Freedom- How Coaching Helps Us Exercise Our Freedom

Freedom- How Coaching Helps Us Exercise Our Freedom

Coaching helps to create a framework in which individuals can explore their own freedoms- freedom to, freedom from and everything in between.

When we become architects of our own future, coaches can help us navigate the nuanced landscape of change.  At its core, coaching is about helping others move towards the change they see for themselves.  A big part of that process is working with clients to explore the difference between a ‘limiting belief’ and a circumstance.   An example of a limiting belief might be, “I can’t leave my job.”  An example of a circumstance is “Gravity is a force that pulls us to the earth”. 

Limiting beliefs may feel true, but they might not be true. 

Circumstances are true. They may not change, they may not go away, but they can be addressed and possibly worked around.

Coaches create a safe space for clients to explore their limiting beliefs and imagine new possibilities given their circumstances. 

What happens when a person no longer has a limiting belief about their future; but a circumstance prevents them from achieving it?

Freedom! Equality! Justice!  The freedom to do something, such as the freedom to practice a religion, freedom to peacefully assemble or the freedom to say or write your opinion, inherently connects with a persons’ autonomy.  It suggests a person has the capacity to exercise this right if they so choose.  A person with a limiting belief may not recognize they are in such a position. Alternatively, there may be circumstances that prevent them from being able to exercise this right.  

“Your freedom to swing your arm ends just where my nose begins.”  Various individuals have been quoted as the source of this popular saying.   In today’s mask wearing protocol, swap the words ‘swing your arm’ with ‘spray respiratory droplets’ and you’ve got an interesting discussion on your hands. When we believe we have the freedom (or right) to do something, and a circumstance prevents us from exercising it, we rebel.  We peacefully protest the circumstance.  We battle the circumstance.  We push back against the circumstance.  We disobey the circumstance. We march against the circumstance. We light the circumstance on fire. 

Regardless of what we do, the circumstance remains.  Typically, we dig our heels in even further and try to muscle our way through the situation with the misguided idea that our belief can somehow overcome the circumstance (gravity, rain, illness). And we go nowhere.

Coaches help us to think broadly about a situation.  They ask open ended questions to explore possibilities.  Where are the opportunities for improvement?   How has this been successful in the past? What about this can be addressed?  Are there components of the circumstance that are not as fixed as we initially believed?  Is this a circumstance or are there beliefs influencing the situation? What can be accomplished? Where is the most likely place for change to take hold?

Still we have our belief and still the circumstance remains, but the path forward begins to take shape.  We are no longer stuck; we begin to see new possibilities.    

About the author: Holly Hutchinson Osborn is a Certified Human Capital Coach a who has been practicing since 2008.  Holly’s passion is positive growth and lifelong learning.  Her experience includes international trade and marketing as well as system sales into the Fortune 500.  Holly’s focus at Coach Training Alliance is organizational coaching programs, leader-as-coach training and enterprise solutions.  In addition to her work at CTA, Holly serves on the Board at Colorado Youth Outdoors and Young Men Service League – Fort Collins Chapter. Holly is married with 2 children and a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley.

10 Powerful Questions for Enrolling Coaching Clients

10 Powerful Questions for Enrolling Coaching Clients

Unveiling the Key to Enrolling More Coaching Clients

The journey to enrolling more coaching clients often begins with a shift in approach—a surprising revelation that reshapes the dynamics of engagement. One fundamental secret lies in avoiding coaching during the initial discovery session. A common pitfall for many coaches is unintentionally steering this session towards a sales pitch, rather than delving into the aspirational vision of the individual seeking guidance. Rhonda Hess breaks down how to most effectively engage with prospective coaching clients:

The secret to enrolling more coaching clients is surprising. Don’t coach them in the discovery session.

Many coaches find their prospective clients walk away from a sample coaching session feeling “done”. It may be because a sample session is oriented around selling coaching rather than attracting the individual to what they already know they want — the vision of their ideal future. If you want to transform your ability to enroll new clients, engage them in their own story and vision. Help them feel the gap between where they are now and where they want to be. Then tell them how you can help them close that gap. It’s easy. Take these steps in order:

1. Make a connection and set up your conversation for success. “I’m really excited to connect with you today. Is it all right if I ask you some interesting and meaningful questions about your ________ (life, business, health etc)?”

2. Get a quick snapshot of where they are now. “Tell me a bit about your __________ right now.”

3. Uncover what they want most. “If you could have everything you want in your _______ in the next 6 months, what would that look and feel like.” Draw the details out in full color.

4. Help them connect emotionally to their vision. “What would _______ (achieving this specific dream/goal) do for you?” “And what else?” “And what else?” “How important would you say this is to you on a scale of 1 – 10?”

5. Ask them to list their challenges or obstacles. “What’s stopping you from having this _______?” “And, what else?” “And what else?” Resist the impulse to coach them!

6. Help them realize the cost of living with the status quo. “What has it cost you not having ______?” “What impact has that had on you?”

7. Show them the bigger why. “If you could overcome _______ (specific obstacle mentioned) what would that do for you?” “And what else?”

8. Gather the gems. “What have you taken away from our conversation so far?”

9. Invite them in. “Are you ready to hear how I can help you achieve _________(their specific dreams and goals)?” Share your “system”, share your fees & terms, weave in benefits of working with you and success stories.

10. Create a sense of urgency. “Are you excited? Let’s get started.” Give them an appropriate first assignment that’s simple and powerful. Tell them what the next steps are. Follow up immediately with your Welcome Packet.

If by the end of these questions they haven’t gotten to “YES!” yet, coach through their objections. If they say… “I need time to think about it.” … honor that. “What do you need from me to know if this is right for you?” Set up a follow up call in a short time. Review in a follow up email what they shared with you about what they want and connect your services to those outcomes. Give this a try and let me know how it works for you. I’ve heard from so many coaches that this approach frees them up from trying to convince prospects how great coaching is. And when you’re not trying to convince anyone to hire you, you’ll find it’s easier to be genuinely curious about them and open to outcome rather than attached to a certain result. Energetically, that alone, can turn the tide.

About the Author: Rhonda Hess co-authored the Coach Training Accelerator™ and designed the CTA Certified Coach Program. She has a super power for helping coaches choose and champion a profitable niche they’ll love. Learn more at Prosperous Coach.

Guiding Clients Towards an Empowered Future

In the realm of coaching, connecting with clients on a deeper level is the cornerstone of a successful and fulfilling practice. By allowing prospective coaching clients to narrate their dreams and challenges, coaches unlock a world of possibilities. The steps outlined—focusing on the client’s vision, emotions, obstacles, and aspirations—lay the foundation for a powerful coaching relationship. As you coach clients through this journey, their passion for their goals intensifies, culminating in a genuine desire for growth and change. Remember, empowering your clients to envision their success and understanding the importance of their dreams sets the stage for a profound coaching experience.

Experts and Amateurs

Experts and Amateurs

An expert and an amateur are each states of mind. “The expert” is an ideal, a contrast to “the amateur”.  Evolution from amateur to expert is a significant, life-changing passage when it occurs.  The following distinctions can apply to that process of transformation. 

When ya get to the end zone, act like ya been there before.

Coach Bum Phillips to rookie running back Earl Campbell

Experts seek practice and goals that exceed current levels of performance. Amateurs seek to sustain a comfort level without challenging it. 

Experts continue concentrated, deliberate practice on focused areas to develop with informed feedback. Amateurs get to a level of good enough, and stay there. 

Experts understand that there is no predetermined limit of ability. Amateurs believe there is a fixed reserve of potential.

The expert works from love, passion, and dedication; failure is information to guide proceeding. The amateur may be sidetracked by setback; failure is validation not to proceed.

The expert loves and pursues the game, whatever the game is, with total dedication and passion. The amateur pursues it as a sideline, part-time, like a weekend warrior.

The expert keeps going, no matter what.  The amateur is dissuaded by setback and adversity.

The expert does what is important first. Amateurs do what is urgent first.  Sometimes a football team can do more in the final two minutes of a half than in the previous 28, with imminent clock and finite time remaining can focus energy, attention, and concentration.  The expert operates for the entire game in this zone.  The amateur waits for the two-minute warning.

An expert takes an initial step or performance cue to move toward the goal each practice, each day. An amateur practices or performs when motivated.  

The expert is on a mission, knows that fear can never be overcome, and recognizes that the best indication of what’s next may be what also generates most fear.  The expert knows that once action has begun, fear will recede, like your lap when you get up to walk.  The amateur must first overcome the fear, believing that comfortable is a prerequisite to begin.

The expert knows that “fairness” is a childhood wish; that in adulthood there is not even an ultimate arbiter of fair.  There is always adversity, unlevel fields, bad hops, rotten calls, injustice, unfairness. The amateur seeks fairness, and is set back at what does not seem fair.

The expert does whatever it takes, even for what never could have been imagined. The amateur needs predictability, consistency, assuredness of results.

The expert respects the craft but is not superior to it, recognizing the contribution of those who have gone before. The amateur believes in inherent luck, intelligence, and waits for inspiration to come.

The expert dedicates to mastery. The amateur dedicates to proving himself or herself, needing to consistently demonstrate superiority and competence.

The expert does not take things or people personally, recognizes that others always make self statements, and does not succumb to criticism, envy, or idealization of others. The amateur is subject to the perception of others, to rejection, and reads the responses of others as if looking into an accurate mirror of a valid reflection.

The expert self-regulates and self-validates, takes in new information but does not let it determine meaning.  The amateur becomes an extension of the interest, desire, and needs of others, is vulnerably reliant on the perception and feedback of others.

The expert has an internal point of reference, and is proactive. The amateur has an external point of reference, and is reactive.

The expert seeks the mastery of art as work, deliberate practice as lifestyle, success as creation. The amateur believes that art is inspiration, talent is innate, and seeks the lucky break.

The expert believes that the architect of magic is informed persistence and dedicated resilience. The amateur believes that magic is magic.

The expert shows up every day, no matter what, and is committed for the long haul.  The expert understands delayed gratification, is the ant, not the grasshopper; the tortoise, not the hare. The amateur shows up as long as something else doesn’t get in the way. The amateur looks for shortcuts, quick results, and immediate gratification.

Experts know they can do best that which they do uniquely well.  Amateurs try to do many things, to be everything to many people.

The expert always treats practice like a game.  The amateur saves the best for an actual game.

The expert knows that the self and every storyline in life are created moment by moment; that the ultimate abandonment is of one’s self.  The amateur believes that much is predetermined, some fate, some circumstance, some luck; that consistent attention must be given to be appreciated and accepted by others.

The expert believes that we write, live, and create in order to know.  The amateur believes that we must know in order to write, live, and create.

Experts add value to their art, science, expert body of knowledge, and to others.  Amateurs add value to themselves. 

The expert believes that certainty develops with proceeding and mastery. The amateur must have certainty in order to proceed.

The expert has a plan and sticks to it no matter what.  The amateur responds to the prevailing mood, mindset, or urgency rather than purpose. 

The expert, even at times a warrior, believes in humility and modesty. The amateur believes in never showing vulnerability, doubt, or uncertainty.

The expert punches through the bag, runs through the finish line. The amateur hits the front of the bag, and relaxes at the finish line.

The expert knows that courage is to proceed despite fear.  The amateur believes that courage is the absence of fear.

The expert sticks to the plan.  The amateur let life get in the way.

The expert determines what is important and work toward a purpose. The amateur reacts to the urgencies of life. 

The expert pursues the plan and purpose no matter how they feel. The amateur acts when in the right mood or feeling.

The expert consistently pursues success despite a routine practice, including boredom. The amateur pursues success when motivated or inspired.

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About the Author- David Krueger, M.D. is an Executive Mentor Coach, and CEO of MentorPath, an executive coaching, publishing, and wellness firm. His approach integrates the insights of psychology, neuroscience, and professional coaching to help professionals and executives write the next chapter of their business stories. The material in this blog are Excerpted from STRESS MASTERY AND PEAK PERFORMANCE: The Neuroscience of Optimum Performance Under Pressure    www.HardWorkMiracle.com  

Lessons Learned After Two Decades of Social Distancing.

Lessons Learned After Two Decades of Social Distancing.

Coach Training Alliance is an intimate, passion driven business that was built at a social distance.  We measure that distance across the globe rather than in feet.   The Company, and now our community of over 10,000 graduates and clients, was built in an environment that has quickly been forced on many.  Rapid change causes stress, anxiety, and in some cases, personal or corporate petrification.  This does not have to be the case.  Businesses and practices can be built at a distance.

Here are some simple observations and accompanying practices that can benefit you as you meld social distance into your daily life.

Relationships Can Flourish and New Stories Are Created

Times like these create the strongest of bonds.  People with shared significant events have shared experience and thus shared story.  From both a personal and professional perspective, now is the time to invest in these relationships.  New tools of outreach and touch are available relative to large events like war and pandemic in the past, but fundamental connection thru discussion and exploration is where bonds and opportunities are to be found.  Coaching and the co-creative approach afford the opportunity to write new stories into our lives when faced with the suddenly apparent unknown.  Exploration of new paths can be achieved while tackling limiting beliefs, the result being a great first new step down a new path.  All this can be done through a shared experience that yields a strong relationship with the characters tied to that new story.

Distance is Not the Barrier

In twenty years, the Coach Training Alliance faculty has met in person only once yet their connectivity and relationships far surpass those I have seen in other organizations in which I have worked where people interface every day.  Why?  Because as coaches, they do two things exceptionally well. They listen deeply and value one another’s time. 

Listen deeply and ask open-ended questions.  This approach, a fundamental one to coaching’s co-creative process, can bridge any physical distance and afford both parties a great understanding of not only what is being discussed but also the context in which it is being explored.

Value one another’s time. Be Prompt.  Be present. Make an effort to eliminate distraction and avoid multitasking when with your client, colleague or co-worker.  Take some time on the front end of any agenda to check in and see where you both are in terms of both well-being and process relative to your topic.  Acknowledge progress and success before tackling what is next. 

Find Ways to Provide Value at a Distance

Favors and thoughtfulness can be accomplished from a distance.  Pay it forward in relationship building by offering help to others seeking to grow during this time.  As a coach, you can be a critical resource for family, friends, coworkers and even potential clients (remember there is value in a sample session of coaching).  A thank you note or a thoughtful e-mail or text with real meaning can add value as well as create the perception by those you contact that you are ready, willing and able to provide value.  Acknowledging the value provided by others in simple ways (a testimonial, offering a reference or a simple public thank you) is a great way to set the example and ask for the same in return.  These are basic business building habits that are also fantastic feel good behaviors.

Structure Matters

Finally, the distance environment can take away the familiar structure we have known.  Those businesses and coaches who operate successfully and thrive in a distance model do apply a discipline of structure.   They plan their days and weeks to tasks and times like they would under a traditional circumstance.  They calendar meetings and communication.  They map schedule to projects and write plans for both their business and finding balance in their lives.  Structured time that feeds your body, your mind and your soul is as important as ever.  Two decades of this model at Coach Training Alliance has also taught us that planning time for some fun is critical too.  Find some time for that and allow yourself fun as one of life’s great fuels.

Now more than ever the skills taught to coaches are needed to address the unknown, forge new paths and build bonds…even at a social distance.

About the Author- CHRIS OSBORN, is the Chief Executive Officer of Coach Training Alliance. Chris is a serial entrepreneur, executive and executive coach. His passion lies in growing businesses that aid in personal growth or business expansion of others. He has been widely recognized for his ability to lead change through organizational growth and strategic planning.

Chris currently serves as both a board member and in executive capacities of numerous organizations in the corporate and not-for-profit worlds. His experience varies widely from distance education and healthcare to e-commerce and financial services. He periodically authors material for the Coaching Compass and is the visionary and co-author behind the Human Capital Accelerator™. In addition to his work at CTA, Chris is licensed both as an Opposite Strengths® Executive Coach as well as a New Money Story Coach. Chris is a graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy and the University of California at Berkeley

How to become an Executive Coach

How to become an Executive Coach

Have you ever wondered how to become an executive coach? When it comes to coaching, many coaches look longingly at the niche of Executive Coaching and wish they could find a way to break into that market.   After all, executives need coaching, are easy to locate and most of all, have the money and desire for coaching.   Executive coaching is a desirable and attractive niche but many coaches believe that they are not qualified to be an executive coach.   After all they say, the highest I ever rose in an organization is mid-level management, so the potential clients won’t relate to me.   Or they’ll say, I’ve never even worked in a big company so I don’t know anything about coaching executives.  

There are more excuses, but you get the idea.  

The first flaw in this argument is that Executive Coaching is not a niche.   Executive Coaching is a specialty and a very broad specialty at that.   It’s actually far removed from a niche.   In simple terms a niche is where the “who” you serve intersects with the “what” you help them with.  Misunderstanding the concept of Executive Coaching as a niche is the first of several mistakes that new coaches make and therefore rule out a potentially very lucrative niche.

Can you be an executive coach?  

To answer that question let’s start with the basics of why people, including executives hire a coach, or more correctly what coaching brings to a client. 

Anyone who hires a coach has certain expectations of that coach.    One major item on their list is a safe environment that will allow them to say what they are really thinking without having to filter their thoughts.   They don’t want to have to measure their words.   They want to say what they are thinking without having to use a “corporate filter”. 

An executive coach allows them to do that.

They also want honest feedback.   Too often they find themselves surrounded by people who can’t or won’t tell them the truth.   Their latest idea may have some major flaws in it but those around them won’t point out the truth.   They need someone who will speak their mind and ask questions and challenge their ideas.

An executive coach will do that for them.

Sometimes they want the opportunity to think through their ideas out loud.   To talk about an idea of situation freely without worrying about the end result because they know that verbally processing their thoughts can lead to new thoughts, new ideas and help uncover holes in their thinking.  And they don’t want to be judged while doing it.  They want a sounding board to hear and reflect their thoughts so they can hear them themselves.

An executive coach won’t judge them.

And sometimes a client wants to talk through a technical or complex business issue.   This is one area where the client may want to tap into a coach’s background and expertise.   But this is not the most common reason for executive coaching.   When executives need to work through complex business issues they tend to hire a consultant with expertise in this area. 

There are more reasons of course, but you get the idea.  

There are a lot of reasons why an executive might hire a coach and many of them have absolutely nothing to do with the coach’s business acumen.  

When people wonder about how to become an executive coach, they often think that you must have an in-depth knowledge of business, understand profit and loss statements, corporate strategy or mission and vision statements.   The concepts of sales strategies, market penetration, and complex Human Resource issues need to be second nature to you.   They assume that executives and executive coaching are only focused around complex business issues that can only be solved by a coach who has been there themselves. Coaching can help address many of the challenges an organizations faces, but it not because the executive coach has an abundance of expertise or knowledge to share.

Reality is quite different than this.   There are any number of reasons why an executive might hire a coach and many of those reasons have nothing to do with executive or business experience at all.  Contrary to popular belief, executives are people too and have all the same problems that everyone else has.   Sometimes they spend too much time at work, sacrificing their personal lives in the process.   Or they have grown tired of the constant travel and pressure of their executive position and want something with less stress.   Maybe they are looking to change their lifestyle and do something entirely different.  Or maybe they are simply trying to figure out what is next for them in life.

Executive coaching will grow in the future. Taking the Executive Coaching specialty, you can break it down into even more specialties before you even get to a formal niche. 

Common specialties in the Executive Coaching space:

New Leader Coaching:    This specialty is designed for those not yet in high level leadership positions in their organization.   It tends to mix coaching with consulting and training to prepare people for future leadership roles.   It is sometimes paid for by the organization, often as part of a training grounds for future leaders, but is sometimes paid for by the individuals themselves who want to get a leg up on their competition.   This type of coaching and training is often done by coaches with a leadership or training background themselves.  But most of these coaches were not high level executives but trainers or mid-level managers in their pre-coaching lives,

Life Balance Coaching:   It’s not surprising that executives have a problem balancing their work with their personal lives.  In order to get ahead at work many executives begin sacrificing their personal lives when they reach middle management.   They put in a lot of hours, sacrifice their health, their family and in many cases their futures.  The smart ones figure this out before their divorce, before their health issues, and before their children are grown.   This coaching provides focus on the client’s real priorities and helps them set healthy boundaries.   No prior executive or management experience is required.   

Behavioral Coaching/Emotional Intelligence:   One common thread in the executive suite is the highly intelligent executive who is able to see and solve complex issues.   They may even have tremendous forward vision into the business that has served them well in the past.  But these executives may not play well with others.   The phrase that is sometimes used is “Too much college and not enough kindergarten”.   Helping executives identify their blind spots and build action plans to overcome behavioral issues does not involve business expertise.   It’s about human beings and being able to build bridges. 

Retirement Coaching:   Some executives are workaholics and will work until they are kicked out the door.  Others have a desire to move on and enjoy the fruits of their labor.   But what’s next?   How do they go from being an executive where every utterance may result in 1000 people moving into action to a retiree with no real authority or responsibility?   How do they go from their highly structured life to an unstructured one?   What are they going to do with their time?   What is their purpose?    These are all questions that executives need to find answers to and they don’t involve any prior business experience.

Nutritional Coaching:    Executives often work long hours and find themselves on the road eating in restaurants or ordering room service.   This leads to unhealthy eating habits, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and more.   How can they put together some type of nutritional plan that won’t make them feel like they are limiting every choice they make but still allow them to eat healthy?   And how will they handle the guilt when the inevitable slips happen.  

These are just a few examples or possibilities.   As you can see, there are lots of things that executives want and need that have nothing to do with business knowledge or executive experience.  

Before you rule out executives as part of your target market, think about your special skills and talents and how you can really help them become more complete and more effective as an executive. If you are serious about learning how to become an executive coach, consider taking a Coach Training Program to develop your ability to help clients move towards the future they see for themselves.

About the author:  DAVID R. MEYER, is a CTA Certified Coach (CTACC), Mentor Coach, and Certified Behavioral Consultant.  As a coach Dave has many tools at his disposal.   He is a Wiley authorized partner in the use of DISC and has been certified in Social and Emotional Intelligence through the Institute for Social and Emotional Intelligence (ISEI).  Dave is a full time coach, trainer, and speaker who specializes in leaders and leadership teams.  His mantra is “Great Teams Are Built On The Foundation Of Great Leadership. Great Leadership Is Built On The Foundation Of Great Trust.”  He is the author of the Amazon best seller “The Engaged Manager” and also co-authored the DiSC Coaching Catalyst for training coaches in the use of DiSC with their clients.  Dave has also had numerous articles appearing in publications across the US.    Dave is a graduate of the CTA Certified Coach program in 2002and has been coaching ever since. He is very active in his local community giving back through his church and through his affiliation with Kiwanis International. 

Storytelling, a powerful life coaching tool

Storytelling, a powerful life coaching tool

Storytelling is one of the most powerful life coaching tools when working with clients. Popular among all the coaching techniques available, storytelling provides value from both sides and illustrates what matters to a client in a way they understand. Sharing anecdotal experience is often frowned upon by life coaches, but when used correctly, storytelling is an effective means of communication. Trained life coaches understand the need for clients to relate to them as well as articulate values on their own. Whether a story is used by the coach to illustrate a concept or by the client to share insight, storytelling has an incredible variety of uses in a coaching relationship.

Storytelling by the Coach

Stories are often used as one of the best life coaching tools to illustrate specific concepts that are more “educational” than is appropriate for a session. Rather than walk a client through technical coaching methods, a coach can illustrate how a concept applies to a real life experience. For example, a client may struggle seeing the “bigger picture” of her career journey while currently in a job she hates. Instead of explaining the SMART goal-setting technique, a coach might tell a story of a past client with the same challenge who began setting SMART short-term goals and eventually created a 5 year career plan she could stick to. If this past client landed a new job she loved, the current client may find more inspiration and technique from the story than by simply learning a goal-setting method.

Another powerful storytelling method used by life coaches is reframing the client experience. Self-narrative is crucial to a client’s progress and a client may see her journey more negatively than it is actually unfolding. When this occurs, a coach can tell the client’s story thus far in their own words, shedding light on the more positive “wins” of the client to encourage her. An illustrative example of this is with a client who (despite making great lifestyle changes) has only lost 7 lbs of her 15 lb weight loss goal. She may feel discouraged and unmotivated to keep going. Her coach can reflect on the client’s progress by summarizing the most positive changes she has made. After hearing her coach emphasize the kitchen makeover, new fitness routine, and growing sense of self-love the client has created for herself told from the coach’s perspective, the client is inspired and proud.

Storytelling by the Client

A lesser known utilization of storytelling is by eliciting information from the client’s perspective. Stories and personal narratives illuminate how the client views their progress and desires so the coach can dig deeper and ask questions. The most valuable knowledge gained from asking a client to share their story is to uncover their “unspoken” motivations. When asked directly, clients are less likely to share desires or fears they are embarrassed to share. This can be overcome by the coach in a more subtle way to learn about client behavior and motives. For example, a client may report to the coach that she struggles receiving affection from her husband. The coach may prompt the client to describe a few instances where the client felt this way in the past. Perhaps the client reveals times where her husband may have simply been tired or preoccupied, and the coach can point out that this is an opportunity to communicate needs instead of simply expecting affection.

Client storytelling is also necessary to build self-awareness. Humans often hold memories in a way that skews positively or negatively, and life coaches are here to help keep the narrative in a realistic light. Some clients need help reframing their experiences more positively to remain encouraged. A coach may help a discouraged working dad reflect on his progress and effort he’s recently given to spending more time with his family. Some clients need to take accountability for their past mistakes and tell their stories honestly. A coach may ask a teenager failing college to take a step back and describe her role in missing classes and studying. Either way, coaching around clients’ narratives is a powerful use of storytelling to build self-awareness.

Of all the life coaching tools, storytelling is a powerful tool because it elicits honest narrations and uncovers client motivations, while also building self-awareness and shedding light on personal accountability. Coaches can take advantage of storytelling from their end to share techniques in the context of the client’s world or to inspire them. Clients allow the coach to understand their worldview and understanding of their own progress. Each of these scenarios prove that used correctly, storytelling holds weight as an effective life coaching tool.

Lupe Colangelo is a certified holistic health coach, life coach, and writer for Life Coach Path. She specializes in behavioral psychology and her background includes coaching for various startups as well as in her private practice. From career coaching to helping people maximize their potential in life and health, Lupe uses motivational interviewing and proven behavior change techniques to empower people to find their own success.

2019 Year-End Review

2019 Year-End Review

Don’t look now, but 2020 is upon us!  Can you believe it?  What an exciting time to be alive and to be in business!!  Are you excited?  You sure should be!  Things are changing, and opportunities are everywhere. 

Now is the time to take stock of what you did in 2019 and where you want to go in 2020.  You may be asking yourself: “I have no idea where to start; I think I will just pull the covers up and stay right here where it is warm and cozy.”  Wrong Answer!  Jump out and wake up and let’s get going with the promise of 2020.

In the holiday edition of the online version of Inc., this magazine put out an excellent article on evaluating the year past and planning for the new year ahead.  I suggest you go here and read this article: https://www.inc.com/marla-tabaka/heres-your-guide-to-a-smart-year-end-businessreview.html .  I am sure this year they will do another article, please check it out.  You never have to do anything alone.  Someone has already put a plan together or a guideline that you can use to get a jump start. 

Every year I write the same thing, and these are the tips to make your year-end transition easier.

  • Pull out your calendar and look at every week of every month and circle in green what produced dollars, or new clients, or new business for you.
  • On each of those same weeks and months, use a red pen to “X” out all the things you attended, people you met, online training you wasted your time on, and money you spent on things that did not return value to you or your business.
  • Pull out this past year’s goals and see what you achieved and what is left unrealized.  Make a decision right now as to what will go forward and what will be left behind. 
  • Do you see “opportunities” which you were unable to capitalize on?  Think long and hard on how you can turn those opportunities into new business in the coming year.
  • If you are feeling bogged down, or in a fog, or just plain stuck and out of creativity and ideas; this is the time to pick up a fellow business owner and set an “ideating” date to do some serious brainstorming in the week between Thanksgiving and December 21st or at the latest the Christmas and New Year. Why this time frame?  Because if you get your 2020 plans down on paper before the end of the year, you can get a jump start on your competition.  Most businesses go into a quiet time and slumber through the holidays at the end of the year unless you are in retail.
  • What did you learn new this year?  No one can afford not keeping their skill level up.  If you are even a little tech-savvy, you need to take the free courses for the programs you use in your business.  I routinely receive emails from Microsoft, LinkedIn and so on for new training.  Keep your mind and company up to date and sharp.
  • Let’s talk for a moment about “disappointments.”  We all have them.  Don’t believe all the hype of Facebook and Instagram.  Everyone has failures.  One of the best pieces of advice I ever received is to just look at the disappointment in a way that is removed from you.  If you felt pressured, you did not have all the information you needed, or the timing wasn’t right, accept that for what it is and learn from the experience.  Make a mental note and do not fall for the sell again. 
  • During this slow, down in business, do a little research on who your competition is, read up on where your market is going, read up on your niche segment of your industry and become informed, learn what is coming down the pipeline and what you might consider next. 
  • If you are running a small business, or are an entrepreneur who works alone, it is easy to become overwhelmed and isolated.  Make sure you sprinkle some business networking opportunities and attend in your local community.  If you also belong to some US large organization or a Global organization, plan to attend the yearly conference and put aside money to attend.  I do not believe you have to go every year, but you might collaborate with others, and one of your group goes each year and comes back and gives a debrief to your group.
  • Okay, so let’s look at 2020 and what you want to achieve, what your goals are, what you are excited about, what new products, programs, and writing you want to do.  In order to do this kind of dreaming, you will need to block off some white space to think.  Many people like to do this in a coffee shop, in a park, on an airplane where they are not interrupted, or some other seclude place they believe is a great thinking place.  Remember, nothing is to wild, unbelievable, undoable, impossible – the only person who can derail you is Y-O-U!
  • CELEBRATE!!!!  If you are an outgoing person, and a solopreneur, get together with others in your area and celebrate the year, all the right business stuff, your achievements, and do not be shy about it.  WE all need lifting up, and we need to celebrate.  We are not talking about being prideful here, just celebrating all the great things that happened in 2019.

May your New Year be full of Focus, Planning, & Prosperity!

Author Janice Bastani, Master Mentor Coach is a certified executive leadership coach and holds many credentials in the coaching arena.

Her credentials include the following certifications:

Professional Certified Coach with the International Coach Federation, Energy Leadership Coach, Emotional Intelligence Coach, Global Group Coaching Coach, NeuroLeadership Coach, Certified John Maxwell Coach, Speaker, Mentor & Trainer.

Janice holds certifications to give and debrief Energy Leadership Assessments, Level One DISC assessment as well as being a Trainer with the DISC Personality Profile, Emotional Intelligence Assessments, Personality Profiling, along with several others in her faith ministry for Spiritual Gifts, and Strengths Profile. She is a founding member of the John Maxwell Team. Janice holds a BA in Journalism.

Media Relations for Coaches: Top Insights of 2019

Media Relations for Coaches: Top Insights of 2019

2019 started off like any new year—with a steadfast commitment to resolutions. As a coach, you play an important role in helping your clients hold themselves accountable for their new goals. Did you do the same for your own goals to increase your profile with media engagement?

Reflection is a necessary quality for anyone who wishes to embark on a successful coaching partnership. To close out the year—and the last month of this decade (!)—we are reflecting on the top insights and strategy from this year as a way to enhance the media relations and marketing aspects of your coaching business.

Here’s a look back at our top takeaway tips for coaches, from leveraging social media to preparing for a media interview.

Amp Up Your Social Media Engagement

Twitter is a great platform for new audiences to discover your coaching insight, especially if you link it with trending topics or relevant hashtags. Some of those new connections you build through consistent and relevant posting can also include influential journalists that write about topics aligned with your expertise. Instead of coming across as promotional or spammy, show off your skills by retweeting a reporter’s recent article and offering some additional insight on the topic.

Drive Media Connections with Strategy

Social media is just one way to catch the attention of relevant journalists. Sending a “fan mail” note about an intriguing article before you eventually sell yourself as an expert can pay long-term dividends, and even build relationships with reporters who turn to you for future stories.

You can also learn how to leverage trending news to tie back to a creative coaching angle. Make sure to have topics and client testimonials at the ready—and preferably a unique viewpoint—as follow-up commentary.

Be Ready for Your Interview

What do you do after you pique a journalist’s interest? Effective interview preparation starts with researching the reporter and outlet, creating concise and jargon-free talking points, and using active listening to engage with follow-up questions. Don’t forget to send a thank you letter to the reporter as a token of appreciation.

These same strategies also apply to preparing for a podcast interview, although this format has some slight nuances that you’ll want to review.

Go Beyond the Interview

Articles and interviews aren’t the only ways to augment your media relations repertoire. Writing bylines for media outlets read by your target audience can give you control over how you deliver your expertise. When presenting yourself as a thought leader, make sure to include your ICF Credential and other relevant background information. Being authentic and offering relevant case studies are also beneficial for bringing to life the impact coaching can have, both personally and professionally.

Professional coaches, like any business owner, wear many hats. When it comes to marketing, honing your public relations skills is a cost-effective way to attract new clients through insightful thought leadership in the media. As you look ahead to 2020, take time to reflect on your media relations accomplishments and set concrete, measurable goals for how you want to build upon those achievements.

Author Adam Yosim has a background in broadcast journalism, and he spent seven years as a local TV news reporter in North Carolina, Kentucky and Baltimore, Maryland. He is a senior account executive at Stanton Communications, ICF’s public relations agency of record.

Leadership that can Change the World!

Leadership that can Change the World!

Think about all the leaders you know, who among that group is a leader who can and does change their world, change their businesses, change their communities, and families?  Have you come up with a name or two or three?

John Maxwell is quoted as saying this: “If your actions inspire people to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, then you are a transformational leader.”  [from his latest book “Leadershift.”]

Early on in our careers, who are we most focused on?  Of course, ourselves.  We want to get in there, to do a good job, get a pay raise, a good yearly review, and a promotion at some point.  We rarely think about what we can do to grow our peers, to be accountability partners, how to grow the business, and so on.  We also feel that we already know all we need to know, after all, we earned a degree, and we are not ready to do any more learning.

Today, what is your top priority in your career? 

No one climbs the ladder of success alone.  As we climb, there will be times when we find out that we do not know it all.  There is always someone who has traveled more, experienced more, been in the presence of very successful people and instead of taking a selfie with the person you might learn to step back and observe what abilities they have that makes them successful.  We also will find out that there will be knowledge we have not learned or been exposed to and it is indeed time to go back to school [so to speak] and get educated in the skills, processes and emotional intelligence we did not have in college. 

Leadership can be trained, but to be truly transformational one must go to another level.  Here are some of the basics of becoming a transformational leader.

I   Have a clear picture of what a transformational leader looks like and what they do.  What does this mean exactly?  Transformational Leaders see things before others, they are willing to say things that others are not willing to say, they believe things others do not believe, they also feel things differently than others do, and because of the previously mentioned items, they do things others are unwilling or unable to do.

II     A transformational leader must first focus on their own transformation before they can transform others.  What does this mean?  It is pretty simple, in order to go up you must give up.  This is about pride and ego and admits there are things you do not know, and then you have to be willing to get out there and learn what you do not know. It is all about leading from “positive change.”

III     We change inside first, and then we change on the outside.  What does this mean?  Have you ever heard the word “incongruent?”  This is a state of being when a person puts on a false mask or narrative and wears on the outside, when in reality they are someone completely different inside, at home, and outside of work.  If you want to be a transformational leader, you must change your inside first.  When you do this, it will naturally show up externally, and everyone can see the change in you. 

IV    Create an environment around you, which promotes transformation!  How do I do this?  Who will change a negative, non-creative environment from dull to an environment where people can’t wait to show up to work in the morning?  Only a very transformational leader.  This positive energy seems to walk through the door and fill the office when they walk in.  Their persona demands your attention, and you feel good about who you are and where you work and what you do at work.  This just doesn’t happen by accident.  There is a purpose to it.  This focused purpose revolves around key values which are good.  Good values include attitude, commitment, competence, forgiveness, initiative, integrity, personal growth, priorities, relationships, and work ethic.  How would rate yourself on each of these?

V     It’s not only at the office it has to happen and spread outside the office.  What do you mean?  If you make a difference inside the office, it only goes to the reason you would do so outside the office as well.  Making a positive difference doesn’t stop as you exit the office.  We also need to invite those we are transforming inside our business to join us outside in our communities.  All boats rise when we do this. 

Transformation follows a specific pattern.  I would like to this pattern below:

Top-Down          Leadership influence filters down, not up!

Small To Big       Mass movements begins with a few people.

Inside Out            Inner values determine outward behavior.

Look up at the five bold headings, place the number beside each pattern below, and then evaluate where you might want to focus on your own leadership journey.

Author Janice Bastani, Master Mentor Coach is a certified executive leadership coach and holds many credentials in the coaching arena.

Her credentials include the following certifications:

Professional Certified Coach with the International Coach Federation, Energy Leadership Coach, Emotional Intelligence Coach, Global Group Coaching Coach, NeuroLeadership Coach, Certified John Maxwell Coach, Speaker, Mentor & Trainer.

Janice holds certifications to give and debrief Energy Leadership Assessments, Level One DISC assessment as well as being a Trainer with the DISC Personality Profile, Emotional Intelligence Assessments, Personality Profiling, along with several others in her faith ministry for Spiritual Gifts, and Strengths Profile. She is a founding member of the John Maxwell Team. Janice holds a BA in Journalism.

What Does It Mean to Be In Transition?

What Does It Mean to Be In Transition?

During these past summer months, I have been deep into researching, reading, and writing about “Life Transitions” and all that transitions entail.  If you have been a client of mine in the past you know I frequently call this: “Surfing Lava.”  It will be no surprise to you that you, me and everyone we know is always in a state of “change” or “transition.”  It is my belief it is not the transition itself that gives us trouble. Instead, it has the tools and questions to navigate the transition which is the real challenge.  What do you think about that statement?

Dr. Henry Cloud wrote an excellent book around this topic entitled: “Necessary Endings.”   Dr. Cloud’s premise along with many other author’s is this process of “transition:”

  1. Something must come to an end.
  2. There is a period or a gap before the next thing begins, like a desert.
  3. Then there is a new beginning.

I’d like to explore each of these three components of “transition” in this blog post. We will begin by encouraging you the reader to think of a most recent time when you had an end to something, then a gap, and finally a new beginning.  Think about this for a couple of minutes.  Let the memory come into your conscious awareness and all the emotions that accompany it. Okay, now let’s take that memory and unpack it with our three-step process mentioned above.

1. Something must come to an end

Let’s look at a life experience that happens to most of us as parents.  For those of us who have children, they all transition into each year of education.  Think about the first day of school for your child.  They got on the big yellow bus, or you were in the carpool drop off lane for the first time.  Then there was the first day of High School.

Later the first day of college.  As you drove away after the big “move-in,” how did you feel about that role you played had come to an end.  Each of us handles this type of transition differently.

  1. There is a period or a gap before the next thing begins, like a desert. Often when we end one phase of life, we begin to “wander” around wondering what is next for me or perhaps you are so excited at the ending of one thing and the beginning of another, and you do not experience the gap moments in your life.  If you do experience that gap or being in the desert, this is a time to step back and take inventory of where you are in other areas of your life.  This is time when you can focus your energies elsewhere, where you may have neglected and now is the time to re-engage in these areas of life.  You have heard the saying do not be sad it is over, be thankful that you experienced it.  This is so true for all of us.

3. Then there is a new beginning. Think back to a time when you were the one who was going off on that new adventure.  Perhaps it was moving into your dorm room at college. Maybe it was that first job and first apartment or buying a new car without a co-signer. Perhaps it was getting married or welcoming a new life into your family.  These all come with lots of emotions; everything is unique to you no matter how much you prepare.  We all have some sense of excitement, fear and lots of questions which we do not have the answers for.  Welcome these into your life. 

Recently I took a course creation online training, and I learned something which ties into what we are talking about today.  There are three learning truths that we each have, and if we apply them, we can navigate through transitions in our lives. Here are these truths: 

  1. “All learners come to the learning experience with some prior knowledge” – The facilitator explained this as: “A toddler may not know what azure is as a color, but the toddler knows what a blue sky looks like.” We all know things based on some, even if it is limited knowledge.
  2. “Existing knowledge does not go away without a new experience.” – Here again, this may seem elementary; however, our past experiences good and bad stay with us until a stronger new experience dislodges the old one. Let’s say you had an awful experience with a carpet cleaning service, and you would never recommend that company to anyone, and you even posted a negative review of the company online.  This experience lives in your mind until such time as you have a positive experience with another cleaning company which can replace your existing negative one.
  3. “All knowledge is built upon existing knowledge.” We each use our previous experiences to base our knowledge of the current situation.  As a coach, I frequently challenge my client’s assumptions based on their existing knowledge.  I do this by asking them to think of someone who has navigated their current challenge, and I like them: “How did they do that?”

You can see when you put all these questions, experiences and points of view into a process for navigating the transition; you begin to see a roadmap of how you might traverse the void you find yourself in today.

So, what about you?  As you read this blog on transition, did you find yourself stuck in one of the three descriptions?  If you answered NO, good for you.  I would encourage you to look around you and see who is surfing lava tomorrow.  If you answered YES, then let’s talk about that or find someone in your circle of peers or someone 5 years older than you are who have already weathered the storm you find yourself in and see what they can contribute to let you know how they navigated this save transition.  Remember we are all in a constant state of development every day of our lives.  Transition is a normal part of your human experience. 

Author Janice Bastani is a certified executive leadership coach and holds many credentials in the coaching arena.

Coaching Supervision

Coaching Supervision

Coaching supervision offers coaches an opportunity to access continuous professional development through reflection and dialogue in a safe, supportive and confidential space. If we look closer at the word itself: super-vision meaning over-sight, the practice of supervision is for the coach and their supervisor to reflect together and have over-sight of the coach’s practice in service of them being the very best coach they can be.

In this way, the function and scope of supervision cover three main areas.

Learning and Development

In this domain, the focus is on the continuous growth and development of the coach towards increasingly advanced competence. This aspect of the dialogue might focus on the ICF Core Competencies as well as other related theories, models and concepts that could be introduced into the discussion by either party. The focus is on the coach as a coach and their ongoing skill development as a practitioner. Mentor Coaching for Credentialing could be seen as sitting somewhere within this domain with regards to the specific focus on the ICF Core Competencies, however, the roles of Mentor Coach and Coach Supervisor are not always the same and the focus and training for each discipline is different.

Support

Coaching Supervision also provides support for the coach in terms of them feeling resourced, supported and nurtured. As such, the focus is on the person or the who of the coach; the coach as a person. In this domain, topics such as confidence, inner dialogue, helpful or limiting beliefs held by the coach might feature in the discussion.

Safety and Standards

This domain is centered around quality and professionalism. Here, the dialogue may reflect upon how the coach is managing their overall coaching practice, ethical considerations and the safety of the coach and their client, as well as having consideration for the system within which the coaching work is being undertaken. Here, the ICF’s gold standard and the core values of excellence, integrity, collaboration and respect are at the forefront of the reflective dialogue and the focus is on the coach as a professional.

Within the context of these three areas, coaching supervision is sometimes described as working with “where the personal intrudes on the professional” in that the focus is on ensuring that the coach does not get in the way of their client’s learning and development but is instead an enabling tool or vehicle for their client.

In practical terms, coaching supervision bears some resemblance to coaching in that the coach and supervisor need to establish that there is chemistry and rapport for them to work effectively together. They will contract with each other around how they will work and how similar boundaries of confidentiality are upheld. The focus of each supervision session will be clearly established and may be related to the above domains in the context of, for example:

  • Case analysis (i.e., The coach’s work with a particular client or a particular session with a client)
  • Patterns and themes that the coach is noticing about their coaching practice across their client base
  • Observations that the coach is having about themselves within the context of their coaching practice
  • Review of the ICF Core Competencies or other coaching-related materials and how they are being evidenced in the coach’s practice
  • Exploration of the “who” of the coach

Sometimes, it can be helpful to frame the supervision topic as a question which the coach and supervisor then work collectively to answer. Some examples of supervision questions might be:

  • I have a lot going on personally at the moment, how can I be sure that I am fully present for my clients?
  • My client has told me they are being bullied, what are my responsibilities as a coach and how can I be of best service to them?
  • I find myself getting very distracted and even impatient when coaching client A…. What can I learn that will help me be the best coach I can be for them?
  • I am usually confident as a coach, however, when coaching client B…, I find myself feeling intimidated and trying to impress them, what is it that is triggering this response in me?
  • I get so engaged in coaching my clients that I lose track of time and our sessions seem to end abruptly with no clear actions or forward movement, how can I manage the time better for a better ending to the session?
  • My client shared something that really goes against my values and I’m finding it difficult to coach them without feeling negatively towards them, how can I resolve this?
  • I have noticed that I am more verbose when coaching clients who are younger than me, what is triggering this and what implications does this have for my coaching with them?

These are just a few examples of the many, many questions that a coach might bring into supervision and the common feature of all of them is that the conversation is aimed at supporting the coach to be the best they can be in that situation and across their coaching practice.

Coaching supervision can be undertaken on a one-to-one basis or as part of a supervision group. This discipline requires specific training which will most likely cover at least one or more fields of (coaching) psychology as well as specific supervision models. A coaching supervisor is also most likely to be an experienced coach and also be self-aware and mindful of their own part in the coach-supervisor dynamic and relationship. For supervisors working with groups, an understanding of group dynamics and group development is needed as well as knowledge of group supervision processes and practices.

Purchasers of coaching services want to know that they are buying the best and knowing that a coach is in supervision can be a great way of demonstrating quality assurance, professionalism and integrity in one’s coaching practice. Indeed, in some communities, being in coaching supervision is now a prerequisite for being able to provide coaching services within certain organizations.

ICF recommends coaching supervision as a useful form of continuous professional development for coaches and is committed to conducting further research into its efficacy as it continues to build a sizeable body of work on evidenced based approaches that are in service of the best coaching possible.

Author Tracy Sinclair, PCC, is also a trained Coaching Supervisor, Mentor Coach and an ICF Assessor. Tracy trains coaches and works with managers and leaders to develop their coaching capability. She works as an international Corporate Executive and Board Level Coach, a leadership development designer and facilitator working with a wide range of organizations. Tracy also specializes in working with organisations to support them develop coaching culture. She was the President of the UK ICF from 2013-2014. Tracy is a 2019 ICF Global Board Director and Immediate Past Chair.   Original post can be found here: https://coachfederation.org/blog/coaching-supervision

2019 Year-End Review

2019 Year-End Review

Don’t look now, but 2020 is upon us!  Can you believe it?  What an exciting time to be alive and to be in business!!  Are you excited?  You sure should be!  Things are changing, and opportunities are everywhere. 

Now is the time to take stock of what you did in 2019 and where you want to go in 2020.  You may be asking yourself: “I have no idea where to start; I think I will just pull the covers up and stay right here where it is warm and cozy.”  Wrong Answer!  Jump out and wake up and let’s get going with the promise of 2020.

In the holiday edition of the online version of Inc., this magazine put out an excellent article on evaluating the year past and planning for the new year ahead.  I suggest you go here and read this article: https://www.inc.com/marla-tabaka/heres-your-guide-to-a-smart-year-end-businessreview.html .  I am sure this year they will do another article, please check it out.  You never have to do anything alone.  Someone has already put a plan together or a guideline that you can use to get a jump start. 

Every year I write the same thing, and these are the tips to make your year-end transition easier.

  • Pull out your calendar and look at every week of every month and circle in green what produced dollars, or new clients, or new business for you.
  • On each of those same weeks and months, use a red pen to “X” out all the things you attended, people you met, online training you wasted your time on, and money you spent on things that did not return value to you or your business.
  • Pull out this past year’s goals and see what you achieved and what is left unrealized.  Make a decision right now as to what will go forward and what will be left behind. 
  • Do you see “opportunities” which you were unable to capitalize on?  Think long and hard on how you can turn those opportunities into new business in the coming year.
  • If you are feeling bogged down, or in a fog, or just plain stuck and out of creativity and ideas; this is the time to pick up a fellow business owner and set an “ideating” date to do some serious brainstorming in the week between Thanksgiving and December 21st or at the latest the Christmas and New Year. Why this time frame?  Because if you get your 2020 plans down on paper before the end of the year, you can get a jump start on your competition.  Most businesses go into a quiet time and slumber through the holidays at the end of the year unless you are in retail.
  • What did you learn new this year?  No one can afford not keeping their skill level up.  If you are even a little tech-savvy, you need to take the free courses for the programs you use in your business.  I routinely receive emails from Microsoft, LinkedIn and so on for new training.  Keep your mind and company up to date and sharp.
  • Let’s talk for a moment about “disappointments.”  We all have them.  Don’t believe all the hype of Facebook and Instagram.  Everyone has failures.  One of the best pieces of advice I ever received is to just look at the disappointment in a way that is removed from you.  If you felt pressured, you did not have all the information you needed, or the timing wasn’t right, accept that for what it is and learn from the experience.  Make a mental note and do not fall for the sell again. 
  • During this slow, down in business, do a little research on who your competition is, read up on where your market is going, read up on your niche segment of your industry and become informed, learn what is coming down the pipeline and what you might consider next. 
  • If you are running a small business, or are an entrepreneur who works alone, it is easy to become overwhelmed and isolated.  Make sure you sprinkle some business networking opportunities and attend in your local community.  If you also belong to some US large organization or a Global organization, plan to attend the yearly conference and put aside money to attend.  I do not believe you have to go every year, but you might collaborate with others, and one of your group goes each year and comes back and gives a debrief to your group.
  • Okay, so let’s look at 2020 and what you want to achieve, what your goals are, what you are excited about, what new products, programs, and writing you want to do.  In order to do this kind of dreaming, you will need to block off some white space to think.  Many people like to do this in a coffee shop, in a park, on an airplane where they are not interrupted, or some other seclude place they believe is a great thinking place.  Remember, nothing is to wild, unbelievable, undoable, impossible – the only person who can derail you is Y-O-U!
  • CELEBRATE!!!!  If you are an outgoing person, and a solopreneur, get together with others in your area and celebrate the year, all the right business stuff, your achievements, and do not be shy about it.  We all need lifting up, and we need to celebrate.  We are not talking about being prideful here, just celebrating all the great things that happened in 2019.

May your New Year be full of Focus, Planning, & Prosperity!

Author Janice Bastani, Master Mentor Coach is a certified executive leadership coach and holds many credentials in the coaching arena.

Her credentials include the following certifications:

Professional Certified Coach with the International Coach Federation, Energy Leadership Coach, Emotional Intelligence Coach, Global Group Coaching Coach, NeuroLeadership Coach, Certified John Maxwell Coach, Speaker, Mentor & Trainer.

Janice holds certifications to give and debrief Energy Leadership Assessments, Level One DISC assessment as well as being a Trainer with the DISC Personality Profile, Emotional Intelligence Assessments, Personality Profiling, along with several others in her faith ministry for Spiritual Gifts, and Strengths Profile. She is a founding member of the John Maxwell Team. Janice holds a BA in Journalism.


Things I Am Glad I Realized Early When Building My Coaching Business

Things I Am Glad I Realized Early When Building My Coaching Business

As a mentor coach, I often meet new and aspiring coaches. It is wonderful to see our community grow and give access to coaching in wider circles. Through the years, I have had plenty of opportunities to mirror myself in their struggles, and I realize there are a few things I am glad I saw early. It has helped me in building my business and given me a smoother ride along the way.

Building a Coaching Business is Building a Business

First thing I am glad I saw clearly is that building a coaching business is building a business. As newly trained coaches, we are overflowing with enthusiasm on coaching itself—the work we can do to contribute. It is then essential to remember that building a business is a different skillset. I differed my two skillset developments by ensuring I had support in both parts: a good mentor coach to support my growth in coaching and good business advisors to help me get my business right. As my business understanding grew, I went from needing the actual advice to having a business coach. I still separate mentor coaching from business coaching because goals are completely different. In mentor coaching, the goals are around developing my coaching skills. In business coaching, they are around developing my company and my skills to run it. Both are highly needed.

Get Inspiration for Other Industries

I also realized how helpful it is to get inspiration from other industries. Don’t stay in coaching networks only. Listen to other industries and pick your golden ideas. Listening to plumbers and carpenters got me out of “selling myself—taking it personal,” I adopted their mode. A plumber knows he is needed and relaxes in that. He knows his prices are fairly counted to cover salary and expenses, and he doesn’t question himself if someone complains. Using their “I wouldn’t work for someone who won’t pay me, that would ruin my business” got me out of taking things personally. Keeping in mind that if it ruins a plumber’s business, it will for a coach. This helped me charge enough to give my business a chance. Looking at the best in other industries has also given me inspiration in how to use technology, how to develop and market my services and given me a good sense on what trends are influencing my market.

Always Think One Size Bigger

My peeking into other businesses got me to see the power in always thinking one size bigger, and it has saved me from a lot of mistakes. Here is the trick: Always work in a system that can hold your business easily one step bigger. If you are new, create a system that will work when you are fully booked. When you get going, build a system that will hold for growth. When good things happen, you are already mentally and organizationally prepared to take on bigger challenges. If you decide to work your way through it, you have a lean process to support you. If you decide this is where you take in subcontractors or employ individuals, you can easily do so. The systems are already in place. Systems built to manage bigger challenges helps you step up your game when you get the chance.

Budget for Development

I am also glad I early realized development requires a budget, in time and money. As a coach, it is essential to have the time and money to continue learning. You are the instrument, and your coaching can never get better than you. Holding that in mind when budgeting helps you set prices to cover time and costs for your own training. It also makes you build your business to have coverage for time to take on the CEO role to develop your own company. Parallel development, you as a coach and your business: Neither can stand still and both parts need their resources.

Look Big

It can be hard work to build trust and gain respect as a small business owner. I realized you can always look big by adding on to what already is. I joined established networks to gain credibility in business context. Coaching may be new and still a bit suspicious to some. By making myself visible in the networks of established companies, people got used to seeing me as part of business around. Create your own network, become part of your business community, don’t stay lonely.

Author Lena Gustafsson, PCC, holds a Master of Social Sciences, having majored in Psychology. She is past president of ICF Sweden and actively engaged in the development of coaching in her country. She is equally interested in the fields of method development and of building business as a coach; getting the two together is one of her strengths. She is working internationally in all sectors from sole traders to multinational companies to public organizations and NGOs.  She is also working as mentor coach for new and experienced coaches. Besides coaching, she serves as an entrepreneurial startup advisor and does leadership consulting. She is the representative of coaches in the Swedish National Council of Branches and in the national board of Swedish Federation of Business Owners. The original blog can be found here https://coachfederation.org/blog/realizations-building-coaching-biz

Helping Your Clients Improve Employee Engagement Through Authentic Appreciation

Helping Your Clients Improve Employee Engagement Through Authentic Appreciation

The headline “Improve Employee Engagement” is everywhere in the business culture. Understandably so, because employee engagement is linked to less turnover, higher productivity and ultimately, to increased profitability.  As a coach, providing your clients with the skills and resources to boost employee engagement will be extremely valuable to them.  A key way is through authentic appreciation.

What is Appreciation?

Simply said, appreciation is taking a moment to focus upon individuals to show that you value the work they do.  This is one of the keys to improving Employee Engagement. People clearly want to be appreciated for their contributions:

  • The level of employees feeling appreciated is one of the core factors Gallup found to significant­ly impact the degree of employee engagement in organizations
  • Over 200,000 global employees were studied by the Boston Consulting Group, and the top reason they reported enjoying their work was “feeling appreciated” (financial compensation didn’t appear until #8)
  • Seventy-nine percent of employees who quit their jobs cite lack of appreciation as a key reason for leaving
  • Four out of five employees (81 percent) say they are motivated to work harder when their boss shows appreciation for their work

It would appear that the most important ways to increase Employee Engagement is to give employees appreciation. But, unfortunately, most people don’t feel appreciated at work.

In fact, while 51 percent of managers surveyed across several companies felt they were doing a good job of recognizing employees for work well done, only 17 percent of the employees who worked for those managers felt appreciated by their supervisor. Thus, a wide discrepancy existed between how the managers perceived they were doing and what their employees experienced.

So, Why Are We Missing the Mark?

The first core principle to understand is that not everyone feels appreciated in the same waysEach person has a specific “language” that, when used, communicates a clear message that they are appreciated.  Research and experience have identified five languages of appreciation in the workplace:

  • Words of Affirmation: Praise communicated orally or in writing
  • Quality Time: Receiving focused attention from your supervisor, “hanging out” with co-workers, working together on a project
  • Acts of Service: Helping co-workers troubleshoot or complete a time-sensitive project
  • Tangible Gifts: Giving a small gift reflecting colleagues’ food preferences, hobbies or interests
  • Appropriate Physical Touch: Spontaneous celebration of a positive event such as a high five when a project is completed, a fist bump upon solving a problem, or a congratulatory handshake when a significant sale is made

Core Conditions for Staff to Truly Feel Appreciated

Four core conditions need to be present in order for employees to truly feel appreciated. Business leaders need to focus on communicating appreciation in these ways in order to be effective in their efforts.  And, coaches need to assist their clients in implementing these steps to help improve their employee engagement.

Team members will feel valued when appreciation is communicated:

  1. Regularly: What ”regularly” means varies depending on the work setting, the frequency of interaction between co-workers and the nature of the relationship.  However, regularly clearly implies more than once a year during a performance review or when someone receives the “Staff Member of the Month” award
  2. Through the language and actions important to the recipient: The key word is “recipient.” Most of us tend to communicate appreciation to others through the actions that we value—like giving a verbal compliment or sending an email. But, as mentioned above, not everyone feels appreciated in the same ways, and the probability is high that your colleagues differ from you in what communicates appreciation to them
  3. In a way that is personal and individualized: Group-based recognition is a good start (“Way to go, team. Our satisfaction ratings improved last quarter”), but if the appreciation doesn’t relate to what the individual team member did to help achieve the goal, the communication can fall flat. Employees want to know what they have done that you value
  4. In a manner that is perceived as authentic: If the communication of appreciation is not perceived as being genuine, nothing else really matters. Actions of recognition can appear inauthentic when:

  • A person’s tone of voice, posture or facial expressions don’t seem to match what they are saying
  • How a person relates to you in front of others differs from how they interact with you privately
  • There is an overall question of the motivation of the deliverer—do they have an ulterior motive?

With some thoughtfulness and intentionality, creating a culture of appreciation in the workplace is attainable, and an investment that makes good business sense. But many leaders need assistance and a structured process to apply the concepts of communicating authentic appreciation.

About the Author:

Paul White, Ph.D., is a psychologist, author and speaker, who “makes work relationships work.” White is the co-author of three books including, The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace, which has sold over 330,000 copies (written with Gary Chapman, Ph.D., author of the #1 NY Times best-seller, The 5 Love Languages).  Their online assessment tool, Motivating by Appreciation Inventory, has been taken by over 175,000 employees and their Appreciation at Work training resources are used in over 25 countries.

This Blog post is re-blogged from Coach Federation, and the original post can be found here: https://coachfederation.org/blog/authentic-appreciation  

How to be a Life Coach for Millennials

How to be a Life Coach for Millennials

Author: Christina Stathopoulos, PCC. A reblog from ICF.

Millennials are about to make up over half of the world’s workforce. Being able to effectively coach them will become paramount to the sustainability of any coach’s practice. And, overgeneralizing the common issues associated with working with millennials can inhibit a powerful relationship between coach and client. This article is intended to support coaches in navigating their issues with millennial clients and offer new insights on how to distinguish any age biases that may be inhibiting deeper relationships.

As a bonus, this article is being written by a 27-year-old millennial woman, who also happens to be a Professional Certified Coach with a robust practice. So, if you are a coach interested in distinguishing your current age biases, learning how to take responsibility for them, and applying new methods to your coaching, then keep on reading.

What is a Millennial?

What is a millennial? I encourage you to think about your answer to that question, and possibly even jot it down before you continue reading.

Most simply put, millennials are a demographic cohort born between the years 1981 and 1996.

The Problem with “How”

You might have a lot of questions about how to be a life coach for millennials, but there are a few easy ways to get it going. Coaches crave “how-tos” when it comes to working with millennials.

They believe this will make the coaching more effective.

They believe this will make working with millennials easier.

Ultimately to seek the how-to first will cause coaches to make the mistake of focusing more on their own performance than on “what” and “who” of the clients they work with.

Expertise will always be of value, but the default among coaches is to move forward on expertise and operate on top of the undistinguished biases they bring into their relationships with their millennial clients.

Think about it through the lens of the ICF Core Competencies. To rely on tips tricks, or how-tos to coach a client, means to be unwilling to be flexible during the coaching process. It eliminates the space to not know and take risks. It also then requires the coach to listen through their own agenda of “How is this response reflective of this person being a millennial?” versus any more open-ended or curious lens.

My assertion is that “how” kills the partnership between coach and client.

“How” Without Performance

Consider that the most effective way to work with millennials comes in these three steps:

  1. Distinguishing your own age bias
  2. Taking responsibility for that age bias to have it out of the space held for a client
  3. Applying new techniques and methods to coaching

Skipping straight to #3 will cause that focus on performance previously mentioned.

Distinguishing Your Own Age Bias

To start, revisit your answer to the question, “What is a millennial?” Consider that anything you included in your answer beyond the range of birth years points to what your bias is.

Remember that bias doesn’t necessarily mean negative. However, if you want to be a life coach for millennials you must understand and negate your own bias. If you are stuck or unsure, here are some common examples:

“Millennials crave instant gratification.”

“Millennials are great with social media.”

“Millennials rebel against older leadership styles.”

“Millennials need friends and family to give them career advice.”

“The most important goal for a millennial is work/life balance.”

Taking It Out of the Space

Once you have distinguished the age biases that you have around working with millennial clients, you must practice putting those biases aside. One way to practice this is to listen to your own coaching of millennials through the lens of Coaching Presence. For example, you can check in on:

  • Where am I asking this question from? – Are my lines of inquiry reflective of being completely connected to the client and curious?
  • How much of the client am I listening to? – Am I trying to fit my client into assumptions I have about how they view career/life/leadership? Or am I truly listening to who they are and their experience?
  • What am I right about? – Which techniques or methods am I redundantly applying with the same client repeatedly? Why am I attached to those methods?

Applying New Techniques

With your age biases distinguished and out of the space, you can give yourself permission to seek out techniques again. And, you will undeniably notice a difference in how you hold those techniques.

With age bias undistinguished and running rampant, how-to becomes a coach’s beacon for how to fix their coaching or fix their clients.

With awareness and responsibility, how-to is merely a tool to broaden a coach’s skills and abilities. There will be far less pressure to have the correct solutions and answers.

In conclusion, curiosity remains your best tool available to you when coaching millennials. Taking on the practices and techniques that hone your Coaching Presence will ultimately make you a more effective coach for the next generation of global leaders.

©2019 Christina Stathopoulos

Christina Stathopoulos, PCC, is the founder and head coach of Hear Her Roar. She is a Professional Certified Coach (International Coach Federation-credentialed) and an Accomplishment Coaching-Certified Coach. Christina specializes in working with women leaders who are seeking to have a greater impact on their professional and personal communities. She partners with these women to have more confidence, develop their leadership presence, and embolden their voices. Christina’s pursuit for playing powerfully began at Mount Holyoke College, where she earned degrees in English and chemistry. In addition to her private practice, Christina serves the next generation of leaders as a Leader in Training of Accomplishment Coaching’s Coach & Leadership Training Program—the world’s finest accredited program. Christina lives in Hoboken, NJ, where she passionately holds onto her scientific roots through home brewing.

https://coachfederation.org/blog/how-to-coach-millennials

The original blog post can be found at the link above.

How Leaders Can Grow Their Self Management Skills in Times of Change

How Leaders Can Grow Their Self Management Skills in Times of Change

Author: Lenka Grackova, reblog from ICF.

The world is changing, and many companies are applying new management techniques that focus on collaboration, collective intelligence and a greater individual autonomy. Companies are making these changes not only to react faster to ongoing transitions, but also to create a better, more fulfilled workplace.

However, creating such changes requires a lot of effort: new processes, new ways of working, new structures, and also a higher degree of self-management from each person.

The leaders’ challenge is to make all these changes happen in a way that creates excitement, rather than chaos and panic.

It requires leaders who have not only a good knowledge of change management principles and great communication skills, but also a high level of self-motivation, a great deal of perseverance, and personal purpose to make things happen.

Leaders need to demonstrate a great level of self-management themselves. Their stability and focus will stabilize the whole system and set a positive example for others.

One way leaders can further develop their self-management is with professional coaching. Professional coaches help leaders take a step back from their challenges and guide them through the process of creating a change. During the process, leaders can develop new positive habits and strategies on how to progress through changes with confidence.

Anyone who wants to grow their own self management skills or who coaches on self-management in times of change should focus on the following six areas.

1) Manage Emotions

Change and uncertainty often trigger emotions such as fear or anger. When leaders understand their own emotions and manage their reactions, they become more trusted by others. Leaders with high emotional intelligence bring empathy in their communication and connect better with their audience.

Tip to work on this area: How can you take a step back from emotionally charged situations and start observing yourself instead of reacting?

2) Set Your Own Goals

Some leaders do not set any goals when things keep changing because they want to see how the future will unfold. But as Zig Ziglar said: “If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time.”

Even if the future is uncertain, leaders need to keep setting their own goals. Goals increase personal drive, clarity and focus. They provide directions when leaders need to make decisions.

Tip to work on this area: Even if you don’t know how things will evolve, what would be the ideal outcome in three, six or 12 months?

3) Assess and Plan the Way Forward

In a world full of changes, we tend to move away from detailed plans and Gantt charts. But having a high-level plan of five to eight chronological steps on how to get from now to the future is a must. Such a plan decreases complexity, allows for doing things differently, and forces leaders to make decisions on the best way forward.

Tip to work on this area: Make a plan on how you want to drive a specific change: simple, few steps, chronological. A plan is your strategy, not a shopping list of possible actions.

4) Hold Yourself Accountable

Great leaders and managers create a positive example: They hold high standards for others by holding high standards for themselves.

Leaders who hold themselves accountable find creative ways to find motivation and courage to do difficult things. They deliver on their promises—to themselves and to others.

Tip to work on this area: How can you hold yourself accountable to deliver on promises even if no one else checks on you?

5) Maintain Steady Progress

Creating a change is not a sprint, but a marathon. It can be easy to “lose your nerve” and start taking erratic actions when you do not see quick results. Shortcuts can undermine the real progress and can end up wasting time and resources.

Tip to work on this area: How can you validate that you are still moving in the right direction, even if you do not see immediate results?

6) Adapt to Reality

What is real, and what are just biased perceptions, wishful thinking or wrong interpretations of data? Do leaders perceive the world around them objectively?

In the current world, we need to quickly adapt to new technologies as well as to the new ways of working (remote work, flexible desks, self-managed teams, virtual teams, etc.). Practically, it means that every day we need to flex our habits. We need to unlearn what we used to know and learn new ways of doing things. Do leaders perceive their own behaviors objectively and know how they can adapt them?

Tip to work on this area: How can you stay flexible and keep adapting without losing sight of your big goals?

Focusing on these six areas will increase leaders’ capacity to deal with and progress through change in a more serene way.

https://coachfederation.org/blog/self-management-during-change
The original blog post can be found at the link above.

© Copyright 2019 by Lenka Grackova

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Lenka Grackova, ACC, will be exploring this topic more in-depth at ICF Converge 2019, which is taking place October 23-26 in Prague, Czech Republic. Join her session “The Rising Power of Self-Management” in the Build content group on Thursday, October 24 at 3:00 p.m. (local time). By attending this session, you can earn 0.25 CC/0.25 RD in Continuing Coach Education units.

5 Tips to Be an Expert at Time Management

5 Tips to Be an Expert at Time Management

Do you have too much to do and too little time? Of course! Time Management is one of the most common forms of stress that professional people experience, with too much to do and not enough time. It’s called “time poverty” and it’s the biggest single problem facing most people today. Things like budget limitations, staff cutbacks, competitive pressures force individuals to take on more and more work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The key to becoming more efficient and relieving that stress is the ability to set priorities and the ability to focus on one task at a time. Here are five ways to get organized and get avoid time poverty issues:

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. Be open to new ideas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The most foolish person of all is either the person who feels he has no time to learn about time management or, even worse, the person, while being overwhelmed with work, feels that she already knows all that’s needed to know on the subject.

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. Learn from the experts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Success leaves tracks. A wise man, who had studied success for more than 50 years, once concluded that the greatest success principle of all was, learn from the experts. If you want to be a big success in any area, find out what other successful people in that area are doing—and do the same things until you get the same results. Study the interviews, speeches, biographies and autobiographies of successful men and women. You’ll find that they all had one quality in common: They were all described as being “extremely well organized.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is probably no other skill that you can learn that will give you a “bigger bang for the buck” than to become extremely knowledgeable and experienced in using time management practices. So read the books, the articles, listen to the audio, take the courses. Then, practice, practice, practice every day until you master those skills. It is one of the best ways to avoid issues with time poverty.

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. Develop a plan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Successful men and women are both effective and efficient. They do the right things, and they do them in the right way. They are constantly looking for ways to improve the quality and quantity of their output. Develop a plan, Then decide what is the most important thing to do, and then decide how to do it. Having a succinct plan of action is one of the best ways to have effective time management.

 

 

 

 

 

 

4. Set priorities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since there is never enough time to do everything that needs to be done, you must continually set priorities on your activities. Perhaps the best question you can memorize and repeat is, What is the most valuable use of my time right now? Proper time management involves setting the right priorities and following through on them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

5. Focus on one task.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Start with your top tasks. The natural tendency is to major in minors and clear up small things first. After all, small things are easier and they are often more fun than the big, important things that represent the most valuable use of your time. However, the self-discipline of organizing your work and focusing on your highest-value tasks is the starting point of eliminating some amount of time poverty and lowering your stress levels.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The truth is, you can study time management and take time management courses for your entire career, and you will still never learn everything you need to know to get the most out of yourself while doing your job in the most efficient way. The key to efficiency is to continue learning and adapting to become your own expert.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This post is a re-blog from Brian Tracy at Success.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.success.com/5-tips-to-be-an-expert-at-managing-your-time/

 

 

 

5 Tips for Proper Time Management

5 Tips for Proper Time Management

*This is a re-blog from Success.com, by author Jim Rohn


Let me give you some thoughts on time management. Here is a list of things you should consider to make the most of your time:

1. Run the day or it will run you.

Part of the key to time management is just staying in charge. Here’s what usually happens: We start something and we’re in control, but as the day starts to unfold, we start losing it. It’s like running a business. If you don’t stay on top of things, the business will run you before long. You have to stop every once in a while and say, “Wait! Who’s in charge here?”

“Some will master and some will serve.”

Here’s a good phrase to remember: “Some will master and some will serve.” That’s the nature of life, and you have to make sure you become the master. You have to run the day. You have to stay in charge.

What is the key to staying in charge of your time management? You must have your written set of goals with you at all times. Prioritize your goals and decide which are important. Constantly review your goals, then make them a part of a good written game plan.

With your game plan in hand, try to separate the majors from the minors, the really important things from the things that you just have to do. And prioritize. A little thought will save you a lot of time.

Is this a major day or a minor day? Adjust your time accordingly. Is this a major conversation or a minor conversation? A lot of people don’t do well in this area, and here’s why: They major in minor things. They spend too much time on things that don’t count and too little time on things that should count.

2. Don’t mistake movement for achievement.

You probably know some people around you who are just plain busy being busy. You’ve got to be busy being productive.

Consider this: A man comes home at night and flops down on the couch. He says, “I’ve been going, going, going.” But the real question is, “Doing what?” Some people are going, going, going, but they’re doing figure eights. They’re not making much progress.

Don’t mistake movement for achievement. Evaluate the hours in your days, and see if there’s any improvements to be made to time management.

3. Concentrate on where you are.

You’ve just got to zero in on the job at hand. Don’t start your business day until you get to the business. I used to start my business day in the shower. I’m trying to compose a letter in the shower. I’m not awake yet, and I’m trying to compose a letter. I found out that it doesn’t work that way. Wait to get to the office to start your work. Don’t start your business day at the breakfast table. It’s not good for the family, and it’s not very productive.

So here’s what you’ve got to do. On the way to work, concentrate on your driving. In the shower, concentrate on the shower. At the breakfast table, concentrate on the family. Wherever you are, be there. Don’t be somewhere else. Give whatever you’re doing the gift of attention. Give people the gift of attention. Concentrate on where you are.

4. Learn to say no.

Boy, it’s easy in a society like ours to just say yes too much, to over-obligate yourself. Then it takes all that time to back out of it. Don’t say yes too quickly. It’s better to say, “I don’t know if I can make it, but I’ll give you a call.” It’s nicer to say that than to back out later.

Being too eager to please can be dangerous. You need to appreciate yourself, your time, your limits.

One of my colleagues has a good saying: “Don’t let your mouth overload your back.” Being too eager to please can be dangerous. You need to appreciate yourself, your time, your limits. Know when your commitment to someone else will end up taking time away from yourself and your family. Appreciate your special time alone. And appreciate your time with those you love and those who love you.

This is especially important when it comes to charity work. A group of entrepreneurs I know have been very successful in their own business. They get a lot of press. And they’ve been swamped with requests to do pro bono work. They must get a couple offers a month to sit on one charity board or another. Here’s how they handle it: They take all requests, weigh them for time commitments and evaluate them for opportunities. Then they take a collective vote on which two they’ll accept during the next year.

You can’t immediately say yes to offers that sound prestigious. You can’t immediately say yes to social functions, even if they sound like a lot of fun. You’ve got to say maybe and take time to evaluate what’s truly important to you and what will just take time away from your ambitions and your family.

Be eager to please yourself and your family. Don’t be so eager to please everybody else. Appreciate your own limits. You don’t have to fill up every second of the day; take time to appreciate what you’ve accomplished. Take time to enjoy the fruits of your labor.

5. Appreciate the little details.   

Your success should be a pleasure. Appreciating what you’ve acquired and what you’ve done and who you’ve become is important. It’s an important component in fueling your future achievements. Just knowing that you finished all you started out to do that day… that’s encouraging! It’s these little daily gains that continue to fuel your achievement.

Let’s say you’re figuring out tomorrow’s game plan tonight, and tomorrow looks pretty light. So all you write down for tomorrow is “cleanup day.” Clean up all the little notes on your desk. Write all the thank-you notes you haven’t gotten around to writing all week. Take care of a few phone calls that keep getting shuffled from one day to the next. It’s just minor stuff. Nonetheless, it’s the little stuff that keeps weighing you down until you get it done.

So you spend your day in cleanup mode. You file the notes, write the thank-you cards, make the phone calls. It’s not a major day. But at the end of the day, you feel you’ve accomplished so much. Why? Because you’ve taken care of so many little details. It’s the little details that can make a major difference. You feel like you’ve really achieved something during a day that started out to be so minor.

Little achievements are just as important as big achievements. Success is the constant process of working toward your goals, little achievement by little achievement. Little achievements produce big results. Anything is possible in those 24 hours we’re given each day.

https://www.success.com/rohn-5-tips-for-using-your-time-wisely/
The original blog post can be found at the link above.
Set Smart Boundaries with Coaching Prospects and Clients

Set Smart Boundaries with Coaching Prospects and Clients

Author: Rhonda Hess

I’ve been a life long student of boundaries. That is to say, boundaries have been a core issue for me in the past and now it’s much less of an issue. When I sense myself leaning in too far, trying to do too much, to people please or over-deliver, I rein myself in.

Still, I occasionally fall into old patterns, even in coaching relationships.

I’m a 2 on the Enneagram. That’s “The Helper.” More than anything, I want to be of service to others, to help them better their circumstances. It’s a good fit for being a coach. And a strength overused becomes a weakness.

In the past, it’s often meant that I gave too much in all of my roles and relationships. And, I allowed some people to step on me… repeatedly.

Powerful Questions to Uncover Boundary Challenges

What about you? Do you like to fill in the holes and make sure everyone is taken care of? Are you a natural helper or people pleaser? A lot of coaches are.

Here are more specific questions to ask yourself:

With coaching prospects…

Do you reduce your fees habitually to suit prospects?

Do you bend over backward to prove your worth in Discovery Sessions?

With coaching clients…

Do you habitually go over time in sessions?

Are you charging enough to cover your investment of time outside of sessions?

Repetitive Over-Delivery Hurts You and Your Coaching Clients

Early on in my business I attended an International Coach Federation conference and met Cheryl Richardson.

She was asking a group of coaches… Do you want more for your clients than they want for themselves?

Bam! That was an aha moment for me. The answer was ‘YES’… always.

I learned from Cheryl that ultimately your client must choose transformation for it to happen. They must want it with all of their heart, mind and be willing to take action outside their comfort zone.

If you want something for them more than they do for themselves, it creates an imbalance in the co-creative relationship and the reality is, you’re going to be pushing them and they won’t appreciate it.

Later on, a friend of mine created a training based on years of research called Right Use of Power and I attended one of her first workshops.

Another huge aha. Let me explain…

When you are in a practitioner or authoritative or helper role, that role carries a certain amount of power. Hopefully, as coaches, we believe we are our client’s equals, but even so, they may hold some deference for us.

It’s up to coaches to do our best to equalize the power in the coach-client relationship. And this requires a lot of self-reflection and self-awareness.

Right Size Yourself

You might be kind of surprised that the answer to balance the power is not to give clients more, more of your time or make it easier for them by taking some of their responsibilities your own shoulders like giving them discounts.

Those kinds of things actually increase the power differential. And they do something to you too. You’re inflating your role and deflating your own power.

The answer is to invite the client to stand in their own power by making their role clear to them. And to stand firmly in your role without inflating or deflating your power.

Learn how to be right-sized.

Treat your prospects and clients as responsible people who are creative, resourceful and whole. That means:

  • Charge fees that pay you well. Don’t discount those fees to enroll a client.
  • Set and maintain time boundaries for sessions. If you’re about to go over time, acknowledge that you’re purposefully going over time and set a reasonable time boundary that you stick with.
  • Hold your clients accountable for paying their fees on time, showing up on time, being ready to coach, and doing their own work in between sessions. Don’t do their work for them unless that’s explicitly part of your program.

To know if you’re being right-sized, notice if you’ve over-inflated your role by taking responsibility from them or under-inflated your role by not owning your own power.

It is a dance that requires self awareness.

Set Boundaries Early On

If you clearly show prospects and clients your boundaries early on in relationships, you have a better chance at a mutually satisfying relationship.

If they are empowered, they will take leaps.

“We teach people how to treat us.”
Phil McGraw

With prospects, that’s as simple as holding the time boundary on your Discovery Sessions and by not stepping into the coaching role in that session.

  • Be transparent on your website and in emails about what they can expect from your Discovery Session. It’s a get-to-know-you conversation where you’ll each assess fit for working together.
  • During the session, ask them open-ended questions. Let them talk.
  • Understand what they want right now and what’s keeping them from it. Then apply that to your signature program.
  • Share your fees and stand behind them.

With new clients, give an orientation at the beginning of your first session.

  • Set ground rules about cancelations, showing up on time and time boundaries.
  • Tell them your role and responsibilities and explain theirs. They send a Session prep. They set the agenda. They show up truthfully. They take action between sessions.

If they fail to bring an agenda, illustrate what an agenda is and reinforce it’s their role to set a specific bite-sized takeaway for each session.

These are small things. And they set the tone powerfully.

And still, there will be tests.

Red Flags That You’ve Inflated or Deflated Your Coaching Role

How can you tell if your boundaries need fortifying?

1. You feel desperate to enroll this prospect.

  • That desperation will deflate your power while tempting you to inflate your role and discount your fees.

2. You feel overwhelmed by a client’s energy.

  • The client may not be a good fit. Maybe you’ve said ‘yes’ when your intuition clearly said ‘no’.
  • Or, you might need to make requests for them to slow down. Consider doing a grounding meditation at the beginning of the session.

3. You feel emotionally tapped out after working with a client.

  • The client may not be a good fit.
  • Or, you were over-delivering. You might have inflated to prove your worth. Get right sized. Stand in your power. Hold your boundaries.
  • Try an energetic disconnecting exercise to release energy after the session.

4. You are beginning to feel resentful toward the client.

  • You likely inflated your role while deflating your power by taking some responsibility from the client such as charging too little or repeatedly giving too much for the fees you’re charging.

Only some people will be ideal coaching clients for you. And it takes time to realize what makes you a good fit for them and them a good fit for you.

Pay attention to ease and to your reactions to people to inform you. When you think of enrolling clients imagine your avatar — the ideal client for you.

The ultimate boundary is to learn how to say ‘no’ when you’re clear something is not right for you. Do it in an honoring way. Take it onto yourself. You might say something like:

“I feel strongly that I’m not the best resource for you.
And, fit is really critical in the work I do with my clients.
I’ve learned over time that I’ve got to listen to my integrity
and sometimes not take on a client, even if they want to work with me.”

Have some coach colleagues or other resources to refer those non-ideal people to. If they are not right for you doesn’t mean they won’t be right for someone else.

Author Rhonda Hess co-authored the Coach Training AcceleratorTM and designed the CTA Certified Coach Program. She has a super power for helping coaches choose and champion a profitable niche they’ll love. Learn more at Prosperous Coach

8 Powerful Coaching Questions to Ask Any Client Anytime

8 Powerful Coaching Questions to Ask Any Client Anytime

These are powerful questions that are standard in the coaches toolbox.

The right question can really help anyone zoom past obstacles and into a power zone of awareness and action on their own behalf.

That’s why questions are so valuable to coaches and in coaching.

So the first question unlocks a lot for your clients:

What do you want?

Well, sometimes people have a hard time answering this question, but with probing questions beneath it, you might be able to get them to it.

The second question is:

What’s holding you back?

As human beings, we do generally have a sense of this. We might be in denial about it, but we generally do know what we’re doing that’s either sabotaging ourselves or what we’re thinking, what we’re feeling that is lingering too long for us to be able to transform.

So what’s holding you back?

That question will cause your coaching client to go inside and really look at the truth with a capital T.

The third question is:

What is it costing you to continue holding back?

I don’t know if we normally as human beings think about what the costs are of our actions, of our thoughts, of our habits, but to ask someone that causes them to look at themselves from a place of self responsibility.

The fourth question is:

How could you show up differently?

Presumably you’re talking to them about a circumstance or a situation and this question allows them to wonder, Oh, I’m at choice here. How could I show up differently?

I remember this one time where I was going to be speaking in public at a pretty big event for coaches and I was just so nervous. I called my husband for support and he has asked me: How do you want to show up, Rhonda?

I paused and I thought about it. Well, I want to show up standing in my power, believing in myself and being open and vulnerable to my audience as well as delivering something that is actually valuable to them.

Those four answers just grounded me. They made me feel good again, made me feel ready again. And I realized that it was okay to be vulnerable with my audience. It’s okay that I was nervous and I didn’t have to try to obliterate that nervousness before getting on stage.

The fifth question is:

What is a new perspective that you could adopt right now?

Oftentimes when our coaching clients are telling us how they feel or what they think about something, it might be a gripe. It might be the raw feeling and there’s nothing wrong with that.

As a matter of fact, I invite my clients to share their raw feelings.

You can respond to that raw stuff with the question: What’s a new perspective you could adopt right now about that?

You’re inviting them to pick themselves up out of the situation and get a 30,000 foot view. Look at it from the other person’s point of view. Or from their highest self point of view.

The sixth question is:

What is the most meaningful action you could take right now?

So often when our clients are stuck, it’s because they’re unwilling to or afraid to take an action and when you put that word meaningful in front of action, it helps them think differently.

Meaningful to them could be journaling. Or it could be having a conversation with you or someone else. Meaningful to them could be deciding not to do it at all and to take a different direction.

The seventh question is:

What new habits will you put in place right now?

Habits are amazingly powerful in our lives and in the lives of our clients.

We all have bad habits. If you take any aspect of our lives on the life wheel, we’ve got bad habits in those areas, whether it be finances, or how we behave at work … how we feed or exercise ourselves.

We all have habits that can be improved and habits are amazingly powerful if we put the right ones in place.

That’s partially why I’m talking to you about client management because these are habits that we can have in place with our prospects and our clients.

 And the last question, number eight is:

What new skills or support systems will ensure your success?

We want to teach our clients and ourselves to realize that sometimes we have to learn something new or go get help in order to ensure our success.

I always ask my prospects about their support systems. I want to know do they have a family? Do they have a partner? Is that partner supportive of them building a coaching business? Do they have childcare? Do they have ways that they’re going to be able to segment parts of their day to work on their business?

With your own target audience around the niche you have, the ultimate outcome you’re going to help them achieve —be sure they have support systems in place and not just you. You don’t want all of the help and succor to be on your shoulders.

Going back to the skills too, of course everyone who is undertaking something new or trying to do something big.

Hopefully, you’re helping your clients achieve something big to get past or solve a big problem they have or to achieve a huge goal they have. Because if you’re doing that with your clients you may not be able to earn enough as a coach

New skills might something like developing a stronger intuition. It might be developing greater awareness of themselves, of their body, of what their mind or emotions is telling them. Or it could be something really nuts and boltsy such as taking training in order to succeed.

These questions are useful for coaches, for nearly any client at any time, so I hope you use them for your success!

This blog post has been extracted from the Prosperous Coaching Blog Podcast. The podcast can be found here: https://prosperouscoachblog.com/ep-37-8-powerful-coaching-questions-to-ask-any-client-anytime/

Author Rhonda Hess co-authored the Coach Training AcceleratorTM and designed the CTA Certified Coach Program. She has a super power for helping coaches choose and champion a profitable niche they’ll love. Learn more at Prosperous Coach.

Coaching as a Digital Nomad

Coaching as a Digital Nomad

In today’s world, coaches are free to use advanced technology to become location free or, so-called digital nomads. It is technically possible to connect with our clients via video calls and perform our other tasks online. However, is it a realistic option when it comes specifically to coaching?

When leaving Europe to start my digital nomad adventure in Southeast Asia, I got bombarded with questions from my fellow coaches. Was it going to be possible to sustain my coaching business while working remotely? How was I going to get new clients? How could I make sure I have a stable internet connection everywhere? To be honest, it was overwhelming at the time. I had a plan, but was I sure it was going to work out? Not really.

Just like my colleagues, I had some limiting beliefs about running a coaching business while traveling. The nomadic lifestyle looked great on Instagram. But what was the reality going to be like? I did not know, but I chose to trust that I will be able to deal with the challenges this journey was about to bring.

Did I succeed? If success means have I been learning a lot? Has this experience expanded my range? Have I sustained my business, happy clients and my mental sanity? Then my answer is YES!

Would I recommend such an adventure to everyone? Yes and no. The truth is, once you are on the road, your business is not going to be the same. So, if you are considering running your coaching business while traveling, the main question is: Are you ready to embrace change?

And what changes can you expect?

1. Your environment will be different, and you will be the same person.

By saying yes to your dreams, you are not automatically saying no to your responsibilities. If you are a responsible person in your “real” life, it is not going to change once you become a digital nomad, not without your permission. However, if you are fighting an endless battle with your procrastination, working from a tropical island might not help you to focus on work.

What is your real motivation to change your lifestyle?

2. You might start attracting different clients.

Yes, there are people out there who think remote working makes you an irresponsible hippie. If you let your potential clients know about your lifestyle, what people will be excited to work with you? There is a chance that your clientele is going to change. This can impact the way you think about your business and your ideal clients.

Who are your ideal clients?

3. You are the one choosing your perspective on your challenges.

Working with clients in different time zones can be a challenge or an opportunity to redesign your idea of what your working day could look like.

Can you embrace change and explore the opportunities the transformation of your daily routine might bring?

4. You will let go of some of your standards.

Perhaps you are used to working with your clients in a meeting room, wearing freshly ironed shirts. As a digital nomad, you might be forced to coach from your phone, sitting on a trash bin, with lizards running on the wall behind you.

After eight months on the road, my imaginary list of must-haves to perform my work got reduced to three things: stable internet connection, (relative) silence and privacy. But even these simple things have a different definition in other parts of the world. So, it becomes essential to always have a plan B (and C and sometimes D).

This is an opportunity to boost your creativity and problem-solving skills and amaze yourself with your ability to stay grounded, 100% focused on your client, no matter what your working conditions are.

Are you ready to expand your coaching comfort zone?

5. Just like traveling, remote working is a journey, not a destination.

Each destination brings a new set of challenges. And that can be amazing and/or stressful. Staying in the present moment is the only way to enjoy your journey because you never know what will come next.

How are you dealing with uncertainty?

Final Words

Once you become physically distant from your clients and your environment, your fancy gear and pretty clothes, all that is left is you, your skills and your ability to be fully present for your clients.

Coaching as a digital nomad can be an intense boot camp of one’s own flexibility, self-management and resilience. It enables you to expand as a person and as a coach in many unexpected ways. At the end of the day, all you need to be a great coach is yourself. And the more you expand your own range, the more space you can offer your clients.

This is a share from Coach Federation.org, all content is their original content. The original post can be found here: https://coachfederation.org/blog/coaching-as-a-digital-nomad

About the Author: Anna Kmetova, ACC, CPCC, is a Life and Career Coach who empowers open-minded individuals to lead authentic and fulfilling lives through guided one-to-one sessions. When she is not supporting personal transformation, she helps companies implement a coaching culture. Anna is based in Amsterdam. From November 2018–August 2019, she has supported her clients remotely from Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia, Indonesia and Taiwan. 

https://www.annakmetova.com/

10 Trends That Will Redefine Coaching in 2019 – ReBlog

10 Trends That Will Redefine Coaching in 2019 – ReBlog

It’s time to buckle up and get ready for some major transformations in the coaching space

Looking to implement the latest coaching trends for 2019? In our technology-driven world, the demand for skilled coaches is greater than ever before.

**This blog is a re-post from http://membershipfix.com/coaching-trends/**

Inc.com recently published an article entitled, “Science Says 92 Percent of People Don’t Achieve Their Goals. Here’s How the Other 8 Percent Do.” Within the article, Inc.com cited a University of Scranton study which found that only 8% of people accomplish their goals.

Because the achievement of goals is the foundation to a fulfilled life, that statistic proves there are many disappointed people and businesses out there. Yes, there are a small group of individuals accomplishing their goals. However, far more are living out “quiet lives of desperation”.

There are many obstacles facing technology overloaded goal seekers today. Things are increasingly complex and require expert solutions. But not all coaches will be ready to solve the unique problems their clients will face in 2019.

Are you an executive, spiritual, fitness or life coach? Regardless of the type of coach you are, here are ten coaching trends to be aware of in 2019 so you can continually stay relevant.

Technology Will Continue to Replace Location

It wasn’t too long ago that location was everything when it came to coaching. Location-based coaching will continue to become obsolete in 2019.

Coaches and clients will advance the trend of being okay with long-distance coaching. It won’t matter where the coach or client is living. In some cases, it could be years before a face-to-face encounter ever happens. Even so, the impact coaches have on their clients will be real and powerful.

Seeking to Be as Human as Possible

With the digitalization of coaching, things are both easier and more complex now. The coaches who’ll thrive in 2019 will be those who, despite lacking face-to-face encounters, provide “the human touch” for their clients.

This will include as many communication forms as possible to provide well-rounded interactions. Coaches who find cutting-edge ways to make interactions feel as face-to-face as possible will find unique success.

Proof of Coaching Results

Due to the complexity of coaching in 2019, clients will want to see the measurable results coaches have already achieved. As already shared, the added challenges of technology require more than the simplicity of traditional coaching methods.

Clients are looking for coaches with a proven track record of delivering results. Because the bar is higher now, there will be a greater disparity among coaches skilled at delivering results and those who are not. Being a part of a coaching membership site will help you display your wins in a way that will convert clients.

Greater Accountability in the Coaching World

With the rise of technology and the Internet, it became easy for anyone to simply call themselves a coach. The challenge for those seeking a coach, however, is that it’s become more difficult to determine if prospective coaches are truly qualified.

Expect more concrete licensing and qualifications for coaches in the future. We’re reaching a point where clients need to see qualifications in a coach to feel confident in their investment. Coaching membership sites are a great way for coaches to stay current with regulations to put their best foot forward.

Increased Rates for Qualified Coaches

Already, you’ve noticed a theme in this article and it boils down to higher standards for coaches in 2019. Coaches will need to:

  • Solve more difficult problems than in the past
  • Have an increased understanding of technology
  • Be able to prove past successes before landing new clients
  • Have a strong web presence
  • Be highly competitive
  • Adhere to industry and governmental regulations
  • Use more complex automation to complete administrative tasks

It stands to reason that fewer coaches will successfully make these adjustments. But for the truly persistent, these higher standards will allow coaches to demand higher rates. The need for the few who can provide unique solutions will increase coaching wages for the truly skilled.

Greater Focus on Positive Psychology

As the understanding of positive psychology continues to advance, coaches will increasingly draw from this wisdom when helping their clients with mental roadblocks.

Coaches will be able to show their clients that their biggest enemy is often themselves.

Negative or self-defeating internal dialogues will be evaluated by coach and client alike. That negative dialogue will be replaced with positive self-talk. And once the positive self-talk is in place, many roadblocks previously thought insurmountable by coaching clients will begin to crumble.

The Demand for Coaching Will Increase

Because today’s coaches will be tackling more difficult problems, many more businesses and individuals will need help. They’ll recognize how unprepared they are to solve those challenges on their own and will look for assistance.

In 2019 and further on, coaching will be seen less and less as a luxury. Instead, it will be an understood necessity for success. It will no longer be only perceived elites who utilize the benefits of coaching. A membership to a coaching site will help you find the growing number clients that best suit your expertise.

Specialized or Niche Coaching Will Increase

It’s becoming significantly more difficult to remain an expert in multiple industries. The greater complexity of problems industries and individuals face will develop the need for specialized or niche coaches.

More than ever before, coaches who brand themselves as generalists won’t be taken as seriously. In addition, they won’t be able to command high rates like specialized coaches will. Coaching experts will need to stay specialized to keep up with all the latest trends.

Greater Need for Automation and Delegation

Because of the increased need for expert advice, coaches simply won’t be able to do it all. Trends in 2019 will continue towards the automation of administrative tasks through software and other advances.

Also, coaches will need to delegate or outsource work to freelancers. That may mean help with videography, ghostwriting books or web content. Today’s coaches will need to make sure they’re not spread too thin because of the increased expectations they face.

If you’re struggling to know how to best use technology for administrative purposes or who to hire, a coaching membership site will help you sort that out.

More Relationship-Driven

Gone are the days of sterile coaching relationships. Expect coaching in 2019 to continue the trend toward building authentic, meaningful relationships. This bond is necessary to tackle personal and psychological roadblocks.

There’ll be a need for vulnerability on the part of both client and coach. The more difficult problems faced in 2019 will require the shift to ensure success. Also, with more at stake in the event of failure, a greater level of trust will need to be built.

While coaching in 2019 will be more challenging, there are greater potential rewards for coaches who are prepared for the latest trends.

This blog is a re-post from http://membershipfix.com/coaching-trends/

All content is to their credit.

Could This Be the Reason Your Coaching Business Hasn’t Arrived Yet?

Could This Be the Reason Your Coaching Business Hasn’t Arrived Yet?

Your mindset.

It’s true. The make or break factors in coaching business success are rarely about education, specific business skills, or experience. Instead, it all comes down to how you manage your mind.

Nearly all my clients have struggled with believing in themselves at one moment or another. I’ve struggled with it on and off myself. What’s pulled me forward again and again is a BIG WHY. With all my heart I want to serve and earn with the freedom to do it my way. Over the years I’ve learned to use obstacles as my prosperous path.

Change Your Mind

https://prosperouscoachblog.com/reason-coaching-business-arrived/When you break through, it’s a shift in perspective that does it. You simply change your mind. Suddenly, what seemed like a steel wall in your way becomes a wisp of cloud. If the steel wall persists, it’s not because it’s real. It’s just waiting for you to see the wall come down. You have the power.

There’s a simple tool you can deploy whenever you feel that knife edge of wanting to give up: Turn what feels like a big deal into no-big-deal. Release your fixation on whatever you think is lacking and put their focus back on serving.

Move forward like a toddler reaching for a toy – with joy and determination.

The Powerful 12

So what does it really take to build a successful coaching business? A little of this and that – all of it easy to develop if it doesn’t come naturally. Here’s my list of 12: A big enough “why” – the reason you carry on.

  • Curiosity.
  • A passion for learning.
  • Self discipline.
  • Creative juices.
  • A deep desire to serve.
  • Focus.
  • The ability to re-resource.
  • Stick-to-it-iveness.
  • Seeing mistakes as guide posts.
  • Patience.
  • Loving kindness towards yourself.

Author Rhonda Hess co-authored the Coach Training AcceleratorTM and designed the CTA Certified Coach Program. She has a super power for helping coaches choose and champion a profitable niche they’ll love. Learn more at Prosperous Coach

5 Things That Inspire Coaching Clients to Enroll with You

5 Things That Inspire Coaching Clients to Enroll with You

By Rhonda Hess

 

Have you ever felt like your potential clients are giving you a mixed message? They grab up all your free stuff — your irresistible offers, free discovery sessions, articles and other goodies — but too few hire you, buy your products, or enroll in your programs.

It’s clear they need help. They seem to be attracted to you and your message. So what’s missing?

They aren’t properly motivated to invest in what you’re offering. All 5 of these things must be aligned for your prospect to say YES to you!

1. They truly want the outcome you’ll help them reach.https://prosperouscoachblog.com5-inspire-coaching-clients-enroll/

Are you speaking clearly to exactly what they most want?This is easy if you’ve niched to a unique target audience. If you’re selling what you do — coaching — you’ve failed to provide a link to an outcome they want. Draw out of your prospects the specific tangible and emotional outcomes they most want, then speak to how your coaching or program helps them get there. A set of powerful questions asked during enrollment helps them tap into what they really want with all of their heart.

2. They believe that you are the right person to help them reach that outcome.

Who are you that aligns with who they are? This is about your personality, your style, your skills, your experience and maybe even your credentials. And it’s also about your story. People want to know that you’ve been in their shoes and thrived beyond where they are now. (You don’t need to be far ahead.) Show that you’re a vulnerable human being who courageously took the leap. Relate to them with compassion and curiosity. If they feel understood, they are more likely to listen to what you have to say.

3. They want that outcome right now!

Is the timing right? Think about the times when you’ve invested in support to get where you want to go. You had a fire in your belly and you were ready to take a leap. Help them identify closely with what they want as an immediate possibility. Then trust them to do what’s right for them, which may be not taking this step right now. It will be better for you to have clients who are truly ready for change.

4. They understand what you’re offering.
Is your process or system crystal clear? They want to know… what will it be like to work with you? How will they benefit in incremental ways? What will they be doing? Will it be difficult? They need to know that THEY CAN DO IT and that you’ll be with them every step of the way.

5. They believe they cannot afford NOT to hire you now.

Are the costs of status quo becoming intolerable to them? The double negative is necessary here. Help them see the costs of being where they are now, the immediate relief and long term rewards of moving forward in their lives. If possible, monetize the value of transformation so they can justify the investment of working with you financially as well.

If all five of these things are aligned in the mind of your potential client, they will get to YES!

Play around with this the next time you enroll clients. Often, small changes in your approach make a huge difference in your results.

 

Author Rhonda Hess co-authored the Coach Training AcceleratorTM and designed the CTA Certified Coach Program. She has a super power for helping coaches choose and champion a profitable niche they’ll love. Learn more at Prosperous Coach.

Too Many Voices

Too Many Voices

By: Janice Bastani

Like many who are in the field of personal development, I look in from time to time to see what my peers are doing and where they post and whom they are following and learning from.  Since January 2019, I have noticed a troubling trend.  The trend is from their posts on social media and in the groups we jointly belong to, it seems they have fallen into the trap of jumping on board anything that sounds like it might be a “solution” or “great idea.”

Is this a bad idea?  Or is it a good idea?  This is strictly my opinion on this specific topic, but what I am wondering is how they have time to work.  These folks are following, listening, doing assignments all hours of the day and night, and from the looks of it, they are not getting down to the business of working vs. learning.

One of my mentor’s once told me this:  “…just because you have a great idea or a thought does not mean you have to express it…” and this is true too of these types of decisions:  “…just because it sounds like a great idea, course or something you want to explore does not mean you should abandon your daily schedule, weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly goals and jump on the next learning train…”

Another one of my mentor’s from long ago impressed upon me the freedom which is experienced by have days to do certain distinctive types of activities, just like an athlete.  One day the athlete will do strength training, on another day endurance training, cardio one day, upper body, lower body, the psychology of their specific sport and so on, you get the idea.  As an author, trainer, speaker, coach and mentor, each of these requires different skills, and I am not good at trying to do multiples of each every day of the week.  However, I can be very effective if I block off one day for research for training, or for writing, or developing a training program.  I block off my “people” days for coaching and mentoring my clients.  When I speak publicly, I have to do my due diligence for the audience I am going to speak to and write and practice my speech and that has specific blocked time to do that.

Daily, I read, I have my own spiritual practices, and block off time to eat, wind down, exercise, speak with loved ones, and so on.  These are my daily non-negotiables. A grown child is just as disappointed as a grandchild if you forget the important dates in their lives.  I also leave “WHITE SPACE” in my calendar.  When I was much younger, I falsely believed that having a packed calendar with every day and hour packed with something meant, “I WAS GETTING SOMEWHERE!”  The only thing I got was burnout, irritability and disconnected relationships.  A packed calendar is one of the sure ways to bring on overwhelm and distress.

There are principles that never change, and one of the best ones comes from the field of “Marketing”:  “…a confused customer never buys….”  This is so true in business when we have an influx of multiple learning sources, multiple mentors, multiple social media influencers who are all vying for our attention, time, and dollars we become deer in headlights – frozen on the road.  Good decision and good reasoning suddenly become lost in the noise of the constant email solicitations, the reminders, memes, and social posting rants that are continuously being brought to our attention through “alerts.”  It all becomes a dizzying lifestyle that leaves us empty.  We do not have enough time to implement or use what we have just expended our most valuable resources on….our time before we are jumping into the next thing being offered to us.

I am of course talking here about our own “personal development.”  I have counseled my new entrepreneur clients on the dangers of accumulating knowledge which is not implemented into a business plan.  I learned this the hard way.  Each time in my early career when I thought I didn’t know how to do something, I actively sought out that “something” and I was plunged into the world of lists, fresh lists, old lists, partnering lists and it goes on.  Once on these “lists,” it is virtually impossible to get off of them so the solicitation cycle can go on for your entrepreneurial lifespan.

We must first learn the basic, then once we have that, see where the gaps are in our skill base and go from there.  You may have heard this called Bright Shiny Object Syndrome.

So, every day this week, I have set aside a small block of time [basically while I am waiting], and I have “unfollowed” anyone or anything that is not adding value to my feed.  I have also made this a habit each December when I purge my own lists and contacts.  It is incredible how much you no longer are distracted by when it isn’t in your face or tech items.  I can attest it is very freeing and time blocks open up which are better spent on other pursuits.

 

Author, Janice Bastani, is a certified executive leadership coach and holds many credentials in the coaching arena: Professional Certified Coach with the International Coach Federation, Energy Leadership Coach, Emotional Intelligence Coach, Global Group Coaching Coach, NeuroLeadership Coach, Certified John Maxwell Coach, Speaker, Mentor & Trainer.

Janice holds certifications to give and debrief Energy Leadership Assessments, Level One DISC assessment as well as being a Trainer with the DISC Personality Profile, Emotional Intelligence Assessments, Personality Profiling, along with several others in her faith ministry for Spiritual Gifts, and Strengths Profile. She is a founding member of the John Maxwell Team. Janice holds a BA in Journalism. Learn more about Janice at www.janicebastanicoaching.com  

Who am I to coach anyone about that?

Who am I to coach anyone about that?

Who am I to coach anyone about that?

As a coach, have you ever thought “Who am I to…?”  Fears like this show up when you take the smart step of focusing on one unique tribe of people — a niche market — and begin to put the word out that you can help them get where they want to go. The underlying thought is: “How can I charge for this if I haven’t accomplished for myself the things my clients want to accomplish!” And then you fall into a spiral of doubt and start back pedaling.

I hear you. But keep moving forward by embracing your beginner’s mind.

In any new job, career or business direction there is the absolute necessity to be new, untried and unproven at first. You are required to be a beginner and learn from doing. There’s no shame in it.

In fact, a fresh perspective is THE POINT of coaching.

Dance in the Moment

Coaching isn’t about knowing. It is about coming to sessions without a plan, “dancing in the moment” with your client. It’s about drawing out their wisdom and facilitating shifts in perspective and new approaches to problems, processes and desired outcomes.

These are the true skills of masterful coaching:

  • active listening
  • active witnessing
  • active curiosity and
  • asking powerful questions

In fact, coming in with a lot of knowledge can actually override the most sacred thing about coaching – the client’s agenda. The paradox is that there is no one right way to do anything and it’s best if the solution is your client’s idea, not yours. There’s no need to know what your client knows. And there’s no need to know what your client doesn’t know either.

So ease up on yourself here and trust that YOU CAN DO IT!

It is true that over time you do become an expert on your niche market – the unique group of people you serve – because you’ve coached individuals in that “tribe” long enough to witness the patterns. But it’s so important to stay open minded for diversity, for surprises. That’s why staying fully present is much more valuable in coaching than coming loaded with the answers as a consultant.

The Secret of the Sacred Six

Here’s a secret… personal and professional developmental growth is facilitated by the same set of things no matter what the territory or topic. Coaching is about helping clients to:

  1. Remember and honor their personal values.
  2. Vision for what they want most.
  3. Uncover and move through fears (in a spiral rather than a direct line from A to B).
  4. Leverage strengths and uncover possible obstacles.
  5. Up-level mindset, environment, skills, courage, commitment and motivation.
  6. Think through milestones and take active steps toward what they want most.

Rely on the “Sacred Six” and you’ll realize you are primed to help people on any topic.

Author: Rhonda Hess co-authored the Coach Training AcceleratorTM and designed the CTA Certified Coach Program. She has a super power for helping coaches choose and champion a profitable niche they’ll love. Learn more at Prosperous Coach.

Believing: The Neuroscience of Reverse Truths

Believing: The Neuroscience of Reverse Truths

While my children’s adolescence cured me of most of my theories, a few fundamental ones survived, and are even more boldly illuminated against the backdrop of passing years. One of these survivors is the principle of reverse truths. In traditional science, truth is arrived at by proffering a hypothesis, then accumulating data to prove or disprove it; the data force the conclusion. Reverse truths work the opposite—the hypothesis or belief creates the data.

Our assumptions select what we perceive in the world and determine what meanings we attach. Not only is believing necessary in order to see, but we bring about what we expect to happen. A story creates a reality. For example, a placebo is an inert pill, plus a story. The patient is prescribed expectations that, in the majority of cases, manifest. By anticipating an experience, we can create it. The story generates a truth so powerful it can reverse the pharmacological effects of the real medicine. The placebo’s story is a white lie, a fiction that becomes a truth.

The most vital reverse truth in our lives is our belief in our children. They look to us as a mirror of who they are, and they become what they see. If we trust and respect them, they become trustworthy and respectful.

Some parents have this reverse truth backwards, thinking that they will trust a child only after he or she has proven to be trustworthy. There are forward truths, but this isn’t one of them. Our belief in our children is taken in by them, and metabolized into their own belief in themselves. We convey to them in an unspoken message: “I’ll believe in you until both of us can.” When that affirmation isn’t there, they may spend their lives looking for that elusive approval.

Carlyle was right. “Tell man he is brave and you help him to become so.” As a parent, the trick is that you have to believe what you say, for feigned praise and inauthentic interest are forgeries immediately discernible to a child’s expert eye. I see this reverse truth professionally as well. When I work with practicing professionals—such as doctors and financial professionals—and performance professionals—such as actors and athletes—I have to believe in them so they can believe in themselves, with an unspoken, “I’ll believe in you while you teach me why, until both of us know.” Which is why I only work with clients in whom I really believe.

A corollary of believing in my children was to believe their words, their truthfulness. When both my children were very young, I told them that I would never lie to them and would always believe everything they told me as well. I knew then the responsibility that was placed on them to always tell the truth.

On a Father’s Day many years ago now, my son’s last one before leaving home and starting college, I found a letter from him at my bathroom sink. A passage in it addressed his perception of this reverse truth: “You never lied to me and I have never lied to you. Sounded stupid at first, but as time passed, it became more important, and I realized that I never would. This is a relationship few others have ever had.”

DAVID KRUEGER, M.D., Dean of Curriculum and Mentor Coach at Coach Training Alliance, is an Executive Mentor Coach who works with executives and professionals to develop and sustain success strategies. A former Professor, Psychiatrist, and Psychoanalyst, his coaching and writing focus on the art and science of success strategies: mind over matters. 

Dave is author of 17 books on success, money, wellness and self-development. His latest book, The Secret Language of Money (McGraw Hill), is a Business Bestseller translated into 10 languages.

 

If It Feels Weird, Do It

If It Feels Weird, Do It

By: Jeff Orr, CTA Graduate, Certified Human Capital Coach

A long time ago, I wrote an article (I say “article” because I don’t think blogging was even a thing yet) for a triathlon coaching company I owned along with a couple of other guys. I titled the article “If it Feels Weird, Do It” which of course was a play on the old saying, “If it feels good, do it.”

At the time, I was coaching a weekly swim workout for a local women’s triathlon club. As in many other human attributes, the ability levels of the swimmers were distributed in a bell-shaped curve.

There were a couple of former college swimmers who could literally swim laps around me on the right side of the curve. There were a handful of absolute beginners on the left. Most of the group lived in the middle of the curve. They had great attitudes—a joy to be around, in fact—and they had lots of room to improve in the water.

To be effective at any sport, one has to pair good conditioning with efficient technique, and swimming is no different. However, the act of moving through a liquid magnifies the effects of poor technique much, much more in swimming than in other sports.

Because of the primacy of technique in swimming, I spent most of my workouts teaching my athletes to swim more efficiently versus making them work harder. The thought was if you could get a 10% decrease in your swim times by making small, maybe even tiny, changes in your swim stroke, that beats the heck out of getting a 5% decrease in your swim times from working yourself to death all summer in an effort to improve your conditioning. Most of the swimmers were relatively inexperienced which meant there were lots of opportunities to make small but significant tweaks in their strokes.

On any given day, I would watch one of the swimmers go back and forth across the pool keeping an eye out for things that she could improve upon. When she’d stop at the wall, we would have a short conversation that 90% of the time consisted of advice to “keep your head lower” or “keep your elbows higher.” Then, she would swim down and back, stop, and ask me how the “new” stroke looked.

99% of the time, my answer was that visually, nothing had changed whatsoever. Then, we would have a slightly different version of the first conversation, she’d swim another lap and ask me how it looked. I would shrug my shoulders and to the great frustration of both of us, tell her that nothing had changed.

The problem was that in her mind it was different. As she swam, her thoughts were all about proper head position and high elbows. Those thoughts would make it down the line as far as her neck and her elbows, where her body rejected them because they felt weird.

Her brain was doing a ton of work thinking about doing something new, but her body was rejecting the newness for the comforting feeling of doing what it had always done.

When you do what you’ve always done, you’re going to get what you’ve always gotten.

The problem is that thinking about making a big change in your life, your business, or even just your swimming, is daunting all by itself. Exhausting. Terrifying, even. Because of this, your brain will trick you into believing that if you’re THIS wrung out from grinding through the options in your head, the work MUST be done.

Perhaps you’ve thought about one or more of the following:

-Leaving the safety net of your current job and opening your own business

-Exposing yourself to the slings and arrows of outrageous critics* by writing your book

-Taking on the responsibility for another person’s livelihood by hiring your first employee

It’s grueling to the point that at the end of the day, it feels like it should be enough. But it’s not. As tough as it is to think the thoughts, it doesn’t mean anything until they engage the body to do the action.

Eventually I discovered that to get a swimmer to make a positive correction, I had to emphasize that she first must break out of her comfort zone and that it was going to feel weird. Leaving the comfort zone was more important than the stroke change itself. To this end, I would go one step further and tell her to exaggerate the weirdness! To make it feel so weird that other people on the pool deck would look at her and wonder if she needed to be rescued. Forearmed with that notion, she could shake herself out of the routine in order to get those difficult thoughts to translate into concrete actions.

If you want to make a big change in your life you have to be mentally prepared for the physical process to feel weird. Having a coach standing on the virtual pool deck helping you work your way through that preparation can go a long way toward breaking through your comfort zone and keeping those elbows high.

*Apologies to Shakespeare

Author Jeff Orr is a highly-respected CTA Graduate and a Certified Human Capital Coach who helps organizations achieve their peak performance by blending business coaching skills with 24 years experience as a USAF fighter pilot. Jeff has trained over 300 F-16 pilots from 5 continents. He also currently works as a pilot for a major commercial airline.  Learn more about Jeff at www.JeffOrr.com

How to be sure your clients come back for more

How to be sure your clients come back for more

What’s better than a new client? A repeat client.

It may seem strange to look at it this way… whereas new clients come at a cost, including the time and energy it takes to market and set them up, repeat clients are cost-free. You’ve already built rapport and results. You already know their strengths and opportunities.

I’m lucky that most of my clients come back repeatedly for more support and I’ve designed my business to make it an easy choice for them.

Are you doing all you can to bring your clients back to you for more?

 

https://prosperouscoachblog.com/clients-come-back/3 Simple Steps = More Repeat Clients

1. Make it a part of your business model.

Design a natural flow with all your programs that drives clients to your next step. Create a funnel or pyramid of programs where the first one builds to the next.

It begins with listening to what people in your niche market specifically want (not what you think they need). You’re looking for program topics and titles that:

  • Provide relief from one specific acute pain or challenge.
  • Help them correct specific mistakes.
  • Fill the holes in their knowledge or understanding.
  • Give specific guidance to achieve their ultimate desired outcome.

Convert your “insider” understanding about your target audience into valuable freebies and for-fee programs. Your funnel of offers will inspire and motivate your prospects to invest in themselves repeatedly. You provide easy-to-climb steps to the outcomes they most want.

Every step in the chain of offers is related, while increasing their investment and the value you deliver. Then it’s easy for you to “seed” the idea of their return before your clients are finished with their current program.

 

2. Put the spotlight on them

Everything you create for your business should be tailored for your target audience. Everything!

I see a lot of websites that are all about the coach or expert. The language is general and vague. The offers are basic and could be found on any coach’s website. It’s an online brochure and nothing more.

That kind of website does little to help you get and keep ideal clients.  But when your tribe feels at home and understood by you, they’ll bookmark your website as a resource. They’ll keep tabs on what you’re offering for them next.

Take an objective look at your website today:

Is it a home for your target audience?

Are you speaking their language and offering specific solutions they know they want?

 

3. Check in

Many entrepreneurs are shy about this, but simply asking clients to return is the easiest way to get them back.

Your call may come at the perfect time and they’ll be thrilled to hear from you! At the very least, you’ll show once again that you are truly interested in them. And, you’re likely to enroll a repeat client with a simple check-in phone call.

  1. Check in about something specific that you worked on together before. Where are they on that now?
  2. What do they want most for the near future? That gap is your next step together.
  3. Have a program or coaching package at the ready. Don’t forget to pay yourself well.

Call rather than email. The high touch approach will mean the most to them.

What can you do today to bring past clients back into the fold? How can you improve your business model, website or offers to speak directly to what your target audience wants most?

Rhonda Hess co-authored the Coach Training AcceleratorTM and designed the CTA Certified Coach Program. She has a super power for helping coaches choose and champion a profitable niche they’ll love. Learn more at Prosperous Coach.

 

Coach – Give Yourself a Raise

Coach – Give Yourself a Raise

A classic problem for coaches and other service entrepreneurs is that they run out of time to:

  • build automated systems that create a flow of future clients.
  • create recurring revenue streams like products and membership programs.
  • expand their potential by reflecting on their business and making continuous improvements.

The problem begins early on like this…

  1. https://prosperouscoachblog.com/coach-give-yourself-raise/Desperate for initial clients, coaches often set low fees and say ‘yes’ to many opportunities that aren’t likely bring a high enough return.
  2. When a client moves on, the income loss is keenly felt and there’s a scramble to enroll more clients “from thin air”.
  3. The limiting mindsets become habitualized for the coach, so new clients are also enrolled for low prices.
  4. Months or years later, it’s hard to breakthrough the ceiling on their income because the belief is that this is the best they can do.

Somethings gotta give.

2 Steps to Break From the Money for Time Paradigm

Step One: Give yourself a raise.

To gain time to work ON your business now, reduce the number of clients you’re working with through attrition while increasing your fees for new clients.

Instead of 15 clients at $350/mo = $5250…
you could have 10 clients at $525/mo = $5250, freeing up 15 hours each month,
or, 7 clients at $750/mo = $5250, freeing up 24 hours each month.

It may seem shocking to suddenly double your fees. But it’s quite common in service businesses like coaching and consulting. Mindset is generally the only thing in the way. And since you’re raising your fees only for new clients you reward those that stay with you.

Higher prices attract clients that, by investing more in themselves, get more out of your private coaching or consulting. And, seemingly magically people will show up because you’re empowering yourself.

Offer group programs for those who want to pay less for your support so you don’t leave anyone out. (See step 2.)

You may need to make some changes in the way you enroll. Primarily, the shift comes down to believing in yourself. Your services are valuable!

 

Step 2: Use the time you open up to improve the model of your business.

Offering group coaching in place of some 1:1 coaching will add some relief. But to really breakthrough the money for time paradigm, create education-based programs and products that are not solely dependent on your time for delivery.

Design your offers as a funnel of related steps leading your clients to incremental successes and more engagement with you.

One of the brilliant things about add on or follow on programs is how they leverage the initial enrollment process. That means less selling! Think about it… you’re already doing good work and building relationships of trust with your clients. They are enjoying the momentum and naturally want to know what you have next for them.

Here’s an example of my funnel for my target audience: coaches.

What do coaches need after coach training?  To choose their niche then craft messages and offers that easily attract clients.

So my first offer is a program called Your Highly Profitable Niche where coaches do just that: choose a viable niche, find out what their target audience really wants, craft messages and offers that will inspire new clients to invest.

After that what would be the next natural step for a coach? To create a powerful online presence.

That’s why my second program in my funnel is called Client Winning Websites & Blogs, a blueprint to help coaches make smart choices and write compelling content for their website plus manage the web design process so they launch a site that converts visitors into clients.

See how that works? And both of these bundled programs have add ons of private time with me.

Now, how could YOU create a funnel of programs with would create a natural desire to take a next step with you while leveraging your time so it’s offered at a premium? Make sure that each of your offers or programs:

  • Brings in revenue without requiring much of your time for delivery.
  • Solves a very specific problem your target audience faces.
  • Take your prospects on a transformational journey.
  • Encourages follow on enrollment in your “next step”.

 

Author Rhonda Hess co-authored the Coach Training AcceleratorTM and designed the CTA Certified Coach Program. She has a super power for helping coaches choose and champion a profitable niche they’ll love. Learn more at Prosperous Coach.

 

The Top 21 Things a Mentor Coach Needs to Know

The Top 21 Things a Mentor Coach Needs to Know

Dr. Dave Krueger has had a long-lasting, successful career as a mentor coach. His wisdom has touched the lives of many. He offers up the top advice that can help mentor coaches grow stronger in their roles:

  1. Listen with the intensity most people have only while talking.
  2. Change is constant and inevitable; it is the resistance to change that generates most problems.
  3. It takes two real people for a co-created immersion and collaboration to occur.
  4. The role of storyteller and listener unfolds in the shared space of the mentor coaching relationship, co-creating a new story.
  5. Clients know what they need, though not perhaps in conscious, logical, or daytime language, and will show us in the relationship process what it is like to be them, and what needs to be addressed.
  6. We need to see the self that the client hopes to become, the evolving new story that sometimes gets obscured from view.
  7. At times, a thought, feeling, or behavior is an answer to question its creator has not dared to ask.
  8. We have to believe in the client until he or she teaches both of us why.
  9. An authentic belief in someone activates their brain to create a state of mind that transcends usual thinking and performance.
  10. The architecture of trust silently forms while you talk about other things; the co-created new story gives oxygen to hope, highlights the relief and release of new experience, and pushes creativity to full flight.
  11. A fact or a belief is an anatomical reality in someone’s brain; a new belief or strategy can’t simply overwrite what’s already there.  Change is a process.
  12. We need to recognize the silent intent embedded in the compromised result, to see the possibility camouflaged in the frustrating process.
  13. To make change permanent, the new experience needs to be incorporated into one’s identity.
  14. Regulating states of mind is the most important success strategy.  Each state has its own story.
  15. Your state of mind will have emotional contagion for your client and others.
  16. Confident is a state of mind.
  17. Knowing what not to do is at least as important as knowing what to do.  You may not always know what the next right thing is, but you can almost always know what it isn’t.
  18. Knowing how to reverse a behavior pattern is evidence that we truly understand it.
  19. The most common thing that gets in the way of understanding something is trying to fix it.
  20. Old stories have to be mourned and along with them, the self left behind.  No matter how ready someone is to change, to give up a long-practiced habit is like saying goodbye to an old friend.
  21. You have to have a new story to be in before you can completely let go of the old one.

DAVID KRUEGER, M.D., Dean of Curriculum and Mentor Coach at Coach Training Alliance, is an Executive Mentor Coach who works with executives and professionals to develop and sustain success strategies. A former Professor, Psychiatrist, and Psychoanalyst, his coaching and writing focus on the art and science of success strategies: mind over matters. 

Dave is author of 17 books on success, money, wellness and self-development. His latest book, The Secret Language of Money(McGraw Hill), is a Business Bestseller translated into 10 languages.

The Powerful 12

The Powerful 12

 

Could This Be the Reason Your Coaching Business Hasn’t Arrived Yet?

Your mindset.

It’s true. The make or break factors in coaching business success are rarely about education, specific business skills, or experience. Instead, it all comes down to how you manage your mind.

Nearly all my clients have struggled with believing in themselves at one moment or another. I’ve struggled with it on and off myself. What’s pulled me forward again and again is a BIG WHY. With all my heart I want to serve and earn with the freedom to do it my way. Over the years I’ve learned to use obstacles as my prosperous path.

Change Your Mind

When you break through, it’s a shift in perspective that does it. You simply change your mind. Suddenly, what seemed like a steel wall in your way becomes a wisp of cloud. If the steel wall persists, it’s not because it’s real. It’s just waiting for you to see the wall come down. You have the power.

There’s a simple tool you can deploy whenever you feel that knife edge of wanting to give up: Turn what feels like a big deal into no-big-deal. Release your fixation on whatever you think is lacking and put their focus back on serving.

Move forward like a toddler reaching for a toy – with joy and determination.

The Powerful 12

So what does it really take to build a successful coaching business? A little of this and that – all of it easy to develop if it doesn’t come naturally. Here’s my list of 12: A big enough “why” – the reason you carry on.

  • Curiosity.
  • A passion for learning.
  • Self discipline.
  • Creative juices.
  • A deep desire to serve.
  • Focus.
  • The ability to re-resource.
  • Stick-to-it-iveness.
  • Seeing mistakes as guide posts.
  • Patience.
  • Loving kindness towards yourself.

About the Author: Rhonda Hess co-authored the Coach Training AcceleratorTM and designed the CTA Certified Coach Program. She has a super power for helping coaches choose and champion a profitable niche they’ll love. Learn more at Prosperous Coach

5 Habits of Confident Coaches

5 Habits of Confident Coaches

For many of us, our ultimate goal is to become a masterful coach so that when we are working with our clients (employees, colleagues, team members), we feel capable, confident and connected not just to the person we are coaching but to our intuition.  So, what are the 5 habits that create that confidence? And how can you start bringing those 5 habits into your practice?

 

#1 ACKNOWLEDGE YOUR VALUE. 

Number one is to acknowledge your value. It doesn’t come naturally to recognize your worth, but it is something that you can grow into, consciously. When I first started coaching, I used coaching to help individuals figure out how they were going to get a project done or better manage their time.  Initially, I used coaching as just another tool in my tool kit to help people figure out how to solve a particular challenge.  While I thought it was great that I could help my clients come up with their own solutions, I didn’t fully understand the impact it had.  But as I started to experience coaching more (as a client and a coach), I discovered there was more value in these coaching sessions than I realized.

Fast forward to today…..

I absolutely stand by the value of coaching and my value as a coach.  We serve to hold space for others, to allow them to become fully thinking and emotional human beings, to bring what is lurking in the subconscious forward and once it’s there, we support our clients to  take action.  I have witnessed the personal and professional growth that has come about because of coaching sessions.  Finding solutions, solving challenges and creating opportunities is great; but to me, the biggest value is the personal development that happens. Coaching helps human beings develop their capability and trained coaches help people grow.  So, to be a confident coach, know your value and know the value of your coaching sessions.

 

#2 TRUST YOUR EXPERTISE. 

Number two, trust your expertise. Like many new coaches, when I first started coaching my team, I would come away from my coaching conversations feeling disappointed that I didn’t come up with the absolute best question to ask or perhaps wondering if I missed some clue during the session that might have held the opportunity for a mind-shifting Ah-ha moment.  While the people I coached would let me know how helpful each session was, I knew that the sessions were not as good as they could be.  At times, I even doubted if I was good enough.

During this initial phase of self-doubt, I was so focused on the skills and capabilities I lacked that I lost sight of my own unique expertise that I could bring to my sessions.  How could I fully show up for my client when I was internally focused on my own short comings? Eventually, I realized that there’s something special and unique about each and every one of us and that we are at our best when we draw upon those strengths and talents. Some coaches like to integrate their background in psychology or behavior sciences.  I like to integrate what I know about business and career transitions.  I also love drawing upon my experience in sports and using symbolism and analogies as I communicate.  I show up with an enthusiastic and optimistic energy.  I bring all of that into my coaching sessions, and those are my natural talents.

Now, you might be someone who easily distinguishes speech patterns, pitch or cadence. You might be someone who is really good at picking up on shifting energy, so your natural talent is seizing the coachable moment around those shifting emotions. Or maybe your natural talent is that you create short powerful questions that help your clients gain crystal clarity.

So, to be a confident coach, you need to know and trust your own expertise.  Don’t think, “I’m not good enough because I’m not great at reflecting back to the client,” or “I’m not intuitive enough.” Know that your talents are enough and draw upon them naturally.  Doing this will allow you to show up fully for your client.  Confident coaches focus on what they are great at and what makes a coaching session with “them” special and unique. Number two is trust your expertise.

 

#3 GET CENTERED.  

Now, I’m going to be honest with you. Not all confident coaches meditate.  But the third habit of a confident coach is honing their ability to clear the mind, tune into their client and be fully present.  In order for you to really connect with your clients every time you coach and respond intuitively, it’s incredibly important that you know how to turn shut down your brain-chatter and hold space for your client. For some, this comes naturally.  Others may find they need a bit of practice.  Getting centered is a tried-and-true way that coaches can show up blank to a client session.  For me, I like to do a few cycles of square breathing (inhale 4 counts, hold 4 counts, exhale 4 counts and hold the exhale 4 counts, repeating the cycle 2 or 3 times).  This simple exercise helps me quiet my mind and set my focus.  You may prefer to stare at a photo, gaze at a candle or simply close your eyes and let your thoughts move through your mind like a smooth flowing river.  Regardless of what method you choose, create a daily practice of clearing the mind.  If you begin a coaching session with background noise in your mind (email, reports, judgments, your own ideas, to do list) and you haven’t taken the time to pause and clear out first, then your coaching session is not going to be as good as it could be. Employ the practice of getting centered each day, however that works best for you, so that skill comes to you easily when you’re about to do a coaching session.  Habit #3: get centered.

 

#4 GET RID OF THE TIP SHEET.

I know, it’s ironic that one of the items on the tip sheet is ‘Get rid of the Tip Sheet’.   When I was first starting out, I kept a list of Powerful Questions right next to me during every coaching sessions.  If I wasn’t sure what to ask, I would look down at my list and pick one that seemed most appropriate.  Looking back, I can see how these questions were a bit like training wheels giving me a sense of security and providing the opportunity to try out a few variations until I found my own voice.  In some ways they helped me get started and in other ways they held me back.

It’s a wonderful thing if you can ditch the tips/tools during the coaching session and learn to trust your intuition.  Even though you might build a clumsy version of a question, what you gain is the ability to connect much more deeply with your client.   You will see it come out in your coaching sessions in really beautiful ways.  You will also learn to improvise and respond intuitively which will make your sessions more powerful and develop your skills more quickly.  Not quite ready to fly without a net?  If you still use tips and cheat sheets during your coaching session, be willing to coach without relying on them for one or two sessions.  You will quickly realize you have the skills to do it on your own.  You might also quickly realize any gaps in your training. Have you forgotten a specific technique?  Is there a skill you need to polish?   When you refer back to your training materials, try and do what confident coaches do and reference these tips outside of the coaching session.  The only exception to this rule would be using a coaching model (at Coach Training Alliance we use The Simple Coaching Model).  The coaching model provides a framework for your coaching conversations; we use the same model with every single coaching session.  Having the Simple Coaching Model front and center is a great way to ensure your coaching conversations are productive and stay on track.  So, the next time you have a coaching conversation- ditch the Tip Sheet, show up authentically and respond intuitively to your client.

 

#5 BE CURIOUS. 

The final habit of a confident coach is being curious.  We have people coming into our Coach Training Programs – some of them have been coaching informally for 10-15 years-and they bring with them a learning mindset where they are open to new possibilities, willing to explore new perspectives and are able to go even deeper in their training.   As coaches, we can always go deeper in our training and integrate this new capability or perspective in our coaching sessions.  However, lifelong learning isn’t only about acquiring knowledge, skills or polishing techniques (although those will certainly help you become a more capable coach), we are constantly presented with informal learning opportunities.  For me it is both enlightening and rewarding to ask, “What did you find most valuable today?”   I love this question because it serves to reinforce for the client what they got out of the session and helps me gain a better understanding of how the session (and which parts) impacted my client the most.  More to the point, confident coaches are curious.  They continually learn about themselves, learn about their value, appreciate the wisdom of their clients and because of this are able to sponge up an abundance of thoughts, perspectives, ideas, and discoveries as they co-create and collaborate.  Learning is about being genuinely interested, curious, and willing to explore something new.  “How would this training make me a better coach?”  “What would happen if I tried this approach?”  “Where does this client really want to go?”  Being curious opens the possibility for coaches to develop through the many formal and informal learning opportunities around them.

So, number 5: Be Curious.

 

WRAP-UP 

In summary, those are the 5 habits of Confident Coaches. Hopefully these habits will serve you well as you forge ahead helping your clients:

  1. Acknowledge your value.
  2. Trust your expertise.
  3. Get centered.
  4. Get rid of the Tip Sheet.
  5. Be Curious.

Do those 5 things, and you will quickly become a confident coach. Amazing things will happen for you because you’ll be putting yourself out there in such a powerful way and helping and serving so many people while trusting your intuition and giving value.

 

About the Author: Holly Hutchinson is a Certified Human Capital Coach and Wellness Coach whose been practicing since 2008.  Holly’s passion is positive growth and lifelong learning.  Her experience includes international trade and marketing as well as system sales into the Fortune 500.  Holly’s focus at CTA is the growth of emerging programs for trade associations, organizational coaching deployment and CTA’s yoga programs.  In addition to her work at CTA, Holly is a competitive athlete and serves on several non-profit boards.  Holly is married with 2 children and is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley.

Coaching Red Flags

Coaching Red Flags

As coaches, we talk a lot about the “red flags” we hear from our clients – the things they might say, do, or even not say that indicate a potential obstacle to their progress. These red flags trigger our intuition and seizing these moments in a coaching session can be the start of a powerful shift for the client.

But what about those things we say or do that indicate an obstacle to our ability to be a masterful coach?

What gets in our way?

Here are three of the red flags I’ve noticed in my coaching classes:

Cheerleading
There’s a powerful difference between cheering your clients on and believing in their abilities and supporting them to push their limits. “I know you can do it!” becomes, “I sense your high level of confidence and have already seen you take huge steps in a short time.”

Too much empathy
When a client is experiencing strong emotions, like deep sadness or hurt, it’s easy to slip into that energy with them. That turns empathy into commiserating, and your role as a coach becomes muddled. It’s more powerful to honor their emotions with genuine sensitivity and still maintain your appropriate role as a coach.

Coaching to make YOU feel better
Another red flag is coaching a client out of their pain and discomfort so the coach can feel better. If you begin sensing that you need them to feel better so you can feel better, STOP! Coaching is not about how you feel; it’s about how you support your clients to do what they need to do, even if it’s to be frustrated for a while.
What other red flags do you notice in your own coaching? Awareness is the first step to change, and just beyond that change is even more masterful coaching!

Author Laurie Cameron is a is a Coach, Speaker and Trainer for Coach Training Alliance. She is the author of the Sage and Scholar’s Guide to Coaching Singles.

18 Caveats on How NOT to Change

18 Caveats on How NOT to Change

….and What to Do to Stay Where You Don’t Want to Be

By David Krueger, MD

Change is not simple. Why do we repeat behavior that doesn’t work? Especially those actions that lead to stifling debt, disappointing careers, or stuck relationships. Then do it harder, yet expect a different result? Why is it not obvious that trying to exit an old story by simply writing a “better ending” only recreates the same story, and ensures that we remain in it? That a thousand better endings to an old story don’t create a new story? That the past cannot be changed and is a settled matter? That too often, we see ourselves as the victims of the stories that we author and the feelings we create?

18 Caveats on Avoiding Change:

  1. Focus on the system. Devote special attention to the things that seem frustrating, out of your control, and impossible to address: politics, corporations, and economics. Systems must remain in focus as broad categories in order to feel distanced and disaffected.
  2. Maintain a focus on theory. Avoid detail, singular aspects, and application. Remain theoretical about how to transform various systems, about what needs to be done, maintaining the frustration of what seems to continue out of your control.
  3. Believe that the answer will appear when you step out of the box, or when you simply oppose the system.
  4. Keep the point of reference external; keep believing that the antithesis of conformity is opposition; know that one or the other of these external points of reference of conformity or opposition holds the real truth.
  5. Do not decide. Allow the urgency of a situation to decide for you. The gravity of a last-minute emergency forces action and avoids planning. Waiting for the deadline excuses responsibility for thoroughness and excellence.
  6. Believe that the answer is more rules and further structure.
  7. Debate the obvious, and give energy to the controversial.
  8. Believe in experts unequivocally, and that expertise is authoritative. Dismiss any notion that expertise is perceived, processed, and filtered through assumptions, belief systems, and prejudices of experts.
  9. Do not seek your own information or develop your own solutions when you have experts to listen to. Rather, find someone to provide a map for you and avoid anyone who wants to help you develop your own guidance system to navigate.
  10. Always find some cause and effect relationship to explain things otherwise not understandable. Maintain a consistent external focus to blame someone, or find some tangible explanation that offers a specific, concrete focus on what is wrong. Warning: much work is required to maintain this caveat, as you must be certain that the obstacle can never be totally removed, or its causal effect would have to be confronted as inaccurate. The perceived cause must always be just beyond reach and remedy in order to remain as blame, and to maintain its obstacle role.
  11. Keep doing the same thing and expect a different outcome. If the outcome doesn’t change for the better, do the same thing harder.
  12. Be suspicious of new ideas.
  13. New ideas, being perturbators of the existing system, must be curbed if not silenced.
  14. Meticulously guard against mistakes; the best way to be sure to avoid mistakes is to keep doing the same thing again and again with perfection as the goal.
  15. Maintain a focus on failure, giving it the proper respect of fear so that it remains ever in focus with its guiding principle of avoidance.
  16. Be extremely wary of new strategies and solutions, and invest instead in enforcement of the existing approach.
  17. When you make mistakes, focus on the mistakes and attempt to get them right.
  18. Continue to hold prejudices because they are markers of emotional landmines.

Reprinted from the NeuroMentor® Blog Series by David Krueger, MD at www.MentorPath.com

DAVID KRUEGER, M.D., Dean of Curriculum and Mentor Coach at Coach Training Alliance, is an Executive Mentor Coach who works with executives and professionals to develop and sustain success strategies. A former Professor, Psychiatrist, and Psychoanalyst, his coaching and writing focus on the art and science of success strategies: mind over matters. He founded and served as CEO for two healthcare corporations, co-founded a third start-up that went from venture capital to merger/acquisition.

Dave is author of 17 books on success, money, wellness and self-development. His latest book, The Secret Language of Money(McGraw Hill), is a Business Bestseller translated into 10 languages.

Empathy: The Bridge to Common Ground

Empathy: The Bridge to Common Ground

 

Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?
—Henry David Thoreau

How can you recognize what never before has been considered? See what you don’t believe? Discover what you don’t even know to look for? Discern that your reality is a view refracted through your own formulaic lens?

Empathy hinges on an initial reflection on our own experience, as well as resonates with the experience of another. This emotional contagion allows us to both predict how our words and actions will influence others, as well as to move beyond our own subjective awareness. To enter the subjectivity of another requires creating a common ground for sharing the experiences and resonances with another.

All signifiers of personal meaning and construction (reality, relationship, experience, perception) carry the unspoken foundation question: From whose point of view? This is what empathy is primarily about: to really get another’s point of view and convey it while not abandoning our own point of view, To see beyond our own point of view may include the previously unrecognized, disregarded, unacknowledged, or taboo. True empathy uses the vantage point of the listener to be in the moment with the speaker to move together to a new place of reflection, understanding, or meaning. Two divergent pathways meet, as L. W. Sander has described in infant research, and both are changed.

Empathy is to place ourselves in the inner world of another person without getting lost there. Empathy describes a listening perspective positioned inside the experience of another, to resonate with and understand his or her subjective reality, an entire mental state. This learning affects our brains. Parents, therapists, coaches, and teachers are all brain surgeons, each training parts of the brain.

All the present moments of lived experiences, sewn together, create an evolving pattern of meaning and relating, the basis for new implicit and explicit learning. Any new experience has an unknown future. Only repetition of the past allows prediction by preempting the future. A new experience moving forward is both unfamiliar and uncertain.

To be empathic with another, we must move beyond our own position to inhabit the experience of another, to know how the person feels, senses, perceives, and processes subjective and intersubjective experience moment by moment, frame by frame. It takes two for someone to be empathic: one to be attuned, the other to be open to allow that empathic connection. At times, empathy infers what another individual would feel if he or she could feel, to shine light into a dormant portion of the interior landscape. The unspoken desire may be, as one psychoanalytic patient brilliantly told me many years ago, I want you not just to empathize with me, but to stick up for that part of me that’s not coming through yet.

Ultimately (lastly for some) is empathy for one’s self, an internal attunement that may seem elusive and ethereal. This intimacy with one’s self precedes and makes possible true intimacy with another. Empathy involves self-awareness, to resonate with another by attunement to to ourselves. We can only be empathically aware of the experience of another to the extent that there is awareness of its register in ourselves.

The greatest thing in the world, it has been said, is to know how to belong to yourself.

Reprinted from the NeuroMentor® Blog Series by David Krueger, MD at www.MentorPath.com

DAVID KRUEGER, M.D., Dean of Curriculum and Mentor Coach at Coach Training Alliance, is an Executive Mentor Coach who works with executives and professionals to develop and sustain success strategies. A former Professor, Psychiatrist, and Psychoanalyst, his coaching and writing focus on the art and science of success strategies: mind over matters. He founded and served as CEO for two healthcare corporations, co-founded a third start-up that went from venture capital to merger/acquisition.

Dave is author of 17 books on success, money, wellness and self-development. His latest book, The Secret Language of Money(McGraw Hill), is a Business Bestseller translated into 10 languages.

Stop Overdelivering in Coaching Sessions – Why and How to Shift

Stop Overdelivering in Coaching Sessions – Why and How to Shift

Over-delivery can be strategic, such as amping up the quality of your free offers or loading up a paid program with juicy bonuses. But chronic over-delivery in coaching sessions could actually undermine your financial success and relationships with clients. That’s because it’s often rooted in a lack of trust… either in the value of your services or in your client’s abilities. Or both.

Think about it…

  • Do you chronically go beyond the time boundaries of your sessions?
  • Do you sometimes do your clients work for them (when it’s not part of your package?)
  • Have you ever sensed that you might want more for your clients than they do for themselves?
  • Do you ever feel resentful that you’re not paid well enough for your time, but then still over-deliver?

If it’s “yes” more than “no”, you’re in good company. Even some highly experienced coaches undercharge and over-deliver habitually. They offer services that they don’t enjoy to clients that aren’t a good fit and struggle to earn enough. If unchecked, this could go on indefinitely!

The shift to a healthier, more professional and lucrative approach is beguilingly simple. Haven’t you already made small but definitive changes in your life that created a dramatically positive result that rippled out? That’s the potential here. And it begins with trust.

Trust Your Self

RESISTANCE to charging more and doing what’s right for you in your coaching business may seem like a solid insurmountable wall. It turns out though that resistance is just smoke and mirrors. That’s what this thing of undercharging and over-delivering is… a sham. So, make the decision now to:

  1. Say ‘no’ to clients who aren’t right for you.
  2. Make changes in your targeting and branding to attract ideal clients.
  3. Highly value your time and pay yourself well, always.
  4. Set boundaries for both your sessions and stick to them.
  5. Train your clients to bring specific bite-sized agendas to calls.

Remember, big problems are solved one integrate-able step at a time. Support your clients to make leaps in their perspective, and to make progress on their own between sessions. Then you won’t take responsibility for what isn’t yours.

How will your clients benefit from this?

  • They will invest more deeply in their own transformation.
  • They will learn to value their time from your modeling.
  • They will appreciate your professionalism.
  • They will make bigger leaps without overwhelm.

Trust Your Clients

The other side of the coin to not trusting yourself and your value is not trusting your clients either.

  1. Trust that your clients are creative, resourceful and whole… even if they don’t act like it in the moment. The real beauty of coaching is the co-creative relationship: where coach and client focus collaboratively to draw out and utilize the client’s wisdom toward high payoff actions.
  2. Replace the desire to effect change on your clients with an understanding that what is best for your client is only what they are ready to commit to change within themselves right now.
  3. Ask your clients to step up and take action.

We can never know the path of another person. If we react protectively, anticipating our client’s pitfalls and mistakes, aren’t we also keeping them from valuable experiences that may bring success more quickly? If we jump in to solve all their problems and salve all their hurts too vigorously, don’t we take away their power?

 

About the Author: Rhonda Hess co-authored the Coach Training AcceleratorTM and designed the CTA Certified Coach Program. She has a super power for helping coaches choose and champion a profitable niche they’ll love. Learn more at Prosperous Coach

Money and the Shame/Self-Esteem Axis

Money and the Shame/Self-Esteem Axis

 

Of all human emotions, the most painful, the hardest to tolerate is shame. Shame is the feeling that there is something wrong with us, that we are not only inadequate, but basically flawed. Shame can assume different intensities from embarrassment to humiliation.

When we have attainable internal ideals, and live up to them, self-esteem results. Shame, the antithesis of self-esteem, results from failure to live up to our internal ideals. To betray a personal value results in feeling exposed, vulnerable, or judged by others. Then, aspects related to self—esteem,worth, value, confidence—each dissolves into the personal disgrace of shame. The feeling that there is something wrong with us usually manifests as some variation of feeling less than.

Money often becomes a focal point for shame. Shame about a significant difference of financial resources between people can threaten a relationship. The shame of not having enough money to sustain a social relationship can seem unbearable.

Shame builds a barrier of silence to avoid talk about money. We may not break that taboo to expose ourselves for fear of shame. One of the hallmark reactions of shame is wanting to hide, to feel invisible. We hide our relationship to money, to speaking about it, in order to carefully create a certain image.

We most assuredly hide debt. Shame can result from feeling we have too little money, and is especially associated with debt. Shame motivates us to hide debt even from ourselves. A recent economic study showed that credit card holders are consciously aware of only $4 of every $10 they owe. The underestimation is a form of denial. Debt has been called a secret sin because of the shame attached.

Shame can be used in a positive way to focus on and reconnect to internal ideals in order to fulfill them. In so doing, we connect to our humanity and to the humanity of others. If we listen to the whispers of shame to learn from it, we benefit significantly. Shame signals a need to live up to an ideal, perhaps to reign in self-aggrandizement, become more empathically attuned to others, or simply recognize the impact of our actions on others.

The personal gyroscope of the shame-esteem axis uses the essential tools of introspection and insight. Healthy pride—including inherent worth and humility—results from accepting who we are when we live into all of who we are.

If Information Was Enough…

If Information Was Enough…

If information was enough…we would all exercise every day, eat mostly vegetables, be thin, and have a lot of money saved up for the future.  And a lot of librarians would be billionaires.

So why does proven evidence not change our beliefs and behaviors? 

Facts as well as beliefs are anatomical realities in our brains.  You don’t create a change by suddenly introducing a new idea and expect it to overwrite the one that’s already there.  Facts and logic are not powerful tools to alter opinions.  Data is not a way to change minds.  It is simply not how we decide. Established beliefs are extremely resistant to change, even when scientific evidence disproves those beliefs.

People do regard information as valid evidence when it reinforces their existing views.  This is how arguments more staunchly solidify an original position.  Presenting someone with information that contradicts an opinion causes that person to generate new counterarguments to further strengthen their view.  The boomerang effect.  As a result, people grow more confident in their initial convictions, and use information to further polarize opinions such as abortion, gun control, and climate change to name a few.

We quickly accept evidence that confirms our preconceived notions, and we assess counterevidence with a critical, even disbelieving eye.  We then cherry pick information to fortify our beliefs, without even being consciously aware of it.  In fact, recent studies have shown that the more intelligent people are, the greater their ability to creatively rationalize and interpret information to fit their opinions.  They use their intelligence not to examine data or to draw more accurate conclusions, but to find fault in data that they already disbelieve.  The mind’s desire for continuity and certainty, coupled with activating the brain’s error detection mechanism with new and unexpected information, both contribute to the continuity of existing belief.

So what can we do to catalyze change?

Neuroscience research supports what parents of teenagers have known for centuries—and regularly disregard.  The first words spoken trigger a neurochemical reaction in the listener to boot up a specific mindset that then processes the remainder of the conversation. A conversation that begins with remarks perceived as authoritative, critical, or adversarial activates the brain’s defensive circuitry of self-protection. A conversation that begins in a collaborative mode activates oxytocin, the brain’s neurochemical system related to bonding and connection.  This initial perception of a collaborative framework induces our desire to listen without judgment and pay full attention to the speaker. The listener feels heard and understood.

Since information is evaluated relative to pre-established beliefs, the further away any new information is from established beliefs, the more likely it will be considered invalid.  So instead of challenging a cemented belief, consider seeding a new one.

Instead of contradicting existing beliefs to prove someone wrong, a collaborative model builds common ground and has more potential to persuade. To elicit change with success, identify the existing belief, common motivation, and common goals.

 

DAVID KRUEGER, M.D., Dean of Curriculum and Mentor Coach at Coach Training Alliance, is an Executive Mentor Coach who works with executives and professionals to develop and sustain success strategies. A former Professor, Psychiatrist, and Psychoanalyst, his coaching and writing focus on the art and science of success strategies: mind over matters. 

Dave is author of 17 books on success, money, wellness and self-development. His latest book, The Secret Language of Money(McGraw Hill), is a Business Bestseller translated into 10 languages.

How to become an Executive Coach

10 Powerful Questions to Enroll Coaching Clients Every Time

The secret to enrolling more coaching clients is surprising. Don’t coach them in the discovery session. Many coaches find their prospective clients walk away from a sample coaching session feeling “done”.

It may be because a sample session is oriented around selling coaching rather than attracting the individual to what they already know they want — the vision of their ideal future.

If you want to transform your ability to enroll new clients, engage them in their own story and vision. Help them feel the gap between where they are now and where they want to be. Then tell them how you can help them close that gap.

It’s easy. Take these steps in order:

  1.  Make a connection and set up your conversation for success. “I’m really excited to connect with you today. Is it all right if I ask you some interesting and meaningful questions about your ________ (life, business, health etc)?”
  2.  Get a quick snapshot of where they are now. “Tell me a bit about your __________ right now.”
  3. Uncover what they want most. “If you could have everything you want in your _______ in the next 6 months, what would that look and feel like.” Draw the details out in full color.
  4.  Help them connect emotionally to their vision. “What would _______ (achieving this specific dream/goal) do for you?” “And what else?” “And what else?” “How important would you say this is to you on a scale of 1 – 10?”
  5.  Ask them to list their challenges or obstacles. “What’s stopping you from having this _______?” “And, what else?” “And what else?” Resist the impulse to coach them!
  6.  Help them realize the cost of living with the status quo. “What has it cost you not having ______?” “What impact has that had on you?”
  7.  Show them the bigger why. “If you could overcome _______ (specific obstacle mentioned) what would that do for you?” “And what else?”
  8.  Gather the gems. “What have you taken away from our conversation so far?”
  9.  Invite them in. “Are you ready to hear how I can help you achieve _________(their specific dreams and goals)?” Share your “system”, share your fees & terms, weave in benefits of working with you and success stories.
  10.  Create a sense of urgency. “Are you excited? Let’s get started.” Give them an appropriate first assignment that’s simple and powerful. Tell them what the next steps are. Follow up immediately with your Welcome Packet.

If by the end of these questions they haven’t gotten to “YES!” yet, coach through their objections. If they say… “I need time to think about it.” … honor that. “What do you need from me to know if this is right for you?” Set up a follow up call in a short time. Review in a follow up email what they shared with you about what they want and connect your services to those outcomes.

Give this a try and let me know how it works for you. I’ve heard from so many coaches that this approach frees them up from trying to convince prospects how great coaching is. And when you’re not trying to convince anyone to hire you, you’ll find it’s easier to be genuinely curious about them and open to outcome rather than attached to a certain result. Energetically, that alone, can turn the tide.

 

About the Author: Rhonda Hess co-authored the Coach Training Accelerator™ and designed the CTA Certified Coach Program. She has a super power for helping coaches choose and champion a profitable niche they’ll love. Learn more at Prosperous Coach.

Make it The Client’s Idea

Make it The Client’s Idea

There will be times when you are called upon, by your client, to deliver great advice. Your client looks to you to be the strong mentor who has been in the shoes in which they are now walking.
This is such a tempting situation. You know exactly what needs to be done and what needs to be said to remedy the problem. You can’t wait to share your brilliant ideas.
Resist!

Resist the urge give advice, first. Notice the times when you had a sound idea and good advice only to find the person you shared it with never did anything about it. Even if you know the answer, let your client say it. Give them time to work with a situation first before you automatically jump in. Even if you plant the seed for a great plan, let your client ‘come up with the idea.’
Once a person verbalizes an idea, it begins to take shape in their minds and becomes real. It is the savvy coach who lets solutions come out of the client’s mouth. You just may discover how quick they are to move on it.

Just an idea…

Will Craig is the founder and dean of Coach Training Alliance, an international coaching and mentoring company based in Boulder, Colorado. He holds a Masters degree in Education and Human Development from The George Washington University.

6 Easy Copy Writing Tips for Coaches

6 Easy Copy Writing Tips for Coaches

 

6 Easy Copy Writing Tips for Coaches

Are you intimidated by the idea of writing your own freebies, marketing emails, and web content?

I used to find those daunting too until I learned the root of ace marketing copy: write to intrigue rather than impress.

When you want to inspire potential coaching clients to take the next step with you, aim to build a relationship and raise curiosity first. Take the spotlight off of you and your coaching “technology” and place it on your target audience.

Here are six more tried and true copy writing tips that will help you write in a way that’s both authentic and effective:

#1 Write like you speak

Good copy speaks to the heart first so it’s critical to know who you serve, what they want and what’s holding them back. For most target audiences, you’ll want to ditch the formal writing techniques you learned in school. Instead, write as if you’re speaking to one person in your target group.

  • Use contractions. You’ll and you’re instead of you will and you are.
  • De-formalize your language. Let go of the one whom‘s and in order to‘s.
  • And, even risk using an occasional and strategically placed incomplete sentence!

#2 Relate to your target audience

Begin by helping your reader to feel understood. People feel an instant affinity with you if they see that you “get” where they’ve been and where they want to go.

  • Use language that honors their intelligence.
  • Speak to their SPECIFIC challenges and goals. Broad and general language loses relevance.
  • Opt for you and I, instead of we, our or one.

#3 Establish your authority too

While relating to their pain and aspirations, also make it clear that you have a solution to one acute pain they want help with right now. Help them understand why they should listen to you.

  • Use imperative phrasing whenever possible. For example, eliminate — I thinkI believe, you may, can, could — from sentences and rephrase to more commanding statements (Notice that all the bullet points in this article are imperative and begin with an active verb.)
  • Use active voice rather than passive voice whenever possible. Look for ways to replace “to be” verbs — was, were, has been, will be, may be — with stronger verbs.
  • Weave in examples of you or your client’s results utilizing your solution.

#4 Give readers a break

People will usually skim a page and read the parts that intrigue them. Pull them through your copy and encourage deeper reading with these devices:

  • Use sub-headings. Be sure the syntax is parallel. (Notice how all my subheadings start with a verb?)
  • Use bullet points or numbered lists.
  • Occasionally bold a short sentence or phrase for emphasis. (Be careful not to over-do it or copy becomes unreadable!)
  • With longer documents or web pages, include a few images or boxed information such as quotes, pull quotes, and factoids.

#5 Streamline every sentence and paragraph

Most of the time, less really is more! Long, dense paragraphs scare readers away. This is where academic training, that insists all relevant content goes into one paragraph, can lead you astray. After you write a first draft, challenge yourself to reduce the number of words by half. Play around with syntax to finesse each sentence.

  • Read your copy out loud to highlight awkward passages.
  • Eliminate non-essential words and phrases.
  • Reduce the number of prepositional phrases.
  • Trim paragraphs to 5 lines of text wherever possible. (Notice the short paragraphs in this article?)

One exception to the “less is more” rule is the dreaded sales page. Those pages are purposefully long so that each individual finds the specific information that helps them decide whether to buy or not. Some people will look for testimonials right away where others want to know exactly what they’ll get in a program first. Others want the story in the initial sales letter, while others will look for the guarantee. It’s best to get expert support for writing those.

#6 Inspire readers to take action

If you want comments on your blog article, ask for them and provide an easy way to give them. If you want web visitors to sign up for your freebie, make the title irresistible and place the opt-in high up on the web page. If you want people to enroll for a paid program build a case for why they can’t afford NOT to enroll.

Author: Rhonda Hess co-authored the Coach Training AcceleratorTM and designed the CTA Certified Coach Program. She has a super power for helping coaches choose and champion a profitable niche they’ll love. Learn more at Prosperous Coach.

Enroll More Coaching Clients From Your Website

Enroll More Coaching Clients From Your Website

 

Enroll More Coaching Clients From Your Website

Is your website enrolling new coaching clients for you? Is it also creating a community of future clients? Does it quickly inspire people to share your site?

If not, your site might be a dud — a website that just sits there taking up cyberspace. Here’s how to make your website WORK for you:

4 Secrets of a Client Winning Website

As you read through these, rate your own website on a scale of 1 -5 with 5 being the best it can be.

1. Be sure every word and image is tailor made for your target audience
The #1 mistake coaches make on their websites is they make it all about coaching. Unless your clients want to become a coach themselves, they will bounce off a site like that in seconds.

Instead, speak to the heart of the specific people you serve. Show them you understand them — the specific tangible and emotional things they want and what’s holding them back. Show them that you have a system to help them get there. This requires that you’ve chosen and researched a viable coaching niche. Test your coaching niche here.

How would you rate your site on this point? Is it crystal clear WHO your site is for and how you help them get exactly what they want? What can you do right now to make your site more relevant to your target audience?

 

2. Giveaway a highly desirable and immediately downloadable gift.
Most freebies on coaching websites are unoriginal and created for general audiences. The result is your list grows slowly and web visitors leave uninspired.

Does your opt-in stand out visually in the top 5 inches of the home page?
Is your freebie literally irresistible to your target audience?
Is it something they can’t get anywhere else?
Does it make it crystal clear why they should listen to you and take the next step?

Your freebie should be so attractive to a unique group of people that, not only do they download it but they also consume it immediately. It intrigues them. They want more. Then you offer them the next step with you.

How did you do on this one? Is your freebie unique, irresistible and highly valuable? It might be time for a freebie upgrade. Zone in on a specific problem your target audience faces and help them transform while inspiring them to enroll with you. Consider investing in expert help with the content and layout.

 

3. Make sure your website is easy to experience.
Think about how quickly you bounce off a website that’s confusing or overwhelming. You want your visitors to stick. Streamline the content and page choices. Express the most important things and move them on through a conversion process you’ve thought through.

How does your site rate? Is it an easily navigable and valuable experience start to finish? Simplifying a site starts with making choices about what’s most important and leaving off the rest. Say more with less words.

 

4. Ask them to engage with you.
It’s tempting to soft-pedal this part or bury it in a long paragraph. If you don’t clearly ask them to take a next step with you, they won’t!

Could you improve the way you call them in? Are you building a clear case for why they would want to work with you? Have you made it super easy to take action? If you want them to sign up for a discovery session or consult, have a easy sign up such as a TimeTrade link to your calendar.

It’s a joy when your website is truly worth the time, money and effort you put into it. Imagine having a flow of new clients that find and engage with you through your website.

Author: Rhonda Hess co-authored the Coach Training AcceleratorTM and designed the CTA Certified Coach Program. She has a super power for helping coaches choose and champion a profitable niche they’ll love. Learn more at Prosperous Coach.

Will Your Coaching Niche Pass the Test?

Will Your Coaching Niche Pass the Test?

Coaches often ask me: “Is this a good coaching niche?” What they really want to know is — will focusing my energy this way repay me with a consistent flow of clients who are willing to invest? That’s the 6-figure question.

First, do you really need a coaching niche?Joint Ventures will help your business reach the masses

Ultimately, there are three reasons to niche: ease, reach and profitability. We choose a niche so we can market less, earn more and help more people transform.

If your intention is to build a solid long-term coaching business that you can rely on for a satisfying income, it’s worth it to choose a smart niche now before you invest time, money and energy on your branding and marketing.

A smart niche helps you:

  • Quickly become a coach in high demand through momentum.
  • Leverage your efforts and concentrate your message, instead of being all over the place.
  • Make a bigger impact and command higher fees.

Test the viability of your current coaching niche with these powerful questions.

Stand Out in the Crowd

Does your coaching niche help you stand out in the crowd?

If yes, give yourself 2 POINTS. If not, consider narrowing your niche before you go much further.

There are more service entrepreneurs than ever before. All are vying to get attention online and offline. People only pay attention to the messages that speak to their most important desires and problems. Everything else is ignored or deleted.

For that reason, go beyond identifying your coaching track — such as  relationship, wellness, business coaching — and refine your niche in 3 additional ways:

  • Choose one narrow audience that’s easy to find.
  • Zone in on one hot issue or goal that audience faces.
  • Customize all your messages and offers to help them achieve that outcome.

That’s how you’ll get noticed, build rapport quickly, continuously enroll clients that are eager to develop themselves.

New Client Accessibility

Can you easily find hundreds of your prospects in your niche right now?

If yes, give yourself 4 POINTS. If not, your niche may not be viable.

Having a viable niche feels like you have access to a deep and reliable well full of potential clients. You never go thirsty for clients.

Some niche audiences are “overdrawn”. For example, the large group Entrepreneurs is barraged with messages from all sectors.

If you want to serve entrepreneurs, give yourself the advantage of narrowing to a specific industry or type of business owner. Be specific. Also, pick a unique topic critical to that group that hasn’t been claimed yet. You’ll differentiate yourself from all of the other providers for entrepreneurs and they’ll be willing to co-promote with you.

Targeting a narrow audience gives you a boost, especially if there are already events, associations and publications designed for them.

Know What Your Audience Wants

Do you know exactly what your target audience wants so much that they’ll invest to get it?

If yes, give yourself 3 POINTS. If not, dig deeper before you launch your niche.

With a bit of fun market research it’s easy to find out exactly what your target audience wants (instead of what you think they need). When your messages and offers reflect their top goals, you earn their trust. They feel understood and want to work with you.

You know this … people reach for professional support when they have a big goal to achieve or a painful problem to solve. The more acute their problem or goal, the more they are willing to invest.

A niche like Women in Transition doesn’t usually pay off because it’s trying to cover too much ground. Imagine how narrowing to one specific type of transition — first time pregnancy, re-entering the work force, or menopause — would help you standout with that audience?

Reality Check

Would you invest in what you’re offering?

If yes, give yourself 1 POINT. If no, your current niche might not earn well.

If you, in all your years, would not have invested your time and money in the solution you’re offering, it won’t inspire your audience either. For example, if your niche is Stay at Home Moms, you may have already realized that they love you and your free stuff but aren’t likely to take a greater step. That’s because, first and foremost, they spend their money on their kids. Refine that audience or choose a better one. You can do it!

How did your coaching niche do?
8-10 POINTS = You’re on track for a profitable niche!
6-7 POINTS = Test this niche in the marketplace or refine now for the best bet.
0-5 POINTS = Choose a better niche for long-term success.

This quick test might have either given you confirmation to go full speed ahead or you might have dodged a bullet. Wherever your score landed, there is an ideal niche for you. Let me help you think out of box. Sometimes the best niche for you is easier to discover with another set of eyes.

Still, wondering about choosing a coaching niche?

  • Choosing a niche doesn’t prevent you from working with people who don’t fit the niche. This is about empowering your marketing efforts and gaining quick success rather than limiting your clientele or excluding anyone. People outside of your niche will contact you.
  • Also, don’t worry about getting bored with your niche. You’ll find great diversity in each human being you coach. And, it’s likely that big opportunities or additional niches will come your way because you’ve claimed a niche.
  • Lastly, some coaches feel that they aren’t qualified to serve a narrow audience.You can coach anyone about anything so trust yourself and your skills! Become an expert in the people you serve by coaching them.

Author: Rhonda Hess co-authored the Coach Training AcceleratorTM and designed the CTA Certified Coach Program. She has a super power for helping coaches choose and champion a profitable niche they’ll love. Learn more at Prosperous Coach.

 

Emotional Intelligence in Your Practice

Emotional Intelligence in Your Practice

Chances are you’re familiar with emotional intelligence. It burst on the international scene in 1995 with the publication of Daniel Goleman’s bestselling book (Emotional Intelligence), and has become the fastest-growing area of life and executive coaching today.

Coaches who offer emotional intelligence coaching:
– distinguish themselves from other coaches;
– help their clients accelerate their success and achieve bigger goals;
– gain a reputation for outstanding coaching and exceptional results;
– expand their coaching practices significantly;
– reap substantially higher financial benefits by offering more comprehensive, higher-level services

As coaches, we see again and again that it’s not how book smart our clients are that makes the difference; it’s how people smart they are.
Emotional intelligence is about becoming aware of our own emotions, in the moment, and the emotions of others, and using that information to manage ourselves and our relationships with others. Emotional Intelligence Coaching offers a comprehensive set of coaching skills and tools that provide a natural extension to life, executive and corporate coaching.

While cognitive intelligence (measured as IQ) is set at birth, research shows that emotional intelligence (measured as EQ) can be learned. What’s more, the research shows the best way to enhance emotional intelligence is to work with a coach.

Coaching tools are now available to support coaches in coaching emotional intelligence. Furthermore, EI can be measured, making it possible for coaches to help their clients identify their strengths and vulnerabilities, and pull together a comprehensive coaching program and development plan that will lead to accelerated client success in life and work.

I strongly encourage you to incorporate emotional intelligence coaching into your practice. You will be impressed with the positive results it produces for your clients (and for yourself!).

Dr. Laura Belsten is Dean of the Graduate School of Coaching, a Master Certified Coach (MCC) and a national leader in the field of Emotional Intelligence. 

The Coaching Business Backslide: How to Get Out of Your Own Way

The Coaching Business Backslide: How to Get Out of Your Own Way

You’ve invested a lot of time, money and passion to become a professional coach. No doubt, you’ve already made a difference in people’s lives.

But that initial push to learn how to coach and build your business foundation can quickly turn into disillusionment if paying clients don’t beat a path to your door at the get-go.

Impatience slows manifestation. Is it time to get out of your own way?

After 16 years of mentoring, I witness 3 main ways that coaches get in the way of their own success at this stage:

  1. Allowing doubts to crush momentum after a few coaching prospect rejections.
  2. Hiding behind the computer, constantly repositioning their niche, website and messages.
  3. Becoming paralyzed, afraid to get out there consistently to build trust and enroll clients.

Sound familiar? Here are 3 ways to think differently about your blossoming business …

Check Your Expectations

Expectation is a possibility killer because it lacks the most essential ingredient of possibility thinking – being open to outcome.

Words to live by: Happiness is low expectations. The idea isn’t to settle for less or shut down when challenged.

The idea is to BELIEVE in the journey. Set goals and create a vision. Then, make it happen with courage and grit. After all, isn’t that how you’d coach your clients?

That’s why self-made entrepreneurs are so celebrated. They believed and persevered.

But, if you ask them, they’ll tell you of delays, unexpected challenges and learning from mistakes … many mistakes.

There’s a lot of rhetoric out there that might make you think any coach can and should become an instant phenom.

But, if you pause for a moment, you’ll see that the people selling that message are working very hard at their own success. They’ve got a profitable niche, smart messaging, conversion processes, clear offers, and a team working with them to build their own little empires one day at a time.

Like every other entrepreneur, they built their empire on delays, unexpected challenges and learning from mistakes.

Give Yourself the Gift of Momentum

Consistency + congruence = leverage.

Leverage rocks! After 18 months of consistently blogging to my audience with a congruent message, I started enrolling clients from Google searches! I earned more with less effort.

One day – when you’re not tapping your foot with expectation – your efforts will arrive at a critical mass and something unexpected and wonderful will happen that takes your business to the next level.

Faithfully nurture your reputation and show up consistently.

Look at it this way …

If you get a cavity in a tooth, you wouldn’t stop brushing your teeth would you? You’d improve your habits. Maybe even become an avid flosser.

If your child falls while trying to walk do you encourage her to stay down and give up? No way. You let her fall on her bum and show her how to get back up.

So get out there every day with enthusiasm for your message, your value and your offer. Enjoy people. Even if they don’t hire you … right away.

Your ideal coaching clients are out there. Keep waving your arms so they can see you.

Yes, there are ways to get attention more quickly and enroll clients more easily at higher fees. It takes congruence – connecting the dots between your audience’s desires, your message and offers. It’s an art. I can help you with that.

Timing Does Matter

Sometimes, you begin to build your coaching business but there’s not enough room in your life to bring it fully into reality.

If you’re gainfully employed or have a family you’re caring for full time, there’s often not enough drive left to stay the course and grow your coaching business into a thriving livelihood.

Your options? Create a transition plan, clear space and redouble your efforts. Or, put your business to the side until you’re willing to take that leap. No shame.

But if you want it now, shrug off doubt and expectation, and aim for leverage!

Author, Rhonda Hess, co-authored the Coach Training Accelerator and designed the CTA Certified Coach Program. She has a super power for helping coaches choose and champion a profitable niche they’ll love. Learn more at Prosperous Coach.

Are You a Professional Life Coach?

Are You a Professional Life Coach?

Have you ever made concessions to get a client to hire you? Offered a second sample session; reduced your fees; or set session times when you don’t want to work? Have you jumped at an opportunity without considering if it will over-commit and under value your time?

Almost every coach makes these slips in judgment at some point. Eventually they realize that the costs to their credibility, profitability and professionalism aren’t worth it.

Use these four professional business practices and watch your coaching business grow:

  1. Value your time highly and pay yourself well. Discounting your services will cost you in ways you never counted: your client will discount the value of your coaching, invest less in themselves, and feel disempowered because you took on their financial issues just to get them to hire you.
  2. Hold time boundaries. If your stated session times are an hour, deliver an hour. If you spend extra time with a client, do so rarely and consciously. Tell them: “I’d like to gift you ten extra minutes today.” They will respect the way you honored your time and theirs.
  3. Want only as much for your clients as they want for themselves. If you’re frustrated about your client’s progress, then you’re attached to outcome and wasting precious energy. Coach them through obstacles, challenge them to play a bigger game, and let go of outcome.
  4. Set success criteria and only say ‘yes’ to opportunities that:
  • Align with your values.
  • Showcase your skill and build visibility with your niche market.
  • Promise to bring a high return on your investment of time.

These four practices speak volumes about your professionalism while they also bring you more ideal clients.

Author: Rhonda Hess is an internationally recognized mentor coach and known as the Niche Success Strategist. Rhonda is also the co-author of the Coach Training AcceleratorTM and designer of CTA’s Certified Coach Program. Rhonda’s Prosperous Coach Blog has won Best Coaching Blog awards for 2010 and 2011. Check out her blog here: Prosperous Coach.

Changing the World One Authentic Conversation at a Time

Changing the World One Authentic Conversation at a Time

In coaching more than 5,000 leaders of fast-growing organizations, I sit beside corporate leaders as they have major breakthroughs – and major breakdowns. As a former executive myself, I’ve also been in their shoes. Here’s what I’ve learned about coaching executives.

Know this:
It’s lonely at the top. Execs and leaders are held to a high standard – their pay grade and title demand it – so it’s hard to admit when they don’t “know it all.” If they don’t get real with their team – and be part of the team, not “above” it – all could be lost.

Executives often get very little feedback, since they have few peers. Their blind spots can inadvertently go unchecked. A coach’s impartial, new perspective can help them see what they’ve never seen before.

When a leader is committed to the process, there’s no limit to their achievements. But it takes real commitment, honesty, and the willingness to see the process through, no matter what. That’s the key to a great coaching relationship.

Feel this:
When a coach comes in and helps organizations have authentic, real conversations – often for the first time – magic happens.

Coaching leaders to success is the ultimate helper’s high, because they often go on to make a real impact – on their team members, shareholders and customers. A great coach shows a client that the road to heaven does go through hell… and it’s worth it.

Do this:
Use your experiences to see trends and create systems that help bring clients out of the darkness, while helping them build the muscles they’ll need after the crisis has passed. Bring your own experience – and empathy – to the table in your coaching.

If you want to grow as a coach, get a coach. The new perspective will help you grow in ways you never imagined.

Author, Kirk Dando, is a highly sought-after and well-respected leadership and growth expert who has been called “The Company Whisperer.” Author of the book, Predictive Leadership: Avoiding the 12 Critical Mistakes that Derail Growth-Hungry Companies, he has coached over 5,000 growth-hungry leaders, including the eight Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award winners and several “Best CEO” winners. Kirk is also a CTA Human Capital Coach.

Staying Present

Staying Present

Coaches often share with me the struggle of maintaining the duality of “present”. That is, the challenge of staying simultaneously present themselves as they co-creatively work to find that same state with their client. I would offer that coaches need to think about “present” differently.
In a recent yoga class, the yogi shared her view of the value of being present. This was great. Then she shared her definition of present and I became…well, challenged. Blanket statements followed. “Let go of all of your past. Do not worry or care about the future and what is expected to be done or completed.” Neither appropriate nor easy to enter debate from child’s pose, but it did prompt thought, and for that I give her thanks.

Think of being “present” as simply being aware and balanced in this moment. I like to use the analogy of the sailboat and that “present” is the keel of the boat. The keel properly insures that the force of the direction (past or future) is weighted to the base of your journey’s vehicle and that the power coming from leaning in balance against that force creates the proper, balanced energy to forge ahead on your journey. Both as a person and as a coach, great positive energy can come from turning with sail into the energy of our past or future. The key is the weighted keel – the balance of the “present” and the place from which we find the stability to harness life’s force into our progress.

Chris Osborn is the President of Coach Training Alliance. His lifelong learning includes experience as CEO of a large financial services company and founder of several growth oriented service companies.

Credibility and Professionalism

Credibility and Professionalism

How important are credentials? Do your clients expect you to be a certified coach? Will being certified make you a better coach? Will you need to be licensed at some point? These are all valid questions and each will generate a variety of responses depending on whom you ask.

The Reality
Rarely, if ever, will a prospect ask you if you are certified or where you received your training. What they are most interested in is what you can do for them. What benefits can you provide them? Can you help them achieve their goals?

Rightly or wrongly people assume you are qualified at what you do. Think about it… When was the last time you asked a professional service provider where they went to school?

More Reality
Here’s what’s also true: With the ability for anyone to hang out their shingle and call themselves a coach, there’s an opportunity for the ‘less than genuine’ types to hurt the profession. Of course, a coach without integrity and honesty won’t be around long.

Your Reality
A piece of paper won’t make you a better coach. The process of becoming certified, however, can enhance your skills and hone your abilities to a higher level. Certification is only achieved through a combination of training and coaching as a professional. Ultimately, it will add to your credibility and self-confidence.

After hearing all sides of the issues—the benefits and disadvantages, the pros and cons—it comes down to a personal decision. What’s best for you? Is it something you want to aspire to in the future? Or, is this something you need to pursue right now? It’s your call, coach.

Author Will Craig is the founder of Coach Training Alliance and invites you to look at our Certified Coach Program.

Your Brand, Your Promise

Your Brand, Your Promise

What’s your promise?  

The answer: Your brand. 

Your brand is an organizer for everything you do, for every connection with potential clients and readers, including website, blog, articles. Your brand triggers meaning and connections; it carries its own value. Brand awareness is the link in the consumer’s brain between the brand name and certain associations about the product or service.

What’s the opposite of a brand?  

The answer: Generic.  

Our clients – and potential clients – consciously and unconsciously take notes on how we brand and value ourselves, charge what we’re worth, and handle the business of coaching. How we handle this will determine if we have clients, and how successful we – and they – will be.

Brand, value, fees, and best practices constitute four of the greatest challenges for the business aspects for Professional Coaches. And it is crucial to present a model of professionalism as we work with clients and in every aspect of our business.

Neuroeconomic studies show that we make purchase decisions at the midbrain level due to the psychological impact and associations we have to a brand. These midbrain preferences and decisions occur seconds before the choice and action registers in the logical brain – the prefrontal cortex. Once your unconscious mind makes an emotional commitment to a “yes” or a “no” it sends the conscious mind on the mission to gather all the logical reasons to support that decision. This rationalization is called confirmation bias.

Whoever has the best story wins. Storytelling excellence is not something you just pick up along the way. It is an art, a craft, and a discipline to be mastered.

 

DAVID KRUEGER, M.D., Dean of Curriculum and Mentor Coach at Coach Training Alliance, is an Executive Mentor Coach who works with executives and professionals to develop and sustain success strategies. A former Professor, Psychiatrist, and Psychoanalyst, his coaching and writing focus on the art and science of success strategies: mind over matters. 

Dave is author of 17 books on success, money, wellness and self-development. His latest book, The Secret Language of Money(McGraw Hill), is a Business Bestseller translated into 10 languages.

 

Upcoming Classes:

The Nuts & Bolts of Authoring Your First Book with David Krueger, MD

This course is designed specifically for coaches wanting to write their first book. It is also ideal for those who have started a book but haven’t quite been able to finish it. The secret is in the system. Telling and Selling Your Story can be simple if you follow the right path.

Dr. David Krueger’s latest program, the Nuts & Bolts of Authoring Your First Book, uses materials and resources he has designed especially for the first time author.

This four part Teleseminar begins on Monday, April 9th, at 7pm ET. Class size is limited so don’t wait to sign up for this fascinating and comprehensive program!

 

Like Minded People Create Magic

Like Minded People Create Magic

What does it mean to live in a time of anticipation? I am sure you have seen a “MAGIC” show either in person or on television and there is a moment when you are leaning forward in your seat in anticipation of catching the magician in the act of creating that magic trick, haven’t you? I know I sure do. I remember when a magician came to my elementary school and he actually sawed a teacher in half!….well, not really, but to my young eyes, he sure did.

For those of you in business, you often meet with your finance people and do a cost-benefit analysis and what you find out will either bring a smile or alarm bells will sound. Being strategic is vital in business and too in our personal lives. Here is a principle which governs this; to anticipate doing significant acts, you must position yourself to immediately take action. When taken to the extreme, a person can burn out, due to the fact that they are always in “fire-fighting” mode vs, positioning themselves to take the action required to correct course, or solve a challenge. Being on the front lines as a fire-fighter is exhausting and yields poor results.

When we live in a healthy state of anticipation we are more aware of the value of Today. You understand that every day is your time to make a difference.

Anticipation prompts us to prepare. Living and being in this state causes us to look at everything differently. And the end result of this is we prepare differently. A friend of mine chooses “one word” that will be their focus for an entire year. This process usually begins between Christmas and New Year. Once the word is chosen an interesting thing begins to happen: lessons and experiences begin to occur revolving around that word. Growth happens, and perspective changes because the word brings certain attitudes, opportunities, and provides a personal catalyst in this person’s professional and personal life. I challenge you to think of one word to focus on this month.

Good ideas are a result of healthy anticipation. Did you know that if you come up with an idea and you believe you are the only person on earth who thought of it; you would be dead wrong! Millions of people come up with the same ideas every day around the world. Those who A-C-T on their idea are the ones who are successful.

Anticipation helps us to have an abundance mindset and to help others. Anticipation is the key to unlocking the door to abundance thinking. When we believe positively about what is behind that door of opportunity we will be more willing to open additional doors. With each door we open, we continue to move forward.

Unfortunately, the majority of the world is set firmly in “scarcity” mindset, and work in a j-o-b, and live for Friday and their next paycheck. As a result they never open that first door and become bitter individuals.

If you want to make a difference and to open the door to significance, you must first ANTICIPATE!

Reprinted from Janice Bastani’s Coaching Blog – https://www.janicebastanicoaching.com/articles/blog-posts/

Author: Janice Bastani is a Professional Certified Coach with the International Coach Federation and holds multiple certifications in the coaching sector.

Connecting with Like Minded People who Make a Difference

Connecting with Like Minded People who Make a Difference

Did you know that it is impossible to achieve significance alone? The “Law of Significance” states that one person is too small a number to achieve any type of greatness.

For those who do try to make a difference and achieve significance on their own, are fooling themselves. Why? A big ego, their own level of insecurity, their temperament, or even their naiveté.

Simply put, we all need other people to make a difference and achieve significance.

In order to go from “me” to “we”, a shift in thinking must occur. Throughout human history there inevitably comes a moment when leaders must step forward to meet the needs of that moment in time.

There are 9 factors which attract people of significance to one another.

1. Opportunity – significance acts almost always in a response to opportunities.
Ask this question: “What opportunity do you see right now to make a difference?”

2. Belief – Believe and ask for others to be placed in your path who desire what you do.
Ask this question: “Do you believe people are coming to you to help you make a difference?’

3. Possibility – possibilities involve sacrifice of something, in order to achieve something else.
Ask this question: ”What are you willing to give up to make a difference?”

4. Faith – Fear is the most prevalent reason why people stop. Faith is what makes people start.
Ask this question: “Is my faith bigger than my fear?”

5. Challenge – There are no really “great people”, what there are, are people who are willing to tackle the challenge before them.
Ask this question:”Are you challenged to stretch to significance?”

6. Attitude – Our attitude must be one of not losing hope in order to achieve significance.
Ask this question: “Is you attitude an asset or a liability?”

7. Winning – Starts with putting on shoes which are too big for you and as you take one step at a time, you grow into those shoes, and before long you and your team will be winners.
Ask this question: “Are you connecting with winners to achieve significance?”

8. Promise – You have heard the saying that: “…if you dream it, you can achieve it…?” This is not entirely true. A dream requires a partner; called: commitment.
Ask this question: “Have you committed to a path with great promise for you and for others?”

9. Invitation – Who you connect with matters in getting to the goal, the dream which brings significance. So you might say it is “Who Luck”. Who are you going to invite to your team.
Ask this question: “Are you ready to start inviting others to join you in living a life that matters?”

 

Reprinted from Janice Bastani’s Coaching Blog – https://www.janicebastanicoaching.com/articles/blog-posts/

Author: Janice Bastani is a Professional Certified Coach with the International Coach Federation and holds multiple certifications in the coaching sector.

Coaching Red Flags

The Allure of Chaos

 

Those born to the storm find the calm very boring.
Dorothy Parker

What is the most common addiction we have as humans?  The magnetic pull we predictably will return to, no matter how good our lives are?

We rationally desire peace and stability, yet paradoxically have attraction to disruption and calamity.  We rubberneck the unexpected incident of the absurd, the unsystematic, the disruption, the haphazard.

Curiosity engages the brain’s focus.  Anticipation prompts the pleasurable release of dopamine.  When novelty arouses curiosity, we have emotional interest in finding out what happens next.  Mysteries compel engagement; unresolved problems become preoccupying; suspense sustains interest.  Our natural inclinations to focus attention couples with special notice to events that contradict what we already believe, activating the error detection mechanism of the brain.

Our most common addiction:  problems.  By re-entering this habitual domain, we engage invigorating narrative, and paradoxically, the comfort zone of the familiar.  Just as we buy emotionally by making purchase decisions first at a midbrain level and then justify logically seconds later in the rational, conscious forebrain, we are immediately enticed by chaos.  We then subsequently seek to make sense of it.

While we attune to chaos narratives of the unexpected, we seek the seemingly contradictory certainty of the predictable.  This simultaneous dialectic engages the disruptor to prompt the mind’s desire for closure, and the brain’s attempt to end dissonance.

What makes us curious?  Seeking an answer is itself the initial reason and reward of dopamine release in our engagement with chaos.  The desire to bring closure and end dissonance by mind and brain means that cause and effect will be attributed, correctly or not.

The activating thrill of chaos may be the reason that we currently have our current political scenarios, combined with the no longer latent emotions expressed by leaders in the inciting words and ideas that then become contagious.

Ed Lorenz conceptualized chaos theory in the 1960s in this way:  The initial state of events may seem unrelated and random, but eventually a pattern emerges.  This study of phenomena that appear random, but in fact have an element of regularity, may eventually be understood using a different framework and organizing concept.  In the end, all the pieces fit together.

Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.   (John Lennon)

 

Reprinted from the NeuroMentor® Blog Series by David Krueger, MD at www.MentorPath.com

DAVID KRUEGER, M.D., Dean of Curriculum and Mentor Coach at Coach Training Alliance, is an Executive Mentor Coach who works with executives and professionals to develop and sustain success strategies. A former Professor, Psychiatrist, and Psychoanalyst, his coaching and writing focus on the art and science of success strategies: mind over matters. He founded and served as CEO for two healthcare corporations, co-founded a third start-up that went from venture capital to merger/acquisition.

Dave is author of 17 books on success, money, wellness and self-development. His latest book, The Secret Language of Money(McGraw Hill), is a Business Bestseller translated into 10 languages.

Self-Talk: The Silent Story of Optimal Performance

Self-Talk: The Silent Story of Optimal Performance

A study of Olympian gold medalists found two traits, in addition to deliberate practice, that set super achievers apart:  complete confidence, combined with self-talk to create that total confidence.

We always engage in self-talk, always ask questions, whether or not we are actually conscious of this process.  More often we focus on a problem to fix rather than attune to self-reflection.

Many studies show that self-talk can enhance performance.  To be most effective, self-talk must be brief, specific, and focused.  A simple phrase or mantra can be wired to instantly evoke a state of mind ideally matched for a task at hand.  One All-Pro cornerback I worked with uses a single word after every play to reboot a focused, performance mindset: “Reset.”  This simple word cues an entire process preprogrammed to ground and center himself in an optimum state, to focus energy entirely on the next play.  Football is episodic, a play followed by a time interval, rather than a flow such as basketball and tennis.  The most common reason that someone moves from the flow of an optimum state is a really good play or a really bad play, both of which are state altering.

We are just beginning to study and understand the functions of our inner talk and story.  The (usually) silent self-talk we engage can be self-regulatory with reflective mental dialogue.

In a related application, persuasion neuroscience studies have shown that a message itself is not directly responsible for change.  It’s what the recipient says to himself or herself as a result of the message—the self-talk—that is both remembered and acted on to make the most difference.

A variation of self-talk involves an internal dialogue of conversational exchange, which activates the same brain areas as actual conversation and attunement to another.  Since it requires thinking about the other person’s experience and point of view, an imagined dialogue can enhance empathic resonance with another, including alternate ways of thinking and feeling.

The stories we tell ourselves – our self-talk of internal conversation – often frame our experiences to either enhance or compromise them.  The most resilient individuals are ones who create self-talk to reframe a failure as an anomaly and a learning experience.  A message such as “I’m not that good at technology” reframed is: “What is one action I can do today that can start progress?”  “I’m just an average tennis player” reframed is “What part of my game will I focus on today for improvement?”

The reason you can’t get what you want is the story you create about why you can’t have it.

Reprinted from the NeuroMentor® Blog Series by David Krueger, MD at www.MentorPath.com

DAVID KRUEGER, M.D., Dean of Curriculum and Mentor Coach at Coach Training Alliance, is an Executive Mentor Coach who works with executives and professionals to develop and sustain success strategies. A former Professor, Psychiatrist, and Psychoanalyst, his coaching and writing focus on the art and science of success strategies: mind over matters. He founded and served as CEO for two healthcare corporations, co-founded a third start-up that went from venture capital to merger/acquisition.

Dave is author of 17 books on success, money, wellness and self-development. His latest book, The Secret Language of Money(McGraw Hill), is a Business Bestseller translated into 10 languages.

Living a Purpose Driven Life

Living a Purpose Driven Life

Are you living your life the way you want to? Do you love the life you are living? If you live your life in an intentional, purposeful way, you control how you want to live and feel, every moment of every day.

A purpose driven life requires that you have:
A positive vision for your life, focused on living your life purpose;
Core beliefs and a values system, which guide your decisions and behaviours;
A personal code of ethics, where values are transformed into deliberate actions;
Integrity, where deliberate actions are consistently aligned to your values system;
A Mission Statement and policies for living your best, values-based, purposeful life;
The desire to make the world a better place for all now, and for generations to come;
The ability to be mindful of your surroundings, living fully present, in each moment, expressing gratitude for all that you are, have and do, deeply engaged in the beauty and joy of living.

The secret to living an intentional, purposeful life lies in knowing yourself, and in creating those tools that will keep you on track, living with joy. It’s important that they be written down, and reviewed regularly, incorporated into daily schedules, plans, and actions. That includes focus on legacy – the footprint that you will leave in this world. Will your footprint be shallow, one that fades into oblivion, after a brief time, or will it be an imprint that impacts positively on the world, lasting across generations?

As coaches, we want to help others, to be of service to others. We work with clients to enhance the quality of their lives. How often do we examine our own lives, to ensure that we are living purposefully, with intention, guided by written vision, values, ethics, and goals? How often do we stop to consider the legacy we want to leave to our children, grandchildren, and others in the world, for future generations? What would happen if we invite our clients to live purposeful lives and leave powerful legacies? Wouldn’t a world of people living on purpose, with the intention of loving life, be an incredible legacy?

Author – Nan Einarson is a Mentor Coach and Trainer for CTA’s Certified Coach Program. She is an experienced veteran of coaching and author of the Do It Yourself Relationship Repair Guide.

8 Ways to Continue Learning after Education Is Over

8 Ways to Continue Learning after Education Is Over

by David Krueger, MD

When I coach executives and self employed business people to develop their success skills, they come to know themselves and others better. As they have worked to learn human dynamics, they have used the following strategies to enhance their growth and continue their education.

  • Schedule time for learning.
    You have to carve out time for yourself to engage in continuing education, just as you would set aside time for a business appointment or for working out. I am often asked, “When do you find time to write?” The answer, of course, is that I never find time to write. I reserve time to write. Learn with (and about) your partner. My wife and I do “Seminar” each evening at 9:00, during which we read and discuss, on a rotating basis, what we have selected as some of the great philosophical literature of all time it generates some of our best business strategies.
  • Study psychology.
    The science of human behavior, especially irrational business behavior, garnered a Noble Prize (Daniel Kahneman for psychological insights into behavioral economics). Since our emotions rule our minds, study the emotional aspects of business. People create narratives of self-statement according to their assumptions, since brain and emotions are both programmed to ignore facts that contradict beliefs.
  • Study fields unrelated to your own.
    Some of the most promising creative innovations will come from the synthesis and integration of divergent fields of existing knowledge. For example, neuroscience maps the brain to tell us which marketing efforts best capture consumer attention and determine emotionally based decisions. My previous work as a Psychoanalyst helps me apply money psychology in various settings; awareness of different personality styles can resolve conflict and enhance effectiveness.
  • Learn to listen empathically.
    Empathy involves understanding another’s experience, feeling, logic, point of view, and way of thinking. Our best continuing education will come from empathic listening, one person at a time, to loved ones as well as those within our professional orbit: colleagues, clients, and competitors.
  • Learn to tell a story with brevity, clarity, simplicity, and humanity.
    All business is conversation. Stories sell. Facts don’t. People buy stories. A stockbroker knows that when a client buys a stock, they are buying a story. Toastmasters offer a wonderful opportunity to develop storytelling. Everyone loves to hear a good story.
  • Learn from your clients’ stories.
    Rather than trying to sell or network, ask powerful questions to elicit points of view, opinions, and ideas. When you really hear their accomplishments and meaningful experiences, you will be in a more informed place to co-create new stories with your clients.
  • Apply self awareness.
    Developing your self awareness and effectiveness is the most powerful tool you have. The awareness of instincts, intuition, and emotional intelligence often has far greater impact than facts and logic.
  • Seek a mentor.
    Yoda is booked solid, but other sources of wisdom are yours for the asking, eavesdropping, or hiring. Mentors can guide your development of self awareness, strategically address what’s next, how to get there, and how to succeed at what happens after what happens next. An Executive or Mentor Coach can collaborate as you write the next chapter in your life or business story.

Reprinted from the NeuroMentor® Blog Series by David Krueger, MD at www.MentorPath.com

Dr Dave’s Coaching Classes with Coach Training Alliance:

Certified Coach Program
Mentor Leadership Program
New Life Story™ Coach Training and Licensing Workshop
Nuts & Bolts of A Branded Coaching Business
Nuts & Bolts of Coaching Money Mastery
Nuts & Bolts of Mind and Brain Coaching Mastery
Nuts and Bolts of Authoring Your First Book
The Art & Science of Coaching Professionals
The Art & Science of Coaching Transitions
The Art & Science of Coaching Wellness

 

3 Simple and Loving Behaviors

3 Simple and Loving Behaviors

Honor and respect your partner’s feelings as if they are your own.

Feelings are the barometer of our outside existential lives. Feelings let us know how things are going for us inside ourselves. They are not good or bad; helpful or not helpful; constructive or not so constructive. Feelings exist because they do, in and of themselves.

We cannot choose to change, modify, not feel, or otherwise positively or negatively impact or affect our feelings. The only choices we have are directly related to our behavior.

Feelings are as normal as hunger and fatigue. When we dismiss, diminish, ridicule, criticize, mock, belittle, disparage or demean anyone’s feelings we are acting in the most disrespectful and unloving way.

When your Honey expresses a feeling, consider hearing the feeling as a sacred offering. Be curious and compassionate.
Remember: It is not your job to fix anything. She or he is not broken. Don’t get distracted by the content of the event. It isn’t necessary to offer insights, suggestions, give answers or otherwise provide brilliant advice or express profound guidance.

Here are 3 Simple and Loving Behaviors to remember and use:
1. Listen with your heart.
2. Tell your partner that he or she matters to you and that his or her feelings are important to you.
3. Ask if there is anything you can do or say right now that would be helpful.

Believe that your presence and your caring go a long way to soothe hurt and upset hearts. Take a deep breath. Remind yourself to stay in the moment with the feeling(s). Trust that the 3 Simple and Loving Behaviors are enough!

Try it and let me know how it goes! Remember, only YOU can make it happen.

Author Dr. Jackie Black is a mentor coach and trainer for Coach Training Alliance and author of the Sage and Scholar’s Guide to Coaching Couples. Find out about Dr. Jackie’s upcoming classes here: https://www.coachtrainingalliance.com/upcoming-classes/

Check Your Fuel Gauge

Check Your Fuel Gauge

As coaches, we understand the effectiveness and value of the authentic connection with a client. This is coaching from center -or- coaching from our “core.” A coach’s own being -the core- is the primary coaching tool. This core is our vehicle to client success.

Our energy is not derived from our clients but must be self-generated. A coach’s core, like that of the sun, requires fuel. One of the most effective creators of energy and empowerment is learning.

When we explore something new, gain new knowledge, develop context, experience education… we fuel our core. We create energy that feeds us and others. Effective coaching requires the fuel of knowledge and experience. A commitment to lifelong learning is a commitment to our core and the constant improvement of our ability to serve the client.

“Learning is not a product of schooling but the lifelong attempt to acquire it.”
~Albert Einstein

When we learn, our energy expands and the capabilities of our core are enhanced. It’s a joyful path to higher levels of client service. Check your gauge. When did you last fill your tank for yourself and your clients?

The CTA Graduate School of Coaching offers jet fuel in the form of courses and content around the specific skills and specialty niches. In the coming days and months we are introducing new programs as well as exciting, new intimate coaching practicums.

We invite you to fuel up with us.

Author Chris Osborn is the President of Coach Training Alliance. His lifelong learning includes experience as CEO of a large financial services company and founder of several growth oriented service companies.

This is Possible

This is Possible

Where will you be in five years? This is a question for you to answer as well as one to put before your clients. Chances are you’ve already dropped into Possibility Thinking. This is good.

One of the distinct gifts of being human is our ability to create our own destiny. Isn’t it surprising how many people never accept this gift or just give it away, making someone else responsible for it?

Think about what can be done in five years. Better yet, think about where you were and what you were doing in 2009. This is always fun. Look at what has changed since then. Most likely, a lot. Were you even aware, for example, the profession of coaching existed?

Question. What are you thinking about doing right now that might take some time to come to fruition? Are you working on a degree or certification? Are you considering taking a course that would improve your coaching practice but would require time to complete?

Here’s the bottom line. The future is coming and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. Your goals may take some work. Worthy goals usually do. You can either take action now; accomplish these goals and enjoy the rewards -or- you can still be putting them off, five years from now, because they take too long to achieve.

You get to decide — right now — where you want to be. Dream of the possibilities. Set the intention. If you could have it anyway you wanted, what would it be? What would it sound like, smell like, look like and feel like? Listen to your intuition. Breath it in. Envision your future. Embrace the moment.

Now, go out and make it happen. Make it happen for your family, make it happen for your clients, and –most of all– make it happen for you. It’s your destiny. Create it and it will come.

Author Will Craig is the Founder of Coach Training Alliance and holds a Masters Degree in Education and Human Development. He is co-author of the #1 best-selling coaching home study course – the Coach Training Accelerator. www.willcraig.com

Will Craig travels the world researching and documenting the subtleties and nuances of a life well lived. Will’s passion is creating dynamic stories using engaging content and captured moments. A select number of his travel photos can be seen at National Geographic and the full collection here.

As an avid explorer, the odyssey that fascinates him the most is the inner journey. In Will’s current book, Living the Hero’s Journey: Your Role in the Action Adventure of a Lifetime, readers uncover the map of self-discovery, chart their true course, and return with the Elixir of Life.

Will is the founder and former dean of Coach Training Alliance, an international coaching and mentoring company based in Boulder, Colorado. He holds a master’s degree in education and human development from The George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

Will has worked with entertainment giants like the Walt Disney Company, Up with People, and Universal Studios. For twelve years, he was a writer-producer of film and television projects in Orlando and served as president of the Florida Motion Picture & Television Association.

What Single Clients Really Want

What Single Clients Really Want

Coaching is about results – the client’s results. If a client doesn’t get the results that they came into coaching for, they’re not likely to continue with that coach. This is not necessarily true when coaching singles, however.

I have found that single clients usually hire a relationship coach because they want to find a life partner. They might be tired of being alone; or maybe they’re feeling pressure from family and friends to get married; or perhaps they think they’ll be happier if they just found someone to date. Sometimes a single client finds a life partner… and sometimes they don’t.

Does that mean the coaching wasn’t a success? Definitely NOT!

One of the unique things about being a relationship coach and working with singles is that there’s frequently a wide gap between the reason clients hire me initially and what they actually get out of the coaching process.

I recently asked one of my single clients to recall her intentions when she hired me, and if the outcomes of coaching matched those intentions. She told me: “My first thought was that you will fix me, then Mr. Wonderful will come knocking on my door. What actually happened was that I realized I could fix myself! I had the power to change what I didn’t like about my life. And as I started to make those changes, I found a new sense of peace in every area of my life. I’m still single and I’m really happy with my life!”

The results single clients think they want – just to meet someone to fall in love with – and what they actually experience – being happy now whether they’re in a relationship or not – makes the coaching process even more successful than they ever could have imagined!

 

Author Laurie Cameron is a is a Coach, Speaker and Catalyst and Trainer for Coach Training Alliance. She is the author of the Sage and Scholar’s Guide to Coaching Singles. Learn more about Laurie: http://wakeupenterprises.com/about/

My One Word

My One Word

Many people are moving from resolutions to the idea of choosing one word to define, inspire, refresh or motivate a change they are looking for in the year ahead. This movement aligns so well with coaching as a profession.

Think for a moment about “coaching” or “coach” in the context of your One Word if you are a part of this movement. If the One Word movement is new to you, play with the idea of a word choice for your coming year.

Here at Coach Training Alliance, our word for 2018 is SHIFT.

As the President of Coach Training Alliance, I want to personally invite you to hear our very own Lisa Pisano explore the idea of SHIFT and share how viral SHIFT can be – it literally has changed the lives of thousands of our graduates and then multiplied onto their paying clients.

SHIFT into the possibility of your own sustained practice.

SHIFT into a career where feeding the change others want to see is personally rewarding.

SHIFT into a 2018 fueled by a community of educators that have guided the paths of so may great people like you looking for the next great SHIFT in their lives…

Please join Lisa here: https://www.coachtrainingalliance.com/becoming-a-coach-workshop/

Author: Chris Osborn is the President of Coach Training Alliance. His lifelong learning includes experience as CEO of a large financial services company and founder of several growth oriented service companies.

10 Powerful Questions for Enrolling Coaching Clients

Coaching Success Strategies

 

Coaching is only beginning to be discovered by professionals in legal, financial, medical, and architectural arenas. These practicing professionals tend to be highly and specifically trained at what they do, think rigorously and want active collaboration.
They have in common a career dedicated to a body of knowledge, with clients or patients who come to them for the sole purpose of purchasing their expertise. Their precise training solves specialized problems of medical illness, emotional struggles, legal issues or tax matters.
Coaching professionals offers unique opportunities and challenges. They can benefit from coaching to:
  • Know themselves better
  • Understand the dynamics of human behavior
  • Pursue personal development as vigorously as they pursue professional advancement
  • Transition from work ethic to performance ethic
  • Emotionally and strategically manage career transitions
  • Market their expertise and business
Coaching this unique brand of client requires an in-depth look at the coaching theory and application that is useful for professionals. Get inside your client’s head to catalyze change and discover the most powerful and effective secret we have as coaches.

Dr. David Krueger, M.D. is Dean of Curriculum at Coach Training Alliance, CEO of MentorPath, and author of The Secret Language of Money (McGraw Hill), a Business Bestseller translated into 10 languages

There Are 4 Kinds of Business Coaches. Find Out Which One You Need

There Are 4 Kinds of Business Coaches. Find Out Which One You Need

Three years after launching his Denver-based business, Transcription Outsourcing, in 2010, CEO Ben Walker wanted to add employees and move to a larger space. But there was a big obstacle: him. “I needed a sounding board, someone with a lot of experience I could talk through my challenges, and who had helped other companies,” he says.

In 2014, through friends’ recommendations, he met Bill Treadwell, a local executive coach in his mid-70s. The two communicated easily, and Walker hired him. Soon, Walker was huddling for a couple of hours once a month with Treadwell for a flat fee. What ensued were assignments of books to read, heavy scrutinizing of financial statements, analysis of expenses and elimination of unnecessary ones, and advice on how to better interact with his team. By early 2015, Walker had reduced expenses 35 percent and improved the employee retention rate. “My coach has had an incredible effect on the bottom line and overall office morale,” he says. Transcription Outsourcing’s 2015 revenue beat the previous year’s by 30 percent. Walker projects the same growth for 2016. “What’s even better than his still being my coach”–they now work more by phone and email–“is that he’s become a friend and a mentor,” he says. That won’t happen with every coach. And you’ll need to vet candidates carefully–there are varying certifications. But the first question is: What are you trying to fix? Follow this guide.

The audience (media coaches)

As a company owner, you’re a walking, talking billboard. “You communicate your character and trustworthiness through your presentation, and venture capitalists typically base part of their funding decisions on whether they have faith in the CEOs in front of them and are inspired by their founding stories,” says Jane Praeger, owner and CEO of Ovid, a media-training and presentation-coaching firm in New York City whose clients include small-business owners. Too often, she says, entrepreneurs, while giving speeches or media interviews, confuse spontaneity–which often results in rambling and indirectness–with being real. “They think they’ll sound more authentic if they don’t overprepare, but, in fact, it’s qualitatively planning out how to answer the tough questions that allows you to exude passion,” she says. “The best communications coaches combine strategy, content, and delivery.”

The business (executive and business coaches)

Some executive coaches focus on C-suite occupants at big corporations. Others, who may also call themselves business coaches, help smaller-company bosses and owners examine their firms’ value drivers: finances, management team, operations. They also help clients see how personal issues can hinder success.

Treadwell says most of his clients recognize their weaknesses. “One typical pattern is the entrepreneur is unable to let go of his past role as solo operator, and has difficulty trusting the team,” he says. Another is accountability. “It’s lonely at the top, and, just as a CEO holds his hires accountable, an objective third party–a coach–serves to hold the CEO accountable.” If a client is in build-to-sell mode, “my role is to ask when and how, which helps him refine and clarify.”

The deal (negotiation coaches)

With libraries of negotiation books available, it’s tempting to go the DIY route. “Although books are an excellent source of general information, they simply don’t contain the strategies to address the level of specificity inherent in given negotiation situations, conflicts, or trans­actions,” says G. Richard Shell, director of the Wharton Executive Negotiation Workshop and author of Bargaining for Advantage: Negotiation Strategies for Reasonable People. He suggests hiring a coach with negotiation expertise to get you through critical, complicated deals. For example, a CEO facing a negotiation with his biggest client fears that pushing too hard will alienate the other side, but also knows that a good outcome can completely transform the company’s opportunities.

“The stakes can be really high, with a very fine balance between aggression and accommodation,” says Shell. “A coach who knows the entrepreneur and is equipped with details and questions–such as the opposing team’s psychological makeup, who should be present, and whether to conduct the negotiation in person or by phone or email–will be able to help the client think things through.” The more that being a good negotiator plays a role in your company’s future, says Shell, the better the case for a coach.

You (life coaches)

You may have a thriving business, but personality or emotional issues prevent you from reaching your full potential. “Working with a life coach can be extremely beneficial when dissatisfaction with certain areas, as in ‘something’s not working,’ keeps you from getting out of your own way so you can reach your next level of accomplishment,” says Jill Farmer, a life coach and author in St. Louis. “It’s about helping clients address their personal weaknesses, and find and support their strengths.” Farmer often works with clients who struggle with stress, poor time-management habits, and feeling overwhelmed. “A good life coach can help the client get to the core of these and other issues, and offer suggestions that align with the client’s cognitive style, which speaks to a person’s preferred way of getting things done,” she says, noting that referrals often come from business coaches. “Both life and business coaches understand that thoughts drive actions.”

How Much Do They Charge to Whip You Into Shape?

17,500: The number of independent coach practitioners in North America.

$955 million: Industry revenue in North America in 2015

$234: The average per hour fee.

$100 to $1,000: What You’ll Pay Per Hour – “The range of coaching fees is huge,” says life coach Jil Farmer. “It’s important to do your research to make sure the coach you’re considering is a good fit.” Some coaches use monthly retainers specifying a minimum number of hours; others cover longer time frames. Ask the prospective coach for a free initial meeting or phone conversation.

*Source: The International Coach Federation’s 2016 Global Coaching Study, conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers

 

Coach Training Alliance Launches Online “Coach Training Accelerator™”

Coach Training Alliance Launches Online “Coach Training Accelerator™”

Jan. 13, 2016PRLog — Fort Collins, Colorado – January 13, 2016 – Coach Training Alliance (CTA), the market leader in providing accredited coaching tele-classes, continues to expand and deliver with the launch of their new online self-study classroom for the pioneer product and best-seller – the Coach Training Accelerator™.

“For fifteen years we have offered industry-leading curriculum in both self-study and mentor-guided formats,” said Chris Osborn, CEO of CTA. The Coach Training Accelerator™ has sold tens of thousands of copies in it’s CD-rom format and launched amazing coaching careers. Our graduate community is filled with some of the industry’s most successful and renown coaches. While we’ve meticulously updated and revised the Accelerator over time to keep the curriculum at the forefront of the industry, we have never really ‘shifted’ it into the online world.”

The new format will offer you to create your own vape juice anywhere, anytime online, and continues to maintain all the exclusive learning methodologies and trademarked systems for creating “Teachable Moments”, using the Circle of Learning™ and the Four Pillars of Wisdom™. CTA is steadfast in the belief that lifelong learning is the only sustainable competitive advantage, and by offering this curriculum in a private online classroom, a wider audience of online users will be able to maintain competitive advantage in a rapidly-growing industry.

About Chris Osborn

Chris Osborn is the Chief Executive Officer of Coach Training Alliance. Osborn is a serial entrepreneur, executive and executive coach. His passion lies in growing businesses that aid in personal growth or business expansion of others. He has been widely recognized for his ability to lead change through organizational growth and strategic planning.

He currently serves as both a board member and in executive capacities of numerous organizations in the corporate and not-for-profit worlds. His experience varies widely from distance education and healthcare from this effective weight loss program by healthysa to e-commerce and financial services.

He periodically authors material for the Coaching Compass and is the visionary and co-author behind the Human Capital Accelerator™. Osborn is licensed as an Opposite Strengths® Executive Coach as well as a New Money Story Coach. He is a graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy and the University of California at Berkeley.

About Coach Training Alliance

Coach Training Alliance is a pioneer in global coaching certifications, having trained and certified thousands of professional coaches with ICF Credential certified coach programs. CTA’s faculty is second to none in passion and real-world coach business building experience, with each faculty member having been with CTA for a minimum of 7 years. CTA has a network of 9,000 alumni in 13 countries with numerous alumni support and business building opportunities.

Speaking of alliances, we are now collaborating with Dr. Andres Bustillo to expand our services. We are now targeting worldwide.

If you find it difficult to gain muscle then use http://prohormones.co/dianabol-pills/. This is the most powerful formula on the market as well as a top seller

www.coachtrainingalliance.com

www.coachtrainingaccelerator.com

Are You a Professional Life Coach?

Professional Coaching May Not Need Selling But Don’t Forget the Sales

In my experience, new coaches struggle with the concept of selling. Most of my coach certification students have had a lot of experience with giving away their coaching services free of charge – they have been the “go-to” person to whom family, friends, colleagues, even strangers have been drawn, to tell their stories and share their struggles. It’s because coaches’ natural gifts for effective listening and empathy leave people feeling fully “heard” and understood. People rarely get to experience that feeling, and are so grateful to experience it, they keep coming back for more.

The coach-client relationship is very special and feels magical, for both client and coach. New coaches want everyone to have access to that co-creative coaching experience. They find it extremely hard to charge people to share that experience with them. It takes some time for them to put a value on the benefits of coaching to the client, and recognize that we pay for everything in our lives, especially those things that we value highly.

Everyone has some natural talent. Some are athletic, some academic, some artistic. I liken coaches seeking to create coaching businesses to people with other gifts – figure skaters, ball players, singers, comics, etc. They hone their skills as amateurs, giving away their gifts free of charge, until they decide to go “pro.” Once they announce their new status as “professionals”, they begin to charge and collect fees for their gifts and services. Coaches are no different.

I believe that coaches in their new businesses are “professional coaches”, regardless of their certification status. As such, they must determine their value, set their fees, create a brand, choose their niche and their marketing strategies, and be ready to conduct sales conversations with prospective customers.

There is a difference between marketing and sales. Marketing is the message that attracts prospective clients to a business. Selling is not about pushing a product or service onto someone that they don’t want, it’s about saving or rescuing them from a situation that is frustrating and painful for them.

Once connected, a relationship develops between coach and prospective client, and if good, the coach must help the prospect understand the benefits and value of coaching, the fees and fee structure of the coach’s business, and what must happen for the prospect to be able to have coaching as part of their investment in themselves, by enhancing their quality of life now and for their future.

 

Author: Nan Einarson, CTA Mentor Coach

Intellectual Property

Intellectual Property

by Dr. Jackie Black

Intellectual Property (IP) is just a fancy way to identify your good ideas that would be helpful and valuable to others.

And BusinessDictionary.com explains that IP is documented or undocumented knowledge, creative ideas, or expressions of human mind that have commercial (monetary) value, are protectable under copyright laws from infringement, and is one of the most readily tradable properties in the internet (digital) marketplace.

Coaching is a seamless process and as such, that means it is all about your clients; and there really isn’t very much room for you to bring your good ideas, sage advice or offer helpful how-to’s.

That’s where your IP comes in!

When you learn how to identify your IP, you can literally spin one good idea (IP) into thousands of dollars of leveraged income! How is that possible, you ask? Because you will take that one good idea (your IP), repurpose it (develop a variety of products and services based on that one good idea) and monetize it, which means make lots of money!

Intellectual Property is valuable because it represents your ownership and your exclusive right to use, manufacture, reproduce, or promote your unique creation or idea. In this way, it has the potential to be one of the most valuable assets a person or a small business can own.

It is the obligation of every entrepreneur to leverage what you know by creating a whole variety of products and services based on your IP, at a number of different price points, while delivering non-stop value to your target market, and earning thousands of dollars by doing it!

The need for entrepreneurs to understand that you do NOT have to reinvent the wheel over and over and over again is essential to your long-term success and profitability.

Give strong consideration to believing that you have at least one good idea that you can spin into thousands of dollars; that you can become a subject matter expert, add massive value to those in your target. This intention produces higher fees and creates leveraged income for the long-term by repurposing and monetizing your IP!

Dr. Jackie Black, an internationally recognized relationship expert, has spent over 15 years in a corporate environment and built two successful businesses. Learn more about Jackie here: https://www.drjackieblack.com/meet-dr-jackie-black/

 

 

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The Longest Relationship of Your Life

The Longest Relationship of Your Life

You’re writing a story that you may not know how to fully tell. It’s a very personal story with its own history and language. It’s highly visible to others but often not to you. As Loren Eiseley observed in The Unexpected Universe, “Reality has a way of hiding from even its most gifted observers.”

It’s a story that you talk about every day, think about several times a day. It is remarkably simple yet intricately complex. This story has an internal and external dialogue, a secret language, and encrypted messages.

It’s complicated because some important aspects are emotional, unspoken, and even unconscious.

This story is about the longest relationship you’ll have in your life. Your parents discussed it before you arrived; people will deliberate it after you die. Maybe you’ll get ten years out of a car, perhaps fifty with a spouse, but this story you can never stop writing or living. You can’t break up with it, run away from it, or coax into loving you more.

Even though it’s unexamined and elusive, you orient life decisions around it.

When I spoke with a well-known self-help guru, his response was, “You know, Dave, I don’t know how to tell this story to myself in order to know what to change.” You alone determine the genre: fiction or nonfiction, tragedy or triumph. The story tells most about the teller.

This story ghostwrites every aspect of your life story. From what you eat and drink, to what you plan and play. Health, recreation, stresses—even the water you drink—are all impacted. At times you’ve used this story to regulate your moods, increase self-esteem, influence others, or to soothe emotional pains.

The villain or hero is the most popular legal substance to all people of the world.

It speaks to you. You speak with it.

It’s your money story.

David Krueger, MD , is a Trainer/Mentor Coach and Dean of Curriculum at Coach Training Alliance. His latest book, The Secret Language of Money (McGraw Hill) is a Business Bestseller translated into 10 languages

What Are The Benefits Of Coaching Groups?

What Are The Benefits Of Coaching Groups?

As you know, one-on-one coaching is not the best way to leverage your time or your earning potential as a coach. Plus, in these economic times, not everyone can afford you one-on-one.

Coaching Groups is the solution – By charging less for each participant in the group you become very affordable AND you greatly increase your earnings at the same time.

Everybody wins!

When you facilitate small groups you…

  • Position yourself very competitively in the marketplace;
  • Create demand for your expertise;
  • Deliver accessible, affordable and tremendously valuable services;
  • Charge group clients less than your one-to-one clients;
  • Greatly increase your own hourly earnings in the most highly profitable coaching service you can include in your mix of services.

Dr. Jackie Black shows you how to leverage your time and help more people than you ever could coaching one client at a time.

How Do You Listen?

How Do You Listen?

Many people define listening as sitting quietly, while another person talks. Most are surprised to learn that listening is actually a 2-way, circular process. Effective Life Coaches understand the listening process, have mastered the techniques well, and employ effective listening skills in all of their communications.

Each of us has a personal filter through which verbal information flows. Our filters are based on our unique life experiences, education, culture, religion/spirituality, language, work/career, etc.

A speaker’s words are delivered through his/her personal filter. The listener hears those words through his/her own filter (created from their own life experiences, education, culture, etc.) In a coaching session, the Client is the speaker and the Coach is the listener.

The Client’s Words

When a client speaks, of course the coach will sit quietly and listen until the client finishes. That’s not where listening ends. That’s where the listening process begins, and the coach then has an active role to play.

After hearing and processing the client’s words, the coach formulates an interpretation of what the speaker said. It is then critical that the coach clarifies that what he/she heard was what the client intended, by voicing that interpretation in his/her own words.

In response, the client either acknowledges the accuracy of the interpretation, or re-frames/re-states the information and the process begins again, until the client and coach achieve a common understanding. Once there, the co-creative coaching relationship is fully engaged.

Whenever a coach fails to clarify his/her interpretation of the client’s words, the process breaks down. The resulting conversation will be based on assumptions, not reality, and the client has not been fully heard and understood.

Active listening is a skill and like any other skill, improves with practice. So, what’s the secret to being a Masterful Coach? Practice listening actively until it becomes habit.

Nan Einarson is a Mentor Coach and Trainer for the Certified Coach Program.

The Answer is Group Life Coaching

The Answer is Group Life Coaching

The Question Is…     

What is a legitimate coaching business model, that only takes the same marketing effort as one new one-to-one client, that leverages your time and your earning potential, and is highly profitable?     

That’s right! Group Coaching!     

We used to believe that group coaching was an extension of one-to-one work with our clients. We believed that we could only fill groups with the folks who were already in our “base”.

The truth is that Group Coaching is a legitimate business model. It takes the same marketing time, skill and effort to market, enroll and fill an entire Coaching Group as it does to get one new one-to-one client! Group Coaching is the best way to leverage your time and earning potential as a coach; meaning you serve more clients, in less time, for more dollars.

The Benefits of Group Life Coaching
When you facilitate small coaching groups you…

Position yourself very competitively in the marketplace;
Create demand for your expertise;
Deliver accessible, affordable and tremendously valuable services;
Charge group clients less than your one-to-one clients;
Greatly increase your own hourly earnings in the most highly profitable coaching service you can include in your mix of services.

In today’s economic environment people need our services more than ever before and we have an obligation to be available to support our clients. Group Coaching is a delivery system that allows us to do just that, at a price point that people can afford, and in a format that will leverage our time and be highly profitable.

I wish you well on your journey to Be, Do and Have everything in your life that supports and affirms your best and most brilliant, passionate Self! Good luck in all your group coaching endeavors!

Author Dr. Jackie Black, an internationally recognized relationship expert, has spent over 15 years in a corporate environment and built two successful businesses. Learn more about Jackie here: https://www.drjackieblack.com/meet-dr-jackie-black/

Our Life Stories

Our Life Stories

For tens of thousands of years before books and computers, we transmitted our essence and principles by story. Story linked to the past, organized the present, and illuminated the future. Story allowed us to connect with each other’s humanity in the paths crossed on the long journeys out of Africa to populate the rest of the world. Then the anatomy and physiology of our brains grew by putting thoughts and feelings into stories. Stories informed, instructed, inspired, governed, and organized.

Story is the most powerful way humans communicate. Stories give birth to possibility. Stories are a way that we resonate with our earlier selves, connect with others, and create a road map to proceed.

Our brains are wired to process information in narrative form. The narrative we construct navigates our lives.

Despite being natural storytellers, and our brains being wired for stories, some of us actually tell our stories to ourselves—to step out of our stories and figure out what they are about, how to amplify and edit. To figure out who is really writing the script. To understand why we have chosen certain roles. To reflect on the challenges that we face. To figure how we can turn circumstances into possibilities and strengths. To plan the next chapters.

People go to therapy when they are stuck on old stories and can’t figure out how to extract themselves. People come to Professional Coaches when they want to convert problems to possibilities, plan for bigger and more fulfilling future stories.

Frankly, there isn’t anyone you couldn’t learn to love once you’ve heard his or her story.
~Mr. Rogers

We each have the ability to write a new story. Whatever we think, feel, and experience is what we create each moment. And whatever you experience, you either create or accept.

By recognizing, owning, and assessing each component of our stories, we can decide what to change, map changes, and author new beliefs. We can even program the changes to transform our identities according to the new stories, to make them the default mode.

All good stories give a promise in the beginning. We invite the listener to join the campfire of the story. The implicit promise is that it will be worth our time. Once upon a time…

Author David Krueger, MD, is a Trainer/Mentor Coach and Dean of Curriculum at Coach Training Alliance. His latest book, The Secret Language of Money (McGraw Hill) is a Business Bestseller translated into 10 languages.

 

Check out New Life Story Coaches Training® – it provides the methods, workbook, assessment tools, guides, and self-quizzes which are licensed for use by you, the New Life Story Coach®. This unique and effective system blends the insights of psychology, dynamic neuroscience, and the principles of strategic coaching.

Gratitude: Rooting Present

Gratitude: Rooting Present

by Chris Osborn

I have been thrilled to see this month the gratitude movement finding voice in social media and across communities. As coaches, we know firsthand both the power and the motivation that can be found in the marriage of acceptance and gratitude.

Gratitude roots “present”. As coaches, we ask both our clients and ourselves to stay present to allow for the balanced place from which to grow. We often spend significant time both explaining and distinguishing our work from that of therapy – a practice focused on healing and exploring the past. Coaches often rightly ask, “How can a client properly explore where to grow if they don’t know where they have been?” The simplest answer is gratitude. Gratitude can be foundational in providing the healthy acceptance of what is past. It roots both what is present today and what can grow into the future.

We should not be surprised that the fall presents a time of thanksgiving. Humans have incorporated this into spiritual practices for thousands of years. Today, neuroscience is catching up. We now know that gratitude fuels and then patterns the areas of the brain that create positive emotion, minimize stress and expand perspective. Listing, disciplined acknowledgement verbally and meditation are all tools coaches may use to co-create and root the foundation of gratitude. It is upon this foundation that the client can stretch their growth, expand their lives and try new avenues of living. Gratitude during this time of expansion aids in keeping the client grounded to not only the present but to themselves.

Thank you for what you do, your desire to do, and being a part of this community.

The struggle ends when the gratitude begins. ~ Neale Donald Walsch

What are you grateful for? Use the comment field below and share with us!

 

High Touch Marketing

High Touch Marketing

High touch marketing is an important part of promoting any invisible product, especially coaching. What is high touch marketing?

  • Personal
  • Direct
  • Experiential
  • Interactive

Looking deeper, high touch marketing is allowing the client to experience you in a personal way that builds a foundation of trust between the coach and the client. Whether you are doing relationship coaching, personal coaching, or executive coaching, building trust is a critical part of the “safe haven” that is an essential part of the coaching experience. If you have many clients then I recommend to use CRM, if you dont know what is it then salesforce.com explains what a CRM is.

According to https://placementseo.com/seo-reseller-services/, an expert in SEO consulting & coaching, when trust exists between the coach and the client, the client is more inclined to be honest and upfront in their answers to the coach’s questions. They are more likely to be open to the coach’s insights, intuitions, and suggestions. And they are more likely to respond in an honest, forthright manner when they know that they are in a safe relationship.

Count the Ways

There are a number of ways to allow potential clients to experience you in a high touch marketing way. Sample Sessions are the single best way for clients to experience you and are the perfect example of high touch marketing. But clients can also experience you over the phone, on the television or radio, and in group settings like workshops, seminars, or speaking engagements. This is important for increasing your high touch marketing strategy.

A more in-depth examination of High Touch Marketing can be found in the Coach Training Accelerator. Any time the client can make a personal connection with you, you have the chance to build a relationship and build trust. And that is the essence of high touch marketing.

Dave Meyer is a Mentor Coach and Trainer for CTA’s Certified Coach Program. He is an experienced veteran of coaching and author of The Sage and Scholar’s Guide to Coaching Assessments.

Staying Present

Staying Present

by Chris Osborn

Coaches often share with me the struggle of maintaining the duality of “present”. That is, the challenge of staying simultaneously present themselves as they co-creatively work to find that same state with their client. I would offer that coaches need to think about “present” differently.

In a recent yoga class, the yogi shared her view of the value of being present. This was great. Then she shared her definition of present and I became…well, challenged. Blanket statements followed. “Let go of all of your past. Do not worry or care about the future and what is expected to be done or completed.” Neither appropriate nor easy to enter debate from child’s pose, but it did prompt thought, and for that I give her thanks.

Think of being “present” as simply being aware and balanced in this moment. I like to use the analogy of the sailboat and that “present” is the keel of the boat. The keel properly insures that the force of the direction (past or future) is weighted to the base of your journey’s vehicle and that the power coming from leaning in balance against that force creates the proper, balanced energy to forge ahead on your journey. Both as a person and as a coach, great positive energy can come from turning with sail into the energy of our past or future. The key is the weighted keel – the balance of the “present” and the place from which we find the stability to harness life’s force into our progress.

Chris Osborn is the President of Coach Training Alliance. His lifelong learning includes experience as CEO of a large financial services company and founder of several growth oriented service companies.

Can a Person of Faith…

Can a Person of Faith…

…Assimilate Law of Attraction Principles with Personal Religious Beliefs?

by Nan Einarson

Universal Law of Attraction is a proven scientific principle: Thoughts have energies – positive and negative thoughts have different energy waves. Because “like attracts like”, positive thoughts attract positives and negatives, negatives, whether or not those thoughts are expressed aloud.

Law of Attraction practitioners (often, more spiritual than religious) believe, “What you think about you bring about, what you focus on you expand and manifest”. They speak of “Universe”. When the Law works, believers say it’s because they applied the Law of Attraction successfully, with a positive focus on achieving their goal (Universe is abundant).

People of religious faith speak their name for the Deity of their beliefs. People send up prayers asking for what they want/need. When a prayer works, believers say Deity answered their prayers (Deity is generous).

When things don’t manifest as planned, one believer could attribute it to subconscious sabotage and improper application of LOA, accept their failure to work the Law properly, and give up. Another could attribute it to Deity’s plans or will, accept Deity’s plan as the final verdict, and release the dream. In both cases, that acceptance, without challenge, keeps them comfortable, and keeps them stuck.

In either situation, each believer has choices. One could interpret unexpected results as lessons, as a necessary part of the process, and continue to persevere, through positivity and focus. The other could continue to pray to Deity about next steps, and continue to persevere, through prayer and focus.

The greatest contribution to enhanced quality of life comes from a positive internal attitude – being open to outcome, gratefully accepting outcomes different from expectations (treating them as opportunities for exploration, learning and growth). And, by always believing – always knowing those dreams will be fulfilled.

Author – Nan Einarson is a Mentor Coach and Trainer for CTA’s Certified Coach Program. She is an experienced veteran of coaching and author of the Do It Yourself Relationship Repair Guide. 

Target Marketing for Life Coaching Niches

Target Marketing for Life Coaching Niches

by Nan Einarson

Coach Training Alliance teaches Coaches to define niche markets (“Who” and “What”) as specialties, based on personal experience, knowledge, and passion, and to develop leveraged, targeted, life coach marketing plans (Client Attraction Plans) containing messages that niches will find meaningful and hopeful.

Choosing life coaching niches and creating HUB statements are MARKETING STRATEGIES!  Niche-focused/targeted life coach marketing techniques are the easiest, fastest, and most economical way to get a coaching message in front of a group of potential clients and referral sources, and to establish visibility and credibility.

CTA’s Certified Coaches’ Training Program (CCP) prepares them to coach anyone about anything, masterfully. Regardless of the targeted marketing message that originally attracted them to your business, once someone initiates action steps towards change, he/she triggers a domino effect, spilling change into all areas of his/her life. Eg – career changes impact on: finances (short & long-term); relationships (spouse, family, colleagues, friendships); health (emotional, mental, physical); recreation/hobbies; religion/spirituality; personal values, etc. Therefore, clarifying the take-away in each coaching session is critical. Clients often experience life challenges that are not niche-topic related. Coaches help people holistically, not in isolated areas only.

Most CTA CCP students have several areas of passion or expertise (multiple niche markets) with whom they could work. I invite them to prioritize those niches and choose one, for the sake of consistency throughout the course, and to create an appropriate, successful, life coach marketing plan. Consequently, they develop a targeted marketing blueprint system, which they can later adapt to target market every potential future niche. Many experienced coaches have multiple coaching niches.

Life Coaching Niches and Target Marketing are co-creative, symbiotic strategies, and are not mutually exclusive. Neither will succeed without the other. Just as coaches and clients work together to enhance clients’ quality of life, so do coaching niches and target marketing combine to enhance coaches’ business successes.

Nan Einarson is a Mentor Coach and Trainer for CTA’s Certified Coach Program. She is an experienced veteran of coaching and author of the Do It Yourself Relationship Repair Guide.

Your Professional Coaching Fees

Your Professional Coaching Fees

by David Krueger, MD

Fees are often one of the most challenging aspects of practice for Professional Coaches. Issues can include inexperience in setting and collecting professional fees, fear of rejection, and low perceived value of the services.

Value is both monetary and intrinsic. If we devalue our services, we devalue the results obtained with clients.

Some of the most common mistakes in setting your life coach fees:

Stating your fee without clarity and confidence. The Wharton School of Business found that for professional services, confidence was a greater factor in signing on clients than expertise, credentials, experience, and amount of the fee.

Setting life coach fees based on your peers. Most coaches have fees that are too low or outdated, may have different expertise, may not be as good as you, or may be in a different niche.

Setting fees based on not seeing yourself as an expert. We are experts at change, and specialize in choice architecture.

Determining your fee based on where you live. If you work by telephone, you have an international venue. If you have a website, a blog, or an article, then you attract clients from all over the world, specially if you use help from a web development company, you will simply have more strategies to do so.

Believing that you will not be able to help those in need if your fees are too high. Affordability is your projection onto a client. You won’t be able to help clients as much if your fees are too low. Keeping your fees low until you have more expertise, or a bestseller, or have a sufficient number of clients.

Deciding in advance that clients won’t pay. This is the coach’s money story projected onto the client. If someone says that they can’t afford you, that’s the person who most needs your services.

Over-delivering: Sessions run over; over-availability to clients; afraid to raise fees; compensating for self-doubt about value or fee.

Each of these mistakes has its own set of beliefs and behaviors. You can change any of them.

David Krueger, MD is Dean of Curriculum at Coach Training Alliance, CEO of MentorPath, and author of The Secret Language of Money (McGraw Hill), a Business Bestseller translated into 10 languages.

Check out Dr. Krueger’s upcoming classes at Coach Training Alliance: https://www.coachtrainingalliance.com/upcoming-classes/

Intellectual Property

Learn More About Intellectual Property

drjackie_bwby Dr. Jackie Black

Intellectual Property (IP) is just a fancy way to identify your good ideas that would be helpful and valuable to others.

And BusinessDictionary.com explains that IP is documented or undocumented knowledge, creative ideas, or expressions of human mind that have commercial (monetary) value, are protectable under copyright laws from infringement, and is one of the most readily tradable properties in the internet (digital) marketplace.

Coaching is a seamless process and as such, that means it is all about your clients; and there really isn’t very much room for you to bring your good ideas, sage advice or offer helpful how-to’s.

That’s where your IP comes in!

When you learn how to identify your IP, you can literally spin one good idea (IP) into thousands of dollars of leveraged income! How is that possible, you ask? Because you will take that one good idea (your IP), repurpose it (develop a variety of products and services based on that one good idea) and monetize it, which means make lots of money!

Intellectual Property is valuable because it represents your ownership and your exclusive right to use, manufacture, reproduce, or promote your unique creation or idea. In this way, it has the potential to be one of the most valuable assets a person or a small business can own.

It is the obligation of every entrepreneur to leverage what you know by creating a whole variety of products and services based on your IP, at a number of different price points, while delivering non-stop value to your target market, and earning thousands of dollars by doing it!

The need for entrepreneurs to understand that you do NOT have to reinvent the wheel over and over and over again is essential to your long-term success and profitability.

Give strong consideration to believing that you have at least one good idea that you can spin into thousands of dollars; that you can become a subject matter expert, add massive value to those in your target. This intention produces higher fees and creates leveraged income for the long-term by repurposing and monetizing your IP!

Dr. Jackie Black, an internationally recognized relationship expert, has spent over 15 years in a corporate environment and built two successful businesses.

 

 

NutsBoltsLogo

The Nuts and Bolts of Making Money Packaging What You Know

It is essential for entrepreneurs to understand it is NOT necessary to reinvent the wheel over and over and over to be successful over the long-term and to continually assure profitability.

Now you can learn how to leverage what you already know and create a whole variety of products and services from a single idea! If your company is in need of new materials, the go to A.J. Weller, there is lots of materials you will be able to use for a while.

On May 5th, Jackie Black, Ph.D., BCC, will be holding a Nuts & Bolts Workshop for those coaches and solo-prenueurs who can no longer afford to simply deliver services to clients and who realize the importance of maximizing their opportunity to create leveraged income.

Class size is limited and filling up fast so register today!

Learn more…

Essence of Your Business

Essence of Your Business

DKPictureby Dave Krueger, M.D.

What’s your promise?   

The answer: Your brand.

Your brand is an organizer for everything you do, for every connection with potential clients and readers, including website, blog, articles.. Your brand triggers meaning and connections; it carries its own value. Brand awareness is the link in the consumer’s brain between the brand name and certain associations about the product or service.

What’s the opposite of a brand?   

The answer: Generic.

Our clients — and potential clients — consciously and unconsciously take notes on how we brand and value ourselves, charge what we’re worth, and handle the business of coaching. How we handle this will determine if we have clients, and how successful we—and they—will be.

Brand, value, fees, and best practices constitute four of the greatest challenges for the business aspects for Professional Coaches. And it is crucial to present a model of professionalism as we work with clients and in every aspect of our business.

Neuroeconomic studies show that we make purchase decisions at the midbrain level due to the psychological impact and associations we have to a brand. These midbrain preferences and decisions occur seconds before the choice and action registers in the logical brain—the prefrontal cortex. Once your unconscious mind makes an emotional commitment to a “yes” or a “no” it sends the conscious mind on the mission to gather all the logical reasons to support that decision. This rationalization is called confirmation bias.

Whoever has the best story wins. Storytelling excellence is not something you just pick up along the way. It is an art, a craft, and a discipline to be mastered.

David Krueger, MD is Dean of Curriculum at Coach Training Alliance, CEO of MentorPath, and author of The Secret Language of Money (McGraw Hill), a Business Bestseller translated into 10 languages

What Single Clients Really Want

This is Possible

Where will you be in 2020? This is a question for you to answer as well as one to put before your clients. Chances are you’ve already dropped into Possibility Thinking. This is good.

One of the distinct gifts of being human is our ability to create our own destiny. Isn’t it surprising how many people never accept this gift or just give it away, making someone else responsible for it?

Think about what can be done in five years. Better yet, think about where you were and what you were doing in 2009. This is always fun. Look at what has changed since then. Most likely, a lot. Were you even aware, for example, the profession of coaching existed?

Question

What are you thinking about doing right now that might take some time to come to fruition? Are you working on a degree or certification? Are you considering taking a course that would improve your coaching practice but would require time to complete?

Here’s the bottom line. The future is coming and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. Your goals may take some work. Worthy goals usually do. You can either take action now; accomplish these goals and enjoy the rewards -or- you can still be putting them off, five years from now, because they take too long to achieve.

You get to decide — right now — where you want to be. Dream of the possibilities. Set the intention. If you could have it anyway you wanted, what would it be? What would it sound like, smell like, look like and feel like? Listen to your intuition. Breath it in. Envision your future. Embrace the moment.

Now, go out and make it happen. Make it happen for your family, make it happen for your clients, and –most of all– make it happen for you. It’s your destiny. Create it and it will come.

Will Craig is the Founder of Coach Training Alliance and holds a Masters Degree in Education and Human Development. He is co-author of the #1 best-selling coaching home study course – the Coach Training Accelerator.

Put Money in Your Pocket

Put Money in Your Pocket

by Jackie Black, Ph.D.

Did you know that there are people earning serious money just by offering teleseminars and onsite seminars? Many make hundreds of dollars in a few hours; some make thousands and others make tens of thousands of dollars in just a few hours.

TeleSeminars and on-site seminars are a wonderful way to get paid to market to prospective clients – and they can be very profitable as well.

So if you have specialized knowledge to share; and the desire to share it with an information-hungry world; AND you would like to make some money along the way; AND you would like to increase your visibility and credibility in your niche and in your community… teleseminars and on-site seminars might very well be for you!

Here’s the Formula   

Registration Fee     
+ Products you sell from the platform.
+ New business you generate just from people being able to spend a little time with you
and get to know you
= Your revenue

The seminar registration:

The total number of dollars you generate from people who attend your event –on the phone or on-site.

Product Sales:     
Sales you make at the back of the room and orders that come in at any point after the seminar. The key to success in this area is to have a variety of products to sell at different price points.

Make sure that you create products that use the variety of learning styles: some people like to read; some like to listen; others like to watch; and still others prefer to experience something.

New Business:
Expect new business to continue to come in long after the teleseminar or on-site seminar is over. That’s the good news because this business will very likely represent the highest dollar value.

Short Presentations:   
These are “talks” you give to service organizations, professional organizations and social clubs at their monthly lunch or dinner meetings. These “talks” are excellent opportunities to raise your visibility and credibility in your local community and to generate some new business as well.

Remember, people will hire you because they know you, like you and trust you!

TeleSeminars, on-site seminars and short presentations provide the perfect opportunity to accomplish just that!
Dr. Jackie Black, an internationally recognized relationship expert, has spent over 15 years in a corporate environment and built two successful businesses.

How Do You Listen?

How Do You Listen?

by Nan Einarson

Many people define listening as sitting quietly, while another person talks. Most are surprised to learn that listening is actually a 2-way, circular process. Effective Life Coaches understand the listening process, have mastered the techniques well, and employ effective listening skills in all of their communications.

Each of us has a personal filter through which verbal information flows. Our filters are based on our unique life experiences, education, culture, religion/spirituality, language, work/career, etc.

A speaker’s words are delivered through his/her personal filter. The listener hears those words through his/her own filter (created from their own life experiences, education, culture, etc.) In a coaching session, the Client is the speaker and the Coach is the listener.

The Client’s Words

When a client speaks, of course the coach will sit quietly and listen until the client finishes. That’s not where listening ends. That’s where the listening process begins, and the coach then has an active role to play.

After hearing and processing the client’s words, the coach formulates an interpretation of what the speaker said. It is then critical that the coach clarifies that what he/she heard was what the client intended, by voicing that interpretation in his/her own words.

In response, the client either acknowledges the accuracy of the interpretation, or re-frames/re-states the information and the process begins again, until the client and coach achieve a common understanding. Once there, the co-creative coaching relationship is fully engaged.

Whenever a coach fails to clarify his/her interpretation of the client’s words, the process breaks down. The resulting conversation will be based on assumptions, not reality, and the client has not been fully heard and understood.

Active listening is a skill and like any other skill, improves with practice. So, what’s the secret to being a Masterful Coach? Practice listening actively until it becomes habit.

Nan Einarson is a Mentor Coach and Trainer for the Certified Coach Program.

Success Strategies for Coaching Professionals

Success Strategies for Coaching Professionals

dk-colorby Dave Krueger M.D.

Coaching is only beginning to be discovered by professionals in legal, financial, medical, and architectural arenas. These practicing professionals tend to be highly and specifically trained at what they do, think rigorously and want active collaboration.

They have in common a career dedicated to a body of knowledge, with clients or patients who come to them for the sole purpose of purchasing their expertise. Their precise training solves specialized problems of medical illness, emotional struggles, legal issues or tax matters.

Coaching professionals offers unique opportunities and challenges. They can benefit from coaching to:

  • Know themselves better
  • Understand the dynamics of human behavior
  • Pursue personal development as vigorously as they pursue professional advancement
  • Transition from work ethic to performance ethic
  • Emotionally and strategically manage career transitions
  • Market their expertise and business

Coaching this unique brand of client requires an in-depth look at the coaching theory and application that is useful for professionals. Get inside your client’s head to catalyze change and discover the most powerful and effective secret we have as coaches.

DAVID KRUEGER, M.D., Dean of Curriculum and Mentor Coach at Coach Training Alliance, is an Executive Mentor Coach who works with executives and professionals to develop and sustain success strategies. A former Professor, Psychiatrist, and Psychoanalyst, his coaching and writing focus on the art and science of success strategies: mind over matters. 

Dave is author of 17 books on success, money, wellness and self-development. His latest book, The Secret Language of Money(McGraw Hill), is a Business Bestseller translated into 10 languages.

Credibility and Professionalism

Credibility and Professionalism

How important are credentials? Do your clients expect you to be a certified coach? Will being certified make you a better coach? Will you need to be licensed at some point? These are all valid questions and each will generate a variety of responses depending on whom you ask.

The Reality   

Rarely, if ever, will a prospect ask you if you are certified or where you received your training. What they are most interested in is what you can do for them. What benefits can you provide them? Can you help them achieve their goals? They are continuing their california center facilities for patients who no longer require the level of care dispensed by a hospital, but nevertheless requires continued care.

Rightly or wrongly people assume you are qualified at what you do. Think about it… When was the last time you asked a professional service provider where they went to school?

More Reality   

Here’s what’s also true: With the ability for anyone to hang out their shingle and call themselves a coach, there’s an opportunity for the ‘less than genuine’ types to hurt the profession. Of course, a coach without integrity and honesty won’t be around long.

Your Reality   

A piece of paper won’t make you a better coach. The process of becoming certified, however, can enhance your skills and hone your abilities to a higher level. Certification is only achieved through a combination of training and coaching as a professional. Ultimately, it will add to your credibility and self-confidence.

After hearing all sides of the issues—the benefits and disadvantages, the pros and cons—it comes down to a personal decision. What’s best for you? Is it something you want to aspire to in the future? Or, is this something you need to pursue right now? It’s your call, coach.

Will Craig is the founder of Coach Training Alliance and invites you to look at our Certified Coach Program.

Role of Coaching in 2014 Planning

Role of Coaching in 2014 Planning

 

Free Call January 17th at 1pm ET.

Purpose:
Help managers and employees take the first step as a coach during planning.

Sign Up Now!

Who should attend?
Managers responsible for executing organizational plans for 2014. Internal Business Partners, HR Business Partners and Talent Management Professionals who support managers or departments in meeting their strategic goals.

Format: 35 minutes, live tele-class on Wednesday January 17th at 1pm ET.
20 min presentation and 15 min Q&A.  Focus will be on creating and executing plans to achieve goals set in 2014. Managers receive quotas/expectations/sales numbers/initiatives from upper management. They must develop a plan and map out how they will reach those goals.

  • What is the role of coaching in supporting leadership as they Create a Plan, Identify opportunities, Move through unexpected blocks?
  • What is the role of coaching when Strategy and Plans (goals/quotas/initiatives) are handed down to employees and communicated downstream?
  • How do managers coach employees towards 2014 organizational goals?

Additionally, during December performance reviews, employees typically identify personal and professional goals for 2014.

  • How are personal/professional goals aligned with the organizational goals?
  • How do managers coach employees towards their personal/professional goals?

Sign Up Now!

 

A New Year’s Intention

A New Year’s Intention

AR-131039983by Chris Osborn

For so many people, the New Year comes with a “Resolution.” This act of resolving to do something can be filled with hope, powerful vision and embedded with expectation. Imagine what the birth of the New Year would bring if we turned this Resolution into Intention. As coaches, we can appreciate that this turn of words can be quite powerful, and in fact, reclaim what should be a positive fueling for the coming year.

With Resolution, we are talking about “doing.” With Intention, we are providing the critical balance of “being.” As we see now through the end of January, New Year’s Resolutions seem grounded in what we or society have deemed wrong and in need of a fix. Weight loss and issues around personal finance are consistently served up as areas where we need to resolve to fix something. Start a new diet with HIIT trainers. Stop spending. This resolve, while admirable and maybe even grounded in what might be good for us, paints change with the brush of a binary act. I resolve. I throw the switch. Presto! I am thin. I am wealthy. I am (insert baggage here).

As coaches we know, this rarely results in sustainable positive change. Let’s resolve to choose an Intention rather than a Resolution. An Intention is a positive directional desire grounded in a goal. It artfully recognizes the journey of change and begs the question of how an Intention is going to be supported. It is by its nature, less declarative and softer than a Resolution. Therein lies its power. An Intention opens the door for individuals and coaches to explore a desire, ask deep questions and ultimately, organically, build a support structure to explore and fuel positive change.

Come next year, the Intention may be the same as the year’s past. However, unlike a Resolution, you will not have failed to achieve your goal. You will instead be in a position to ask how far your journey has brought you. You will be in a place to appreciate not what was wrong with the past year or to try and fix it. Instead, you will be in a place to recognize what the journey yielded, and better yet, has still left to come.

The Faculty and Staff of CTA wish you a 2014 filled with Positive Intention and Fulfillment that Growth Provides!

Chris Osborn is the President of Coach Training Alliance. His lifelong learning includes experience as CEO of a large financial services company and founder of several growth oriented service companies.

This Year’s Challenges are Next Year’s Wins

This Year’s Challenges are Next Year’s Wins

by Rhonda Hess

“Victory is sweetest when you’ve known defeat.”
– Malcolm S. Forbes

The close of the year is a good time to acknowledge your wins and mine the gold from your setbacks.

Start by recognizing what worked well in your coaching business. What new skills did you apply? How did your practice grow? Measure in percentages to see the impact. If you started with one client and went to four, you’ve had a 300% increase in the size of your practice! Whatever you accomplished is worth celebrating.

How’s That Working for You?

Now, what didn’t work for you? What got in the way of the results you wanted? What will you do differently next time? You know exactly what held you back. And that is a powerful piece of information you can leverage into greater success next year.

There are shortcuts to making it big in coaching on your own terms. Would you like to know them? Start by answering one question, and then we’ll talk about turning any of your “defeats” into victory in 2014.

What is the single greatest thing that held me back from having a prosperous coaching business this year?

Rhonda Hess is a Mentor Coach with Coach Training Alliance and founder of Prosperous Coach. She is also co-author of the #1 best-selling Coach Training Accelerator.

Gratitude: Rooting Present

Root Down to Grow Tall

AR-131039983by Chris Osborn

A tree’s great balance in its growth is that between its roots and its expanding branches. As seasonal growth comes and goes, the underlying balance between that which foundationally holds it sound and that which feeds it whole carry on their dance. The tree offers a great organic example of the balance between “being” and “doing.” The branches and the glory of the leaves are the doing of our life – the evident growth, the colors, the sounds and even the smells of seasonal expansion and retrenchment. The roots are the being. Grounded in our experience and foundationally wrought from the seed, that is our being. In the healthiest of sense, roots and branches have a dependent relationship. This is no different for the client. In order to grow tall over the long term in a place of health, they must root down. This is the essence of balancing doing with being.

There are likely many analogies that a coach can use to make space for greater understanding by the client of balancing being and doing. First and foremost is to model it in their own practice – the living analogy that the client experiences in co-creative work. So ask yourself coach, are you rooting down to grow tall?

Chris Osborn is the President of Coach Training Alliance. His lifelong learning includes experience as CEO of a large financial services company and founder of several growth oriented service companies.

Staying Present

What’s Your Game Plan?

willby Will Craig

As coaches, we spend the majority of our time helping others achieve their goals and dreams. We help clients come up with a game plan that is realistic, challenging, and workable. What about your game plan?

What is your vision for 2014? What resources are available to you to meet those goals? What steps will you take to be certain you are in the position to help others?

It’s Your Turn

It can be difficult sometimes to put our needs above others. After all, that’s our calling, isn’t it… to serve our clients? NEWS FLASH: It’s your turn!

No, not later… now!

We do our best serving others when our own needs and desires are satisfied. Over the next few days, schedule some quiet time with yourself to really determine what’s best for you. How will you maximize the talents you have in order to share those gifts with others?

For your coaching practice, consider implementing these three strategies (and others you come up with) to put you in a place of comfort, confidence, and certainty:

Game Plan Strategies

Raise your coaching fees and place potential new clients on a waiting list because your practice is full.
Resource

Accelerate the speed of your development as a coach by learning advanced techniques and strategies.
Resource

Throw a celebration party because you’ve earned your Certified Coach designation.
Resource

Will Craig is the Founder of Coach Training Alliance and is the past president of the International Coach Federation (ICF) Denver chapter.

Bootstrapping Your Coaching Practice

Bootstrapping Your Coaching Practice

by Chris Osborn & Will Craig

Bootstrapping is the act of building a business with little or no outside funding. Most all of us are familiar with this as 95 percent of small business owners struggle alone, typically relying on savings and early cash flow to get things going. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. There’s no better feeling than becoming a self made success, elevating one’s self by grabbing the straps of our boots and pulling with great intention.

The phrase implies achieving the near impossible. The reality is that we know it can be done. Bootstrapping is akin to “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” When the situation becomes difficult, the strong work harder to meet the challenge and elevate their professional expertise. Isn’t this what coaching is all about?

In today’s world, bootstrapping has become common place in computing. “Booting up the computer” actually refers to the computers starting with a small amount of seed code and then using that foundational code to build a fully functional interactive and highly capable machine. What a great image and understanding for each of us to inject into our lives. A small amount of knowledge combined with energy, intention and process can yield an enriching and fulfilling career helping others.

With the New Year upon us, building on a great practice and enhancing our coaching knowledge is key to generating more cash flow. We can each grab our bootstraps and see our intention seed the foundational energy that brings great personal and professional success. Look down at your own boots…

What are you waiting for?

Chris Osborn is President of Coach Training Alliance. His passion for coaching comes from his own experience as a coaching client, executive, investor, and entrepeneur.

Will Craig is the Founder of Coach Training Alliance and is the past president of the International Coach Federation (ICF) Denver chapter.

Brilliant Marketing Example

Brilliant Marketing Example

NanEinarson-Facultyby Nan Einarson

Many new coaches struggle with choosing on how to help with drinking to much, a very narrow, selective healthcare, when they’d rather tell the whole world about their new businesses. Successful coaches agree that if you’re marketing to a broad niche, you’re having trouble attracting clients.

Here’s some marketing magic –

Who doesn’t recognize McDonald’s restaurants, and their golden arches? Broadly speaking, their target market is busy, hungry people who don’t want to or don’t have time to cook. Does McDonald’s try to target every busy, hungry person in every marketing message?

Look at their marketing history –

  • back in the day (in the ‘60’s), they targeted hard-working moms – “You deserve a break today!”;
  • in the ‘70’s, they marketed to kids, with characters like Ronald McDonald, Hamburglar, and other characters, and introduced Happy Meals (smaller portions and a free toy);
  • in the ‘80’s they offered Dads the “Big Mac” – Baby Boomers everywhere could rhyme off the ingredients (and probably still can today) – “2 all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a sesame seed bun” – remember that?, and created Ronald McDonald House(s) charities, to support families with seriously ill children in hospitals;
  • in the ‘90’s, they targeted the teen market with Justin Timberlake, rappers, hip-hop – “I’m lovin’ it!”;
  • in the first decade of the 00’s, they marketed to the wellness-focused, healthy eating audience by introducing wraps, salads, and other alternatives to fried food, we try to vacuum seal as much food as we can to serve fresh food, we have not used vacuum sealers for too long because we recently found out about vacuum sealers from VacuumSealerResearch website, they have really good reviews and buyers guide. Visit sandwich shop kirkwood mo if you want to know more about a variety of gourmet options in our sandwich shop that will leave your taste buds wanting more. ;
  • now, in the 10’s, nutrition-savvy parents are happy that every McDonald’s includes a playcentre, and offers healthy foods kids love (apples, grilled cheese, etc.).

By targeting different niches within their broad target market, they have created a loyal customer base that stretches across all demographics. They didn’t do it all at once. They developed leveraged, long-term marketing plans. You can also visit Money Metals on how to invest in silver bullion.

You can too – where will you start?     

Nan Einarson is a Mentor Coach and Trainer for CTA’s Certified Coach Program. She is an experienced veteran of coaching and author of the Do It Yourself Relationship Repair Guide.

Credibility and Professionalism

On Veteran’s Day – November 11, 2013

All of us @ Coach Training Alliance want to say Thank You!

If you are a veteran considering coaching – please call Lisa Pisano at 303 991 0388 today for an amazing offer to make starting your new coaching business a whole LOT easier…

Obstacles and Desires

Obstacles and Desires

KruegerBWby David Krueger, M.D.

Some time ago I saw a cartoon of a dog straining at its leash, barking ferociously at a cat, as if to say, “Just lemme at ’em.” The cat wasn’t too shabby – actually looked mean – and was at least as big as the dog. All of a sudden in the middle of a ferocious bark, the leash snapped so the dog was free to go after the cat. He looked astonished. Scared to death. He quickly grabbed the leash, ran back and tied a triple knot. Then, he could again safely strain at the leash and bark his fiery, “Just lemme at ’em.”

Every story of an obstacle has a shadow story of desire. The obstacle contains yet conceals the desire. What you seek is camouflaged in what you fear.

The secret hiding in the open is that an obstacle is the unconscious mnemonic of desire – it reminds you of what you want, but makes it safe to want if you’re afraid.

When viewing a scene in a film you don’t want to see, you cover your face with your hands as if to say, “No, I don’t want to look.” But then the desire creeps in and you peek through your fingers at what you’re drawn to see. The obstacle makes looking acceptable.

Sometimes we need an obstacle to free a desire. When the obstacle is unpacked, the forbidden desire also emerges. When Pandora’s box was opened, all of the evils were released into the world. Remember the last thing to emerge? It was hope.

Pay attention to the obstacles that you construct, especially to your vocabulary of impediments. Worry simply holds onto things, as a form of storage.

When you find yourself focusing on an obstacle (“I can’t find time to exercise”, “I can’t put away any savings”), reflect on the underlying desire. When you’re ready to consider that you create the obstacle, you’re also ready to consider the possibility of not creating it.

Imagine what it would be like to not create your obstacles.

DAVID KRUEGER, M.D., Dean of Curriculum and Mentor Coach at Coach Training Alliance, is an Executive Mentor Coach who works with executives and professionals to develop and sustain success strategies. A former Professor, Psychiatrist, and Psychoanalyst, his coaching and writing focus on the art and science of success strategies: mind over matters. 

Dave is author of 17 books on success, money, wellness and self-development. His latest book, The Secret Language of Money(McGraw Hill), is a Business Bestseller translated into 10 languages.

Credibility and Professionalism

Human Doing or Human Being?

by Will Craig

How many times have you heard, ‘It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it.’ People not only hear what you are saying, they feel what you are feeling. Your belief and mindset affect how you are being with people and how they respond to you.

Often times it’s not what you’re doing that counts. You can do all of the right things to get your business established but if you give sanction to the belief that you are not valuable, this will come across in unspoken terms as lack of confidence. People will feel your doubt. They will sense it and, in turn, will also doubt you.

On the other hand, if you are steadfast in your belief about yourself and believe that your coaching benefits people, you will notice a different response from them. The comfort and confidence you feel and demonstrate is felt by others and they respond to you with confidence.

You become magnetic because you are relaxed and comfortable. Whatever you believe about yourself comes across loud and clear. You can’t help this, it just comes through. The reason for this is that we are not human doings, we are human beings.

Will Craig is the Founder of Coach Training Alliance and holds a Masters Degree in Education and Human Development. He is co-author of the #1 best-selling coaching home study course – the Coach Training Accelerator.

The Answer is Group Coaching

The Answer is Group Coaching

drjackie_bwThe Question Is…

What is a legitimate coaching business model, that only takes the same marketing effort as one new one-to-one client, that leverages your time and your earning potential, and is highly profitable?

That’s right! Group Coaching!

We used to believe that group coaching was an extension of one-to-one work with our clients. We believed that we could only fill groups with the folks who were already in our “base”.

The truth is that Group Coaching is a legitimate business model. It takes the same marketing time, skill and effort to market, enroll and fill an entire Coaching Group as it does to get one new one-to-one client! Group Coaching is the best way to leverage your time and earning potential as a coach; meaning you serve more clients, in less time, for more dollars.

The Benefits

When you facilitate small coaching groups you…    

  • Position yourself very competitively in the marketplace;
  • Create demand for your expertise;
  • Deliver accessible, affordable and tremendously valuable services;
  • Charge group clients less than your one-to-one clients;
  • Greatly increase your own hourly earnings in the most highly profitable coaching service you can include in your mix of services.

In today’s economic environment people need our services more than ever before and we have an obligation to be available to support our clients. Group Coaching is a delivery system that allows us to do just that, at a price point that people can afford, and in a format that will leverage our time and be highly profitable.

I wish you well on your journey to Be, Do and Have everything in your life that supports and affirms your best and most brilliant, passionate Self!

Dr. Jackie Black is a mentor coach and trainer for Coach Training Alliance. She is an experienced veteran of group coaching and author of The Sage and Scholar’s Guide to Coaching Groups and facilitator of the upcoming Art & Science of Coaching Groups.

Follow Dr. Jackie on Facebook!

It’s Easy To Talk About Something You Are Passionate About – An Interview With Bob Brenner

It’s Easy To Talk About Something You Are Passionate About – An Interview With Bob Brenner

Our very own Lisa Pisano interviews Bob Brenner. Find out, in Bob’s own words, how being on ABC’s Extreme Weightloss changed his life, sparked the desire to become a coach and why he chose Coach Training Alliance for his coach training and certification.

Take a few minutes to listen to this lively interview and be inspired by his story of professional growth as a Certified CTA coach.

Please leave a comment below and share your thoughts with us!

*And be sure to follow Bob Brenner on Facebook – let him know we sent you there!

😉

Credibility and Professionalism

Discover Your Profitable Niche!

The Art and Science Series
Devoted to helping you discover your area of specialization and developing it into a profitable coaching niche.  Each program goes beyond the typical “how to” information (the science) and immerses the student in the subtleties and nuances (the art) that truly make for masterful coaching.  Our Expert Guides, who are the best and brightest professionals in the industry, are contributing their expertise in these dynamic teleclasses.

Art & Science of Coaching Transitions
Successful Navigation of Life Changes helps you learn the art and science of strategic navigation of change and transition:

  • Understand the dynamics and developmental stages of both change and transition
  • Learn to avoid common derailments in change and transition
  • Develop new skills for mentoring the transition passage
  • Incorporate psychology and neuroscience to implement changes of mind, brain, and behavior

Starts Monday, October 7 @ 7pm ET

Learn More…

Art & Science of Coaching Career Transitions
Guiding Your Clients to Finding Work, Enjoying Their Work, and Enjoying Their Lives

Reinvention and multiple (different) careers are commonplace in today’s working world. These factors, along with the strong desire for a better quality of life inside and outside of work, are driving the demand and need for Career Coaches.

Most people in the workplace today live with change on a daily basis. They are in need of assistance, perspective and guidance on how to handle this change and use it to their advantage. Today, more than ever, people need career coaches to help them find new jobs, new careers, or deal with the new challenges (and opportunities) they encounter at work everyday.

Starts Saturday, October 12 @ 11:30am ET

Learn More…

Art & Science of Coaching Groups
Designing and Enrolling Small Coaching Groups

Are you ready to leverage your time and help more people make measurable and sustainable changes in their lives than you ever could coaching one client at a time?

Is it time to be a leader in the field and deliver the most highly profitable coaching service at the same time?

Decide today to join the top tier of coaches who are including Group Coaching on the list of services they offer and become knowledgeable about the design, development and enrollment of Small Coaching Groups.

Starts Monday, October 21 @ 9pm ET

Learn More…

Credibility and Professionalism

What We See Everyday

Each and everyday at CTA we have the opportunity to talk with people who are looking at redeploying their talents into something “they love” or “makes a difference”.  Most often we see these explorers choose coaching as a way to have fun, build a new career with flexibility and help others.  Its legacy work at the individual level on up.  The recent NYT article showed just one venue for this great work.  What a fantastic way to extend ones professional relevance and enjoy the fruits of sage well earned.

 

On Change and Transition

On Change and Transition

by  Dave Krueger MDKruegerBW

There are things we don’t want to happen, but have to accept; things we don’t want to know, but have to learn; people we can’t live without, but have to let go. And some things we can get ready for only after they’ve already happened.

The change is the event. The situation. You move to a new city, divorce, retire, experience a significant loss, take a new job, lose an old one, or change careers. As we focus on change, we address the rituals of change, the work tools, the strategic goals. And every ending begins something new.

The transition is the process. It’s the internal story of change: a shift in orientation, even in definition. In transition, we let go of the old story, the outlived chapter, and evolve into a new story. A new identity internalizes the changes to sustain and enhance them. Otherwise, this most powerful organizer of the human psyche, our identity, is what we return to no matter what new behaviors we engage in – unless we evolve our identity along with the new experiences. We can develop a transition story that provides the coherence to reassure in the present and foreshadow the future.

The ability to understand the dynamics of both change and transition, and to craft a meaningful story is essential to the success of dealing with significant life change. The strategically informed bridge between past and present creates a successful passage to the uncertain future.

There is both an art and science of coaching transitions: understanding the dynamics, developmental stages, and strategic steps.

It’s the ending that makes the beginning possible.

Dr. David Krueger MD, Executive Mentor Coach, and Dean of Curriculum at Coach Training Alliance, begins a new series: Coaching Transitions: Successful Navigation of Life Changes on October 7th, Mondays, at 7:00pm Eastern.

See below for more information.

Learn more…