I love it when I pick up the business section of the newspaper and something jumps off and hits me in the face.  Today I came across this article written by Coach Kriengsak Nitpattanasai who has a column in the Bangkok Post.

Coaching by question and brain research

Nitpatanasai gives an overview of David Rock’s book Quiet Leadership:  Help People Think Better–Don’t Tell Them What to Do.

All of my excited buttons went off simultaneously as I googled these gentleman.  Mostly, for two reasons:

1.  Their research and experience proves the questioning methodology of coaching works (and)

2.  The book shows how our brains move  ideas into action–or transformational change.

Throughout my MBA program, I was obsessed with the topic of Transformational Change (and still am!) and this is why I went into the field of Coaching / Consulting.

What is Transformational Change?

One definition is that it “requires altering and expanding the limiting mindset in which the individual (or) the organization operates.”

This is not just changing HOW an Individual does something, or adding a new idea to an existing set of tasks.  We are Literally CHANGING THE WAY PEOPLE THINK.  Changing the way they think about their lives, their limitations, and their possibilities.

Here is an example.  Everyone Knows that they Should go to the gym, but most people continue to sit on the couch.  They are tired.  They can justify it.  A nominal change might be that they take a step towards going to the gym.  Maybe they buy workout clothing or shoes, or get a gym membership.

Transformational Change occurs when the person actually changes the way they think about the gym, and then continually and successfully go.  Thinking has changed, therefore, results are achieved.

As a coach, this is what we do.  We help speed up this process.

I really enjoyed reading this article, because it brought up two critical points:

We cannot tell people to come to a new conclusion

They have to come to it themselves.  Inside all of our brains there are essentially road maps.  The roads that exist are experiences or thought patterns that we have had before.  If we want to go to a new destination (read: way of life, new way of thinking, way of living differently), our brain has to create a new road.

When we experience an epiphany or eureka moment… This Is Transformational Change!  Our brains have essentially built a new road.  And, lucky for us, our mindset has changed, meaning our behaviors can change, thereby changing our results.

We CAN lead people to their own conclusions

Telling someone what to do is about as effective as me explaining to you how to get to my house in Krabi, Thailand.  You can’t even picture it, because you’ve never been here.  Changing mindsets is relatively the same thing.  By leading someone to their own conclusions by questioning, people can experience the awareness of putting a new thought into action.

Here’s an overview of Rock’s model:

Rock came up with a four-step model that has visual and audible clues to watch for when we’re trying to help people develop their own insights:

1. Awareness: When we face a problem or dilemma, our face looks a little unhappy or perplexed. Our eyes might squint slightly. We recognize we have a problem, we feel stuck. From a neuroscientific perspective, we have various mental maps in conflict. They have competing values, competing demand for resources, and the brain has not yet worked out how to resolve this conflict by creating a new metamap or by reconfiguring our existing maps.

2. Reflection: Your face changes. Most people look up, or slightly up and across, and have a dazed look on their face. Their forehead might tense up as they think more deeply. Nearly everyone becomes silent for a moment.

3. Illumination: There’s a rush of energy if it’s big idea, like Archimedes’ “eureka” moment.

4. Motivation: People’s eye movements show they are ready for action.

((This process is the most gratifying part of my job… watching the transformational change take place by the look on someone’s face.))

Coaching, in my view, isn’t about coming in and telling someone what to do.  It is about meeting someone where they are at and giving them the skills they need to break through old ideas and limiting behaviors– thereby helping them to pave new roads to unlimited success.

Thoughts?

(Here’s a link to the book if you want to check it out…)

As part of the inspiring force to help you ‘take the leap of faith’, we will be conducting mini interviews featuring global entrepreneurs who have become “Business Backpackers”.  Because we are all busy traveling, working, and having loads of fun, it is a short list of questions that will hopefully give you a quick glimpse of others “Living the Life”.

This month’s  mini-view comes from Cath Duncan, life coach, writer, and author of the blog site Mine Your Resources.   Her site is one of my favorites, and I land there often, whenever I need a ‘Pick Me Up’ or some inspiration for life.  Cath is a great example of someone living an unconventional life with a business that will travel.  She also has a wonderful charity project her and her husband are working on, learn more by reading Extreme African Adventures and How to Create More Meaning in Your Life.

What is your passion and how are you sharing it with the world?

I’m most passionate about Agile Living and helping people to develop the mind and life management skills that’ll enable them learn and change easily, so they can thrive in a high-change world and create the life they want.

The main thing that gets in the way of us learning and changing easily and being who we want to be is fear, so I love helping people to develop a positive, resourceful relationship with their fears. Fear is an incredibly resourceful emotion and it only expands when we try to ignore or fight it, so I teach people how to mine the resources in their fears, so they can create the life they want.

One of my main projects is the Bottom-line Bookclub, where I help people to accelerate, deepen and apply their personal development learning by providing learning programs that give them the Bottom-line on the highest-leverage ideas and the most effective change tools in the best personal development books.

I also coach people one-on-one through major changes they’re making or wanting to make, and I share a lot about how to learn and change more easily on my blog, Mine Your Resources and in the monthly free expert teleseminars that I host.

Where in the world are you now and how did you end up there?

I’m living with my husband, Andy, in Cape Town, South Africa for a few months and we’ll head off again in the new year. We’re still deciding our next location. We’re keen to live somewhere we haven’t lived before – there’s still so much of the world we want to see.

I work online, because that’s the most agile small business model I’ve found and it allows me to easily change my location and other big parts of my life and keep doing the work I love doing, without having to start all over again with building my business.

What would you say was the most challenging part of getting to where you are now?

I found it really hard to uncover what sort of work I wanted to do. Creating and working has always been very important to me – even as a child, I was unusually “productive” and created little projects for myself.

We’re taught to look at the different categories of jobs that already exist in the world, choose one to do for the rest of your life, and then go and follow the linear, pre-determined path into that job by doing the “right” training, starting in the “right” junior jobs to get the “right” experience, and then working your way up, making a life-long career out of it. I guess this process suits some people, but it didn’t work for me, and I think it’s rapidly becoming outdated in our high-change world. At some point I realized that I didn’t want to try to fit myself into a job because I couldn’t find one that I felt I could fit well enough into, and I realized that I needed to invent my own work and workstyle around the values that were important to me and the activities I loved doing.

That sounds simple and straightforward, but getting clear on my values and what I loved doing, and then creating a platform and the necessary scaffolding to make it possible to get paid to do it has been way tougher and has taken a lot longer than I’d thought it would. I didn’t realize that it was going to take so much soul-searching and I didn’t expect all the existential and identity crises that it triggered. And when it comes to setting up the systems and scaffolding to make a successful business out of the stuff I love doing, it’s been a relentless and steep curve of continuous personal and professional learning. It’s probably a good thing that I was so naive, or else I might never have taken the leap!

Inspiring words and advice for others interested in going global & putting lifestyle first…

1.) Live lean.

You don’t need all the “things” that the media says you need, in order to be happy, and that stuff just creates the pressure for you to work harder and longer so you can earn more money and buy that stuff you think you need. You can create a lot of financial freedom by dropping the desire for “building a fort” and collecting stuff.

2.) Realize that the quality of your life is all about the quality of your thinking.

The only way you can experience the world or decide what to create in the world is through your own thoughts, so your greatest resource is your own ability to think. Developing your ability to use your whole mind is the most important investment you can make. Don’t skimp on developing your thinking, and be willing to review and renew your thinking by questioning your assumptions often.

3.) Prioritize action over planning.

You can do all the research and reading in the world, but most of the things that’ll make the biggest difference in your happiness and success in life can’t be controlled or planned, and at the end of the day knowledge is worthless unless you use it and take action.

Connect With Cath:

http://www.mineyourresources.com/
http://twitter.com/cathduncan
http://twitter.com/bottomlinebkclb

and… Don’t forget to check out her Bottom-line Bookclub!  Cath is running a special till December 18th for a 2 for 1 six month gift subscription! Click below for details!!
Two-for-one 6-month Gift Subscription Special

Questions?  Comments?  Leave ‘em below!