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Aunt Jeannette, cousin Cleo, Mose Henderson (my dad) , Esther Henderson (my mom) , me,  and then Councilman Thomas Bradley in 1965.

PUBLICATIONS 

The Silent Wisdom Exercise.   This is a bit of self-working magic that helps my clients learn how to become a full time empathic listener.   This short publication gives you all the information you need to get started listening with empathy.  Such listening is always a challenge when it is most important to listen with your loved ones.  I call this ethical magic because I am merely showing you that you already know how to listen with empathy when such listening is unimportant.  You fail to listen with empathy when it is most important to do so, with a spouse, a parent, a child, and with your supervisor at work.   PRICE:  Free download 

The Henderson Ethics Inventory.   I use this device to encourage a group to discuss ethical conflicts that commonly arise in a workplace.  The Inventory consists of  seventeen questions that ask the participant to indicate how he/she feels about each situation.  The Inventory has a bit of "ethical magic" to it because two people can check the same answers to each of the questions and one person will have a very high score and the other person a very low score.  The method of scoring makes all the difference.   I have used this many times with success.  The Inventory includes the method of scoring and suggestions how to use it in a group.    PRICE: $350.00

The Brain Rain Game.   This is a process that encourages participation in creative problem solving for large groups.  I have used this process for a group as small as thirty and as large as three hundred people.  This is a good exercise for an all day meeting with staff at an off-site location.  I refer to such meetings as Advances rather than retreats.  A retreat suggests that you are moving into the past, moving away from the future.  Advance suggests that you are moving into the future with a positive view.  The Brain Rain Game is an iterative process that creates excitement and reveals the best ideas for solutions regardless of who suggested the idea in the first place.  Too often bad ideas gain currency in these groups because they represent the most powerful person in the group.  I call this the "kiss ass" method of decision making.  The Brain Rain Game is a different sort of beast.   PRICE: $ 5,200.

The Autobiography Kit.   This kit helps you to write a creative and expansive biography.  Many people wrote an autobiography in high school or maybe in college.  However, unless you are a famous person you probably have not written an autobiography for decades.  Today is a good time to write this story and you are the only author.  You have made the story to date and you continue to write the story.  This exercise has given huge breakthroughs for my clients.  The kit has all the tools you need to get the work done.  It is guaranteed to unlock your creative side if you follow the directions.  

          I help my clients to understand the meaning of their autobiography by studying it and asking them questions.  My comments and questions often reveal deep meaning in the autobiography that would have eluded my client's notice.  For example, one client wrote an interesting and exciting story about himself.  He wrote about his son, his work, and his dreams.  He failed to mention his wife.  When I asked him why he wrote this elegant and expansive autobiography but with not one mention of his wife, he told me that he must have written about her.  I asked him to show me.  When he could not find a reference to her he asked me what does that mean.  I turned the question around and asked him what did it mean to him.  He and his wife discussed her absence in his autobiography and were able to resolve the issue.

          I discover significant threads of a story through my study of these autobiographies.  Because it is not my story, I can see things that are missing and where the main emphasis is taking me.  One writer told a story about the death of a friend when he and the writer were college students, in their early twenties.  This death had affected my client so much that a dozen years later it still influenced his choices by limiting him.  He told me that this biography was the first time he had written about this death and the first time he had dealt with his grief.  His friend died in an automobile accident 100 miles away from where my client lived.   After writing the story my client was able to reconcile the matter and move ahead with his life.  He had tremendous guilt feelings that were finally resolved.

         If you purchase this exercise, I can serve as your reader or you have the option of choosing another trusted person to read it for you.  That trusted person would perform the same service that I would.  You can choose a longtime friend, a parent, sibling, spouse, or even your adult child.  This is a powerful exercise.  Price: $430.00

Mission and Legacy Statement. I use the Five Envelope Exercise to creatively and magically produce a personal mission and legacy statement for each client.  Each day, for five days, you open a specified envelope and then follow explicitly the instructions written on the letter inside.  On the sixth day the instructions require you to sit quietly in a particular kind of environment and write for at least one hour and no more than two hours.  The completed document is considered the first draft of your lifetime mission and legacy statement.  You are then instructed to file the document away for several days before returning to perform edits.  After you have edited the document to your satisfaction, you may publish the finished Mission and Legacy Statement.  Publishing can take many forms.  Some folks make a pretty document that they frame and hang on the wall of their office or home.  Others have posted the mission and legacy statement on the family refrigerator.  Many folks have printed copies and placed them in wallet, purse, day book, to ensure that they had the information available all the time.   My clients use their Mission and Legacy Statement as a lighthouse.  Whenever they have difficult choices to make, they rely on the guidance of this statement to choose how to proceed.  Price $430.00

Philip Henderson, biography

Philip Henderson with Bill the Ox in 2009.

Philip H. Henderson, MBA 

Bachelors in economics 1969 and MBA 1970 from UCLA  

Established as an executive coach in 1999

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          My important education began when my formal education ended.  I used my four years as an undergraduate student and four years in graduate school at UCLA as an opportunity to learn how to learn.  Instead of carrying facts with me from my time as a formal student, I used the methods of investigation I praciced at UCLA to become a student of leadership principles used to supervise, manage and lead in the world of work.  After completing my Master's degree at UCLA, I continued study in the doctoral program at UCLA in the field now known as Organizational Development.   I completed the first two years of the doctoral program before withdrawing in 1973.

 

          I was born and raised in Los Angeles California.  Today, in addition to executive coaching, I am a volunteer oxen teamster at the Orange County California Centennial Farm.  I have volunteered more than 800 hours each year since 2004 to show teams of oxen to school children.  I write a column, The Wisdom of Cattle, for Rural Heritage magazine,   In this column I explore the wonderful lessons of life I learn while driving a team of oxen.  I work with the oxen at the Centennial Farm.   They are half-brothers named Hoss and Howie; they are American Milking Devon cattle, a heritage breed.   In order to drive an oxen team you must first earn their trust and respect.  After that driving the cattle is fun and if you pay attention, you will learn the ancient wisdom of cattle.  

 

I am a magician and officer for the International Brotherhood of Magicians (IBM) Ring 313, the John Fedko Ring in Orange County California.  I use my skill with magic to coach my clients to notice aspects of their behavior that everyone else can see but is invisible to my clients.  I call this work Ethical Magic because I use magic to help my clients understand what is happening.

Philip wearing a

favorite fedora. 

   Freckles, Mister Patches, and  teamster Philip      

Geezers Gulch is a quiet place to sit under the shade of an oak tree to solve the problems of the world and maybe even enjoy the good company of strangers. I served on a committee in the city of Irvine to develop this spot for senior citizens to enjoy.  You will discover this refuge under the shade of several oak trees in the rear of the Lakeview Senior Center at 20 Lake Road in Woodbridge.

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