“If thou hast Knowledge, let others light their Candle at thine.”
(Thomas Fuller, M.D.)
Dec 28 2012
Recapping January – March 2012 guest posts
Over the next few days I’m going to briefly recap the last years worth of guest posts that appear here each Friday.
Today we start by looking at the first three months of this year.
January
In the first post of 2012 Amber Fogarty shared how she is in the “habit change business” discussing something she talks about a lot with clients in “Developing Better Habits”.
Coach and trainer Lorraine Hurst then followed with a post that could be of use to both yourself and your clients. “Blue Monday – what colour will yours be?” was published just prior to the third Monday of the year – read the post to see the significance of that date!
Coach and author of “Secrets of Successful Coaches”, Karen Williams, shared her expertise and knowledge in the third guest post of the year: “How does your mindset affect your business?” Read how Karen believes mindset, marketing and business knowledge will affect a successful coaching business.
The final post in January saw Karen Wise sharing a personal experience in the post “Relationship drama.” How familiar is this incident in either your own life or with what your clients tell you?
February
As we started the second month of the year, coach Marie Yates turned her attention to the action taken to the goals and plans made at the start of the New Year. This post contains a series of questions to assist you to make progress. Read “The warm up is complete… It is time for the main event.” 11 months since this was first published – what would your answers to these questions be today?
Liz Scott loves bringing coaches together to share experiences and knowledge. Her post focused upon “Parallel conversations and coaching”, using her personal experience as a lesson to be used in coaching sessions.
Lenny Deverill-West shared how he has been practically incorporating other teachings into his own work with clients. Read more about what he is doing in “The Coaching Aha!”
Social Media coach Nicky Kriel discussed errors she’s seen coaches make attempting one particular marketing approach. Are you making any of the blunders featured in “5 Big Mistakes that Life Coaches make Networking”?
March
Coach Richard Nugent invited you to “Explore Some Half Truths Of Coaching” with the aim of getting you to think about your own professional beliefs that could help you be more successful.
A coaching website is on many new coaches to do list, in the second guest post in March Mei Qi Tan shared her expertise and knowledge about what to focus upon. Read her post “Websites: It’s not just about content – it’s about users.”
Coach Angus MacLennan, who delivers practical Business Support to Business Owners, turned his attention to the subject that can have many new coaching business owners scratching their heads in the post “Niching Has Failed”
How to market your coaching is an often requested topic, in our next guest post coach Cindy Hillsey shared her expertise and knowledge in “Marketing and your Ideal Client”
In the final guest post in March Coach Toni Knights discussed what she considers to decide if it is necessary to refer clients for additional help, in her post “Identifying When Clients Need Counselling”
Come back tomorrow for a post recapping April – June, or if you can’t wait, clicking here will bring a list of every post that has been published on this site labelled as a guest post.
January & Febuary image © Indianeye | Stock Free Images & Dreamstime Stock Photos
Visit tomorrow image © Renata2k | Stock Free Images & Dreamstime Stock Photos
Dec 12 2012
Coaching Quote of the Day 12th December 2012
“It is the province of knowledge to speak. And it is the privilege of wisdom to listen.”
(Oliver Wendell Holmes)
Oct 30 2012
Coaching Quote of the Day 30th October 2012
“There comes a time when the mind takes a higher plane of knowledge but can never prove how it got there.”
(Albert Einstein)
What are your comments about this quote?
Feel free to share below
Apr 20 2012
Do You Know Enough To Be A Coach?
Judy Rees asks a question that many new to coaching asks themselves, in this week’s guest post:
Do You Know Enough To Be A Coach?
By Judy Rees
Are you a coach who actually coaches people? Or are you a perpetual preparer?
I often coach people who are in the process of becoming coaches. I’ve noticed a lot of beginners seem to attend endless workshops and events, learning more and more about how to be a coach, and how to market themselves as coaches, rather than getting on and actually doing it.
Using Clean Language questions and metaphor, I’ll help my clients to understand the pattern – and we’ll frequently discover that on the current plan, they’d never know enough to get started.
As Nicholas Taleb points out in The Black Swan, the more expert someone becomes, the more they realise what they don’t know.
“You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menacingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books,” he says.
If you are determined to become a coach, perhaps because you want to help people, it’s important to find a way to manage this. (Just getting a Kindle doesn’t do the trick!)
I like to pride myself on “making change happen, whatever happens” in my coaching work, and I have a pretty solid record of success.
But that success is not just based on knowing a lot of stuff – it’s based on having a coaching methodology that is robust enough to work well, even when I don’t know what’s going on for my client.
At one level, I have to accept, I’ll never know what’s happening. I can’t see the world exactly through my client’s eyes.
And the more clients I have, the more I learn… and the more I realise I don’t know.
If you suspect you might be a perpetual preparer, I’d strongly suggest shifting your attention towards finding a robust coaching methodology that works well for you (Clean Language is my suggestion: others are available) and then getting started.
Practice, get feedback, practice some more, get referrals… and enjoy discovering how much you don’t know.
About the Author/Further Resources
Judy Rees is an author, mentor and information marketer, and an expert in Clean Language and metaphor. Her blog is at www.xraylistening.com
You can learn Clean Language online, free on Judy’s new website http://learncleanlanguage.com
Mar 06 2012
Coaching Quote of the Day 6th March 2012
Feb 12 2012
Coaching Quote of the Day 12th February 2012
Feb 10 2012
Parallel conversations and coaching
Coach Liz Scott shares her expertise and knowledge in today’s guest post.
Parallel conversations and coaching
by Liz Scott
What’s a parallel conversation? Let me give you an example. The other day I was meeting a friend for coffee at ‘Marsh Mills Sainsbury’s. She was late – so I thought I’d give her a call.
On answering the phone she assured me that she had already arrived and was waiting for me. Whilst still on the phone I looked around the cafe but she was nowhere to be seen. She was insistent that she was there and said she was moving towards the till and the food counter. Still I could see no one.
It was very frustrating; I stood up too and said I was moving towards the food counter could she see me? This conversation carried on for what seemed an age (but was only about a minute!). “You are at Marsh Mills?” She asked me. “Yes,” I said, “I’m at the Sainsbury’s café.”
Suddenly the penny dropped and we realised that we had arrived in different locations. I had gone to Sainsbury’s she had gone to a pub called ‘Marsh Mills’. We had been having a parallel conversation on the phone, both thinking we were talking about the same thing, but meaning something very different.
It’s a great reminder for coaching. Never assume you really know what your client it talking about. As the words come out of their mouth you will no doubt understand some of what they are saying. However, there is an iceberg of meaning beneath the surface: most of which you’ll never have access to. When they talk of ‘stress’ or ‘efficiency’ or ‘feeling vulnerable’ you will never really understand what it means. If you do make an assumption and you get it wrong it can jolt the client out of their journey of discovery.
How do you avoid going down the road of a parallel conversation? Don’t feel you have to be wise, or smart or overly clever. Use the language that they are using, and have a light touch. Remember – less is more. This means never assume you know what they really mean and give them the space to resolve whatever they need. If you can do this then you will find your coaching can become incredibly powerful.
About the Author/Further Resources
Liz Scott is the co-founder of Coaching Connect. Coaching Connect brings coaches together to share experience and expertise both on the web and at popular coaching events. Meet like minded coaches at the next Coaching Connect events on March 16th click http://coachingconnect2012.eventbrite.com/ for details.
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