If you are intrigued with the notion of personal evolution (as the next generation of personal development), then you will enjoy this session.  The two basic sources of Personal Evolution are 1) Design environments which stimulate you in surprising ways and 2) Experiment continuously.    The former mimics nature/weather, and the latter mimics genetic mutation.  This is an advanced class; be prepared to evolve your own thinking about people, success and personal development.  Personal evolution is a very different ball game.  Single session/one hour.    

What does the term Personal Evolution mean?

1. We are saying that people can evolve not just develop themselves.  
Meaning that one's way of thinking, behavior, capacities, skill sets and paradigms aren't just limited to developing (linearly) over time but can in fact, actually evolve over time, meaning that they alter, become more complex, take on a different life; far beyond what the person may have designed or planned for.  There is a wild adventure beyond just development.  (Development means more/better of the same; evolution means something new added to the mix that fundamentally changes it nature.)

2. We are saying that personal evolution is similar to biological evolution.
Just as mutations/genes are favored in the plants and animals in nature by the influence of changing environments (think of the mutation that made some hares white in colder climates; they had a distinct advantage over brown hares in the winter in those colder area and thus are all that survived.  But it all started with a chance mutation that was then favored due to changing weather/environmental conditions.

Teaching Tools
1. Ask: What do you think of when you think of personal evolution?
2. Ask: If humans hadn't been personally evolving over the past 2000 years, where would we be thinking from?
3. Ask: What other similarities do you see between personal and biological evolution?


What makes personal evolution so vital, different and valuable?

1.  The shift is from 'developing/relying upon yourself' to designing stimulating environments that will do all of that for you.  So, it's like delegating your future development to environments.  This provides a sense of relief, and as long as the environments you've chosen/designed are radical/perfect/stimulating enough they will evolve automatically themselves, thus keeping you evolving as well.

2.  Folks are getting tired of relying upon themselves.  After all companies rely on systems for success. Why shouldn't people be able to do this as well?  Evolution/environments are a great system to outsource your success to.

3.  Personal development theory, programs and principles are are linear in nature and are not developing/expanding fast enough to keep up with exploding amount of the unique and special needs that individuals have.  The Personal Evolution approach provides a mass customization solution to the heretofore linear personal development path.  Personal development programs tend to be cookie cutter or top-down theory.  Personal evolution is an architecture.  Big difference.

Teaching Tools
1. Ask: How would personal evolution so vital/useful today in YOUR life?  How would you benefit significantly?
2. Ask: What would concern you about shifting your focus from yourself to your environments?
3. Ask: How would you integrate your personal evolution with your personal development?


How does one evolve themselves?

Strategy #1.  
Become a constant experimenter.
When you experiment a lot, you are 'mutating' just like cells do, which can be good.  Experimenting leads to discovery, which leads to awareness which leads to evolution.

Strategy #2.  
Design environments which stimulate you in surprising ways.
Key is to become facile with designing multiple types of environments.  Here's a graphic that describes several environments.

Teaching Tools
1. Ask: How much of a constant experimenter are you?  Why do you experiment at that level?  What would it take to double or triple that level of experimenting?
2. Ask: What or who is your most evolving environment currently?
3. Ask: What's the next/first environment that you see to begin improving or perfecting?



What are the types of virtual and non virtual environments that one would design?




Teaching Tools
1. Ask:  Which of these environments is a surprise to you?
2. Ask:  Which of these environments are evolving you well already?
3. Request:  Pick one environment above and describe how you would perfect it so that it would stimulate you in surprising ways.


21 Personal Evolution Strategies

Last updated: March 29, 1999

To evolve more quickly and easily...

1. Surround yourself with new ideas instead of recycling your beliefs.
Beliefs can limit your ability to experience life as it unfolds.

2. Make chaos your friend.
The unexpected is a good thing as long as you're open to it.

3. Let your environments do most of your evolutionary work for you.
Evolution occurs as you adapt to such environments.

4. Use tolerations to your advantage.
Every single thing you are putting up with is an opportunity waiting to be leveraged.

5. Constantly experiment.
Synchronicity is the reward.

6. Spend more time in nature.
Nature nourishes and recalibrates our natural systems.

7. Become the host of a thriving network.
Let your network evolve you as you serve them.

8. Continuously integrate all aspects of your life.
Integration evolves you from being needlessly complicated to being richly complex.

9. Invest in your virtual environments, not just your physical environments.
Life is becoming more virtual.

10. Design your sources of energy.
You can then operate at a higher frequency.

11. Become superconductive.
Reduce the energy you consume by 90% by reducing your resistance to life.

12. Master the evolving set of Cyber Skills.
Extend your intelligence by connecting with everyone.

13. Surround yourself with people who are eagerly evolving.
They spark you. You spark them. Evolution occurs effortlessly.

14. Stop resisting.
Assimilate events the first time they occur.

15. Choose a goal that is bigger than you are.
Be pulled forward by it, instead of pushing yourself.

16. Get over yourself in every possible way.
Arrogance holds you back.

17. Learn how you naturally operate.
Come to honor your personal dynamic.

18. Know your gifts.
And design your life to fully express them.

19. Emotionally heal.
Healing maximizes your emotional IQ.

20. Cause something and surprise yourself.
Initiative is a muscle.

21. Make what you don't know more interesting than what you do know.
Enjoy learning more than teaching.

Teaching Tools
1. Ask: Which one of these is most appealing to you right now?
2. Ask: Which is one that you'll likely never do in your life?
3. Ask: Are there any other strategies you can think of to add to this list?

 

How does Personal Evolution approach work and what are the primary benefits of the this approach?

1. Rather than just setting goals and pushing oneself to reach those goals, you instead design multiple environments (home, car, office, what you read, friends, colleagues, networks, nature, tools, feelings, thinking, etc.) and let the environments work on you.

2. By surrendering to extremely well designed environments (tangible and intangible), you can afford to take your eye off the future to a large extent, thus freeing you up to overrespond (a good thing; read more about 'overresponding to every event' in the Attraction Program; it's one of the 28 Attraction Principles) to your environment and the events/stimulation that occurs in those environments.

3. The client can chill out, relax and stop trying to figure everything out or push themselves so hard.  With well designed environments, the next step becomes apparent.  No need for constant decision making, motivation.  The environments carry you forward.

Teaching Tools
1. Ask: How has personal evolution worked for you in the past, and how do you feel it will begin working for you now, given that you now understand more if its dynamic?
2. Ask: Do you have any goals that you would resist trusting to the environmental approach?  What risks do you see to this approach?
3. Ask: Do you feel that you would still be successful in life, if you used the environmental approach?  If so, why?  If not, why not?  


To whom does the notion of Personal Evolution appeal?

1. To the individual who has done significant work on themselves and is reaching the point of diminishing returns.

2. To the individual who has reached their goals in life and can afford to become someone other than who they have been.

3. To the truly leading edge type person who has a love affair with the unknown vs trying to make sense of the known.

4. To the person who can afford to have their status quo turned upside down.

5. To the person who would rather delegate their future/success than relying upon just themselves to succeed/grow.

Teaching Tools
1. Ask: Why is the notion of personal evolution appealing to you?
2. Ask: How, specifically, do you feel that personal evolution will appeal to your clients?
3. Ask: Who do you feel isn't right for personal evolution?
 

What are the key shifts to make in thinking and behavior?
From self-centric to environment-centric.
From analyzing/figuring stuff out to frequent experiments to see what happens.
From role-based to collaboration-based.
From reaction-based to proactive/initiative-based.
From having to know to wanting to discover through action.

Teaching Tools
1. Ask: What's the shift you have already make during this call?
2. Ask: What is a shift that you'll probably need to make in order to get the most out of the personal evolution concept?
3. Ask: What's a shift that you are resisting?


What mistakes do people make with the idea of Personal Evolution?
There are several mistakes or misapplications of this idea that we've seen occur:
1. They surrender to environments before they have crafted them fully/properly.
2. They see personal evolution as an 'answer to their problems' when in fact, they may need to address real problems/integrity issues head on before they advanced to the personal evolution approach.
3. They want to and do use Personal Evolution as a way to achieve a specific result, which isn't how evolution is built to work; personal evolution is a byproduct of stimulating environments and constant experimentation.  If you need a specific result, you can still benefit from personal evolution, but you've missed the point.
4. They only think about the obvious environments to tweak; look at the chart above; there are 7 categories and many types of environments.  Work on all of them until they are designed to your satisfaction.

Teaching Tools
1. Ask: What mistakes have you made with personal evolution thus far in your life?
2. Ask: What mistakes have you avoided?
3. Ask: What mistakes will you likely continue to make with personal evolution?


What is the measure of learning; how your students will know if they are getting it about Personal Evolution?
Here are some positive indicators...
1. The person shifts from being identity-centric to being environment-centric.  They start caring less about themselves and their goals and come to enjoy the process of over-responding to events triggered by their environments.
2. The person becomes less self-referencing and has less of a need to prove their knowledge or position in the world.  This, due the humbling effects of being environment-centric.  You realize that it's all about environments really; not so much about you anymore.
3. The person takes FAR GREATER care in their environments; they come to be used by their environments (in a good way) vs just using environments as tools to get something done faster.  There is a greater respect for environments as the catalyst of a person's growth and/or the opportunities that environment bring a person.
4. The person comes to have a highly collaborative/intimate relationship with environments in all forms (tangible, intangible, virtual, non-virtual).  There is a partnership there; not just a utilitarian relationship.  The environments take on an almost magical quality.
5. The person finds themselves experimenting much more often; especially about little things vs taking 'big risks.'  Experimentation is a muscle that they come to enjoy flexing.  Experimentation becomes a source of enjoyment and pleasure, not a sign of desperation because they waited too long to make a change.
6. The person has less of a need to make 'big decisions.'  This, because they are make incremental choices more often, often via experimenting first.

Teaching Tools
1. Ask: What was your first indication that you were 'getting it' regarding personal evolution?


How would you use Personal Evolution with 1 to 1 clients?

You can weave in some of the theories/principles in with your current coaching of clients.  Just broach the topic by asking something like:
"Have you ever heard of the notion of Personal Evolution?"
"I'm wondering if one of the principles of personal evolution might fit with your situation?"
"You know, I bet that you might benefit if we took a little time to perfect the design of your personal and business environments. Would that be of interest to you?"

Teaching Tools
1. Ask: How do you, or could you, weave in some of the principles of personal evolution with your clients?
2. Ask: In what situations  do you feel sharing a principle of personal evolution would be helpful to your client?
3. Ask: How would you explain/share the notion of personal evolution, in a single sentence?


What resources are available at the Personal Evolution site?

There are many!  Below a partial list. 

Top 10 Trends Evolving Us the Most
This will help you make sense of how we are evolving, as well. 

The 21 Personal Evolution Strategies
Everything from

Why Awareness Matters In Personal Evolution.
This Top 10 Lists describes how important heightened awareness is in the evolutionary process. Viewable here.

Top 10 Things of Which to Be Fully Aware
Awareness accelerate evolution.

Top 10 Steps To Becoming More Aware.

You Know You're Evolving When.... 
A list of 500+ indicators of personal evolution as shared by students who've graduated from the Personal Evolution course. 
 

Are there programs related to Personal Evolution?

Yes.  There are several.  Personal Evolution is an advanced program.  Typically a person would first take these program in order to 'afford' the significant changes that Personal Evolution would call for.  That said, however, not everyone needs to go through the 'hoops' listed below.  Some folk can start right at the top and work their way down.

Clean Sweep Program
100 elements of your life to clean up/perfect.  When your 'integrity' is restored in these 100 specific areas, one has more natural energy and can move forward much more quickly in life.

Personal Foundation Program
10 pillars to strengthen the foundation of your life.  When your foundation is strong, one has far, far fewer problems in life.

Reserve Program
Steps to move beyond mere sufficiency.  With reserves come the ability to respond to opportunity vs being stuck in survival.

Attraction Program
There are 28 principles of attraction and the basic idea is by implementing these principles that success, happiness and opportunities find YOU, vs you looking for/chasing them.

Absence Of Program
Often, it's the absence of things that let one move forward in life more easily, without the resistance that is typically encountered.  Think absence of regrets, problems, delay, processing, resistance, confusion, thinking etc.  Think superconductivity.
 

What should the coach do/know in order to be able to teach personal evolution?
1. Make 10 changes in your environments.
2. Listen to the RealAudio, or take the live version of  the Personal Evolution TeleClass ($49 upgrade free for GSC for the live TeleClass version, $99 for CV members). You'll learn the content you need to know as well as hear questions that your students will likely pose to you.
3. Be in the place in your life where you're willing to let go of strategies/methods you've used to date in order to grow, develop, success and have a desire to become a full time experimenter who can't wait to design environments that stimulate in surprising ways and then surrender to those environments.

Teaching Tools
1. Ask: What do you feel that you need to do or learn before you would be comfortable conducting a class on personal evolution?


Are there logos available?

Yes, here they are:

How can this program be packaged/structured?

1. In all the typical ways: TeleClass, workshop, training, as part of 1 to 1 coaching. (Note, only GSC members and license holders may offer this program in groups.  All others may use it 1 to 1.)  Currently, you cannot create/release an ecourse version given we are working on one ourselves which will be the official one.

2. We suggest that you begin by educating clients on the various types of virtual and non virtual environments. That gets them into the design mode and they'll naturally become continual experimenters when you give them something exciting (multiple environments) to play with.

Teaching Tools
1. Ask: Are there any other ways to package/deliver the personal evolution program?


How do you convert a TeleClass participant to be a client?
One way to attract clients to your coaching practice is to offer free or fee TeleClasses where the public can get to know you via a TeleClass that you are offering.  To that end, there are several strategies that work to upsell a TeleClass participant to becoming a 1 to 1 coaching client.  (Again, please note, the option to offer this program to groups, ie in TeleClasses, is only available to GSC members and license holders.  If you are not one of those, the below suggestions are for your interest only. )
1.  Weave in examples of how your 1 to 1 clients have used the personal evolution approach to become more successful/happy in their lives.  This builds credibility both for you as a coach and for the power of the personal evolution idea, but don't exaggerate, obviously.  Rather, be casual about it; mention it, but don't push it.
2. When a participant shares a challenge or an 'ah ha,' you can build on that with something like:
"Yes, that's a perfect example of a change to make in order to make the most of your evolution.  I've found that it takes a couple of weeks/months to work through that."  They'll get the message that you're available.)
3. When you have designed a series of impressive environments, they can do the selling for you.  When you share the natures of these and what you've done with them, the participant will get that it's all craftable/designable and will hire you as their environmental design consultant, so to speak.
4. Finally, a person who has adopted the environmental/personal evolution approaches comes across in a distinct way.  After all, the participants in the TeleClass are an environment for the coach; and the folks on the call will sense that and bond with you in a collaborative way.  And that feeling of openness/collaboration is highly attractive to potential clients.



Debriefing Questions at End of Call
1. What did you learn that surprised you?
2. What did you learn that affirmed something you are already doing along this line?
2. At what point during the call did you realize that this TeleClass was an evolving environment?
3. What will you do now, with what you learned?

Important Notes: We welcome you to share the above one on one with your clients.  For authorization to lead this course to groups in person, via the web, via email and via TeleClass, consider joining the Graduate School of Coaching, which includes a group training license for this and 13 other client programs. Full details below.

For a list of the upcoming training guides such as the one above, click here.  These training guides are also included in the GSC membership.

Or, if you prefer to consider the license for the Personal Evolution alone, full details are available by clicking here.

copyright 2002 by graduateschoolofcoaching.com. no duplication.