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.

Coaches Corner~Habits

It just occurred to me the truth in the old saying that old habits die hard. I just got into a car, not my usual car, I'm driving a friend’s car and I sat down in the seat before I pulled my legs into the car. That, my friend, is an old habit. Why is it significant that, that old habit is being talked about in this blog? Coaches, like all other human beings also have old habits. Certain habits, you still have them, and you don't need them and they're not serving you. You can make a conscious decision that those habits are not serving you, however, you haven't really told your subconscious mind with enough magnitude that those habits don't serve you. If you had told your subconscious mind, then you wouldn't be doing it anymore.                       

Just recently, I lost a significant amount of weight, about 70 pounds. Last year this time I weighed over 300 pounds. Weighing that 300 pounds happened to me gradually so I began to incorporate different things into my life so that I could keep living. Weighing 300 pounds, though, you don't want to do it, you simply can't stop living, just because you weigh 300 pounds. You have to do things a little bit differently. When you're on your knees praying, well, you have to grab onto the coffee table to help yourself stand up. When you drop your car keys, you have to actually sit on the floor to pick up your car keys. When you're playing with your children or your grandchildren, if you have any, you can only do it for just a few minutes. All of these things are habits that you develop when you weigh 300 pounds.

                        

Even though I don't weigh 300 pounds anymore, I still deal with some of those habits. Just recently I found myself grabbing on to a table to stand up from a kneeling position. I reminded myself, oh wow, I don't need to do that anymore. I'm driving a friend’s car right now rather than my usual car and so you might think that the new habit that I developed, you might think that I would incorporate them here. Human being are just so habitual, the fact that I'm not driving my car put me in a different place. It was easy for me to forget that I no longer have to sit down on the side and then bring my legs in. I can simply get into a car, just like anyone else. Put my right leg in, swoop myself in without having any hard work, without incurring any difficulties. You had better believe when I was 300 pounds it was difficult to get into a car.

                        

What am I selling all this for, is the question that you might ask. In your business, there are certain things that you did before you became successful and to stop doing those things made you successful and you realized the secret is not doing those things anymore. Like anything else, success eventually finds us complacent. When we get complacent we might not notice things, we may not notice what happens when we get complacent. The responsibility for that lies on the reticular activating system. Our reticular activating system is what helps us ... if we're driving a car and there's noise in the background, our reticular activating system elevates our level of awareness so that, that noise doesn't bother us. If we're driving a car and there's a hum in our car, our reticular activating system elevates our awareness so that doesn't bother us. If you were to hear those sort of noises while you're sitting in a hospital, they would be bothersome. If you would hear those kind of noises while you were at your home, they would be bothersome as well. The reticular activating system, it elevates our awareness.

                        

Similarly when we shed a habit, our reticular activating system takes over then as well. We don't do those things anymore. When there's a change, like when I have a different car, then the reticular activating system might get a little off kilter, might get a little out of sorts, and forget about this thing that we consider to be normal. That's why when I got into my friend's car today, I sat on the seat and pulled my legs in and after I already did it I realized, oh wow, I don't do that anymore.

                        

As a coach you find yourself revisiting those old habits that don't serve you. You might find your clients revisiting things or old habits that don't serve them. As a coach, as an extraordinary coach, it's going to be up to you to bring it to the attention of your client that they are doing something that no longer serves them. You have to remind them that they're doing something that they told you that they wouldn't do and you must make this reminding without fear of reprisals. When someone sheds a habit that's no longer beneficial, they don't want to do that habit anymore. You as a coach might be a little apprehensive about correcting people, but you must shed that. If you want to have extraordinary results with your clients, you must remind your clients when they're doing a habit that no longer serves them.

                        

Your client will love you for it. Your client will be excited about it. Even though they may seem like they didn't want to do it, it may seem like they we're giving you some resistance, your client still will appreciate the benefit of your third party observation. Holding a client accountable to eliminate those habits that they said they do not want to have in their life is your job as a coach. Noticing your habits that will not serve you client, is also your job as a coach.

                        

What I'm suggesting that you do is give your reticular activating system a workout and purposefully remind yourself that no, that's not my habit anymore when you find yourself doing something that no longer serves you. You must be diligent in the monitoring of your reticular activating system because your reticular activating system is there to help you, not harm you. Believe it or not the habits that you develop in your life are also there to help you not harm you. If you will stay present to those habits that are no longer working and eliminate those habits when you find yourself still doing them, you will find yourself getting that much closer to being that extraordinary coach, which I know that you love. Once again if you don't have a coach, get a coach. If your coach is not reminding you of self-destructive habits, get a coach anyway. Until next time, have yourself a good time.

Coaches Corner~Defensiveness

                         

                    

As a coach, we must be careful about our preconceived notions. We must also be careful about our prejudices. Our prejudices can impact people in such a way that we would be simply flabbergasted.

Recently I attended an event that consisted of largely an African-American audience. For purposes of this blog, whenever I say black, I'm talking about African-American. I find it too self-absorbing to describe myself as an African-American because it requires too much effort to say African-American when I can simply say black. Describing myself as an African-American is as arrogant as describing myself as a homo sapien when I am really a man.

As I sat listening to this young lady tell her story, she was talking about how on social media she said she was going to an African-American event. She said that she was going to a Mr. Black Sacramento event. After she said that she was going to a Mr. Black Sacramento event she noted that her response on social media was something along the lines of "Is there a Mr. White Sacramento event?" to which she took a huge offense, an offense, by the way, that in my opinion should not have been taken. It's reasonable if you're going to have an event and describe it as something for blacks, that if someone else wanted to have an event for whites, that they could have the same option.

She didn't quite see it that way. What she was missing is her tendency to respond the way she did, that is defensively, that spoke of her inferiority complex. That spoke of her identifying herself as basically a victim. You see, in her world, of course African-Americans and blacks need to have their own thing because all the other things that's not described based on race is perceived by African-Americans as being solely about race. Unfortunately, too many African-Americans see themselves as black persons before they see themselves as anything else.

If you want to be an extraordinary coach, then you must rise above this melee. This melee has no place in civilized society. The tendency to victimize yourself because you are black or the tendency to find yourself restricted about something because you are black is really antiquated thinking. The ability to simply be an American and be a successful American has been enhanced by all the annals that we have accomplished over the last several years.

I can recall when to simply be in an argument with a person who wasn't black, the black person was automatically considered wrong. Now can you imagine what you as a coach have to manage if you are dealing with a person who is a black person who sees themselves as first a black person? How in the world can you succeed in the world at large if you see the world in black and white?

In the business community, in the business community we deal with dollars and cents and meeting the needs of the public. Now if you have a product that's specific for black folks, then by all means you can become consumed by the fact that you are a black person. If you have a product that is largely for anyone, then you are really shooting yourselves in the foot by speaking only to black people.

Apart from all that, there's the emotional health that we have to be concerned about. When you walk around thinking in terms of the fact that you are being victimized, when you walk around thinking that there's something that you have to do that other people don't have to do to be successful, then you're missing the boat. If you as a black person are a coach, you have got to be a coach first. No one cares if you are a black person. All they care about is that you help them get what they are looking to get out of their lives. If you can help them get what they're looking to get out of their lives, they really don't care what color you are.

The young lady that was overcome with the fact that someone asked her a simple question about a Mr. White Sacramento contest, I can only empathize with her because I'm a black person. If I were to get out of my black skin and look at it from a purely business point of view, it would be so easy for me to realize that once again, the way you see things determines how those things are. Too many of us see things a certain way and believe that the way we see that thing is the way that it is. We all have too many prejudices, too many foibles for us to look at things that way.

If we want to be an extraordinary coach, then we have to rise above the melee, as I said earlier, and realize that the blind spot that we have can cause us to see things from a way that's not empowering. If you don't have a coach, then get you a coach, because it is your coach that can share with you the things that I'm sharing with you now. Until next time, have a good time.