Coaching Blog Contacts
My report Start now →
← Secret 2
2,1 Flow or Stress? 2,2 Flow and Secrets 2,3 Flow and Teams
Not read

Lesson 2,2 · Communication · Focus — Flow and Secrets

The voice that runs the show

Change rarely fails because the plan was wrong. It fails because nobody asked what is actually true right now. Three questions, and one small experiment, to find out.

Here-and-now
Your inner voice can be a guide or a supervisor. Learn to tell which one is speaking.

The team zone — challenges on the vertical axis, skills on the horizontal, with the flow zone as a green band between anxiety above and boredom below
Flow and Secrets — the inner voice of Secret 2.

Lesson video · 2,2

Go deeper with Lesson 2,2

Take this lesson further in the SGL Coach app, with video and your own coach.

Unlock in SGL Coach (opens in a new window)

Opens the SGL Coach app in a new window.

The original 1998 team zone drawing — hand-coloured, with three marked positions: one inside the flow zone, one above it in worry, one below it in frustration
Picture yourself in the flow zone — within it, above it or below it? The same chart you marked in 2,1; question 5 will send you back to it.

Three questions before you change anything

Most people try to solve a stress-zone or boredom-zone task by pushing harder or planning further ahead. SGL asks you to slow down first, and answer three questions in order.

After each one, tag which voice answered — Guide (curious, asks a question) or Supervisor (checks, corrects).

1

Where am I, right now? Not where you meant to be, not where the plan says you should be — the actual position on the chart, today.

2

What is actually being asked of me? Separate the real demand from the one you have added yourself, out of habit or fear.

3

What is the smallest true step? Not the whole plan — one honest move you could make before the day is over.

Mark each question above as Guide or Supervisor once you have checked in with yourself.

Try this now

A little experiment

Wherever you are right now, sit still for one minute and simply listen to the voice that comments on what you are doing. Most of us carry two of them. One sounds like a supervisor: it checks, corrects, and rarely says anything is good enough. The other sounds like a guide: it notices, asks a real question, and waits for an answer.

You cannot silence either voice, and you should not try. But you can learn to recognise which one is speaking before you act on it. The supervisor pushes you straight back into stress or boredom. The guide is the one that can actually walk you into flow.

We have coached hundreds of people through change, and the ones who move fastest are rarely the ones with the best plan. They are the ones who stopped arguing with their own inner voice long enough to hear what it was actually saying.

The SGL coaches

That is the whole secret behind Flow and Secrets: not a technique for managing change from the outside, but a habit of checking in with yourself from the inside, here and now, before the next task begins.

Your turn

Home Lesson 2,2

Imagine the situation: you are a project manager, team leader or chairman of 10–12 colleagues. You want to become more involved in their work and tasks, and plan to use the FLOW diagram as an introduction to a job interview.

Note in advance your three most important Key Performance Indicators, the ones you want to convey.

Get an assessment from the JP agent

  1. Write down your experiences with this home lesson.
  2. Click Open the JP agent. It opens in the SGL Coach app in a new window.
  3. Paste your notes into the chat with the JP agent and ask for an assessment.
Open the JP agent (opens in a new window)
All home lessons →
An open notebook and two sharpened pencils on a dark desk under the pool of light from a lamp, the page still blank
SGL Secrets — For those who are in need, and those who want a lot!

Next lesson

Lesson 2,3: Flow and Teams

Continue to 2,3 →