Adam Pearce Coaching

Ever sit down to write 📝, paint 🎨 , or draw 🖊and feel disconnected from your creativity?

The next time you sit down to work on your creative project, take a few minutes to reconnect to your senses using these five mini-practices.

Sometimes all it takes is reconnecting with our bodies to get the juices flowing.



And if you want a deep dive into your creativity without all the normal distractions, join me for my Virtual Creative Retreat Sunday, Nov. 8th.

A link to register is in my bio 💙

Artists - Need a place to turn down the noise and drop into your art? Then join us for our Virtual Creative Retreat Sunday, Nov. 8th.

Come connect with your body, release what you’ve been holding onto, and dive into your creative process. You’ll be amazed at what you create.

What to expect:
Yoga
Meditation
Creative writing prompts
Recipes for simple, nourishing meals
Community connection
Reflective questions

Each portion will be facilitated by co-creators and yours truly 😁

Best of all? It’s only $50 for the entire day (10am-3pm PT/1pm-6pm ET).

Registration is open now! Link in bio.

DM me if you have any questions.

Can’t wait to see you there 💙

Can I be honest with you?

Friday was the last day working for a goal I set for myself in my coaching business. While I had some major wins, I ultimately didn’t hit my goal.

As I am reliable to do, I had a mini-freakout about it Friday night. (Thanks for holding space, )

An outside observer (say... Tyla, for example) might consider my reaction wildly disproportionate.

Because even though I accomplished SO MUCH during this time frame, both in and outside of my coaching business, I was beating myself up mercilessly for all the things I didn’t accomplish.

The golden question I ask myself (or Tyla asks when I’m too far gone): what am I making this mean?

Because the facts don’t indicate I deserve the kind of beat-down I was giving myself. So it has to be what I make those facts mean that’s driving the behavior.

Here’s what I see: I make missing a goal mean that I will NEVER reach my goals. Never ever ever.

No wonder I was a pitiable wreck.

When I stop making missing a goal mean something so dire and final, I stop raking myself over the coals.

And when I stop raking myself over the coals, I can look at what happened, make adjustments, and dive back in to creating the life I want.

Because it’s not the missed result that’s messing with me.

It’s that entirely made-up meaning that one missed result means I’M DOOMED FOREVER that actually stops me from having the kind of connection, drive, and results I want.

What stories do you make up about your results that keep you stuck?

What stories could you tell instead that would make a difference?



Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash

“Your being is gross.”

These were some of my first words to a dear friend this week.

And they represent a huge victory in my life.

My victory over needing to be nice all the time.

—

When I joined my coach training program last year, my patient and insightful leaders (god bless you ) kept pointing out that I would coat everything I said in kindness.

They invited me to try a different approach (any other approach) to supporting people.

I (very politely) informed them that this invitation irritated me to no end.

At that point in my life, “nice” was my ace in the hole. When in doubt, I could soothe and calm and placate my way through most any situation.

Now I see that there are at least two problems with this:

- I am occasionally bored, annoyed, and angry. But if I only allow myself to be nice, I have to suppress my actual feelings, which severs honest connection with people in favor of performing “nice” because I think I should.
- If I limit myself to only making a difference with kindness, it’s like trying to build a house with only a screwdriver. A screwdriver is a great and necessary tool, but it takes a ton of different tools 🔧🔨🔩 to get the job done.🏠

With my friend, I chose bluntness. And man was it a great tool for the job.

In this case, it jarred him out of just going through the motions. The whole conversation shifted from that moment forward. He’s such a powerhouse that I barely had to do anything else. 😁

—

What’s your go-to tool?

What could open up for you if you tried any other approach to make a difference?



Photo by Todd Quackenbush on Unsplash

This was going to be a post celebrating a friend moving through his trigger.

I had some beautiful lines about how instead of resisting or judging his triggers, he was simply with them, asked himself what he needed, and got supported.

About halfway through writing it, though, the Muse decided to gift me a trigger of my own.

It’s a pretty reliable source for me: money stuff.

I am so weird about money sometimes. The content of this particular trigger is pretty irrelevant. I sprang into action, partnered with Tyla around it, and got it handled.

I then sat back down to keep writing this post.

I felt the thinnest edges of it then: tightness in my chest and throat, heart pumping fast, little sensation elsewhere, my mind running a thousand miles a minute.

I was triggered.

And here, I had a choice: How do I want to respond to this trigger?

One of my automatics is to power through with what I’m working on, resisting my experience, diligently suffering. Proud and superior and wearing thin, I become a time bomb waiting to go off.

Another possibility: retreat into my mind. Distract myself with a game or with social media or my favorite news sources and analyses. Maybe a podcast would be good...

Anything to avoid feeling what I’m feeling.

Thank God for my friend’s example.

I stood back up and started moving my body. Stretching, dropping down the the floor, letting a sound come out.

I got some seltzer (our household’s chronic addiction), and went up to the roof. I felt the wind on my face and simply listened to the gentle sounds of a quarantined Brooklyn below.

More and more I’m seeing my triggers as a treasure map 🗺 instead of as a problem 🚨. They are showing a path to honoring my nervous system, my body, my emotions.

Letting go of the judgement around my triggers has opened up being able to generate results in my life and have a powerful experience while doing so.

And on that day, connecting with a brave friend willing to model accepting his trigger was my lifeline to doing the same.

Beautiful humans! I’m so happy to bring back a Virtual Creative Retreat with genius creators and facilitators and

..and we have finalized the agenda! Registration is open now for the weekend of Aug 8th & Aug 9th.

Our intention is that your creativity is unleashed, you experience freedom from the overthinking that prevents creativity and that you connect with others committed to the same results.

There is a $40 suggested donation.

Email [email protected] to register today!

We are ready!

The Virtual Creative Retreat Team:

Adam, Cat, Madi, Alena

✨ 🌈 🌍 📖 🌱 🤸🏽‍♀️

Today, I am home alone for the first time since quarantine began.

(Tyla and Raiane are having a beach day, god bless them. 😎🏖☀️)

How do you do when you’re suddenly alone?

In the past, I’ve told myself that being alone shouldn’t be any different than having people in my space. I “should” be able to stay on task without changing my support structures.

I now have plenty of evidence that this is plainly false.

I’ve logged days where instead of doing what I said I’d do, I fall off the wagon into reading articles endlessly, playing games, skipping meals (or eating poorly), binging shows, etc.

Not today, mister.

This time, instead of trying to prove that I can “Just Do It”, I’m creating structures to support me.

Here’s what I got:
- I’m declaring what my biggest priorities are for the day (prepping for a casting director workshop tonight, writing content for my social media, my voice lesson)

- I’m scheduling my meals (including what I’m eating)

- I’m staying in communication with my men’s group, my coaching peers, etc.

- I’m scheduling at least one thing to do to take advantage of the alone time (ideas include meditating, blaring music I love that Tyla and Rai don’t like, walking around naked, and vocal practice in the living room)

- I’m updating my calendar to ensure it matches my commitments

Taking these few minutes to map this out has already shifted my energy and excitement for the day.

Any other ideas for how to take advantage of being home alone? Add them to the comments below.

I just got done working out on my roof in a virtual class with

(This photo was taken 35 minutes after I ended my workout today. 30 of those minutes were spent in a cold shower. And I’m STILL sweating. 😅)

The moment the class was finished, I thought,
“There is no way I could’ve done that by myself.”

--

The most common question I ask my coaching clients right after they commit to an action is,

“What support to you need to put in place to be make sure that happens?”

When I first started working with a coach, this question was both confusing and annoying.

I usually felt like what I committed to was either:
- so easy that I didn’t need any support (and how DARE you imply I need support for something so easy)

- so hard that I didn’t have a clue what support would actually (and how DARE you imply that I can’t reach my dreams)

I realized I was assuming my coach was judging me. You know, just like I was judging me.

My mind turned it into a perverse Nike ad, only instead of “Just Do It”, it was “Just Do It, You Lazy, Delusional Jerk”.

The big shift for me came when I set down the judgement and actually starting asking myself the question from genuine curiosity.

Because for a few things, saying I’ll do it truly is enough.

For a whole lot of things, adding it to my calendar is sufficient support.

And, to reach my fitness goals, the support I need to put in place is having trainers who talk me through the workout, answer questions, and provide positive encouragement. (Thanks !)

Caring more about what I actually need to get the job done instead of needing to do it “by myself” has made a huge difference.

--

The irony of this whole thing is that no one forced me to take that class. I was the one who chose to take it.

Perhaps the deeper cut is that there is no actual separation between “my self” and the “support” I put in place.

🤯

Can I tell you one of the greatest gifts of being a coach?

Without trying to, I regularly reflect to my clients the exact thing I need to hear in my own life.

Take today for example:

I had a beautiful call with a client this morning. She’s weighing various decisions to make in her life that all feel high stakes.

And she, being the delightful and brilliant human she is, distinguished that she assumed there was a “right” thing to do in each case, and it was her job to figure out what that is.

I got curious and shared a thought experiment: Suppose no matter what you chose, the outcome would be amazing. What would you choose then?

She generated so much from reflecting on that one possibility. It was delicious.

Fast forward a couple hours later, and I am scared and defensive about bringing my leadership to a conversation in my Me + White Supremacy group. I am weighing my options, questioning myself, feeling pressure to make the “right” choice.

Suddenly, my own question comes rushing back to me: Suppose no matter what I choose, the outcome will be amazing. What would I choose then?

I feel my chest loosen (who knew it was so tight?) and a smile crawl across my face (who knew I was being so serious?). I feel all the tension I was holding in my body relax.

Because what I choose is to lead from exactly where I am. To own both my uncertainty and my vision. To say what I see, to take responsibility, and to stay present to the miracle this group is in my life, to the courage of everyone in it, and the thrill of the adventure we’ve set out on together.

And just like that, I’m feeling grateful for and proud of the coaching work I do every day...

..and antsy to get in there and get messy with my beautiful humans doing Me + White Supremacy.

I welcome any and all good vibes.

I’m going in 😊

Photo by Fares Hamouche