transcription - Inner Firewalking

Do What Makes You Happy

The following is an excerpt of an actual transaction between David and a client in Top Coaching Techniques.

Client: Doing what makes me feel happy would be a great situation for me.

David: Okay, how can you even shorten that? Let’s get it punchier, so you can remember that whenever you need to?

Client: Maybe, ‘Doing what makes me feel happy is fantastic’?

David: Right. Okay. I get that. How about, ‘I should do what makes me happy’.

Client: Yes, but I want to get away from the ‘shoulds’.

David: Yes. I get it.

Client: What about, ‘Doing what makes me feel happy lightens up the world’?

David: Aha. Now you’re talking. How do you like that?

Client: Yeah. I like that. That feels really good. I’m actually going to print this up on my computer in really big writing and just stick it up on my desk.

David: [laughing] That’s great. I was about to suggest it. You need some kind of structure to support this shift and you jumped right in. ‘…lightens up the world’, which I know you believe too. We’ve just done two really important things for your authenticity and your integrity.

Client: It feels huge. Feels like one of those really big areas under the carpet that’s affecting everything, until you can gradually peel back the table that was on top of the carpet and then actually do some cleaning.

Practices That Support You

The following is an excerpt of one of David’s coaching sessions in Top Coaching Techniques.

David: If you just try to handle eating alone, that’s not easy because the rest of your life is a little bit in disarray. So if you try exercise alone, that’s not easy because you feel bloated, because you just ate some bad foods. If you take on the whole list… One of my things was to exercise, so I find if I go out and rock climb one night, I am not drinking alcohol, I feel like healthy foods and I am not watching any movies. Plus, I’m spending time with my partner, because she comes with me.

Client: That’s right.

David: So, I’m in this positive cycle, and it’s not even taking any effort. I didn’t even know I was doing it until I just told you the list.

Client: Yeah.

David: So what I invite you to do for this week – and to send me by the end of tomorrow – is the list of the ‘practices that support you’ and the ‘practices that abuse you’. Print it out and put it up on a wall somewhere at home. Maybe give it to your partner as well, as your partner often notices things that you’re doing or that don’t support you.