Robin's blog

Walt Disney's Strategy for Creativity

Robin — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 16:48:49 +0000

I've been working up some materials for Lighting The Creative Fire and I wanted to share this with you. Walt Disney had three distinct phases to his creativity process: create, make and evaluate.

It's a neat way of looking at your own creative process and identifying your strengths and preferences and where you might be getting stuck.

Seeing the world through new eyes.

Robin — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 10:19:29 +0000

I'm working just outside Zurich for a few days so I thought I'd take the opportunity to explore the city today. I arrive before nine in the morning and the place is empty but then on reflection, Brighton probably doesn't get going until 10 or 11 most days either.

I take my time wandering around the cobble streets, getting diverted down interesting turnings or winding side alley's that promise to reveal their little secrets. I love the way, when you are walking around a place for the first time everything seems a little brighter than normal, the colours stand out and odd little details draw themselves to your attention.

Inspired by Stephen Cotterell's photography, I am being a bit more creative with my camera work. Usually I take pictures of people because I figure actually, when you finally get round to showing some one your travel photo's it's more than likely that its the people they're going to be interested in. A landscape or a picture of a church is all very well but what you really want is a picture of your mate in front of it with a cheesey grin looking like a tourist, right? :-)

Richard Bandler. "Getting the Life you want"- why there's nothing new under the sun.

Robin — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 12:47:19 +0000

I've been re-reading "Getting The Life You Want by Richard Bandler". It's recent publication is a clever, some might say cunning move from the co-creator of NLPⁱ. He has certainly been learning a lot about presenting himself to the general public from his erstwhile student Paul McKenna.

I'll be saying a lot more about that another time but I was struck by a synchronicity, a co-incident of meaning earlier today. I'd just been skimming the book for good quotes when I came across this in a passage about overcoming fear of public speaking.

“Fears always have to be replaced by sensory acuity” p55

He's describing a pattern of change that basically goes

1) Replace the bad feeling you were having with this new good feeling.
2) Now open your eyes and your ears and look around while you feel good.

There are lot of techniques in NLP that are essentially variations on this meta-pattern, you can trace its history all the way back to the first collapsed anchor.

Anyway I put the book down to make a cup of tea and while I was waiting for the kettle to boil I I got a ping from twitter and someone had posted this quote.

"The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are."

Marcus Aurelius (Emperor of Rome 161-180 A.D)

There's a very important reason why copyright law makes a distinction between ideas and the realisation of those ideas. The form of words you use to express ideas can be copyright. The ideas behind them cannot.

There is a recognition that ideas cannot be owned in the same way that property can. Even the expression of an idea returns to the commons after its copyright lapses.

By the way that quote in the title is from The Book of Ecclesiastes, Chapter 1 v 9

"What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun."

Allegedly written about 150 B.C.

Man on Wire. How far will you go for the impossible dream?

Robin — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 00:38:12 +0000

I've just watched the most extraordinary film “Man on Wire” about the exploits of the wirewalker Phillipe Petit.

It's a beautiful film. It has all the tension of a thriller with the poetry of an art house movie and at it's heart is an amazing story: how in August 1974 Phillipe Petite and a team of his closest friends succeeded in running a wire between the Twin Towers and staged a 45 minute wirewalk half a kilometer above the streets of New York.

Petit had dreamed of such a feat even before the Towers were built and his passion and enthusiasm, his absolute commitment to the dream made it happen.

It reminded me of a conversation I had with Donna Close a while back. Donna had been helping a friend put together the props for a show. The budget was spent long ago, there was only a week to go and a months worth of work to do. I started bemoaning the lack of finance and time that always seems to accompany creative projects but Donna stopped me midflow.

"Don't you get it" she said, “Of course its not possible, of course we can't do it in time. That's what I love about it. It's an impossible dream. It's in the gap between the possible and the impossible that the magic happens. That's what makes great art."

I didn't argue because I realised she was right.

But I thought about the cost.

The most powerful scene in the film for me is where Petit's childhood friend and collaborator Jean-Louis reflects on that moment when he finally sees Petit safely balanced on the wire between the towers.

He's spent 12 hours in the cold night on the top of the North Tower; working under the constant fear of discovery; hauling a steel hawser across the 140 ft gap between the buildings, knowing that even if he succeeds he might be an accomplice to his best friends death.

Can you even begin to imagine how he felt in that moment of release when it was all over, when he could step back from the adrenaline shock and watch as his friend lapped up the media attention.

“Something was broken in our friendship that day” he says and then he starts to cry, the memory still all too real.

People say there is a thin line between creativity and madness. I say creativity is madness. It takes that kind of madness to dream something and then against all odds, to bring it to life.

How far would you go for your impossible dream? And what price would you be prepared to pay?

Shortcut the innovation process and bring new quality products to market faster and cheaper.

Robin — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 12:07:21 +0000

One of the challenges that all businesses face is how to keep ahead of the game by innovating new products and services for their customers.

Back in the last century sometime, I was languishing, one year into a PHD in "learning in complex product systems". The truth was I had got lost in academic theory and I was dying to get out and connect with people again.

So when Jack Martin Leith asked me to set up the Innovation Agency with him I jumped at the chance to work with someone with such a great record in innovation and organisational development and one of the foremost practitioners of "Open Space" in Europe.

Jack is a creative whirl wind. There's nothing he likes better than dreaming up new ideas and processes and coming up with practical tools and techniques that people can apply in their own business and he's been a pioneer in the use of large group interventions- big collaborative meetings that get all the stakeholders in a project together in one place.

Now one of the projects that he undertook while we were working together was for a well known fast moving consumer goods company. Jack and his long time colleague and friend Jeffery Hyman were faced with the challenge, how can we make the New Product Development (NPD) cycle faster and cheaper and yet still deliver quality products that the customer wanted.

The typical NPD cycle for this company was a 12 month affair. The market researchers would go out and interview the customers and use their flair and know how to come up with a set of needs and desires to present to the design guru's in product development. The design team would then sit around for months in their laboratories and prototyping workshops and come up with a set of new ideas to test out. The accountants would cost it all up, the market researchers would set up a series of focus groups to get feedback on the product and then they'ld present their results to the accountants and eventually one or more of the new ideas might be chosen to see the light of day.

Or they might not. Then the whole process would start again.

Jeffrey and jack identified a number of shortcomings with this approach.

Time scale. Customer needs and expectations change. In rapidly changing markets even 12 months is too long.
Too many walls. Typically the marketing team and the design team are working separately in their own little walled garden. This limits interaction and sharing of knowledge during the NPD process.
Self limiting- teams get stuck with what they think they know and are less likely to question their own assumptions and beliefs about what is possible.
There is no interaction between designers and consumers.
Complexity- all of this has to be managed over 12 months with multiple teams co-ordinating their efforts at a distance.

Their radical solution was elegant in its simplicity and shocking in its audacity: Bring the designers, the marketers, the consumers and the accountants all together in the same place and at the same time and compress the whole 12 month NPD cycle into one week.

You can read more about Rapid Innovation with Open Space on Jack's resources page.

Bookmark the page, there are some great resources here for anyone who is involved, not just in idea generation but in the practical management of innovation.

Opportunity to run a Public Art Project at Downs Junior School in Brighton and Hove

Robin — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 18:22:49 +0000

Downs Junior School have £4400 for four artists to collaborate on running an Arts Week from the 15th- 19th June. The Theme is Brighton Beach. Budget is to cover fees and materials and artwork will be made out of recycled materials and sourced and built in an eco-friendly and sustainable way. Site visits are first week in February so contact Claire.Brown@brighton-hove.gov.uk if you are interested.

Award for Artists and Designers in the South East

Robin — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 18:13:02 +0000

Aspex artist resource centre (Arc) in Portsmouth are offering a £1500 award to artists and designers in the south east. The award is to develope and show work at Aspex

Deadline for applications is Saturday 28 February and interviews will take place at Aspex in mid March.

Awards for Artists and Designers in the South East, UK

Doom, Gloom and Recession. Why none of it matters anyway.

Robin — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 14:07:14 +0000

I've just been on a detour of web wide commentary and analysis of the prevailing economic climate and why we are all doomed for years to come.

I'm not going to provide links because i.m.h.o, none of it is relevant anyway. It doesn't matter what the papers say or what the experts forecast.

Because the things that matter for success in business and in life are exactly the same whether in bust or boom.

In your personal life you've got to find what you love and enjoy and share it with like minded people who love you back.

In your business life you've got to create great relationships with your customers, find out what they want and keep giving it to them.

Once you've lived a few decades it becomes obvious that economics, politics and the weather all come in seasons and cycles. There isn't anything we can do about the weather and the tides (note to self, let's hope they're not even going to try).

It's enough to have the best crew you could wish for and a ship that's fast and true.

Life goes on and what ever is going on around the globe the only thing that you can take responsibility for is what's right in front of you.

Robin

A new hypnosis group in Brighton

Robin — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 11:47:23 +0000

Russell Potts is starting a new hypnosis group in Brighton. He already has one regular group going but this one he says will be focused much more on the esoteric side of what he does.

Russell is a world class trainer of hypnosis and currently co-trains with Julia Silverthorne at The International Hypnosis Society. He also knows more than anyone else I know about the history of hypnosis, the different approaches of influential practitioners such as Braid, Dave Elman and Estabrooke and the applications of hypnosis.

Transpersonal Hypnosis / Coaching Group
This Session ''Coming out of story and exploring deeper states of consciousness''
This Meeting Is Held At Friends Meeting House
Ship Street Brighton
730- 930
Wed 28 Jan

Admission £7

Leadership Development Programme from Fresh Business Thinking

Robin — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 11:13:52 +0000

Surviving a recession is a little like that joke about two guys who meet a bear in the woods. "We can't outrun a bear!" says one guy and the other replies. "I don't have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you."

If you run a small to medium sized business employing 5 to 100 people then Fresh Business Thinking have a Leadership Development Forum designed just for you.

What is becoming clear is that a recession is just the time when you need to make sure that your skills are up to date, your business is running like a well oiled machine and that you are at the very least, outrunning the other guy.

I can't speak for the quality of the program but a combination of regional one day events and online learning and collaboration tools seems like a good way of having peer to peer support for keeping ahead of the game.

Leadership Development Forum

Creative Choices and personal development plans

Robin — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 22:56:22 +0000

Brought to you by the Cultural and Creative Skills Council: Creative Choices looks like it could be an interesting resource for creative professionals.

Blogs, comment and analysis and online tools and information.

There's a good tool there for anyone who wants to get clear about what they are doing with their creative practise- perhaps as preparation for coaching.

It's a personal development plan specifically for creative practitioners. You'll have to register with the site to download the pdf.

Personal Development Plan

Setting directions- Getting things done for people who don't like making plans.

Robin — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 22:16:09 +0000

Of course while some people enjoy having a plan to work to with everything imagined in great detail, other people like to rely a little more on serendipity and a certain amount of pot luck. It's not about being casual. It's about leaving space for the universe to offer up some opportunity.

Personally I enjoy the sense of spontaneity that comes with not knowing what is going to happen next and the confidence that comes of having a choice of responses and plans that are drilled into a level of unconscious competence.

Here's the short-cut route to achieving your goals. Sometime called the OAF model in NLPⁱ- Outcomes, Acuity, Flexibility.

Choose your outcome. (Outcome)

Go through at least the Evidence and Intention steps of Setting a well formed outcome.

Reality check. (Acuity)

Notice what you're getting. Open up your eyes and your ears, feel the way the winds blowing, tune up your senses so you get more information from your environment.

Ask yourself “Am I gaining energy or loosing energy”

Ask yourself “Am I moving toward my goal, or away from it.”

Do something new! (Flexibility)

Keep changing what you do until you get what you what.

If what you're doing is not working then do anything else.

... or change what you want.

How to create an outcome so precise you haven't a hope of failing to achieve it.

Robin — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 23:46:43 +0000

In order for your outcome to be achievable it has to be “well formed”. It has to meet certain criteria. The fact is that rocks are hard and water is wet. The universe and your own neurology and physiology set limits as to what you can and cannot do.

Now those limits may very well be much greater than you ever thought they could be but nether-the-less. Some things will work and some things won't. If you could just wish something into being then that would just be magic wouldn't it? :-)

If your dream is to be a championship down hill slalom champion then you will have to take steps to acquire the physiology, the muscle strength and the rapid reaction times of an athlete before you even begin to start. That's Ok. You just set yourself little goals and take it one step at a time keeping the big picture in mind.

The following list is based on the NLPⁱ Well formed outcome. I've messed around with the order a bit to make it easier to experience the process off the page. Think of it as a check-list.

Thinking about the outcome you want in this way will give you all the information you need to be sure this is definitely something that you want and that you can commit to starting.

Reality Check. Set a frame.

What is the context in which you want to create a change?

What specific area of your life?

What's the time frame?

Where will this happen?

Who else is involved?

You might think of this as the domain. If it were me right now I might choose:

Health: in the next 6 months. In brighton mostly. Me myself and I.

Service: (being of): in the next year. here and in Tanzania. Friends and family in Tanzania and Brighton.

Finance: in the next 6 months. Brighton mostly. Me. People benefiting from workshops and coaching. People helping out and contributing.

Keeping warm: In the next hour. In my front room. Me and a blanket.

Learning something: In the next three months. In Brighton. Via Skype internationally. Me. Collaborators. People working in the creative industries in Brighton.

Writing. In the next week. At home and in cafes in Brighton. Me and my karass.

Spend a moment to get in touch with how things are now in an area of your life. What do you want to work through today? Do a reality check. Be honest with yourself. This is your current environment.

What do you want?

What is it that you want to achieve and how can you state it in the positive?

If you state it as a negative all you're doing is telling yourself what you want to move away from and that's not going to be as helpful as knowing what you want instead.

Compare “I want to give up smoking” with “I want to breath fresh air, easily and clearly and feel the benefits of having an increased lung capacity and more energy in my life”

Compare “I want to loose weight” with “I want to feel comfortable, fit and flexible at my optimum weight”

Compare “I want to be less stressed” with “I want to relax more”

Compare “I don't want to argue with my boyfriend” with “I want to learn how to communicate more effectively.”

Achievable

Is what you want achievable? If someone else has done it before then it's possible and there's at least one way to learn how to do it.

If no one has done it before then you have some experimenting to do as you discover the limits of possibility. If you have a big idea then people may call you mad. That's ok. Where would we be now without the impossible dream? How far are you prepared to commit?

Responsibility

What response-ability do you have for achieving your goal? What part can you play? What is within your control and what is outside of your control? How far does your influence extend?

An important tip here. If any one else is involved in this goal then you don't get to choose how they respond. You can influence but not control.

It's always easier to change your internal reality than it is to change the world.

It's always easy to change your beliefs and your behaviour than it is to change other people.

It's always easier to let the stream carry you than to swim against it.

Only you know how easy or how challenging you can make it.

Remember the serenity prayer. Grant me the courage to face the things I can change, the grace to accept the things I can't and the wisdom to know the difference.

Intention

What will you lose if you don't do this?

What will you gain if you don't do this?

What will achieving this do for you?

What will it give you, What will you gain?

What will you lose if you achieve this?

What other ways do you have of achieving the same thing?

Are there easier ways? Are there harder?

How does knowing all the above effect what you want?

Resources

What resources do you have to support you in achieving this goal.

What have you learned already? What skills and experiences do you bring? What connections? What time and budget? What have you succeeded at that's like this?

What will you need to learn? Who else can help?

Evidence

What is the sensory based evidence that will let you know you have achieved your goal? Note the qualification there. Sensory based. The more you can get physical with the sense impressions you'll be having, the more you'll get from this.

What will you see?

What will you hear?

What will you feel?

What will you smell and taste?

What will you say?

What will people say to you.

How will you stand?

What will your voice sound like?

Feel what you'll feel when you already have it.

The more vivid you can make it the better.

Reality check. Ecology Frame.

Return to the frame you set originally. How will making this change effect current reality. What else will change? How will other people respond? Is it worth it?

If you could have this outcome tomorrow would you take it?

Do you still want it?

Congratulations. You have a well formed outcome!

Close your eyes. Think yourself into the future and then make pictures all the way back to now of how you got there. What's 90% of the way there? 70%? What's half way there? 25%? 10%?

Dream up a plan and start taking action...

Till next time

Robin

Why Being Positive Just Isn't Enough.

Robin — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 20:17:26 +0000

You've heard that right? It's all about the positive thinking, yeah? Just think positively, believe you can do it. See it, feel it. Yeah right.

It doesn't take much experience of life to realise what a crock that is. I mean if that really worked then we would have world peace, no one would be dying in Gaza, the diseases of poverty and ignorance would be banished, we'ld be living in the perfect balance with nature and I would spend large potions of the year in countries where it I didn't have to sit around wrapped in a blanket.

It's not enough to just think positively. You also have to think with precision.

When you decide there's something that you want and you decide it's important enough for you to actually do something about it then there are a couple of ways that you can approach getting it.

Your mind and body is so complex, so sophisticated. After all you are gifted at birth with a combination of hardware, software and slush-ware that's been at least 4 billion years in the making.

Pointing all of that in the right direction, organising that complexity to work in the modern world takes some learning. There are some thing's we seem to have basic patterns and reflex's built in for. There are neural and somatic imprint patterns for walking; for swimming; for learning language;for learning to manipulate our fingers; for making love; for learning to dance (I made that last one up, could it be true?)

But reading a book? Using a computer? Writing a program, or a novel: Painting a picture? Doing a tax return? Driving a car? Bringing up a child on your own while trying to hold down a job and a social life. Or paying for two families while freelancing? I don't think so.

It's straight forward enough to combine your positive thinking with more precision.

It's enough to learn two things.

How to set outcomes and how to set directions.

Setting a positive and precise outcome will tune your conscious mind to the goal you want to achieve, whether it's learning a skill, falling in love, getting rich or finally making it to Papua New Guinea.

You'll be clearer about the what, the where, the when, the why and especially the how.

Setting a direction will align your unconscious mind, to looking, listening and sensing for those things that feel the best opportunities for that you have in mind. (sic)

I'll be dealing with how to set outcomes and directions in the Keeping Resolutions workshop on the 17th of January.

Or you can just read the next couple of blog posts which will explain in more detail.

Setting a well formed outcome.

Setting compelling directions.

Get used to setting small goals for yourself first. It's better to climb a few hills before you decide to cross the mountain.

All the best for now..

Robin

It ain't what you do it's the way that you do it.

Robin — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 17:48:13 +0000

A friend of mine used to do this send up of NLPⁱ.

“Look into my eyes, look into my eyes,

think of puppies,
now think of your problem,
think of puppies,
now think of your problem!”

We used to have some fierce arguments. NLP was manipulative. Hypnosis was wrong. Even worse it was trite and shallow. How could something so facile be so powerful.

But you're doing it all the time I would fight back, just calling it something different. Communication is Hypnosis. We're influencing and affecting people all the time, wouldn't it make sense for all of us to understand how thinking works, how language works so we could use it more effectively?

Let's say he touched a nerve. I knew I had to find the difference that made a difference between getting it wrong and getting it right.

One of the things I like about the change work I do with people and the chances I get to facilitate group work is that it is a performance and I still get to act. I get to rehearse and re- direct and refine my own game.

NLP is a close contact sport and like in any sport, art or craft you have to be in the right state to achieve excellent performance.

You have to have a clear intention, a goal in mind.

You have to be breathing right so you're feeding your body oxygen.

You have to have a physiology that will support

The state of mind and body you need to be in

and you need a structure, a pattern for your behaviour on the way to the goal.

When you've practiced something enough you reach the stage where you just have to set your intention and you're wired straight into the state you need for the patterns to fly out without any conscious interference. That's where the magic lies.

But there's a ton of difference between knowledge and knowing. You might understand the rules of football but that doesn't mean you can play. And reading about something on the page isn't going to get it hard wired into your brain so that it's available spontaneously just at the right moment.

The pay off for rehearsal, for drilling something so much it becomes an unconscious response is that in the moment of performance you can be watching and listening closely on the outside to whats going on.

Did you know that you can read someone's pulse
from the carotid artery in the neck?

Have you noticed yet that people move their eyes
in consistent patterns when they think?

Or that when people think in pictures
they breath faster and into their chest more?

Did you ever hear some one say “Yes”
but sound like they meant “No”?

Have you ever been with someone who was tapping their foot, or doing some kind of repetitive action? How did that make you feel?

Do you realise that having access to this class of information
gives you a lot more choices about how you respond?

What ever it is that you excel at or want to excel at. Practice is only every going to make it easier. What skills are you sharpening this week?

Serve your gift and remember,

It ain't what you do its the way that you do it,

Thats what gets results.

Cialdini and The Laws of Influence. The sneaky underhand tactics I'll be using to lure you into a sense of security.

Robin — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:12:02 +0000

When I was young I read somewhere, or someone told me something that stuck. It was a simple piece of advice you could apply in almost any situation.

“Follow the money”

If you wanted to understand what had happened in a situation or what would happen you just had to follow the money- see who had to gain from the situation.

In this advertising filled world, where everyone is clamoring to get their message across and to get their hands on your hard won cash another good thumb rule to have to hand is Cialdini's “laws of influence.”

These are the simple ideas that psychologically astute marketers use to jerk your chain.

Reciprocation - People return favors.

Authority. People will tend to obey and trust authority figures.

Liking People are easily persuaded by other people that they like. People like people like them.

Scarcity – people will desire something more if they think they might loose it.

Commitment and Consistency - If people commit, orally or in writing, to an idea or goal, they are more likely to honor that commitment.

Social Proof - People will do things that they see other people are doing.

If you take a look around you'll find that there's a lot of information out there about NLPⁱ and other approaches to personal development and learning. There are a lot of people doing it so there must be something to it. (Social Proof)

While you're enjoying these nuggets of wisdom. (reciprocation) I'm demonstrating I know useful information (authority) and by revealing my personality you have the chance to find out what we have in common (rapport, liking).

Now I'm not asking you to subscribe to my newsletter when you're interested in learning more but you could do that (commitment)

By the way, I'll be running a short course on NLP for creative people in December. There will only be a limited number of places (scarcity) but I'll let you know more nearer the time.

In the meantime, enjoy what you do. And see how pervasive those laws of influence are.

Robin :-)

Source Robert Cialdini

Why "The Secret" is no secret at all.

Robin — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 02:05:30 +0000

Sitting up a mountain, you have time to get a lot of clarity. No distractions. Very soon you see, something cool happens.

What you see on the inside, when you close your eyes, gets to be the same as what you see on the outside, when you open them.

And the seasons will come and go and the wind will blow and at night you will dream of flying like a dragon, sure. But now the outside is so clear inside,

the inside gets outside easier.

There's been a lot of gaff talked recently about “The Secret”. There was a film and a search on google will threw up a ton of sites claiming to reveal to you, the ancient secret knowledge of how to get the life you want. The house, the girl or the shiny new bike.

It's been there all the time, the knowledge, only known to the rich and powerful, to special individuals through time who have kindled the flame.

If you keep searching then you find the “The Secret” debunkers who have their own secret which is more secret than that other secret because like yeah .. its the “Secret Secret”

Yawn.

My take on the film was that it was a very shrewd move by a bunch of marketing guru's in the US personal development industry and has probably done that industry good. But can we please cut the whole mystery and awe stuff and the sugar coated spirituality? Especially when its so blatantly linked to materialism

Actually let's not cut all of it. We need a little for the magic to slip in.

The secret by the way is the law of attraction. Oh did I just say that out loud before you bought my video. Oops.. Now every one will know.

The law of attraction basically says that like attracts like. If you imagine that you've already got the shiny new bike and you vividly feel how you will feel, see what you will see and hear what you will hear when you already have that shiny new bike, and practice feeling that then low and behold, the universe will reform and repattern and there on the door step will be your shiny new bike. You just have to ask, believe and receive.

The law of attraction is both a powerful truth and a dangerous lie. At the very least it's a way of describing something that your mind does naturally and just pointing it in the right direction.

But its not a secret.

"All that we are is a result of all that we have thought. It is founded on thought. It is based on thought."

Buddha, The Dhammapada.

"In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true is true or becomes true, within certain limits to be found experientially and experimentally."

John Lilly

When living without a goal just isn't enough fun and what to do about it.

Robin — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:19:21 +0000

This post follows on from this one: Living without a goal.

Of course living without goals is all very well if you're stuck up a mountain with a lovely view and the villagers bring you bowls of rice every morning.

Some one had to farm the rice and cook it. You have bills to pay. I have to find the rent. Sue has to feed her children.

You know that moment when you get home and drop your bags on the floor, maybe you put the kettle on or start the water for a bath? What ever your little ritual is. You sit down in your favourite chair or you throw yourself on the bed and all of a sudden, aahhhh that's the moment you know you can relax. You're safe and for a moment you can stop and take stock. You're home.

Arriving back in Brighton this totally fails to happen.

But it's ok. I have my “Fall Back” position.

I like that expression. It's so ambiguous. “Fall Back!”

We use that expression in everyday language but I heard a very specific definition from this old guy Bill who had served with the special forces. He said your fall back position is the last bit of defensible cover that you called a fall back position.

You've got your first fall back position probably just on the border of enemy territory. Then you go in, find safe ground and move on from that, leaving a trail of locations you know you can defend along the way. Of course on the way out you might just be running like hell trying to run faster than a bullet. But you can make some of those fall back positions real comfy and hide things there.

I liked this idea and accidentally started using it with people who were going through critical incidents in their life that threatened their mental and physical health. They knew they were going to have a hard time. The road ahead was unknown and unpredictable.

But each step of the way they were making progress. And if they could imagine, if they could really see a life that they wanted to live and feel how good that life was going to feel, then they could keep your eye on that future and cope with what they had to go through every day.

And every time they had a success. Every time they had a revelation. Every-time they realised things were better than they had been the day before I would have them remember that feeling, and remember all the other times that had happened, and remind them of where they had been when we first met so they could enjoy the progress they'd made.

And that would become the new fall back position. The place to go when the road got tough again.

But the thing is, many of these people I worked with were wiser than me. They started putting all those fall back positions together and when they realised they were in control of how they felt they simply decided to feel good all the time for no reason.

This one old guy Bill caught me with a twinkle in his eye, He says:

“So what. I'm going to die.
So what there are no gods,
No purpose or meaning to live.
We're all alone in a bleak, dark, empty universe.
An accident in the biological soup.

We're all going to die sometime.
A couple hundred years from now
we'll all be dead.
And one day soon so will homo sapiens
Volcano, meteor impact or human folly.
One way or another this too will pass.

So what, I'm alive.
Look at that sunshine,
Listen to the sound of children playing outside
and For God's Sake!
Check out the smile that nurse just gave you!!”

Bill found a place inside himself that felt so good he could carry it around with him where ever he went. Sure he still had goals. Staying alive was one of them. But he wasn't attached to them. They were games, played with passion, held on to tightly and let go lightly.

Home sweet home. I climb the stairs to the attic. First night in my own bed.

Fall back position.

...

Where to next!

Four things I hate about coaching- and why I should just get over myself!

Robin — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 22:24:05 +0000

I'm going to own up, I know I promote myself as a coach and call what I do coaching but the truth is I HATE the word. Which is somewhat contradictory.

So I thought I'd confess..

I hate that now everybody calls themself a coach.

The truth is that coaching is coming of age. It's past the stage where it was only of interest to the early adopters, the people who like to stay ahead of the curve. Now its entering the mainstream. People know what is and understand the benefits that it can bring. All that's happening is that people who once might have been managers, or human resource specialists or internal consultants are going freelance and finding new ways to offer their services.

The growth in the number of coaches is about a change in the way certain information and advice is provided, nothing more. It's actually a fore taste of the kind of changes we can expect in a freewheeling knowledge economy where business functions are outsourced.

So Robin, get over yourself.

I hate the vague woolly definitions that people use to describe what they do.

Life coaching, personal coaching, business coaching, relationship coaching, yada, yada, yada, blah blah blah.

I call what I do coaching for the simple reason that I use the following process:

I help you find out what you want and articulate it clearly.

I help you learn the attitudes, believes, skills and resources that you need to get what you want.

I give you feedback so you know when you're heading in the right direction.

Sure I'm an NLPⁱ Master This and a NLP Master That. Hey I've even got a diploma in Yoghurt Weaving. All that is icing on the cake. The basics are just that. Goals, learning, feedback.

So Robin, get over yourself.

I hate that every coach claims they can do everything!

The worst thing about this one- it's true! The basic principles and techniques of coaching are content neutral so it doesn't matter if your goal is to make more money, find a great relationship or increase your website traffic, a good coach could help you with all of those.

Myself, I've helped people through major life transitions, trained teams in multinational businesses, overcome fears and phobias. It's all the same skill set.

But as more people are getting into coaching its becoming more important to specialise. You get more choice! I've worked all my life in the creative industries as a performer, director, software developer and as a business owner. It makes sense for me to work with creative people. I like hanging out with them.

So Robin, get over yourself.

I hate that different organisations compete to be the defacto standard for what coaching is.

Groucho Marx said he wouldn't join any club that would have him as a member. I take it one step further. I wouldn't join any club fullstop. I can get ultra cynical about this. I know that some of these organisations have good intentions. They want to protect people from incompetent practitioners or protect practitioners from incompetent clients. They want to create standards and respectability.

But I have to tell you some of these organisations are set up just to make a particular college or training provider look good. What real processes are in place to ensure members meet the minimum standards?

Ethics? Sure I have a code of ethics. It's my own. I don't need anyone else to tell me what is or is not acceptable behavior. I already worked that out. I trust myself.

The way I see it is this. You want to know if I'm any good. Read my website, see if you like it. Ring me up, I'll tell you if I think I can help you. I'll refer you to previous clients, you can ask them what they think. Don't rely on anyone else to make your mind up for you. Go with what you feel.

Ok Thanks, I've got that out of my system now. Sometimes when you want to change your attitude to something it helps to have someone who can help you each step of the way. Sometimes its enough to say “Just get over yourself”.

Lies Lies and more damn lies!

Robin — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 18:07:20 +0000

I should tell you straight. I'm a liar, a cheat and a trickster. It's my job. Specifically, in the context of this blog you should know that I consistently change names, gender and the specific details of case histories in order to protect the identity of my clients. And in my sessions with people I do the same thing, telling stories about things that happened to "a friend of mine" or to myself. I'm not trying to mislead people. My stories always have a purpose. It's just not always the purpose you might think.

Hypnosis is like theatre in some respects- it requires the suspension of disbelief. In theatre you suspend your disbelief so you can enter fully into the fictional reality of the performance. In hypnosis you suspend your disbelief in order to imagine vividly a future you want to live in. Hypnosis can change lives. So can the theatre. My life has been changed for the better more than once just by reading a book.

But you know what, I'm not the only liar around here. You're a liar, your mum and dad are liars- in fact everyone you know and love are huge liars.

Before the hate mail starts rolling in let me just qualify that because it seems to me that there are different kinds of lies.

1) there are the out and out whoppers, the "black lies". You know you're lying but you do it anyway: maybe because you want to avoid the unpleasantness of telling the truth and the consequences that will follow, maybe because you want to look better in someones eyes than you really are.

2) There are the "white lies"- you still know you're lying but your intention is to protect someone else from the consequences. You just bend the truth a little. It's for their own good!

3) There are the exaggerations where you distort the truth of what actually happened for dramatic effect. You know, the fish was 5 foot long not just 2 foot. Whether you want to make yourself look better or a situation seem much worse you probably still know what you're doing- but this one is a slippery slope. Some people manage to forget they were exaggerating because in their mind they're already remembering the fiction, not what really happened.

4) There are the confabulations- that's a fancy word for the stories that we make up to explain why we did something or why we believe something. We all do this and to call it lying is a bit unfair because its just the way the mind works. Often the reasons we do something are so complicated no simple story could ever capture the truth.

5) There are the ommissions and the sleight of mouth that skim the surface of reality, in silence stealing the truth.

6) Finally and most dangerously, there are the lies we tell ourselves and come to believe. Maybe we want to protect our image of ourselves, maybe to protect ourselves from the shame we'ld feel if we owned up to the truth of how other people see us.

Now I used to be very idealistic. I thought truth was the be all and end all. I certainly believed that truth and honesty were essential ingredients in a relationship. Now I'm not so sure. I know that's what I want but I've come to accept that other people have different priorities. And who am I to judge them.

What I do know is that lying ALWAYS has a cost. Every time you tell a lie you split reality, you fragment your own identity and it takes energy to maintain that deception. Life just gets more complicated.

In the long term the truth is always simpler and easier.