Research Paper: What role does Clarity have in a Transformational Life Coaching business?

Research Paper By Laurie Holmes
(Executive & Life Coach, UNITED STATES)

I had the privilege recently of interviewing Jamie Smart, author of the best selling book, CLARITY Clear Mind. Better Performance.Bigger Results. This led me to asking the question for myself, how can increasing clarity lead to better performance and bigger results for my Life Coaching business.

At the beginning of Jamie’s book Clarity he states;

If a pond is clouded with mud, there’s nothing you can do to make the water clear, but when you allow the mud to settle, it will clear on it’s own, because clarity is the water’s natural state.

According to Jamie, clarity is your mind’s natural state as well. Most of us would admit that we would love to have more clarity in our mind and have less habitual, cluttered thinking. I used to be this way in my life, filled with an abundance of useless chatter about everything and anything and would often find myself muddied up in my thinking like the state of the pond. What I noticed was the minute I understood that it was just my ” thinking” getting in my way, and that none of it was real or relevant to what was going on in the moment, a miracle occurred and my thinking cleared naturally. It was this fundamental understanding about how my mind works that allowed for my increased clarity.  As a result of this I have found myself being able to get a lot more done, instead of using up my time “thinking” too much.

In order for me to be a great Coach, my increasing clarity also leads to an increased ability to listen to someone else speak when I have nothing on my mind. I used to listen through the filter of my pretended listening, while I was really formulating what

I was going to say next. My mind was in constant chatter mode so listening to someone else, was not happening. I would find myself talking over the other person, and that would lead to increased frustration that they were not listening to me! My younger sister and I had many a conversation like that, till I became a Coach and learned how to listen deeply with nothing on my mind. Recently after a very long silence from me, she said, “Sis are you still there?” To which I replied, “Yes I was listening to you!” That is the place where a deeper connection is formed and questions that really speak to the Client’s underlying beliefs are asked.

Thought creates the world, then says’ I didn’t do it’.  David Bohm, Quantum physicist

One of my favorite scene’s in “Raider’s of Lost Ark”, was when Indiana Jones gets on the horse, and says to his friend,

Be ready for me, I’m going after that truck

Sallah replies, “How?” To which Indiana repiles,

I don’t know, I’m making this up as I go.

That was one of the funniest truthful lines I had ever heard, and it has only made more sense to me now that I realize how utterly true that is for every single one of us.

At every moment we “don’t know”, and “are making it up as we go”. The more I stay present in the moment, and not stuck in my thinking do I have the chance to be myself 100%, and go with the ever changing moment to moment flow of life.

A few months ago I took a Master Class Series with Michael Neill,  author of “The Inside Out Revolution”, and while I was reclining in my bed at 5 am on a Saturday morning I was introduced to four extraordinary men, and one of them was Jamie Smart. The first day I remember doing a lot of dozing as I don’t usually get up at 5:00 in the morning unless there is an emergency, or an early flight somewhere. The second and third days I remember getting a lot of insightful ahh ha’s and after one particular share, a clarity of understanding hit me between the eyes like a lazier beam.  It was after lunch break on the third day that a man explained to everyone what he chose to do during lunch. He said he went walking in the streets of London and came across three homeless men, sitting on the street corner. After talking with them for a few minutes, he noticed that one of the men didn’t speak. He offered them each a sum of money if they would listen to him for the next hour and a half. They agreed and he explained what he had been learning in the Master Class Series about the Nature of Thought and Reality. At the end of his talk, the man who had been speechless fell into the street laughing so hard, tears were streaming from his face. When asked what was going on, he replied in very clear English” I made it all up”. At which point, I found myself laughing hysterically. It brought everything for me full circle and again I saw how I too make everything up. For the next three days I was living in a state of 100% Clarity. I was living in the moment and making it up as I went. To be able to be present for my client in this state of Clarity, would be the biggest gift I could give to them. To have nothing on my mind, to listen to them intently, and to ask questions to dig deep below their own defenses and get to the truth of what they are seeking is why I want to be a Transformational Life Coach.

Clarity is like the liquid in a snow globe. It’s always there, behind the scenes, ready to start emerging the minute you insightfully see the inside out nature of reality; the realization you are feeling your thinking in the moment.  Jamie Smart