Pathwork Coaching and Consulting

According to www.dictionary.com, the origin of the word “impact” comes from the Latin word impingere, which means “to push against.” The online dictionary has three definitions of impact that relate directly to the concept of leadership impact:

1) “influence; effect,”

2) “the force exerted by a new idea, concept, technology, or ideology,” and

3) “the power of making a strong, immediate impression.”

Whether you see yourself as a leader or not, you are having an impact on the world. Your every breath, every movement, every word, every interaction, and every thought have an impact on something or someone else. Have you heard of the butterfly effect? In 1961, Edward Lorenz was using a numerical computer model to rerun a weather prediction, when, as a shortcut on a number in the sequence, he entered the decimal .506 instead of entering the full .506127. The result was a completely different weather scenario. Lorenz published his findings in a paper in 1963 paper noting that "One meteorologist remarked that if the theory were correct, one flap of a seagull’s wings could change the course of weather forever." This was later referred to as the butterfly affect. It’s the classic stimulus-response theory: simply put, for every stimulus there is a response, or for every action there is a reaction. “Impact” is just a less clinical way of saying “stimulus-response.”

Impact falls on a continuum (see The Impact Continuum below). Sometimes the impact is seemingly small, goes unnoticed, or is difficult to measure such as the swaying of a wheat field caused by a gentle breeze, the blooming of a rose, the daily consistency of an employee committed to getting the work done, throwing a used cigarette butt on the ground, holding your child’s hand while walking down the street, or touching another person on the shoulder.

Sometimes the impact is extreme, such as the effect of an earthquake, a family argument, a car collision, one country’s declaration of war on another, or the laying off of a company’s employees.

The Impact Continuum

Unnoticeable             Barely Noticeable                Very Noticeable              Extremely Noticeable

As an example of impact, everything an individual, partnership, family, business, corporation, organization, community, city, or country does has an impact on others – large or small, noticeable or unnoticeable, measurable or immeasurable. Just look at how society has changed since you were born and the impact of advances in technology, science, and research.

Regardless of your leadership role or your situation in life, you have a responsibility to notice your impact. This is the leadership role that every human being is called to accept.

To further explore your own leadership impact, work with these questions for the next week:

Notice everything you are doing – having a conversation, working on a project, making a decision, walking down the street, eating a meal, taking a breath – and ask yourself:

1.What is your impact on the world around you while engaged in this activity?

2.What impressions are you leaving with others?

3.What difference did your impact make? To yourself? To others?

4.What actions will you take from this exercise?

With care,

Terri

As my career was growing during the nineties, I became very aware of what I was able to deliver for my bosses and how that work was valued. I was a “go-to” person. I could consistently and predictably get things done and on time. I had happy teams who were productive. I solved my own problems. These were among the characteristics that would show up in my performance reviews. About the same time though, I began to sense there was a difference between being valued for what I did and being valued for who I was. And a bigger question began to emerge which was, “Is what I do a façade to keep others from seeing who I am?”

These questions scared the bajeebees out of me and whenever they surfaced, I quickly pushed them aside. There’s one thing about a lesson you’re meant to learn if you haven’t realized this yet – and that is that the issue keeps coming up until we pay attention! First in a whisper. Then a slightly louder whisper. Maybe you begin to see the issue “in others”. And then the roar comes in such a way that it becomes impossible to ignore it any longer.

This moment-of-truth came for me a few years ago with a coaching client. We had been working together for a few months when something came up for him during a coaching session that he referred to as his “core of rot”. There it was – screaming at me. As I began paying closer attention, I heard from other clients words like “I’m not worthy”, “I’m not enough”, “I’m a fraud”, or “I’m not loveable”. As I got to know these individuals, I would come to appreciate a whole host of wonderful character strengths and virtues. Yet, here they were describing themselves in such critical ways. I’ve had to learn many lessons to even begin to understand this disconnect in others and in me.

#1 Lesson: Throughout our life, we acquired messages, critiques, or rules that we often took as truths. Things like “boys don’t cry”, “be nice”, and worse the negative accusations of “lazy”, “stupid” and so goes the list. We may have been praised when we performed well or even for our looks. We often didn’t question these messages or criticisms but rather absorbed them.   The external message came in and landed in us like an absolute fact. And then those messages became unconscious, buried beliefs about who we are and affecting the way we think about ourselves and how we behave in the present.

Lesson #2: We are NOT our personalities. WOW! This was huge for me because when I learned that we’re not our personalities, I also learned that there is a Self (Universe, Source, Divinity, God, Goddess, Core, True Nature, Higher Self) in all of us. Dick Schwartz, the creator of Internal Family Systems, describes the personality like a garlic bulb (no, not the usual onion). When a part (belief) becomes activated or triggered, we can become blended with that part (belief), and it can seem that that is who we are. Learning this structure has been as pivotal to my only development process as to my work as a coach and understanding of others. The qualities of Self are complete, wise, loving, compassionate, forgiving. The Self is the seat of our character strengths and virtues and can be found in every human being and This is who we are.

Lesson #3: As long as we look to others to feel valued – we will come up short. The person who most needs to value and appreciate me for who I am – is me. And the person who most needs to value you for who you are – is you. This perspective is also necessary to continue maturing as an adult. When we turn from looking to the outside world as our source of answers to “what should I do”, “am I likeable”, etc. and towards ourselves, we begin moving towards what Robert Kegan has described as the self-authoring stage of adult development and then the self-transforming.

Lesson #4: The most recent lesson I’m learning is that there can be parts (influenced by our beliefs) of our personality that get us into trouble – a selfish part, an angry part, a part that’s critical of others, or even addicted part. These parts are influenced by those earlier messages turned into beliefs And, once these beliefs are brought into awareness and examined, they can be transformed and become integrated into the whole of our Self.

Lesson #5: There are many ways to work with our beliefs and the point is that we all need to be doing our own (transformation, development, maturation, individuation) work. Certainly if there’s an addiction or trauma in your past, you may want to seek the help of a therapist. But, there are many modalities available to all of us today to support where we are in our transformation process. Some that I have found especially helpful in my own process are integral studies, Immunity to Change, Internal Family Systems, group processes like Gestalt and T-Groups, meditation, yoga, journaling, using affirmations, reading and listening to uplifting and spiritual teachers and, yes, of course, coaching.

In closing, I’d like to offer one of my favorite quotes by Virginia Satir:

"What I am presenting is all against a background of a Universal human experience.

We are all born little, and of a specific man and woman.

Between birth and today, everyone has accumulated vast experience which we know as the past.

In a way, all things you have done up to the present, if you are still around, have worked.

The question again is, what is the price and could the price be lower..."

Peace to you,

Terri

As the training industry has grown over the past 20 years, many organizations have taken on the learning and development of their leaders and employees. Did you know that two-thirds of corporate training budgets go to traditional and costly formal training programs? Yet, 64% of business leaders believe it is informal learning programs which drive the greatest business value? This misaligned spending leaves limited dollars for informal learning, such as coaching programs, knowledge sharing, social learning, and mentoring – all of which have significantly higher business value and are much more cost-efficient to employ. What is behind this belief? Why are organizations so committed to spending that hasn't yielded the desired results - greater employee and leadership capability and capacity?

These questions have been with me professionally for some time now.  About four years ago I decided to dive into them and became a student of change.  I began asking "Why is it that people aren’t changing when they go through these programs? Why doesn't training stick? What makes sustaining new behavior so difficult when the motivation to change is so high?"   And not just for others, for me too? I read a multitude of books on change, studied with some of the great teachers of our generation, and most of all I've become a student of human behavior. Watching and observing myself and others in action - doing the same thing over and over, getting the same results we've always gotten, and getting frustrated that nothing's different.

Child psychology has taught us that there are stages of development that go from infancy to young adulthood. With each of these stages there are cognitive, emotional and physical milestones that must be met in order to move to the next stage of complexity. We are now learning through adult development psychologists AND neuroscientists that development doesn't end at young adulthood as was once thought. There are increased levels of adult development that also have cognitive, emotional, and physical milestones that must be met to reach these higher capacities for complexity (leading to what Maslow called Individuation). A big difference I see is that as a child our bodies propelled us into the next stage. Once we reach adulthood we need to actively make the choice to continue to evolve to higher levels of consciousness.

So why aren't more adults choosing these higher levels of consciousness? Why do we so often seem to be stuck? There is emerging medical and psychological research to help us here too.  Researchers are finding that it is our mindset, unexamined and engrained beliefs, assumptions, and habits from our earlier stages of development, that are often guiding our behavior in the current moment. These engrained habits show up in our thoughts, our relationships, and the way we communicate and influence the world around us.   AND they are usually invisible to us. We often don't even realize we're acting out an old pattern and expecting a different outcome. Or, we are acting out an old pattern which no longer works or serves us and the situation well. Yet, we keep going, keep pushing, and keep demanding of others. Why? And more so, what can we do about this?

One of my favorite quotes from R.D. Laing is "The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice. And because we fail to notice that we fail to notice, there is little we can do to change until we notice how failing to notice shapes our thoughts and deeds."  The starting point for all of us, whether CEO, a middle manager, a parent, or a student – is to begin to notice.

These words are the title of Chapter 3 in Louise Hay's and Cheryl Richardson's new book "You Can Create an Exceptional Life".  These words caught my attention as I'm living a different kind of life these days and I keep thinking "how do I live every day from my heart".

I began thinking about habits.  By their automatic nature, they can be so blind to us.  We may not even be aware that they are limiting us.  I thought about how uncomfortable it can feel to let go of the familiar - and how easy it can be to judge something new as wrong.

As I've been working with these questions for the past couple of days (not to suggest that I have any answers) I'm very aware of my own sensation of inner stuckness - like trying to ride a bicycle through mud.  I'm wondering, what's up with this?  What automatic habits might be kicking into action for me? How am I working with flow in my life?

I started noticing the way I plan.  In reflection, I thought about how I used to plan everything, every moment, of every day.  It was a point of humor in my family when I would be spontaneous and my husband and children would get a laugh at how out of character this would seem for me.   This planning skill worked very well in my life for many years.  As a working mother of three children, there was always a list of things to get done.  I worked full-time (meaning 50-60 hours).  I often continued working at home in the evenings.  There was making dinner, car pools and after school events for my children.  By the time the week ended, I would roll right into the next week with our shared list of family to-do's, honey-do list, the calendar posting of who needed to be where and when for what appointment.  It was exhausting but it kept us afloat - so I continued without examination.

Today, I'm building a new business.  And while I have plans and ideas that I'm putting in motion - much of my work is creative, organic and evolving.  Each day something shows up or is brought to my attention that allows me to expand my thinking and direction.  How can I plan for what I don't know yet??

Before jumping to solutions (another automatic habit), I decided to just start paying attention.  I'm using self-observation and journaling as tools to notice where limiting patterns are showing up and to be intentional about what I introduce in each day.  I'm asking questions about what is giving me spaciousness?  Where am I pushing too hard?  I'm beginning by taking stock of how I spend my time and how satisfied I am with the outcomes of that time.

If you're interested in seeing how you're living your life - take this Life Balance Survey and share your insights if you'd like.

Peace to you,

Terri

A few days ago we began working with journal questions about noticing what happens for us when telling the truth might hurt someone's feelings or show a side of ourselves that we keep in our shadow. How do we resolve which direction we'll go? What do we carry inside of ourselves by having made one decision over the other? Are we able to find a way to do both?

I have been living inside these questions for a couple of days now and notice that I find some emotional charge on both sides of this topic.  I noticed how I made choices when I was in a good mood and a bad mood.  I noticed the kind of advice I offered to a friend who was frustrated with a co-worker.  And I noticed how irritated (the charge) I felt when considering this as a choice.  I would come to "why can't both be an option?".  Is there not a place for kindness in this world without being diminished to someone who can't be tell the truth about themselves or others?  And on the other end of this, the truth according to WHO?  Are we so arrogant to think that we KNOW the truth about someone else - or that we've even so self-aware that we know all the truth there is about ourselves?  - See what I mean about the charge :)

In some ways the issue of truth led me back to being nice.  I started noticing how people (and me) create stories too.  How we can take one or a few data points,  and create a scenario about the situation or the other person involved.  This really stood out to me when I was talking with my mom about a family situation.  Now, as siblings, we don't tell my mom a lot about our problems.  So when I heard her construct a scenario concerning another family member (knowing the situation myself) from the few details she had - I thought WOW - here is this issue in action for me.  She filled in the blanks of the story with her own projections - how mothers should be, what children should do, etc.  And this story became truth for her.

This is not to point out my mother in particular (I love you mom!) but to say that I was able to recognize what has long triggered me when a person might say I'm just telling the truth.  That truth telling is often saying as much, if not more, about the person doing the telling than the scenario itself.  So where do we go from here?

As I was wrestling with how all of this plays out in my life stories, I realized that the goal is not to be one or the other.  For me, the goal is to be genuine and authentic and to feel connected with others.  And the question became, how can I be true to myself and to my own experience and show kindness and compassion to others.  After all, aren't we all on some sort of a journey?

Hugs,

Terri

Yesterday our journal question was about being nice.  Perhaps there was a different message that you identified that was drilled into you since childhood.  "Always tell the truth".  I got this one too.  I'm glad that my parents, teachers, and minister emphasized integrity and ethical living as I was growing up.  Yet there are times when these two messages "Always tell the truth" and "Be nice" might collide.

So I wanted to spend some time here too.  Today's journal questions are about noticing what happens for us when telling the truth might hurt someone's feelings or show a side of ourselves that we keep in our shadow.  How do you resolve which direction you'll go?  What do you carry inside of yourself by having made one decision over the other?  Are you able to find a way to do both?

Take some time today to notice when you are "telling the truth" and when you are "being nice".  What do you experience (memories, body sensations, thoughts, feelings) in those moments?  How does this choice impact your relationship with the other person?  What can you learn from this?

I'm going to be observing myself around this topic today also.  I'll be back to you later to share what I notice about myself.

Hugs,

Terri