Never Sell Coaching

Success
Why you should
NEVER SELL COACHING

Four Steps To
CONFIDENT COACHING WHAT IS NLP? WHY GOAL SETTING MAKES YOU MISERABLE
The 10 Key Factors That
GUARANTEE SUCCESS FOR CORPORATE COACHING

People to inspire you
YOURE NEVER TOO OLD

Business tips, coaching advice, and much much more!
success
Talane Miedaner on attracting success
How to be a mega
YOUR PERSONAL COACH
Personal
December 2006 VOLUME 1 ISSUE 1
CONTENTS
WHATS INSIDE
4 COVER STORY
14 WHAT IS NEURO LINGUISTIC PROGRAMMING?
Editors Letter
Welcome to the first edition of Personal Success, a magazine for those involved in the personal development and coaching industry. Youll discover inspirational stories, skills, tips and information that will help to enhance your performance as a coach, boost your business and transform your personal life. In this issue youll find: The success secrets from one of the worlds leading coaches The perfect antidote for clients who say theyre too old to try (read our People To Inspire You story about Evelyn Gregory) The reason why goal setting can make you miserable The 10 key factors that guarantee success in corporate coaching Business tips, coaching advice, and much much more!
Publisher: Academy Publishing Editor: Marie-Louise Cook Graphic Designer: David Freshwater Contributors: Frank Bresser MBA (London), Laurie Geary, Mind Gym, Sarah-Jane Menato, Steve Mitten, Stephen Shapiro, and David Wood. Contact Address: The Academy Club 39-43 Putney High Street London SW15 1SP
20 10 KEY FACTORS
INSIDE THIS ISSUE

4 COVER STORY
How to be a mega success. Talane Miedaner, author of the best seller Coach Yourself To Success, explains how to attract all the success you want.
While we aim to do the very best that we can, we cant do it without your help so please email me at team@theacademyclub.com and tell me what you like and ways in which you think we can continue to improve the magazine. It is our greatest ambition that you return every month to be inspired and excited by what you find and that we continue to surpass your expectations. Marie-Louise Cook. P.S. If you would like to join our Editorial panel of experts, please contact us at the email address: team@theacademyclub.com. And if you have an idea for a story or an area that you would like to see covered in future issues please let us know.
EXPERT ADVICE
Top advice from our panel of experts.
10 REVIEWS
Book and seminar reviews.
12 PEOPLE TO INSPIRE YOU

Youre never too old to achieve your dreams as Evelyn Gregory proves. She was 71 when she was hired as an airline flight attendant.
PERSONAL SUCCESS - DECEMBER 2006
CONTENTS
WHATS INSIDE
Publishers Letter
22 WHY YOU SHOULD NEVER SELL COACHING
Welcome to the Coaching Academys new Academy Club and thank you for joining. It gives me great pleasure to present our brand new magazine, Personal Success and to let you know that as an Academy Club member, you will receive a free copy of the magazine each month through the mail. The Academy Club is a way of introducing the best personal development and coaching ideas to a wider audience, coaches and non-coaches alike. I have started The Academy Club in order to create a community of like-minded, positive people who want to make a difference to the world around us. Personal development and coaching in particular have made a huge difference to my life and I want to share what I have learned with as many people as possible. Over the next few months, we will be organising Academy Club networking events, exclusive seminars, an online resource and a forum where for a low cost you can advertise your services to other Club members. So, who else is a member of The Academy Club? Well, we have coaches and NLP practitioners, trainers and consultants, speakers and mentorsin general, people interested in their own personal and professional development. For you to receive maximum value from the Academy Club, you need to get involved; read Personal Success, come to the networking events, join in with the online discussions which will be happening on the Academy Club website (when launched in 2007) and respond to the advertisers. The more involved you become, the more value you will receive. The more members we have, the more resources, ideas and inspiration there will be to share. So please tell people that you think would receive value from membership and point them to the online sign-up form you used to join. If you would like to contribute an article, contact the Editor, Marie-Louise Cook at the contact details opposite and please do email with your comments on Issue One! Thank you for joining and enjoy your first issue of Personal Success. Best Wishes Jonathan Jay - Publisher
12 PEOPLE TO INSPIRE YOU
COACHING DEVELOPMENTS
14 WHAT IS NEURO LINGUISTIC PROGRAMMING?
We explain what NLP is, how it works and why it has become so widely used.
EXECUTIVE COACHING
20 10 KEY FACTORS THAT GUARANTEE SUCCESS
The most comprehensive survey of corporate coaching ever conducted will help managers and coaches to deliver more powerful results. Its author Frank Bresser (MBA) explains how.
16 THE NLP COACH?

The mere mention of NLP sends some coaches into apoplectic rage. But others argue coaching and NLP are a perfect match.
BUSINESS BUILDING
22 MARKETING: WHY YOU SHOULD NEVER SELL COACHING
Steve Mitten, Master Coach, and author of Marketing Essentials for Coaches, reveals all.
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
18 THE EIGHT SECRETS OF GOAL-FREE LIVING
Stephen Shapiro, author of Goal-Free Living, says setting and pursuing goals is the way to misery.
BACK PAGE
24 MY DAY
Even after 25 years spent as a professional coach and training consultant, Sarah-Jane Menato still feels passionate about her work.
19 FOUR STEPS TO CONFIDENT COACHING

Top Internet coaching mentor, David Wood believes successful coaching relies on supreme self-confidence.
DECEMBER 2006 - PERSONAL SUCCESS
COVER STORY
HOW TO BE A MEGA SUCCESS
success
Ditch the goals, the To Do lists and all those worthy but ultimately disempowering shoulds and musts if you want to become successful, says Talane Miedaner, one of the worlds most prominent and successful life coaches. People who relentlessly pursue goals are setting themselves up for frustration, stress and disappointment, she adds, explaining that to be successful you need to make yourself attractive. Being attractive in this sense is not about having shiny hair and polished shoes (although they will obviously make you feel good). Miedaner is talking about being energised so that you become a natural magnet for success. You can do things that take away your energy or things that give you energy. The more energy you have, the more attractive and powerful you will be. People who are energetic and full of life, people who are doing what they most love to do, are successful. All too often, people think the only way to get what they want is by writing out goals and then doggedly going after those goals. There are two basic approaches to getting what you want in life, whether youre after money, love, or opportunities in business, explains Miedaner. You set your goal and go after it or you attract your goal to you. Weve been trained to use the first method but it often doesnt work. We end up trying to force
How to be a mega
Talane Miedaner, the woman behind the international best-seller Coach Yourself To Success and owner of one of the most coveted website names in the industry, www.lifecoach.com, explains how you can attract all the success you want. By Marie-Louise Cook.
or will our goals to fruition. This can be unnecessarily frustrating, stressful and unhealthy. When we are at our best, doing fulfilling work and feeling happy and excited about life, it is natural to attract success. Miedaner certainly walks the talk - since becoming a coach herself, her life has been transformed. She found a way to release all the things in her life that drained her energy and has become by anyones standards mega successful. Shes the one after all who bought what has to be one of the best website names in the industry: www.lifecoach.com. I was lucky to be one of the first coaches out there and snapped up www.lifecoach.com. This has been a great boon as we get thousands of hits all the time and as the profession grows, it just keeps getting better. Funnily enough, I was disappointed at the time because successcoach.com was already taken. I had no idea that lifecoach would become the generic term for coaches and was clueless about the power of the Internet. Pure luck. And shes the one who released a book Coach Yourself To Success (McGrawHill Contemporary) just as the coaching phenomenon began to spread. The book became an international bestseller. Shes appeared on TV programmes and in magazines and newspapers in the US and the UK.
There are two to getting what
COVER STORY
You set your goal and go after it or you attract your goal to you.
Ten years ago, it was a completely different story. At 29, Miedaner was single, living in New York and holding down a job with a prestigious bank. It was a successful life but behind the glamorous faade was a woman mired in debt and desperate to change her career. Going to a job I didnt want to do anymore was stressful, she recalls. In Coach Yourself To Success, she goes further and confesses that while walking to work one morning she had the vague thought that shed rather be hit by a bus and have to go to hospital than go to work. I had visions of myself happily reading books while in traction, she tells me, adding, I caught myself having that vague thought and thought Good grief! I must find a different job. Banking had never been her first choice of career: shed wanted to be a diplomat. Armed with a degree in International Affairs from Georgetown Universitys School of Foreign Service and a Masters degree in English, she had applied to the Foreign Service but after three failed attempts at the exam, was forced into a rethink. She chose banking largely because it seemed to offer international postings and lots of travel. Ironically, the only place the bank sent me was back to Georgetown to recruit on campus. It was hardly the stuff of dreams. An entrepreneur at heart, she grew frustrated with the achingly slow rate of change in banking. Then of course, there was the politics, the hierarchy, the sexism, the bureaucracy.
basic approaches t you want in life...
COVER STORY
Finding a job in another industry was impossible since her experience by then was all finance-related. I knew that there was something better out there, something that would be more aligned with who I was and what I wanted to do in this world but I just couldnt articulate it. She might still be working in banking if not for the intervention of a life coach. Id like to say that I hired a coach to help me figure out what to do with my life but I hadnt even heard of coaching. My coach Thom Politico found me. He asked me if he could coach me and I told him, as politely as I could, to get lost. To this day, Im am extremely grateful that he was persistent because it changed my life completely. He encouraged her to take better care of herself. He also recognised that her interest in personal development, her empathy with others and her enthusiasm for life would make her an ideal coach. He saw the potential in me that I couldnt see and encouraged me to become a coach myself. I was blind to my greatest strengths. Ive had the same thing with my clients where their best gifts are what they take for granted they dont even see them as gifts. Thats where coaching helps people. A coach should be able to see some of your strengths and special gifts and help you turn your life around. She enrolled on a two year, distancelearning course with Coach University, one of only two courses available at the time. Although she took to coaching effortlessly, she doubted it could be a full-time occupation. The industry was
still so new that when she told people she was training as a coach they would ask, In what sport? She soon changed her mind. I started coaching some clients for free while I was training. As I started getting a little more confident, I began to charge. Professional rates were then between $US200 and $250 (110 and 137) for three telephone coaching sessions a month but Miedaner charged her clients $100 (about 55) a month. That all changed when one of her clients said she felt uncomfortable paying such a low fees so they agreed upon a rate of $250. That was the turning point. I realised that this was actually something I could make some money from doing. It gave me a lot of confidence. She didnt resign from banking immediately, having taken her coachs advice that before she left the bank to set up her own practice, she should clear her $10,000 credit card debts and have two years worth of living expenses saved. It was excellent advice because I had absolutely no pressure to get clients when I finally quit banking, which was about three months before I finished my coach training. Instead, I went up to the coast and hung out in a beach house for a few months and wrote Coach Yourself To Success. If I had been under financial pressure I would have stayed in New York and tried to drum up business and may never have had the time to write my book which has turned out to be the best marketing tool for my coaching business. She was able to leave the bank earlier than she or her coach had anticipated, thanks to a merger between her bank and the Chemical Banking Corporation. She was given a voluntary redundancy package with six months salary.
business improvement and performance. In fact, the corporate world has embraced coaching so heartily that universities in the US and the UK have responded by offering their own coaching programmes. The fact that universities are offering coach training will make it more academic but people want results so the practical solutions will win out in the end. It also gives the profession more credibility and legitimacy. She recommends all new coaches get full university degrees in whatever topic theyre interested in then follow it up with a practical coaching training course so they can compete successfully with coaches who have advanced degrees and high levels of professionalism. Its one reason why she believes only people with a business background should consider specialising in corporate coaching. It really helps if you have had some corporate experiences and understand the hierarchy of business and the politics that go on. If you dont have an experience of it, you could actually give someone bad coaching and really screw up. Its a different world and if youre not familiar with how that world works, you could really get a client into trouble. Although she has worked with executives, public officials, entrepreneurs, and business owners around the world, Miedaner still calls herself a life rather than corporate coach. I find with my corporate clients, many of whom are senior executives, that what they want is life coaching. Like most people, they hire a coach for career reasons because they want to be more successful or they want to quit and work on their own business or they are in a tricky life transition. Most people justify the expense of coaching because its for their careers. What they dont realise is that working on their personal lives is often the most effective way to be more successful in their careers. The personal things I work on with people actually help their careers skyrocket. Many women Ive worked with have broken through the glass ceiling. We try so hard to separate our lives into departments this is my personal life and this is my career. The reality is that we are only ever one person if somethings
I dont think I would ever give up personal coaching as I love doing it.
In the years since she trained, public awareness of life coaching has increased greatly thanks to widespread media coverage. This has helped to give the industry credibility, particularly in the notoriously conservative corporate world. Corporations used to look askance at coaching but now Human Resource executives recognise coaching as a completely valid, effective tool for
COVER STORY
It really helps if you have had some corporate experiences and understand the hierarchy of business and the politics that go on.
off in your personal life, its going to be affecting your career or your business life. My clients and I work on all fronts business and personal. Nothings excluded anything can come up it can be your business, your career or about how your boss, your husband or your kids are driving you mad. People dont expect that from coaching. Theyve said they want to get their business off the ground and end up talking about their teenage daughters and how they want a better relationship with them. They dont hire me because they think they have a problem with their children but it comes up and when its resolved, their energy is freed up to focus on their business. Its funny how things work people never realise how much you can do with coaching. As far as choosing other specialities or niches in coaching are concerned, she recommends letting the process evolve naturally. I tell people to experiment, coach anybody. The coaching business you end up with might not be what youd expect. Most of what coaching is about is finding out what you really love to do and then setting up your life so youre just doing stuff that you love. She speaks from experience, having found that marriage to an English man, Paul Fox and the birth of their first child together has completely changed her business plans. While her Talane Coaching Company is still New York-based with five coaches working for it, she is now based in England. Shes cut her work schedule down to teaching one teleclass and coaching 10 clients a month (who each pay between 350 and 400 a month for three coaching sessions) so that she can spend as much time as possible with her daughter. Now that shes expecting a second child, shes busy working with an Internet marketing whiz to find ways to increase her passive income while reducing the amount of time she spends at her desk even further. I dont think I would ever give up personal coaching as I love doing
it, but Ive been looking at ways to create more passive income. And I know from the readers of my book that many of them would like coaching, but simply cant afford the fees. They have asked for something affordable, that would get them started so that eventually they can afford a private coach. Interestingly, shes found that she makes far more money now than she ever did working for the bank. I used to think that the harder you work, the more money you make but upon closer inspection, Ive decided the reverse is true. Ive learned the more fun I have, the more money I make. When Im having fun, I seem to be able to add more value to the world and be paid correspondingly. I am now doing exactly what I love to do. My work is incredibly fulfilling. I have found the man of my dreams and we live in a beautiful house by the sea. Best of all, we have a gorgeous little girl. I have an amazing life that I thoroughly enjoy. Now that is success. And Im no longer interested in getting hit by a bus.
FURTHER INFORMATION
Talane Miedaner can be contacted at www.lifecoach.com and her book Coach Yourself To Success is published by (McGraw-Hill Contemporary).
EXPERT ADVICE
ADVICE
Advice Of The Month

SPACE CLEARING PEOPLE CAN BE REFERRAL ENGINES ATTRACTING CLIENTS
Coach as many people as possible. They become referral engines for you. Ask your friends and colleagues if theyre interested in introducing coaching into their workplace. Offer to do a complimentary session for their boss. Offer people a free coaching session and let them know that its inspiring and fun. David Wood Certified Life Coach, www.solutionbox.com
ON BEING STUCK
It is not possible to stand still or be stuck, because Energy, and therefore life, is always in motion. Things are always changing. But the reason it may feel to you as if you are stuck is because, while you are continuing to think the same thoughts, things are changing but they are changing to the same thing over and over. If you want things to change to different things, you must think different thoughts. And that simply requires finding unfamiliar ways of approaching familiar subjects. Esther and Jerry Hicks Ask And It Is Given: Learning To Manifest Your Desires (Hay House UK, 2005)
I ask clients who are struggling to space-clear to fill a box with the possessions they would like to salvage from a fire.
SPACE CLEARING
There is a technique I often use with clients called Fill a box in which I ask clients who are struggling to space-clear to fill a box with the possessions they would like to salvage from a fire. It sounds a bit dramatic, I know. But knowing people who have at some time in their life lost every possession they had, I was left with a greater insight into what is truly valuable. Eileen Mulligan Life Coaching Change Your Life In 7 Days (Piatkus, 1999)
STARTING OUT IN COACHING

Before you get really good at something, be prepared to be mediocre. Dont hesitate to get out there before youre perfect. If you wait until you are perfectly prepared your business will never happen. Give yourself permission to be a rookie coach and a rookie marketer; get out there and learn. Steve Mitten Marketing Essentials For Coaches (e-book)
RISK-TAKING
Too many people stop themselves from doing something because it seems too risky. But professional risk-takers arent necessarily braver, just more prepared. They always go through some variation on the following three steps before going ahead identifying the risk, assessing it and going for it. Paul McKenna Instant Confidence (Bantam Press, 2006)
ASK OUR EXPERTS Need some help with a technique? Want to know how to get more clients? Not sure how to set up an online payment system or put up your prices? Whatever your query, our expert panel can help. Weve brought together experts from business, coaching and personal development, and theyre eager to help you in any way they can. If you have a challenge, send it in an email to team@theacademyclub.com.

Know what you want Know why you want it Discover your talents Use them daily Work hard Work smart Give unconditionally Love unconditionally Find your purpose Live your purpose. Michael Masterton Early To Rise (online newsletter)
EXPERT ADVICE
ADVICE
sometimes you can be too close to a business to see the obvious
LIFES FUNDAMENTALS
TIME MANAGEMENT
The tortoise and hare fable still offers a useful lesson. I learned years ago that if you think you can complete a job in fifteen minutes, its apt to take all day. If you work carefully as though you have got all day, it will often require only fifteen minutes. Monty Roberts Join-Up: Horse Sense For People (Harper Collins, 2000)
Five Ways To Build Rapport
Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen and Les Hewitt The Power of Focus (Vermilion, 2001)
SETTING UP A COACHING PRACTICE

Assessing the business In assessing where you are before starting out, think about your skills under four headings: 1. Your operations/coaching skills 2. Your financial management skills 3. Your sales and marketing skills 4. Yourself When you run your own coaching practice, you need to be multi-skilled. Talk to others who have run their own businesses and in particular talk to other coaches who run their own coaching practices. In gathering views, aim to answer five questions yourself: 1. What should I have in each of the above categories? 2. What do I currently have? 3. What is missing in each area (skill/service/process/ technology)? 4. What resources do I need to close the gap? 5. What support do I need? All of us have gaps in our strengths when we start out: the key to success is having a plan to manage them. Alex Szabo, Setting up and running your coaching practice Excellence in Coaching, The Industry Guide (Kogan-Page, 2006)
HOW TO PROFIT FROM YOUR COMPETITION

Instead of worrying about how your competitors are going to beat you, look to them as a source of opportunities. Ask yourself, What are my competitors doing thats working? What can I do to profit from their growth? You might find that your competitor is taking advantage of a side of your business that isnt getting the attention it deserves. And thats a cause for celebration, not fear.
BY THE MIND GYM
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Focus on being interested in the other person, be curious and discover what interests you about the other person. Consider the other persons beliefs and experiences. Suspend judgement focus on what they are saying rather than your analysis of it. Use questions to find a common ground.
BOOST YOUR CREATIVITY

Start from a different place: sometimes you can be too close to a business to see the obvious. Our brains are fundamentally lazy and will continually try to make the obvious conclusions. The trick is to try to surprise your brain into doing something new. I get my best ideas when I have a hangover and jot them into a special hangover book. Caspian Woods From Acorns how to build your brilliant business from scratch (Pearson Education Ltd., 2004)
Quieten your internal conversation. If you become distracted, focus your attention on what the other person is doing, thinking or feeling. Practise matching their behaviour. This is a very powerful form of rapport building.
Give your mind a workout and visit The Mind Gym for tips, information and techniques at www.themindgym.com.
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REVIEWS
BOOK AND SEMINAR REVIEWS
Wake Your Mind Up The Mind Gym (Time Warner Books, 2005) Feel as if youve tumbled into a rut and cant climb out? Read Wake Your Mind Up from The Mind Gym - itll sharpen your mental processes and make clambering out of any slump a cinch. If it sounds too much like hard work, fear not. This is a book made for the exercise-shy chapters are easy to read, you get to design your own reading programme (to target your specific problem areas thus saving you the energy of reading the entire book at any one go) and most of all, its fun. The book sprang from the success and popularity of the 90-minute Mind Gym workouts that have taken place in workplaces across the UK, the US, Australia and Europe. So far, over 100,000 people have exercised their minds with Mind Gym and of those, 93% said they would use what they had learnt. Wake Your Mind Up by Mind Gyms founders, management consultant Octavius Black and business psychologist Sebastian Bailey, includes the most popular hints, tips and techniques from the corporate workouts and is based on a centurys worth of psychological theories. The book has five sections and each of these is divided into chapters. Readers are encouraged to take an assessment at the beginning of the book to discover which chapters are most relevant to them so they read only those parts which deal with their area of interest. For those who are bitten by the mental exercise bug, theres an added bonus: each book has a password that allows access to the Mind Gym website with advanced questionnaires, exercises and a members forum.
Book Reviews
Coach Yourself To Success 101 Tips from a Personal Coach for Reaching Your Goals at Work and in Life Talane Miedaner (McGraw-Hill Contemporary) Life coach Talane Miedaner (our Cover Story this issue) says to be more successful you simply need to get rid of the major energy drains in your life and replace them with positive energy boosters. The more energy you have, the more attractive and powerful you will be. Youre encouraged to begin by making small changes, taking care of the things that bug you on a daily basis like a missing jacket button, for instance, so that you gain the momentum and courage to tackle the more challenging areas in your life. Divided into 10 parts with 10 tips in each, the book covers topics like finance, time management, relationships, and communication. Pick just one of the tips which range from the immediate to the long-term and do it. Youll be amazed how powerful the effect on your life is and how much fun you can have while youre doing it. I love this book its practical, eminently sensible and best of all, it works (so fast that itll take your breath away). Definitely worth adding to your bookshelf! Instant Confidence The Power To Go For Anything You Want! Paul McKenna (Bantam Press, 2006)
The man who has done more than any other person in the UK to bring personal development into the mainstream has come up trumps yet again with his latest offering, Instant Confidence. On page one, he states that he has written the book in a way that plants seeds of confidence, self-belief and motivation in your unconscious mind, seeds that will be activated when you listen to the accompanying mindprogramming CD. This puts readers in an expectant state from the outset, and they wont be disappointed. McKenna has distilled all thats important and which works into a series of powerful techniques to ensure anyone who follows them will develop more confidence. It is yet another winner from the UKs most successful self-help author. McKenna says reading the book is like sitting in on one of his success seminars and having bumped into someone whos just completed one of his courses (and transformed in the space of a week into a dynamic, confident energetic person), this seems like incredible value.
WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Have you read a personal development book, listened to an audio programme or attended a seminar and want to share your views on it? Tell us what you did or didnt like and whether youd recommend it. We can withhold your name and details if you prefer. Send your review in an email to team@theacademyclub.com.
Seminars
Mark Victor Hansen The Enlightened Way To Wealth YES! Group meeting Royal National Hotel, London WC1
Mark Victor Hansen, co-author of the extremely successful Chicken Soup for the Soul series, drew a capacity audience when he spoke on The Enlightened Way to Wealth recently. Eight hundred people were treated to a whirlwind tour through the mental processes that attract huge wealth, touching briefly on topics such as creating multiple streams of income, dreaming big and engaging in residual philanthropy. To say Hansen is an enthusiastic speaker is to massively understate the case dripping with sweat, he spoke at breakneck speed, tossing out new ideas and thoughts by the second. His method of encouraging group participation, by getting the audience to repeat every third or fourth phrase while raising their hands in the air or high-fiving their neighbour, probably wouldnt appeal to everyone but worked well in this instance because he was addressing the equally energetic and enthusiastic YES! Group, made up of people who are already converted to the self-help message. The complimentary paperback copy of The One Minute Millionaire by Hansen and Robert Allen (Vermillion) given to all attendees was a generous gift and provided a comprehensive guide to enlightened wealth building.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

REVIEWS
BOOK AND SEMINAR REVIEWS
11
Favourite Quotes
FAVOURITE QUOTES OF THE MONTH
10 Stress Relief Tips

Think positively. Break the habit of putting yourself and everything else down. When you catch yourself thinking negatively, stop it. Learn to see problems as challenges that can be overcome. Remember: you always have options.
I do believe and I have seen in my own life that creative visualisation works. Oprah Winfrey
Life is change. Growth is optional. Choose wisely.
Karen Kaiser Clark
How do you go from where you are to where you want to be? I think you have to have an enthusiasm for life. You have to have a dream, a goal and you have to be willing to work for it.
Jim Valvano
8. 9.
Ask yourself empowering questions. In the midst of a crisis, for example, dont ask why you got into this mess; ask how can you improve it. Do what you can to minimise stressful situations. If you face a mad rush in the mornings, for example, get up earlier, have your clothes and paperwork ready.
Never say never again. Everything is possible.
If you make a mistake, dont dwell on it. Learn what you can from it and move on. Cut big problems down to size. Think of one thing you can do today to improve a situation. Focus all your energy on achieving it.
10.
Look for at least one reason a day to laugh. Research shows laughter releases feel-good chemicals in the brain.
Tackle challenges head-on. Procrastination only delays things, it doesnt solve them. Spend at least a minute every day contemplating all the things you have in your life to be grateful for.
12
PEOPLE TO INSPIRE YOU
REACHING FOR THE SKIES AT 71
Arrivals
Check-in
Reaching For The Skies At
At age 71, Evelyn Nana Gregory made aviation history by becoming the oldest person ever to be hired as a flight attendant. Achieving her childhood dream wasnt easy and before getting the job with Americas Mesa Airlines, she had to overcome many rejections and disappointments. She spoke with Marie-Louise Cook.
Evelyn Gregory first applied to become a flight attendant when she was 70 years old. She was determined to make a good impression at her interview so when the young man from US Airways asked what her ambitions were for the next 15 years, she answered candidly and with customary good humour, Well, at 85, Id like to be alive! Despite being flown across America for the second round of interviews, Gregory didnt get the job. Disappointed but undeterred, she sent out a barrage of applications letters to every airline. I received letters saying either they werent hiring, or that my resume was impressive and that theyd keep it on file. She continued, positive a job would come. Six months had passed when she spotted another US Airways advertisement and re-applied. Once again, she made it to the second stage of interviews but was turned down yet again. Some may have thrown in the towel at that point but not Gregory. She applied to be an airline gate agent with CC Air at Charlotte airport in North Carolina, figuring shed have a better chance of being taken on as a flight attendant if she was already working for the company. I went to Charlotte and spoke to the gentleman who was doing the hiring and told him about my desire and the longing in my heart to be a flight attendant. I said, Since you say that you hire from within for your flight attendants, I would be more than happy to work for you. I think that I would enjoy it and I know I would do a good job for you. He agreed after all, she had been the assistant vice-president of a bank before retiring at 65 - and gave her the job that day. Six months later, her supervisor told her that Mesa Airlines, which had offices at the airport, was hiring cabin crew. I went upstairs on my break to see the girl in charge of interviewing for Mesa. I think my supervisor had already told her about me because she had me fill out the application and said Well, when would you like to go to ground school? Gregory had wanted to be a flight attendant since she was a teenager. Back in the 1940s, it was a whole lot tougher to get to the interview stage: applicants had to be registered nurses, to weigh less than 120 lbs, and to be under 26 years of age. Gregory found the prospect of unlimited air travel and adventure completely alluring but her father objected and, since rebellion was out of the question, she put the dream aside. What my father said was next to what God would tell you. He was very protective. His protectiveness went beyond vetoing his daughters career choice: four years later, he refused to give her away on her wedding day. I have never met a man Id give you to yet, he told her.
Transfe 71
He liked my fianc Coy and knew his parents so it wasnt that. He was just so protective of me that he wouldnt agree to serve in the wedding. He sat and cried on my wedding day and so did I. Marriage to Coy ended Gregorys dream of being a flight attendant since airlines wouldnt consider married women for the job. Instead, she found work as a secretary in a bank and stayed with banking until her retirement. Sadly, Coy was not there to share her retirement. He had died in 1989 after a long illness following a heart attack many years earlier. His illness meant Gregory had become the familys sole breadwinner (by then she and Coy had three children) and she took a second job to make ends meet. After retiring, Gregory moved to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and became a selfconfessed beach bum. Loneliness and boredom gradually set in and, five years later, she was ready to move back into the workforce. I dont know if youd call me hyper or not but I feel I must accomplish something every day. I really do. Pilots at Mesa would later tease her about the cracking pace she set as they walked through airports. Theyd say, Nana, wheres the fire? Theres no fire, Id say. I just have a theory that if youre going somewhere, just go. Dont dilly-dally around. Thats my whole life really if youre going somewhere, just go.
er
PEOPLE TO INSPIRE YOU

REACHING FOR THE SKIES AT 71
13
And go from the beach she did, returning to her home in the small town of Denver, North Carolina. In my soul I was searching for what I was really meant to do with the rest of my life. Her friends, Peter and Terri Machtel, encouraged her to apply to be a flight attendant, knowing how much she had once wanted the job. Terri, a flight attendant, took her to Europe twice and introduced her to the cabin crew. Well, that just set me off. That was when the dream really hit again. I was on fire I was ready to go. She applied to be a flight attendant on her return to the United States but it took more than a year before she was finally accepted by Mesa Airlines and sent to an intensive three-week training course at Ground School in Arizona. Being the oldest participant in the course didnt phase her one bit and she was delighted when her younger classmates began calling her Nana just like her grandchildren did. I really studied. I was determined I wasnt going to have more problems than some of the young people did. The physical aspects of the job opening and closing the 400lb aircraft door, pushing heavy carts along the aisle, and stowing luggage were not a problem. I have always been very active. It never occurred to me that I would need any more strength than what I already had. The most challenging part of the course for Gregory, who suffers from a fear of heights, was the evacuation techniques. We had to go out on the wing of the airplane and slide off it to the ground. Its about a five foot drop. She also had to jump from the rear service door to the ground. My instructor was standing below and she yelled, Come on Nana, Im here. I said, Hmmm, let me think about this and at that moment a big mechanic walked around the plane and I said, I believe I want him standing below me which he did. Gregory passed her exams, much to the delight of her family, and quickly won the hearts of passengers and crew alike. Within six months, shed won an Employee of the Month award and within
one year had been asked to conduct training at Ground School. It was on my resume that I had taught many banking courses for the American Institute of Banking, so I was asked to teach at Ground School and I loved that. She became like a beloved mother or grandmother to all who met her. I cant tell you how wonderful the crews and my supervisors were with me. When I was getting ready to finish my shift, my captains would come and give me a hug. I actually had passengers giving me hugs as well. One little man patted me on the back and said, Sure looks good to see somebody here with grey hair. Her secret weapons were of course her Southern charm and voice, guaranteed to melt the frostiest of hearts. You had to charm them. I treated everybody the way I would in my own home. Im an old Southern girl. I love people. She would still be flying and teaching today if not for a heart complaint that forced her to take early retirement in July 2005. Until then, shed only ever suffered from tired feet, a condition that affects even young flight attendants shes quick to point out. Retirement is no easier the second time, she tells me. I was just lost when I had to leave. I was so excited by it. I had so much fun with the passengers and crews. As you would expect from someone with such zest for life, Gregory is already looking for her next mission. I have to stay busy. She has taken on some charity work, is staying active in her church and has been asked by a former passenger, a university professor, to give a talk to his students. A new career as a motivational speaker may beckon for Evelyn Gregory, a woman who has proved that you are never too old to live your dream.
Departures
Check-out
Reaching For The Skies At 71
14
WHAT IS NEURO LINGUISTIC PROGRAMMING?
What is
Linguistic Program
We get behind the acronym to explain what NLP is, how it works and why it has become so widely used. By Marie-Louise Cook.
When a business is doing badly, it is natural for managers to look at the competition to see how they achieve better results and to use the answers to improve their companys performance. Similarly, Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) studies top performers in different fields to determine how they achieve outstanding results so that others can copy their successful patterns of thinking and behaviour to obtain consistently high results themselves.
Neuro
FURTHER INFORMATION
Joseph OConnor is co-founder and President of the International Coaching Community (ICC) with over 1,000 trained coaches in 34 countries. For more information about the ICC, please visit: www.internationalcoachingcommunity. com Visit the co-founder of NLP Richard Bandler at www.richardbandler.com. You can find David Molden at www.quadrant1.com; Steve Andreas at www.steveandreas.com and Charles Faulkner at www.nlpcomprehensive.com.
WHAT IS NEURO LINGUISTIC PROGRAMMING?
15
mming?
NLP studies brilliance and quality how outstanding individuals and organisations get their outstanding results, says leading international NLP trainer, writer and consultant, Joseph OConnor in NLP Workbook (Thorsons, 2001). The methods can be taught to others so they too can get the same class of results. This process is called modelling and to do it, NLP studies how we structure our subjective experience how we think about our values and beliefs and create our emotional states and how we structure our internal world from our experience and give it meaning. No event has meaning in itself, we give it meaning and different people may give the same event different meanings. So NLP studies experience from the inside.
History of NLP
Richard Bandler, a mathematician, psychotherapist and computer expert, and the linguist John Grinder, created NLP in the early 1970s. They began studying the methods of top therapists (Dr Milton H. Erickson, Virginia Satirs, and Fritz Perls) with the intention of identifying patterns of thoughts and behaviour that others could follow to achieve similar results. They taught their students the patterns Satirs used during therapy sessions, for example, and the students were then able to apply them to produce the same quality of results even though they did not have her experience. NLP is an educational process, said Bandler in Using Your Brain - For A Change (Real People Press, 1985). Basically were developing ways to teach people how to use their own brains. If your brain is sitting around without anything to do, its going to start doing something and it doesnt seem to care what it is. You may care but it doesnt. OConnor says what began as a study of the best communicators has since evolved into the systemic study of human communication. It has grown by adding practical tools and methods generated by modelling exceptional people. Although NLP was initially used to model excellence in therapists, it is now used widely in education, health, coaching, sports, and in many areas of business including training, human resource development, teambuilding, advertising, sales, marketing, networking, presentations, public speaking, customer relations, recruitment, and negotiation. However, NLP is more than just a collection of techniques. It is also a way of thinking, a frame of mind based on curiosity, exploration and fun. NLP is based on the belief that all behaviours have a determinable structure and that they can be modelled. Those NLP models, which include meta-model, sensory acuity, Milton model, representational systems and sub modalities, provide a set of tools for creating change in individuals. The techniques, which developed from those models, allow for rapid, effective change to limiting thoughts, behaviours and beliefs. NLP is one of the most effective how to technologies that exist in the area of human communication, learning and change, wrote David Molden in his book, Managing with the power of NLP (Pearson Education Ltd., 1996). Steve Andreas and Charles Faulkner seemed to agree when they wrote in NLP The New Technology Of Achievement (Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2003), NLP is at the cutting edge of human development because it teaches the fundamentals of how your brain works. They explained that by changing how you think, you could transform what you think. NLP helps you to modify your thoughts and behavioural patterns to suit your projected goals. It literally re-programmes your mind and your life for faster learning, better relationships and greater success. Regardless of the situation, NLP shows you how you can do more, have more and be more. Dr. Harry Alder, who has worked with major companies to help staff reach their maximum potential, says NLP shows us how we can think better and thus achieve more. In his book, NLP the art and science of getting what you want (Piatkus, 1994), he says, NLP teaches us how to communicate, inwardly and outwardly, in a way that can make the difference between mediocrity and excellence. NLP, according to Alder, provides a basis for describing and communicating thought processes, the building blocks of feelings, attitudes and beliefs, which in turn create behaviour. It offers a structured approach to the part language plays in thinking and interpersonal communication. And uniquely, it provides a framework for copying or modelling human excellence.
16
THE NLP COACH?
The NLP Coach?

The mere mention of NLP is enough to send some coaches into apoplectic rage. But others argue that NLP helps to enhance coaching. By Marie-Louise Cook.
Purists may get sniffy about the advance of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) into coaching territory but those who use it say its a welcome evolution. Leading international NLP trainer, writer and consultant, Joseph OConnor, says NLP can be very useful in coaching. Coaching has a broad methodology and is evolving into a distinct profession, he says. Coaching makes sustained cognitive, emotional and behavioural changes that help clients get their goals and enhance their performance in the areas they wish. NLP is a methodology of modelling top performers that gives many insights into good communication skills, so it is very useful in coaching. I think the best results come from using the insights of NLP in the cognitive and linguistic fields to help coaches be very effective. In particular, OConnor says NLP helps with: Rapport. - How to build a relationship of mutual respect and trust without which coaching is unlikely to be successful. Language skills In particular, how language affects thinking and so, how to ask powerful questions. Mental models - How the mental models (beliefs in NLP terms) of the client can limit their thinking and actions Perspectives The key to creative thinking is the ability to take different perspectives and NLP helps clients to do that. although it can be used in therapy. Coaching has a broad methodology and is a profession. NLP is not a profession but a modelling of top performers to understand how they think and act. NLP has also been defined as the study of the structure of subjective experience. Coaching uses many different models, linguistic, behavioural and cognitive. NLP and coaching share common roots and some presuppositions: a positive regard for the client, the importance of relationship and rapport, and the importance of understanding the clients world in the way they see it with no judgement. NLP and coaching share other key characteristics too, according to Ian McDermott and Wendy Jago, co-authors of The NLP Coach (Piatkus, 2001). They are both outcome focussed, customised to the needs and aims of the client; and based on the assumption the client has all the resources he or she needs. They also both: Work in a curiosity frame Help to break down larger, long-term goals into small achievable steps Keep you to your own agenda Increase your awareness of whats happening now Assume that change can be cumulative Assume everyone can engage in lifelong learning provided they want to Work with processes and structure not content
As Albert Einstein said, You cant solve a problem with the same level of thinking that created it. He doesnt believe using NLP crosses a line and takes coaching into a counselling arena. I dont think there is any line crossing because they are different types of model. NLP is not primarily therapeutic
One of the key elements of NLP is that it is based on what works, they say. Its based on how people actually think and behave rather than theories about why they do what they do. So, its grounded in reality, not speculation. And because of this, the tools that NLP offers us are grounded in reality too; they are based on what works, so they deliver what works. From the beginning, NLP involved action: action between people and action
You cant solve a problem with the same level of thinking that created it.
THE NLP COACH?
17
NLP and coaching share common roots...
within people. Coaching is the same: its a process of joint engagement between coach and coachee, working together to achieve the coachees goals. NLP and coaching both start from the belief that you can know what you want and that it is possible given the right way of going about it and the right resources for you to achieve it. And its the job of an NLP coach to help you find the resources you need and go about working towards your goals in a way that will give you the best chance of achieving them. The NLP coach Mary-Jane Hilton of Oxford Life Coaching is a Master NLP Practitioner as well as a trained life coach and says she has used NLP techniques with her coaching clients for so long that its become instinctive. Hilton, who trained as a life coach with the Coaching Academy six years ago and as an NLP practitioner 14 years ago, says I use NLP because its fast, effective and selfempowering for my clients. She gives the example of a young sales consultant who went for life coaching because she was constantly overlooked for promotion. Using NLP, we discovered that she didnt really want the promotion because she wasnt actually enjoying sales and therefore wasnt giving the job 100%. Using coaching techniques, we found what she really wanted to spend her time doing. As a result, she enrolled in a nursing course and I used NLP to help give her the confidence she needed to make such a big change in her life. It seems inevitable that NLP will become more widely used in coaching. Apart from a fear of the new, its difficult to see why any practitioner would object to the addition of such powerful transformational techniques.
FURTHER INFORMATION
Joseph OConnor is co-founder and President of the International Coaching Community (ICC) with over 1,000 trained coaches in 34 countries. For more information, please visit: www.internationalcoachingcommunity. com. For Wendy Jago or Ian McDermott, described as the Coaches Coach, contact ITS at www.itsnlp.com. Life Coach, NLP Practitioner and Clinical Hypnotherapist Mary-Jane Hilton, MA (Oxon) can be contacted at Oxford Life Coaching, Tel: 44 01789 294342.
18
THE EIGHT SECRETS OF GOAL-FREE LIVING
The Eight Secrets Of Goal-Free Living

Ever wondered why the goals youve sweated and struggled over dont always bring you happiness? Stephen Shapiro, author of Goal-Free Living, says setting and pursuing goals is the way to misery.
Goals are not inherently bad, but many individuals have an unhealthy relationship with their goals, distorting this potentially helpful tool into a sure-fire recipe for failure. Why? Quite often, the goals we chase are not our own. Of those I surveyed last year, 53% felt that they live their lives in ways that satisfy others more than themselves. Whose life are you living? Goals can cause you to lose your peripheral vision. When you focus on your goals, you are cutting off potentially greater opportunities from emerging. Goals set you up for failure, say 74% of those surveyed, conceding to disappointment and dissatisfaction when they are unsuccessful in achieving their goals. In fact, 92% fail to achieve their New Years resolutions. That is a lot of discontentment. Goal-Free Living is liberating. It opens new possibilities typically hidden from sight. We often associate goals with our career. While that is a big aspect of our lives, Goal-Free Living applies to all areas of life, from dating to business. Dating When you are on a date, dont worry about the next one. Instead, just enjoy the other persons company ... for that moment. You will come across as being more genuine and less desperate and, ironically, this increases your chances of getting that second date. Holidays When on a holiday, instead of planning every minute of every day, try venturing out into an area not in your guidebook. You may discover some hidden gems. You will feel less hurried and more relaxed. Isnt that what a holiday is all about? Meetings When you attend a business conference, stop focusing on what you will get out of it and how you will use it. Rather, concentrate on just being there and soaking in as much as possible. Incredible opportunities show up when you are unburdened and not blinded by myopic goals. When you are doing something, ask yourself Why am I doing this? If you have a reason - other than just to be there - then you may have a goal. While it is quite acceptable to have a particular interest in an outcome, dont let that specific focus become so dominant that it blinds you to other opportunities.
How does one embark on a more goalfree life? During my travels around the world and after hundreds of interviews, I discovered eight secrets for living goalfree. They are:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
Use a compass, not a map. Have a sense of direction (not a specific destination), and then meander with purpose. Trust that you are never lost: every seemingly wrong turn is an opportunity to learn and experience new things. Remember that opportunity knocks often but sometimes softly. While blindly pursuing our goals, we often miss unexpected and wonderful possibilities. Want what you have. Measure your life by your own yardstick and appreciate who you are, what you do, and what you have ... now. Seek out adventure. Treat your life like a one timeonly journey, and revel in new and different experiences. Become a people magnet. Constantly attract, build, and nurture relationships with new people so that you always have the support and camaraderie of others. Embrace your limits. Transform your inadequacies and boundaries into unique qualities that you can use to your advantage. Remain detached. Focus on the present, act with a commitment to the future, and avoid worrying about how things will turn out. For each of these secrets, there are a number of tips for implementing the concept. Here are a few you can try today: Set themes not resolutions. Rather than set a resolution (i.e. a goal), choose one word to describe your next year. Choose something that
Stephen Shapiro
Success and happiness are unarguably our Holy Grails but the standards taught to find them are all wrong. We have been brainwashed into believing that the only way to achieve this elusive combination of success and happiness is through setting goals. This is simply not true. In fact, goal setting is often the shortest route to discontentment. In a survey of 1,000 Americans I conducted last year, 58% said that they are consciously sacrificing todays happiness in the belief that achieving their goals will bring fulfilment. Sadly, 41% said that each goal achieved brings little, if any, satisfaction, despite all the hard work. So, what do they do? They set another goal. This creates a perpetual cycle of sacrifice and disillusionment. What is the solution? Goal-Free Living was born out of my travels during the summer of 2003 when I met and interviewed 150 passionate individuals to learn how they lived fulfilling happy lives. After interviewing hundreds of people and surveying thousands, I discovered that the most passionate, creative, and sometimes wealthiest people live free from the burden of traditional goals. Instead, they have mastered the rare skill of enjoying now rather than delaying gratification until the future.
FOUR STEPS TO CONFIDENT COACHING
is bold and inspires you. Instead of losing 10 pounds, you could choose health. Relationships, in the broadest sense, may work better for you than finding a boyfriend. Any word will do: grace, adventure, serenity, or play. Use could do lists rather than to do lists. To do lists tend to be draining, as they are the things you feel you must do. Could do lists contain those things that you want to do that inspire you. They keep possibility in front of you. Keep your list of could do items large and your list of to do items small. Change your filter. One creative way to seek out adventure is to make believe you are another person: an artist, a musician, or a doctor. It doesnt matter, as long as it is someone other than you. When you live your normal day standing in the shoes of someone else, you will see things you have never seen before. Appreciate the whole spectrum of life. Create contrasts to help you appreciate where you are right now. Sleep in a tent and sleeping bag versus always staying in a five-star hotel. Volunteer for a charity. Take the bus to work. Eat at a greasy spoon diner. Swap jobs with someone with a less glamorous assignment for a week. Experience the whole spectrum of life.
19
Four Steps to Confident Coaching

You have the qualifications to be a coach so what makes you so hesitant? Coaching mentor, David Wood believes it all comes down to confidence.
David Wood
Have you ever felt unsure of yourself as a coach? Scared that you might not have an answer for someone? Worried youll give the wrong advice? Concerned theyll think youre a fraud? The biggest difference I seem to make with the new coaches I mentor is in the area of confidence. Sure, I help them with designing their unique coaching session, marketing and business set-up but their main block is often a lack of confidence. What if you have right now much more to offer a client than you think? What if you could make a big difference to someones life right now? What if you could go out and get 10 new clients after reading the information in this article? In my CoachStart Manual, I detail seven insights that will help you obtain confidence. Right now, Id like to share the first four insights with you. Here are some valuable things that you can offer a client immediately:
2.
Being there each week Its amazing how much a person will do because there is someone to hold them accountable. They know next week you are going to ask them, Did you do it? Just by being there, you are helping them to discover what is important in their life. Its like having a running partner. Without your partner there, you might not go very far or even bother to get out of bed to go for a run. With your partner, your attention is focussed on the running and you will run further, faster and with more excitement.
3.
A sounding board Being able to talk about their issues lends clarity to your clients. Just discussing what has been clanging around their heads all week is valuable. Have you ever tried to solve a problem and got nowhere until you had a chance to talk about it with someone? You are giving your clients an opportunity to do that every week.
4.
The origin of the word goal comes from the Old English word for obstacles or a hindrance. In order to achieve a goal, you must work hard to overcome these barriers and roadblocks. Conversely, the origin of the word aspiration is the same as the Latin word for spirit and inspire which mean, to breathe into or panting with desire. Barriers or inspiration: which would you prefer?
A second head You may be able to see what they are doing in a new light. You may have a different perspective allowing you to see their blind spots. Some things may be obvious to you but dont even occur to them. You might have different ideas. These are just a few of your amazing qualities. You can make a difference to the people around you and the best thing you can do right now is to believe this yourself.
1.
FURTHER INFORMATION
Stephen Shapiro has inspired people in 27 countries with his speeches on creativity and innovation and is the author of Goal-Free Living: How to Have the Life You Want NOW! Visit www.GoalFree.com and www.24-7Innovation.com for more information.
The way you listen Most people listen in the waiting for my turn to speak mode or they are busy noticing whether what they are hearing is boring or entertaining. But the coach listens with undivided attention. A coach listens and thinks, Is this moving forward? Does this sound like what they really want? Are there actionable steps to take? Simply by both of you coming together to look for ways your client can progress, you are giving your client something he or she doesnt normally get from a conversation.
FURTHER INFORMATION
David Wood is a certified life coach. He helps coaches, consultants, speakers and trainers to build their businesses via his e-book at www.10SuperCoaches.com and his audio e-book at www.FirstFif tyClients.com. Visit his website, www.solutionbox.com.
20
EXECUTIVE COACHING
10 KEY FACTORS THAT GUARANTEE SUCCESS
10 Key Factors That
Guarantee Success
The most comprehensive survey of coaching in business ever conducted, the coaching research project 2005, will help both managers and coaches, says Frank Bresser MBA (London), the author of the leading edge report. He explains how.
framework on the basis of a very extensive evaluation and integration of nearly 150 relevant literature sources and of its own leading-edge primary research activities (worldwide coaching survey 2005, a transatlantic coaching pilot project, and a series of 12 interviews with top coaches and coaching managers). The core essence, the 10 key success factors for the implementation of coaching, are a must know for everybody involved in coaching programmes in business. The challenge for organisations to implement coaching successfully is evident. While it is clearly perceived and acknowledged as a tremendous source of competitive advantage, it is a very young discipline and there is an obvious lack of practical, reliable guidance on how to implement it in the best way. Plenty of fragmented and dispersed theories and models about coaching may have emerged but most often they simply deal with coaching and do not address the core question of what steps and procedures organisations need to establish to produce the best results. Moreover, most of these models are highly subjective, they are not comprehensive, not backed up by research findings or put into context with other models and findings. As a result, Human Resource (HR) managers have very little dependable literature to consult or rely on. From the managerial point of view, the lack of implementation tools, as well as the fact that the findings that do exist are highly fragmented and difficult to grasp represents a serious obstacle to efforts to implement coaching successfully. In many cases, coaching is still approached in a very unsystematic way and much better results could be achieved if more practical implementation tools were available. In particular, the need for a comprehensive implementation framework for management action has become increasingly evident. The coaching research project 2005, supported by the East London Business School and many other organisations, now provides this much needed
The 10 Key Factors
1.
Organisation defined coaching As coaching may mean very different things to different people, it is necessary to make a clear decision about what the organisation specifically understands coaching to be to ensure that organisational goals are met at any time. The process of defining coaching is a vital part of the implementation decision process itself and requires thorough reflection right from the beginning.
2.
Systematic approach Planning coaching programmes is vital. Excellent HR managers start by developing a systematic, comprehensive coaching concept, covering the various stages of the programme such as preparation, introduction, enlargement, maintenance and evaluation. The goals, objectives and responsibilities are clearly set as are the rules governing the different coaching measures. The links between the programme and other activities in the organisation are well established and the programme is embedded in the overall strategy. Furthermore, the coaching concept is both rigorous and flexible.
3.
Choice of implementation Different levels of implementation and penetration of coaching are dependent on the desired coaching benefits and how receptive an organisation is to coaching. When they are deliberately chosen to achieve the most appropriate degree of penetration the coaching measures taken are much more likely to achieve the desired outcomes. Possible designs for coaching programmes range from the simple contracting of one external coach to creating a complete coaching culture and leadership style in a global company. HR managers are only able to make use of and choose from this full range of levels effectively if they have sufficient coaching literature to completely understand the differences and to consider the pros and cons properly. This knowledge is frequently missing in organisations.
4.
Involvement of the top It is critical to get the support of top management for any coaching programme. This ensures the necessary organisational support, resources and strategic consistency throughout the organisation. Where support for a coaching programme is lacking, the initiative is unlikely to be widespread or sustainable.
6. 7. 8. 9.
EXECUTIVE COACHING
10 KEY FACTORS THAT GUARANTEE SUCCESS
21
The implementation of coaching is an ongoing learning process that requires constant review and optimisation...
Win-win situations for all For a coaching programme to thrive, it is important to create a situation in which all parties involved may benefit from coaching. Successful coaching initiatives are based on mutual respect and trust, good working relationships and a collaborative approach in which the various stakeholders regard each other as partners rather than adversaries. Creating win-win situations therefore demands the commitment of all parties to work together. Accordingly, coaching concepts should be designed in such a way that they meet the interests of and bring about benefits for all stakeholders. Full strategic consistency Achieving the alignment of coaching measures with the corporate, business and functional strategies of an organisation is vital. Coaching programmes need to tie in with the other business activities and support the overall organisational strategy in order to add value and sustain. Coaching initiatives that contradict business strategy will most likely be rejected by the organisation in some way. To be able to implement new strategies, the support of the top management becomes crucial. Complete transparency When everybody within the organisation has a precise idea of and a clear picture about the procedures and there are steps in place and a rationale behind these, coaching measures become trustworthy, well-understood and attractive to people. Coaching should therefore never be kept a secret in any way by HR management but made fully open and inviting. Effective and careful evaluation Adequate evaluation is essential to track the outcomes achieved by coaching and to optimise the coaching programme on a continuous basis. By the demonstration of the benefits of coaching measures, their credibility and acceptance in the organisation are best ensured. At the same time, evaluation needs to be done carefully to ensure that there is a balance between evaluation and confidentiality.
The evaluation of coaching measures may therefore take very different forms and will depend greatly upon the nature of the coaching programme and the goals envisaged by the organisation that will finally be preferable (for example, qualitative questionnaire or quantitive return on investment or ROI calculation). Tailoring an appropriate evaluation strategy in accordance with the circumstances of each case is most likely to bring about the most useful and adequate insights.
10.
Integrity and quality Coaching programmes have a very good chance of succeeding and achieving the desired acceptance if it is made absolutely clear from the outset that high standards of integrity and quality apply and will be observed without exception. The implementation of coaching is an ongoing learning process that requires constant review and optimisation on a permanent basis. Excellent HR managers are fully aware of the need to keep working steadily on coaching programmes, to encourage open discussions about implementation issues in the organisation, to support continuous professional development of all parties involved, and to seek the exchange of ideas and experiences with colleagues from other organisations as an invaluable additional source of inspiration. It is through this kind of long-term commitment to continuous learning that the key capability of well-founded implementation intelligence, which is necessary to produce outstanding results from coaching programmes, can develop.
It is also highly recommended that the implementation of any coaching programme start at the top with the top managers acting as role models and living demonstrations of the coaching idea. A top-down approach gives the coaching programme high credibility from the start and creates a positive learning atmosphere that is ideal to make coaching thrive in the organisation.
5.
Marketing coaching as positive It is vital that coaching is approached, branded and marketed as a resourceoriented, positive developmental service rather than as a remedial tool. This ensures all participants have the necessary commitment and willingness to make coaching produce the best results. They will also fully appreciate the service from the outset and, in many instances, perceive and experience coaching as some kind of incentive. Any impression that a coaching programme is remedial or only for poor performers can put the entire coaching initiative at risk.
FURTHER INFORMATION
International corporate coach Frank Bresser is the author of coaching literature, head of the coaching research project 2005, organiser of coaching programmes and trainer on coaching and the use of coaching in organisations. Visit his website: www.frank-bresser.com.
A longer version of this article was first published in: Bresser, F. (2005 and 2006) Best implementation of coaching in business, Coach the Coach, Fenman Ltd. Issues 20 and 21, Section Coaching Today, Dec 05 and Jan 06.
22
BUSINESS BUILDING
WHY YOU SHOULD NEVER SELL COACHING
Why you should
Never
Steve Mitten
How do you convince prospective clients they need your coaching services? Steve Mitten, Master Coach, business strategist and author of Marketing Essentials for Coaches, explains the best way of attracting clients.
Few people will buy an expensive product theyve never tried and know very little about which is why it is nearly impossible to sell coaching. So what can you do to attract clients? For someone to buy your coaching service they need to know what it is and how it can help them. They must perceive your service to be a solution to one of their existing problems. They need to know and trust you and have a very good sense that you are competent and fairly priced. While very few people are actually looking for a coach or have reached the conclusion that a coach is the answer to any of their existing problems, they will all have dreams or challenges or want to make changes in their lives. Your job is to find the easiest way to have all of these people seeing you as a means of achieving their dreams, overcoming their challenges and effecting great changes. If you can do that, you will have all the clients you will ever need. To accomplish this you need to use the most powerful and well-established principle of building a coaching practice: Give to Get. The best way to build up your client base is to simply give away great experiences of coaching to qualified prospects from the 5% of the population that has the inclination to change and the income to afford one-on-one coaching. Work with a prospect on dreams, challenges, or the changes he or she is experiencing and that prospect will begin to see coaching as a powerful way to connect with and realise the results he or she most wants. If you do this with qualified prospects you will get lots of clients. If you
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Sell Coaching
contact six qualified prospects (qualified by age, inclination and income) with an offer of coaching, at least three will agree to a sample coaching session. And if you give three qualified prospects a great sample coaching session, at least one will become your client. Understanding the prospects mind To convert a potential client into a paying customer your coaching needs to overcome any of the doubts and fears your client may have. You want them to experience the feelings associated with the better future they imagine is possible by working with you. Your job is to help them identify and experience (at an emotional level) the feelings of those future benefits. If you can help a qualified prospect feel their deepest desires and address any legitimate concerns they might have, you will have a client. How to give a great sample session In the early stages of your coaching business, your ability to deliver a great sample session is a critical factor in building a successful coaching practice. Since most prospects have never worked with a coach, dont understand coaching, and probably arent even looking for a coach, a sample session is often your best way of introducing them to the process, giving them experience of the benefits, allowing them to see the potential payoff, and thus moving them to a place where they would want to work with you. After years of experimentation, I have created a plan with some of the key components that will help you deliver powerful sample sessions. Remember, coaching is most powerful when it is fluid, natural, and unscripted so dont try to impose these steps in a mechanical way. 1) Coach important matters Sometimes when you engage a prospect in a sample session and ask them what they want to work on they will reply with something superficial. They might say, I need to organise my garage. Respond by affirming you both could certainly spend time on that then inquire if they might have something a little more important - perhaps a dream, challenge, or change they want to make - for which they would like some coaching. If you can help them make a breakthrough on a dream or a big challenge they are facing, the prospect will more fully appreciate the value of coaching. 2) Lead into the future Lets say a person wants coaching on a big goal or dream. Ask, If you are really successful with this, where will you be in XYZ months? You want them to create and experience a very clear and compelling vision of the most successful outcome. 3) Find the meaning Once a prospect has described where they would be if the coaching was hugely successful, explore the meaning of that goal. What is important about this goal to you? or What will achieving this goal give you? By doing this, you will be moving them out of their thoughts about the goal - which have a short shelf life - into the more powerful realm of the meaning and emotions associated with the goal. 4) Explore the emotions Once you have a prospect in touch with his or her most desired outcome, continue to explore the emotional payoff. What will you be feeling when you know your dream has come true? Ideally, you want the prospect to see, touch, taste or otherwise embody the emotional reward. Again you are building the prospects emotional connection to the goal; this emotion will fuel the actions needed to overcome all the obstacles in the way. Naturally, there will be situations - perhaps a business client who is not comfortable in discussing emotions with you yet - where you might wisely choose not to explore the emotions associated with a goal. 5) Coach the person too Remember the most powerful work you will do is in coaching the prospect, not the situation. So dont forget to explore who the prospect wants to be and the qualities they need to bring forth to achieve the desired outcome. If the prospect wants to get into a leadership position in their career, for example, explore what leadership qualities they need to bring out or develop to become the best possible leader. And wherever possible, coach the prospect to a place where they feel and physically embody these qualities. If you get your prospects to this place, nothing will stop them. 6) Find the payoff Find out what it would be worth to your prospect if they were successful in achieving their desired outcome. So if you do find a job you love (double your sales, lower your stress, improve your health etc) what would it be worth to you? The answer to this question may or may not be financial but as long as the prospect connects with or reflects on the value or importance of the changes they might make through coaching, they will be far less likely to begrudge paying for your services. 7) Return to now. Take action Once the prospect has seen and experienced the outcome they want and experienced the associated meaning and emotions, bring them back to the present and wrap-up the sample session by asking: So what is the next - or first - step forward? Coach the person to identify one tangible first step and set up some accountability, so the step gets taken. 8) Ask for the business Once you have taken a prospect through a powerful sample session, the two of you will have a sense of whether there is a fit. From your side, you simply need to confirm you would like to work with this prospect (and that they can afford to hire you). You can say, in your own words, with integrity and authenticity, That is a powerful vision you have for your future. If you are serious about realizing it, I would love to be your coach. Or, I really enjoyed coaching you. If you want some support in reaching your dream, I would love to be your coach. Find a way to point out that knowledge and intention alone does not translate into changing behaviour. Otherwise everyone would keep their New Years Resolutions. The format of coaching allows the focus, accountability and growth necessary to make changes happen and stick. If you can get this point across, you will get your share of enthusiastic clients.
FURTHER INFORMATION
Steve Mitten is a Master Certified Coach, Business Strategist and the former President of the International Coach Federation. For further information about Marketing Essentials for Coaches (revised 2006), visit www.acoach4u.com.
Sarah-Jane Menato is more passionate than ever about her work, even after 25 years as a professional coach and training consultant.
My Day
I wake up early, usually before six thirty. I love the quiet softness of new mornings and sip my way slowly through two very large mugs of tea before the rest of my world wakes up and wants to play. Mornings are a reflective time for me to write, journal or just sit quietly contemplating. Im 48, divorced and live with my 13-yearold daughter in Blockley, a quintessential Cotswolds village. We moved here two years ago after a brief period in London. We were looking at secondary schools for my daughter and moving out of London gave us a better choice of schools. It was on my return to England four years ago from the US that I first explored selfemployment. Id always loved my career but after 20 years providing training and mentoring to support the vision and goals of organisations in Europe, South Africa and the United States, I was ready to explore what supporting and living my own vision would be like. So, I looked at my skill set on my CV, extracted my favourites and simply set up doing the work I had done for so long but this time, for myself, on my own terms. I looked for a course to help me work through the various issues that surface for a woman considering self-employment. A variety of weighty priorities need balancing such as children and home life. I sorely needed a structure and guidance to think those through but all I could find were courses on financial and marketing issues run by organisations like Business Link and various Enterprise Agencies. I realised there was nothing for someone like me, and it was out of this research that my niche has developed. I designed a course that is exactly what I would have wanted when I was starting out on my own. It has grown into a successful
programme that I now run here in the Cotswolds and also in London. At this point, Im cutting back on work I do in London. Ive spent so much time on the M40 I know every inch of it. Id like to be getting to know my more local (and beautiful!) surrounds as thoroughly. As with all things, its a balance and Im almost there. My ideal week is two days of coaching, two of training and one day for administration each week. It doesnt always work that way, but its fantastic when it does. The combination of group work and individual coaching is something I thrive on. The days I am based in the Cotswolds, from 7.15am to 8.10am is a scene that any of you getting children off to school will be familiar with! Once my daughter, her backpack, saxophone and sports kit vanish out the door, I take our little dog for a walk in the hills around the village for at least half an hour. When I am walking, Im able to think my way through important issues without getting stuck. The act of walking seems to correspond with some internal movement and I have always said I can walk my way through anything. Then its home to my desk which is currently in my lovely large kitchen. I am so grateful I have been able to pull off selfemployment. My respect and admiration for my clients comes out of my own experience of knowing just what it takes to define success on your own terms and to remain true to your own vision. I do 50-minute sessions with my telephone clients. I find it take three months to really make and sustain changes so always suggest that clients sign up for a minimum of three months. We schedule sessions at the same time each week and clients pay for four sessions in advance. I find a maximum of five telephone clients a day is
what works for me. I do two types of face-to-face coaching. One involves weekly sessions over several months and the other, called The Symbols Way, is a one-off intensive session that takes two-and-a-half hours. It works really well for anyone on the threshold of change. Some part of each week I spend planning future work. As a self-employed person its essential to be proactive about where work is going to come from. Im asked to do quite a lot of speaking at events. Its a great way to get to know people and keep expanding my own understanding of what people want from a coach. I speak on a range of topics that include time management, the role of vision and passion at work, networking and work/life balance. These days I am paid to speak, but when I first started out, I took on speaking engagements simply to have the opportunity to show people who I was and what I had to offer them. My evenings are generally spent at home with my daughter. All that I have loved about the different stages of my life in all the different parts of the world where I have lived and worked is present now, even if just in essence, in my daily experience of waking up enveloped in the beauty and softness of the Cotswold Hills. Its a wonderful life, and Im grateful to live it every day.
You can contact Sarah-Jane Menato, Personal and Professional Coach and Training Consultant, at sjm@insideout-training.co.uk, www.insideout-training.co.uk or telephone: 07795 482 395 or 01386 701 868.

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