For those who don’t know, I’ve been working on writing my first book (to be complete and sent to editing by August 8th!)
I recently shared an excerpt to Facebook because I was inspired when writing it.
LETTING PEOPLE BE UNCOMFORTABLE
Just as Sarah learned, offering your transformational services, and especially being paid well for them, will often make people uncomfortable.
Dictionary.com defines transformation as a change in form, appearance or structure, condition, nature or character. The definition I’ve heard that I liked the best for the work we do was as follows:
Transformation = generating active, ongoing practices that shift a culture’s basis of reality.
If you think about it, you are likely taking this path for yourself because you really do want to shift some of the current cultural assumptions on our planet. Whether it is the way we are as a culture when it comes to health, communication, how we treat our kids, how we treat our planet, how we treat ourselves, our relationships, etc. There is something for you that just didn’t seem quite “right” or that you can see causes people pain. And if they just saw it differently, it would shift everything. This is usually the perception of the transformational entrepreneur.
And here’s the issue with being a transformational entrepreneur who wants to save people from experiencing pain. You will try to avoid having your clients and prospects experience pain. And pain, or discomfort, is the number one motivation for transformation.
It’s nice think that we will transform because we want to be better, and sometimes we do. Yet it is more often than not our discomfort that causes us to take our transformation into our own hands. And guess what? You want clients who are taking their transformation into their own hands!
So what does this mean, specifically? To be a masterful transformational leader you not only, as many coaches will tell you, need to get comfortable being uncomfortable yourself. You must be comfortable allowing, and even causing, other people to be uncomfortable. Shifting a culture’s basis for reality does not happen by having “nice” conversations that please everybody. Being a transformational leader requires becoming OK with people’s feathers being ruffled by the conversations you lead.
DISCOMFORT IS BEAUTIFUL
In this excerpt I was talking about a story of someone who was having trouble asking for and receiving money for her services because it made her very uncomfortable that someone investing money in her services would potentially make them financially uncomfortable. I see this all the time. I got an email from someone just recently who had invested all kinds of effort into her website and her content, etc, but wasn’t making it and had begun applying for jobs. I guarantee she is simply uncomfortable making people uncomfortable and that is the missing piece. Asking for money is vulnerable for all of us.
In a transformational retreat, discomfort is the source of the transformation that happens. What’s awesome about leading a retreat is that you have the opportunity to bring people in and provide a safe space for them to look at and see things about themselves that they may been willing to see before. Because they are uncomfortable. And embracing the discomfort is the leading edge of healing and growth.
Being a powerful retreat leader involves doing the work within yourself to make yourself increasingly OK with a broader range of ‘uncomfortable’ topics and experiences so that you can be a grounding force as people look at their own Truth.
“We cannot accept a part of ourselves that we haven’t shared with another human being and had validated.” –Kurt Wright
Your allowing people to get uncomfortable will help lead them to acceptance, which is the source of all power.
Coaching Is Uncomfortable
Even outside of a retreat experience, if you are a coach you will likely have your clients go through loads of uncomfortable things. Spirit will partner with you and your client to deliver the exact right experiences to help them heal. And it can be uncomfortable. A marriage ends. A parent dies. A business strategy fails. Inherent in all of these are unbelievable growth. If you can lean into the discomfort of them to allow the person to heal.
ELEVATE
There is so much that happens in your programs that is beyond the logical, practical, linear thinking of selling your services 1-to-1. You are not charging for an hourly session or for the time involved in a 2 ½ days retreat, or for the meals or excursions you provide. As a transformational leader, you are partnering with spirit, and the soul of your client, to create a life-changing experience of being with and moving through the discomfort. And the value of that engagement is more than you may think. Allow the knowing of your ability to BE WITH the discomfort to elevate you, and them.