Coaches Corner~Politics

There is a lot of talk of mindset and this is never more crucial than in the coaching arena.  As a coach, much of what you do impacts your client’s mindset and in fact it has to.  If you cannot sign off on this simple concept and you do not have a coach, this is a clear indication that you need a coach.  And if you are a coach, your client can benefit from the introduction to the importance of their mindset.  Developing your methodology for coaching, understanding the need for coaching and setting the goals in your business are all influenced by the mindset.  With so much riding on the mindset, you would think there was a step by step process that one could adopt so that the “mindset” problem could be taken care of.  You have all heard a list of the top sales objections and how to eliminate them, haven’t you?  Well such a thing is not possible for the mindset as it is much more individualized and situational.

I find that I have a tendency to feel accused whenever someone does something other than put on the uniform, adorn the pom-poms and scream, “Go, Victor, Go…..Yeah!!!  Victor!”  And while the cheerleaders show up less frequently than I would like, I have conditioned my mind to turn the slightest compliment to make me feel like they did show up.  Quite often, though, the opposite happens.  I enjoy spirited conversation and I was having one with my friend, Carl, just the other day.  He was once again telling me about an experience he had and how he handled it.  It was not that big a deal but he was saying that he would not just “Roll over and wet himself” but instead take charge of the situation.  Since he handled it differently than I would, I did not pass GO, did not get two hundred dollars and went straight to the part where he was calling me a sissy or something less than a man.  Here is my friend for nearly twenty years and really has showed me in more ways than one that he cares for me but I felt victimized because of something that he said.  Chances are he was expressing himself and was not attacking me at all but because of my mindset, I took it personally.  Have you had a similar experience?

During this upcoming political season, many friendships will be lost and there will be lots of fights.  The reason for this is unclear except to say that we all want to be right.  Assessment of our current president range from him doing a fantastic job to him being the worst president ever.  How can that be so when all persons sharing an opinion have lived in this country the whole time?  The reason is also simple.  Two people can examine the same data and come up with two completely different ideas of what went on.  Have you witnessed an accident along with another person and then disagreed with what happened?  Of course you have as have I.  Our minds play weird tricks on us in that whatever thought we are or were having tends to find comfort in the very next thought.  And the more thoughts we have had of a certain ilk, the more we will have.  Our minds, that is, our subconscious minds work 100% of the time to validate what we think about a particular thing.  What we think of is our own doing at first, then it happens automatically.  Quantum physics tells us that when we look at something, what we look at changes and that is why we see things so differently. 

I have had talks with folks who say they are being objective and that is not even possible.  Being objective is a card we play when we are masking our own feelings about a particular thing.  But until we can take ourselves completely out of a situation, we can never be objective.  One of the distinctions of business coaching is that of our likely story.  We all have one and it is used to explain away all the disappointments and shortcomings in our lives.  It is often subconscious and we are not present to it.  As you coach your clients, keep in mind their story about coaches and the person you are in general is impacting the effect your coaching has on them.  Make no mistake about it, you are helping them because what you do, they can never do.  The first thing you are doing for them is providing a different view than their own, you are holding them accountable and you are creating a result they could never have without you.  The point of today’s blog is to realize in your practice that everyone wants the best even when it does not look like it.  Your clients may have some resistance to your helping them and you are able to manage that.  Your mindset will determine how you manage to separate you from your own mindset.  If you cannot do that, you will not be as effective a coach as you can be.  That is reason number 1 for having your own coach.  Like your client, you can’t know what you don’t know until you find out.

If this has helped you, please forward to someone you care about and I end this blog as I end all my blogs, have a good time until next time.

Coaches Corner~Quitting

Much of what we do comes from forces of which we have no control but that does not mean we cannot use sheer will to overcome some of those obstacles.  If your parents were alcoholics, then decide that alcohol is something you can live without.  Its benefits, if there are any, are not worth the chance.  You do not have to work in computers because your ancestors did and certain patterns of thoughts do not have to take you over just because it runs in your bloodline.  In fact, knowing what your family’s tendencies are gives you job 1 in many cases.  I happen to know that my family had not the sort of chutzpah that led us to make sales when funds were needed.  We tended to borrow and get deeper in debt rather than embrace the idea of giving more.  That history has helped shape the man that I am today.

All of my influences have not been as obvious and neither have yours as today’s story demonstrates.  Being a coach means getting in touch with all of you and sharing that in your marketing so that you can easily resonate with your target market.  Remember that the coaches’ creed is, “There is not good or bad, right or wrong, there is only, ‘What’s working?’ ‘What’s not working?’ and other more important paradigms to consider.  I recently sent some money to my sister via paypal and she was not able to get the money.  After some 4 weeks, she had done all she knew how to do so she called me.  I am not sure what the problem was but she did all that she was asked to do and was not able to get the money.  So today she called at her wit’s end with a request for me to simply get the money back from paypal and send it a different way.  I suggested she call paypal and speak to a supervisor and plead her case.

While she was doing that, I was at my computer some 3,000 miles away transferring a musical file which I had done numerous times in the past.  I had given it more than 5 tries and was content to say, “Forget it!”  Right about that time, I received a text from my sister saying she was “Done” with paypal after waiting on hold for more than one hour and I should get my money back.  For some reason, at that moment, I realized that she had quit and was mentally challenging her about being so quick to give up.  I admit I was not present to how much she had actually tried but it still landed for me as quitting.  Seconds after that I thought about my dilemma with the file and thought, “I cannot quit!”  “That is what my family is known for, we just quit when it becomes difficult.”  I resolved to get it done and in no time at all, I had accomplished the task.  My coach friend, Jim Padilla of Gain the Edge, and I were walking and discussing this and he introduced me to a coaches’ tool.  He rather helped me remember something and put a beneficial take on that whole experience which I am prone to do anyway.

If you are a coach listening to this story or unearthing it in a session, how can you best help your client?  You ask the question, “What else in your life are you missing because of your tendency to quit?”  And then wait for the answer.  Most likely you will hear a couple of excuses why this particular incident is different from parts of their life where they do excel and do not quit.  Do not fall for this ruse because if they quit in this part of their life, they quit in every part when the going gets tough.  I am sure Jim was not the first to say it but, “The way you do anything is the way you do everything.”  Once you get them present to that truth, the excuses stop.  You can then get them about the business of finding out “What’s missing?” and “What’s next?” in their business.  Always be on the lookout for teaching moments and remember that you are not immune to generational behaviors or ways of thinking and when you detect them, use them for your growth and your coaching skill. 

Your clients do not have your experience and using your experience to assist your clients is a major distinction of being an extraordinary business coach.  All experiences have value especially the ones we are left to only manage rather than eliminate completely.

If this has helped you , please pass it on to someone else and be sure an leave me a comment or two. I end this blog like I enjoy ending all my blogs and invite you to have a good time until next time.

Coaches Corner~Meditation

Some say that meditation is all hocus-pocus. Some say that meditation is New Age, and yet others say that meditation has made the difference between the life of an average person and an extraordinary life. What do you say about meditation?

Put it this way. Meditation requires focus. Meditation requires effort. In actuality, meditation requires more energy than bench-pressing 350 pounds. In order to bench-press 350 pounds, you have to first decide to do so. You have to then keep your mind focused on the activity of bench-pressing 350 pounds.

This morning, I found myself getting mentally lazy. I was about to get on my exercise machine, and my wife came in and told me breakfast was ready. I typically don't have breakfast until after my exercise machine but this morning was a bit different. I was all excited about my exercise machine because, you see, I exercise to music and "Dirty Diana" by Michael Jackson was about to come on and I like Dirty Diana.

However, I love my wife too, so I decided it was time to eat breakfast. Later, as I was having a seat, it occurred to me maybe I don't need to exercise this morning because I had broken my routine and perhaps God was telling me that this morning is not the morning to exercise. That was nothing more than an excuse.

It was then I realized that I should do a blog on this very, very topic. Extraordinary coaches all the time think about what their clients want. They spend time meditating on their clients' needs. In fact, the truly extraordinary coach has time set aside each day for each specific client before they speak with the client. I know some days they don't feel like doing it. Some days I don't feel like doing it but that's where the idea of consistency comes in.

You must defeat the lazy demon. You must defeat your tendency to keep doing the same thing, to do the easy thing. The easy thing is to not meditate. The easy thing is to distract yourself with some physical activity or distract yourself with something on television or watch a movie or video. Meditation, while demonized by some, really is significant in that it stops us from being mentally lazy. Do you meditate? I meditate sometime. If you do not meditate, let me encourage you to adopt the habit of meditation because to not do so is simply to be mentally lazy. Mental laziness is responsible for all the physical laziness.

I was recently taught a technique while I look up and to the right and think about something wonderful, and I think that is a component of NLP, neuro-linguistic programming. While physically undemanding, it requires effort to look up and to the right, and keep your mind focused on one particular thing. Your mind really is in charge. If you can imagine an earth-mover, a huge machine that can tear things up, there's a man sitting on top of the earth-mover that's in charge of what the earth-mover does, and your mind is likened to that man and your mind is in charge of your life. Your life can do as much damage or as much good as an earth-mover, and it is your mind that is in charge of your life.

As an extraordinary coach, let me encourage you to incorporate meditation into your life if it is not in your life, and if you think of meditation as hocus-pocus or some New Age sort of spirituality, let me encourage you to fight that thought because to not fight that thought is also mentally lazy. I'm going to meditate right after I exercise because the mental energy that it takes for me today to actually accomplish my exercise is gargantuan. While I am exercising, I will implement that new technique that I've learned for NLP. I will look up and to the right, and meditate on what I truly want out of that exercise.

As an extraordinary coach, one extraordinary coach to another, let me ask you to pass this blog on to someone you care about if it has helped you. If it impacts you to the degree that you decide to meditate, that you decide to stop being mentally lazy, then I especially want you to comment below. I end this blog just like I end all of my blogs. Have a good time until the next time.

Coaches Corner~Coaching

With the exception of the sports industry, coaching is a fairly new industry. As such, there are benefits as well as pitfalls associated with the notion of hiring a coach. You might not even know that you need a coach even after you have tried all you know. With the greatest intentions and all the resources you believe you need, it is still possible to fail in business. You can get some insight by speaking with other successful people and that can be questionable unless they have a vested interest to see you succeed. With one’s success comes the desire to share as a natural occurrence and that may be a reason that a successful person may give you feedback that will assist you. That, my friend, is only the beginning because I learned that even in networking marketing the quintessential “help me help you” industry, you can only rely on help to a point.

I have recently hired my first coach for business and it has opened my eyes. Usually when I am talking with a person who identifies themselves as a coach, all my walls go up as I would never in my wildest dreams even consider pay someone to tell me what I am doing wrong. That is how I saw coaching. In business, a person’s “elevator pitch” identifies them as a coach so the conversation is over pretty quickly. I was recently afforded the chance to hear a coach speak uninterrupted for 30 minutes and after a few minutes, I was wondering how was I going to afford him because he was making so much sense. Since I was now open to the conversation, other coaches were attracted to my space and I learned other things.

While these men were coaches, I realized that the points made were so specific that one did not even need to be successful in business to be a coach. After all, the discussion was that if an incredible athlete like Michael Jordan had a coach, in fact, more than one, of course you or I also would need one. None of his coaches achieved the level of excellence as a player that he did and they coached him nonetheless. When you get your coach, as you undoubtedly will if you plan to be successful, choose wisely but do not make it a requirement that he must have done what you want to do in order to coach you to do it.

If this has helped you I would love feedback on how it has.  Until then do me a favor and have a good time until next time.

Coaches Corner~Happenings

While optimism has its perks, we do not always get the result we want.  Not getting what we want is daunting and requires us to find a way to keep living until it surfaces.  My pastor once wrote a book entitled, “What To Do Between ‘I Believe and I receive’ and its content ought to be noted.  We are able to withstand nearly anything for one second, right, so we need only approach misery or disappointment one second at a time.  After one gets a certain age, it is clear that all things work out in some way and even if it doesn’t, we all die sooner or later.  That may seem morbid but it really is good news.  When you consider all the pain agonizing and suffering we do needlessly, knowing it all eventually ends no matter what we do is comforting.  As a boy when I was punished by getting a ‘beatin’ it seemed the pain would never go away but it did go away eventually.  Dealing with panic attacks for more than 8 years and now living without them convinces me that all things end in time and makes it very clear that the time spent agonizing is only useful because it got me from there to here.  And being here is a lot of fun.

Enjoying the journey is more than just a cute saying.  And as an extraordinary coach, you had better enjoy the journey so that you client will enjoy it too.  If all things work together for good, then we must get very good at re-framing everything.  In coaching the operative question is always, “What’s next?” And it can work in all areas of life.  I spend some time in social media and have developed some relationships with people that do not always think the way I do.  I have developed my thinking over the years and understand this process and have a much better handle on life than I used to.  I see comments from people I admire and wonder what they could be thinking.  I even have the nerve to become annoyed at times and wish they would be more like me.  The journey they are presently on looks a lot like my own journey did some years ago and it is almost predictable that they will come around.  By come around, I mean they will come to the same conclusion I did.  That conclusion borders on the fact that we can think about whatever we want to think about and we alone bear that responsibility.  Just because I am there does not mean others do not have the right to make their own journey.  I am getting much better at the old adage, “Live and let live.”  All I really must do is to wait and greet them with gladness when they finally get there.

I suppose there is a certain amount of arrogance associated with such an attitude.  When I consider that the person who is offended is the one responsible for the assessment of arrogance, I feel much better about things.  So what if I am perceived as arrogant?  It is a very valuable asset in this case for it saves a lot of heartbreak anxiety about what is going to happen.  Once you realize that all you feel results from what you think, you choose to think different thoughts.  The sky is not falling….it is not going to be horrible…..and you will find another job and a sweetheart nicer than the one you just lost.  More than anything the idea of prayer makes us okay with whatever we are dealt.  Even in the case of our children, we must be willing to weather the storm until they get to the other side.  Berating, and chastising and brow-beating might make you feel like you are doing something but there is more than talk to the saying “Love covers a multitude of sins.”  When the offense comes we must be ready.  When we are called to watch someone get bruised, we must we willing to watch them heal.  It is this mindset that is most helpful to the coach who is not getting the results she or he wants right now.  Get in the habit of staying until the end of the game because you never know what story to tell if you were not there for the win.

If you have learned anything here or had a new thought, I would appreciate your sharing this blog. And always, I end the way I always end.  Until the next time, have yourself a good time.

Coaches Corner~Business

This blog was first published in January 2015.  I hope you like it the second time around.
Coaches are often called to dispel notions that have persisted over many years in the hopes of improving the lives of their clients.  You may have had the opportunities to dispel some of those ideas yourself.  Network marketing is one area where myths abound and well-meaning consultants promote futile activity to unsuspecting prospects.  The old way of doing things have simply changed and in order to be successful, business people have to keep pace.  One such activity is making sales calls because many of those you are calling are themselves making sales calls and do not welcome yours or even answer their phones unless the recognize the number.  People often give you their phone numbers and simply do not answer their phones when you call.  You get discouraged after making so many calls and often give up.  Believe it or not, your clients are doing this every day and they need the guidance of an extraordinary coach to combat this phenomenon.  By the time a prospect gets to this point, they have actually connected with at least one valuable person that can bring several dollars to the company.  The person who introduced them to the company has long-since quit and reaps no benefit from introducing this true winner to the company.  You may get several clients just like this and similar to them, you must continue to get clients, keeping some, and losing others until you hit your stride and begin attracting the clients that will stay with you for a very long time.

You may have heard advice that include working backwards from the goal you have set.  For instance if you want to make 20 sales per month, ask yourself how many people do you need to talk to in order to get 20 sales?  How many people do you need to call to talk to the amount you need to end up with 20 sales?  If 20 sales per day is your goal, that is 5 per week, right?  And 5 per week is 1 per day, right?  You are familiar with these types of questions.  The fallacy is that your success is not linear.  You might be further told that you must make at least 100 phone calls and evaluate your percentages based on that.  Even though 100 is a good number,that is not an accurate predictor of your success.  As you evaluate your progress, it is very easy to get discouraged and stop trying altogether.  You do not have to be a weak-kneed, pamzy whamsy, milquetoast kind of individual to fall prey to this kind of effect, you simply can be an average person.  And neither do you have to be thick-skinned and superman-like to overcome this tendency either.  You need only be made aware of the existence of the fallacy.  When you examine the record, you will find that days before hitting it big, some persons had a “negative nothing” in their bank balance.  And as they grew their business, they did not earn $2,000 per month even though they finished the year at $24,000, which was their goal.

I am sure you know that Colonel Sanders died a multimillionaire even though his fortune begun at age 65.  Grandma Moses only started painting at age 90.  And who knows how much money Bill Gates and Warren Buffet have now or have made this year.  By the advice given to many, a net worth of $10,000,000 for the past ten years might mean they earned $1,000,000 per year for ten years.  The trouble is that the universe or God is not privy to your timetable and you will never get there if you quit.  Of all the processes that you know of, you can never say that the growth occurs on a linear timetable.  In fact, they most likely made nothing for the first 11 months and made $10,000,000 the last month.  Retailers say that December is their best month after working hard all year and that last month makes their.  Even a human being grows more during the first eighteen years of life than they do after that.  Forget the idea of evaluating your success in a linear way because you will surely quit before your time.

Stake out your goal and make sure it is big enough.  Make an effort to encourage yourself and never give up.  It is your belief in its accomplishment that makes your goal important.  If you have the faith that you can accomplish it, keep on keeping on.  Even though you are ninety percent along your way and only thirty percent toward you goal, keep on striving.  Napoleon Hill said in his book, “Think and Grow Rich,” that when success comes it will come so fast and in such a magnitude that you will wonder where it has been and what took it so long.  Does that sound like equal production month by month?  I don’t think so.  I believe his assessment is true and the key I give to you is to set a goal 10X what you think you want and keep your foot on the gas until the absolute last moment, then enjoy your success.  I encourage you to share the concept with your clients as they will need you more than ever.  When you release them from the bondage of ‘How far along are you in your goal?’ they will truly feel free to fail and to succeed which will help them brand you as an extraordinary coach.

As always, if this blog has helped you or gotten you farther along toward your goal, please share it with others.  I end this blog like all others when I say to you, have a good time until next time.

Coaches Corner~Business Basics

As an extraordinary coach I'm always on the lookout for different things that I can do to help people manage themselves better. You see, I am totally sold on the fact that living life is an inside game, and that being successful in your business is also an inside game. The way that you characterize your own thoughts, which impacts the way that you approach the world, does a lot to impact your business in a big, big way. I get that all of us are afflicted with the looking good, being right, way of living. I'm probably no exception to that rule. Keep in mind that I, too, want to look good and be right. When I come up with these strategies that impact how you look at the world, I certainly do hope that I'm right.

This blog is about offenses. We all understand that offenses exist, and somehow we've gotten to the place where we think that our job is to deal with every offense. The way that we deal with offense is we have the offending person make a change. We have the offending person take back what they said, or wear a different article of clothing, or use a different word. The way that we deal with our offenses is generally to have somebody else do something. If you've been paying attention to my blogs, to my social media presence, you may have noticed that I spend a lot of time talking about forgiveness. The reason I spend a lot of time talking about forgiveness is that I want to offset all of the inordinate amount of time spent on dealing with offenses.

Just like oppression, the grandest weapon that the offender has is the mind of the person who is taking offense. Forgiveness closes the loop. If somebody offends you, you simply forgive them. What is happening is someone offends you, and you want them to do something different, or to take it back. That's never going to happen. The other end of that continuum is that somebody offends you, so you want to offend them to pay them back. Once again, the answer is forgiveness. In my world I can see it no other way, and so as far as being right, I guess I can close that loop right now.

Let's just run out this scenario in real time, and imagine that you have been offended. Let's just say that I have offended you. I wasn't trying to offend you, I was simply being me. By simply being me you have gotten offended? Really, I'm offended that you're offended by me being me. If we get really ridiculous about this concept, let's just go right here and say, "What if I'm offended that you are offended that I'm offended, that you are offended that I'm offended that you are offended that I'm offended that you're offended." How ridiculous is that, and where does it stop, and who is at fault?

As an extraordinary coach I strongly suggest that you empower your clients, that you empower the people you know, in telling them that no one can offend them without their permission, and simply tell them to stop giving permission. What if I'm offended that you're offended? Well, as far as  what I just said a moment ago, how does a person manage that, where does the offenses end? Obviously, the offenses will never end, so you must forgive. You can forgive, or you cannot be offended in the first place. If you are not able to be in that place where you won't get offended in the first place, practice forgiving more. Do more forgiveness, and I believe that you will get to that place, not only where you can forgive easily, but where you won't get offended at all.

I know some of you may think there's some instances that's just rude, there's some thing's that's just impolite. No, there's no such thing. There's only a majority opinion of what's rude, a majority opinion of what's impolite. If you want to be in the majority, then you go right ahead and be in the majority. As for me, I'm not going to be offended, and I'm going to forgive.

If this blog has helped you please pass it on to someone that you know, or someone that you care about. I end this blog like I end most of most of blogs and that is for you to have yourself a good time until the next time.

Coaches Corner~Egocentrism

We are all familiar with the concept of how everything is connected with everything else. This can be demonstrated by tossing a pebble in the water and watching the ripples. Way down river you'll have an event that's connected to the that stone being thrown into the river. When you erect a building, the foundation determines how wonderful the building is going to be. If you lay a firm foundation you will more than likely have an exceptional edifice. When you plant seed you cultivate the ground, you put fertilizer in, and the beginning actually determines what the end's going to be.

If you raise a child up in the way that they should go, when they are older they will not depart from it. As an extraordinary coach it is so, so important that you understand that certain things are telltale. Certain things produce certain results, and as an extraordinary coach you will learn to predict them based on what you see. The blog I'm writing today is about predicting the type of client that you have. You see basically, the world is divided into two kinds of people. Those who see themselves as victims, and those who see themselves as victors. That's not just because my name is Victor.

Often the people that are a member of these individual groups cannot even tell themselves that they are in this group. Often people spend many years in a victim position, and they only realize that they are a victim, or that they were a victim, once they come out of it. People who are in the victor position sometime never realize that they're a victor until someone brings it to their attention, and remind them of all the great things that's been happening in their lives. What we want to talk about is the indications of who you are dealing with by what comes out of their mouth.

Anyone having read this blog before knows the importance of love in our lives. We know that as humans we were made to love, and we know as humans that we live our best lives when we can love. Critical to that love part is the forgiveness part. I'm doing a whole lot of prefacing for this blog, because I'm trying to make a critical point here about the relationship that exists between how you feel about one thing, and how you feel about yourself.

I was getting out of the shower today and looking at myself, and lamenting the fact that I don't look exactly how I would prefer to look. Also, extolling the virtue of how much I loved the person that I was. Since I loved the person that I was, then I also loved the life that I'm living. The more I love the person that I am, and the more that love the life that I'm living, the better those things become, because I am looking for reasons to love. It doesn't matter to me what else is true, I want to love. I'm going to succeed in loving. My powerful subconscious mind will direct me to areas where I can find excuses to love, because that is my natural temperament. As a person who chooses to love unconditionally, you must say that I am a victor.

Victims don't choose to love, victims choose to be acted upon or are looking for someone to love them. For instance, were I a victim mentality I would be lamenting the size of body. I would be lamenting what I look like, and I would be whining about how I wish it were different. I would tell everyone I know that my stomach is too big, that my nose doesn't look the way I want it too look, that I weigh too much. I would spend lots of time complaining about those things, and surely my subconscious mind will help me by giving me more things, by finding me more things to complain of.

Now we get to the reason I'm doing this blog this morning, because I as an American love America. Wherever I was I would love that place. When I put myself in the position where I am somewhere that I'm not able to move from and I don't love it, then I am victimizing myself. How I feel about where I am is my doing, it's not your doing. No matter how you feel about your country, or no matter how you feel about your wife, or how you feel about your home, it is you that feels that way. It is you on whom an effect will occur. You're not doing anybody a favor by telling them how bad a particular thing is, and telling them why don't love it. The only person that you are doing any kind of damage to is yourself.

Each time you complain, each time you find a reason to be unhappy, your brain operates so that whatever the last thought that you had, the next thought's going to be the same.  This is not know to most of us. You have to consciously decide, and purposely think about how much you love wherever you are. Human beings have this fallacious notion that identifying faults, identifying misery, that they're doing somebody some good, that they're helping somebody. You're not helping anyone by complaining about anything under which you find yourself. You can complain about yourself, you can complain about your wife. You can complain about your country, but I assure you those complaints will do nothing except poison the essence of who you are.

As an extraordinary coach I want you to, 1) commit to being excited about anything that has something to do with you, and this does not negate progress at all. Wherever you are you must be happy in that situation, and you must love that situation, or they'll never get better.  2) Then after you commit to being excited about where you are, make sure and direct your clients to do the same thing. Often, your client believes that they're doing the best that they can, when they are complaining to you about how bad things are.

As an extraordinary coach just simply ask them the question that I've grown fond of asking over the last few days. "Is that true?" You will find that whatever they are complaining about may not be really true, and just might be how they're thinking of it that's causing them grief.

As they say in my favorite book, the Bible, "let your conversation be yea, and amen." Now if you have gotten anything out of this blog I love the fact that you got something out of it, but I'll be happiest if you would pass it on to someone else. I end this blog like I end all of my blogs, encouraging you to have yourself a good time until the next time.

Coaches Corner~Blessings

As an extraordinary coach, it's critical that you utilize the power of your mind more so than other people, because your clients are probably reacting to emotional things. Emotional things cripple us sometimes because the legitimacy of our concern is often lost if we can somehow look at something logically, unbiased, and come to a different conclusion.

I've recently had a chance to allow my emotions to run away with me. I almost fell into the victim trap, which I decry most of the time. It's almost never a case of somebody victimizing you. It's almost always you victimizing yourself, and you do that by the way that you think about things. You do that by what you do with your mind.

Recently, I was in Las Vegas, Nevada, at the Toastmasters International Conference. The hotel I was staying in had a sign clearly marked that said, "Shuttle bus to the airport every hour between 7am and 10pm." There was something else after that, but I saw no need to read that because I could simply catch the shuttle at 9:00 to be on time for my plane. The next morning, about 7:00, 7:30, I just reiterated to the woman that the bus was going to leave every hour and that I could be on it at 9:00, when she told me that only if I had scheduled my trip. To some of you that may seem to make sense, but to me, if a bus leaves every hour from 7am to 10pm, I don't need to know anything else, and that's the way I treated it. Right after she told me that, I wanted to complain. I wanted to tell her, what do you mean scheduled? It said the bus leaves from 7am to 10pm every hour on the hour. What's this about scheduling? And sure enough, when I looked at the sign, the sign said, "Please schedule."

Now, they have their own reasons for scheduling, and that might make sense, but that's not what this blog is about. As an extraordinary coach, you must not be reactive, just like I must not be reactive. My initial impression was that I was being victimized because look what could have happened if I didn't mention to her that I wanted to be on that bus. You imagine, being told when you got ready to go to the airport that you can't go because you didn't schedule and simply standing on that ceremony? They would have been perfectly within their right, and no court in America would have decided in my favor had it gone to that place.

Back to thinking like a victim. I was complaining actually to two people I know, when it occurred to me, wait a minute. That's not quite the way to look at this. You know, my word, viewattitudes, says that if you change your view, you can change your attitude? I always decry anybody identifying themselves as a victim, so I stopped for a moment. I thought again and asked myself, is it true that I'm being a victim? Is it true that I'm being taken advantage of? Well, of course it wasn't true, but here's what was true. God had given me an opportunity to be blessed once again.

It seems in this life that I've lived over the last year or two, it seems that whatever I needed whenever I needed, it would show up, no matter what kind of anxieties I had before the time was right. In this case, it was no different. God had blessed me so that I was able to be here at the prescribed time, so that I had the conversation that I needed to have, so that I could make my plane. So none of this victimization crap. None of this, "They're taking advantage of me" crap. The only thing that I should have been thinking is, "Wow. How fortunate of me once again to have God bless me in this way."

The point of this blog is that we all can look at things any way that we want to. If we want to be victimized, we can find a way to be victimized, but if we want to be, shall we say, "victor-ized," we can do that as well. We can do that as well. Caution yourself as you listen to your clients and as you guide your clients that it is their mind that is in charge. I can't stress this often enough that it is your mind that makes your life. In the case of the almost-missed shuttle bus to the airport, it is now ancient history. What has replaced it is another memory, another little tug, indicating that God is still on the throne.

If this blog has blessed you, once again I ask you to pass it on to your families, or friend, or somebody that you care about. I end this blog just like I end all of them, which is, you do yourself a favor and have a good time until the next time. Bye for now.

Coaches Corner~Oppression

I am writing this blog as I'm driving down Calvine Road which is not far from my home. This morning is a phenomenal morning. I'm on my way to Las Vegas to the Toastmasters International Convention, and I seem to be getting all these mental downloads. All this information, these ideas that as far am I'm concerned, they're coming through me, not to me. They're coming through me on its way to you, you who is an extraordinary coach.

As an extraordinary coach, it is critical to be present to the fact that whatever ideas that you have, you are probably not the only one that has the idea. No matter how you assess the idea, whether or not it's a good idea is purely your assessment and nothing more. You can proceed whichever way you choose. The ideas that I received this morning came from a young man who posted something, a series of questions that really got me to thinking. Who created this world that you live in? Who created this racism that you fight against? Who created this religion that you love? He asked those questions among several others that doesn't come to mind right now but I'm going to give him credit for causing me to have the thought that I'm having right now.

As extraordinary coaches, it is very important, very important if you want to help people that you learn as much as you can about people and despite your assertions to the contrary, you are one of those people and I am one of those people. As I began to ponder the questions that the young man asked, his name is Barry Accius, I'll give him credit, Barry Accius, I realized that the world that he was talking about, the religion that he was talking about, the racism that he was talking about, were all things that occurred as a matter of perception. All of us do not live the same life. All of us do not live the same life because we don't think the same thoughts. I responded in what I thought was a profound manner to his question by saying, "I am pretty sure that I created mine."

I was saying I was pretty sure that the life that I lived, I was pretty sure that I created it. Well, I thought that was a pretty exceptional statement and it was very profound, and so I was on the edge of my seat waiting for his deep response because typically Barry has deep responses. Well, I got the "heartbreak of psoriasis," as they say, when he responded to my comment with a simple, "LOL." He thought what I said was funny. Now the meaning that I make of that is that it was funny because I was so misled by his definition. I know him well enough to make judgments about what I think he means but I really don't know what he means.

The next thought that I had was a saying that I have heard in the past which said that the most potent weapon that an oppressor has is the mind of the oppressed. While people focused on that statement in various and sundry ways, as I thought about that statement this morning, I realized that the ONLY weapon that the oppressor has is the mind of the oppressed since oppression is a mental thing if it is anything. The only weapon that a perpetrator has is the mind of the victim. These experiences that I describe occur on the inside and they occur differently for different people. It speaks to my assertion that it is the mind that makes the difference in our lives. It's the mind that we experience things through and we experience it by the way that we feel.

While it might seem funny that the world I live in is of my own creation, I think it is irrefutable that everybody's world is of their own creation because we're the ones that's living it. As an extraordinary coach, be present to the fact that all the things that I'm saying result from the age-old malady that we all experience which is the looking good and being right. Facebook is a wealth of information for me because when I look at Facebook, I always think something. When I look at Facebook, I always find the thought that resonates with one that I already have, so this thought this morning about who created this world that you live in, it was powerful and it was potent, and it helped me write a blog for you that's going to give you something to think about as well.

The point of this blog is to validate the fact that the mind, what you choose to think, is really responsible for what goes on in your life. Whether or not you choose to think that you're being effective for your clients, people who are not having the experience that they enjoy, they deny this but I tell you it is irrefutable in my book. Make no mistake about it, it's my book and it's the way that I think about it. I know that there are others that think just like I do. Some of you are reading this blog right now and yet others of you are reading this blog and thinking it's bunk. You know what? It is okay either way.

If this blog has helped you, I urge you to pass it on to someone that you know, someone that you like. Pass it on to someone that you care about. I end this blog as I end all my blogs. Do me a big favor and have yourself a good time until the next time.

Coaches Corner~News

Businesscoach.com is where I learned to be a coach. Because of businesscoach.com I now count myself among the few people that is an extraordinary coach. I hope that you are an extraordinary coach as well. One of the tools that I learned in businesscoach.com that you could use for any coaching session is the what's working, what's not working, what's missing, and what's next. Taking your client through those four questions can really get you to where you need to be in terms of helping your client. If your client is a coach, it helps them help their clients as well.

If you have had some success and you have been considered a positive person, you may be averse to the idea of thinking about what not working. You may think that your do not want to waste your time in the arena of what's not positive, and that's pretty good. You may have had lots of success doing things the way that you're doing it and keeping your mind off the things that you don't want, and keeping it on the things that you want, which is also a great strategy. You will never get to the levels where you want to go, you will never get to where you aspire to go until you can incorporate those four questions: what's working, what's not working, what's missing, and what's next.

The implication is that what is not measured does not improve. After all, if you don't know where you are, how are you going to know where you're going. We're starting a football season now, and I think all of us that enjoy football have heard of the first down, the second down, the first and ten, first and three. That's measuring the distance from one place to the other. If you couldn't measure the distance from one place to the other, you'd never get to the other place. If you simply got the ball, hiked the ball, and started playing football, you would never know where you were and there would be no way to measure your progress. There would be no way to tell who won the game. Winning the game is really the point in playing a game of football.

I bring this up because I had a client the other day who's much like me, a very positive, motivated young man that has taken me on as his coach. As his coach I'm taking him through the four question strategy. We get to the part where I ask him what's not working, and he doesn't want to talk about what's not working. He reminded me of a story that I got present to recently. Another indication of how you must measure if you want to improve and the whole point of having a coach is so you can improve, right?

I recall some time ago when I weighed over 300 pounds, I did not want to get on a scale. Because see, being an inside game sort of a guy like myself, I understand that what you think about, you bring about. Each time you see something you create an impression in your brain and you reiterate that thing whatever it was. I didn't want to get on the scale and see myself tipping the scale at over 300 pounds because I reasoned that no matter what I did I would still be 300 pounds, and I thought the reason why was that I was putting that into my mind each time I looked at the scale.

Needless to say, not looking at the scale did not stop me from weighing 300 pounds. I eventually adopted a strategy, a strategy that actually had me losing one pound a day. I got on the scale every day and watched that one pound go down. In plain and honest truth, that was working. What wasn't working was not looking at the scale.

Another indication of my tendency to avoid bad news or not wanting to look at the seamy side of things: when I don't have as much money in my bank account as I want to have in my bank account, I don't want to look at it. I don't want to see the overdraft. I don't want to see the minimal deposit. I want to see the five, six figures in my bank account. I stopped looking at it, and wouldn't you know it, from time to time I would write checks, I would be overdrawn, I would have far less money than what I thought I had all because I didn't want to look at the negative. Clearly what wasn't working was the way that I was living my life.

As an extraordinary coach who has had some success, you may have great success, but you have a coach so you can have more success. In order to for you to have more success you're going to have to look at what's not working. No matter how unpleasant it is, what's not working is going to help you get to that place where you want to go. You see, your tendency to avoid looking at what's not working falls in the realm of you don't know what you don't know. No matter how you couch this particular aspect of coaching, noticing what is not working is critical to your success.  As a coach, it is my job to have my client address his blind spots so he can get results he has not gotten before. Only part of being a coach is being friendly and critical to the process is to deliver the bad news when it is time to do so.  Being a coach is more than a whitewash even though that might keep you getting paid.  In the long run it is better to lose the client because getting paid is only one of the reason you coach.

In this instance I am being called to take the responsibility for having my client understand the importance of noticing what is not working and I am up to the task.  I am reminded of a movie in which Forrest Whitaker portrayed Idi Amin, a despot of the nineteen seventies.  He was told by one of his advisors not to expel the journalists from the country because of the backlash it would cause. Amin ignored his advice and expelled all the journalists anyway.  Of course, there was a backlash and naturally he blamed his advisor.  His advisor reminded him that he was told not to expel the journalists and Amin lamented that the advisor should have told him not to do so.  The advisor had told him so he replied that. "I did tell you, sir, I did but you didn't listen."  Amin, the dictator that he was, the iron-fisted ruler that he was, then replied, "Well then, you should have persuaded me."  That is exactly how I feel about this client and I will find a way to do so.  The four question strategy is critical and any coach not using it, is using something like.  The same is true for your own clients.  I hope this blog has given you something to think about and that it did so to the degree that you want share it with someone.  And I end this blog just all the rest of them when I bid you to have a good time until the next time.

Coaches Corner~Attitude

I consider myself a salesman of sorts, and part of the reason I consider myself as a salesman of sorts is that sales by definition is when you've influenced someone to take some sort of action. Sometimes that action is spending money. To further expound on the idea of selling, "Facts may tell but it is stories that sell."

Since I consider myself a salesman to a degree, I always find myself telling stories. Having something to sell is no more complicated than conveying an idea to someone that I'd love for them to adopt. As an extraordinary coach I would like for you to adopt the idea that the attitude is all important. Once you decide that things are going to be great, typically things are just great. When things are great one time, you think about that the next time you happen to see that things are not great and all this is why I'm sharing with you this next story I'm going to tell you. This next story I'm going to tell you about is how having a great attitude is its own reward.

For those of you that don't know, before I became an extraordinary coach I worked in the medical field. I was a registered nurse in the emergency room so my days were characterized by spending time with medics and firemen and policemen. This particular firefighter was telling me one day about a story involving him and another fireman some time ago. They were really excited about their jobs so even when they were not working they carried around two-way radios. One guy had a pickup truck and he always had a two-way radio in his pickup truck, and he always had his two-way radio turned on.

There was an accident. There was a fire, and a small child was in dire stress. When they heard the call they weren't far from the location so they decided that they would go there. They knew a shortcut; they knew the roads; they knew the neighborhood so it was easy for them to take some back streets and get there faster than the ambulance that was on the way.

When he turned onto a street that he was familiar with, as it turned out there was an earth mover that had just taken a big chunk of the road out and had the bucket still in the air with the chunk of dirt in it. They had come to the place where they had to go this way. To go any other way they would have been too long and the child could have died. They said to the workman, says, "Mister, would you mind please can you put the dirt back down long enough for me to drive my truck across there? We got a sick little girl that we got to go and save."

The workman was a guy like me. He believed in attitudes. He believed that his attitude determined his altitude, so he decided that he would accommodate these firefighters. He put the dirt back down and they rolled over. When they got there the little girl was just about to turn purple due to lack of oxygen. Because of this workman who had a good enough attitude to let these firefighters through, the little girl was saved in the nick of time. The little girl was not hurt at all. I'm telling you they took her to the hospital and did the work on the little girl. Everybody was excited about that. Now the workman, he didn't have any way of knowing that but that's really what happened.

Several days later the firefighter's driving around a neighborhood and they're still working on this road, so he decided that he wanted to go over and talk to the workman and tell him how wonderful it was that he let him through. He wanted to express his sincere appreciation how important it was that the workman made the decision that he did and that he demonstrated a good attitude by being helpful.

As he drives up in the neighborhood, sure enough, the workman is there and the workman sees him. The workman is just really, really excited and he's walking toward the fireman, and the fireman is excited too because the workman is excited, so they're getting each other jazzed up and getting each other excited. They're walking towards each other. They're hugging on each other. The firefighter told the workman, said, "Hey, you know something, man? Because of you, because of you we were able to save that little girl and we just appreciate you and we're so glad that you had a great attitude that day. Man, we are so excited about what you did. Thank you, my brother. Thank you."

To which the workman, with equal enthusiasm, says, "Oh no. No, no, not at all, sir. Not at all. What you don't realize is that that little girl that you saved was my daughter." Can you believe it? Can you believe it? That workman, had he not been cooperative, he would have sealed his daughter's fate. Now it didn't have to be his daughter at this time. It could have been anybody's daughter, but the mere fact that he was cooperative and demonstrated an attitude was its own reward. In addition to feeling good for helping somebody, he felt good that he saved his own little daughter's life.

What about you? As extraordinary coaches we tend to think that we know a lot more than we really do. Often people will make a suggestion to us about a particular thing and rather than simply evaluate the suggestion on its own merit, we have these preconceived notions that we carry around that make us think that we are right. We then begin to defend our being right in more ways than you can imagine.

How do you respond when you are asked to do something that's not a part of your job per se? How do you behave when someone asks you to do something when you have to go above and beyond, or even still, someone asks you to do something that is not clearly defined as something that you're responsible to do, but it is something that can help somebody? How often do you agree to it without a fight?

I want you to make a commitment after hearing this story that you will always, always be cooperative. You will always do what you can to help somebody. One way to encourage yourself to do that is forget about who's going to get the credit. A wise man told me one time, if you're not worried about who gets the credit, you are able do a lot of things. Give up the right to be right. Give up the right to get the credit and don't look for the pats on the back. Whenever you get the chance to do somebody a favor, whenever you get the chance to forgive somebody for some transgression, I want you to take it.  This is the essence of a good attitude.

Now if this blog has helped you, maybe it will help somebody else, so I'm going to ask you to pass this blog on to something that you know. Then I'm going to end the blog like I end all my blogs, with me inviting you to have yourself a good time until the next time and continue being an extraordinary coach.

Coaches Corner~Genie

Have you given any thought to what it would be like if you were an actual genie? In addition to being an extraordinary coach, let's just say that you fulfill the role of a genie. What does a genie really do? A genie meets the needs of their owner. If you own a genie, a genie spends his time in a bottle, and at the prescribed time when you want the genie to do something for you, you rub on the bottle and the genie comes up and gives you everything that you want.

My experience with a genie was enhanced recently when I saw Aladdin, the cartoon movie. You know the one where Robin Williams plays the voice of the genie? Yeah, that one. Someone stole the genie, if you remember the movie. He stole the genie and had the genie do all sorts of things for him. The genie got him all the riches he wanted. The genie got him all of the houses, the women, and everything that he wanted. What he truly wanted was power. He wanted more and more power. Now having power, power to help people, power to empower others, that's a good place to be and it's a good thing to have. There are limits, however, and that's what this blog is about.

As an extraordinary coach, what you do most of the time is your empower people and you unleash them to do great things. Because you unleash them to do great things, they remain your client. They remain with you because every time they turn around, you are increasing their value by showing them how valuable you are. When you tell your client that they can add a subdomain to their already existing URL, that helps them out a whole lot. When you tell your client that they can have multiple Gmail accounts and start blogs on all those Gmail accounts to give themselves a more definitive presence on the internet, that's value for your client. When you tell your clients about technologies that exist that allow them to create lead pages at no cost, all those things bring your client value.

Can you imagine how valuable it would be to a client who did not know that the power of forgiveness changes the way that you relate to the world? Oh yes, if you were a genie, there are lots of things that you could do for your client. Training your client to receive things from you is a good way to go. If you do it properly, your client will want to duplicate you.

I coach coaches. As I bring value to coaches like yourself, you may find yourself bringing value to your client purely based on the value that I have given you. For that, we can all be thankful. Getting back to the story about the genie, when you get yourself a genie and your genie gives you everything that you want, if you do not have the proper training, the proper attitude, it's very easy for you to be overcome with greed. Greed has a tendency to obscure our perception of life and cause us to see things in a way that's not all that empowering.

If you or your clients get afflicted by greed, here is the caution. I want you present to this because this small tidbit can be the difference between you becoming successful and you becoming harnessed, and you becoming placed under a bushel where you do nobody any good. Once the genie has shown you how powerful they are by giving you everything that you've asked for, it's easy for you to think that the next thing that you could do is you could be the genie. You could be the one that's bringing all these riches. You could be the one that's accomplishing all these things. You could be the one that's given all the power.

One last ditch attempt at grabbing power, you say to the genie, "I want to become a genie because being a genie I can really help people out." What do you think happens? You're a genie accomplishing your every wish or every desire. Will it help you by making you into a genie? Now you are a genie. You're a genie accomplishing all of these things for everyone. You're a genie getting the adulation, the admiration, the adoration of all the people that you know because you are meeting their needs. Finally, you think that's that.

Well coaches, extraordinary coaches, that is not that because all it would take to hamstring you or to render you ineffective is for someone to put you back in the bottle. There you are in the bottle with all of this power and with all of this potential, and you can do nothing about it. The only reason that you're in the bottle is because you did not know the parameters, you did not know when to quit. The demon called greed got a hold of you.

As an extraordinary coach you must be ever present of the possibility of the allure of more and more. Because getting more is its own reward but going to more is also its own detriment. As I end this blog I want to leave with you this:  "Don't become the genie. Be satisfied with what the genie gives you. Be glad with the success that you have and continue to grow and continue to blossom, for it is in doing that that you want benefit your client's most." If this blog has helped you, I want you to share it with someone that you care about. I end this blog like I end all of my blogs, which is have a good time until the next time.

Coaches Corner~Turnaround

As an extraordinary coach, I've always thought myself very sophisticated. I've always thought myself to be above the fray. I would never think that I would fall prey to stinking thinking myself, but I recently realized that I am just as susceptible to stinking thinking as the next person. I'll tell you a story. As you listen to the story, see if you could find ways where you allow your way of thinking to impact your interpretation of a particular situation. Be honest and be brutal in your assessment.

I have recently been reading and listening to a CD of a woman called Byron Katie. Byron Katie is a woman that has a series of four questions. Those four questions characterize what she calls "The Work." They are made to help you grow past your shortcomings. They are made to help you get better, deal with some of the anxiety that you may have in your life. I've been in this mood where I want to improve and I want to apply these four questions to my particular situation.

Now just for the sake of discussion I won't bore you with the method that I take and the route I took in coming to my conclusions, but the four questions are: 1) Is that true? 2) Can you be absolutely sure that is true? 3) What is your reaction to that particular thought? How does it make you feel? 4) Who would you be, what would you be, if you did not have that thought? Finally, she has something called "The Turnaround." "The Turnaround" is really a nice little move because it causes you to evaluate yourself with the same assessment that you evaluate somebody else. Oftentimes you'll find how you think somebody is feeling about you is how you are really feeling about them. For instance, you might think somebody is a racist, but in point of fact, you're the one that's the racist.

On with my story. My friend was sharing with me how she was in the company of some people who were different races from she and different races from I. They were, shall we say, taking my personal inventory. She decided that since her and I were the same race, there was no way she was going to allow them to speak badly about me, so she called them on it. She told them, "No, you don't know him. He is a great guy and I don't know what your problem is with him." Other people in the company also assessed me as being a pretty decent individual. For this I felt really, really special as she's telling me this story.

Being a person who is attuned to the complaints of racism and the assignment of racist attitudes, it was very easy for me to think that even though she was defending me and even though she was showing her like for me by telling me about this, she was being racist. Now, was she being racist or wasn't she being racist? Like all complaints of racism, there's no way we can know. Because unless we can read someone's mind, we don't know what motivated them to do things. Racism is a characterization of somebody's action.

For the sake of discussion, let's say she may or may have not been racist, which is beside the point. What we're talking about is my assessment. When I applied the questions that Byron Katie talks about: Is that true? How do you know that's true? What's your reaction when you hear this thought? Who would you be if you didn't have this thought? ... As you read this blog, understand that over the years I have had some self-esteem challenges. I have been accused of not loving myself and not caring for myself and not treating myself properly, and enduring abuse that I didn't have to. Those days I believed were far behind me.

Upon closer inspection, after applying "The Work" that Byron Katie talks about, it seems to me that I was cheapening myself once again. Because you know what? She didn't have to be a racist.  I wanted to blame her for being racist when in fact, the way I looked at it was indeed racist.  It did not matter what color I or she was.  What really mattered was that found a reason to hold me in high regard.  Were the race overtones not present, she would have found some other reason that I was a good guy.  Because my skin color is only a part of me.  Imagine my being another color, the same attributes I now have would still be present and I would characterized as a decent guy.  The real way to look at it is that no matter what color I was and no matter what color she was, she would have defended me. She would have defended me for whatever reason that she could muster up about why I was a great guy.

As you go about your life being an extraordinary coach and helping people get over their obstacles and getting over your own obstacles, please be present to the fact that nothing has any meaning that you didn't give to it. Whenever you assess a particular thing as being a certain way, don't lose sight of the fact that it is your mindset that's causing you to see it that way. If all else fails and your assessment gives you pause or causes you to feel anxious, than remember Byron Katie. That's Byron, B-Y-R-O-N K-A-T-I-E. Remember Byron Katie and her four questions that she calls "The Work."

Now if it's blog has helped you in any way, shape, form, or fashion, or if somebody you know could benefit from it, I would love for you to pass it on to them and continue following this blog. I end this blog like I end all of my blogs, in the very same fashion, which is I encourage you to have yourself a good time until the next time.

Coaches Corner~Re-posted

Whatever kind of coach you are, business is an important part of it, especially if you are a business coach.  Anything having to do with business is of concern to you and this blog might be a bit of a surprise.  I recently read a blog by a friend, Professor Rosalind Henderson on forgiveness.  She extolled the virtue of forgiveness in one’s business life and I got the gist of it very quickly because I am a forgiveness expert.  I have forgiven some of the cruelest things and not because I am all that but because I aspire to be all that.  It is absolutely impossible to achieve greatness without deciding to forgive all.  And if you have not been hurt, count yourself very fortunate.  I responded to her post and made sure she knew that I stood right beside her in endorsing forgiveness as a lifestyle.  Lest you think that the person you are forgiving is getting away with something, perish the thought because you are only hurting yourself when you choose not to forgive.

In his book, ONE WAY LOVE, Tullian Tchividjian tells an interesting story involving Robert Downey, Jr. and Mel Gibson.  It seems that Mr. Downey was given some sort of award in the movie industry after he spent years hurting a lot of people and avoiding the downward spiral that was his life.  He did drugs, failed miserably as an actor and was a general ne’er do well.  By many accounts, his career was over.  Even when actors or actresses wanted to work with him and when directors and producers did not, insurance companies would not insure any movie that he was in.  As a condition of accepting this award, it was his privilege to choose the person who would present the award to him and he chose Mel Gibson.  This occurred after Downey had finally hit it big in the blockbuster movie know as IronMan.   If you remember during that time, Mel Gibson had had a series of mess-ups all his own.  He had a messy divorce, drunken episodes while driving and even had a tirade of racial epithets insulting Jews and Blacks.  In short, Robert Downey, Jr. had come out of his misery and Mel was just starting his plummet into oblivion for actors.  Many wondered what had got into Downey by having this bum give him the award.  Here is what they didn’t and couldn’t know as Downey gave his acceptance speech for the award after it was presented by Mel Gibson:

            Actually, I asked Mel to present this award to me for a reason, because when I couldn’t get sober, he told me not to give up hope, and he urged me to find my faith—didn’t have to be his or anyone else’s as long as it was rooted in forgiveness.  And I couldn’t get hired, so he cast me in the lead of a movie that was actually developed for him.  And he kept a roof over my head, and he kept food on the table.  And most importantly, he said that if I accepted responsibility for my wrongdoings, and if I embraced that part of my soul that was ugly—“hugging the cactus” long enough, I’d become a man of some humility and that my life would take on new meaning.  And I did and it worked.  All he asked in return was that someday I help the next guy in some small way.  It’s reasonable to assume that at the time he didn’t imagine the next guy would be him.  Or that someday was tonight.

            So anyway, on this special occasion…I humbly ask that you join me—unless you are completely without sin (in which case you picked the wrong…industry)—in forgiving my friend his trespasses, offering him the same clean slate you have me, and allowing him to continue his great and ongoing contribution to our collective art without shame.  He’s hugged the cactus long enough.  At that point, the two men hug.

Our clients may not be movie stars but their troubles are just as real.  When we don’t forgive in our own lives, it is that much easier to add to the list of people we don’t forgive.  We can sometimes have a client that reminds us of someone we have not forgiven and become ineffective as far as that client is concerned.  After reading this blog, it should ring in your mind that the saying, “What goes around, comes around” is more than adequate to describe what happened to Mel and Robert.  But even moreso I want you to embrace the fact that you might not always be as well put together as you are now so do me a favor, show a little love…er forgiveness.

If this has helped you , please pass it on to someone you care about.  And as always, until the next time, have a good time.

Coaches Corner~Oops Again

Even a person like myself who coaches can be saddled with the shortfalls associated with buying his own story.  Keep in mind that the story I am referring to is the “likely story” that we all tell ourselves that explain away our misgivings, failures and excuses for not  having what we say we want in our lives.  Recently, I was made aware of a story involving Marshawn Lynch, a professional football player who was reluctant to be interviewed before the greatest sports event this year, the LXVIV Super Bowl.  He took the position of repeating the same phrase over and over, “I’m just here because I don’t want to get fined…I’m just here because I don’t want to get fined.”  This translated as something unacceptable to me and because of my predisposition, I was very quick to criticize him.  There was no consideration of the motivation that made him do it and there was no sympathy.  My story had guided me and took me to a place that did not serve me at all. It turns out that there was a good reason for his actions and mostly it was his own story.

What about the reporters who consistently asked him questions after it was clear he was not going to answer them?  What about his skill as a public speaker being in question?  There is a number of things that could have been responsible for his behavior and only one thing responsible for my criticism and that was my story.  Have you considered that your story may be impacting how you see things?  While you are looking at others and passing judgement, have you even thought that you are the one passing judgment?  As a coach it is critical to remember that it is your job to bring an outside objective opinion to your clients’ situation and that means you must always give everyone the benefit of the doubt.  When you cease giving the benefit of the doubt, you set up a chance for your client’s expectation to deteriorate.  A determinant of one’s result that is often ignored is their expectation.  In an odd sort of a way, falling prey to judging based on your own story hurts your client way more than it even helps you.  Certainly you can be more considerate when you learn more about any situation, I generally prefer to habitually give the benefit of the doubt primarily because it helps me elevate my expectations.  To make it a little clear, consider the following story.

As Jane sat on the train, she noticed this man seemingly sitting catatonic while three or four children ran around the train car seeming as though they were on a playground.  The man just sat there and did nothing!  Jane had taken all she could and had begun justifying her indignation in her own mind.  She remembers how strict her parents were and she was thinking that there is no way she and her siblings would get away with such behavior.  She clearly knew that these children had no home training.  When she could take it no more, she blurted out to the man, “Sir, why don’t you teach your kids more manners.  Don’t you know there are people on this train they are bothering?”  The man apologetically stated that he was sorry.  They had just left the hospital where their mother just died and, “I was in deep thought planning the funeral and I guess the children are dealing with it the best they can,” he said.  At that point Jane felt so bad, she got off the train at that very stop even though it was not her stop. 

Everyone has a story and in that story, they are usually fighting a battle of some kind.  Make your story one of helping others and your being sufficient for all your own needs.  Make your story the one where you show up wherever you are in love and eliminate the judgment.  You will be a much more effective coach as a result and that leads to a better business for you and moves you further along your journey to being an extraordinary coach.