The Energy Flows

Looking back over the past months of July and August as the GCC grew from a small acorn into a young oak, there has been a flow of energy like I have never experienced before. And that's what I want to write about here.

An Acorn on the Head
Initially, when the idea was but a small acorn that landed on my head I was passionately in love with my own idea. I confess, I loved the idea from the start - as anyone near me at the time can tell you. And I was proud to have been given such an awsome and inspiring idea. I was met by some internal cultural resistance "Who are YOU to run a Global Coach Conference?". That's when I knew that I was committed to the idea, it WILL be done!

I pondered - I do that! I sat with the idea and asked myself "What does this look like when it is done?", "What are you creating?". The answers came "It's a phone conference!" and "I am connecting coaches who are passionate about change". That's when I posted the idea on the CTI website - end of June 2009.

Ice Cream please, with Flames of Passion
During July, I received e-mails and forum messages from dozens of inspired and supportive coaches. My energy at the time was right-brained. I was connecting with people at professional, spiritual and social levels, and that meant being sensitive to their different needs and motivations. What worked for one Speaker didn't always work for the next.

My energy level was high, yet I knew that this would be a long haul - all the way to the end of August. I gathered my strength and started pacing myself for what was, for me, going to be a marathon. For this idea to burn brightly for a whole month, through my entire summer vacation, was going to require careful tending of the Flame of Passion. And that's where the image of the "ice cream with flames of passion" came from. You know it, the logo that's been used for this conference! I planned which days and hours I would work with the conference, and which days and hours I would be with myself, or my family. I didn't keep to the plan, but it was very helpful to have it.

Logic and Logistics
Throughout July, the idea was still an idea. There was not much on the web - apart from this blog - to tell the world about the conference (now known as "the GCC"). So I used my HTML skills to design and create a website, and buy and set up a domain name and relevant e-mails. Key to the functionality of the website was a booking system that allowed people to see who was speaking and what their topics were; and then to make their choice, click a button and send me a message!

My energy was strongly left-brained. I was working with logic and logistics and had an extremely tight focus on detail, especially issues around "What time is it?"

AT THE SAME TIME

My energy was strongly right-brained. I was still communicating with twenty Speakers and Leaders. I am sure I have missed someone, but Facebook has helped me feel better about that since I know that some of the Speakers and Leaders read what's written there.

FB Connections
I knew that FB had played a strong part in the election of an American President, and that Michael Jackson had millions of Fans through FB, so I realised that this was the place to go for Listeners, people who wanted to listen to the Speakers.

Confused? Me? YES!
At this time I was in a state of confusion - how does FB work? How many listeners can we expect, how many can we deal with? How many are enough? How many are too much?
The number of connected sky-rocketed as people connected to the Page and the Event through FB. I decided that 150 people would be my target for the conference day, with a maximum of 1500 people involved in total over the year.

CTI- the Revelation
As the numbers spiralled upwards and normal phone lines seemed inadequate for the conference call, I turned to many different professional conference line providers. There were limits and costs to consider, also the complexity/simplicity of use. Again, I was in a state of confusion. I actually enjoyed this state, it showed me that I was deeply involved in the Process and that the Revelation would soon come.

It did. In the form of CTI, the Coaches Training Institiute who, in an extraordinary move cleared their conference lines for a whole day and night, to make the GCC possible. Tears of joy, and the revelation "of course, that's where it all started". My coaching education and training was with the CTI (and still is). Thanks Karen Kimsey House.

The End is in Sight
It's getting near the end now. My energy is almost spent, and yet the niggly, piggly, quibbly details keep popping up and asking to be solved.

Yesterday, I spoke on another phone conference and was given 5 minutes to inform the audience about the GCC. As I spoke, the Flames of Passion flew brightly into the air. Now I know that I have plenty of reserves and will walk the marathon of a 24-hour global phone conference of "Dreams and Visions" with skill, grace and ease; and empassioned determination.