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The Best Corporate Team Building Activities with Terry Barkman and Doug Morneau
An interview with Doug Morneau on The Real Marketing Real Fast Podcast
Interview highlights:
- A sailboat is a great place to work on corporate team building activities and to see how your team is functioning together and where the fall-downs are in your communication.
- The boat inherently sets up short feedback loops and we can tell if the things that we’ve asked for and communicating for are happening, we can tell how quickly they’re happening, we can tell who’s jumping in and being a team player and who’s hanging back and waiting for somebody else to take the lead.
- A big part of what a sailboat coaching trip is is it’s a retreat. It is getting away from the office, getting away from even home, and being in a new setting that’s beautiful and having the trees and the water all around you.
- I feel like if you want to be the best version of yourself that you can be if you want to excel if you want to win at life, you should have a coach.
LISTEN HERE – Real Marketing Real Fast Podcast
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Terry Barkman is the founder of Sailboat Coaching International, and he is a seasoned and passionate one-on-one coach. He is currently available for a limited number of introductory coaching sessions. If you suspect that worthiness might be holding you back from living a life by design, contact Terry today!
Phone Number: (604) 835-5111 | Email: terrythesailboatcoach@gmail.com
Is Worthiness Holding You Back?
Becoming Unstuck By Exploring Worthiness
Someone I coached was unemployed. They were stuck financially and at this familiar crossroads: they weren’t sure if they should go out and get a job or start their own company. They had a ton of doubts and were asking questions like, “What if I start my own company and it doesn’t work?” and “How will I satisfy my values of stability, reliability, and success?”
To me, those are worthiness questions. Even if it takes a long time for someone’s business to become successful, questions of worthiness become the primary issue because almost nobody starts a business that becomes immediately successful.
Success in business is a process of:
- Investing in yourself
- Believing in yourself
- Creating habits that will work for your future, and
- Sticking to that even when it doesn’t seem like it’s working.
The foundation that holds this process together is the belief that you are worth investing in.
Exploring Worthiness To Live A Life By Design
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be?” ~ Marianne Williamson
I have discovered that there are lots of people who choose not to explore worthiness and do the work that is required to live a life by design, not by default. One of the many reasons they do this is because they want to be left alone and live according to their current habits and patterns. Consciously or unconsciously, they ignore the consequences of doing that.
Personally, and as a coach, I am much more interested in the person who feels unworthy and has some awareness around it, rather than the person who is so deeply in denial that they have no awareness around it and therefore no felt need to address it.
A lot of coaches are not focussing on worthiness, but worthiness is a huge block to living your ideal life, if not THE block to people choosing to live the life that they want.
A Short Cut
When the people I coach see worthiness as something that is too difficult or even impossible for them, I like to discover with them, “How do we create worthiness and make it easy?” If people are willing to work with you and do the difficult and potentially painful work of worthiness, it actually turns into an incredible shortcut to get to where you want to go.
How Do We Overcome The Difficulties Of Doing Worthiness Work?
You have to look at your story of unworthiness – the things that you have allowed yourself to believe and what you have allowed yourself to feel towards your strengths, weaknesses, accomplishments, and roadblocks thus far. Get curious about the narrative you’ve been telling yourself by asking, “Why do I feel unlovable? Where did this story that I’ve been telling myself originate?” Spend some time in that place without numbing it or do whatever you do to distract yourself from doing this kind of work.
Another other thing that’s difficult to do is actually taking ownership. In order to do anything meaningful with worthiness, you need to be willing to let go of your excuses. You can no longer hide behind things like it’s the government’s fault, or corporations, or someone in your family. None of that stuff matters in the worthiness journey. As much as people will love you and support you on this journey, almost all of the difficult emotional heavy lifting is yours to do.
I listened to Brené Brown‘s podcast the other day and she was interviewing her guests about their experiences with childhood abuse and addiction. Her guests said that eighty percent of people who experience childhood trauma end up being addicts. Eighty percent! At the same time, they said that was the hand they were dealt, but the part after that, you are in charge of. All three of them said what they decided to do about it today was their business and their responsibility.
You can do something about the way you view your worthiness, and I would take it a step further and say, you are worth doing something about it; by facing the issue of worthiness and not ignoring it or numbing it in whatever way you choose to numb it, you are saying to yourself, I feel worthy, I am worthy of this deep self work.
Imagining A Better Life
In my early coaching years, I felt like the problem for a lot of people was that they couldn’t imagine a life that was better than the life that they have now. Then I found that for most of those people, unworthiness blocked their imagination. Once that block is replaced with worthiness, imagination can still be an obstacle.That’s where I can help; my imagination for others has all kinds of flexibility and creativity.
A Client’s Time At The Cabin
I worked with someone who hit the pause in their life and spent time in a log cabin to map out their ideal life and how to implement it. I coached them along the way and we discussed questions like:
- What is your ideal life?
- Something doesn’t feel right. What is it?
I treated that client as if their dream was within their grasp. After leaving the cabin in the woods we created really small steps to grow their new business. Eventually the business grew into several provinces and they became less stressed and they trusted their employees more.
Worthiness is The Groundwork
The groundwork for this client was worthiness, even though we didn’t necessarily use the word “worthiness” at the time. Worthiness work is foundational to the imaginative work. Once that’s done, the whole world is your sandbox.
How Do Habits Impact Worthiness?
Healthy and unhealthy habits Impact our worthiness indirectly; when you practice healthy habits, from prioritizing sleep to [insert 1-2 more examples], you are saying to yourself, “I am worthy of investing in.” Conversely, when you get into unhealthy habits you are making the opposite statement about investing in yourself.
What we put our energy into causes change and growth, and the habits we implement are how we leverage our energy; this past spring I found that I was consistently finding myself overwhelmed and unfocused, and so I introduced a regular practice of walking to the ocean near my house and office and meditating for twenty minutes. By investing my energy in a habit that helps me refocus my day and check in with what might be causing me stress, I am creating a daily structure that invests in my wellbeing. Habits are not specific to worthiness, but they work together with coaching and creating a life by design.
Worthiness Impacts All Aspects Of Our Lives
If you are holding on to difficult clients, that is absolutely a worthiness problem; whether you are conscious of it or not, holding on to difficult clients suggests that you don’t believe you’re worthy of attracting great clients, and it is what stands in the way of your life by design. I invite you to reflect and if you find you are clinging to difficult clients or bad business practices, ask yourself the question, “Why am I hanging on?”
There is no area of life that worthiness doesn’t touch; all of these worthiness reflections and practices can (and should!) be applied to your personal relationships as well. When you believe that you are worthy – of success in your business, of supportive, healthy relationships, of a life filled with intention and design – you are able to construct a life for yourself that is filled with purpose, vision, and intention.
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Terry Barkman is the founder of Sailboat Coaching International, and he is a seasoned and passionate one-on-one coach. He is currently available for a limited number of introductory coaching sessions. If you suspect that worthiness might be holding you back from living a life by design, contact Terry today!
Phone Number: (604) 835-5111 | Email: terrythesailboatcoach@gmail.com
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Photo Credit: Unsplash
ABOUT TIME
One of my favorite thing to do as I wander the docks before heading out on a sail is to check out the clever boat names and ponder over thier story. This boat was moored next to us recently, and I LOVE the name About Time!!
Was it a dream deferred for years? So many people are working for the weekend, or working for retirement. What are the sacrifices you are making, and which ones are worth it? Was it “About Time” the owner finally learned to sail, or gave themselves the gift of being a boat owner after years of dreaming? What dreams can you give yourself now? What are you doing to make your now dreams your future reality?
Or was the boat named after how we spend our time? Increasingly, I am valuing how I spend my time over how I spend my money. Is this name about About (how we spend our) Time? Certainly, whenever I can, I choose to spend my time at sea, with a handful of close friends who value adventure, meaningful conversation, and quality time.
WHAT IS FREE RANGE COACHING?
“What is freerange coaching?” People keep asking me to explain free range coaching. Let’s start with basic “industrial” coaching. Whether it is life coaching, executive coaching, or even transformational coaching, it usually happens every week. A client will get an hour on the phone, or on a video call with their coach. Lucky clients get to see their coaches face to face. My clients in this type of engagement are seeing the power of long term change, and there is tremendous value in that.
There are a few coaches out there who want to give more to their clients, and we find that an intensive or an immersive experience creates ten times the results!
When I first began to settle into coaching, it was in the alpine, and we were using back country skiing, mountain biking, and ice climbing as the experience to contain the coaching. After percolating with that, it became clear that I was meant to use outdoor activities in a focused on the specific agenda of the client sort of way. In that intentional shift into #freerangecoaching, I thought I would do it all. All of the adventures in all of the countries proved to be a bit much. The commitment to focus in on Sailboat Coaching was the right alignment for me, and still, all forms of freerange coaching hold fascination for me. I am inspired by my friends who are coaching on Canoe trips, in the tree tops, and with medieval swords! People are coaching through forest bathing, with horses, and actual wolves!
#freerangecoach
ACT…ion
“What is the magic formula” for creating an excellent team? As I was laying awake one night wondering how to create the best teams, ACT popped into my head in near finished form. The importance of teamwork to sailing, and indeed most organisations, can not be overstated! Three simple ideas create teams that can do great things.
Since that fateful night, this poster has been fixed to the bulkhead of boats I am captaining, and to the walls of conference rooms where I am leading. What does it mean? In it’s simplest form, it means that if we get these three things right, the work will (almost) do itself.
In any complex and collaborative project, it is so easy to focus on the skills. When someone asks me where sailing skills sits on my list of requirements for Co Leaders at Sailboat Coaching International, it is an easy answer. Skills are forth. Skills are complex, and take time to teach. Compared to Attitude, Communication, and Teamwork though; skills are the easy part.
If someone is an Olympic level sailor, and a world class coach, will they be welcome on our team? That depends, if they are also strong in priorities 1, 2 and 3, absolutely!
The same holds true of something like making a movie. You have a team of ~200 people who are all working to create the same vision, which keeps changing and adapting personal competence very quickly becomes a really small part of how WE come together to create the science which will render the art. But don’t you want the best specialists? Sort of. You want the best specialists you can work with.
What does Attitude, Communication, and Teamwork actually look like??
ATTITUDE: When you sail long enough, and far enough, something will eventually go wrong. One day someone made a mistake, and emptied the holding tank overboard… into our dingy. (The holding tank is the boat’s is where all of our sewer waste is stored until we get to a place where it can be emptied responsibly.)
SHHhit! Everywhere! Did they blame, delay, or complain? Nope. They immediately assumed responsibility, and said, “It’s my mess, I’ll clean it up.” It would be hard to find a clearer example of the right attitude than this. It not about never making a mistake, it is about taking responsibility, and ensuring that your mistakes don’t become everyone else’s problem. There is always SOMETHING to complain about, but unless there is a solution, complaining just wastes your, and everyone else’s energy. Attitude is about more than positivity, although that is part of it. It is about taking responsibility for your actions, your words, and your IMPACT!
COMMUNICATION: The first thing you can do to earn my trust on a boat, is be willing to ask when you don’t know. There are some people, and it is surprising how often they are business owners, who will come back to me and say some version of “Here is the obstacle I encountered in learning how to do the thing that you asked me for, and this is how I handled it.” This is really asking 2.0.
Communication has many components. Brene Brown says that clear communication is kind communication. Say what you mean, mean what you say, and don’t use “I was just being honest” as your excuse to be mean.
Clear is Kind. Brene Brown
TEAMWORK: There are many times when I could literally sail the boat single handed. Getting everyone involved, and doing it together makes it more fun though! And sometimes the jobs are really simple. I’m just going to hold this, and pass it to you when you need it. Just like on land, two people can cook a meal, and two different people can volunteer to do the dishes and clean up.
Oh, AND, ACT spells act. Whether the thing you are trying to do, whether it is building a building, creating a movie, or racing a sailboat, the act of doing is made up of Attitude, Communication, and Teamwork. In many ways ACT…ion is a stronger word. Will there be an I O N added to this system? Stay tuned!
Does Attitude, Communication and teamwork mean you’ll never have to work again? Probably not, but give it a try, and let me know how much easier and more fun your work is!
*My research has shown this idea not to to have been borrowed from any known sources. If in fact Brene Brown or Shawn Achor said it first, I would love to know where!
PURPOSE in the POST INDUSTRIAL ECONOMY
How does the end of the industrial economy effect life purpose? Just like Industrialism brought massive increase in employment diversity over the agricultural economy, so has Post Industrialist economy exponentially increased our vocational options!
Perhaps it is early to start speculating about what the time we now live in IS, but we are starting to see what it is NOT.
The time for complaining about the “good manufacturing jobs” being shipped overseas has past us by. Those jobs won’t exist for much longer anyway. Before we know it, most of us will be in careers that haven’t been invented yet. This revolution of vocation has happened before, and each time it happens both sooner and faster.
Very long ago, humanity made the shift from a hunter gatherer economy to an agricultural one. We still have hunters and gatherers among us, and I were to hazard a guess, I would say they make up between 0 and 2% of our labours.
By the time of my Grandparents, 60% of North Americans made their living farming. Any guesses what that number is now? 2%. At least twice in history (that we know of) we have set 98% of people free to pursue vocations that did not previously exist. And it is happening again. People who are alive today, will live to see 98% of all humans working in ways that had not yet been imagined when they were born.
So what does all of this mean? It means that vocation has changed. What we look for in vocation also needs to change. We have been sold a bill of goods. Let’s call this the industrial package. You finish school, you go to work, you retire. And I’ll tell you, if my job were to work 92000 hours on some assembly line somewhere, I’d be excited to retire too!
All of this is coming to end, and when it started coming to end was by best guess 1974. It is hard to say exactly, since I wasn’t alive during the industrial era, but all my research points to the mid 70s as the tipping point.
So why are we still giving out advice that revolves around a bill of goods that is evaporating underneath us? Whether we call it the information age, the gig economy, or post industrialism, we are now more likely to create our own “job” than to find one. Our imaginations for what life could look like can also change in ways we have not yet imagined.
So open your imagination, if you retired from your industrialist job today, how would you spend your time? What matters to you? What space would you love to create and occupy? What is your purpose has gone from multiple choice to long answer creative. What purpose do you imagine for your life?
What do you Look for in Coach??
How many REALLY good life coaches can you name? What sets them apart from the thousands of other coaches out there? What do you love about your coach?
A friend of mine is fond of saying, “In Vancouver, you could throw a rock in any direction and hit a coach.” Please do not try this at home. The point is, with coaches seemingly everywhere these days, how do you distinguish between the good and the bad? More importantly, with so many options available, how do you determine the best fit for YOU?
Does your coach have relevant training? There are coaching “Schools” which are handing out “Certifications” to anyone with a mere weekends worth of training. The flood of under qualified people into the industry is not doing anything to help the credibility of the field. The top institutions offer programs that a year or more in length, and some of them are backed by major universities.
Is your coach credentialed by the International Coach Federation, or other recognized body? If they are, it means they have documented their hours, have undergone live coaching exams in front of a panel, and are bound by a code of conduct.
What relevant life experience does your coach have? I mean, no one is saying that there isn’t at least one coach out there who is 20 years old and whose first job is coaching. For my money though, I’d rather bet on someone who has had time to have more than one job, start another business, and has tasted failure at least once.
How have they helped other clients? Were you referred by someone who has been a client? How were they helped?
Are you looking for a coach or a consultant? It happens so often that someone is looking for a “coach” with a very specific set of experience in their vertical. You know, someone who can help me integrate my custom software systems… Rule of thumb, if you are looking for someone who has more specialized knowledge in YOUR own field than you do, that is a consultant. Consultants tell. Coaches ask.
Is your coach offering an experience that is unique to YOU? So many coaches offer the same brand of over-the-phone sessions. Now I am not saying that this industrial style can’t be helpful on some occasions, but as the industrial age draws to a close, less clients are looking for an experience that is efficient and easy, and more are looking for an experience that is effective and personal!
PLANNING vs PREPARATION
What is the difference between planning and preparation? Planning is rule based, preparation is principle based. The easiest place for me to apply this is this is as a sailor. Above you will see a rough itinerary for our recent trip to Greece. Everything at sea is subject to wind, and if there are three parts to setting ourselves up for success:
Just an Idea
Success Secret 1) Is having realistic expectations. The boat can only travel so far in a day, and how far that is depends as much on the wind as it does on our ability to make use of the wind.
Success Secret 2 Is proper planning. If you take a train in Switzerland, all you need is planning. Do you know someone who is always late because “traffic” How many times do you have to encounter traffic before it ceased to be unforseeable, and becomes something you prepare for by leaving yourself a few extra minutes? The other part is the preparation and setting ourselves up for success. We have multiple harbors which could end up being our final destination for the night. We have done our homework. We know what we would like to accomplish, the likely hood of that happening, and how to pull it off.
Success Secret 3 Is proper preparation. In sailing it is important to delineate between planning and preparation. A plan is, we think we will be in port at Ithaka on Wednesday around 1800. Preparation is the having enough food and water that we will be comfortable if we have to anchor somewhere less civilized. Perhaps a storm blows in, and we can shelter it out in a quiet cove, because we were prepared. It is the decades of collective sailing experience we have which will keep up us from getting in trouble with weather, or rocks. It is understanding what can go wrong, and knowing what you can do to prevent it.
MORE is MORE
In writing, as with many creative pursuits, I am convinced that MORE is MORE. What I am not saying is that more writing always equals better writing. What I am saying is that more writing makes a better writer.
When I was taking classes in grad school, the professor told a story that forever changed how I value the creative process. An pottery teacher split her class down the middle, and graded one half on the quality of their best work for the year. The other half was to be graded based on the …this part is a little hard to believe but stay with me… the weight of what they created. What shocked me about this experiment, and what still rankles my inner perfectionist today, is that MOST of the best work was on what I’ll confess I think of as the sloppy side. The students concerned with volume, were free to experiment, to learn, and to play.
It was disconcerting for me to learn that artistic creativity was not a place where the old expression “LESS is MORE” applies. Old habits die hard, and I am still working to waste less and less of my energy taking refuge in the perfectionist idea that I’ll share it when I am “finished” writing it. Or that I will begin writing when I am “finished” thinking it through.
In her book Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott writes:
Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something—anything—down on paper. What I’ve learned to do when I sit down to work on a shitty first draft is to quiet the voices in my head
This too, is part of my lesson to learn while moving, rather than sitting and waiting for the answers to come. And if I share along the way, I open myself up to all kinds to readers messaging with unique contributions, insightful questions, and helpful suggestions.
Even as I am writing this, I am battling against the idea that I can post this without first learning the name of the pottery teacher. But I have reached out to Loren Wilkninson, who first told me the story, and perhaps HE will remember.
My challenge to myself and to you for this year, is to write everyday, or at least everyday that you can. I am not expecting that all of my work will be award winning, but I am hoping to write more quality on volume than on perfectionism. Let’s find out!
GET INSPIRED TALKS PODCAST – with Rod Janz
Hi everyone, my name is Rod Janz and you’re listening to Get Inspired Talks podcast. For this episode of Get Inspired Talks podcast, we visit with Terry Barkman. Terry creates momentum and connection through shared adventure outdoors. The impact of what Terry does is to help people feel empowered, to impact the world in creative, meaningful ways. Terry loves connecting with people, adventuring and doing things that light up his brain. He loves intelligent and engaging dialogue fueled by the right questions. Terry dislikes wasting energy on two-sided arguments and he dislikes the lack of gratitude. Now, please help me welcome Terry Barkman to the Get Inspired Talks podcast.
Interviewer Rod Janz
Hi everyone welcome to the Get Inspired Talks podcast, on the line with me today is Terry Barkman. Welcome to the Get Inspired Talks podcast, Terry. Thank you, Rod! I’m excited to be here with you. And so what part of the world are you in today? I’m in Kitstilano, Vancouver, Canada. Nice! And is that where your business is, where you do most of your training and sailing and that kind of thing? Well, I certainly meet one-on-one coaching clients in Kits. Ok. But the sailboat coaching happens around the world. We’re going to be in Greece later this year. We were Spain last year and we’re looking at Fiji. Cool! Wow! That sounds interesting and exciting to be able to go to all of those different and do your coaching. You’re living the dream. Living the dream, Rod.
So, it’s been super interesting, I’ve been asking all of my guests, what their upbringing, how it influenced what they’re doing today. So, I’m just wondering with you, if you could tell us a little bit about your childhood and your teen years and see if there’s any correlation. Did your upbringing and what you went through as a child affect and lead to what you’re doing today? I mean, I learned how to sail as a kid as and so I guess that’s definitely a factor. I learned to sail small boats on small lakes and that’s translated into bigger boats on bigger oceans. Really the first strong hit of my coaching journey, I feel like it was when I was 19 and blonde. I was working at this wilderness camp, in the mountains and it was great. I could just go outside everyday with fun and inspiring people and give them the tools and the knowledge that they needed to succeed at something like ice climbing, which maybe they never imagined themselves doing before. Cool! So you’re not just doing sailing, you’re doing different adventure activities, is that right? Well, I mean, I would like to be. I feel like all of the kinds of free-range coaching fell into my umbrella but really I focused in on the sailboat coaching specifically. So my time at Adventure Lodge would connect more from a coaching perspective than from the activity that was happening during the coaching.
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Ok, let’s get some history here. You’ve talked about free-range coaching, I’d like to explore that a little bit. I’m not sure what you mean by that even though I’m a coach myself. But tell us a little about your coaching and sailing history, like how did you get into it? What were you doing prior to doing this and how did you get into what you’re doing today? Yeah, I mean, that’s a lot of questions. Let’s start with free-range coaching. It seems obvious to only very few people. I think coaching should be done outdoors. So I’m talking to people who are coaching on canoe trips and people who are coaching in the Alpine doing mountaineering style coaching and really utilizing the power of the wilderness and the power of journey to bring clients into a deeper coaching experience. I’ve latched onto sailboat coaching as being my one thing. Because Rod, I glamp. I’m not … Ha ha! I hear ya. I’m not much for..(inaudible) Boats are comfortable; you can bring an ice maker and an espresso machine and some of the creature comforts that we’re used to from home. And you can bring them with you on the journey and so that’s really working well for myself and my co-leaders. So you’re not into that suffering so much as a part of the experience necessarily. I’m used to be much better at suffering. Ha ha! I hear ya! The older I get, the less I’m into that myself as well.
So, yeah how did you get into coaching? What brought that on? I really do feel like it’s a strong echo from the time at the wilderness camp. It didn’t sink in right away what was going on there for me. At the time if you would have asked me, I would have said, well, I love teaching ice climbing and mountain biking and telemark skiing but it was deeper than that for me. And I kind of lost my way and I became an entrepreneur of the very very vanilla variety. I was an electrical contractor and it just wasn’t where I wanted to be. I felt like somehow off of my purpose and I couldn’t figure out what it was but I did some digging and I realized that my time at the wilderness camp what was really powerful for me was being able to empower somebody and be part of their journey and their change story and see them realize a deeper potential for themselves. And when I realized that, the switch to coaching was obvious and intuitive. So it was that part of helping people reach their deeper potential that really sort of resonated with you and you kind of thought, hey this is something I’d like to do for the rest of my life? And maybe what else was going on or maybe what I hear you saying is that being an electrician wasn’t necessarily doing it for you. I’m sure the pay was pretty good but there was still something missing, maybe. Yeah, I mean, there was money to be made there and I enjoyed the challenges and I enjoyed being an entrepreneur and I certainly don’t want to talk down the life of an electrician. There are many members of my family who are leading that life but it wasn’t my A-1. And so when I discovered sailboat coaching, I really feel like I came home.
And so how did that evolve? One of the ways that I think we can discover this is how did you find your first client? Like what was the first sailboat coaching experience that you had? I feel, I want to tell you that I was the architect of this vision. I feel like I fell backwards into it. For over a decade I’ve been taking friends on sailing trips and it just sort of became something else. It became something more and I was in coach training and using my vacation time to teach people to sail and in the British Virgin Islands. My coach asked me, if you could do anything, what would you be doing? And I said, well, I’d be coaching people on a sailboat. And when that landed for me, it felt right. It felt like this is my one thing. I don’t even know what part of that means and yet I need to make sailboat coaching exist and I set out about doing the work. That’s great! What’s the response being, I’ve been to the British Virgin Islands by the way. Gorgeous part of the world, actually had the opportunity to go there twice. If I was going to be coached, I would choose the British Virgin Islands. That’s the place to be coached. I see what you mean by glamping. Yeah, BVI the British Virgin Islands is really a place to go when you want to live the good life.
Yeah! So just tell me…I’m sure people are wondering, what’s the process? What do you do with people when you’re on the boat and what’s your coaching process like? Well, there’s a little bit of individual coaching that happens when the boats actually underway. I feel like the wind and the waves in the water just adds something to deepen that experience, to deepen the connection between the coach and the client and to deepen the connection between the client and their heart or their soul if you will. There’s also coaching that happens through the teaching of sailing and we use the boat as a metaphor of your life. And there are some real powerful connections there. And then there are group coaching experiences that we will drop the anchor at a small bay or tie up at the dock in the evening. And myself and my co-leaders will take a group through a coaching exercise. I feel like those three things come together as a powerful trifecta.
You said a word earlier; you said, coaching should be done outdoors. That really caught my attention. Why the emphasis on should and outdoors? Well, I mean, I like to have the emphasis on outdoors. I’m not going to tell other people how to coach but I feel like coaching is powerful in the outdoors and maybe it’s because I’m powerful in the outdoors. I feel like that is where I’m connected and that’s where I’m grounded. And for my friends who are coaching on canoe trips and in the Alpine, I feel also like when you have a resonance with a space that you are comfortable in and that you can invite clients into that comfort, to be safe and yet possibly outside of their comfort zone. Yeah, there’s something unique that happens in that.
I would imagine being on the ocean kind of, you’re so not in control and you just kind of have that feeling of weather and just stuff happening and there are things that happen beyond your control. I would imagine that’s an element of your process and just what naturally happens with people, hey? Yeah, you’re completely right, Rod. There are many things that we can’t control, like what the weather is going to be but we do control where we are when that weather happens. We make sure that, you know, if there’s going to be a big blow, we’ll tuck into a harbor and do some coaching on the boat or go on a hike, go on a shore exercise. One of the things we deal with when we’re out sailing is patience. You know, can we get there as quickly as we thought we were going to be able to? Will the winds and the waves cooperate? And I think it was Edward Gibbens who said, the winds and the waves are on the side of the ablest navigators. I bet people feel that, I bet an element of what you do as well is just that additional connection to nature. Like we’re so disconnected from nature these days, we’re so, you know, it’s well-known how connected we are to our phones and media and all of that kind of stuff.
I know I’ve done some power boating, I’ve done a little bit of sailing. One time was really cool, most of the sailing I’ve done has been on a smaller boat, so I was on a friend’s bigger sailboat. We’re under motor, getting out of the marina and then the sails go up and the engine goes off and this like ahhh! For those of you that are listening and not seeing, Terry’s holding his heart. It’s a beautiful moment, isn’t it? When all of a sudden you’re silent and your just under the power of the wind. It really is Rod and you are speaking the language of my heart I love listening to the quiet and hearing the sound of the water just slide along the hull and the wind in the sails. This is my happy place. This is my magic place and I just love sharing that with people.
So I’m touching on it a little bit on my questioning but one of the things we’re trying to get at with the Get Inspired Talks is what’s missing, what’s sort of societal challenges do you see that you feel through your coaching in your programs are addressing and really helping people with? That’s a good question. We are relatively flexible to the challenges that somebody brings with them on the boat because we are small coaching groups. But I think like you touched on a couple of them earlier with your comments on how plugged in we are all of the time. I love to be out on the boat and switch my phone off for a period of time, you know, maybe I don’t need to be on social media right now. Maybe that can wait until later. I think for a lot of people having, let’s call it a soft media fast, is already a big step towards getting back in touch with who they are and I think that you alluded to the fact that being out of touch with who we are is part of the problem we are running up against in society today. Where do you see this going? Yeah, what do you feel the future of your coaching business or even maybe for this industry. Wow! Well, I mean, I really see free-range coaching as being the future of coaching. I guess history will tell whether I was right about that or not. I think people are ready for more. The future of sailboat coaching, I hope I get to do this for a long time. Nothing makes me happier than when somebody reaches out to me and says, hey, we’ve been watching all of your videos and love what you’re doing and I’d love to be a co-leader on one of the trips. And so that’s really working with those people, getting to be choosy about who I work with and who I take as a participant is something that I love and have been very fortunate with I hope will continue. I have a secret dream of some of the people I like to coach with one day. And if you make a top 10 list of people that you would love to meet or coaches you want to emulate, I bet you a lot of them will be on my list.
I know I’m jumping around a little bit but back to the process because you have people like coaching, to me is sort of an ongoing process. I’m just wondering in your own process, is there some prep work then you go on the trip and how do you handle follow-up and stuff like that? Yes. So, in the ideal world somebody will coach with me on a twice a month or weekly basis leading up to the trip and then go on the trip and have a deep immersive, transformative experience. And then again, for the follow-up meet with the group once a month and continue to be plugged into regular coaching whether that’s with myself or whether it’s with one of the co-leaders from the trip. But continuing to do that deep inner work that sees them moving closer to their purpose.
Terry theSailboatCoach
Something that I love to ask my guests is for client stories and I know you, you know probably have an anonymity issues and stuff like that but I wonder if you could tell us a couple of transformational stories from people who have gone on trips with you and some of the results that you’ve seen. Yeah, I mean, I love seeing people change their lives and come into aligning with purpose that they have. I had one client who was running a thriving business and through an extended coaching engagements that shut it down and moved into a cabin in the woods. Almost a cocoon state for what was going to come next. And at the time we didn’t know what was going to come next, we just knew cabin in the woods. That’s all of the information that we had. And so it was powerful to stay in that journey with them and to be excited that they were on purpose even if we didn’t know where that purpose was taking them. So, sometimes I guess the fun ones for me are counter intuitive, they don’t necessarily take the client in the expected or anticipated direction but they still end up where they need to be and so that’s one example. Yeah, that’s the fun part of coaching isn’t it? Where you have those things that happen that you totally don’t expect and things just arise and you just work with them. And I would imagine that happens a lot with what you’re doing and especially when you’re out on a boat and that kind of thing.
Another question I ask coaches before, especially is, what sort of changes have happened and you got a big deal to go from traditional type of job as an electrician, what had to change in you and what has changed in you as a result of starting your own coaching business and doing it the way you’re doing it? I mean, I feel like I’m more alive than I was when I was trying to and I mean being, I don’t want this to sound like I’m complaining because being an entrepreneur was better for me in every way than having a J-O-B job, a 9 to 5 sort of thing. And yet I feel like it was a job for me and so to come into freedom and to be able to have creativity around what I want to be and how I want to show up. Has really been freeing and alivening for me. Excellent! There was a lot to that question, I feel like there was more there and it was juicy…say that again, what was that? The back half of your question, you ask me these intricate and complex questions and I always feel like I only answer half of it before… Ok, what’s changed in you? What sort of changes have happened in you as a result of doing what you’re doing? Well, my friends say that I’m happier. I love what the Greek’s say about happiness, which is not that it’s this moment of pleasure but it’s the ongoing joy that we get while we are pursuing noble goals. And so that is something that I have much more frequently than when I was pursuing, you know, financial and business goals.
If you had a couple things to teach us today or a couple of tips, what would you share a couple of things with us? What as a result of what you do? My number one thing is if you feel like something isn’t right in your life, if something isn’t working, if something doesn’t feel like it is the right fit for you, listen to that. That voice that’s telling you to try something else or to grow or to move away from a situation or relationship that isn’t right for you. When I moved into sailboat coaching, I don’t feel like I had all of the answers and I don’t feel like I would have gotten here if I would have waited to get all of the answers. But, I started taking steps and I followed that little voice in my heart and I feel like for some people, in some situations, following that little voice in your heart one step at a time is the only way to get to where you wanted to go all along to find out where it was you wanted to get to in the first place.
I love that, that’s great. And the other thing that we’re doing with Get Inspired Talks podcast is putting a challenge out there. If you wanted to challenge our audience to take one action that something they can do today. Maybe something simple, what would that be? Any challenge that I would give would be something around gratefulness. The difference that we get biochemically and in our hearts and our minds when we spend the day in gratitude as opposed to complaining and it’s easy to do. There are lots of things we can complain about. The news is set up to give us a stream of things to complain about for all kinds of reasons; they can sell you things that you’ll buy when you’re unhappy. And I feel like gratefulness is the big thing we need to practice, that we want to practice to have consistent joy in our lives. So, whether that’s sitting down and writing things every day that you’re grateful for or just practicing telling stories about what you’re grateful for, instead of stories where you complain, where you’re the victim. Yeah, just finding little ways of being in gratitude every day and I feel like that changes your outlook and your outlook changes your life.
So just before we wrap up, I just want to remind people that the Get Inspired Talks podcast is part of the Get Inspired Talks event. There will be different events taking place, I don’t want to give the date here because maybe someone will be listening to this two years from now, so just look up www.getinspiredtalks.com, people like Terry will be speaking at the events. So again, just a reminder Terry’s challenge to us today is to be more grateful and I hope you will take him up on that challenge and respond to us on the different social media challenges at www.getinspiredtalks.com.
It sounds awesome what Terry is doing. I have a love of sailing. I grew up sailing as well during the summer and I’m sure interested in what he’s doing. So, Terry why don’t you give us where we can get more information if we want to find out what you’re doing. Yeah, so Terry if people want to find out more what you’re doing and possibly go on a trip, I know that they are sold out. You told me in our pre-talk and interview which is a really good sign. It sounds like you’re doing something right. How can people get in touch with you? Like you said Rod, all of our trips sold out right now but we will be planning new ones. So, definitely get on our website, www.terrythesailboatcoach.com. Click on trips, that’s where the new trips will be coming out and also custom personal coaching is also available through that website as well.
Thanks so much for joining us, if people want to see links to the different things we’ve talked about in this interview, they can go to getinspiredtalks.com and we’ll have links to all of that. If you’re listening on itunes or YouTube or Soundcloud, you can find links for that in the show notes on getinspiredtalks.com. Thanks again, Terry! Thank you so much Rod. I’ve enjoyed talking with you and yeah, this has just been great.