Top Executive Coaching with Tony Mayo

Study after study has shown that people who function well under stress share several core beliefs:

• see times of change and uncertainty not as dangerous but as exciting opportunities;
• focus on what they can do to improve a stressful situation, rather than growing helpless; and
• maintain a sense of commitment to the world around them, instead of withdrawing.

…

Studies of everyone from classical musicians to competitive swimmers have found no difference at all between elites and novices in the intensity of their pre-performance anxiety; the poised, top-flight performers, however, were far more likely to describe their fear as an aid to success than the non-elites. No matter what skill we’re trying to improve under pressure—working on deadline, public speaking, staying cool on a first date—learning to work with fear instead of against it is a transformative shift.

Tiger Blood:
What it takes to keep cool under pressure.
Taylor Clark in Slate Magazine.

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This transcript of a conversation between theologians and est founder Werner Erhard may be incomprehensible to anyone not trained in ontological coaching. For those of us who are, Werner provides a thrilling demonstration of how to apply coaching distinctions. In this excerpt, Werner articulates one of the fundamental insights executive coaches bring to bear on their clients’ issues.

Interviewer: I want to know what problems you see, and how those changes are going to contribute to the relationship between you and your underlings in the organization.
 

Werner Erhard: I’m not making an issue of the words you use. I’m making the system from which the words are derived the problem. Given the system, I can’t answer the question. You see, it’s not simply the words you’re using that are the problem.

What I want to convey to you is this: In the assumptions from which you are asking the question, you allow for no truthful answer to the question. The words you use reflect your assumptions accurately, and given your assumptions, there’s no solution to the problem. One cannot solve the problem in the system you are using. In fact, that system is the problem.

Now, I’m going to answer your question, because, you know, I came here and agreed to do that, but I want to tell you the truth before I answer the question. So I’m telling you that my answer will make no sense if you listen to the answer in that system from which you asked the question.

The answer is that the organization has for several years been shifting away from a structure that has a central place or a top place from which decisions are made and passed on. We always tried not to operate that way, and over the years we’ve become more and more successful at not operating that way. The structure of just about any ordinary organization, however, is that way.

–Werner Erhard
in The Network Review
September 1983

See also, Never say, “It’s Just Semantics” on this blog.

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Sometimes I feel that my life is a series of trapeze swings. I’m either hanging on to a trapeze bar swinging along or, for a few moments in my life, I’m hurtling across space in between trapeze bars.

Most of the time, I spend my life hanging on for dear life to my trapeze-bar-of-the-moment. It carries me along a certain steady rate of swing and I have the feeling that I’m in control of my life. I know most of the right questions and even some of the right answers. But once in a while, as I’m merrily (or not so merrily) swinging along, I look ahead of me into the distance, and what do I see? I see another trapeze bar swinging toward me. It’s empty, and I know, in that place in me that knows, that this new trapeze bar has Read the rest of this entry »

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The Way of Transformation

The man who, being really on the Way, falls upon hard times in the world will not, as a consequence, turn to that friend who offers him refuge and comfort and encourages his old self to survive.

Rather, he will seek out someone [Editor's Note: an executive coach, perhaps] who will faithfully and inexorably help him to risk himself, so that he may endure the suffering and pass courageously through it, thus making of it a raft that leads to the far shore.

Only to the extent that man exposes himself over and over again to Read the rest of this entry »

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Abraham Lincoln called it his melancholia. Winston Churchill had “black dog days.” Today, we refer to it as depression.

Charles Darwin’s depression left him “not able to do anything one day out of three,” choking on his “bitter mortification.” He despaired of the weakness of mind that ran in his family. “The ‘race is for the strong,’ ” Darwin wrote. “I shall probably do little more but be content to admire the strides others made in Science.”

–Depression’s Upside
New York Times

Recently, I noticed that I was lethargic, frequently irritated, and found most thoughts of the future unappealing. At first, I was sure the circumstances were the cause. If you look closely enough at Read the rest of this entry »

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Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
by Robert M. Pirsig

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is a deep and impressive work that has sold millions of copies and stayed in print in many languages for over twenty years. I read it for the first time when I was about forty years old. It was good to wait until I was ready for it. I am not sure I can recommend the book, but I am glad I experienced it.

Mr. Pirsig presents the story of his search for the roots of deep Read the rest of this entry »

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