Coach Letts

12/27/2020

Love technology.

A better understanding of the reefs’ location—made possible by satellite imagery—will help governments monitor, protect, and expand these vital ecosystems.

09/02/2020

It’s been awhile! Planning and growing a new business, dealing with all the intricacies of life has kept Coach Letts in the shadows! Well, I’m back. Stay tuned for a new format. Check in here daily! Now accepting new clients. PM me for details. Life, relationship, business coaching. Deep Down, I Care!

06/05/2019

Slow down - no stress - use these tips to arrive at decisions in just a few minutes with clarity. Remember, You still have to act.....listen to your gut.

A key awareness in conscious living and conscious leadership is direction—what direction are you moving in a situation, in a project, in a conversation,

06/01/2019

Take a moment folks....

Never miss a talk! SUBSCRIBE to the TEDx channel: http://bit.ly/1FAg8hB Just before his passing on January 10, 2014, Sam Berns was a Junior at Foxboro High S...

04/28/2019

Our identities are such powerful engines. They drive so much of who and what we are. I would ask you to consider the following article asking yourself the question, “What labels have I attached to myself that indeed have made me dumber?” I’m going to rip a few post it notes off starting today. This article makes so much sense.

Keep Your Identity Small

February 2009

I finally realized today why politics and religion yield such uniquely useless discussions.

As a rule, any mention of religion on an online forum degenerates into a religious argument. Why? Why does this happen with religion and not with Javascript or baking or other topics people talk about on forums?

What's different about religion is that people don't feel they need to have any particular expertise to have opinions about it. All they need is strongly held beliefs, and anyone can have those. No thread about Javascript will grow as fast as one about religion, because people feel they have to be over some threshold of expertise to post comments about that. But on religion everyone's an expert.

Then it struck me: this is the problem with politics too. Politics, like religion, is a topic where there's no threshold of expertise for expressing an opinion. All you need is strong convictions.

Do religion and politics have something in common that explains this similarity? One possible explanation is that they deal with questions that have no definite answers, so there's no back pressure on people's opinions. Since no one can be proven wrong, every opinion is equally valid, and sensing this, everyone lets fly with theirs.

But this isn't true. There are certainly some political questions that have definite answers, like how much a new government policy will cost. But the more precise political questions suffer the same fate as the vaguer ones.

I think what religion and politics have in common is that they become part of people's identity, and people can never have a fruitful argument about something that's part of their identity. By definition they're partisan.

Which topics engage people's identity depends on the people, not the topic. For example, a discussion about a battle that included citizens of one or more of the countries involved would probably degenerate into a political argument. But a discussion today about a battle that took place in the Bronze Age probably wouldn't. No one would know what side to be on. So it's not politics that's the source of the trouble, but identity. When people say a discussion has degenerated into a religious war, what they really mean is that it has started to be driven mostly by people's identities. [1]

Because the point at which this happens depends on the people rather than the topic, it's a mistake to conclude that because a question tends to provoke religious wars, it must have no answer. For example, the question of the relative merits of programming languages often degenerates into a religious war, because so many programmers identify as X programmers or Y programmers. This sometimes leads people to conclude the question must be unanswerable—that all languages are equally good. Obviously that's false: anything else people make can be well or badly designed; why should this be uniquely impossible for programming languages? And indeed, you can have a fruitful discussion about the relative merits of programming languages, so long as you exclude people who respond from identity.

More generally, you can have a fruitful discussion about a topic only if it doesn't engage the identities of any of the participants. What makes politics and religion such minefields is that they engage so many people's identities. But you could in principle have a useful conversation about them with some people. And there are other topics that might seem harmless, like the relative merits of Ford and Chevy pickup trucks, that you couldn't safely talk about with others.

The most intriguing thing about this theory, if it's right, is that it explains not merely which kinds of discussions to avoid, but how to have better ideas. If people can't think clearly about anything that has become part of their identity, then all other things being equal, the best plan is to let as few things into your identity as possible. [2]

Most people reading this will already be fairly tolerant. But there is a step beyond thinking of yourself as x but tolerating y: not even to consider yourself an x. The more labels you have for yourself, the dumber they make you.

Notes

[1] When that happens, it tends to happen fast, like a core going critical. The threshold for participating goes down to zero, which brings in more people. And they tend to say incendiary things, which draw more and angrier counterarguments.

[2] There may be some things it's a net win to include in your identity. For example, being a scientist. But arguably that is more of a placeholder than an actual label—like putting NMI on a form that asks for your middle initial—because it doesn't commit you to believing anything in particular. A scientist isn't committed to believing in natural selection in the same way a bibilical literalist is committed to rejecting it. All he's committed to is following the evidence wherever it leads.

Considering yourself a scientist is equivalent to putting a sign in a cupboard saying "this cupboard must be kept empty." Yes, strictly speaking, you're putting something in the cupboard, but not in the ordinary sense.

Thanks to Sam Altman, Trevor Blackwell, Paul Buchheit, and Robert Morris for reading drafts of this.

03/15/2019

Re-engage and find what's been missing. Call me for a complimentary one-hour coaching conversation. Also, check out www.coachletts.com Still in the development phase but solid enough to let you take a peek! Now please ponder this quote:

“Old George Orwell got it backward. Big Brother isn't watching. He's singing and dancing. He's pulling rabbits out of a hat. Big Brother’s busy holding your attention every moment you're awake. He's making sure you're always distracted. He's making sure you're fully absorbed. He's making sure your imagination withers. Until it's as useful as your appendix. He's making sure your attention is always filled. And this being fed, it's worse than being watched. With the world always filling you, no one has to worry about what's in your mind. With everyone's imagination atrophied, no one will ever be a threat to the world.”
— Chuck Palahniuk

Coaching Services. Life, Family, Relationship, Business. Free 2 Hour initial session.

03/08/2019

Reach out to me. It will make a difference.

02/13/2019

A piece on Fear, my old friend. I hope you enjoy. Here’s my gift to you....three times today, for only a minute at a time, do something you’re afraid of and share your experience here on my page. Fear is not the enemy. Our subconscious is..... Enjoy the article by Alan Seale.

Acknowledging Your Fear and Finding Your Way Forward
Feb 11, 2019 | Transformational Presence by Alan Seale

Fear. It’s an emotion that we all experience, yet we rarely talk openly about it. A few years ago, “fear” was the lecture theme for one of the weeks at Chautauqua, my beloved summer retreat and spiritual home. The speakers talked all around the topic – the history of fear, the causes of fear, the costs of fear in society, and the behaviors often ignited by fear – yet no one actually talked about how we can learn to navigate fear. No one talked about fear as a normal part of life, or how fear might actually call us forth into our greatest strengths and potential.

I’m not talking about fears for physical safety or survival. I’m talking about the emotional fears that so often accompany “putting ourselves out there” in our lives – fears of being seen, fears of taking a stand, fears of taking a risk for something that is important to us, fears of not being good enough – you know the ones.
Fear as Awareness
Too often, these kinds of fears are equated with weakness – that if we acknowledge our fears or doubts, it sends the message that we are somehow not good enough, not strong enough.
I’m no stranger to this kind of fear and doubt. It’s taken me the better part of my life to realize that acknowledging your fear is actually a good thing. In fact, now I recognize that being able to walk with your fears – to talk with them, listen to them, and work with them instead of fight against them or deny them – is one of the qualities of life mastery.
Furthermore, I’ve learned that my fear often actually points me in the direction I need to go. It’s not necessarily where I wantto go, yet it is the place of my next learning and growth. It requires me to find my safety and strength within myself rather than depending on someone else or a particular set of circumstances to provide that safety. And it keeps me humble. It heightens my awareness that my choices, decisions, and actions have consequences. Therefore, it helps ensure that I will pay attention to every step that I take, even when moving quickly.
I’ve learned that the person who claims to have no fear may not be trustworthy. It’s the person who can embrace his or her fears, speak openly about them, and be willing to work with them instead of being controlled by them, that I am more likely to trust and respect.
Fear As an Invitation
Life is a journey. That’s an overused phrase, yet it’s true. Resistance, doubt, fear, and failure are all normal and healthy parts of that journey. So are joy, happiness, success, and confidence. When feelings of fear, doubt, and resistance arise, they are often signs that we are crossing into unknown territory – experiences or places where we have never been before. When fear and resistance are triggered by memories of difficult experiences from our past, they may be sending up warning flares, letting us know that we need to navigate carefully.
Fear is a natural response when we don’t know what will happen, or how we, or others, will respond. Even more deeply, we may fear who we will become if we fully step in, or how our lives might change.
Yet if we never experience resistance, fear, or apprehension, then we are probably not challenging ourselves to be all that we can be. We’re playing it safe. We’re living in a carefully crafted comfort zone.
The invitation: When fear or resistance shows up, acknowledge it and respect it. Listen to what it wants you to be aware of. Recognize the pitfalls it asks you to notice. And acknowledge when it is actually an old pattern asking to be changed. Thank the fear for the messages it brings. Then take a deep breath, and take your next step.
Four Situations Where Fear is Likely to Arise
Through my personal experience and through coaching others, I’ve recognized four kinds of situations or times in our lives in which fear, doubt, or resistance are likely to arise.
The first is when you are embarking upon a new path. It may be a new path within yourself, or it could be into a new relationship, a new job or career, or a new level of visibility in leadership or public recognition.
The second is when you are discovering and claiming your soul mission or life purpose. No one’s soul mission is small. Your soul wants to play big. It doesn’t care about the size of the stage. It just wants to play full out on whatever size stage you choose. Embracing the bigness of your soul mission can feel overwhelming at first. Your soul mission is your greatest gift to the world, and living it can bring you face-to-face with your greatest lessons. It’s through living your soul mission that you grow into the best version of you that you can be.
The third is at points of commitment – to yourself, to a relationship, to a new job or career, or to another level of presence – another way of showing up in Life.
Finally, the fourth is when it’s time to take action.
Stepping Into Your Creative Power Can Be Scary
Fear and doubt surface at those particular times because you are actively and intentionally stepping into your full, authentic, creative power.
Stepping into your creative power often means that your life will never be the same again. This is because your sense of who you are – your sense of Self – changes. You now know yourself in a new way. You have met a new part of yourself, or you have allowed a part of yourself to have a stronger voice than before. You discover another layer of your unique gifts – what you are here to bring to the world. And you accept and embrace the response-abilities inherent in claiming your place in the world.
When you step into your full, authentic, creative power, your relationships will change. Some will dissolve or fade away, others will take on new forms. And some will further evolve to become even more meaningful, solid, and secure.
The ways in which you move in the world and engage with others will change, because you are feeling, sensing, thinking, and acting from a deeper level of self-awareness, as well as a more acute sense of everything that is happening around you. You will be led by a clearer sense of purpose and direction. The bonus is often a new sense of inner freedom.
All of this may be unknown territory, and that can be scary. Freedom can be scary. It brings questions like Will I be able to handle it? Will I use it well? How will others respond?
Your “emotional survival self” may resist going there. It thrives on safety, security, familiarity, predictability, comfort, and assurance that everything will be OK.
Yet your soul wants to fly. Your soul wants to experience living its fullest potential. Your soul is the source of your life force. If your soul isn’t fed, nurtured, and given wings to fly, it withers.
Engaging Your Fear
The bottom line – get comfortable with fear, doubt, and resistance. Make friends with them. Don’t push them away. Instead, engage them, listen to them, take care of them, and walk side by side with them. You will be stronger for having done so, because they point you towards a greater version of you.
When you acknowledge your fear, work with it, and follow the course that you know deep in your heart is yours, you embark upon a profound journey toward the full and authentic expression of you. And that is the greatest gift you can give to yourself and to those whose lives you touch.
~ ~

02/13/2019

02/12/2019

Your thought for today! Find out what your transformation can reveal! Complimentary one hour session - 727-543-4082 Coach Joe Letts CPBA, CPMA, Emotional Intelligence Practitioner

02/01/2019

Thanks to Sylvia of Solutions by Sylvia today for her presentation! The following quote resonated with me afterwards.

“In order to change skins, evolve into new cycles, I feel one has to learn to discard. If one changes internally, one should not continue to live with the same objects. They reflect one’s mind and psyche of yesterday. I throw away what has no dynamic, living use.” - Anais Nin

What habits, possessions, behaviors, relationships do you need to discard today to be your authentic self?

Reach out to me for a revealing, one hour, complimentary coaching session to learn more about you!