Coaching Book
| Preliminary Coaching Book Title "Empathic Autenticity", EA |
| by Angus Cunningham President, Authentix Coaches angusc@authentixcoaches.com |
Social conventions and the politics of money and power cause many of us to have
confusion and anxiety when life presents us with an unsought demand to grow
beyond the capacities we believe we have. In such situations we feel we either must
take some authority's advice or else try to make personal sense of a variety of
contradictory prescriptions from friends, colleagues, mentors, or experts. Caught in
such a dilemma, coaching can help you make the key differences that count for you
individually, no matter what your issues and circumstances are.
We can think of a coaching engagement as joining a friendly base camp. Here we
can find what we need to "build a bridge by which to cross the divide" between
where we are today and where we want to be". You may think of what you will need
as "a set of ropes and planks"; and you may think of the actions a coaching
engagement will encourage you to make as, first, selecting the ropes and planks you
believe will be of most use to you in making your crossing and, then, learning to
"cut, trim, tie, and assemble" them with skills you can practice both off-line and for
real. They will mostly be the skills to think, i.e. communicate with yourself -- in
order to develop your capacities for intuition and insight, and the skills to
communicate aptly with others -- in order to generate ideas for contributing and
evoking empathic authenticity in all your relationships. Your coach's part is, first, to
answer the questions you have in completing the selection and construction part of
your coaching engagement, and then to help you practice and refine the means by
which you will "throw your bridge assembly across the divide so that it is firmly
anchored on the other side in order to support your crossing over into where you
want to be".
What are the "ropes and planks" available to you when you strike up a successful
partnership with a coach? "Ropes and planks" are metaphors for the principles and
habits of focus and conduct that family upbringing, education, work experience, and
your choice-and-decision-making skills have not yet brought to your interested
attention as conduits for participating in fully productive relationships.
confusion and anxiety when life presents us with an unsought demand to grow
beyond the capacities we believe we have. In such situations we feel we either must
take some authority's advice or else try to make personal sense of a variety of
contradictory prescriptions from friends, colleagues, mentors, or experts. Caught in
such a dilemma, coaching can help you make the key differences that count for you
individually, no matter what your issues and circumstances are.
We can think of a coaching engagement as joining a friendly base camp. Here we
can find what we need to "build a bridge by which to cross the divide" between
where we are today and where we want to be". You may think of what you will need
as "a set of ropes and planks"; and you may think of the actions a coaching
engagement will encourage you to make as, first, selecting the ropes and planks you
believe will be of most use to you in making your crossing and, then, learning to
"cut, trim, tie, and assemble" them with skills you can practice both off-line and for
real. They will mostly be the skills to think, i.e. communicate with yourself -- in
order to develop your capacities for intuition and insight, and the skills to
communicate aptly with others -- in order to generate ideas for contributing and
evoking empathic authenticity in all your relationships. Your coach's part is, first, to
answer the questions you have in completing the selection and construction part of
your coaching engagement, and then to help you practice and refine the means by
which you will "throw your bridge assembly across the divide so that it is firmly
anchored on the other side in order to support your crossing over into where you
want to be".
What are the "ropes and planks" available to you when you strike up a successful
partnership with a coach? "Ropes and planks" are metaphors for the principles and
habits of focus and conduct that family upbringing, education, work experience, and
your choice-and-decision-making skills have not yet brought to your interested
attention as conduits for participating in fully productive relationships.
"Empathic Authenticity”, EA, is a unique resource for becoming familiar with the coaching process. It
combines a comprehensive yet easy-to-recall set of fundamental principles with stimulating images of the
kinds of "ropes and planks" that Authentix Coaches have found over the years have often been missing
in the lives of people reaching to fulfill their potential. Reading EA, you find ideas for "rounding and filling
out” the habits and skills with which you have already won successes in past projects and relationships.
You can try out, modify, and test suggestions, guidelines and new ideas that you'll find supplied with
evidence given for their validity, conventional logic, social reasonability, or rationality in the service of long-
term organizational productivity. You'll also find in EA a series of authentic and entertaining philosophical
adventures. By studying these from the points of view of each of the protagonists' you can deepen and
broaden your sense of self to include desired or desirable new capacities depending on your particular
circumstances.
As you "put yourself in the shoes of" the personalities in EA's narratives, you'll find yourself sorting
through assumptions and attitudes of mind of which you have scarcely been conscious but which you will
soon recognize have, without your knowing, been "directing" your behaviours in the past. You'll be
surfacing for conscious examination many implicit beliefs that EA will help you discover not to be as true
of your world today as they either seemed at the time you first construed them ("believed them into
existence"). You'll discover how some of those beliefs, which you will now see as being
oversimplifications, have been limiting your achievement unnecessarily, and these discoveries will free you
to explore replacing them with truer, more self-and-other-sustaining ones.
In summary, EA is:
Reading EA, or talking with an Authentix Coach, you'll find yourself "building a deeper emotional keel" by
which to weather the storms of life. You'll also be "calibrating an inner compass" by which to exchange
data and information and ideas equitably with others so as to navigate your way in fruitful new
directions with well-founded confidence.
The "school of hard knocks" requires us to discover and do these things anyway; but we grow at
optimum speed when we have access to people who have already "built deep keels" and "calibrated inner
compasses", i.e. mined their experiences skillfully for both emotional and social wisdom. By working with
the suggestions of EA, you'll find inspiration when the storms of real life blow, direction when the fogs of
real life confuse, and empathy when you feel overburdened.
combines a comprehensive yet easy-to-recall set of fundamental principles with stimulating images of the
kinds of "ropes and planks" that Authentix Coaches have found over the years have often been missing
in the lives of people reaching to fulfill their potential. Reading EA, you find ideas for "rounding and filling
out” the habits and skills with which you have already won successes in past projects and relationships.
You can try out, modify, and test suggestions, guidelines and new ideas that you'll find supplied with
evidence given for their validity, conventional logic, social reasonability, or rationality in the service of long-
term organizational productivity. You'll also find in EA a series of authentic and entertaining philosophical
adventures. By studying these from the points of view of each of the protagonists' you can deepen and
broaden your sense of self to include desired or desirable new capacities depending on your particular
circumstances.
As you "put yourself in the shoes of" the personalities in EA's narratives, you'll find yourself sorting
through assumptions and attitudes of mind of which you have scarcely been conscious but which you will
soon recognize have, without your knowing, been "directing" your behaviours in the past. You'll be
surfacing for conscious examination many implicit beliefs that EA will help you discover not to be as true
of your world today as they either seemed at the time you first construed them ("believed them into
existence"). You'll discover how some of those beliefs, which you will now see as being
oversimplifications, have been limiting your achievement unnecessarily, and these discoveries will free you
to explore replacing them with truer, more self-and-other-sustaining ones.
In summary, EA is:
 | A Framework for reviewing consciously what your own "automatic" ways of being have been -- a | |
| framework by which you can consider whether each such way still makes sense today or whether it needs modification, refinement, or even a thorough overhaul | ||
| A Source of hints as to some directions and priorities that you can consider trying out in your own | |
| life, including especially some ways of using language that will enable you both to think more clearly and articulate more accurately | ||
| A Map to guide your progress toward a set of ways of being that, comprehensive and increasingly | |
| yours uniquely, will work better for you than those of your existing habits that, in some significant way, have been impeding your thriving. |
Reading EA, or talking with an Authentix Coach, you'll find yourself "building a deeper emotional keel" by
which to weather the storms of life. You'll also be "calibrating an inner compass" by which to exchange
data and information and ideas equitably with others so as to navigate your way in fruitful new
directions with well-founded confidence.
The "school of hard knocks" requires us to discover and do these things anyway; but we grow at
optimum speed when we have access to people who have already "built deep keels" and "calibrated inner
compasses", i.e. mined their experiences skillfully for both emotional and social wisdom. By working with
the suggestions of EA, you'll find inspiration when the storms of real life blow, direction when the fogs of
real life confuse, and empathy when you feel overburdened.
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Authentix Coaches