“As an executive coach for over 40 years, I know it can become

tiring for both coach and coachee to keep the same routine. A Beau-
tiful Way to Coach presents an incredible perspective on a fresh and
engaging method for coaching to reinvigorate the process and keep
you and your clients striving for great results.”
–Marshall Goldsmith, New York Times #1 bestselling author
of Triggers, Mojo, and What Got You Here Won’t Get
You There

“This is a book for these changing times; a book that explores the new
qualities of leadership that we need so much in the world today –
courage, a growth mind set, the ability to ask quality questions and the
willingness to take action and reflect. This is such an important book.
I encourage all leaders and coaches to read it and to encourage others
to do the same.”
–Sue Knight, NLP Master Trainer and Author of
NLP at Work

“When you walk beside someone on a learning journey, you engage

so much better than walking behind or in front of them. Often the
most powerful coaching happens when we leave chairs behind and
venture into the great outside, where anything is possible!”
–David Clutterbuck, Co-founder of the European Mentoring
& Coaching Council and author of over 70 books

“I have completed 3 Vision Days in the last 6 years. They have all,
without fail, propelled me along the path I needed to be on at that
time and contributed measurably to my success. Creating a whole
day, the space, the focus, the time in nature is an incredibly powerful
tool and my personal secret weapon. I literally couldn’t have achieved
what I have without Fiona and her Vision Day methodology and
this book now shares these ideas more widely.”
–Sharon Whale, Chief Executive Officer, Global Markets &
Operations, Oliver, and Great Britain Creative Industries
Businesswoman of the Year 2021
“This is a gift of a book for coaches and at the start, the author, Fiona
Parashar, makes a promise to offer a coaching approach that is “pos-
itive, intensive and transformative”. And for once, a business book
delivers! Not only will this give you an inspiring (and original) way
of working with your clients, incorporating the outdoors, but it is
also deeply pragmatic, walking you through her process step by step.
Almost holding your hand. After reading the book, I immediately
wanted to get out in nature with my clients and invite them for a
Positive Vision day! Written with a warmth and a generous guiding
hand, this is a book chock-full of insights and tools to refresh your
coaching and an opportunity to boost your coaching repertoire.”
–Dr Lucy Ryan, MD of Mindspring International, Author of
Lunchtime Learning for Leaders

“In A Beautiful Way to Coach, Fiona shares an approach to coaching

which beautifully touches on the deeper layers of meaning and – I
dare say spiritual – connection, while keeping the experience and
results very practical and down to earth. In this book she hands you
the essence of her twenty plus years of experience so you can just
run with it.”
–Annemiek van Helsdingen, Founder of
the Academy for Soul-based Coaching

“This book is a gift to leaders and coaches everywhere. It bring

home through its wonderful storytelling, insights and wisdoms how
vital nature is to combatting the epidemic of exhaustion and burn-
out. This is a resource you will not want to miss out on. Reading it
gave me goosebumps as the stories and case studies resonated at a
deep cellular level.”
–Jackee Holder, Executive Leadership Coach and
Author of 49 Ways To Write Yourself Well, Be Your
Own Best Life Coach, and the writing maps Writing
with Fabulous Trees and Rewilding the Page
 A BEAUTIFUL WAY TO COACH

Leaders need to renew and recharge regularly to lead more ­effectively.

Forget the squeezed hour of coaching on Zoom or in a busy office –
this book invites coaches and leaders alike to re-energise their style
of executive coaching by stepping beyond traditional techniques and
out of the office for an executive day retreat.
Based on an award-winning framework of the Positive Vision
Day programme, this accessible book introduces a new approach to
coaching, combining time-out in a natural and beautiful setting with
positive psychology. The book is designed to inspire coaches and
leaders to take a day away from the desk, step into nature and renew
their energy and purpose. As a coach, you are needed more than ever
to help leaders align their strengths and values to their personal vision.
This book does just that, and provides:

• Detailed exercises linking psychological underpinnings to the

goals of each exercise, including how to avoid classic coaching
pitfalls.
• Journaling prompts for self-reflection and self-coaching.
• Easy-to-understand models, templates, scripts and action steps
for every stage of the process.

The approach used in the book will be of particular interest to not

only leadership and executive coaches, and internal executive
coaches, but also career, entrepreneurship, business, wellbeing and
life coaches, as well as leaders themselves who are mid-career or at a
career or psychological crossroads.

Fiona Parashar is a renowned executive coach for positive leaders

and is known for her pioneering and innovative approach. After a
successful career in media running one of the top media agencies,
Fiona became one of the earliest leadership coaches in the UK, and set
up Leadership Coaching Limited, now certified as a B Corp business,
to inspire the wellbeing and work-life balance of business leaders.
A BEAUTIFUL WAY TO
COACH
POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
COACHING IN NATURE

Fiona Parashar
Foreword by Professor Peter Hawkins
Cover design: Girl & Boy Studio
Cover image: Kevin Davis
First published 2022
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2022 Fiona Parashar
The right of Fiona Parashar to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in
accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in
any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to
infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Parashar, Fiona, author.
Title: A beautiful way to coach : positive psychology coaching in nature / Fiona
Parashar ; foreword by Professor Peter Hawkins.
Description: New York, NY : Routledge, 2022 | Includes bibliographical
references and index. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2021053715 (print) | LCCN 2021053716 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781032116020 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032116037 (paperback) |
ISBN 9781003220657 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Executive coaching. | Leadership—Study and teaching.
Classification: LCC HF5549.5.C53 P36 2022 (print) | LCC HF5549.5.C53 (ebook) |
DDC 658.3/124—dc23/eng/20220112
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021053715
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021053716

ISBN: 978-1-032-11602-0 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-032-11603-7 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-22065-7 (ebk)

DOI: 10.4324/9781003220657
Typeset in Bembo
by codeMantra
For Millie and Arthur
 CONTENTS

Acknowledgements xi
Foreword xii
PROFESSOR PETER HAWKINS

Introduction 1
- Who, why and what? 1
- Reflections and journaling prompts 22

Part I
Why, What and Where 25
1 The Why and the What 27
- What is a beautiful way to coach? 27
- Reflections and journaling prompts for coaches
and leaders wanting to explore different
coaching practices 33
- What is positive visioning? 33
- Seven active ingredients to energise
goal-setting 36
2 The Where 57
- Where is the best place to do positive visioning
work with our clients? 57
- Why are executive day retreats more vital than ever for
leaders? Why bother with moving outside into nature? 65
- Easing into beautiful questions 68
- Reflections and journaling prompts to deepen
connection with nature and with our values 68
x Contents

Part II
The How71
3 How to bring the flavour of positive psychology to your
coaching even if you have never studied it 73
- Flourishing74
- The psychology of Awe80
- Gratitude81
- Reflections and journaling prompts82
- Positive Vision Day programme – 15-step process83
- The 15-Step process 84
- Step 1 – Get ready84
- Step 2 – Stimulus questions 85
- Step 3 – Strengths Profiling 88
- Step 4 – The download 91
- Becoming present 92
- Step 5 – Feedback/feedforward 94
- Step 6 – Pictures 1000 98
- Step 7 – Power questions 102
- Step 8 – 80th birthday visualisation 108
- Step 9 – Values walk 115
- Step 10 – Lunch 123
- Step 11 – Strength-based action planning 126
- Step 12 – Committed actions 128
- Step 13 – Crystallisation131
- Step 14 – 48-hour check in 133
- Step 15 – Six-week follow up134
Part III
Who Benefits? 139
4 Challenges, practical considerations and some
executive case studies 141
- For coaches142
- For leaders, what stands the test of time?152
- Closing the loop159
Part IV
What Next?163
5 Professor Peter Hawkins and Fiona Parashar in
dialogue about the future of positive vision days and
­executive coaching165
Index 181
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thank you to Alison Jones and Lily Dunn, Amy Clarke, Matt Lloyd
and Leanne Witts for helping me with editing, diagrams, design of
cover and referencing and special thank you to Alison for getting me
started in the frst place.
Thank you to Rebecca Marsh for publishing support and
guidance.
To Vanessa Locke for editing, supporting throughout with the
manuscript.
To Dr Ilona Boniwell and Dr Kate Heferon for their roles in my
Positive Psychology masters, dissertation and research and special
mention to Dr Lucy Ryan for mentorship of both masters and this
book.
To Peter Hawkins for encouraging me to share this knowledge
with other coaches and supervising me so systemically, spiritually
and ethically, and also for his generous contribution to making this
book so much better.
To Sandra Visser who managed to take my unconscious compe-
tence and make sense of it in a way I couldn’t to create a practical
toolkit and manual so we could share the Positive Vision Days with
other coaches.
Thank you to my stellar coach team Sue Hartley, Mia Kennedy,
Jackee Holder, Ruth Rochelle and Sharon Charlton Thompson and
also to Kevin for the many times you coached and encouraged me
through blocks and stuckness.
To all the clients and coaches who have been on this Positive
Vision Day journey with me and generously shared case studies and
their stories.
 FOREWORD
Professor Peter Hawkins

Three very senior partners in one of the ‘Big Four’ professional

services frms were part of a group I was coaching. They were all
sharing how ‘time poor’ they were and were competing for who was
the most pressurised and exhausted. I refected back to them how
easily I could share their feelings and, despite the fact that all of us are
in the most privileged 1% of humanity, we can feel like victims of
the demands we have created. I mentioned that in the universe,
there is infnite supply of time, and time was not something you save
or bank, so invited them to experiment with reframing ‘being time
poor’ as being ‘choice rich’. Suddenly, the whole dialogue changed
in tone and texture. There was a deeper sharing of how we could
help each other make better choices.
So many of the leaders I work with become exhausted, because
they are working from efort, which is a limited energy supply, and
not from source, which is a fow of energy that the more you use,
the more it replenishes. To work from source requires an eco-centric
rather than an individualistic ego-centric form of leadership. It
requires us to work collectively with teams, so they become more
than the sum of their members, and create synergistic partnerships
across the organisation and between the organisation and all its part-
ners and stakeholders.1 Most of all, it requires a new relationship
between the human and the ‘more-than-human’ world. To work
from source is to recognise that we, as humans, are the youngest
child of creation and have much to learn from all aspects of nature.
They have all been on this planet much, much longer than we have.
To see the wider ecology as not ‘something’ out there we can utilise
and exploit, but as the infnitely generous living context we are all
 FOREWORD xiii
nested within, and which fows through us and is part of us, in the
same way we are an inextricable part of nature.
Executive coaching and leadership development, as it has devel-
oped over the last 40 years, has a wide continuum of approaches. At
one end is the coming alongside and supporting leaders in the midst
of their current challenges. This is often carried out in a short session
of 1, 1.5 or 2 hours in the middle of their work day, often in their
own ofce or on a video call. It has the strength of being ‘in media
res’ – right in the middle of a busy life. Its weakness is that the
individual is often coming out of other meetings and challenges, and
then returning to their usual overwhelm of e-mails, meetings and
demands. This can lead them to spend the time in coaching on the
immediate, what is uppermost and recent for them, rather than
being in a more refective space, with a wider time horizon and
more systemic perspective.
At the other end of the coaching continuum is the retreat or
time-out. This can be completely away from all the normal triggers
of the ofce setting for a day, several days or a week or longer. Time
to step away from all the pressures that keep the leaders in their nor-
mal role and way of being and take stock, of their work and life.
They have the time and space to work at depth on what needs to be
the next transition in their life, and their way of thinking, doing and
being. This is best in a retreat setting, where the leader can, albeit
briefy, exit the crowded human stage and return to being in and
learning from nature and the more-than-human world.
This latter type of coaching takes many forms. The School of Lost
Borders provides ‘Vision Quests’ in the Arizona desert. These pow-
erful retreats include periods of ‘soloing’, spending time apart from
all other human beings, while deeply in relationship with the wider,
more-than-human world around them. The participants are care-
fully prepared and helped to discover their own personal inquiry,
and the most important question they can take with them into their
solo time. Afterwards they are welcomed back into the community
to share their newly discovered learning. This is a deep approach
that builds on centuries of ‘rites of passage’ ceremonies of many
indigenous peoples and spiritual lineages. My good friend Giles
Hutchins provides Immersion Leadership Training in a woodland in
Sussex, UK,2 which provides parallel experiences where the partici-
pants can step back from their usual routines and be supported to go
xiv PROFESSOR PETER HAWKINS

deeply within themselves while going out into nature. Fiona

Parashar, the author of this book, leads Vision and Purpose days for
executives on the edge of Bath, UK.
We all need ‘time-outs’ to step back and reset our compass and
our life’s path. I frst read Sidney Jourard’s book The Transparent Self3
back in the 1970s when he was also making pleas for the creation of
‘time-out’ centres. But this is not a recent phenomenon. Christian
Monasteries, Zen Dogens, Suf Khankahs fulflled this role for cen-
turies. Time-outs, where leaders caught up in their work demands,
and the many psychological entanglements that accompany their
role, could cast of their labels, role costumes and work pressures and
return to their simple humanity.
It is only in a well-constructed ‘time-out’ that we can step back
from the immediate problems, issues and questions, and take a wider
systemic view, where we can begin to see how local issues are just a
small part of the wider interconnected web and see the fow of life
over longer time horizons.
I was privileged to speak at a conference on new and old forms of
leadership, taking the platform after a Native American Elder, who
spoke profoundly of how true leadership comes when we can take
decisions with the awareness of the seven generations that come
before us and the seven generations that come after us, and all living
beings with whom we share this moment in time. As I got up to
speak, I was acutely aware how local, short-term and human-centric
our approaches to leadership in the white privileged west had become.
So what are the key enabling structures, processes and tools of all
‘time-out centres’? They require:
– A deep holding of space, which has psychological safety,
well-contracted boundaries and a clear intention from both parties.
– A deep compassionate and intimate listening from both parties,
not just to each other, but to what is emerging in and from life.
– A humility to learn from everything that emerges and that life
presents to us.
– A recognition that, although retreat guides, coaches and facili-
tators have an important role to play, that they are the junior part-
ners, and the senior teacher is the wider ecology and the fow of life.
– A quest to fnd deeper meaning in our work and our lives.
Fiona Parashar has developed many well-crafted approaches and
tools for assisting these processes, which have stood the test of time,
 FOREWORD xv
and enabled many leaders to fnd greater purpose, deeper meaning,
more fulflling engagement in their work and life, and to operate
more from source than exhaustible efort.
She also has taught many other coaches to draw on these approaches,
so the work could multiply and reach many others. Now she has cre-
ated the wonderful gift of this book that provides the tools –
approaches, guidance, encouragement and inspiration – for coaches
round the world to expand and deepen their work.
Remember, the beauty of this work is that as you work deeper as
a coach, you touch a life-giving seam, where both leader and coach
leave the engagement deeply moved and replenished.
Professor Peter Hawkins, Barrow Castle, Bath

NOTES
1 Hawkins, P. (2021). Leadership Team Coaching: Developing Collective
Transformational Leadership (4th ed.). London: Kogan Page.
2 Hutchins, G., & Storm, L. (2019). Regenerative Leadership:The DNA of
Life Afrming 21st Century Organizations. UK:Wordzworth.
3 Jourard, S. (1971).The Transparent Self. New York:Van Nostrand.
 INTRODUCTION

WHO, WHY AND WHAT?

There is a yearning for renewal – for more holism and unity in
coaching and leadership. Now is a powerful time for us to step out-
side into nature in order to reach and connect with our inner world.
By doing this we can better serve the outer world, way beyond
ourselves. It all starts with us fnding our personal Positive Vision.
In this book I share an approach of positive coaching with a
“retreat” style. This will appeal to coaches or leaders looking for
more depth in how they coach with a positive, intensive and trans-
formative coaching approach. Our vision of how we see the world
will inform how we show up in it and what we can contribute.
When we allow that vision to connect with and unify our fractured
whole, aligning with our strengths and values, our relationship with
the diferent parts of ourselves and with our community will start to
knit back together again. All of this with nature in the background.
This is what we can ofer as coaches and leaders and also give to
ourselves as we coach in this way.
In sharing my own story of how a longing in me became a vision,
I hope you can resonate with the diferent aspirations, blocks and
fears that emerge. By creating a strong personal vision, we accelerate
our internal motivation to make the changes that are needed for our
vision to be executed. This energy is fuelled by ensuring our personal
vision is in alignment with our values and strengths and becomes
imbued with meaning and purpose. This book will share both the
inspiration and origin of the Visioning process, the meshing of
positive psychology coaching and being inspired by nature. The

DOI: 10.4324/9781003220657-1
2 INTRODUCTION

practical “How to” section will give you all the guidance you need
to integrate with your own coaching clients or team.

Who is this book for?

If you are a Coach, this is an invitation to explore and refect on
your own coaching practice and to use these exercises and this style
of positive coaching in a beautiful setting to inspire yourself and your
clients. If you are a Leader who is committed to coaching your team,
or you’re training as a coach, you can engage in this process just the
same and use the journaling prompts if you are self-coaching. Even
if you are not a coach with no previous psychology training but you
have a passion for self-development and nature, I have designed this
process so you can coach yourself through it. You may enjoy the
help of a friend or colleague or fnd enough support with your jour-
nal as your coaching partner.
The WHY and the WHAT and the WHERE are in part one, the
HOW is in part two – a step-by-step guide to Positive Visioning. In
part three we look at the impact this way of coaching has on clients
and on coaches, looking at both wellbeing and business impact.
In part four I am in dialogue with my award-winning supervisor
Peter Hawkins about what we envision as a natural development for
coaching and for the Positive Vision Days.
I hope this will encourage coaches and leaders to explore and
deepen into areas of joy and passion during this coaching process.
This is an invitation for a collective deep breath and an opportu-
nity to connect with ourselves and nature in order that we can be
of better service to our clients and communities: it is time for us to
gently step away from the feelings of being on a hamster wheel, the
treadmill, and break some of our addiction to screens. Nature
patiently waits to help support us in coaching our clients in a spa-
cious and renewing manner.

Introduction – my why – how Positive Vision Days were born

Here I am, staring with glazed eyes through the non-view of my
London study window at my narrow strip of garden, feeling the
lurch of a heart sink. It’s 2008. I’m getting ready for a long-dreamt-of
 INTRODUCTION 3
move with my family, 100 miles away to Bath. I had been bubbling
with excitement, but now feel defated. All bubbles gone.
I am talking with a friend of a friend – who it turns out will
become my friend (and colleague), but I don’t know that yet.
“…and don’t think you’ll ever get business down here. There is
none”, Sharon’s tone felt dark to my ears through the phone.
“Really? None?”
“Nope”, she dug deeper. “It’s the graveyard of ambition here”.
Oh. It is taking time for this new information to register... No
coaching business in Bath. No wonder the reality of it makes my
spirit slump…
My imminent move to Bath, which has always been greeted with
cries of such envy: “You’re so lucky. What a beautiful city!”
Until now.
This was the frst darkened shadow thrown over my impending
move from London to Bath by a fellow coach who had herself
moved there from London some fve years earlier.
I put down the phone, dispirited.
Aha …I thought …Maybe she’s depressed?
I promptly called Sandra, our mutual friend who had put us in
touch. “Is Sharon depressed?”, I asked.
“No, not at all, she’s very upbeat and, actually Fi, you should
listen to her – she’s smart and very business-savvy”.
Oh.
Maybe she’s wrong, I half-heartedly told myself.
But…what if she is right?
What then? What will I do?
I don’t want to be commuting to London fve days a week. As a
family we were making the move for a better quality of life, and even
though I needed my London-based coaching business to conintue
thriving, three days of commuting was the plan. I needed to develop
local business for the other two days. Constant commuting would
impede the quality of life we were seeking by a move out of the city
that had been our home for 20 years. Now I was seeking something
gentler and more beautiful for our children and our family lifestyle.
Well, I pondered, if I don’t want to go to London more than
three days a week, and there is no local business… then London
must come to me. I need to create something that will make people
want to come to Bath to see me.
4 INTRODUCTION

If you build it, they will come.

What? Had I heard that? Was I having an auditory hallucination?
That mantra from the movie Field of Dreams1 kept ringing in my ears.
If you build it, they will come.
What would I build, though?
Something that would make a busy London executive happy to
hop on a train from Paddington and travel 90 minutes. What would
make them come?
I did not want to ofer residential; I did not want to do “training”;
and I did not want to do group sessions. I wanted to do coaching,
intensive coaching, transformational coaching. One on one.
That’s it! I thought. That’s it.
A mini retreat. A day of thinking. A day of visioning. A day to
restore the soul. The reawakening of what is important. A reconnec-
tion to values, confdence, vision, purpose, a North Star. Call it what
you will. But I wanted to help these execs fnd all that had been lost
along the way: meaning; mojo; self. The plot.
It was also a chance to be in nature and enjoy the restorative pow-
ers of Bath’s renowned healing waters and seven hills. To be able to
bathe one’s eyes in the glowing honey stone curves of the architec-
ture and the undulating green felds and parks surrounding. To fol-
low the river, the canal, to be held by the serene green. Green was
what I longed for. I felt clients would beneft from the same.
“Taking the waters” is what it was called in the 1800s when
sophisticated Londoners came to Bath for restoration – so perhaps
this could be a modern taking the waters equivalent for today’s
stressed executive.
If you build it, they will come.
The auditory hallucination started to become a visualisation.
I was starting to picture in my mind’s eye what this would and could
look like. Yet, it did not exist other than in my head. I was living in
London. I had no house in Bath, let alone a venue or a sense of
where this mini-retreat could take place. However, I knew, I deeply
knew, if I built it, they would come.
I needed to think more about positioning, naming and, impor-
tantly, how to design and structure these retreat days. I was midway
through my Master’s in positive psychology and I was writing my
thesis on visioning (well, its more academic descriptor was “mean-
ingful goal setting in coaching to create fourishing”) and I knew
 INTRODUCTION 5
I wanted to help people connect to their vision and fnd meaning
and purpose.
I had some strange fears emerging around this vision. I knew “my
why”, but hadn’t yet worked out “my how”.
I needed some coaching. I hired Sue Knight, author and NLP
(Neuro Linguistic Programming) trainer and coach trainer, with a
track record of life-changing international retreats.2 It’s hard to fnd
time in her schedule when she is in the UK and not delivering a
training or a keynote, but we managed to schedule two sessions in
her beautiful home. She successfully runs retreats in Kerala and in
France. I fnd her a positive role model: I like her humour, her hon-
esty and her lack of afectation and I admire her coaching skills.
I told her my ideas, my worries and fears and, over tea and biscuits
in her front room, she helped me bring them to life.

Coaching interventions that helped me on my way

Three things signifcantly helped me. First, Sue encouraged me…
do what you love doing and if nobody shows up, be willing to do it
on your own anyway.
This helped me choose lovely venues and beautiful walks but, most
importantly, it meant I was energetically sending out the right message.
This exists. This is going to happen and it’s going to be good.
Second, I was worried about how was I going to make clients feel
it was worth the efort and expense of coming. How could I con-
vince all my London clients to come to me when I normally travelled
to them? What made me diferent from a personal trainer insisting
his clients travel two hours for their work out? Sue challenged me
not to worry about the clients “travelling”; she encouraged me to
see it as part of their coaching journey versus a physical journey. This
allowed me to trust that whatever happened on their journey was
something that added to their experience of travelling away from
their problem and into a more hopeful future.
I had become bizarrely stuck, anxious and obsessed over certain
details. Should I be the one to source and book travel for my clients?
Would they resent having to pay for travel? Would they fnd the
venue only with difculty?
Sue reassured me with her humorous anecdotes about how her
delegates travel halfway across the world with deliberately succinct
6 INTRODUCTION

and basic instructions of where to be in India, for example, be here,

at a given time on a given day. They have to make their own way
there by plane, coach, taxi, tuk tuk… whatever it takes. It made
Paddington to Bath Spa look laughingly easy.
By highlighting the ludicrous nature of some of the barriers we
create in our own minds, Sue conveyed to me that the journey and
its challenges (or joys) become part of the personal story that unfolds
for the client during the day. It is integral to the experience. This has
proven to be consistently true.
Over a decade on, I can observe my clients arriving in Bath
full of joy from their trance-like experience of being lulled on a
train journey with beautiful views, or buzzing with productivity
if they have completed the equivalent of half a day’s work by the
time they arrive. Not one of my clients has ever complained or
expressed discomfort at having to get themselves to Bath. In fact,
they say the opposite: that the physical act of distancing them-
selves from their city of work and their problems has a profoundly
positive impact on their state of mind. That it is time well spent
with themselves.
Third, Sue helped engage a part of me that makes things happen.
Within NLP coaching, there is a powerful technique called “parts
integration” that acknowledges diferent aspects of yourself that are
in confict and want diferent things for you, but ultimately are aim-
ing for your higher good. The confict often results in nil action.
The NLP coach encourages you to name these aspects of yourself
and identity their personalities with catch phrases and their hopes
and fears. Ultimately, the NLP coach is aiming to help us integrate
the sense of multiple parts or conficted parts of ourselves and to
“negotiate” between them to fnd the place of positive intentions
that all these parts of ourselves have for us to allow some more fruit-
ful action to take place instead of an internal argument that prevents
us moving forward.
Sue got me to identify and therefore activate a part of me whom,
with her enticement, I nicknamed Mr Bombastic. This is the part of
me that had been very present when I frst set up my business in
2000, but whom I had buried for the best part of a decade. I fnd Mr
Bombastic to be overconfdent, verging on arrogant, full of chutz-
pah and expectant of total success. Successful but insensitive. Mr
Bombastic does not even contemplate failure and expects to be liked
 INTRODUCTION 7
wherever he goes. I had shut him down and shut him out fnding
him unpleasant and to be a true likeness of his name.
Sue helped resurrect that part of me and reconcile his strength
and energy, all that was needed to start making things happen. I
wanted Mr Bombastic on board as a consultant, but I had to negoti-
ate with the other parts of me that did not appreciate his brash style.
I reassured them that he was hired only for the launch period; we
needed his get-up-and-go. He came up with three diferent ideas for
three diferent days to be sold as “products” under the overarching
theme of “Coaching Intensives”: Vision Day, Restorative Day,
Breakthrough Day. He designed three diferent brochures and got
them into the printers in 24 hours (Quite a big deal back in the day!).
He started talking to clients about the coaching intensives, ofer-
ing some a discount and some a place for free in order to get feed-
back from people that had been trusted clients over the years or to
ofer this as a way of saying thank you to previous clients. Within
two weeks, we had bookings lined up. It was enough to get started.
Only one problem.
The Positive Vision Days still did not exist. It was only in my
head.
I had decided to hire Mr Bombastic merely to get this of the
ground. I put him to bed again after this stage. His contract was over
because I wanted to do this in a gentle, more authentic way – not
the Mr Bombastic way.
I had to make it happen without Mr Bombastic.

Positive Vision Days begin

I wake up to the realisation that the move to Bath is imminent. This
needs to happen as it’s all been set up. There is no looking back. But
I still don’t have a venue.
I take a day of work in London the week before we moved to
Bath and I searched for venues that “felt” beautiful whilst still pro-
fessional.
I fnd one. A big hotel, a bit too corporate but I fnd a hidden
room within it that looks across beautiful gardens and out to Bath’s
hills beyond. It has a gorgeous large balcony that sits above the
impressive frontage of the hotel. I fnd a lovely walk along the canal,
out towards the hills. I fnd a lovely deli to have a light lunch in.
8 INTRODUCTION

And so it happens, the long-awaited move. The longing over.

The dream realised and the vision becoming a reality. We move
from London to Bath, move the family into our new house and two
days later step into my frst Positive Vision Day with a client.
I was nervous and excited. My client, Gemma, was nervous and
excited. We had a whole day together. I had outlined the ground we
would cover in the Mr Bombastic invitation, but now I had to make
this hold together in six hours of coaching.
The day had a shape…it began at 10 am and fnished at 4 pm. We
sat by a window with beautiful views. It had a lunch break and a long
walk in the middle. I knew I wanted to use all the coaching exercises
in my “toolkit” that would help my client get to a Positive Vision. I
wanted to integrate these with positive psychology concepts that were
exciting me in my Master’s. I felt the structure would emerge.
As the day went on, I noticed something felt diferent, special.
Coaching always gives a warm glow of satisfaction. The emotional
response of our clients, who feel heard and understood with true
compassion, is one of expansion. There is a rise in confdence that
you can spot in their body language and a visible rise in energy.
But …something diferent was happening here…what was it?
It felt good. The energy was somehow turbocharged. The emo-
tions were heightened, tears, laughter, grief. The conversation was
honest and deepened throughout the day – noticeably shifting into
something empowering.
And boy, did this feel contagious. The sense of possibility was
visceral; in the excited way Gemma was now talking about her
career and actions she felt excited to take. We were experiencing a
deep trust and sense of connection between us. We both articulated
that we felt excited, full of hope and joy. The feelings had an ethe-
real quality to them – I noticed how our conversation had deepened
on the walk. Was it being in nature that was deepening our dia-
logue? It refreshed us both, building our energy for the afternoon
session whilst simultaneously strengthening our trust.
A chance to unfurl. The slightly tense, tight feeling that both of
us had at the start of the day was gone. We were in a deep connected
state. We were in synchrony.
Our breathing had matched, and our language had entwined as
we co-created and discussed Gemma’s strengths, her values her
meaning and her vision.
 INTRODUCTION 9
Gemma left energised and clear on her vision. I left that frst day
feeling energised and clear that my vision had the makings of some-
thing very magical indeed.
I ran as many as I could, as quickly as I could, to build up case
studies and work out what worked and what could be refned.
My day now had the shape of a diamond and I was starting to
realise from the feedback and my own observations that the six hours
needed more structure. The day needed pre- and post-work.
The morning was about divergent thinking – keeping the energy
high and coming at things from diferent perspectives, the walk was
to deepen and to start to integrate, and the afternoon to be conver-
gent and action-oriented.
The day was like a blank sheet of Magic Paper – a blank sheet that
as we brushed over lightly with water, beautiful colours and an exist-
ing picture would emerge. That was the client’s vision, but it was
also the case for me.
Each time I conducted a Positive Vision Day with a client, I asked
for rigorous feedback.
What worked, why? What didn’t work, why? How did they feel
about travelling?
What did they think about the venue, the walk, the food, the
exercises? What were the expectations? How could I improve it?
What were they left with?

Figure 0.1 The Early Positive Vision Day Outline.

10 INTRODUCTION

What became clear was that we were working at a deep level

with this intensive way of coaching. The moving away from their
usual geography and immersing them in a beautiful setting with time
outdoors was important – and the opportunity to deepen into an
entire day felt like they could catch up and reclaim all the fractured
lost parts of their thinking or indeed themselves.
As one of my clients, Chris, said:
It helped me to fully re-appraise myself and to identify and enhance
aspects of myself that had been unappreciated or even neglected. I walked
away from the Vision Day with a new sense of purpose and re-fuelled with
self-belief.
I started to realise I had something special on my hands.
I refned the exercises. I needed to slow down a little. In my race
to get the clients to their grand visions, I was moving them into
goal-setting and visioning exercises too quickly. I slowed down by
adding in more pre-work to help them begin the journey of change
before they even arrived. I have long been fascinated by the power
of writing to help us with emotions and have been a journal writer
for most of my life. My masters had shown me how structuring
thinking with writing can help people with change, so I added more
open-ended questions that would stimulate the client’s thinking
before the day.
I experimented with starting the day diferently by introducing
something I called “The Download” – a chance to cathart and
become present by talking uninterrupted for 45 minutes when they
frst arrive. Then to have the coach present back a powerful inter-
pretation of that. Some claim that now as the most incredible part of
the day. To be heard uninterrupted and then to have feedback given
to what is trying to emerge.
I added in more positive psychology exercises, dropped a couple
of less impactful ones. I grew in confdence as I could see the process
having signifcant impact. I took the pre-work from being non-
existent to optional to mandatory.
I became unapologetic about the travel time knowing that clients
were enjoying this sense of investing their energy to working on
their vision in a diferent place to their usual work space.
I added in a six-week follow-up by telephone to increase account-
ability and of course to help my curiosity about what was happening
afterwards.
 INTRODUCTION 11
The walk remains whatever the weather. We walk in hail, snow,
rain, fog and sun. This, it transpires, is where most people get their
breakthrough thinking as the body relaxes into nature and a vision
starts to emerge with the new thoughts and ideas that have been
generated in the morning session.
I realised that with such an intense day, it was my role as a coach
to create exercises that keep energy up and the experience produc-
tive. I needed to create a semi-structured framework. I became
clearer and clearer about how the day was working.
I added in creative exercises, drawing, visualisations, co-creating
power questions, walking, talking, brainstorming. I dropped vision
boarding in the moment and rushing into goal-setting – instead, I set
a fowing framework which provided a strong holding space and
container with good boundaries that kept energy high yet seemed to
create a sense of spaciousness within it. The long invitation to down-
load at the start of the day, the restorative walk in nature in the
middle combined with the continuous references to what was
emerging in nature and between us as we sat within nature’s view
helps us slow and deepen into relationship and meaningful dialogue.

Figure 0.2 The Positive Vision Day Outline.

Sarah came to me as she was about to step into a chief executive

ofcer (CEO) role and usually very confdent, she was feeling ner-
vous about stepping into her predecessor’s shoes and fnding her
own vision and style of leadership.
She was a bit sceptical about the whole day format, but reported
that there is clearly something in the magical combination of the
pre-work, the type of questioning, the various visioning exercises
12 INTRODUCTION

and the changes in environment throughout the day (particularly the

walk in the middle) that helps you to gain a much better understand-
ing of your strengths and how best to approach the challenges you
face, to get right to the heart of the issues and to leave with some real
clarity as to what you should do about them.
Clients reported feeling cleansed and physically exhausted but
mentally energised as Sarah said;
“It feels like the professional equivalent of colonic irrigation and a rigorous
workout. I left exhausted but bursting with ideas as to what my action plan
should be”.
I have been trying to put my fnger on what is it that makes the
day feel so diferent from normal coaching. Is it just the fact it is six
hours? Is it time out in nature? Is it the positive psychology under-
pinning? Is it the mix of exercises?
As Peter Hawkins says in the Foreword – as humans, we have
always hankered “time out”, when we are wanting to think more
deeply. And in this day retreat, there is an invitation to look and
sense into an emerging future with a mix of the practical and the
beautiful. These leaders who may be cynical of anything too “deep”
or indulgent or therapeutic, those who would not naturally choose
a spiritual retreat or a yoga retreat, yet need some time to turn inward
and to renew, need some time in nature to notice a sense of perspec-
tive and rhythm.
It’s all of these things and more – Positive Vision Days ofer us a
beautiful way to give and receive coaching and they create a sense of
the magical …
One of my favourite thank yous I have ever received, my last
client before I broke for the Christmas holidays one year: James had
fown from the US to have a Positive Vision Day on the recommen-
dation of a colleague:
Little did I know that when I took the train this morning from London...
I would arrive in Narnia.
Well it was really Bath. But what an amazing transformation it was.
I spent the day sitting by a window, overlooking the snow, seeing a red
robin land and dart of, dialoguing with you – visioning, dreaming, planning
about me and my life.
I imagined my 80th birthday celebration – and looked back at each
decade.
Imagining the details, the feelings, the accomplishments.
 INTRODUCTION 13
I walked through the woods and talked about the three highs and three
low points of my life -- all with the lens of naming my core values.
I planned my career. Talked about privilege and power. Celebrated my
strengths.
Named my fears.
I prayed. I actually prayed for the frst time in years. All of a sudden it
was a hint of spring in Narnia.
And I returned from Narnia – a prince of Adam. The wardrobe will never
be the same.
What an investment in myself – what a gift. What a life I have to lead.
Thank you. Thank you.
As I settled into the Christmas break that year, I felt deeply ful-
flled. It really felt like I had built something that others were bene-
ftting from. I was living my life on purpose.
Clients leave restored and inspired; the spaciousness of one-
on-one coaching in a beautiful setting reminds them of who they
are, what they fully intended and intend to be and encourage them
to hurry home to make the changes they have chosen to embrace.
A decade on, I fnd these Positive Vision Days with clients are my
favourite work, my most important work. Here, I want to share the
journey with you. I hope it will inspire you to coach in a diferent
way that is more expansive and meaningful – for you and your cli-
ents. To take time out. To slow down. To spend more time in
natural beautiful settings and let nature work its magic.

An invitation to coaches to do things differently

Do what you love doing and be willing to do it anyway – even

if nobody shows up
Now …that is a powerful premise. I had lived in London for 20
years and I had a deep longing in my heart to move to a more beau-
tiful space and place. To enjoy a diferent pace of life. London’s
relentlessness was grinding down my spirit. I needed open spaces. I
wanted my children to experience what being surrounded by green
hills and fowing rivers felt like. I had grown up in a small market
town in Wales that had three rivers running through it and rolling
hills surrounding it. Life was full of bicycles, cricket and football in
the streets. Doors left open, beautiful views whichever way you
14 INTRODUCTION

looked and an environment that was unsophisticated in its urban

ofering that by default invited you to run, cycle and swim your way
outdoors through childhood. I had an urge to return to this kind of
environment, but I wasn’t sure what to do about work.
What if I couldn’t have everything? The lovely environment and
a full work schedule? As I highlighted previously, when Sue Knight
invited me to be so committed that whether a client was there or not
was secondary to my vision – something clicked. I knew that by
giving my all to the Positive Vision Day, even if it was solely for
myself, would prove my conviction, which, in turn, counter-
intuitively would attract clients.
We are taught that the best business ideas come when we analyse
our market and assess consumer needs, but the reverse can be true
too. It starts with a deep need in ourselves. When we fulfl that
need…we can engage with others that have the same need. The
hunger for time in nature when you work in a city-based ofce is
nothing new, because it is so universal and so real.
I was longing for nature and a slower pace; I no longer wanted to
commute, but I also didn’t want to lose my clients. But mostly, I
wanted deeper, more meaningful dialogue. I was fascinated by the
concept of our “future self” – in Psychology, a feld of study about
how we think about ourselves in the future.3 I became absorbed also
by the area of psychology that is connected to goal-setting.4 This is
such a fundamental area of coaching that I truly wanted to dive
deeply into understanding more about whether setting goals works
and if so what is the best way to do this?
I wanted to bring this knowledge to my coaching models and
processes to help the leaders I was working with become more efec-
tive. I learned that goal-setting is at its most efective when it is
linked to meaning and purpose.
I knew that I wanted to integrate my knowledge of positive psy-
chology more into my coaching business, and it jarred with me that
it felt so cold and scientifc and dry. How could I warm up the sci-
ence in a way that held meaning for leaders?
What happens when we give ourselves permission to coach dif-
ferently?
Roll forward to now – I spoke to a fellow coach recently who
had been trained in the Positive Vision Day methodology with me
some fve years ago and we hadn’t spoken or seen each other for a
 INTRODUCTION 15
few years. Her business is fourishing, she has found her voice and
she is embracing more coaching outdoors. She shares with me her
story and laughs “…actually you are the godmother of this – I can
still recall sitting in Bath looking out the window at those hills and
hearing your story and being shocked. ‘What do you mean you can
change the format of a coaching session just because it suits you’”?
It changed how she thought about her coaching business and
how she coaches. Does she faithfully follow the Positive Vision Day
framework? Not entirely. She has iterated upon this way of coaching
to fnd her own. She reported she is feeling more fulflled and ener-
gised than ever. I love being a godmother to this new birthing of
coaching – guess what happens to clients who are around someone
who is inspired and enlivened? Yes – it’s contagious.
Is it always easy?
When I was doing my Master’s in positive psychology, I did not
fnd it as positive as I had hoped. The irony! We were in the frst few
cohorts in Europe and the academics were “building the bridge as
they walked on it” to use the title of a great book by Kim Cameron
of Michigan University, one of my favourite researchers in Positive
Leadership.5 Sometimes it was an exciting experiential teaching
experience, but more often it was information overload on Power-
Points, sometimes 300 words to a slide of research. I am an experi-
ential learner, and so the overloaded PowerPoints in overlit
classrooms on a weekend after a full week at work and bringing up
two small children was draining and challenging for me and my
learning style. I was overstretched and it took its toll. Halfway
through the course, we made the move from London to Bath, which
meant I now had the stress of moving and settling the family into a
new city and school and a seven-hour round trip to get to that same
garish and brightly lit classroom. I thought long and hard about
dropping out. I started to angst that I could not sustain this without
burning out or failing to do justice to my own vision of a better
work-life balance in Bath. I feared I would compromise the very
things that I had been seeking with the move to Bath – more beauty,
more time with the children, more spaciousness in our lives.
I wanted to defer, but sensed I might never return to it. I called
my course tutor Ilona Boniwell.6 I was in awe of this woman. A
young, intelligent woman in her 30s at this point who had self-
taught herself positive psychology through an Open University
16 INTRODUCTION

degree, and then gone on to get a PhD and set up Europe’s frst
Master’s in positive psychology. I was and am still to this day
inordinately grateful for her creating this programme and I felt proud
to be involved at its outset in such an early cohort.
Ilona, I hoped, would ofer me some encouragement and guid-
ance. She did – but not in the way I had expected. I was hoping
maybe for some “special” treatment. I got none – just a clear and
direct talk about how much work would be entailed and that
I should indeed defer if I didn’t feel I could keep up.
Right then, better get a grip I thought.
I dug deep. I found some “grit”. Now a major part of the positive
psychology curriculum, “grit” is a concept made more accessible by
Angela Duckworth in her “Ted Talk” and bestselling book Grit: The
Power of Passion and Perseverance.7 Duckworth highlights grit as a
strength which she defnes as a passion and perseverance for long-
term goals. Grit is connected to success. Grit is what we all need
more of.
How did I get to feeling gritty when it felt in such short supply to
me? I recall sitting on a train being coached by my colleague and
friend Susan J who took a provocative approach: “Give it up then!”
She challenged me. “Go on. Just do it. Just defer”.
Darn it! That coaching style worked. My brain started corralling
all the reasons I did not want to give it up, and the intrinsic motiva-
tional fres started gently revving up again…
My thesis about the role of goal-setting in coaching fascinated
me. I homed in on how to use meaningful goal-setting in coaching
to fourish. I guess we would call it vision-based coaching these
days. One of my favourite areas that I was being drawn to in posi-
tive psychology was the work of Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd,
about what they call The Time Paradox – the concept of relation-
ship with time – and that we each hold biases in terms of our atti-
tudes towards time.8 Which is our favourite way of looking at
time? Their book The Time Paradox: The New Psychology of Time
That Will Change Your Life allows you to discover your own indi-
vidual relationship with time and gives you new ways to work and
understand and work with your past, present and future to improve
your life.
I was fascinated with this concept. As a busy young mum with a
coaching practice full of overly busy executives, my frst book was
 INTRODUCTION 17
about fnding balance amongst the spinning busyness of life. But I
didn’t realise there was a whole area of study which explored our
perception of time. Are we more biased to thinking about the
present, past or future, and whether this was negative or positive?
And, it turns out, how we relate to time, through which lens we
look, changes how we view life, productivity, fnances, relationships
and even health. This is where I developed my passion for the future
self and the importance of developing a relationship with it. The
more years that passed, the more I learned through psychology and
spirituality that at the deepest levels, we have no one singular self,
and developing a relationship with our complex multiple selves is
vital work for healthy maturation in life as well as our development
as a coach and leader.
I also became deeply engaged with the work of Barbara Fredrick-
son. At the time, she had become labelled as the “genius” of the
positive psychology movement with a seminal work about the role
that positive emotions play in our lives.9 What’s the point of them
from a psychological perspective? What do they give us? Why have
humans evolved to have such a range of them? Fredrickson’s work
accentuated the importance of the role that positive emotions play in
building up our resourcefulness and help with fourishing in the
present and the future. Some of her “maths” later got discredited
(about the exact ratio we need of positive emotions versus nega-
tive),10 but the overarching theory is still held in high esteem and she
still remains one of my favourite researchers. I often think it’s because
she named what we coaches see as something so evident and vital in
the coaching relationship: when the positive emotions increase,
ideas fow.
I intuitively resonated with her “Broaden and Build” model11 that
positive emotions increase resourcefulness, as I had seen it frst hand
as a coach for a decade and let’s face it from life. We all know that
things get better when we feel more positive. I also have referenced
and enjoyed her later work about the role of love, and the impact of
loving kindness meditation on positive emotion and cardiovascular
health. When Fredrcickson looks at mindfulness from a science
perspective – I see someone warming up the science pot – which
makes it often easier for coaches and clients to engage with. Fred-
rickson also wrote a book called Love 2.0 where she redefned love
as micro moments of connection between people, even strangers.12
18 INTRODUCTION

She demonstrates how we can strengthen these micro moments and

how they are linked to health and longevity.
So here I was as a Master’s student, becoming a little bit nerdy
about goal-setting, people’s relationship with time, particularly their
relationship with their future self and the impact that could have on
helping people create goals that had meaning and purpose for them.
And I was starting to understand if we could have more control over
our emotions, and create more positive ones most of the time…then
this could increase our quantity of ideas and enhance our resource-
fulness about how to achieve these goals.
In a nutshell – Help people to focus on the future they desire,
encourage them to access positive emotions and this will help their
ability to think about ways to fourish.
Savouring is defned as a process through which people can
increase their positive feelings by directing their attention to emo-
tionally relevant events in their past present and future.13
We are what we think about, and when we dwell on savouring a
happy past event, for instance, we have happier thoughts and that in
turn leads to enhanced sense of wellbeing. The same is for the future
– spending time savouring the anticipation of a fabulous holiday on
a sun-drenched recliner with delicious food and drink on tap or
being cosied up at Christmas with family helps positive emotions
arise within us. So active exercises that help savouring like talking
about positive experiences or journaling about them became part of
the Positive Visioning experience. When we go on the Values walk,
for example, we ask people to share and savour three peaks in their
lives. In the pre-work, we ask clients to savour what is going well in
their life and work. Savouring is a form of self-regulating our
thoughts. If we can increase positive thoughts, they can lead to a
more positive sense of life.
Summed up in this profound quote – attributed to many diferent
people:
Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they
become your actions; watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your
habits, they become your character; watch your character, it becomes your
destiny.
Positive Psychology was moving away from the initial constructs
of “happiness” and was concerning itself much more with the con-
cepts of fourishing and wellbeing.
 INTRODUCTION 19
Flourishing is “when people experience positive emotions, posi-
tive psychological functioning, most of the time”.14 It is a central
concept in positive psychology developed by psychologists Corey
Keyes and Barbara Lee Fredrickson,15 but made more famous by
Martin Seligman’s book Flourish.16 Seligman is considered the
founder of the Positive Psychology movement.
I liked this breadth. I didn’t want something “happy clappy” that
was false positivity or pseudo happiness. I knew from a decade of
coaching already that inside the minds of even high functioning
leaders, there is messiness, overplayed strengths, heartache, fears,
shattered dreams, stress and limiting beliefs. A big part of my job, I
always feel, is to help leaders wrestle with the psychological demons
that stand in the way of our growth and development. It’s an internal
battle that benefts from positive coaching.
In my second year, I was lucky enough to be assigned a desig-
nated Professor for my dissertation – a bubbly Canadian Professor
called Kate Heferon who had studied “Post-traumatic growth” for
her PhD.17
This was an area I resonated with instinctively in positive psy-
chology. A feld studying how people dealt with trauma – could
they emerge positively or was trauma always a bad thing? I was
aware how traumatic experience, like bereavements, cancer, acci-
dents, sudden loss of a job, can lead to an opportunity for personal
development in the aftermath. My father had died two years before
I studied for my masters, and I had been deeply afected. He had a
quick four months between diagnosis and death. A fast but deadly
brush with cancer and was relatively young in his early 70s and ft
and well, so we were not expecting it. I was very close to my dad
and was hit hard by his death. Yet, I had experienced a sense of per-
sonal growth and deeper engagement with life afterwards by turning
to the very things psychologists now highlight as positive healing
strategies in post-traumatic growth, including more time in nature,
becoming more spiritual, fnding deeper connections with close
relationships and creating a positive story or sense-making about the
bereavement.
It’s all about enabling the right conditions to support the healing.
For me, I called it my “back to basics” campaign as I took a little
time away from work, put some big life goals on hold – we got a
puppy, we started to go to a local church as a family, we walked
20 INTRODUCTION

more in nature, I got ft, I hired a personal trainer and I lost weight.
I spent more time with friends. Within a year, I felt better and stron-
ger than ever. When we moved to Bath, I became a trustee at a
cancer charity that helped people in a holistic way to live well with
cancer, looking at their emotions, stress, nutrition, spirituality as well
as their medical treatment. Over and over again, I would hear peo-
ple highlighting how they had grown from the experience of being
diagnosed with cancer. The trauma that fells you can also lead to
personal growth.
In truth, the Positive Vision Day framework, if I strip it down and
look back a decade later, is a walking and talking version of my
positive psychology passions and my thesis (about meaningful goal-
setting in coaching to enable fourishing). All the time I was inte-
grating and synthesising these concepts and thinking, but I didn’t
know it at the time.
The Positive Vision Day process is a lot more refned than that
very frst magical but unstructured day with Gemma, it is now a
semi-structured coaching framework of 15 diferent steps which I
can clearly articulate and teach others about. I can link it back to the
psychological theories that underpin it.
I had been delivering Vision Days for about four years when
Peter Hawkins, my supervisor, encouraged me to start sharing this
methodology. “You have something unique here”, he said.
I was nervous. I don’t like big group work and I wasn’t sure how
to communicate it in a broken-down way. I had become uncon-
sciously competent in my process.
Fortuitously, a solution presented itself. My friend and coaching
colleague Sandra Visser had moved to Boulder, Colorado, at the
same time I had moved to Bath. She was drawn to the mountains; I
was drawn to green hills. We were both moving towards a vision of
our lives that we were longing for. Sandra found she was getting
clients but was struggling to build a commercially viable coaching
practice. I was buzzing on a high with how wonderful the Positive
Vision Days were, and so we agreed she should learn how to do
them and ofer to her clients in Boulder, Colorado, up in the moun-
tains.
We agreed a quid pro quo. I would teach her the methodology
and she would scribe it in detail, probing me and quizzing me for
more details about the academic underpinnings and the coaching
 INTRODUCTION 21
protocols. Our end goal was that she would be “certifed” and I
would have a training “manual”. We enjoyed the process so much
that each year she would fy back to the UK and we would co-
facilitate a magical three-day retreat training programme for coaches
together.
And so here we are, over a decade on, and I can say with
complete and utter conviction from my own experiences the
extraordinary testimonials from clients who have enjoyed their
Vision Days and the positive experiences from coaches who learn
the methodology.
It’s a beautiful way to coach… and to be coached.

CLAIRE
Issue: Claire was a senior executive and had been badly bruised by a
series of stressful, traumatic events that had knocked her confidence.
She wanted to use the Vision Day to think about a possible future out-
side of her industry whilst still maintaining a graceful exit and a low-
risk career shift and an internal succession plan.
I chose a Vision Day, as I liked the chance to really focus and the chance
of follow up. It intrigued me. I also liked leaving London and doing the
train journey to Bath. It felt like an adventure.
I was excited, though naturally slightly apprehensive. I had a recent
traumatic time at work and was picking myself up from that, and hoped
this would be a new way of helping me process and move on from that
deeply upsetting experience.
I remember feeling a mounting sense of excitement and optimism. I
found the writing and drawing very useful for me as they were not my
usual tools of self-exploration. I found the questions useful, and it felt like
a very intimate and quietly revelatory conversation.
What has remained is a sense of curiosity about exploring new ways to
grow. I was also very struck by the way I had processed the trauma, which
meant it had become a growing and developing experience.
Post-traumatic growth. I recognised the truth of that, and I felt
pleased I had taken myself seriously. It gave me confdence.
The whole day was a revelation but the care around it delighted me:
the room, the garden, the walk, the sense of luxuriating in attention and
the quality and wisdom of that attention. I loved the methods and the
books being laid out. I even liked those green striped curtains!
22 INTRODUCTION

I started trying to build more self-care into the start of the day – yoga,
a walk, journaling. I am still fairly hopeless, and this is an ongoing project.
Looking back, I also think I started to unconsciously pack my bags in
preparation for departing my organisation, which I did in a few of years’
time – very happily.
I am sure others noticed my self-confdence increase. Several col-
leagues commented on how light and liberated I appeared after a very
tough time. I think the Vision Day was important in helping me recognise
a deep personal resilience which I did not quite believe I had.
Looking back, I think the Vision Day dramatically increased my
self-confdence, which had been badly battered. I felt I was moving for-
ward again and could dig inside myself for strength.
Coach observation:
Claire hadn’t realised quite how much resilience she had already
shown in the face of adversity, and a chance to spend time rewriting her
whole narrative helped her witness her career story in a new light.
Claire had become over-identified with both her organisation and her
status within that role. This identity meant she was fearful that once
she lost her “role power”, would she still be able to thrive and be wanted
in the business world. We used the visioning experience to help her
connect with her “personal power” and a more authentic life vision that
existed outside and beyond the organisation.

So, my fellow coaches and leaders who coach, start on the path
that fascinates you. It will change and morph as time goes on; you
will receive feedback; you will check in with your own enjoyment
and energy … but the most important advice I can give you is to
make a start… as you never know where it might lead. We all know
the famous phrase…The secret to getting ahead is to get started.

REFLECTIONS AND JOURNALING PROMPTS

For coaches and leaders wanting to connect into deeper purpose
with their work:

• What do I love doing?

• What would I show up for even if I didn’t get paid?
• What holds me back?
 INTRODUCTION 23
• Who else has these same problems?
• Which areas of psychology, coaching or leadership am I attracted
to?
• What tiny steps could I do to follow my passions in this area?
• Who do I most want to serve?
• Which are the communities or people that I would like to help
more?
• What are the fractured bits of me I like and do not like?
• Which are the parts of me I would like to explore?

NOTES
1 Robinson, P. A. (1989). Field of Dreams (flm). Universal Pictures.
2 Knight, S. (2020). NLP at Work: The Diference that Makes the Diference
(4th ed.). London: Nicholas Brealey Publishing.
3 Gilbert, D. (2014, March). The Psychology of Your Future Self [video]. Ted
Conferences. https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_the_psychology_
of_your_future_self. See also Zimbardo, P. G., & Boyd, J. (2008). The
Time Paradox: The New Psychology of Time that Will Change Your Life. New
York: Free Press.
4 See, for instance, King, A. (2001). The health benefts of writing about
life goals. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27(1), 798–807. See
also Miller, C. A. (2011). Creating Your Best Life: The Ultimate Gift
Guide. London: Sterling.
5 Quinn, R. E. (2004). Building the Bridge as You Walk on It: A Guide for
Leading Change. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
6 Publications include Boniwell, I. (2012). Positive Psychology in a Nutshell:
The Science of Happiness. London: Open University Press.
7 Duckworth, A. (2017). Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance.
London: Vermillion.
8 Zimbardo, P. G., & Boyd, J. (2008). The Time Paradox: The New
Psychology of Time that Will Change Your Life. New York: Free Press.
9 Fredrickson, B. (2009). Positivity: Top-Notch Research Reveals the 3-to-1
Ratio that Will Change Your Life. New York: Crown.
10 Brown, N. J. L., Sokal, A. D., & Friedman, H. L. (2013). The complex
dynamics of wishful thinking: The critical positivity ratio. American
Psychologist, 68(9), 801–813.
11 Fredrickson, B. L. (2004). The broaden-and-build theory of positive
emotions. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series
B, Biological Sciences, 359(1449), 1367–1378.
12 Fredrickson, B. (2013). Love 2.0. New York: Hudson Street Press.
24 INTRODUCTION

13 Bryant, F. B., & Verof, J. (2017). Savoring: A New Model of Positive

Experience. London: Taylor and Francis.
14 Keyes, C. L. M. (2002). The mental health continuum: From languish-
ing to fourishing in life. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 43(2),
207–222.
15 Fredrickson, B. L., & Losada, M. F. (2005). Positive afect and the com-
plex dynamics of human fourishing. The American Psychologist, 60(7),
678–686.
16 Seligman, M. E. P. (2011). Flourish. North Sydney, N.S.W.: Random
House Australia.
17 She has now published on this topic. See Kampman, H., & Heferon,
K. (2020). ‘Find a sport and carry on’: Posttraumatic growth and
achievement in British Paralympians. International Journal of Wellbeing,
10(1), 67–92.
 PART I

WHY, WHAT AND WHERE

 1

THE WHY AND THE WHAT

WHAT IS A BEAUTIFUL WAY TO COACH?

Quite simply, it goes like this: a step into nature, the gift of a whole
day, and a deep connection with another human being as you watch
them simultaneously return to their inner self and envision a better
self in the future. As hope rises, hearts expand. Diferent, more pos-
itive futures emerge. Beautiful trees and beautiful hills hold our gaze.
The green earth is soft beneath our feet. I love this kind of day; the
beauty is in nature. The beauty is in you. The beauty is in me. The
beauty is in what we jointly see – both in the physical world outside
ourselves and what is emerging in our own internal worlds.
A Beautiful Way to Coach has four components: Spaciousness,
Nature-Based Coaching, Positive Future Focus and Beautiful Power
Questions. Let’s have a look at these components now.

Spaciousness
Why create a rush with coaching? Why squeeze it in to an already
crammed day?
When I frst started coaching, I was already committed to trying
to help busy people think more clearly and slow down. In order to
achieve this, I particularly like to create a sense of space and time…
a sense that there is nowhere else to go and that nothing is more
important than what this person is saying. What a gift that is to
clients – what a gift it is to anybody! It’s a rare fnd to land on leaders
who create a sense of spaciousness during a typical work week. The
workplace is a busy and hurried space. Stepping out can give us

DOI: 10.4324/9781003220657-3
28 WHY, WHAT AND WHERE

some much needed headspace. Add in a beautiful setting and a

compassionate yet challenging thinking partner and you also get
heartspace – by which I mean a chance for the heart to beat coher-
ently, to metaphorically expand, versus the tightness and contraction
we feel when we get scared – and thus allowing more opportunity
for change and personal growth.
When I frst started coaching, it was normal for sessions to last just
an hour. I launched my coaching business with an unapologetic
invitation to invest time in coaching. To take half a day. We would
schedule three- or four-hour sessions where we would take that half
a day to work through some juicy strategic leadership issues: forward
planning, restructuring and stakeholder mapping. The extended ses-
sion time would give us spaciousness not only to deal with the exter-
nal business landscape, but to grapple with the inner war the leader
might be experiencing. A chance to explore and integrate those
well-known psychological demons, gremlins, imposters or inner
critics.
Somewhere along the way, I got a little sucked back into the
“busyness” model and started shortening my regular sessions; even
so, it only felt bearable to me because I knew there was a whole day
out of the ofce I could ofer clients, if I felt we were getting too
rushed or transactional in the coaching.
Interestingly, during the lockdowns of the 2020/2021 COVID-
19 pandemic, when we all moved to Zoom coaching, I shortened
coaching sessions even more, as everyone was so fatigued from back-
to-back video conferencing. So, I started to take my clients outside
virtually instead of physically in order to create the feeling of spa-
ciousness. We would put our earphones in our ears and head out for
a virtual walk and talk. Exercise, fresh air and professional develop-
ment. A triple whammy of delight, resulting in a greater sense of
spaciousness and with a wider horizon than a Zoom screen.
Back to life outside of lockdown, then – imagine a whole day of
space. A whole day of coaching, an entire day of site to talk about
yourself, your vision, values and strengths, the stories of your life so
far, the highs and lows, the hurts and disappointments. A whole day
really gives people the space to breathe, talk, draw, visualise, craft big
powerful questions and create energising plans that will get done.
This kind of thing just doesn’t happen in the middle of a busy day.
We need time to step outside… for a day. The impact of one day
 THE WHY AND THE WHAT 29
can be surprising; a new day is a new beginning, or at the least a
possibility of a new beginning. Celtic philosopher and poet John
O’Donohue has this to say about a day:

Your life becomes the shape of the days you inhabit. Days enter us. Sadly
in modern life, the day is often a cage.The day is so often experienced as
a cage…precisely because it is spent in the workplace.1

Our job as leaders and coaches, then, is to fnd a way to reconnect

with creativity and self-expression through the work we do, both
for ourselves and for our clients. We can take that cage of a day and
unlock it – by creating the spaciousness to use the tools of coaching
with enough time and heartspace to really access the freedom of
the day.
And we know this is more than just nice words – it works. Leaders
will often forget the hour of coaching, however punchy it is – simply
because it is just another meeting amongst the noise of the work life.
However, I have seen and heard that they don’t forget their Vision
Days. Recently, I revisited clients from a decade ago, to interview
them with about what happened next for them. Strikingly, what I
noticed is that what clients recount is not so much what they learned
as how they felt on that day. Many also claim the Vision Day as a
turning point for when life improved for them. Here are some of
their words on the matter:

• “I often think of it, as it changed my life”

• “I think about the 80th birthday all the time”
• “Life became better after my day”
• “I always tell people about the 80th birthday exercise – it gives
them goosebumps”

Nature-based coaching
I have often noticed that when the eye rests on green hills, breathing
alters. When I walk and talk together with a client, shoulder to
shoulder through woods and felds and a wide open expanse, I notice
our bodies relax, creativity rises and perspective expands. To me,
this is about using nature as our inspiring teacher and letting nature
share its wisdom. Taking clients outside a sterile air-conditioned or
30 WHY, WHAT AND WHERE

centrally heated environment and letting their mind and body unfurl
is a beautiful sight to experience.
Psychologist Abraham Maslow (a founding father of positive
psychology, especially with reference to his oft-cited hierarchy of
needs) was interested in what he called Health and Growth Psy-
chology and Being and Becoming Psychology. In his book Toward
a Psychology of Being,2 he describes what he terms a “peak experi-
ence” – an experience which can happen feetingly, but comes
with a sense of deep connection and awareness that we are part of
something bigger that makes sense. This moment might not last
very long, but is enough to allow us a glimpse of the desired future,
our vision of what’s possible for us and within us. From what I
have seen, these peak experiences are much more likely to happen
in a natural setting. Unencumbered by ofce politics, ergonomic
furniture and mass interruptions and distractions, nature lets every-
thing coalesce into a whole and perspective brings clarity and
inspiration.

Positive future focus

I have always loved thinking about the future: planning-dreaming,
goal-setting, daydreaming, hoping. It turns out that not everyone
does, though. There is a large proportion of successful leaders who
fnd themselves able to strategise for the future of the business, but
not so easily for themselves. A common lament I hear is “I never
have time to think about myself or what’s next”.
The way I see it, our ability to envision the future is a gift,
something that separates us from other species. As is our ability to
dream up something that does not yet exist, then work backwards
from that visualised point in order to make it happen. Momentous
bridges, NASA space ships, huge building projects, the Olympic
games – they all demand a strong vision of the future and immense
planning to get there. This ability to project forwards is, in my
opinion, the most underutilised area of our thinking. Often, peo-
ple don’t like to think about their future because they feel scared;
perhaps this comes from an existential angst about dying or a fear
that if they commit to planning too intensely, they will fail or be
disappointed with the result. When we encourage a positive future
focus, as opposed to an avoidance or fear of the future, it allows us
 THE WHY AND THE WHAT 31
to think of ourselves like the potential held in nature – the acorn
has its future massive oak inside it, a plant seed dug into a garden
has its future ready to emerge and we have futures that could
unfurl. The Vision Day gives us a sense of the acorn in us to see
the possible mighty oak, to see what could be and what our legacy
beyond our time at work and indeed on this earth could be. When
we help people do a mental rehearsal or time travel in the mind
towards their desired future, it can be full of riches and perspective
that help drive and motivate a person forward. When we, as
coaches, help the client build and deepen their relationship with
their future self and the contribution and impact of that self on the
world around them on both people and planet – that’s when
magic can happen.

Beautiful power questions

Beautiful questions are big questions that demand the client get
beneath the skin to look hard at meaningful things. The answers will
help shape their identities and therefore their futures and their lives.
As coaches, we are taught the power of questions to unlock fresh
thinking and perspectives in the brain. But not all questions are the
same. Closed questions, leading questions or small questions that
shut us down or make us feel guilty, ashamed or inadequate are what
we can often fnd ourselves asking when we are in a rut. Maybe this
kind of mental rumination sounds familiar:

• What am I doing with my life?

• Why do I always procrastinate?
• Why can’t I be more like her?
• What’s wrong with me?

With beautiful power questions, however, we use language that is

invitational and expansive, choosing words and questions that sup-
port personal growth and perspective, not rather than creating a
sense of diminishment and negativity:

• Who am I becoming?
• How can I be more aligned to my strengths?
• What is calling me forward in the world?
32 WHY, WHAT AND WHERE

• What brings me joy?

• What enlivens me?
• Where can I contribute more?
• What can I learn about myself?
• Who can I serve?
• What is nature asking from us?
• What is a positive legacy for me?
• What sustains me?

Some of these questions can feel very big and abstract, and so we
work together to fnd a set of words that both open up our hearts
and minds and feel real and purposeful. In a Vision Day, this can
often be linked into leadership, and the most useful questions are
those which bring together two seemingly opposed forces:

• How can I be generously available to my people, yet carve out

time for myself?
• How can I deliver the day job and be planting seeds for my
future legacy?
• How might I be a positive available parent for my children and
still drive the ambition of my business?
• Where can I bring more of myself to the world?
• How can I enjoy learning how to believe in myself more?

Beautiful questions weren’t initially a conscious part of my Vision

Day planning – in fact, I didn’t even name them. The phrase “beau-
tiful questions” comes from David Whyte, a poet and philosopher,
in his work on the “beautiful mind” inspired by the work of John
O’Donohue.3 It was as I listened to Whyte speak on the topic that I
realised this is what a Positive Vision Day does: it asks beautiful ques-
tions that help shape a beautiful future. Whyte and O’Donohue and
their work and words helped me to name and describe a principle
and practice that I now realise has been central to the nature of
Visions Days since their conception.
When we ask power questions that are essentially beautiful in
their shape and scope, when we take some of the bigger questions
out into nature and create a safe psychological space for them to be
explored… then we have the beginning of beautiful questions that
help shape identity.
 THE WHY AND THE WHAT 33
REFLECTIONS AND JOURNALING PROMPTS FOR
COACHES AND LEADERS WANTING TO EXPLORE
DIFFERENT COACHING PRACTICES
How can you incorporate a little piece of each of these four compo-
nents into your leadership or coaching?

• Spaciousness – How might you give yourself or someone you

are talking to longer for a conversation or some refection time?
• Positive Future Focus – Write about a positive future you’d
like to see with your best possible self showing up.
• Nature – Spend time in nature today, anywhere. Go for a walk
or suggest a meeting with someone in nature.
• Beautiful Power Questions – Start to craft a few questions
that feel rather beautiful to you. If you’re stuck, try starting with
the following sentence:
“How might I create …?”

WHAT IS POSITIVE VISIONING?

A vision, simply put, is a picture of the future. A positive vision then
is a picture or sense of the future that enlivens and energises us. The
vision should be of a desired future; perhaps a personal vision of some-
thing we would like to move towards in our life. Importantly, what a
vision is not, is a goal or a strategy. It doesn’t even have to be com-
pletely realistic at the start – now is the time to dream unrealistically.
A Positive Vision Day puts us back into rhythm with our signa-
ture strengths and raises our confdence of the potential brightness of
our own future. What I have found is that we coaches can energise
goal-setting most efectively when we encourage our clients to
savour the future. Taking time out to refect on our possible future
selves allows an expansion of energy and intrinsic motivation to
change and move towards that desirable future; a future which has
meaning and purpose for us.

How goal-setting and positive future visioning relate

As an executive coach for the last 20 years, coaching business
executives and training coaches, I have witnessed continually the
34 WHY, WHAT AND WHERE

profound efect that goal-setting, done well, has in the coaching

process. In executive coaching, goal-setting resonates with clients as
it mirrors the goal-setting culture of organisations, and it is paid for
by the organisation with a view to having a tangible set of goals or
objectives met and results achieved. So far so good: organisations
want goals met; coaching processes have goal-setting at the heart of
them, what’s difcult about that?
What has become clear to me, however, is the difculty that
many coaches experience in practicing efective goal-setting, even
though almost all coaches understand efortlessly how important
efective goal-setting is. In other words, there is a very large gap
between the theoretical understanding of goal-setting in the coach-
ing process and the delivery of it in practice. So what does efective
goal-setting look like?
What is clear, frst of all, is that efective goal-setting is energis-
ing and creates positive emotion as the client focuses on a vision of
themselves and their future they fnd pleasing. Boyatzis et al., in
their book Helping People Change, say this happens when people
activate and become anchored in their “positive emotional attrac-
tor” (PEA).4 I call this “Fizzing”. This fzz is quite tangible; there
is a visible diference in the client, a shift in body language and a
notable rise in energy, usually a smile or laughter or an increased
sense of connectedness in their relationship with the coach. Often,
the description of the client’s inner landscape might reveal this
shift:

• I feel lighter versus weighed down

• Feeling like a bird versus caged animal
• Warmed organs versus cold heart

Maybe the client then expresses verbally that their emotions about
their situation move from fear, tightness or confusion to excite-
ment, lightness and clarity. The ultimate sign of the fzz is an
emphatic nod  – the congruent “Yes”. Yes, this is what I want in
my life.
So why is this fzz so difcult to facilitate? Part of it is the attrac-
tion of the problem. After all, we all love to tell our stories – but
because we love a good story, we can easily get enmeshed in and
 THE WHY AND THE WHAT 35
focused on our problems, which makes it harder to see a way
through them. Sometimes as coaches, the biggest challenge is to get
a client to shift out of their problem state and even be willing to
engage in a goal-setting mental state. It is especially challenging to
get to this mindset quickly.
Boyatzis et al. refer to the problem state as the negative emo-
tional attractor (NEA).5 This is often accompanied by “should” and
“ought” or outside instructions, which can stand in the way of
change happening. We need both the negative and positive moti-
vators for growth to happen, of course, but getting the balance right
is important – and it is usually the positive that is needed frst, as
most people will have a healthy helping of negative already. This is
where a backdrop of caring, compassionate coaching can act as the
tipping point to get energy fzzing and motivation rising in the
change process.
The release of energy and creativity from powerful goal-setting
is vital in the Positive Visioning coaching process, as it creates a
momentum that can then be used to generate ideas and strategies,
which, in turn, enable clients to solve their current problems. The
positive emotions experienced by the client (hope, pride, excite-
ment, happiness, optimism), as they articulate a desired future, cre-
ate this expanded “thought-action repertoire”, which allows them
to answer the coach’s questions with more creativity and resource-
fulness than if the client and coach remain talking about the prob-
lem (sometimes called reality or the context). In discussing problems,
energy visibly drains as emotions are often negative (anger, frustra-
tion, fear, guilt, anxiety, jealousy), and their thought to action rep-
ertoire is contracted. The coach’s role is to help the client experience
an expansion in their thought action repertoire to help build their
social, psychological and physical resources in dealing with the
issues facing them.6
Interestingly, what I have found is that when coaches use some of
these techniques to focus on goal-setting and visioning and con-
sciously work on “energising” goal-setting, we became more ener-
gised, excited and engaged in the process ourselves. These processes
and concepts help leaders and coaches become more self-refective,
and will put a stop to complacency or a sense of “going through the
motions” whether you are a leader or a coach.
36 WHY, WHAT AND WHERE

Positive Visioning
At its essence, then, positive visioning is a process where the coach
works with the client to help create a positive relationship with their
future self. The aim is to help them “see”, or mentally rehearse, a
desirable future that is aligned to their values and strengths. A truly
positive vision has a sense of meaning and purpose and can act as a
compelling reason for moving forward or making decisions.

Case Study: Ben

Ben had always wanted to engage in one to one coaching and was
drawn to a Vision Day for the space and time. Here’s what he has to say
about his needs before taking part:
I suffer from anxiety and tend to default to the‘worst case scenario’,
which has affected my longer-term planning and decision making, both
professional and personal.
He found that taking time to explore possible futures that were pos-
itive, as opposed to negative or even catastrophic, was something he
felt unable to access by himself before the Vision Day. After the Positive
Visioning exercises, though, this changed for him:
The concept of positively envisioning potential avenues instead of
defaulting to the worst-case scenario is something that’s helped give me
more balance and confdence.
Five years on, he’s flying, he has stayed with his organisation and been
promoted several times, always into areas that he finds enjoyable; he has
also trained as a coach separately to use within work and as a possible next
career. Ben is now able to use these techniques by himself as he needs to.
Once a client has experienced a taste of their own Positive Vision,
they are usually much more able to access it themselves.

SEVEN ACTIVE INGREDIENTS TO ENERGISE

GOAL-SETTING
Here are seven active ingredients that can help energise goal-setting to
the level where clients begin to access their personal positive vision:

1 Change the language

 THE WHY AND THE WHAT 37

Slow
down

Change
Physicality language

Wider
context Future
alignment self

Readiness
Supersensor
for
change

Figure 1.1 The Seven Active Ingredients to Energise Goal-Setting.

Coaches are generally well trained to remain curious and alert about
the language the client uses in describing their issues or relationships.
We are often less confdent in the idea of “introducing” fresh lan-
guage and words, other than in direct relation to an academic or
theoretic leadership or coaching model. But just a little shift in
language can have enormous impact. A way of speaking or writing
can warm or cool a relationship; even replacing the word “goal”
with “vision” can in itself be a game changer.
In this model, we look at introducing new language – which may
feel counterintuitive to normal coaching conversations. It serves as a
creative stimulus and a reframe of the situation. There are diferent
ways of talking about the future and a goal; one useful exercise can
be to generate a range of synonyms and difering words that express
a desired future.
Here’s an example: goals and outcomes are classifed as “business
speak” which has, to some, become bland and clichéd, and can cause
a draining of energy from the outset. Here are two quotations from
coaches on the matter:
the very word ‘goal’ has leaders drained of energy – because it is such a
hackneyed and overused term in business.
I just can’t help thinking that through all of this, the word fourish is such
a wonderful energetic word … and that ‘goal’ isn’t so energising.
38 WHY, WHAT AND WHERE

Our research, a collaborative inquiry amongst a small group of

experienced coaches that formed part of my dissertation, found that
whilst certain types of language were more or less energising, this is, of
course, a very personal response which can be witnessed very easily by
the coaches when they see energy rise or fall within a session. Our
research hypothesised that letting clients choose their own person-
alised language would raise energy. We introduced some fash cards
with alternative words for Goal like Vision, Potential, Nirvana, End
Game, Happy Ending, Contribution, Promise, Outcome, Desired
Self, Best Possible and so on. We explored this in some sessions, and
found greater responsiveness when clients were able to choose lan-
guage that framed their future in a more energising way. Sometimes,
encouraging a client into “Creative Play” with these fash cards helps
open up a whole new language. By spending time co-creating or
even just simply providing a positive lexicon of goal-setting, you
may add an element of positive priming – once you start hearing a
word, you start to notice it more, and this can create positive associ-
ations for the client. Used wisely, your words can encourage a client
to experience more positive emotions and hopefulness. And not
only that: when using positive, energising language or asking clients
to choose their own positive language, we may actually increase the
meaning of the defned goals to the client. The right language can
help a client to accept a goal to the point that it becomes intrinsic
and self-determined as opposed to something that feels extrinsic and
imposed upon them. If we can then match these intrinsic goals with
the client’s values or strengths, we start to have what are called
“self-concordant goals”.7

Figure 1.2 Goal-Setting Language Prompts.

 THE WHY AND THE WHAT 39
People pursuing self-concordant goals have a generally higher
level of wellbeing than those without. The key seems to be that
clients choose words that are more aligned to “who I am” or “my
true identity”, which, in turn, moves them into a place of authentic-
ity and feeling “more me”. In coaching psychology, this would be
called congruence or self-concordance,8 and of course, it is only
common sense that a goal which is truly aligned with your true
identity is a goal which you are more motivated and more likely to
achieve as well as a goal that you probably feel positively about.
Furthermore, by providing a new or surprising lexicon around
goal-setting and introducing it to a client, encouraging them to
choose the language that energises them, we enable the client to
engage with the conversation at the level they wish to. Inviting our
clients to enter into a meaningful conversation around goals early on
in the process is helpful. These conversations, with the right lan-
guage, are linked with meaning, purpose, vision, strengths, legacy
and learning and can help to set a holistic change agenda for a leader
instead of some compartmentalised “ought to/should do” set of key
performance indicators (KPIs – a horrid business-y jargon term in
itself) which may leave clients feeling underwhelmed or unexcited.
So, opportunities lie in presenting an enlivening lexicon – a fresh
set of words that indicate a positive vision – and in co-creating or
allowing the client to generate a new language of goal-setting. The
opportunity is for both client and coach to spend time exploring a
new co-created language of goals and future focus before launching
into a performance-based transactional goal-setting process. These
serve to invite a conversation which is more authentic and often
linked to something concerned with a broader picture than perfor-
mance or achievement goals. Such goals help with wellbeing, and
when our leaders have better wellbeing, more is possible for them-
selves, their teams, their families and the communities they serve.
This helps us get us connected to our vision of how we can be in the
world with more meaning and purpose.

2 Future self

We have already explored how while a negative future focus (anxi-

ety) can be limiting, a positive future focus can be inspiring and
freeing. As a coach, helping a client to focus on a positive future – to
metaphorically time travel in their mind to their desired destination –
seems to facilitate greater energy, hope and positivity.
40 WHY, WHAT AND WHERE

Coaching questions or techniques that help lift the client out of

their present situation and enable them to see or experience the
future can create a new and more conscious awareness of where that
client wants to be. Sometimes people are too scared to “look” ahead
on their own, as we know, so it’s important to provide structured
exercises that take people into an imagined desired world in order to
allow them to imagine positive new scenarios rather than defaulting
to worst case scenarios. When we ofer the invitation to “mentally
rehearse a positive future” it helps clients feel safe to project for-
wards, which, in turn, makes them more willing to look at and
energise their mental picture of what might lie ahead.
We all imagine and perceive time diferently. Sometimes when
we use metaphors to help us position time as something in relation
to ourselves, that is, in relation to our bodies, we can feel more ener-
gised. For example, I tend to imagine the future as something that is
literally ahead of me and the past literally behind. I can then describe
what I see in front of me or what I “see” as I step into a place that I
perceive to be my future. Other people might see the future to the
left or right of them and the past on the other side of them. For most
people, it is a helpful and engaging exercise to explore where they
see, feel or sense the future in relation to their own bodies. It helps
ground something purely imaginary into the physical reality.
Leaders and coaches tend to use diferent methods for this and
diferent metaphors, but nature is often an obvious place to turn to
– especially if we are in a natural setting and if clients intuitively use
the landscape to help position their future. For example, clients see
the hills and might talk about what it would feel like to enjoy the
view from there and think about what is needed for the climb, or as
one of my clients did, stopped on a lane and walked towards an out-
crop of rock I had passed by hundreds of times without comment.
The client touched it and stood next to it talking about how it made
her feel so transient in contrast and talked about the stability within
the stone that she aspired to. I have seen other clients spontaneously
drawn to the birds or animals we see whilst walking and talking, for
example, “I love seeing those lambs skipping around the feld. It
makes me think I need to build more energy for outside exercise”.
We might say that this is a perfect example of when nature takes
over the reins as the coach.
The use of future visualisation techniques in coaching conversa-
tions can also create energy. This supports the sports performance
 THE WHY AND THE WHAT 41
models of top athletes or performers who spend signifcant time
mentally visiting their winning self – a future version of their ideal
performance.
Doug Newburg, a psychologist, interviewed hundreds of world-
class performers, including business leaders, artists, athletes and sur-
geons, to fnd out what makes them tick. He then devised something
he called a “resonance performance model” (RPM),9 essentially a
deep experiential sense of what it feels like to be at their best – he
calls it their “internal or experiential dream”. Visiting this future
version is the key to maintaining motivation, feeling free and being
able to overcome setbacks, thus fuelling an upward spiral of
performance.
In a coaching session, when we help clients focus their attention
on a positive future, it can often be a new and fresh experience for
clients which activates hopefulness. Having hope creates both
positive emotions and often inspiring ideas about “how” we will get
there.
So, as we are helping the client articulate or visualise a desired
future, maybe we are activating both positive emotions and ideas. In
helping clients connect with hope, what follows is an increase in
positive emotions and a sense of empowerment at their own ability
or efcacy to achieve this vision.
Coaching Psychology studies have shown how questions focused
on future solutions reduce anxiety, increase positive mood, increase
understanding of the problem and help people feel they are able to
achieve their goals.10 When we contrast this with focusing on the
problem, we fnd that this does not increase positive mood or indeed
understanding of the problem.
So helping the client focus on a positive future seems to pay of.
Laura King, who is a positive psychologist from the University of
Missouri in Columbia, demonstrated in some well-known studies
how asking people to write about the future specifcally about their
“best possible self”11 signifcantly increased people’s happiness.
Zimbardo and Boyd with their time perspective work have found
that those who have a bias towards a future time perspective tend to
be more successful.12
However – red fag warning – clients are not always emotionally
prepared or ready to travel to the future on demand and sometimes
need to stay in the present or even visit a past experience before they
are willing to project themselves forward.
42 WHY, WHAT AND WHERE

As one coach said in our research “… if I can’t get to the future

now from a springboard, I might have to go back to past learning
which I may bring to bear on the current situation – which will then
help us to spring forward”.
The key is to maintain patience and presence to know when the
client is ready to explore the future question.
But the positive energetic reaction that comes with future projec-
tion suggests that this vision is compelling and intrinsic. Caroline
Adams Miller and Michael B Frisch in their book Creating Your Best
Life: The Ultimate Life List Guide write: “The best goals have an
exciting, zestful component to them. They make your eyes widen
and your pulse quicken”.13
These are often called “approach goals”.14 Namely they are goals
set in a future we want to move towards. Such goals not only gen-
erate positivity, but use up less energy because avoiding something is
more draining mentally and physically, and we know that savouring
the future has a positive impact on wellbeing.
As coaches, we can make goal-setting more exciting and vital
when we encourage our clients to savour their positive future, to
smell, taste, feel and see it – when clients look like this is the place
they’d like to head towards – then we know that they are signalling
an acceptance that the goal is valued and intrinsic.
This creates an authentic desire in us to approach that goal and
fnd ways and means to do so.
And when we keep the focus on the solution versus the problem,
we keep focused on optimism and hope.
These emotions serve to reinforce feedback. It feels good and so
we want more of that feeling, which, in turn, helps us to create
broader, fresher thinking and ideation, which, in turn, increases our
sense of possibilities and ways of getting to the known destination,
known in psychology as “pathways thinking” which is needed for
the next stages of the coaching process.

3 Become a “super sensor” (switching coach modes)

Energy in goal-setting increases when the coaching presence and

relationship is creative and stimulating. When the coach introduces
theory, props, humour, surprise or any creative stimulus that allows
the client some spaciousness to think, then positive energy rises.
 THE WHY AND THE WHAT 43
Coaches should be like a sensor, acutely aware of a client’s slight-
est shift in movement, in order to monitor which element of impact,
authority and presence is required to keep goal-setting vibrant and
challenging for the client. One coach describes how she gained good
results from shifting from what felt like a striving approach to raising
energy by simply being watchful and observant. Coaches should
focus on becoming a super sensor, where nothing gets past them –
non-verbal cues, speech patterns, maybe a blushing or blanching in
skin tone, energy rising and falling.
“If there was a lack of engagement by the client, I would be more
likely to keep trying harder! Now I’m acutely noticing physical cues
to see when energy is rising”, noted one of the coaches in our
research inquiry.
As leaders and coaches become more refective, they realise that
they cannot help but be directive when coaching. They are directing
the focus of the client in a direction based on their own values, phi-
losophy and outlook on life.
As the coaching industry matures and training and experience
increases, there is a deeper acceptance that all coaches are directive
on some level and are evolving to a more expert stance. Issues around
climate change and responsibility are now becoming a central part of
the debate – how directive could or should coaches be about ensur-
ing leaders are thinking about sustainability and environmental issues
in their leadership? It is generally accepted that we are in a global
emergency. Coaching is less about whether it is my agenda or my
client’s agenda and more about shifting both client and coach into
bigger, more important questions that revolve around what does the
world need from us now?
However, authority itself does not always facilitate lasting change
and it can also have a negative efect, which means we must be deft in
how and when we exercise it. Positive psychology creates an opportu-
nity for a client to be educated in a strategic framework around four-
ishing. This allows the coach to share an evidence-based theory around
wellbeing and to share this without trying to assume knowledge from
the client. The coach can be open, transparent and explicit about the
criteria that have empirically been proven to enhance experience and
to own this direction in the coaching versus waiting for the client to
guess or stumble upon what might lead to improved wellbeing. For
example, certain types of goals are more likely to help with fourishing,
44 WHY, WHAT AND WHERE

learning or growing goals and placing one’s focus on positive emotions,

and giving to others is linked to wellbeing. Being in nature allows us to
invite nature to be our coach and to be humble in what its direction or
wisdom can teach us.
A better term to help clarify this area might be directional but
non-directive in its stance, that is be clear about the direction the
coaching interventions or models are taking the client, that is, the
process but then non-directive with the content within that.
Such a framework works well for coaches who want to ofer sug-
gestions from positive psychology’s fndings about how to create a
fourishing future and then support their clients in achieving this
goal and spending time away from the ofce and in nature allows us
to explore this even further.
Our research shows that being directional without being non-
directive can increase energy in goal-setting. However, all the coaches
were mindful that this can too easily tip into being directive and this
has a negative impact on energy. The attention and exploration must
stay on the Visioning experience of the client – overlaying too much
interpretation or too much of the coach’s perspective or opinions will
result in a dampening of energy.
Introducing surprises to a coaching session is a good way to
increase energy, too, as long as they ft within the realm of trust in
the relationship. Interestingly, surprises have also been found in psy-
chological theories around hope to be typically quick to produce
emotions which elicit arousal that is transformed almost immediately
into motivation towards the goal.
The need to use intuition about timing and appropriateness is
considered paramount to taking risks or experimenting. As one
coach in our study said:
…and I was in a business suit you know, and I felt absolutely
ridiculous in this silly suit just kneeling in the garden, but it was
absolutely transformational.
Such interventions could be said to come from the coach’s capac-
ity for “impact”. One of three capacities (authority, presence and
impact), according to Hawkins and Smith, that a coach needs is
impact in order to be able to have “the ability to shift the emotional
climate …by the skilful introduction of a diferent emotional
energy”.15
 THE WHY AND THE WHAT 45

Figure 1.3 The API Model.16

An important aspect of the coach/client relationship is presence

and intuition. Whenever coaches reported tiredness, boredom or
being in a driving mood towards a goal, energy seems to plummet.
With presence, we are open to what is, as Senge says, “seeking to
emerge and discovering our genuine source of commitment”.17
By being fully present the coach can monitor the energy cues,
specifcally when the client would beneft from some authoritative
input to help shift their thinking or to take a risk with creative and
bespoke stimulus that helps have an impact.
When we are conscious of our capacities of impact, authority and
presence, we can facilitate a positive relationship that helps connect
and commit clients to their goals.

4 Stop rushing and create spaciousness

Coaches and leaders who are coaching are secretly often “in a
hurry” to expedite the change process. We can notice when we
self-examine that we are overcommitted to the Aha moments, the
big shifts, the visible behavioural changes.
Part of this is due to a need for a result and the need to prove
the investment in us as coaches or leaders is worthwhile, which
can create a sense of performance anxiety or a pushing, driving
mentality.
46 WHY, WHAT AND WHERE

We need speed and pace in leadership coaching, but upon refec-

tion, we have noted these are often draining of our energy. Slowing
down, done well, can be more engaging and fulflling.
Our research inquiry highlighted how fast we as coaches felt we
had previously been pushing the pace. The research unearthed the
notion of “slowing down to speed up” in the hope of speeding up
change. Helping clients make a genuine connection to their goals
through centring, mindfulness, savouring or merely an invitation to
be present where the client was encouraged just to notice “what is”,
to become present and to accept where they were at seemed to
increase interest and engagement with the goal-setting process.
“Because what is true for you is true for them, if you need to be
present then so do they. Anyway for me it is fundamental”, noted
one of our coaches.
Becoming more present is often termed as mindfulness. There is
considerable interest in integrating mindfulness in therapy and
coaching based on fndings that show reduced stress, pain and better
immune functioning among those who practice.18 Therefore intro-
ducing some aspects of mindfulness can potentially be energising for
coaches. I believe, as coaches and leaders, we should encourage still-
ness, breathing, visualisation and clearing techniques to encourage
refection before action.
This slowing down paradoxically energises and speeds up com-
mitment. It simultaneously allows resistance to dissipate or be
“worked through” and it provides an opportunity for the coach also
to become present.
Coaches and leaders reported in our research that they were
sometimes fxated on forward momentum without stopping to
acknowledge what is currently present, which reduces energy and
genuine interest in the goal-setting process.
By acknowledging the organic, evolving “living” nature of the
goal and the vision of the goal, leaders gave themselves permission to
take time to explore it. This helped both the client and the coach.
“My sense that the ‘goal’ could become almost a living entity –
took on a life of its own during the process”.
“They (Coach’s clients) wanted the goal to be fuid not stuck-a
sense that it could and does evolve and change informally”.
Slowing the pace also encourages the client to become more
focused and engaged in the process.
 THE WHY AND THE WHAT 47
In our research inquiry, we found that some clients resist any
“slowing down” techniques; so fnding ways to introduce slowing
down techniques at the right time is paramount.
As one coach in the study highlighted, “You can’t just impose it
when it doesn’t feel right for the client. If you were stuck, you might
do something bold or diferent that might take them out of their
comfort zone or moves them…. even if it is just one question, like
“are you in the room”?
There is considerable evidence that mindfulness can come with
practice, as can savouring. People who savour enjoy more positive
emotions in life. Encouraging people to become present and savour
and building it as a resource is a way that we can help energise the
coaching process.

5 Readiness for change happens earlier than we think

The process of change begins not in the frst session, but when the
client frst starts thinking about coaching or has coaching presented
as a possible resource. Imagining the frst intervention coming as late
as the frst session is misguided and yet is often a preconception held
by coaches.
There is a whole area of possible interventions that energise and
can be prepared before the frst session. Laura King’s research states
that the simple fact of writing down a goal seems to stimulate a more
hopeful mindset, which evokes more creative pathways that gener-
ate multiple solutions.19 Acknowledging the stages of change also
allows us to work with the client at their diferent points they fnd
themselves at. Prochaska, Noercross and Di Clemente in their
well-referenced work of a transtheoretical model of change found
that even when clients are seeing a change practitioner, all change
requires personal choice.20 They highlighted six stages that all people
wishing to change go through: pre-contemplation, contemplation,
preparation, action, maintenance and termination. Furthermore,
they found that each stage requires diferent change strategies, and if
we mismatch the strategies to the change, we are more likely to fail.
Most of us equate change with action, but based on this model, 80%
of the journey through change is non-action. Often, we may be
coaching towards the action stage when a client comes to us in the
pre-contemplative or contemplative stage.
48 WHY, WHAT AND WHERE

Exploring expectations about coaching, contracting and getting

ready for change and goal-setting are all ways to prepare positively
for change.
By ofering pre-work or presenting informative communication
that uses hopeful and optimistic language or shares positive case
studies, we see an increase in the client’s hope for a positive change.
We are already starting the change process. With hope comes
improved mood, enhanced creative thinking and an ability to think
of possible positive paths forward. These are excellent precursors for
a resourceful and energising coaching conversation. So the earlier
we can start to raise hope in the coaching process the better.
Research also made us challenge the “sequencing” of our coach-
ing sessions. As well as the point above about missed opportunities
before meeting, we also concluded that trying to set goals too early
in the process/programme can be counterproductive.
Often when a client comes to a frst session, they are still resistant
or still too confused to be able to set an intrinsic goal. The early
dialogue can therefore be caught up by superfcial goals, often those
set by the organisation or a sense of should that have come out of an
appraisal or some feedback.
As the coaching conversation deepens and more meaning is made
of a client’s circumstances and trust deepens, then the client is more
willing to express an intrinsic desire to set goals that are meaningful
to them.
It is these goals that produce the energy. It is these goals that
become what they embrace as their positive vision.

6 Aligning personal goals to worldview and organisational goals

The relationship the client has with the organisation in which they
work or globally also afects goal-setting. Energy is created when the
coach helps the client understand the context of their goals, both in
terms of fnding meaning for themselves and moving the goal from
an extrinsic position to one that is more intrinsic, that is, there is a
match or at least increased alignment between the organisational
goal and the personal goal.
If the organisational goal has no meaning for the client or they
feel they have been “sent” to coaching, their energy will be afected
negatively.
 THE WHY AND THE WHAT 49
As one of our coaches pointed out in the collaborative inquiry
research:
“There is an additional complexity when you know the organi-
sation wants one set of goals for a person – and they want something
else, and how do you deal with that”?
Another coach responded that it might not just be two clashing
agendas:
“And that is true 99% of the time, there is some truth to that. So
to handle two lots of goal setting is hard. There is often a big agenda,
little agenda and corporate agenda”.
It could be that a client is dealing with a “big” agenda linked to
some of the biggest issues in our world like climate change and
world poverty, or a “little agenda” might be their personal and pro-
fessional goals and then the corporate agenda or expectation of the
coaching.
Often considerable work needs to be done to align the business
goals with the personal goals to fnd an intrinsic meaning and moti-
vation for the client. Linking these goals to their values and motiva-
tions around their “big agenda” will really help the client move
towards fnding their vision. The more the competing agendas can
be integrated, the greater the likelihood of a positive outcome for
the individual, the organisation and the wider system of the planet
– a triple win. This is akin to the so-called “triple bottom line” that
is being espoused in all-purpose-driven companies – people, proft,
planet – and is becoming more mainstream as we enter further into
climate emergency.
Some coaches veer towards a preference for the personal versus
the business goals. But this can become problematic when their
responsibility to the person is in front of them, yet the organisation
is paying the bills.
One coach in our research was concerned that the client gets lost
in all the corporate “agendas.…because the boss wants this, the cli-
ent wants that, HR might want something else, the organisation
might want something else and where is the client in all of this”?
When we move away from asking the client about their “sep-
arate” agendas and look more at the whole at what is important in
the “world” agenda, we start to invite a more meaningful conver-
sation that helps the client engage with their values and the bigger
picture.
50 WHY, WHAT AND WHERE

One way to do this is to introduce a wheel diagram which illus-

trates some of the bigger agenda areas that arise in coaching (see below)
and explores some coaching conversations with clients. For example,
one place to start with is to show the UN Sustainable Development
Goals designed to be a blueprint to achieve a better and more sustain-
able future for all. Using these goals, ask which ones hold particular
meaning or concern for the client. Being curious and exploring versus
holding judgement introduces issues that lie beyond the day-to-day,
but may impact on the client’s world and wellbeing.
By activating goal-setting towards a vision in this way, we also
draw attention to when there is a “match” between the organisation
and the personal agendas/goals/values, which, in turn, creates posi-
tive energy and motivation in the client.

Figure 1.4 Coaching tool using the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

 THE WHY AND THE WHAT 51
In essence, working with a coachee to help them make their
match is an efective piece of coaching in itself. Too much emphasis
on the self can be perceived as a betrayal of trust in the organisation,
just as too much focus on the organisation’s agenda might be consid-
ered a betrayal of trust in the individual. Helping the clients make
the connection between their own values and convictions and the
organisation’s goals, that is, making goals self-concordant, is a vital
part of the process towards change. And helping clients align their
values and their strengths, in turn, helps the client access how they
can use their signature strengths to achieve the organisational goals
and their bigger contribution.
Beyond the organisational context, we found that the relationship
the client has with the world agenda has implications for goal-
setting, whether it be their family, friends, community, geography
or the global context. This view is expounded by the latest thinking
in executive coaching which urges coaches to take a more transper-
sonal perspective of the role of the coaching industry and of the need
to link the client with the transpersonal generally.
As one of our coaches said in the research:
“…For me what came out of this research is for coaching to be
linked with global events, connection with the whole”.
And another coach in the research highlighted:

… our political systems, our fnancial systems, our corporate

systems, our family systems, there is not one system which is not
being reviewed therefore in this changing marketplace how can
you apply goal setting when the goal posts are moving so often?

Positive psychology promotes the importance of helping clients to

connect to a meaning outside of themselves, as this creates the
opportunity for both personal growth and development. Too much
introspection and rumination does not bring happiness. Alterna-
tively, using one’s strengths to serve others or the world is powerful
for wellbeing and life enhancing.
Research has consistently found an association between an active
spiritual life and greater contentment, happiness, stronger marriages
and reduced alcohol and drug abuse.21
We, as coaches, can bring energy and meaning to the goal-setting
process by helping the client link to their wider system and
52 WHY, WHAT AND WHERE

worldview, whether that be organisationally, communally, globally

or spiritually.
We can even explore their “transcendental time perspective”,
highlighted by Zimbardo and Boyd, how the efect of a person’s
view on the afterlife has an impact on their time perspective in the
present day and their motivation for goals moving forward.22 I
return to this theme in our fnal chapter when I am in dialogue
with Peter Hawkins about how one can increase one’s perspective
of life by refecting on or imagining life before our birth and after
our death.

7 Let’s get physical – the power of movement in coaching (Embod-

iment)

Considerable energy can be generated by what we call “physicalisa-

tion” techniques. Most coaches use the body to a lesser or greater
degree in coaching. Increasingly, there are emerging felds of somatic
coaching, embodied leadership and embodied coaching – essentially,
these terms are all referring to a shift from the head into the body as
the focus area for learning.
Most coaches are well versed in emotional intelligence training
and understand there is an enormous amount of data to be gleaned
from studying the body, its postures, movements and positions, and
how closely these relate to an individual’s goal. A well-trained coach
can capture these and work with them by drawing the client’s atten-
tion to facilitate greater conscious choice and control over their
body. Specifc body positions facilitate certain emotions. For exam-
ple, it is difcult to be generative in thinking or creative, if you are
hunched over and looking at the foor. NLP, Somatic and Ontolog-
ical coaching training all teach these techniques on their accredited
training schemes.
One coach said, “…it is just having the permission of the client
and permission for yourself to go there. And when you do, it brings
everything congruent – into mind body and soul”.
Introducing movement and challenging our clients body posture
whilst coaching has the ability both to enhance energy with a client
and potentially to create tension and even embarrassment with more
reserved personalities. Much depends on the coach’s own comfort
and training in this area.
 THE WHY AND THE WHAT 53
As one client said in our research after trying out some more
movement-oriented coaching, “The body techniques. I felt awk-
ward but asked his permission to try a diferent approach…at the end
he said it was useful”.
Our research showed that movement techniques which included
taking sessions outside either in nature or in stimulating places, such
as parks, riversides, museums, galleries, generated positive results and
increased energy, creativity and motivation.
This is what coaches report in terms of how their clients responded
to being outside and using the landscape to describe their goals:
“So the session goal turned into a headland…and the overarching
goal was the hilly horizon”.
Or an unusual environment outside the usual ofce space:
“His other focus for the afternoon was infuencing and network-
ing so we went into the National Portrait Gallery”.
All the coaches reported that movement coaching, using the body
and/or taking clients outside to stimulating places had increased
energy, fresh thinking or connection with the goal. This could be
due to the fact that being in nature increases expansive thinking.
Studies show that time spent outside boosted positivity, which
increased thought action repertoires. Such studies have found that
being outside boosts working memory span which is linked with
intelligence. Fredrickson highlights that “being immersed in nature
carries both fascination, and vastness. These two qualities may well
produce positivity and openness”.23
Another reason why the client might fnd it easier to connect
their goals to stimulating or beautiful environments may simply be
because the client is engaging in a pleasurable activity which increases
positive emotions such as joy or contentment. Positive Psychology
highlights the importance of positive emotions; they can make all
the diference in whether you languish or fourish.24
Coaching that facilitates movement that enhances generative
thinking increases energy, and coaching that facilitates stimulation
taken from the environment enhances mood and thinking.

Mix the ingredients all together and watch the energy rise
Overall, when we adopt these new ways of coaching, we, as coaches,
feel gratitude and engagement increasing as our sense of curiosity,
54 WHY, WHAT AND WHERE

competency and understanding grows. Coaches included in the

research felt a surge of energy and gratitude themselves when think-
ing about lifting the goal-setting to a higher level of visioning:
“I am so grateful for the reinvigorating of my practices, my think-
ing, my connecting to clients”.
“I am most energised by the feeling of exploration and learning I
am getting from the process. I feel excited and curious about goal
setting in a way I have never felt before”.
“This is clearly not totally new territory, but I had to learn it by
experiencing it for myself”.
What we found from our research is that coaches and leaders that
use these concepts in vision-based coaching and goal-setting
described a sense of greater complexity and a slower more collabo-
rative process of Visioning.
When we work in this way, there is a noticeable shift towards a
more emergent, fuid, non-linear, systemic understanding of change,
coaching and goal-setting, which creates more lasting impact and
enjoyment and ultimately lasting change for both coach and client.

NOTES
1 O’Donohue, J. (1997). Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom. New
York: Clif Street Books.
2 Maslow, A. H. (1968). Toward a Psychology of Being. New York: Van
Nostrand Reinhold Co.
3 Whyte, D. (2014). Solace: The Art of Asking the Beautiful Question.
Langley, WA: Many Rivers Company.
4 Boyatzis, R. E., Smith, M., & Van Oosten, E. (2019). Helping People
Change: Coaching with Compassion for Lifelong Learning and Growth.
Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press.
5 Boyatzis, R. E., Smith, M., & Van Oosten, E. (2019). Helping People
Change: Coaching with Compassion for Lifelong Learning and Growth.
Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press.
6 Fredrickson, B. (2009). Positivity: Groundbreaking Research Reveals How
to Embrace the Hidden Strength of Positive Emotions, Overcome Negativity,
and Thrive. London: Random House.
7 Sheldon, K. M., & Elliot, A. J. (1999). Goal striving, need-satisfaction,
and longitudinal wellbeing: The self-concordance model. Journal of Per-
sonality and Social Psychology, 76(1), 482–497.
8 Burke, D., & Linley, P. A. (2007). Enhancing goal self-concordance
through coaching. International Coaching Psychology Review, 2(1), 62–69.
 THE WHY AND THE WHAT 55
9 Newburg, D., Kimiecik, J., Durand-Bush, N., & Doell, K. (2002). The
role of resonance in performance excellence and life engagement.
Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 14(4), 249–267.
10 Anthony Grant has conducted many of these studies. For example,
Grant, A. (2012). Making positive change: A randomized study
comparing solution-focused vs. problem-focused coaching questions.
Journal of Systemic Therapies, 31(1), 21–35. See also, Grant, A. (2017).
Solution-focused cognitive-behavioral coaching for sustainable high
performance and circumventing stress, fatigue, and burnout. Consulting
Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 69(1), 98–111.
11 King, L. A. (2001). The health benefits of writing about life goals.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27(7), 798–807; King, L. A., &
Raspin, C. (2004). Lost and found possible selves, subjective wellbeing,
and ego development in divorced women. Journal of Personality, 72(3),
603–632.
12 Zimbardo, P. G., & Boyd, J. (2008). The Time Paradox: The New
Psychology of Time that Will Change Your Life. New York: Free Press.
13 Miller, C. A., & Frisch, M. B. (2009). Creating Your Best Life: The
Ultimate Life List Guide. New York: Sterling. 53 pp.
14 Eder, A. B., Elliot, A. J., & Harmon-Jones, E. (2013). Approach and
avoidance motivation: Issues and advances. Emotion Review, 5, 227–229.
15 Hawkins, P., & Smith, N. (2008). Coaching, Mentoring and Organiza-
tional Consultancy Supervision and Development (p. 242). London: Open
University Press.
16 Hawkins, P. and Smith, N. (2006, 2nd edition 2013). Coaching, mento-
ring and organizational consultancy: Supervision and development. Maiden-
head: Open University Press McGraw Hill.
17 Senge, P. (2005). The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning
Organization. New York: Doubleday.
18 For a summation of research into the health benefts of mindfulness, see
Black, D. S., & Slavich, G. M. (2016). Mindfulness meditation and the
immune system: a systematic review of randomized controlled trials.
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1373(1), 13–24. See also, Kabat-
Zinn, J. (2003). Mindfulness-based interventions in context: Past, present,
and future. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 10(1), 144–156.
19 King, L. A. (2001). The health benefts of writing about life goals.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27(1), 798–807.
20 Prochaska, J. O., Norcross, J. C., & DiClemente, C. C. (1994).
Changing for Good: The Revolutionary Program that Explains the Six Stages
of Change and Teaches You How to Free Yourself from Bad Habits. New
York: W. Morrow.
21 One of the largest studies in this area is from the Pew Research Centre.
See, Pew Research Centre. (2019). Religion’s Relationship to Happiness,
56 WHY, WHAT AND WHERE

Civic Engagement and Health around the World. https://www.pewforum.

org/2019/01/31/religions-relationship-to-happiness-civic-engagement-
and-health-around-the-world/
22 Zimbardo, P. G., & Boyd, J. (2008). The Time Paradox: The New
Psychology of Time that Will Change Your Life. New York: Free Press.
23 Fredrickson, B. (2009). Positivity: Groundbreaking Research Reveals How
to Embrace the Hidden Strength of Positive Emotions, Overcome Negativity,
and Thrive. London: Random House.
24 Grant, A. M., & Cavanagh, M. J. (2007). Evidence-based coaching:
Flourishing or languishing? Australian Psychologist, 42(4), 239–254.
 2

THE WHERE

WHERE IS THE BEST PLACE TO DO POSITIVE

VISIONING WORK WITH OUR CLIENTS?
Coaching in a beautiful setting and taking some of the session outside
into nature creates an opportunity for a deeper coaching relationship
to build between client and coach and for more powerful, expansive
thinking to occur. Add in walking and the shoulder to shoulder
experience in a natural setting then a behavioural synchrony occurs
that helps rapport. When two people walk together, they uncon-
sciously fall into step with each other and often appear to be in
almost perfect synchrony. This is sometimes referred to as “entrain-
ment” where this synchronised rhythm of the walking together adds
a deepening to the sense of rapport and relationship. Walking seems
to help our memory, attention and thinking. Being in nature often
lifts our energy, our mood and our problem-solving capability.
Couple these together with a trained thinking partner and we have
a potent mix where great coaching can take place.
Many coaches feel instinctively they would love to coach more
outdoors with clients but are not sure how to begin or to set it up.
By inviting a client to an intensive day of coaching and highlighting
that this will include some time outside, coaches and clients fnd
they are immediately signing up for something they feel is diferent
and more immersive than the “usual” coaching session in an ofce
or over video conference.
I am not advocating that we coach only in nature or only outside,
as sometimes the safety and warmth of an ofce or a normal working

DOI: 10.4324/9781003220657-4
58 WHY, WHAT AND WHERE

environment with the tools that are there (laptop, writing pads and
pens, fip charts, access to books) are wanted and needed.
Using nature and coaching as a backdrop to a session to stimu-
late more creative thinking and build energy is something I would
urge and encourage any coach to build more into their coaching
practice and explore what diferences they notice in their clients,
themselves and the coaching relationship. But sometimes there are
reasons why it doesn’t work. For example, if the weather is too
torrid, although on a Positive Vision Day, anything short of a hur-
ricane I always encourage us to head out for a walk in the middle
of the day and I ask the client to bring appropriate clothing so we
walk in nature even if we are accompanied by coats, hats, brollies
and wellies.
For some coaches and clients, there is resistance to coaching out-
doors. Here are some of the concerns or worries I hear about coach-
ing outdoors and in nature:
“Why bother? I’m happy to be at my desk, even easier when it’s
virtual”.
I encourage us to bother. The evidence is manifold about the
positive impact being outdoors or walking has on mental and physical
wellbeing. The National Health Service (NHS) in the UK has now
taken to social proscribing of time outdoors, walking and gardening
to help with mental health issues.
Sometimes it can beneft the client to have the coach “initiate”
and suggest some time outdoors as we can often get rooted to our
workspaces and forget the option of a free pick-me-up is awaiting
just a few yards away.
In my experience, it always increases energy, creativity and
expansiveness of thought. Taking a client to an outdoor space is
particularly good at supporting bigger questions in coaching like
“What next”? Or “What is my purpose/vision/legacy”?
Coaching out of the ofce helps break the pattern of “normal
coaching”, and this pattern breaking can often usher in new perspec-
tives and fresh thinking for both the client and the coach.
Put simply – a diferent environment creates a diferent conversa-
tion which creates diferent possibilities for a diferent future.
Most people feel more relaxed in nature, and this allows greater
creativity and more access to ideas for problem-solving. This reminds
me of the work of the husband and wife team Stephen and Rachel
 THE WHERE 59
Kaplan, who worked on a theory about using nature to restore
attention. This was called Attention Restoration Therapy (ART)
and that time in nature helps us to repair and to build up our atten-
tion that is being drained by so much time in front of screens and
indoors as technology takes us away from nature.
Stephen and Rachel Kaplan (1989) proposed that there are four
cognitive states, or states of attention, that lead to this sense of resto-
ration:

• Clearer head or concentration

• Mental fatigue recovery
• Soft fascination or interest
• Refection and restoration

Of particular interest to me is the area of soft fascination, whereby

interest in birdsong or a beautiful tree or the sound of a babbling
brook allows us to efortlessly have attention which is restorative
rather than directed “hard” attention that is directed towards some-
thing which is seen as a fnite source. The soft fascination and afli-
ation we feel in nature helps us restore and feel better.
Coaches are curious if initiating working outside in nature is
tricky. They want to know: Is it awkward to suggest coaching out-
doors? That is, what is the best way to position coaching in nature?
In my experience, most leaders are grateful to have some time
outside in nature away from screens, bright ofce lights and the usual
surroundings, and I suggest highlighting some studies if required, but
often it is as simple as the invitation and encouragement to explore
coaching in a diferent setting.
Saying something like “Let’s do a walk and talk outside for part
of our session, it is known to have a positive efect on wellbeing”
Or simply asking the question cleanly:
“Would you be open to doing some of our sessions outside in
nature”?
Or if you are building up to working with them for an executive
day retreat like a Positive Vision Day:
“We will have a whole day together and some of that time will
be spent coaching outside in nature to increase energy and creativity”.
Sometimes, I have found that presenteeism in an ofce means
that either the client or the coach can worry that walking and talking
60 WHY, WHAT AND WHERE

outside or sitting on a park bench coaching is not “hard enough”;

indeed, is it even working?
A genuine concern that I hear is “What if it’s seen as shirking not
working”?
Or “How do clients generally react when you suggest this? I’m
worried my clients will think I’m not taking the coaching seriously”?
Generally I fnd clients embrace it. Some resist if they feel too
busy. I generally recommend being guided by the client’s appetite
for outdoor coaching and will usually check in both in advance and
on the day if they are “up for it”.
Sometimes people are so grateful to get out of their ofce and
away from sitting at a desk they jump at the chance. Other times
they may prefer to avoid being outside, especially if they are tired,
have an injury, are pregnant, overweight, lethargic or the weather is
bad or they have a meeting that starts straight after the coaching.
I recommend that you see this as an opportunity to co-create a
diferent way of working with your client…but it doesn’t have to be
all the time in every session. It can be something you explore
together. A whole body of coaching outdoors is growing rapidly and
as we all become used to fexi working and remote working, coach-
ing in nature is predicted to be a growing feld.
Believing that it will add value will help you introduce the topic
to clients and help you take it seriously for its benefts. I used to
worry about this as I found it so pleasurable. Is walking in a park
really “executive coaching”? – I found it so enjoyable myself, I used
to worry myself it would be seen as shirking, not working.
After a decade of seeing the benefts, I no longer worry about this
myself, but for those that do, I would recommend talking to your
clients about the benefts of nature or walking on wellbeing, mental
health, mood and creativity. Since the pandemic, there has been a
global recognition of the role of nature in our lives and a well-
documented reconnection with both our own wellbeing when we
spend time in nature and an increased passion for the wellbeing of
the planet’s health.
In nature with all this soft fascination and enjoyment, I think it
can be useful to have outdoors sessions bookended with some time
inside to capture notes and to ground the session. A big area of con-
cern for coaches and for clients is how to capture notes and actions
when being outside.
 THE WHERE 61
Executive coaches especially tend to take lots of notes in sessions,
and many use drawing or models to help reframe a point. So a gen-
uine concern about coaching outdoors and in nature that I hear is:
“How do I get set up and what do we both need (gear and tech-
nology)”?
Or
“I love writing things down and that’s how I think as we talk,
how do I keep track”?
If you are together, I would suggest you start at a base (ofce or
hotel venue or even a car park near a beautiful circular walk) so you
can leave any heavy bags and end there too in order to capture notes.
I also suggest regular pauses on a walk or within a session to capture
notes; this can be done on a phone or in a small notebook or a small
set of mini Post-its.
If you are apart, you can suggest to your client a way to both walk
and talk together but alone.
“Let’s do a virtual walk and talk – pick a 30–45 minute circular
walk, pop your earbuds in and I’ll do the same and then we will
coach whilst walking and talking separately. You may wish to take a
small note book and pen in a pocket, or we will stop and make notes
on our phones”.
Or I may suggest we fnish the walk 15 minutes before the end of
the session and then meet back on Zoom to capture the insights and
actions from our walk.
Or you can suggest to your client – let’s take some time to do a
mini retreat and we will have some time outside to increase creativ-
ity and enjoy nature and the beautiful setting and we will take some
pauses to capture insights or notes.
For Virtual Walks and Talks, you may fnd that the technology
doesn’t work (mobile signal/headphones etc.) If you are working
virtually, you can talk into the phone whilst walking, and if there is
no reception, you can give someone a small task to do in nature on
their own, for example, take their power question into nature and
see what emerges as an answer. Or ask them to notice something
that can act as a metaphor for your situation (e.g. tree, rock, view,
bird etc.), then reconvene on screen back at the ofce to discuss.
And let’s take a moment to explore the inevitable area of concern
about outdoors coaching:
“What happens if it is pouring with rain? Do you still go”?
62 WHY, WHAT AND WHERE

On a Vision Day, I would still go. I warn clients in advance verbally

and in writing that we will head outside for part of our coaching, come
rain or shine, and I encourage them to dress appropriately both in terms
of footwear and outer layers. I remind them the day before, too.
If it were a single session as a part of a six-month or annual pro-
gramme, I would probably not go unless the client was dedicated to
it and we were both dressed appropriately for bad weather.
As a rule of thumb, I reiterate that I am not advocating that every
single session is outdoors. I like a mix. Ofce based, Zoom based,
Outdoor face to face and Outdoor “virtual” walks and talks. This used
to be something that, I would say, was more biased to indoor coach-
ing with the occasional outdoors coaching, but since the pandemic, I
have noticed a sharp uptake in interest in being outdoors more.
Here are some questions that might emerge for you about the
length or sessions or ratios:

• How long should the session be? Agree with the client based on
their ftness and availability. For me, I like an hour’s walk side
by side or 30–45 minutes if virtual.
• How often? I have six sessions with a client – how many should
be outside?

Ask your client as this is a personal choice, but if you have never
tried coaching outside, I would recommend at least part of one ses-
sion is conducted outside in a beautiful place. If you are in a city, this
may be walking in an urban area noting the beautiful architecture or
parks or a river or canal.
Through the pandemic I checked in on every single session on
the day and asked which they would prefer. If clients had a heavy
day of Zoom meetings, they would jump at the chance of a walk and
talk. In the early days when exercise was restricted, to do this whilst
being coached was seen as great way of using time.
And sometimes coaches ask, “How will I know if they’re enjoy-
ing it or not”?
Ask them what they are noticing.
If you are virtually coaching them outdoors, ask them what they
can see and how it is making them feel.
Ask what it makes them think about their own situation. Ask
them to notice where beauty is for them.
 THE WHERE 63
There are many other areas of resistance that may occur, but
hopefully this covers the main ones. If you picked up this book, no
doubt you are already coaching in nature or are keen to start coach-
ing in a natural setting and using the beauty and spaciousness of
nature to enhance the work you do with your clients. Let’s move on
now from a general approach to coaching outdoors to give some
consideration to how the mix of a day retreat with some outdoor
time and a beautiful setting can beneft your coaching approach and
create positive impact for leadership development.

Why coaching in and with nature can create more impact

What is sitting in front of a screen doing to us? It’s draining our
ability to relate to other people in our usual manner. We cannot
crack jokes and bounce of each other as we do in person; we can’t
see how someone is walking or how they are dressed. All this screen
time and video conferencing is afecting our eyesight, causing us
headaches and giving us all sore backs. Its fatiguing looking at our-
selves all day and listening to the inner critic and it’s fatiguing com-
municating by screen, no peripheral data entering the relationship,
movement, smells, what someone is wearing, how they shake our
hand…
More and more studies are showing the capacity for nature to
improve cognitive energy and creativity and to calm us.1 Ecopsychology,2
coaching in nature, forest-bathing,3 walking or nature prescriptions are
all felds that are expanding internationally.
When we step outside into nature, we know that it immediately
can soothe us; we start to expand both in our thinking and creativity
and we take deeper breaths. Slowing and deepening our breathing
changes our emotional state. We calm.
Walking and talking with your coach alongside you will help
build the relationship. The parallel walking in step puts us into a
synchronous state that increases rapport and trust and deepens the
dialogue.
Talking whilst gazing outside at trees and green rolling hills,
seeing and feeling a long horizon encourages longer-range vision
and perspective about our problems or challenges that we are facing.
What I have witnessed as a coach is that as we can see further, we
notice diferent perspectives and possibilities emerge.
64 WHY, WHAT AND WHERE

In nature’s realm, it is as if we can stand tall, knowing that our

problems have been seen and dealt with a million times and that
nature’s steadfastness can support our internal sense of change. We
can move back into steady rhythm with ourselves.
I believe that for both the coach and the leader, we physically and
mentally expand and become more connected to natural rhythms
and the timelessness of nature.
When a crisis hits, leaders feel the surge of adrenaline and the
feeling they need to be always switched on and to work harder – the
truth is they may beneft more from some time to go inwards – to
take the counterintuitive approach to step away from the ofce and,
in doing so, to think diferently. A day of refection reaps dividends
for leaders and for the businesses and teams they lead.
Many leaders feel that the right response is to do more, more,
more, when things get tough. A sense that we need to match the
pace with even more frenetic internal and external activity. But it’s
the opposite that really adds value. A “less is more” approach enables
stronger, calmer leadership. The freneticism balanced out and tem-
pered with a time out. A step back that allows perspective that invites
in creativity and judgement, not just stamina, speed and striving.
When we turn inwards, we can listen to any discomfort or fears
that need attending to, which we might not have been aware of
otherwise. By raising our eyes beyond our screen and desk, we
can see a wider horizon, with more stakeholders waiting to be
heard and understood. This will also reveal to us that we are con-
nected to each other in a way that is not evident through the
screen where there is no smell, no touch, no timelessness of natu-
ral trees and birds.
When we go inward, we will fnd enough spaciousness and sup-
port to stop and think, stop and breathe, stop and feel. Tears will fall.
Tears often fall within the frst 15 minutes of a Vision Day, as the
frazzled leader takes a seat and knows they have the spaciousness of
an entire day in which to expand. As they exhale…out come the
tears. Good, I always think. Let them release. Because following that
release is always fresh thinking and resourcefulness that was previ-
ously blocked from view from the leader.
So I advocate deep inner work with support and with a wider per-
spective, with nature doing much of the silent and supportive work.
We are uplifted when we are outside. Stepping away from our
daily hustle and bustle. When we coach with beauty, we coach in
 THE WHERE 65
beauty. When we coach in a beautiful way, our hearts and minds
and ideas expand.
More becomes possible with this approach; more becomes possi-
ble for our contribution to the world.
In theory, positive visioning can happen anywhere, but the invitation
is to us as coaches and to leaders is quite simple: to take time out – to take
a day out of the ofce, to step outside to do this enlivening work.
So a question emerges…

WHY ARE EXECUTIVE DAY RETREATS MORE VITAL

THAN EVER FOR LEADERS? WHY BOTHER WITH
MOVING OUTSIDE INTO NATURE?
Answer 1: The always “on” culture is playing havoc with our peace
of mind.
It is relentless. I am writing during the pandemic and the relent-
lessness is linked to the tyranny of the screen and the endless Zoom
calls. Before the pandemic, we had downtime, time for laughs,
travel, commuting across town to a meeting that is full of work and
laughter and then back again – before we know it, half a morning
has gone. Instead, now that’s three to four hours of madly tapping
away on a keyboard or staring at a screen.
The email and the social media impact of always being available
through our phones is making us all ill and disconnected from one
another. Mental health is severely threatened, burn out and isolation
is rife.
We have to break away from it; to enforce the break as it won’t
“just happen”.
But even without a pandemic, we know that feeling of constant
noise and demands in an ofce and in the daily grind of a rushed and
busy executive life. Giving a client one whole day away from the
ofce, screens and the melee of everyday life is in itself a
pattern-breaker and with it comes new and fresh thinking.
Answer 2: Depth work versus distracted work is hard to come by.
Distracted work is when we fit from task to task, never spending
more than 30 minutes on a really good deep dive. There’s a gnawing
feeling in leaders that they never get the thinking time to do that
large piece of planning for the organisation’s future, nor for them-
selves. Depth work means putting all the distractions away and deep-
ening into the big questions.
66 WHY, WHAT AND WHERE

This time never comes unless we carve it out. Strangely, taking a

whole day rather than six diferent hours of coaching holds more
impact and feels more doable.
It makes a statement. This matters. I matter.
Answer 3: The fght for attention is moving to a serious battle
waged against technology that is designed to steal our attention.
The war for talent has moved to being the war for attention… we
are all fghting for it. Most of all, we need to attend to ourselves. We
are distracted, scattered in our thinking and struggling to join the
dots for ourselves. Everything is competing for our attention. Staf,
family, investors, clients, stakeholders, family friends, social media,
books we should read, new TV shows we should watch.
It’s more important than ever to take a step away, to retreat and
allow ourselves to settle into a place where nature calmly awaits our
gaze, not clamouring for our attention, not shouting as a gif or video
vignette in ever brighter colours, but disturbingly arresting in its
beauty all the same. And then, when our attention turns to this, our
pulse drops and our heart beats in a steadier rhythm, and we should
know (as the neuroscientists tell us) that this steady coherence in the
heart increases our positive emotions and creativity.
Nature does not fght for our attention. Nature patiently waits
and then gifts us with all we are looking for when we are frenetically
searching – often in the wrong direction. Looking inside ourselves
whilst we are outside is one of life’s simplest replenishers. Add into
this a semi-structured coaching programme and we have a winning
formula for renewal and revitalisation.
Answer 4: Time for self has become harder to fnd.
We need to attend to ourselves. Self-care has become a little hack-
neyed recently, but taking time for ourselves to go inward and to align
our thinking and reconnect to ourselves strengthens our sense of pur-
pose and makes us remember who we are and what we are trying to
do. When we step away and take the time for ourselves – maybe it is
only this one day a year – a deep surge of energy courses back through
us. It is a day of resourcing in its truest sense. Heading to water or
nature, whilst holding beautiful questions – these are techniques that
help power us up for the next leg of the journey.
Answer 5: Spaciousness creates possibilities.
A day of uninterrupted thinking helps us enter a world of gentle
possibility. When I frst started doing the Vision Days, people would
 THE WHERE 67
talk about how it helped them “fnish their thinking”. They had
been living with a gazillion half answered questions and thoughts
buzzing around their head, but this day to themselves gave them a
chance to explore some bigger questions: what are those questions
that won’t go away? Or the perennial question of “What next”?
The Vision Day ofers a day of uninterrupted thinking. It consists
of a series of exercises that all feel and look diferent, but ultimately
help create one beautiful six-hour conversation that is all about you
and your story so far and where you hope it may go from here and
what you can do to increase the likelihood of that story happening.
Answer 6: A trusted listening and coaching partner enhances our
thinking.
When I read More Time to Think, the second book from coach
and consultant Nancy Kline,4 and refect on the ten components for
creating a thinking environment that she outlined, I realise that they
are all in a Vision Day: attention, equality, ease, appreciation,
encouragement, feelings, information, diversity, incisive questions
and place.
I never consciously set out to achieve that but as a retroft – I
notice – yes, all ten components are all there. Present and correct.
The natural environment says you matter – the beauty of the
setting, the time you are taking to be there – but if I had to pick one
quality that stands out to me in what helps leaders think through the
vision, it is encouragement.
All too often, people dismiss their own ideas because they won’t
allow themselves to believe they will happen. So they tuck them
away back in the fantasy department of their minds.
They undermine them by saying “but everyone thinks that don’t
they”? Or “it’s a cliché” … I have to remind them that no…not
everyone does think like that …this is your story. It is unique to you.
I have to encourage and remind them of their individualism and yet
simultaneously of their collectivism and connectivity to make them
feel comfortable with their hopes and fears.
They often stamp all over their emerging visions before they are
of the starting blocks with accompanying remarks like “that would
never work or that’s not possible or I could never aford that”.
We fan the fames and let that vision breathe for an entire day …
to allow it to be spoken about with respect and non-judgement. It’s
often a frst time this has happened for a client.
68 WHY, WHAT AND WHERE

EASING INTO BEAUTIFUL QUESTIONS

What I have realised over the years is that creative prompts are
needed to help with thinking. A simple question isn’t good enough.
For example, “what is your vision”? seems to be an utterly debil-
itating question, right up there in loftiness with “what is your pur-
pose”? or “what is your legacy”?
“Um, errr”, we stutter and stammer.
These questions feel too abstract, too far of, too high up or too
grandiose for us to claim. We need to be eased into these questions.
The journey begins at home before the leader even comes for the
Positive Vision Day. This journey starts with our prompts that help
with broadening the language of strengths and virtues, a language
that celebrates the important things in our lives and the creative
exercises throughout the day, deliberately designed to be unfnished
at each stage…
Sometimes the vision that clients leave with is a feeling, sometimes
it is a set of questions, possibly the visualisation, an inner picture or
maybe even a drawing they have done. For others, it may be a com-
bination of all the above. The exercises throughout the visioning
process are designed to access diferent parts of the brain and to help
prompt energy to fow and just as it might be fagging – we move
seamlessly to another.
And all the time nature is there, outside the window waiting for
the moment we go for a walk in nature where we talk about values,
where the disparate ideas knit together in the body. The wisdom and
steadfast awe-inspiring beauty of nature is the backdrop to it all.
By easing into these beautiful questions throughout the day, we
fnd ourselves revisiting and reimagining a more exciting vision than
could be imagined from a cold start.

REFLECTIONS AND JOURNALING PROMPTS TO

DEEPEN CONNECTION WITH NATURE AND WITH
OUR VALUES
• How could you use time in nature to talk more deeply about
your goals with a colleague or a coach?
• What would it be like for you to spend more time in nature?
• How could you create more time coaching or being coached
outdoors?
 THE WHERE 69
• What ways could you make this happen – even if just a tiny bit
more each week?
• What are your values that you’d like to think about more
deeply? What connections can you fnd between your own per-
sonal goals and values, and that of your organisation?
• How do your goals link into your worldview?

NOTES
1 For a summary of some key studies into the benefts of nature and being
outdoors, see Suttie, J. (2016). How nature can make you kinder, happier,
and more creative. Greater Good Magazine (online). https://greatergood.
berkeley.edu/article/item/how_nature_makes_you_kinder_happier_
more_creative
2 Ecopsychology was coined by Theodore Roszak, see Roszak, T. (1992).
Voice of the Earth: An Exploration of Ecopsychology. New York: Simon &
Schuster. For an example of the theory applied to coaching practice, see
Palmer, S., & O’Riordan, S. (2019). Beyond the coaching room into
blue space: Ecopsychology informed coaching psychology practice.
Coaching Psychology International, 12(1), 8–18.
3 Forest-bathing or “shinrin-yoku” has been suggested by the Woodland
Trust as a powerful non-medical therapy. More information on what it is
and how to incorporate it into your life here, see Sherwood, H. (2019).
Getting back to nature: How forest bathing can make us feel better. The
Observer (online).
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jun/08/forest-
bathing-japanese-practice-in-west-wellbeing
4 Kline, N. (2015). More Time to Think: the Power of Independent Thinking.
Cassell Illustrated (ebook).
 PART II

THE HOW
 3

HOW TO BRING THE FLAVOUR OF

POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY TO YOUR
COACHING EVEN IF YOU HAVE
NEVER STUDIED IT
Positive psychology and coaching are happy bedfellows – the goal
orientation of coaching and its emphasis on helping clients to
resource themselves better and improve wellbeing for themselves
and their teams and families is at the heart of what we are committed
to doing as positive coaches.
What’s important to remember here is that change can happen
more easily when we stick to an overarching framework – so setting
the scene of positive psychology is important. We do this in four
ways:

1 Preparing and “priming ourselves for hope” with positive lan-

guage that emphasises our virtues and strengths. As coaches or
leaders, we can afrm this in ourselves and others when we wit-
ness the strengths in action.
2 Engaging and committing to the journey of beautiful questions
which link into what’s important and meaningful for client and
their wider world, considering past, present and future.
3 Reach for the client’s resourcefulness, by which I mean not get-
ting caught up in the sad story, instead reminding them of their
strengths, assets and inherent resourcefulness. We look for signs
of post-traumatic growth – those times we have overcome
adversity, shown solid and positive relationships, set goals and
achieved them.What evidence do we see and hear and how can
we fnd ways to afrm it, build upon it?

DOI: 10.4324/9781003220657-6
74 THE HOW

4 Lean in and befriend the difcult parts of ourselves – our fail-

ures, setbacks, fears, our inner critical dialogue – don’t ignore or
suppress.With compassion and loving kindness.

The aim of positive psychology is to support people to fourish in

their life. It is not just about making people feel happy or positive. It
is about meaning, purpose, resilience and how to fnd optimum
wellbeing, which, as we have highlighted earlier, is called fourish-
ing.
Happiness is not something to chase. It was overhyped in the frst
wave of positive psychology, a psychology which has matured to
embrace a more rounded view of the human psyche, wellbeing and
fourishing.
I have already highlighted many of my favourite concepts and
ideas that I became interested in during my masters, and I have writ-
ten about how the Positive Vision Day was born out of theories of
goal-setting, time perspective and positive emotions research.
For the purposes of coaching with positive psychology in a retreat
setting, I will draw your attention to just three underpinning con-
cepts that help frame our work as positive visioning coaches when
we coach in nature: Flourishing, Awe and Gratitude.

FLOURISHING

Defnition: Feeling well in yourself and in positive relationship with your

family, friends and community, functioning effectively. It’s a subjective
measure of wellbeing.1

PERMA
It might help to break it down into:

• Positive Emotion
• Engagement
• Relationships
• Meaning
• Accomplishments
 THE FLAVOUR OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 75

Figure 3.1  Martin Seligman’s PERMA Model.2

All people can find the resources to change and grow. They are also
capable of bouncing back from adversity. With the aid of positive
psychology, they flourish and are on an upward spiral.
As a coach, working with a positive psychology, we:

• Focus on what’s going right

• Focus on strengths
• Focus on a higher ratio of positive to negative emotions through
conscious action
• Find learning/meaning/call to expansion in challenges
• Understand the lure of the “negativity bias” and help to offset this
• Increase resourcefulness through increasing Optimism,
Future-mindedness and Hope or other positive emotions

Positive emotions include:

Joy, Gratitude, Peacefulness/Serenity, Inspiration, Awe, Love,
Interest, Amusement, Hope, Pride, Curiosity

Features of flourishing
When I was working as a coach looking at the underpinnings of the
vision days, I came across a study by Felicia Huppert and Timothy
So that aimed to broaden the features of flourishing.3 I liked the
increased breadth this gave and added another layer to Perma.
A few summers ago, I went to a Mindfulness Summer school at
Oxford University. It was balmy weather and the summer school
was set in St Hugh’s college with beautiful lawns and a glass room
where we could look at nature throughout the lectures. I spent seven
days meditating, studying and journaling at that summer school. We
experienced one whole day of silent retreat and certain days where
we had silent meals and could only offer our gratitude to the servers
and staff non-verbally. It felt challenging and enlightening. In
76 THE HOW

between, we lay on the grass chatting in the breaks. I felt 18 again,

young and studenty, full of a love for learning and excitement about
the role of mindfulness in the world.
When it ended, I cried. And cried. What were the tears about? A
sense of awakening and hope in me about what a compassionate
approach to leadership and self-acceptance mindfulness can bring.
Felicia Huppert was amongst the delegates attending this school
and I had the chance to catch up with her and tell her how much I
had admired her work. We talked about her move to Australia and
involvement in education and how excited she is about wellbeing
being taken seriously in schools. The work I’d enjoyed on measur-
ing wellbeing and flourishing has been expanded and there is now a
15-factor multidimensional tool that is used.
When I was researching for this book, Felicia sent me a chapter
of her new book on “How Positive Psychology can create a Positive
Future”,4 with a chapter on the environment which she sent me –
and the importance of activating hope. Here’s a short excerpt:

Active hope is based on intention and can lead to action regard-

less of how high the chances are of success.With active hope we
focus on what we want to see in the world, and direct our
actions in line with that intention. Our emotions influence
those around us, and when even one person has hope, it can be
contagious. Like other positive emotions, hope can lead to an
upward spiral of increased wellbeing leading to more hope and
further action.

So I find the easiest way of thinking and presenting the “flourishing

factors” is to think of it as a flower.
Imagine at the centre of the flower, we have the following three
core concepts: wellbeing, happiness and life satisfaction.
Now, if we add in the 15 petals, we’re considering the components
that go into each of these concepts, so a fully flourishing life would
expect to have all these components and more. When we are coach-
ing with positive psychology, we are looking to develop and cultivate
practices in ourselves and those we coach that help us have more of
these qualities. The more we have, the more likely we are to be flour-
ishing. What I have found is sometimes just drawing attention to these
areas and naming them helps people think about life in this way.
 THE FLAVOUR OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 77

Figure 3.2  Flourishing Factors.

Figure 3.3  Flourishing Factors Inspired by the WellBeing Profile.5

It might help to think of each petal as the following5:

1 Positive emotions – intentionally cultivating positive emotions

creates an upward spiral of increased creativity, productivity, bet-
ter health and positive social connections
78 THE HOW

2 Engagement – our full connection with the world around us

will use our strength to its potential and help us find a sense flow
in our daily work and life
3 Meaning and purpose – we must feel that what we do is worth-
while, but it’s also linked to something bigger than and beyond
ourselves (spiritual health can be considered here)
4 Competence – confidence in our ability to achieve what we set
our mind to
5 Vitality – A sense of aliveness from living in alignment, which is
contagious
6 Self-esteem – we should have beliefs and emotions that define
and reinforce our self-concept/self-evaluation (Ideal Self/Real
Self/ Dreaded Self)
7 Optimism/hope – positive anticipation of the future and imme-
diate thoughts about how to achieve that desired future
8 Emotional stability – a stable emotional range over time (not
huge highs and lows)
9 Resilience – ability to bounce back from set backs
10 Positive relationships – having supportive reciprocal positive
connections with family, friends, colleagues, community
11 Clear thinking – to not be distorted by an internal dialogue or
view of the world that disrupts straightforward perspective; this
could include being overly pessimistic or indulging in destruc-
tive inner critic thoughts
12 Self-acceptance – an understanding that we are flawed but have
an ability to be compassionate and accepting of our whole self,
flaws and all
13 Autonomy – To feel free to choose one’s own path of self-­
expression and work
14 Empathy – To feel connected to and understanding of other’s
emotions and feelings
15 Prosocial – to contribute positively and generously to human-
kind and the planet

Most coaches, once introduced to these flourishing concepts and the

language, can readily integrate them into their own thinking, both
on a personal level and with their coaching.
Here is what Andy said after being trained in The Positive Vision
Day methodology:
 THE FLAVOUR OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 79
“I regularly use the PERMA model as a personal ‘check in’ and I
really enjoy the distinction between ‘happiness’ and the pursuit
thereof – and ‘thriving’. I find it a really useful set of thoughts”.
But Andy can see as well how to apply these ideas to business
leaders:
“I think these are challenging times for business leaders – as new
generations come into the work force with new expectations of
their organizations and/or leaders – one of the understandable

Figure 3.4  The Wheel of Life Coaching Tool to Help Increase Wellbeing.
80 THE HOW

responses is to try and make people happy – as a goal itself it isn’t

going to work well. In the workplace, in my experience, people are
happiest as a result of pursuing an important purpose. I.e. Happiness
is a by product of purposeful work not an aim in itself.”
We can use the wellbeing components as a “Wheel of Life” too
and help our clients self-score or at least use the wheel as a discussion
and opening point about wellbeing and flourishing.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF AWE

Another important area of positive psychology that I like to intro-
duce is Awe. A construct currently being studied in psychology, it
has also started to enter the mainstream through business literature
encouraging leaders to go for “Awe walks” to enhance creative
thinking and wellbeing.6
Taking someone out of their day-to-day routine and inviting
them to a place of beauty shifts the quality of thinking. Quite simply,
the different start to the day and the travelling starts the creative
juices flowing. Making small changes to routines is known to
increase creativity, as one of the quickest ways to shake things up is
simply to take a different route to work.
The spacious feeling one gets from looking at green and being in
nature also helps a client breathe and expand and be more creative.
This experience also elicits awe – a beautiful setting helps them see
themselves as a “small self” more in perspective. There is an expan-
sion of time and more of a connection to what psychologist call
“prosocial” events, that is, doing things that are positive and good
for other people rather than being selfish.
This is from a white paper prepared for the John Templeton
Foundation by the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley,
September 2018, “The Science of Awe”7:
“Effects of awe experiences may bring with them a host of phys-
iological, psychological, and social effects. For example, studies have
found that feelings of awe can be accompanied by heart rate changes,
‘goosebumps’, and the sensation of chills, and there is some evidence
that awe may even decrease markers of chronic inflammation”.
When it comes to psychological effects, studies have found that
awe can create a diminished sense of self (an effect known as “the
small self”, which I mentioned above), give people the sense that
 THE FLAVOUR OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 81
they have more available time, increase feelings of connectedness,
increase critical thinking and scepticism, increase positive mood and
decrease materialism. Multiple studies have found evidence that
experiencing awe makes people kinder and more generous.
Awe may also expand our perception of time. One study found
that people induced to feel awe agreed more strongly with state-
ments suggesting that time is plentiful and expansive compared to
people induced to feel happiness.8
Other experiments in this study found that if people who felt awe
experienced this expanded perception of time, they were then more
willing to volunteer their time to help others, to prefer experiential
purchases over material ones and to report greater satisfaction with
their lives. The researchers speculate that by causing people to be
immersed in the moment, awe may allow people to savour the here
and now: “[A]we-eliciting experiences might offer one effective
way of alleviating the feeling of time starvation that plagues so many
people in modern life”,9 they write.

GRATITUDE
Oh, dear gratitude – how much I thank you for all you have done in
my life. When I started studying Positive Psychology, I had no idea
what a big topic and subject you were. I have learned more about how
you can change mood and how you brighten up people’s days. I have
learned to integrate you into my life each and every day. Thank you!
When we help our clients feel appreciation and gratitude for their
strengths and gifts, we help them tap into one of the greatest gifts a
human has. Gratitude is linked to reciprocity. When we are grateful
for what we have been given or have, we give more. This beautiful
loop brings wellbeing and meaning. Connecting ourselves and our
clients into this as a state of being is at the centre of this work.
The practice of writing gratitude letters is a lynchpin of every
course in positive psychology10 – sending that letter to someone who
has helped you has become a famous exercise. This is often done as
an experiential learning topic where students are asked to send a
letter to someone who has had an impact on their life. The results
are immensely positive with stories of reconnection with past teach-
ers, friends, loved ones, even “enemies”, as students look through
the lens of gratitude for what this person contributed to their life. By
82 THE HOW

sending this appreciation, both the giver and the receiver get to feel
touched, connected and happy. Gratitude is a powerhouse of a prac-
tice to cultivate, and the best way is to regularly journal about what
you feel grateful for in your life and watch your wellbeing soar.
Giving thanks to all that is around us, the water, the trees, plants,
birds, the family that supported us being there.
Gratitude. It’s the Mother of all emotions.

REFLECTIONS AND JOURNALING PROMPTS

• Look at the flourishing flower or PERMA and explore how
well you are doing on the different aspects of flourishing.
• Fill in the wheel of life exercise and capture a list of actions
you’d like to take to improve one of your life “segments”.
• Write a gratitude letter (or card, email or text) to someone who
has positively impacted your life and enjoy the positive glow that
follows.
• Journal about three things you feel grateful for at the start or end
of each day, over three weeks, and notice how it will improve
your wellbeing.
• Go for a walk in nature and notice what feels awe inspiring, no
matter how tiny. Journal about what your sense of time feels
like when you are in the presence of an awe-inspiring view,
tree, rock, building. Does it expand? Are you more able to look
into the future?
 THE FLAVOUR OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 83
POSITIVE VISION DAY PROGRAMME – 15-STEP
PROCESS
And so, with that brief skip through some underpinning concepts in
positive psychology, let me introduce you to the Positive Vision
Day Programme.
In this section, you will find all you need to know to run your
own Positive Vision Day for yourself or your clients. As a reminder
of the shape of the day, let me invite you on a walkthrough that
starts at the very beginning:

Positive Vision Day Programme

Definition: Time out to reflect – A day-long coaching intensive of 1:1
positive psychology coaching in a natural setting with activation and
­follow-up exercises.

Figure 3.5  The Positive Vision Day Outline.

84 THE HOW

THE 15-STEP PROCESS

An overview

Figure 3.6  The Positive Vision Day Programme.

STEP 1 – GET READY

Get ready
Liz is a high-profile chief executive officer (CEO) of a professional ser-
vices company with a global role. She is a fictional character yet a rep-
resentation of so many that come for Positive Vision Day programmes.
Liz jerked awake at 3 am again. She had so many things whizzing
around her head. She groaned as she knew from experience she would strug-
gle to get back to sleep. She rewound through the details of her day just gone,
and fast-forwarded to the day ahead. She mentally rehearsed all the things
she knew she must say to her boss, words that were suddenly self-assured,
going round and round, in her mind, they sounded convincing, but then she
realised in her half sleep that it was all pointless, as she would never say any
of those things. She turned over and buried her head in her pillow. But then,
with a surge of excitement, she remembered – she was heading off for a Pos-
itive Vision Day in a week – she didn’t really know what to expect but she
had booked the date and talked with the coach on the phone. Recently, she’d
been sleeping badly, she felt overworked and resentful about the demands at
work and Speech marks, she thought over and over. She wanted to plan the
next stage of her career. I never get time to think, and this will help me,
she told herself. Thank God I am doing something about it. This thought
calmed her as she drifted back into sleep.
 THE FLAVOUR OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 85
Setting up for success
A client is preparing for the day long before they arrive. A step
which often gets overlooked. The client is getting ready already. It
is imperative that even before you have met or started coaching that
you are helping the client start their journey of change positively.
Prepare the client for this pre-work, making sure you have talked
through what they can expect on a Positive Vision Day (show them
the diamond diagram and talk them through it). You can also set
them up to prepare for two pieces of pre-work – an online strengths
questionnaire and stimulus questions. The journey has begun.
The venue is also really important. Make sure it is beautiful, so
that the client will also find it beautiful – ideally with an open view.
If you are coaching yourself, try and find a venue where you can
spend an entire day that is uplifting and situated in nature, and where
there is a circular walk which will start and end at the same place.

Reflections and journaling prompts

• Where is a beautiful venue you can spend a whole day in?
• What can you do on your website or written materials to increase
a sense of positivity and hope into the coaching expectation?

STEP 2 – STIMULUS QUESTIONS

Get writing
As Liz glanced through the questions, she felt excited to jump in and get
started but she wanted to wait until she had time to do them justice. They
felt like big questions about her life, about her energy and what mattered and
about what ideas she had already had about her future – soul searching ques-
tions and she knew she wanted to be honest and not rushed when she
answered them. When she started, she felt surprised by how much she wanted
to say, so she revisited them several times over the next few days, going
deeper into her answers each time she returned to them. “This feels good,
good to actually get it down on paper”; she felt a sense of order and a gentle
release of pressure. She surprised herself with how she answered the question
about what she would do if she didn’t entertain the idea of failing as a
­possibility – she thought about being a hotelier or a head teacher. Wow, she
hadn’t thought of those career ideas for years. She was a senior executive in
86 THE HOW

a professional services company and had worked her way up the ranks, giving
so much time to work both on weekends and during the week that she never
had them to think about anything else. Even though she knew she should.
The thought of leaving was terrifying ….so was the thought of staying.

Stimulus Questions
• What energises and enlivens you in life/work?
• What aspects do you enjoy least?
• What, if anything, keeps you awake at night (literally or metaphor-
ically)?
• What, if anything, makes you leap out of bed in the morning?
• What do you know to be some of your greatest gifts/strengths –
either from your own experience and/or from consistent feedback
from others?
• When are you at your best and who gets to benefit from this
most?
• In what ways/areas would you like your life/work to be more ful-
filling/impactful?
• What ideas have you already had about the next chapter of your
career/life?
• What is/are the key challenges/opportunities you face at this
point in your life?
• What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?
• What’s getting in the way of what you want to do?
• What matters to you?
• What do you see going on in the world, in society, in your commu-
nity or your organisation that angers or saddens you?
• What are the big questions that won’t go away for you?
• What do you most want to achieve/discover with your Vision Day?
• What would most disappoint you if you didn’t achieve it at the
end of your Coaching Intensive programme?

Purpose
The purpose of the stimulus questions is to take the client beyond
“what’s happening now” and the “problem frame” they may find
themselves in, and start to shift them to more of a “future focus” and
“possibility frame”.
Through the questions, clients get in touch with what makes
them feel alone and what holds meaning and purpose for them, and
this helps to lay some of the groundwork for a powerful Vision Day.
 THE FLAVOUR OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 87
The other purpose of the stimulus questions is to give the coach
some insight into what themes the client may want/need to address
on the Vision Day.
Stimulus questions represent half of the preparation we ask
Coaching Intensive clients to do before they attend their Vision
Day. (The other part is the online Values in Action (VIA) strengths
questionnaire, which will be described in the next section.)

Theoretical underpinnings
Positive psychology holds that people who play to their strengths
and live in alignment with their sense of purpose and values tend to
be happier, more fulfilled and more successful than those who try to
focus on their weaknesses and spend their energy compensating for
these areas of weakness. With the stimulus questions, we are direct-
ing the client to bring an attitude of appreciative enquiry to their
life and start to identify powerful building blocks for a professional
and personal vision that brings them the outcomes they desire.

How to administer the exercise

The stimulus questions are sent to the client via email attachment
together with the confirmation of the booking of the Vision Day.
Allow the client to fill in the questions with as much or as little
detail as they find valuable. It is a primer for them, more than for
you, the coach.
Make sure you receive answers to the stimulus questions a few
days before the Vision Day, so you can start identifying themes you
may be working with.

What to look for as a coach

Some of the key things you might find in the stimulus question
responses are:

• What is important to them

• Recurring patterns
• Hopes and fears
• What energises them
• Limiting beliefs
88 THE HOW

• Contradictions or double-binds
• The emotional energy behind the answers

Some top tips

• Limit the number of questions to about 20 – more can become
overwhelming for the stretched executive
• Hold loosely to your “hypotheses” about what may be going on
for the client – hold an attitude of curiosity rather than
“analysis”
• Cross-check the answers the client writes to the stimulus questions
with the VIA character strengths – are there noteworthy consisten-
cies or inconsistencies with what they have written when cross-­
referenced against their strengths

Stimulus questions for your Positive Vision Day

Answer these questions with as much (or as little) detail that you find
helpful and valuable. Answer them from a pure work focus or a
broader work and life focus – it’s up to you!

• What is going well in your life/work?

• What aspects of your life/work do you enjoy most?

Reflections and journaling prompts

Self-coaching:
• How easy do I find it to carve out time to focus on some bigger
reflective questions?
• What emotions or thoughts does this evoke in me?
• What resistance do I find I have?
• Take some time to answer these stimulus questions for yourself.

STEP 3 – STRENGTHS PROFILING

Get profiling
Liz groaned at the thought of an online psychometric test – over the years
she had done lots of these. She hadn’t done one on strengths though, and
 THE FLAVOUR OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 89
so she was intrigued to find out what hers were. “Actually that didn’t take
too long”, she thought – and felt that anticipatory excitement as the
strengths report pinged immediately back into her inbox with her results.
She read through her top five signature strengths and felt like laughing,
“Yes, that’s me”! She exhaled feeling more peaceful. She felt uplifted
somehow – just reading through all her strengths and virtues made her feel
better about ­herself.

Purpose
• To encourage the client to think about their strengths
• To give the client a language to talk about and reference their
strengths
• To have a common language that can be shared between you
and the client to discuss and further activate their strengths
• To know what are yours and your client’s Signature Strengths

Theoretical underpinnings
As a relatively new field of research, positive psychology lacked a com-
mon set of words for discussing measurable positive traits before 2004.
As a first step in remedying the disparity between traditional psy-
chology, which measured what was wrong with people, and positive
psychology, which wanted to measure what was right with people,
Peterson and Seligman set out in the early 2000s to identify, organise
and measure character. Peterson and Seligman began by defining the
notion of character as traits that are possessed by an individual and
are stable over time, but can still be impacted by setting and thus are
subject to change.11
The researchers then started the process of highlighting character
strengths and virtues by brainstorming with positive psychology col-
leagues. Then, Peterson and Seligman explored ancient cultures
looking at their religions, politics, education and philosophies for
language that represents how people across the ages have named
human virtue. The researchers named virtues that were present
across cultures and time.
Six core virtues emerged from their analysis: Courage, justice,
humanity, temperance, transcendence and wisdom.
VIA Strengths Survey is a scientific survey that helps identify
character strengths.
90 THE HOW

People can score anywhere from 10 to 50 points for each of the

24 strengths. A higher score on a scale indicates that the participant
strongly identifies with that scale’s associated strength. You end up
with a result of your top five “signature strengths”.

How to administer the exercise

Ask the client to go to www.viacharacter.org and complete the free
online questionnaire: the VIA Strengths Survey

What to look for as a coach

Our main role is to ensure the client engages with this questionnaire.
This is the piece that is often done last by the client and sometimes
falls off the pre-work unless the client is prompted for it.
The main point to be looking for is whether there is a pattern in
the strengths, that is, can you see if they all cluster within one or two
of the virtue categories. The other key area to focus on prior to
meeting the client is to see where their strengths “show up” uncon-
sciously in the answers to their stimulus questions; this can be helpful
to reference on the day.
The strengths are grouped under the six different virtue ­categories:

• Wisdom and Knowledge: creativity, curiosity, open-­

mindedness, love of learning, perspective
• Courage: bravery, persistence, integrity, zest
• Love and Humanity: love, kindness, social intelligence
• Justice: citizenship, fairness, leadership
• Temperance: forgiveness and mercy, humility, prudence,
self-control
• Spirituality and Transcendence: appreciation of beauty and
excellence, gratitude, hope, humour, spirituality

Some top tips

• If the client resists wanting to do the questionnaire because they
have done similar psychometric profiles, encourage them
to overcome the resistance so that you have a common language
 THE FLAVOUR OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 91
• It is also helpful as it links in with the stimulus materials that are
on display on a table in the room for the day (e.g. positive psy-
chology books, articles and strengths cards)
• It’s sometimes helpful to take a look at which strengths are sit-
ting at the lower end of their strengths profile, which will also
give you an indication of their least accessible strengths

Reflections and journaling prompts

• Take the VIA questionnaire yourself and reflect on how your
strengths show up for you
• Consider one small action you can take to dial up your top five
“signature strengths” even more

STEP 4 – THE DOWNLOAD

Arriving and Download

Liz entered Paddington Station with ten minutes to spare. Before the train
for Bath Spa left, she treated herself to a coffee at the station and settled into
her seat on the train. “This feels like a nice change”, she thought. “It feels
good to be getting out of London and the office for the day”. She started off
by immersing herself in her phone, emailing and clearing the decks. As the
urban landscape started to shift to green, she found herself daydreaming, star-
ing out the window. She felt expectant and excited, almost in a trance. She
arrived at the hotel and walked in to meet the coach. The room was spacious
and inviting with two comfortable chairs set by huge windows, both looking
out at a long-range-rolling-hill view. She clocked a table full of brightly cov-
ered books with interesting leadership and positive psychology titles, brightly
coloured pens and paper “This feels playful”, she thought. She said nothing
but smiled to herself, sighed with relief – thank God it’s not a faceless corpo-
rate room with the screen set up for PowerPoints and a big board table with
bland chairs. Urgh!
Settled in her big armchair, Liz accepted a hot drink and cupping it in her
hands, gazed out at the hills beyond, and it struck her how much she had
enjoyed starting her day differently – with a peaceful long train journey.
“This feels goooood”, she thought to herself, relaxing with a big expelling
breath. “Right, focus. I’m being told about the shape of the day”.
92 THE HOW

BECOMING PRESENT
Purpose
• Build trust
• Establish boundaries
• Manage expectations.
• Remind client of the format for the day. You could remind
them that the morning might feel a little random, as there will
be many structured exercises which are designed to help the
clients approach things in a new and fresh way. Encourage them
to run with this, as things will fall into place after lunch.
• Check fitness for walk (pregnancy or heart conditions are the
main things I have encountered).
• Confirm confidentiality is in place.
• State you will be taking notes, but that they will have to make
their own notes as you will not be providing them with yours.
Space will be provided during the day for reflections.

What to look for as a coach

• Are there any concerns or mismanaged expectations?
• Usually the client is chomping at the bit, ready to get started;
so you are ensuring they know what they are likely to experi-
ence.
• Ideally, you want to get permission for expansive, generative,
creative thinking in the morning, so you do not meet resistance
with some of the exercises like drawing or visualisation.

Then, it is time to start The Download – an invitation for stream-

of-conscious sharing with no editing.

The Download
Liz settled, realising the first task was the so-called Download – she had
been asked to talk for 45 minutes uninterrupted about her story so far and
what she wants to be in her future. She had cringed. I will never be able to
talk about myself for that long. The coach smiled knowingly and affirmed
she would. Liz started talking… suddenly she felt embarrassed; she was
crying and didn’t really know why. It just felt so good to be able to be
 THE FLAVOUR OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 93
heard, to talk without interruption or judgement. She felt safe. She was still
talking at full throttle after 45 minutes as the coach gently brought her to a
close.

Purpose
• Arriving in the space, physically, mentally and emotionally.
• Connecting with each other and with the challenge/opportu-
nity in the client’s work/life.
• Centring – bringing all the relevant pieces of information that have
a bearing on the vision that they are hoping to access and create.
• Catharting – getting barriers, challenges, questions and disap-
pointments off their chest, which creates space for new ­thinking.
• Clearing their mind-space for new thinking/ideas/insights.
Often, in the process of clearing out and with the exquisite
attention/listening presence from the coach, these new insights
start to roll in already.
• Focusing on what is important and what is relevant to their
visioning process.
• Thought-shepherding – our role as coach is to gather all the
client’s relevant thoughts around the motivations and barriers to
their visioning process, and then separate out the empowering
thoughts from the limiting ones.

How to administer the exercise

• This part of the morning should take 45 to 60 minutes.
• Out of the download, it is important that we leave the client
with a sense of optimism and positivity, building on their
strengths, resourcefulness, positive empowering thoughts and
their emergent vision of a desired future.
• These positive emotions are an essential foundation that encour-
ages greater resourcefulness, possibility and generative thinking
later in the session.
• Negative thoughts, always present, can be placed into two
­categories:

1 Debilitating, toxic thoughts that block creativity and future

focused thinking – these benefit from being ignored, reframed
or taken to one side.
94 THE HOW

2 A breed of negative thoughts that are healthier that represent the

voice of caution; these benefit from being married with empow-
ering thoughts to bring a level of realism.

Reflections and journaling prompts

• Take some time to download to a friend, colleague or even into
a voice memo recorder on your phone – your story so far and
what you are hoping for next.
• Write down how did I get here? Where do I want to go next?
• What were my turning points? What strengths did I use to make
decisions in getting here?
• What do I feel I am longing for?

STEP 5 – FEEDBACK/FEEDFORWARD
Capturing the story
Liz felt nervous having revealed so much about herself – she had NEVER
talked, uninterrupted, that long to anyone before. Did she sound mad or bitter?
And what is all this emotion? As soon as the coach started giving her feedback,
her nerves gave way to a sense of surprise, even pride and hope. She was
amazed by how well the coach had listened and encapsulated her story. Her
story was quite impressive! She thought all she had done was moan about her
boss for 45 minutes and lament her lack of a social life, but when the story was
shared back, she realised how much she had achieved already in her life and it
became clear she DID have ideas about her “what’s next?” vision. It became
apparent too: “I absolutely need to take charge of this toxic relationship that has
developed at work”. Now the coach had highlighted the pattern in the relation-
ship, she could see it was as much due to how she was tackling things as it was
about him being difficult. She understood that if she could play more to her
strengths and be more herself – less defensive and resentful – life could get better
for everyone. She felt empowered to think about herself in this new way.
There are two distinct phases in the download: Facilitative and
Authoritative.
Facilitative phase: This first phase is a “light touch”. It involves
facilitating with a compassionate and active listening presence, where
we invite the client to share anything and everything that they feel
is relevant to their desire to create a vision.
 THE FLAVOUR OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 95
We begin with an invitation like this: Bring whatever you feel is
relevant or important or what’s on your mind in relation to your
future vision. Lay it all out in front of us. Imagine it’s a jigsaw and
we are laying out the pieces. Anything that is relevant or matters,
just share. Whatever. Share in a stream of consciousness.
The clients bring their stories of how they see themselves, their
world. Their version of their past, their present and a hazy sense of
what their future may hold or what they would like it to hold.
Our first job is to encourage it all to gently emerge, to invite from
their words, breath and body anything that needs to arrive in the
room. Any coaching interventions are withheld until the client has
run out of steam.
And …we must capture.
A good way to capture is to segment their story into three – the
past, present and future – and then separate these three areas into
two: perceived positive (e.g. hopes, aspirations, achievements) and
perceived negative (e.g. disappointments, fears, failures).
The six segments are explained better in Figure 3.7.

Figure 3.7  The Download Matrix.

96 THE HOW

Reflections and journaling prompts

• When I reflect on my story, what might someone else say about
me and the decisions I have made?
• Where might they see strengths in me where I don’t see them?
• Have a go at categorising your story into these six segments on
the Download Matrix (page 95) and noticing what comes out.

Feedback/feedforward
Liz felt a sense of being called forward. “This is about you reclaiming your-
self and your life”, the coach said, and she realised, yes, she had given all the
power away to the office and to her boss; she had lost all her boundaries and
let her own self-esteem be influenced by whether her boss acknowledged her or
not. She realised her creative self, which felt diminished at work, was the very
thing that the boss wanted to see. “I want my creativity back, front and
centre”, she said. She felt alert and ready for action.
Authoritative phase: The second phase is fairly short and suc-
cinct and marks the shift into a more “prescriptive” type of interven-
tion, which happens AFTER a client has run out of steam.
In phase two, the coach’s role is to offer a wrap up, a summation
that contains feedback, observations and thoughts. It is helpful to
organise your observations as follows:
In your past, I have seen that you… (witness their resource-
fulness and strengths, make sense of or reframe challenging ­situations).
I can see that a compelling future for you includes…
(commitment to their emerging vision).

Figure 3.8  Download Summation.

 THE FLAVOUR OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 97
My experience of you in the here and now is… (affirming
and acknowledging their presence).
I notice empowering beliefs and thoughts around… that
are moving you in the direction of your desired future (identify,
name as empowering, underline their importance).
I notice limiting beliefs around… that are getting in the way
of… (identify, name as limiting, offer hope of possible reframes).
How about this? …This might be helpful… (some frames,
interventions, models that shifts their worldview).

What to listen for as a coach

• Strengths.
• Values.
• Limiting beliefs.
• Assumptions.
• Hopes.
• Fears.
• Inner critic (shape, volume, sound, velocity of the voice).
• How do they make sense of the world?
• What and who is important to them?
• How do they deal with setbacks/regrets?
• What is the world asking them to step up to?
• Where and when do they feel most enlivened and energised?
• When they present their issues as an “either/or” type of a prob-
lem, that is, I either have to do this or do that, they make it a
binary choice.
• When they say they have a decision to make and it’s clear it has
already been made (energetically or through use of language).
• Relationships that energise or drain.
• Language patterns (towards/away from).
• Growth/fixed mindset.
• Metaphors.

Some top tips

Pitfalls/danger zones:
The key point is to ensure that the download does not overrun.
Ideally, it is essential to move your clients onto the structured
98 THE HOW

exercises and change pace at the end of an hour. Even if you have to
interrupt… you must move on.

• It is tempting to think that normal coaching methodology will

help, that is, lots of questions, reframes and clarifications. But
this is a different intervention.
• Do not fall in love with the “story” they present to you about
themselves and their life, that is, know that this is their truth
right now, but it will be different by the end of the day.
• Do not over-identify or follow the “sad story”.
• Do not fall in love with your own voice, your own authority/
prescription. Your voice must be pithy, incisive and your views
or hypotheses held lightly.
• If your feedback/observations do not add value or resonate,
move on quickly.
• If it adds value, be glad, but still… move on quickly. There is
more work to be done.

Reflections and journaling prompts

• What is the world asking of me?
• What is trying to emerge?
• What do I notice that energises or enlivens me the most?
• What is getting in the way that doesn’t need to?
• What am I making an either/or that I could look at as a both/and?
• What is possible in my positive future vision if I allow myself to
dream?

STEP 6 – PICTURES 1000

Get drawing
Liz grabbed three different colours of paper and pens and enjoyed drawing
stick figures on the papers – this was fun. When she was asked to visualise
herself six months ago, she drew someone who looked forlorn, lying in a foetal
position in a corner of a small room. When she was asked to draw her present
self, she drew question marks coming out of her head and small light bulbs
emerging beyond the question marks. But while her present self lay down flat
in the image with a straight line for a mouth instead of a smile, her ideal future
self was on a beach with her partner with loads of friends and family around.
 THE FLAVOUR OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 99
The sun was shining and her world felt expansive. Liz talked through her
drawings with the coach – what really stood out for her was how beaten up she
seemed six months ago – she had hardly been aware of how miserable she had
felt. But she could see now that she was marginally better and some initial
signs of creativity and curiosity were emerging, but still an element of “flatlin-
ing”. The drawings somehow showed in an instant what a thousand words
could not. This was serious stuff and she had been denying her feelings in an
apparent “successful career” – but now this had been identified to her, it
needed to be addressed. This realisation felt truthful and exciting.

Purpose
The Pictures 1000 exercise is designed to access the client’s (at times
unconscious) wisdom about their desired future and the change tra-
jectory they find themselves on. Pictures are the “currency” of the
right and creative hemisphere of our brain. By accessing this concep-
tual, imaginative and intuitive centre, beyond the logical/analytical
perspective offered by the left brain, the client accesses additional
information and new insights about where they have been and
where they are going. This exercise often uncovers clarity, uncon-
scious patterns and new perspectives that support the client in their
visioning process.

How to administer the exercise

• Invite your client to make three separate drawings on three sep-
arate pieces of paper:
• One with a representation of where they were six months ago
• One with a representation of where they are now
• One with a representation of their ideal future

Give your clients one minute for each picture – this bypasses over-
analysis (left brain activity) on the client’s part. You can reassure the
client that the pictures do not need to be works of art, and that they
can be metaphors or stick figures or anything that describes their
experience in each of the three time frames.
In the 3–5 minutes that the client is drawing their pictures, do not
allow talking or words on the pictures. This takes them out of the
100 THE HOW

creative hemisphere and into their logical brain, which can interfere
with accessing new information.
Give your client coloured pens/crayons/pencils to make their
drawings – the use of colour can be one of the ways in which new
information is revealed.
After 3–5 minutes are up, ask your client to step back and look at
the pictures with you.
For each picture you want to explore with your client, ask:

• What is happening in this drawing?

• How are you feeling in this picture (even if they are not present
in the drawing)?
• What do you notice in this picture, what stands out to you?

And after having explored each picture, ask:

What patterns do you notice in this series of drawings?

• Make notes of the verbatim account your clients use, and use
those exact words when discussing the pictures…this mirroring
can be a powerful way for the client to become aware of new
insights. Ask your client any additional questions related to what
you, as coach, notice in their drawings or in the trajectory of
change (see what to look for on page 101).
• Is the situation the client depicts in the here and now better or
worse than six months ago?
• Give the client some feedback of where they are in the change
cycle:
• If now is better than six months ago, they are “on the up” and
they are continuing their progress through today’s intentional
act of visioning and aligning their actions with that vision. Their
progress is likely to speed up by this intentional act
• If now is worse than six months ago, they are “in crisis”. Your
opportunity is to reframe this time of crisis as a period of “death
and rebirth”, where some old ways of being or structures in
their life need to be challenged or transformed in order for them
to live a more fulfilling, purposeful life of greater vision.
­Reassure them that getting themselves to this Vision Day is a
major step in taking charge of the situation and moving in a
positive direction.
 THE FLAVOUR OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 101
What to look for as a coach
In helping your client progress to a sense of change in the course of
their life and access unconscious wisdom about the transformation
they are hoping to create in their lives/leadership, you might iden-
tify in the drawings:

• The spatial relationship between certain objects

• The colour coding that your clients use
• Shifting sizes in recurring elements or figures in the picture
• The size of their depiction of themselves in each of the drawings
in relation to others

Some top tips

If time allows, you may ask your client to tell you the story of how
the drawing of the “now” becomes the picture of the “ideal future”.
Ideally, you do this in a playful way, and you might want to use a fairy
tale framework to illustrate your point, for example, “Once upon a
time there was a woman who was very frustrated at work and fed up
with her boss….” The fairy tale framework allows for “magical”
thinking (right brain), but gives some clues as to the steps that may be
involved in moving towards the desired future. (NB for some highly
rational clients this exercise is not advised – they can get literal about
the steps involved and can get intimidated by what needs doing.)
You can ask your client to embody the feeling of the “desired
future” picture in a physical stance. This can be very revealing to the
client and also serves as a “structure” they can take away with them
and even practice on a regular basis to keep their vision and who
they are becoming alive. Find a posture/stance that they can sustain
for some time rather than one which is overly exaggerated (which is
usually where they start out). By coming back to a more natural
stance, they can feel this is something “doable” and gives them a
sensory experience of themselves in their new vision.

Reflections and journaling prompts

• Draw three pictures for yourself of your past, present and future –
what do you notice?
102 THE HOW

• Draw a picture of the feelings you would like to have in your

future.
• Draw a picture that sums up your future self at work.
• Draw a picture each day for five days and see what you notice.

STEP 7 – POWER QUESTIONS

Power up
Liz read a quote from Einstein about how once you have worked out the right
questions, the answers sort themselves out in five minutes, and realised that
reframing her problems as questions was the challenge that came next. She
enjoyed playing with words and explored with her coach three powerful ques-
tions for herself. The first focused on how she could create a more meaningful
life for herself outside work. The second focused on how she could bring more
of this same creative self to the work place and learn how to build more
authentic and relationships. Her third was on how could she better look after
her own spiritual and physical health by connecting more to her passion and
care for the environment.
She felt excited to engage in these questions and her head was already
buzzing with ideas. It felt good to reframe all her challenges, concerns and
ideas into purposeful questions that she could take time to enjoy answering.

Purpose
In this exercise we ask the client to generate three Power Questions
for themselves that sum up the most important and meaningful areas
that demand attention.
A powerful question...
• Stimulates reflective thinking
• Challenges assumptions
• Is thought-provoking
• Generates energy and a vector to explore
• Channels inquiry, promises insight
• Is broad and enduring
• Touches a deeper meaning
• Evokes more questions
Eric Vogt (2003) The Art and Architecture of Questions12
 THE FLAVOUR OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 103
The purpose of this exercise is to simultaneously energise and
focus the client after the stream of consciousness experienced in the
“Download” and the creativity that was unleashed in the “Picture
1000 exercise”. We aim to help the client identify the key questions
that they want to answer in today’s Vision Day in order to move
them towards their Vision.
The Power Questions will aim to reframe their issues/problems/
challenges/assumptions into a positive framework, using the power
of positive language to stimulate fresh thinking.
For some people, these Power Questions become the “Quest”,
that is, the seeking of the Vision and can stay with the clients for
many years. For some, the questions provide a fresh and new way of
seeing their problems and challenges. At their best they create
energy, future focus and a sense of hope.
Often, a shift of perspective or more clarity has already come to
light and new questions may have arisen that are now relevant for
the client in moving them towards their desired future, and this
exercise becomes a means of attaching a language to this.
More often than not, however, the coach can play a vital role
here in lifting the question beyond the mundane to become a power
question.
Questions become Power Questions when their construction
creates a sense of energy, excitement and liberation for the client
simply by inviting in new possibilities, empowering perspectives and
a sense of ownership.
The architecture of questions can be said to build from low power
to high power.
Low power questions have an easy factual answer (e.g. what time
is it?) through to questions which start to create a new way of seeing
the world (e.g. what is your relationship with time?).
If the question challenges current limiting beliefs or assumptions
or holds together two dichotomies that previously could not sit
together, then it becomes more powerful for the client.

• How do I commit to the new role and be a present and loving

mother?
• How can I give tough feedback and still stay in positive relation-
ships with my team?
• How can I seek tough feedback and stay balanced and curious?
104 THE HOW

• How do I take on the responsibility of a new promotion and still

be carefree and relaxed?

How to administer the exercise

Introducing the exercise
Having completed the Picture 1000 exercise, introduce the next
concept: an exercise on Power Questions.
You might say something like:
“Building on your insights so far this morning around your
emerging vision…what are the three questions you would most like
to have answers to by the end of today”?
Offer an introduction stating the importance of the power of
questions and/or the Einstein quote below. Having a pre-prepared
sheet in the client folder with the Einstein quote and a layout for the
questions helps ground this.
You could say: I am a big believer in the power of questions, the
more powerful the question, the more powerful the answer.

If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on it would use

the first 55 minutes to formulate the right question because as soon as I
have identified the right question, I can solve the problem in less than five
minutes.
Albert Einstein

Give them an opportunity to reflect in silence and come up with

the three questions they would most like answered. You can encour-
age them about the nature of powerful questions, that is, highlight-
ing “open-ended” questions and avoiding “why” questions that
tend to evoke defensiveness or rationalisation.
Educate clients around the importance of framing their questions
(and internal dialogue) in terms of “moving towards” their vision rather
than “away from” their challenge/worries/current undesired reality.
Whilst an “away from” motivation is often very powerful in the
midst of challenge, it is difficult to sustain over the longer term. As
soon as the discomfort has been relieved, old habits resurface (just
 THE FLAVOUR OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 105
think about trying to lose weight – when you reach your ideal
weight after weeks or months of concerted effort, how long before
you slip back into old habits and gain the weight right back?).
A vision of a desired future that has intrinsic value in and of itself can
sustain motivation over the long term much more powerfully

Staging this exercise

Sometimes clients feel somewhat overwhelmed by the following
exercise. If so, you can help them craft three powerful questions
from the outset. Break it down into three stages:

• Highlight three themes/buckets/areas that the questions will fall

into.
• Have a go at a “starter for ten” question, that is, a set of words
pose a question that sits in the right “territory”, but you know
it will be improved. A “straw man” type of a question that you
can then build upon.

Remind them that Power Questions need to be:

• Open-ended
• Positively framed
• Future focused
• Ownable and sustainable by the client
• Clean and clear with personally positive language that has mean-
ing for the client
• Inviting exciting and liberating perspectives

Watch out…Avoid why questions – more empowering are ques-

tions that start with how, who and what.
Hone and tweak the language together by adding adjectives such
as inspirational and uplifting or adverbs such as gracefully or coura-
geously, or by changing the verbs to words like embrace, liberate,
create, choose – in order to be more future-focused or positive.
Some examples of vocabulary that typically evoke a positive
response include:
Embrace, uplift, liberate, choose, delight, happy, satisfaction,
healthy and all the language on the strengths questionnaires that
­represent universal strengths and virtues.
106 THE HOW

Some examples of helping to hone Power Questions:

• Not: Why do I always crumble under pressure?

• Maybe: How can I enjoy being an inspiring and motivational
leader through challenging times?
• Not: How can I stop worrying about what people think?
• Maybe: How can I liberate myself to achieve my potential?
• Not: What do I need to let go of in order to move forward?
• Maybe: What parts of myself can I embrace to move forward
with courage?

What to look for as a coach

In this exercise it is important to look for signs that your client is
feeling a “resonance” with what you are speaking of – that sense of
being uplifted and energised because they are moving towards their
essential self, towards their bigger game, towards confirmation that
their vision can become reality.
This will manifest itself usually in an energy shift. Their vitality
should increase as they engage in their questions. Language provides
an opportunity to prime clients towards hope. We are always aiming
for them to have a more hopeful outlook towards their future. Hope
is a positive psychology construct which simultaneously allows us to
have a vision or sense of something positive ahead whilst activating
ideas and pathways of how to get there.13
These Power Questions must aim to give them a glimpse of the
future they desire and activate their motivation towards the process
of change required to get where they want to go.
The questions are in service of powerfully moving the client
towards their desired future. The questions need to give them a
sense of possibility, of new perspective, of hope and inspiration.
They need to move them beyond assumptions/mindsets that have
caused them to become stuck.
As a good litmus test to gauge whether the client has arrived at
Power Questions that fully engage them, ask the following:
“How would you feel if you have compelling answers and action
steps in relation to these questions by the end of the afternoon”?
You are looking for ENERGY, relief, excitement, hope, joy and
similar positive emotions in response to this question.
 THE FLAVOUR OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 107
Some top tips
• Be pro-active. Offer words (lightly) that you have noticed have
meaning for them from the pre-work or the download or p­ ictures.
• Believe in the power of questions to liberate (don’t try and solve
or judge).
• Believe in the power of positive language to instil hope.
• Trust in the difference; even one word can make a question.
• Remember the question is emergent, a living, breathing quest
that can be updated and honed throughout the day and
beyond.
• Notice your own biases around language (e.g. do you prefer
depth, past focused, emotional or therapeutic language?).
• One way of up-levelling the intrinsic motivation of your client
towards their desired future is to ask more and more your client
about one of their power questions.
• If you had an answer to this question by the end of today what
would that do for you?
• Or what would be important about that?
• And then repeat that question two more times:
• And what would that do for you?
• And what would that do for you?

What is the difference between a power question and a normal

coaching question?
• It transforms outlook
• It raises energy
• It reframes the situation
• It becomes the Quest (the vision)

What is our role here as coach? To lift the mediocre question to a

higher level. It provides focus to the day/life and offers an alternative
way of seeing problems. I am a big believer in the power of ques-
tions. In shaping the question we change the opportunity for inter-
esting answers.
This is where the art form of language crafting comes in. We know
that certain words trigger positive emotions and raise energy. Some of
these words are obvious, for example, happy, uplift, dream, sunshine.
108 THE HOW

Some might be words that have more personal resonance for the
client based on the strengths, values or themes revealed by the
­pre-work or download.
Our role is to help the client tweak their own language to create
a visible energetic shift. We want the question to evoke hope and
opportunity and to excite them when they think of it.
We can play with the following verbs:

• Survive…thrive
• Get through…embrace

We can play with the following adverbs or adjectives:

Gracefully, joyfully, easefully, with courage, with humour
We can play with the following nouns:
Opportunity, phase, stage, experience
e.g. “How do I get through the next six months?”, might
become...

• How do I embrace this next role gracefully?

• How do I embrace this next opportunity courageously?
• How do I embrace this next phase with humour?
• How do I embrace this next stage in my career with lightness?
• How do I embrace this next experience with humility?

Reflections and journaling prompts

• List all of your current big problems. Now see if you can reframe
them and turn them into Questions.
• Once you have your list of Questions, aim to tweak the lan-
guage to turn them into Power Questions by adding in language
that is enlivening to you and uses your strengths and gifts.

STEP 8 – 80TH BIRTHDAY VISUALISATION

Go time travelling
Wow, Liz was well versed with visualising in yoga, but she’d never done any-
thing like this before. This is where she travelled forward inside her mind to her
80th birthday. She found herself with tears streaming down her face – suddenly
 THE FLAVOUR OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 109
horribly aware of who wouldn’t be there as well as feeling touched by anyone
who was present. It felt profound. At her 80th birthday celebration, she was
living by the sea with her partner, and they were surrounded by loving friends
and family – her children were making speeches. She felt delighted and sur-
prised they were by the sea and she couldn’t wait to go and talk to her partner
about that; living by the sea was a dream they’d had a long time ago and had
given up on – she hadn’t thought about it for years. The speeches were about
the impact she’d made on lives and her work in sustainable development. She
was so pleased to see she had created a more meaningful p­ urpose-driven career
for herself in her later decades. She could look back now and see the stint in
the professional services as a good precursor – she gave herself the advice from
her 80-year-old self: “don’t give away your power, use your creativity for
what you believe in”.

Purpose
The 80th birthday visualisation is designed to achieve the f­ollowing:

• Encourage future thinking – “savouring” the future

• Perspective – an invitation for those taking part to see their
­current issues in the context of an average human life span
• Align the client with values and what really matters to them
• Tap into unconscious wisdom (advice to self)
• Playing with time as a journey metaphor and thinking back-
wards allows a chance to think freely without critical thinking

Underpinnings
We are looking to activate an unconscious/creative response to the
unspoken question of “what is your vision”. If we ask people to state
their vision or “what they want”, they find it notoriously hard to answer.
The use of visualisation has long been used in performance coach-
ing, specifically in the field of sports coaching where its success is
widely reported by winning athletes across a broad range of sports.14

Savouring the future

Savouring, as we discussed in the set-up, is an important concept in
positive psychology which is correlated with wellbeing and
110 THE HOW

happiness. One can savour the past, present, but not everyone thinks
about “savouring” the future.
Visualising a perfect future is entirely healthy and normal and is a
sign of healthy optimism and hope. Studies by Zimbardo and Boyd
suggest that people with a bias towards spending their time thinking
about a positive future (a future time perspective) will more likely
have good psychological and physiological health and positive out-
comes.15

The power of mental rehearsal

Brain studies now reveal that thoughts can be as powerful and have
similar results as actions. Mental imagery and visualisation impact
many cognitive processes in the brain; the brain is getting trained for
actual performance during visualisation. It has been found that men-
tal imagery practices enhance motivation, increase confidence and
self-efficacy, improve motor performance, prime your brain for suc-
cess and increase states of flow.16

How to administer the exercise

• Ask the client if they have ever taken part in an active visualisa-
tion before.
• If they haven’t, reassure them there is no right or wrong.
• Tell them that it is a short exercise, around 7–10 minutes. They
will be asked to shut their eyes and you will be speaking to
them, giving them prompts of what to think about in their
mind’s eye, with no need to speak until the exercise has fi ­ nished.
• In the visualisation, they will be asked to imagine a celebration,
themselves in full health, at their 80th birthday. Tell them some
people have difficulty creating a visual image when prompted.
They might find it easier to imagine hearing or touching something
instead; anything is fine. The important thing is to take quiet think-
ing time to reflect on the questions in the v­ isualisation exercise.
• Encourage them to put all books or papers down and uncross
legs, both feet on the floor.
• Invite them to close their eyes or go into peripheral vision.
• See suggested script.
 THE FLAVOUR OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 111
What to do as a coach
• Watch out for signs of the vision emerging.
• Draw a timeline whilst they are describing what they see.
• Capture visual representations of landmarks on their timeline.
• Capture in writing their “advice” to themselves that came to
them in the visualisation from their 80-year-old self.

Some top tips

If you meet any resistance at the beginning (mainly fear of imag-
ining themselves at that age), encourage the client to do the exer-
cise without engaging too much with their conscious fears.
Remind them of how you set up the day at the start and that some
exercises might feel less useful than other or not be totally closed
down neatly. Encourage them to keep it feeling playful and
exploratory.
Here is an example of what you could say: “This is only seven
minutes or so. You only need to share what you feel comfortable
sharing afterwards and most people find it an extremely profound
exercise. Let’s give it a go”.
Many clients will be affected deeply by this exercise and remem-
ber it for years to come. Be prepared for tears. Some clients profess
complete indifference. Be prepared for this too. Assume full confi-
dence that the client had a full “vision” revealed. At first, they may
claim they saw nothing. Continue to ask the questions “as if” they
saw everything.
These are the kinds of questions you might ask:

• Where were you?

• Who was there?
• Who made the speech?
• What were you doing in your 70s?
• Were you still working?
• Where were you living?
• What was the atmosphere like?

Assume they know the answers and the picture will emerge.
112 THE HOW

It’s like magic painting, where you spread water over the page
and a colourful, stronger picture gradually emerges.

The 80th birthday visualisation script

Use a slow, low and gentle tone of voice with plenty of pauses
and not much variation in pitch. You’re aiming for soothing
– almost hypnotic.
I’d like you to close your eyes or allow your eyes to go into periph-
eral vision and soften your gaze and the muscles in your face, which-
ever is most comfortable for you.
I’m going to close my eyes.
Just allow your breathing to deepen, taking your breath now down
from your chest area to your tummy. By changing our breath we change
our state and by slowing our breathing we allow our minds to enter a
space where creativity and ideas can come and go, a bit like just before
we fall asleep at night where our brainwaves relax into a different state.
This is time now for you to switch off from the day-to-day concerns
and spend a little bit of time thinking about your future; any thoughts
that are bubbling to the surface now, allow yourself to put them away.
Imagine locking them in a box in a room, knowing that they are
safe there until you are ready to access them later on today. Things on
the to-do list, ideas, noises from outside, any distractions...just pop
them away, for now, knowing you can come back to them later today.
As you start to relax, you may notice sounds inside and outside the
room you had not noticed before, and that’s ok and they are not
important right now, just let them wash over you.
I am going to invite you, in just a minute, to imagine that you are
celebrating a landmark birthday. In full health and feeling incredibly
proud of the life choices you have made. I want you to imagine now
that you are celebrating your 80th birthday.
Now, take a few moments to notice where this wonderful celebra-
tion is taking place. You are in full health, feeling positive about the
life you have lived so far. Take a few moments to notice where you
are... It may be somewhere you have always wanted to go but never
been, it may be somewhere that you have always longed to go …or it
may be somewhere that you already know and love.
 THE FLAVOUR OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 113

… and maybe someone organised this for you or maybe you organ-
ised it yourself, but just take a few moments to appreciate and notice
the sights and sounds and tastes as you look around at the venue of
this special event.
Notice also the smells and tastes of the food and drinks that are part
of the celebration and the sounds and sights of all the people that are
there.
Take a few moments now to notice who is there, the way they look,
the sound of their laughter and chatter, the feel of their hugs.
Maybe there are some surprises about who is there or maybe there
are no surprises at all.
…and maybe one of those people makes a speech about you.
Listen to what they are saying about you, the adjectives they use to
describe you and the impact you have had on their life and lives around
you. The funny stories they tell about you and the anecdotes they use
to describe the contribution you have made.
...And maybe you make a speech yourself or maybe you are just
quietly reflecting on your life as you look over the last 80 years.
...As you think about what you learned in each decade and what
was important.
As you think about your 70s, who and what was important, where
and how you were spending your time.
The highs and lows, what lessons you learned.
What choices you made?
Who and what mattered?
And how this was the same or different to your 60s.
As you think about your 60s, who and what were important.
Where and how were you spending your time?
The highs and lows, what lessons you learned, what choices you
took?
Who and what mattered?
Same or different to your 50s.
As you think about your 50s, who and what was important.
Where and how were you spending your time?
The highs and lows.
What lessons you learned, what choices you took?
Who and what mattered?
114 THE HOW

And how this was the same or different to your 40s.

As you think about your 40s, who and what was important.
Where and how were you spending your time?
The highs and lows.
What lessons you learned, what choices you took?
Who and what mattered?
And how this was the same or different to your 30s.
As you think about your 30s,
Who and what was important,
Where and how were you spending your time?
The highs and lows.
What lessons you learned, what choices you took?
Who and what mattered?
And how this was the same or different to your 20s, your first
decade of independent, adult life.
As you think about your 20s,
Who and what was important,
Where and how were you spending your time?
The highs and lows, what lessons you learned what choices you
took?
Who and what mattered?
And as you reflect over all the decades and the learning and wisdom
you have acquired, offer a piece of wisdom from your 80-year-old self
to your x-old self with all the choices and decisions they are facing.
One piece of advice.
One piece of wisdom.
And then when you are ready,
Take a long look around at the people and the celebration and take
what you need with you as your return to the present age on this date
in this place (you can name them specifically here) feeling totally
refreshed and alert.
Allow silence, regrouping, acknowledge their emotional state and
then ask:
How was that? Only share what you want to share.
What are the tears about?
Then gently probe... Where were you? and so on and elicit enough
information for the timeline to be drawn from their current age to the
imagined age of 80.
 THE FLAVOUR OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 115
The 80th birthday
Questions
• Where were you?
• Who was there?
• What were the themes of the speeches?
• What were the themes of the following decades?
• Your 80s?
• Your 70s?
• Your 60s?
• Your 50s
• Your 40s
• Your 30s
• Your 20s
• What is the wisdom to give yourself now?
• What is important in the coming year or two?
• What seeds should you be sowing now?
• What are your goals for this year that are aligned to your bigger
life vision?

STEP 9 – VALUES WALK

Get WALKING
Liz wiped her tears away and gathered herself for the walk – it felt great to
get outside walking with her coach. It was a fresh beautiful day and the huge
window had been open throughout the session. She had been hearing the
birds sing and could smell the green and feel the gentle breeze even when they
were inside. As far as her eye could see, it rested on green rolling hills. What
a long-range view. It made her feel as if she wanted a longer and wider per-
spective on her life. She felt she had been in the weeds, both at work and in
her life, way too long. Now she was lifting her gaze, lifting her head and
making some informed, intentional choices. Liz was buzzing with ideas; she
almost felt replete that she had got what she came for…she was seeing herself
and her future in such a different way. “I feel much more positive it’s almost
like I’ve been lifted above all that hesitation and can see my life from an
entirely different perspective”, she told the coach. Now Liz felt clear about
how she could make changes in her current life and was having thoughts
about the type of career and future she wanted to create and ideas on how to
make that happen.
116 THE HOW

They walked through fields and woods and the coach asked her about
three highs and three lows in her life. This felt like a deep conversation, but
she felt safe to explore. Walking side by side with her coach, someone she
trusted, and the beautiful natural sights of sheep and cows grazing, so dif-
ferent from London. I feel alive. I need to do this more often, Liz thought.
She wanted to share and explore areas that she rarely visited in her mind:
her sadness when her father left her mother as a child and how irresponsible
he’d been towards her – how it had affected her trust in men both at work
and in relationships; how she had failed at university and had to retake and
how gutted and ashamed she felt about that; how she had felt after a break
up of a steady but uninspiring relationship that she should have got out of
so much earlier. Her highs were fun to revisit: her marriage and partnership
and how that had created a sense of true belonging for the first time. The joy
of being able to have children later in life. A work team she had created that
was super high-performing that had enjoyed considerable success and acco-
lades for about two years before the company was acquired. The highs and
lows felt good to talk about. It made her realise that some of the stuff with
her boss was weirdly linked to her relationship with her Dad. Together with
the coach, she came to understand her values and realised how important
teamwork, fairness, love and belonging, bravery and creativity were to her.

Purpose
The values walk is designed to create the following experiences in
the day and possible benefits for the client:

• Energy boost (physical and emotional)

• Perspective (a broader physical canvas opens up perspective)
• Clarity on values that need to be honoured in their vision
• Deepening of the coaching and client relationship
• Resourcing from nature

When we invite our clients to step outside into nature whatever the
weather, there is an immediate shift in energy. The sense of move-
ment, walking side by side, and the blast of fresh air (cold, rain,
sunshine) bring a new dynamic to the relationship.
During the walk, you will be privileged to hear the three highest
and three lowest points of the client’s life. Our job, as coaches, is to
 THE FLAVOUR OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 117
listen for the themes and the values and not be sucked into the drama
of their stories. Make no doubt about this; you will undoubtedly be
privy to some intimate details.
The highs are joyous to listen to and for the coachee to share but
the “troughs” can be harrowing for both and may well evoke tears
whilst walking. Be prepared to hear about:

• Mental breakdowns
• Academic disappointments
• Depression
• Near-death experiences
• Births, marriages and deaths
• Friendship breakups
• Divorces
• Suicides
• Lingering and terminal illnesses
• Bullying and abusive relationships
• Being fired, made redundant
• Being cut off from family
• Trauma

Theoretical underpinnings
Studies have shown that a nature walk increases cognitive ability.
A group of people was tested on cognitive abilities, namely mem-
ory tasks, and then split into two. One group were taken on a city
walk, the other a nature walk, and then each were tested again. The
nature walk group had a significant increase in their cognitive abili-
ties compared to the urban walkers.17
This was inspired by Attention Restoration Theory from Kaplan
and Kaplan, which is interested in how the “soft focus” feel of nature
replenishes our attention levels, whereas in urban environments we
need to stay more alert.18 This is needed more than ever; eco-­
psychology as a field and “Forest Bathing” in Japan are fields of study
exploring the replenishment benefits for our minds, bodies and spir-
its even more deeply.
Being in nature also encourages alpha brainwaves. These are the
brainwaves we access in deep relaxation or meditation and they
118 THE HOW

open us up to intuitive insights, greater visions and deeper wis-

dom. Being active outside in nature revitalises and releases stimu-
lating, positive hormones into our system. For the client and the
coach.
Maslow is possibly one of the foremost positive psychologists, and
his theory of self-actualisation and human potential states the impor-
tance of “peak moments”.19 These are transient moments of self-­
actualisation, which enable one to see more clearly and become
aligned with what he calls “B values”. These are pure and positive
values when we are not clouded by deficiency thinking (what
Maslow calls D-cognition).
B values, such as wholeness, beauty, goodness, playfulness, truth,
aliveness, uniqueness, are accessible in these “peak moments”, and
even if they do not remain with us, they have a revelatory nature
about them that helps put us in touch with our true nature and
self-actualisation. Reminding the client of their “peak experiences”
helps them access this “better report” of their ideal selves.
During the Vision Day, we are trying to help the client articulate an
aspirational and compelling vision of their “ideal self”, the future self,
who embodies and lives their vision. The more one’s ideal self (how
we want to be), self-worth (what we think and feel about ourselves
internally) and self-image (how we see ourselves based on feedback
from the world) overlap, the more congruent and coherent one feels.
The values walk works to remind people when before in their life
they have experienced this sense of extreme overlap/congruence or
disconnect/incongruence. The more the client’s vision is value-­
driven, the more easily the ensuing congruence and coherence sup-
plies the client effortlessly with the intrinsic and self-concordant
motivation to achieve it.

How to administer the exercise

The walk consists of three interventions:
• General “checking in” and sense-making, that is, what is emerg-
ing and what is starting to make sense
• Values introduction and exercise to elicit and articulate values
– “Peaks and Troughs”
• Theming and sense-making of the values
 THE FLAVOUR OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 119
Check in
• Start with a general check in on how they are experiencing the
day so far.
• Any fresh insights?
• How are you experiencing this, so far?
• How are we doing?
• Then, offer some “laser input” to offer up an alternative lens
which creates a reframe opportunity for the client. This could
sound something like:

“Because of my background/training this is how I would describe

what you are describing” …And here you offer some models/­
psychological underpinnings… lightly, yet with authority.
You can use any models/philosophies you are most comfortable
with. This gives the client a new language and frameworks with
which to view their situation or habitual behaviour. They often find
this very enlightening and uplifting. It is essential here that if you are
“informing” or “proscribing” (Heron), then you are doing so within
a framework that offers hope and capacity for change.20 Hope is vital
and the client must be encouraged by whichever model you use that
a capacity for growth and change has been evidenced elsewhere.
This is not about categorising or putting clients into boxes, but
offering an alternative lens for them to look through.
Often, the client will return to this later in the day and ask for
more reading and resources on whatever commentary you have
made at this point.
Erik De Haan, in his book Relational Coaching,21 highlights that
one of the key criteria for successful coaching is to have a consistent
philosophical underpinning. (But it doesn’t seem to matter which
one, so work with the coaching philosophy that you are most
knowledgeable about and congruent with.)
Positive Psychology and other frameworks that can be referenced
here are:

• MBTI/Jung if they have shown obvious/strong preferences

• Time Perspective – Zimbardo & Boyd (Future, present hedo-
nistic, present fatalistic, past positive, past negative)22
120 THE HOW

• Mindset (Carol Dweck)23

• Savouring (Bryan)24
• Goal-setting (Latham and Locke)25
• Resilience (Reivich)26
• Positive Emotions (Fredrickson)27
• Optimism, Learned optimism (Seligman)28

Values introduction and elicitation

For this stage of the vision day, you might say the following. You are
now well into the stride of the walk and you do not pause or stop.
This conversation deepens with walking in nature.
I introduce it like this: “We are going to do a simple exercise now
around values. I am going to ask you about three peaks and three
troughs in your life and then we are going to note the themes that
emerge”.
The basic thinking here is that the peaks are when you are hon-
ouring your core values and feel aligned, and the troughs when the
opposite is happening, and you are violating some key values.
We are looking here at value-centred leadership principles; I say to
my clients “when you are aligned to your values you are congruent

Figure 3.9  Peaks and Troughs.

 THE FLAVOUR OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 121
and strong, and can operate at your best. When you’re not, you will
feel ill at ease, a sense of dis-ease and life feels pretty rotten. So this
exercise is to help you elicit and articulate your values and it is a simple
one.”
The client picks three stories from any part of their life. Work is
not deemed separate here, although sometimes people compartmental-
ise or need to clarify about the different spheres in their life. The invi-
tation is to describe three peaks and three troughs from any time or
aspect in their life. The client can and will respond any way they like.
Some start with troughs first, some with peaks first and a few do them
alternately.
By the end of the walk, the coaching relationship has significantly
deepened to a new level, with rapport now very strong. Through
this exercise, you will have reminded the client about life’s rich tap-
estry and how they have survived bad troughs. This is important to
note in order to help remind them of their resilience and resource-
fulness. It is always humbling to me to hear how clients have often
overcome huge setbacks/troughs in their lives – loss, failures, redun-
dancies, bereavements, illnesses – with extraordinary grace.
The walk is often where clients have an AHA moment.

Theming and sense-making

Towards the end of the walk, ask your client what they have noticed
in sharing this perspective of their life. Sometimes people are sur-
prised; even though they know these stories intimately, they may
never have told these life events or stories side by side and the rich-
ness and resilience of their life journey strikes them.
Ask clients to make links between their highs and lows and how
tact connects to their worldview and value set, before you offer your
listener perspective.
Then, offer your summation of what you have noticed about
what’s important to them (it is very important that you handle this
sensitively).
When they return to the room after lunch or whilst waiting for
lunch, prompt them to write these revelations down, both theirs and
yours.
122 THE HOW

As coach, write the most important values on separate cards and

put them on the stimulus table.

What to look for as a coach

This is a chance to understand the values that matter to the client.
You will hear some strong and moving stories, so aim to keep a
focus on what lies underneath the storyline.

Some top tips

• The client might tell you a peak or a trough and then quickly
rush on.
• One way of slowing them down is to ask them, “So out of all
that, if you stripped back to just one thing what was the thing
that made it such a peak (or trough) for YOU”?
• You can keep asking this, even if it sounds repetitious to your-
self; I have noted clients don’t seem to process it as the same
question. It ensures you cut through the story to the heart of the
real values that caused the most pain/joy.

Lunch
The Values Walk takes you into lunch.
Try and stop the conversation being a coaching conversation and
have a social and light conversation over lunch to give them a break
and the relationship a chance to again enter a different stage which
adds another layer of energy, eating outside if weather permits
enhances a sense of wellbeing.

Reflections and journaling prompts

• Share with a friend or colleague three peaks and three troughs
you have experienced in your lifetime.
• Draw a line representing your life, and circle three peaks and
three troughs and then journal about what happened and
what values you feel were underpinning these high and low
points.
 THE FLAVOUR OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 123

Figure 3.10  Peaks and Troughs.

STEP 10 – LUNCH
Get connected to your strengths ready for strengths-based
action planning
Liz was really into her stride now and laughing a lot – the day was whizzing
by and now they needed to start action planning. She couldn’t wait – this
was her forte. Liz talked about her strengths and how they show up at work
for her. The coach invited her to think about what behaviours showed up in
her life and work when she used her strengths. And if you turn the dial up
even more? The coach asked: What might you do? This felt fun, no, it felt
EASY – as they explored how Liz could bring more of her strengths to work,
to her family and social life and to her sustainability projects in the industry.

Purpose
The purpose of this part of the Vision Day is to draw on the charac-
ter strengths identified in the online VIA strengths questionnaire to
answer the Power Questions and identify the possible action steps
that will move your client towards their Vision (revealed throughout
the day in the download, the pictures, the 80th birthday visualisation
and the Values walk).
Often, action planning can be or become a laborious process for
the client (and coach), one laden with “shoulds” and “have tos” to
address areas of perceived weakness.
124 THE HOW

Drawing on the client’s signature strengths, however – their well

spring of natural positive energy and personal “genius” –
­revolutionises the ideas for action that get generated. Actions become
exciting possibilities that are followed through from a place of
strength and ease and that energise the client in the process.

Theoretical underpinnings
“If you spend your life trying to be good at everything, you’ll never
be great at anything”29 (Strengths-based leadership, p7).
The essence of Positive Psychology is expressed in its strength-
based approach. Rather than focusing on remedying people’s short-
comings (the traditional focus of school and leadership development),
Positive Psychology focuses on developing people’s/leader’s natural
strengths – their “genius”.
People who are operating from their strengths are more self-­
confident, fulfilled and more effective; they are six times more likely
to be engaged in their role. They are also more energised when
engaged in activities that use their strengths and can perform sustain-
ably at peak performance. People learn things related to their natural
strengths six times more effectively than people who do not have
that natural strength (Gallup Survey).30
“Strengths”, as measured by the VIA character survey,31 high-
light one’s stable character traits, which, supported by skill and
knowledge development, make them key areas where people most
effortlessly and joyfully learn and become increasingly effective and
fulfilled.
The top five strengths that come up from the VIA character
strengths survey tend to be a client’s signature strengths. To qualify
as a signature strength, any of the following criteria need to apply32:

• A sense of ownership and authenticity (this is the “real me”)

• A feeling of excitement while displaying the strength
• Continuous learning of ways to enact the strength
• A sense of yearning to find ways to use the strength
• Invigoration rather than exhaustion using the strength
• Creation and pursuit of personal projects that revolve around
the strength
• Joy, zest, enthusiasm, even ecstasy, while using the strength
 THE FLAVOUR OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 125
Sometimes you might find that the top five strengths have not yet been
developed or are not considered “the real me” by the client – the client
may be good at something, but it might not energise or excite them. It
is important to help the client identify the top four or five strengths
they really “own” and experience as authentic, invigorating and joyful.
Clarifying a client’s signature strengths and then creating an action
plan from those strengths in pursuit of their vision and optimistic
picture of the future will ensure a powerful and strong foundation
for a fulfilling and meaningful way of leading and living.

How to administer the exercise

For this exercise, you will want to use the VIA strength cards on
your “stimulus table”. In the morning, before the Vision Day begins,
make sure you have placed the cards of the five signature strengths
on the stimulus table, with the next five strengths nearby.

Opening
For a few minutes, let the client have a look at the strength cards and
ask them:

• Do your top five strengths, your signature strengths, feel like

“the real you”?
• How does using these strengths make you feel (energised, filled
with purpose, fulfilled or drained and depleted)?
• Look on the back of the card for more information on this
strength…What resonates with you?
• How do you already use these strengths?

If the client does not relate to one of their top strengths as a signature
strength, ask why not? Then, listen for ownership versus learned
response (which drains them) or whether the strength energises
them when they use it, but their life/work just does not give them
an opportunity to exercise this strength much.

Reflections and journaling prompts

• Take your top five signature strengths and write about how they
show up at work.
126 THE HOW

• Write about how you could turn the “dial up” on each strength –
what would that mean you might DO differently?

STEP 11 – STRENGTH-BASED ACTION PLANNING

Get brainstorming
Liz liked this part. She’d had enough introspection. She wanted to get things
done! She brainstormed ideas of how to use her strengths to answer her three
power questions. To turn ideas into possible action points. She felt full of
creative energy, and together with the coach generated sheets and sheets of
ideas onto a flip chart. Ideas of what she could do to start answering those
power questions that would take her more towards the future she wanted. It
felt possible. It felt probable. Liz was buzzing!

Purpose
Once you and your client have identified and taken ownership of
their signature strengths, use these strengths as perspectives from
which to generate answers to the Power Questions and possible
actions.
Read out the first Power Question to the client and ask which
signature strength will be the most useful perspective from which
to start generating ideas to the question. The client picks a
strength.
Then, record the client’s ideas on a “possible action” sheet. It’s
quite amazing what they come out with. Some are obvious ideas,
others more creative; some are “quick wins/low hanging fruit”, like
email somebody; ask my PA to schedule no meetings between 8 and
10 am each day, change my desk around, organise a breakfast with all
my peers, sign up for a masterclass, talk to my partner about a holi-
day.
And others more elaborate projects, for example, research, writ-
ing thought leadership articles, revising my CV, applying for some
non-executive positions, retraining as a coach, sign up for a writing
retreat, do a pension review, restructure my department, negotiate
for more resource.
Write everything down.
 THE FLAVOUR OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 127
When you feel the ideas are drying up from this perspective, ask
the client to choose another strength from which to answer the same
question.
You are accessing the client’s inner wisdom through this process.
Guided from a place of strength and their natural well spring of pos-
itive energy and confidence, the client will find new ideas that move
them towards their Vision. Some of these ideas will be clear actions
for the “to do” list (e.g. arrange a meeting with…, create a list of
possible titles for my next speech), others might be mental or attitu-
dinal shifts.
Capture everything the client generates – this will help them real-
ise the extent of their creative capacity and strengthen their connec-
tion to their inner motivation.

Options
• You can ask the client to find different places in the room/
meeting space/hotel to demark different “strengths-based”
aspects of themselves.
• You can ask clients to strike a pose for this aspect of themselves –
how does “Zest” sit or stand versus how “Social Intelligence” sits
or stands.
• You can ask the client to see if their values align with certain
strengths, and add these to the mix as perspectives from which
to answer the questions.

What to look out for as a coach

• Your role in this exercise is to keep stimulating the client’s cre-
ativity
• If they dry up and you have an idea, offer it at an appropriate
moment
• Remind the client of earlier actions that seem to fit with the
Power Question
• You want to invite the client to answer each Power Question
from two strengths/values perspectives
• Encourage the client to “get out of the box” and try different
perspectives
128 THE HOW

• Make sure the client “identifies” with the strength before start-
ing the interview – don’t fall into stories here…push the pace to
generate actions and ideas
• Allow silence…trust there are more ideas to come
• “What else?” is a favourite question in this exercise…each time
encouraging the client to dig deeper into the creative well of ideas

Reflections and journaling prompt

• Spend seven minutes brainstorming for each Power Question
idea that bounces off your strengths and capturing what ideas
you have, that is, take Power Question 1 and think about apply-
ing all your strengths and what ideas you have.

STEP 12 – COMMITTED ACTIONS

Get committing
With idea-filled sheets lying around the room and pinned up on walls, Liz
was surrounded by brightly coloured actions – some sensible, some completely
whacky. It was time to critique and narrow down exactly what she was will-
ing to commit to. Liz selected some actions she knew she would and could do,
they felt doable. She was going to initiate a meeting with her boss and turn
up in a positive frame of mind, presenting her creative ideas about the future
with optimism rather than telling her boss all the reasons why they couldn’t
do x, y and z. She was going to pitch for more sustainability projects and
initiatives within her organisation. She would report back on how she had
talked to friends and ex colleagues in order to scope out the not-for-profit areas
for a new role, and she had a whole plan of self-care about how to build more
spiritual time for herself with reading, writing and yoga. More time exercising
and taking retreat holidays versus getting to the end of each year burnt out
with half of her holiday allowance not taken. She also wanted to show a
renewed commitment to taking more active leadership in the sustainability
initiative she was taking in the industry.

Purpose
Having identified a long list of possible actions, the client needs to
choose the actions they are committed to. These are the actions that
 THE FLAVOUR OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 129
they feel will most powerfully move them towards their Vision, the
actions that will create forward momentum.
Ideally, what they need on their list are both smaller/easy wins/low
hanging fruit and some bigger action items. But it needs to be possible
for all of them to be started or executed within the next six-week period.
The purpose for this is to move the client “into action” towards
their Vision, and the list then becomes what you as coach can hold
them accountable to at the six-week review session.
It is important that the client feels energised and excited to get
going with these actions and that they recognise they will be in a
different space once these actions have been executed.

Theoretical underpinnings
Visions and Dreams wilt and die quickly if they are not engaged with
action. Otherwise they risk becoming idle fantasies or empty wishes.
Lack of action will evoke the “Doubter/Saboteur/Gremlin”
voice in your client’s head and reaffirm latent beliefs that they “can’t
do it”, are “not worthy” or any other limiting belief that they may
be challenged by.
Inaction breeds lack of confidence whereas meaningful action cre-
ates learning, ownership and inner confidence. Following through on
commitments to oneself builds the foundation of integrity and pur-
posefulness.
William Hutchinson Murray captures the importance of commit-
ment in The Scottish Himalayan Expedition,33 and I’ve pulled out a
powerful quote here:

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw

back. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one
elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas
and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits
oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to
help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole
stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all
manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assis-
tance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his
way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Bold-
ness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.
130 THE HOW

How to administer the exercise

1 Ask the client to contemplate their list of possible actions (from the
Strength-Based Action Planning exercise) and pick the ones that are:

• Able to be completed or started within the next six weeks

• Most compelling/exciting to them
• Most energising to them
• Quick wins, that is, “low hanging fruit”, by which I mean quick
1% changes that take minimum effort, but all add up
• Somewhat edgy – out of the comfort zone
• The greatest/most empowering leap forward towards their Vision

2 Usually, clients generate a list of between seven and 12 actions.

Ask the client to share these with you:

• Make a note of these actions for yourself; you will refer to these
in six weeks’ time
• Ask your client how they envision they will feel when they have
accomplished all these actions – where they feel they will be in
relation to their Vision and in relation to where they are now

What to look for as a coach

Check for any change in your client’s energy level (taking into
account that this is the end of the day).
Make sure your client feels energised to complete their actions
rather than drained. It is better to have fewer actions that help them
create success than have a long list that ends up overwhelming them
and gets shelved.

Reflections and journaling prompts

• What small steps can you commit to taking over a six-week
period?
• Write a list of the ideas that pass the “critiquing” test, that is,
which ones can you commit to. Which ideas do you feel ener-
gised by when choosing?
• Build in “success architecture” that is, setting up your day,
week, month with habits, rituals, practices or actions that
 THE FLAVOUR OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 131
support your success; start with easy initiatives based on your
strengths and start ticking things off and remember to celebrate.
• Action is more important than more thinking or analysing here.
This is about committing to your vision and inching it forward.
Taking back the control.

STEP 13 – CRYSTALLISATION
Get crystallising
Liz looked back over the whole day – she felt like a different person to the coiled
spring that had walked in. She felt proud, expanded and able to see a clear path
and vision forward. She felt more alive and energised than she had for years

Crystallisation
• What pledges are you making to yourself and me about what you
will commit to doing…by when?
• What did the coaching conversation reveal to you today? What’s
becoming clear?
• What, if anything, is still outstanding?
• What worked well and less well for you today?
• What was most valuable in today’s session?

Purpose
The crystallisation process is designed to achieve the following:

• Capture key learning and insights

• Commitment to actions
• Giving feedback that can be fed forward into enhancing and
improving the quality of coaching interventions and the coach-
ing relationship
• Increasing accountability

Theoretical underpinnings
Studies show that writing down goals increases the likelihood of
their attainment. A recent study in the UK in general practice (GP)
surgeries showed a dramatic decrease in expensive “no shows” when
132 THE HOW

patients were asked to write down their next appointment time ver-
sus being told or repeating back.
Writing creates different language structures in the brain and
makes the client think further about what they have learned. It
ensures they capture their learning in language that is meaningful for
them.
The physical act of writing and then reviewing the sheet in your
own handwriting holds a further key to action orientation and
intrinsic motivation.

How to administer the exercise

• Fifteen minutes before the end of the session, hand over the
crystallisation sheet and ask your client to reflect upon and
answer the questions.
• Ask them to read out what they have written (don’t let them
just slide the paper to you).
• You make notes for your records.

What to look for as a coach

• Don’t be tempted to add what you think they have learned.
• Stay curious and interested and non-judgemental. Don’t get
hooked by any of it, especially not the feedback.

Some top tips

• Some clients like to take the crystallisation sheet away and send
it back. Use your judgement on this one. If they are an obvious
reflector, allow it, but give a 48-hour deadline. If they are an
active learner with a clear preference for extroversion, then
encourage them to do it there even if there is resistance; other-
wise, it is unlikely to get done.
• The extra level of processing seems to make a difference to the
“ownership”; so don’t ignore it.
• Clients are often shy to give us feedback. Encourage this if they
leave it blank; start with asking them to say something positive,
what worked particularly well for you, and…then move onto…
and less well?
 THE FLAVOUR OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 133
Reflections and journaling prompts
• What have you learned about yourself through this process?
• What pledges do you feel you want to make to yourself going
forward?
• What are you most excited to start doing differently?
• How would you describe your positive vision now compared to
how you felt at the start of this process?

STEP 14 – 48-HOUR CHECK IN

Get celebrated
Liz checked in. She still felt fantastic. She had already ticked off four of the
things on her action list! She felt energised to make positive changes.

Purpose
• To help your clients feel and stay connected with their Vision
and you as their coach/champion as they are “landing” back
into their familiar surroundings.
• To support your clients into moving forward into action and
not get sucked back into “life as usual”.
• To answer any questions and concerns following the Vision Day.
• To set up the six-week follow-up/accountability/refocus s­ession.

How to administer the “exercise”

At the end of the Vision Day, request your client to check in with
you via email within 48 hours.
Find out:

• How they are

• How the Vision Day has landed with them
• How they are settling into their everyday life
• If they have any questions/concerns
• Suggest a time and date for the six-week follow-up call

You can choose to proactively send an email to your client, but

often it is good to have them take responsibility for this email as part
of the “moving into action” part of their commitment.
134 THE HOW

STEP 15 – SIX-WEEK FOLLOW UP

Liz had done everything that was on her list, and more. She had signed up
with a therapist to deal with one of her ‘dad issues’ and this was helping her
process some deep stuff that had subsequently improved her relationship with
her mum and her partner. She had completely shifted the type of dialogue she
was having with her boss and they were now working on a creative project
together and having FUN. She was using her strengths more at work and
speaking up in meetings instead of being defensive and then seething later.
She had applied to a programme that taught her about non-executive direc-
torships and had been accepted on the next cohort and she had made some
significant changes to her work diary allowing more time for exercise. She had
also booked three holidays: one with her partner, a writing retreat holiday for
herself and a yoga weekend with a friend. No chance of the holiday allowance
going unused this fiscal year!

Purpose
The six-week follow-up call is designed to achieve the following:

• Accountability for committed actions

• Anchoring of Vision Day experience
• Celebration of success
• Reminder of signature strengths
• Further goal-setting

How to administer the exercise

The hour-long coaching call consists of three “interventions”:

1 General checking in and progress report on committed actions

2 Remind the client of their signature strengths by highlighting
where they have shown evidence of increased usage of strengths
3 Help your client set new goals

What to look for as a coach

• Successes.
• How strengths have played out.
 THE FLAVOUR OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 135
• Evidence that they are moving towards their pictorial desired
future.
• Evidence of a shift towards their stated vision.
• Remind them of their 80-year-old advice/wisdom.

Some top tips

• Schedule the call at the 48-hour email check-in and ask them to
text you if it is going to be more than five minutes late.
• Your voice will “anchor” the client back to the emotional state
generated on the Vision Day – use this positively.
• Keep upbeat and remind them of their vision/dreams/higher
purpose.
• It may feel a little like meeting after a holiday romance when
you have both re-entered the real world and now met up again
without the suntan and the glow of sunshine around you. This
is natural, stay upbeat.
• The client has usually achieved more than they think they have,
but tend to present half the achieved goals as failures. For exam-
ple, someone trying to improve their work balance may present
their committed action progress report as follows: “I know I said
I’d work from home once a week. Well, I’ve totally failed at
that. I have agreed with the office to go in late twice a week so
I can take the kids to school, but sorry I’ve let you down there”.
• It is important to highlight what they have achieved and to
encourage them about their use of signature strengths.
• Acknowledge the amount that has been achieved, not what’s
still miles away in the distance, as this has been proven to
enhance motivation to stay on track.
• There is usually an enormous amount of progress to be celebrated.

Reflections and journaling prompts

• Which signature strengths have you been “dialing up”? What
are you noticing?
• Dial up the strength of curiosity and explore what has gone well
and why, and instead of beating yourself up if something has not
happened, explore with curiosity and compassion what is get-
ting in the way?
• Most of all, celebrate the progress you’ve made!
136 THE HOW

• Set yourself some small goals for the next six weeks and­
remember – it’s about taking actions that align to your power
questions which align to your vision.
• How does it feel for you to be working towards your Positive
Vision?

NOTES
1 Keyes, C. L. M., & Haidt, J. (Eds.). (2003). Flourishing: Positive Psychol-
ogy and the Life Well Lived. Washington, DC: American Psychological
Association.
2 Seligman, M. E. P. (2011). Flourish. North Sydney, N.S.W.: Random
House Australia.
3 Huppert, F.A., & So, T. T. C. (2013). Flourishing across Europe:
Application of a new conceptual framework for defining wellbeing.
Social Indicators Research, 110(3), 837–861.
4 Marsh, H. W., Huppert, F. A., Donald, J. N., Horwood, M. S., &
Sahdra, B. K. (2019, December 12). The Wellbeing Profile (WB-Pro):
Creating a Theoretically Based Multidimensional Measure of Wellbeing to
Advance Theory, Research, Policy, and Practice. Psychological Assessment.
Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pas0000787
5 Marsh, H. W., Huppert, F. A., Donald, J. N., Horwood, M. S., &
­Sahdra, B. K. (2019, December 12). The wellbeing profile (WB-Pro):
Creating a theoretically based multidimensional measure of wellbeing to
advance theory, research, policy, and practice. Psychological Assessment.
Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pas0000787
6 For a study into the benefits of awe walks, see Sturm, V. E., Datta, S.,
Roy, A. R. K., Sible, I. J., Kosik, E. L., Veziris, C. R., Chow, T. E.,
Morris, N. A., Neuhaus, J., Kramer, J. H., Miller, B. L., Holley, S. R.,
& Keltner, D. (2020). Big smile, small self: Awe walks promote ­prosocial
positive emotions in older adults. Emotion. Advance online publication.
https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000876
7 Allen, S. (2018). The Science of Awe. Greater Good Science Centre, UC
Berkley. Online: https://www.templeton.org/discoveries/the-science-
of-awe
8 Rudd, M., Vohs, K. D., & Aaker, J. (2012). Awe expands people’s
perception of time, alters decision making, and enhances wellbeing.
Psychological Science, 23(10), 1130–1136.
9 Rudd, M., Vohs, K. D., & Aaker, J. (2012). Awe expands people’s
perception of time, alters decision making, and enhances wellbeing.
Psychological Science, 23(10), 1130–1136. p. 1135.
 THE FLAVOUR OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 137
10 For the benefits of this practice, see for example Toepfer, S. M., Cichy,
K., & Peters, P. (2012). Letters of gratitude: Further evidence for author
benefits. Journal of Happiness Studies, 13(1), 187–201.
11 Peterson, C., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2004). Character Strengths and
­Virtues: A Handbook and Classification. Washington, DC: American
­Psychological Association.
12 Vogt, E., Brown, J., & Isaacs, D. (2003). The Art of Powerful Questions:
Catalyzing, Insight, Innovation and Action. Waltham, MA: Pegasus
­Communications.
13 See, Snyder, C. R., Rand, K. L., & Sigmon, D. R. (2002). Hope t­heory:
A member of the positive psychology family. In C. R. Snyder & S. J.
Lopez (Eds), Handbook of Positive Psychology (pp. 257–276). ­London:
Oxford University Press. See also, Snyder, C. R. (Ed.). (2000). Handbook
of Hope: Theory, Measures, and Applications. Academic Press.
14 For a seminal book on this matter, see Sheilch, A. A., & Korn, E. R.
(1994). Imagery in Sports and Physical Performance. Amityville, NY:
­Baywood Publishing Company.
15 Boyd, J. N., & Zimbardo, P. G. (1996). Constructing time after death:
The transcendental-future time perspective. Time & Society, 6, 35–54.
16 LeVan, A. (2003). Seeing is believing: The power of visualization. Psy-
chology Today (online). https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/
flourish/200912/seeing-is-believing-the-power-visualization
17 Berman, M. G., Jonides, J., and Kaplan, S. (2008). The cognitive ­benefits
of interacting with nature. Psychological Science, 19(12), 1207–1212.
18 Kaplan, S. (1995). The restorative benefits of nature: Toward an inte-
grative framework. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 15(3), 169–182.
19 For Maslow’s work, see Maslow, A. H. (1962). Toward a Psychology of
Being. Princeton, NJ: D. Van Nostrand Company.
20 Heron’s work on facilitating is particularly useful here. See Heron, J.
(1999). The Complete Facilitator’s Handbook. London: Kogan Page Ltd.
See also Heron, J., & Reason, P. (2001). The practice of co-operative
inquiry: Research with rather than on people. In P. Reason & H. Brad-
bury (Eds), Handbook of Action Research: Participative Inquiry and Practice
(pp. 179–188). London: Sage Publications.
21 DeHaan, E. (2008). Relational Coaching. Journeys towards Mastering One to
One Learning. England: Wiley.
22 Boyd, J. N., & Zimbardo, P. G. (1996). Constructing time after death:
The transcendental-future time perspective. Time & Society, 6,
35–54.
23 Dweck, C. S. (2008). Mindset. New York: Ballantine Books.
24 Bryant, F. B., & Veroff, J. (2017). Savoring: A New Model of Positive
Experience. London: Taylor and Francis.
138 THE HOW

25 Latham, G. P., & Locke, E. A. (2006). Enhancing the benefits and

overcoming the pitfalls of goal-setting. Organizational Dynamics, 35(4),
332–340. See also, Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (1990). A Theory of
Goal Setting and Task Performance (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice
Hall).
26 Reivich, K., & Shatté, A. (2002). The Resilience Factor: 7 Essential Skills
for Overcoming Life’s Inevitable Obstacles. New York: Broadway Books.
27 Fredrickson, B. L. (2003). The value of positive emotions. American
Scientist, 91, 300–335. Also, Fredrickson, B. L., & Branigan, C. (2005).
Positive emotions broaden the scope of attention and thought-action
repertoires. Cognition & Emotion, 19(3), 313–332. See also, Fredrickson,
B. L. (2009). Positivity: Groundbreaking Research Reveals How to Embrace
the Hidden Strength of Positive Emotions, Overcome Negativity and Thrive.
New York: Crown.
28 Seligman, M. E. P. (2006). Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind
and Your Life. New York: Vintage Books.
29 Rath, T., & Conchie, B. (2008). Strengths-Based Leadership: Great
­Leaders, Teams, and Why People Follow (p. 7). New York: Gallup Press.
30 Rath, T., & Conchie, B. (2008). Strengths-Based Leadership: Great
­Leaders, Teams, and Why People Follow. New York: Gallup press.
31 https://www.viacharacter.org/survey
32 Seligman, M. E. P. (2002). Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive
Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment (p. 160). New
York: Free Press.
33 Murray, W. H. (1951). The Scottish Himalayan Expedition. London:
Dent.
 PART III

WHO BENEFITS?
 4

CHALLENGES, PRACTICAL
CONSIDERATIONS AND SOME
EXECUTIVE CASE STUDIES
In this chapter, I highlight some of the challenges that can be
encountered in this way of working and explore how they can be
overcome using case studies from practice. There are some fail-
ings to this way of working. It has an inherent bias in the way it
was designed. I have a preference for extroversion on a Myers
Briggs Inventory, which means I tend to receive energy from
talking and I access better thinking through talking. I have aimed
to temper the visioning process over the years with feedback
from self-reported introverted leaders and coaches. I have added
in further refection prompts and more time to capture things in
writing, and to slow the process down a little in order to deepen
into the learnings and to not spend the whole day with one of us
talking at all times.
Many extroverts have a tendency to access their thinking through
their talking, so my biases in this process were apparent in the exer-
cises in the Positive Vision Day programme designed to be verbal
ones. These are set up to lead the client to deeper insights. However,
after discussions with clients and leaders who identify as introverts,
they often prefer to do their thinking, then their talking. To enable
more of this, I have, over the years, added in more written pre-work
exercises to prepare the journey of change for the client before the
day of coaching. There is now more structured time within the
Vision Day process for writing and then sharing verbally versus shar-
ing and then writing.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003220657-8
142 WHO BENEFITS?

FOR COACHES
There are some other potential problems, questions and practicalities
to consider with this way of working, which are worth highlighting
here.

1 What if a client doesn’t want to invest in a whole day of coach-

ing and to travel away from their ofce?
2 What if a client doesn’t wish to share and engage in the diferent
creative exercises throughout the day?
3 How do we, as coaches, stay genuinely client centred in such an
intensive session and stop falling in love with our own hypothe-
ses and theories as a coach?
4 What if a client is not mobile enough to walk? How do you
access nature?
5 What happens if the client makes a huge life-changing decision
in the excitement of the day – is it ethically OK to encourage
them?
6 What if the client experiences epiphanies throughout the day,
but then doesn’t follow through – is this really coaching or just
a pie in the sky day?
7 What if a client loses energy through the day, how do you sustain
it?
8 Can this approach work in an urban setting as well as a natural
beautiful one?
9 If coaching in nature is so benefcial, why not spend the whole
day in nature?

What if a client doesn’t want to invest in a whole day of

coaching and to travel away from their office?
For some leaders, having an entire day of 1:1 coaching and attention
on themselves can feel “indulgent”. Many clients will never have
committed to spend a whole day on themselves individually. They
may be familiar with the awayday concept or an “ofsite” for a leader-
ship team, but it is rare to fnd someone who has experienced this type
of executive day retreat for themselves. It is important to understand if
this resistance is therefore valid or if it is because it is a new concept to
them. Often, it can be helpful to engage in some early gentle coaching
 CHALLENGES AND PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS 143
when introducing this way of coaching in order to explore why it feels
indulgent. To weigh up the possible downsides and benefts to others
that might occur if they (the leader) take a day out of the ofce to be
coached around their personal and professional vision. There has been
an ongoing culture in the corporate workplace of presenteeism and a
heroism in being busy which make it hard for people to take time
away from the ofce. This has been somewhat shaken up by the global
pandemic and the fexible working from home revolution, but the
fact remains leaders can often fnd that it feels selfsh or indulgent to
invest time and money in a day of coaching versus shorter ongoing
sessions. I would highlight to coaches to expect this type of resistance
when discussing the concept with their clients, and if the client cannot
square it with themselves, I would not recommend pushing or
persuading. This type of coaching – a whole day, some of which is in
nature, some of which blends personal and professional – is not for
everyone and a more traditional approach of regular shorter sessions
face to face or virtually may be a better way forward.
This is a diferent coaching ofering. It is important to be trans-
parent and clear with a client about the time and travel commit-
ments up front. It is an intense 1:1 session which lasts six hours. It is
the equivalent of three or four sessions rolled into one. This level of
intensity is not appealing to some people. For some leaders, especially
more introverted leaders, the thought of talking about themselves all
day and being in the limelight all day can feel exhausting and
exposing. And equally, it is true that some introverted leaders will
welcome the chance for a deep dive on one topic and be glad of the
thinking time, so it is best not to pre-judge or over-stereotype.
I have found that global leaders who travel extensively as part of
their role welcome this opportunity to have a day carved out in their
calendar versus three or four separate sessions. However, it will not
be for everybody. Those most attracted to this way of working are
busy leaders who need time to do a big piece of thinking. A day of
visioning is often most useful for leaders (whether extroverted or
introverted) when they fnd themselves at a crossroads personally or
professionally.
Mostly in executive coaching, it is the coach that travels to the
client, or it is a mutually agreed venue or nowadays, more often, a
meet online. This is diferent as it is the client travelling to the coach,
and this can cause potential issues and it is best to prepare for them.
144 WHO BENEFITS?

Over the years, I have found there have been times when clients
have been keen for the whole day but not wanted to travel (Bath is
90 minutes by train from London) and have asked if I will deliver the
Vision Day at their ofces. I hold frm about the importance of
travelling away from the ofce and would encourage you to do the
same. There appears to be a beneft in geographically moving away
from day-to-day life problems to access a bigger, brighter vision of
life. Many clients report the journey is a positive experience; how-
ever, there have been times of clients showing up in the wrong
place, their satnav giving wrong directions or trafc jams or train
delays. These are things that can throw the day of to a bad start and
lose valuable time. This can cause the coach to feel panicked, which
can then afect the mood and sense of spaciousness that we are trying
to create. It obviously can cause stress and/or frustration, maybe
even resentment in the client who is using up time and energy trav-
elling to the Positive Vision Day. At frst, I was always very cautious
and a little nervous about what “state” the client would turn up in
and worry that they might feel resentment about being the one to do
the physical work of the travel, but I have become more secure in
witnessing hundreds of leaders now turning up, often refreshed and
excited to be in a diferent city with a diferent start to their day.
Mostly, in over a decade of coaching in this way, I would say late
arrivals or getting lost/wrong venue and so on has happened less
than a handful of times. Mostly, leaders plan well. For us, as their
coach, ensuring clear explicit instructions about the best way of
travel and accurate travel times, building in aspects about the time of
day or being aware of any potential issues due to weather or infra-
structure is important communication in the lead up to the day.
If a client complains they are too busy to travel to a Positive
Vision Day, I recommend that they do not choose this style of
coaching, or we choose a time further ahead in the diary when they
can carve out the time to engage in this way of working.

What if a client doesn’t want to share and engage in the

different creative exercises throughout the day?
There are a range of exercises throughout the Positive Vision Day
from talking, drawing, visualising, co-creating power questions,
walking outside in whatever weather conditions and brainstorming.
The range is designed to appeal to diferent parts of the brain and
 CHALLENGES AND PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS 145
body and to keep energy and creativity sustained. The range means
inevitably there are some exercises which will be enjoyed more than
others. If you meet with resistance on some of the exercises, what
can you do? Is it essential that each client does all of the exercises?
The breakthroughs occur best with the layering of diferent exercises
that stimulate diferent learning styles and ways of thinking, so
I encourage all clients to be “playful” and curious and to expect that
there isn’t always a neat solution that will emerge immediately and
that the messiness is inevitable before a clearer vision presents itself.
Each of the exercises in the morning are deliberately “left open” and
this can feel messy or unfnished, but I advise clients of this in
advance so that they can allow these mental loops to stay open a
little longer than is normally comfortable, and then on the walk and
in the afternoon of action planning, we close things down and make
connections that help satisfy the brains longing to problem-solve.
If a client resists this way of working, what can you do?
I once had a client who was so self-conscious about her drawing
that she refused to do the drawing exercise (three pictures that sum
up where you were, where you are now and where you want to
begin the future). This client is the only one I have ever had that
completely refused no matter how much I reassured her or cajoled
that there was no judgement about the “standard” of the drawing. It
turned out she had been to drama school and the emphasis on judge-
ment of performance had scarred her. We used this as a central theme
throughout the day of how she was holding herself back in life and
work…yet she never did the drawing. I wondered, in my own refec-
tions, if I had built up enough rapport or made her feel safe enough.
I used it as feedback to myself to remain vigilant to client’s vulnera-
bilities. I see drawing as playful and an easy way to access a consider-
able amount of information without words, but I can see that I was
biased. Some people see drawing as threatening. I have learned to be
gentler and encouraging about this task, and often I will leave the
room for a few minutes so the client isn’t watched as they draw.
As coaches, we need to be fexible enough to let things go if they
feel too unsafe for a client, yet confdent enough to encourage a
client into a task they would not normally feel comfortable engaging
with and certainly would not do if left alone. Flexing between these
diferent modes is always present in a coaching session, but in the
intensive six hours experience it is needed more often, and as
coaches, we have to be agile and fexible in our approach to keep
146 WHO BENEFITS?

rapport high and the client feeling psychologically safe enough to

explore new and fresh thinking.

How do we, as coaches, stay genuinely client centred in such

an intensive session and stop falling in love with our own
hypotheses and theories as a coach?
Throughout a Vision Day, we hear so much about a client’s life. In
the frst hour we have a download for 45 minutes of uninterrupted
fow from the client. This is an enormous amount of data, both
verbal and non-verbal. As we then give feedback and a summary of
their situation, this is an area where coaches, myself included, can get
carried away with the sound of their own voice and their own
hypotheses.
The Vision Day requires considerable discipline from the coach,
to move through diferent modes of being, ranging from consulta-
tive to cathartic through to directive and authoritative. We are not
expecting directiveness about the content per se, but directiveness
about the process is needed. When we are sitting on so much infor-
mation of the pre-work, the client’s written responses and their
signature strengths and then 45 minutes of a download, there is a real
need to be pithy and prudent with how much we talk at this delicate
time. It needs to be enough to afrm and acknowledge the client –
to show respectful deep listening and understanding and a bottom
line summary of what has been stated. For extroverts, as we start
talking after a long period of silence the danger is we get revved up
and energised and speak for too long. This can be a red fag moment
during the day for coaches. This is where discipline is needed. Less
is more. The day will unfold with diferent layers and the coach does
not have to impress at this (or any stage), but this is an area where
many coaches will feel performance anxiety or will get carried away
with solutioning or problem-solving too early in the process. Disci-
pline and pared back language are key here.

What if a client is not mobile enough to walk?

How do you keep the energy up and access nature?
If a client is not able to walk, this may be due to a medical condition
or an unwillingness to engage in walking maybe because of the
weather. I encourage clients to do the walk unless there is a really
 CHALLENGES AND PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS 147
clear contra indication, as it creates a shift in energy and sets people
up well for the rest of the day by re-energising them taking them out
into nature and doing some exercise. These are areas that we know
are connected to mental and physical health and improving wellbe-
ing. For those that cannot walk, I still would recommend that at least
an hour of the Vision Day is spent outside, even if it is gently stroll-
ing or even sitting outside, in order to give access to fresh air and
beautiful scenery.
One client was pregnant and had a history of miscarriage, so we
gently did some mindful walking outside. Another was about to
head into hip replacement surgery, so we used the time outside
standing and sitting and talking about what we could see to encour-
age more range of vision as we were not physically moving.
Ideally, the venue is one with a window and the session is set up
physically with two chairs and a small table by a window overlook-
ing something natural, green and beautiful. If the weather allows it,
I also recommend having the window open, so even when you are
inside you can beneft from the smells and sounds of nature. This
will beneft the client’s resourcefulness and help keep energy up.

What happens if the client makes a huge life-changing decision

in the excitement of the day – is it ethically OK to encourage
them?
Sometimes, during a Vision Day, people are so buoyed up by their
positive vision that they are keen to make signifcant changes in their
lives and will raise big life-changing decisions with you like selling
houses, moving jobs, fnishing relationships, discussing inheritance and
more. In some respects this is no diferent to other coaching conversa-
tions, but because this day can operate as a stand-alone programme,
other than the follow-up six weeks later, there is no chance to support
somebody through the impact and consequences of such decisions.
Our role therefore is to make sure that any big decisions are well
considered and that all sides of an argument are looked at and the
impact on various diferent stakeholders are considered. It is essential
that the coach remain detached from the decision-making process
and show no bias in one direction or another. It is often the case that
clients state that they want to use the Vision Day to make a decision
about an area in their life. It will become clear in the download in the
opening hour that often they have already made this decision before
148 WHO BENEFITS?

coming to the day. Sometimes, highlighting this to them is benefcial

as they can use the day to move on and think about how to support
their decision in the most positive ethical way that supports their life
rather than using the day to make the decision. Sometimes, it is the
frst opportunity they fnd has had to say the decision out loud and to
then allow some time to plan around this new future is helpful.

What if the client experiences epiphanies throughout the day

but then doesn’t follow through – is this really coaching or just
a pie in the sky day?
There are some epiphanies that remain just that and they never get
carried through into execution. Visioning by its very nature is abstract
and ephemeral, so oftentimes the client will access a vision or a pos-
sible future that does not yet exist and without action will never exist.
I see our role as coaches to help clients access a personal future vision
that is positive. This vision alone can be enough to carry somebody
forward, but this usually needs some action planning to support it.
There is a six-week follow-up to help with accountability, but some-
times the client doesn’t want to commit time or funding beyond that.
I believe that if the coach has helped a client align a vision with their
personal values and strengths in a way that enlivens them, then this is
coaching. This is positive coaching. As an antidote to the abstract
nature of it and noticing my own biases towards abstract thinking, I
have developed client work books and a vision board template with
summaries that are flled in as we go through the day, so that the
client leaves with a well-documented tangible account of their jour-
ney through the day and the diferent exercises. This helps ground
the epiphanies, so at least they are captured in writing which helps
both client and coach with accountability. I have interviewed clients
a decade after a Vision Day, and they report a strong memory of the
day but will often show me or describe where their workbook or fle
is that captures the insights and actions from the day.

What if a client loses energy through the day – how do you

sustain it?
I see the role of coaching as including the responsibility of noticing
and supporting a client’s energy. By inviting a client to a Positive
 CHALLENGES AND PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS 149
Vision Day, which is a six-hour session often with many hours of
travel, I feel there is a responsibility to be able to facilitate energy that
is creative and resourceful throughout the day. Therefore, if a client is
losing energy, it should not be ignored. This may need a change of
tack; it may be a sign that there is resistance; it may mean the coach
has been talking too much or it may mean they are hungry or need a
break. The Vision Day is deliberately structured to change pace at the
moments when energy may drop, and the shift in diferent types of
exercises usually helps to change the energy in the right direction.
The absolute key is not to ignore a drop in energy but to respond to
it, assess what is causing it and make the appropriate changes. Most
clients report leaving in a more energised state then when they arrived.

Can this approach work in an urban setting as well

as a natural, beautiful one?
This approach can work in an urban setting as well as a natural,
beautiful one and it works at its best if the urban setting can provide
something of inspiration (e.g. interesting architecture, a new and
diferent environment to their usual ofce environment) and if there
are natural elements within an urban setting (e.g. trees or views), it
is a good idea to draw the clients attention to these as we know these
are benefcial to wellbeing. The ideal setting would be one of natural
beauty with a long-range view. Obviously, this can’t always be
achieved; so fnding a setting that is inspiring and uplifting whether
that be urban or rural is equally benefcial as we still have the other
benefts of this way of coaching, that is, the spaciousness of a six-
hour session, the mix of mind and body exercises and the layering of
exercises designed to activate personal goals with meaning that help
create a positive vision.

If coaching in nature is so beneficial, why not spend

the whole day in nature?
There are many immersive nature retreats which ofer a diferent
and powerful approach to leadership using nature or animals to cre-
ate a diferent lens from which to examine leadership from. I admire
all these approaches and feel that as work becomes more and more
busy and virtual, such immersive experiences in the slow presence of
150 WHO BENEFITS?

nature are hugely restorative and regenerative for leaders. This day
of positive visioning that I am advocating was designed as an
executive day retreat, which gives a mix of time inside with access
to books, papers and pens and cofee, and with a beautiful view and
some time outside and then time back inside again to capture learn-
ings and do action planning.
The mix makes it engaging and diferent from an ordinary day at the
ofce or a traditional coaching session, and yet it is not so far removed
to be considered of the wall. This helps clients say yes to a day that is
nature based without needing to be utterly immersed all day.
There are many other areas that I have learned to develop and
change as I have received feedback and learned how to improve this
approach. It continues to be a work in progress. As coaching in
nature continues to be a growing trend, I suspect and hope coaches
and leaders will use more nature-led techniques and more time in
nature will be a normalised development.
Working with clients on a day retreat in nature, encouraging
them to have a personal positive vision is not something I could do
every day of the week, nor would I advocate for other coaches to
coach in this manner all the time. It is too intense, too special. It is
like a rich food that should be savoured and made more pleasurable
but not be overindulged in. A six-hour coaching session of deep
listening, even if in a beautiful and inspiring setting, even with ener-
gising time outside in nature, needs preparing for and honouring the
space for yourself as a coach as well as for clients.
So if I am not advocating coaching like this all the time, what am
I suggesting? I see this as an invitation and an opportunity to freshen
up and add to your coaching ofering by introducing this to your
clients. During the last 20 years, I have supervised and attended mul-
tiple trainings and conferences with coaches. I have noticed that
experienced coaches move through a cycle of learning – initially
being amazed and delighted with the privilege and honour that they
feel when listening and helping a client. They become immersed in
the feld and their own personal journey of professional and personal
development, and then after 5–10 years, I notice that some coaches
can start to lose engagement, motivation or interest. This can be if
they fnd it hard to recruit clients and for some others it can be the
opposite and can end up so busy and overworked that they feel
overwhelmed, jaded or lacking excitement in their coaching.
 CHALLENGES AND PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS 151
This way of coaching is an antidote to this. It brightens and
freshens up the coaching ofering, creates memorable impact for the
clients and it turns out something rather magical happens that I
hadn’t anticipated.
There is an unexpected positive impact for the coach when we
coach in this way: an enlivening reconnection with self, nature and
clients. I only started to appreciate the surprising nature of this a few
years ago and I can now see it is what Richard Boyatzis et al. in their
book Helping People Change1 would refer to as “emotional contagion”.
Clients report an increase in wellbeing and feeling better about
their leadership when they leave with a personal vision, one that
galvanises them towards change and renewed energy in their leader-
ship of themselves and of their teams, and alongside clients’ reports
of positive outcomes, it turns out coaches beneft too.
When I read Richard Boyatzis’ Intentional Change Theory in his
book published in 2019 Helping People Change,2 I wanted to shout
yes! yes! yes! all the way through reading it.
Here was one of my favourite writers and researchers (Resonant
Leadership, Primal Leadership)3 a world renowned distinguished
professor and his colleagues demonstrating and sense-making from
50 years of peer-reviewed research on the other side of the world the
very phenomena that I had been noticing from my two decades of
practice, my thousands of hours of being at the coaching coalface
and teaching and mentoring other coaches.
Their studies span more than 50 years of research which is almost
as old as I am – their in-depth research began in 1967, a year after I
was born. It is a mix of longitudinal studies, large-scale research,
coaching case studies and hundreds of thousands of participants in
their leadership and coaching courses, programmes and research.
In essence, their research shows that the “excavating and articula-
tion a personal vision is crucial”.4 People need a personal vision that
is enlivening to them. This creates positive emotions which gives
them the energy and motivation to intrinsically take action. When
the coach uses a compassionate vision-based approach, the clients are
more likely to experience coaching as life enhancing, see themselves
more positively and holistically, connected to their values strengths
and purpose and it is this that enables them to be more able to initi-
ate and sustain change. And using this type of approach makes the
coach feel enlivened too.
152 WHO BENEFITS?

The summation matches exactly what I witness happening before

my eyes each and every Positive Vision Day and then…the added
bonus…the surprise fnding of their research…that the positive cli-
ent experience is … contagious.
The client feels enriched and energised and so does the coach.
The client feels good and the coach feels good too.
It took me my frst Vision Day to know that about myself, but it
took me ten years and the training of many coaches and interviews
with them to know exactly how contagious the high of a vision-
based coaching approach in nature is.
It turns out, coaching in this way, for both client and coach, truly
is … A Beautiful Way to Coach

FOR LEADERS, WHAT STANDS THE TEST OF TIME?

Diferent elements work for diferent people, but the most impactful
seems to be the perspective that arises from the spaciousness of a day
of refection in nature. And within that specifcally the 80th Birth-
day. The sense of looking back or “reverse engineering” your life
and career plan from a place of wisdom. This is the piece that seems
to stick and stay in their minds and bodies for many years beyond.
Sometimes, the Positive Vision Day is about broadening perspec-
tive to incorporate more life into work and more meaningful work
into life.
When Katherine frst came for a Vision Day, she was struggling
to break through to the “next level”; she was a fast-paced doer. She
always kept her team tight and adopted a competitive approach
towards other functions in the business. If her function was perform-
ing well, she was happy. To get to the next level, she needed broader
perspective and an opportunity to see collaboration as a potential
win-win, not a threat to the success or kudos of her team.
With her fast pace, she was often on “broadcast” mode and strug-
gled to listen or take a step back, preferring to speak out, act fast and
troubleshoot. This approach had meant she had shot up the ranks
when efciency and delivery was needed, but the more nuanced
approach for a more senior leader was leaving her confused. What
were the new rules? Katherine needed to explore why collaborating
mattered, why strategy was more important than fxing things fast
 CHALLENGES AND PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS 153
and why allowing others to co-create solutions might release more
energy than being told what to do.
Slowing down for a whole day of thinking felt uncomfortable to
Katherine at frst; it didn’t feel concrete or constructive. As her
coach, when I received her pre-work, it had been done in a terse
and shorthanded way. I felt there was little engagement and even less
refection. I wasn’t sure she would be willing to engage with the day.
When she arrived, she was rushed and high energy and it was hard
to stop her talking in the Download. She didn’t show much
self-awareness and started by displaying lots of bravado about her
skills. I was worried we would not get any cut through, but gradu-
ally the immersion in deeper refection started to reveal some deeper
longings about her career and her desire to travel. We fnally got the
breakthrough when we did the 80th birthday exercise, and when she
stepped outside in nature, the morning had allowed her to slow
down and think about her whole career and family life in tandem.

Katherine’s story
I’d been working in senior management for some time, and I knew what
my next move was likely to be. I wanted to fgure out whether it was
something that I truly wanted or just the next of the logical steps I felt I
was “supposed” to take. I also wanted to think through how I would posi-
tion myself to make that change. I’ve always been a “doer” and a people’s
person. It was time to build on my leadership skills.
When I started the Vision Day, I worried it might be a bit woolly for me,
but it gave me the headspace I needed to do some big thinking. At that
stage, I was concerned with how I could position myself to be the next
country head. I’ve always got brilliant results and I’ve always been pro-
moted, but I think the one thing that was holding me back was my outspo-
ken approach. As a result of the work we did at the Vision Day, people saw
me evolve and become a better leader across the board.
The 80th Birthday exercise was profound. I had always wanted to
either run a company or have my own company. My husband earned more
than me, and I had put off the thought of ever moving to another country
because it would mean he’d have to compromise his career. When the
opportunity came up to do both of those things, I dismissed it initially;
154 WHO BENEFITS?

there was no way I could ask my husband to go and live in another country
and lift the kids out of school. But then I refected on the conversations I’d
had on my Vision Day and gained a different perspective. I started asking,
“What if?”.
I had been so focussed on the impact that moving would have on every-
one else that I hadn’t been giving any consideration to how much I wanted
it. The Vision Day helped me to see things through a different lens – I had to
think about how I would feel if I didn’t do some of those things. I realised I
would end life disappointed. That was really good for me.
I refect quite often on that 80th Birthday exercise and ask myself,
“What am I doing now? Am I letting my future self down?” It’s easy to just
focus on the next step, but it’s been really valuable to have that longer
view of my life and my career. The Vision Day helped me realise what I
really wanted.
One of the ways I’ve matured through working is in this way I approach
situations like that. In the past, I either would not have told my husband at
all because I expected him to say no, or I’d have gone to him and said,
“This is what I want to do – are you with me or not?” Instead, I presented
the opportunity to him and we made the decision together.
As part of the Vision Day, we went for a walk in the countryside and
talked about where I wanted to go and other potential routes I could take
to get there. I’m interested in taking on some non-exec roles in the future
and we discussed how I could ready myself to do that.
I think it’s very easy (perhaps for women especially) to focus exclu-
sively on the job you’re doing right now. Often, you’re juggling a lot, you
don’t take the time to sit back and refect on what you could be doing to
help yourself and advance forward.
For me, joining committees and boards felt like a luxury – time doing
that would mean I wasn’t doing such a good job at my organisation or that
I was compromising time with my children.
Visioning helped me to understand what the long-term gain could be
from that time investment. It helped me to position it to myself and to
others. I’ve since joined a board here and it’s helping me to get a more
external broad view. I’m gaining a lot of extra knowledge that I’m then
able to bring back to the business.
Before I had the coaching, I struggled with breaking through to the
next level. During coaching, I beneftted from external perspective. Now
I fnd that I am a more holistic leader.
It’s not ambiguous, open-ended coaching – it’s about you realising
what you want and then planning steps to meet that goal.
 CHALLENGES AND PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS 155
For some leaders, the issue is not about moving up the corporate
ladder; it is a chance to deal with what happens when the body says
no, or you feel like you’ve lost your way or are burning out.
Increasingly, I am fnding clients come to Positive Vision Days
feeling like this. They are often exhausted, low in resourcefulness
and very scared to make changes to their lives despite the fact they
are clearly close to breaking down. I note that often as soon as such
clients arrive into the spaciousness of a Vision Day and look out onto
beautiful green hills, they start to cry. Tears are a sign of the release
and the pent-up frustration; this is true for both men and women.
These are often high achievers and so asking for help in the frst
instance feels vulnerable and out of character. A Vision Day can be
a useful intervention when people are in this state as it is a high-
impact, intensive intervention without too much time commitment
needed from them. The promise of “hope” that they will leave
clearer and more energised is motivating to them. Oftentimes, I fnd
the Vision Day is merely the “permission slip” to start living life in a
more sustainable manner.
When I frst spoke with Olivia, she was burning out very visibly.
She was deeply unhappy at work, had been overworking and felt she
couldn’t stop this cycle. Her wellbeing and mental health were suf-
fering to the point she felt she had even lost the ability to focus or
concentrate. She was in a high-powered role and was immersed in
corporate life. Olivia is happily married, a beautiful home in the
countryside with two dogs and spent some time abroad each year.
She felt very over-identifed with work, overly fxated on the status
and the material success that this gave her and couldn’t see how she
would cope without it. I had a hunch the decision to leave her job
had already been made.
The stressful period at work had resulted in weight gain, poor
sleep and no exercise due to a long commute and high levels of
exhaustion. Weekends were spent sleeping or resting and outside of
work activities were not receiving attention.
The Vision Day acted more like a catalyst and a container to sup-
port many of the dreams and ideas she had already been half thinking
about.
Paige’s story is an example of when somebody is in quite an
extreme need of change, and the intensive nature of the programme
lends itself well to the situation. Once Olivia knew the session was
156 WHO BENEFITS?

booked, she threw herself into the pre-work and took time of prior
to the day to prepare herself. I was worried about whether she
would be able to sustain energy throughout six hours as she was
reporting poor levels of concentration. When she arrived, she was
clearly tired and mentally sufering; so I took things gently and
slowly and checked in regularly, but her energy seemed to rise
throughout the day.
The intensive day of coaching helped her see a positive vision of
herself that existed outside work – a vision emerged through the day
of spending her time consulting and writing fction, working more
on her health and wellbeing with her husband. She wished to spend
more time in nature walking her dogs, eating better and spending
more time in America.
Olivia signifcantly changed her way of living after the Vision
Day. She now writes crime fction, has won an award for her writ-
ing, ofers coaching and consultancy on her terms and spends more
time with her husband and dogs in nature and ensures she travels
regularly for her retreats abroad. It’s not all plain sailing as she can
fnd herself drawn back into high-pressured projects, but her energy
and wellbeing have vastly improved. She has a sense of peace found
by aligning herself to what is genuinely important to her rather than
chasing money or status.
I suspect she would have arrived at this place herself eventually,
but the Vision Day acted as the catalyst towards inner peace.

Paige’s story
I had been really struggling with a situation at work when I went for coffee
with a friend who told me – I think helpfully – that I looked like I was dying.
The Vision Day was recommended to me by this friend.
She could see that I needed to get my head above the parapet, to fg-
ure out how I might resolve the situation I was in, but also to make sure I
wouldn’t fnd myself in that same position again in the future.
I had completely lost my ability to concentrate for very long. My friend
told me that there was a lot of variety in the day which she thought would
give me the headspace I needed to refect properly. I needed to be able to
walk away at the end of the day with something that I could start to use
straight away – even if that were simply a sense of what my future might
 CHALLENGES AND PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS 157

look like – even if I had no idea how I was going to achieve it. I needed
something to give me hope that I could get through what I was doing.
I really wanted to get the most out of the day and took a couple of days
off in the lead up, to try to put my fnger on what was getting in my way.
Had I not done that part on my own, the Vision Day would defnitely
have helped me get there. Having done that work though, I was able to
accelerate through, focussing on exactly what needed to change and how
I could achieve that.
By the end of that day, I had decided to hand in my notice. I think I already
knew that was the answer, but I was fnding it diffcult to accept; I’ve worked
at a high level in organisations and consequently I’ve earned a lot of money.
The fundamental light-bulb moment for me though – that I actually man-
aged to get to before the Vision Day – was that it isn’t about the money. You
can’t pay me enough money to be that unhappy. That was a real fundamen-
tal shift in my thinking, and it has helped me to break the cycle.
What came out of the day was resilience: the ability to hold frm and
not panic when I felt uncertain about that decision.
The thing I valued most about that experience is the space to think and
the sense of really being listened to. I really learnt a lot about coaching
itself from that day too – it was helpful to me professionally as well as
personally.
Something that comes back to me time and again is the visualisation
exercise: I had to imagine being 70 or 80 years old and to talk about what
that looked like. It was a very powerful thing for me. I wasn’t thinking
about money or success, I was thinking about my relationships and my
lifestyle. I do hold that in mind – it’s something that keeps me on track
when I’m offered a lot of money to go back and be a human resources
(HR) director, and I wonder, would it be so bad for a few years? But I know
that’s not what I want. I’m holding frm!
The Positive Vision Day was a peaceful and energising space. It’s very
thought-provoking and it’s very supportive. Before I had coaching, I strug-
gled with acknowledging what was important to me. During coaching, I
beneftted from space and attention. Now I fnd that I am more peaceful.
At the time, it was hard work. I think making decisions – even when
they’re the right decisions – is quite stressful. But I feel peaceful now.

And sometimes, a Vision Day can be used to help you realise the
promotion being dangled in front of you, whilst looking good on
paper, might not be the right answer for you.
158 WHO BENEFITS?

When Jim came for a Vision Day, his brief was about increasing
his confdence so he could become the next chief executive ofcer
(CEO) as the CEO was retiring and building a succession plan. The
Vision Day was for Jim to really understand whether he wanted this
and how it could work for him. He was struggling with his conf-
dence and pictured the role being a harsh step up that wouldn’t suit
his personality or his life and balance goals as he was recently married
with a small child.
I was concerned if the Vision Day process would work as well for
him as he worked in a beautiful setting, and so the views and the walk
in nature weren’t fresh and new to him as they often are for those
travelling from a city-based ofce. In the end, I think it modelled
something about the importance of spaciousness, the importance of
taking time and space to think things through and prepare for big set
pieces at work. Here is how he described his experience.

Jim’s story
There were two goals. One was to really step up within my role at the
time. I wanted to create a marked difference in the way I approached the
job and was seen within it. The other was to fgure out whether I wanted to
take the next step in my career, and if so, what the gap was between me
and it.
At the time, I was one of seven directors, and our CEO was making
noises about leaving. I knew that it was down to myself and one other
internal candidate in line for the position. Before I threw myself at the
challenge, I needed to be sure it was what I really wanted.
One exercise that really stuck in my head was the 80th Birthday Party
one. It was hugely powerful, and I think of it often. It was very vivid and
very moving and required a lot of trust. It’s something I still talk about a
lot with my wife – we both understand the journey, what it might look like.
It helps to know where you want to be and, in my experience, it actually
melts doubt.
As it turns out, my CEO moved up to become group CEO, and instead
of replacing him, they looked for a managing director (MD) for our part of
the business. I was aware that this wasn’t quite the role I wanted – it would
be frustrating because some of the directors would report to group CEO,
yet the MD is responsible for their areas. I decided to go for it anyway.
 CHALLENGES AND PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS 159

I wanted to come a really close second in the race. When the idea of
applying for the position frst came up, my head was full of insecurity. But
in a fairly short space of time, we managed to get what was initially very
chaotic in my mind to be really quite ordered.
The Vision Day helped increase my confdence. I now keep “well done
list” of the things that I’d achieved during the week – I would set myself
challenges to deliver. It reminded me of how much I was doing, of how
capable I am.
I took the two days off before the interview to rehearse, and I’m so
glad I did because the feedback was that the interview was excellent.
I was delighted about that. In the end, rather than just appoint an MD,
they also created the role of chief operating offcer, which is the position
I’m in now.
I couldn’t be happier, to be honest – the job I’m doing is great and it
was a gentle step rather than a brutal one. It did exactly what I wanted it
to do.
Without the Positive Vision Day, I would not be in this position. I would
probably have come a distant second and would now be one of many
reporting to the MD. Instead, we’re partners in the business, running the
company together. I don’t think I would have been given this level of
responsibility or recognition if I hadn’t had the clarity of thought that
came with working this way. It massively changed my life.

CLOSING THE LOOP

Recently, I had the most fulflling end to my working day. I had a
Zoom call with Gemma, who was my very frst Vision Day client
over 13 years ago. This is the frst time we’ve met since that day.
I am looking at her over Zoom. She is standing in her creative stu-
dio in Scotland with her husband Gavin. They are both laughing,
upright and free at their trendy standing desk. He’s there joining her
for two reasons. First because they work together running their
own creative design business and, second, he’s there because she
loved her Vision Day so much, she sent him for one six months
later.
They are both beaming, bursting with laughter. So am I. We
haven’t connected at all for over a decade and Gemma is pointing at
me saying, “We are in Scotland because of YOU”!
160 WHO BENEFITS?

She goes on to tell me:

We love it here; we are in a fshing village outside Edinburgh

100 meters from the sea.We are in the sea all the time, surfng.
The girls are 11 and 13 now and walk across the road to school.
We see my amazing parents all the time as they help with the
kids, so we have no childcare costs.And we get to work on what
we love.

I’m delighted for them. They look buoyant, vibrant and alive and I
think back to how they were on their Vision Days. Gav was a
fatigued and frustrated creative designer and the Vision Day brought
up a lot of pent-up emotion for him. Gemma was an exhausted
mum, feeling her confdence and energy ebbing away. Life felt out
of control for both of them.
As Gem says:

I’d returned to work when my daughter was nine months old

and I felt I’d lost my confdence, my mojo. Work was full on. I
also felt very guilty leaving my baby with a childminder four
days a week. I was crippled with exhaustion.

They both felt they had lost their way in London. They were both
Scottish and had planned to go to London for three years and then:

We just got sucked into the whole London ad agency scene

where we became workaholics and unhealthily materialistic.We
were stressed.We felt like we never had enough time, so we kept
buying more stuf, but that didn’t feel good either.We couldn’t
aford to get on the property ladder.

They had been in London for over seven years when I frst met
them, and they felt it was sucking them into a vortex and they were
losing touch with themselves.
“When I came to Bath you made me take a step back and realise
there is something in life beyond work. We looked at all aspects,
even health. I realised I wanted to live somewhere else. Bath was like
being in a sunny Edinburgh and I went home to Gav and said we are
going to move home! It looks us two years, but we did it!”
 CHALLENGES AND PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS 161
Gav laughs at his wife’s story and says softly, “We’d always known
we wanted to go back, but we had both forgotten”.
Both of them said how “freaky” it felt having to talk about them-
selves. “Gems and I are the sort of people who are sensitive to every-
one else’s needs, so we always ask about others but rarely talk about
ourselves. It felt incredible to be able to talk in that way”.
Gemma agreed – “I thought it would be hard, but you were so
friendly. It felt like having a wise guru there piecing it all together.
It felt like a Spa. It felt indulgent”.
Gemma tells me “we feel so grateful”. She reached behind her
onto a shelf crammed with art books and folders and she plucked out
her Vision Day folder – we chuckled at how old the design looked.
“Look”, she laughed. “This has survived three house moves”!
“Here’s my timeline after the 80th birthday. Wow look, I DID
have my second child at 36, we DID move out of London. We DID
move home to Scotland. We DID buy a house by the sea. We DID set
up our own business”.
We were all three agog at how much had “come true” 12 years on.
At the time, they were mere hopes and imagination in an
exhausted 35-year-old mind.
“Let’s hope I get that 80th birthday party in the South of France”!
Gemma said.
“The reverse 80th birthday party road trip is genius. I’ve tried it
out on my friends, but I can’t do the journey as well as you. When
you made me close my eyes and imagine my 80th birthday party.
Who was there, what were we doing and then work backwards
through the years? As a 35-year-old it was hard to think fve years
ahead, let alone 45 years. Then the little twist of working backwards,
envisioning what you wanted to achieve by when. It was eye open-
ing and revelatory”.
I was struck once more about the staying power of the day – the
way that one day of Time Out can renew and sustain for over a
decade. Seeing the same couple thriving and joyful in their late 40s
contrasted with how stressed and lost they were in their mid-30s was
heart-warming.
After our call, I went out for a walk as I had felt stuck inside too
much that day, with too many video conference meetings. It had
been raining and the weatherman warned wind. My earlier venture
out for a walk had resulted in me retreating home within fve
162 WHO BENEFITS?

minutes with an inside-out umbrella whilst clutching at my hat. I

walked out now, with a huge spring in my step. The weather had
calmed. I felt enlivened and fulflled, refecting on Gemma and Gav
and imagining them walking by the sea with their girls. I noticed a
dog walker taking a photograph of something behind me. I turned
around and there was a bright, double rainbow in the sky. Says it all,
I thought. Nature’s summary. Nature’s beauty. It felt like a positive
ending to the working day.

NOTES
1 Boyatzis, R., Smith, M., & Van Oosten, E. (2019). Helping People Change:
Coaching with Compassion for Lifelong Learning and Growth. Boston, MA:
Harvard Business Review Press.
2 Boyatzis, R., Smith, M., & Van Oosten, E. (2019). Helping People Change:
Coaching with Compassion for Lifelong Learning and Growth. Boston, MA:
Harvard Business Review Press.
3 Boyatzis, R., & McKee, A. (2005). Resonant Leadership: Renewing Yourself
and Connecting with Others Through Mindfulness, Hope and Compassion.
Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press. See also, Goleman, D.,
Boyatzis, R., & McKee, A. (2013). Primal Leadership: Unleashing the Power
of Emotional Intelligence. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press.
4 Boyatzis, R., Smith, M., & Van Oosten, E. (2019). Helping People Change:
Coaching with Compassion for Lifelong Learning and Growth. Boston, MA:
Harvard Business Review Press.
 PART IV

WHAT NEXT?
 5

PROFESSOR PETER HAWKINS

AND FIONA PARASHAR IN
DIALOGUE ABOUT THE FUTURE
OF POSITIVE VISION DAYS AND
EXECUTIVE COACHING

Here, Peter and I talk about the four ways that coaching and Positive
Vision Days can develop and the future he sees emerging in what he
describes as the “new wave” of coaching.
Within the global coaching community, there is an acknowl-
edgement that a new paradigm is emerging; and the truth is, no one
is quite sure what to name it. We are co-creating and rebuilding this
new leadership and coaching paradigm with emerging questions
alongside our clients after the global pandemic and amidst the cli-
mate emergency.
Bigger questions are jointly being addressed. Corporate culture is
becoming more purpose-driven, and personal career trajectories are
morphing, elongating and becoming more vision and values-driven
as we all search for more personal meaning and connection to the
planet.
We discuss the emerging future of Positive Vision Days and
coaching generally in relation to the four areas that need to be incor-
porated in any future vision of coaching:

• Stakeholder-centric visioning – How to shift from me to we

and focus on the current and future needs of those we serve?
• Temporal extension – How to stretch our timeline to include
and honour those before and after us?

DOI: 10.4324/9781003220657-10
166 WHAT NEXT?

• Embodied learning – How do we integrate change in and through

the body accessing body intelligence, wisdom and knowing?
• Spiritual and ecological extensions – How do we connect to
what nature is teaching us on an ecological and spiritual level?

These four areas seemed to form the perfect structure for my discus-
sion with Peter Hawkins.

1 Stakeholder-centric visioning – How to shift from me to we

and focus on the current and future needs of those we serve?

Fiona
Last time we spoke, we discussed how to expand and develop the
Positive Vision Days. We talked about the shift away from the
individual and to a sense of more servant leadership that we are now
visioning to serve other people rather than simply our own individ-
ualistic take on life. This is where you cited the limitations you
perceive within positive psychology.
Peter
Yes, but it’s not a frustration with positive psychology. I wrote
something1 from a lecture I gave in 2015, on the necessary revolu-
tion of humanistic psychology, and both positive psychology and
transpersonal psychology are extensions of humanistic psychology.
And in that chapter, I talk about the great things that humanistic
psychology did for us and its particular growth after the horrors of
the Second World War. Interestingly, a number of people who are
very infuential in that whole movement were people who had
survived concentration camps or were Jewish émigrés. Many of the
founders of humanistic psychology were European Jewish people
like Fritz Perls,2 Wilhelm Reich3 and Viktor Frankl4 and a central
question they asked was: How do we keep hope and meaning alive
in terrible situations of anguish, oppression and trauma?
And I think they achieved a lot, but …with it came a number of
shadow sides.
One of which was rampant individualism.
Another development from this shadow side was the “Me gener-
ation” which was perpetrated by Ronald Regan and Margaret
Thatcher who said, “there’s no such thing as community, just
individuals”.
 PETER HAWKINS AND FIONA PARASHAR 167
And that’s led us to a world of much, much greater inequality –
the haves and the have nots.
This was accompanied by an addiction to growth through
governments focusing on increase in gross domestic product (GDP),
companies focusing on quarterly increases in proftability and the
“personal growth” movement – humanistic psychology, focusing on
personal psychological growth.
And fnally, another of the shadows, is human centricity. (Too
much attention on humans at the expense of other beings on the
planet.)
My belief is, in order to have real self-fulflment, you’ve got to be
in service of others, human and more-than-human worlds.
Paradoxically, by actually serving yourself, what we’ve created is
the age of more.5
You can be in the richest 1% of the world, but you’re always look-
ing upwards to those who’ve earned more than you. So, for example,
you’ve already made £2 million, but other people have made £10
million, which leaves you feeling inadequate. And amidst this afuence
we are seeing much, much, much greater mental illness.
Mental wellbeing does not come from material acquisition or by
focusing on our personal wellbeing. It is not by trying to fnd the
fastest escalator up Maslow’s pyramid of needs.6 It is about having a
meaningful life. It is about making a contribution to your ecosystems
in the world around you. By doing that, you get fulflment and you
can develop in tune with what your world requires of you.
It’s only in this kind of reciprocal capacity that we really discover
true fulflment and true meaning.
Fiona
And how do you reconcile that with clients I might see on their
Positive Vision Day? Sometimes they’re very, very burnt out, often
in service to others, and they’ve lost sight of who they are or what’s
meaningful to them.
How do you integrate that reconnection with self and source and
what we know nature gives us access to? How do we connect that
with being in service of the other stakeholders?
Peter
I’ll just tell a quick story. I was coaching someone on a coaching
demo recently. Someone who was very stakeholder-centric, but
from a kind of customer supplier way of thinking. “I have to
168 WHAT NEXT?

get-it-right for my customers; for my people; for the investors; for

the community I live in”.
…and then you go rushing around, trying to get it right for
everyone.
Doing it from a supplier-customer way of thinking, not from a
reciprocal partnership way of thinking.
Fiona
So the key is reciprocity? It’s this that gets the energy fowing.
Peter
Yes, and that notion of mutuality, of human community and
mutuality between human and the more-than-human worlds.
When I was in Japan, they never taught “Win-Win”.
They always talk win-win-win – three wins.
If we talk about win-win, it becomes transactional.
So I had this question recently from one of our trainees, which
was concerned with what she called “gives and gets”.
What do they get? And what do I get? Right?
This is a very transactional, very white Western way of thinking.
Beneft is always triangulated (three parties involved).
This is a win for both parties (two parties), but even more import-
ant, the win for what they can do for the world (third party) that
they couldn’t do apart.
Fiona
I love that. Funnily enough, in the preceding chapter I wrote
about win-win-win, but not necessarily in that way you just
described. More that it has turned out to be a fortuitous, positive
outcome of the Positive Vision Days – all parties beneftting.
It is exciting – what comes out of that co-creative spirit. I think
you’re saying that the triangulation is essential from the start.
Peter
Yes.
It’s the purpose that creates the team, not the team members who
create the purpose.7 It’s the purpose that creates the marriage, not
the two marriage partners. And of course that purpose keeps chang-
ing. Marriages continue or stop because we don’t fnd the next pur-
pose that we share. Having children is just one of the things that
gives purpose to marriage.
It’s the same with good teamwork. In a team, we are in service to
making a diference in the world to all stakeholders. Once that pur-
pose is given to you, there’s a great sense of what a blessing it is.
 PETER HAWKINS AND FIONA PARASHAR 169
The privilege of being able to create something and to give some-
thing to co-create value with and for others.
Fiona
You said something very lovely at the end of the foreword, which
was “it’s a very rich seam” when we’re doing this life-giving work.
It’s life-giving to us as coaches as well as our clients and their com-
munities as well. And so I think you’re talking about the same thing
here. Am I right?
Peter
Yes. And… I was just thinking… it was lovely this past weekend.
I went for a walk with my granddaughter, who’s nine, and she
wanted to talk to me about all her fears, you see, her fear of ants, fear
of the dark, her fear of heights. She said, “Of course, in the dark all
of them could happen at the same time”. She has a fear of con-
strained spaces, “I could, I could, I could fall down and end up in a
box full of ants”. Then she said, “Well, what are you most fright-
ened of”? I had to really think about this question of hers. What am
I really frightened of?
And then I said, “Well, what I am most frightened of…is not
being able to contribute”.
Fiona
Really? Wow.
Peter
I’m not frightened of death. I’m not frightened of illness, but
yeah…the fear of being alive but not being able to contribute, to feel
useless… That I think is something I would fnd incredibly difcult.
And that makes one realise that to be able to contribute to others is
a privilege.
Fiona
That feels very moving, actually, what you just said there. And
obviously you have lived a life of contribution, so you probably
don’t have to operate in that fear. But I see how you’ve fipped it as
well – it is a privilege.
Would you just say a little bit more about the win-win-win in
relation to that?
Peter
Well, the notion that creativity is never a solo efort. It’s never
even a dual efort. It’s always a triangulated.
To have a successful play, you need an author, some actors and an
audience. And all three contribute to what magically emerges.
170 WHAT NEXT?

That makes sense – and to have a family, you need parents and
children. And it’s not the parents who create the child. It’s all three
that co-create the family. We have to have a coming together in
service of something beyond both parties.
And I think that means that in terms of Vision Days, we have
to help the coaches who run them. As you know, my constant
question is:
“What can we collectively and uniquely do that the world of
tomorrow needs”?
I think there is a misunderstanding of evolution and the notion of
survival of the fttest being a competition or race. That we have to
win by defeating everyone else. That’s not what Darwin was writing
about. Rather it’s about:
“Where can I fnd my unique place in the wider system”?
“Where can I best contribute and therefore become best ful-
flled”?
Evolution is always co-created between the species. In business,
an environmental niche is between an organisation, the business
ecosystem, the employees’ families and their communities and wider
ecology. So the win-win-win has to be not transactional. It has to be
always in relationship to that, to the systems that we are nested
within.
I think it’s very important on the Vision Days, not that we create
our sense of mission and vision, but we discover our purpose. We
don’t choose our purpose, we discover it.
I didn’t choose to start the fve organisations I started. Right? Life
conspired for me to be in a position where it was clear something
needed to be done. And I kept looking around. I couldn’t fnd any-
one else who was going to do it. So, you know, I end up starting
another organisation. Because I was always tuned into the next wave
about what was being required.
I think that a really important element of Vision Days is that we
are helping people really open and listen to the emergent future.
What’s coming over the horizon?
What is that?
How is their environmental niche, their ecosystem, speaking to
them?
The world around you is telling you. It is helping you discover
your purpose.
 PETER HAWKINS AND FIONA PARASHAR 171
Fiona
I like that sense of opening up in order to listen to the future and
what’s emerging, the emerging future. Because we need these peri-
ods of Time Out. And the need for Time Out is escalating – it feels
to me. People are feeling this need. It’s so busy all the time, busy,
busy, busy. So busy that they can’t hear or see an emerging future.
They can’t sense an emerging vision or discover their sense of pur-
pose because there isn’t enough space or time. The war for their
attention is such that they literally cannot tune into what is needed.
So it needs that “step away” from the daily machinations to get
access to that information.
Peter
Yes, because there is something about how our perspective nar-
rows under pressure.
Fiona
Yes, that’s right. I spoke to a lovely couple that I haven’t seen for
12 years (see previous chapter). And they were saying that the ben-
eft for them was simply that opportunity to take a step back. Sud-
denly a whole perspective widened. Suddenly they could see beyond
just work, work, work, which was all they were focused on at the
time. They couldn’t think beyond to what kind of lives they wanted
to lead. Who they wanted to be? How did they fulfl their desire to
be near their wider family back in Scotland?
They now live back there and are very happy. They have every-
thing that they had envisioned 12 years ago. But they are also right
that this change is not possible without the perspective that we get
only by stepping back or stepping out. It widens our perspective.

2 Temporal extension – How to stretch our timeline to include

and honour those before and after us?

Fiona
The other area that I found very interesting when we last spoke
was the temporal perspective. I came to the Vision Day idea by
exploring the human relationship with time. Time perspective,
which is about our relationship with future, past and present, and
how we relate to each of those time constructs.
The researchers of time perspective theory also refer to a “tran-
scendental” future, which is one’s relationship with one’s belief
172 WHAT NEXT?

system about what happens when you die. But that’s as far as they
go. And I think you’re keen to explore further than that – going
forward generations. Imagining the legacy of your children’s chil-
dren’s children’s children.
This could be an interesting way of looking towards the future
during Vision Days.
Peter
Yes, we think about immediacy of time. I like the Bill Sharp stuf
about Three Horizon thinking.8
We get caught in the frst horizon of:
What’s your budget and revenue targets?
What do we need to achieve today? This week? This quarter?
We don’t see the longer picture. The third horizon of the long-
range future in order to come back to the second horizon of what
we need to innovate for the more immediate future.
It’s interesting, I’ve just written about patience. I went back to the
true meaning of patience and I liked how it refers to being able to see
beyond the immediate. When we embrace this, what may feel awful in
the moment suddenly becomes bearable, because we can see it in a
wider time horizon. Delayed beneft, delayed gratifcation.
I’ve also been very struck by what is now popularly termed “sev-
enth generation thinking”. Roman Krznaric,9 author of The Good
Ancestor, tends to talk about the seventh generation to come, but I
think we have to go back in order to go forward. One of the great
gifts of getting older and becoming a grandfather is that time goes
faster and it’s relative. A lot of old people say time goes so fast.
When I was eight or nine, waiting for Christmas or your birthday
or the school holidays felt like a lifetime. But it’s also relative, you
know, when you’re eight years old, a week is quite a large percent-
age of your lifetime.
Whereas when you get to our age, it’s not just that a week is a
small percentage of 70 years. It’s that I have direct connection with
my grandmother who was alive in the 1880s. I talked to people who
fought in the Boer war and they talked to people who were at
Crimea – so it’s like a direct connection.
I can go back to the 1880s, and I have grandchildren who will be
alive in the 2180s. So now I’ve a felt sense of a 200-year living chain.
Another story, my father asked me to take his funeral. And he
wanted the cremation to be before the memorial service with just
 PETER HAWKINS AND FIONA PARASHAR 173
the immediate family. And he asked me to do what I did previously
for my mother. To give on behalf of the family, a farewell to the
cofn just before the cofn leaving to be cremated.
My father had two sons. There were six grandchildren and their
partners and about ten great grandchildren. I had his great grand-
daughter, my granddaughter and my brother’s granddaughter, both
four, on my knees while I was singing the last hymn. And I said to
them, “Look, I need you to get of my knee because I’ve got to go
and say goodbye to great grandpa on behalf of all of us”.
My granddaughter said, “I am coming too”.
My brother’s granddaughter said, “So am I”.
I thought, “Okay, yeah, I didn’t choose this…but this is what is
emerging”.
I walk up with two four-year olds to the cofn, get them both to
hold my left hand. I put my right hand on the cofn. And that
moment, it was like the electricity of generations going through me.
It wasn’t that I could simply feel my grandchildren. It was as if I
could feel generations fowing through me. It went way beyond my
father, my grandfather in one direction and beyond, my grand-
daughter and great niece in the other. What a gift, and totally
unplanned. I was so lucky I’d had actor training because I could,
through my foods of tears, still deliver what I wanted to say on
behalf of the family without being able to use my carefully prepared
notes.
Fiona
Was it their gift to all of you?
Peter
Who created that gift?
Fiona
Exactly! Thank you for sharing that. I mean, it is a stunning,
beautiful story and palpable example of the generations.

3 Embodied learning – How we integrate change in and through

the body and access body intelligence, wisdom and knowing?

Fiona
How do you think you could use that generational learning with
a leader on a Vision Day?
Peter
174 WHAT NEXT?

It is to do with stepping through time in nature, because nature

brings an element of ritual and ceremony. I do believe that one of
the roles that psychotherapists, counsellors and coaches have is being
the secular celebrant or priest of rites of passage work, because I
think on a true Vision Day, we are guiding people through a rite of
passage from one phase of life to another.
And that is embodied. It is why we have to have ritual in ceremony,
because otherwise it doesn’t get through our thick skins. We might
have good intentions and action plans, but it does not create change.
That’s not where change takes place. Change is always embodied.
So I think being able to go and fnd a place in nature where you
can step backwards is paramount.
When I say step backwards, I mean literally walk backwards, to
your parents’ life or your grandparents’ life, to imagine what it was
like. What one gift did they give you from that time, that world?
Speak as your grandmother, you know, or your grandfather. And
then step forward again, either to your children and your
grandchildren or nieces, nephews or people, you know, a child, you
know. Now imagine them as an adult or to imagine them at 80.
Turn as that grandchild at 80 to make a speech about what they
learnt from you.
I supervised a coach in Canada. With my encouragement, she did
some work about speaking as their grandchildren. This was a top
team from an engineering company. These engineers were in tears
once they’d stepped, really stepped, into the shoes of the grandchil-
dren. And then they spoke back from that point. It’s even more
powerful to do that in nature.
But back on the subject of the rite of passage… the other thing
that I would really encourage you to do for the next generation of
Vision Day facilitators or coaches is to fully realise this concept.
We go right back to the anthropologist Van Gennep, who wrote
the original book on rites of passage.10
He discovered around the world that all societies have rites of
passage. There are three elements or stages:
Dying, as in letting go; and also acknowledging what needs to die
in one’s life; or in weddings, leaving home, saying goodbye to your
mates, wearing the white dress or the shroud at the wedding.
Secondly, there is the liminal stage. Where I’m neither in the old
nor in the new. This is a creative space. Well, we have to wait. We
 PETER HAWKINS AND FIONA PARASHAR 175
can’t jump into the new. For a wedding, this is the honeymoon. In
funerals, it can be seen in the Jewish tradition, where you stay at
home for ten days with the dead body and people come and visit
you and there’s all sorts of rituals around it. We have to be in the
liminal space of transition to let the next stage incubate.
And thirdly, there’s the re-entry into life in a new way. I think
there’s a real richness to this.
Fiona
Yes. Seeing it as a rite of passage. And we, as coaches, play the
role of helping our clients through these three stages.

4 Spiritual/ecological extensions – How do we connect to

what nature is teaching us on an ecological and spiritual level?

Peter
I think that’s another real element, which goes then to the spiri-
tual and ecological. Realising that we’re not doing the vision quest.
We’re working with what life is requiring and what ecology is doing
for us to enable what needs to happen, to happen.
Fiona
Yes, with these spiritual and ecological extensions, we are con-
necting to what nature’s teaching us. That we were just there as the
junior partners, as you say.
Peter
In these spiritual terms, as the minister or celebrant or shaman.
But the shaman that never believes that they are creating the
magic.
They’re just connecting the elements that need to come together;
they’re holding the space.
Fiona
Yes …and how important do you feel is the role that nature plays
in the Vision Days? In terms of helping with the transformation?
Peter
So if I link this back to something I wrote with my wife Judy
Ryde in our book on Integrative Psychotherapy.11 I wrote a chapter
asking why is mental illness accelerating so much?
And I looked at the addictiveness that we get caught in as a sub-
stitute for meaning and contribution. Acquisition addiction. Activity
addiction. All the addictions, sex addiction, work addiction.
176 WHAT NEXT?

Throughout human history, identity is not formed by the indi-

vidual, our identity is always co-created within psychological con-
tainers. To begin with, within the womb with the mother. We are
one of the creatures that take the longest time to really form to
independence. And in that time, frst in the womb of the mother,
then in the family, then in the extended family, in the community
and the ecological location. In a culture with shared rhythms of the
day of the week and of the seasons, with shared meaning.
All of those containers have been fragmented in diferent ways.
The fragmentation of the family, the extended family, you know,
maybe living in many diferent parts of the world. We may not have
any link with our local community, we may be moving all the time.
We may no longer grow up in one place. Maybe the family is con-
stantly on the move or the children move between separated par-
ents.
Fiona
Yes, and the “tyranny of tech” is what’s coming to my mind,
because even a child of seven or eight or nine, if they’ve got access
to a phone or to an iPad, which they often have, they’re not just
listening to their parents’ voices anymore. They are being exposed
to all sorts of wider cultural infuences. And what they’re hearing
and seeing is breaking the rhythm of a day.
Peter
Yes. We’re not held. And, you know, it’s not an emotionally
holding container in the way we need. Shared ritual today has gone.
When I grew up, Sunday was diferent from the rest of the week.
You couldn’t go to restaurants; we weren’t allowed to play cards on
Sunday. Work ended Friday night or Saturday lunchtime some-
times, where people still worked halfway through Saturday. Difer-
ent days have diferent rhythms that no longer exists. Special days
like Easter and Mayday and Harvest Festival had a kind of historic
shared meaning, which we were rooted in. But now all of that starts
to get fragmented. So we lose these containers of forming our iden-
tity.
Part of the work, the spiritual work, is that we have to recreate
that container. In addition, we have to bring the grandmother and
the extended family into the circle; we have to create that sense of
holding meanings together. This is my sense of the fow of life. We
have to create some roots in place.
 PETER HAWKINS AND FIONA PARASHAR 177
All part of the ecology.
We need to wake up to the fact that 99.9% of what makes life
possible and worthwhile is given to us by nature without any charge.
Every moment of every day, of every week of every month of every
year, life just gives and gives and gives. The sun actually keeps us
alive each and every day.
You know, I had this conversation with a radical, deep ecologist
friend of mine, and I said, “It’s important to help companies create
value”. And he said, “Rubbish”. He pointed up at the sun. He said,
“That’s the only thing that creates value. We just move the value
around”.
I felt shocked, but thought “that’s absolutely true”.
Fiona
Yeah. And it’s making me think about the reciprocity theme.
What are we giving back?
It’s that sense of fow.
Peter
It’s important to remember, it’s not been given to me. Transac-
tionally, no … How do I live in mutuality with it and in gratitude
for it? How do I stay with participatory consciousness?
Those trees are giving to me because they’re absorbing the CO2.
They are giving the shade and places in which the birds can rest
singing. Those birds are doing that and then their poo is creating
stuf for the insects to live on, and those insects are making it possible
to pollinate the plants. There’s nothing out there that I’m not bene-
fting from in the human world. And I think it’s not that hard to pay
it back.
How do I live gracefully in gratitude for the grace I receive?
It makes me think too about that lovely moment in our supervi-
sion where we talked about how you put the pause into walking
(Peter is referring here to when I, Fiona, am doing one of my virtual
walks and talks with my clients, both of us with mobile phones and
earphones, miles apart but still walking and talking in nature…)
and I said,
“Today – could you say to your client, half way through your
session…”
“Pause right now. In the middle of what we’re talking about.
Look around you. Where is beauty speaking to you right now?”
“Where in life are you being given to right now?
178 WHAT NEXT?

Where are you being resourced?

Where are you tapping into life’s renewable energy?”
Fiona
Yes, so lovely.
Peter
How do we help a person connect into that deeper resource?
There is more renewable energy in this earth. And there is 100
times more in human beings’ need. We don’t know how to fully
connect into it.
It is the same with wellbeing.
There is 100 times more wellbeing in the world. And we’re
gonna have to connect into it.
Fiona
That’s great. There’s more wellbeing in the world than we can
tap into if we only knew how.
Peter
Yes. And how do we pay back nature?
This is the wrong language, paying back and also people working
on their wellbeing.
It just misses the point. It’s about mutuality.
You know, this is lovely spiritual teaching.
If you’re lonely, ask who needs your company?
If you’re hungry, who can you cook for?
And you create more wellbeing for yourself through this way of
thinking.
So what I’m trying to constantly change is coaching’s entrapment
in a humanist-centric growth orientation.12
It’s not that I am putting a moral judgement on it; it’s simply that
it doesn’t work.
Fiona
Exactly. It’s not working. The proof is in the pudding. It is utterly
exhausting for everybody. People are so exhausted by it, so it doesn’t
work. And people are more mentally disturbed than ever before. So
yes, it’s a statement of facts rather than a moral judgement, isn’t it?
Peter
So what are people’s questions?
Helping people discover what their question is.
What’s the most important question that life is giving them?
Fiona
 PETER HAWKINS AND FIONA PARASHAR 179
Yes, we co-create three power questions with clients just before
the values walk, before they do the 80th birthday visualisation.
Peter
So let’s use nature as an Oracle.
We can say, “Oh, right, hold your question. And then just let it
drop into you. And think about it. And as you walk, see what calls
to you? What object wants you to pick us up? What sound wants
you to hear it? And then they come into a special place of hearing.
Find a place where you can put whatever objects you’ve collected,
put them somewhere”.
And then we ask, “How are they speaking to your question”?
Just those little rituals which honour nature as Oracle. And done
well, done in the sense of ritual, is incredibly powerful.
Fiona
Beautiful. I could immerse myself in this type of work forever.
Peter
Thank you, for what you’re doing, because writing this book
is right to pass on. Not just for you, but for the work that you
created.
That’s why I wanted to help you for this chapter as a way of creating
the next wave. Which is birthed out of the last wave, but is new.
Fiona
Thank you, Peter. So much of the work was done by those
before. I appreciate you saying that and supporting it.
Have a lovely evening in beautiful Bath.
You’ve got the sun going down that side in front of you.
I’ve got the sun going down behind me.
Peter
Yes, that’s a beautiful place to end.

NOTES
1 Hawkins, P. (2017). The necessary revolution in humanistic psychol-
ogy. In R. House & D. Kalisch (Eds), The Future of Humanistic Psychol-
ogy. London: Routledge.
2 Perls, F. S., Heferline, R. F., & Goodman, P. (1951). Gestalt Therapy:
Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality. New York: Dell. See
also, Perls, F. S., & Andreas, S. (1969). Gestalt Therapy Verbatim. Lafay-
ette, CA: Real People Press.
180 WHAT NEXT?

3 See, for example, Reich, W. (1975). Character Analysis (5th ed). New
York: Farrar Publishing.
4 Frankl, V. E. (1963). Man’s Search for Meaning. Boston, MA: Beacon
Press.
5 Hawkins, P., & Ryde, J. (2020). Integrative Psychotherapy: A Relational,
Systemic and Ecological Approach. London: Jessica Kingsley.
6 Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological
Review, 50(4), 370–396.
7 Hawkins, P. (2017). Partnerships are not created by partners: From bar-
tering to true partnering. [online] Available at: www.renewalassociates.
co.uk.
8 Sharpe, B., & Williams, J. (2013). Three Horizons: The Patterning of Hope.
Axminster, Devon: Triarchy Press.
9 Krznaric, R. (2020) The Good Ancestor. How to Think Long Term in a
Short-Term World. London: WH Allen.
10 Van Gennep, A. (1909). Les rites de passage (in French). Paris: Émile
Nourry. Van Gennep, A. (2010). The Rites of Passage (Reprint ed.).
London: Routledge.
11 Hawkins, P., & Ryde, J. (2020). Integrative Psychotherapy: A Relational,
Systemic and Ecological Approach. London: Jessica Kingsley.
12 Hawkins, P., & Turner, E. (2020). Systemic Coaching: Delivering Value
Beyond the Individual. London: Routledge.

Note: Italic page numbers refer to fgures.
A Beautiful Way to Coach: beautiful
power questions 31–32, 33, 68;
benefts for the coach 151–152;
defned 27; nature-based coaching
29–30, 33, 65–67; positive future
focus 30–31, 33; spaciousness
27–29, 33, 64, 65–67, 152
Boniwell, Ilona 15–16
Boyatzis, Richard 34–35, 151
Boyd, John 16, 41, 52
challenges: for the coach 142, 146,
150–151; commitment to the
vision 148; for introvert vs
extrovert leaders 141–142, 143;
maintaining client energy
148–149; participation in all the
exercises 144–146; resistance to a
whole day of coaching 142–143;
temptation to make big decisions
147–148
coaching: the big questions 31–32,
68; challenges during the Vision
Day 142, 146, 150–151; direc-
tional coaching 43–44; embodied
learning 173–175; Four Orienta-
tions of Coaching Models 44–45,
44; goal-setting 14, 16, 30–31,
33–37, 53–54; mindfulness 17–18,
46, 75–76; personal fulflment
13–14, 15; philosophical
INDEX
foundations 120; physicalisation
techniques 52–53; positive
coaching 2; retreat style 1; slowing
down to speed up concept 45–46;
spiritual/ecological extensions
175–179; stakeholder-centric
visioning 166–171; temporal
perspective 171–173; ‘time-out’
coaching xi–xiii, 12; using the UN
Sustainable Development Goals
50, 50; vision-based coaching 16
De Haan, Erik 119
Download, the 10, 11, 93–99
Duckworth, Angela 16
80th birthday visualisation 12, 29,
109–115, 152, 153, 154, 157, 158,
161
Einstein, Albert 102, 104–105
embodied learning 52, 173–175
emotions: the “Fizz” 34; journaling
exercises 18; negative emotional
attractor (NEA) 34; positive
emotional attractor (PEA) 34;
savouring positive emotions
17–18, 33, 42, 46, 47, 81, 109
fourishing: defned 74; features of
75–79; journaling exercises 84;
PERMA model of 74, 75, 79; in
182 INDEX
Positive psychology 18–19, 43–44;
in positive visioning 73
Fredrickson, Barbara 17–18
Frisch, Michael B 42
goal-setting: approach goals 42;
coaching models 42–45; in
coaching practice 14, 16, 30–31,
33–35, 37, 53–54; the “Fizz” 34;
future self-visualisation 39–42,
109–115; language patterns 36–39;
personal vs professional goals
48–52; physical movement
techniques 52–53; positive
visioning and 33–36; process of
change 47–48; in psychology 14,
16; savouring the future/positive
emotions 33, 42, 46, 47, 81, 109;
seven active ingredients of 37;
speed and pace in 45–47; written
goals 131
Hawkins, Peter 20, 166–179
Heferon, Kate 19
humanistic psychology 166
Huppert, Felicia 75, 76
Intentional Change Theory 151
journaling/refection: A Beautiful
Way to Coach 33; commitment to
your vision 130; connecting with
nature 68–69, 86; the Download
94–95, 99; on fourishing, awe and
gratitude 84; future self-visualisa-
tion 115; life peaks and troughs
122; Pictures 1000 exercise 102; of
positive emotions 18; Power
Questions 109, 128; prompts
22–23; refections on your positive
vision 132; for self-coaching 2, 89;
signature strengths 125; six-week
follow up 135; VIA Strengths
Survey 92
Kaplan, Rachel 58–59, 118
Kaplan, Stephen 58–59, 118
Keyes, Corey 19
King, Laura 41, 47
Kline, Nancy 67
Knight, Sue 5, 14
Krznaric, Roman 172
Maslow, Abraham 30, 118
Miller, Caroline Adams 42
mindfulness 17–18, 46, 75–76
Murray, William Hutchinson 129
nature: Attention Restoration
Therapy (ART) 59, 118; within
A Beautiful Way to Coach 27,
29–30; for energy simulation 58,
64–65; future visualisation in 40;
health benefts of time in 58–59,
60, 63–64; immersive nature
retreats 149–150; journaling
prompts 68–69; need for
engagement with 13–14; need
for nature-based coaching 65–67;
peak experiences in 30, 118;
positive coaching within 1–2,
149; within Positive Vision Days
4, 11, 12, 149–150; positive
visioning in 57–63; soft fascina-
tion concept 59, 60; the Values
walk 11, 12, 18, 58, 59, 61, 62,
116–123, 146–147; Virtual Walks
and Talks 60, 62; walking in 57,
61–62, 63–64, 116–123,
161–162
Neuro Linguistic Programming
(NLP) 6–7
Newburg, Doug 41
O’Donohue, John 29, 32
Positive psychology: awe 79–81;
character identification 90–91;
engagement with nature 19–20;
flourishing 18–19, 43–44, 74–79;
grit concept 16; peak experience
concept 30, 118; positive
emotions 17–18; positive future

projection 41, 42; within
Positive Vision Days 8, 10, 12,
14, 20; post-traumatic growth
19–20, 73; savouring the future/
positive emotions 17–18, 33, 42,
46, 47, 81, 109; scene-setting for
73–74; strength-based approach
124; The Time Paradox 16–17;
visioning process
within 1, 4
Positive Vision Days: Step 1-Get
ready 85–86; Step 2-Get Writing
86–87; Step 3-Get Profling
89–92; Step 4-Arriving and
download 92–95; Step 5-Feed-
back/feedforward 95–99; Step
6-Get Drawing 99–102, 145;
Step 7-Power up 102–109; Step
8-Time Travel 109–115; Step
9-Get Walking 116–123; Step
10-Strengths-based action
planning 123–125; Step 11-Get
brainstorming 125–128; Step
12-Get committing 128–130,
148; Step 13-Get crystallising
130–132; Step 14-Get celebrat-
ed/48-Hour follow-up 132–133;
Step 15-Six-week follow up
133–135; authoritative download
phase 97–99; beautiful power
questions 11, 31–32, 33,
102–109, 126, 128; client
feedback 10, 12–13, 21–22, 29,
60, 66–67, 152–161; defnition
84; The Download 10, 11,
93–99; The Download Matrix
96; The Download Summation
97; 80th birthday visualisation
12, 29, 109–115, 152, 153, 154,
157, 158, 161; embodied
learning 52, 173–175; facilitative
download phase 95–97; 15-step
process 84–135, 85; future
directions 165–179; future-plan-
ning 31; genesis of 2–5, 14; the
journey as part of 5–6, 10,
INDEX 183
143–145; launch of 5–8;
life-changing decisions 147–148;
methodology 20–21; nature
within 4, 11, 12, 149–150;
outlines 9, 11; Pictures 1000 43,
99–102; positive visioning 33;
pre-work 10, 85–92, 141;
savouring positive emotions 18,
110; spiritual/ecological
extensions 175–179; stakehold-
er-centric visioning 166–171;
stimulus questions 86–89;
structure of 8–12, 20, 64, 67, 85,
141–142; temporal perspective
171–173; Values in Action (VIA)
strengths questionnaire 87,
90–91, 123–125; the Values walk
11, 12, 18, 58, 59, 61, 62,
116–123, 146–147;
Virtual Walks and
Talks 60, 62; writing activi-
ties 141
positive visioning: awe 73, 79–81;
defned 33; fourishing 73;
goal-setting 33–36; gratitude 73,
81–82; importance of a personal
vision 1–2, 151; in nature
57–63; in Positive psychology
1, 4; resonance performance
model 41; speed and pace in 64;
walking process 57, 61–62,
63–64; see also goal-
setting
psychology: the future self concept
14; goal-setting 14, 16; humanistic
psychology 166; positive psychol-
ogy 15–16; see also Positive
psychology
questions: beautiful power questions
11, 31–32, 33, 102–109, 126, 128;
the big questions in coaching
31–32, 68; stimulus questions
86–89; Values in Action (VIA)
strengths questionnaire 87, 90–91,
123–125
184 INDEX

Seligman, Martin 19 writing: in the Positive Vision Day

Sharp, Bill 172 141; power of 10, 131; written
goals 131
Three Horizon approach 172
time perspective theory 171–172 Zimbardo, Philip 16, 41, 52