From: L. Michael Hall
2021 Morpheus  #5
February 3, 0 2021

Do you know the core of Meta-Coaching, that is, what is the central core when it comes to the process of coaching?  The following is how I described the heart or core of Meta-Coaching in an interview that I did at the end of last year.

1. Meta-Coaching is a conversation like none-other.  It is definitely not a normal conversation; not at all.  It is about one subject— the client’s experience and his or her hopes and dreams.  It is not a two-way conversation which is what makes it very abnormal.  In coaching, as the coach you focus exclusively on your client—the changes, and the unleashing that she wants.
   
   
2. Meta-Coaching is a conversation absolutely based on rapport and compassion.  As a result, a very unusual thing happens—the coaching conversation becomes intensely relational very quickly.  Clients often experience a depth of connection and support that they experience in no other relationship and start talking about things they have never told anyone.  It is extremely intimate, yet it is not about friendship.  Coaching is not your way to expand your social world!  In coaching, you connect emotionally with compassion and benevolent good will.  It will be a dialogue of exchanging meanings.  It is not a monologue, and it is certain not advice-giving!  As you take your state and use it to elicit your client’s state– you create an experiential conversation for your client.  So by its very nature, it is emotional.

From: L. Michael Hall
2020 Neurons #11
March 12, 2020

While the coronavirus (covid-19)  is a new and unknown medical problem, and like the flu and other  viruses, it is to be dealt  with intelligently.  The real pandemic that  we’re facing today, however, is the pandemic of fear.   What we know today  is that  the great majority  of people who will catch the virus will recover. That’s been the case in China.

The real pandemic is not even fear.   Fear is a good  healthy emotion when there is something truly threatening and dangerous.  Fear motivates us to take  precautions.  In this case, washing hands regularly, social distancing, staying healthy, etc.   Fear, however, becomes unhealthy when it is unrealistic and exaggerated. And fear becomes toxic and dangerous when we are fearing fear.   With healthy fear, the energy that  the emotion of fear evokes gives you something to do —a way of directing your energies to do what  you can.

With unhealthy fear, the energy that  is evoked has nowhere to go except to your mind, your emotions, and your body.  You become fearful  of yourself, your experience, and all sorts of concepts— like the future. This is what  has been happening— mostly thanks to the media who puts it front and center 24/7.  People are fearful  of what  the coronavirus means, or could  mean, and that  has led to a lot of panicking.  It has led to runs on goods at grocery stores, the sell-off of the markets on Wall Street, cancellations on traveling, non-medical people wearing masks (which does nothing), etc.
 

Written by:  L. Michael Hall
2017 Neurons #26
June 12, 2017 

In preparing for my next project I recently reread Simon Sinek’s Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action, 2009. While it is a business book and a book on leadership, more than that it is a book that fits with what we do in Neuro-Semantics about intentionality. Using the “why is that important” question, and holding each answer and then asking it repeatedly, we move a person to find or to create his or her big why. Doing that simultaneously enables a person to discover and activate one’s highest values.

In the book, Start with Why, Sinek compares three questions to the three functions in an organization. Taking why, how, and what, he argues that the “why” question functions as the CEO of a company, the “how” question is the domain for the executive managers, and the “what” question is how a company manifests its purpose or why. He calls this the Golden Circle and draws three concentric circles putting why in the middle, then how, then what. He then writes:

“It starts with clarity. You have to know why you do what you do.” (p. 65)
“Knowing why is essential for lasting success...” (p. 47)

What is our why? Do you know?

Neuro-Semantics began with a significant and a big why. Today you will find it in our Vision and Mission statement. Do you know that statement by heart? Do you know how the why has developed and evolved over the years?

What was the why when we began Neuro-Semantics in 1994?