Coaching
Coaching for Cultural Leaders
Who are Cultural Leaders?
Political leaders make the rules. Administrative leaders enforce the rules. Cultural leaders transgress the rules.
Cultural leaders change how we think and what we value. They lead innovative organizations. They start movements. They spark revolutions in the way we see the world.
They break the taboos that inhibit creativity and the evolution of culture. They bring ideas from the periphery to the center and expand our imagining of what humanity can be. They act with integrity and imagination.
We need them. Right now. That’s why I love working with them. With you.
How Do I Support Cultural Leaders?
I work with people who have extraordinary skills, networks and vision. They have devoted themselves to creating a better world for themselves and for others. They have been successful in many ways.
They have worked hard to transform themselves and to be the leaders they are.
But they face intense challenges, such as:
…dealing with success and fame
…being clear about what the next step in their life is
…staying true to themselves in the face of great pressure to step out of integrity
…being aware of how they upper limit themselves
…having the courage of their convictions
…facing an ethical dilemma
…seeing how to have cultural impact rather than just organizational impact
And there is a common theme among all the people I work with...they know that a more beautiful world is possible – for themselves and for others.
They sense a different possibility, a new possibility, something more expansive yet still true to who they are.
They have glimpses of this possibility in various ways – whether in meditation, or dreams, or in the stories of others. They have moved in that direction and have not quite found their way to it yet.
Integrating Expanded States
There are many ways for us to experience expanded states - through breathwork, meditation, wild nature and, more commonly recently, in psychedelic experiences.
Expanded states enable us to know ourselves in new ways and to be able to handle or process experience which are more challenging to be present with in our everyday states of consciousness.
In my coaching I support people to integrate their experiences of expanded states - from legal contexts - so that they become structures of consciousness rather just than (temporary) states of consciousness.
While I have trained in the MAPS approach to MDMA assisted therapy, this is currently available only in clinical trials. Psilocybin assisted therapy is available in Oregon and Colorado - and some overseas jurisdictions. I look forward to these medicines becoming more widely available through FDA approval in the next year or two.
I have a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology from Meridian University and an MBA from Stanford. My doctoral focus was the potential for expanded states to shift our sense of self from a pathological perspective to a mythological one.
My Orientation to Coaching
While much of the coaching training I have done is non-directive, my approach is not. From my experience over three decades, I have learned to trust the insights I have about clients and to offer them at the right moment.
I am not afraid to name patterns. For example, where clients have taken on beliefs about themselves which are not true, or where their self-concept has not caught up to the truth of their present capabilities.
I see possible futures for my clients which they may not be able to see for themselves. I see ways in which they get in their own way. I share what I see.
When clients are not staying true to who they are or have been unable to see where their genius lies, I will tell them.