If You Had Only 4 Years to Save the World, How Would You Coach Differently?

If you had only 4 years to save the world, how would you coach differently?

I’ve been asking myself this lately. Why? Well, apparently some very smart people think we really DO only have four years. So I’m passing this question on to coaches with a sense of urgency.

If the window of opportunity to save the world from disaster is only 4 years, what does that mean for coaches? What would you do differently? What ARE you doing differently?

Okay, you’ve probably read, heard or watched movies about 2012 predictions. Some come from ancient wisdom traditions. But did you know that leading scientists agree that we have reached the tipping point with the environment and that we must take drastic action now? And that mass starvation, drought, killer hurricanes and tornadoes, massive wild fires and “500 year floods” are just the early warning signs.

Trust me, I’m not going into a panic over this, but I’m also not foolish enough to pretend it isn’t calling to me. But exactly HOW are coaches being called? What unique gifts do we have to offer? What will it take to mobilize us?

I’m asking, because these questions impact the choices that I make for School of Coaching Mastery.

As you probably know, I believe coaching has emerged at this time for good reason. That we’ve here to help facilitate a transformation among humans. Did the time line just get a whole lot shorter?

If so, then how can SCM turn out coaches who are ready to have the necessary transformative conversations with people who need to change – and do it a LOT more quickly?

Your thoughts, please: As a talented coach and a responsible human being, what and how would you change what you do as a coach, if you had only 4 years to help save the world? What and how would you change if you were a coaching school?

Please post your comments below.

If Your Coaching Business is a Little Slow, Follow Seth Godin's Advice

I'm a subscriber to Seth Godin's Blog, because he's a great writer and really "gets" the whole "marketing with integrity" thing that is the only way to become a successful coach. I wish I had written the following post that he wrote for real estate agents. Only I would have written it for whiny coaches during the last recession, when a lot of them needed to hear it...

Read entire post at the Coaching Blog. 

BUSTED!

Ah personal development can be soooo exhausting! And personal development pros (Like us: Coaches, no?) can be sooooo full of it! :-)

Read entire post at the Coaching Blog.

Coaching 2007: The Industry Is Headed In Completely the Wrong Direction

OK, my coach put me up to this. But it's true.

The Coaching Industry is headed the wrong way. Not coaching, mind you, the industry.

It blows my mind that coaches who should know better don't get this. Maybe it's time I let you in on it!

Coaches like to think they're all on the leading edge, that they know stuff the rest of the world doesn't get, yet. We're oh, so precious about what we do.

Don't get me wrong. Great coaching is incredible. That's why it's so surprising that so many coaches don't see what has happened...Read entire post at the Coaching Blog.

Are You a Tourist in the Land of Coaching?

Are You a Tourist in the World of Coaching or
Do You Own a Piece of the Landscape?

FIND OUT WITH THIS FREE ASSESSMENT!


Instructions: Check each box where the statement is completely true. Add up the total number of checked boxes. Are you exactly where you want to be?

Read entire post at the Coaching Blog.

From Outsourcing to Crowdsourcing to Othersourcing

There's nothing like reading a few forward-looking magazines, like Wired, The Futurist, and Scientific American to get me going!

So I've noticed a trend in today's - and perhaps tomorrow's - work force. Away from us - to them.

Start with outsourcing and it's evil twin, offshoring: the practice by companies and organizations of hiring outside help to get specific jobs done. It saves money, hassle and often gives the job to those who are prepared to do it best.

In the case of offshoring, it sends the jobs over seas to countries that have previously been locked out of the prosperity loop. And leaves many Americans out of a job - and starting their own businesses. We all know this story.

Then there's crowdsourcing. This has been around a while, too, but it's growing into a world-wide business phenomenon that may also result in even more people - including those who are paid to think - losing their jobs.

Coaches who are reading this blog probably first encountered crowdsourcing with Thomas Leonard's R&D Teams. The idea was to get your best customers to join your R&D Team and tell you what they want to buy from you - basically give you ideas on what to create next. Pure genius! Not only does it save time, money, & effort, but almost guarantees success, PLUS (note: this is a BIG plus) it creates huge buy-in. ("Ideas are like children. Everyone loves their own, best." - Chinese Fortune Cookie)

Well, crowdsourcing is on steroids now, to the point that "the crowd", who have been contributing their ideas as a hobby, may eventually put themselves out of work.

Probably the best example right now of crowdsourcing is Wikipedia. (I just copied this definition of "Wiki" from the site: A wiki (IPA: [ˈwiː.kiː] or [ˈwɪ.kiː] [1]) is a type of website that allows users to add, remove, or otherwise edit and change all content very quickly and easily, sometimes without the need for registration. This ease of interaction and operation makes a wiki an effective tool for collaborative writing. The term wiki can also refer to the collaborative software itself (wiki engine) that facilitates the operation of such a website (see wiki software), or to certain specific wiki sites, including the computer science site (and original wiki), WikiWikiWeb, and the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. The word wiki is a shorter form of wiki wiki (weekie, weekie) which is from the native language of Hawaii (Hawaiian), where it is commonly used as an adjective to denote something "quick" or "fast" (Hawaiian dictionary). As an adverb, it means "quickly" or "fast".)

The "wiki" movement is similar to the pro/am movement that certainly describes coaching: People contributing their skills for fun and often hoping to make a few bucks, too. Open source, is another example, such as Linux and .LRN. There are a number of coaching organizations that are relying on coaches to contribute their ideas for free in order to create content and all this is great. So great that what you know is no longer a commodity, because people can get it, wiki wiki, for free.

Hmph! That means that more jobs, including those that so far, haven't been vulnerable to offshoring, may be disappearing - knowledge-based jobs, like teachers, trainers, researchers and consultants. The good news for coaches is that one thing people can't get from the crowd is coaching - yet.

Enter...Othersourcing, the practice (not new) of turning over jobs to machines. Need an accountant? Get Quickbooks. Need an assistant? Get a Blackberry. No sooner have the jobs left our shores, then they've left the physical planet. Some of those forward-thinking mags I mentioned are predicting that, because left-brained jobs will pretty much disappear from the developed world, right-brained work is where all the action will be: communicating, relating, influencing, inspiring, intuiting, etc., will be the new hard skills. (Hmmm, these are the areas where supposedly women outstrip men. Does this mean women will waaay out-earn men in the new Century??)

It all bodes well for coaches, who master all of the above, because nobody can build machines that do what we do, can they?

Not yet, anyway.

Some of the things they're doing with artificial intelligence and robotics, weaving in emotion and sensors that pick up our emotions suggest otherwise. It may just be a matter of time.

Would people go to an AI coach? Would they get anything out of it? Wouldn't they prefer being coached by a human? Who knows?

What if AI coaches are actually better then human coaches? (They could be really good at getting their egos out of the way....)

My point is that technology tends to follow need. If future standards of living dictate that more people need coaches for less money, the technology will be developed. Our success could lead to our demise, or our freedom. Depends on how you look at it.

Today I was talking to a brilliant coach, who mentioned that she outsources her problems to spirit. What an incredible concept: Godsourcing. (Or is it just Sourcing?)

Technology is marching on. (Actually, Ray Kurtzweil says it's increasing exponentially. The "march" is approaching light-speed.) This will create new problems or opportunities, depending on your focus.

Perhaps the only thing we really will have over machines in the future, is our souls.

Then what will we all do for work?

Play.

Copyright, Julia Stewart, 2007
www.yourlifepart2.com

Do Coaches NEED the Blues?

Recently, I decided to further my Spiral Dynamics training by taking a graduate course in it at Adizes Graduate School with Marilyn Hamilton.
I'd already gottern certified by Dr. Don Beck in SDi Levels I&II. In addition, I have a coroporate Peoplescan account, with which I can test people in their vMemes with many of the official instruments of measurement for Spiral Dynamics. (If you're curious and would like to take any of the tests, please email me at coach@yourlifepart2.com. I also do SDi coaching for leaders.)

Anyway, while I was studying with Marilyn, I happened to mention that I had found from administering the Values Test to coaches that they consistently score very low in the Blue vMeme, which represents absolute or moralistic values, such as those found in the traditional religions. She mentioned that people with too little Blue often encounter integrity issues, such as bankruptcies and other problems...

Read entire post at the Coaching Blog.

Are You Ready To Be Featured on Oprah?

Ever dream about being on Oprah? What coach hasn't! And some cool coaches have appeared on her show over the years. (I actually decided to become a coach after watching Cheryl Richardson on Oprah several years ago!)

Obviously, it helps to be an author, if you want to be featured on the Oprah show. You've got a book out, already, you say? Hey, that's a great start! But what does it take to actually get on the show? Take this quiz at the Big Bad Book Blog to find out.

Copyright, Julia Stewart, 5-2-05

www.coachingconfab.com

You Gotta Have Faith

It's a common fact that people who pursue their dreams often lie awake at night worrying about their finances, so instead of experiencing bliss they experience extreme anxiety.

People who follow more practical pursuits by pursuing a profession that pays well for instance, even if they don't love it, often have fewer financial worries, but less satisfaction. Ironically, they don't experience security either, just dependence on the company or system that employs them.

Neither group is free.

The Dreamers have a lack of financial freedom and the Practical People have a lack of personal freedom. Both problems are the result of mistaking ourselves as the providers of success in our own lives...Read the entire post at the Coaching Blog. 

No Wonder Clients Aren't Buying

I still watch 60 Minutes every Sunday night, if I can catch it. Last night, they had a feature called, "BS Rules". It was tough, because they couldn't actually say the word in the title.

"BS Rules" was inspired by an unexpected bestseller by, Harry G. Frankfurt, a distinguished professor of philosophy at Princeton University. ON BULLSHIT is a serious philosophical work that normally would only sell a few hundred copies, but the title has struck a chord with so many that it's selling hundreds of thousands.

Hey, it struck a chord with me, too!

I've specifically thought about this in regards to coaching. (Well I do sort of have a one-track mind.)

I've been meaning to write about this subject since the first day of the CoachVille Annual Conference, when Dave Buck got up and asked, What's wrong with coaching?

Without stopping to think, I spontaneously wrote in my notes:

The hype has separated us from our souls.

I stared at that for a few seconds and forgot to listen to Dave, anymore. The hype is killing us, quite simply.

What hype? Marketing hype! Branding hype! Advertisements disquised as newsletters! Products that will make coaches money! Yadyadayada!!

Geeze! I'm so sick of hype, I'm choking on it. And hype goes deeper than that, too. It shows up in promises that aren't kept, even though you meant well. It shows up in products that are designed according to what the market is buying, not what people want. It shows in compromised integrity. It shows up when you strive to get people to buy, rather than attract them, because you have something they really want. In other words, hype is BS.

Coaches mean well. They're just not thinking at a high enough level to attract clients. No wonder people aren't buying!

We're operating at a paradigm level that's no higher than (or even lower than) most of our potential clients. The materialistic/entrepreneurial/corporate mindset that has dominated American culture for decades is in decline. Corporate refugees, victims of downsizing, burned consumers; those people don't want more of the same. They've had it. Coaches need to be operating at a higher paradigm then that, in order to help them shift to a new way of thinking. That's what coaches are for! Not to insert them in our product funnels and squeeze more and bigger dollars out of them.

Why should people trust us with their lives, their dreams and their futures if they feel like our first motive is to make money from them? Most people live in such a climate of mistrust that if they sniff even the slightest bit of an agenda, they become suspicious. Not a good place for our coaching clients to be coming from!

So how did we get here and what do we need to do about it? Well, Thomas stretched out thinking. Remember that? And coaching was growing, then. Then we lost Thomas. Since then, lots of coaches have tried to step into his shoes, but none of them are thinking like Thomas, yet. They're striving, instead of attracting and they're becoming less attractive, as a result.

It wouldn't hurt to go back to some of the old Thomas material, like Irresistable Attraction and place our faith in that. Only let's don't stop there. The world is still moving forward and Thomas can't keep leading us. Look for new voices and new ways of thinking. Look outside the coaching industry for inspiration. Watch what's going on in the world and notice where it's heading and where it's been. Coach the present and future, not the past. Start leading, yourself.

And stop trying so hard!

Most coaches come into the profession, because they're not BS artists. They care about truth and other values. How silly to train them to BS their potential clients.

If you want to actually attract clients, Fresh Thinking Rules.

Copyright, Julia Stewart, 2005 http://www.yourlifepart2.com

Under-Capitalized

This is a problem that can be so painful, that coaches don't like to talk about it.

Under-capitalization.

Fancy term for, "You don't have enough money to make it." Read the entire article at the Coaching Blog.

Don't Stop to Play Tiddlywinks 'til You've Finished Up in the Birthing Room

Great conversation in our first Confab! It left me with lots to think about ever since. I'm honored at the amazing group of coaches who have subscribed, so far, and can't wait to get back together with you! I already feel like twice a month isn't often enough, so I decided to set up a blog, so I'd have somewhere to go when the mood strikes. Originally, I'd planned a newsletter for this group, but a blog fits the conversational style far better. With a group of coaches this experienced and talented, the posts are bound to be mind-bending...Read entire article at the Coaching Blog.