There is a story about internal conflict we like to tell about a wise, old Cherokee American Indian. There are many versions of this story and they can vary slightly in details, but the moral of the tale is the same.
A group of Cherokee children gathered around their grandfather. They were filled with excitement and curiosity. That day, there had been quite a tumultuous conflict between two adults and their grandfather was called in to mediate.
The children were eager to hear what he had to say about it. One of the children popped a question to the grandfather that was puzzling him.
“Grandfather, why do people fight?”
“Well” the old man replied “we all have two wolves inside us, you see. They are in our chest and these wolves are constantly fighting each other”.
The eyes of the children had grown big by now.
“In our chests too, grandfather?” asked another child. “And in your chest too?” asked a third one.
He nodded, “Yes, in my chest too. He sure had their attention now. The grandfather continued. “There is a White Wolf and a Black Wolf. The Black Wolf inside us is filled with fear, anger, envy, jealousy, greed, and arrogance. The White Wolf is filled with peace, love, hope, courage, humility, compassion, and faith. They battle constantly”.
Then he stopped. The child that asked the initial question continued. “But grandfather, which wolf wins?”
The old Cherokee simply replied...
When hearing this story, many people realise how often their world and internal conflict is dominated by the Black Wolf. Everyone can resonate with the “feeding” of emotions such as anger, jealousy and fear. These emotions can, at times, have power over us – but let’s face it, it doesn’t feel good when we are in this space, does it?
By giving these emotions – the Black Wolf - our headspace, we are fundamentally feeding them. Admittedly, it can be hard to “snap out of it”. Many of us have a very underdeveloped White Wolf.
For some people, whilst growing up, it was not often fed by parents or those people in positions of authority, such as teachers. Certain organisational cultures can encourage the “Black Wolf”. This can lead our White Wolf to be weak, skinny and small. But that doesn’t mean it’s not possible to change our focus and attention, moving forward.
We each have a choice which wolf we want to feed when experiencing internal conflict. We can stop feeding the Black Wolf and start feeding the White Wolf at any given moment.
It’s also worth noting that this is something you need to work at constantly. It’s true that some people find it more difficult than others to choose the White Wolf, but at the end of the day we can all choose to stop feeding the Black Wolf. We can all choose to feed the White Wolf.
It’s that simple. But it ain’t easy!
Black wolf shows up as:
White Wolf shows up as:
The Black Wolf is primarily self-serving and mainly interested in staying ahead of the other wolves at any cost. She is the ‘survivor’ within us.
The White Wolf, however, is interested in your development and sees herself as a mere vehicle to spread loving kindness. She is led by this cause. It doesn’t feel like a choice or an obligation, she just surrenders to the call of this life force - it just feels natural.
It can be tough to get your inner White Wolf healthy, when your Black Wolf is always eager to steal as much food as possible! But persevere. The day will come when you’ll notice that the White Wolf has become equally strong. That’s when you know you’ve hit the tipping point.
Although that inner battle may still continue, if you consistently do some of the things listed below that feed your White Wolf, she will win more fights and keep getting stronger.
Written by Anna Gibbons, Intepeople Executive Coach and Founder of Best of Today - Workplace Wellbeing Programme.
Written by Intepeople Executive Coach, Anna Gibbons.
Coaching is no longer just for under-performers - it’s for the ambitious, those with dreams and goals of thriving to their full potential and being authentic leaders in their organisations.
Here are five great reasons for working with an Executive Coach on your own personal and professional development:
We all know the saying when you’re in a situation, ‘you can’t see the wood for the trees’. When we’re rushing from home to work and juggling being a parent and a partner with our career, we simply do not get the time to sit, self-reflect and create change.
Sure, we can chat with our colleagues, friends and family - but it’s a very different conversation with an executive coach.
The quality of our conversations are crucial and a coach can help keep your clarity and perspective when discussing challenges and stressful situations. Our friends and family are great at offering empathy and sympathy, but a coach tends to hold the space for you to find solutions rather than jump into the pit with you.
The brain likes to offer excuses when you’re trying to get out of doing the things you don’t like doing. But it’s the things we don’t like doing the most that usually have the greatest return or pay off.
An executive coach helps you to ‘lean in’ to these things rather than to ‘lean away’. When you have to meet with your coach to discuss progress and your actions towards your goals, you are no longer able to procrastinate and put things off.
Negative self talk is in everyone’s brain. Yes, EVERYONE'S! The main difference between successful and happy people is that they choose not to listen to it the same as unhappy people or unsuccessful people perhaps do.
The human brain is hardwired to keep us safe so it’s constantly wanting to bring the fear of ‘not being good enough’, or fear of ‘failure’ into our thoughts. However, we no longer have to worry about tigers chasing us, so we need to learn to control this negative self-talk. An executive coach can help you do this by building on your mental tool kit.
Having an executive coach isn’t about finding yourself, it’s about creating yourself.
A coach will ask you questions you may never have been asked before. They will help you picture success and visualise where you want to be, what it feels like, looks like and sounds like. When the brain is in a positive and motivated state, solutions jump out at you and you can more easily make a plan to get where you want to go.
'The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.'
A coach helps you to see the barriers that are holding you back from achieving the results you want. Barriers can be limiting decisions or unhelpful beliefs that no longer serve us. By reconnecting with our values and purpose we are able to work more efficiently and make better decisions.
These are just a few of the many reasons why an executive coach should be part of everyone’s personal and professional development plan. If you are tempted to find out more about Intepeople’s Executive Coaching services, contact us now.
How many times as HR professionals have you been asked to look for a coach or mentor for a learning or performance issue?
You need to ask yourself what are the individual needs of each situation. Sometimes it is coaching that is needed – other times a mentor and often times neither.
Quick recap on the difference between a Coach and a Mentor
A Coach
A Mentor
Here are some tips on how to decide:
Have a look at the performance appraisal of the person - what is the nature of the learning need?
Has the company introduced a new software system or program?
Does the company want to develop employees in specific competencies?
Do you have a few talented individuals who need ongoing leadership advice?
Do you have internal company experience/expertise you wish to retain and pass on to younger staff members?
Do you have staff members who need help with some of the more emotional intelligent areas in their development?
And as I said above sometime you need neither – often looking at other Learning and Development techniques may suit the situation.
Webinars, online learning tools, traditional training courses, exposure to other departments, putting staff on one-off projects are just some of the other methods you can use to fill a training need.
The size of your company and the amount of money you want to spend may also influence your training needs decision.
Another BIG question you need to ask yourself is – Will this training spend actually benefit the company?
I have seen many Business Owners and Managers fork out big sums of money on training that only benefits the individual and is not in the best interest of the company. So spend wisely.
If you have any other tips for helping our community of readers make L&D decisions drop us a note below. We welcome your thoughts and ideas.
