Month: May 2016 Page 1 of 2

Next week it will be 15 years since I started my training to be an executive and corporate coach.

I remember on the first morning of the course, we were asked to take a piece of flipchart paper and draw a picture of what we would like to achieve from the course. We then had to explain what our picture represented to all the other participants. The course included both group and one to one sessions and spanned a 6 month period.

It’s good evidence of the power of visualisation that I am still able to recall the contents of my poster all these years later. I remember my drawing was quite simple (I am no Picasso, Van Gogh or Constable!). It included an oak tree, a £ symbol, a book and smiley face.

The oak tree represented growth and that I wanted the course to help me develop a solid business offering from corporate coaching.

The £ symbol was to illustrate that I had a desire to generate enough coaching work initially to pay back the considerable investment I had made in the training and to ultimately enable me to make a living from my newly acquired skill.

The book was for learning and acquiring knowledge.

The smiley face was included because I wanted to enjoy the course and to be a successful coach. This would help to meet my own objective of achieving personal success and happiness in life.

When I created that simple vision, I had no comprehension of how my coaching work would develop and grow. It was a complete leap of faith and one that I don’t regret. I am very grateful that my coaching work has introduced me to many clients from different sectors and walks of life and also enabled me to work nationally and internationally.

What’s interesting is that I achieved all of those objectives and exceeded my expectations. My first coaching contract gained within 6 months helped to cover the cost of the course and provided a small surplus to invest in the development of my coaching offering. I share details of my experience in an effort to give heart and to inspire anyone that is contemplating pursuing a personal passion or goal. Someone once helpfully shared a phrase which has stuck with me and has helped when I have been contemplating starting something new. The phrase was “if you jump, the net appears!”

When I set the vision, I didn’t imagine that in addition to doing lots of one to one work, I would have the opportunity to train hundreds of people in coaching skills. It has come full circle and I love having the chance to share my experience and knowledge. It’s a privilege to be able to help people develop their coaching confidence and capability.

Coaching skills are a great transferable skill to have and can be applied in a variety of personal and professional situations. They support people to unlock and maximise their potential. They help to create positive and high performing work environments that produce greater engagement, accountability and results.

Having first class coaching skills help to improve sales, communication and influencing skills and leads to more collaborative and better relationships. They assist with the increase of employee and customer satisfaction.

In addition to having a genuine belief in people’s potential, I believe the key skills and qualities that help people to be first class coaches and get the best out of people are:

• Great self-awareness (understanding strengths/development needs and your impact on others).
• Asking effective questions (that bring clarity, get to the core of issues and help people create their own solutions and to move forward).
• Active listening (fully listening with all senses to help people feel understood, heard and important. Being in the moment, free from distractions).
• Setting clear outcomes (using proven frameworks and models to create clear action steps with milestones and mechanisms for accountability and follow up).
• Challenge with good intention (trusting your instincts and ensuring the coachee is speaking their truth and stepping out of their comfort to achieve what they are capable of).
• Being objective and non-judgemental (not being influenced by personal feelings or opinions when considering facts. Also not making moral judgements).
• Providing constructive feedback (summarising and reflecting back what the coachee has verbalised to bring clarity and greater understanding when asked to do so).
• Build people rapport and put people at ease (helps to quickly build trust and openness. It’s vital that the coachee feels safe to articulate what they are thinking and feeling).

Whilst all of the above are important, there are 3 skills that I believe are particularly vital to master in order to be a first class coach, to unlock potential and help people to generate increased results faster. These are particularly important in today’s busy information rich time poor world. In my view they are asking effective questions, active listening and setting clear outcomes.

This week, why not take some time to reflect and think about what you consider to be a strength from the list of qualities that I’ve mentioned. Is there one quality on the list that you could develop?

This week’s quotation:

“Never underestimate the power of dreams and the influence of the human spirit. We are all the same in this notion. The potential for greatness lives within each of us.” Wilma Rudolph.

To arrange a free no obligation consultation, please contact Stephen Pauley via the contact form or by e mail: Stephen@befirstclass.co.uk

We live in a busy world and it’s very easy for our minds to get overloaded with all the information we have to process, analyse and assimilate. There are so many forms of technology battling to get our attention and focus. Our minds can easily feel very busy and overwhelmed.

Using our minds to think through issues logically and to formulate plans and strategies to meet goals and challenges is a great skill to have. However, as with all things, if we over use this trait and over think situations, it can be counterproductive. It can mean that we procrastinate, tie ourselves in knots and lose focus and efficiency. Having a busy mind, full of information and mental chatter prevents us from being able to hear the quiet, subtle and powerful messages provided by our inner guidance system or intuition. Albert Einstein once said that the only really valuable thing is intuition.

Lynn Robinson in her excellent book Trust Your Gut (How the Power of Intuition Can Grow Your Business) mentions various business people, scientists and philosophers who have proclaimed the importance of intuition.

Here are a few examples:-

Jonas Salk, the developer of the Polio vaccine, wrote “The intuitive mind tells the logical mind where to look next.”

Warren Bennis, author of books on leadership, change and management calls intuition his “inner voice” and says that listening to and trusting it is one of the most important leadership lessons he learned.

Richard Branson, the entrepreneurial founder of the Virgin Group stated “I rely far more on gut instinct than researching huge amounts of statistics.”

Clothing designer Donna Karan said “One of our greatest gifts is our intuition. It’s a sixth sense we all have and we just need to learn to tap into and trust it.”

Buckminster Fuller, the futurist, architect and inventor with 28 patents to his name was a big believer in using the power of inner wisdom to create an extraordinary life. He said “Intuition often turns dreams into demonstrable fact.”

The dictionary describes intuition as “the ability to understand something instinctively without the need for conscious reasoning.” Essentially, some things just feel right or not right and it doesn’t need over-analysis. We have to learn to trust our instincts and feelings on a topic.

Lynn Robinson provides two schools of thought about the origins of intuition:-

• Synthesis of prior knowledge – a blend of logic, experience and subconscious information that’s stored in your mind and recalled when needed.
• A higher power-divine intelligence “a compass of the soul” that guides informs and directs you towards success.

There are plenty situations when it’s important to listen to your intuition, for example, when there’s insufficient data, too much information or conflicting data or when you need to make a quick decision. It also helps when your individual or team vision has become foggy, when you feel stuck, if data seems to support several different options or you need to come up with outside the box ideas.

Intuition is a resource if nurtured that can create a calmer, focus and a more productive way of being. Lynn Robinson suggests it can lead to increased sales and profitability, better recruitment, creative inventions, advantageous negotiations and increased accuracy in forecasting business trends.

Here are some tips to help you develop the ability to hear and trust the messages from your intuition more often.

Ask your intuition for help

When faced with a challenge you can ask for guidance from your intuition. You can ask a specific question about what steps/action you can take to address matters. Let the question sit and record answers in a notebook when they appear. This helps bring clarity about the way forward. It’s also a useful future reference point to see if the guidance was on target, which helps develop confidence to trust your inner voice.

Quieten your mind

It’s vital that you reduce the amount of mental chatter and activity so that you can hear the subtle and quiet intuitive messages. Taking time to meditate regularly, practice yoga or mindfulness techniques will help to achieve this.

Notice physical reactions in your body

Instincts, hunches and intuition tend to give a physical feeling in your body. Start to tune into this by noticing when you have a good or uncomfortable feeling. Ask yourself, what your body is trying to tell you about a decision you have to make, a goal or challenge or an opportunity that you have to consider.

Take regular breaks from your routine

When your mind is full and overworked, it’s vital that you take a break from your normal routine and create some space. A great way to do this is to spend some time in nature. Go for a walk or do some form of exercise. A walk in a wood or by the sea will help provide some calmness and restore energy levels. New and creative ideas seem to flow from time spent in this way.

This week why not take a few moments and reflect on how busy your mind is. What action steps can you take to quieten your mind?

This week’s quotation:

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.”  Steve Jobs

To arrange a free no obligation consultation, please contact Stephen Pauley via the contact form or by e mail: Stephen@befirstclass.co.uk

This week represents a special and important week for me, as I’m publishing my new book Be First Class (Insights, stories and tips to help you to the best you can be personally and professionally).

It’s a big moment as it has been a long held ambition of mine to write a book and share some of the knowledge I’ve acquired from my corporate career and 15 years as an executive coach and facilitator.

The main purpose of the book is to help people discover and fulfil more of their potential. The inspiration for the structure of the book came to me when I started publishing these blogs each week. I have taken some of the most popular blog titles, adapted some of the content and written some new material.

Modern life is busy, so I’ve written the book with short chapters in a style that will enable people to fit reading and reflection into a busy schedule. It’s divided into 52 chapters which contain insights, stories and tips. Each chapter also includes a thought provoking quotation and questions to help people reflect and find the right answers for them. I have created it so that it’s like a personal development programme.

People will be able to focus on a chapter per week or at a slower/faster pace to suit their schedules. Alternatively, they can read it cover to cover and then go back and complete the various exercises and answer the questions.

My wish is that by sharing the information and knowledge, people will glean an insight or take away a piece of information that has a positive impact on their life and results. Hopefully, that insight will also enable them to make a positive difference to the lives of others. Their example could be a source of inspiration and encouragement to other people to be the best they can be. It can be like a positive ripple.

Many people have asked me to share my insights and lessons from the book writing process.

There are lots of things that I have learned from completing the book and these lessons can be the subject of a future blog.

I guess the thing that struck me the most when I reflected on the experience was that the importance of self-discipline. I scheduled time slots into my diary for writing and I made sure that I stuck to those plans, which wasn’t always easy. I set myself a target to write 500 words at each session. I did this as a minimum and when I had more time available I was able to write more than this. It meant the book took a fair amount of time to complete but I got there in the end.

This leads me onto another big insight for me which is that small actions and disciplines applied consistently produce big results. The book came together step by step.

My advice for anyone considering writing a book would be to plan some writing time, stick to the plan and constantly remind yourself of the power of small actions applied consistently. I enjoyed writing the book and another realisation for me was that we do best what we enjoy and feel passionate about.

This week, why not take a few moments to reflect and consider if there is a goal or dream that you would like to fulfil but haven’t yet accomplished. Are you able to take some action to progress things? What could be your first step?

This week’s quotation:-

“To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.” Anatole France.

You can purchase your copy of the Be First Class book by clicking here.

To arrange a free no obligation consultation, please contact Stephen Pauley via the contact form or by e mail: Stephen@befirstclass.co.uk