Jul 19 2010
Get a free resource to support you to create your own unique welcome pack and other coaching and confidence questions delivered straight to your inbox.
Enter your details below and click submit.
*Required information
Your information will NOT be passed onto any third parties.
May 26 2010
My aim for these two individuals is that you will get a clearer sense of your own worth and potential as a coach and to be comfortable coaching.
I also want you to actually be doing or on the way to achieving the things that you don’t currently feel ready to do.
I know that there are some common experiences that some coaches encounter. For several years I have seen and experienced for myself scenarios such as:
It’s one thing working with someone in a classroom or perhaps coaching a work colleague but the prospect of coaching someone who has the label of a client can be scary – Thoughts and fears such as “What will they think of me?” and “Will they actually find out that I’m not very good?” can really trip some coaches up.
The prospect of being paid for coaching and setting a fee can be quite overwhelming
I understand that you may be familiar with questions you may have such as: Where do I begin deciding where to set a price? Could I really ask for more? Can I provide that value in what I do? How do I actually ask someone for that fee? What if they say no? and many others.
Many coaches work in a solo business; you may love coaching and the freedom of being your own boss but find sometimes, particularly if you come from a background of working in a team, the business of coaching feels isolating.
Perhaps you have been thinking that you are lazy/unmotivated/ not committed but there are things that you know that if you did them it would make a positive difference for you.
You don’t have a sense of your own identity and style of coaching
You may have a sense and belief about the value of coaching in general but you’re unsure about how your own identity and style affects how you work and who you’d love to work with.
Sometimes coaches and other caring professionals can get caught up in a miscomprehension that as coaches/change workers we are suppose to have all the answers and should be able to coach our own lives without any outside guidance. This pressure to appear to lead the perfect life can be something that can really keep some coaches stuck. Yet, why shouldn’t you allow yourself the gift you give your clients and future clients, seeing what you can’t and holding that space for you?
If any (or all) of the above are familiar to you then you may be exactly who I’m looking to support as a coach taking your life to the next level.
For 2 coaches (or want-to-be coaches) I have designed a flexible package to support you with the challenges that you face to increase your confidence and start doing the things you don’t currently feel ready to do.
Just some of the things I’m offering in this VIP package are:
- Assisting you to get comfortable and relax into your own style of coaching so that you can fully focus on increasing the value that you add to your clients.
- Providing you with an accountability so that it is easier to keep moving in the direction you want to be heading
- Being a friendly guide so that you don’t hide and allow yourself to be of service to your clients.
- Challenging your beliefs and stories that are holding you back
- Giving a structure to make taking action easier and less challenging
Who am I?
My name is Jen Waller and my work focuses upon two aspects:
And
I have a love of learning which has meant that it has been a joy to learn from some fantastical talented individuals in fields such as coaching and NLP – all of which I will happily use to assist you to grow the future of your dreams.
I’ve trained with a variety of sources including Michael Neill, Paul McKenna, Richard Bandler, Michael Brean, Eric Robbie with trainings covering topics such as coaching mastery, high performance coaching, corporate and executive coaching diploma’s, confidence coaching …
Some of the more recent qualifications that I hold include Licensed Advanced NLP Therapeutic Specialist and certified NLP trainer.
Prior to setting up my own coaching practice I worked as a trainer within the corporate world, being an integral part of a team who were finalists in a European training award.
What others have said about me:
“Jen is the kind of coach that other coaches aspire to be. She’s fantastic. Grab any opportunity to spend time with her.”
(Chris Morris, world class training provider and host of nlpconnections)
“Jen’s trained with the best of the best, undergone extensive coaching herself with many coaches, and as such has distilled and evolved her own skill set like few people can or ever do. I know Jen personally and can highly recommend her.”
(Jonathan Altfeld, Director of training, Mastery Insight Institute.)
“Working with Jen as been a fantastic experience. In just a few short sessions I have learned things about myself I never had realised before. Jen has helped me to identify what I really want and I have now defined some clear goals. I have set some objectives along the way to achieving my goals and I’m already beginning to see results!
Jen is pleasant and easy to work with. She is very skilled in her approach. I highly recommend Jen’s services.”
(Mike Gee)
“Although I was initially nervous about what to expect, Jen put me at ease and made it fun. After each session I felt so much better and ready to take on the world, with a toolkit of exercises to use as and when I needed.
I would recommend Jen as she is professional, very approachable and she gets results.”
(Sophie Wise)
“From the very first phone call I was amazed at how much Jen was able to draw out of me and just how motivated I began to feel. I feel positive about my future and know I CAN do what I’m planning without fear! I would recommend Jen without hesitation!”
(Deborah Roberts)
If you have read this far by now you are probably interested in the structure of this offer.
The coaches VIP experience is designed to be flexible enough to support you and includes:
Your Welcome Pack – This contains all the information you’ll need to begin our journey together. It’s specially designed for you so that we can start to clarify what you’d love to achieve from our work together – even if it seems that you’re not ready for it or that it’s totally impossible!
Our 1st session – This call of up to 2 hours builds upon your answers from the welcome pack. It’s an ideal time for us to determine:
And
4 x 1 hour phone coaching sessions per month: You get to pick what we actually use this time for but you may choose to:
Action assignments This is not a program that is just about what happens during our scheduled time together. At the end of our phone coaching session we will jointly design an assignment(s) that you are willing to play with to continue moving you forward.
1 x 2 hour face-to-face session per month (Either in London or South Cheshire, UK) If its more appropriate you can always choose to use the entire quarterly face to face time in one 6 hour session.
You decide how we use this face-to-face time – we can use it to do your own personal work or maybe you want to use it to get direct feedback on your own coaching or other skills based work.
4 Action days per month Particularly if you have come from a background of being “employed” one of the things that solo coaches can struggle with is finding the motivation and momentum to get started or carry out a project. Action days are a fun way to provide accountability and support to physical get “stuff” done.
Unlimited email support This experience is about much more than just the time we spend together either on the phone or in person. My aim is to get results that work in your life so you are welcome to contact me in-between our scheduled times to ask questions or share any news or wins.
Self-belief CD I know that one of the things that can get in the way of coaches taking action and being successful is their self-belief. So I am including my Self Belief Coach CD containing various tips and techniques as a bonus with this package.
3 month Momentum Diary This diary provides you with a written record of how you are progressing with a specific project as well as containing a daily quote to provoke, inspire or get you thinking.
I know that you may have some concerns, fears and questions about potentially working together so let me go through some one by one now:
Shouldn’t I be able to do this by myself, what does it mean about me to work with a coach?
This seems to be a fairly common underlying belief in certain groups that as a coach, or change professional, you should have all the answers yourself. It’s also one that I don’t subscribe to 
Firstly, if you want to become/ are a coach yourself having your own coach, for me, demonstrates how much you value the process. It also gives you a greater understanding of what your own clients will be experiencing, so in my book demonstrates the commitment that you have to their future growth.
Coaching is not necessarily giving someone the answers, it’s about having meaningful conversations so that the answers are easier to find. With everybody I work with there will be things and parts of your life that weren’t working as well and other things that were. From my point of view working with a coach means that you are willing to invest in yourself and the future of your dreams, it’s not about you being “broken” in some way.
What will my friends and family think?
It’s worth mentioning at this stage that who I work with, as well as the content of our work, is confidential so I won’t be telling them anything. However, it is not at all unusual for others to see positive changes both in the person I’m working with and their life in general.
I may not know your friends and family but I am going to presume that what they want for you is to happy and living the life of your dreams, which is what my work is all about. To demonstrate my confidence in my own work I offer a 30 day unconditional happiness guarantee, if after 30 days you are not happy with our work and you can not see the long term benefits for you then not only do you not have to carry on but I’ll also give you your money back.
Am I too messed up for this to work?
I’ve had clients who, when we started working together, were convinced that they were so unworthy that they had no potential – it was a mystery to them why I agreed to work with them in the first place. If this applies to you, while you may want to keep that belief for a bit, I will warn you now that no matter how hard you try, do not expect me to be convinced by your arguments!
The way that I work is to find the way that works for each individual client, it’s about finding the questions, techniques and approaches that make the difference for you – it’s not about getting you to fit to a one-size-fits all technique.
Occasionally someone may approach me to move forward with their life which I feel will be better suited using a different approach or by a colleague who specialises in a particular subject matter. This is why I insist on chatting to anyone interested in working together so I can make sure that what you want is a match for what I do – if not it does not mean that you are messed up or unhelp-able just that somebody else is a better fit for you. I will happily refer you on if that is the case.
What if I spend all this money and get nowhere?
Part of the focus of my work is about assisting people to grow into the life of their dreams and you’ll find that I will invite you to take action to move you towards this at the pace and speed that is right for you. I do understand that, particularly if this is the first time you have considered working with a coach, or if you are not that familiar with my work, that this may be a very real concern for you.
I have carefully put together packages that are designed to move coaches forward and this does involve a commitment from you not only financially but also with your own time. To demonstrate my confidence in my own work I offer a 30 day unconditional happiness guarantee, if after 30 days you are not happy with our work and you can not see the long term benefits for you then not only do you not have to carry on but I’ll also give you your money back.
Will I end up telling you my deepest, darkest secrets?
You are the one who controls the direction of what we cover in our work together and it is possible that you may choose to share concerns that you feel are getting in your way you’ve not shared with others – however, it’s not compulsory and in that scenario you get to choose if you want to do that. Again, I will echo that our sessions are confidential. I’ll also mention in passing that what most people think of as deep dark secrets can turn out to be quite tiny when they shine a light onto them.
I will add that our work together is about focusing upon your present and your future that you dream about – it’s not about reliving past events.
Will you make me do stuff that I don’t want to do?
No. My work is about focusing upon the life of your dreams and while you may want to choose a difficult and unpleasant route to that life I suggest that we find the easier and fun route for you. 
You’re in control of what you want to get from our work together and with that in mind, from time to time I may invite and encourage you to take a step into something you may not feel quite ready for but ultimately it’s your choice if you are willing to take that step – I won’t make you do anything.
How long will we have to work together?
I don’t know how fast results will happen for you. Everyone I work with is different; they start from different places and define what they want differently which means that the route between each point is a unique one for you.
By it’s very nature, this VIP experience encourages you to reflect how far you have come and focus upon where you are going. If at any time either of us feels that we have gone as far as our work together will take us we can end our work together at the end of that quarter to allow us to wrap up what we were working on naturally.
I do ask for a minimum of an initial 3-month commitment to allow us to really get results.
Do you work with someone like me?
If you’re interested from what you’ve read so far, why don’t you email me and set up a time to chat so that we can find out? It will help if you have an idea what you want to achieve from working with me.
I do only have 2 spaces available with this package and my current thinking is that I’d love to share this with:
I’m interested but it’s just a bit scary
It’s not at all uncommon for you to feel excited, or nervous, or scared, or mix of all of those and more besides when you are about to work with a new coach. I understand, and if it helps I have been there myself. While it’s not compulsory for you to feel any of that, it’s also something that we can deal with. Give me the opportunity to deal with that for you and set up a time for us to chat further.
I’d like to know more but don’t want a hard sales conversation
That’s good because I hate hard sales conversations! Before agreeing to work with anyone I insist that we chat first to make sure that what you are looking for fits with what I do, as well as giving you chance to answer any questions you may have. If, for whatever reason at the end of the chat either of us doesn’t want to move forward I’ll happily point you in the direction of other resources.
How much?
This isn’t one of those offers that keeps your investment a secret until you’ve made contact, I believe in being transparent with my pricing from the start.
The monthly investment is £497 with a minimum 3 month commitment.
What do I do next?
Email me to set up a time for us to chat further. Remember I do currently only have 2 spaces for this experience so emailing me sooner will increase your chances of having this support.
Apr 16 2010
Recently published at Your Changing Direction is this piece I wrote about caring.
“Remember that children, marriages and flower gardens reflect the kind of care they get.”
(H. Jackson Brown Jr)
One of the questions I often ask clients, particularly when they report that they are feeling stressed and overwhelmed, is how much self-care have you been doing this week?
The most common responses I get are:
1) What do you mean self-care?
2) Yes I know what you’re going to say but I’ve got so much to do that’s really, really important and urgent that I haven’t got time for such niceties.
3) “Doah!” or some other admittance that they hadn’t been doing any or it’s been much less than normal.
Over the next couple of weeks I will talk about all of these responses but for now let me concentrate on what I mean by self-care.
Out of curiosity recently I did a web search on the term self care and came across the following:
“Self care skills are the needs to manage day to day life. They include washing, dressing, cooking and housekeeping.”
Admittedly this was in reference to caring for someone else, and those things do all fall under self care, but when I ask my clients about self care I’m referring to much more that physiological needs.
In the 1940′s and 50′s psychologist Abraham Maslow proposed a theory of needs – you may have seen it represented as a pyramid, with the largest and lowest level of needs forming the foundations for the others to build upon.
There is scholarly debate about the order that the levels are placed in, or even if there is a hierarchy at all. And rather than get involved in that discussion, I’ll invite you to glance at the following synopsis and consider the emotional, physical and even spiritual effects and benefits that taking care of your needs for each category would have.
Physiological – What we, as humans, literally require to survive as a species. Needs that are seen to fall in this category include food, breathing, sleep and sexual activity.
Safety – In today’s society this does not only mean physical safety but can also include employment/financial security, health and security of property etc.
Love and Belonging – This category of “needs” covers aspects of feelings of belonging and building relationships, such as friendship, family and romantic.
Esteem – This heading covers needs such as self-esteem, confidence and respect – both of and by others.
Self-Actualisation – This, Maslow theorised, is the top of the pyramid, and is the section that covers what a persons potential is and fulfilling that potential. Dr Wayne Dyer describes it as:
i) to be free of the good opinion of others,
ii) to do things not simply for the outcome but because it’s the reason you are here on earth.
I include these not because I necessarily agree with every single aspect of Maslow’s theory myself, but to encourage a broader look at the things that when you take care to include in your daily routine you feel more alive and generally have a better day.
This week I invite you to play with the following:
1. Make a list of all the things that when you do them, you have a better day. What are the things that when you do them you feel more alive and are more productive?
Now the things that appear on such a list varies from person to person. Some of the answers from clients and myself include:
· Eating fresh food rather than pre-packed fast food
· Taking 10 minutes in the morning to appreciate the view from my kitchen window
· Connecting with family
· Taking the longer but less crowded route to work
· Walking by open water
· Spending a few minutes to register my achievements and what I’m grateful for
· Having a relaxing bath rather than rushed shower
· Doing something creative
2. Once you have your list, notice which ones you do this week. You are allowed to keep adding to your list as you notice even more things that when you do them you feel more “alive” and better in yourself. How you do this is up to you but some people like to keep a visual record and note of what they have done.
Remember, I’m not asking you to deliberately do anything more than notice which ones you do this week. If you want to include any into your daily routine than by all means do so but know that’s an added bonus. You may also become aware of how self-care is reflected in different areas of your life.
If you read this and thought a variation of “I haven’t got time to do that” or “I get the theory but remembering to do that in practice is easier said than done” then rest assured I will talk more about those in the next couple of weeks.
Have a week full of noticing self-care,
Love
Apr 08 2010
Recently published at Your Changing Direction is this piece I wrote about communication and perspective.
“If you just communicate you can get by. But if you skilfully communicate, you can work miracles”
(Jim Rohn)
I was asked the other day, by a family member, what I’d just been doing. My response was to ask who’s verson they’d like to hear – mine was that I’d been grooming the cat. The cat’s verson was that I’d kidnapped her, held her against her will and scalped her!
There’s an old saying about there being two sides to every story – in fact you’ve probably noticed that there can be considerably more than two sets of interpretation of the same event if there’s more than two people involved.
If you are trying to effectively communicate with someone else it often helps if you have an understanding of the other person’s perspective.
After all, communication involves at least 2 people, the person who is “sending” the message and the one who is receiving. An understanding of how they process the message you give because of their beliefs, values and other perspectives can help you craft and adjust what and how you communicate to become more effective.
This week I invite you to play with something I originally used in a business setting during “complaint handling” trainings. While you can certainly use it with a situation where there is a conflict, you can also pick any scenario where there’s been a missunderstanding or you were bemused by another person’s response.
1. Pick a situation to play with where the communication that took place didn’t go the way you intended.
2. Grab a pen and paper and tell the story from your perspective from start to finish.
3. Once you’ve finished telling that story, either pick somewhere else to sit or a different position in which to sit. Yes I know it’s a strange instruction, and one that may be tempting to miss out but it’s in here to make the rest of the steps easier!
4. Now imagine the same scenario from the other person’s perspective. If you like you can literally imagine stepping into their shoes and seeing through their eyes. Write down their verson of events – remember it’s their version so you’ll need to be ensure that your description is as if it had happened to you personally ie “I was …”
5. When finished, again change where or how you are sat to a new third position. – Honest, people really do find this helps to see from a new perspective.
6. Now, imagine that a third party was watching the same scenario and see it through their eyes. This is someone who has no personal investment in the situation, so it’s an unbiased view. How would they describe what they saw?
Bonus steps: If you like repeat steps 5 and 6 and pick imagining getting the perspective from a mentor and/or someone you view as an expert in such a situation. What advice would they give you having seen their perspective?
7. Re-read each version and notice any new insights you’ve learned. How can you use this information and perspective in the future?
Remember, this is not an exercise to beat yourself up using the benefit of hindsight about what you could have done. It’s an exercise to help you get even more out of your communication and life – maybe even allow you to work miracles
Have a week full of perspectives
Love
Jen
Jan 20 2010
This site is specifically for coaches.
Not a coach?
Visit www.YourChangingDirection.com for tips, techniques and questions to take your life to the next level – including a FREE 7 day confidence made easy e-course.
I'm on Twitter