Ironically, men and women who have spent most of their lives planning and saving for the future often find the creation of a new future to be terrifying. Yet, the creation of a new future is critical if they are to be generative—if they are to recreate themselves for the final acts of their lives. This is particularly challenging if they are shifting from a focus on success to a focus on significance. Bill Bridges (1980, 2001) associates this time of rebuilding with his concept of the “neutral zone.” This is a state of limbo that resides between the old realities and new possibilities. While the neutral zone is a difficult place in which to dwell, it is also a place that is filled with special bonuses—especially when the person residing in the neutral zone is assisted in this journey by a professional coach (Mura and Bergquist, 2020).
In a series of video recordings and several articles published in LPC, my colleague, Agnes Mura, and I have noted that as coaches we have the opportunity to explore new ways with our clients of working toward the Greater Good (Bergquist and Mura, 2011; Bergquist and Mura, 2014). We can help our clients find new loves, rediscover old loves, and create new dreams. The new future is often joyfully and insightfully created in conjunction with the younger people our clients are mentoring or with whom they are collaborating. All of this can be done in conjunction with the work our coaching clients are doing with other members of their organization and community. Our clients can truly be generative thought this collaborative engagement with other people. When we assist our clients in their creation of a new future, we open the opportunity to be coaching for the Greater Good.
Lee Salmon and Rey Carr: Exemplifying Generativity
This essay is about ways in which generativity and deep caring are manifest in the lives of people we coach (as well as our own lives). It is about mentoring other people, honoring other people and artifacts from a past era, and helping to better our own communities. It is about men and women who move beyond themselves—extending both time and space—seeking to outlive themselves by leaving something of value behind about which they deeply care. It is about four roles of generativity as related to the Greater Good. We turn to the lives led and work done by Lee Salmon and Rey Carr as a way to illustrate and exemplify these four roles of generativity—and as a way to further honor these two exceptional coaches. We document their life and work not only by identifying what they accomplished, but also by offering quotations from their published essays, and statements made by people Lee and Rey loved, as well as colleagues with whom they worked.
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