Coaching, as seen through the mind of Cris Van Cleemput, Creator of Cyres Café, and Author of ‘The Taker’

Growing up I didn’t know that I would become a coach. I thought I’d be a fighter pilot! Now in peace, and passionate always, about being a coach, flying high and fast, feet and philosophy firmly grounded.

Being raised on a farm had its charms, and, its downsides, including its difficult lessons to learn. My Father had a very ‘no-nonsense’ and (hard) work-oriented approach, with no time or tolerance for expression of feelings or sensitivity. In his eyes, there was no meaning beyond the daily grind. Being sensitive and seeing meaning in everything, I didn’t feel understood. I experienced many challenges, and stormy seasons, including a Brother whose behavior was sometimes physically threatening. Early on, I understood that challenges are a fact of life. Later on, I came to know that every challenge represents a gift.

The death of my beloved Godfather, when I was 11, was a defining point in my life. After months of grief, and questioning God (I later forgave myself for this perception), I asked myself, “who am I, where did I come from, where am I going to?” and began my quest for answers.

First I turned to books, reading hundreds on spirituality, religion, and psychology.

I became aware that I had a view of life that was not the view of my family and wider environment. What I was told was truth, fact, didn’t feel true to me. I felt inspired to live and love my own truth, what I would now call universal laws and truths and the experience of my own unique blueprint.

Driven by deep logic, I chose to become an engineer. This forced me to unify two opposites, the rational, analytical, science-focused, sceptical side of being an engineer, and the sensitive, stream of consciousness, fascinated by psychology and human potential, playful, light-hearted side of me. I put myself through a gruelling five year program of higher education.

After graduating, I became a project engineer, then a professor, the Head of Department at a renowned engineering school, then a coach in an IT company, and then a headhunter. These experiences toughened me. Confronted with corporate life at its most demanding, to survive (the corporate world can kill you!), and to thrive, I became very results oriented.

One of my lessons, that I pass on to you now is, toughness is over-rated. Relief and results feel better.

During time out from corporate culture, I fed my passion for spiritual focus and psychology. Spent all my holidays attending self development seminars around the world, including workshops on NLP, alpha training, neurofeedback, developing your inner child, energy work, body work, peak performance, … The moment that I decided to make this passion for human potential my pure focus, I let go of engineering and didn’t look back. From that day on, I stopped ‘working’ and started to enjoy myself a lot more.

My intention at the time - within six months, to have helped many with coaching, specialising in people skills, communication, leadership, team dynamics, change, and entrepreneurship, so that I would be able to say, and experience, I am a full-time coach, enjoying the process. I succeeded, significantly! So much so that in August 2004 I founded my own company, CYRES, which stands for Create Your Reality Experience Self.

Listening to stories of degeneration and decay from within, stories of people disengaged from who they really are, and seeing their pure potential, their perfect blueprint, I gave them the insights to re-raise themselves, to be decisive and deliberate in creating their reality. Instead of driving themselves to destruction, there was a new heartfelt desire to drive direct to their dream life. I experienced new heights of success and satisfaction, with very little effort, simply by being me, practicing what had previously been a passionate hobby, and letting go. Quickly I was in great demand, as an advisor, trainer, and coach, to huge multi-national companies, working with all levels of management. It makes me laugh when one of my team regularly calls me, “Mr Popular”, as the phone rings! Seriously, it feels good to know that I’m a catalyst of the universe to inspire people to consciously create and get the results they desire.

One of my strengths, that I plant forward, is, unify. Become a blended being, unifying your passions and strengths, and also who you are now with the ultimate life possible for you. To the best of my ability, I blend a down-to-earth, practical, results oriented, business focus, with a deep understanding of the meaning and insights of the present moment.

Coaching is more successful when the client is motivated and takes the inspired action which creates more motivation. I interview clients, to determine the motivation, and mutual respect, before setting up a uniquely customised program. When client motivation is not present, I stop and let them know why I feel the investment is not going to get the best results. When there is a green light on both sides, a program is usually a maximum of about 8 sessions, over 4 - 6 months, with the result being a major breakthrough.

These sessions are intensive, aimed at creating results and awareness. Working on awareness and beliefs is a primary focus, as this is at the root of behavior. Trying to change behavior without addressing the cause of it (beliefs) is at best a temporary success that will not last. When you’re able to change beliefs and perceptions, you change everything for life, and, with conviction!

Beliefs create reality.

Every coaching is different because every person is different. A good coach has a huge transformation toolbox, full of resources, and knows how to use the most appropriate tool for each individual’s desired results. Tools however are only a means to an end. The more experienced you become, the more you feel, intuitively, what the challenges are and how best to address them. Now I’m able to pick the best approach ‘out of the ether’. I tune into the client and seem to be able to say exactly what is most appropriate!

Here’s a useful checklist to consider when choosing an effective mentor / coach / coaching program:

* Define what you want from the coaching program.
* Choose a coach with proven life / business experience, appropriate for you, plus proven success in their area(s) of expertise. * Coaches with an a-typical life track will often have the most interesting and effective advice and insights, and will probably have faced your internal struggles themselves.
* Choose a coach that has a passion for people and for the profession.
* Choose a coach you feel comfortable with.
* Choose a coach with a lot of self-confidence, with a strong and stable sense of self. Don’t be blinded by certificates. Sometimes, the more certificates, the less real self-confidence.
* Be wary of long coaching programs. The sooner you get yourself empowered, the better.
* Don’t tell your environment that you are being coached. The less they know about it, the more empowered they will perceive you.
* Choose a coach who is humble enough to admit that she/he has to learn as well. Professional, effective coaches experience on-going learning.
* Find a solid, grounded coach, that can deliver desired results, and that does not waste your time talking about airy-fairy stuff.

Most of my sessions are two hours, and the time in between usually 2 - 3 weeks, so that learned behavior can be tested, experimented, and logged in between. My approach is direct and highly focused, aligned with desired results. I believe in results that can be created quickly. I don’t believe in long trajectories where you’re coached for more than a year. This either makes the client coach-dependent, or they may lose motivation. That fighter-pilot-feeling is with me still, I love speed to results!

A key to successful coaching is really genuinely caring about the person. Also, a willingness to get into the client’s shoes, and to accept and understand their fears, doubts, worries, concerns. Their whole viewpoint. Finding solutions works better when you can connect to their world. It’s easy to talk about success when you’re successful, it’s harder to open to the possibility of success when you’re living in a world of negativity, lack and limitation. My coaching is about working from within these perceived limitations, to clear them, and about changing beliefs step-by-step.

I focus on empowering the person and ensure dependency is at a minimum. If you’re becoming addicted to being coached (if your coach has allowed this), then you are becoming more and more powerless.

Success is experienced when the client, and their environment, testifies to the change in behavior.

I work in several stages:

(1) Defining the opportunity to be developed and goal-setting.
(2) Analyzing environment - family, friends, partner, colleagues, boss, …
(3) Challenging the mindset and present behavior.
(4) Creating an action plan and strategy to address the situation.
(5) Discovering and experiencing the tools necessary for transformation.
(6) Anchoring the new mindset and behavior.
(7) Optimizing the new mindset and behavior.
(8) Check-up session after 3 months.

My no-nonsense background as an engineer helps me to look at life with its challenges, accepting it is as it is, and knowing that I can change my perceptions and I can change my reality. I sometimes work in challenging environments, and although we all might prefer to live in a world that is a better place, the reality is that life is sometimes very tough, people can be very competitive, and genuine trust can be hard to find. Sometimes there are storms, sometimes there is sunshine, it is what it is. Together with the client, I set up a strategy that aims at influencing the perception of the environment towards the client. I then teach the client all about how egos work and how egos like to be appreciated. I teach full responsibility, which means accepting responsibility for everything, what is perceived as bad, as well as what is perceived as good. I make it abundantly clear that this is an empowering responsibility, without fault or blame.

The client only receives advice they can handle, in alignment with the personal strength that they have so far accessed.

Be aware that when you change, your environment may resist the changes. People usually feel comfortable about the status quo, even if they complain about it. When we are really making an effort to change, we see more of how counter-productive our environment is rather than truly supporting and encouraging our change, and, we see more of our own counter-intentions / beliefs that don’t serve us. As an example, many don’t want a submissive friend to become assertive.

We’ve been educated to become good workers, rather than creative thinkers and doers, so it can be a shock to people when you take inspired action and achieve what you’re wanting.

My coaching enables me to link with the minds of the most successful. I’ve learnt to understand how successful people think and operate. Years of meticulously observing, led me to document the ultimate mindset for success and I call it ‘The Taker’. I gave a new interpretation to the word, similar to ‘nemo dat quod non habet’, we cannot give what we have not got, and similar to putting the oxygen mask on yourself first, so that you can give more. It’s about taking responsibility, experiencing knowing, that everything is your responsibility (without any fault or blame), and experiencing the empowerment that comes with knowing that you can create a new reality that you prefer.

I teach an adaptation of the mindset I documented in my newest coaching program, ‘The Taker Transformation’. It’s the most empowering mindset I’ve observed in action. A mindset that I’ve prototyped in my own life and it’s created my success. It’s also fuelled my passion to create. Now I have the first of a chain of cafés, called Cyres Café™, dedicated to the creation of your own dream life. Cyres Cafe focuses on co-creating tools, experiences, and environments, that empower people!

There is so much in all of us! Let’s allow this potential to see daylight and grow!

I’m also shining light on disempowering patterns, that people are carrying unconsciously. We have to clear them, as they’re blocking higher intentions, and beliefs create reality. The Taker Transformation is a deliberate disengaging from the weight and resistance that comes from dragging around beliefs from outside of you that don’t serve you and that drag you down. Forgiveness is also a factor, self-forgiveness, that is empowering, without fault or blame, simply about perception, acknowledging that sometimes we focus on lack and limitation and create more of it.

The Taker process is about the courage and strength to take inspired action … it’s about being part of the flow …being, where things happen. Resistance and restrictive energies then becomes reality creation and the confidence to take action.

Seeing the results I get, people asked me for a guide, a workbook, they could take home, so I wrote my first book on ‘The Taker’.

Some of the questions that ‘The Taker’ book guides you through and beyond, include:

Are you tired of working your guts out and missing out on the best benefits, promotions, and possibilities?

Are you frustrated with arrogant and selfish people getting the credit and best spots?

Are you disappointed when rude and disrespectful people get their way, while you, polite, respectful and honorable, are being stepped on?

Are you fed up with always helping out friends and family, giving your all, while your call isn’t returned, and they’re hardly ever there for you?

Are you Mr/Ms Nice, yet being treated like a doormat?

Are you the sibling that puts yourself out for family, but gets less attention than the one doing little or nothing?

Do you always prepare / pay for dinner, but don’t receive the same?

Do you give presents to others, but people ‘forget’ your birthday?

Have you learned to accept this frustration of not being treated well and rewarded, accepting it as another sad fact of life?

I am fascinated by the human condition and our potential to evolve. Being a pioneer, creating and prototyping many new concepts at the same time, including Cyres Café and The Taker, I’m facing many what might be called challenges, and through all of it I’m testing who, what, I really am. You can do this too. To boldly go … I better warn you, ‘The Taker’ is a book with balls! A pithy process for a profitable life, full of passion, progress, and purpose. I’m continually exploring the experience of stagnation, silliness, servitude, and *%#&@*? that people complain about day in day out … and offering an alternative outlook, that results in dropping the self-deception and delivering the ultimate life possible for you. We all have an ego, that’s real life, this is about happy healthy ego, rather than the misuse of ego. Knowing you’re worthy, and, believing it.

I love life and I don’t have time to waste, and the more I listen to people, the more I understand that they have less than no time to waste! That is one of the reasons the book is fast, direct, straight-forward, relatable and relevant. Per my coaching philosophy. I presented it to a women’s mentoring program and they loved its powerful punch! As well as being hard-hitting, I hope it’s also fun for you, because I had a lot of fun writing it, and fun is a factor of life that I feel we could all benefit from more of. I hold the book and it feels like passion and joy. Hoping you can feel my feelings of liberation soar off the page! For sure that inner fighter pilot is in the flow, fuelling my spirit still.

I hope my Godfather is smiling.

in freedom and joy,

Cris
Your Coach

The Taker Philosophy launches online. Tuesday! Watch This Space.