“Gateway! I want to go back (or fast forward)!” Gateway, threshold, portal: “passages into or out of a place or condition”(1) “the point at which something starts to happen or change”(2), sometimes magical, time travel, intergalactic. There’s a part of me that wishes I were back in Bali at the beginning of my 2014 three month Asia Pacific journey, rather than back in Kansas in the midst of global upheaval. But if I were back in Bali, I would be missing time with my grandchildren, executive leadership, team and mentor coaching clients; local friends and family. What gateways are you being called to step through?

There’s a part of you that might wish you could be taken back or fast forward through these uncertain, turbulent times. When systems: organizations, teams, families, communities, cultures, societies break open, as we are now, they can most easily achieve transformation. It is an exciting time to be an executive leadership, team and mentor coach, partnering with clients for transformation, serving as a door opener, even as “another door?!” may be an initial reaction.

“Balancing Hope/Fear Polarity: Now and Into the Future” was the title of a panel I served on. You can approach gateways with hope and/or fear, really the flip sides of the same coin, or the ends of a pole or continuum. It is all about your perspective! Do you believe there may be positive change on the other side of the gateway? We can adapt a both/and approach rather than either/or. We can discover the gifts in each, even with a negative reaction to one. As you will read below of my Asia Pacific gateways experience, I used one of my favorite coaching questions to be at choice about whether I want to approach a gateway with fear (worry) or hope (excitement).

From my 2014 blog: In Bali, gateways are very important visually and symbolically, frequently with guardians to protect the entrance. One week into my 3 month Asia Pacific journey, I still experience being at initial gateways. This image is the doorway to our hotel room at the Paradiso (of course!) in Kuta, Bali.

“What is the part of you that will move you forward?” the late, brilliant neuroscientist coach Joan King asked me last fall, now one of my favorite coaching questions, focusing our brains on possibilities. It is the adventurous part of me, the child who ran ahead on family vacations to scout out and ran back to report on what lay ahead.

I choose to tap into that part of me today and practice centering, one of my speaking topics, rather than fall into my “long line of worriers” heritage. I recognize the gift of family worrying, contributing to our survival by considering danger and risks, while choosing when to let go and “enjoy the ride” rather than holding back.  My courageous daughter Amelia and I have been visiting temples and today she has challenged me to step out into that adventurous place and take a two day trip to Mt. Bromo on Java which includes a round trip ferry! (update note: this was 2014, shortly after the Korean ferry disaster, with over 300 dead or missing; some of my trip’s flights were on Air Malaysia, with one plane shot down down and another disappeared)

The centering exercise and prayer I’ve been practicing for years contributes to a sense of peace through experiencing the sense I am not alone as well as my strengths and experiences that have taken me to this place in my life and will be with me as I move forward. In this case, that includes my first, solo, trip to Asia Pacific to serve as an Adjunct Professor in Organizational Behavior and International Business (my first time to teach those classes), for a new-to-me University.

How are you stepping through gateways and what part of you are accessing to do so? Apply for an Unlock All Potential strategy session.

Coaches, how are you stepping through the gateway of crucial Cultural Intelligence expectations, in our diverse, global world and with the updated ICF competencies? Join our unique, combined Culturally Intelligent Mentor Coaching + Certificate program, earning 30 hours ICF Continuing Coach Education (including 10 hours of Mentor Coaching, plus the Culturally Intelligent Coaching™ certificate!This is your final opportunity to go through this program with me, in its 10th year, following another decade of my mentoring for two coach training organizations. After this cohort, the coach I’ve trained and who has licensed my materials will be leading the program. This will free me up to focus more on executive leadership, team coaching and retreats. This is a big gateway step for me!

How can you use appropriate fear to assess where you, your system, your business, your finances are now as well as how can you tap into your own childlike excitement of transformation and new discoveries that await us on the other side of the gateways?

To our potential, prosperity and peace-we are in this together!

Thanks and see you next week,

Marilyn O’Hearne, MSW, MCC, LLC

CQ Leadership, Team and Mentor Coaching; Coaching Supervision

#Unlockallpotential so all can live in prosperity and peace

www.marilynoh.com marilyn@marilynoh.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/cqcoachmentormarilynohearne/

www.facebook.com/CoachMarilynOh

Additional Resources:

1. A four step process for getting through what can be experienced as frightening transitions can be found in Don’t Let Transitions Scare You

2. Expanding perspectives: From Win/Lose to Win/Win: How to Recover Hope

3. Three Ways to Positively Contribute to The World Breaking Open

First published July 21, 2014

1. Merriam Webster
2. Cambridge Dictionary