Coaching Blog

The following guest blog post by Jeremy Tick, Coach for Entrepreneurs, is an invitation to the entrepreneurial spirit that is often identified as the American Spirit, also known as the human spirit. A business owner since the age of 24, Jeremy is uniquely familiar with the challenges faced by individuals at all stages of business development.  His work is dedicated to aid Creative Professionals in building meaningful brands and developing systems and structures for success with which to create sustainable profit. You can reach Jeremy at www.jeremytick.com and www.tickmanagement.com

The unique attribute shared amongst all Americans, the quality that makes each of us the same, regardless of age, race, sex, religion, sexual orientation, politics or ethnic background is that we are all the offspring of immigrants. Each of our ancestors came from somewhere else. Some came to escape religious persecution, some were forced against their will, some came in pursuit of wealth, others came because they needed to find work to support families at home. The list of reasons is endless, yet one fact remains: our ancestors came to this country as immigrants and those who survived stayed. Consciously or not, these individuals became a part of the American Experiment – something bigger than they brought them here and something bigger than themselves kept them going. With the passing of generations, came the pursuit of self-actualization.

Regardless of their place of origin each of our ancestors share one sole quality: willpower. Not a single of them in generations past, save an extraordinary few, had anything handed, granted, given or guaranteed. Through diligence, hard work and sheer determination our ancestors carved out for themselves an identity, experience and resultant way of life.

The fruits of their labor speak volumes. We live in an extraordinary time where the opportunity for self-actualization has never been more present. We are educated and exposed, liberal in our social construct, accepting in our embrace of change, and live in a time and place where elitism by situation of birth has been replaced by an orientation toward meritocracy such as has never, in the history of the modern world, been seen. Economics, in its true iteration, where the market drives all, has taken hold. For those of us capable of its understanding its value, it is time to contemplate this new reality and consider its relevance to our way of being. To achieve this mindset we must consider the roots from whence we stem. To do so is to simplify the quest we embark on in our pursuit of the unreasonable and, in doing so, find a way of being more relevant to our individual talent and attributes and thus our own capabilities for self actualization.

In order for survival of the cultural and lifestyle shock thrust upon our ancestors when arriving in their new ‘home,’ some primal instinct for survival has to have kicked in. The motivators contained in each of our predecessors to understand and identify their place within the construct of this new society, nor what they experienced in doing so, cannot be fully explained save for our own existence. Yet via the opportunities to live in the free economy that now lay before us, that they created for us, we share one key attribute: this same orientation, willpower. There is hope. There is opportunity, there is a promise of freedom from the burdens of debt, for ownership of homes and businesses and education such that we can experience a life of fulfillment in ways that our predecessors identified and worked toward for us. To find these we must look inside of ourselves and create a new reality such that we can achieve these now fundamental luxuries and in doing so, fulfill our familial destiny.

It is safe to say that many of us, having spent our developmental years preparing to play a game no longer in existence are experiencing some of the same discontent/disenchantment/disorientation that our ancestors did. Those of us old enough to recall working in the pre-recession days likely miss certain perks, comforts and other accouterment of the corporate life. We miss the promise of stability and the structures promised and fulfilled. Those of us who spent years preparing to participate in the economy in the ways in which we most identified, socially and intellectually, likely find a certain disconnect in the way we think of ourselves and the opportunities presented as income generating situations. Indeed, many of us have had dreams modified, broken or disjointed as result of the externalities that surround us. But the truth is that this is the situation of life as it currently presents itself and it is time to stop whining about it. Social welfare is not going to change this, the creation of new work opportunity by some large governing body will not repair the displacement we feel as result of the economic correction. No new and great job creation on the part of the government or large entity is going to fix what has become antiquated and broken. Novelty and change will always prevail – this is a reality that has to be accepted – and embraced – for without change there would be none of the possibility and progress we now live. The only way to achieve and restore our faith and capabilities lies in a reorientation and perhaps even a constitutional recall into the stuff that we are truly made of. It will require a great deal of digging, but just as the titled nobility once rested on the laurels of its birth and the achievements of those before them, so too can we: inside of ourselves lives the capacity to forge the lives we are entitled to, just as our ancestors, wholly displaced and confused by the realities of their migratory situations did before us. It just takes work.

This personal work requires us to reassess not only our roots but also our visceral priorities. We often look to past generations and the relative ease they seem to have experienced in the attainment of life’s simpler pleasures: often the pictures portray a grandparent in front of a new home, during the purchase of a new car, or wearing a cap and gown. Note that many of these pictures are taken at an age older than sixteen or twenty-two or even at twenty-eight – it is no matter. Note too, that many of the achievements made by our predecessors were on a smaller scale than that which we aspire to. For those of us still ‘holding on’ to the notion of self entitlement by situation of birth, this opens the argument of possibility to suggest that the American Dream is dead, that the work of the generations before us and their sacrifices and investment for our wellbeing were for naught given the implosion of the market and its resultant fallout. But I will argue differently. This is our situation by birth. I do not believe that our for-bearers fought through their work in coalmines or on cotton plantations or in fields or in sweatshops or in water as journeymen or teamsters so that we could find cushy employment in cubicles. I believe they invested in this way of life because of their belief in the opportunity to feel complete in their economic participation – that those of them who toiled forward provided for future generations by giving them access to a life different than their own, invested, through hard work, in our ability to have choices to do the same for ourselves. And somehow, the largess achieved benchmarks of their own. No, many of them did not summer in the Hamptons, nor did they take the Grand Tour, nor did even many of them attend school beyond that which was vital, available or convenient relevant to family welfare. But they worked, fed and clothed their children and provided for you to have the opportunity to find your own capacity to contribute to your family’s legacy and thus their own.

It is true, these people may not have toiled in the fashion that you seek, feel entitled to based on the situations of your birth or even really want to. But they worked toward achievement of a higher standard of life than previously existed because they tried, they cared, and they took notice and pride in a job well done. While their lives may not have been as exciting as the ones we had once envisioned for ourselves, they seem to have been just fine. The transfer of wealth between the WW II Generation and its predecessors is the largest in history. This is not because most of them invented some new widget that made them wealthy quickly nor because of their lofty positions in corner offices. It is because they worked hard, saved, purchased quality product that which was within their reach, and passed these things down to their children – legacies of a sort – that many amongst us seem to overlook in our pursuit of new and untold wealth at very early and quite frankly, unreasonable ages. In short, our ancestors, lived their lives with common sense approaches to problems. And through their work, found attainment of the life they identified for and created for themselves.

Maneuvering forward, it can be suggested that for most immigrants life upon arrival was less than pleasant. This is not to discount the population of people whose ancestors were brought by force, but contained inside those who survived and foraged forward to achieve the same pursuit of liberty as those before them, was something bigger than aspiration: it was the human spirit. These individuals, even more than their neighbors, were clearly in possession of a determination unlike any others in modern history: the result of their contribution is incalculable. But this is not meant to be a history lesson nor is it meant to bring up moot subjects as they pertain to human rights - what is meant to be discussed is both the entrepreneurial and survival spirit contained in us all, instilled at birth, that we cannot overlook or avoid - our responsibility to ourselves and our families, as Americans.

The concept of an American life is so multi-faceted that to pursue any form of dialogue surrounding it is to be left for drinks at the end of a workday or to be explored in a dissertation. Let’s leave it for that. What I am instead referencing is the need for a recollection of sorts, the importance of digging down inside of oneself and finding the necessary gumption required to avoid the complacence set forth by the never ending pursuit of more that so many of us fall prey to.

It is safe to say that many of us do not and cannot achieve the dreams we set forth for ourselves as children. While a sad truth, it is also a realistic one. Many of us will never be movie stars nor will we be Presidents, nor astronauts nor media moguls. For the vast majority of us, at some point in our lives a realistic approach to the creation of meaningful survival must be embraced – else we will forever find ourselves feeling somewhat empty, devoid of the dreams of our youth and disappointed by the way things have panned out because life just does not replicate the movies, no matter how many of the behaviors of the big screen we emulate. While sobering, the sooner we begin to contemplate the relevance of such a concept, the sooner we can begin to find inner peace and reorganize our expectations and aspirations to accommodate the reality of society as it now presents itself. The fact is and remains that with the global recession and the shrinking of the world as result of technology there is a need and rationale for new thought. And to find the spirit contained inside of us required to achieve this really only needs to spoken to, recalled and reminded of its existence in order to be woken from its dormant sleep. Through its awakening inside each of us lies the ability to achieve an element of inner peace, of security, of any number of other things long forgotten as we as a collective continually seek to emulate the leisure class in our pursuits, and in doing so, become more and more beholden to the increasingly more antiquated system rapidly losing its relevance. Self-employment, creative business efforts and technical expertise distributed though trade practices, entrepreneurial endeavors manifested into functional business, is the only route toward this freedom.

For some technology is the only answer to entrepreneurship. For others too, success on a large scale is the only reasonable pursuit of any form of career. Indeed, in my experience of many entrepreneurs, the pursuit of funding to underwrite their endeavors seems to be the most logical route to follow. Rarely is there a desire to perform the work necessary to get the widget they seek to bring to market nor is there a willfulness to accept economic realities or realistic assessment of market opportunity as it pertains to their product. I will state this over and over again: entrepreneurship is not writing a business plan, pitching an idea or seeking funding. Entrepreneurism is the creation of a product or service of value distributed for profit in perpetuity. Entrepreneurism is not always fun nor is it a fast road to success and riches. But it is the ability to be the master of your own fate, to test within and allow for the market to determine your success and once identified, for you to capitalize upon these findings in pursuit of the profit that drives all economics. And thus, become an entrepreneur.

If you think you understand trends in business and life coaching, you're probably dead wrong.

Why? Because the future of humanity is about to change at even more breathtaking rates. That means the future of coaching is not what you think. Not even close.

How's that? We're about to reach a technological 'tipping point' across several technologies and this runaway world we live in is about get a million times faster. 

You've heard of Moore's Law? It's the well-established prediction that computing power will double every 18 months, while prices plummit. In other words, exponential growth. Moore's Law has held true for decades. The current result is an iPhone processor that's more powerful than the 1970's Apollo rockets that travelled to the Moon. (which makes Apple's recent map app blunder seem especially silly)

If you were to graph exponential growth, you'd get what's known as a 'hockey stick' curve. At first you get a relatively long period of slow growth, with a slight incline, but at some point the numbers that are doubling become so huge that the curve goes virtually vertical. That's the tipping point or 'escape velocity' that we've just about reached with computing power.

Moore's Law is what futurists call a hard trend. It's a prediction that you can count on. Some futurists say that Moore's Law can be applied to other technologies as well, such as nanotech and artificial intelligence, and that when you combine these technologies, as they are doing at Singularity University, you get even more explosive growth and more escape velocity.

What does all this tech mean to coaches, other than the possibility that someday, Skype will stop bumping us off our free international video calls? Well if you consider Adizes' Change Constant (Change leads to problems, which lead to solutions, which lead to more change, etc.), our potential clients are about to have a lot more problems. They're mostly the kind of problems you want to have, as we say, but they still will feel like big problems to them. And that's when they hire coaches. But wait, before you cheer...

What kinds or problems are caused by explosive growth in the tech fields? Well first there are new jobs created, like IT professionals, website designers and virtual assistants; jobs most people couldn't conceive of 50 years ago. And then there is the elimination of jobs that are replaced by technology, like librarians, sign painters and secretaries. Painful! Except, every time technology replaces some jobs, it creates new ones, such as international tech support, robot repair, and home-based manufacturing. That's a cycle you can count on. New high-paid jobs are always on the horizon, only most people can't even conceive of them, much less get ready. That's scary.

Let's face it, our ancestors evolved back when exponential change equaled the invention of the wheel, the bow and arrow and roasted mastadon instead of raw. Those changes occured at the slow-sloping left side of the hockey stick curve and that's what your nervous system today is wired for, not change at the rate of a new job every year. Jeez.

People are going to need assistance in making constant life-changing transitions, the kinds our grandparents only made once or twice in a lifetime. Maybe we'll need more psychotherapists to talk us down off the ledge, but in this month's Wired magazine, Founding Editor, Kevin Kelly says robots will soon replace therapists. I don't know about that, but he also says nurses, teachers, personal trainers, waiters and surgeons will soon be robotic. The jobs will go to the people who manage the bots.

The best-paying jobs will go to those who can leverage the added value that technology is constantly creating. Beyond that, we can spend our time doing what we want.

So what's the one job Kevin Kelly says robots can't replace? The job of deciding what people really want to do. 

Coaches help people decide what they really want to do.

Coaching is not a tech job, but technology creates the need for coaches. And it's creating more of that need all the time for coaches who are ready.

Can coaches be replaced by artificial intelligence? We're a long way from that, because coaching relies at least as much on 'right brain' intuitive skills, which have been a challenge to the computing field so far, as it does on linear processing skills. But they'll probably crack intuition, eventually.

However, no amount of AI will ever make robots human. You could program 3CPO to say, 'I believe in you', but those words ring hollow unless you hear them from someone whose opinion matters to you.

Coaching will likely be with us for several more decades, or at least until Siri gets programed to ask more than she tells.

What else is about to change? Everything from the demise of our current too-slow, too-expensive, too-ineffective system of higher education (watch this video of new Google University for what might be next); to the rise of the 'bottom billion' as a result of cheap smart phones that now connect impoverished people to unlimited information, to vertical farming that can scale up to feed 10 billion of us. To get a more complete picture, I highly recommend you read Abundance by venture capitalist and X Prize founder Peter Diamandis.

How can you get ready to coach in the coming decades? 

Surprisingly, you don't need to chase every trend. And you don't need to coach huge numbers of people for less. Because the rise of technologies means there is also a trend at the other side of the spectrum. It's the one that leverages Kevin Kelly's 1000 True Fans concept and focuses on hyper-customization and hyper-personalization.

Chris Brogan calls this the 'bespoke business'. This is the type of business most successful coaches have. It includes just a few clients who each pay a hefty fee. It usually also includes some lower-priced options and free content in order to build relationships and true fans. This type of business is on the rise and looks like it's here to stay.

More people will need and want coaching in the coming future. Less expensive goods and services provided by automation will free up money. And with the coming need to prepare for new professions every year, the savvy will use that money to hire tutors, mentors and coaches to help them get where they need to go faster.

What's a good strategy for a coach moving forward into the super-high-tech world of the future? Become the best - perhaps the only - in your specialty. Get just the training you need, be nimble and ready to pivot when things change dramatically, have your own coach and take super great care of yourself - you'll need it.

And have fun. Technology is designed to free us from drudgery. Coaching is the perfect profession for enjoying that freedom.

Need some coach training?

Recently I interviewed Mattison Grey, MCC, about her 15 years as a super-successful coach and the three secrets to success that she wished she knew when she first became a business coach.

If you want to become a business coach yourself, love your work and be well paid, you owe it to yourself to listen to the 45-minute audio, below. Even if you're a veteran business coach, this audio will be eye-opening. In it, Mattison discusses in detail the following:

 

1. Your fee has to reflect the value your client wants to create, not what you think they want to pay.
2. Her mentor was right when he told her she would have to learn to sell if she wanted to succeed.
3. Traditional selling is pushy and manipulative, so she had to learn a new way to sell with authenticity.

 

 

 

Post by Julia Stewart, MCC

A really cool problem to have (in the sense that it's the kind of problem you WANT to have) is to not know how to set your life coaching fees (or business or executive coaching fees, as the case may be).

There are many approaches to setting your coaching fees, some psychological (what's the highest fee you can say out loud without gagging?) to financial (how much do you need to cover your business and living expenses, plus benefits, etc.?) to whimsical (how much do you WANT to charge?).

What most new coaches really want to know is, 'Am I worth it?', 'Am I credible?', 'Will they laugh at me?' These are great concerns to talk about with your own coach.

If you don't have clarity about your fees, you probably won't sign on paying clients. Either people will shy away, because you seem uncertain, or you'll hold back on offering your services, because you're confused. That's expensive, so get it cleared up.

One of my EMCHA clients asked me about this recently and I decided to design a class for him that covers it thoroughly, because coaching around a topic like this is important, but sometimes some plain, old-fashioned information helps, too.

This live one-time-only class is free to SCM members and it's also available for a small fee to others.

[UPDATE: This class is now over and is no longer available to non-SCM coaches. However, you can learn some of what we covered by downloading the FREE Life Coach Salary eBook, below]

Learn to set your coaching fees with confidence here:

 

Not long ago, one of my life coach students, who was transitioning from a regular job to owning her own life coach business, commented in class that she was going to miss getting a steady paycheck. I’ll bet! What life coach wouldn’t miss a guaranteed salary?

Well here’s a secret about life coach salary (or executive or business coach salary): Even if you work for yourself, you need a steady paycheck.

No, I didn’t say you need to get a steady job. Your coaching business needs to pay you a steady salary. You really can have the best of both worlds!

This is the first lesson in business finance. But unfortunately for me, I missed this lesson for several years. The result? a constant feast or famine condition that wreaked havoc in my checking account and my life.

This chaos created inordinate stress about money and made it nearly impossible for me to invest, save or even have fun with my money, because I was constantly uncertain how much would be coming in.

The answer? I started paying myself a salary. Stress canceled. Uncertainty eliminated. Balancing my checkbook? No problem!

Actually, the benefits of paying yourself a life coach salary are so numerous that I’m not going to even try to cover them all in this blog post. But before you take action, check with your accountant or attorney.

In my case, getting started with a life coach salary was as simple as transferring a set amount of money every Friday from my business account to my personal checking account. But even if you choose a formal payroll, which has some benefits, it can be simple and easy.

How can you start paying yourself a paycheck right away? Take a look at how much money your business brought in the last 3 to 6 months. Average it and subtract your business expenses. That’s your potential salary.

Then take a look at how much you think you need to live on (don’t forget to include estimated tax payments and savings of at least 10%). If what you ‘need’ is more than what your business can afford to pay you, start simplifying your life or get more creative. (For me, it’s a fun game to ask, ‘How could I get this for free or nearly free?’ For instance, I discovered that it’s much more fun and rewarding to check out movies from my library than it is to pay a bloated cable fee.) But if you really can't pay yourself enough, there's no shame in getting a part-time job, until you can.

The funny thing is, although what I initially paid myself seemed like too little, I nearly always had extra money left over at the end of the month - in addition to the money I intentionally saved.

Does this seem too limiting, or at least, not exciting enough? Well if you love excitement, go for the chaos. And if you’re really crazy (been there), try enforcing ‘wealth consciousness’ on yourself while you’re struggling to pay your bills.

Me? I find it much more exciting (in a good way) now that I’m free to plan my financial life based on some solid projections.

As for wealth consciousness, it’s fun watching my savings accounts grow.

And that small salary that I started out with?

One year after I started paying myself a life coach salary, I was able to double my pay.

 

Want to learn more about how life coaches really make money?

Guest post by Joy Maiywa.

If you are thinking of becoming a business coach, it is most probably because you enjoy helping people establish and grow their businesses. You most likely have a natural ability to recognize things that need improvement and are quick to ask questions or suggest changes that can bring about great results.

Like any career, becoming an effective business coach will first require you to acquire the necessary training apart from having some of the natural traits that go with the job. Business coaching involves a great deal of communicating with others. As such, it helps if you are a good and clear public speaker to succeed in the job. You also need to be friendly, analytical, result-focused, thick-skinned and easy to talk to.

To become a business coach, you will need to familiarize yourself with all that is involved in the opening, running and establishing of a business. You will need to know about business planning, finance, employee management, accounting and even legal issues affecting businesses. The type of knowledge and training you specialize in will determine the kind of businesses you will be handling. You can either choose to coach on general business practice or specialize in a particular business industry.

You can also offer business coaching in segments. For instance, if you would like to become a finance business coach, then your work will involve hosting workshops and seminars to train entrepreneurs on different financial aspects related to their businesses. Some issues you will be handling include how to put together tax forms, correct budgeting, how to avoid losses and bankruptcy, and many more. You can also choose to specialize in business problems, where you can coach people about the different business problems they face and provide the solutions to their problems. The type of field you choose should match your passion and skills. This way, you will be able to effectively mentor others who are lacking in you area of specialization.

You do not have to own a business to start a career in business coaching. You simply need to have the passion for the job and the knowledge and skills that go with business coaching. Say you are an expert in accounting. You can choose general business coach training but coach on this field only. If you are good at marketing, you can also choose to impart your skills on people needing marketing skills.

To become a professional business coach, you need to acquire some level of training for the job. This way, you will be able to effectively help others by improving their lives and the businesses they are in. You will have the skills to successfully motivate others to adopt certain business strategies and techniques that will result in their success and the companies they work in. As you grow in your career, you will also be able to hold workshops and seminars to help others become successful businesspersons. If you are looking for a career change from the corporate life, consider becoming a business coach in your area of specialization.

Joy Maiywa is a professional freelance writer and blogger. She has worked with clients from different fields including technology, education, health, and business and entrepreneurship. She writes for Degree Jungle online rankings, a resource for college students.

The votes are in and the 1st Place winner of Best Coaching Blogs 2012 is Life Coach Vatsala Shukla of India, who did a brilliant job of mobilizing her voters, despite India's massive 2-day power outage, which plunged one tenth of the world's population into darkness, making it the biggest loss of electrical power in world history.

Since its first year in 2008, Best Coaching Blogs finalists have been  decided by a combination of popular votes and comments left by fans. But in the end, the contest finalists themselves, choose 1st, 2nd and 3rd Place winners via a closed ballot.

There were key changes in this year's contest, which for the first time, was formatted like a blog. Each blog entry appeared as a separate blog 'post', with a link to the blog itself, plus a comments section and social sharing buttons, like those at the top of this post. Social shares counted as votes and comments were used as tie-breakers. The  'down vote' option that coaches disliked in previous years, was removed and voters were allowed to vote as many times as they liked. This produced a competition that was both more cordial and more social.

Vatsala's Tips for a Stress Free Life Blog quickly took the lead in both popular votes (social shares) and comments and it prevailed in the finalist's closed vote. 2nd Place went to Evelyn Kalinowsky's Inner Affluence blog and 3rd to Gerard Corbett's PR Job Coach blog. Rachel Grant Coaching blog and Andrea Feinberg's More Free Time blog rounded out the Top Five Winners. Angela Goodeve's* new blog, Life Advice the Coaching Way, received an Honorable Mention.

Congratulations again to all the new winners! Below are statements from three:

1st Place: Vatsala Shukla: "My blog Vatsala’s Tips for a Stress Free Life had just completed its first year of existence. Entering the competition was my challenge to improve myself.  Friends and associates told me my posts were good. That was expected as they know Vatsala the person in all her multi-roles of finance professional, life coach, daughter, pet parent and friend. They understood the context in my writing. What about the world? Was my blog up to the mark? So I entered the competition and was accepted. I was elated. It was only after I started reading the blogs of my fellow competitors that I realised that I was competing with the best of the best. My challenge to step out of my comfort zone went a step further to hold my ground against great veteran bloggers whom I have over the last 4 weeks added to my must read list! Receiving the largest public votes and comments was confirmation that readers liked what they read. Winning from the finalist voting round validated it. I am overwhelmed, humbled and grateful for my win which means a lot more to me than I can articulate. My next challenge is to honour the voters and finalists by being my best."

Top Five: Andrea Feinberg: "Thanks for the opportunity to participate in this contest and end up a winner among the Top 5, my first time! We each have such different targets and I see that as a testament to the swift and broad expansion of professional coaching throughout personal and business sectors. Congratulations to my fellow finalists; we enjoyed the validation of our work through the strength of our supporters who both voted and commented on our behalf."

Honorable Mention: Angela Goodeve: "Yay!!!  Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you!  It was a great experience participating in the contest, and I am so flattered and proud to be given the Honorable Mention!  I love writing the blog posts in the hope that they will provide inspiration, "food for thought", tips, and guidance to improve people's life for the better...and give them an idea of what the wonderful world of Life Coaching can do for them!  I am grateful to you Julia for being a great Mentor and Teacher, and for challenging me to join the contest, and open up more possibilities for me and my business!"

As always, the Best Coaching Blogs Contest is a fun way to expand the conversation about the benefits of  business and life coaching. Plus it highlights the many varied approaches that coaches take to empower their clients and it builds awareness of the incredible growth of professional coaching, which continues to be the second fastest growing profession is the world.

Thanks to the coaching bloggers who participated. I hope you all attracted new readers and clients by taking the courageous step to enter your blog. I look forward to next year's contest and the connections that are built between coaching bloggers themsleves, as well as  with their new fans.

Congratulate the coaching winners below and visit the Best Coaching Blogs 2012 .

Become a coaching blogger yourself! Download the free "How to Blog Effectively for Your Coaching Business" eBook:

 

Download Now.

 

 

*Full disclosure: Angela Goodeve is a life coach student at School of Coaching Mastery.

Guest post by Melissa Heisler, 3rd Place Winner of Best Coaching Blogs 2010.

There are only two ways to live your life.  One is as though nothing is a miracle.  The other is as though everything is. – Albert Einstein

I always loved the quote above.  When I experienced people who wanted to prove this or that “truth” about evolution, science, health, the stock market, or any topic, I held on to this quote.  To me it released the pain of having to determine the singular right answer.  However, the other day it was infused with an even more important meaning.

Lately I had been obsessed with the answer to life, the universe, and everything.  My little pea-brain wanted to uncover why we are here.  What is our purpose on this earth?  Previously a friend recommended Anthony De Mello’s book Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality.  I had read 90% of this very interesting and deep read conveyed in a soft voice in March and for some reason picked it up again the other day.  In the last few pages, I came across this wisdom.

“Every time you make sense out of reality, you bump into something that destroys the sense you made.  Meaning is only found when you go beyond meaning.  Life only makes sense when you perceive it as mystery and it makes no sense to the conceptualizing mind.”

This was the final puzzle piece for me.  I had spent my life trying to undercover the meaning of life.  Was it this career or the other?  Was it family or romantic relationships?  Was it hedonistic joy or solemn prayer?  Was it self-care or servitude?  Was it margaritas and the Simpsons cartoon?  As I grew and became more wise, each option was seen through.  It was seen as a thing of itself, not true meaning.  I tried to play the game that I just had to find a more noble and less self-serving thing, action, career to find meaning.  But those felt hollow too.  

Thinking that life, all of life, is a mystery opens up not only a new world of understanding but a new way of being.  There is now an immense joy I had never experienced before.  Being stuck in traffic, wanting a new pair of shoes, or checking off my to-do list no longer have significance and precedence in my life.  Now I try to focus every moment on soaking up the mystery.  How does my brain communicate to my fingers to type these words?  How does a cold front wash across the plains to create raindrops to feed my plants?  How is it that I can feel the joy or sadness of others deep in my heart even before they speak a word?

Take a day to look at the world as one of mystery.  See how it changes your life.  Namaste.

Melissa Heisler, personal and business coach for It’s My life, Inc., loves to help small business owners, direct sales professionals, and home based businesses thrive during difficult times.

Visit Melissa's entry in the Best Coaching Blogs 2012 Contest Here.

If you're thinking about becoming a coach, then you're probably wondering whether you should get online coach training or in-person business and life coach training.

It's an incredibly important issue for you, because it impacts your career, your passion and your ability to make a great living. So be sure to get this right.

I may be biased, but I've experienced coach training in virtually every possible format, so I have a useful perspective to share with you and I've concluded that online coach training is best for the following reasons...

REASON #1: MONEY. Most professional coaches-to-be are concerned about the money they spend on coach training and rightly so. However, ultimately you also need to be concerned with your Return On Investment (ROI), which refers to how much more money you'll make as a coach and how soon. Because depending on your training, your life coach salary could range from zero to hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. That's huge.

In person coach training almost always involves travel and lodging costs in addition to the training itself. And because hotels and classrooms are expensive for coaching schools, in-person coach training almost always carries higher tuition costs, as well, sometimes as much as $20,000 or more.

Plus, in-person business and life coach training tends to be offered in short workshops and seminars, that last as little as a weekend or even one day. The event itself may be great, but if you've ever gone to a seminar, workshop or conference, learned fabulous new stuff and were certain that it would change your life - only to go home and find yourself living your same old life one week later, then you understand the 'extinction principle' which says that even great training wears off massively if not followed by systems and environments that support change. Which means your $20,000 coach training may leave you inspired, but with no viable coaching business. That's bad ROI.

By contrast, online coach training usually costs less, involves no travel, time off from work, lodging costs, traffic jams or other delays. Just show up for class from where ever you are. And since online coach training is usually ongoing, you'll have supportive systems and structures to help you succeed, built right into the process. You're likely to spend less on training, start making money as a coach sooner and make more money overall. That's great ROI.

REASON #2: TIME. I just touched on time, above, but here are some more time-related issues to think about: While it's important to optimize your training time, your brain will absorb what you learn better and you'll learn to apply what you learn more quickly if you spend a couple of hours per week in class and then apply your lessons to your own coaching business during the week.

It would be great if you could just go to a weekend seminar and walk out ready to be a successful coach, but as a smart savvy person, you know transforming your life means changing a myriad of old habits to new ones. That takes time.

A few dedicated learning hours per week, stretched out over a couple of months - or even a couple of years - will allow you to take what you've learned and begin applying it in your life and business, especially when your coaching school includes reinforcing structures, such as study groups, mentor coaching, online forums, and most of all, live online classes with homework. (By the way, that's exactly how effective business and life coaching works: you have a live conversation with a client, who experiences life-changing insights with you. Then they go out and apply those insights to their life or business and report the results to you. Rinse and repeat.)

As Aristotle said, “We are what we habitually do. Excellence then is a habit, not an act.”

REASON #3: LEARNING. I mentioned the learning issue above, but here's a deeper look at that. Most folks assume the they will learn more in in-person training, but that's usually because they haven't experienced high-quality distance learning. I'm not talking about turning in written papers online and I'm not talking about audio CDs and MP3s. While those can be helpful adjunct tools for training, nothing beats live, conversational classes for learning coaching. Let's face it: coaching is live in-the-moment conversations, followed by strategic action. That's what effective coach training is, as well.

I'm also not talking about teleclasses, which are still a popular training format in some of the older coaching schools. And I'm not talking about standard webinars, which usually involved little or no conversation in a class. Today's technology allows us to do everything in what I call a 'tele-webinar' that we can do in person, except shake hands (or get stuck in traffic).

Tele-webinar training is perfect for learning business and life coaching, because it allows you to join from anywhere, using your iPad, computer, and/or telephone; and have a highly interactive conversational class that allows you to learn in whatever learning style works best for you: audio learning, visual (in the form of slides, live demos, co-browsing, videos, etc.), questions and answers, live practice and feedback, downloading materials before, during or after class, move your body, take notes, take an instant test, go out and apply it along with class colleagues, whatever learning strategy works best for you. Little by little, you learn new habits of excellence and get inspired by your own, and your classmates' successes. Together, you succeed.

If you'd like to get started learning to be a successful coach and get life coach certification quickly, using the tele-webinar format, try Coaching Groundwork Advanced.

 

Today, in the International Association of Coaching's (IAC) Voice newletter/blog, an article by Business Coach, Mattison Grey, MCC, appeared with the title, When the Best Coaching Tool Isn't a Question.

In her article, Mattison makes a powerful case for acknowledgment as a masterful coaching tool. She should know. Mattison wrote the book on acknowledgment called, The Motivation Myth. And she points out that most coaches don't know what it is or confuse it with something else.

Mattison has studied the art of acknowledgment more than anyone I know, probably more than any coach alive, so I always defer to her on this subject. She started educating me on acknowledgment six or seven years ago and I've watched her use it in action many times. It truly is amazing.

Unfortunately, if you haven't watched a master acknowledger practice her art, or if you didn't know what you were witnessing, you probably missed the implications. So let me point out a few.

Here's Mattison's definition of acknowledgment:

Acknowledgment is saying what a person did, or results they achieved, delivered with a tone of appreciation, curiosity or surprise, and without judgment.

Easy, right? Try it. For most coaches, it's anything but easy. That's because we're still getting in the client's way (In other words, we're NOT making it all about them, so we're failing the first step in master coaching).

If you acknowledge well, here are some of the things that may happen:

• Your client lights up
• They feel seen/heard
• They don't feel suspicious (as in, 'What's she buttering me up for?')
• They acknowledge themselves ('I did!')
• They open up to us
• They see themselves in a new light
• They tell us things we didn't even know to ask about
• They think more resourcefully
• They step into their Personal Greatness
• They are willing to do far more
• They love themselves (and us)

When I teach acknowledgment to Master Coach Training students, I offer a few pointers, such as, use second-person pronouns (you, your, yours) instead of first-person pronouns (I, me, mine); acknowledge what the client did, the results they got and who they are becoming.

When used well, acknowledgment can express or enhance virtually any other coaching skill, including all of the IAC Coaching Masteries(tm). The right acknowledgment, well-placed and followed by a bit of silence, can even be a powerful clarifier.

Which is one reason why master coaches don't always ask questions.

 

Get your copy of Mattison's book, The Motivation Myth (at left) and become a master of acknowledgment.*

 

*I'm an affiliate of Mattison's and I would recommend this book, anyway.