Phase 1- Understand

This phase has two key parts: First, its for me to understand you. Second, it’s to help you understand the situation you are in and give you new language to describe your everyday experiences.

The first part is when we are in the coaching sessions. I have my ‘listening hat’ on understanding the who, how, what, when and why that led up to you seeing me.

The second part is the work you do in the background. On this page, I provide videos, blogs and books that you can watch or read at home. These will help you understand yourself and the situation you are in, and lay out common themes, patterns and dynamics that led other men to me. The idea is that you understand ‘how’ you got to where you got to and realise that you’re not alone. Many men experience what you are going through.

The faster we work together to understand what led to the situation you are in, the more we can empower you to make the necessary change. It starts with me being a sounding board.

Sounding Board

I act like a “sounding board” “an outside voice” and “a second pair of eyes” to get an understanding of the the world you live in and the “lay of the land.” You “voice stuff out loud” and “talk about things you need to get out.” I help you “organise” “breakdown” and “rewire” your thoughts, shine a light on different angles, and provide fresh perspectives that can open new thought processes.

Current Career

I identify if the career, jobs and dreams you are pursuing are something you yourself want or are these imposed by others - like parents, family, culture, religion or society. This commonly includes: living up to the expectations of others; meeting “obligations”; meeting the image of what you “should” or “ought” to be; meeting ‘assumptions’ about what people want for you; choosing a career that society has deemed respectful and successful for a man; choosing a job or career that represents your fathers values or unfulfilled dreams; succumbing to you parent's ambitions for them and “not letting them down”; and making your parents proud of them.

Society and How You Measure Yourself

I look at how society has influenced your current situation. This Includes: socially defined role, social constructs, societal norms and meeting what society “expects” you to be. I also look at where you might be measuring yourself against what certain social norms say your life should look like to be, for example healthy or successful.

When To Keep Going and When To Quit

One of the hardest decisions in life is to know when to keep going and when to quit. I look at parts work. I expect that there is the part of you that tells you to “stick with it” and “push through,” and then there is another part that says “no I’m not doing this any more” “I quit.” We listen to both parts and talk about “when do we say it’s enough?”

Others Telling You Who You Should Be?

In this 14 min interview, Guy Ritchie, leading film director, says that we are constantly living in two worlds: The external world; the world “out there” and the internal world; the world “in here.”

Guy says, there needs to be some period in your day where you remember that there's a world “out there” trying to tell you who you are, and there’s a world “in here” that's trying to tell you who you are.

The external world; I'm asking you to tell me who I am, and the internal world; you have to tell yourself who you are. There’s the struggle between other people's perceptions of you, and your own wants and desires, your significant real self.

Feel Like You’re Following a ‘Script’ or ‘Rules’ in Life?

In this 20 min TED talk, Alan Watkins, an international expert on leadership and human performance, says that unbeknownst to us we can follow “socities rules” in life. Alan says, after we leave home, a much bigger parent called society comes in and imposes its rules. We start to believe that we've got to get a degree, we've got to get a job, a relationship, a car, a house. We've got to get all these things to be a good corporate citizen. So we start to follow the rules, and we enter a company, and we start to work our way up the career ladder, following the rules. We’re often not even aware of the rules. Alan says, these rules weren't given to you with your permission, they were just imposed by parents or society.

He says, if you're lucky, you have a crisis. At some point in your life, something happens to get you to question the rules.

Then you enter the stage what we call the disease of meaning. It starts to occur to you there's something wrong with the picture of your life. “I've been following all these rules, and it hasn't delivered. I thought if I was a good corporate citizen, and I got a good job, and a good house, and paid tax and all of that stuff, I would be happy and blissful forever; and I'm not.” That's the disease of meaning, and that is real pain.

Feeling Trapped?

We examine the question: “Do you want change but are worried about what you will lose (or have to give up) in the process?

In this 16 min TED talk, Lori Gottleib, best-selling author and psychotherapist, notices that most peoples stories tend to circle around two key themes: Trapped-Freedom and Responsibility-Change-Loss. “If I stay with my wife, I will never trust her again (trapped) but If I leave (freedom-change) the children will suffer (loss).”

Our stories are about feeling trapped or imprisoned by jobs, families, relationships or our past. We want freedom, but there is a catch; it comes with responsibility.

And if we take responsibility for our role in our story, we might just have to change. The catch even with positive change, is that it involves loss; the loss of the familiar. In some ways, its easier to be trapped, than seek freedom.

We end up both trapped and “trapper.”

Imbalance in Your Life

I examine potential imbalance in your life. A common scenario I see is that a man’s Work/Career/Job - including his job title, power, social status and the money he makes - provides his sense of ‘success’ identity and worth. In short “he measures his worth by his work.” As a result, he prioritises work. But consequently, “sacrifices” “neglects” or “suppresses” parts of himself in the process. In other words, he trades “wealth for self” or “success for self.”

To achieve the wealth and success, other areas of his life may also be sacrificed or neglected. These may include: family, marriage, partner, kids, friends, health and mental health. Imbalance may be caused by ingrained mindset patterns (see below). The Psychology of Money is a useful read on this topic.

In three blogs, I write about how this imbalance is created when men chase success, social status and external meaning

Striving versus Self-Acceptance

How can someone be smart, winning and successful on one hand, but miserable, and on their third wife and their kids don’t speak to them on the other?

We examine the question: “Where’s the line between striving for excellence, and embracing who you are? (self-acceptance)”

In this 80 min interview, Brene Brown and Tim Ferriss layout this common scenario. In the first half of life, driven by low self-worth, self-loathing or not feeling enough, we can often default to “trying harder” “whipping ourselves” and focus on achievement, high performance and striving for excellence. But in striving for high performance, we can divorce, disown, orphan, relegate or ‘hate’ the “ordinary” or “unwanted” parts of ourselves that we’re ashamed about.

These parts of ourselves then become parts we are unwilling to feel or are ‘not safe’ to feel. The parts end up in “Pandora’s box” under lock and key. Then we develop “armour” (a false self, avoidance tactics, defences, behaviours and ways of thinking) to protect these parts from being felt, talked about or seen.

But in midlife, the weight of the “armour” becomes too heavy to keep up. At this point, Brene invites us to replace the armour with curiosity, and ask ourselves the question “how is not talking about this serving you?” Brene describes this transition as the “developmental milestone of midlife.” Brene says “everything we thought protected us ‘actually’ keeps us from being the partners, professionals and parents we want to be.”

Caught in The Trap of Materialism?

In this 6 min interview, Johann Hari, bestselling author, like Guy Ritchie, explains the dynamic of internal and external worlds. Although Hari uses the terms extrinsic and intrinsic values.

Johann says, from the moment we are born we’re immersed in a machine that is designed to get us to neglect what is important about life.

The more you are motivated by the external world; extrinsic values like instagram, facebook, envy, acceptance, the more your internal world; Intrinsic values like authenticity and meaning, is starved and the more likely you are to become depressed and anxious.

Ingrained Mindset Patterns

I create awareness of subconscious automatic “ingrained mindset patterns” “life traps” “processes” “tendencies” “defaults” “biases” “blind spots” “habit loops” “ways of working” or “limiting ways of thinking” that may be repeating in your life sabotaging your attempts to achieve what you say you value.

In other words, patterns when you’re “getting in your own way”, patterns when you’re not showing up in the best possible way, patterns that unduly influence the way you work or patterns that are narrowing the way you’re seeing the world.

These commonly include: workaholism, perfectionism, comparison, high internally driven unrelenting standards, strong inner critic, feeling like a failure, feeling inferior to others, self sacrificing, people pleasing, feeling like an impostor, feeling responsible for others, feeling like you’re not enough, not wanting to let people down and having to “work hard” to prove your worth. Daring Greatly is a useful read on this topic.