A Personal Note: We’re On the Move!

Mike and Andrea are leaving Calgary for Vancouver Island

I’m told that it’s useful when I post a personal note from time to time, so here is the latest. 

I didn’t manage to get a photograph of the sunburn I got in the Bahamas last month, in pursuit of money and meaning. (It was the result of sitting on the balcony of a gorgeous condo, basking in the sun while simultaneously tapping away happily on my laptop.) For those of you who know me know this is my signature style of being – enjoying the moment so much I forget the time – and I hope you have a good laugh at my expense. Hey, I have the laptop tan line across my knees to prove it! 

More recently, my husband Mike and I have sold our house in Calgary and purchased in the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island. Across the street from the ocean, only 5 minutes drive from an amazing local chocolate house, a summer farmer’s market and with kiwifruit, fig and other fruit in the acreage yard, we can’t wait to get there in two weeks.

It is the fault of Linda Oprica, a coach in Comox Valley area, that we are moving to this beach location. She invited me two years ago to speak to the local Chamber about Money and Meaning for biz owners. Then not 6 months later a separate invite came to speak to the chapter of NAWBO in the area. Both speaking gigs lead to gifts of that amazing local chocolate at the end – a very good sign indeed! Eating with Linda and David at the Kingfisher Spa (now our neighbor) gave me my requisite ‘Mike and I must come back!’ moment, which we subsequently did. That trip led to some great beach-walking and talks about the area. We walked Gartley Point, commenting to each other ‘what a nice neighborhood – wouldn’t it be nice to live here?’ And so now we will be. (It was the mammoth wild rosemary bushes growing on the side of the road – 2 minutes from the house – that clinched him I think.)

Moral of the story? Never underestimate the power of wanting what you want, clearly, and in the fact that you are creating what matters to you, even when you think you’re not. 

I say “Bring on the new environment, fresh beginnings and inspiration all around.” How about you? Do comment below if you wish.

Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow’s Big Changes

by Mark Penn and E. Kinney Zalesne

As a reader of this blog for forward-thinking coaches, well, I know you are one. As such, I cannot recommend a future-oriented book more highly.

Let’s face it, our clients don’t come to us in parts. They are whole people who call upon our support for their whole lives. Whether we’re aware of it or not, there are new currents in society that are impacting them that we need to keep abreast of. Microtrends is the proverbial motherlode when it comes to societal context for what we’re coaching in.

Here are just a few emerging trends to whet your appetite, and perhaps keep you thinking while you wait for your copy to arrive:

• The growth of households comprised of single women (in 1980, 17% of Americans lived in solo households, now this figure is closer to one in four Americans). These women will need to plan for their retirements alone, so all those television commercials with couples on beaches are not speaking to them.
• Another growing trend is “cougars,” or women, like “Mrs. Robinson,” who date or marry men a decade younger than they are. They may require a new type of pre-nuptial agreement, for example.
• The trend for retired workers to continue working may necessitate tax law changes or a redirection of benefits from maternity leaves to `winter-off” options.

Are you ready for all of the above when it comes up in the lives of your clients? What about these seemingly innocuous shifts in society:

• Extreme Commuters have more time on their hands to read or listen (if they use mass transit)
• The growth of Stay at Home workers may generate a need for changed zoning laws or more secure home offices in residential design.
• Protestant Hispanics (Hispanics are 14% of the U.S. population and 8% of registered voters) comprise 25% of Americans who identify as Hispanic.
• 30-Winkers are Americans who sleep less, take more naps, need caffeine, and need ways to be either more productive when they are awake or find solutions to their lack of sleep.
• Pro-Semites or Philo-Semites are the growing number of people who want to date Jewish men and women.

Visit your independent bookstore or online book merchant to grab your copy. More on the topic of emerging trends and corresponding leadership opportunities for coaches in a special announcement coming this week.

Beyond Booked Solid: Your Business, Your Life, Your Way — It’s All Inside

Have you ever heard of the ‘Six Figure Speed Bump’ or the ‘Quarter Million Dollar Speed Bump? It’s the entrepreneurial glass ceiling that prevents a person from advancing to the next level of success, and though it happens in nearly every business, it’s a particularly big challenge for service professionals such as coaches.

Most if not all of you know my friend and colleague Michael Port, who wrote the best-selling classic ‘Book Yourself Solid.’ In his follow-up act, Beyond Booked Solid, Michael addresses the issue of growth – innovation and growth to be exact – in other words, how to grow your business well, sustainably, meaningfully and lucratively.

Starting a business is one thing, staying in business another, and really taking that business over the top, to the place where you’re here to stay, playing for the long term, and ultimately being able to sell that business perhaps, that’s what BBS is about.

In a nutshell, many clients I work with relate too well to what Dave Buck says, ‘I’m self-employed and I work for a lunatic.’

Michael’s book gets a top recommendation from me as a how-to guide for curing that lunacy. And further points for walking the talk – every business book is written under pressure from publishers to be the best it can be (in their definition, which is sometimes different from the author’s.) I’m so happy to shine a light on Michael’s commitment to go the extra mile, evident in every chapter. He’s included both the doing and the being elements of success – bravo Michael!

Click here to order your copy…

“If you want a four-hour workweek, this book is required reading. Michael has automating business down to a science.”
- Timothy Ferriss, #1 NY Times bestselling author of The 4-Hour Workweek

What’s next for Coaching? Could it be Creative Destructionism?

“Burning Up the House” by Lable Braun

Creating What Matters is delighted to reprint the following feature article by Lable Braun with permission from The Coaching Commons, a coaching think-tank and not-for-profit project of The Harnisch Foundation.

Coaches, mark Tuesday, April 8, 2008 on your calendars. It will turn out to have been a very significant day in the history of the Coaching vocation. On that day at CAM (The Conversation Among Masters Conference) in beautiful Asheville, North Carolina a most amazing discussion took place over lunch. CAM had brought together Master Certified Coaches, and others who play a significant role in the world of Coaching, to have a meaning-full conversation. And what a conversation we had over that lunch!

Gathered around the table were some of the most experienced practitioners of the coaching art, several of whom had been present at the creation. They had built this profession, and now they came together to set it on fire.

Looking out the windows of the meeting room at the Grove Park Inn, we could see the breathtaking Blue Ridge Mountains stretching out before us. As the conversation unfolded about the future of Coaching, we were put in mind of how, on those mountains, both Nature and Humans will sometimes set fire to sections of the forest to create the opportunity for new growth. We wondered whether, before we could contemplate the future growth of Coaching, we would first have to courageously examine what it is time for Coaching to let go of. We wanted to set the profession on fire with all its glorious possibilities. We knew, at a gut level, that the new fire would have to be fueled by burning up the house.

“…we want to set the profession
[of coaching] on fire…burn up the house.”

Imagine, if you will, the courage it took for those who had built the structure of this profession to now examine what they had to say good-bye to in order to insure its future. But there was no hesitation, no regret. The task was approached with a sense of joy and a feeling of liberation. It was a moment for smashing taboos. Anything was on the table. We would refuse to be bound by tradition or convention. The foundation for the future would be preserved. That which had once served us, but now limited our growth would be released with honor and piled on a hero’s pyre.

Brain sparks flew around the table, igniting conversation and illuminating the path. These are just some of areas the group was courageous enough to put the torch to (Warning: Coaching traditionalists may find some of the following to be shocking and inappropriate for children):

• Being “agenda-less” is a myth. It’s NOT all about the client. The client is part of a society, as is the coach. The coach has a duty to promote social responsibility in the client.
• Certification is a barrier to many who could greatly benefit the future of coaching. We must welcome those who can help us build that future.
• Coaching has become isolated as a profession unto itself. We must burn down the walls and play in other professions’ sandbox, and welcome them into ours. Even if it means foregoing the safety of the title of “coach.”
• If there is to truly be a Coaching “profession”, we must stop fragmenting and must open up the borders within the profession. Any profession, to be worthy of that title, must be based on a solid academic foundation which validates it to society and prepares future professionals. And academia means openness, the free exchange of ideas and methods.

  Which Coaching school one graduated from must no longer matter. Which certification one holds, if any, must no longer matter.

  We must not hold on to our ideas as if they were property. Rather, we must plant them as seeds for the new growth in our Coaching forest. The ideas that unite us and promote our growth must be nurtured. The ideas that divide us and lead to stagnation must be tossed in the fire.

• To become a “profession,” Coaching has come to take itself much too seriously. It has lost the whimsy, humor, and perspective that, in the beginning made it such a powerful tool for personal development. We must be willing to let go of the “seriousness” and return the sense of “joy” to Coaching.

Most importantly, we cannot hold on to the way things are done today simply because we have become masterly at it. If finding new approaches to Coaching means that we must return to a Novice state, we must be willing to place our Mastery on the fire. If integrating with other professions and sources of wisdom means that we become children again, then we are ready to play.

The question, of course, was faced: What next? We realized that the path to that answer might be different for each of us. We decided to pursue a Quest for Fire. We were put in mind of the legendary Grail Quest. No one on that Quest had a clear idea of what the Grail would turn out to be. They just knew they had to search. They each had an individual path to the common goal of the Grail.

We, too, would pledge ourselves to such a Quest. We would individually search for the future of Coaching. And we would form a sort of Round Table here at the Coaching Commons to share what we had learned on the Quest, and to mutually support each other as we faced the Monsters that any Quest inevitably encounters.

We had lit the fire, and it warmed us and lighted the path. But we know there are two types of fire. The ancient Greeks created the word “pyros” for the ordinary, consuming sort of fire that pyromaniacs use so destructively. They also had another word, “tekein” for the melting, shaping, creative sort of fires that tek-nologists use so creatively.

Will the fire that was lit that day be a “pyros” or a “tekein”? Only we – and you – can determine that.

Click here to read current comments, add yours to the fire, or stand ready with a bucket of water…the conversation among us awaits!