Inclusion With Humility
Coaches must make a concerted effort to get to know every person they interact with and to notice and understand what drives them to want to come back week after week. Adopting a person-centered approach is fundamental to becoming a more inclusive leader. So what is behind the terms diversity and inclusion?
Diversity and inclusion. Words resonate like values. Sounds like a new mantra, doesn’t it?
If you don’t repeat and articulate these words, let alone integrate them into your organization or communities culture, you will quickly feel excluded. Let’s accept the diversities and acknowledge them. They are not limited to gender, sexual preferences, physical and mental disabilities, chronic and disabling illnesses, ethnicity, skin color, and facial features, to name but a few. We will have to give meaning and perspective to these words that often offer a clear conscience to those who use them but do not necessarily always make things happen.
It’s time to work on yourself, change our mental filters, and discuss inclusion. There is no inclusion if we lack open-mindedness and if we bring a binary and dogmatic approach to others and the situations around us.
Let’s relearn to doubt and put ourselves in uncomfortable situations. “All clarity schematizes the mental world.” by Boris Cyrulnik. Therefore, it is necessary to find the grey area, to bring some doubt about the stimuli that saturate us. How to include the other if we do not accept ourselves? Accepting one’s contradictions and areas of uncertainty is perhaps a necessary first step to welcoming one’s differences with the other.
Never has the education of our children been so decisive in aiding in recognizing distinction, to question what they have been taught. It is time to face mental dictatorships. Inclusion and diversity are not the prerogatives of a minority; they are everyone’s business.
Let’s keep an open mind and open our hearts. While showing our presence to one another with an open heart and without judgment, we will go a long way toward inclusion. Our society talks about diversity yet has become so individualistic and uncompassionate. We no longer take the time to listen to each other.
Humility will make us discover the other with the stance of a learner. Our joyful and enthusiastic curiosity is necessary to learn to recognize each other better by rediscovering the other and reconciling this long-repressed dark side.
Courage
It takes courage to be in this life fully, being present. It takes courage to live our truth and respect our daily calling.
Changing Context
Being a coach invites us to think differently by giving more importance to the system and the context rather than the content. I realized this last week during my intervention in Mexico. I participated in a group activity in a mythical place near Mexico City, the Hacienda Galindo. I am very grateful to my clients at LSC Communications Mexico, that allowed me to discover these 10 acres of colorful space with its bougainvillea and inspiring history.
It is said; that Hernán Cortés gifted this hacienda to Malinche back in 1524 as a demonstration of his love and gratitude for being by his side during the mission that changed his life and the history of the world.
Converted to Christianity, “Malinche” was baptized with the name of Marina, remaining at the service of Cortés as interpreter, conciliator, and counselor until 1524.
Being a coach allows me to discover magical, historic places rich in symbols. Despite 20 years spent in Mexico, I did not know about this mythical and bewitching place.
Like La Malinche, I felt like a singular “counselor” on July 14 and 15, 2022. My job is not only to translate behaviors but also to reveal system elements, inspire leaders, and carefully interpret their words and languages.
A Group Coaching event transcends the contexts in which we work. It is quite the opposite of the remote video conferences that in no way replaces the spectacle of orange trees and bougainvilleas and imposing trees that in-person training brings us.
Changing context consists of changing space and time during a determined period. We anchor ourselves emotionally in a combination that allows us to live and feel new emotions. The coach creates a fragile bubble necessary to suspend judgments and connect with the present moment.
Our perspectives align, and new experiences emerge. The warmth of our exchanges and the guarantee of emotional security allow us to build a new chapter within the group. Cultures stir and values crackle. The words unite, and the faces relax.
Engage in Team Coaching. Aiming at renewal, inspiration, and the establishment of new ideas to lean on to face the challenges of tomorrow.
Feel free to ask us any information you need about group coaching.
WHATEVER YOU CAN DO, OR DREAM YOU CAN DO… BEGIN IT NOW
If you can dream it, you can do it. Start now.
We often find ourselves burned out, which consumes us with excess pressure, or we are in our comfort zone, usually leading to boredom. We ask ourselves the point of doing anything, lost in a sprawling structure, often in organizations with extended workloads.
Are you living your life?
When I was a child, all I needed to do was to listen to my parents’ directions as they paved my path. Having had a well-structured education and sometimes strict rules often forced me into a closed-minded system. My decision-making was limited. I then isolated myself while studying and forgot I had a life.
Then, when I became a Senior Executive, my time was limited. I barely had any time for my family and personal life. This burnout affected me tremendously. Working was my way of gaining confidence, and eventually, I created a very illusory ego. I wasn’t necessarily happy it was all a facade. I was constantly anticipating a future event and not living in the present.
When we are in a state of feeling burned out, we create loneliness within ourselves without giving ourselves some mental space. Taking breaks is necessary. Give yourself time to reflect on your thoughts and emotions to reconnect with yourself. The goal is to connect with our true nature.
When are you going to wake up? What do you need to live in the present and live your life the way it should? How will you give meaning to your life?
Live in alignment with your dreams.
Never stop learning. Practice generosity and altruism. Give love.
Pass on knowledge and values.
Travel and open your mind.
Are You Living Your Life?
Each week passes at a speed that exceeds us. It seems like it was only yesterday that you received the last BTI newsletter. Did you do anything inspiring and meaningful since last Friday? Imagine teleporting to next Friday. What will you have done with your week? Will you feel satisfied to have achieved something different? How has this week been decisive in your life?
Living in the present moment invites us to slow down and pause. This reading is part of living in the moment and being present, and we thank you for it. Every day is unique and wonderful and allows us to transcend ourselves, to move forward a little more. Don’t wait. Move now!
Breathing
Breathing is nowadays a key component of our wellbeing. Mindfulness and meditations are millenial practices which teach us how to assess our body sensations, feelings, thoughts and provide so much benefits for our health.
Be aware that innovative tools are today available to better know your respiratory capacity (both in amplitude and frequency). Those physiological data integrate with other data provided by virtual reality and serious video games.
Open Mind Neurotechnologies developped an amazing tool to assess your emotional and cognitive potential. I am certified for that and will be delighted to guide you. Feel free to email us. Now!
Stand up & walk. Move forward.
Strong emotions of the past affect our memory and will impact the course of our life. How to choose thoughts that will build our capacity to act, our way of thinking, and not those imposed by the media and governments? Society has to remember the tragic and historical events that have marked us. It also has to promote the gestation of collective mourning towards acceptance and action.
On the other hand, it is necessary to accept the new reality, identify collective and individual learning, and gain the know-how to turn the page. Why do we erase and forget some events more than others? We all have the ability to decide whether to remember or forget. We can favor our thoughts by choosing those we wish to value and strengthen. Doing so will mark our neural pathways with their imprints.
It’s the same with our beliefs. We have the choice to identify the potential ideas that will supersede our limiting beliefs. It is up to us to do the work on an ongoing basis. Our identity and our personal development depend on it.
Mid Year Reset
Knowing how to restart requires the desire to leave with new knowledge. Do not allow yourself to get stuck. Get your head above water.For this, we must be compassionate with ourselves. Coaching is there to remind us of this.
A semester just ended. During this first week of July, you have the opportunity to redefine priorities and find your flow. What have you learned? What do you want to change? What is your course for this end of the year? No one will come to do it for you, so go ahead and create the anchors that will allow you to dream again and unleash your potential.
Hybrid Coaching
Today’s leaders are thinking about the correct equation for hybrid working. What about Coaching? Virtual facilities and simplifications lead us to believe virtual work will replace face-to-face interventions.
My return to Panama and Mexico made me reflect on the following questions: What is the best option for organizations? What do my clients need? What did I gather during my return to face-to-face Coaching?
Coaching is a discipline that adapts to new times and takes advantage of new technologies. While it is true that virtuality allows us to work remotely without having the constraints of heavy logistics, it is also a source of new learning. Using innovative applications has allowed me to anchor my clients’ knowledge and guarantee their commitment. These are experiences that remote technology makes possible.
However, let’s recognize that face-to-face work offers unique opportunities that we tend to dismiss, such as reading facial expressions and measuring the intensity of the tone of a voice. Inspiration resides in Mexico, and the exaltation of the senses is inevitable in Morelos. These magical and colorful spaces bring another dimension and greatness to the soul. I am the witness of a living system that moves and transforms under the effect of my questions, and the presence of each moment enriches us.
Physically accompanying my Mexican clients turned out to be a luxury that I had not been able to experience during the last two years. Diving into the chaotic environment of Mexico City and breathing the sweetness of the lands of Morelos allowed me to reconnect with the reality of an inspiring and rewarding job.
My three main lessons:
1- Give value to the context and source of inspiration.
Changing space and place facilitates the contextualization of a session, whether it be individual or in a group. The markers are new. Our senses are alert and pay attention to possible nuisances and distractions. The Coach is on his guard and must question himself at all times. The Coach is part of the system composed of renewed elements that challenge us.
2- The importance of connection.
The coach does not hide behind a screen. He faces reality. He is connected to himself, grounded in the context but also to his client(s). Such connection is multiple and powerful. This connection with our clients is more natural and enlightening and tends to generate new relationships.
3- Presence is meaningful.
The silences are absolute, and the words are more meaningful and accompanied by an unfiltered voice. The coach knows he shouldn’t play. The game is not his responsibility. But it is true that in the presence of the other or the group, the coach works without a net. Expressed with more nobility and elegance is the Coach’s art. We live the moment in all its splendor, without detours or hiding places.
Make An Impact!
The impact is determined by how hard things change for people. This contact with the other, whether physical or virtual through the exchange of ideas will create the conditions for emergence. It is the action of an entity endowed with a force on another.
The impact is also expressed to determine the effect produced or the influence on a person. Our personality or even our presence leads to create emotions that will build a memory. It is clear that the stronger the impact, the more it will tend to mark us and therefore influence our thoughts, and even our future actions.
In personal development, the impact with which you will say things or pose your gaze is a precise moment by which you will come in contact with the other and you will make him move. How you exercise the action is decisive. One action is often enough to shake up the other and make them pass into another state despite their resistance to change. We are crossing a subject, we have the elegance and the firmness to move forward. Many elements will be taken into account for this impact to hit the mark.
Reflecting on the impact helps to gain the confidence of any leadership. The impact can be measured by the actions that have been implemented but also by listening to others.
When team members feel that they are making a meaningful impact and doing well, it creates pride and connection. Knowing that their work contributes to making the world a better place also imbues a greater purposefulness in their work and heightens their sense of belonging to the company.
