Introduction: You Will Succeed Together

Successful people have engaged the help of others. Who are those people for you, and how can you organize them around you in the most effective way? You may hire a coach, enroll a friend or collaborate in a mutually supportive team.

Learning Objective:

In this lesson you will identify the characteristics of effective support and find people who can provide that for you.

Pre-Assessment:

How is your relationship with your parents? Are they supportive of you and your vision?

Do you have a formal coach, in an organized sport or a hired guide? Or an informal coach such as a family member or friend who teaches you and helps hold your vision with you.

Do you have team mates who help create a healthy competitive environment and who support you and each other to succeed on your own terms and as a team?

Do you have a special friend, a mentor or a circle of friends who fully support your vision?

Activities: Build a Success Team

Qualities of Support

There are four important qualities that the members of your support team must bring:

· They are honest with themselves and you about how they can help, and they deliver. They can admit to areas where they lack knowledge or ability.

· They fully commit to you having your vision, and will hold you as able and accountable to it. If they are living their own or society's vision through you, you may feel pressured to be someone other than yourself.

· They are outside your psychological and personal belief systems so they can help you see your blind spots. They are emotionally grounded and mature.

· They accept you fully, treat you with respect and work together with you to support you. Their support is aligned, complementary with you and your vision. Their values and beliefs are congruent with yours.

Support Roles

There are different types of support. One person may embody multiple roles, or each role may be filled by a different person on your support team. Having all these roles filled will help you sustain your efforts to achieve your vision.

· Hero

· Parent

· Coach

· Mentor

· Friend

· Mastermind Alliance

· Subconscious Mind

[hero image]

Inspiration from Your Hero

Who is the glowing exemplar of your dream? Who has achieved the vision and excelled? They are your blueprint to follow. Be careful to make a distinction between the person and the persona.

A person is human and might change or fail at some point. If that happens, you want your dream to remain intact despite someone else’s personal behaviour.

A persona is the pure essence of the vision you are attracted to. Characteristics of the ideal persona may change as you mature toward your dream. Depending on what you need next, you remain in control.

[parents image]

Permission and Support from Your Parent or Legal Guardian

Parents who have children in this program act in dual roles, being part legal guardian, and part coach/supporter. People have a tendency to teach or raise kids the way they were taught or raised. One goal of the EPV program is to give parents and children new ways to relate constructively, to upgrade the parent/child paradigm. To reinforce existing respectful, motivating, supportive roles, and to mitigate judgemental, coercive and punitive behaviours.

As a parent you are legally and morally responsible for your children’s behaviour, and as a teacher/coach you want to see them fly to their greatest height. Your EPV relationship is the latter. As a parent your job is to learn how to listen to your child, and help them fulfil their vision (rather than yours). They may need to rebel at some point, but having an EPV conversation will provide more opportunities for authentic connection.

If you are a minor, you will need permission from your parent or legal guardian to participate in the EPV program. If you are of adult age, then part of being an adult is that you give yourself permission. However, you are still a product of your upbringing, family dynamics and parent/guardian’s role in your life.

For now we are going to assume your parents are on your side, in full support of your vision. If your experience is different, then you can explore some options in a later lesson. One task will be to separate any parental control issues that you want/need to rebel against, from the supporting loving parental champion who is helping you create a successful life.

Expertise and Instruction from a Coach

A master coach brings experience and knowledge that you need to build the right skills, and understand the right principles to be successful. They know what the correct behaviour looks like. A coach may be quiet and encouraging or passionate, loud, demanding, confronting, but they are on your side and are committed to you winning.

[mentor image]

Encouragement and Wisdom from a Mentor

Mentors are something like coaches, but they tend to be more reserved and let you drive the conversation. Ideally they have travelled the same road you are on and can offer ideas to simplify your journey and avoid pitfalls. Rather than telling you what to do, they may ask, “What do you think you could do at this point?”

[friend image]

Unqualified Acceptance and Support from a Friend

What a rare and precious gift to have a friend who supports you no matter what. One of these on your team means a lot. When you are struggling, they are available to offer support. When you are winning, they cheer with you.

[team image]

Constructive Challenge from a Mastermind Alliance

A mastermind alliance may include living people you meet with, or historical or imagined personas from whom you seek council in your mind. The alliance may be formed solely to mentor you, or may be a mutual support group where all members support each other.

Be selective building your mastermind alliance. After you have one person, think carefully before adding new people; what unique and essential role will they play?

Ideally, you will meet at a fixed time, at set location with a structured agenda. Avoid social chatter.

If your alliance is of fictional or historical figures, then take a regularly scheduled quiet time to imagine them, pose questions and listen to what they offer. This may sound a little weird, but actually it is a natural part of our ability to have empathy for others.

For example, Yoda is a fictional character in the Star Wars movie series. He is a wizened monk-like fellow who dispenses sage advice to warrior trainees. If you know this reference and I ask you, “What would Yoda say?” Your mind would probably offer up a helpful response for your situation.

[whole mind image]

Engagement from Your Whole Mind*

Discussion of sub-conscious or unconscious mind is increasingly showing up in training programs, and it is central to the EPV system. Neuroscience is showing us how the majority of our thought streams, emotional reactions and behavioural impulses rise from the unconscious mind (80%). While the intellectual choices we make and willful actions we take come from the conscious mind (20%).

Would you rather steer your way to your dream using the automated habits of the 80% mind, or the conscious 20% mind.

Another finding of neuroscience delineates types of mental processing: analytical (working a problem through logically based on data), compared to holistic (comprehending complex systems, recognizing patterns and making creative leaps).

This popularly referred to—incorrectly—as right-left brain function, but is now more correctly called cognitive style because the whole brain is involved in both modes, just differently.

Of course, for neither concept is this an either/or situation. We want our whole mind and multiple cognitive styles to be working in support of our vision.

Post-Assessment

As a young athlete can you see how your parents/guardian, and other supportive people will play important roles in your life? Do you know where to find these people and how to enroll them in support of your vision?

As a parent/coach, do you see the possibility for a new role in relationship with your budding athlete? Do you feel confident in how you can communicate in a way that is fully supportive?

Imagine a hero and ask that figure a question in your mind. Listen for the answer. Was that helpful?

Summary: Respect is Key

Teaching, coaching and parenting are power relationships with a student/coachee/child. Ideally these relationships are healthy and respectful of each other and their roles.

You may experience or hear stories about coaches or parents who use anger, shame, guilt, insults, name-calling or physical punishment to try to motivate others.

We consider that to be emotional and psychologically inappropriate, and even if accepted in the local culture or family system. An EPV coaching relationship calls for a high level of respect between coach, parents and coachee.

We assume the best intentions from all parties, and the coaching agreement includes a conflict management section to help mitigate in advance any problems that may arise.

This lesson presented you with an important set of principles that will form the foundation for a successful support team. If you found any of this confusing or difficult to accept, we invite you to keep an open mind, there is no hurry. We will be working on this for 12 more weeks.

Application:

• Talk to older or successful people you know about how they got to where they are and who helped them.
• Consider asking someone you respect and admire for a skill you would like to develop, if they would be willing to mentor you.

Resources:

[download EPV-Coaching-Agreement.rtf]

*Cognition http://www.psywww.com/intropsych/ch07-cognition/in...