social change, organizational change … But often change is simpler than we think. By looking from a new perspective, by considering factors previously disregarded, by challenging basic assumptions, a new world of possibility opens up to us.

One of the great masters of Budo (a physically demanding Japanese dance and performance-art form) didn’t take up the art until after he was seventy.

Thomas Edison went to school for a total of only three months then went on to become the man we consider the most brilliant inventor and engineering innovator of all time. The original business of Richard Branson, which have made him one of the richest men in the world, was named Virgin because everyone in the company, including himself, was completely new to business.

Neurolinguistics (NLP) is based on studying how we make change, internally and externally, and how we make, and can change, the meanings we make of things.

It’s not a religion, or a cult, or a sales technique. Originally it was developed by modeling such luminaries as Fritz Perls, Virginia Satir, Milton Erickson, and Gregory Bateson.

As someone who has been passionately interested in the nature of change for as long as I can remember – as a Buddhist teacher, as a poet, as a clinical hypnotherapist, and as a women of transsexual experience – my passion for Neurolingistics has reawakened because I have come to it as the tool par excellence for implementing effective person change in any area of your life or work, and as the ideal compliment to any personal or spiritual discipline for change.

- I hope you can join us for our ten day training in July http://www.manzanitavillage.org/retreats/nlp/

Here are four keys, four distinctions that may help you understand the process of change, as well as the process of communicating change. They are based on a map of learning that is common to all of us, yet  slightly different for each of us. This is a key distinction in our Buddhist Coaching.

1. Why? Why do I even need to change. Give me a reason. Inspire me. Tell me a story. Capture my imagination, so that I can begin this journey with you.

2. What? What will this involve. What will it cost me? What will I have to sacrifice? What will I have to give up? What will I gain? What will happen in a day, a week, a year … where will this journey take me?

3. How? Let’s start. Tell me, show me. Let’s do this now together. Show me how. Talk me through it.

4. What if? Now that I have learned something about this let me ask a question. What if … ? Suppose I did it this way … or that way …?

Some models of change dig into your history and  presuppose that it is important to know the causes, reasons, and conditions that may have limited your options for change. That is a “why” modality.

Have you ever met someone who was interested in the theory, history, and background much more than in the practicalities of how to do something? For example someone who had learned all about how to make something, yet never got around to actually doing it? That’s a “what” person.

Have you ever been at a lecture and listened to people who ask purely hypothetical questions before they have absorbed, or started to put into practice the subject of the lecture. Those would be “what if” people.

The best models for change, and a key component to the work we do with Mindfulness Coaching is “how.” It means that our prime focus is specifically on helping you, and providing the leverage for you, to implement change. Mindfulness Coaching is all about how you change (thoughts, actions, habits)  - so that you can, so that you do.

“.. neither good nor bad” an ocean of the banal, the unthinking, the accidental.

And isn’t that exactly what life becomes for us when we don’t choose, when we have no clear intention. Isn’t that what life becomes when we listen to the talking heads on tele-vision telling us what our vision should be.

None of it overwhelmingly good, nor overwhelmingly bad, simply an ocean of the banal, the mediocre, and the mundane.

My grandmother was fond of saying, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

And Dr. Martin Luther King said, “All that needs to happen for evil to prevail is that good men do nothing.”

How easy it is to fall asleep, to do nothing, to be satisfied with compromise.

What are you doing? And what are you intending to do?

And I am excited by the lessons implicit there. Lessons I wouln’t have understood on my first reading. In Dante’s first extended encounter in the Inferno he meets Francesca da Rimini – a perfect example of someone not willing to accept responsibility for her actions. “It’s not my fault.” “Love made me do it.” “What I read about Lancelot and Guinevere made me do it.”

.. an interesting idea – that other than Francesa being doomed to eternal damnation for her adultery, her actual experience of hell consists of her refusal to take responsibility for her actions or their consequences.

Is it hyperbole to suggest that being unwilling to take responsibility for the consequences of our actions is a kind of hell, endlessly self-perpetuating? Its essence is the blindness that keeps us stuck where we are. If we can’t take responsibly for the situation we’re in, we’re unlikely to take responsibility for getting out of it, or changing it.

So whenever you get into blaming, explaining, and complaining, remember Francesca da Rimini and Canto V of the Divine Comedy.

“Have a great ride,” he said.

Great ride! What an understatement!

Because it isn’t just the vehicle. It’s where you travel. It’s how you travel. It’s the places you pass, and it’s your destination. It’s who you meet on the way.

With all that power under the hood, I took my time. Because power isn’t just speed. It’s something you feel in your veins, in your heart. It’s the essence of what the journey is all about, and it’s the certainty that you will arrive – that you can’t fail, that there’s a kind of destiny to it. That you have, in some sense, already arrived.

Anyone you meet on the way is going to help you. Sometimes you don’t understand how or why. But if you stop, if you know what to ask .. even when you don’t know what to ask,  sometimes it’s enough just to know how to listen.

I pull into a rest stop and meet others on the same journey, traveling in their own style, traveling on their own road. There are others on foot. It doesn’t matter how you travel. There’s nothing intrinsically better or worse whether it’s a Lamborghini or a pair of flip-flops. It’s your choice, you pay, and you deal with the consequences. And when you know how to love the journey, and know that you will reach your destination, you will.