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    Conversations for Power and Possibility: Four Simple Conversations to Transform Your Life and Change the World
    Conversations for Power and Possibility: Four Simple Conversations to Transform Your Life and Change the World
    Conversations for Power and Possibility: Four Simple Conversations to Transform Your Life and Change the World
    Ebook158 pages1 hour

    Conversations for Power and Possibility: Four Simple Conversations to Transform Your Life and Change the World

    By Darlene Chrissley

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    About this ebook

    This is a hopeful book.

    It's about finding new sources of power when you feel powerless and new possibilities when you feel boxed in. It's about choosing a creative response to any challenge that arises in your life.

    The four conversations presented by author Darlene Chrissley will help you stay focused on what you want instead of what you don't want, aim your efforts where they will do the most good, transform any situation by shifting your perspective, and remain strong and centered even when the world is doing its best to spin you around.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBPS Books
    Release dateMay 26, 2012
    ISBN9781927483190
    Conversations for Power and Possibility: Four Simple Conversations to Transform Your Life and Change the World
    Author

    Darlene Chrissley

    Darlene Chrissley has spent the past twenty years as a change consultant, leadership coach, and learning facilitator in Canada, the United States and Europe, across a range of industries including health care, media, education, government, finance, agriculture, telecommunication, and IT. She works with leaders responsible for executing on significant change initiatives, while keeping day-to-day production standards high, and managing the mental and emotional toll on them and their teams. A pioneer in coaching, she was a founding member of the International Coach Federation (Toronto) and has served as a Director. She was first to bring professional coach training to Canada and co-developed the certificate program in professional coaching at Adler International Learning. She also has expertise in organizational development, facilitation, and conflict resolution.

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      Book preview

      Conversations for Power and Possibility - Darlene Chrissley

      PART 1

      This Is a Hopeful Book

      How I Reversed a Downward Spiral

      This is a hopeful book, a book about finding new sources of power when you feel powerless, and new possibilities when you feel boxed in. A book about choosing a creative response to any challenge that arises in your life.

      Specifically, this book focuses on teaching you four conversations — ones you will conduct with yourself to create real change in your life. It ends by showing you how to broaden these conversations to include others and transform your community, your workplace, and your world.

      It all begins with the questions, What do I want? and What don’t I want?

      Every situation includes something you want and something you don’t want. You think, plan, and take action, all with the intention of getting more of what you want in your life and less of what you don’t want.

      But in times of trouble or turbulent change, it becomes more and more difficult for you to progress in the direction you wish to go. Bad news, negative people, and one thing after another can create a downward spiral that drains your energy, shuts down your creativity, and leaves you feeling confused, defeated, and powerless.

      If you’re not careful, you may find yourself circling the drain of what you don’t want, forgetting what you do want; you may find yourself unable to see options and summon the energy to pursue the ones you do see.

      The conversations you have when you’re in this state can lift you up to a more positive place, but they also can draw you deeper into the downward spiral. The most helpful conversations are the ones that enable you to refocus on what you really want; reconnect to your strengths and resources; explore new perspectives; and see new possibilities for productive action.

      The format and sequence of the four conversations in this book emerged from my own experience of feeling powerless and blocked in the recession of 2008–2009. Using them, I discovered more possibilities in my situation, and more reserves of power, than I otherwise could have imagined. Since then, I have tested the conversations as a personal and executive coach with people from all walks of life, in many different contexts, all over the world. In situation after situation, I have seen the conversations transform the lives of individuals and the cultures of organizations and communities.

      In this book, I introduce you to the four conversations and coach you through them one by one. I show you how and when to use each one and offer tips to make them even more effective. The conversations are the core of this book; that’s why I have devoted a chapter to each one. The conversations are: What’s bugging me? What can I control? What’s the bigger picture? And, finally, What keeps me strong and centered?

      But first let me tell you the story of how they came to be.

      CAUGHT IN A DOWNWARD SPIRAL

      In the fall of 2008, I found myself with my back against the wall. I was not alone in this. The whole business world watched in growing panic as the markets plunged and Wall Street banks teetered on the edge of ruin. Many businesses, uncertain about the extent of the current crisis and fearful about what it meant for the future, decided to retreat and retrench. They put a freeze on all nonessential activities, canceling or suspending training and development services.

      As a provider of those services, my business came to a standstill. Any work I already had on my schedule evaporated. And nothing new was coming in.

      I was not prepared for this. Far from having reserves to draw on, I had drained mine. I was just back from a six-month sabbatical in Europe, where I had been living in a small French village and exploring the continent. I had worked a little and played a lot. When I arrived home to Canada in late October, I was dead broke. I needed to ramp up as quickly as possible.

      Instead, I was pulled up short by the crash. At first, I wasn’t too worried. I have been in business since 1996. I have weathered my share of ups and downs. I have a track record to point to and confidence in the saying, This too shall pass.

      So I did what I have always done when the phone stops ringing: I began making calls, connecting with my network, looking for opportunities that might be created from the chaos. But this time, there was nothing on the other end but bad news: frozen or slashed budgets and dire predictions.

      At first, I followed the lead of my clients and went defensive. I battened down the hatches. I cut all nonessential spending, called in my accounts receivable, renegotiated my loans. As the weeks passed and business remained flat, I felt fear rising. Had the bubble burst for good? Was this the end of life as I knew it?

      In situations like this, it’s natural for self-doubt to creep in, and mine did. This business slowdown hit me where it hurt, making fun of my tag line, The art of living with creativity and imagination, calling it frivolous, irrelevant. Who has the time and energy to think about creativity when they’re worried about putting food on the table? I started to doubt the value of what I did. I started to wonder what hope there was for a business that promises creativity and imagination as the way to an abundant, joyful, and productive life when everyone was working harder with less and looking for ways to cut out the fat.

      Was I working too high on Maslow’s pyramid of needs? Was it really just about survival?

      THE CREATIVE RESPONSE

      This is the headspace I was in when the Martin Prosperity Institute released a report called Ontario in the Creative Age. The report said that far from being a frill, creativity was the engine of, and the best hope for, an economy that would be powerful enough to replace the one that was passing away. Not only that, but creativity was essential to buffer the negative impact of the transition from the old to the new economy.

      What Ontario needed now, the report said, was the ability to tap into the precious and largely dormant creativity and imagination of its people. We needed not just a creative economy but a creative society, one that nurtured and developed the creativity of its members and helped them bring that creativity to bear on the major challenges of our time.

      I drank this message in the way a desert plant absorbs water after a rare rainstorm. My sense of mission was restored. Maybe my work was not irrelevant. Maybe this economic downturn, which I had feared would be the death of my business, was instead an opportunity to take my work to a deeper place. Maybe it was time for me to get more serious about what I had to contribute.

      I wondered, on yellow sticky notes that I placed all over my home and office, What’s my creative response? I meditated on this question day and night. Then I started talking to my peers.

      There is something about taking a question out of your own head and putting it into conversation with other creative and imaginative people that raises your game. I’m fortunate to be surrounded by a community of coaches — by men and women who are able to put aside their own concerns and focus wholeheartedly on the question in play.

      So I posed my question and laid out my first thoughts. I reasoned that I was not the only person to be hit hard by the recession, not the only one fighting to keep my spirits up, not the only one searching for opportunities in the midst of seeming catastrophe. I acknowledged that the media were pumping out a continuous stream of bad news, negative predictions, and one thing after another: They were feeding a downward spiral of helplessness and despair that threatened to make things worse. Conversations at industry meetings and over coffee with friends all too easily followed the same trend and circled the same drain.

      I reminded anyone who would listen that the whole point of coaching was to help people stay focused and positive, creative and productive in any situation. Yet where were we in this crisis? Sitting in our offices, fretting over lost business, and feeling fearful like everyone else.

      We need to pull ourselves together, and get out there onto the street where we could do some good, I said. "What better time to model what we have to offer? What better time to make a real difference in

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