Greece’s recent economic woes have overshadowed what is important and what is clutter. Coaching can help our people find meaning and empowerment
Angelos Derlopas
It’s rare to be asked how things are going in Greece nowadays. After the ‘drama tsunami’ that hit us around 2012, life has become quieter here. Now that we don’t make world headlines any more, numbers are better, though our people are not. But what we have found during this journey is treasure.
We, the people of renowned authors Nikos Kazantzakis and Odysseas Elytis, resilient as we are, have found ways to rediscover what is important and what is clutter. Nobel prize winner Elytis once said, “If you disintegrate Greece, at the bottom you’ll find an olive tree, a vine and a boat. With those elements you may re-construct this country from scratch.”
Getting back to our individual sources and reflecting on what’s your olive tree, what’s your vine and what’s your boat can be a struggle, but it can also be life-changing.
All the media is talking about in Greece, and in many other European countries, is ‘economy, economy, economy’. This failure/anxiety-driven obsession makes us neglect two important things.
First: who are the real victims of the failed economy that’s causing a humanitarian crisis – and what can we do to relieve and protect them at this point?
Second: what do we need the economy to help us with? Life? Relationships? Meaning?
As motivational speaker, Simon Sinek says, we should start with the ‘why’. Why do we need the economy? Is it in service of humanity flourishing?
Sinek’s ‘why’ is Elytis’s olive tree: the symbol of peace. So, we need to make peace with each other and stop the blame game and the hate speech that reared its ugly head in Greece as well as in so many other places in Europe this last decade.
We should also make peace with our inner selves, be compassionate and mindful with our process to allow us to grow personally through – and despite – the crisis.
We need to step back and reflect on what’s truly important. Find the olive. Find what cannot be threatened by scarcity and has no monetary value. Relationships, meaning, engagement, achievement, positive emotions – all of these are necessary for our wellbeing according to positive psychologist, Martin Seligman.
For those of us who created or got involved in volunteering activities to support those in need, to empower those in search of a better mindset, of a better tomorrow, reality has shown we can do it. And confirmed ‘how’ we do it, too.
Sinek’s ‘how’ or Elytis’s ‘vine’ is volunteerism, solidarity and personal growth. And coaching has a vital part to play in those activities, by empowering groups, volunteers, refugees, people who lost their jobs and starter-uppers.
Coaching is central to organising wellbeing festivals, coaching marathons and Zen coaching retreats for personal development. Coaching transcends and transforms the way we communicate and relate to each other, and wrestles it towards some radically new place where we can create an original sense of self, our Elytis’s boat.
So, who is going to be on this boat? As Savopoulos, one of the most inspiring Greek artists of the last century, said: “Life is changing without noticing your melancholy. And now’s the time for you to decide who you’re going to follow and who you’re going to leave behind.”
And that’s where coaching comes in, does it not?
- Angelos Derlopas is a leadership coach and founder of Positivity. He led a team of professionals who designed an educational coaching program at the National Centre of Public Administration and thus introduced coaching to the Greek public sector for the first time. He trains coaches, coaching trainers and mentors and supervises them. He is a founding member and past president of the ICF Greece Charter Chapter and is currently serving as subject matter expert in ICF Global Job Analysis Task Force.