• As the events of the world continue to deepen into an unprecedented state, I have been sitting with the question of service.

    What is it to serve in these times of crisis?

    How do we give what we have—if indeed we have space to give—in the midst of these extraordinary times?

    My thoughts crystalized last week as I sat in ritual by the fire outside my home. During my vigil I listened to a question and answer session with futurist Jordan Hall. And it was in one of his answers that things started to come together.

    He provided a mytho-poetic frame that helped me make sense of the strong intuition that I wrote about in my previous article—that this was a time to double down on the change work that so many of us are dedicated to.

    And so it this article, I will extend those ideas, and speak to the question of service, leaning on the scaffolding that Hall provided.

    For I continue to feel a deep conviction that not only is there a great opportunity before us, but that the changes that can be made are considerable.

    But to answer the question of how we are asked to serve in these times, we must first understand the dynamic of change itself.

    The Hero’s Journey

    Mythopoetic maps give us—if we are able to grasp their nature—the blueprints for the deep dynamics of reality.

    The mythopoetic map that charts the nature of change is the Hero’s Journey.

    This journey at its essence, is the consensual adventure through the cycle of Order and Chaos, such that the old is destroyed, and the new can be born.

    The Hero in the myth leaves the Order of their village—stable society and life—because of a call from beyond. When they consent to the call, and step outside of what they know they enter the domain of Chaos—the trials and initiations that stretch them beyond their competency, preparing them for the culminating fight with the mythical dragon.

    The dragon is the symbol of what the adventurer is most afraid of—whether consciously or not. It is Chaos condensed into a great enemy who seeks the Hero’s destruction.

    But it is through the fight with this dragon that the Hero is reborn. The old self, the one that lived in ignorant bliss in the village, is slain. And from the ashes of the old, the new arises. The Hero, is simultaneously destroyed and remade.

    As they come to terms with who they now are, the inner transformation becomes complete. They integrate the unconscious gifts and treasure that they recovered by facing that which they were most afraid of—the dragon— and become a new whole.

    And now, changed, they return to the village—to Order, to society— ready to serve in a whole new way.

    This is the journey of individual transformation.

    It is not a single journey. It is a constant cycling of Order and Chaos. If we are sensitive to invitation, it is the process by which we are constantly re-made.

    This journey occurs on micro-scales—the process of learning a new skill, feeling the pull to try it, coming up against your incompetence, facing the heart of your fear, and coming out the other side more skilled than you were ready to engage anew.

    This journey also operates on existential levels. These are the great times of change, when we must face the very notion of who we are, and have great swathes of our identity destroyed, such that the truer aspects of ourselves have the room to grow and become real.

    For those of us dedicated to the path—to becoming who we are asked to be—this cycle is part of the work. A foundational aspect of our job.

    This is the way we are change, and become agents of change in the larger world.

    But we live in unprecedented times. The territory we live within, and must travel through, has changed fundamentally.

    Chronos and Kairos

    The ancient Greeks had two words for time, Chronos and Kairos.

    Chronos is linear time. It is chronological. It proceeds in an ordered and predictable way from before to after. This is “business as usual”.

    Kairos is the time between time, the pregnant moment. This is the time when Chaos descends, time bends, and what was normal falls apart.

    As I listened to Hall last week by the fire, he said something, which struck me deeply. The more I’ve thought about it since, the more I realized he was absolutely right. His point was this.

    For those of us whose work is dedicated to change, Chronos is a time of limited return-on-investment. The structures of Order are tight, leaving little room for the crow bar of transformation to find purchase. Everything is working. Why would we need to change?

    But when the time of Kairos begins, those structures crack and crumble. The openings are created. The deeper and wider transformational work has the conditions it needs to gain purchase.

    That time is now. For we are living in a time of great Kairos.

    And now, the Hero’s Journey is flipped on its head.

    During times of Kairos, Order and Chaos are reversed. Now, the village from which the hero comes—society at large—is in the domain of Chaos. The Order of society has disintegrated, and the mythical village is in disarray.

    And so the Hero now makes a different journey. This time it is to leave the Chaos of society so as to build new Order out in the hinterlands, at the edge of what is known.

    The old structures have come to the end of their lifetime, and the new order that will replace them must be built. This building will be done by those who did their preparatory work—the myriad individual hero cycles—during the previous time of Chronos.

    Your choice amidst the crisis

    We are in crisis. The time of Kairos has begun, and the world is falling apart.

    How can your serve?

    There are two essential roles. And your fit for each stems from your relationship to the crisis.

    The word for crisis in Chinese contains two separate characters. One of them is the word for threat, the other the word for opportunity. It is this difference that points to the difference in our role.

    How are you relating to this crisis?

    Are you anxious and afraid? Are you struggling to keep your head above water, whether psychologically, economically or otherwise? Are you plugged into the air of fear, struggling to see the end, and hoping that help comes soon?

    If so, then Kairos has thrown you into the individual hero’s journey I outlined above. The one that asks you to face your own inadequacies and fears. The invitation is to face that which you’ve spent peacetime avoiding.

    Now is the time to find help from those who are resourced. Now is the time to get support and help as you venture into the depths of yourself in search of the stability that eludes you. Maybe it’s time to take a good hard look at the way you create money. Maybe it’s time to really face the fact that you’re not doing the work you feel called to. These are the questions that want to be gently encountered, as you do the short-term work of finding Order amongst the Chaos that this crisis has erupted into.

    How best can you serve yourself?  Put your own oxygen mask on first. Always you first, then you build the strength to help those immediately around you—your friends and family.

    And then there is the second role.

    If instead, you are predominantly tuned to the opportunity frequency of the crisis, then your role is different. Are you excited by the chaos that is ensuing? Does your energy rise as you consider all the things that could change as a consequence of this crisis?

    If you’ve done your work during Chronos—if you’ve run through the hero cycles that strengthen and empower you, then now comes the time to jump into the breach.

    If so, then Kairos is inviting you into the breach.

    Now is the time to step in.

    For the underlying cracks in the Order of society have become great gaping fissures. And you have juice to give—power and skill that you’ve diligently developed—how are you called to give it in service?

    I’ve spoken with friends and peers over the last few weeks who have been doing exactly this—stepping into the breach. My friend Mark trained 500 yoga teachers to take their classes online. My business mentor Rand has gathered his community of CEOs each week to explore how they can go on the offense, in service to their customers. My partners and I in my other business are mobilizing to offer our community resources to deepen their own leadership.

    I feel the tremor in my legs as I consider the things that have been slowly percolating over the last year. I feel that unmistakable sense of vulnerability as I too prepare myself to step into the unknown—the places that I have feared to tread.

    How about you?

    What is your role?

    How are you asked to serve during these times of crisis?

    Is your deepest service to bed down, get help, and tool up?

    Or is your deepest to service to stand up, step out and help build the new?

    Ewan Townhead

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  • It’s been three years now since I started calling myself a coach. I’ve worked with a whole range of people. It’s been challenging, it’s been enlightening, and it’s been deeply fulfilling.

    Sometimes, a client’s life has been truly transformed – issues that have blocked them for decades dissolves, and a new path opens up in front of them.

    Sometimes I’ve worked with a client and we didn’t fit that well, and I think they walked away feeling grateful but a little disappointed.

    Sometimes it’s not until 6 or 12 months after the coaching that my clients tell me everything has changed, and how thankful they are for the work.

    I’m still very much a student of coaching, but I feel it’s time to speak to some of the principles that I’ve discovered in my work.

    This is not an exhaustive list. Neither is it particularly carefully structured. It’s a bunch of ways I think about coaching, and things I try to remember every time I sit down with a client.

    These are not principles of coaching.

    They are principles of my coaching.

    If they don’t work for you, please ignore them completely. If they do work, use them.

    1) You have to coach your way

    When you try to be a “good” coach, when you attempt to get it “right”, when you do your very best to fit in with what a coach is expected to do, you will strangle the mojo. Your mojo. Your way.

    Coaching is simply a method of helping someone.  How do you want to help them? How do you organically work with someone if you drop the ideas of best practice?

    Do you want to create a safe space, listen deeply, and help them extract their own answers? Do you want to lovingly challenge the fuck out of them, express your opinions, and push them?

    Do you feel more powerful when you keep the pace really slow, and explore the somatic and emotional feelings of the moment? Do you like to ignite the fireworks of ideas and dreams, and be buffeted by their explosiveness?

    There’s no code. There’s no rulebook. There are no guaranteed steps to success. There are no models of perfect practice.

    There’s you, your client, and the conversation that wants to occur between you. It’s an emergent mystery.

    Do it your way. Find your way. Take risks to understand your way. Reflect to define your way.

    It never ends. But it’s your way.

    2) Surrender and desire in the face of the unknown

    To coach someone is to enter into the unknown. For an hour or more, you’re going to enter a conversation, a meeting, and neither of you knows what’s going to happen.

    And yet, into this unknown space, we bring things.

    I bring into the conversation a desire to really get this person in front of me – who they really are. I want to feel their pain, and their desire. I want to understand what they’re being called to, and help them face it. I strive to orient them from what is most true.

    My clients bring their aspirations and struggles, and the commitment they’ve made to the coaching journey. They often bring questions or specific challenges. Sometimes they come with an epiphany they’ve had since our last conversation, and a new view of their reality. They bring their fears and wounds. They bring their brilliance and natural wisdom.

    And we enter unknown territory.

    We surrender to what wants to emerge in the space between us. We surrender to the great mystery. And let the conversation surprise us.

    We follow our desire. We create the conversation we want to have.  We envision the life they want to live.

    And we see what happens.

    3) It’s about them

    It’s not about you.

    It’s not for your gratification. It’s not meant as a support for your insecurity. It’s not supposed to validate your sense of worth.

    The purpose of the work is for you both to serve one of you.

    The coach gets helped too in the process. But the goal is to serve the client. This is what distinguishes coaching from a friendly chat, or brainstorming, or a healing treatment, or a strategy meeting.

    You’re both there to help them create something they want. It’s about them.

    4) You’re not impartial

    It’s about you too. How could it not be? You can’t turn off your own humanity.

    Therapy mistakenly believed we could be ‘impartial’. It’s a nice idea, and a noble intention, but impossible in reality.

    Don’t pretend you don’t have opinions. You do.

    Don’t hide your intuitions, because you’re supposed to be objective. You’re not.

    You have desires. You feel things about the relationship, and your client. It’s not a problem. It’s not something to hide.

    Your job is to learn how to include yourself in the conversation such that it is in the most service of your client.

    If you’re sitting there watching as they desperately scrabble around for an answer, commendably being “impartial” when you actually know exactly what they need to hear. Say it.

    If you’re growing irritated by their avoidance of something, and you realize you want to go deeper. Reveal it. Tell them, and then hash it out.

    Learn to feel when it’s the right time to keep quiet, and when it’s the right time to reveal your own experience.

    5) The truth of language

    If you’re going to play in the depths with people, you need to understand how the words we use, open or close the moment.

    Sometimes I have intuitions about big decisions my clients make. I feel whether the direction will truly serve them. Sometimes I tell them.

    Perhaps they’ve just been asked to take part in a big new project, and they’re thinking of doing it. But believe its resistance at play, tempting them away from the thing they actually want to be doing. I decide to tell them.

    “That’s not a good idea. You shouldn’t do that.”

    If I say it like this, I close the conversation. Instantly. Not because I’m being “negative”, but because I’m not being linguistically accurate.

    My statement is factually untrue.

    It’s not objectively a “good” or “bad” idea. There’s no universal rule that says “you shouldn’t.” These are not objective facts. And if I convey them this way, I either close down my client and they lose touch with their own centre. Or they feel unseen, or pissed off, and they throw up their guard, or withdraw.

    It’s an opinion, not a fact. And more importantly it’s my opinion. So share your opinions, as opinions, and you’ll maintain a free market on “the truth”, helping both of you find more of it.

    “I don’t believe that’s what you really want to do.”

    Then you can have an honest conversation about it.

    6) I love my clients

    I love who they are, and who they become as we explore what they’re really called to.

    I think about them before sessions. They pop up in my awareness from day to day. I’ll text them sometimes. I’ll forward links sometimes. I do it with ex-clients too.

    I want my clients to succeed. Because if there is anything I wish for a human being, it’s that they continually discover who they are, and express themselves in the world through art and service. That they contribute, and change things.

    So when I see the people I work with travelling this path it gives me enormous fulfilment and pride.

    And if I ever notice myself getting wrapped up in trying to “be a good coach” or get validated by them, I pause, and I put my attention on my heart, and my love for them.

    7) Challenge them, as love

    And when I love them, I can begin to really challenge them. I can push them because it’s what my heart wants to do with them, for them.

    “I think you’re hiding. And I think you know it too. But you’re afraid, so you’re not listening to yourself.”

    Challenging my clients has been a challenge for me! I don’t want to upset people, I don’t want to offend them, make them angry so they pull away from me. I’m British. One needs to be polite. I’m also introverted. I like peace and harmony.

    But when I have my heart open, my anger can flow in service of them. Not with aggression, or ill intent, but simply the fiery strength to say:

    “I love you, and I think you’re holding back.”

    8) Connect with faith

    God. Your higher self. The universe. Whatever you want to call it, you have to stay on connection with what is larger than you. Both as the coach yourself, but also to help your client do the same.

    In the midst of transformation and change, reality can look pretty weird, and feel incredibly confusing. What’s true? Do I really want to make this audacious new training program? Who am I to write about the theological nature of reality?

    Without this sense of connection, the overwhelming doubt and chaos of the unknown can shut you and your client down.

    Trust that God wants something from you. From them. Feel it. Connect with it. It’s what gives light in the dark times. It’s what gives strength in the midst of the existential wobble.

    And it’s beautiful. And incomparably powerful.

    Ewan Townhead

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  • You’re a brilliant practitioner. You have a gift. You have so much to give. But you’re compromised.

    You’re over-giving and under-funded.

    When you don’t create money in alignment with your practice, when you don’t fuel your business effectively, you suffer, and I suffer, because I’m deprived of the fullness of your offer.

    There have been times when I’ve been so short on money, that I really felt like I needed people to come along and pay me for stuff. I would over reach, over stretch. I’d come across as needy, despite my best efforts. And I came across needy because I felt needy.

    Working from that place did not help. I scared people away, who could have been served by me. It toxified my creativity, drawing my attention to need rather than desire. It sucked in my being, so that the world looked like a survival course, rather than a playground.

    As I wrote about in this previous piece (along with an examination of the nature of money) I realized something last year. I realized that the anxiety around money disappeared, not when I had ‘enough’ in the bank, or ‘enough’ clients lined up; but when I trusted in my capacity to create money when I wanted it.

    And so it is to the nature of that capacity that I’m going to speak. So you too can unlock your own innate capacity to create money.

    There are 4 keys that I’ve found fundamental in opening up the capacity.

    1. Serve the shit out of people
    2. Charge more than you’re comfortable with
    3. Learn how to sell (and receive) enjoyably
    4. Don’t chase the money

    There are also many more, but I want to really drill down into these four for you. Think of them as the minimum you need to start unlocking your own capacity to create money.

    1. Serve the shit out of people

    It all starts here. This is the heart of the matter. Without serving, for the sake of serving, you can’t unlock this capacity. Not truly.

    Money is an idea. It’s a measurement device that allows us to swap things more easily. What does it measure? Value. And how do we create value? We serve.

    So, at its root, money is an indicator of service.

    Go forth and serve. Serve because you want to serve. Give someone a gift, no strings attached. Help someone out, because you care about what they do. Offer someone your undivided presence for an hour.

    In whatever way you feel called to; serve.

    Service is what happens when we offer our devotion to another human being.

    “How can I help? I’m here for you.”

    Touch their heart. Open your heart. Serving others feels good. Enjoy the selfish gratification of doing something generous. Enjoy the selfless sacrifice of giving yourself unconditionally.

    Don’t serve them because you want something as a result. Don’t serve them so that…

    So that…they might hire me for a project.
    So that…they’ll like me.
    So that…I’m less stressed.
    So that…I’ll feel less unworthy.

    Service is an offer of the heart. I lay down my own agenda, to open you, to help you, to challenge you, to support you. I care about you.

    I was coaching someone a few days ago. She was having some frustration with her business. I’d said to her “you must let me help you.” So she did. I helped her because I wanted to help. I love her work. I love her. There was no other agenda.

    There are a whole host of people I like to help. I serve them when I can, because I can. Because I care about them. And then some of these people become my clients. They want to go really deep. They feel called to really invest in themselves. So we work together professionally. They give me money, I give them as much service as I can.

    Business is based on fundamental principles. One of them is service. Start there.

    Serve the shit out of folks.

    2. Charge more than you’re comfortable with

    Offering your services without charging money is called charity. Charity is awesome. And it’s also not business, or sustainable (usually). I see a lot of folks afraid to charge higher fees for their service. I see myself do it too sometimes.

    “Oh but, that’s an awful lot of money! I’m not worth that yet, and they definitely wouldn’t pay it. I’d rather play it safe, and over-deliver, then maybe I’ll put up my prices when I feel more confident. Anyway, I don’t want to be greedy.”

    When I design a new coaching package, I’ll write down a bunch of increasing price points for it on a big piece of paper. Then I’ll centre myself, and look at each price in turn for 20-30 seconds, really feeling what happens in my body when I imagine charging it.

    What I’ve discovered (and I’ve done this with clients too) is that the ‘low’ numbers don’t feel good in my body. I’m too relaxed, to the point of actually feeling flat. I can’t feel much vibrancy in my body. It doesn’t feel alive or animated.

    And the really high numbers? There’s a LOT of sensation – contraction in my belly, tightness in my throat. There’s so much vibrancy, I struggle to remain grounded and present.

    And then there’s this point in the upper middle. It’s the number just before the discomfort starts closing me down.

    It’s an uncomfortable number. It stretches me. It will stretch my client. But it feels right, fair, in alignment. It fills me with energy. It fills the imaginary relationship with energy.

    That’s my number. The one that brings it alive, and sets the space for creation.

    3. Learn to sell (and receive) enjoyably

    To create money, you have to ask for money. This means selling. And receiving.

    Selling has a shifty reputation. Snake-oil, life insurance, vacuum cleaners door to door. It has me think about pushiness, manipulation, things I don’t actually want.

    True selling is simply helping someone to make a decision.

    When I started The Realized Entrepreneur, I decided to offer coaching. And that meant I had to do sales. I had to talk, in real time, with a real human being, and tell them what it would cost to work with me, and have them say yes or no. And if they said yes, it meant I’d be in really close relationship to them for months.

    At first I felt scared to tell them numbers, so I’d say “I’ll send you a proposal”. Then I’d spent days writing and re-writing these things.

    Then I started working with my own coach. He helped me understand the nature of selling when it’s based on service.

    Here’s how I sell.

    I drop in deep with someone, and I serve them. If I feel intuitively, actually in my body, that I could serve this person further, I’ll offer.

    “Would you like to hear what working with me looks like?”

    I can serve someone far more deeply, who signs on to work with me for 6 months, than I can someone who spends an hour on the phone with me. But not everyone is ready, or appropriate.

    Selling is not about making money. It’s about finding the truth. Would this person be served by working with me? I consider it my job to be to help them make that decision.

    “Will I be served by working with Ewan? Am I ready to invest in myself?”

    Maybe I’m scared they’ll say no, because I really want to work with them. Maybe I’m scared they’ll say yes, because it’s going to challenge me.

    I put my fear aside, and I seek to uncover the truth.

    “Yes. Fuck yes.”

    “No. I don’t feel called.”

    It’s about truth. What’s the true decision? Uncover it.

    4. Don’t chase the money

    Money, like happiness, is hard to get if you go straight for it.

    Happiness opens to you when you live your life according to your own deep principles, when you follow your heart, when you do what fulfills you.

    Money’s like that too.

    I remember the times when I was really short, and I felt like I really needed money. I’d go hunting for it. Can I make money over here with this person? Can I weasel my way in over there?

    It felt tight. It felt desperate. I felt tight and desperate.

    It turned into a money grabbing crusade. It wasn’t greed, it was need. And the more I chased it, the harder it was to find.

    Remember, money isn’t a thing, it’s a measurement of service. So, when you want to create money, ask not “where can I find money?” but “where can I deeply serve?”

    Money is like a lover. Respect her. Caress her. Love her. Invite her. Don’t chase her, and she will come to you, more than willingly.

    What would be unleashed if you could create money?

    I create money, not because I want to buy shiny things (although I confess, I am excited about buying a new Macbook), but because I want to increase my capacity to create and to serve.

    I invested money into a trip across the US last month, visiting friends and clients, spending time with my mentor, writing in new and unusual places. It changed me.

    I just invested in a writing coach, and a 5-day silent meditation retreat with my new teacher, and two holidays for my darling woman who really needed some time and space away from the expectations of normality.

    I invested in three group coaching programs in the last 8 months.

    All these things were investments in the most important asset my business has: my own consciousness.

    As I grow, my service grows. As my service grows, the people I work with grow. As the people I work with grow, I grow. Ad infinitum.

    I know you have a lot to give. I know you have a lot to create. I know you have a lot of service to offer.

    Money empowers the powerful. Money enlightens the light bearers. Money teaches the wise. Money serve the servers.

    What would be unleashed, if you unlocked your capacity to create money?

     

    Ewan Townhead

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