Monthly Archives: July 2011

Self-care, who has time for that? 1

 in General life improvement

This was originally posted on www.YourChangingDirection.com This is the second of three pieces concerning self care. If you missed last weeks, or just want to read it again, you will find it here.

Self-care, who has time for that?

“If ants are such busy workers, how come they find time to go to all the picnics?”

(Marie Dressler – Academy award winning actress 1868 – 1934)

This week I want to address the response that can often come up when people would probably benefit the most from including self-care into their routine. The “it’s a lovely idea but I haven’t got time to do anything else, everything else is just so important and urgent …” response

Sometimes taking action in a genuine emergency can be a form of self-care in itself – e.g. I highly recommend you remove yourself to safety if there is a fire alarm sounding!

However, sometimes we push ourselves by treating everything as urgent. This fire-fighting attitude generally focuses upon purely the short term – it misses the longer-term implications.

If you’ve ever done any first aid training you’ve probably had it well and truly hammered home that the first thing you do is check your own safety. The longer term focus being that you are very little use to anyone requiring your help if you take yourself out by injuring yourself first!

Likewise if you make yourself ill by not taking care of yourself you’ll take yourself out of the “game”.

While you may agree with this in theory, it doesn’t solve the issue of feeling that taking a bit of time to prioritise self care isn’t easy, even if it ultimately means you get more done long term.

Everyone’s commitments and schedules are different so this week I invite you to play with a question designed to assist you to identify specific ways that would work for you. This is a variation of a question I first heard Michael Neill use:

  1. If you knew you were going to be paid £1 million* for finding time and doing self-care, what would you do differently to go about getting it?

* By all means adapt this question so that both the currency and amount means something for you.

Remember that what you do for self-care is something that makes a difference for you. Here are some examples of what I’ve seen others use and even done myself:

  • Get up 1 hour earlier to do some exercise
  • Write a shopping list before going shopping so you don’t get distracted and just buy junk food
  • A carer talked to a family member/friend and arranged a set regular time for them to take care responsibility while they recharged and did something creative.
  • Replace 30 minutes of watching TV to have a relaxing bath

The answer and self-care itself can be unique to you.

I invite you to commit for 1 week to using your new solution(s) and see the difference it makes to you. When I worked in the corporate world I found that although it appeared counter intuitive, getting up 1 hour earlier to go swimming before work actually resulted in me having more energy and was far more productive.

For most people 1 week is long enough for you to assess how this works for you. At which stage you can decide if you want to keep this as a regular event, amend bits or do something different. Just notice the difference this makes for you.

Have a busy week filled with more self-care

Love

Jen

How to get coaching clients 1

 in Guest Post  tagged business coach / business coaching / charging / client / clients / coach / coaches / coaching / coaching courses / Coaching Prosperity / coaching qualifications / coaching skills / coaching techniques / coaching training / connections / contacts / conversations / executive coach / leadership coaching / life coach / life coaches / life coaching / nlp coach / performance coaching / personal coach / personal development / selling / Steve Chandler

In today’s guest post successful coach Steve Chandler shares his expertise and thoughts about reaching more people, selling coaching and solving problems.

How to get coaching clients

By Steve Chandler

I run a prosperity school for coaches that teaches them how to get clients which is my passion and mission in life which is why I love this site of Jen Waller’s so much….it is such a SERVICE to coaches.

Most of the coaches I work with make the mistake of thinking in the plural. They always talk about “more clients” and “more contacts” and making more connects, all in the plural. And that demoralizes them. Because the mind can only do one thing at a time. So when you give it more than that…like thinking you need “more clients” it shuts down and becomes depressed.

Rather than reaching “more people,” what about reaching one person?

But really reaching that person in a deep, profound and transformative way…so that her world is altered by talking with you. And then you might move on to another person, and do the same with that second individual.

You will increase your billings when you slow down. Not when you speed up, trying to reach more and more people.…it gets back to who you are BEING with people that grows your practice rapidly…. you coaches all have a great WAY about you, and a totally supportive, problem-solving way of being….. so make sure that individual human beings get to experience you during the day…..it’s not all about contacts and marketing and scamming and spamming and spreading the WORD about you…..it’s about connecting with one real person.

That’s your true strength and source of wealth.

GROW your coaching practice by coaching. Any time you get a speaking gig or a training gig make sure your package contains some coaching in it….integrate coaching everywhere……this coming week INCREASE your conversations for coaching….and if you have an upcoming speech, call them and say, “Did I tell you my talk comes with four coaching sessions? I’m sorry I forget to mention that. To whom shall I deliver the coaching?”

I have a friend who started coaching a year ago…he has created, for himself (because it’s always a creation) very very high professional self esteem. He can’t STOP the inflow of coaching clients, and I mean this literally….he went on a vacation and the person next to him on the plane asked him what he did for a living and he said he worked with people so that the life they were living could be lived more fully with more fun and less fear, more financial security and less frustration and they were talking about his coaching for an hour on the flight…that person begged him to take him on as a client….a casual conversation with another couple at dinner resulted in the same thing and finally his wife asked him to not mention his profession any more until the vacation was over. It isn’t that he brags about himself…it’s the opposite…he is excited about the PROCESS of coaching people.

I know what it’s like to not make money at coaching. I remember telling my wife Kathy a few years ago that I simply could not COULD NOT sell my work, sell my seminars or coaching, and that I was now going to get a job as a copywriter and creative director at a small ad agency. At least we would have a regular living…maybe get 9k a month in salary. Benefits. A job to go to.

Then it hit me. If I had to, absolutely had to, if my life depended on it, I could sell a company a $9,000 seminar. So, as an experiment, I went to work contacting people AS IF I HAD TO DO THIS AND EVERYTHING DEPENDED ON IT. Not like I was playing around with it trying it out. Within three days I had sold a 9k workshop. So I had made a month’s wages right there. Then I played the game of having to sell ten more of those in the next 50 days. And I did it. It was just a game, but I played it as if it were my whole life being at stake. That made it more fun. Then I hired a coach to make sure I’d NEVER EVER let that growth curve that I had begun with selling taper off. And believe me he did not.

So my question to you is What would you do if you had to have enough weekly billings to support your family? If you had to? Please answer that one, not for me but for you. And not from pressure but from fun.

I had a person call me this morning about a program of mine he was considering that cost $10,000 to join and he was scared and skeptical and uneasy about it and I said to him, “How much time do you and I have right now?” and he said he had an hour, and I was in San Diego and needed to begin my seminar there in a little over an hour so I said, “Good! Let’s say you have paid your 10k, you are in my program already, and you and I are working together, we have time traveled into the future, what is the first challenge in your life that you would want you and me to SOLVE together? What would that be? And he told me about a big challenge he had and I asked a lot of questions about it and found out all his thoughts and feelings about it and all his wife’s thoughts and all his thoughts about his wife’s thoughts and we then looked at how his future would always be the same unless he ERASED this pattern in his life that he had set in motion and REPLACED it with a thoroughly re-written future, which he and I proceeded to WRITE for him on the SPOT. The hour ended WAY to soon for him and he said the check was on its way.

So that’s why I always say DEMONSTRATE…do your good work for them…..if you do, they will ask YOU if they can work with you. Coaches are always trying to sell people the concept of coaching instead of just DEMONSTRATING its power.

To whom will you demonstrate today? Honor your computer and the clients it hold for you that you don’t realize are there.

Set an hour or two aside to surf lazily through emails you have received over the past six months. Put some Hawaiian music on. Surf some more. These are clients you are looking at. Send each one of them a simple e-mail that says, “How can I serve or assist you right now? What’ the biggest problem you face?” ((or something like that that you like even better than that.))

You will be surprised at your responses…and when you get a response that is positive (and you’ll get many), answer that one with this: “Call me.”

Then when they call, don’t “sell” them, but solve their problem. Tell them the truth about the source of the problem. After the conversation, they will hire you.

About the Author/Further Resources

Steve Chandler is the author of dozens of books including the current bestseller, Time Warrior.

You can reach him at www.stevechandler.com.

Steve has generously offered to share pdf copy of his book “The Life Coaching Connection: How Coaching Changes Lives”. If you would like a copy drop an email to St***************@*******************co.uk

How fast can change happen for your coaching clients?

 in Coaching  tagged business coach / business coaching / career coaching / change / client / coach / coaches / coaching / coaching content / coaching courses / coaching qualifications / coaching session / coaching skills / coaching techniques / executive coach / Free resource / instance / leadership coaching / life coach / life coaches / life coaching / performance coaching / personal development / resource

One of the things I often tell someone before I have a coaching session with them is that I believe that change can happen in an instance. This is particularly true if we have not worked together before.

One of the reasons I tell them that is because often they have completed some form of preparation questions prior to our conversation. I go on to explain that if I ask a similar questions it’s not because I don’t believe or haven’t read their answer, it’s because I don’t want to presume that they are in the same place now as they were when they first answered.

If I do ask a similar question I want their attention to be on the question that I asked and their answer at that moment – I do not want them being distracted by any thoughts such as “What does it mean that I’ve already answered that question?” or “Did I not get it right the first time?”

It’s interesting to see/hear people’s reactions when I tell them I have that belief about change. Some obviously believe that change can happen instantly and others are more sceptical. They perhaps believe that in general but in their particular instance they think change must be difficult.

Does change always happen in an instance? No, an obvious example is that whilst some people do win the lottery the most common approach to increasing your figure in a bank account is over time through different actions.

Notice that I don’t say always the wording I use is change can happen in an instance.

Particularly when it comes to a change in perception about something that just takes a new thought – A way of seeing something from a new angle, or hearing it in a new way. And that really can happen in an instance.

Often when it is fear that is getting in our way a change in perception can make a huge difference.

For example, imagine that you are alone in a dark room and are apprehensive because you can see an unknown persons shadow in the corner of the room. Only when you switch the light on and you find out what you thought was a person is just a long coat hung up.

I started this post by giving one of the reasons I share my belief about how change can happen in an instance, particularly if we haven’t yet worked together much. The one I mention is actually not the only main reason that I often include that comment. I invite you to consider other benefits of including such a statement for yourself 😉