Tag Archives: about your coach

Referrals – meeting new clients with joy

Coaching, ,

When I started my business in 2002 I was confident of what I could offer and at the same time lacking in confidence – anxious even – in my ability to get out there and find clients. I still see this as an area of growth and opportunity for me. This is about learning how to let the world know what I can offer in ways which allow my perfect clients to find me.

Who are my perfect clients? I am making a mental note to write about this soon. Today though, I simply want to celebrate the experience I often have of receiving client referrals – this, together with repeat business, has been my main source of business during the last seven years.

One new client perfectly illustrates the synchronicity of such referrals – if you like, the way the universe conspires to support me. It’s getting on for two years since, waiting for a takeaway at the Spice of Life Indian restaurant in Lewisham, I got into conversation with a fellow customer. “What do you do for a living?” he asked and I told him about my work as a coach. He told me his wife was looking to train as a coach and asked if I would be willing to speak with her. I was delighted to help her and have appreciated getting to know her, sharing progress with her and enjoying our spirit of mutual support.

Recently she asked me if I would be willing to speak with a dear friend of hers who is in the midst of exploring next steps in her own journey. I was glad to speak with her and delighted – having explored with her all sorts of possibilities and options – to agree to become her coach. Yesterday I sent her her preparatory papers – a pre-coaching questionnaire and coaching agreement – and I’m looking forward to beginning our work together next month.

Not all referrals lead to the same outcome. Sometimes there’s a good match between what I can offer and the support that is most timely for an individual or an organisation. Sometimes there is a good personal match or “chemistry”. Sometimes there isn’t. What I do notice is the high levels of trust that often follow when a potential client is introduced to me by someone we both trust. This is a great gift at the beginning of a coaching or other working partnership. Before pressing the button that says “publish post” I take a moment to celebrate my new client and our high levels of trust as we begin our work together.

Sharing my values

Coaching

I promised to share my values and this morning, as I write, I am wondering whether to simply share them or to add some commentary. For the time being, I have decided to share them as they are and without comment. I wonder whether or not I shall feel moved to say more in a future posting. And if you have questions, will you post them on this blog?

Honouring and Serving Life

Nurturing and living from a deep sense of connection with life and the universe

Stepping forward with courage as an adventurer and explorer on life’s journey

Acting from my true sense of purpose and in ways which serve and enhance life

Living with joy in the abundance of life

Being Myself

Nurturing and living from a deep sense of authenticity and congruence

Being always true to my values

Speaking my truth with courage and letting others own their responses

Being independently responsible for my choices, whatever their consequences

Doing well those things I choose to do

Bringing my qualities of warmth, humour, fun and laughter into the sunlight

Nurturing Healthy Relationships with Myself and Others

Nurturing and living from a place of love: for myself, for others

Nurturing my physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health

Being always present to my own and others’ larger selves

Nurturing my own and others’ learning, growth and development

Consciously choosing and nurturing healthy “win, win” relationships

Sharing my personal mission statement

Coaching, ,

When I started working with Lynne, my coach, in 2005, I undertook to create an explicit statement of my values. It was not the first time I had explored what was important to me in my life, though it was the first time I had explored my values quite so fully and thoroughly. Every now and then I change a word here or there as I did recently. And still, I find that each change reinforces my original statement.

It was a couple of years later that a penny dropped for me as I realised that my values were pointing to an overall mission for my life. Capturing this mission in words has provided a clear guiding principle for me which is at once so simple and – for me, at least – profound. My mission is: to fall ever more deeply in love with my life.

What does this statement imply? As I write this morning I ponder this. The first thing that springs to mind is a quote of unknown origin, that “life is the sum of all our choices”. This mission guides me to make choices which bring me joy, and this in turn is a reminder that I do have choices. So, this is a statement which invites me to take responsibility for my life and to make it a life that I can, increasingly, enjoy.

This, in turn, implies for me that my life can be a matter of joy and that this is OK. I remember meeting a man who, after a successful corporate career, started to work for a not-for-profit organisation which was close to his heart. He was almost looking over his shoulder when he said to me that he wasn’t sure it was OK to enjoy himself as much as he was in his new career. I do wonder how much we come to believe that pain and suffering is our lot. For my part, I have chosen to embrace a different path and to create a life of joy and fulfilment.

To live in joy implies being connected to my own responses. For how can I know what brings me joy, if I am not able to sense my responses to my experiences? So, as I travel this path, I am becoming more and more attuned to my emotions and to the feedback my body gives me. I have found that this alone is not enough. For responding to such feedback requires skillful means. For this reason I have embraced learning as a core value. Attending to my responses and employing skillful means to choose my reactions help me to take steps on an ongoing basis towards I life I can truly love.

There is of course, one thing I have to be able to square in order to feel good about treading this path, living as I do in a world in which judgement (or ‘criticism’) is encouraged. Is it not utterly selfish to live in this way? As a student of nonviolent communication I have come to learn how much it matters to me to contribute to others and this is part of what gives me joy, especially when I can contribute from a place of willingness rather from a sense of obligation; especially when I give of the best of myself, rather than seek to muster a contribution which is somehow at odds with who I am and what I have to give.

There is so much more I can say. I am moved to add one last thing. This is about trends – about the overall trend in my life towards living in a way which brings me joy. To live my life in this way means that there is one thing I am able to offer to those who are seeking a different way of being in the world and doubting that it’s possible to be happy in this life. This is, of course, the conviction, borne of experience, that it is.

When it’s time to go public

Coaching,

Twenty-four hours after returning from Vicky Peirce’s NVC Barn (see www.cometolife.org) I notice I have come to a different place within myself. As I reconnect with my life and work I recognise that my time away has given me a space in which to connect more fully and deeply with who I am and with what matters to me.

It’s not that the connection was not there. Rather, my time at The Barn provided a space in which it could flourish and blossom. I come back with an awareness of my personal and professional yearnings. I come back present to my dreams and plans. I come back brimming with ideas. I come back aware of the extent to which I am already on track. I am full of celebrations.

Speaking with Lynne, my coach, as I do most weeks on a Monday afternoon, I have a thought which surprises me. It is one of those thoughts that has crept up behind me so that, by the time I am aware of its presence, it is fully formed and well and truly alive. It is beckoning me with great confidence even whilst some part of me is taking a while to catch up. It is the thought that it’s time to “go public” with some of my most sacred home truths. I think of my personal mission statement. I think of my personal values. I make a commitment to share my mission and values on my blog in the coming days.

And almost as soon as I make this commitment, I suddenly notice that I have a surge of energy as I think of those people – men and women – with whom I love to work in coaching partnership. Some pennies are dropping for me and it’s time to share my thoughts about this, too. Perhaps I have a busy week ahead!

And isn’t it curious that I am so alive – motivated, creative, in the flow – in the week of my birthday? This, too, I celebrate.