Today, I’d like to share a concept – or understanding – that could dramatically change how you think about life and the way you approach it, forever!
This concept is at the heart of the New Insights Life Coaching System and what makes it so incredibly powerful in promoting transformational change.
My introduction to life coaching
My first experience of New Insights life coaching was back in 2006.
I was about to make the transition from a lengthy career in corporate life to face the challenges and uncertainties of self employment. At the same time I was about to move country with my wife and young family. And, if that weren’t enough, we needed to sell our house and buy a new one in an unfamiliar area.
More than a little scepticism
With hope, but more than a little scepticism, I engaged the services of a young lady life coach who happened to have been trained by New Insights.
At that time, Sharon was based in Manchester and I was living and working in London. So, out of necessity our sessions were conducted in the evenings and remotely using Skype.
On starting coaching with Sharon, my first thoughts, which I now freely admit were condescending, amounted to: “What is this young lady going to teach me that I haven’t learnt from a Master’s degree and many years working for a multinational?”
Gobsmacked!
After just a few sessions with her, I was forced to think again. To use that colloquial but compellingly descriptive English saying, I was ‘gobsmacked’!
The coaching system, and Sharon’s sessions were so simple, yet so powerful in what they conveyed and how they changed my outlook, that they ultimately convinced me to buy into New Insights and introduce the offering to South Africa.
These days, now that I am privileged to own and run New Insights internationally, I have taken what I believe to be the essence of the coaching system and used it to develop what is now our proprietary INSIGHTS life coaching model.
That little known secret
Built into the heart of the model is the little known secret that profoundly changed my life and which just might do the same for yours …
The great majority of people live life ‘upside down’!
Not literally, of course. I’m not advocating that we all rush out and start acting like bats!
What I mean, in simple terms, is that we humans have taken the divine blueprint for life and turned it on its head!
So disconnected from our purposes
Or, in other words, we have become so disconnected from the purposes that we are on earth to carry out that we have allowed our actions, behaviours and values to be dictated by our day-to-day needs, rather than the other way round.
This is precisely the reason why life seems so challenging, difficult, frustrating – and even meaningless – for so many.
The way we were meant to live life
In my opinion, our creator meant for our lives to be lived in a purposeful, meaningful and joyful way, with access to abundant resources to help us in our collective mission to contribute positively to the evolution of our species, our planet and our cosmos.
The reality for most
We humans, or at least those pulling the strings (I won’t venture further down that rabbit hole right now) had other ideas. Somehow, things went awry and we ended up designing life in a way that results in the great majority of us having to slog and struggle endlessly, simply to keep our heads above water.
The pyramid depiction and ‘top-down’ living
Imagine, if you will, the ideal life, depicted by a simple pyramid with four horizontal ‘slices’, where one’s unique life purpose is represented by the top slice or apex.
![\"\"](\"https://newinsightsonlife.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/pyramid1.jpg\")
Consciously and deliberately pursuing a life of purpose necessitates the development of an empowering value system (the next pyramid ‘slice’) and this, in turn, drives one’s actions and behaviours (the third ‘slice’).
With clear purpose and values providing such a positive guiding force, we are inspired to embrace only those actions and behaviours that are truly constructive, not only for ourselves but for others and the world as a whole.
The constructive nature of our actions and behaviours allows us to tap into the natural abundance that nature and life was designed to provide. The bottom slice of the pyramid represents the meeting of our day-to-day needs and a resultant life that is engaging, stimulating, meaningful and joyful.
In the pyramid schematic life should be lived ‘top-down’.
‘Bottom-up’ living
But, sadly, most of us live life the other way round, or ‘bottom-up’. Let me explain:
In the absence of a conscious knowledge of one’s life purpose – that promotes a proactive and creative approach to life – we become obsessed by meeting what we think are our day-to-day needs (such as survival, money, power and status).
![\"\"](\"https://newinsightsonlife.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/pyramid2.jpg\")
Instead of proactively creating life the way we desire it to be, we enter reactive mode, rolling with the punches that life throws at us. Life becomes a dog-eat-dog battle for what we have falsely led to believe is a scarcity of resources.
The day to day struggle to get our needs met becomes the driving force behind our actions and behaviours. In the fight for survival and significance, we feel obliged to adopt a ‘whatever it takes’ approach and embrace any means necessary to get our needs met.
This includes indulging in actions and behaviours that are destructive in nature. In other words, those that offer us a short-term ‘feel good’, but end up being bad for us, bad for others and bad for the world in general.
The actions and behaviours that prove most efficient in getting our day-to-day needs met are likely to be adopted as our ‘go-to’ means. And, out of ‘necessity’ we will begin to adopt a value system that accommodates the justification for actions and behaviours that might objectively be seen as morally questionable.
Perhaps you can see now what I mean by ‘living life upside down’ and how it is a recipe for trouble!
Chasing mirages
In the absence of a conscious awareness of one’s unique life purpose that guides and shapes our approach to creating the life we desire, we are left chasing mirages, destined to live reactive lives that leave us feeling like rats on a treadmill – exhausted, frustrated and unfulfilled!
Experience the transformation
If you’d personally like to experience the amazing transformation that the New Insights Life Coaching System can have on your life, in just 13-15 sessions, please visit:
Our South African Life Coach Directory
Our UK Directory of Life Coaches (this site is new and is still in pilot mode).
Better still, if the idea of becoming a life coach, transforming your own life and then helping to transform the life of others appeals to you, please visit one of the New Insights websites using the links provided below.
Hi Bill, thanks for a great “wake up” post !
So true in every single aspect and yet so many of people, myself included, followed the old Maslow theory and lost their way at some stage.
I have followed and read your posts since 2013 when we first made contact and you very generously offered me the coaching material for free !
At that stage I was still “in the wilderness” but over the last 18 months have realized that to constantly be aware of others needs and use your own lessons “actually learnt” to assist, life becomes meaningful.
Time to start what I have always wanted to do, now that my values are in place, so we will be chatting soon to join your team of accredited life coaches.
Thanks again, inspiring !
Hi Peter
I very much look foreard to that and thanks for the comments!
Thank you Bill!
Such an amazingly generous blog post. Again!
In one illustration (pyramid), you’ve said more than a thousand words. I can gather that the training materials have ‘grown’ from an already unmatched comprehensiveness since I certified ?
“Those who have a ‘WHY’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘HOW’” – Viktor Frankl
Oops, a quote. Apologies ?
Thank you Jan. Yes our latest version contains numerous improvements and updates without losing the essence of the programme that you have alluded to.
I love the quote. I guess you could aptly summarise the blog post by saying the little secret is about learning to focus on the WHY instead of the HOW 🙂
Thanks for another illuminating post, Bill. An important reminder and encouragement to practicing coaches about the valuable contributions we have to offer to other fellow human beings who may be challenged and stuck in old paradigms of thinking and living. I’m also reminded of Parker J Parker’s apt description of “vocation” (that includes an understanding of
and of our living into our”purpose”). “Vocation does not mean a goal that I pursue. It means a calling that I hear. Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am. I must listen for the truths and values at the heart of my own identity, not the standards I must live by – but the standards by which I cannot help but live if I am living my own life” (See Let your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation 2000).
Thanks for the wise words Roger!
A most enlightening perspective on life as we live it and the key to a much deeper and more meaningful experience. Thank you, Bill for your unique New Insights. I love the image you have chosen for this blog.
Thanks Karen – I love it too and chose not to ‘spoil’ it with a quote 🙂