I am experiencing a real variety of client work as 2020 shifts into gear. From the corporate to the corporeal.
I like range in my work and I’m attracting it.
Here’s a look at some of the shifts that are gracing my path as we all shift into a new decade …
A Corporate Systems Shift:
First off is a corporate shift. A privately owned manufacturing company that is sprucing up its foundational systems and operating procedures. VP took my Fundamentals of Working Visually course years ago and is bringing me in to facilitate a Strategic Planning retreat.
Did the prep interviews and am so looking forward to literally drawing their past, present, and future out of them. However snowy weather is postponing our work which was slated for this week. We’ll reschedule when all of us can safely reconvene in their boardroom.
In the meantime, I had a snow day with Riley (my parent’s dog) … nice to have some doggie time after the loss of my JJ last season.
Digging Out the Driveway
Riley Romping Through the Hills
Improving Health Care in Australia:
One of the benefits of online coaching work is the ability to work with people from all over the globe. While I’m wrestling with snow my Australian client is wrestling with fire – we both wished I could send some of our snow her way.
She’s another of my Fundamentals of Working Visually clients, this time through the Home Study Kit (given she resides across the globe).
She’s working her way through the program and looking for internal opportunities to weave visual process approaches into her work in the Australian health service.
They are contemplating hosting a World Café event with multiple stakeholders, so she picked my brain on how to do that, including creating
the graphic record.
All of my visual programs come with a ‘Free Repeater’ option in the online version of the course, for those who wish to go through the material again or do it in a group setting rather than on their own. So to keep her visual skills development going, she’s going to get up early (7am Australia time) and join the online version of the course that starts next week.
Will be good to get her into community with other practitioners who are weaving visuals into where they are planted too.
Perfectionitis and Comparisonitis with Visual Practitioners:
One of the cons that is increasingly showing up in my monthly eCommunities and in my Private Coaching Practice is the ‘perfectionitis’ and ‘comparisonitis’ that beginning and seasoned Visual Practitioners alike are experiencing when they look at Graphic Recording and Graphic Facilitation examples that are now available on the web. Much of which is Studio Work with heavy Graphic Design and Illustration components (just one aspect of the work).
The trick to this is to take a BIG BREATH and ground oneself. Why are you interested in working visually? What do YOU want to do with it? How are YOUR clients responding to what you are doing? 9 times out of 10 the Visual Practitioners that I’m coaching are actually having good results with their own client base. For the 1 who isn’t, it’s a matter of listening to the feedback and making and implementing a developmental plan to improve.
Most of my clients are opting to consciously curate their social media exposure, as a way of ‘being where they are planted’ rather than having their nervous systems unnecessarily tweaked.
I’m seeing this backlash to unsupportive technology happening across my client base, not just Visual Practitioners. We as a society and world overall are pushing back on badly designed technology that increases the stress, anxiety and negativity of humanity. We want to feel better not have another thing that makes us feel bad! Time to get more conscious about how and by whom technology is designed as it impacts all of us so strongly.
A Post-Degree Shift:
Occasionally I get approached by people who want to purchase my services for somebody other than themselves. Bosses for their employees. Partners for their significant others. Parents for their children. The trick for this to be a successful experience is that the actual person who is going to be working with me wants to be there!
One of my longest-term clients (a Californian entrepreneur who I’ve worked on and off with for the last 20+ years) purchased a deluxe SHIFT-IT Kit for his adult child. A smart and sensitive young man in the final stages of completing a science degree.
The Kit comes with 3 private sessions with me, for integration help. We finished off his last session this week. I’m pleased to report that it was an utterly delightful experience – very fun to work with two generations of this sweet family.
This young man had the foresight to plan his post-degree shift out into the working world. And the open-mindedness to try what some would say are my ‘out there’ methods, haha.
Kid took to it like a duck to water. I facilitated a guided journey to his Future Self, which gave him an inside look into his future along with specifically tailored advice on direction, next steps, and inner psychology. Also taught him another powerful Inner Work method that he can employ any time he has a decision to make or needs some good advice.
He’s off and running on applying for post-grad positions in environments that truly suit him. Happily anticipating what his next chapter will bring and ready to hit the ground running post-graduation. Yippee! His Dad is gonna be pleased with that investment. 
The Late 30s Motherhood Dilemma:
Post degree is an example of one shift in life. Another shift scenario that showed itself this week was in the client of one of my Visual-Coaches-in-Training. As part of the final exam in Visual Coach Certification, the coach facilitates a Test Client through one of the maps of my SHIFT-IT Visual Coaching System … so I can see them in real-time action and evaluate them.
This particular coach did an excellent job of navigating her client through a common dilemma for modern women – the late 30s biological push of whether or not to physically become a mother.
The Future Self was the method employed in this case too. A look into the future and a chat from the best coach in the world – oneself! This issue is still in play for this particular woman. One doesn’t make a decision of this magnitude based off of one coaching session. However, the session did make a big emotional impact and has further woken the client to the fact that time is of the essence as biology does have its own clock.
I have a tender spot in my heart for all of us who are or did wrestle with this special time in a woman’s life. Good luck to you client in making the decision that is right for you, and thank you for your generous sharing of your time with this coach so she could complete her exam.
Diagnosis of a Terminal Illness:
A fact of life that our culture does a very bad job of preparing us for is that all of us are going to die. There is no getting out of this, we are on a one-way trajectory that is natural for every living thing. And, we, unfortunately, make every single way that anybody dies pretty much a bad or tragic thing. What a conundrum!
This week a private coaching client was diagnosed with a condition that is likely life-threatening over the next few years. And, given she has several coaching sessions banked with me, I may have the deep honour of holding space for her as she comes to terms with her diagnosis and how she wishes to proceed. There is an opportunity for developing a more conscious relationship with death and with those she will eventually leave behind, at least physically.
It is my deepest honor as a coach to work with those consciously facing end of life, to my mind, the greatest shift of them all. It puts so much into perspective as I navigate the shifts of work and life along the way and help others do that too. Brings the full big picture into view of this remarkable soul adventure we are all on. Which we can easily lose sight of when we get too engrossed in the mundane and forget about the sacred that is happening in every moment too.
Thank you client for our discussion. My list of references are on its way. I am here for you as you traverse this territory and give thanks you are on my path.
And thank you to all of my clients who are on my path as 2020 begins to open up. I have a feeling it’s going to be a very special year.
Having made a commitment to get back to writing, I’ll have other posts as time moves along.
xoxo
The SHIFT-IT Coach
