Coaching Blog

From a Law of Attraction perspective, I guess it's no surprise that I won 2 contests in the past week: I'm also running the Best Coaching Blogs Contest and giving tips to the contestants on how to win it! :)

Still, I don't enter that many contests, so it feels really fresh to suddenly be a two-time winner. The first contest was just a nice surprise. One week ago I found out on Twitter that I'd won a $100 Gift Certificate to Amazon from Dimdim.com, the webinar company whose platform I love.

Yippee! All I did was retweet their announcement that they were a winner in the Webware 100 contest. So now I have a tough choice to make: spend $100 on some of those cool books that are on my Amazon Wishlist, or invest in a nifty Flip camcorder?

However winning 'The Peppered Customer of the Year' contest just about launched me into outer space!

What this means is that I get free virtual assistance for one whole year from Pepper Virtual Assistant, a great new company that 'gets it' and is doing really professional work. If you know me and my business then you know we're at that awkward stage where we need a lot more assistance without breaking our budget, so this is a dream come true!

How did I hear about the contest? My friend, Barbra Sundquist tweeted about it. Barbra found Pepper because she tweeted that she was looking for a virtual assistant that would work for free to help out a non-profit and Pepper volunteered.

Now I'm blogging about Barbra, Pepper and Dimdim. Are you seeing a pattern here?

If you want to be a winner:

1. Be ready to help other folks out.
2. Get on Twitter.

I invite you to follow me @MasteryCoach on Twitter. I post great quotes, retweet other people's stuff and report on cool companies and resources.

I also tweet updates on Best Coaching Blogs 2009. Help out some bloggers there by voting and commenting on their blogs. Then maybe go tweet about it...

If you are interested in coaching, but don't want to become a "coachpreneur", the world has caught up with you.

You don't have to call yourself a coach in order to get paid to have transformative conversations, anymore. People in all kinds of professions and industries, from education, to healthcare, to the travel industry, are bringing coaching skills to work with them.

Can you imagine a world where everyone gets coached everyday, at work or at school? I can and I'm liking it!

This is one way you can increase your employ-ability and your promot-ability and love your job more. 

I had a chance to talk with Paul Bruno, the Career Czar(R), about coaching for non-coaches in his weekly alltalkradio.net show.  This short show will give you a few things to think about, as far as becoming a "a coach who doesn't call yourself a coach".

And if you think now is a good time to beef up your coaching skills and your resume, check out our Coach Launch program. It's designed for non-coaches who want to coach. 

What's the real reason School of Coaching Mastery is sponsoring the Best Coaching Blogs 2009 contest?

It's the same reason we started our own "Find a Coach" social networking site, Mastery Coach Exchange. 

We're doing it because it gives our students a real-world laboratory in which to learn how to leverage the Internet's most powerful marketing tools, so when they leave SCM, they don't flounder trying to find coaching clients, but have hands-on experience - and success - at finding their ideal clients and coaching them to transformation.

That doesn't mean that our students are the only ones benefiting, though. Everyone is winning. In the case of Best Coaching Blogs, the coaches who write the blogs are getting read much more than usual. They're creating new fans and new subscribers. Some of those new readers will become clients, and so on. And winning will give them distinction and bragging rights!

And of course, the readers get to learn great stuff from the bloggers, like how to set up a successful coaching business, how to transform your life, and a lot more. By putting the best of the coaching bloggosphere in one place, with votes and comments from the readers, we're making it easy for you to find the very best coaching blogs efficiently and you can help the bloggers out by reading, voting and commenting. Plus it's free. Great stuff!

But the benefits don't stop there. The bloggosphere is one of the most powerful tools for both learning and marketing, but that does not mean you need to be writing your own blog. Actually, unless you like to write and really have something to say, I would advise you NOT to start your own blog. That doesn't mean you can't leverage the bloggosphere to grow your coaching business, though. 

If you want to be more successful as a coach, start with other people's blogs.

1. Start reading several good blogs every week (Better yet: Everyday).
2. Start subscribing to the best ones.
3. Start commenting on the posts that really speak to you.
4. Start developing relationships with the writers and readers at your favorite blogs.
5. Those relationships can be nurtured into joint ventures, linking, opportunities and clients.
6. It's a way to learn and a way to market, all at the same time, and it's fre*e.

I'm teaching students at SCM a whole lot more about how to leverage the bloggosphere, but I've put together one very awesome tool for everyone, including you - gratis - and that's the Best Coaching Blogs 2009 Contest is going on, on our website, right now. Some of the best blogs in the coaching industry are already entered.

So you don't have to spend hours searching down the best blogs for you to read. You can pick the ones your friends are voting on and even read the comments they left, so you know which ones you want to try out.

Because they are all in one place, you can bookmark the page and return again and again, when it's convenient to you, while the contest continues, and read more blogs, cast your votes and add your comments (Be sure to add your website address to your comments).

Commenting on blogs is one of the smartest ways you can use Web 2.0 to market your business. Do you comment on blogs everyday?

While you're at it, don't just read the front runners. There are some real gems in this contest that not many people have heard of. You can help bring them to light by reading, commenting on and voting for them.

Approximately 1,000 people have already participated in this contest. Are you curious what brought them there?

Visit the Best Coaching Blogs 2009 Contest page now and bookmark it, so you can return, read, comment and vote at your leisure.

Winners will be determined by both votes and comments.

Oh and if you have a great blog that you want to enter, we're still accepting entries through Sunday, but the sooner you enter, the more votes you'll get.

Have fun and keep being great!

Group coaching is a wonderful way to create more value for clients, while making more money for the coach.

And those are two goals that all great coaches care about, especially with a recession on. With masterful group coaching there's a synergy between the group coaching members that takes each individual experience way beyond what the coach provides. At the same time, each group member pays less than they would if they spent the same amount of time in personal coaching. And their combined fees can add up nicely for the coach. Everybody wins.

For instance, the first time I was ever coached in a group, the coach, wisely, set up a system where in each group member connected with at least one other group member, at least once per week outside the group.

That very first week, I was paired with fellow group member, Michael Port (Yes, the bestselling author of Book Yourself Solid, and former actor who appeared in Season One of Sex in the City). Michael was a new coach back then, like me, but he was already a leader. He asked me what I was working on in the group and I said I needed to get my coaching website up. So he gave me the contact info for a great web master in India that he had used. And just like that! I had my first coaching website up in no time and (almost) no money!

And then there are the friendships and connections that group members make. The very first coaching group that I ever led was for coaches who were working on IAC Coach Certification. Many of those coaches are still close friends, having established themselves as top-level coaches, referring, inviting and recommending each other along the way. Some of them have even held high-level positions with the IAC. They are a force to reckon with!

All this might make group coaching seem like a no-brainer for the coach. However it is really an advanced skill set. Learning to give a client exactly what he or she needs within a personal coaching session can be a challenge. Doing that for several people simultaneously is quite a feat!

And then there are the administrative issues that arise when we work with groups, instead of individuals. Mastering group coaching is advanced business-building too.

Suffice it to say that School of Coaching Mastery couldn't be without a module on Group Coaching Mastery. And so our new Group Coaching Mastery module commences in one week!

And because this is the School of Coaching Mastery, we will explore the masterful skills needed for coaching groups from the perspective of the 9 IAC Coaching Masteries(tm) and how to take them to the next level by expanding them to include an entire group of people.

For instance, Mastery #1, Establishing and maintaining a relationship of trust, is a delicate set of multiple skills that helps to establish an open, safe relationship between the coach and a single coaching client.

How do you establish and maintain an relationship of trust between each the members of a group, as well as with yourself, so that each group member is completely open and trusting enough to fully benefit from the remarkable experience that is coaching?

That's one of the many puzzles that we'll solve together in next month's, Group Coaching Mastery module.

If you'd like to know more about it, go here to the module registration page.

You'll also get Group Coaching Mastery included if you join the Full Coach Training Program.

Are you a coach who writes a great coaching blog?

Want the world to know how great your blog really is? Then the Best Coaching Blogs 2009 Contest was designed for you!

Enter your blog for free. This is an awesome way to spread the word about your blog and attract new readers to it. It's also a fantastic way to engage your current readers, by inviting them to vote and give feedback. People love to get involved supporting the folks they believe in and now you can give your readers the opportunity to support you by voting, adding comments (love notes?) to your entry and inviting their friends to come support you, too! 

Who can enter? Any self-described coach (Life coach, business coach, executive coach, corporate coach), coach organization, coaching company or coaching school can enter, as long as the posts in your blog are about coaching related topics. We reserve the right to reject a blog that is not about coaching or coach related topics, is pornographic or offensive, or is just an ecommerce site pretending to be a blog. (No appeals, sorry!) 

Who decides the winners? The people who vote decide! We're using an automated voting system. We do not control who wins, except for one blog, our own. Our blog can be voted on (we want readers and feedback, too!), but it  won't be allowed to win.

What will you get if you win? You'll get a badge for your blog and/or website (similar to the one above) that declares you the winner (1st, 2nd, 3rd Place, Top Ten, or Honorable Mention), plus a write up in this blog that includes a few cool comments left by your fans and a permanent link from this site to yours. Plus bragging rights!

Why are we doing this? Blogs are a great way to reach out to the world and engage in transformative conversations. And isn't that what coaching is all about? We see this as a cool way to spread those conversations wider and wider and exchange more wisdom with great people. Read more about why coaches should be both reading and writing blogs.

When can you start voting? We're targeting May 8th for the date the contest goes live, but nominations start today and will continue through May. Voting ends June 30th and the winners will be announced July 1st! [Update: Vote for your favorite coaching blog here.] Watch for announcements that it's time to vote!

Know someone else who should enter the Best Coaching Blogs 2009 Contest?  Send them this link to enter: http://tinyurl.com/coaching-blogs Or, use the links above to share with your friends and colleagues on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Digg, etc. 

Each year, on Good Friday, The Center for Spiritual Living in St. Louis, spreads a huge canvas with a labyrinth printed on it (See photo at right, by Aperte at Flickr Commons) on the floor of their hall.

Last year, I walked it for the first time, and followed The Center's directions by setting an intention before I began. I didn't know I needed an intention before hand, so I hastily scribbled a quick intention on a slip of paper.

My intention was that my then, one-year old coaching school, would introduce coaching skills to at least 100 people within the year. That might not sound like a big goal, but we are not one of those giant coaching schools. In fact, I was still our only coaching instructor, at that time (now we have two more).

Walking the labyrinth has three distinct steps:

1. Enter the sacred space with a question in mind.
2. Open your mind to the infinite to receive instructions.
3. Feel gratitude for the divine gift downloaded to you.

My question in that sacred space way, 'How could I introduce coaching to 100 more people this year?' The answer came immediately: Offer our new coach training course for free. No problem; I was ready to do it.

Then a more nuanced instruction came: "Why not ask each participant to make a contribution to a good charity?" I could immediately see the added value. "Free" is ubiquitous on the internet, but as attractive as free stuff is, the added fulfillment of giving was both unique and a huge upgrade. 

As a result of that inspiration, I've offered our signature coaching skills course, Coaching Groundwork three times, each for the different charity including,  The Campaign for Tibet, The Hunger Site, and Habitat for Humanity. I've also tithed back to the Center for Spiritual Living.

This year, I set a much larger and more detailed intention: 250 new students, 100 Certified Mastery Coaches, more instructors and a rather large amount of money earned by the school. 

As I drove away from the Center today, it occurred to me that I more than reached last year's goal, despite the economy. It didn't always show up the way I thought it should or when I thought it should, but it absolutely manifested. I'm equally certain that my intentions for this year are already coming true. 

The Universe is a wonderful coach. To find a labyrinth in your community, do an online search for New Thought Churches, such as Science of Mind and Unity.

The following was written by Thomas Leonard:

I shudder whenever I hear a coach talk about 'prospecting' for clients or when they refer to a potential client as a hot 'prospect.' Doesn't that turn the person into an object? Not pretty. I think a better approach is to view everyone you meet as an amazing person who doesn't need you, yet to whom you can give a gift. Is the gift an Attraction principle? No. An offer for free coaching? No. A business card? No. A patient ear? No. Rather, the gift to give a person is themselves. If you can point out something about them that they've forgotten or never knew, you've created a gap that they can grow into. Now, I'm not talking about complimenting or acknowledging a person, because that's usually manipulative. Instead, I'm talking about becoming the type of person who -- AS A MATTER OF COURSE -- points out something positive about the person. In other words, become that type of person, instead of using this as a marketing or emotionally-hooking technique. See the difference? Here's an example of what I'm talking about. Instead of saying, "I like the way you talk," you'd say something like "You have a compelling way of speaking." Instead of saying, "You're obviously very successful," you'd say something like, "You handle your success very graciously." Instead of saying, "I'm sorry to hear that your business isn't doing well right now," you'd say something like "I can only imagine the amount of stress you're under right now." In other words, get what the person is feeling and empathize with them in this 'advanced' way. Or pick up something unique or special about the person and point that out. So, you're stating the obvious without puffery, yet it's a different thing than the person has probably ever heard before. THAT'S what gets their attention and THAT'S what will attract them as a client. AND, if you do this with EVERYONE because it's the type of person you are, you WILL get more clients. And how do you become this type of person without it being an act or performance? --You'll naturally become this type of person as you integrate the Attraction Principles. You will become generous because you can afford to be. -- Thomas J. Leonard

If you're interested in becoming a coach

...or you just want to add coaching skills to your resume - and you like doing a good deed, then you'll love this:

School of Coaching Mastery is presenting its signature coach training program for new coaches, Coaching Groundwork, for FREE! All you have to do it make an online contribution to Habitat for Humanity by March 30th and email us your receipt. You'll get to attend a special Coaching Groundwork course, live with Julia Stewart, SCM President on four consecutive days, March 30th - April 2nd.

Coaching Groundwork is normally $325. The most common feedback we get from this course is that people can't believe how much they learned in so short a time!

This is a rare opportunity to do something good and get something extremely valuable in return. And something that makes it extra special is that a benefactor will double your contribution to Habitat for Humanity!

To find out more and make your contribution, vist Coaching for Habitat.

People often ask me what makes coaching different from other professions, such as consulting and the like.

There are a number of things that set coaching apart from other professions, but one of the major skills that a coach has, that many other professionals lack, is that a coach knows how to talk with a client in a way that not only leads to successful solutions and strategies, but also leads to the client actually taking action and succeeding with those solutions.

That might sound like a big "Duh" to you, but if you are a professional expert in any field, then you've probably had the following frustrating experience... 

Whether you're a doctor, lawyer, indian chief, financial planner, personal trainer, dental hygienist (or parent); you've probably had client conversations where you:

1. Understood the client's problem perfectly

2. Came up with the best possible solution

3. Instructed the client in how to implement the solution effectively

4. The client agreed that your solution was the answer to their problem

5. The client promised to implement the solution as per your instructions, but...

The client never does what you tell them to do.

Clients can be so frustrating, right? Why do they pay you, if they're not going to follow your directions? Are they just lousy clients? Do they have a secret desire to fail? Are they here to just drive you crazy??

Actually no. The client isn't the problem here.

You are.

Good coaching is so extraordinarily effective, because a good coach knows how to have a conversation with a client that not only leads to the best solution, but - more importantly - leads to the client actually taking action and creating effective solutions in their own life. The majority of professional advisors out there have no idea how to do this.

It's is a genuine art, which other professionals would do well to copy. For now, though, it is essentially the terrain of the professional coach.The tools employed to create these amazing game-changing conversations include, but aren't limited to:

Curiosity, silence, acknowedgement, truth telling, planting seeds, connecting to values, challenging beliefs, being provocative, keeping it light, honing in on what the client really wants (not just what they say they want), clarifying, championing and more.

The right tool at the right moment makes all the difference between an expensive service that doesn't make a difference and a service that is so transformative that clients don't care what it costs. 

Which would you rather pay for?

Whether you want to become a coach, or you're a professional in another field who wants to have game-changing conversations with your clients, we have a program that will give you all the basics in just four weeks, called Coaching Groundwork. We're probably not charging  enough for it, but for now, you can join it for $325.

If you want to know more, visit our Coaching Groundwork page.

Copyright, Julia Stewart, 2009