What if we gave up the idea that anyone else can have easy answers about how to live our lives? What would happen if we took up the project of cultivating our curiosity, our openness to life, our sense of wonder at ourselves and others?What could be if we started to look for the ways we keep ourselves running in habitual, tiny circles, avoiding and hiding so that we don't have to experience that which we don't want to experience?What could be if we could find practices - daily ways of living and cultivating ourselves - that bring us more fully into contact with the possibilities around us, with our own bodies and hearts, with the people with whom we're in relationship, and with our lives?What would it be to do this for ourselves? And what would it be to become more skilful at helping others do that too?I'm thrilled to be leading our regular two-day Coaching to Excellence programmes in London in May and July, in which we'll get into all these questions together.
Glorious
Our glorious, exhilarating, revolutionary Coaching to Excellence programme - a two-day programme on working compassionately and wisely with ourselves and others to lessen difficulty and to step in more fully to our lives - is running again in July. I'll be there, teaching, in London July 18-19.We'd love you to join us.
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Learn with me - April, May and September
Three opportunities coming up in London in coming months, for those of you nearby or those who can travel here.On Sunday April 17th, the latest Coaching Round Table run by me alongside the wise and growing faculty at thirdspace, the organisation I founded to bring a deep and integrating kind of learning to organisations, communities and our wider society. In the morning, an introduction to integral coaching, and in the afternoon a programme on mindful self-compassion with our friends Kate Fismer and Justin Haroun from the University of Westminster's Centre for Resilience.On May 4th-5th, Coaching to Excellence, our two-day introduction to the principles and practice of integral development coaching - open to everyone who's interested in finding deeper, more inclusive and holistic approaches to supporting development in ourselves and in others. Led by me with my colleague and friend Janeena Sims.And September 19th-21st, Integral Development Coaching Principles - a three-day course led by James Flaherty (founder of New Ventures West and author of 'Coaching: Evoking Excellence in Others') and me, for coaches and consultants who'd like to add a deep, rigorous, compassionate developmental angle to their work.It's incredibly exciting to get the opportunity to teach the work I love, so much of which is expressed in what I have been writing here for the past three years.And I hope some of you will choose to join us - what a joy to get to share all of this with you in person.
Getting unstuck, and learning together
Our repetitive, habitual patterns – and our ability to create them – can be great supports in our lives. Who would want to have to reinvent every day the familiar paths we rely upon to get us up, dressed and fed? Or those that support us in navigating our way through our houses and cities, or in driving our cars? Or those that help us relate to the people closest to us?And yet there are times when our patterns become unwanted, because we’ve outgrown them or because they no longer serve the situations in which we find ourselves. Many of the changes we encounter in life – entering or ending a relationship, becoming a parent, losing a loved one, a promotion at work, changing career, stepping into a leadership role, growing from childhood to adulthood – require us to be able to identify the patterns that are no longer supporting us and let them drop away so that something new can be learned.But this can be far from easy. Often we don’t know our patterns well enough to be able to work with them. And even if we know them, we don’t always know what to do in order to break free.I'll be taking up this topic, as well as introducing integral development coaching, at a quarterly Coaching Round Table event in London on Sunday 22nd November, which is open to everyone. We’ll explore coaching in the morning, and in the afternoon we'll study the patterns we get stuck in from the point of view of the body, the imagination, and the narratives in which we live. You’ll have an opportunity to explore your own patterns, and to receive and give help to others in theirs. And together we'll see what new new ways we can invent of stepping into bigger possibilities for ourselves.I'm also teaching a two-day Coaching to Excellence programme in London on 7th and 8th December. It's suitable if you're experienced in coaching others or new to this work. We'll study together what it is to be a human being, how development comes about, and how we can participate more fully in our own lives and in the lives of others. And we'll learn ways of supporting ourselves and others to respond with wisdom and skilfulness to the wide world that presents itself to us.It's been very meaningful for me to meet many of you who read my work here at workshops and courses like this. Perhaps you'll think of joining us this time.
Learn coaching with us - October 1-2 in London
Everything I write about here is, in a very direct way, connected with one of my great loves - supporting the enduring growth and development of people.Growth in this case means something more ambitious than getting happier, or getting what we want. Instead it's being able to ever more skilfully turn towards the suffering and difficulty in the world with both creativity and compassion, and contribute to reducing it.And there is so much difficulty we face. Some of it is reflected in the large scale issues that we see on the news, but much of it is of a more ordinary, close-in, prosaic kind - in our workplaces and in our homes.Wouldn't it be wonderful to be someone who could make a contribution to all that, and find meaning and fulfilment in doing so?That's what we'll be studying and practising together on the two-day Coaching to Excellence course in London on October 1-2. Teaching these programmes (usually to a small group of between 8 and 14 people) is one of my greatest joys.Coaching to Excellence is a chance to step in to the theory and practice of integral development coaching, and for anyone interested in becoming even more skilful as a coach it's the doorway into the Professional Coaching Course I teach that begins in November.Drop me a line if you'd like to know more or, if you've heard enough already, you're welcome to sign up here to join us.
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Learn together, Oct 1-2 2015
In one way or another, my writing here in 'On Living and Working' is always about what it is to be a human being, how development comes about, leading to a growing capacity to respond with wisdom and skilfulness to the world that presents itself to us, and how we can participate more fully in our own lives and the lives of others.These themes are also the heart of the programmes I run though thirdspace coaching, the organisation I founded to bring these questions to the world of organisations and beyond.The next opportunity to learn with me is coming up in London in October. It will be a chance to learn the first steps in integral development coaching, a skilful means to support your own development and the development of others, combining both theory and hands-on practice, and with practical application for work and the rest of life.Coaching to Excellence runs in London on Thursday 1st and Friday 2nd October. Early-bird rates apply until 9th August.It would be thrilling to have you join us.
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Developing others - An opportunity to learn together in May
Change - in an individual life, in a work situation, in wider systems - can often be hard because, as I've argued previously, it usually requires a shift in both interpretation (the way we make sense of the situations we're in) and practice (the recurrent actions we take that build familiarity and habit).All too often, we find ourselves constrained by one or other of these and don't know how to loosen them enough that we can step into bigger possibilities for ourselves. And, all too often, we're called upon to help others and we don't know what to bring them that will help.But it is possible to learn to become skilful in all this. To become someone who can see into the situations of others with sufficient sensitivity, and who can bring fresh possibilities for interpretation and action with sufficient creativity, that something new can begin to open. A new freedom. A new way of making sense. A new kind of skilfulness in responding to the world.This is the topic we'll be taking up in May on the Coaching to Excellence foundation programme I teach a few times a year. We'll be introducing integral coaching - a powerful approach for supporting the development of people in the ways that I've described above. And a topic that's very close to my heart.We'll be in London on May 18-19, and there places still available.All the details are here.
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Coaching Roundtable - an opportunity to learn together
On Sunday April 12th 9.30am-4.30pm, in London, there'll be an opportunity to learn with me and some of my friends and colleagues, and to find out about integral development coaching and the programmes we teach.We'll meet at 9.30am for a morning session on human development and, specifically, on the method we teach for skilfully supporting others in this. There'll be the opportunity to engage in conversation and ask questions, and to see a demonstration of coaching in action, as well as to find out about the many programmes we offer in this field.After a break for lunch we'll join together with graduates of our courses (who'll have been involved in their own session in the morning) to take up the topic of freedom. We’ll focus on cultivating the freedom that’s always available to us, and which can easily seem so distant as we encounter our habitual patterns, inner-criticism, busyness and distraction. You’ll have the opportunity to explore the constraints you (and your clients if you have them) experience, and to find powerful ways to declare, and take up, new freedom to act in life.It's going to be a wonderful day.All the details are here.We'd love to have you with us.
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Learning with me in the Spring
As well as writing, teaching is one of my great loves.On Feb 16-17 I'll again be teaching a two-day Coaching to Excellence course in London. A great way to build your capacity to support others (and yourself) in their development. There's also one Feb 2-3 in Madrid.And March 19-22 is the start of the next intake of the year-long Professional Coaching Course (4 sessions over 12 months).Both are works of great love for me. I learn so much, every time, from being involved in them. And we always have some quite wonderful participants, who often go on to do big things with what they've learned. Maybe you'll be one of them.I'm looking forward very much to meeting some of you this year.
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Coaching to Excellence December 1-2
Coming up in just a few weeks, a chance to learn with me. We'll be exploring integral coaching - a powerful way of supporting the development of others, and a topic that's very close to my heart.We'll be in London on December 1-2, and there are a handful of places still available.All the details are here.
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