I was working with a client recently on creating time blocks for creating more focus in his work. It’s not exactly a groundbreaking idea, and we had talked Cal Newport’s Deep Work before, but he admitted that he hadn’t actually tried it yet. He was worried about being too rigid – i.e. too consistent, too structured — the scary story of self-discipline becoming a prison. Here’s the metaphor that I gave him: when you consciously create your routines (vs trying to mimic what someone else does or...
26 days ago • 2 min read
“Growth lies just outside your comfort zone.” There’s a lot of value in this maxim:It helps kick us out of stagnation and into action.It helps us question our habits, our playing small.It helps us pry our attention off of our past and realize that we can keep learning and growing. But… it also smuggles in an assumption that keeps you from truly flourishing. It gets you halfway there, while eroding your sense of aliveness along the way… Because the ‘comfort zone’ isn’t really about comfort!...
4 months ago • 2 min read
I feel like I’ve been saying goodbye to a lot of things in my life recently, to people and pets and paths not taken. There’s a nostalgia that comes with it, a tender vulnerability and grieving of each little change. Not painful but poignant, beautiful. “I don’t know why I’m crying” is something I often hear from clients when they’ve had a life-changing insight. Their life and their perspective has up-leveled, but they’re confused by the tears as if they were unhappy about getting what they...
over 1 year ago • 1 min read
What does it really mean to ‘trust your intuition’, and is it actually a good idea? Opinions abound: Following your intuition. But don’t jump to conclusions without thinking things through. But don’t obscure your inner knowing by going into your head. Don’t live on autopilot, but also don’t live in your head. Entire books have been written about why going with your gut is a good idea, and entire books have been written about why going with your gut is a bad idea. What’s missing is a...
over 1 year ago • 2 min read
It doesn’t matter what you say; it matters what is heard. Coaching isn’t downloading information from one brain to another; it’s opening up someone’s mind so that they see something new. An insight invariably shifts someone into a new, better world – an internal shift from which miracles outwardly spring forth. Sometimes you might share a story or idea, and especially if it comes from being deeply embodied and having had a profound impact on you, it’s a much more evocative transmission that...
over 1 year ago • 1 min read
For about the first decade of my coaching career I collected methodologies. I dove into everything that interested me, finding approaches that went deeper with things liked, that felt like colorful variations of other strategies, and approaches that went way out or directly contradicted other approaches. As that approach matured, I started optimizing, filtering, picking favorites – what models and tactics of transformational work gave the biggest ‘bang for the buck’? When a client got more...
almost 2 years ago • 1 min read
I returned from Burning Man about two weeks ago. The clothes have been washed, the shoes rinsed with vinegar, and the bins are back in the closet. There are many tales and lessons being woven around the remarkable rains and days of mud, of people coming together and adapting, bonding, and playing in the face of new challenges. But I’m drawn to share about something else, not unique to this burn but a regular and sacred thread of my personal Burning Man experience over the last couple years:...
almost 2 years ago • 2 min read
Find a limiting belief that’s creating resistance, and see through it. Find a missing action, and take it. Find a conversation you’ve been avoiding, and have it. Find a skill that’s weak enough that it’s holding you back, and practice it. Find an assumption which isn’t happening, and drop it. Find a feeling you’ve been avoiding feeling, and feel it. Find something you’ve been trying to fix, and instead ask yourself what you want to create. Find something you’re struggling with, and ask for...
about 2 years ago • 1 min read
“Something awesome is trying to happen, and your job is to allow it.” Inner GuidanceThere’s an underlying intelligence behind life that is there to guide us. It doesn’t always make sense, and it is often difficult to see, and sometimes feels scary or disorienting, but it is wiser than our little personal self and can always be trusted. In this workshop we’ll be exploring: The reality-shifting power of insight The nature of your inner guidance What gets in the way of following it How feelings...
about 2 years ago • 1 min read