A Coaching Model Created by Erica D’Angelo
(Wellbeing Coach, ITALY)
My career path over the last 15 years has allowed me to build a good level of expertise in the Italian and international spa and wellness industry, which has led me to achieve particularly coveted positions. After collecting more than 20 awards of international scope, hundreds of articles in magazines, and participating in numerous conferences as a speaker, I realize that I am recognized as an expert in this field. My passion for progress and personal growth has led me to embrace projects in line with my purpose in life. My profession has developed around the creation of innovative business concepts to improve the wellness/wellbeing offer in luxury resorts (such as JW Marriot and Borgo Egnazia), designing unforgettable wellness experiences for both customers and people within the organization. I was especially dedicated to inspiring and motivating teams towards excellence. I have widely realized how the experience as an entrepreneur has made me particularly competent in the management of business profitability, allowing me to identify opportunities for optimization. I obtained the certification as Chief Happiness Officer, among the first 50 in Italy, and being a person guided and stimulated by the achievement of results, I learned to implement the theories and practice of positive leadership.
In recent years, the scientific community has demonstrated that we are synergic and systemic organisms. They have placed great attention to prevention, wellbeing, and happiness as the highest expression of human health. Inadequate lifestyles have led to a general malaise, resulting in chronic and degenerative diseases. Access to information has become a great resource, but over time it has led to an overabundance of content, often in disharmony, creating chaos in the search for solutions. The Science of Happiness was born on the evolution of Positive Psychology in the last 20 years that aims to understand how to create positive wellbeing through personal growth and prosperity. The application of this science in coaching is aimed at increasing the level of satisfaction and subjective happiness, motivation, success, and optimism with a scientific approach, based on facts and evidence. Through the increase of awareness towards one’s life purpose and structures to achieve specific goals.
The process through which the individual achieves success and performance goes through the sum of eudemonic happiness, positivity, and self-transcendence. In collaboration with Dr. Mario Sella, we have developed our signature assessment tool that is scientifically validated: The Self-Transcendent Eudamonic Happiness Questionnaire (STEWBQ).
To investigate the evolution of happiness, we must refer to the thought of Socrates and those who wrote about him, especially his most brilliant pupil Plato and Aristotle to follow. Happiness, according to Socrates, depends on us and it is within our possibilities to achieve it. According to Aristotle, happiness becomes an existential dimension attainable through a human and personal journey. In fact, he writes that all animate and inanimate things in the world, aim to reach a goal, an end, a telos. In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle writes that this supreme goal is to cultivate the faculty that distinguishes us from all other creatures, reasoning, and acting accordingly. This is the path that leads us to cultivate virtue, an indispensable premise for happiness. Happiness, then, would be prosperity combined with virtue, constituted according to Aristotle by health, the abundance of friends, good friends, wealth, the abundance of children, a good old age, good physical condition understood as health, beauty, strength, and then fame, fortune, and virtue.
Even the thought of Martin Seligman (father and founder of Positive Psychology), coincides with that of Aristotle, who agrees that happiness is a conquest. It presupposes that there is a will to go towards it. Happiness must therefore be patiently built, Virtue that must be cultivated throughout existence, as the Greek philosophers teach us. Positive psychology is based on three fundamental concepts: the study of positive emotion (self-confidence, hope, trust), the study of positive traits – understood as potential and virtue (wisdom and knowledge, courage, love and humanity, justice, temperance, spirituality, and transcendence), but also skills such as intelligence or athletic ability. And the study of positive institutions, such as democracy, family, freedom of information, which support virtues which in turn support positive emotions.
Among the words of Aristotle is the application of a “model” that is used today in Positive Psychology Coaching: “First try to make your ideals well defined, clear, practical, turning them into objectives. Secondly, check if you have all the necessary means to pursue them: skills, money, materials, methodologies. Finally, make sure that all your means are directed to the achievement of the goal.
Inspired by the 8th Habit of Stephen R. Covey, the VOICE model represents the greatness of human beings. The 4 dimensions: passions, talents, conscience, and needs, intersect to give voice to the uniqueness and beauty of the individual, allowing to reveal the potential to excel and thrive in greatness for a significant contribution to the world. My approach is based on applied positive psychology and the science of happiness to reveal the person’s potential of becoming the best version of themselves in light of eudemonic happiness.
Virtue
Exploration of the beneficial qualities, features, or traits of a coaching relationship that can lead the client to excellence, advantage, or goodness. The process involves defining in detail how coaching can support specific issues or challenges for the client.
Opportunities
Exploration of the existing possibilities with a positive approach to identifying opportunities in what may appear to be challenging. The process involves highlighting what isn’t seen, what prospects the client holding is getting in the way to see what the reality is about a situation.
Inness
Yeah, I have invented this word and it means the state of being “in” yourself. Exploration of internal resources that may be overlooked, underused or misused. Identification of strengths, talents, areas of expertise, passions, and unmet needs that stimulate forward movement. The process involves identifying the misalignment of behaviors in respect of values.
Creation
Identification and creation of a strategic plan, that will include routines, rituals, and rhythm that will move the client forward toward the defined goal. The process includes the definition of milestones, success measures, structure, and timeframe in which the goal will be reached.
Engagement
Exploration of the needed grit, determination, and propulsion towards achieving the desired goal. The process involves identifying the accountability structure that will enable forward movement and keep the client engaged, highly motivated, hopeful, and proud of his/her achievements.
References:
https://positivepsychology.com/eudaimonia/
https://www.giovannifrigo.com/
https://www.academia.edu/7760975/The_8th_Habit_Stephen_R_Covey