What’s So Great About Coaching | This Week’s 5 Real-Life Comments

If you’re pondering the bigger questions about coaching this week, here are what some have said:

“…[A coach is] part advisor, part sounding board, part cheerleader, part manager and part strategist.”
- The Business Journal

“Coaches are everywhere these days. Companies hire them to shore up executives or, in some cases, to ship them out. Division heads hire them as change agents. Workers at all levels of the corporate ladder, fed up with a lack of advice from inside the company, are taking matters into their own hands and enlisting coaches for guidance on how to improve their performance, boost their profits, and make better decisions about everything from personnel to strategy.”
- Betsy Morris, “So You’re a Player. Do You Need a Coach?”
Fortune

“The demand for Executive Coaches has skyrocketed over the past 5 years…today’s executive coach (EC) is intended to help leaders and potential leaders across the rocky, wild, and challenging road of organizational growth in today’s dynamic and unstable work environment…”
- The Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology,
American Psychological Association

“What’s really driving the boom in coaching, is this: as we move from 30 miles an hour to 70 to 120 to 180…as we go from driving straight down the road to making right turns and left turns to abandoning cars and getting on motorcycles…the whole game changes, and a lot of people are trying to keep up, learn how to not fall off.”
- John Kotter, Professor of Leadership,
Harvard Business School

“Across corporate America, coaching sessions at many companies have become as routine for executives as budget forecasts and quota meetings.”
- Gary Stern, “A Coached CEO Can Be that Winning Edge,”
Investor’s Business Daily

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You can also get these in your email each week.  For 5 real-life comments about coaching by real-life clients, the media, other coaches and even naysayers, go to www.ThoughtsByEmail.com and subscribe to ‘What’s So Great About Coaching’.

And as always, we want to know what you think.

copyright 2009-2010, CoachVille.com and Thought Partners International.
all rights reserved.

Best of Multiple Streams | Thought for the Week

Each week we’ve been publishing a snippet of wisdom from Multiple Streams of Coaching Income, the book that gives you more than a dozen proven ways to package your coaching.

Here’s your snippet for this week:

“Niche + Problem + Format = Income Stream.”

It’s a simple formula, yet often overlooked.  If you’ve skipped over this step in the past, try it now.  What new income stream can you open this month?  Or this week?

Would you like to read more?  You can purchase the book here.  Or to receive more nuggets like this in your email inbox each week, sign up at www.ThoughtsByEmail.com.

Your Life, Your Movie | Life Lessons From The Movies

A Scene From The Movie ‘Princess Bride’:

Inigo:  Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.

This statement was repeated in the same intense tone, at best estimate, over a dozen times during the course of the 100 minute movie.

The Thought For Your Life:

If you know your life’s purpose, repeat it often (and with conviction) and share it with everyone you meet. Just your sheer bullheadedness will attract others to your cause.  Like what happened to Inigo, who knows who will show up to fulfill your destiny?

—–

These short life lessons from the movies are available once a week from www.ThoughtsByEmail.com.  They’re a great way to keep yourself awake and thinking about life, but not too seriously.  There’s no charge to get your weekly copy in your email inbox. Why not go to the website and sign up?

Any other Life Lessons From The Movies you can think of? Add yours by posting below.

A Course About People | 5 Little Things You Want To Know

Here are 5 more snippets of insight about people, from the collection by Thomas Leonard, compiled with the help of his R&D team.

In this last week of February, we hope you’ll enjoy this week’s snippets:

• People often mistake their jobs, careers and roles in life as their life purpose.
• People are often stuck in jobs too small for their souls.
• People long for community and a sense of belonging.
• People want to be well thought of.
• People create results in their lives to fulfill needs that are deep seated…such as self-worth.

We’re broadcasting these weekly now at no charge.  To receive your personal copy of these in your email inbox, all you need to do is sign up at www.ThoughtsByEmail.com.

We’d love to hear from you.  Are you finding them fun, profound or useful?

copyright 2002-2010, CoachVille, LLC all rights reserved.

What’s So Great About Coaching | This Week’s 5 Real-Life Comments

Here’s what the following people are saying about coaching:

“Executive coaches are not for the meek. They’re for people who value unambiguous feedback. All coaches have one thing in common, it’s that they’re ruthlessly results-oriented.”
- Claire Tristan, Fast Company

Dawn AnJolais of Portland: “I coach people who want a better way than they’ve been doing it.”
- Roger Crockett, The Oregonian

Dawn AnJolais of Portland:  “I’m trained to point attention to where it needs to be so you can direct the effort.”
- Roger Crockett, The Oregonian

“After all, don’t we all benefit from encouragement, objectivity and structure in our lives?”
- Sausalito.net

“Even if executive coaching costs $50K (which it doesn’t), it’s barely a rounding error to invest in the coaching of a key player who has responsibility for millions of dollars and for key human resources. Coaching is a success if one direct report, who used to be intimidated to speak up, comes up with an innovative idea.”
- CEO, Fortune 100 Company

For 5 real-life comments about coaching by real-life clients, the media, other coaches and even naysayers, go to www.ThoughtsByEmail.com and subscribe to ‘What’s So Great About Coaching’. You’ll get one issue with 5 statements, just like the above, each week.

What are your thoughts about this week’s quotes?

copyright 2009-2010, CoachVille.com and Thought Partners International. all rights reserved.

Does Being Creative Drive You To Drink? Elizabeth Gilbert Is Worried

The presentation given by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of megahit book  ’Eat, Pray, Love’ is being touted by many as the best talk of TED 2009. I started hearing this at dinner the day she spoke, and was, quite frankly, astonished. 

Don’t get me wrong, Elizabeth is awesome. I’m a fan, even though I get what people mean when they say her ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ was self-indulgent.  Still, she has a VERY nice turn of expression; language comes alive around her, as you’ll see in the short video below. The subject matter is of real interest too, and I wish her well in her new book about Genius.  She believes something is very wrong in the state of creativity and she’s taking a stand for it.

But the reason I was surprised by how well this went over was this:

The audience at TED is a LOT of scientists, computer and industry folk, wonderful geeks all. The artsy types are there, but definitely in the minority, and more the high-tech artsy types if you know what I mean. I think in all the people I met, there was one person who wrote children’s books and painted, and for her day job ran a graphics design company.  There, even artier than me, the coach, consultant, writer. 

Anyway…for a person who works deep in the bowels of the automotive industry, on enterprise-level software solutions, to say to me ‘Man, that Elizabeth Gilbert put her finger right on it…I get stuck in creative ruts like that ALL the time!’  Surprising.

Which just goes to show the power of transferring ideas from one area of expertise to another.  You never know what sparks might fly.  (A lot potentially, if sleeper hit Jill Bolte Taylor’s TEDtalk from last year is any indication.) I learned a lot from my new science, math and economics friends that will help me be a better entrepreneur, writer, and thought partner. In surprising ways.

So, all you self-help mavens, coaches and conscious entrepreneurs, your assignment is to watch this TEDtalk, and acknowledge that yes, much of this message you’ve heard before in some other format, at most coaching or self-help conferences.  Also acknowledge that you likely speak about or present something along these lines yourself. Okay you don’t have a megahit book, but the underlying DNA of what Elizabeth is saying is similar to your message, yes?  “Be all that you can be” and all that.

But don’t stop there. As you watch, also try asking yourself for whom this message would be revolutionary, a shock, like said auto-industry person.  Into what life would what Elizabeth is saying be a thunderclap?  Then ask yourself the same thing about your material.  Who hasn’t heard you/your message before; who would hear you with fresh ears, dropping-jaw?

My goal here is twofold. For you to think about new markets, certainly. But also to flip that on its head. If you feel your current message is landing on deaf ears, maybe it’s because you haven’t cross-pollinated anything lately.  Where are you getting your thoughts and ideas? Not the same bathtub as last year, I hope. As you seek to nourish others, what delicious fuel are you giving yourself? Comments welcome.

Meanwhile enjoy this tasty vide0-snack courtesy of TED.com and Elizabeth Gilbert.

3 Funny Things Chris Anderson Said at #TED 2009

If you’ve ever sat through the speech-giving part of a wedding reception, you have first-hand knowledge of the difference an MC makes.  A great one, and even the poorest of chicken dinners and dullest of distant friends can be put up with.  A terrible one and I don’t care how much love is in the air, something else is too, and it’s the pheromones from hundreds of people cringing.

I was more than a little curious about what Chris Anderson, Curator of TED would be like. I was sure he wouldn’t be cringe-worthy, but his online presence gave me surprisingly little sense of who he was, which, it turns out, is a shame, and even his photo (at link above) isn’t representative.

Here are 3 things Chris said, and what he said them to:

(1) Nobel laureate Kary Mullis was at first admonished by Chris, not something that happens at many conferences, but is done without flinching at TED, especially if the speaker has gone over time. “That’s a terrible slide.” And it was actually completely incomprehensible to this social science major.  Still he said it not in an aside but out loud during the speaker’s time.

To his credit, Kary agreed, still minding the TEDclock and realizing the sand had run out. Shrugging, “It’s not a very good slide.”  And then, triumphantly, “BUT if you were a mouse with anthrax you would be interested in this slide!!” Wild applause from the audience on behalf of the mouse and speaker.

Still, being the Curator has its benefits and one of them is having the last word: “I’ve just realized my role to set up our speakers for great comebacks.”

(2) Nalini Nadkarni was definitely one of my favorite speakers of the conference.  Known as the ‘queen of canopy research’ this was one of those talks that might easily have been well-meaning and earnest. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

But instead, we saw slides of recycled Barbie dolls dressed up in jungle gear, shipped to schools as ambassadors.  We heard of projects enlisting prison inmates to grow specialized mosses because they have the time, and no sharp objects are needed to grow moss. We heard that she has an ant named after her and we saw a dance at TED by Capacitor that was inspired by some of her work with plants.

After the talk of her life (so far) in TED’s 18 minutes, she had charmed all of us, but Chris fell a little deeper:

“In the most appropriate of ways, Nalini, I think I’m a little bit in love with you.”

Nicely put, Chris, since Nalini’s husband, the ant professor, was in one of her slides, and Chris’ wife was in the front row, I think.

But really, the art of facilitating so many speakers can boil down to the pressing need to express a genuine thank you originally and meaningfully, even if it’s the 20th of the day.  Super nice to see it being done so well; SO well in fact that it’s become a signature memory of my TED experience.

(3) Last but not least, a third funny thing Chris said was in response to Cindy Gallop’s 3-minute rampage about her new website ‘Make Love Not P0rn’ [NSFW].  Based on her first-hand experience dating younger men, NYC advertising exec Cindy declared she had come (her word, not mine!) to realize hard c0re p0rn had taken on the role of sex education for today’s younger men. As a result, they were milling around thinking p0rn was real-life.  You know, “Hey, what’s wrong with you, all women love that! They always love it in the movies…”

I don’t want to have this website banned for repeating what Cindy said, exactly how she said it, examples and all, but it was a talk I was glad not to have to translate to my English-as-a-Second language parents, even Dad, who tends to be pretty jolly about that kind of thing.

At the end of the whoops and hollers as Cindy finished, Chris stepped to the stage saying proudly:

“There just aren’t many places where you can hear a talk like that.”

Post-TED, I realize I just didn’t know where to look in order to get to know Chris and other members of the TED team. It’s one of my criteria when deciding what events might be a fit for me and perhaps you’ll be interested too.

The thing is, they’re on Twitter, followable like anyone else! And not only tweeting about TED either.  Then, there are snippets of them on the TEDtalk videos, though it’s tough to find them on purpose – maybe that will change when they begin keyword indexing for their videos.  And then of course, there’s Chris’ own TEDtalk, given in 2002, in just under 13 minutes. Where, in a sense, it all began. Enjoy! I did.

Best of Multiple Streams | Thought for the Week

We hope you’ll enjoy this week’s snippet of wisdom from Multiple Streams of Coaching Income,  the book that helps you think out of the box and consider more than coaching 1-on-1:

“Do you think Money = Dirty?”

Is money evil to you?  Or is it a symbol of the value you bring to your clients?  There are people waiting to purchase your products and services, even if you aren’t packaging them in a format they want yet.

To dive into the mother-ship of thoughts like these, you can purchase the book here.  Or to receive more nuggets like this in your email inbox each week, sign up at  www.ThoughtsByEmail.com.

Your Life, Your Movie | Life Lessons From The Movies

A Scene From The Movie ‘Big’:

Paul pitches the idea of a new toy in a meeting where Josh is present.  Josh is the boy trapped in a grown man’s body, as played by Tom Hanks.

PAUL:  These tests were conducted over a six month period using a double-blind format of eight overlapping demographic groups.  Every region of the country was sampled, the focus testing showed a solid base in the 9- to 11-year-old bracket — with a possible carry-over into the 12-year olds.

When you consider that Nobots and Transformers pull over 37 percent market share, and that we are targeting the same area, I think that we should see one quarter of that and that is one fifth of the total revenue from all of last year.  Any questions?  Yes?  Yes?

JOSH:  I don’t get it.

PAUL:  What exactly don’t you get?

JOSH:  It turns from a building into a robot, right?

PAUL:  Precisely.

JOSH:  Well, what’s fun about that?

The Thought For Your Life:

Sometimes, no amount of research can replace instinct, especially when it comes to what’s fun. It’s either fun or it isn’t. When pursuing your goals, use both your head and your heart.  But above all, try to silence the shoulds; don’t be swayed by how you’re ‘supposed’ to feel.

—–

These short life lessons from the movies are available once a week from www.ThoughtsByEmail.com.  They’re a great way to keep yourself awake and thinking about life, but not too seriously.  There’s no charge to get your weekly copy in your email inbox. Why not go to the website and sign up?

Any other Life Lessons From The Movies you can think of? Add yours by posting below.

A Course About People | 5 Little Things You Want To Know

Here are this week’s 5-snippet wisdoms.  All are from a collection by Thomas Leonard, and compiled with the help of his R&D team. You may find them obvious, or you may find them profound.  We hope they’ll make you stop for a moment and think.  Once in a while, you may find an item that sticks like a splinter in your brain (only not as painful as the real thing) and is useful for when you’re interacting with folk.

• People love seeing success unfold around them.
• People gain the most by doing more than they are expected to do.
• People are more alike than not alike.
• People think “you’ve got mail” is correct English.
• People are a lot more complex than we realize.

We’re broadcasting these weekly now, no charge, just for the fun of it.  If you’d like to receive your personal copy of these in your email inbox…all you need do is sign up at www.ThoughtsByEmail.com.

What do you think about this week’s lessons?  Please post your thoughts below.

copyright 2002-2010, CoachVille, LLC all rights reserved.

What’s So Great About Coaching | This Week’s 5 Real-Life Comments

Here’s what the following people are saying about coaching:

“Want to get even further ahead?…What you need is a coach, your
own personal motivator. They’re not just for top-ranked tennis
players anymore.”
- Lydia Martin, Miami Herald

“At a time when companies are downsizing and out placing…at a
time when boomers are facing 50, coaches are easing traumatic
transitions.”
- “Career Coaches Offer Help in the Game of Life,”
Long Beach Press-Telegram

“The benefits of coaching appear to win over even the most cynical
clients within just a few weeks.”
- Shari Caudron, “Hire A Coach?” Industry Week

“A coach may be the guardian angel you need to rev up your career.”
- Money

“The goal of coaching is the goal of good management – to make the
most of an organization’s valuable resources.”
- J. Waldroop & T. Butler, “The Executive as Coach,”
Harvard Business Review

For 5 real-life comments about coaching by real-life clients, the media, other coaches and even naysayers, go to www.ThoughtsByEmail.com and subscribe to ‘What’s So Great About Coaching’. You’ll get one issue with 5 statements, just like the above, each week.

Do any of this week’s quotes catch your eye?  We’d love to hear your thoughts.

copyright 2009-2010, CoachVille.com and Thought Partners International. all rights reserved.

Best of Multiple Streams | Thought for the Week

Here is this week’s snippet of wisdom from Multiple Streams of Coaching Income, the book that helps you think out of the box and consider more than coaching 1-on-1:

“A single candle, no matter how bright, cannot light up the world.
No one can market to everyone.”

The more clear you are about your target market, and the more passionate your connection is to serving it, the more likely your streams of revenue will grow quickly.  Are you trying to market to everyone?  Do you know who you’re here to serve?

To dive into the mother-ship of thoughts like these, you can purchase the book here.  Or to receive more nuggets like this in your email inbox each week, sign up at  www.ThoughtsByEmail.com.

Your Life, Your Movie | Life Lessons From The Movies

A Scene From The Movie ‘Chicken Run’:

Bunty: In all my life, I’ve never heard such a fantastic load of tripe. Oh, face the facts, ducks. The chances of us getting out of here are a million to one.

Ginger: Then there’s still a chance.

A Thought For Your Life:

Are you a pessimist or optimist? Put another way, are you an idealist, realistic, or something in between?  Is there something beneficial for you to explore about the opposite of your default?

—–

These short life lessons from the movies are available once a week from www.ThoughtsByEmail.com.  They’re a great way to keep yourself awake and thinking about life, but not too seriously.  There’s no charge to get your weekly copy in your email inbox. Why not go to the website and sign up?

Any other Life Lessons From The Movies you can think of? Add yours by posting below.

A Course About People | 5 Little Things You Want To Know

I hope you’ll enjoy this week’s 5-snippet wisdoms, from a collection by Thomas Leonard, and compiled with the help of his R&D team. Whether obvious or profound, the point is to make you stop for a moment and think.  Once in a while, you may find an item that sticks like a splinter in your brain (only not as painful as the real thing) and is useful for when you’re interacting with folk.

• People who take action on the choices they take will inevitably
  succeed.
• People long to have leaders of integrity and character just as
  they long to have integrity and character themselves.
• People who recognize their environment effects their outcomes
  are aware of what steps need to be taken towards improvement.
• People who love well live well.
• People who wait for a magic wand fail to see that they are
  the magic wand.

We’re broadcasting these weekly now, no charge, just for the fun of it.  If you’d like to receive your personal copy of these in your email inbox…all you need do is sign up at www.ThoughtsByEmail.com.

What are your thoughts?

copyright 2002-2010, CoachVille, LLC all rights reserved.

Liz Coleman, President Of Bennington College Speaks At #TED.com

A few of the TEDtalks on Day 4 merit some lengthier notes I think. Liz Coleman’s was one. And, I think one of the next virtual community calls at this blog should be about these nuggets. Very meaty. And lest you wonder how this applies to you…well…if you read on, I think you’ll recognize client traits in some of this. And let’s just say if you CAN see your clients in any of this, you’ll need to know how to communicate appropriately about it, or argue convincingly for change.

Some of the things she posits:

1. Higher education today cultivates learned helplessness.

Strong words!

2. The system wrongly idealizes the expert, emphasizes technical mastery and neutrality.

Translation on that last one at least for now: the majority of us, for generations, have come out of the school system not having any opinions, and generally have no real clarity about what we think. I mean really, this stuff applies to the state of YOUR brain.

But put that aside – what about your customers and clients? Is it possible they don’t really know what they think about most things? My opinion? Geepers, I ‘think’ for a living, and MY brain feels like a chemical soup of punditry, snippets of news, Disney movie propaganda and whatever the state of my hormones that day, especially on certain topics. Which is why conferences and such such as TED, are such good data/fuel for the brain. But if the state of MY brain is that, when I regularly and purposely exercise my thinking muscles, what about the state of the brain of someone who doesn’t?

Heck, even if I still don’t know what to think about a revolution in antibiotics (good, I think) or hard core porn as sex education (bad; pretty sure on that one) at least I’m not ‘neutral’ about it and now know the topics exist.

3. Higher education should enhance the public good.

As in, education should significantly improve life as we know it on the planet. Amen.

4. “Deep thoughts matter when you’re trying to figure out what to do about the things that matter.”

There was a lot of talk at TED about population growth in China and India adding to the brain power of the planet, and there’s even a TED endeavor underway to facilitate the emergence of an Einstein from Africa. Phenomenal. But I say – what of onshore brains? What about the (what percentage again? of) brain cells that none of us use? What if we could train, with practice, and intention, more of our hard drives to boot up and be active? What if we could optimize that? I’m liking this train of thought immensely…

5. The new liberal arts education should include: quantitative reasoning, improvisation, mediation, rhetoric, design, technology.

6. She is creating the ‘Center for Advancement of the Public Action” at Bennington College. She recommends we think of it as a secular church. Interesting analogy, that.

7. Bennington’s mission, poorly paraphrased (will redact later): “We intend to turn intelligence and imagination, power, passion and boldness to act on the critical challenges of our time.”

8. And finally her loveliest turn of phrase of all:

“Being overwhelmed is the first step. It means you’re at the right beginning. What should you do? Well, start with what you have. You have two things. A mind and other people. Start there and change the world.”

With our minds and each other, won’t you join me in discussing more thoughts that matter? I’ll announce the first virtual calls soon…if you’re interested in joining them (free, no obligation, just a commitment to exploring what we think, and what we might do, together, via teleconference) be sure to cast a vote with a comment below. Thanks!

P.S. I don’t know much about the controversial story of Bennington in the 1990s, so if you do, and hey, have an opinion , please share. Also, there was some stuff in this same talk I didn’t agree with. When TED.com has the 18 minute video posted, I’ll embed it here so you can have a look yourself.

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