Heroic Journey of My Coaching Process

First off I noticed that the ICA Coaching Process Diagram resembles Joseph Campbell's Hero of a Thousand Faces 12-phases of the heroic Journey. Joseph campbell is an author of mythology and kind of mythological dissection. He went back and scrutinized myriad myths and plugging in some Jungian archetypes extracting some archetypes, he extracted these 12 stages that occur in almost every myth be it 1970s star wars or a 500 bc folktale. And the phases involve a departure, encountering obstacles, tests, helpers, return, seizing the elixir and others. so the coaching process resembles the heroic journey that a client will go through and experience!

The most fascinating connection I saw was that in 1998 I made an abstract self-portrait that strongly resembles the ICA coaching process! Except that mine utilizes more color, which I like. I have a confusion, dark cloud on the left side which is where the client starts -- from confusion, muddled doubt, fear, and its a rough, grey-black textured part of the abstract canvas. Then there's an up and down energy line which reflect the heroic journey and the end result is this warm smooth, red and yellow chunk that represents the achievement, the kindness and love. ST. Ambrose said, "Faith is in the beginning and love is in the end." On my coaching journey process, Love is truly the the end result of the coaching and the energy-heroic line has greens, reds, blues, and many colors of change. What's interesting is that instead of pillars I have 3 slivers of red and yellow surrounding the main sphere (the client's core and their compassionate reservoir which always stays the same and contains their infinite potential). Those slivers represent passion, love, and joy that are ALWAYS with hte client throughout the entire journey!! Unlike the pillar where they'd go through the truth-telling and listening phases and then a questioning phase, my model of coaching (that I painted 11 years ago) has these empowering qualities ALWAYS with the client throughout the entire journey that they can and should and do draw upon!!

So the Beginning of my client process starts at "muddled confusion and doubt and fear"

The Goal: is emergence into passion, warmth, and kindness.

Towards then experience of achieving the ultimate conclusion, the client typically has "the nascence of new ideas and new conclusions and journeys" but it doest get slightly steeper, but only because the achievement of this coaching process will be all the more fulfilling!

Additionally, my coaching model resembles the Dalai Lama's ever-increasing path of happiness, indicating that "yes" there are "peaks and valleys" in the achievement of that goal-process, however, the subsequent valleys (challenges) decrease in difficulty while the peaks (high points) exponentially increase in pleasure and success and total happiness!

And in my "canvas of the client process". there is a define starting "texture" (rough, complex, fearful) and ending texture (smooth, like rolling pastures of warmth and sucess and freedom).

So it's fascinating. I've been coneptualizing coaching and my coaching proces for 11 years. Since 1998 when I first designed my abstract portrait. That portrai will become my coaching model and my logo. Additionally 11 years ago was when I embarked on doing many free association techniques and stepping into and eliminating fear and ultimately expanding and empowering the truly infinite nature of my life. Everything I've done since then, since I embarked on my coaching journey 11 years ago, be it living in teh jungle or writing over half a dozen books, or over 300 articles, journeying ot costa rica, peru, europe, my computer science work, or running marathons, or experience and exploring soemtiems frightening or different parts of the world and the life experience...ALL of that has been part of my journey as a human becoming a coach. So that warmth or reds and yellows of passion and clarity is coaching for me, and I'm there, I've arrived!!!!!

So this is what I've devoted my life to (the past 11 years) into making myself the best coach I could possible be. Now for the next 12 years of my life, I will be getting paid to help clients maximize their own potential personally and professionally, just as I have coached myself to do (and have had literally tens of thousands of othe coaches, coach me in the process). So this is exciting and galvanizing!

And I'm massively stoked to have you depart from fear, doubt, and bumpy uncertainty, go through your own heroic journey, and then ultimately experience your pastures of smooth success and richly colored happienss!!!!! :D

So not only have I been training as a coach for the past 12 years (really I started the portrait in 1997), but I have developing my own model for the client's heroic journey during coaching!!

And EVERYTHING -- from Campbell's mythological heroicisms, to nlp training, to personal experiences -- has been moving towards more clarity for my coaching process!!

I've bene coaching for free for 12 years and it's been TERRIFIC!! Now i'm infusing affordable payment packages into my coaching so in addition to doing what I love, I will get paid to coach now too! Great! That will is terrific as well!

Productivity Heros

This details the list of all productivity heros of which I can conjure

• David Allen -- The "Father" of modern productivity. His GTD is referenced in myriad productivity apps, resources, and books. The uber-productivity trend-setter, David coined words like "mind like water productivity" "blackbelt GTD" and other Zen-like terms. He has a martial arts background, lives in Ojai (sweet, a neighbor!), and has to have some kind of computer programming background with his references to LIFO, FIFO, and the entire "closed" loop GTD system is set up like a computer program with if-then statements. If anyone wants to know about productivity, they've got to understand or at least get the gist of Collect, Process, Organize, Review, Do. Here's David giving a stellar speech to Google:
  I suggest you subscribe to some of his RSS Feeds and checkout the DavidCo Forum.


• Merlinn Mann -- If anyone knows GTD high-tech style, it's Merlin Mann. In a way he's like David Allen 2.0. He invented an amazing program called Quicksilver for the mac. With that handy gem you can load most any program or document with the keyboard, making it an essential for keyboard jockeys. Using words like "byzantine", "email bankruptcy", and "attrition" all in the same paragraph, he really cracks me up and reminds me of a high-tech jim Carrey infused with hyper-intelligence. Check out his hyserical mockery FlockedUp site debut.
  or the more traditional presentation of his essential productivity material "Inbox Zero" with this video presentation at google or at the main Merlin Mann hub. The guy has numerous pages, blogs, and sites, so it's hard to pinpoint a central hub, but if one existed it would be 43folders.com.

• Cameron Johnson -- This may be transforming into a "leaders of business" by listing Cameron, but I had to include this guy. Cameron wouldn't typically make the productivity list because his expertise is entrepreneurialism, not productivity. But, come on...if you started 12 business by the age of 21, how could you call that NOT productive! Here's a rundown of his startups:
  TrueLoot.com 2004
  CertificateSwap 2004
  KazaaGator 2003
  AimBuddy 2003
  ChooseYourPrize.com 2002
  Zablo.com 2001
  SearchOmega 2001
  VoteStation.com 2001
  SurfingXChange 2001
  SurfingPrizes.com 2000
  EmazingSites 1999
  MyEZShop.com 1999
  MyEZMail.com 1998
  Cheers and Tears/
  Beanie Wholesale 1997
  Cheers and Tears
  Printing Co.
  His book is well-written, well-organized, and massively helpful for anyone eager to launch their own business. The best part? Cameron writes from my (Generation Y) generation, so instead of hearing some garbage about 1980s reveries at Harvard or how "back in the day we didn't have computers", you just get waves of solid, clean, lucid business advice...plus the guy's just massively intelligent. Additionally, he wrote "You Call the Shots" like an autobiography, giving it the "true novel" flavor to the prose.

21st Century Mythology: The Best Hero is Flawed, 2-Sided

Recently read this great article and it sparked some interesting ideas. Superheros are only identifiably heroic when they can connect to other humans! Otherwise, they're just alien. The most secure way of making that connection, honestly, is flaws. Batman's troubles over his dead parents, Ironman's drinking problems, Maxwell Smart's stupidity and bumbling, all those flaws make their great deeds identifiably humanly heroic. Cool stuff. Otherwise they're just mythological!

Yeah, that's awesome. Superheroes who are perfect without flawed are just myth. The stories of Neptune and Jupiter from Ancient Rome helped Romans understand their mysterious world and answer some of the questions that could only be answered with scientific breakthroughs millenias to come. Same goes for the Zeus, Posieden, Athena stories from greece. Those mythologies embodied flawless, "inhuman heros". A star contrast from the very human and flawed, but exceptionally heroic characters in many of todays films.

Maybe we have re-invented mythology into a global flawed mythological superhuman superhero. The kind that is a little bit closer to us than Zeus on Mount Olympia, or Neptune beneath the sea. Modern culture has crafted "gods" (superheros) that blends the myth into our reality because we recognize elements of each of us in the our 21st century heroes.