Coaching Blog

Infographic: Top 100 Life Coach Blogs 2013 - We're Number 3!

Posted by Julia Stewart

Top 100 Life coach blogs to follow

An infographic by the team at CouponAudit

School of Coaching Mastery hosts the Best Coaching Blogs Contest each year (The above Top Life Coach Blogs To Follow in 2013 is not part of our contest - obviously we can't win our own competition!). Subscribe to our blog (above right) to get an announcement to enter your blog in Best Coaching Blogs or to vote for other blogs. Click the button below to view 2012 winners:

Winners of Best Coaching Blogs 2012

Topics: life coach, Life Coach Blog, Best Coaching Blogs, blogs, blogging, blogosphere, coaching blog, coaching blogs, Top Life Coach Blogs

Coaching with Fridges

Posted by Julia Stewart

Coaching refridgeratorGuest post by David Papini.

Last week, while I was coaching a buddy coach around the issue of “being afraid of making mistakes -> becoming anxious -> eating snacks” (loop endlessly), the association between errors and snacks (added with the fact that due to different time zones it was 8.30 pm and I was hungry) popped in my mind in the form of a clear image of my fridge, with magnets on it.

The vision narrowed to one magnet, reading as follows: “Always make new mistakes. - Ester Dyson"

I shared the image with my client and that allowed us to make a shift about the topic. We started discussing the fact that he could become very competitive in making more errors than everybody else, joking about that. And anxiety was gone.

So the magnet vision proved to be a good tool to re-frame  the problem and at the same time offer a structure to help the client in dealing with performance and anxiety issues.

After the session, thankful to the magnet, I gave a closer look to my fridge door.

That magnet has been there for five years and I meet it every morning, but it was the first time it became handy in a coaching session. I started looking at it as one of my professional coaching tools and a source of daily personal awareness. This put the whole bunch of magnets in a new light; I stared at the magnets with more respect.

Below is my magnet list:

  • “Some People walk in the rain, others just get wet - Roger Miller
  • “Always make new mistakes - Ester Dyson”
  • “What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail? - anonymous”
  • “Passion is the only way a man learn to create” (written with poetry magnets by myself)
  • A picture of my children, Alice and Francesco
  • Four magnets about New York
  • A small wooden heart with written “Mi manchi” (I miss you, in Italian)
  • One magnet with two white kittens

I let my magnets coach me and this is what each of them told me:

  • You can choose how you feel about everything. There are no problems in nature, just events
  • To create you need errors, to be happy and growing you need new ones every day. Dare!
  • Free your vision, don’t limit your options (at least in thinking and feeling)
  • To learn, you need emotions: connect with what you feel, the rest will follow
  • Your future is here and it has your children’s eyes
  • You are the places you love
  • Relationship is a dance between similarity and difference, presence and absence
  • Sometimes a magnet it’s just a magnet: use it to keep notes attached where you can see them

Back to the session, because the magnet citation was useful and helped us in making a shift, I told myself “that works, I could reuse this sentence [i.e. “always make new errors”] or even I can reuse the whole trick (magnet plus fridge image)”.

On a second thought I realized that “reusing it” is good for consulting or teaching, not for coaching, because what made the image powerful and effective was the fact that it popped during the coaching relationship. Effectiveness was related to that moment with that client. Moreover, as this blog post demonstrates, the image was powerful to the client and to the coach as well, so the right use for an effective image that helped in a session is honoring it, deepening the reflection on oneself as a coach; more than reusing it in another session or with another client.

In this sense and in my opinion, every coaching session is always a unique piece; it cannot be serialized. Do not bring your fridge programmatically to a coaching session: as it happens with hunger, thirst and the like, if you stay present in the session, it will show up when needed and that will be effective and artful coaching.

David was born in Florence in 1966 just a few months before the deluge, and that's a kind of destiny. As an executive is in charge for general management in a IT Firm, as a certified NLP counselor helps clients to explore their life experience, as a Coach helps clients getting what they really want , as a conflict mediator witnesses how tough and creative a relationship can be, as a trainer helps trainees in stretching their brain, growing and learning, as a public speaker enjoys co-creating experience on the fly, as a dad loves his two children. As a man he is grateful and worried that he’s got this wonderful life. And he’s fond of categorizing his professional roles :-). More about him at http://papini.typepad.com/lifehike/

Best Coaching blogs 2011

 

David's blog is entered in Best Coaching Blogs 2011. Check it out and vote for your favorite blogs while you're there.

Topics: life coach, Coaching, Life Coach Blog, Best Coaching Blogs, blog, contest, coaching skills

Best Coaching Blogs 2010 Preview

Posted by Julia Stewart

bloggerLast year's Best Coaching Blogs 2009 was hugely popular.

Over 30,000 visitors read and voted on their favorite blogs and the winners, from all over the world, ranged from big coaching organizations to new coaching students.

We're getting ready to do it again. After reviewing a variety of approaches to help us upgrade security and fairness, we realized we already have eveything we need to run another great contest.

Who can enter Best Coaching Blogs 2010? Any self-described coach who already has a blog. Please don't enter if you aren't at least a coaching student and obviously don't enter this year if you don't already have a blog.

What's the benefit of entering Best Coaching Blogs 2010? Hundreds, if not thousands of new readers, potentially getting picked up by lists of top blogs, connecting with other thought leaders in the coaching world, prizes and bragging rights (including a badge for your site) if you win. Oh yeah, and it's fun!

Right now, we're looking for sponsors to help kick in some prizes in exchange for a little promotion on our site. If you offer a product or service that coaches would be interested in and want to be a contest sponsor, let me know here. (Sorry, contestants can't be sponsors, so you have to choose how you want to play.)

The contest last year ran from May through June, but we'll be accepting entries earlier this year. Watch this blog for upcoming announcements. I recommend you subscribe by email or RSS.

Why do we hold a Best Coaching Blogs Contest every year? Lots of reasons, including:

  • Reading blogs is one of the best free ways to learn about this business.
  • Participating in the blogosphere is a super way to establish yourelf as a thought leader, even if you don't have your own blog.
  • Connecting with bloggers and readers can bring you ideas, opportunities, collaborators and clients.
  • Much, much more. 

Subscribe to the Coaching Blog

Subscribe to the Coaching Blog above right, to keep informed about this exciting coaching contest.

Topics: coaching business, Coaching, Life Coach Blog, Best Coaching Blogs, blog, blogs, blogging, blogosphere, Coaches, coach

Announcing Best Coaching Blogs 2009 Winners!

Posted by Julia Stewart

Best Coaching Blogs WinnersWe have our winners for the 2009 Best Coaching Blogs Contest!

Forty-five wonderful blogs were entered and I've heard  from countless people that it was a terrific introduction to blogs and coaching. Kudos to everyone who entered and participated faithfully. Watch for an announcement about next year's contest in this space. 

But you want to know who the winners are, right? Here they are.

Congratulations to our top three winners!

1st Place: Mine Your Resources by  Cath Duncan

Here's Cath's reaction to learning that she won:

"Wow, thanks so much! This means a lot to me, especially considering the standard of the other blogs - many colleagues whose work I know well (and love reading regularly) were featured in the competition. So this is a real honour. Thanks to everyone!"
Cath has a new coaching site that goes live today:  www.bottomlinebookclub.com

2nd Place: Good Vibe Blog by Jeannette Maw 

3rd Place: Stirring the Spirit Within by Jude Eastman

Jude's reaction to winning third place: 

"Wow-I'm in Hawaii enjoying the surf, flora, and fauna of the big Island. It's hard to imagine winning third place! I feel like Woohoo! I write my blog as inspiration for others who are trying to change their lives. Hopefully,they will be pulled forward into their highest and best life whatever circumstances they are currently in." 

The following seven blogs complete our Top Ten Winners:

Somedays Syndrome

Prosperous Coach Blog

Laurie Foley

All Paths to Victory

Your Web Coaches

Lose the Excuses


Sixteen additional bloggers were semi-finalists. All in all, this has been a really fun project. I've been introduced to some amazing coaches and blogs and learned a lot about how to run a contest! 

Our ultimate goal was to compile a list of Best Coaching Blogs that anyone can visit to learn more about coaching and personal & professional development.

Visit all our Best Coaching Blogs Winners here.

Topics: Coaching, Life Coach Blog, Best Coaching Blogs, blog, blogs, blogging, blogosphere, coaching blog, Coaches

    Subscribe for FREE: Learn About Coaching

    Follow Us

    The Coaching Blog

    If you're a professional Business or Life Coach or you're interested in becoming one, the SCM Coaching Blog covers topics you may want to know about: How to Become a Business or Life Coach, Grow a Successful Coaching Business, Get Coach Training and/or Business and Life Coach Certification, Become a Coaching Master and Evolve Your Life and Business. 

    Subscribe above and/or explore by tag, month or article popularity, below.

    Latest Posts

    Most Popular Posts

    Browse by Tag

    Top Career-Jobs Sites Living-Well blog