Well we’re really delighted that you asked. The name Ceeyana is composed of two parts; CEE + YANA. Beginning with the end in mind as great innovations are supposed to do, let’s start with ‘Yana”. I first came across the term YANA while listening to a fascinating youtube lecture about Buddhism by the late Alan Watts, a 20th century English philosopher. An extremely gifted speaker and writer who excelled at demystifying Far Eastern religions and wisdom for the Western audience. From Watts I learned that ‘yana’ is the Sanskrit word for ‘raft’ – literally the vehicle for crossing a river or body of water, but, more interestingly in the Buddhist context ‘yana‘ refers to a metaphorical or spiritual journey, path or shift from one shore to another.
This term struck a chord with me right away – I was instantaneously charmed by the simplicity of the word yet the profound significance of it’s meaning. It just worked as we were working to form our own coaching and consulting business. After lots of excited discussion Elisa came up with the “C” part. The third letter of the alphabet occurs so often in the powerful words and terms we use in our client conversations every day. Cee stands for eternal and powerful ideas like commitment, courage and competence which spontaneously led to the creation of our company tagline – mindset, heartset and skillset.
Ceeyana represents the values we live by in our own lives and, at the same time, it establishes a conversational framework for the quality of client relationships and business results to which we aspire every day. “Cee“ refers to putting intentional focus on cooperation, creativity, caring and curiosity each of which is a metaphorical ‘yana’ or vehicle for getting to where we really want to be.
In the simplest terms possible, in order to make the changes you seek. Look and “see” (Cee) where you want to go and choose the most suitable vehicle (Yana) to get there.