Rule 3 for Flourishing

Focused activity almost always leads to positive feelings.

This is the principle of FLOW (see Csiksentmihalyi).

Positive feelings allow a “broaden and build” approach to achievement.

When I write—anything from a PowerPoint presentation to a blog—I lose myself in creation. I love to communicate with others and be communicated to. I read voraciously, both professionally and personally. For me, writing is often thinking. I know what I think after I’ve written it on a computer screen. I might write for four hours and think I’ve been working for an hour. I am, as Csiksentmihalyi says, in FLOW, that is, I am unaware of anything around me including time, hunger, physical comfort or discomfort. My activity is focused on whatever it is that I’m creating.

While I wouldn’t say that I know I’m happy in these times, I would say that I’m completely absorbed by what I’m doing, and want to go on for as long as the work consumes me. In this state, which Barbara Fredrickson calls “broaden and build,” I’m particularly receptive to new ideas and to putting old ideas together in a new way. My mind is open to many more possibilities than when I’m bored or doing work that is an obligation rather than a pleasure.

Flow happens differently for each of us. My brother is building a class A carpentry shop in his basement. He has done beautiful work in the past and now, in retirement, has the time to tackle complex design challenges with his new equipment. He may never come out of the basement! His wife, a nurse by training and experience, paints pastel renderings of nature and people in her studio. She too, can lose herself in her painting.

Whatever flow is for you, spend as much time there as you reasonably can. This will enable you to see new perspectives about other things due to your “broaden and build” perspective, and to flourish in your whole life.

Rule 2 for Flourishing

Focus on what you want—See it in your mind’s eye.

Make a neural path for it. Act toward it.

Part of focusing on what I want is creating for this new iteration of my website. I speak, teach, and consult about coaching—and I’ve gotten clearer over the last 3-5 years that this is what I want to be doing. I want to build both rigorous theory about coaching and effective action in coaching by writing and interacting with an audience. I now know a goodly number of truly gifted coaches—some I’ve worked with, some who’ve come to my classes, and some with whom I’ve learned. All of them share an uncommon curiosity about their clients and gifts of attention and care that seem truly extraordinary to me. I’ve also gotten clear that coaching as it is done with one other person is not my gift.

In focusing on what I want, I had to see where I am most effective. Equally importantly though, I had to see where I got the most “juice.” Perhaps I’m more actor than coach, more a foil for coaches and coaching than a coach myself. Whatever I call myself, I know I’m happiest and most at home in front of the lights.

Recently I spent an hour by phone with 30 coaches all over India. It was 8:30 PM Friday night for me, and 9 AM Saturday for them. It was my least favorite time to present and yet, as soon as coaches began to introduce themselves to me, I wanted nothing more than to spend the following hour with them.

What do you want and how can you best focus on it now? It doesn’t matter whether you are 16 or 96. I have a new acquaintance, a woman in my memoir writing class who is a gorgeous 91. She is focusing on what she wants, to write her own story for publication. I’m betting Cecilia will publish too as I’ve heard an engrossing chapter or two.

Create your own neural pathways and act toward what you want.

Activate your Mind and Body to Flourish

Neuroscience tells us that it is not enough to be brilliant.  We must also be fit.  I’m not advocating an impossible ideal here, not even a goal for anyone but you!  What I am advocating is actively pursuing something that interests you deeply.  My husband has applied to sit on the grand jury in our county.  He is a lawyer and a brilliant writer and strategist.  The county needs him and he wants to use his brain in this way to serve his community.  I, on the other hand, want to spend more time writing.  Interestingly, my husband is an introvert—seeking to widen his “outside” connections.  I am a decided extrovert, wanting to explore more deeply what is in my own mind.  Both of these pursuits compel us in our wisdom years.

My husband’s neurologist wants him to walk up and down the hills where we live.  I do this fairly regularly and find it energizing.  While my husband plays regular tennis and skis in the winter, he is not a special fan of aerobic exercise—which he now needs.  He’s a good sport about walking with me, huffing and puffing behind me as we go.  I walk small circles at our turns to allow him to catch up with me.

I have returned to a yoga practice after several years away from it.  I was consistently injuring one hip and spent the days between practice icing that hip or hobbling uncomfortably around.  I’ve missed yoga and have recently returned by taking a series of private lessons from David Schlussel (www.vidanda.com), and then by taking gentle yoga classes at Mountain Yoga (www.mountainyoga.com) where I have not reinjured that hip. Yoga makes me calm, and although it is not aerobic at the level I do it, it helps me with balance (inner and outer).

In what ways do YOU want to activate your mind and body now?

Eye on Coaching

University of British Columbia

Have you ever wished that coaching was available to everyone or anyone in your organization? The University of British Columbia believes that this is so important that they have made coaching a significant and indelible part of their employee development.  Two senior human resources specialists, Julie Stockton and Julia McLaughlin spearhead this effort.  Visit the University of British Columbia website about coaching for further thought starters for your own organization!

On June 24 and 25 I will support their big vision for coaching in every environment—corporations, not for profits, clubs and religious organizations, communities, and, of course, academia—by offering the keynote to An Eye on Coaching, UBC’s summer symposium  at the Ponderosa Centre on the main Vancouver campus.  There are still a few places left, so sign up at the Eye on Coaching web page .

I’ll trace my own journey into coaching as a way to highlight one in many different journeys toward this way of helping people and groups define their goals and dreams, and to act effectively toward those dreams.  My first dreams of a vocation included the Peace Corps and then the diplomatic corps so that I could educate in the developing world.  I did neither of these things but they seem now to be a window into some kind of partnering with people who are different from me so that we both might learn from each other.

After the keynote, I’ll facilitate one of several concurrent workshops on coaching in different environments.  My group will look at Coaching to Build Community, a relatively new interest of mine and one I’m excited about—mostly because I expect to participate in a lively discussion and plan for expanding this type of coaching.

Finally, I’ll close the conference with Dreaming of Possibilities for Coaching in which I’ll connect the latest research in neuroscience to the work I’ve done for the last 10 years in positive processes, particularly in Appreciative Coaching.  I’ll dream with fellow participants about where this work and other cutting edge work in coaching may take us in the future.

Consider coming to this energizing workshop.  If this is not possible, and you’re interested in these topics, consider asking me to come to speak to YOUR organization.

8 Training Rules for Flourishing

This morning I reworked a presentation I’d given to the North Bay Chapter of Bay Area Coaches (International Coach Federation) a few months ago. While I wasn’t entirely satisfied that I’d linked two topics together—Appreciative Coaching and new Neuroscience findings, I found a clearer path for my next audience of coaches, therapists and human resource professionals at the University of British Columbia June 23-25, titled An Eye on Coaching. What I want to do is to condense the scholarly literature into a few easy rules that any coach (including me) and any client can remember.

Here are my 8 Rules for Flourishing:

1. Activate mind AND body (linked in flourishing). Do age appropriate exercise, laugh, study jewelry making or bridge building. What lights your fire?
2. Focus on what you want—See it in your mind’s eye. Make a neural path for it. Act toward it.
3. Focused activity almost always leads to positive feelings. This is the principle of FLOW (see Csiksentmihalyi discuss this himself on TED). Positive feelings allow a “broaden and build” approach to achievement.
4. Attention=enjoyment (you can learn this)… Buddhist monks have highly developed attention (that part of their brain is more active than others’).
5. Expectation of pleasure can work in direct opposition to things that upset you. Giving in to negative feelings doesn’t appease them, but reinforces them. Pouting, carrying a grudge, even talking about how angry you are, makes the anger bigger, not smaller. Better to go for a walk.
6. Value the unexpected—in seeing new perspectives we increase our vitality. Seek out difference.
7. Control your decisions, rather than your wishes. To have your wishes fulfilled, particularly when that fulfillment is at the price of your freedom is life numbing. Do you really want to make $250,000 working for a despot?
8. Love someone or some being. Love them joyfully! Love a dog or a goldfish. Love your niece or your grandson. Love your spouse, your poslq (person of the opposite sex living in the same quarters), your neighbor as yourself, your garage mechanic.  THIS IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN ANY OF THE OTHERS!

I’ll spend more time on each of these in weeks to come.