Power Tool Assessment Name: Michelle Graniel Date: July 18th, 2012 Student ID: Email: michellegraniel@gmail.

com

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Knowing vs. Understanding Power Tool

by: Michelle Graniel

Any fool can know. The point is to understand.

Albert Einstein

In coaching Understanding is a must, we definitely have to know the information, but we also need to understand it in order to transmit it to our clients, as Aristotle said: Those who know, do. Those that understand, teach. The following document is my personal view on Knowing vs. Understanding not only in coaching, but also in life.

What is Knowing? According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, Knowing means to perceive directly, to be or become cognizant, to notice. This explanation just leaves me with some questions: Is there more than Knowing? Is Knowing enough? How far can I get by just Knowing? Definitely I think there is something more profound and complete than Knowing, and it is Understanding, the main difference between them is: when you understand you also experience, understanding goes beyond your mind, when you know you are capable of doing something, but when you understand you can also teach and show others by example. To clarify this point please read the following explanation What is Understanding? According to the Merrian-Webster Dictionary, it means to accept as a fact or truth or regard as plausible without utter certainty, to have thorough or technical acquaintance with or expertness in the practice of, the power to make experience intelligible by applying concepts and categories. When you experience life from Understanding you trust, you know, you can feel it, you always see the light at the end of the tunnel, mainly because there is experience backing up that knowledge, so it becomes something that you can bring awareness to, and focus to achieve whatever you put your mind into. Self Application How do I rather see myself living life?

As a spectator?
Or

As a powerful motor behind every experience and every choice?

If you decide to live your life as a powerful motor, you can arm yourself with all the resources you own and go to the camp of life and be conscious and present in every experience, throw yourself into the unknown and gain or Copyright 2006 International Coach Academy Pty. Ltd. 2
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lose something, that is your specific tool kit here, that is pure experience, this is what life is made of. On the other hand you can also choose to stay inside and just observe, and learn from others, and try with all you can to live life through others How can you know what you are capable of if you choose to observe only? How will you know your strengths and limitations? How will you test your will power and your own power from this safe space? If you choose to observe, you will definitely gain a lot of knowledge, you might be able to sort some of your own situations based on that knowledge, but what if a real challenge comes along, a challenge that requires real experience, real insight, without Understanding itll be very hard. If you open yourself to experience you will gain empowerment, let me clarify this word, according to the Free Dictionary by Wexler, it means to equip or supply with an ability, to enable, when you are able to experience and come out with a result, empowerment is just part of that result, part of knowing that you can achieve and that you can always try again. Life is short and theres only one, lets allow ourselves to understand as much as we can, lets experience, lets feel. Knowing vs. Understanding in Coaching How can I create the awareness to differentiate something that I know versus something that I understand? Heres a simple test that can take us right there: When facing change what do you usually do: you move forward or you get paralyzed? If you move, do you do it using your own tools and previous experience? If you get paralyzed, can you identify your feelings and fears? Do you find easy to take action and achieve positive results? If new situations make you fearful and you get stuck in your mind then its probably that you just know, when you understand you trust in the flow of things, you allow yourself to move forward in your own time and trusting completely on your resources to accomplish it. As coaches we need to be very open and receptive because the answers of these questions take the clients to deeper levels of themselves. Lets remember that in coaching were working with resourceful people, so:
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How can we take them from Knowing to Understanding? The best way is to follow your instincts and trust in your own Understanding as a coach; leading someone to the key answers within themselves through powerful questions and bringing back experiences of empowerment and achievement, so the client can use that win experience or feeling and take it to the next step of trusting their own process and resources. The secret is never forgetting that all that the client need, the client has, we are just here to walk with them through the search of those answers. How to work with clients towards creating Understanding Imagine the following situation: Grace just found out that she keeps going back to this feeling of helplessness and frustration every time that she cant control a situation, the last episode was after the kids went to bed and while she was preparing to go to bed herself with her husband the lights went off, no power in the house, they looked outside and the whole block was affected by the power outage, her kids were asleep regardless of the temperature inside the house, but she started feeling this sensation of frustration for not being able to solve the situation and provide her kids with a good night sleep, she started feeling overwhelmed by all the ideas racing her mind and finally she burst out crying and the feeling of IM HELPLESS filled her, after she noticed that temperature at home wasnt that bad, and that the kids were sleeping soundly, she realized that she was overreacting but the feelings were so real that she knew there was something else going on there. She wants to find the root of this feeling and solve it, release it, and move on. The following are questions that can help discover the root of this feeling and to put together an action plan to confront it: How often this feeling appears in your life? When does it happen? Do you always end up crying? Can you remember feeling like these 5 years ago? 10? 15? 20? What was going on then? (you ask this question when she says she remembers feeling like this at any moment) Going back to that situation, was there something you could do to change it? If yes, what is it? If not, how can you relate that past experience to what happens to you now? Do you think you can live your life free of this feeling under situations that you cant control? If yes, what can you do today to achieve this goal? What do you need to be reminded about this action you can take when a situation of no control comes along?
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 And here you start putting together a plan of action with your client to confront this situation, now she understand that it is possible to see it from another perspective, and to chose how to react to it. If not, do you think you can go down a notch on the way you react under this type of situations? If you could avoid just one thing or one feeling about this what would it be? Then the client will say what they will like to avoid when going through a situation of no control, lets imagine she said: I will avoid the crying part. Do you think you can stop yourself from crying when the feeling starts to fill you? How? At the specific moment what will you like to hear to make you stop from crying? Can you say it to yourself? How does it feel? And then you co-create the plan of action according to the client needs. The beautiful part of this practice is that as a coach, when you believe and understand the flow of the process, it will take you where you need to go, the client will guide you; youre just flowing with the process. Key resources to maintain yourself Understanding Use previous experience- this will let you know that you can do it again. Focus on reality- make it a task everyday to see reality behind judgment or blocks. Reminders- use as many reminders as you need to allow yourself to have the tools handy when needed, can be visual aid, positive affirmations, empowerment quotes, whatever stimulates positive thinking. Kindness and acceptance- allow yourself to calm down, breathe, forgive yourself for not succeeding, if that happens, try again until you master it, that is a way of gaining experience and will serve you for the next time. Accept and love yourself for who you are, allow yourself to be free of your own judgment and limitations.

Copyright 2006 International Coach Academy Pty. Ltd. Use is governed by the Terms and Conditions at http://www.icoachacademy.com Last updated Feb 2006