On September 18th I wrote about a friend/client who called, asking for help. What I didn't reveal in that post is that it changed the course of my career. I will be leaving "coaching."
That is a relatively big decision. You see, that decision leaves me with no product. When clients hand me money, they seem to expect something in return. Product. And now, I got no product.
Why am I leaving the coaching profession?
I will give you both the personal insight and the general reason. First, a little backdrop. I got into coaching after getting fired from my executive level job in the Fortune 100. I had messed up my life pretty bad, and my sister told me she thought I'd make a great personal coach. (The humor is not lost on me.) I didn't know what that meant, but it sounded good. I researched it. It sounded good. I enrolled in Coach U.
Things went amazingly well. Business grew. I was busy. Having fun. Making a difference. I learned that I have an amazing gift of clarity and that people were willing to pay for access to that gift. But, deep down, something was all wrong. My motive.
You see, I am just as messed up as the next person. Maybe more. On the surface the motive looked very altruistic. But deep down, coaching validated me. Made me feel good about myself. And that is a very dangerous motive for a coach. Why? Because it fosters codependent relationships.
This is a time when humanity must stand up, and it is hard to stand up with someone else standing on you (or pulling you down). This is a time where we all must realize that all the answers we seek are already within us. This is a time where we must stop indulging in confusion, or wondering whether we know what the right thing to do is. This is a time where we must accept the consequences of acting on what we already know within us, but have not yet acted on.
I was walking in the arroyo with our dog, Stone, that day when my friend/client called. (He's a looker, isn't he? Stone. Not the client. See attached photo.)
That particular friend/client has an uncanny knack of calling me when I am in the middle of my own crisis. And my own crisis is that my beloved wife has been banging me over the head telling me that I am stuck in what I know, and that I damn well need to get off this plateau and get on with fulfilling my purpose in this all too brief thing called life. And she bangs with German fervor and a French Le Crueset skillet. I digress.
Anyway, I was glad to get my friend/client's call because he is such a remarkable mirror for me, and always comes bearing the gift of being able to see myself in him. And that mirror usually involves unwillingness to act upon what I already know I need to do, but indulging in confusion in order to tell myself that I really don't know what to do when I damn well do. At a minimum, I am always clear about what I need to STOP doing, and therefore I always have a place to START! LOL!
I felt myself step right back on that slippery slope of telling him what I saw, thought, advised, etc. I started slipping. And then something in me recoiled so fast that it was a thud and a blur. All of a sudden, I was mapping out for him a process. He asked to call me back and tell me what he got with that process. And I said no. And that felt so clean.
I pushed the button on the Bluetooth, and it was just Stone, the arroyo, a strange empty feeling and me. Then, came the voice.
I don't want to coach any more.
It just hung there in the empty afternoon air, like a single note so perfectly sounded that it knows just how long to linger... and sets off an entire chord within one human soul.
What I want to do is this.
I have spent years now learning techniques, tools and processes to help people gain insight into themselves faster, and I know how to guide people to put that insight in a form to act on it. And do you know what? I have never codified that process. Bits and pieces of it are all over the place.
So now, I begin my new career. I am a scholar, and I am an educator. I will codify that process into an intensely practical path that enables leaders to improve their own emotional intelligence and improve the results they produce. And at the epicenter of that process, they will address the two largest issues man faces. Lack of self esteem, and lack of sensitivity to how action (thoughts, emotions and physical acts) affects the entire universe. That is what I will scholar.
So what will I educate? I will educate leaders, consultants and other coaches on how to use that process. However, like my client/friend in the arroyo helped me see that day, there is no desire left in even a single molecule in my body to tell another human being whether they are getting it right or getting it wrong when they use that process.
What I will do is to create an online community with different rooms. If someone is using my process for mapping out their vision, then they can go to the vision room in the community and get feedback from other folks working on the same thing. If they are working with applying one of the concepts I will write about--such as The Power of Mirrors--they can go to the Mirror meeting room and dialogue with others who can challenge them.
The long and the short of it? Otis Jack Woodard is a scholar. I will write the most intensely practical process of developing emotional intelligence in leaders that has ever been written. I will write what I learn about co-creating with nature--my new ally--as I write that process. Otis Jack Woodard is an educator. I will educate leaders, their teams, consultants and coaches on how to use that process. I will set up an online community where like-minded people working on the same thing and the same time can meet one another and provide feedback to one another as they use the process. And I will not provide feedback on the content people create through the process. I will learn from what they produce through the process, and continually revise that process.
How big is this change? Huge. I am not receiving a single dollar today from doing what I am telling you here. Further, when this transition is complete, not a single dollar I am earning today will remain. Will some of my current clients remain? I don't know. One or two may make the shift with me. But basically, this is one mother of a leap into the unknown.
That's where I am headed, and I am very excited about it. I will be keeping you updated here on my progress.
I wonder, my friend, as I write this, as more and more people are reading this blog... I wonder whether there is a slight possibility that you are reading this because you have a leap to make, too. And I wonder, I wonder. What is that leap? And where will it take you? And what impact will that have on your self-esteem and on the knowledge you are contributing to the entire universe? In short, I am wondering how making that leap make you come alive?
Well, I can wonder about that, but I best get on with my own work now.
Everything I do must change: there is nothing to salvage save what I have learned to this point.And that is quite a lot, actually.
What is the first thing I will change?
As I press Send, I am off to invite nature to join me in this journey, and to provide the matter, means and action... the order, organization and life vitality... required to manifest this intention of mine. That is something I have never done before because I have always wanted to do it on my own terms. Now, I will give up control. Now, I will gain the partnership of a force I cannot see, and one that I don't yet fully even believe in.
"To do the impossible you must see the invisible." Michaelle Small Wright
It is time to take my clarity and learn to see the invisible, because I am out to do the impossible.
And I find the impossibility of that very exciting.
P.S. Lest you think I don't appreciate a German fervor and a Le Crueset skillet, here is a photo of my wife on the last evening of the motorcycle trip I wrote about, spontaneously expressing her spirit in one of the hot spring pools.To me, water represents love in action. To me, my wife represents the same thing. And here both are...
