Not Anybody Else's Way But Your Way

☆ It was such a big pleasure to interview the wonderful Molly Gordon for the second episode of my new podcast "Make Monday Mine." ☆

Molly Gordon is known to many of the founders of the profession as a "coach's coach." A visionary, she regards coaching as an emergent aspect of individual and collective evolution.

A pragmatist, she is committed to grounding that vision in practices that comprise both artistry and technical skill for the sake of producing in their clients the insight and self-regulation they need to lead, adapt, and innovate.

Her work is all about "dialling down the confusion about what you should do and whether or not you are doing it “right” …so you can spend more time in action and less time in analysis paralysis."

I first met her in May 2016 when I joined on an impulse her class the Art of Living, after having taken a class with Mark Silver  (famous for often having his courses set up as “pay what you feel”) - around money when I was feeling particularly bewildered about how to "monetise" my skills. He mentioned he was in a mastermind with Molly and that she'd mentioned something about not getting "impressed" too much by the stuff going on in our minds.

It piqued my curiosity and burst the bubble of stress I was going through at that moment.

Having a Google around, I liked her webpage and the colours of the emails that she sent out.

Her messages had a feeling of optimism, consistency, and more than anything a grace and ease that I really liked because it felt genuine and not cliched.

Molly has, I found, an amazing gift for facilitating online groups.

It was the first time I'd signed up for a course online that was delivered via Zoom where we all were there in our little on screen rectangles to interact and share thoughts and feelings in a very deep way.

Molly kicked off the whole six week exploration (that ended up being twelve weeks as we all wanted to stay longer) with the following statement, “I’m going to be pointing in some directions but you're going to be finding what you find when you look in those directions, and again as I look at each of your faces I just get so excited when I think of what's in store for you, as you find your way, not Molly's way, not Byron Katie's way (God bless Byron Katie), not Sydney Banks’ way (God bless Sydney Banks), not anybody else's way but your way.."

When she mentioned in the podcast interview a colleague that she respected, Michael Neill my ears perked up and last week by chance in my Instagram feed a workshop he is running appeared. So now I'm getting into more deep waters of contemplation in a course that is an hour a day for the three weeks.

“This is not your first rodeo” was Molly Gordon's kicking off point, “ Most of you I’ve known for awhile, some of you are colleagues, some of you are friends, some of you are colleagues and friends, some of you are clients, some of you have been colleagues and clients and friends - we've had many relationships. But what I know about each one of you is that I'm very grateful that you're here, and that you're very precious to me, and if that's all you took in today - that you are very important, not in your small personal story way, but in your essential-ness, in your humaneness - I would consider today to be very successful.”

From that immense spaciousness which led to friendships in the group that have persisted ever since, she went on to say; “This is called the ‘Art of Living’ because it's as good a metaphor as any - I think it's better than a lot of them, but one reason is because I really think in life we make it up. We find our way, and one of the things I love about art is that it includes the purposeful - you know our very word “artful” implies purposefulness - and the random.” 

Molly Gordon is a mentor who skill-fully points clients to the spiritual principles behind the human experience.

If my life has been for anything it has been the perpetual search for intensity and a sensation of aliveness.

If I've travelled anywhere it is in an attempt to get closer to others.

If I'm a bit of a coward so that the search has not lead me either scuba diving or jumping over of plans or scaling mountain - my terrain has always been the search for what it is to be human and the expressive art of representing and sharing that journey.

You never know what can start from a mere mention of a person, thought or idea, and my dream is that one of these podcasts episodes will be that doorway opening for you or yours.

#ittakesavillage

Deborah Claire Procter

?? Make Monday Mine is a podcast to create a space for joined up thinking and to make sure that fellow movers and shakers, dreamers and frustratedly visionary folks get a chance to bring out their special vision by hearing from others who have taken their own steps towards new ways of being, doing and knowing. ??

#coaching #coachingprofesional #leadership #makemondaymine #newwaysofbeingdoingknowing #mollygordon #deborahclaireprocter #clearinsightproductions #clearinsight

https://makemondaymine.libsyn.com

Notes:

Michael Neill www.michaelneill.org

Mark Silver www.heartofbusiness.com