Coaches Corner~Evidence

As an extraordinary coach it's a great idea to share your victories with your clients. Sharing your victories with your clients lets them know that they too can have victory and I'm about to share a victory with you right now. Before the victory though, let me tell you a little about God. If you've read this blog then you know sometimes I do talk about God. I talk about God in the context of being an extraordinary coach and in the context of living an exceptional life. Many people wonder if God is for them and the people that understand that God is for them, they sometimes think that God has left them and that reminds me of a story that I once heard about a little boy who was out flying a kite. As he flew his kite, it got higher, and higher, and higher, and pretty soon the kite got to the place where he was not even able to see the kite.

A passerby asked the child what he was doing and he said that he was flying a kite. They said, "Well now, how do you know that you are flying a kite?" He says, "Well, it's pretty high and every now and then I feel just a little bit of a tug." That's the same way God works in the lives of his people. It may seem like God is not there and when you're having good experiences you know that God is there.  But you just don't have the evidence. Every now and then something exceptional happens and if you're a God fearing Christian like myself, the take that you put on it is, wow that was a little tug. I know that God is flowing with me, I know that I'm flowing with God. I had such a tug this morning as I was driving into the office. I'm following this car and I get a little distracted as I look into my rear view mirror and all of a sudden I look back in the front of me and I'm inches away from a car and I hit my brakes just in time to avoid an accident.

That wasn't good enough because as I'm driving, traffic is pretty heavy, it's early in the morning, and on more than one occasion I've slipped into the carpool lane to try to avoid the traffic even though I'm the only person in the car. Slipping into the carpool lane, well that's something that I do from time to time. This morning I had the option to do that as I looked over in the carpool lane and chose, "I think I'll obey the law today, I think I'll drive in the lane that I'm in."  As I'm driving into the office, not a few minutes after I made that decision, alongside me on the left is a motorcycle, California Highway Patrol. A California Highway Patrolman that's just passing me by that if I was over in that carpool lane, I would have got an expensive ticket. For me that was a little tug. God was giving me a little tug, letting me know that I was on the right track, letting me know that I was doing things according to his will. Was that God? Was it a little tug? Who really knows?

But because I'm an extraordinary coach I know the value of looking at things in a certain way. I know the value of telling myself an empowering story and the empowering story I told myself was that God gave me a little tug. I share this story with you because God is probably giving you little tugs right now, he's probably given you little tugs that you haven't even noticed. I'm saying capitalize on those little tugs, use those little tugs to empower yourself, to move yourself forward, to push yourself in the direction that you want to go. Not only am I suggesting that you find those little tugs and elaborate on those little tugs but I'm saying, share those little tugs with your clients because part of being an extraordinary coach is putting your clients in a great place and who would not like an occasional tug from God. I know I do.

If this blog has helped you please pass it on to a friend, or a relative, or anybody you think might benefit from hearing or reading this blog. I like to end my blogs as I end all of them by asking you to have yourself a good time until the next time and treat this blog as a little tug from God.

Coaches Corner~Responsibility

We have heard people talk about society. When we're talking as I just did, we often use the term "people" when we are discussing what our take is about what people do. Everyone is familiar with the inescapable use of the word "they." Well now, what does they mean? What does "people" mean?

When we discuss those things and try to give a faceless identity to something that's heard to identify, we are really talking about ourselves. As we go through and lament the events that occurred recently, and the events that may occur in the future, we must be mindful of the fact that none of us have done extensive research or have any idea about what anyone other than ourselves think.

As an extraordinary coach, you may find yourself doing the absolute same thing. You may find yourself repeating what you hear on the news. You may mind yourself repeating what you read in the newspapers. The question that I am putting to you is: What are you going to do? What contribution can you make? All of us in the success game understand that it might help us benefit our lives and our clients more if we would take a look at what everyone else is doing and do just the opposite. There is no shortage of people complaining about racism. There's no shortage of people alluding to the pundits. There's no shortage of people thinking of ways in which they can be victims. There's no shortage of people who are experiencing fear and disguising it in a number of different ways. I encourage you to do something different.

One of my favorite books, the Bible, talks about examining yourself when it's time to take communion. I suppose you can examine yourself in others points in your life as well, but why don't we daily examine ourselves and ask ourselves what are we doing to combat the ills of the world. We all know that death and life is in the power of the tongue. We know that what we say has a huge impact on what we do and what we get.

I am encouraging you to release the narrative about the maladies of society. I'm asking you to eliminate the need for you to find out what's going on. I'm asking you to consider how much of the news do you really have to know. That's a good question. Rather than doing that daily, weekly, hourly, ask yourself what are you doing. Everyone knows that forgiveness is a good idea, and the recent events in Charleston, South Carolina demonstrated the power of forgiveness. It demonstrated how people who incurred such tragedy were able to forgive.

What about you? Why don't you make a conscious decision to forgive? Forgive everyone. You don't do anybody any injustice by not forgiving them. You don't cheat them out of anything by not forgiving them. You cheat yourself. Forgiveness it not letting somebody get away with someone. Forgiveness is releasing yourself. To not forgive, to carry around unforgiveness is akin to you taking poison and expecting the other person to die, and they will not.

The focus of this blog is to make a conscious decision, take control of your own mind, eliminate fear from your mind, and do something. You do something. When you do something, share with others about what you have done and the good that you have done. Share with someone how you did something different from what the general population does. Because as long as you, and I'm speaking specifically to you as an extraordinary coach, as long as you continue to follow the prevailing narrative of woe is me, of racism is terrible, of this country has a lot of work to do with gun control, and as long as you continue to focus on those things, those things will be here.
Have the faith that things will get better and you make a decision to do something, not me. I'll handle me. You make a decision to do something. As always, I end my blog with the same words. If it's blessed you of it's helped you, please pass it on to someone that you care about, someone that you know, someone who needs encouragement to do something themselves rather than simply follow the prevailing narrative. Until next time, have a good time.

Coaches Corner~Besties

Even if you are not an extraordinary coach, which I assert that you are. Everyone that you met, saw, influenced or were influenced by, thinks that you are better than they. Even the people that you admire think that you are better than they. Even the people that you don't know, like the president of the United States or the First Lady, even Tom Brady of the New England Patriots;  Were they to meet you in person, at the very deepest level of their core, they would think that you are better than they. You are an extraordinary coach, for sure. Most of the people in your circle of influence, the people you influence, all the people you're influenced by, most of them think that you are better then they. Whether or not you are better than they is not of concern for this blog, Whether or not you are better than they is not some place you can waste your time if you hope to do any thing fruitful with your life. The point of selling you on the fact that most people that you meet think that you are better than they is to get you present to the fact that most people you meet, you think they are better than you.

Sometimes you find yourself going through all sorts of motions, and gyrations, and actions, and behavior trying to get them to think that you are at least as good as they are. The time that you spend trying to prove to someone that you are valuable to them is time wasted. It's time that you could be using to actually make yourself better. You want to make yourself better, primarily because you're not going to be happy if you're the same as you are tomorrow. You have to get better whether you try to do it or not. It is simply something that you want to get present to. Don't waste your time trying to make sure that someone you admire thinks that you are good enough. They already think that you are good enough. As an extraordinary coach, we want to make sure that you do that for your clients. Have your clients realize that they are as good as they need to be. Have them realize that you are no better than they and they're no better than you.

The only person that they have to compete with is the person that they were yesterday because being better today than you were yesterday is each of our unspoken goals, except for people like me who make it their spoken goals. People that know me well have heard me ad nauseum say things such as, "I am better than I was, and not as good as I am going to be." The reason I say that is another story, but I want you to get present to the fact that you think that most people are better than you. Admit it. Of course, most people think that you are better than they. The whole world is spending a lot of time and effort into thinking that that's not so. They do this by trying to make sure that you think the best of them. You do it by trying to make sure that they think the best of you.

Be an extraordinary coach. Make your clients present to that reality. If you don't make them present to anything else, then you, yourself be present to that reality. When you consider all the things that we do, trying to make sure that the people in our lives think that we are good enough, it's a complete and total waste of time. I end this blog like I prefer ending all of my blogs, that is for you to spend a little time having a good time until next time. As always, if this blog has blessed you, given you any insight, given you any great ideas, I ask you to continue following my blog and share it with your friends and family.

Coaches Corner~Fees

I recently made a telephone call to Microsoft tech support. Somehow, I had lost all my folders from my Outlook account, and I needed to have them populate it from my Gmail account. As I articulated my problem to the person on the other end, he actually accessed my computer remotely to see what I was talking about. As it turned out, the folders that I was looking for were right there in Gmail, and he was going to transfer them for me, from Gmail into Outlook.

You see, I use Outlook primarily for my email management, my contact management. Actually, it wasn't me. It was my client, and it was then that the tech guy told me that he would do it for me for a one time charge of $150. Well, by now, I was nearly committed to getting this thing done, and I was about to pay the $150, but I thought that was just too much money.

So then, I opted not to pay the $150, and decided to consult Google, instead. I go into Google, and I put in what I want to do. I look at my Gmail account, and well, to make a long story short, I was able to accomplish the same thing in less than 5 minutes. $150 for 5 minutes work. That would be 12 times 5, 12 times 150. Well, you do the math. It's a lot of money per hour. It's more than ... Well, that's a lot of money per hour if he was going to charge me $150 for 5 minutes work.

As an extraordinary coach, it is critical that you realize your value. I'm not criticizing him for over charging me for what he was doing. I'm simply sharing with you how valuable you are. The fact that he knew something that I didn't, means his time was worth $150 for 5 minutes. Contrast that with what you know. Just a simple concept of sharing with someone how they don't know what they don't know, is priceless.

Many people spend their lives trying to learn more of what they don't know, but what they don't realize is that they can only learn more of what they already know that they don't know. The things that they don't know they don't know, they will never learn about those things until they find out, and in that regard, as an extraordinary coach, you are priceless.

Let's start commanding the value for what we are worth. Let's not be content charging minimal amounts of money for being a coach. Your outside, objective opinion is worth much more than what you think, and it can set people free to go on to make millions and millions of dollars. As you read this blog, consider it's time for you to increase your fees.

What you may not realize, what might be in the realm of you don't know that you don't know, is that you're opinion is priceless. Another bit of knowledge that you may not know is that the only reason that you're not getting more is that you're not asking for more. The reasons you're not asking for more ... Well, you're probably the only one that knows that, but I suspect it has a little bit to do with fear, because that's what it was with me.

Can you imagine? There are coaches in this country charging $25,000 a month for what you're charging $50 a month for? The amount of knowledge is finite, for sure, but he only gets more than you because he asked for more than you.

Remember this blog. The Microsoft guy was going to charge me a lot more than what I thought he should have, and well, you're charging a lot less than what you ought to. So, as I like to end all of my blogs, I end this one with the same thing, which is for you to have a good time until the next time, and if this has helped you, or blessed you in any way, please share it with your friends and family.

Coaches Corner~Expectations

Being an extraordinary coach dictates that you really have to be careful about the words that come out of your mouth. I'm not saying that we all need to study chemistry, or we all need to become a student of quantum physics, but quantum physics dictates that when you look at things, the things that you look at change. Wouldn't it be something if the self fulfilling prophecy that we have heard about over the years was actually true? What if what you said came to be just because you said it?

Some time ago a young man went to the barber shop, and he's sitting around waiting to get his haircut. He picks up a magazine. He looks at the magazine and the headline on the magazine says that things are going to be tough. Tough times are coming. As he's reading the magazine and waiting for his haircut, he thinks to himself "Wow. If tough times are coming, I guess I had better be a little tighter with my money. When I get home today, I'm actually going to call the contractor and tell him that we're going to have to put off putting that addition on to the building." When he got home he did that.

Once the contractor heard that he wasn't going to have the job that he had, well then he had to make adjustments as well. He has a crew that depend on him for income. If he's not going to be doing this job, or if he's not going to get this bid that he was expecting, then what do you think he has to do? He has to let some people go. He cuts his staff by 50%. 50% of the people that he had employed are now no longer employed. It all began because this guy saw this article that said tough times are coming.

One of the people that he let go has a 5 year old girl. The 5 year old girl ... It's coming to be Christmas time, and she was looking forward to that Easy Bake Oven. This was years ago when Easy Bake Ovens were a big deal. She really wanted her Easy Bake Oven. She was playing the mammy as they say, like little girls like to play. Little girls playing with Easy Bake Ovens go a long way towards helping little girls develop into young ladies. During this time of the world, little girls aspire to be homemakers. That's neither here nor there, except for the purpose of this story. Because her father's boss picked up a magazine that warned of tough times, well now she's not going to get her Easy Bake Oven. She's not as happy a child as she would have been if she had gotten her Easy Bake Oven.

As you can see, the connection between everything is very evident in a situation like this, as this young man picked up this magazine and began a domino effect of things that occurred, that eventually spread over the whole city, over the whole country, until well, things were tough all over. Because he picked up a magazine that he was reading in the barbershop.

As we examine what truly happened, somebody came behind him and picked up that same magazine, and decided to take a look at the date of the magazine to see when the magazine was published. As it turned out, the magazine was published 8 years earlier. You imagine that? You go into a barber shop, and an old magazine is on the table. You read the old magazine and you make decisions in your life based on what you read in the old magazine.

Now, what if this man was an optimist? What if he was the type of person that believes he can do it, he will do it, and nothing will stop him? Had he been that type of man, when he picked up that magazine, no matter that the magazine said that tough times were coming, he would know that he would get over those tough times. He would know that he would accomplish his goals. He would know that he'd only have to work a little harder in order to achieve his goals.

Working hard to achieve our goals is one of the things that our attitude can be instrumental in us doing. You want to be an extraordinary coach, then not only do you have to instill this sort of motivation into your clients, but you have to have this sort of motivation as well. Keep in mind that your overwhelming urges, whether they be good or whether they be bad, is going to color everything that you see. The way that you think about things, your attitude, the group of thoughts that you allow to stay in your brain over and over and over, they determine what you think about everything.

You have to constantly remind yourself that things are great. You have to constantly include all possibilities into your life, except for the negative ones. Anyone who knows me well will tell you that my mantra is simple. Whenever I'm asked how am I doing, I always respond with "I am better than I was and not as good as I'm going to be." The reason that I respond that way is because my mindset tells me that that is irrefutable. My mindset tells me that no matter what it is that you do, you got to get better at it if you keep doing it.

As you move forward in being an extraordinary coach, and making great things happen for your client, I want to urge you to stay present to the fact that your words determine your future. There is so much more that you can do simply by changing the atmosphere in between your ears. Things are not tough. Tough times are not coming because in the words of a fellow that I heard on a movie just recently, everything always turns out okay in the end. If things are not okay, then you know it is not the end. I'll end this blog like I enjoy ending all of my blogs, which basically says, Have a good time until next time. If this blog has blessed you or helped you in any way, please share it with your friends, and/or family.

Coaches Corner~Square

If you are a coach, whether you are extraordinary or not, you have put on events. If you haven't yet put on an event. You will put on an event. If you have not aspired to put on an extraordinary event, then you will love this blog.

An event can be a daunting task to even an average person, but if you want to be an extraordinary coach, putting on events has got to be second nature to you. Putting on events is where you will get an opportunity to get in front of the room and leverage your time and effort so that you can speak to a lot of people. As you speak to a lot of people you become an expert in the eyes of those people. Once you become an expert in the eyes of those people and you have a system in place where you follow up with those people and let them know a little bit more about who you are, how you are, or what you are, and over a prescribed period of time they decide that you are the coach for them. That is how it's supposed to work.

Putting on an event is a process that has lots of moving parts. If you haven't put one on and you don't have a professional working with you, some of those moving parts may get missed, because after all, you don't know what you don't know. What this blog is about today is how I handled one of those moving parts seemingly by osmosis. For several weeks now I had an event in the works. I'm pretty excited about this event that I have in the works. The event is going to take place less than a week after I'm doing this blog.

I had lots of things in place, had lots of people lined up to help, had a time and operation ready to do this thing. As far as paying the admission or paying the cost of coming into the event, that was another story. Believe it or not, that had escaped me until recently. No less than one day ago it occurred to me: Hey, what if everyone doesn't purchase their tickets online? What if everyone doesn't bring cash to the event? What am I going to do?

I knew that I was going to have my event and I knew I was going to find some way to get paid, because after all, what is business if you don't have a payment system? I decided that I would use a Square reader so that I can accept debit cards. I had had a Square reader but I didn't use it for so long. I just misplaced it and I didn't know where it was. Here it is a week from the event or less.

I go online to reorder my Square reader, and my Square reader is going to take ten days to get here. Oh my goodness, I don't have ten days. Then I get the idea why don't I Google how to get a Square reader, and I did. Keep in mind, the point I'm making here is how you make your decisions and fate and providence will force things to move in such a way that you will get what you want if you want it bad enough. I wanted it bad enough to be able to charge admission for my event and I wanted it bad enough that I didn't want to have people come into the event at no charge. Besides, when you get something for nothing, there's no seed planted. I had to make sure that people had a way to give me money.

I find on the internet they have these Squares available at retail locations. Imagine that. The Square that I wanted that was going to take ten days to come here I could get at a retail location, so naturally I googled and put in the zip code and found that there was a place right down the street where I could get a Square reader. Now these Square readers are pretty popular, and chances are they may have not had one. Rather than jump in my car and drive down there, I decided to make a phone call to see if they had a Square reader available, because after all, they were selling it a drugstore. Under what set of circumstances would you expect to find a Square reader at a drugstore? That's another story.

I called on the phone and asked the man if he had one. He had one left. One Square reader was left in the entire store, so I said to him, "I'll be coming down to get that right away." The reason I decided to go and get it right away is what I was alluding to when I wrote this blog when I first started. Even though there were lots of moving parts to what I wanted to do, I committed to getting it done just like I committed to being an extraordinary coach.

I committed to being an extraordinary coach and things moved, things shifted so that I had to become an extraordinary coach, just like I had to get that Square reader. Now I have the Square reader in my possession. I am ready for my event. I am ready to accept payments, and the event will be a smashing success. I'm sure by the time you read this blog, you will have known that. As I like to say at the end of all my blogs, until next time have a good time, and if this blog has helped you, if it has given you any great ideas, please by all means share it with your friend and family. Be an extraordinary coach.

Coaches Corner~Market

Being an extraordinary coach does not eliminate you from the pitfalls that affect the general population. In fact, sometimes being an extraordinary coach can put you at a profound disadvantage. In the marketing world, as you let people know who you are and what you can do for them, there are certain people that are going to resonate with you and there's certain people that are not going to resonate with you. In the climate where we live now, people can be resonating with you up to the point where they find out that you ascribe to a different political party from they. This can be somewhat nerve-wracking when in reality the political parties are simply two ways of looking at the same thing and that thing is America.

Another pitfall is that the political parties use race as a political football depending on what side of the aisle you find yourself. Ask yourself this question. How does politics figure into the person that you are? Because politics figure into the person that your clients are as well. When you meet the need of a particular population it is always a good question to ask yourself what do they need? When you are evaluating your target market it just makes sense. For instance, if you are overweight, then you might be in the market for some weight loss products. If you like working out, you might be in the market for some exercise equipment. If you are single and you want to be in a relationship, well then dating sites might be a place where you find yourself.

In the vein where I find myself, I sometimes find myself at odds with the overwhelming majority of people of my own race. I ask them, "Do you feel that you are able to manage your life's up and downs? Do you think that President Obama is being taken advantage of? When you hear of something happening to another black person do you immediately feel victimized as well? Do you think that there is such a thing as racial profiling?" These are all good questions to which for many of us the answer is a resounding yes. If that is your position, if you answer yes to those questions, then you may be a candidate for Al Sharpton's seminar that he promotes as part of the National Action Network.

On the other hand, I too, am a black person and that Reverend Sharpton targets for his seminars, but I don't say yes to those things that you just heard. In fact, when in the company of other people who are black like myself, I find myself experiencing a degree of vitriol. Vitriol has no place in the life of an extraordinary coach like myself and vitriol has no place in the life of an extraordinary coach like you. What do do? The more milder forms of vitriol translates as criticism. Whenever I hear someone speaking on the opposite side of an issue from myself, my tendency is to develop resistance. My tendency is to straighten the person out, to let them know where they are wrong and essentially what I end up doing is complaining about their point of view.

I accuse them of complaining about my point of view but in point of fact, I am the one doing the complaining. I find that when you are complaining about others complaining, you too are complaining. I have decided that the way to manage this particular malady is to put a positive spin on it. My desire truly is to avoid the looking good, being right syndrome and in order to do that, I have to stop criticizing, and if you want to do that, then you got to stop criticizing, too. Those of you that are black Republicans like I'm a black Republican, can no longer point a finger at the people who are not black Republicans and criticize them. We can no longer accuse them of being victims or having a victim mentality, because when you get right down to it, it is quite hostile to identify someone as having a victim mentality.

As you know, what is resisted persists. When you find yourself telling people that they shouldn't have a victim's mentality, well you immediately have changed your address to that of a person who is really committed to looking good and being right. Here's my take. I simply say that I'm not in that market. I'm not in the market of buying the, shall we say, the bigotry of America. I'm not in the market that buys into the fact that America is a racist country. I'm not in the market where people want to stamp on the flag and say that America has been victimizing them for hundreds and hundreds of years. I am not in that market. Since I'm not in that market, then I'm not buying that story. By not buying a story, I'm not criticizing. By not buying the story I'm not being negative. I'm simply saying what my point of view is and my point of view is if that is your market, if you are in that target market, then certainly people like Al Sharpton and others will benefit from you.

We're all going to spend our time and money somewhere and the people who offer us something that meet our needs, they're the ones that's going to get our money. Before you blindly fall into the trap of buying into something that doesn't serve you, you must consider whether or not you are in that market. If you're in the market that you haven't yet learned how to control your own emotions, if you're in the market where you are a victim of snap judgments, if you're in that market, then I want to suggest that you get out of that market because it's not serving you. Being in that market puts you at a disadvantage as far as I'm concerned. I do want to say "as far as I'm concerned" because the last thing that I want to do is to make you believe that I am the all-knowing third party, because I'm not. Being an extraordinary coach, certainly you have to take a position, certainly you want to know who you are and you want others to know who you are as well.

Being an extraordinary coach does not allow you to just simply go with the flow. Everybody in the success culture knows that if you want to be successful then you see what other people do and you do the opposite. There's no shortage of people that's complaining about how terrible racism is. Racism is just one of a number of maladies that we each have to deal with and we each have to manage and it doesn't deserve any more weight than anything else. Notice which market that you're in, purchase the things that the people that are meeting your needs are supplying, and make sure that you continue to be an extraordinary coach. As I like to end all of my blogs, I end this one with the very same thing, which is, if this blog has helped you, if it has given you something to think about then please share it with someone you care about and follow me on the blog. Last but not least, until next time, have a good time.

Coaches Corner~Kissing

Today's blog is a very interesting one, in my never to be humble opinion. If you have gone on a date, you have probably kissed a girl, right? Coaching is sort of like that, going on a date. If you take that date to the next logical step and have a relationship with the person, then you have a relationship with the person. You probably know that having a relationship with a person is a little different from having a date. However, it all began with a date. Now when you are about to kiss a girl, do you ask her to kiss her? Do you look into her eyes or sit across the room and say, "Do you mind if I kiss you"? You probably don't. You see, she's in charge, and it's up to her whether she wants you to kiss her.

Contrast that with asking people to be your coaching client. Do you ask people to be your coaching client? Maybe you do, but I don't. What you do in the case of the girl, and going on a date, is you create the environment. You create the circumstances that make it necessary that the next logical step is for you to kiss her or for her to kiss you. It's boring to go on a date and ask a girl if you can kiss her. At least, it's boring for her. If you can't kiss her, and the answer's no, then you should have known that. If you can kiss her, and the answer is yes, then you should have known that as well. It's called confidence, but this blog is not about confidence. This blog is really about marketing. 

What marketing does is create the environment that someone would necessarily say, "Victor, would you be my coach?" I wouldn't necessarily say, "Do you want me to be your coach? Then I shall be your coach." Because they would've seen enough data. They would've read enough blogs. They would've seen enough videos. They would've heard enough of me to know whether or not I resonate with them. It's not simply a matter of my asking them if I can coach them. It's a matter of me accepting them as a client. Few coaches understand that you can't ask a person to be their coach. Even in the case of coaches who speak at an event and at the end of the event, they call up the customers and ask them if they got anything out of their talk. That's pretty reasonable. However, asking the customer to be your client, asking the customer if you can coach them, then you might've missed the boat about coaching. 

Coaching is a relationship that's two-way, for sure, but you are the one that's giving the help. You are the one that's giving the unbiased opinion, the objective unbiased opinion. You are the one that's holding the client accountable for what they say they want to do, and you are the one that's responsible for giving them the results. Now if you, in your marketing, in your speaking, in your personality, whoever you are, however you are, were to create that environment, then you need only do it in front of a person that resonates with you. Done properly, you can pretty much resonate with a lot of people, but one critical thing that coaches don't have the luxury of doing is getting their feelings hurt. They don't have the luxury of taking things personal. If you find yourself taking things personal, or being, shall we say, resistant, then maybe you might not be ready for coaching because as a coach, you don't have time for that.

I got this idea while I was on my machine this morning, my Gazelle machine that I use every day, and it occurred to me, that as many coaches as there are that's doing well, there's just as many coaches that are doing badly. I began to contemplate my blog, and see what I could say today that would help you. Your personality is your biggest asset, despite the fact that you want to be about business, your personality is a bigger, bigger component of your coaching business than your business acumen because see, as I talked about going on a date, everybody wants to go on a date. Everybody wants to have a kiss on the date, but everybody doesn't get one, and the reason why is because everyone doesn't create the environment. Do you pull out the chair for her? Do you open the door for her? Do you listen to her when she's speaking? Do you look her in the eyes, instead of other places? 

These are all questions that one can consider when one does not get a kiss. A comparable set of circumstances or activities in the coaching arena is this, can they see you on video, knowing who you are? Do you have webinars available for them to watch, so that they can see what you know? Do you demonstrate in your social media presence that you love people? Do you have a backlog of clients that they can refer to? When they Google your name, do they find a website with yourname.com? These are all the things that create the environment that someone would ask you to be their coach.

Certainly, you can take the old-school approach and make sales calls. Consider this though, that the people that you are calling are probably making sales calls themselves. The wisdom that you have that you want to share with them on these sales calls, nearly everybody on Facebook thinks that they are a motivational speaker. They quote other people, and they say things themselves, so that's not a way to distinguish yourself. The way to distinguish yourself is to be you. Be you, and they will ask you to be their coach. Coaches are like mentors. Coaches are like trusted advisors. You can't go to somebody that you don't know and say to them, "Will you trust me?" Because it doesn't work. Trusting is something that occurs from the other side of their eyeballs. They choose to trust you. They choose not to trust you, and it's their call. All you can do is be the type of person that they would trust.

I heard a man preaching this morning, and he was saying how God commands him to love everybody, but he doesn't trust everybody. You have to earn his trust. I don't know that he is really on the right page about that because trusting is something that emanates from your love muscle. Your love muscle leads to trust. Distrust is your fear muscle because you see, if you're a God kind of guy, and you believe God's going to bless you, and you believe that if God is for you, who can be against you, then you're not worried about anything. You're just simply being you. No one has to earn your love. No one has to earn your respect. You love and respect simply because that is the way that you are. That's the way that God is. God doesn't have a set of circumstances that you have to meet before he decides to love you. He doesn't really care what you do, he's going to love you, and he's going to forgive you. If you want to emanate God then you need to do the same thing.

This blog is not about God at all, although life itself is about God, this blog is about how you can create the circumstances that lead to people asking you to be their coach. Even before I became a coach, one of my favorite, favorite things to hear out of someone's mouth was this, "So tell me Victor, what do you think?" Because when someone asks you to be their coach, chances are they trust you enough to do what you say. As always, I like to end my blog with have a good time until next time. I have incorporated this other request that's been on my last few blogs, and that is if this blog has helped you, I would love for you to share it with others. Please subscribe to the blog. Follow me on this blog.

Coaches Corner~Guest Blogger

One of the areas I love to coach coaches on is the area of building their data base. It's really important to understand that clients don't just show up and you don't just find clients walking down the street saying, "I'm looking for a coach." You need to consciously build your data base and fill your data base up with people that are potential clients or others that can refer you to potential clients.

Last night I was asked to speak at an event where there was a roomful of coaches. Of course I taught them lots about businesscoach.com's methodology and systems and processes that they could use as coaches. More importantly, what they could learn from that experience is we handed out a signup form and asked them if they wanted a free gift. In the process, I just built my data base by speaking, letting people know who I am and offering them an opportunity to give me their information so I could add it into my data base.

Subsequently, they'll be getting information from me from time to time about what we're offering and how we can help them down the road. Coaches, make sure that you consciously build up your data base and fill it full of people that can eventually become your clients. 

Coaches Corner~OCD

If I have the right interpretation of what OCD is, then it's a possibility that as I get older, I am developing OCD (Obsessive-compulsive disorder).  It is a compulsion to do one thing after another for no apparent reason except to the person doing it.  OCD can be characterized as a tendency to accomplish one thing after another and then another and then another, that's driven by a feeling of anxiety when you don't accomplish these things. To the casual observer, it might look that you're simply wasting time but to you, you have a reason for doing those things.

I think as I grow older, as I evolve into an extraordinary coach, it's a strong distinct possibility that I might be developing OCD.  In the past I have criticized people who I see that have OCD as being motivated by something that's not positive. In other words, I was afflicted by the looking good, being right syndrome, and that people that had the OCD characteristics were certainly not looking good and they were emphatically not being right in my view. I have to change all that now because I might be developing it myself.

Here's where this comes from. Recently I was sitting in that special room, and it occurred to me I had made promises to people on my team that I was going to give them a PowerPoint. This PowerPoint was to have been in their possession before they went to sleep that night and that was several days ago. Apart from writing this blog, that's the next thing on my list right now.

As I begin to evaluate myself for the OCD characteristics and begin to blame myself, criticize myself, I thought of other things that I had promised to do that I hadn't yet done and the reason I should be doing those things now as well. Then I made a conscious decision that I'm going to do what I promised to do or I'm not going to promise to do anything. I think you know in business, you must promise to do something.

When you are in business for yourself, you don't have anyone reminding you to do the things that you need to do. You don't have anyone making sure that you accomplish the thing that's going to lead to cash flow for you. You don't have anybody to remind you to market your business. If you ever tried to get any sort of clients whatsoever, you know that marketing is critical. You know that marketing is critical because all the sales calls that you can make, those people are probably making sales calls themselves.

Rather than being a detriment, as I had labeled it in the past, I think OCD is probably a characteristic that leaders have. The only adjustment that I would make is you would set aside certain time when you are doing the things that you said you were going to do. When you are in business, when you have a job, I think that's why you have to put a finite limit on your time, 9:00 to 5:00. That's why people don't work 24 hours a day. That's why some people say, "Hey, after 5:00, my office is closed."

I saw a movie some years ago involving a dastardly character who really gave somebody a bad time, who accosted him at a party, and wanted to talk with him about a record that he was producing. Well, he told the guy that, "My office hours are 9:00 to 5:00," and the guy was really excited about getting his point across and he just ignored the fact that the man said his office hours was from 9:00 to 5:00. Well, as far as the movie went, he smacked the guy around a bit, and the last thing he said to him before he punched him in the nose was, "I told you, my office hours are 9:00 to 5:00."

Well, I wouldn't have to get that drastic about it but I urge you to choose specific times that you are doing the things that's going to lead to business for you. I know I'm going to do that. Up until this moment as far as I was concerned, when it was time to do something, it was time to do something. Being an extraordinary coach doesn't allow you the luxury of simply doing things when you feel like doing them or doing them when the mood strikes you, because your clients, they're not sitting around waiting for you to call them. They're not sitting around waiting for you to accomplish the things that you said that you were going to do. They have finite times. They have a family life. They have a church life. They have agendas to take you over.

As I like to end all my blogs, have a good time until next time. If this blog has helped you, has given you any ideas whatsoever, please share it with your friends and your family.

Coaches Corner~Thankfulness

Believe it or not, one of the most beneficial things that you, as an extraordinary coach can do for your clients is to introduce them to God. For me, that is in the person of Jesus Christ. It makes sense to me that when you get a proper understanding of who God is, who you think God is and you share that with your clients, that's going to be a beneficial thing. This blog, surprisingly while I'm talking about God, is entitled Thankfulness. What does thankfulness have to do with the whole idea of God? Well you will soon see as we elaborate on how I came to this conclusion.

I was having a shower and the thought of a good friend of mine, Eddie Smith, crossed my mind. I was thinking about how wonderful it was to know Eddie Smith, how beneficial Eddie Smith has been to me over the years and how glad I am that I met Eddie Smith. I began to think about the time that Eddie Smith told me the idea that it is a good idea to share things, how Eddie Smith made clear to me, "Victor, it's not the fact that I trust you. It's that I trust God, and I don't think God is going to steer me wrong."

Thoughts like that, ideas like that, along with a host of other things, makes me think that Eddie Smith is a very, very valuable person to have in my life. It doesn't stop there. As I began to express my appreciation, my thinking about how good it is to know Eddie Smith, another thought crossed my mind, and that is how do I came to know Eddie Smith? Then I became appreciative of Joe Walsh. You see, Joe Walsh introduced me to Eddie Smith. He introduced me to Eddie Smith as one of his downlines in this business that the three of us were involved in. Then I began to be appreciative of Joe Walsh. Without Joe Walsh, I wouldn't know Eddie Smith and well, without Eddie Smith, I wouldn't be where I am right now.

As you would suspect, things progressed, and as I was thankful for Joe Walsh, I got to thinking about the company that introduced me to Joe Walsh, this company called comF5, and while I'm no longer affiliated with comF5, I have to be very, very thankful about the things that happened to me since I got involved in comF5. Now the founder of comF5, would you say that they had something to do with all of my experiences that happened after comF5? You bet. Then I have to be thankful for Richard Kall, and then I have to be thankful for Earl Mann and then I have to be thankful for a lot of other people and things.

You see, the host of people who I am thankful for goes on and on and on. Granted, the people that founded comF5 did create the company but how would I have known about the company? What series of events led to me knowing about comF5? That is when we come to my good friend Michael Estes. Michael Estes came to my loan office one day where I was working as a loan officer and asked me if I would like to see a video email, and of course I had never seen a video email. I had preconceived notions of how cumbersome video emails could be, so I said, "Okay, Michael I'll take a look."

Believe it or not, Michael Estes made it possible for me to come to know who this comF5 company was and so naturally, I started being thankful for Michael Estes. Can you believe it? This thankfulness continues and the tone of this blog has to do with why you want to introduce your people to God, and now we come to why I think that's a good idea.

Of the people that I just spoke of, they're all human beings, why bow down and kiss their feet and be very, very appreciative of what they did for me and how they impacted my life? That might not work all that well because we as human beings, we tend to be egomaniacal, and being egomaniacal, somebody kisses our feet, well that's not going to help us grow our humble muscle and humility is something that human beings ought to be.

Now, do I thank Eddie Smith for what he's done for me and thereby call up Joe Walsh and thank him for what he's done and then call Earl Mann and Richard Kall and eventually Michael Estes? Do I do all that? Do I thank all of those people? As you can see, the list will get pretty long as I start to thank all the people that have gotten me in this wonderful life where I live now. What do you suggest that I do, in order so that my soul can express the appreciation, so that my soul can express the thankfulness? Well my soul needs to express the appreciation and thankfulness but my soul doesn't need to do it to Richard Kall or Eddie Smith or Joe Walsh.

My soul just needs to be appreciative and the most likely place that I could do something like that is by appreciating God, by saying, "God, I thank you. Lord, I thank you for making these people. I thank you for allowing these things to happen. I thank you for Michael Estes. I thank you for the person who invented a blog so that I could even write a blog.", and I'm just so thankful.

What do you think the results would be if your clients were just as thankful? As an extraordinary coach, despite the outside objective, opinion that you can give to your clients, how much more can you benefit your clients by teaching them to be thankful in general and teaching them to direct that thanks to God? More of the same always produces more of the same.

I hope you've seen the benefit of this blog. I hope you decide to be thankful and thereby get to the place where you want to thank God and take your clients to that place as well. Eliminate the tendency to find a worm in everything. Don't find any excuses to negate what I'm saying. Simply embrace it on the value of your own understanding right now.

It's time for me to end this blog and I will end this blog like I love to end all of my blogs by saying until the next time. Have yourself a good time, and if this blog has helped you or benefited you in any way, we would love for you to share it with some of your friends and some of your family.

Coaches Corner~Finish

There are not many things as beautiful, as breathtaking, as artistically superior as the saber worn by the United States Marine Corps men as he wears his dressed blues. Would you be interested to know how that saber came to be? That saber is a beautiful work of art, isn't it? Well let me tell you how they developed that saber.

First, they take a great big hunk of metal and they put a really rough saw to it and carve out a length of raw metal that's really, really unattractive in its first look. They then take that hunk of metal and they put it in a furnace that's so hot it will amaze you. And they burn it, and they cook it, and they heat it until it's red hot. And then, after it's red hot, they take it out of the furnace and quickly dump it in to some ice cold water. After you do that, they take a sledgehammer and they beat on that metal. Bamn!  Bamn!  Bamn!  Bamn! And they do that for a period of time and then, what do they do afterwards? They stick it back in that furnace and heat it up again until it is red hot like nobody's business.

And then following that, they take it out of the red hot furnace and throw it in some more cold water. Schhhhhh, you can see the steam coming off of it....cold water ... And then, they take that sledgehammer and they beat on it again, and again, and again. They do this over and over and over until that metal is malleable enough so that they can put a sharp edge on it. After they put a sharp edge on it ... Well, I don't know what happens after that. I imagine they put a handle on it in some way, shape, form or fashion but, they finish the job. Suffice it to say that, as you look at that saber in its finished form, it never would occur to you what it went through to get where it is.

Now what about you and what about me? What about your coaching class?  What about you as a coach?  As you initially begin to coach a client ... As you initially begin to grow as a coach, you may not immediately give your clients the results that they want.  But you must, in your tendency to give your unbiased opinion ... Your unbiased, objective opinion ... You must bring it to them. Bring it to their memory that Hey, they might not be there yet, but you can see where they're going. You can see the saber that they're going to be. As a coach, you may not be getting the results that you want with your clients, but rest assured that you will get those results.

I am reminded of this because, just recently, I took a trip to San Diego. I got on an airplane with my wife, flew down to San Diego, celebrated her birthday with her, and had an incredible time. But this by no means was my first attempt at getting on a plane to San Diego. In the year 2001, just before 9/11, my wife and I were at Sacramento Airport.   And I'm about to get on the plane to go to San Diego and would you believe it, I was not able to get on the plane. Why?  Because of fear.  I had an imaginary fear that stopped me from walking down that jetway to get on that airplane and sit down and ride the short 90 minute flight to San Diego. Now back then, I was much like the hunk of metal that became the saber that I am now. But I can assure you I could not see 16 years later ... Rather 15 years later ... Where I would be able to just simply get on an airplane and do my thing like any other normal person.

I must admit, the trip here has been wonderful. I have thoroughly enjoyed myself.  My wife has thoroughly enjoyed herself.   All because I did not give up on the possibility.   Now mind you, between then and now I had lots of setbacks.   I had lots of experiences where I wasn't able to do what I wanted to do because of fear.   I had lots of experiences ... When I got on an elevator and when it took too long for the door to open, I was struck with anxiety. I used to have what they call the "white knuckle syndrome." And even when I went home to my mother's funeral several years ago, it was a horrible, horrible experience.   But that part of my life is over now, and I can use that part of my life to share with you what can happen if you persist.

So, if you want to be an extraordinary coach ... If you want to be a more extraordinary coach, you have got to constantly remind yourself that you are like that saber. That beautiful work of art that is along the side of that United States Marine that you see in this picture

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You have to remind yourself that you will get to where you want to go, and remind yourself that you are bringing an unbiased, objective opinion, and accountability partnership, and results that your client has never gotten before.

So as I like to end all of my blogs, I would like to end this blog with belaboring a point. And the point, of course, being you never know what you can be without your coach. So, if you don't have a coach, get you a coach. And finally, I like to end all my blogs the same way but this particular blog I'm going to institute a new habit because I'm continually growing ... And that is to tell you, if this blog has helped you please be sure and share it with a friend, share it with a fellow coach. And until that time comes, I want to encourage you to have yourself a good time until next time.

Coaches' Corner~Happy

Today, we want to talk about "happy."  Everyone is familiar with the famous song, if you're happy, clap your hands. It has a real nice, catchy melody to it, and everybody likes singing it. Let's talk a little bit about happy. Let's talk about happy in terms of your being an extraordinary coach. Let's talk about happy in terms of your clients, that you have, who are looking for happiness.

While everyone is talking about happiness, they seldom realize the gravity of the many statements that we make, concerning happiness. For instance, we say, if we find the right person to make us happy, then, we'll have a relationship with that person. If we say that, we find the right job, to make us happy, then, we're going to take that job. Just lately, we are finding out that, as long as you don't hurt anyone, and it makes you happy, then it's okay to do it.

No matter how ridiculous the thing is, or how ridiculous the activity is, the goal is to be happy. When we make happiness our goal, we're also saying that happiness is not our present state. Since many people live their lives pursuing happiness ... And even our constitution, tells us, that we are guaranteed for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness ... The one underlying thing that no one has talked about, up until now, is if you are looking for happiness, then what do you have now?

What do you have now? The corollary is, you're not happy, right now. If you're not happy right now, you're going to do something. People who are happy, do nothing, and that's an inferred reality, and it may even be true. What about you? Are you happy? Do you make your clients happy? Do you think that your clients could be happy without your help? As a coach ... Either being an extraordinary coach, or aspiring to be an extraordinary coach ... Happiness is not something that you must seek. Happiness is something that you must provide.

I recently was on a vacation with my wife in San Diego. We both like the Hotel Del Coronado, or the Hotel Del, which was the setting of the movie My Blue Heaven, with Steve Martin. I was standing there, looking at the store, where they have tablecloths, on sale. The tablecloths were $80, and an apron just like the tablecloth, was $40. The question is, what are you serving on the table, that the tablecloth, costs $80?

That's not the real question. The real question is, who would buy a tablecloth, that costs $80?  I'll tell you who will buy a tablecloth that costs $80. That's one, a person who has $80, and two, that's a person who's going to be happy after they make the purchase.

As I'm standing watching this person purchase a tablecloth for $80, somebody walks by me with an odd looking haircut. A really odd looking haircut. If I can describe it for you, most of the hair was shaved off the head, and there was a braid ... There was just enough hair in the top of the head ... To, braid, the blond hair, coming down the back of the head. I say to my wife, it is interesting how people with "stupid" ideas, or stupid behavior, also have a gene for getting their feelings hurt.

In other words, they also have a gene for not being happy. The implication is, wearing your hair that way, would make you happy, and that's why you do it. But, the minute someone challenges the sensibility of having that haircut that way, you revert back to your normal state. Which is, not happiness. The point I want to make in this blog is, realize that the human state is one, of being unhappy. Realize that the only way that people are going to do something, generally speaking, is if they think, it's going to make them happy.

Finally, the biggest deal is, as an extraordinary coach, you must be your happiest, when you're coaching. You must be your happiest, when you're helping someone. Now mind you, you have to be happy all the time, but you're your happiest, when you're helping somebody out. When the comments start coming about doing something that's going to make you happy. Or living a life that's going to make you happy. Or purchasing something, that's going to make you happy, those of us that are coaches ... Extraordinary coaches ... We need to change that to happier, or happiest, because we have already decided in our life, that we are happy.

The dirty little secret that the people who do things and buy things, and say things, to make themselves happy, is that, the only requirement to being happy, is to decide to be happy. Let's decide to be happy as coaches, and if you don't have a coach, let's decide that getting a coach, is going to make you happy. I'm ending now ... As I like to end all of my blogs ... Have a good time, until next time.  

Coaches Corner~Guest Blogger

One of the things that I'm a big proponent of is noticing that there is no letter "I" in the word team, so one player can certainly carry a team, one player can be strong, and last night's Warriors' Cleveland game, the first game of the playoffs, really proved it. I think the highest scorer on both teams was LeBron James, and he scored I believe 40 points, and he is a former most valuable player and Steph Curry, the reigning most valuable player, scored 27 points. However, when LeBron James brought the power and led his team so well last night all the way into a tie game at the end of regulation, they had to go into overtime for the Warriors to win, the Warriors absolutely wore out LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Notwithstanding the injuries, when both teams needed to score at the end of the game, the Warriors, who play as a team, as a community, as a unit, wore down Cleveland, who led most of the first 3 quarters.  So even though a great team was leading both sides, the leading scorer last night, when it got down to the crunch time, the Warriors had worn down and worn out the Cleveland Cavaliers.  And as it turns out, they tied the game in regulation. When it got into overtime, the Warriors' coach kept shifting players, fresh players, in and out and in and out and changing the chemistry until he found out what would absolutely stop Cleveland from winning the game.

Can one man make a difference in the team in a game? Yes. Can one man carry a team? Rarely, it sometimes can happen, but rarely, and last night, the coaching lesson of all coaching lessons was the man who is the most valuable player in the game never got into the game. It was the coach for the Warriors. It was a man who was pulling the strings, engineering the game on the sidelines, who could look at the offense and the defense for both teams, and manipulate the game legally, not divisively, but manipulate the right players, and he moved certain players out of his team, off the floor, and put on the floor the best 5 that would absolutely control the outcome of the game, so the MVP of game one, was Steve Kerr, the coach of the Golden State Warriors.

Gary Henson works out of Sacramento, CA via BusinessCoach.Com but has coached business owners all over the world. He’s committed to making a profound life-changing difference in people’s lives and companies. In 1989, inspired by his own personal and entrepreneurial struggles, he started coaching companies. He found coaching to be a business solution that offered a one-of-a-kind approach that encompassed our unique challenges and He was amazed at how far reaching it was.

Coaches' Corner~Evaluations

One of the best evaluative tools that you can have is the one to ten question. If you are a coach, you need an evaluative tool. Time out for living your life on automatic pilot, you have to consciously live your life and you have to consciously be paying attention, and you have to consciously be thinking about your client's business. Now back to the one to ten rule.

Any professional athletes that you run into, at game time you can ask them: "On a scale of one to ten, where are you right now in terms of your game?" They'll know. Let's take baseball, for instance. He's getting ready to go up to bat and you say to him: "On a scale of one to ten, where would you say you are right now as you're going up to bat?" He'll tell you. He'll pick a number between zero to ten and he’ll say something like seven.

To be a proactive coach on your way to being an extraordinary coach, the question for you to ask your business owner right after that is: "Okay, you're at a seven. What would it take for you to become a ten?" Because if you're going up to be able to against somebody like Carl Yastrzemski or one of those world famous baseball pitchers, of whom I don't know many because I don't know baseball, but you get the idea. If you're going against a world-class pitcher, man, you got to be a ten. You can't be trying to be a seven.

You ask your business owner what would it take for them to be a ten. In order for them to be a ten, they might tell you something that they have to feel empowered that this customer is going to say yes. They may say something like: "I need to know more about my customers so I'll know exactly all the objections that they're going to come up to. Or they may say: "I need to be confident that my marketing efforts are paying off and that I was crafting my marketing efforts to speak to my perfect customer," something along those lines.

If you are a coach, get in the practice of evaluating your own place where you are as well as your customers'. You simply ask yourself: "On a scale of one to ten, where do I find myself right now?" If you are not at a ten, then you've got some more work to do. That work that you have to do is most probably going to be inner game work. There are only three ways that you can manage improvement, and that's with your inner game, your outer game, or your action.

Your inner game really is paramount. Your inner game is really in charge of the others, because without your inner game your won't have the expectations that you are at ten on a scale of one to ten. Being an extraordinary coach dictates that you have to be there. You have to live there and you have to do it on purpose. You can't do it by accident. If you want to give your customers the best, you want to give your business owners your best, then you must institute that one to ten scale. Where are you on a scale of one to ten?

Back to the inside game. You must have thoughts such as "I win," thoughts such as "I overcome," thoughts such as "nothing can stop me." Eliminate the thoughts that "Oh lord, I hope it's not hard," or, "Oh lord, eliminate the obstacles." Eliminating the obstacles is not at all what it's about. What it's about is making you better able to negotiate the obstacles, and continually assessing your place and your customers place it's the number one way I see to put yourself in a position of winning, the number one way that I see of making yourself empowered so that you can overcome those obstacles so you can be better than you were.

Anyone that has known me for any length of time has heard me say that I am better than I was, and not as good as I am going to be, when there was someone asking me the question as to how I'm doing. Using this one to ten scale, this evaluative tool that I'm suggesting to you, it for sure will get you present to the fact that you are indeed better than you were and that you are not as good as you are going to be. As I like to end all my blogs, I with remind you to have a good time, until the next time, as you move closer and closer to being an extraordinary coach.

Coaches' Corner~Creation

We should get clear on the fact that what we think about, we bring out. We should also be clear on the fact that we create our own reality. I want to point out that despite your assertions to the contrary, you do create your own world. I was not always present to this truth and you want you to be present to this truth as quickly as possible. As a coach, as an extraordinary coach, you are bound by your commitment to help your clients, to give them the best outcome possible. In order to give them the best outcome possible, you will have to actually create the best outcome possible. We know that as a coach, your clients cannot see the reality for them that you can see. The invented reality is the cornerstone of good coaching. I'm going to take a moment to share with you an invented reality, the consequences of my inventing my reality over the years.

Several years ago, I was afflicted, I should say, with panic attacks, anxiety attacks. Unexpected anxiety attacks would overcome me at any time. All I needed was an excuse to have these panic attacks. The point is, for some reason I wanted to have these panic attacks, and I think largely it's due to how I felt about myself. It's due to my self-concept and the things that I wanted to be true in my life.
You see, I have been a proponent of the fact that your subconscious mind creates the thing and your conscious mind goes about making sure that what your subconscious mind thinks is the truth. I created the desire for misery. I created a victim mentality. I felt that my life was a trap for me. As a result, everything that happened in my life demonstrated that.
As far back as ten years ago, I got on an airplane and I knew that I would have a horrible time on the airplane. I knew that I would feel bad being on an airplane and I needed something to distract me from being on an airplane. As soon as I would hear that door close, my goodness, it was all over for me. I had the white knuckle syndrome.

What I manufactured for myself was always somebody who sat next to me on the airplane that I could have a conversation with, that I could distract myself with, that I could not worry so much about what was going to happen. Each time I got on an airplane during this period in my life, I created that reality. I created the misery for myself. There is no way that I could have survived, that I would still be here, if I had gotten on those airplanes and didn't have somebody to talk to, didn't have some way that I could occupy my mind so it wouldn't go crazy for me. If you've ever had a panic attack, then you know what it feels like, and it does not feel good. I'm saying I could not blame anybody for those panic attacks, and I still can't blame anybody for those panic attacks except for me.
This was made clear to me yesterday, when several years later, I'm on an airplane and I'm flying from Sacramento to San Diego to celebrate my wife's birthday. As it turns out, I'm in an airplane that's completely crowded, that has no empty seats, and to boot, I'm in the absolute last back seat of the airplane. To my left is another man who clearly is having the same sort of challenges that I was having years ago, and a young lady on my right. The man to my left was occupying himself by constantly reading a book. He had his nose in the book and would not take that nose out of the book for any reason whatsoever. Said two words to me.

The woman on my right was wearing headphones and she had an iPad watching a movie. There was no conversation there for me, so I didn't have anyone to talk to. Had I decided, like I did years ago, that I needed something to distract myself, I would have a different reality. I would have put different people in my space. I would have had to have some outlet. As it turned out, I didn't need any outlet. I had overcome. I no longer was having panic attacks. I no longer was having anxiety-ridden airplane rides halfway across the country. I had created a reality that for me actually personifies the activity that's in my mind at this time.

In my mind at this time, I am an overcomer, I am a winner, I am a world-class extraordinary coach. As a world-class extraordinary coach, the reality that I'm creating for myself is clients that need me. The reality that I'm creating for myself is mentees that need mentoring. If you aspire to be an extraordinary coach, let me tell you, spend your time creating the invented reality. Spend your time thinking about all the greatness that you are going to deliver to your clients. Spend your time thinking about how wonderful life is.

Pay no attention, negate the effect that other people create by saying, "I am just being realistic." There is no realistic when you're talking about coaching. There is no realistic if you want to be an extraordinary coach. The reason there is no such thing as realistic is that you don't know what you don't know. If the future that you envision for your clients is not in their space, that is they don't know what they don't know, then it is going to be an impossible future. You know it's possible because you can see it and they can't. You also have some places where you can go that you don't see as possible yet, so make sure that you have yourself a coach. I am Victor Irving Jenkins and I complete my blog, as I love to complete my blog: have a good time until next time.

Coaches' Corner~Believing

             

   I was alluding to the fact that when we go through and do a lot of research that sometimes it might not be the best thing for us to do. The reason why it wouldn't be the best thing for us to do is that we all have this preconceived notion about what is. Anyone that knows me can tell you I'm really heavily into the mindset, because I believe that it is the mindset that determines what you're going to get in the long run. I said I have a story to tell so here's that story.  In fact, this story I read in a book by Steven Covey. Steven covey wrote a book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Steven Covey just recently passed away, but it is very timely that I remember this story.
He told a story of two groups of people. They had two rooms and in each room they had a drawing. One room had a drawing of an old woman, and the other room had a drawing of a young woman. He had everybody in the room examine the drawing. They talked about the drawing. They discussed the drawing and gave their opinion about the drawing. Then he told them all that there was going to be a time they were going to bring them together with another group of people. Once they all got together in one group instead of two, he addressed the group and he said that he's going to pass something around, and he wants them to know right off the bat that there's more than one way to look at it.
He passed around a composite picture of the older woman and the younger woman, a composite picture. Invariably, the people that had seen the old woman in the beginning saw the old woman in the composite. The people that saw the young woman, they invariably saw the young woman in the composite. But the composite had both women in it. In fact, as the two sides got to discussing their findings, they got heated. They got tense, because each side swore that the other side was wrong. They started to delineate different portions and say that this right here, is the young woman's feather on her hat. Oh no, that's the old lady's chin. This right here is the young woman's hat. No, that's the old woman's hair. Gradually, slowly but surely, they came to the conclusion that it was a composite picture.
If that story doesn't ring true, it doesn't resonate with you to let you know that we get what we expect, or we see what we're preconditioned to see, I have lots of stories to indicate that. You think about it yourself. There are some analytical types, some people that describe themselves purely logical.  Just like the rest of us, they have preconceived expectations, and if they do not rule out those preconceived expectations and actively try to realize that there's more than one way to skin a cat, well they going to be left bloody and beaten by their mindset. As you go through your day, as you go through your life and live the way that you like to live, keep in mind that the way that you see it might not be the way that it is. Keep in mind that the way that you see it, if it doesn't make you feel good, or if it doesn't enhance your life, maybe it is not the thing that you're looking at, maybe it's the way that you're looking at the thing.
You can ask yourself, what does this have to do with research? It has to do with research because as you begin to look for things, as you begin to search for things that you call yourself being unbiased about, it is natural that the things that already resonate with you are going to be drawn to you. Whatever your preconceived notion is about a particular thing, any research that you find is going to serve to bear that out. One of the places where people do a lot of research is when they go out to buy a car. When they go out to buy a car, they want to do their research about this car, and research about that car. You know, if there was some way that we could examine or some way that we could get into the meaning of the thing, we would find that more than likely, more often than not the person ends up buying the car that they wanted from the start. The only thing that research did was help them justify the reason that they wanted to do the thing that they wanted to do.
The time that we spend researching, the time that we spend thinking that we're researching that is we've ended up bringing to ourselves the thing that we already think, might be better spent honing our belief. Honing our belief. The subconscious mind is in charge, and it is silly enough to believe whatever it is that we put in it. We have to set aside, we have to maybe set down with a yellow pad, and we have to craft the beliefs that we want based on the kind of results that we want in our life. I mean really, if you believe that marriage is for the birds, well then you're never going to get married. If you believe that women should never work on the outside, then you're never going to be satisfied with the situation when that is true.
Keep in mind, craft your belief by feeding your mind the things that you want to happen in your life. Craft your belief by over and over and over saying those things that's going to get you from where you are to where you want to be, because no matter what else you think about it, things that make you feel bad, they don't stick around that long. Some people think that the thing that happened to them have made them the way that they are, and that's not true. That's really not true because some of the things that's happened to you has happened to everyone else as well, but not everyone else has turned out like you. Here's what has happened, the things that have happened to you in the past, they have some impact on you, but it's not to make you the way you are. It's to make you believe that you are the way you are.