Win Harper | Life and Leadership Coach

Some of the best coaching occurs between sessions, and this was the case for Mike.  This week he was working on his job search and on writing his bio.  He wanted to use “taglines,” and he asked himself:  What is the essence of who I am? What am I? He came up with 25 taglines in 5 minutes.

These two questions define the purpose of coaching:  to help the client remember who he/she is.  Take a few moments and answer them for yourself.

During the linked session I followed up on a few comments Mike had made the week before.  First I asked him about his Future Self.  Mike had said that Shepherd was who I would like to be and want to become. He recalled that when he was playing football that he was small and people doubted he could reach the heights he did.  He used visualization and determination to do his best, and better than anyone expected.  He never questioned if he would fail.
After being laid off he started doubting himself, which is normal.  Mike said the Future Self guided meditation help him remember his greatness.

I also asked him about his statement last week concerning taking on responsibility for the outcomes of those he wants to help. He also thought that those he were helping “gave me their power.” This is a limiting belief and has been blocking Mike from taking on more leadership.  I asked him for some alternate perspectives.  He came up with several, and one was that he can ask questions rather than giving solutions.  One of the leadership tools I have used is when someone brings a challenge to me, I ask them to state it in one sentence.  I then ask them for 3 solutions.  Finally, I ask for their recommendation.  Questions direct an individual’s thoughts and attention.  They stimulate ideas, and are an excellent way to train other’s to think for themselves.

We also did some values clarification exercises.  What are values?  Take a few moments and think about that. 

What are your top 5 values?

Brian Tracy asks, “How can you tell who a person is? By what they say?  By what they intend to do?  By what they promise they will do?  No, you can tell who a person is by what they do.  And what they do is what they value.  Values are who we are, expressed in our thought, words, and deeds.  Our actions do not contradict our values.  Your values guide your decisions and behavior and can bring you mental and emotional freedom:  The degree to which you honor your values is the degree to which you gain fulfillment.”

Values are who we are. Not who we would like to be, not who we think we should be, but who we are in our lives, right now. Another way to put it is that values represent our unique and individual essence, our ultimate and most fulfilling form of expressing and relating. Our values serve as a compass pointing out what it means to be true to oneself. When we honor our values on a regular and consistent basis, life is good and fulfilling. The Coaches Training Institute

You have values whether you are conscious of them or not.  Knowing your values is part of being self-aware and living more intentionally, and they can provide you insight into your emotions and behaviors. 

Here are the exercises for clarifying your values:

1. Remember a peak moment when life was especially rewarding or poignant. It’s important that the time frame be quite limited—a “moment”—or there will be too much in the experience to allow you to pinpoint specific values. “What was happening?” “Who was present and what was going on?” “What were the values that were being honored in that moment?”

2. Next ask yourself, What makes me mad?  Your emotions are a direct result of whether your values are being honored, met, and demonstrated. When they are, you are happy and fulfilled, when they are not you are unhappy, frustrated, and angry.  Maybe unkindness makes you mad, or injustice, or arrogance.  These are negative and we want to emphasize the positive.  So if unkindness makes you angry “kindness” would be a value of yours.  Likewise injustice would be “justice” and arrogance could be “humility.”

3. What special quality do you have that everyone identifies you with.  For instance, if you woke up tomorrow morning and you did not have that quality or trait, your friends and family would not recognize you.  In my case that would be my sense of humor.  What is this quality for you?

4. Our friends and families often do us a service by pointing out the obsessive expression of our values: “You are so controlling!” “All you think about is your students.” “You want all the attention.” These statements might point toward a value of personal power/leadership, of learning/growth, and of recognition/acknowledgment. Examine those times when you take certain values to the extreme. “What is it that people say about you? What do you say about yourself?” “What is it that people tease you about or that drives them crazy?” There are important values here that have mutated for some reason. Look for the value, and don’t focus on the mutation.

Here are the values I came up with for Mike.

Discipline
Freedom/independence
Personal Growth/education
Teamwork
Family
Service/contribution/caring
Humor/fun
Equality/fairness
Courtesy/respect
Challenges
Positive Attitude
Integrity

As homework, I want him to review the above and make “value strings” of words.  For instance, I did that for freedom/independence and service/contribution/caring.  When creating the values string, place the most significant term at the beginning, such as “freedom” and “service” in the above.  I also asked Mike to visit his Future Self, Shepherd, and ask him what he thinks about these values.

Then pick your top 5 values, and write a short definition of what each one means to you.

Here is another Brian Tracy quote: “All stress and unhappiness come from believing and valuing one thing and finding yourself doing another.”

Good luck!

Click below to listen to the actual coaching session.