Benay: [00:00:00] Hi I’m Benay Dyor, the Coach Guardian, and welcome to another episode of Coach Pep Talk, the podcast for people who run their own coaching businesses. Each week I talk to an expert who shares wisdom that helps us be better coaches and better coaching business owners. This week I’ve got Peter Wallman on the line. If you’ve been looking for a new exciting modality to get to the deepest root of someone’s highest purpose for their life, then you’ve got to listen to this episode.

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Benay: [00:01:16] Welcome back. I am honored to introduce today’s guest Peter Wallman, who is the author of the bestselling, “The Wisdom of Passion” and the inventor of Passion Mapping which enables Individual, pairs, and groups to connect with their deepest essence and to generate clarity about what is the most important and fulfilling thing for them in their lives. He is a world leader in techniques to discover, ignite, and direct Passion in people and organizations. Peter is also a dear friend of mine and someone I love to collaborate with. He has worked with people in all walks of life at every level in the sort of food chain, and is just an amazing man who has brought this incredible new modality into the world. And so I’m so excited to have Peter on the show so that he can tell you all about it and see if that ignites something in your coaching and can take you even further. Enjoy.

Benay: [00:02:12] Hello Peter and welcome back to Coach Pep Talk.

Peter Wallman: [00:02:16] Thank you. It’s lovely to be back.

Benay: [00:02:19] I love having you on the show because as you know I’m a huge fan of your work and the modality, I consider Passion Mapping a very specific and unique modality that coaches can tap into to really take their clients to a new level. I love the modality; I love what you teach. So every time I get you in and get to share Passion Mapping with more coaches just makes my day so without any further ado, We’re going to have… this episode is going to be all about highest purpose which is something you’ve really dug your teeth into you a lot in the last year and so that’s why I wanted to get you back. So we can explore that on a deeper level and bring that message out to even more coaches.

So I thought you could kick us off by just setting the scene and given that we’re talking to an audience of Coach Changemakers out there, coach leading authorities in a specific coaching niche. Can you tell us what is highest purpose, just to set that scene?

Peter Wallman: [00:03:16] I’d like to actually address that by talking about intention first, because intention and purpose are related. And I wanted to tell a little anecdote first about what I’d do when I try and coaches. When we run the program we ask them, What’s your highest intention? Not purpose, What’s your highest intention for these four days? And then if you achieve that, what does that look and feel like? Now I’ve trained more than 100 people and every single person achieves that in the time. They think about the intention. They let it go and at the end we visit and they’ve achieved it. so I’m absolutely stunned at how powerful intention is in that environment. It Can be equally important for just a coaching session. But what’s different between purpose and intention? Intention is usually a limited idea. You have an intention for a particular event or a particular timeframe, whereas purpose is a longer term intention if you like. It’s something that you would like to achieve over a long period. Now some people work with the idea of a life intention or life purpose and a life purpose is fine to have a statement, but all of life is a long time. And my sense is that people change their purpose statement over time anyway so it’s probably better to have what’s the highest purpose I can have at this time. Which is a broad statement around how I want to live my life at this point in time. And it’s an inspiring statement and it guides me. So if I think about my own purpose statement, it’s about inspiring people one at a time to raise global awareness. So I’m interested in, it’s a very broad statement that is mine. It’s not my business. So purpose statement, to reiterate, is something that inspires me and it inspires me to live my life in a particular way and to live from the integrity of who I am. It’s really important to have a statement that actually relates to who you are at your essence, and in the work that I do, That’s really… How does it relate to the things I’m passionate about? Because if I’m passionate about certain things and I develop a purpose statement based on those energies then it flows. My life flows towards that purpose. It’s a long answer to a short question but it’s a fairly unclear space we’re in.

Benay: [00:06:11] It is and I’ve talked to a couple of different of my podcast guests about purpose, intention, mission and it is a bit of a complicated space. But I love the way that you’ve explained, I think there were a couple of real gems in there, particularly what is my highest purpose at this time. I can really relate with that and you know for me, Mine is similar it’s got a global kind of impact to it, but it is what gets me out of bed and inspires me each day. And even though it’s my mission I do that you know, if I’m at the shops checking out you know at Woolworths or whatever, but then I also you know, do it when I’m working in my business, and when I work with my team, and I work with my clients so it filters through everything, and when I interact with my family. So I like how you’ve set the scene. I hope I interpreted that correctly.

Peter Wallman: [00:07:04] I think what you said is correct. My highest purpose has to cover how I am with my family, how I am with the person in the corner store, how I am in my business, how I am with my mentors, Whoever. It’s the broadest statement of how I want to be in the world. It often can actually capture what is it, what is the quality that we bring to the world that actually enables us to achieve that purpose.

Benay: [00:07:32] So I’ve got a kind of got three things, a highest purpose inspires you. It also is the broadest statement of how you want to be in the world, how you want to show up, and then it’s also it can change with time.

Peter Wallman: [00:07:45] It can yes and it does. I would just like to say one thing about calling. Some people have a sense of calling That can guide them right through their life. There’s is something that connects them spiritually to a particular thing. Some I’ve worked with people who had a calling to work with animals. It’s not always about people. So it can be about the environment. Can be about the animals. Can be about other people. But it’s bigger than ourselves it’s much bigger than ourselves.

Benay: [00:08:13] That one where it could change with time. For some people it actually does and for some people it doesn’t?

Peter Wallman: [00:08:18] Yeah, most people it does.

Benay: [00:08:19] It does. Okay great. I think you’ve set the stage really beautifully about what is the highest purpose and sort of what we’re going to be talking about in this interview. So can you talk a little bit more about you know, we’ve got people who own coaching businesses listening to this show and or people who are just about to embark on that journey and start their first coaching practice.

What does knowing your highest purpose, you know when you’re in that position of leadership as an as a coach in the world, what does that do for your business?

Peter Wallman: [00:08:51] Well it gives it boundaries and it gives it energy and it gives it focus. Now I used the analogy of a river and the river banks. And the river flows and the flow of the river is like our life force or like our passion. And our purpose is like the banks, it sets boundaries on what we do, where we spend our time, where we put our energy. It’s really important that the purpose that we create for our business sits within the purpose we create for ourselves. Otherwise we are creating a very difficult situation and we won’t get the flow we need to have a successful business I believe.

Benay: [00:09:40] What came up for me when you were talking about that was how quite a lot of coaches, especially before their coaching practice is established and they are really in that flow state, they are in a sort of conflict, it’s almost like they’ve got two or three rivers going. I don’t know maybe that’s not the right play on that on your analogy, but have you experienced working specifically with any coaches like that where you found that to be the case?

Peter Wallman: [00:10:09] Yeah I think that’s quite common. In fact, I’ve experienced that myself.

Benay: [00:10:16] I think I have too!

Peter Wallman: [00:10:18] Different directions at once. So ultimately all of this work around purpose, passion, intention is about bringing consciousness to what we do. and If we’re conscious about what we do then we can change it. We can direct it. We can do you know, we can manage ourselves within our practice and we can manage our practice as well. My interest is in enabling people, giving people tools, where they can bring all of these things into alignment. They can be clear about what their purpose for the practice is. They can be intentional at any time with a client or whether they are creating something that they’re really intentional about that. They’re intentional about every meeting they have with someone. They’re clear about what they want to achieve or even if that is just getting to know someone. but Basically it all comes into line. Passion and purpose and intention and goals are all in line and when they’re line things flow. When they’re not in line, Things don’t flow. And even my work with passions is bringing passions into line. If you imagine it you know, passions pull us in different directions. We have passions about different things and they pull us in different directions and the work that I do with Passion Maps is to bring them all into one place and create one single force and direct it to where we want to go hopefully.

Benay: [00:11:46] I think you, sometimes when we’ve spoken about this in the past, you’ve talked about a really obvious one is you know someone who really wants to spend all day at the beach maybe surfing or something. Then at the same time they’ve got this huge passion for building a really impactful business you know, and there’s this real time pull between the two, if I interpreted it correctly. That the Passion Mapping kind of approach can help you realign and find peace with both of those passions.

Peter Wallman: [00:12:13] Yeah, what I think you’re saying Benay is you know, some people have conflicting passions, or conflicting intentions, and how do you manage that? They might want to go surfing but they also might want to be contributing to the world. I think the only way to do that is to almost look at it from a bird’s eye point of view. And to see those energies as a whole and then the purpose helps to guide where like where your energy goes. If you see the surfing as a part of being in integrity in yourself, and in energizing yourself, and connecting with nature or whatever it is that surfing gives you, then you can see that in terms of the bigger picture of your purpose in the world. That it actually it’s not against it it’s actually supporting it. The only way you can see those conflicts is from above and your purpose statement gives you a really clear way to do that because ultimately that’s the big picture. And other things you’re doing in the world and not supporting that, you know if you’re surfing has become so prominent that it’s actually taking away from that purpose then by being conscious you can change that. I’m reminded of a guy who I worked with who loved photography and he loved his work, which was actually creating PowerPoint presentations for people, and he loved surfing and they all seemed to be in conflict, but he actually ended up with a vision of actually running or sort of taking photographs of surfing and making presentations as a result of that. So he got himself a job travelling around the world for a surfing magazine, and taking photos and making PowerPoint presentations.

Benay: [00:14:08] There you go. All of his Passion is there.

Peter Wallman: [00:14:10] There are solutions to what seem to be impossible conflicts. I love those, when you can find them.

Benay: [00:14:19] Yes, I’m looking at my Passion Map that you facilitated for me a couple of months ago, it must’ve been half a year ago now actually. Yeah it’s got all these crazy things on there but man and they go perfectly together and it’s just me. It’s just me in the little picture. It’s awesome. OK so let’s move on to that Peter because you know coaches are into modalities, they love new tools, they love new ways that they can deep dive with their clients and help get their clients to a whole new level and you know have these have breakthrough kind of sessions where their clients just go “wow!”, and I really think that Passion Mapping is one of those modalities. One of those tools that just slots right into almost any coaching niche. So I would love to like just explore some of the steps that are in Passion Mapping, for those kind of coaches you know who are looking for these kind of new tools, so that they can kind of get a feel for what Passion Mapping is and then maybe if they’re interested, then they can go and get in touch with you and get into some of your great programs that you’re running.

So could you just walk us through, at a really high level of course, you know, this is just a short interview, but some of what Passion Mapping is so that coaches get a flavor of what this is all about.

Peter Wallman: [00:15:31] The Passion Mapping program has at its focus a Passion map, and a Passion Map is a representation or pattern which combines all the essences of all of the things that bring us alive. in My way of thinking, passion is energy. It’s life force. And our life force shows up in different ways. We’re not really usually able to be able to able to see that. We’re not able to see how the energy of passion arises in our body. So we coach people to do that and to capture all the ways they come alive. There’s an initial exploration process, done with the workbook or done on our new app. then there’s one on one process with a qualified coach and you get to the essence of each of your passions. Now it’s very clear that, to me through lots and lots of this work, that there’s great skill to be developed through getting to the essence of what people are passionate about. Everything has a sweet spot. Everything has language which inspires us. So we might be talking about dancing for example, and different people have different ways where they come alive through that. They may become the dance, being the dance, dancing, moving my body, moving… There’ll be a phrase there that captures, it is most inspiring and energizing. We capture all of them. Typically, there are about 15 of those in people’s lives and they cover relationship and what we do. But one of the interesting things is that we also capture the qualities of being we need to actually live those. So it’s not enough to know what we want to do. But we also need to know who we need to be in what we want to do. And that’s where I think a lot of coaching and leadership and other places for the other modalities fall down. It’s not only the being, it’s the doing. They fit together. And then from there when people have the experience of all of their map, all of their elements, they then bring them together in a pattern or a map and there’s a quite a magical experience then for most people. It’s like a spiritual wholeness that people experience.

Benay: [00:18:00] I can definitely attest to that.

Peter Wallman: [00:18:03] And it it’s impossible to explain that.

Benay: [00:18:06] Yeah.

Peter Wallman: [00:18:07] It’s something that most people have never experienced and it’s just an extraordinary process or extraordinary experience of all of the things we come alive at once being present. And then from there we go through a number of processes to you know, how do we take this into life? How do we take into the coaching process? And that requires a sense of that… That’s where purpose is really important and also vision. So in terms of moving forward from that place and bringing this new sense of potential this new sense of self confidence, this new sense of wholeness. Moving forward to that place requires a clear sense of purpose and it requires some sense of vision. So that’s where the coaching process starts. So when a client has done a Passion Map with the coach, the coach has a much deeper understanding of the client and the client is able to operate from a more coherent or integrated place. I don’t know if you’d speak to that at all, Benay, in your experience?

Benay: [00:19:14] Yeah I would like to because just hearing you map out the process and you know, in these steps, it’s kind of like you almost start in your head by the exploring process and doing a lot of head work. And then you have this sort of you get one on one with the coach you know, in my situation I was lucky enough to get to work with you, and you really have that gift of reading energy beautifully and listening for those words that I’m using and hooking on to those and then calling me on things so it starts to become more… it leaves my head a little bit more and starts going into my body. And then once I, the thing I loved about Passion Mapping so much is that once we kind of elicited the main elements and qualities of my passions, then you do go into this full bodied experience so that you do feel all of them working congruently at a point. You know and that is when you create your Passion Map. And that was a big thing for me was like oh my gosh I can feel all my passions right now in this moment working so beautifully and flowing exactly how they should be then I can do it again.

Benay: [00:20:24] And then you go back into head because it’s in action and vision. I don’t know if that’s my… I’m a bit of a head kind of person anyway but that was what was so beautiful for me as an over thinker, about the process.

Peter Wallman: [00:20:37] Yeah I mean underneath the process is the belief that you know, our bodies carry an enormous amount of wisdom. The body tells the truth; it doesn’t argue against itself.

Benay: [00:20:48] Yeah.

Peter Wallman: [00:20:48] You know we get into places in our own heads where we think I’m not good enough, or I don’t have what it takes, or I’m fearful, or whatever. But the body doesn’t feel that. the Body feels what it feels. And people experience a different sense of self through their body than they do through their head. And so I neglected to say, that all through this process we’re actually moving towards a deep embodied self. And then we come back ultimately into the head and that’s how we act in the world.

Benay: [00:21:23] Yeah.

Peter Wallman: [00:21:23] But we making decisions about ourselves in the world from a much deeper place. And I think it’s a more coherent place. And when I’ve worked with indigenous people, they often have this deep sense of connection with themselves in terms of making their own decisions and their problems more cultural and anyhow I’m getting off the track.

Benay: [00:21:45] It sounds like a very interesting topic. Okay.

Peter Wallman: [00:21:50] So yeah it’s a process from the body, down through, I guess feelings, and down into a sense of spirit really. And then back up into vision and purpose, intention, and acting in the world.

Benay: [00:22:06] I feel like you’ve really created there is just a beautiful process for helping coaches get their clients to this… To their own real truth and to embody that and feel it in this certain moment. And I feel like that’s such a gift. you know no matter what coaching niche the coach is working in, to be able to get their client to feel, to facilitate that moment for their client and then continue the work from there. It’s just yeah, it’s just such a such a gift. So that’s why I really wanted to interview you a little bit about this process put a little bit of a teaser out there and hopefully get even more coaches trained up in Passion Mapping, because it’s such a cool thing to experience.

Anyway, Is there anything else? Have we got all these steps? Are you feeling like you’ve answered that completely for them?

Peter Wallman: [00:22:57] We do have an app we’re just releasing which will enable people just to stay connected to those deeper states in themselves. So it’s really important to be able to keep that, and unless we actually consciously do that, we don’t. So that’s a big part of it too, to actually, in fact Jack Kornfeld said from the form the ecstasy to the laundry. How do we take that sense of confidence and act on that? You know if the coaches actually work with the client in facilitating their Passion Map, then they can quite easily help them back to that place and we use an anchor to do that.

Benay: [00:23:35] Before we leave, I love asking everybody this question. So I want to know Peter, what you know, given that you know you’re speaking to an audience of coaches here. What’s your number one advice you would give to a coach today?

Peter Wallman: [00:23:49] My number one advice would be to adopt an attitude of gratitude that you’re able to work with this person and to see them as an awesome human being and that you have the honor of working with and to inspire to higher and better things. So it’s really managing our own attitude towards people coming deeply from our heart, rather than our head, in terms of how we how we see them, how we interact with them, and how we guide them.

Benay: [00:24:23] I love that. I mean I’m just thinking you know, when you’re saying that it’s like I’m just imagining myself centering you know before I get onto a call and centering myself in gratitude and appreciation that I get to be a part of that person’s life and their journey. And help them get to solve this problem that they’re dealing with and it’s a very good feeling.

Peter Wallman: [00:24:42] It’s so beautiful to work from that place too.

Benay: [00:24:46] It is.

Peter Wallman: [00:24:47] If somehow we just learn more from that place about our client and about the human condition and ultimately about ourselves.

Benay: [00:24:55] Wonderful. I think that’s a beautiful piece of advice thank you very much for sharing that with the audience today.

Now Peter if people want to learn more about Passion Mapping, where do they go?

Peter Wallman: [00:25:06] I think the best place to go is directly to our website. It’s very hard to understand this work without doing it, so I’d strongly encourage you find a way to go through the process.

Benay: [00:25:18] And you run workshops and things all over the place, don’t you?

Peter Wallman: [00:25:23] Yeah from time to time, I run workshops. I’ve got one coming up in Bali and that’s going to be quite phenomenal. We’ve got a couple of really top people, practitioners from around the world there, and we’ll be doing yoga and meditation and some movement as well as Passion Mapping. Both for individuals and couples. That’s a whole different conversation around the power of this work of couples.

Benay: [00:25:48] There’s a lot of scope once you understand the process to work with all sorts of different situations.

Peter Wallman: [00:25:54] So I just encourage anyone to have a look at that and contact me or talk to me if they want to. They can make an appointment through our website.

Benay: [00:26:04] Great and what is your URL Peter. Of course it will be in the show notes, but…

Peter Wallman: [00:26:15] www.passionmaps.com. And also I would say we have we have a Five Steps to the Highest Purpose Statement free document there that you can play with and see what you come up with. If you don’t have a purpose statement itself. If you do a program, a Passion Mapping program, you create a purpose statement from this deep space. It’s a slightly different process.

Benay: [00:26:39] Great. So that’s just like a free thing they can get on your website?

Peter Wallman: [00:26:42] Yes a free thing on my website. Yeah.

Benay: [00:26:44] Wonderful okay. And I’ll include a link to that in the show notes too. All right Peter, thank you so much for coming on the show again. It’s always a pleasure to have you on. I’m sure we’ll see you again. I hope at least. And good luck in Bali. It sounds like an awesome event.

Peter Wallman: [00:26:58] Thank you, Benay. It’s always lovely to come and work with you or to talk with you I should say.

Benay: [00:27:05] Thank you.

Peter Wallman: [00:27:06] Keep up the good work I love what you’re doing.

Benay: [00:27:08] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you audience for listening to another episode of Coach Pep Talk.

Benay: [00:27:13] Be sure and go and like the show on iTunes that just helps us get more of this great message out there to the coaches who need it so they can continue doing the great work that they do out in the world. All right that’s a wrap everyone. Happy coaching.

Benay: [00:27:28] Are you feeling stuck in your coaching business, either because you’re new and you just really don’t know how to get things started, or you’ve got a successful practice but you haven’t systematized anything so you’re starting to burn out? Well, if either of those is you then I’ve got a really fantastic new free thing that you can download. And it is The Successful and Sustainable Coaching Business Checklist. Now what it does, is in a very nice and beautiful way presents the top systems and things you need to do in the right order so that you can move towards a more leveraged and systematized coaching business. If That sounds fabulous to you and you can’t wait to get your hands on it, then go to universalcoachingsystems.com/sustainable and give me some feedback. Tell me what you think. Happy coaching.