COACHING & MENTORING

Whom should someone turn to in times of crisis, confusion, loneliness, lack of purpose and all kinds of suffering? You might presume a lawyer, consultant or any kind of doctor or therapist – but how about somebody who will not try to change you but will try to bring you clarity, enhance your perception and change the way you experience life?

No matter what stage of life you are at, what aspect of life you are addressing, the most important thing is to have clarity about it. Seeing everything the way it is, is clarity. 

So, let’s make you see everything the way it is. If you see it clearly, if you see existence the way it is, not the way you think it is, everything about you will change.

Some people see sunlight only once a year when they go on vacation. Some people wake up early every morning, just to welcome the sun. That is your choice.

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Leaders and managers are often coached on how to act instead of how to be. This “behaviour modification” approach is not sustainable but produces only superficial short-term results. 

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To be forthright, Pedro Gaspar Fernandes and his team will only work with human beings intentionally committed to self-discovery and developing themselves authentically. We want them to fully understand who they are — their personas, fears, limitations, strengths and accumulations — and how to best use their new consciousness and awareness to maximize their human-centred leadership to influence people and businesses for good. 

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Length of coaching engagements varies: we offer several options according to each case and needs.

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Pedro Gaspar Fernandes is an executive coach, career consultant, advisor and counsellor. He helps human beings to raise their consciousness, deepen their self-awareness and achieve ultimate wellbeing, joyfulness and right performance in their work and personal lives.

He has vast experience helping business and professional leaders to manage their bodies, minds, emotions and life energies, as well as developing human and business skills, so they can live well, with better fulfilling lives attaining their full human potential.

He has explored and experienced how spirituality* and innovative approaches in psychology, cognitive science, social anthropology, philosophy, neuroscience, and coaching are helping individuals and businesses succeed in the 21st century.
 

We also coach leaders as they develop the mindsets, skills, and systems to effectively manage change in volatile and uncertain conditions always through deep and meaningful conversations that can be supported by a myriad of knowledge, techniques and tools.

What is necessary is the ability to think openly, critically, and reflectively about what matters most.

So regardless of what stage of life and where you are, if you want to explore the possibilities of working together, let’s start a conversation. Pandemics aside, I used to do sessions and conversations in forms of a walk or hike in beautiful sceneries, while having a good meal or visit an exposition or museum but of course, especially in these times, there is always time for an unhurried online conversation. 

* ”Spirituality does not mean any particular practice. It is a certain way of being. To get there, there are many things to do. This is like a garden in your house. If the soil, sunlight or stem of a plant is in a certain way, it won’t yield flowers, you have to do something. You have to take care of those things. So if you cultivate your body, mind, emotions and energies to a certain level of maturity, something else blossoms within you – that is what is spirituality.

Every human being is looking to become boundless. If you give him whatever he wants, for three days he is okay. The fourth day he is looking for something else. Somebody may label it as greed, I just say this is life process in the wrong direction. If you want to know boundless nature, you must experience, you must perceive something which is beyond the physical.”

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“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.” — Rumi

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Let’s be completely honest, the industry, yes, industry (right?), of personal development and coaching is a big business and often focuses just on quick money schemes and only represents a source of income to some instead of really helping and developing people.

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When done well, it can transform a life. But most of the time it’s little more than one-size-fits-all formulas, glorified entertainment, sugar highs, and empty promises. Occasionally, personal development can even become deeply destructive.

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Truth be told, most people who work in this area, really shouldn’t. Instead of giving life advice to the masses, they should instead be talking to a therapist in private.

However, since most people in the industry don’t truly understand themselves and consequently, can’t understand others, personal development is filled with psychological and emotional deception in most cases, sooner or later.

Since a young age, we’ve been bombarded by the idea that it’s possible for us to simultaneously make a million dollars, have a partner that we would be madly in love with, have explosive sex, wake up looking like a model, and tackle every single day brimming with constant happiness, excitement and sense of accomplishment, while this industry, in specific, has been tricking us into believing that if we aren’t already experiencing those things, there’s something wrong with us.

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That’s why, as a developmental coach, I enable human beings to raise their consciousness, discover their true selves, deepen their self-awareness and clarify their purpose and what matters most in life and business. So they are empowered to live their own lives without having to depend on anyone or anything. They’ll be able to see and live life as it is and therefore have the necessary intelligence to conduct it well.

I address those that are considered the most important questions in life, such as What and Who are you?, Where are you heading?, What’s life all about? 

Questions like these catalyse profound conversations about what it means to live, work and lead in times of constant change. 

By enabling you to have such critical conversations, both with yourself and about yourself, you become aware of who you are and where you want to go. Only then you can begin building your own capacity for transformation and self-awareness, so you can naturally reach a state of true consciousness, wellbeing and joyfulness.

Study after study shows that wellbeing—either being in a positive mood or recognizing that you have a good life—benefits those in our social sphere, whether we’re talking about our families, workplaces, schools, or society at large. When we’re feeling well, we’re better relationship partners, more kind and helpful in our communities, and more productive in our workplaces—all of which may be useful during this time of crisis.  

Cultivating a joyful spirit can actually help not only us but the people around us—especially when things are hard.

This is a capacity that allows you to thrive in complexity, explore new territories and discover otherwise unimagined opportunities and dimensions of life, no matter what she may throw in your way; to move meaningfully forward even when things may seem confusing, ambiguous and uncertain. 

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If you prefer a more immersive and profound journey into transformation, check out the possibilities from our sister brand, trulYOUrs.

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enterprise, leadership & executive and teams

“You don’t have to be an extraordinary person to be a leader. All it takes is commitment and holding the wellbeing of people in your heart” - Sadhguru

Coaching and advising all kinds of executives, founders and CEOs to build, lead and manage purposeful businesses.

We coach leaders and their teams through organisational transformation: what begins as small yet bold experiments scale to industry-leading disruptions.   

Where peers and governments fear to tread, these leaders answer the call to transform their businesses into a greater force for good and to disrupt the classical rules of capitalism.

We provide a network of proven experts for counsel: every dimension of meaningful innovation and multi-generational thinking has been covered.

Leadership coaching is everywhere, and sometimes it’s even effective – but it mostly reinforces the management systems of yesteryear. Our approach to Leadership Development focuses on setting up leaders at every level for success in an adaptive, self-organized world.

We offer leaders practical solutions that build new ways of thinking and behaviours, not lectures and hard-to-apply theory.

We help leaders explore new mindsets and practices in areas of greatest impact: smarter and faster decision making; mobilizing teams around key business priorities; increasing transparency, communication and information sharing; engaging and retaining the right people; and leveraging digital technology.

Our approach engages organizations in systemic leadership development, involving the entire organization to improve humanity, behaviours, communication, cognitive diversity and leadership skills. Developing these competencies leads to a culture and ways of thinking that prepares everyone for a higher level of business and working performance.

With new mindsets, practices and relationships in place, leaders can expect their teams’ progress to accelerate, and engagement survey results to improve.

My role is to help you to be whom you want to be, get you to where you want to go, and figure out how to get there. 

I listen and question until we understand your goal, problem, challenge, or opportunity. Once we’re both clear on your desired outcome I help you to figure out how to work towards it. I won’t tell you how to do things, though you might check in on my perspective. Together, we navigate, with you making the decisions. 

If any of these needs resonate with you then we should talk:

• Learning how to step into the creative role of holding a purposeful vision as well as the leadership role of CEO;

• Building an organizational structure and culture which drives autonomy, responsibility, transparency and creativity in service of the purpose;

• Getting money flowing into and around the initiative sustainably in support of the vision and not allowing money to become a distraction;

• Maintaining the alignment, passion and dynamism as the company grows;

• Ensuring creative, flowing relationships and resolving any unhelpful tensions or struggles;

• Injecting fresh ideas and inspiration into teams;

• Overcoming growth plateaus and other barriers to scaling meaningfully.

We design leadership development programs, curate experiences, and host conversations to prepare (future) leaders and teams intellectually and emotionally for the new world of business and work.

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EXECUTIVE RETREATS

We have developed exclusive executive retreats that help escalate senior teams to move to a higher level of awareness, performance and effectiveness. Senior leadership alignment is the foundation for a right-performance organization. Being in a safe, inspiring place, while getting away from it all can often be the best way to get the necessary clarity to see everything from a different holistic perspective.

Our executive retreats provide a unique opportunity to build personal and team alignment, view challenges through a different lens, think and plan strategically, take relationships to a deeper level, and discover new opportunities to evolve and increase performance.

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HOW TO LEAD IN UNCERTAINTY & COMPLEXITY

True leaders know that they can't control a crisis, but they can control how they deal and respond to it.

“71% of organizations admit their leaders are not prepared for the future (Brandonhall State of Leadership Survey - 2015) and many organizations claim that current leadership training programs are not meeting the needs of their clients (Center for Creative Leadership: Future Trends in Leadership Development - 2014).”

Are you wondering how to step up and lead during uncertainty?

Discover the mindsets, tools, and skills needed to lead during a crisis. Discover new ideas to rethink your life, work, and business without feeling paralyzed or confused.

Here is what you'll learn:

• What you can do to manage your body, mind, emotions and energies to just BE.

• Simple tools that you can apply and will support you through all sorts of situations.

• Discover how to transform limiting mindsets into liberating ones

• How to turn crisis and all its problems into possibilities and opportunities.

• Exercises to address and solve the tensions created by 'forced' remote work

• How to collaborate with others despite social distancing

• Using humanity to stay connected and helping others who feel anxious and afraid

• How to lead your team, colleagues, and family through uncertainty and complexity

• A path to transform yourself and become your true authentic self.

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Regardless of your role or title, you can become the agent of transformation that the world needs right now. Join us and learn how you can step up and bring consciousness, self-awareness, clarity, and action when things seem to fall apart.
 

TEAM WORK & TEAMING

For 99.5% of evolutionary history, members of the Homo genus family worked as Hunter-Gatherers. To reverse the damage that scientific management and reductionism inflicted on our ability to work as teams, we cannot solely rely on frameworks and methodologies and start focusing on human and teaming skills.
 

Jumpstart the team’s effectiveness and productivity by clarifying its purpose, work, processes, priorities, and commitments. We coach team-members in adaptive methods for project management, better and more efficient team meetings, and tools and practices for simplifying communication and information sharing.

In as little as between two to four weeks, teams can make significant progress, while becoming immersed in new ways of working. The rapid impact often becomes a catalyst for broader organizational change – change informed by what’s working, rather than by just trends and theory.

It works for any team, from marketing, to supply chain, to Human Resources, to R&D, to finance, to leadership, etc..
It’s specifically tailored to each organization’s context and culture, not a one-size-fits-all solution.
The work won’t just flow better and become faster, it will also be more inclusive and innovative because the underlying mindsets and behaviours have changed.
Some of the people that we’ve worked with, in this new way, said it was actually life-changing.

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INSPIRING CATALYST CONVERSATIONS

Conversations are the beating heart of human relationships and often the starting points for change and transformation. They allow us to talk about what we think and feel, and help us see and understand how others view the world. 

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Building bridges between these different ‘realities’ makes us discover otherwise unimagined opportunities. In catalytic conversations, we are curious, willing to suspend our judgement and open to exploring new perspectives. 

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These conversations follow their own qualitative rhythm rather than the tick-tock of mechanistic predictability and control. They are less about specific actions than they are about intentionally engaging with others — about how we might learn from each other and be stronger together as a result. 

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As a facilitator, I guide these sense-making dialogues in a spirit of respectful curiosity, using questions without pretending to have the answers or presuming a pre-set outcome; allowing for a flow of meaning in the whole group out of which new ways of seeing and understanding may emerge. 
 

WATER PHILOSOPHY

"Put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. Put it into a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can flow, or creep, or drip, or crash. Be water, my friend" - Bruce Lee 

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The Be Water philosophy was employed by protesters in Hong Kong's recent social unrest and it is impossible to ignore how successful that tactic was. What can organisations learn from it? According to Hui Thomas, this can be: 

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1. In a Be Water Department, everybody can collaborate on techniques of work that will inevitably change according to and shaped by the situation. 

2. A Be Water Employee can increase the competitiveness of companies by rapidly responding to the customer's demands and flowing the successful method of response upstream. 

3. A Be Water Business Community can share resources, ideas, knowledge, network and capital to improve performance for everybody and help the entire industry be ready to respond to future Black Swans and aggressively disruptive competition. 

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Being Water can help the whole community shape and reshape itself to the emerging situations it faces through: - SocioPsychological Safety - Collaborative Strategy - Collective Intelligence - Emergent Practice - Adaptive Leadership.
 

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