THE PSYCHOLOGY BEHIND APG (ACCESSING PERSONAL GENIUS)
L. Michael Hall, PHD
When you coach using the patterns of APG you are using some of the distinctions that I found and developed from Developmental Psychology. This is the psychology that informs us about how we humans grow and develop over our lifespan. It is the psychology of our psycho-sexual development, our psycho-social development, our cognitive development, our faith development, our moral development, and so on. It is the psychology developed by Piaget, Eric Erickson, Fowler, and many others.
Why is this important and how does it relate to APG? It’s important because one of the key interferences that prevent people from unleashing their highest potentials involves how human beings can get stuck at various stages of development. For example, people can so easily get stuck when they don’t recognize or claim their innate powers for responding. Or they can get stuck when they don’t value, accept, and appreciate themselves. Or they can get stuck when they don’t know how to enjoy and endow things with joy and pleasure.
Stuck experiences as these indicate parenting errors. That’s why I’m always quipping that “if your parents didn’t go to ‘Parent 101' or didn’t pass Parenting 101” —then maybe you mis-learned things or learned stupid things. Maybe you learned that “power” is a bad thing. That saying “Mine” means that you are selfish and in danger of narcissism. That you are not allowed to say “no.” That saying “yes” will only lead to disappointment.
As a Meta-Coach I’m sure that you are anticipating where I’m going with this—to the patterns of APG which then reveals that these patterns essentially puts a person through the developmental stages again. That is, if a person didn’t complete any stage of development, the patterns can be used for coaching to facilitate completing those states. That’s why I like explaining that the patterns of APG recapitulate human development.
Meta-Stating yourself or your client with awareness and ownership of your response powers establishes the foundation for taking charge of your life, running your own brain, and becoming a fully response-able person. Out of that you can build states of proactivity, taking the initiative, and smart risk taking—foundational states for being an entrepreneur and taking on the challenges of unleashing one’s highest and best.
For the context of coaching, we know that coaching clients need to be operating from this frame to pursue their hopes and visions. Without the foundational state of “power” (empowerment), does your client need coaching or therapy? Does your client just need to recapitulate his or her development history and set great frames for personal empowerment or is there something else in the way? This same applies to the meta-stating of self. Does your coaching client have a strong sense of self—one that he or she accepts, appreciates, and values? If not, then the first thing to do as a coach is to facilitate the development of a robust sense of self— of the ego-strength to face and take on the challenges of life.
For most people, doing this is just a matter of setting the frames and facilitating the meta-stating. For many coaching clients, it is just a matter of doing it and completing the developmental stage. Others may have to find a good therapist and work through the traumas, or whatever has interfered with their full and vibrant development as a person. For some coaching clients, who have spent a life-time trying to be “a somebody,” the meta-stating acceptance, appreciation, and awe (esteem) completely and absolutely transforms everything. It wasn’t that there was some trauma interfering. It was just that no one had ever facilitated this set of rich and liberating meta-states. Now how much is that worth? Suddenly, they realize that they don’t need to prove anything, but everything to express by living fully.
The Psychology of the APG patterns is that of creating a foundation for a person to be unleashed to their mastery and excellence. Identifying the prerequisites of “genius” —the APG patterns enable you to facilitate that foundation. Think of the patterns on Day 1of APG as “primes.” The most essential states out of which more complex states arise. That’s why I always emphasize on Day 1 the child-like development pieces as captured in the words: “Mine!” “Yes!” “No!” and “Ahhhh!” (for pleasure). In Day 1patterns you are playing the roles of Awakener and Challenger of positive change.
Using Day 2 meta-stating patterns focus on clearing the path and especially around 3 big human problems: emotions, concepts, and mis-applied reflexivity. In APG we use the morning and early afternoon for de-loading the semantic load on:
I. Emotions: as if they were the most important thing in the world, they are just emotions and not commands from heaven.
II. Concepts: as if an “idea” or “thought” or “understanding” was real; it is just a map about things.
III. Mis-applied Reflexivity: negative thoughts and emotions turned against oneself as if they were inner demons or dragons, they are just thoughts-and-feelings (states) turned against oneself.
You can use these patterns for coaching whenever your client is stuck in strong emotional states, in experiences where they get their “buttons” pushed and they feel controlled, dis-empowered, and helpless, and/or when they are their own worst enemy—angering at themselves, fearing themselves, shaming themselves, guilting their experiences, etc. These are things to be unleashed from!
The afternoon of Day 2 returns to patterns for being Unleashed Toward! Two patterns, first Mind-to-Muscle for taking Great Concepts (wonderful principles, truism facts) that the person already knows but cannot get him or herself to do. Now it is feed-forwarding time! Now your coaching facilitates them to take the great mental map and feed that information forward into their body and then out into the world in their two powers of speech and action. This is where you coach them to “coach the body to feel the great idea.” And when you do that — you perform magic! You are meta-stating them to become an Implementor—someone who executes what they know. You turn them into an action-oriented person who applies what he or she knows and so closes the knowing-doing gap. Now the semantics in the mind become neurological patterns in the body. Now you are truly Neuro-Semantic Coach!
Day 2 ends with the Miracle Pattern— this meta-state pattern enables you to coach the meta-stating of possibility thinking. Here you facilitate people who have been so stuck now to give themselves a chance to try on an entirely different kind of thinking-feeling that will open up new vistas of possibilities. Here you become the Awakener of the transformations that they can now make real in their lives.
Day 3 of APG has two parts. First the meta-stating of focus, concentration, and the “genius” state of absolute engagement. So you meta-state intentionality to bring value and semantic loadedness to what the person “knows” is important, but does not feel it as important. Now you coach that linkage by taking them into their own meta-land of intentionality. Afterwards, you get them up — walking, talking, and feeling in their body the stance of intentionality. Here you are the Actualizer as you mind-to-muscle intentionality into their attentions to blow-out ADD!
You then set all of the frames for your client to step in and out of “the zone of flow” — their optimal state and to have that genius state at their command. This is the ultimate self-actualization state— the engagement state that incorporates their laser-beam focus of concentration. When I did that with writing, I blew-out the writer’s block state and unleashed myself to become a prolific writer. You can too.
The second part of Day 3 is clean-up for absolute alignment and congruence. There are 3 patterns for this: Excuse Blow-Out, Spinning Icons, and Meta-Alignment. Once again you return to “concepts” and “ideas” that the person may use to excuse themselves from excellence and by meta-stating the distinction between a real and legitimate reason and a silly excuse that will undermine self-actualization, you coach the person to feel in their body the Choice and become the Actualizer who enables them to make the Choice. What will they do? Which will they say Yes to? Which will they say No to?
Then for all of their many “parts” that may pull them into different directions, you can use their vestibular sensory system to create a dis-equilibrium. Spin them around and around until their larger mind outside of awareness (the “unconscious” mind) comes up with a resolution. And you can use the Meta-Alignment pattern to pull the higher levels of their reflexive mind to self-organize one behavior with the laser-beam power of focus.
So there you are—the 14 patterns of Coaching Genius alias APG (or Self-Leadership) gives you a psychology and foundation for coaching that makes you a Self-Actualization Coach. Now you can coach performance, development, and transformation. So who would like to re-visit an APG course?
L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.
International Society of Neuro-Semantics
Meta-Coach Training System
P.O. Box 8
Clifton, CO. 81520 USA
1 970-523-7877
1 970-523-5790 fax
