The first impression one may have when working with John Grinder and Carmen Bostic St. Clair is that he/she is facing something that turns a well established way of thinking upside down. Comes a moment when everything looks and feels upturned, like being hung with our head upside down as in the famous Tarot Arcana, the hanging man, epitomising a confusion state before a change.
Bit by bit, as their point of view develops and their ideas break through in our minds, we finally understand what John and Carmen say and do is like an old form of art that resurfaces after a long time. The same art that allowed beautiful, long-lasting and immortal creations to become reality.
The attention on the form, the rejection of content and the focus on the others’ behaviour, assuming and getting all their characteristics, is the best way to allow that quantum leap towards excellence to be finally taken, the maximization of one’s possibilities. Wasn’t, in the very end, the attention to the form rather than the content that allowed Michelangelo to create carve out the David? Had that famous empty spot in the marble disheartened him, perhaps, just like Leonardo, he would have refused the block. Not Michelangelo who, this time more ingenuous than Leonardo, started carving the form out of its hard stone wrapping and, once he found the obstacle, was able to deal with it and let the observer absolutely oblivious and unaware of that. Have you ever wondered why, next to an ankle, he carved a bough? If you took it out, you may see the calf is not aligned with the knee and the thigh. But with the bough, all is perfect.
This is an excellent metaphor for coaching.
This is what I learned one more time from Grinder and Bostic.
This is the difference that makes the difference.
