The Freedom to Withdraw and the Cost Others Carry

Signatures in Pencil examines the growing normalisation of entering consequential commitments while privately retaining the option to withdraw whenever pressure, discomfort or inconvenience arises. Across relationships, leadership, business, politics and geopolitics, people often accept the benefits of commitment while treating its obligations as provisional.
The article argues that changing one’s mind can be legitimate, but it does not era...

Signatures in Pencil

The Hidden Shadow of Transformational Leadership

Transformational leadership can create a hidden organisational cost when development, compassion and support begin to compensate for insufficient role capacity. Capacity tax describes the burden created when stronger leaders, founders or peers repeatedly supply the judgement, ownership, urgency or execution that others are not yet able to carry themselves. Because outcomes may still be achieved, the true gap can remain concealed, with the stron...

The Capacity Tax

AI, Postphenomenology and Why the Real Question Is Not Whether We Use Technology, but How

This article challenges the increasingly simplistic distinction between ‘human-authored’ and ‘AI-generated’ work. Its central argument is that authorship has always been a matter of degree. Serious creative and intellectual work has rarely been produced by a completely isolated individual. Authors have always relied on editors, researchers, reviewers, collaborators, technologies, publishers and w...

Authorship Has Always Been a Matter of Degree

Power Asymmetry, Client Agency and the Tension Between Dominance and Abdication

Following The Unfinished Foundations of Coaching, this article responds to questions raised by coaches within the Engenesis community about power asymmetry, practitioner authority and client agency.

It examines the tension between dominance and abdication: the risk that a coach may overreach by imposing interpretation or taking authorship of the client’s choices, and the opposite risk that the coach may withd...

The Coach Cannot Be ‘Powerless’

Sales, Status, Sense-Making and Capacity: The Tangible Cost of the No-Win Frame

A routine negotiation over a collectable object unexpectedly became a test of wealth, status and identity. When the buyer questioned the price, the seller treated negotiation as evidence of disrespect and financial inadequacy, eventually creating a classic no-win frame in which every possible response confirmed a judgement already made.

Using this encounter as its point of departure, The Price of the Last Word ...

The Price of the Last Word

A constructive philosophical critique and a reconstructive path towards reality-aligned, capacity-based and ontologically grounded coaching

The Unfinished Foundations of Coaching argues that coaching has made important progress through professional bodies, ethical standards, competencies, credentialing and safeguarding, but that professionalisation alone does not constitute a complete coaching paradigm.

Any serious paradigm concerned with human transformation must also provide philosophica...

The Unfinished Foundations of Coaching

Why the Capacity Needed for Change May Be Part of What Is Missing

The Threshold of Transformation examines a central paradox in coaching: the very incapacity that makes transformation necessary may also prevent a person from recognising, choosing and sustaining the transformation available to them.

The article argues that wanting change is not the same as being available for it. A person may sincerely desire greater confidence, stronger relationships, better leadership or more meaningful w...

The Threshold of Transformation

How Fear, False Hope and Hollow Metacontent Distort Authenticity in the Age of ‘AI’

This article examines the rise of sentimentalism in the post-phenomenological age, where human experience is increasingly mediated by technology, platforms, algorithms and artificial intelligence. It begins by inhabiting a dramatic fear now circulating widely: that humanity is being weakened, destabilised and prepared to accept a post-human future. Rather than dismissing this fear outright, the article rec...

Sentimentalism in the Post-Human Shadow

Responsibility, ‘Victim Blaming’ and the Discernment of Incapacity, Incapacitation and Compensation

When Capacity Is at Stake examines the morally confused terrain between victim blaming and responsibility. It argues that responsibility must never be reduced to blame, but neither should compassion freeze people, groups or nations in permanent victimhood. Drawing on the capacity discourse, the article distinguishes between incapacity, where the capacity required by life has not yet been bu...

When Capacity Is at Stake

Contextualising Capacity Discourse, Integrative Polarity Capacity and Dynamic Polarity Dialectic

Sovereignty Without Submission examines Iran’s strategic dilemma as more than a political dispute between negotiation and resistance. Using Iran as a concrete case, the article contextualises Capacity Discourse, Integrative Polarity Capacity and Dynamic Polarity Dialectic within a deeper civilisational question: how a nation relates to power, threat, dependence, sovereignty, intention and capaci...

Sovereignty Without Submission: Capacity, Intention and the Reconstructive Path Beyond Dependency and Defiance

The Light We Celebrate and the Shadows We Refuse to See

In an age captivated by innovation, entrepreneurship and the pursuit of success, we have become remarkably good at celebrating achievement and surprisingly reluctant to examine its consequences.

The City on the Hill begins with a simple but unsettling question: What is success for?

Drawing inspiration from a patriotic celebration of American greatness, this essay moves beyond questions of nationalism and ideology to explore a deepe...

The City on the Hill and the Shadows It Casts

Accessing Reality and Examining the Structures of Sense-making

This article explores the distinction and relationship between Awareness and Meta-awareness as two fundamental capacities of human participation.

Drawing on the Being Framework, the Metacontent discourse, the Nested Theory of Sense-making and the Authentic Sustainability Framework, it argues that awareness and meta-awareness, while closely related, operate at different levels. Awareness concerns our access to knowing and unders...

Awareness and Meta-awareness: Two Distinct Capacities for Human Observation and Participation

As an emerging leader with aspirations to climb the corporate ladder or transition to a more fulfilling career, do you believe you have to pretend to be someone you’re not to be accepted? Do you sometimes doubt yourself or feel unheard, unseen and undervalued? If so, you’re not alone. Putting on a fake persona in the workplace is more common than many people realise. However, there are significant costs in doing so. In this article, Jeanette Mundy explains why the adage that you have to ‘f...

Sick of changing who you are to fit in?

There are many reasons for startup failure, but up to 42% of failures result from a single cause. In this article, Director at Engenesis Ventures and startup advisor Ariya Chittasy discusses the three most common pitfalls that lead to this one cause of failure and what you can do to avoid making the same mistakes, giving your startup the best possible chance of success.

One reason why up to 42% of startups fail

You need to work on your business, not in your business. As a business owner, you’ve probably heard this line multiple times, be it from business advisors or well-meaning people trying to help. But does the thought of delegating some of the operational tasks you currently do yourself to make your business a success seem too far from your reach? In this article, business consultant Anthea Stevanovic reveals seven steps to gradually remove yourself from your business' operational functions and e...

Get yourself out of your business' operations: The 7 steps

When we are at the receiving end of obstacles and unexpected detours, it’s easy to get stuck in the trap of victimhood. If you manage a team with members who are constantly locked in complaint mode and find it difficult to turn the situation around, team morale can be impacted, slowing productivity. In this article, Jacqueline Hofste, an ontological leadership coach with a background in senior leadership roles in the corporate environment and archetypal consulting, explains how and what we can...

Is your team stuck in Victimhood mentality

Modern society has provided an opportunity to redefine the traditional male and female roles that have been passed down from father to son and mother to daughter for millennia. However, rather than treat each other as humans and appoint the best person for the job, we seem to be caught up in the need to balance the power between the sexes, for example, by electing women just because there are too many men at the top. In this article, John Williams discusses why healthy masculinity is no threat t...

Why healthy masculinity is no threat to feminine empowerment, and “real men” are not afraid of women having power

Most of us know somebody who is transactional in their relationships with others, whether it be someone at work, at home or in our social circle. It might even be you. Some might argue that being transactional is the only way to meet targets at work or protect yourself from being taken advantage of. In this article, leadership and confidence coach Helen Robinett explains why any relationship that focuses on getting rather than giving is toxic and how to build authentic, transformative relationsh...

From transactional to transformative: how to build authentic relationships

It is natural to want to understand why you are the way you are. But once you have that insight, what can you do about it if you discover areas that aren’t serving you? Traditional theories and approaches suggest that you learn how to manage your fixed traits or set short-term action plans to change certain habits or behaviours. In this article, Lucy Faulconer, General Manager – Being Profile®, a leadership coach and an organisational psychologist, reveals how she and many other coaches, le...

How the Being Profile facilitates our ability to transform

It's easy to feel isolated, different, alone and excluded when dealing with a disbaility that impacts you 24/7. While some disabilities are visible because they are obvious, there are a vast number of hidden or invisible conditions that affect people's daily lives just as significantly. Many people choose to keep their hidden disability a secret, often not realising the toll that decision can take until things start spiralling out of control. In this article, Wayne Stickel, a wellbeing and effec...

The role of a community in supporting people with hidden disabilities to flourish

Many people like the idea of becoming a coach and dive in without considering why they want to pursue professional coaching and what it takes to create a successful coaching business. Many also don’t have an authentic understanding of what it means to be a professional coach. As General Manager of the Being Profile®, Lucy Faulconer leads a global community of coaches and has the opportunity to hear the stories behind why they chose to become a coach. In this article, she shares some of those ...

Are you thinking of becoming a coach?

Are you a business owner who feels overwhelmed and frustrated because you are constantly putting out fires? Is addressing whatever issue pops up on any given day preventing you from being the proactive, strategic and productive leader you want to be who is working towards achieving a clearly defined set of goals? If so, you are not alone. Anthea Stevanovic explains why this issue is so common and the steps she uses to successfully support her clients to elevate themselves from firefighters to fu...

Are you a firefighter or a business owner?

Have you ever completed a profiling questionnaire or test and wondered why you bothered? If so, you’re not alone. That’s because most tests today attempt to categorise us, slotting us into neat little ‘boxes’ as though we are fixed objects, not human beings with the capacity to transform. Is it any wonder people are left disillusioned with such tools? In this article, Lucy Faulconer, who is the General Manager – Being Profile®, a leadership coach and an organisational psychologist, sh...

Why do people choose to become Being Profile Accredited Practitioners?

It is often in the most challenging situations that we learn what we are truly made of. They also teach us the most valuable lessons. But that does not make them easy. And it can be tempting to run away or turn a blind eye to a situation we would prefer not to deal with. In this article, leadership and confidence coach Helen Robinett shares a personal case study when tough leadership decisions had to be made and she was the only one who could make them. She also explains the factors that allowed...

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The Capacity Tax

Authorship Has Alway

The Coach Cannot Be

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When Capacity Is at

Sovereignty Without

The City on the Hill

Awareness and Meta-a

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Who Puts Their Hand

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Can I Find Your Lead

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The Value of Vintage

The Problem with Sol

The Right Way to Sta

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Featured Articles

Signatures in Pencil

The Capacity Tax

Authorship Has Alway

The Coach Cannot Be

The Price of the Las

The Unfinished Found

The Threshold of Tra

Sentimentalism in th

When Capacity Is at

Sovereignty Without

The City on the Hill

Awareness and Meta-a

Most Visited

Browse Articles

Who Puts Their Hand

Signatures in Pencil

Can I Find Your Lead

Who Do You Tell When

The Incredible Unshr

I Don’t Like This

Selective Hearing

The Capacity Tax

Authorship Has Alway

The Value of Vintage

The Problem with Sol

The Right Way to Sta

Search and browse articles