Glossary

Coach A specific role adopted by a person in order to assist another sort out his or her particular issues. The qualities that ensure the assistance is ‘Coaching’ (rather than advice or interference) are:

• Coaching is only provided when there has been a request or an agreement for Coaching.
• The Coach leaves their problems at the door.
• The Coach clearly believes in you.
• The Coach assesses the feasibility of your plans. If they believe them to be sound, they will ensure that you know that what you’re aiming for is entirely possible and definitely within your ability.
• The Coach always maintains a big, clear perspective, which will often be bigger and clearer than yours. This allows them to see the end point even when you can’t.
• The Coach doesn’t take any bull. If you’ve committed to achieving something and begin to cheat on yourself, talk yourself down, or not deliver on your promises, they won’t stand for it.
• The Coach rarely gives advice, but mainly asks questions that assist you in discovering the solutions.
• The Coach is supportive and caring.
• The Coach listens, but will assist you to refocus if you start to go off the point or endlessly complain.
• The Coach takes the time, because they know you’re important.
• The Coach has integrity; they don’t just say things, they mean them.
• The Coach ensures that you have a clear sense that they understand what is going on for you.
• The Coach thinks you’re important.
• The Coach gives feedback instead of criticism, and will never say ‘you’re wrong’ (this is an identity-level statement, which implies you are wrong, rather than what you did was inappropriate), although they may suggest improvements to aspects of your performance.
• The Coach is able to reflect on both their own and your performance.
• The Coach brings a sense of humour and lightness to the situation.

Coaching A relationship where one person (the client or coachee) has very specifically and clearly asked for another person’s (the Coach) assistance to help sort out a particular issue. The specific qualities that the ‘Coach’ brings to that situation will designate it as Coaching rather than advice or interference.

ELF An ELF (Excellence of Limited Function) is the technical term for upside-down genius. It describes something that 1) we have become excellent at – to a genius level – and 2) produces brilliantly disastrous results in our lives and limits our happiness. Examples of ELF’s include stress, unhappiness, low self-esteem, feeling overwhelmed, perfectionism, guilt, self-doubt and overeating. Every ELF has a very particular recipe or structure; some of these are included in the book. These recipes came from my research into working out exactly what was going on in people’s minds, unconsciously, when they were messing things up so effectively.

Influence Sometimes confused with ‘blame’ and ‘responsibility’ as in ‘I should have influenced that’ meaning ‘it’s my fault’ or ‘I’m to blame’. But, in fact, ‘influence’ means being able to use your abilities to take action to change something, and being able to make a difference to the way things turn out. It also means that if you’ve promised to do something and you haven’t delivered on that promise, then it’s up to you to influence things (do something) to make it right.

Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) A system for finding out in detail how individuals achieve excellence, using a process called modelling. The modelling process is complete when enough detail has been discovered to teach that excellence to a novice and help them to achieve excellence in that field. NLP has modelled many skills (e.g. spelling, speed-reading, sharp shooting, etc.) but is also interested in the structure that underpins many issues (e.g. depression, phobias, anxiety, allergies, etc.). Learning about how we ‘do’ these things well allows people who currently excel at these ‘skills’ (depression, phobias, stress or allergies) to learn to become less proficient, to the point where they don’t have the issue any more.

Outcomes These are similar to goals that we set ourselves in life, but outcomes are distinguished by having a much greater degree of thoughtfulness and specificity about them which makes them much more likely to be attained.

State? This is the same as a ‘state of mind’ or ‘feeling’. You can either be in a useful state (e.g. a state of ‘confidence’ in an interview) or a non-useful state (e.g. a ‘nervous’ state in an interview).

Neuroplasticity This is the ability of the brain to change its structure, as a result of how it is used. The nerve pathways that are most commonly used become stronger, faster and more influential on brain function as a whole. Those that are triggered together become more connected up to each other.