• The Known, Unknown, and Unknowable

    The Known, Unknown, and Unknowable

    Many years ago, when I first entered the Presence-Based Coaching work as a student, Doug offered three specific distinctions that I found very useful at the time of my professional stretch to learn to be a coach. These same distinctions have been bubbling up recently in my memory for re-examination. I am finding them to be once again useful and timely. The three perspectives are: what I know, what I don’t know, and what I can’t know (the unknowable).

    I’ve been facing squarely into my own personal development work this last year, necessitated by Doug’s untimely death from cancer in 2018. I am witnessing my professional expansion towards a newer identity that is shifting to be a bit bigger. The conditions around me have been supporting the growth of this new sense of myself. I have needed to evolve in order to hold a more forward role in the business as a newly minted solo leader. And the business itself has been crossing uncharted terrain, moving towards the capacity to sustain this substantial body of Presence-Based work without its living founder. I am grateful for a highly committed community of our PBC Advisory Board, who have been holding space and creating opportunities for the latest iteration of the Presence-Based work. This body of work is making its way into a new niche around Leadership Development, its origins from the publication of Doug’s last book in 2018, Presence-Based Leadership.

    My Personal Approach to What I Know, What I Don’t Know, and What I Can’t Know

    These three distinctions of what I know, don’t know and can’t know have been a helpful lens to navigate all of the current transitions I find myself in: personal, professional, business, and the body of the Presence-Based work itself. My hope is that they will speak to a current transition you or your client might be in. Here’s how I’ve been working with them.

    As I apply these three distinctions to my current transitions, it feels important to unpack them in terms of which elements belong within each category. My recent practice has been to capture ideas in each segment. As I articulate which element belongs in each category, I notice I am moved to add a place for the specific “challenges” each perspective brings with it. The “challenges” section further clarifies which of my particular habits tend to arise as a primary strategy to deal with each grouping. These challenges also represent another view or learning edge for me to work with along the way. I’ve presented the details of my exploration below. It is my hope that my personal content may spur new ideas, insights and support for your own, or your client’s, transitions.

    What I know: I love and feel deep resonance with the Presence-Based work. It fits my passions and skills well and I have developed adeptness in it and embodiment of it. I admire its power to impact those who offer/practice this methodology as coaches or experience it as clients. I relish the joy I feel as someone I am working with has an insight that shifts them towards what most matters to them. I align with my purpose through this material. I enjoy being of service using presence to support others to become their biggest and best selves.

    • The challenge here is to remember these “knowns” as organizing principles in my day to day, detailed oriented life! I often get pulled into the weeds and daily grind of scheduling, business operations, even teaching deliveries and travel that can feel compressed time-wise. It is an ongoing challenge to be in my regular grounding practices on the road. Getting some insights here connected to my habit of not taking enough rest/recovery time and the need to add more space to my calendar.

    What I don’t know: The demand for coaches, and organizations who train them. How the Presence-Based Leadership material will be received by leaders (and their coaches). How this Presence-Based work will evolve and what it may ultimately look like/turn into over the years with various iterations and contributors. What disruptors, innovations and market demands (e.g. technology) may affect the way training is even done or preferred in the future.

    • The challenge here is to manage my feelings of anxiety and overwhelm around this, especially when facing into something that calls for a stretch beyond what’s usual or comfortable or easy. To pull back my attention into the present moment when it goes too far into the future and stays stuck in planning or forecasting. Or practice bringing my attention to present time when I notice I am located in the past, getting pulled into (and take to be real) my limiting narratives around deficiency or comparison.

    What I can’t know (the unknowable):  My health (or the health those whom I love). The world’s political, economic, environmental, technological and business contexts. What new local or global trends may emerge that will affect coaching, coach training and leadership development work. Will this Presence-Based Coaching and Leadership work, which seem so vital and needed today, still be relevant down the road?

    • The challenge here is remaining grounded around my purpose and passions (what I know). To practice coming back to center when I lose a sense of myself or when I face into what I can’t control or can’t be controlled. It’s helpful to remember that life is quite short and fragile (Doug’s death brought this fact home to me in an immediate and personal way). It’s also a wake up to realize that I am two thirds of the way through my own life! This unknowable space calls for trust that everything is, indeed, working out in the best possible way, despite the many vicissitudes of life as a human on this planet, in this time-frame. Sometimes, my mind creates doubts when facing into immediate difficulties. And sometimes, as I do my regular practices of yoga and meditation, I am able to rest into the felt-sense of trust in my body and the inner knowing that life’s journey is unfolding with precision for my own development. I am able to surf the waves with a sense of ease and allowing.

    Clarity Arises from Closer Inspection

    Even though the buckets of the three distinctions are an artificial parsing out of a reality that is actually arising as one dynamic flow, I find there is something to be gained from naming each challenge. This allows me the room to sense a bit deeper within each distinction. As I do this, something arises and changes internally for me that produces clarity.

    For example, as I sense into the “what I know” category, I feel a sense of steadiness; an internal confidence that these elements actually represent the deeper and supportive ground as I move forward. As I contemplate “what I don’t know,” I remember the possibility of finding some sort of external support to fill in the gaps. And I can generate internal support by actually framing the opportunity of learning and practicing something new. As I generate the list of “what I can’t know,” what’s actually unknowable — surprisingly, it has the effect of relaxing me and my nervous system. Somehow letting go of trying to control what’s not under my control feels like a bit of relief and liberation. Maybe I don’t have to work so hard! Why spend energy and effort on what’s not controllable? With that awareness, an urge arises to focus back towards “what I know” as a solid ground. And looking back on “what I don’t know” from this sense of solid ground, there is a desire to wake up. I want to pay attention to any early signals of change, to include others for additional perspectives (and to challenge my narrative that I have to do it alone). And I wonder what exactly I do want to learn next that feels exciting and rich and needed now?

    Using the Known, Unknown, and Unknowable to Navigate Complexity

    These distinctions are useful as well in navigating complexity (this topic is a significant part of the Presence-Based Leadership work). Complexity includes many layers or levels of systems that are involved in any pattern. The reality is that complex adaptive systems (e.g. humans!) don’t operate within cause and effect principles.

    In the domain of complexity, occurrences are not predictable or knowable in advance (only in hindsight). It turns out that being able to be present with, and even rest in, what’s ambiguous and unknown, is a very helpful perspective.  And inhabiting yourself in a way that’s present, connected, grounded and flexible, is very useful for both leaders and coaches!

    Of course, I suspect many of you might be facing complexity or are in a transition in your own life, as I was when learning to become a coach, and am now learning to lead this Presence-Based work. Perhaps you are facing things like the restructuring of your company, or a health crisis, or a relationship break, or adult children leaving home, or aging parents needing more of your attention. And our clients experience these transition spaces as well, either personally or inside organizations with new leadership demands, more responsibilities, changing business and technology environments, scaling up or down, mergers.

    Some Questions to Play With

    I offer these questions to you to play with anytime, and perhaps especially during transitions or when dealing with complexity. You can choose any particular area that seems up for you or your clients right now. Let us know what you discover!

    • What do I know?
    • What is it that I don’t know?
    • What is it that I can’t know (the unknowable)?
    • What are the specific challenges to each of these distinctions?
    • And what do you notice in your experience (body, emotions, inner story) as you sink into each one of these distinctions?
    • What clarity emerges from this exercise?

     

    Bebe Hansen

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  • Transitions

    Transitions
    What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly Richard Bach
    Transitions…we all know them and have experienced them. I am in one. It feels really useful and liberating to remember that many things have just recently radically changed for me as a result of losing my longtime friend, collaborator, teaching and business partner, Doug Silsbee.  I am navigating new territory.

    Lately I’m noticing in my experience a feeling of being “on my own.”

    Lately I’m noticing in my experience a feeling of being “on my own.” This feels different from other internal spaces I’ve inhabited in my life that are close but not exactly like this “on my own” place.  I am clear I don’t feel “abandoned” (familiar in years past), or “it’s all up to me” (familiar also from my years of being an entrepreneur and pusher of the river). I don’t feel longing, or lonely, or stark aloneness (sometimes called existential aloneness).  As I step back and take a quick glance at my life, I actually feel very supported and surrounded these days, professionally, personally, and spiritually.  And yet, here’s this “on my own” felt-sense that’s present. Frankly, I think it has to do at least partially with Doug’s body no longer living on this planet.  And I continue to grieve his loss.  Of course, Doug continues to live in me, in my history and through those years that our collaboration and the work itself shaped us both.  Those experiences support me in practical ways every day, both professionally and personally, and I am grateful!

    And I continue to grieve his loss

    From the Minutia to the Present And when I’m in the middle of the daily grind of office days, sometimes I am able to wake up from my habitual focus on the minutia that make up my usual work routines.  I find myself getting lost in checking emails, tracking progress of projects, delegating (and not being the bottle neck to other’s work!), and coordinating action between lots of moving parts of PBC training and my life as a whole.  Reminders, such as my 2018 vision board sitting across from my desk, abound in my environment.  They are calling me to be present, take a pause…and when I release my tight focus for a breath or moment, I can actually see them!  Being present allows me to acknowledge my transition in leadership, and PBC’s transition as a business.  As I start to relax a bit, I am able to witness a bigger view of the movement that’s always happening around, in and through me. Insight: A Strong Wind Arrives We had a cold front blow in over the weekend, and as I stood outside on a gorgeous, sunny day with the temperature in the 60’s, I marveled at how strong the wind was in my own back yard.  Blowing the trees around, making a loud racket like a freight train.  I felt excitement and delight at the wind’s heralding of the season changing into fall. I was imaging moving into warmer clothes, having a fire in the fire place, sipping some fresh, warmed apple cider.  Once I came back inside the house, I realized that my relationship to this particular season change was very different to my relationship to the change I’m experiencing now around this transition at work.  Especially around the “on my own” space.

    I felt excitement and delight at the wind’s heralding of the season changing into fall

    Standing outside, I felt connected to the weather, to the earth, to the natural rhythms of the change of season.  In contrast, the “on my own” space feels, well, on my own.  I became curious: are the remnants of my historical experience, overlaid with old narratives of “I’ve been left” or “it’s all up to me,” driving a sense of urgency, of overwhelm?  And the predictable and familiar reactive habits of focusing in the weeds of the daily grind?  As I sense into it, this “on my own” feeling is quite neutral, in and of itself.  Perhaps it is actually pointing to a growing sense of autonomy in me, as I move more fully into the #1 leader role at PBC?  And with that independence comes a sense of more freedom to make my own choices.  I am full of gratitude to have plenty of wise council, additional perspectives and support from many others who care about Doug, me and this work. And some of the hard decisions are mine alone to make. Questions I Am Asking Myself Here are some questions I am asking myself:
    • How is my experience of the change of season different from this feeling of “on my own”? (Context)
    • What makes it exciting vs overwhelming?( Soma)
    • What assumptions am I holding about the season change, and about shifts in my work life? (Context, Identity)
    • Who am I taking myself to be in this moment, and how is that shifting ?(Identity)
    As you see, I can’t help myself in making distinctions around the Nine Panes, from Doug’s latest book, Presence-Based Leadership.The Nine Panes is the core model from the book that offers nine powerful distinctions, perspectives and practices around leading in complexity.  As I tease apart these differences in the levels of systems of which I am a part (Context, Identity, Soma), these levels of scale continue to percolate into my consciousness. And I am noticing how they affect my experience, my perspectives.

    There’s always more to explore as the seasons continue to change, and I continue to change with them

    As I said, it feels useful to acknowledge that I am still in transition and will be for some time. And perhaps that feeling of “on my own” will be present for a long while, too.  There’s always more to explore as the seasons continue to change, and I continue to change with them. I can’t control the weather change. I can pay attention to my moment-to-moment experience.  And as I do that, I notice an opportunity for choice: I can stay within the confines of my historical views and habits.  Or I can practice resting into a more spacious perspective, like the change of season, and know I am a part of the bigger dynamism of life that is always happening within and around me. A Question For You If you (or a loved one or colleague) are experiencing any kind of transition, what questions would be useful for you (or them) to contemplate? Feel free to offer your questions below…

    Bebe Hansen

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  • A Video Interview with Bebe Hansen…

    A Video Interview with Bebe Hansen…

    About her journey, coaching skills, and the PBC transition

    In this lovely interview with Rod Francis in June 2018, Bebe Hansen, recently named Principal of Presence-Based Coaching, shares her personal and professional journey into coaching, talks about some key coaching skills and practices that support learning and change, and a bit about the Presence-Based Coaching transition.

    Thank you, Rod, for this time together, and for initiating this interview! It was fun and enlivening, and now is an offer to our PBC community.

    Rod Francis is a recent graduate of the PBC Advanced course (LIPCC, Living in Presence Coaching Course), and is a Certified Presence-Based Coach. Rod is the Head Coach Trainer of Bulletproof Training Institute.

    Bebe Hansen

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  • Life on the Sidelines

    Life on the Sidelines

    Old habits die hard. They hang on for good reason. They’ve learned their strategies well.  At one time, they served. And, at some point, they outlive their usefulness and their effectiveness.

    I find myself in a new situation, a new context that is creating some new demands on my habits.  As many of you know, Doug Silsbee, Founder of Presence-Based Coaching, received a stage 4 lung cancer diagnosis seven months ago. Thankfully, he is still with us, and I have recently stepped in as the sole Principal of Presence-Based Coaching. I find myself as the leader of a body of work and business that I helped shape for many years. And I find myself without a partner in this enterprise. My particular habit shape leans toward collaboration, partnership. Creative combinations of two or more that are often a catalyst for the immediacy and fun of emergence and discovery.

    The Appeal of Being #2

    And within that bell jar, my preference is to be the #2. I much prefer having a #1 around, it’s so much easier! There’s a shield of protection, my role is clear (= supporting the #1). The partner can vet any of my ideas that don’t really work with where we are going.

    I get to be big in this #2 role (big for me!), and still my partner takes the front seat. I’m standing on the sidelines. I don’t have to risk too much, and I feel safe and supported, productive and empowered.

    Its much more comfortable being a little behind, and over toward the wall. I don’t’ have to get out on the dance floor (although I do love to dance), at least not by myself.

    And there’s another upside: I have witnessed my own substantial learning and growth and development from being a #2.

    I have followed, contributed, created and have made my own way sometimes. Within the safe parameters of the partnership, I know that regard and support was always there for me in an unconditional way. Even when I made mistakes. In fact mistakes seemed a lot easier when I had a partner to run to for consolation and understanding and acceptance (even if my ego was a bit bruised by what I labeled as “failure”).

    Stepping Into #1: The Shield is Gone

    As I’m stepping into the #1 role, it’s quite a challenge, quite an affront to my habitual stance. This being #1 means lots of different things to me, including more responsibility, more work, more decisions, more exposure from being on the front line – the shield is gone. I’m the #1 now. These are big shoes to fill!

    I’ve been inquiring into this shift in identity, role, relationship. Gratefully, Doug, my former partner, is still here and can serve as a welcome sounding board. We slip into the old, familiar and comfortable roles…at times. And other times, I’m navigating on my own, finding my way. And I’m opening to new possibilities, including new perspectives, new partnerships, new collaborations, and different ways of moving forward.

    There are other upsides, of course. I can do things my way. And that feels fun, and a little mischievous!

    Commitment to Continuing Doug’s Legacy

    I notice my own strong commitment to continuing Doug’s legacy in a way that serves his brilliance and the work we have built together. The commitment that continues the impact the Presence-Based body of work has on others – the communities we are connected to, the clients and organizations we serve, and the bigger context of the world we live in.

    It’s been a stretch so far, which reminds me of another habit I’ve come to notice: to compare myself, and find myself lacking (naturally). This comparative judgment is easy to do with my former partner who is quite big in the world and my habit of taking my place a bit behind him.

    Sometimes I feel like a little fish in a big pond. I hear my inner voices saying things like: “They want Doug, they don’t want you,” or “You can’t teach as well as him,” or “You can’t explain or articulate in the way he does.” And I am transported back to an old inner wound: “They don’t want me,” accompanied by a familiar whole body sinking feeling and tightening in my solar plexus.

    Who Am I in this?

    And despite having successfully enabled a substantial turnaround for my family business in my 30’s, this business feels like a different animal. Presence-Based Coaching and Leadership feels more aligned with who I am now. This body of work is closer to the values I hold dear to my heart and to what I deeply care about. In fact, I’m a different animal.

    And I know without any doubt that this body of work is important to me.  That’s why I made this leadership move in the first place! It fits and fills my aspirations for my work in the world and brings me joy and fulfillment to witness other’s growth and development.  I relish being present for those moments when clients or students make life-altering breakthroughs or have insights or understandings that change everything.  Or even observing with delight the little awakenings that create some sense of freedom from an old habit that no longer fits (the irony is not lost on me here!).

    So as I’ve been contemplating my new role, my shifting identity and what that means, I sense that I am not actually filling Doug’s shoes. That’s not even possible or desirable. I realize I am on a journey of filling my own shoes. And that feels good to my heart.

    Three Questions for Self-Reflection:

    • Which of your habits might be feeling overused, or out of date?
    • What do your inner voices say to you that might limit who you are becoming?
    • Whose shoes are you trying to fill at this moment?

    If you want to share, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the above questions. I’m sure our community would too. Leave us a comment below to start a dialogue.

    Note: This is my first blog post on “Doug’s Blog,” Notes from the Nexus.  It is with intention, and with Doug’s blessing, that I am doing so. May this blog continue to be of service to those who read it. 

    Bebe Hansen

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  • Living at the Frothy Edge

    Living at the Frothy Edge

    We are all in transition. Something is always ending; something else sprouting.

    For sure, some transitions are more painful, liberating, intentional, or dramatic than others. But, we can all point to things in our lives that are diminishing and to others that are taking root. Projects, relationships, health, life circumstances, the focus of our intentions and energies…. these all evolve. Nothing is fixed.

    In transitions, if we are paying attention, we see signs of what is lingering and what is emergent
    In transitions, if we are paying attention, we see signs of what is lingering and what is emergent

    Walker and I hiked to Twin Falls on Sunday. A few days of unseasonably warm weather had gotten spring underway; a couple of very cold nights were a reminder not to be complacent. We ambled to the waterfalls with the dogs, enjoying the late March woods. A picnic lunch near the water invited a nap. ­­On a whim, I climbed up to the base of one of the falls, and found fantastic ice formations from the spray and the previous night’s chill, still melting… the last vestiges of winter. Twenty feet away down the hill in the sun, the first trout lilies were already blooming. At the frothy edge of transition, ice and delicate lilies co-exist.

    In transitions, if we are paying attention, we see signs of what is lingering and what is emergent. Transitions sometimes happen to us because of forces larger than us… like winter turning to spring, we are participants in these transitions, and it’s revealing to observe the signs all around us.

    As we develop, we increasingly see the possibilities of becoming the agent of our own transitions. We choose to accelerate processes that might happen on their own anyway, but to which we can bring intentionality and purpose. Here, rather than signs simply appearing to mark and reveal transitions, we seek leverage points for accelerating them.

    Paying attention to what is ending and what is beginning energizes the natural unfolding of transitions. For example:

    • Declare an end to long-standing commitments that have run their course. Recently, I bowed out of an annual leadership program I had taught for 20 years. While it was fun and high quality and paid well, it was no longer the work that I was called to do, and consumed attention that I needed for other things.
    • Yesses and Noes: From the myriad requests that come your way every day, bring awareness to your choices of what you say Yes to and what you say No to. Recognize that Yesses and Noes are the very currency with which you create your future.
    • Honor what has been… it has made you into the only person you could be. Grieve what there is to grieve, appreciate what there is to appreciate. Recognizing and honoring what has been is essential to moving on.

    • We bring a future into being by prototyping new forms and possibilities
      We bring a future into being by prototyping new forms and possibilities

      Experiment. I’ve been involved in Otto Scharmer’s global community for profound social change for the past several months. We bring a future into being by prototyping new forms and possibilities. Whether fully formed or not, we engage others through these prototypes, and we learn more about the territory and how we can navigate it. We are in action towards a future.

    • Be fallow. Take time to soak, change perspective, step outside the churn produced by your web of commitments. Pause. Moving at warp speed often leads to tightening and constriction, reducing the creativity and spaciousness required for new learning. The more pressure we are under, the more likely we are to revert to what we have done before. Take time and space, even when (especially when!) you’re too busy to do so.
    • Create activators: bold commitments that establish new facts on the ground that require us to take new actions. Proposing marriage, signing a publishing contract, going public with a new offer, agreeing to a collaborative project… all of these catalyze and require new actions and thinking.
    • Clarify the shape of the transition itself. We step back to a clearer view by articulating what is ending, and creating language around the future. We take the transition we are living inside of, and place it outside ourselves as an object that can be witnessed and observed. We begin to create movement and energy when we acknowledge what we are completing, and when we engage in conversations, visioning and learning that helps us perceive the territory that we are moving into.

    Consider your frothy edge, where endings and beginnings are interspersed for you.

    • What transition are you in?
    • What is ending? What is being born?
    • Which of these ways of attending to transitions speaks to you?
    • What new actions might you take?

    Doug Silsbee

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  • Whole-heartedness

    Whole-heartedness

    I have been feeling the turning for some time now.

    It began a couple years ago, when a combination of circumstances made it clear that we could no longer sustain what we had so enthusiastically built, and it was time to create some change. Moving to town, selling our beloved retreat center, Walker retiring, building the team that delivers and manages the Presence-Based Coaching offer, and a couple of other moves opened a distinct new chapter.

    Presence-Based Coaching has reached a maturity and impact I couldn’t have imagined fifteen years ago. I work with fascinating clients, our work is rich and influential, it’s all working. Yet, there’s more.

    I’m inquiring into what’s next
    I’m inquiring into what’s next

    I’m inquiring into what’s next. Not as in “I’m retiring and what do I do with the rest of my life,” but more like “what is worth energizing now.” My path has always been an integrative one… seeking the next edge to my own development, and folding my learning into the living work that we collectively bring forward, and that is also my expression in the world.

    So, when I feel this calling, I listen.

    This time, it has something to do with a more direct connection of our Presence-Based work to the crucial issues of our times. There are lots of people who are doing important work for the benefit of us all that are not likely to know about, or attend PBC training. I want to be of service to this movement… the social entrepreneurs, those contributing to the creation of life-affirming alternatives to myopic consumption, people who are experimenting with how business can benefit us all. I’m seeking new and creative means to support leaders and the systems they are working with. And engaging small systems of highly committed people that want to take their mission and purpose all the way through. I’m called to link with others who wish to experiment with Presence-Based coaching and leadership as a foundation for collaboration in service to what matters.

    And, I’ve been hesitant about this. I was asked in a coaching conversation recently if I “was just window shopping, or buying something?” Great question! Here are just a few of the narratives through which my underlying fears express themselves:

    • “I’m comfortable doing what I’m doing, I’ve worked really hard to build this, it’s working…. there’s no need to change.” (Well, true. And I’m sensing a calling, and I’m paying attention to it. There’s more.)
    • “I don’t trust myself to set boundaries. I am afraid of getting out of whack like when I was younger. I’m not willing to live on airplanes and in hotels.” (Actually, I do trust myself to set boundaries. I’ve gotten really good at declining opportunities that don’t fit. Nice try!)
    • “I don’t really know what this looks like, and am hesitant to put it out until I know.” (So, who’s to say that heartfelt prayers need to be accompanied by detailed specifications? I can enter whole-heartedly, and trust what comes back.)

    Underneath them all is some level of fear, and most of these little stories don’t stand up to scrutiny!

    I love the experience of whole-heartedness
    I love the experience of whole-heartedness

    True, I don’t know what’s emergent (although I have a lot of ideas!) I know there’s more, something about the shape of it. I love the experience of whole-heartedness. Here’s some of what I’m doing to invite this future:

    • Another book is expressing itself through me. This third book will be a significant re-positioning of our work into a leadership context, and will speak to new audiences in new ways. The book will serve as an attractor for conversations and collaborations.
    • My own development has always been the animating force for my professional expressions. (OK, this is not conventional business strategy, but following the frothy edge has provided reliable guidance for the past 40 years. I see no reason not to trust it now.) Doing my practices, being in the woods, inquiring into the nature of my experience, engaging my life partners, coaches, and guides is tremendously clarifying.
    • Investing in two significant professional development experiences this year will put me in new contexts with people doing work that I deeply respect and can learn from. I will be shaped by these in ways that I can’t fully anticipate.
    • I am actively engaged in a number of conversations with younger, mission driven people about how we might partner for mutual benefit. This will increasingly become a kind of fast-cycle prototyping of new kinds of engagements, which will in turn actively create What’s Next. The right conversations continue to appear in response to my transparency.

    The core Presence-Based Coaching training continues to be the place where foundations and principles emerge. Retreats are at the core and the depth and commitment of those who come catalyzes my learning as well as theirs. I am fully committed here; the retreats are where the work is evolving.

    Being whole-hearted doesn’t mean needing to know the shape of things to come. It simply means being congruent and aligned with the discovery process. It means being joyful, all in, and not knowing, all at the same time.

    • What emergent future are you holding at bay?
    • With what stories are you hedging your bets?
    • What would whole-heartedness look like for you?

    Doug Silsbee

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  • The Turning of the Wheel

    The Turning of the Wheel

    There is ample evidence for the turning of the wheel
    There is ample evidence for the turning of the wheel

    There is ample evidence for the turning of the wheel.

    I have two grandchildren. My father is 85, and counting. I’m in my 60’s. Walker and I have faced significant health challenges. We sold our retreat center last year. All these are indicators of bold new territory!

    In this emerging chapter of our lives, there is plenty of evidence of decline, of wearing out. And, there’s increased lightness, freedom, less and less of a sense of having anything to prove, and little concern about building business. There is much more of a sense that everything counts.

    What we do matters, there’s choice, and time is short.

    In this turning, I sense two strong pulls in myself. One, the desire to engage the Presence-Based Coaching work more directly with the world’s pressing issues.

    We have created a very strong body of work about developing humans, about holding authentic conversations, about catalyzing leadership through substantial challenges. Yet, for me, there’s a persistent question about how to best get this work out in the world to those who most need it. This invites questions of scaling, of what the bigger game is, of how to democratize the leading edge of human development. There is lots to do.

    What we do matters, there’s choice, and time is short.
    What we do matters, there’s choice, and time is short.

    The second strong pull is towards simplicity. While my web of commitments is getting simpler, and I say “No, Thanks!” with increasing ease to opportunities that don’t feel like a fit, there’s an aching in me for greater freedom, less to carry through the world, less time spent on things that others can do better or things that don’t count for much and don’t provide joy.

    These two tendencies seem to pull in opposite directions. Yet, there is truth in both.

    I don’t know what this next chapter will look like, though I know that, in five years, my work life will be significantly different. I invite that, and trust that I will both choose, and be shaped by, the future as it emerges.

    I also know that collaboration with creative others is nourishing and essential. I am participating in Otto Scharmer’s MOOC. The processes for profound social change that he is describing dovetail exquisitely with, and leverage, our Presence-Based leadership work. There is much more to explore here, and you can expect to hear more about the nexus of these two bodies of work.

    Otto offered a lovely YouTube clip from the film Bagger Vance, in which Will Smith invites Matt Damon to sense the field, sense the one perfect shot that is calling him to it. While the specific shape of my one perfect future has yet to be revealed, it will be characterized by being both bigger, and simpler. It will be done with others. And, it will include, and transcend, the Presence-Based Coaching foundation that we have been building together for 15 years now.

    This is what I’m up to at this turning of the wheel. I am sensing the future, and investing in conversations and learning that focus and accelerate this sensing. I will be experimenting and prototyping with this in the coming months and years. You are invited to the conversation.

    collaboration with creative others is nourishing and essential
    collaboration with creative others is nourishing and essential

    For now, please weigh in with your thoughts:

    • How, in transitions, have you sensed future possibilities emerging?
    • How did you engage others in exploring or prototyping the territory?
    • What transition are you in now, and how are you resourcing yourself?

    Doug Silsbee

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