Alchemy in Coaching: slowly emerging

This is the third week I have set aside to write the next book. In the first week spent on “The Inner Fire: a coaching alchemy”, back in October of last year, the energy was spent reading and pulling together an outline. The second week in the cold and COVID lockdown of January, it became a struggle with the structure and plenty of time in overwrought contemplation trying to figure out what on earth this book is meant to look like. It was a frustrating week! Since then I have spent little bursts of time unpacking the original structure, loosening the expectations about the project – and doing what I can to be more playful with the process.

There will now be poems and imaginary letters in the final book – some are written already. I’ve a large pile of books that I am working through for source material, and the concepts that underpin the book are coming together more clearly through the writing.

All was becoming clearer and I started today with a clear sense of purpose. Then, I dipped into the latest book by Michael Bungay Stanier, “The Advice Trap”, where he says, writing about his previous book:

“Part of the success of The Coaching Habit was that it made the complex simple. Coaching went from being a mysterious ‘black box’ or some type of higher-level alchemy to being a practice with clear, useful tools”

And that threw me off course for a few minutes. Am I overcomplicating the whole idea of coaching by developing the content of this book? That question growled in my presence for a while as I sat there trying to decide where to go next. Then, something was pushing me to write. (Sorry if that sounds a bit pretentious!) I had to get down to the writing and produce some words. I had given myself the crazy low target of 500 words per day. I came up for air after writing 750 – excited about what is emerging. This books needs to be completed. I wrote an imaginary letter from Carl Jung in which he sets out some of the raw material for the process that I am developing. I’m not exaggerating when I say that this is really exciting for me at the moment. The book has been a few months in gestation, but finally it is flowing. This week will, I am sure, have its ups and downs. But there is something emerging. I intend to share some extracts at this early stage. They may not end up in the final cut, but I am keen to share as this project develops.

Everything is in the mix … things are making sense, like the process of alchemy itself. From the mysterious to the magical.

In the meantime, if you haven’t already bought my two previous books, please follow these links for more information. Values Count came out in 2017 and is a description of practical approaches to developing a values based approach in the workplace. Insight Coaching was released last year and is packed full of practical tips for coaching – useful to coaches and to potential coaching clients. You can also order them on Amazon if that is easier. All good practical stuff with a sound theoretical basis.