Possibility Applied

Body Intellectuals Unite!

Rhonda Morton — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 05:00:00 GMT

My mentors and friends, Phil Porter and Cynthia Winton-Henry, are the co-founders of InterPlay, a global social movement dedicated to ease, connection, human sustainability and play. Phil and Cynthia proclaim themselves to be body intellectuals, and after studying with them and becoming a certified InterPlay leader, I too proudly took up that mantle.

What is a body intellectual? In their book, “The Wisdom of the Body,” Phil and Cynthia explain that body intellectuals “strive to understand and articulate the fullness of physical experience.” Body intellectuals use the whole body as a tool for discovering and exploring ideas.

This makes so much sense to me that I’ve put it at the center of the work I do with individuals and groups. In fact, my “office” is a big open space with a wooden floor. There’s plenty of room to see what the body has to say.

To be a body intellectual, you start, like Phil and Cynthia taught me to do, with body data. Body data is all the bits of information your body is processing in any given moment: My hands are cold. I have a slight ringing in my left ear. I’m aware of the smell of popcorn and notice I’m hungry.

Body data collected over time becomes body knowledge—the accumulation of data into noticeable patterns or habits: I like sleeping with the window open. I prefer driving with the radio off. To be my best, I need to eat every three or four hours.

Body knowledge can then be applied in service to the self and the world—and at that stage, it becomes body wisdom. You take what you know about your body (or other bodies) and change your behavior or environment in response: I’ll pack myself an apple to avoid getting cranky when I’m picking up the kids after work. Let's start today's staff meeting with a riddle to get everyone thinking outside the box and having fun.

So simple. So powerful.

Here’s another way I use body data, body knowledge and body wisdom with clients. I begin by having them make two lists: what’s working, and what’s not working in their lives. Then through a series of steps, they learn to embody the essence of how each list feels. For example, maybe “what’s working” feels joyful and expansive (arms out, chest open, spinning and laughing) while “what’s not working” feels cramped or stuck (sitting in a tight ball with arms clasped around knees, head down).

The magic key comes from the final step: creating a physical transition from “what’s not working” to “what’s working,” and noticing the first tiny impulse that starts that transformation. Does it begin with looking up? With taking a breath? With expanding the shoulders?

What I’ve witnessed over and over is that if a person invites that subtle physical change into his body when he’s smack dab in the middle of something that’s not working in real life, then that’s often all it takes to get things working again. No complex multi-step plan required—just a shift in posture, a conscious intake of breath or some other minute physical change—and the body’s wisdom takes over.

Notice body data + Gather body knowledge + Apply body wisdom = A better life for you and everyone around you—co-workers, neighbors, friends, and family. Cheers for body intellectuals everywhere!

What Gets in the Way

Rhonda Morton — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 05:00:00 GMT

Clients come to me with all kinds of goals—to be more visionary, to deal with a difficult boss, to make a fork-in-the-road life decision. But once we’ve scratched the surface of those pressure points, more often than not we find underneath a longing for a bigger, more authentic life driven by purpose and meaning.

With courageous vulnerability, my coaching clients take on the task of telling their truth, venturing outside their comfort zones, and learning to create lives that bring them joy.

They come to me perfectly capable of meeting their goals. What they end up doing in the coaching sessions is eliminating whatever’s in the way: self doubt, a sense of not being worthy, the tyranny of perfectionism, fear of being in complete alignment with their purpose in life.

So when I saw this video of researcher Brené Brown talking about our universal need for connection and authenticity (and what gets in the way), it really hit home.

Brown points out that the definition of courage is to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart. In my experience, it starts with telling ourselves that story, then sharing it with someone we can trust, and finally, sharing it with the world.

To talk about our passions, to state our purpose in life, to take a stand for what’s worth living for—all of these are deeply revealing. To live your life joyfully, completely aligned with your essence, no holds barred, is radical. And scary. And possible.

I am honored and humbled by the coaching process, because it allows me to hold the space and intuitively guide my clients on that journey of vulnerability to a life of joy, creativity, belonging, and purpose.

Please watch Brown’s June 2010 presentation at TEDxHouston. (She’s smart. She’s funny. She’s real.) Then add a comment below. I’d love to know what you think.

Why Improvisation is a Practice for Life

Rhonda Morton — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 06:00:00 GMT

While driving to meet with a client this week, I popped in a CD that I hadn’t listened to in awhile. It opens with an improvised song by my friend and vocal mentor Rhiannon. She steps out in front of her audience at Tomales Bay, CA, and sings an homage to the Visionary energy pattern. Have a listen:

Rhiannon

The song reminds us of how powerful it is to surrender to the moment, to what’s actually happening—regardless of our pretty Organizer plans, our tough Driver goals, or our cherished Collaborator agreements. Through years of studying improvisation with Rhiannon and performing with Alligator Mouth Improv, this is what I’ve learned: being Visionary is about staying present and authentic, so that when it seems you are stepping out into mid-air, you can trust there will be something to stand on.

Improvisation is not about the shackles of ego—am I good enough? Or the dictates of convention—is this stupid? Right and wrong, good and bad, don’t live inside the Visionary skill of improvisation. Only maybe, and what if, and “Huh?! Where’d that come from?”

Cultivating the ability to “not know” is always an adventure. It allows us to open doors fearlessly, ready to welcome whatever greets us. On stage, as in life, you can learn to stay with whatever comes, even if it’s unpleasant, disconcerting, confusing. “Staying with it” is like testing a branch, seeing how much weight it can bear as you go hand-over-hand out to the very end. Maybe it will bend sweetly to the ground. Or maybe it will snap and you’ll fall, hard. But you will have learned something, and you’ll be able to say, “Oh, that wasn’t so bad.”

When I coach clients to trust their instincts and intuition, sometimes it’s like an avalanche holding….holding…..and then letting go into an unbelievably powerful cascade of rock and snow and ice—that reveals gold underneath. No amount of rational analysis could have led to their new riches.

For all these reasons, improvisation is practice for life. Things fall, buildings crumble, financial systems collapse, random sparks ignite—and suddenly our lives are on fire! What I’ve learned is that we will not be abandoned. Our savior may not be the one we were expecting, but someone, something, will appear. Wings will grow, gills will open, the silence will soften into a thousand, thousand notes to sing.

I Think I Can, I Think I Can: Why the Little Engine Could

Rhonda Morton — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 02:17:38 GMT

I'm training for a marathon. I started about six weeks ago, and so far my longest run was today. I clocked a whopping 2.25 miles. That's only about a tenth of a marathon. What makes me believe I'm capable of eventually running 26.2 miles? Self-efficacy.

I heard about self-efficacy this week when I attended the Signature Awards Dinner, hosted by one of my clients, the Technical Community Women's Network of Corning Incorporated. The guest speaker, Dr. Margaret Bailey, from the Rochester Institute of Technology, talked about self-efficacy as it relates to female students' success in the engineering program there. (They have an amazing program called WE@RIT that helps women engineers succeed. Check it out!)

Dr. Bailey told us that self-efficacy, according to Albert Bandura, the man who first defined it, is "the belief in one's capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to manage prospective situations." In other words, self-efficacy is my belief in my ability to succeed in running a marathon. Or to paraphrase the Little Engine That Could: "I think I can, I think I can."

As I was running those miles today, I got to thinking about a client I met with this week who said, "I can't be a Visionary." In a flash of oxygen-rich thinking, I realized that low scores in a particular FEBI pattern may be tied to low self-efficacy around those behaviors. If we believe we aren't capable of thinking strategically, being imaginative, or discovering radical solutions, then we probably aren't going to indicate a preference for the Visionary energy pattern, and we'll score low in it.

But one of the FEBI system's tenets is that people can learn to access a pattern simply by uncovering what's keeping it hidden, blocked, or underused -- and then practicing and strengthening it. One of the first things that has to change is their sense of self-efficacy related to that pattern. In order to access a pattern, they have to believe it's possible to do so.

In their book, The Art of Possibility, Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander use the famous nine-dot puzzle to illustrate this point.

Can you join all nine dots with four straight lines, without taking your pen from the paper?

If not, the Zanders point out that it is probably because "your brain instantly classifies the nine dots as a two-dimensional square. And there they rest, like nails in the coffin of further possibility, establishing a box with a dot in each of the four corners, even though no box in fact exists on the page." If you want the solution, check out this wikipedia entry.

But the Zanders point out the real solution when they say, "The frames our minds create define -- and confine -- what we perceive to be possible. Every problem, every dilemma, every dead end we find ourselves facing in life, only appears unsolvable inside a particular frame or point of view. Enlarge the box, or create another frame around the data, and problems vanish, while new opportunities appear."

That is my favorite moment in working with clients. When their whole bodies light up with a new sense of "I think I can!" then I know it's all downhill from there. And for me, as long as I think I can run a marathon, then it will be like all 26.2 miles are downhill too.

Chance Favors the Connected Mind -- Or "Then Suddenly!"

Rhonda Morton — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 18:27:50 GMT

Steven Berlin Johnson wrote in his seventh book, Where Good Ideas Come From, that “chance favors the connected mind.” Espousing the theory that innovation comes from the chaotic, unexpected collisions of two (or more) hunches, he certainly debunks the myth of the lone inventor toiling away in an ivory tower waiting for a singular eureka moment. Johnson advises us to regularly hang at the local coffeehouse (it was, after all, the Age of Enlightenment’s version of the Internet), and to gather around the conference table to connect ideas rather than protect them.

John Marshall Roberts, author of Igniting Inspiration, says that new solutions to old problems come from dialogue and collective surrender to a larger vision. Part of that larger vision comes from removing limiting assumptions…and it’s nearly impossible to see our own limiting assumptions without looking through someone else’s eyes.

I’ve been working with kids at the Chemung Valley Montessori School this past month. One of their favorite activities is shared storytelling. One child begins making up a story, and when I point to someone else, that student has to start from where the first child left off and go from there. We go around the circle until everyone has a chance to contribute.

At any moment, I can also proclaim, “Then suddenly!” and if I do, that is the storyteller’s cue to drastically change the direction of the story. Maybe it rains purple socks, or a monster appears, or the sword in our hero’s hand melts into chocolate to feed his enemies.

After a good 15-minute romp through our collective imaginations, we’ve giggled our way to some pretty cool life lessons. First, since you are the author of your own life story, it never has to be boring—just use your imagination! Second, whenever you get stumped, you can say to yourself, “then suddenly,” allowing new options to replace whatever limiting assumptions are blocking the path. And third, the best way to create a life full of excitement, fun, imagination and inspiration, is to rely on other people to inject their ideas into your storyline.

So when I’m looking for a little managed disruption and collaborative creativity, I remember that an idea is literally a new network of neurons firing in my brain. I try something new, take a risk, invite my nemesis to lunch—anything to give my half of an idea the chance to bump into someone else’s! And then suddenly!

Balancing Work and Play Increases Innovation

Rhonda Morton — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 02:03:00 GMT

"Not now, but right now," used to be my motto. As a young, self-employed single mom with a fixer-upper house and a penchant for saving the world, I was constantly working, and working fast. No to-do list was safe from my obliterating pace. In FEBI parlance, I was a Driver-Organizer.

Luckily, I was also a poet.

On Sundays, I'd drive my car to some dead-end road, climb into the backseat with my journals and scraps of ideas, and I'd write. I'd lose myself, and find myself, in that quintessentially Visionary practice.

Today, on my FEBI assessment, I score in the high range on Visionary and in the moderate range for Driver, Organizer, and Collaborator—in that order. Even though I perform improvisationally in Alligator Mouth Improv—and no activity I can think of takes more Collaborator energy than that—I still find it hard to relax into the sheer joy of Collaborator. There's always a voice saying, "But there's so much to do!"

That's why I'm always trying to cultivate a voice that argues, "But you can get a lot accomplished by playing!" And I'm always on the look-out for Collaborator mentors and role models—people who understand and live in this easy-going pattern. These folks are playful and fun to be around, but they get a lot done! They build consensus, multi-task with glee, roll with the punches, and value many points of view.

Tim Brown is just such a role model. He is the CEO of the innovation and design firm IDEO, which has earned 1,000 patents since 1978 working with clients ranging from AT&T to Toyota to Gap. Check out this speech he gave at "Serious Play: The 2008 Art Center Design Conference." He reminds us that in order to take creative risks (i.e., earn patents), we need to work/play in a relaxed, comfortable, trust-based environment—and gives us plenty of examples. He even gives us a few playful ideas we can try right away. (Click on the image to start the video.)