Changing the world one conversation at a time…
Written by Marilyn Atkinson 13/12/2020
Greetings to all our friends, partners, and the entire Erickson global coaching community as we enter the season of love, giving, and self-reflection.
As coaches and leaders, we are visionaries. In January 2020, perhaps you took some time to envision what the upcoming year looked like for you and to set strong value-based intentions.
Erickson was about to embark on its 40th Anniversary, a year to celebrate coaching with our community; a year of putting the spotlight on the dynamic impact coaching has had all over the world. We intended to celebrate how our community has expanded into truly powerful conversations and creations.
In March, when the world made a huge pivot with COVID, we all had to pivot too. We had to discover resilience we might not have known we had. We had to find compassion for those around us and for our own inner challenges.
Our Erickson coaching community naturally finds its base in a deep sense of humanity. We are skilled at holding the space for all to ‘figure it out’ as, indeed, we each have to do the same for ourselves. More than ever, this value of inclusivity and encouragement is needed in the world.
In that spirit, we began a movement called Coaching Across Borders to bring Solution-Focused coaching to those who needed it. We opened up the 40th anniversary into a home learning space so that people could take transformational online ‘coach support’ courses at low prices during lockdown; a framework we are continuing today with the development of new online programs. More than ever, we closed ranks together across the world, becoming a close-knit Erickson worldwide community. During the pandemic, we have all been assisting our larger communities everywhere as best we can.
Let us take some time this season to be grateful for the opportunities to contribute offered to us this year. Let us be grateful for the learning we have given and received, and the trust and self-trust we have built as a support system for community leaders.
This is a very exciting time for us to be coaches. It is also an empowering time, and a moving time, when we can actually shift and change this planet we’re on. The people we’re with will get great benefit from our work, our efforts, and our legacy!
So, I invite you to take the huge potential of this time and this era by showing what coaching is and being happy with it. We are living the possibility that other people want, and as we do that, the world changes around us. Mirror neurons work, people respond to our energy and motivation.
As coaches, we focus on vision rather than content. As we all move through the holiday season and into the New Year, your experience, your ‘content’ may be different than it ever was before, but we still have the power of creativity and vision. Keep visioning everyone!
We can all change the world one conversation at a time, and I invite you to begin yesterday, today and tomorrow. Do exactly what you know to be relevant for these times and the great potential we all share. I know you are the resilient ones!
I send you my deepest love and joy.
Heartfelt wishes to all,
Marilyn Atkinson
President & Founder
Erickson Coaching International