Intelligent Whole-Brain Coaching
12th January, 2017
mBIT a model whose time has come…
What does an mBIT Coach do and why is it different (or additional) to other coaching?
Performance Coaching in general looks at linear journeying. Of course some generative insight emerges making the road travelled a winding one, but in essence we are seeking to move from current state to desired state…
Many coaches will use the GROW model – Goal… Reality… Options… Will/What Next/Wrap Up… or similar.. and these are indeed great frameworks.
In terms of A to B…
You want to get to point B – your coach will help you shape and define exactly what point B is, investigating how your aspirations connect with your deeper values, accessing why exactly this is so important, how it impacts upon others, where your support network is and clarifying the motivation for change… etc
You currently are at point A – your coach will help you explore all that is real for you and within your wider system, differentiating actualities from the imagined ideas within your current reality, working with you to resolve less useful beliefs, habits and tendencies…
You explore the gap between A and B all the possibilities, resources required, risks, obstacles etc building your understanding, capability and confidence to move forwards…
You create a plan of action with milestones and a support system incorporating how, who, what, where, when. You design mechanisms to assist you and then you progress, perhaps with your coach’s support to periodically keep you on track.
I am, of course, for illustration purposes, massively simplifying and as coaches there is a deep skillset and flexibility we require and often much greater complexity experienced throughout.
So how does mBIT coaching differ or augment the Performance Coaching model?
Well firstly it is important to note that mBIT is a hybrid method, so all mBIT coaches will also be interested in and equipped to help you navigate your A-B tangible outcomes.
There is an additional quality though… and it relates to how you are orientating yourself moment to moment, which in turn creates deeper questions and insights for purposeful existence and truly meaningful goals that can only emerge and be fully discovered through a place of alignment.
mBIT coaches help you identify how you are using your distributed brain to find meaning. Through enabling you to access your whole brain, new insight is gained and you learn how to think in a more embodied way – importantly learning how to make systemically wise decisions!
How does it work?
mBIT Coaches explore how your world is… Perhaps as a client you have arrived:
- Burnt out with a poor work/life balance
- Successful externally but internally disillusioned, lacking passion and enthusiasm
- In conflict with others and unsure how to move forwards
- Anxious and finding it tricky to make complex decisions
- Noticing recurrent self sabotage patterns that seem to resist other change efforts
- Wanting to connect more deeply with others and yet feeling distant
- Wanting to bring a greater service value to world
- Generally sensing misalignment between who you are and what you are projecting into the world
- Noticing conflict between head, heart and gut and perhaps experiencing physical symptoms of this such as insomnia, anxiety, IBS, breathlessness, lethargy
… and there are many other ways incoherence manifests….
During a short exploration of:
- How you perceive things to be
- How they currently are… and
- How exactly is it that things aren’t as you might like them…
… We will discover:
- How you are physically and emotionally noticing and embodying your experiences…
- How the way that you are accessing and using your insight is perhaps getting in your way…
… Thus getting curious about the approach you take to making meaning of things..
In asking for example “how you know what you know to be true” we create a deeper level of enquiry.
Of course other fields delve into your inner beliefs and values and your sense of who you are… and these forms of coaching create personal discovery, which dovetails with mBIT. If however… in exploring these questions… we are only using part of our brain (lets guess it’s the neurons in our head)… there is potential that the information that resides within our heart and gut, gets overlooked…. In effect we are asking great questions but only partly processing them.
An analogy might be – having a full Microsoft Office Suite and only using excel… It would be possible to create a work of art in MS Excel (if you don’t believe me check out this awesome weblink http://mashable.com/2014/10/26/microsoft-excel-art/#DikgACMfikqO) … but there are programmes better or certainly differently suited to the task. Our brain is no different… our neurons are distributed for a reason, insight, intuition and emotion are embodied we have a range of programmes that we can use in combination in order to create a richness of experience… Hence “multiple Brain Integration Techniques”
mBIT coaching from a client perspective is:
Learning how to notice the signals within your mind and body, acknowledging, interpreting, evaluating and aligning the signals from neurons in your head, heart and gut.
Discovering perhaps if you have developed shortcuts that in reality result in missed understanding or feelings of misalignment.
Building ways to enable and include insight from your full nervous system for whole-brain thinking!
In mBraining we take note of the fact that whilst the head has nearly 100 billion neurons, we also have up to 500 million neurons in our gut (the equivalent processing potential of a cat’s brain), and 40 – 120 thousand neurons in our heart. We also learn about how breath patterns and heart rate variability impact our autonomic nervous system and therefore our ability to think coherently.
Did you know…?
Your gut can pick up on chemical shifts within yourself and your surroundings – smelling and tasting your environment… and your heart creates a magnetic field that can be registered meters outside you – ok so you have nowhere near the elegance of a shark’s sonar to overtly register these waves, but your capacity to sense, impact and entrain beyond the boundaries of your skin is very real.
The aim of mBIT coaching is that the client develops the ability to recognize what is going on in their distributed brain… opening up channels of communication, interpreting and responding for systemically wise choices… This ability can then be applied moment to moment for ALL and EVERY goal and decision… transcending the boundaries of A to B coaching.
Why is now the time for mBIT?
Global disequilibrium is normal, we spin in and out of balance all the time, but what is certain is that an exponential rate of change across all aspects of life, environment and technology is fostering decisions that are highly reactive. Choices that appear to be efficient in the here and now… lack broader systemic wisdom… It is time for us to regain coherence and to do that requires a fundamentally different way of accessing our intelligence.
Want to know more?
Options include…
- 4 Day certified mBIT Coach Training – find out more HERE
- 2 Day Leadership Decision Making: bring mBIT into your business, explore alignment with your team. Discover where balance exists and where attention and different thinking is required in order to create progressive and coherent strategic choices. Develop practical approaches to enable systemically wise actions.
- 2 Day Evolve Your World Programme: For individuals looking to develop a more aligned approach to their lifestyle. Learn about your distributed brain and how to access it for compassion, creativity and courage within all areas of your life and work. Curate your life in new way.
- mBIT Coaching: Are you seeking coaching for professional / personal change? Get in touch, book some coaching and experience how mBraining can help.
