IAC VOICE, Volume 4, Issue 31, December 2008, Circulation: 12,606
December 11, 2008
Linda
From the Editor
I am so thrilled to be presenting this first newsletter as your Editor. Thanks so much to everyone who has taken the time to welcome me, and especially to Angela Spaxman for your support and guidance.
Angela has some exciting news in her President's report this month, while Past-President Natalie Tucker Miller sat down for an interview with the always fascinating (and yet so down-to-earth) Dan Pink.
Also in this issue:
An IAC pioneer shares some anonymous reflections about how the IAC Coaching Masteries™ permeate a coach's life.
The folks at Coaches Console have put together a new Member Benefit to help you build your business.
Nina East tells us what's next for the Masteries in this month's Certification Tidbits column, and Janice Hunter delivers a sparkling seasonal message in Coaching Moments.
In his interview with Natalie, Dan Pink expressed his enormous respect for his readers, and his awe and gratitude that they've chosen to spend time reading what he has to say.
That is precisely how I feel as I embark on this journey with you. Thank you for honoring us with your time and attention, and I hope that you find this newsletter valuable. If you did, we'd love to hear why. And if you didn't, please help us to improve by sending your feedback.
After an action-packed month, we have three very important launches to announce this month. Three? Yes, three! I can't believe it!
1) The long-awaited IAC Coaching Masteries™ Licensing Program is here. This License allows commercial coach training companies and coaching mentors to use the IAC Coaching Masteries™ to teach, train and coach people towards IAC Certification. Our vision is that IAC Licensees will support many more coaches to reach IAC Certification, thus strengthening our membership and our organization. As the Licensees support coaches to gain the IAC-CC designation, they are helping us advance coaching to the highest standards of excellence. And most importantly, these Licensees will help you, our members, reach your goals for IAC Certification.
We're just getting started, so check back as more schools and mentors become available. I will keep you posted on our progress.
2) IAC Volunteers Groupsite Wouldn't it be great if you could interact directly, anytime and from anywhere, with everyone around the globe who's involved with the IAC? Now you can! We've recently created the IAC Volunteers Groupsite where you can share your questions and ideas and find out what others are doing in their local IAC Chapters. You can go behind the scenes and get involved in the movement to advance coaching excellence.
Already an IAC member? Click here to request an invitation to join.
Not yet an IAC member? Then this is your golden opportunity to join and get involved. Click here to join the IAC. Then follow the instructions on the Member Login Page to "Get Involved with the IAC Volunteers."
We already have 43 coaches on the site. Will you be the next? Great stuff happens when coaches get together.
3) We have a new editor. Did you notice? I'm so pleased to welcome Linda Dessau to our organization. She brings a wealth of experience both as an editor and a coach and she is a delight to work with. You can read more about her here. To welcome Linda, please send her an email telling her what you would like to see in the IAC VOICE.
I want to extend my heartfelt thanks to all the people who have made these developments possible. I am particularly grateful to our Treasurer Jean Gran, and Board Member Diane Krause-Stetson, both highly intelligent professionals who accompanied me in creating the IAC Licensing Program. I expect their efforts will bring dividends for many years and for many coaches.
Dan Pink is a best-selling author, free agent and self-described fan of coaches. And many coaches are already quite familiar with Dan and highly endorse his first two books, Free Agent Nation and A Whole New Mind. In addition to being a guest on Oprah’s Soul Series, Dan presented at the ICF conference in 2006 and is a contributing editor for Wired Magazine.
Dan recently spent time with Natalie Tucker Miller, IAC-CC, discussing, among other things, his latest book, The Adventures of Johnny Bunko.
So sit back and listen in on Dan and Natalie's conversation as they cover topics such as:
• Why accentuating strengths is powerful mojo • What makes the advice in this book pertinent to our rapidly changing global economy • How contributing and serving creates a win-win
IAC members, click here to listen. And our broader community members can click here to listen to the first five minutes of the interview.
Natalie Tucker Miller, IAC-CC, serves on the IAC board of governors as the immediate past president. She is a certifying examiner at the IAC as well as an Instructor and Dean of Students at the School of Coaching Mastery. Additionally, Natalie is founder of Ageless-Sages.com, publisher of books for elders and their families (www.ageless-sages.com).
The Realizations Behind the Masteries
-Anon
How do the realizations behind the IAC Coaching Masteries™ unfold into a life after ten years or more of working with them? They unfold differently for different coaches. Some coaches say they’ve changed in fundamental ways and it shows. Other coaches say they’ve changed fundamentally but it appears they have only become better organized and have better boundaries. What does it mean to change fundamentally? The IAC Coaching Masteries™, and before them, the 15 Proficiencies, can be taken at two levels. The deeper level is the more fundamental.
The realizations behind the Masteries refer to how much you can see regarding who you are and what life is all about. Trust, potential, expression, listening, etc. aren’t just coaching tools. They are ways of being in the world. They reflect how you see the world. The deeper you live with the Masteries, the deeper you live in harmony with what is… without resistance. The Masteries point us in the direction of seeing everything that’s going on in life. There is the level of appearances, the way things appear to be. And there is the level of appearances plus a whole, unadulterated, expanded life, behind the appearances. It's sometimes helpful to differentiate appearance from reality by thinking of appearance as a semi-transparent level (or veil) distracting us from reality.
Level One is the level of ego and appearances. Ego is something that has been much referenced and now means something different to just about everyone. For purposes here, I define it as a function in the mind, that seeks physical safety and psychological comfort and pleasure, in whatever way is necessary. When the mind is free of concern, ego plays a small role in the personality. However, when pleasure and safety are threatened by events (real or imagined), ego kicks into high gear. It focuses and contracts the mind. It can’t see beyond its needs for pleasure and staying safe. It associates what is going on in the moment with every possible similar scenario it has ever experienced in the past (real or imagined) in order to regain equilibrium…So things tend to appear much worse than they are.
After stress emotions (often irrational ones) have been released, ego looks to repair the damage it’s done to itself and others as quickly as possible. Defense and rationalization are what ego does best to return to the experience of pleasure and safety. Life is reduced to an “it’s a good thing or it’s a bad thing” duality. And if it’s a bad thing, it needs to be fixed, now. Ego is about manipulating life, resisting and changing anything that doesn’t immediately bring pleasure, comfort and safety.
When coaches are identified with the ego, and most of us are, whatever is happening to the ego is what is happening to us. If the ego function is scared, we say, “I’m scared.” If the ego function is “going nuts,” we say, “I’m going nuts.” Essentially, in our mind, we are ego…and nothing else. So, we can only feel pleasure and safety when life happens to be going well for ego. The truth is, we can feel pleasure and safety even when ego isn’t happy, if we seek a deeper level of awareness.
Level Two is getting down to all the other stuff that’s going on, beyond ego’s view. While ego is reacting to the appearance of life, there is an unperceived, deeper response that is possible. Without the ego's drive to seek pleasure and security and to search the past to understand the present, Level Two is characterized by a lack of drama. At Level Two, life events are often seen with simple openness and curiosity. There is no baggage, so the normally unperceived reality can come into view. It reflects another level of knowing that all is well, even when it doesn’t appear to be. It’s an intuitive knowing that spontaneously arrives as a coach lives more deeply into the Masteries. Humility and surrender to life are always present in the deeper realizations about life. They are the mark of a fundamentally transformed coach.
A coach who is living into the Masteries understands coaching in fundamentally different ways than the regular coach. To the regular coach, the words and frameworks won’t make much sense. Most regular coaches don’t really want to become transformed coaches. Even those who say they do. Until it happens, most of us can’t imagine giving up our conditioned way of being and stepping into this vast unknown space. It’s such a wild ride. So different from anything anyone has ever told us. Additionally, it’s so very difficult to articulate this vast space. I never get the words to match the reality. Words are just pointers. You have to live there to know the place. To those who have come all the way I say, welcome.
Postscript: I pen the name anon not for the sake of disguise. I am anonymous because the name I go by is not who I am. I am, as you are, no-one.
Editor's Note: The author of this article is a long-standing member of the IAC and was one of Coachville's earliest faculty members.
New Member Benefit
The Coaches Console
You're in the driver's seat with this new online practice management system created by coaches for coaches. It meets you exactly where you are in your practice and takes the fear out of the business and marketing side of coaching. As a member of the IAC, you receive a 30% discount on the license fee and a $35 monthly fee (regular $39). Visit The Coaches Console to learn all about their powerful tools for driving your coaching practice.
The Spanish Version of the IAC Coaching Masteries is Ready
IAC membership has increased to over 500 in 2008. I feel the collaborative energy of this unique profession flowing right around the world. In line with IAC's slogan, "To advance coaching to the highest standards in universal excellence", coaches all over the world are voluntarily contributing their hearts and time to translating the IAC Coaching Masteries™ into different languages.
I am very excited to announce the release of the Spanish version. Coach Roberto García de la Mora completed the first Spanish translation draft in early 2008; Dr. Ariel Orama further fine-tuned the translation and later led a team of experienced coaches and linguistic experts to complete the job in September 2008. Their contribution inspires our universal excellence in action.
Spanish Translation Team Members:
Mg. Olga E. López (Colombia) Sr. Gerardo Silbert (Uruguay) Dra. Carmen I. Orama (Puerto Rico) Dr. Ariel Orama, Coordinador (Puerto Rico)
I am also glad to inform you that the Korean, French and Italian translations are all underway by different groups of volunteer coaches. If you would like to be part of our team and see the IAC Coaching Masteries™ in your own language, please write to bonnie@coachlite.com.
Bonnie Chan IAC-CC Team Coordinator, IAC Coaching Masteries™ Translations bonnie@coachlite.com
Bonnie is an executive and mentor coach. She is the first Chinese IAC-CC certified coach from Hong Kong and has passion to help other coaches to attain the same. Bonnie likes to advance her coaching by exchanging with coaches all over the world. www.bonniechancoaching.com
Certification Gets Real… By Nina East, Lead Certifier for the IAC
It’s hard to believe we’ve been using the IAC Coaching Masteries™ as our exclusive standard of coaching excellence for almost a full year! They were developed with the intention that they would be the next evolution of coaching mastery – and that they would continue to evolve in order to provide the best and easiest access to masterful coaching.
Throughout the past year, the certifiers have continued to look for additional ways to clarify and define the Masteries, with the goal of making them even easier to understand, and hence, easier to apply. Don’t worry, though – we’re not “changing” the Masteries. We are merely clarifying them by providing greater detail and further explanation. Questions from members have been key to this process – so thank you to everyone who has sent in a question!
The updated version of the IAC Coaching Masteries™ will be available in early 2009, so be sure to be on the lookout. Current members will be notified of the new link, and anyone who has purchased the eBook in the past will receive the updated version.
Here’s to the continuing evolution of coaching…
Nina East is the IAC’s Lead Certifier and the founder of PersonalGrowthProfessionals.com. As a coach, she helps personal growth professionals turn creative edge thinking into practical tools and resources, and helps coaches master the art of coaching. For even more insights about improving your coaching skills, visit www.CoachCamps.com.
"Coaching Moments" takes a thoughtful look at how coaching can be interwoven into our daily lives.
Strands of Light by Janice Hunter
From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: that we are here for the sake of each other – above all for those upon whose smile and well-being our own happiness depends, and also for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy. ~ Albert Einstein
At this time of the year, more than any other, I wonder who you are…why you’re reading VOICE and where you’re sitting right at this very moment.
Are you in a bright, air-conditioned office somewhere in the southern hemisphere, or snuggled up in a comfy chair in a warm, cosy study, surrounded, like I am, by the stuff that makes a life – notebooks, a half-empty coffee cup, a glass of water, crumbs on a plate, spectacles, a phone, pens and a pile of papers?
Are your spirits lifted by the serene glow of specially lit candles or will you be relaxing later in a home twinkling with strands of fairy lights and glittering baubles that gladden your heart and remind you of magical moments spent as a child, counting the sleeps till Christmas?
When I was young, growing up in a Scottish mining village, we had no car. My uncle used to take us every year to the nearest town, to see its High Street hung with multi-coloured Christmas lights that not only connected one lamppost to the next along the whole length of the town, but criss-crossed above our heads. There were angels and reindeer, Santas and sleighs, baubles and bells, stars and holly, their glorious colours reflecting in the warmly lit shop windows below. My uncle drove slowly, letting us take in the wonder of it all. At the end of the High Street, we stopped and got out at the huge metal gates that marked the entrance to the town park. There, covered in hundreds of brightly coloured lights reaching up to the starry blue-black sky and glowing like a miracle, stood a mile-high Christmas tree.
It’s a memory that has warmed my heart for nearly half a century.
The flickering light of one special candle, perfectly placed, is beautiful in its own right, but I still love to see a thousand twinkling lights in the darkness – trees, homes, buildings and streets all lit up and connected to each other by an invisible source of power.
I like to think of our coaching community like that, all of us unique and shining in our own way, but interconnected by so much more than phones and faxes, fibre optics and satellite beams, trade and commerce. Alone, we can transform lives; together we can do so much more.
Wishing you a special season full of love, strength, cherished memories, grateful moments, clarity and generosity of spirit. ~ Janice
Janice Hunter is a writer and IAC certified coach who lives in Scotland with her husband and two children. She specialises in homelife coaching (helping people create authentic, spirit-filled homes and lives) and also enjoys supporting other coaches through her writing and collaboration. Contact Janice at www.sharingthecertificationjourney.com or lovingthedetails@aol.com.
Janice has compiled all of her Coaching Moments pieces from the last two years into a free 46 page ebook, 'Coaching Moments: a Collection of Articles about Coaching in Everyday Life' which can be downloaded here or from her site.
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At this time of the year, more than any other, I wonder who you are…why