Coaching in Conversation

 Mastery is Never a Destination with Janet Harvey

• Tracy Sinclair • Season 1 • Episode 10

Share episode

Welcome to the Coaching in Conversation Mastery Series! This series explores the concept of mastery in coaching with conversations with ICF Master Certified Coaches. 
 
In this episode, Tracy has a conversation with Janet Harvey about how mastery is not a destination.   

Janet M. Harvey, Best Selling Author of the award-winning leadership and coaching book, Invite Change — Lessons from 2020, The Year of No Return, is CEO of inviteCHANGE, a coaching and human development organization that shapes a world where people love their life’s work. As a visionary leader in the global professional coaching industry, Janet Harvey is an International Coaching Federation (ICF) Master Certified Coach and accredited educator who has engaged adults, teams, and global enterprises for nearly 30 years to invite change that sustains well-being and excellence. Being better humans together requires claiming a true self first and then choosing to live inside out as we transform, evolve and be resilient. 

As Janet shares, “coaching in its many forms has at its root the effect of awakening consciousness and doing so in a highly accelerated fashion that sustains.” She uses her executive and entrepreneurial experience to cultivate leaders in sustainable excellence through Generative Wholeness™, a signature generative coaching and learning process for people, processes, and systems. Her colleagues, audiences and clients regard her as a bold, curious, provocative, articulate, and compassionate human being. Janet has served as a global board leader for ICF, as a director from 2009-2013, as past president in 2012, as Chair for the ICF Foundation 2013-2017, and more recently as Treasurer for the ICF Thought Leadership Institute 2020-2021.

You can listen to Tracy and Janet's first conversation here:  https://www.coachinginconversation.com/2046723/11359017-the-role-of-coaches-in-the-re-evolution-of-humanity-with-janet-harvey

Connect with Janet on social media: 

Learn more about Coach Advancement by Tracy Sinclair.

Follow us on social media:
Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn | YouTube

Hello, my name is Tracy Sinclair and welcome to Coaching in Conversation, the Mastery Series. This series of conversations explores the concept of mastery in coaching, and I have the great pleasure of talking with several ICF Master Certified Coaches from around the world to understand what mastery really means to them, both as coaching practitioners and also as human beings. We explore many different perspectives and nuances of this topic, and I hope it is of use and interest to you as you continue to navigate your own pathway of development this time. Uh, once again, another conversation that I'm having with Janet Harvey. Janet is a best-selling author of the award-winning leadership and coaching book called Invite Change. Lessons from 2020, the year of no return. She's also the CEO of Invite Change, a coaching and human development organization that seeks to shape a world where people love their life's work. As a visionary leader, In the global professional coaching industry, Janet is an international coaching federation, master certified coach and accredited educator who has engaged adults, teams, and global enterprises for nearly 30 years to invite change that sustains wellbeing and excellence. Janet has served as a global board director for the ICF as a director from 2009 to 2013 as a past president in 2012, and as chair for the foundation of ICF in 2013 to 2017, and more recently as treasurer for the ICF Thought Leadership Institute 2020 to 2021. So my conversation with Janet is about mastery, and I read a quote from Janet's bio that already I think starts to tell us a little bit about what she thinks of mastery. She says that being better humans to together requires claiming a true self first and then choosing to live inside out. As we transform, evolve, and be resilient, Janet shares that coaching in its many forms has at its root, the effect of awakening consciousness and doing so in a highly accelerated fashion that sustains how intriguing and exciting. Let's find out more in this conversation with Janet, which is called Mastery is never a destination, so. I hope you enjoy. Well, Janet, thank you so much Once again, as I was just saying to you before we clicked record, it's always such a pleasure to spend some time hanging out with you, talking about things that go here, there, and everywhere, but are very meaningful and uh, and intriguing. And today we've decided we will talk about mastery. And I guess particularly with the context of mastery within a coaching domain, but of course that's a broader domain as well. So maybe if I just kick it off by asking you, what does mastery mean for you? Such a huge question, but let's give it a go. Yeah. And thank you. Uh, I think these are important conversations. I'm thrilled that you're choosing to create podcasts and, and open the door for many of us. Uh, it's, it's the, it's a cup filling experience to reflect on all the years we've been in this work and what it means. And I think passing that wisdom's important. So what does mastery mean? Uh, it's. It's never a destination. I think that's the first place to start. Um, mastery is maybe a state of mind. It's an embodied experience of how we walk through the world. Um, it's the capacity to notice, uh, when we're attached to something which suggests that maybe we are, um, still searching and haven't come to, uh, unconditional acceptance of who we are. And yes, those are all more generic to life and what it is for a, um, a human to evolve into the fullness of whatever their soul came here to express. Yes, that's a bias I hold that we do incarnate and that there is some, something larger than the a go itself that's operating through us, that we're always on a journey to discover what you and I would call inner work. And I think for coaches, One of the things that always gets people a little tripped up is they o only imagine what it is to, um, evolve the skills. And that's actually the easy part cuz they've done the hard work of getting to, um, highly competent, experienced P c C level coaching. The next level of courageous vulnerable work is letting go of needing to know anything in favor of a full immersive experience with another human being. In service to allowing something to emerge. And we can't get there unless we've done our own inner work that says there's nothing that needs to be known or to be certain or to be, um, managed or controlled or influenced in any way. And, uh, allow the moment to be as precious as it is spontaneous and filled with potential. Hmm. Yeah. And thank you for, for sharing that. And that so aligns with the insight, the light bulb moment that I had when I first decided to embark upon going towards my MCC credential. I, I have to completely admit, I was in a place at that time of thinking what's the next level of skill? What's the next level of behavioral competence? That's exactly what I thought. And as someone that's been very competency driven, I've been a pretty much a teacher all of my life. You know, it's all about skill and, uh, and the biggest and most powerful learning for me, and I'm so grateful for it because it's set me off on a trajectory that I now deeply value is it opened up. That opportunity for me to realize it's not necessarily about my behavioral skill, it's about my being. Mm-hmm. So, you know, this real distinction between the doing and the being and, and I've started to think about this or as how can we view ourselves as instruments, self as of the work, and so, I love this idea of the inner work that you are talking about where, but we seem to be so obsessed with the outer work that we're supposed to be doing. I mean, what, what is it, what, what is it that, you know, sort of holds us back here? Because it's not easy, is it to, to understand or to make that shift? So now we're really talking more about, um, conscious, unconscious, subconscious, uh, things that motivate choices we make in relation to our lives in any way, shape, or form. And, and, you know, I, I often speak about, um, the principle of sovereignty. And, uh, if we break that word down, stop means self rain means ruler. Who's ruling, uh, the court inside of me, right? And if the ruler inside of me is following guidance about something outside of me, um, will I be loved? Will I be liked? Will I be appreciated? Will I be respected? Will I be acknowledged? Will I be celebrated? Will I be embraced? Um, will I be invited? Right? All of these are ways of relating to our world. That are reactive, you know, I've done something, will it be received? Or I'm thinking about doing something. Let me see how I think others are going to receive it. And we are shutting off the essence expression of who we are. Um, back to the, the soul we came here to live into. So I think what happens is until we can break that cycle that says we're, um, assigning our self-worth, we're accumulating a, a, a sense of self regard and self-esteem through our achievements. Um, we don't realize how empty it feels. Sometimes it happens through crisis, right? People have a, a medical incident or, um, you know, some tragic accidents, or they have deep grief and loss in their lives, and the reflective time that they take to move through that experience helps them ask the question. What's important to me, what matters in my life, and we restore that. What Carl Rogers would've said was the, you know, the seed of the iceberg, the, the value system that are the roots of a human being. Then we connect with that and start to realize, I want to navigate my life in a different way. And from that, we begin the inner work journey. And then, you know, the old adage, we say in coaching all the time, you can't go with your clients where you haven't gone yourself. Well, this is what we're talking about. I can't recognize that you might be in a moment in your life as my client ready to set down the striving that's going on from the capacity you possess in favor of, um, coming home to wholeness and being fine with being still. I mean, even just that simple act of choosing stillness rather than motion. Um, little different way of thinking about being and doing, right? It's the, it's the state in this moment. I could sit in meditation for 15 minutes. Of course I could, anytime, it doesn't matter. Nobody's gonna die if I'm not available to the world for 15 minutes to, to sit and be with self and to listen deeply, anteriorly, and with without. That choice, that volition, that motivation. I, I think what happens is we accept too much responsibility for the client's experience and in that minute we've stopped being client-centered, which is foundational if we're going to be able to coach at what is considered the MCC level for the icf. Yeah, that's fascinating. And there's a real theme was coming up there for me and what you were just saying, Janet, about. You know, we cease to be client-centered because we're also not self-centered because we've not done that in a work and it, and it seems to be a, a mirror of so much that's going on perhaps in society or in or in how human beings are evolving at the moment. How we are at the moment is so much seems to be projected externally how I need to show up externally, and yet there is an absence of that. Deepening that inward looking journey, and I, I, it, it just happens that there's another, a different episode of, of my podcast coming out today that's called resilience or repression, which, which is a slightly different but similar topic in that the, the theme there is are we really being resilient or are we just repressing the inner. Experience that I have and just putting on a brave face. You know, it's that kind of concept. And this resonates with me here about what you are saying is, and I, and I experience it, of if we don't do that, it's almost as though we're some kind of moving, speaking, functioning, empty shell. It looks all good on the outside, but actually inside there's a void that that, that develops. So fast forward to 2020 and we start to see this emerge. Loneliness, trauma, stress, anxiety, suicide. Right? The, the outer behaviors manifesting the inner and absence of connection to self. Yeah. And I think that, uh, we sometimes, uh, over. What's the word I'm looking for? Over deploy or over assign value to the outer circumstances and context as the reason that something is happening, when in fact your word projection, I think is right on all the outer life is doing, is giving us a projection of what we've been doing to ourselves internally. So the way home, back to the sense of a, a satisfied fulfilled life is internal. And life mastery is an internal journey. And the Buddha went to the Salva tree and said, oh, if, unless I'm ordinary, being actualized and enlightened doesn't mean anything. Oh, uh, can I walk in the ordinary life in my magnificence? Yeah, in some ways, you know, that's the spiritual practice. That to me is inherent in what we talk about in mastery. Unique to each person, absolutely available in any TR spiritual tradition, in any geography, in any culture. We all have origin stories somewhere in our epigenetic history, and we forget. We forget our divine contract. And, and I realize we're going a little bit off to the right, but you brought in this notion of repression and resilience. I think that's even at its roots, that we cannot be resilient if we haven't actually claimed, uh, what is our origin story that has me here? Why, why am I on the planet at this moment, in this time, in this place? Yeah. Um, and then the deep gratitude that comes. When we finally realize, oh, I already have everything. I need everything. And even if my circumstances don't reflect it, if I can feel it here now, I can probably finally make different choices that will influence my circumstance with time. And you know, this is the promise of coaching coming out of human potential. And yet practitioners often abandon this and I'm. And it is a, a place of heartache for me and part of probably why I've, I've stayed in the field as long as I have, cuz that's the message in my mind is, can we come back to unconditional self-love? And to me this is the, uh, an essential ingredient of mastery. There's, to, to, to put another quote into the mix. We've heard some quotes from wonderful people already, so. I'm thinking of Gandhi's be the change you wish to see in others. Mm-hmm. You know, if we, if we're trying to hold a space for our clients to change in some way for their growth, we have to, to role model or, or be prepared, open, willing and able to embrace in our own change. And, and it's interesting because I'm reflecting just. You know, as, as someone that has deep and high regard for the ICF and the ICFs credentialing system. Mm-hmm. Um, what I do notice, which seems a shame sometimes, is that coaches, not everyone of course, but I do come across coaches who seem to be under the impression that the goal is to jump from ACC to PCC to MCC and I guess in some ways it's a little bit like a badge collection exercise. Yeah. For many different reasons. You know, and in some ways we're, we're advocating that the ICF badge is a good badge to have because it has a lot of credibility and rigor and professionalism behind it, which of course is all very good and true. And at the same time, it feels as though sometimes, We're maybe missing the trick. You know, I missed the trick initially. I, I thought, not that I was badge hunting, cuz I actually waited quite a long time before I went for my mcc. So I was looking truly for development, but I, I thought that the development was how I would become a better practitioner. Um, and, and yet thankfully that that journey that I went on, Offered me an opportunity to go down a very different path, and it was quite fascinating how after that process I can remember I stopped buying so many coaching books. Not that coaching books aren't wonderful and great, I am still buying some, but I, for a period, I stopped buying coaching books and I started buying, um, philosophy books. And, uh, quantum physics books and, you know, books around different kinds of spiritual practices. Right. Um, because that's where that inquiry took me, which was absolutely to sell. Yeah. And interestingly, I, my personal path, my personal obsession at the moment is, is, is yoga. And not just the physical practice of yoga, but the broader practice of yoga. And I'm seeing so many correlations as I learn more between yoga and coaching. I mean, they're so, you know, not just to have a nice yoga practice at the beginning of a coaching retreat, although I'm sure that's very nice, but, but more at a philosophical level. There are some deep similarities between some of these principles that I feel we could really do well to just explore. Yes, I agree. Um, you know, as I'm, as I'm listening to you describe, um, during ICF Converge this year in Orlando, the, the Coaching Education Board reached out to me to do a session on why level three, and you've just articulated it beautifully, right? There's. It's always seemed a little odd to me that you leap from, it used to be 750. It's worse now at 500. From 500 to 2,500. What are you supposed to do to develop Is a CCE program really giving you the internal structures to evolve your maturity, your emotional maturity, your, your ethical maturity to coach at a more, um, expansive level. And the answer is no. It's been missing for a long time and this is the reason level three has come forward. And, um, coaching educators have a lot to learn about how to bring this forward. There are some, I, I think there are about 25 programs that have been approved now around the world and, um, you know, it's a body of work. I've been teaching since 2010 because I wanted it. All right. I wanted the experience of, on an ongoing basis to be immersed in the mystery of what does it mean to be a human? If I'm going to work with a client to have them do learning, growth and change in whatever way they're wanting, I must understand what that change journey is. Not cognitively, but somatically, emotionally, spiritually. You know, I mean, I can remember in my own life journey being just brought to my knees when I recognized that the path I'd been going down was so destructive. It was not going to create the, the joy in my life that I wanted. In fact, I, I almost got fired out of my, you know, amazing corporate life because I was chasing somebody else's dream. It wasn't being true to me and everybody else could see it but me until the moment I saw it. Then I went, oh, you know, I had the job, the friends, the travel, the bank account, the house, all the things that were the outer definition of life mastery, but. I wasn't happy, you know, to our earlier point about, um, loneliness. So until I could remember that I'm responsible for the choices they make for how I relate to my life, and then I never stop having that responsibility, that's what it means to be human. Then I could actually create social connection that was authentic and genuine and, and livening and mutually reciprocal in a very prosperous way. This, to me, is what mastery is about. And from that place, it utterly transformed my work in the world. I mean, like I can barely remember unless people ask me about it. I can barely remember what life looked like then. I don't see the world through that lens anymore. I. And, um, it has allowed my work with clients to be so much more enriching for me and for them. And at the end of the day, if we can have someone stand taller in their own being, then we'll have the positive ripple effect We're wanting. Back to Ugandan quote about the change we want to see in the world. Yeah. Yeah. And some other words have come into the conversation now that seem very linked to this. You know, we've got this central concept of mastery here, which going right back to what you said at the beginning is not a destination or a point of arrival. You've also just brought in a couple of other words there in describing your corporate life experience around success and how we define success, um, and also happiness. Mm-hmm. So I, you know, how we define these words and how we give meaning to words such as mastery for ourselves as individual practitioners. All of these words is going to be really, really pivotal, isn't it? To how we embark upon this? Yeah. I mean, I, I think the research that's being done about happiness, um, and the fulfillment. Uh, calling and purpose. Of course, that was on the front cover of Psychology Today issue that just came out this month. And, you know, you and I working in the coaching field, we've been talking about purpose and life purpose and following your calling for many decades. Um, and as has psychologists, but now it's become sort of the public zeitgeist that that's what it's all about. I'm not so sure that's true. Are we at risk of putting calling and purpose into the doing bucket? Am I doing my purpose right as even when we say, am I living my purpose for whom, so that what happens, you know, that it it to me, if we don't take it back to the roots of. What is it that's unique about my expression in the world? The essence of who I am, my qualities and traits, and yes, some of that's my, what's been nurtured in the family of origin and the life journey I've taken to the moment I'm sitting in front of my coach and all those are doing is pulling back the veils of somebody else's formula for me. So that I might actually see myself and who I have become, and now I can set up the rubric by which I'm going to choose what will come next. That moment of being, um, aware of. Of that responsibility and being in joy, it's like, oh my gosh, look what I get to be in the world. And then the very courageous step of renegotiating. Yeah, I, I often, when I'm doing personal coaching work, will say to clients before we even begin, the relationships in your life are going to transform by the choice you're making to do this work. And be prepared. There may be some things that you're gonna want to set up to help people recognize that you're gonna behave differently, you're gonna see differently, and that will be unsettling. So don't do that in a hidden way. Do that in a transparent way. Yeah. And yes, I realize for listeners that may feel a little, uh, tough, tighter tender to stand in that challenge for clients. But if we don't. This is what happens when people leave coaching relationships because they got more than they bargained for. Yeah. And it's jarring. It's, it becomes jarring. Yeah. It's interesting because, you know, again, a theme that I'm hearing here, Janet, is going back to this probably over simplistic, binary way of looking at the being and the doing. We have a world I think, that is so focused on doing. Which has been perpetuated, hasn't it, since you know, the advent of us working virtually, the doing, we can cram even more doing in, can't we in the day? Cuz we can literally jump from one Zoom or teams call to another. And you know, we have large wide scale coaching practices now, or coaching organizations with coaches that are lined up with their sessions all throughout the day. I mean, there's a lot of doing going on here, isn't there? It's reminding me of the significance of competency too. Embodies a coaching mindset. Mm-hmm. That really hones in on reflective practice and I have a lot of coaches. In fact, I had a conversation yesterday with coaches asking the great question of what, what is, what does that mean and how do I do that? And what, and what, you know, not really understanding what that concept is. Yeah. Don't always necessarily lend themselves to us opening up that time. You know, we have a world obsessed with Headspace and 10 minutes of meditation, don't we? You know, we we're desperately trying to shoehorn these things in. Um, so I'm wondering what, what could you offer that's helped you? Because this is an ongoing work in progress, isn't it? And mm-hmm. You, you also function in this. Crazy world, wonderful crazy world that we have. What, what kinds of practices help you to, to access your being, to do this inner work as well as the proficiency of the doing? I was thinking about this this morning as a matter of fact, when I was sitting in meditation, um, cuz I'm in a, I'm in a, I'm in a question right now. And, uh, an inquiry for those of you that are coaches that are listening to this, uh, what, what signals that it's time to leave perseverance behind that the, the capacity as a leader, as a business owner, as a practitioner. To keep going to persevere because the North Star is so compelling and it's exactly what you wanna be contributing into the world that we lose our connection to sensory wisdom about. What's the energy I'm following right now? Is this the energy that actually constellates into producing something useful and enlivening for self and others, and. So, uh, actually my practice has been now about noticing all the places when I'm tolerating through the perseverance. When I'm, I'm, I'm able to hold a really strong tension and I'm asking myself the question, is this tension useful? It it, is it a place to sit in discomfort because I'm working a thorny problem? Is there, is there a habit or a preference here that, um, I've let go. Subconscious or unconscious. Oh, huh. I wonder what's having me do that? That's the moment of reflection. So we can't have a reflection practice this is doing, and it has to be something that is, um, pulling us forward into being able to see more clearly what is occurring, not our preference about what's occurring, not our bias about what's occurring, but what's actually occurring. So to me, noticing is important as a precept or a prerequisite to then sitting down and saying, huh, how did I get here? Cuz I know better, right? I'm well trained in all kinds of theories. I have all kinds of understanding about human behavior and why certain things happen and what projection is, blah, blah, blah. Doesn't do any good if I'm not paying attention. So I'm in a noticing practice. Where am I tolerating tension? That's not useful. And in that moment when I can notice and name it, now I have a meaningful reflection and I frame the question. And then I use that question when I'm sitting in meditation. I use that question when I'm out in the garden pulling weeds, which is such a wonderful instant gratification for beauty. I pull the weeds and the bed looks great. I'm like, yeah, um, if I'm out taking a walk on the beach or a stroll in the forest, or sometimes on a long drive. Um, you know, I'll put on something that sort of sounds like meditation music, and I'll just put the question out in the car space and, and then see what lingers with me. And there are many, many, many ways to have a reflection practice, but I would encourage people to pay attention to what are you feeding into your reflection practice. And, um, you know, at a really practical level as a practitioner, um, once a week. I, I reserve an hour and I spend some time just quietly letting each client float in. How was I being with those clients this week? What do I see as any patterns of the way I was showing up? What are the patterns with the way they were showing up with me? Which often is an indicator of where my next work is when I'm working with my coach or my coaching supervisor. What am I doing? Those are noticings. It's not quite the reflection activity. The first is to noticing the pattern of the experience, and then from that I'm looking for the place where I had some attachment, something felt a little sticky, uncomfortable, or I was a little full of myself. I was like, oh, I might not have been coaching there. That might have just been a little bit of consulting. Hmm. I wonder how I got myself caught up in that. Now I have the reflection question. So I, I think it's important to break this down for people. Otherwise, um, it will get caught up into doing. Yeah. Yeah. That's wonderful. And I'm thinking as well, you mentioned somatic earlier. One of the things that I find very helpful for me is, is the physical side of a yoga practice. Because as we know, or anyone that does yoga, I'm sure will have been told that. Our body will show and hold the tension that is not necessarily just a physical tension. And I noticed this particularly, in fact, I was doing a, a yin practice last night, so a slow, longer hold, meditative practice. And it's fascinating how when you really do stay in that posture for a period of time and you notice. With, with minute detail where that tension is in your knee or in your hip or in your neck or whatever, hopefully not in your neck, but you know, wherever it is in your body. Um, what is it that you are actually holding onto? Because what I noticed for myself at least, is when I immerse myself just in noticing what's happening in my body, something will come to me a little while afterwards around. What I need to let go of what I need to make a decision on, or I shift my realization on something. So there are these different, I call them portals, you know, just like different Yeah, that's true. You know, some people go running, don't they? Pulling weeds. What? Whatever it might be that all of these things could give us access to that piece of space that needs to open up for this work to be done. Okay, so you've just made a really important point here, which is opening up to create a space for this important work to be done. All right, let's back up one step. What permission does a person give themselves for that space? So much of what we're working with right now in in all industries are leaders who do not feel like they can. Right. There's no tolerance in the system of the enterprise that they work in for people to slow their pace down and they're unable to build the business case for if I'm not restoring myself, you're not getting my best self doing the work that therefore that's diminishing returns. It's just gonna get worse and worse and worse and worse cuz I'm gonna get sick or we're gonna lose staff because somebody's being in civil and so on. So there's, there's something in the life mastery that that can step, uh, you know, roll the chair back a couple of inches into realize, hang on a second. I am perpetuating the very thing. I'm uncomfortable with Uhhuh. That's in my choosing. How am I choosing? I don't know how I'm choosing. Ah, so. If you wanna stop perpetuating the suffering that you're in now, there's a compelling reason to put the boundary in place. I know this is Brene Brown's work. The B in bravery is boundaries. Hard to do, but essential. And until we can connect the dots and realize that our absence of boundary is what's creating the suffering, now we actually have permission to say, alright. Nobody's gonna die if I take five minutes or 10 minutes or 15 minutes, so that I can connect to myself and realize what is the choice making engine? What's driving this right now? And if it's fear that I'm gonna lose my job, if I'm in emotional or economics insecurity, then what's the negotiation that's important for me to make with my family, with my kids? With my boss, ultimately with my team members, where might I have picked up more responsibility than what's mine to do? And these are reflection questions. And again, we can't get there unless we've created the space. Why don't we? Because somehow we've unconsciously bought back into, um, effort as the key Harvard Business Review, February March issue. Busyness is that they had a beehive. It was so cute. Right? Um, and activity is the addiction predicted to activity. Why? Because we don't wanna feel, we don't wanna feel attention in our body and the yoga pose. We don't wanna feel the emotion of exhaustion and fatigue and loneliness and absence of social connection. So we stayed busy. That's its own diminishing returns. Yeah. CFO early on in my career said to me, you could never cost cut your way to growth. And I think it's a great metaphor, right? It is. We just keep expending time. That's not gonna get us to the growth we want to have the quality of life we're seeking. Yeah. Yeah, I mean it's just as we are talking about this, it just feels so overwhelmingly important, not not just for us as individuals, but for society. I'm sure many of us as coaches are seeing example after example of where it almost feels as though the lifeblood of people is being sucked out of them by so much doing so much hopping and jumping and skipping from one meeting to another, from one deliverable to another. And, and there is this interesting piece about the space and the permission and you know, in all transparency, I'll share with you something very interesting that you just highlighted. There was a while back when I was experiencing having a, a difficult personal experience that has also informed my pathway, my mastery growth and inner work is I actually wrote down, um, I feel the time in order to not feel, yeah, so it's so easy to do, isn't it? This is, it's the doing is almost like an anesthetic is we don't want to, to feel. Um, the loss, the worry, the uncertainty, the whatever, the, whatever it is that is that discomfort that we're trying to move away from. And so we just stay on the train and just keep trumbling along better. The devil, you know, as they say and, and don't, it's so easy, isn't it, to slip into that unconscious, automated way and well, it's rewarded, right? We have to stop rewarding people for being busy. How many people do you know who you get on the Zoom or the teams call and, and you ask how they are and they say, oh, I'm just so busy. My, my plate is so full. And we all kind of nod along, but we don't say the word. And what are you choosing to do for fun? And what was the thing you did to restore yourself and how are you generating resilience? That might even be a better question than how are you? Right. Well, well how's your resilience bank today? Uh, you know, we're, we're rewarding busyness and effort. That's not the answer. Yeah. Yeah. So space for reflection space to actually do this work in whatever way we choose to do it. And, and I'm thinking just, just for those coaches who are listening to this and are thinking. I want to become a master coach. Like, like I'm sure there are many people that want to do that. What, what would be your contribution to that, to that statement? You know, if I want to be a master coach, what would you offer them? Hmm. Many, many, many thoughts in my head. I wanna see if I can get it down to the essence. Mm. What I often say when people call and ask me that question is, this is a journey to the self. Spend some time considering what you are available to let go of in the way you identify as a practitioner, as someone committed to doing good in the world. And much of the journey will be, uh, a surrendering of things that are familiar and comfortable and brought you here. If you're not willing to sit in the discomfort of not knowing what's going to replace it, then this is not the right time for the journey, and it has, it will be highly rewarding on the other side, but you'll be dismantling. In order to see where the spaces are that you can live into that you've not yet chosen to live into. Not right or wrong, simply it's the next step on the pathway. So that's the first piece. What are you willing to surrender and let go of? And can you set your life up to allow for that disruption? Cuz it will be both a personal and a professional disruption. I often invite them to identify one or two clients that they can be completely transparent with and say, I'm going to transform the way I'm coaching. I would like you to be on that journey with me, and I will share transparently what I'm learning from my mentor coach or from the class I'm taking, so that you and I can together see how it transforms your learning growth and change, which will help me accelerate on that path. So partnering with clients to transform one's practice. And then I think the third is, Pick a, pick a coaching educator and a mentor coach and a coaching supervisor that you feel 1000% safe with. Hmm. Because you will not like everything that happens. In fact, I remember realizing that I had a whole bunch of things in my coaching tool bag that weren't coaching. You know, I, I had more than 10,000 hours before I, um, decided to go for the mcc and I. I was like, oh, really? I have to let go of all of that. And it wasn't very ego enhancing to see where I had, you know, veered way off the path. Yeah. But, oh my gosh, my coaching was so much better on the other side and I was having so much more fun and, uh, not nearly as exhausted and more deeply partnered with clients. So the reward is there, but I had to, mm. Tough, tighter tender moments. I had to be with that in myself and not go to shame, but to simply recognize, Hmm, alright, that's what is, and what am I gonna choose now? Front windshield, not concentrating on the rear view mirror view. Yeah. Thank you Janet. And. What's the bit I'd add to that from my own experience is, is that reminder of something that you said earlier, that there's no specific point of destination here. This is a, this is a around the world trip several times. An ongoing, isn't it? You know, this is a universal, um, um, um, you know, crusade almost. Um, and I have found that, you know, I've had, I've had many. Over the last, I've had my MCC for a couple of years now, I think. Oh, actually I think it's due for renewal this year. So it would be almost three years. Um, almost three years. Yeah. And I am definitely not the same person that I was then. I know that I have. My, my, my, my journey and my learning has been predominantly focused on inner work since then, catalyzed by that experience, and yet I know that I've only just started this, is, this is a long haul part of our existence, isn't it? So we have to, um, to, to, to take the rough with the smooth as they say and, and keep going. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And sometimes the rough. It's just covering up the diamond underneath it. Yeah. And, uh, being, working with someone that can help you remember that in those moments when it's kind of kind of tough, tighter, or tender. And I, you know, I, I think the other piece, there's no time clock on it. Right. You're not, um, you know, the, the, the practitioner who is coaching at the PCC level is totally fine. This is totally fine. You can do that for 25 years and then one day say, I'm ready to take a deeper dive because I want something more satisfying. And so maybe that would be my fourth thing. Check your motivation. If you are doing this to have the mark in the market, forget it cuz you won't live into it. And people will know it because you're not being authentic and genuine with yourself. So don't do that. That will just feel awful. Um, when you're ready, your belly will know and your heart will say, ah, finally I'm ready. Um, it's not a, it's not a, uh, transactional thing. Uh, I've got a couple of folks on mentor coaching right now, both of whom, um, failed. Uh, with their submissions. And so they're on a really tough journey personally coming back into feeling good about their practice and learning to see their work in another way and to a person they have said, I can feel the, the energy at the end of the day is now high. Instead of feeling exhausted in my coaching, I said, good. So now you've got, now you've got a litmus test. You have a little thermometer you can use that helps you recognize when you're letting yourself drop into mastery rather than efforting. Oh, right. And, and more things like that. So these are all elements of what transforms in our experience of relating to our coaching. These are all part of the MCC journey, and then we make a new set of choices about the approach that we use. And I, I, I think there's great joy in being in the learning, and it's important, I think, to, to spend some time understanding one's motivation. For pursuing the MCC to me, I, I think I said this in the very beginning, that's the cherry on top of the sun. The, you know, the chocolate sundae and the chocolate sundae has lots of pieces in it, right? It's got a banana and whipped cream and sometimes three kinds of, uh, what, what's that called? Ne Neapolitan. Neapolitan, yeah. Yeah. Um, you know, to me maybe that's the metaphor of all of the amazing things that become available as we work. From the inside out on this, uh, development journey, and it never stops. Right? Every day, every day, my clients teach me something more about life mastery, and I'm deeply grateful that we get to do this work in the world. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Janet. And I'm just thinking about for myself as the time is going by the. The more exciting it becomes actually, you know, the more I, I'm, I'm learning to weather the storms when they come and each time we experience these things differently and it's such a, such a rich learning experience that is the learning of our life, of our self in our life. That isn't necessarily something we just sign up for in a traditional sense. Um, it's, it's, it's much broader than that, isn't it? It's the whole of our existence and how we can access other things like pulling weeds, like running, like yoga, like walking through forests, climbing mountains, whatever it is that gives us access to that space. Yeah. Well, I know time is talking of time. Our window of time, our spacious window of time is just starting to, to, to come to, its, its point of closure. For now anyway, at least I hope we talk again soon. Of course. But any, any part in words, Janet, just to, to bring this to pause for today. I, I keep having this image of a baton in my hands. Maybe, uh, you know, I don't know if it's a talking stick or if it's, um, some, some transmission, some passage. And I, and I, what I would hope for the listeners is that they, they spend some time with this, maybe listen to it more than once, and to, to write the questions they're sitting with that. Um, have them wondering about what is mastery and is the pursuit of an advanced credential really what's in in store for me right now? And share this conversation with your colleagues. Yeah. Bring another circle of people together and talk about what is mastery and allow the room for considering something other than this as, um, excellence, but more about the embodiment of love. Mm. Wow. What a wonderful note to to end on for today, the embodiment of love. So thank you, Janet. I've loved our conversation as always, and I really, really look forward to the next time. Me too. Thank you so much for doing this and making this available to the world. I. My hat is off to you. Oh, thank you. These are, I just, these are wonderful conversations to have, aren't they? So I'm sure and hope someone will be interested in listening to them as well. So thank you. Bye for now. You have been listening to Coaching in Conversation, the Mastery Series, a podcast that takes a look at mastery in coaching, what it is, what that means, how do we nurture or cultivate it, and many other interesting questions. You can hear more about coaching, education and development. At Tracy sinclair.com and follow us on social media. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a rating and a review and also share it with your network to help us expand our reach. Thank you for listening and see you next time.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Tracy Sinclair, MCC

Host