A Special Day For A Special Project

It’s not often you’ll read an announcement of this kind from me, so I’ll get straight to the point.

There is a person from behind the scenes of Thought Partners International, formerly Multiple Streams of Coaching income, who has been largely unsung,yet steadfast as an advocate of my work. I daresay without her, you very well might never have heard of me or be reading this!

Among many things, she walked my team through the then-labyrinth of self-publishing countless books and products, organized workshops, exhibit booths, even put out fires when it came to shipping of books, and more.

This very special person is Lynne Klippel, and today she is cresting an Everest of her own with a new book called ‘Overcomers, Inc. – True Stories of Hope, Courage and Inspiration.’

‘Overcomers, Inc.’ is coming out with great verve and fanfare, and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed watching her team at work, cheerleading vociferously if virtually…”Wow, wouldja look at this field of flowers blossom in a feast for all the senses!”

It is with deep joy and gratitude that I get to return a little good karma to Lynne by introducing you to her achievement.

If you are…

– interested in a genuinely moving set of stories (not fluff, hastily cobbled together and called a book)

- hope for those most difficult of times (not pablum that your eyes slip over, these examples are sticky – gripping, really – in the best sense of the word)

…you might very much like to add this book to your collection.

In my library, it will take pride of place next to my Pema Chodron ‘Comfortable with Uncertainty’ which I regularly prescribe to coaching clients, family, friends AND MYSELF when times are hard ‘Take two chapters of Pema and call me in the morning…or not, if you don’t need to anymore.’

While a very high calibre of extra goodies are available as part of this special birthday, all that remains for me to say is – I don’t much care. Sorry! Not to be rude to the gracious and great folk who’re participating. The point is, Overcomers, Inc., the book itself, the actual pages with the words written on them, immortalizing these 37 individuals, is a treasure and worth every red cent spent on copies.

As the world turns, ordering a copy today, Thursday October 22, 2009, makes a BIG difference to Lynne and her team, and so I ask you to do so instead of waiting for another day.

Simple instructions are here:

http://www.overcomersbook.com/booklaunch

I’m looking forward to sending these out as gifts at the end of the year for the whole gang, including friends and colleagues overseas. Overcoming adversity with grace is not a pie-in-the-sky concept – so much pap concocted by the self-help world. With this book, we now have incontrovertible proof that we can access by turning to our bookshelf.

Thank you, Lynne and team. I am proud to know you and be associated with your launch!

Off to Amazon I go…

To comment and congratulate Lynne, do so below – I’ll make sure she sees it … I know you may know her from her contributions and activity in the coaching and writing communities…

If you teach/mentor/coach for a living, these tough questions are for you. Starting with…does anyone else wonder if we’re in a Self-Help Bubble about to pop?

Have you heard the news of two people who passed away, mid-exercise, while attending a self-help retreat on Saturday? I first heard the news on Twitter.com, and there’s been quite a bit of mainstream news coverage since, including a piece in the NY Times.

Watching the story break – not to mention what actually happened – made me go very still. The leader of the retreat, Harmonic Wealth founder James Arthur Ray is not personally known to me, but is the client of someone I work closely with. What happened will have a direct impact on our fall and 2010 endeavors, I’m sure, and if I have my druthers, we’re going to be proactive about it.

And yet…I couldn’t help but notice that save for the news outlets, and a few voices such as @duffmcduffee there hasn’t been a lot of commentary.

Where are the other self-help leaders, workshop-givers, retreat-holders?

Putting myself in Ray’s shoes, I ask myself…

What do I do now?

How do I course-correct, move forward?

How do I best serve?

Back in my own shoes, I ask…

What is the worst thing that could possibly happen at a workshop I held, something inconceivable, and how could I prevent it, or be prepared for it?

What is the worst thing that someone could say about my work, and presuming it isn’t illegal or immoral, am I okay with where I stand? Are my feet comfortably and cleanly planted in what I stand for and what I do?

How clean is my house?

I’m curious if other people are asking these questions, or if it’s ‘business as usual’ and ‘it didn’t happen to me, so I don’t need to care about it.’

What would you do if something like this happened on one of your retreats?

I know many of you ARE planning workshops and retreats…

What will you do differently now, benefiting from the challenges the Harmonic Wealth team are going through at this moment?

Over and above my own work, or that of yours, I wonder, what is the ugliest thing that someone could say about the self-help world?

Is it that two people died on retreat? Or that no one talked about it and moved forward from it differently?

I think most of us would answer ‘both.’ But we can only do something about one of those things.

What say you, about this? What can be done? What will we do? What will you, leader in your field, do?

All this, in addition to grumblings about the inflated cost of certain training and mentoring programs this fall, has me wondering about economic bubbles, booms and busts.

I’m not an economist, and probably neither are you, but for the basics, there’s always Wikipedia [red font is my addition]:

An economic bubble (sometimes referred to as a speculative bubble, a market bubble, a price bubble, a financial bubble, or a speculative mania) is “trade in high volumes at prices that are considerably at variance with intrinsic values”.^[1][2] (Another way to describe it is: trade in products or assets with inflated values.)

While many explanations have been suggested, it has been recently shown that bubbles appear even without uncertainty,^[4] speculation,^[5] or bounded rationality.^[6] It has also been suggested that bubbles might ultimately be caused by processes of price coordination^[7] or emerging social norms.^[6]

Because it is often difficult to observe intrinsic values in real-life markets, bubbles are often conclusively identified only in retrospect, when a sudden drop in prices appears. Such a drop is known as a crash or a bubble burst. Prices in an economic bubble can fluctuate erratically, and become impossible to predict from supply and demand alone.

Sudden incidents having a negative impact on the market can trigger price drops.

What are your thoughts about this news in the self-help world? Does anyone else wonder if we’re in a self-help bubble about to pop, and what is there – constructive – to do and say about it?

Limos or Llamas? Is This An Era of Homogenization U? Or Am I Just a Negative Nancy?

First, a sorry to all my friends, past, present and future, by the name of Nancy.

So can I let you in on a few things that have popped onto my radar the last, oh, 6 months?

The majority of my current coaching clients are enrolled in significant trainings with other mentors/coaches, these high-end trainings costing thousands of dollars.

Yet they aren’t in the higher-end mastermind programs of those same trainers/mentors/coaches. They are coaching with me, at my additional fees, for various reasons, or so they say, but we use the material these others provide in their various expertise-based programs, and we implement into a business system of their creation.

Not so weird. That’s coaching. Except for…how many of these kinds of clients there’ve been this year and, sorry to say, how often I hear ‘I enjoy learning their content but I’m shocked by what these gurus are doing when it comes to charging small business owners like me big money for their mentoring.’

‘Please tell me Andrea, do I have to do it like that? Tell me I don’t have to become THAT in order to succeed.’

A little discontent is to be expected, and I don’t exempt myself from that. If I’m going out on a limb with clients, things don’t always work out perfectly! But what pricks my ear is questions like these, topics for coaching, being brought up:

• “The business models that are being taught – is that the only way to succeed? Doing it that way feels like I’m just another sheep in a crowd! And/but I don’t want to say anything in public, that would be sacrilege.”
• “The prices that are being charged by these trainers, and we’re being taught to charge, sometimes 6 figures just for group coaching, and not even 3 sessions a month…is there something off about that or is it just me? It seems inflated somehow, but I guess if everyone’s doing it, it’s okay?”
• “The personal values being modeled…being successful doesn’t mean limousines to me, yet everyone gets so excited by that Hollywood celebrity stuff. What if I want to live on an island with dirt surrounding me, fresh heirloom vegetables and an alpaca by my side? Can I hold a retreat where my participants get to milk a llama as the big door prize?
• “Where is the mentoring program for people with my values and why when I try to stick it out in one of the existing programs, do I have to feel wrong about being different?”
• “I’m scared, Andrea. I feel like we’re getting homogenized.”

And therein lies the rub.

Long-time readers will recognize this chestnut from me. Anyone who says (or suggests) there is only one right way to do things, is not okay with me.

As trainers and coaches, thought leaders all, the only constant truth – in my opinion – is that our job is to help others learn how to know what’s best for them. Showing a path that works is fine. Teaching by modelling. Using examples. That’s all great.

But not being clear that this is just one way to do things, isn’t, not in my book.  Are you catching what I’m pitching? Is this uncomfortable to you at all? Because it is for me too.

I don’t think it’s enough to say ‘people should know to think for themselves without me telling them that.’

They don’t always, that’s why coaching is (1) such delicate inner surgery and (2) such a great responsibility!

I don’t think it’s okay to say ‘you shouldn’t learn from other sources, only learn from me.’

Putting precious gray matter into preformed molds …that’s criminal, in my book.

But, you know, as esoteric this line of thinking may be…

I know the ultimate responsibility lies with the individual. So I write posts like this that are designed to say

‘Hey, it’s okay to disagree with the prevailing wisdom.’

‘It’s great to decide to do something completely different from everyone else.’

‘There ARE other ways, many ways, to financial and meaningful success.‘ A llama ride would be right up my alley, actually, and I can see a world, post self-help bubble when llama rides could be the next limousines…but that’s for another day.

I give myself permission to be sad, that sometimes people don’t have the support they need to think thusly for themselves. Sad and a little cynical.

Your thoughts on this? Am I just a negative Nancy? A dread Cassandra?

Aside: In case it needs saying – let me be clear that this isn’t greed or jealousy talking.  I’ve been rather tough with myself on that, examining. I don’t think it’s misplaced ego or the desire to tear others down, either. All I’m asking for is more open-minded thinking, more individual thinking. Less unquestioned, oddly Borg-like behavior. More celebrating of individuals.

Speaking of the latter, time for me to wrap up, and over to you. Thoughts?

Bodily Incompetence | Ignoring what’s right in front of our noses. Or Ignoring our noses, actually. Free ‘Deshrimping’ Call Tues Oct 13

This thought-stream was originally sent out to members of the Columbus Group whose comments and questioning have infused this recovering meat sack.  New members welcome at the above link. The topic today is…bodily incompetence.

Yes, I said incompetence, not incontinence, though one might lead to the other in some cases.

Dear reader, has it ever occurred to you how much we don’t know about our own bodies?

Individually, sure. (Can you, for example, without looking, draw a map in your mind’s eye of all your major birthmarks or moles?)

But also on a general basis, how much we don’t know about this ‘thing’ this ‘flesh’ that we carry around with us, or is us, or…you get what I mean.

I’ve been marvelling at how unconsciously incompetent I am at being a human being. It’s fun, actually, and kinda funny.

I use this body, certainly, and sometimes to great effect, like when I pull out a splinter from the ball of hubby’s foot. Or eat a bowl of congee with chopsticks while the dog lies on my feet, and I read a book.

Really, life is a regular Cirque de Soleil, some days!

But lately, I’ve been asked some consciousness-raising questions. Questions like…

(1) For what reason do we have a skeleton? Why, please, do you think we have a skeleton? Really.

(2) When you think of your foot, and you think of the action that your foot makes when walking, you doubtless
know that your heel strikes the floor and your foot rolls toward the toes.  Where in your forefoot does the skeleton provide the most support for walking, do you have a sense?

(3) What shape are your leg bones, both your tibia and your femur? (Tibia – shin bone; Femur – thigh bone. Good enough for conversation.)

One thing I’ve noticed without prompting, you know, on my own… desk jockey and lover of laptop-screens I seem to be…is that I spend a lot of my life in ‘shrimp position.‘ You know it, I’m sure, where the head falls forward of the shoulders, the back rounds and the chest drops in on itself? It’s uncomfortable, and yet, I’m very stuck in it. My body doesn’t know what else to do.
It dislikes so-called good posture, too, and can’t hold that either for more than a few seconds without attention.

So, what is a girl to make of this stuck place in my body?

Do I ignore it, stay asleep, and year after year, become more and more calcified into shrimp position? (Might we say lobster-like, even?)

How do I react when I see a significant newspaper advertisement saying ‘Having trouble wiping?’ showing an older person unable to reach around himself? I don’t make these things up, you know.

What does the future hold for my body and the mind that lives within it, unchecked? What about the body-mind of my cherished coaching clients – how do I begin this conversation – do I begin this conversation, with them?

What habits is YOUR body in?

What benefit would you get from noticing these? Is there a compelling reason for you to become more interested in your body, or is it a ‘whatever’ and I lost you at ‘shrimp?’

What general thoughts about bodily incompetence do you have – personally and/or generally?

What else does this trigger, for you?

More another time, including thoughts about the three questions posed about the skeleton, the foot and the legs,
above.

Meanwhile, the second no-fee movement-based class I’m holding (by teleconference call) is tomorrow, Tuesday morning October 13. You can sign up here.

It’s completely no-fee, and 100% adventure, as this will be another practice lesson I’m teaching as part of my
practitioner-training.

Come to think of it though, be warned please, as the lessons are rather subtle. Think “am I doing anything?” level of subtle. And yet, therein lies some of what I consider cool magic that might just be an answer to the bodily incompetence you may feel. Later!

Want a Leafy Car with Jelly-Bean Extension Cord? Get in Line in Vancouver in 2010

I first heard this sweeping vision at TED Palm Springs in February.  Shai Agassi’s talk of electric-car-charging stations – to replace gas stations – around the world was invigorating, but there were a lot of naysayers at dinner later.

Could the giant iceberg of existing infrastructure be stopped, and momentum gained in the other direction? Instead of plugging my nose when gassing up, could I get used to swapping the batteries in my car in a little electric car drive through? Where would Shai’s vision first break ground and when? Or would it?

Here is the TED.com video in question so you can see for yourself. Remember TED talks are all 20 minutes at most, and speakers are requested to give the ‘talk of their lives.’ Prepare to enjoy.

Cut to what, 8 months later? Today.

Via Nissan.

Nissan, along with the Canadian province of British Columbia, the City of Vancouver, and BC Hydro, have announced that British Columbians will have a chance to get their hands on Nissan’s LEAF electric car sooner than the rest of the world. Global distribution is planned for 2012, but Canada’s Westernmost province will see it come in 2011.

Electric Cars in Vancouver
Gregor Robertson, the mayor of Vancouver (host of the 2010 winter olympics) said:

“Moving towards a zero-emission mobility program gets Vancouver closer to our goal of becoming the world’s greenest city.

We’ve moved very aggressively to bring in electric vehicle charging infrastructure regulations for Vancouver that is a first for North America.

The City will need electric vehicles to charge on that new infrastructure.

We are very pleased to be the first Canadian municipal partner of Nissan, a global leader in electric-vehicle technologies.”

So now it’s ‘we have the infrastructure planned for and coming, and we need some cars.’ Nice!

New legislation in Vancouver requires developers of new condominiums and apartments to make electric outlets available in a minimum of 20% of parking spots. Can downstream items like slick extension cords in jelly bean colors be far behind? Shai, what have you started?

I’m happy for Vancouver, in its lovely vision, along with the new Leaf, or should that be Leaves, soon to fill its streets. And, well, I like the color of the model. Did they steal it from Flik, the main ant character in A Bug’s Life, do you think?

Read more about the Leaf here. If you’d like a report on the test drive, as soon as I can get one, stay tuned.

Canadian Thanksgiving Juju: *WIN* A Copy of ‘Advanced Streams of Coaching Income’ Contest Rules Here PLS RT

Canadian Turkey Day, ahhh, all that tryptophan coursing through the veins of the nation. Mmm…cranberry sauce. You know, the only hope for a cranberry patch before the ‘move-over-raisin, now there’s something yummier’ craze kicked in.

Except, at our house, Mike was perverse and made an unworldy prime rib roast with Yorkshire pudding instead.

We’re blessed in more ways than one, for sure.

In honour of giving, with thanks, I’m giving away 5 copies of the Advanced Streams of Coaching Income Multimedia kit on Friday, October 16. This is the meat-off-the-bones stuff taken from years of individual coaching on Multiple Streams. The stuff that – if integrated, mind you – can really take you head and shoulders above the run-of-the-mill information business. The kind of coaching you want to run a marathon, as opposed to a sprint. Long haul stuff.

With 5 MP3s – one full track on each strategy, including examples sites and how-to steps – plus an immediately useful mini workbook (not transcript) – I am quite pleased with how this turned out. It can be hard to convey advanced strategies when not working on specific businesses, but this turned out so well, we’ve now released it in digital format at the Thought Partners store.

You can read more about the product (retails for US $96.75 – 5 individual MP3s plus mini-workbook) including the 5 strategies themselves here: http://bit.ly/Lruhb

So how can you win one of the 5 digital copies?

How to Enter

Tell me why you’re ready for the advanced strategies. In other words, what you’ve done with basic multiple streams concepts. In your current business, what non-1-on-1 coaching revenue streams have you successfully created, how, and to what extent? Your success so far will demonstrate to me your readiness for the advanced steps. Concrete results and example links will help.

No longer than 3 paragraphs please, and shorter is way okay.

Contest Rules:

Post this to your blog, as a comment below, or, if short-short is your style, go ahead and tweet your entry instead!

If you’re commenting below you can skip this, but if you’re entering another way, be sure to include

via twitter: @andreajlee and the bit.ly link to this post which is http://bit.ly/Lruhb

via blog post: the bit.ly link in the subject of your post: http://bit.ly/Lruhb

Mmhmm, I really wanted to make sure I didn’t forget the link. Maybe prime rib has tryptophan in it too?

This Friday at 12pm pacific, I promise to be wide awake while reviewing your entries and will announce the 5 winners.

I look forward to reading your entries and making the Canadian Turkey deities smile!

Doubled my income …Recordings as Powerful as Live Coaching, available at the Press of a Button…

“Andrea’s Advanced Strategies for Multiple Streams audios were exactly what I was looking for, coaching and a gentle kick in the pants from Andrea at the push of a button. Andrea seems to coach you through the audios as though you are sitting with her and just like she would coaching you live.

The strategies have had an amazing impact on my business in 2009. I’m very creative and my brain pumps out a million ideas for products and offerings a day. With the help of the Advanced strategies, my income has doubled over last year and I’m a sought after expert in my field.”

- Sandra De Freitas, WordPressBlogsites.com

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