“The Flip” is a shift in perception and experience that leads from trapped and limited possibility where you are at the mercy of your circumstances, to experiences of liberation and infinite possibility where you are the creator of your reality.

Here’s how “The Flip” happened with one of my clients.

The Story of Sandra

I started working with “Sandra,” the director of her department, when her manager became frustrated with Sandra’s inability to be strategic and passionate about her work. Sandra was also aggravated by the craziness of her organization. Both Sandra and her manager agreed that career/leadership coaching would help.

Frustration was warranted on both sides: Sandra was getting mixed messages about her performance from her manager and was working with a leadership team that demonstrated very little strategic ability themselves. She had become timid because of these mixed messages she experienced – her hesitation reinforced her manager’s perception of a problem.

Sandra was allowing herself to be limited by a difficult situation. She felt trapped with no options and saw no clear action that would resolve the situation. As our coaching progressed even I was concerned that Sandra wouldn’t break out of her difficulties.

It was Sandra’s decision to quit her job that finally allowed her to become empowered and see more possibilities, both inside and outside of her organization. She decided that she had had enough of “the crazies”; she could and would try something different.

Ironically, once Sandra decided to quit her job, she became both more strategic and passionate about her work. Where before she had been afraid to take risks and “rock the boat,” she now felt she had nothing to lose and she became more assertive. She took the lead in conversations and projects that she cared about, and persisted in presenting her solutions.

As a result, Sandra’s manager began to see her as more strategic and passionate, exactly the goals of our coaching. Sandra had made “The Flip”.

Plato’s Cave

“The Flip” is not something that you can just read about and understand – it must be experienced. As a coach I have learned to be very patient with the process of flipping.

At the same time, I can’t emphasize enough the importance of “The Flip”. The sooner you flip, the sooner you start moving out of difficult situations.

The fictional story of Plato’s Cave from Plato’s work, The Republic, illustrates the power of “The Flip”…

A group of people is chained and held immobile since childhood in a deep, dark cave, their heads held in place in such a way that they can only see a wall in front of them. Behind the prisoners is a huge fire. Between the fire and the people is a pathway, where people walk with objects that create shadows on the wall the people can see.

The people live their lives seeing the shadows cast by others, believing that reality is comprised only of the images on the wall.

The story continues with one of the prisoners being freed. This person sees the things that create the shadows: the people, the objects, and the fire. After a lifetime of solely seeing shadows, these things are confusing and not recognizable. The fire is too bright and overwhelming and the person is compelled to look back at the familiar shadows for orientation.

It takes time for this person to realize that the shadows are just a partial component of reality.

The story continues with the prisoner being brought out of the cave into the world of the sun, with day and night, seasons, and plants: an expanded reality. Eventually the person acclimates and comes to enjoy this new reality.

But the freed prisoner remembers the people in the cave. How might they understand how shadows are created as projections from what Plato called “The Forms” or “thoughts”. How might they understand the expanded possibilities of reality outside the cave?

“The Flip” is a process of answering these questions and understanding that the reality you know as true is a result of your perceptions and experiences, as in the story of Plato’s Cave. The IAMX Compass, and specifically the True Self center of the compass is the tool we use in IAMX to make this flip.

True Self Leadership

When I started working with Sandra, her main focus was on her manager’s mixed messages and the reactive behavior (not strategic) of the leadership team: all true perceptions.

Sandra’s focus was on what we call Drama – the difficult details of her situation – the shadows dancing on the walls of her perception.

Once Sandra decided to quit, she broke the chains that keep her focused on Drama. She experimented with what we call her Best Self – the ideas and behaviors that come from her essential self – the light that is the source of the core of her being.

Sandra made “The Flip” only after she saw for herself the response of her manager and the leadership team to her new behaviors. She created different experiences and an expanded reality that included possibilities that were not available before she started flipping. This includes her being much happier in exactly the same situation she was in when we started coaching.

Some examples of what people see from a Drama perception include:

• Focus on people, situations and circumstances outside of yourself as the source of your problems
• Feel resigned about ‘what is’ with little or no belief that your career or life could be any different
• See other people as fragile or not capable of handling the feedback and challenge you can provide

Some examples of what people see from an Best Self perception include:

• Focus on your consciousness, life-force energy, and beliefs as the source of your experience
• Find opportunity within difficulty to clarify what you want and know it is possible
• See other people as healthy, whole, and resourceful

The True Self part of the IAMX Compass can be used as a diagnostic tool for yourself and others to check where your perception is coming from.

A Continuum of Flipping

Once Sandra saw how people responded to her when she made some changes, we could discuss additional flips and possibilities.

Sandra and I now talk about her first major flip as we discuss the challenges she is facing as a leader. I occasionally remind her of what she was like before she learned the flip and challenge her to coach people in their own process of flipping.

“The Flip” is not actually one flip but a series of many shifts as we explore what it means to be powerful creators of our experience, more and more every day, leading others to be empowered.

The story of “Plato’s Cave” shows that it’s a process that takes time to journey out of a “dark cave” of sight and perception, into the world of possibility above “the cave”:

“The prison-house is the world of sight, the light of the fire is the sun, and you will not misapprehend me if you interpret the journey upwards to be the ascent of the soul into the intellectual world according to my poor belief, which, at your desire, I have expressed whether rightly or wrongly God knows. But, whether true or false, my opinion is that in the world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with an effort; and, when seen, is also inferred to be the universal author of all things beautiful and right, parent of light and of the lord of light in this visible world, and the immediate source of reason and truth in the intellectual; and that this is the power upon which he who would act rationally, either in public or private life must have his eye fixed. ~~ Plato, The Republic, Book VII

Remember that “The Flip” requires challenging yourself and others to reconsider what is “real” on an ongoing basis. The IAMX Flip is a simple and practical tool that you can repeatedly use to guide people out of “dark cave realities” that are created when they focus on Drama, and flip to a focus from the perspective of their Best Self.

Your IAMX Coaches are here to remind you of the possibilities that are available to you in the world outside of “dark caves”, the kinds of experiences that are possible when you flip to a perception of the world that is available from the perspective of your Best Self – especially in a holistic way that honors your head, heart, body and spirit!

So let us know the story your flip! Or your hopes for a flip … It’s all good you know.

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