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.

Do You Suffer From Boomeritus?

Watch the video here:
http://www.andrewcohen.org/notes/index.php?/weblog/blog/boomeritis/

Do you agree it's a problem? Do you have it? Do you care? Just curious.

Please Help Me Save the World!

This post first appeared at http://juliastewart.zaadz.com/blog.

Hello Kind Zaadz Friends -

Recently, my coach and I did some work on my “game” in life (aka purpose, calling, why I'm here on Earth) and it became clear that I've beeen playing way too small a game, which is called coaching!

My real game in life, the thing that truly lights me up, is Saving the World!

That's why I'm attracted to Zaadz, that's why I study Spiral Dynamics and that's why I became a coach.

I am a coach because I believe Coaching can Save the World.

But being a coach is not all that I'm here to do. I am an evangelizer for coaching, because I know how powerful it is.

You may not agree with me. You may even believe that the world doesn't need saving, but I have unique gifts that only I can share with the world and those gifts are needed in order for the world to reach its highest potential in the coming years and I express these gifts through coaching and through teaching others to become masterful coaches.

And I've watched my clients and the clients of my students become transformed. This transformation not only makes the impossible possible, it is infectious! A ripple effect happens and many more people benefit and are inspired when one person is masterfully coached.
Awareness is spontaneously raised. It's like a chain reaction.

These people go on and BE and DO things that make the world better for people and make people better for the world. If the world is in trouble, then this is one extraordinary tool for creating solutions!

How can you help? Please help spread the message that coaching can save the world. Tell the wonderful people that you know, who have so much to give, but may not know how, that they can be helped to be and do and give (and have) far more by working with a coach.

Tell people who have a desire to help others that they will be able to do so much more powerfully when they know how to coach.

If you help light up even one person who wants to know more about coaching, there is lots of info on the web for them, but it can be confusing and overwhelming. If they need someone to talk to, I can help them. Please send them to http://juliastewart.zaadz.com/ or to my pod, RADICAL Self Care. I have powerful tools and I know where they can find more - and many of these tools are free.

My purpose in life is to spread the value of coaching to millions of people and thereby transform the world. Please help by emailing this post to anyone who needs to read it!

Thank you so much!! XO
take great care, Julia

By the way, if you don't already know about Zaadz, it's a fantastic social networking site for people who want to change the world and even tho it's still in beta, it's gaining thousands of new members each month. It has the energy of the early Coachville. Please join me there at http://juliastewart.zaadz.com and join my pod, RADICAL Self Care.

Do You Know About Dropping Knowledge?

Coaches may love what they find at DroppingKnowledge.com

Living Library
Created by the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), the dropping knowledge Living Library will be a groundbreaking, easy-to-use forum of ideas, inspiration and information, open to the entire world. Supporting multiple thematic threads and viewpoints, this web-based platform will support an interactive dialogue among dropping knowledge users, one that is continually progressing from questions to discussions to solutions for the future.
Incorporating both features familiar to internet users and entirely new functions, the Living Library will preserve and structure its content according to a conceptual topography - or 'ontology' - of 25,000 themes and issues, collected over several decades by the Union of International Associations. Offering user-friendly search and 3-D graphic navigation facilities, as well as a built-in interface for locating content by asking questions in natural language, the Living Library will evolve in accordance with user-participation, prioritizing its accumulating content according to thematic relevance, level of traffic generated and a user-driven content-rating system.
Linking to a wealth of information and knowledge-resources across the web, the Living Library will serve as a powerful and ever-expanding portal of digital-age wisdom.

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

The Liberation of Fully Alive

Hey. You may or may not know about the wellness program that I designed for CoachVille called the Fully Alive Makeover Program. It has been one of the communities that made up the Schools of CoachVille's 1,000 hours of coach training. I based it on the work that I do with my wellness coaching clients and of course, since I trained at Coach U and CoachVille, it was influenced by the work of Thomas Leonard.

Anyway, my deal at CV was that I would get a percentage of the profits generated by the community and by sales of the SOC in exchange for sharing my work with them and I got the cool title, "Visionary Coach", to boot. The profits were to be paid for life (and paid to my daughter, after I'm gone). Well the profits have been pretty skimpy and since I officially left CV last year, they've been zero, so I recently asked CV to take down Fully Alive. The good news is, they've agreed!

After May 5th, Fully Alive will no longer be available through CoachVille. I know SOCers have been attending the classes, tho taught by Community Coach, Adela Rubio, who has valiently carried on. I don't want anyone to miss out, plus I'm used to getting $zip for Fully Alive, so what I've decided to do is run the entire program for FREE.

Today, May 2nd, is the first class that I've done on this subject for 10 months. It's a new class, tho, on "The Inner Body", a cool concept that you can read about in Eckhart Tolle's book, A New Earth. This particlular class is aimed at coaches, because it's scheduled as part of the Confab (Plus if there was ever a group that needs to upgrade its self care, it's coaches!) tho the program is for everybody.

I'm thrilled to have Fully Alive back. It was languishing in obscurity at CV and the material really is important, especially for coaches. And selfishly, I'm looking forward to getting back into my natural habitat, which helps me make healthier choices for myself. (My recent trip to NY & NJ was celebration of over indulgence from champagne to bon bons and everything in between. Celebrations are fabulous and getting back to self care is a relief!)

If you'd like to stay informed about free classes coming up via the Fully Alive Wellness program, sign up at www.fullyalivewellness.com Adela and I will be teaching.

See you there!

Copyright, Julia Stewart, 2006

www.yourlifepart2.com

Vote for the Webby Awards

Featured in Blogwild

Hey! I got this little graphic from Andy Wibbels, today. Cool. He used my blog testimony in his newly released Blogging Bible, BLOGWILD! Basically, I talked about how this blog attracts new coaching clients to my business. (Very cool. Check it out on page 138.)

Read entire post at the Coaching Blog.

Koans to Live by If You're Thomas Leonard

The Zen of Attraction by Thomas J. Leonard

I developed these 14 koans to help me get more space so that I could better apply the 28 Attraction Principles and Practices of the Attraction Operating System. Note: You can take these literally, figuratively or as a place to come from in your dealings. They are simply what works for me...Read entire post at the Coaching Blog.

A Stolen Season

If you read the ACE Newsletter then you may have noticed my article titled, "Notes From Here". I mentioned that I was enjoying a "stolen season" (Thank you, Mr. Shakespeare) in NYC for 71/2 weeks. How funny to be home already since moving just last October. It underlines an epiphany I had about a year ago: That I'm a citizen of the planet, not a particular locality. It doesn't matter where I live, so why not be close to family and save on living expenses? NYC just happens to be one of my favorite places to be.

So here I am living out of a suitcase, while doing a little coaching gig for Fitness Magazine and conducting the rest of my biz via cell phone and laptop...Read entire post at the Coaching Blog. 

The Consummate Coach

This is a phrase that Donna Steinhorn and I came up with the other day and I've been thinking about it ever since. It has a nice ring, but what does it mean, really? What would make a coach a consummate coach? What accomplishments would such a coach have under his/her belt?

For that matter, what would constitute an "accomplished coach"? I like both of these phrases and think they might describe useful benchmarks for those of us who are committed to excellence. You know, there's the "being" aspect of excellence, but there's the "doing" part, too. I think benchmarks are useful in measuring how we're doing.

I think Consummate Coach includes Accomplished Coach, so I'm going to throw out some ideas for what I think it might mean to be accomplished. I'm curious if you agree...Read entire post at the Coaching Blog.

Constructive Dissatisfaction

Hey, I'm way overdue posting to this site. My apologies! A lot has happened, though, since my last post. Donna and I hosted our first ACE Live Event in NYC, which was a great success. Plus, I moved to Missouri. (Talk about a change of venue!)

Some things are still the same, though: like my subscription to FastCompany. In a recent article, Michael Eskew, CEO of UPS mentioned the importance of "constructive dissatisfaction" in running a successful company. He says complacency is the enemy...Read entire article at the Coaching Blog. 

What Does Coaching Excellence Mean to You?

ACE is ramping up with some cool developments for October. We plan our site launch and first live event in NYC next month. We're making the case for coaching excellence. For me,

Excellence = Success.

Maybe it's not quite that simple, but when you take all the skills a successful coach has, from coaching skills to marketing skills, you find that the more excellent the skills, the more success the coach is likely to enjoy.

Yes, I know, even a mediocre coach with great marketing skills can be successful. But an excellent coach with great marketing skills will trump the mediocre coach in the long haul...Read entire post at the Coaching Blog.

Now What?

On August 28th, I posted an optimistic message about the opportunities that are opening up as a result of the chaos at CoachVille. I'm able to be optimistic, because I accepted months ago that CoachVille might very well go belly up. ("I feel so much better, now that I've given up hope!") When unrealistic hope is gone, we can focus on what reality really can bring us!

Now that it seems to be happening, I have good days and I have sad days. (And sometimes I have pissed-off days!) I can imagine how it feels to people who are just beginning to realize what's happening. Fear, outrage, confusion, etc., are swirling about the coaching community.

This past week, as I watched the mass evacuation of New Orleans, that beautiful city where CV had its last annual conference, I couldn't help thinking of how ironic it is that CV seems to be drowning and people are escaping from it, too. It sure puts into perspective how small a problem CV is. We certainly haven't lost everything the way the citizens of NOLA have.

Never-the-less, I think it's time for Confabers to talk. So that's our subject in the Confab later today.

Copyright, Julia Stewart, 2005 www.coachingconfab.com

Donna Steinhorn Leaving CoachVille

Now that Donna Steinhorn, Executive VP of CV and Dean of SOC has sent her farewell email to the CV Team, I expect a major shake up at CV. Donna has been the engine that drove CV for two years and for most of us, the glue that kept us loyal. People like me have already quit, discouraged by the chaos of the company.

I'm proud to be partnering with Donna, Heidi Costas and others on ACE: The Association for Coaching Excellence. You can sign up for information at www.acecoachdirectory.com. Donna's other projects are here: http://www.coachingtosuccess.com/projects.html

I'm curious to hear reactions/responses on Donna's leaving from members of this blog...

The Best of Times and the Worst of Times

I thrive on change. And for that reason, I have a special fondness for transitional periods (a.k.a. chaos). It's one of those things that I've learned not to overindulge in, like caffeine and alcohol, because it's so draining, but I must say I do enjoy it, now and then!

The coaching industry seems to be in a transitional period, right now. Rumors are flying and alliances are forming. I can't remember a week when I've had so many coaches call me up or email me just to say "'zup?"

The thing I like about transition is that it's ripe with opportunity. If you're a quick mover with a creative eye for the future, this is your time...Read entire post at the Coaching Blog.

The Biology of Success

If you're a member of CoachV-L, you may have already read this post. Most others in this blog have never appeared anywhere else.

Here are a few thoughts on who become successful coaches and who don't. There doesn't seem to be a formula. We all do it differently, just as we all define success differently.

The real difference may lie in our relationship to success. In fact, intriguingly, the difference may be biological AND your environment influences it!

Research shows that both humans and animals conserve their energy according to their life conditions. If resources are short, many animals go into hibernation. If they're losing in the pecking order wars, they become more docile, resigned to their lot.

Meanwhile, animals who experience an abundance of resources or who have experienced some success, when competing with their peers, become more energetic and assertive. Their bodies are flooded by hormones that literally change their brains!

This is Neo-Darwinism, how the fittest survive. Turns out that the term, "fittest" is relative.

This happens among humans, too. It has its negative side in politics when revolutionaries become the new oppressors, but there are positive results, too.

One positive example might be the exuberance of Thomas Leonard. As his success grew, he became progressively more productive.

Here's another possible downside. I think many coaches, as they try to grow their businesses, become overwhelmed, then discouraged, then resigned. That process literally and biologically reduces the energy available to them to do whatever it takes to become successful on their own terms.

Those coaches who maintain a high level of focus, encouragement and optimism, also maintain the hormonal levels that give them the energy they need to keep going while they grow their businesses.

What makes the difference? Well, since we're human, we can choose to create the difference.

Here's how your environment can help. You can design it so that it's full of people who can give you this kind of energy, by giving you a sense of abundance and accomplishment, who can help you access the abundance of resources available to all coaches and who will champion you and challenge you to keep going.

You can see where I'm going with this: Make sure you're getting great coaching. Coaching businesses are extremely difficult to build and yet, many coaches, who are no better equipped than you are successful. Give yourself the environment that you need.

You become who you hang out with. Hang out with people who are successful. Get coached by a genuinely successful coach, who knows how to get there. Keep your day job, so you don't fall into scarcity thinking. You get the idea.

I heard Thomas say, at a Certified Coach Intensive, that not every coach would be able to have a full practice. I also heard attributed to him, at Coach U, a draconian formula: Ten in, one out. Meaning, of every ten people who entered Coach U, only one became a real coach.

I think coach training and mentoring have improved since then and that the odds are getting better. In the meantime, though, I recommend that you decide to be one of the coaches who makes it.

Commit yourself to success; do what it takes to surround yourself with an environment that will evolve you into a successful coach!

My students and mentees know how much I emphasize championing as a mark of an excellent coach. (And still most of you don't champion enough!) Great coaches literally help clients transform into successful people.

Copyright, 2005, Julia Stewart www.coachingconfab.com

Jealousy With a Halo

There's a great quote by H. G. Wells that you may have heard before. I came across it again, recently:

"Moral indignation is just jealousy with a halo."

Boy, is that ever true and have I been guilty of it, sometimes! Actually, it's something that most coaches are guilty of on frequent occasions, especially when it comes to each other.

Coaches know that everyone is doing their best (Or, as they say at CTI, "Nobody gets to be wrong.") and we usually remember this when we're with our clients, but we can be a bit judgmental when it comes to other coaches.

Especially if we're feeling slighted or overlooked, while someone else is out there basking in the limelight.

Here's the phrase that I most often hear: "So-n-so is so out of integrity!" That's coach-ese for, "I'm passing judgment on this person, but I want to sound enlightened while I do it."

We're the community that believes that integrity always comes first. Unfortunately, we tend to remember that most when it comes to other coaches. What we forget is that it's our own integrity that we need to mind, not someone else's.

I have to admit that I've used this phrase, myself, so I'm not exactly guilt-free. (Ouch! I hate it when I'm flawed!)

But like most negative energy, it's easier for us to feel it when it's aimed us. When we're the ones doing the aiming, it actually feels pretty good!

That's how I became aware of the phrase, "So-n-so is so out of integrity!" because occasionally, that phrase gets aimed at me! Do you hear the moral indignation in it? When it happened I thought, "Well that's pretty judgmental!" Which, of course is just another judgment, but it gave me the opportunity to feel right, again.

I don't know about you, but I don't want to go through life wearing a "jealousy halo". The problem is that the line between discernment, which is vital and judgment, which just keeps us stuck in our egos, is so faint that we often cross it before we've realized it.

It has to be in order for us to continue going around in that fog called, I'm-right-and-they're-wrong, which clouds our reality but feels oh so comfy to our egos.

So the answer is, no doubt, to get our egos out of the way, but that's easier to say than to do.

They've been trying that in the field of psychology for decades, but have you ever noticed the number of pejorative terms that have filtered from psychology into modern usage? Terms that originally had the neutral tone of professionalism, like moron and idiot, have become common playground insults.

And then there's the ever popular, "So-n-so is so neurotic!" Yep, I've used that one, too.

And some folks have created rules that can help get the ego out of the way like, focus on the action, not on the person. In Christianity that translates into "Love the person, hate the sin."

I think regardless of the rules and words we use, egotistical judgments can easily creep into our comments and the people we're aiming them at will notice it before we do.

Judging others comes out of feeling bad. It's a way of off-loading our bad feelings and it creates a nice little fiction for us: "I'm just fine, but So-n-so has problems!" We feel better and make up a story to support why we feel better.

So if we don't dump those feelings on others, what do we do with them?

We can acknowledge our feelings. And experience them. It feels bad to be left out, just like it feels bad to be judged. End of story.

That's discernment. It has integrity and it is enlightened.

When your true feelings have fully registered with you, they will move on. And the information that you receive from your true feelings will help you create a life you really want.

Copyright, 2005, Julia Stewart www.coachingconfab.com