buzz words...buzz jobs...buzz off!

Well it happened. Just the other day. I was sitting in the Whole Foods at the Time Warner Center. I was minding my own business, reading the paper, enjoying my freshly brewed cup of coffee and my eyes began to wander - as they sometimes do in this visual landscape that we call New York City. I noticed a shopper with the trademark Whole Foods brown paper bag. My subconscious read the message printed on the side. I heard it out loud....only in my head... "Our Core Values", it read. I sorta stuck on that for a beat. "Our Core Values"...."that sounds vaguely familiar" I said to myself...only in my head..."Our Core Values, Our Core Values. Hmmm, why does that ring a bell"...myself said....Wait a minute. Core Values? It rings a bell 'cause that's what I do for a living. I help my clients identify and honor their Core Values. "That's valuable stuff I said"...only in my head...What the heck is that doing printed on a shopping bag? Have we, as a society, completely bastardized the whole concept of "values" that it just appears as a catch phrase on a grocery bag? Is the term "Core Values" pulverizing our senses so much that we've become desensitized to what the heck that bloody term really means!? Hey. Don't get me wrong. I happen to like Whole Foods just as much as the next guy....for food....good food. I don't go there shopping for values though...core values, food values (they don't call it Whole Paycheck for nothing) or otherwise. Imagine going down the produce isle and right next to the organic eggplant is a bushel of honesty or a bundle of creativity. I can see it now. The throngs of New Yorkers elbowing each other to get the reddest expressiveness, or the softest compassion. I mean c'mon here people. What I do here at Visceral Coaching is precious work. I work with my clients to dig down below the surface to unearth what highly personal tenants in life they choose to live by. These tenants, ie: values, are threads that intertwine together to make up the very fabric of who they are and why they do what they do. Life is not a marketing campaign, ya know.

When I'm asked by people what it is I do for a living I tell them I'm an Empowerment Coach. Sometimes, the person who asks cocks their head slightly - y'know like the RCA dog. I also get "Oh a coach, good for you", or my favorite..."What qualifies you to be a coach?"
Reasonable question.
It seems that just about anyone with a crooked number of decades on this earth figures that it's enough to call themselves a coach. There certainly are a lot of us out there, that's for sure. I can't speak for everyone, so I won't. What qualifies me to be a coach?
To put it succinctly - I see BS.
People...a lot of people are full of BS. Myself included. That's why I have a coach. He calls me out what I'm slinging it.
So as a coach, I say "Cut the BS."
I ask, "What do you really want?"
"And what are you willing to do to have what you really want?"
"Pitch the rest of it like the garbage that it is and get on with it."
This, simply and for real, is what my clients and I work on. What else is there anyway?...
Now I've spent many a day befuddled by what my place is in this world, who I am, what my voice is, my purpose, all of that...Today, I'm on the other side. I found my place, my voice, my home. I went straight through it, like a fullback over the center on 4th & goal...So that's what qualifies me.
So, life isn't unfolding the way you expected it to? Unhappy at work? At home? On the subway?
Well, whats the "Core Value" that's not being honored that makes you unhappy?
Dig in there and find it.
You don't need twenty years of therapy to figure that one out.....No you don't!
Is it enough to, as Thoreau put it, "...lead lives of quiet desperation." Is that good enough!? There's a two letter answer for that question. N-O.
Cut the BS.
Dig, if that's what in necessary.
Find your Core Values - they're not on a shopping bag, by the way.
Claim your space on this planet.
Make your mark and L-I-V-E!

Any questions - here's my number: (646) 736 7572

Home for the soul

I put my feet into the Pacific Ocean last week. As that first tiny wash of salt water ran over my winterized, sweat sock laden feet, I couldn't help but but breath out. It was a deep breath that began at my intestines and ended at my tear ducts. I couldn’t remember the last time I had been at water’s edge.
A day later I went all the way in. I think I was the only one in there over the age of 35. It didn't matter. I was leaving later that night and I didn't know when I'd be back. I needed to at least squat until a wave broke over my head. I got up the gumption to dive through a few waves. It was just as I remembered it to be. Peaceful, weightless, innocent, other worldly and cold - shrinkage cold. That didn't matter either. As I was submerged, my soul took a deep breath. I was home. It had been so long. Too long.
Later that day when I was packing for the red eye back...home. I could feel the salt from the water clinging to my skin as it rubbed against my clothes. I decided not to shower. I wanted to bring the pacific back east. When I walked through the doorway to my apartment I thought about showering. I napped instead. I enjoyed being cradled by what remained of The Pacific.