Archive for June, 2011

Awhile back, I was invited to the book launch of Awang Goneng’s second book A Map of Trengganu which follows up from his bestselling first book Growing Up in Trengganu. Awang Goneng is the pen name for writer Huleimi Wan who developed his books from his blog about his memories of his home state of Trengganu on the East Coast of Malaysia. The launch was in Tukdin, a great Malaysian restaurant near Paddington Station - a suitable venue as we all know how we Malaysians love food!

The books are collections of recollections about his memories of childhood growing up in a small village in rural East Malaysia and also his musings on the changes over the last decades as the nation has become more prosperous and modern. They are written from the heart and play an important part as a personal view of a landscape that is transforming fast.

I was touched by what Wan told us about how they’ve been received in Malaysia, and especially in Trengganu, a relatively rural state compared to the more urbanised West Coast where the metropolis of Kuala Lumpur sits. His blog is largely in Malay but the books are written in English. Many who came to his book signings were of the older generation of Malays who could not read English but they bought the books anyway. They wanted their children to read the books because they felt it was important for the next generation to know what it was like, growing up in “old Malaysia”. They felt that his books preserved a part of Malaysia’s history, as a legacy for the future, holding on in words to a world that will soon be gone.

The books have also been bestsellers in Malaysia for the reason that there are few books that speak to Malaysians about being Malaysian in a reflective, contemplative style. What I draw from his books is that we all want to read stories about Us.

We learn about who we are and how to live through books and stories and it is so important that we can find images of ourselves and lives in art and narrative. When we find our own personal experiences reflected in books, it is as if we have been seen and our lives witnessed.

As a writer myself, I was approached by many readers at book signings in Malaysia, telling me how much my novel The Flame Tree felt true to their own lives. It meant a lot to me to hear them their stories of which parts of their lives were reflected in my book. Now years later, as a coach, I have the privilege of reflecting back to my clients face to face in real time the amazing human beings that they are - and I know that it is a powerful experience for them to be witnessed in this way. I can see it my clients’s faces - the strength and power this acknowledgement gives them and how it can allow them to see themselves fully.

So I hope that Wan keeps publishing more books so that he can keep reflecting back to his readers the stories of who they are and where they have come from.

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Photos: my collection

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I’ve been offline for a few weeks, working on some plans I have for rebranding my coaching and consultancy practice here at ZenGuide. As with any intensive project, I have needed to prioritise my resources and creative energy and so, I cut back on some of my other activities, including posting here on this blog. The process is ongoing and I have popped back online to share some of the personal learning that I’ve experienced, which I hope may be helpful for you.

Priorities shift and dance all the time

I initially felt guilty about not keeping up with my many activities - such as blogging here. But I realised that priorities shift all the time in our lives, like a dance, and the most empowering thing we can do is to go with the flow. At each phase we need to identify the top priorities and to focus whole-heartedly in them for those moments - before moving on to the next phase and the next priorities, which may include previously low priority items now coming into their own. Otherwise, we are heading for stress and burn out as we try and perform all the phases of the dance at once!

What kind of dance are you performing with the different priorities in your life?

Living your personal values

As part of my rebranding process, I’ve been looking at my personal values and how they can be a strong foundation for my coaching practice. If we are living our personal values, our work has deeper meaning and we can approach it with greater energy and drive. Here are a couple of key ones:

Being authentic - for me, this means embracing both my creative and also my analytical/ strategic side and responding to others in a way that is honest but also sensitive and respectful.

Personal responsibility - I believe that we are all responsible for our actions and also reactions. We are responsible for ourselves and to each other. It’s about stepping up when it comes to our health, our interactions with others, how we live our lives. It’s about the best that we can be as individuals and also as part of our communities (whether among family and friends, at work, or in our neighbourhoods).

Living your story

I’ve been wondering how I can pull together the different skills and passions in my life to serve my coaching clients more effectively. My training as a lawyer gives me my analytical and strategic planning skills and my current part-time asset management role gives me daily experience of the challenges faced by many of my clients who work in a business environment. But what about my passion for writing and stories that have so far found an outlet in my novels, my business book and my blogs? How does that passion contribute to the work I am doing as a coach?

I analaysed how I work with my current clients and realised that I am working with their stories all the time. They have stories they tell themselves about what they can and can’t do in their life. One client felt trapped in a box and when we explored who had put her there, she saw that it was she herself who had locked herself in there - and that in fact the key was inside with her. It was up to her to let herself out - and to do that, we worked on changing the ways that she was constraining herself.

For all of us, our stories tell us what kind of a place the world is - a battlefield, an adventure, a safe haven: having a particular of the world means that we approach every day and other peole with a particular mindset. If you go to an event telling yourself that everyone is better and smarter than you and will judge you the moment you walk in the door, this will affect how you hold yourself as you enter the event and how you engage with those horrible, judgemental people. But if you go thinking of it as an opportunity to meet some interesting people - who may all be as nervous as you are - this will also inform how you walk into the room and talk to those lovely people.

So as part of reviewing my services, I am working on how I can bring out this theme of story coaching as a more prominent part of my brand here at ZenGuide. This will mean deeper exploration for me of how I bring my own story to everything that I do. I will be blogging about that in a later post as I progress along this journey of discovery.

In the meantime, what’s your story? How does it influence how you view yourself and the world?

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Photo: thanks to paulcoxphotography from flickr.com (CCL)

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The contents of this blog, including this post, comments and links, are subject to this Disclaimer - please read it by clicking here