I’ve just been reading a great book ‘The Prosperous Coach’ by Rich Litvin and Steve Chandler and it reminds us to look at the market and go in the opposite direction, and boy does it teach that in a simple, logical and compelling way.
And to me, often people innocently go the way they think is ‘accepted wisdom’ and accept it as truth. And this can get in the way when it’s usually assumed I have to perfect this step before the next step, or, this is the correct way to achieve something, or I have to implement this process or strategy. Sometimes that’s true but more often not.
For example, when I learnt to ski I missed out the snowplough stage – it never occurred to me as being necessary – and so when I started my Ski Instructor training I had to learn to snowplough so I could teach it to others, as that’s what that particular teaching organisation’s methodology prescribed, and nothing wrong with that as that’s what they’ve come up with. That’s their reality.
But to me, it often feels like learning:
- Flat Earth theory before ‘we think’ you can understand that the earth is round
- Bad Smells theory before ‘we think’ you can understand Germ Theory
- Therapy takes many painful years reliving the past to arrive at peace
And I’m always curious to know who’s accepted wisdom ‘We’ really is?
And I’m not saying traditional methodologies are incorrect. They often get results for some (albeit sometimes very uncomfortably), but I wonder how much more simply, and more quickly and with less effort, and more intuitively we can learn and achieve the things we want? Or seemingly going in ‘the opposite direction’ as is suggested above.
Somebody else’s Wisdom is just theirs, from their reality. The only Wisdom that works is your own, and fortunately it’s naturally built in to all of us. It can’t be taught, can’t be learnt, and can’t be acquired from outside of us, but we can point ourselves towards it. It’s something that only we can uncover for ourselves.
In my own coaching with clients, they start to uncover and realise that only they have the answer, and it’s not necessary to delve in to the past to uncover it, nor get it from someone else. And as their mind quietens down and they look within for the answer that’s when the magic starts to happen and my role is to guide them into their own space where their own magic happens. That’s where the power lies.