Attuning Myself to Wisdom

One of my coaches recently asked me something like: what’s a thing you do with clients that seems so simple you would be too embarrassed to write it on a website?

Here’s one of the answers that came to me.

A client will come to me with a difficult conversation they want to have… sometimes these conversations feel impossible to navigate. They’ll tell me about it; I might ask them a few questions. Then I’ll say, ‘What would it be like if you said this to them…’

At that point I just reflect back what they’ve said to me, packaged, perhaps, slightly different; with a slightly different level of confidence or tone.

And suddenly their difficult conversation seems completely straightforward.

It is embarrassingly simple.

And yet it is like magic.

Conversations that felt like intractable problems now don’t even seem like problems any more.

As I sat, recently, reflecting on my work, I realised something.

I have spent more than 10 years now listening for Wisdom.

Developing an ear, a body, a whole being sensitised to: what is truth, what is story… and most importantly, what is wise?

More than 3,000 hours of coaching. Where, in each conversation, my client and I are listening for: what is the wise way through what they are wrestling with?

Not only that, but hundreds of hours working with my own coaches, wrestling with my own intractable problems, listening - again - for: what is wise?

Not only that, but this practice - 414 12-minute sessions writing (including this one). Sometimes, explicitly listening for wisdom. Sometimes wrestling with an idea, not knowing where the wrestling ends, but always finding a new question, or a new insight. Something that tilts towards Wisdom.

Not only that, but hundreds of hours writing The Power to Choose. Condensing the most powerful ideas I’d found for creating calm and connection amidst the chaos and complexity of 21st Century life, which we absolutely did not evolve for. Collecting those ideas and pieces of insight and finding the ways to communicate them.

More and more, that is what I see happening in my coaching.

It looks less like how I was trained, and more like I’m sitting with someone, listening for the wisdom that they need.

It might look like it comes from them.

When there’s a difficult conversation to be had, then they usually say the wise, honest, authentic, truthful thing. When I’ve tuned myself into Wisdom and heard it, all I have to do - separated from what feels like life and death to them - is reflect that wisdom back to them.

It might look like it comes from me - I’ve been practising letting wisdom come through me for many years. Listening for the voice that I’m 95% sure isn’t my ego, but is in fact something more. And sharing it.

Sometimes it is a harsh, challenging voice.

Sometimes a loving voice.

But always, Wisdom.

And Wisdom, I think, with a capital W.

Something more than smart or intelligent. Something that doesn’t feel of me, or of them, but of something bigger. Something deserving of a capital letter.

The world is not short on smart.

And none of us are short of information.

As I heard Derek Sivers once say, if the problems were about information, we’d all be billionnaires with perfect six-packs.

But they aren’t. They’re about something more.

We live in an age of intelligence. But perhaps not in an age of wisdom.

The institutions that used hold our Wisdom for us often no longer look so wise.

And so it’s worth practising listening for Wisdom.

And sharing it.

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PS My new book, The Power to Choose: Finding Calm and Connection in a Complex World, is out now! Get your copy here: https://geni.us/powertochoose

This is the latest in a series of articles written using the 12-Minute Method: write for twelve minutes, proof read once with tiny edits and then post online.