[I have recently read this book, The Power of TED* The Empowerment Dynamic. I am writing a synopsis to share the wonderful concepts with my readers. This is the second and last part of my write up. This adresses the "Creator Orientation and The Empowerment Dynamic (TED)". Part 1-Victim Orientation and Dreaded Drama Triangle(DDT) can be found here. ]

My friend once wrote in her facebook status “I know what I don’t want but I don’t know what I DO want”.

 She spoke for many.  Most of the times we know what we don’t want, what we want to avoid and what problems are causing us troubles. How about having shift from this and focus into “what we want” instead? According to the book, The Power of TED* the empowerment dynamic, this mindset is called the Creator orientation.  Creator orientation is a refreshingly positive shift from the very well known Victim orientation. A Creator focuses on the result and the end goal – they are motivated by their inner passion to achieve their goal. They design their path and take baby steps towards it. Even though they encounter problems on their way, their true focus towards a greater goal empowers them to face those “problems” as positive challenges to overcome and at the same time utilize them as learning experiences.

The TED model describes two other roles, a Challenger and a Coach. A Challenger is the TED counterpart of Persecutor and a Coach is that of the Rescuer from the DDT model. A Challenger, as the name suggests is someone or some situation that prompts the Creator to act. A Challenger can be either a constructive or a deconstructive force. For example: if your workplace is going through a downsizing, exerting pressure on the employees to perform more and more, this might serve you a wakeup call to check in if you are really committed to this job and lets you do some serious thought on your passion and priorities. In this example the particular situation of downsizing may seem to be negative but still may work as a powerful influencer for a Creator. All the life’s experiences are teachers in some sense, challenging us to grow and evolve. Although the Persecutor certainly provokes a reaction, the Challenger elicits a response by encouraging a Creator to acquire new knowledge, skill or insight. Both roles initiate change, but in different ways.

A Coach helps the Creator to attain their goal; the main difference of a Coach with a Rescuer is that a Coach, unlike the Rescuer, treats others as Creators and thinks them as whole, capable and resourceful. A Coach supports and empowers the Creator and sometimes may offer few suggestions but doesn’t get upset if the suggestion is not taken. A Coach doesn’t tell the Creator what she should or shouldn’t do. Instead he asks a lot of good questions and listens deeply to what a Creator is saying as she thinks, probes and explores. A Coach is constantly alert to possibilities that may be invisible to the client. They say “I am going to stand beside you, no matter what”, they don’t say, “Let me fix it for you” which is the approach of a Rescuer.

Living as a Creator is not at all easy, people can easily fall back to their familiar life thinking it is hard, but only those who can “see” the significant  difference of being in charge of own life(what I DO want) vs. falling victim of outside circumstances can have the rare experience of the exciting ride of a creative life.

Too often I hear, “I know I hate my job, but I don’t know either what else I would do- I don’t know where my passion is”. I don’t find it surprising at all! As a matter of fact I have had the same question a while ago; it took me months and years to find out where my passion is.

According to Wikipedia, Passion can be expressed as a feeling of unusual excitement, enthusiasm or compelling emotion towards a subject, idea, person, or object. A person is said to have a passion for something when they have a strong positive affinity for it. In my personal definition passion is something that makes our lives more exciting, meaningful and fulfilling.

As a coach I have learnt a simple methodical approach to help my clients figure out their passion. Basically my approach is to find out the values [see footnote for definition] that are the basic ingredients to make the client excited. My assumption is that if the client is involved in activities that contains those ingredients, they will feel their passion.

I ask the client to do following tasks sequentially:

a.       List down some occasions from past when they felt excited and great about themselves.

b.      Notice what value or set of values is a recurring theme of those occasions.

c.       Try out some activities where they can possibly enjoy the same values (or a subset of it)

d.      Notice how it feels – do these activities recreate similar excitement?

As a software engineer I am very much tempted to draw a flow chart and show that this process can repeat until client finds the activities they are excited or passionate about - but you get the idea.

It is very important that the client keeps an open mind, learns from the experience, is ready to take some risk and stretch them in order to find the “perfect” combination of values and the activities to apply those. This is when they will discover their true interest or passion and get excited about their lives once again.

The bigger question however is - how serious is someone to find out their passion? How courageous one can be to face a truth? How ready are they to trade in their personal or financial comfort to make their lives more exciting and fulfilling? All the answers to these questions have to be “very” before they start the quest for their passion.

 
Note:
Value - Each person has his or her unique priority for personal values.  While people tend to feel quite strongly about these qualities, values are neither positive nor negative, nor are they good or bad.  They do, however, have a profound influence on the quality of life. Some example of values: courage, innovation, love, care, learning, spirituality, nature, autonomy, accomplishment, community, challenge, etc.   

Most of my time as a life coach is being spent educating people on the concept of Life Coaching. Every time I have a hard time explaining the difference between therapy and coaching. Recently I realized, it’s better to say “forget therapy for now”! This is how I want to say it:

You are a smart, well functioning adult, mostly successful and pretty much independent in your thoughts and actions. There are certain times you feel stuck, little confused or just need someone to talk to. Someone you could go to and bounce off your thoughts and ideas by, someone you could have as your wise sounding board. Someone you feel safe and being heard, someone who doesn’t judge you and rather supports you by asking  well thought out questions to help you sort out your ideas (sometimes even half baked).   A good life coach is that someone you always wished for.  

Areas of Life coaching are pretty vast. Based on a global study last year, top areas for coaching are, Self-esteem, Work-life balance, Career opportunities, Business management, Relationships, Work performance and interpersonal skills. Like the world class athletes hire a coach to improve and maintain their high performance, high achieving individuals go for personal coaches as they always thrive to achieve even further excellence in their lives.