I traveled nearly half the Earth to attend a course. Was it worth it?

My journey to Paekakariki, near Wellington in New Zealand, to attend a course took 26 hours in late March 2014.? The trip was quite an investment in any regard.?

I had taken my first brief training in coaching some 17 years prior to that – in 1997 – and had been puzzled by its power ever since. My curiosity had taken me far, but not this far.?

Far, far away

It was a bit of a stretch to go to Wellington to attend a course with Jennifer Garvey Berger , but her first book had blown me away.

When I started reading Changing on the Job, I thought it would be just another book. It marries adult development theory with leadership coaching.

A friend had highly recommended the course building on the book. And before Covid-19, traveling was a prerequisite for attending most of the coach training that appealed to me.

A while after registering, I received an email informing that the course might be canceled. Jennifer was facing a critical health condition.?

However, her close allies Keith Johnston and Jane Cox stepped in as faculty, allowing Jennifer to go home and rest occasionally. The venue was moved to Paekakariki, a small village a 45-minute drive from Wellington, where she lived with her family at the time.

We ended up with only seven participants. Others had canceled their attendance due to the uncertainty.

Paekakariki’s small parish hall was our picturesque venue for the three days that we were all there together. The grand ocean lay a few minutes’ walk down the road, separated only by the beach.

My visit to Paekakariki made time stand still while my past life and how I made sense of it flowed through my mind.

So what is our growth edge?

Our growth edge is the boundary between what we know and can do, and the sense-making that lies beyond our current capabilities.??

I could now see how my life was bound up by norms and enormous expectations. Much of what I took as truth was assumptions.?

Our world starts looking different when we reflect on how we make sense of it.

When we are curious about how we and others make meaning, we explore through our own current sense-making.

When helping others become aware of their growth edge, we expand our own capacity for sense-making.

The course changed how I work and who I am.

A solid foundation

While these words might sound abstract, the method builds on thorough theoretical and empirical research by the developmental psychologist Bob Kegan from Harvard, amongst others, as well as years of practical application by Jennifer and her collegial friends.

While I grew my understanding of myself and could start to make new choices, Growth Edge Coaching also opened up a cornucopia of new perspectives and possibilities in my work with corporate leaders.

Growth Edge Coaching became so integrated into my work that I ended up joining Jennifer and Cultivating Leadership five years ago.

A virtual opportunity

The introductory course I took back then in Paekakariki has gone virtual since, together with the two other courses that collectively comprise the Growth Edge Coaching program.

The next introductory course runs from June 19 to August 28 and is offered at times that are hopefully friendly for the eastern hemisphere. Sessions start at 8 pm US Pacific Time, but if you are an early riser in Europe, you can still make it (at 5 am Central European Time). Patrice Laslett and Rodney Howard are faculty on the upcoming course.

Here is a link to Growth Edge Coaching’s website: https://www.cultivatingleadership.com/courses/growth-edge-coaching