Being A Better Communicator

2016-10-222016-10-20 ~ adminlife

How to Be a Better Communicator

Communication is the key when it comes to anything that involves collaboration. Since humans are a social species, communication is involved in nearly everything you do.

Some people are born with the natural ability to communicate well, while others may struggle with it. No matter what category you fall into, it’s likely that you can benefit from paying attention to improving your communication skills.

Why Better Communication Helps You

Did you know that most businesses consider your communication skills to be the most important characteristic about you? This means that you could have top-notch knowledge and job skills but still fail to land a job if you’re lacking in the communication department.

Communication is certainly not only important when it comes to your work life, but it’s also vital in having a successful home life as well. Couples and family members that are good communicators lead happier lives overall.

Proper communication will prevent misunderstandings and save you time so you won’t have to go back and explain yourself again and again. You know you’ve gained good communication skills when you can communicate your thoughts effectively with as few words as necessary!

How To Improve Communication With Others

Communication is a two way street. This means that you could have excellent skills, but if the recipient is lacking, then you may not be understood. This is why it’s important not only to develop our speaking skills, but our listening skills, too.

Since you can’t affect the skill level of others, the only thing you can do is strengthen your own communication skills. Besides, when you’re an excellent communicator, more people will understand you, everything around you will run more efficiently, and you’ll more often get what you want!

Try these strategies to improve your communication skills:

Avoid arguing. If you run into a snag in a conversation and it starts to morph into an argument, step back and realize what’s going on. It’s easy to get swept up into the blame game, but ultimately it’s not important who’s at fault. What’s important is the mutual understanding of the issue at hand and a desire for a solution that benefits everyone.

Don’t be afraid to compromise. You may be tempted to try and “win” but that’s not the best way to reach a mutual agreement. You may be happier with getting your way, but it may come at the expense of the other person, which can cause further issues. Find a good compromise that you both can willingly accept.

Work on listening. Your listening skills are even more important than your speaking skills. After all, how will you know what you should say – and when – if you haven’t effectively listened? Listen more than you speak and you’ll gain a profound wisdom of others, too!

Keep your focus. Communication will get overly complicated if you worry about too many issues at once. Avoid bringing up the past or other issues and, instead, focus on the one topic at hand.

Stay calm and take responsibility. Adopt a calm and cool manner of handling situations. When things remain low key, it’s easier to communicate and get your point across. This also means that you need to take responsibility for what you say. Don’t be afraid to admit mistakes when you’re wrong.

Becoming a better communicator doesn’t happen overnight. But if you keep practicing and tweaking your skills, you’ll be surprised at what you can accomplish.

To your success

Michael W

Choosing Your Life Coach

2015-03-222015-03-17 ~ adminlife

“Success is simply never giving in to failure – either in mind or body.” ― Steve Backley, The Champion in all of Us: 12 Rules for Success

You want to have a personal life coach but don’t really know how to make sure that you select the right one.

The article below gives some advice to ensure that you select the right life coach to give you the best results in your life.

How to Choose a Personal Life Coach – By Bill Burridge

With increasing regularity nowadays, I find myself getting enquiries from people asking how they should go about choosing a life coach.

Of course, being in the business of training people to be great life coaches, I find it very gratifying to know that the demand for personal coaching services is growing rapidly in my native South Africa. But it’s hardly surprising, given the unquestionable power that coaching has to transform lives.

A few years ago, while I was still in corporate life, the concept of executive coaching was gaining in popularity. Companies felt it entirely appropriate to hire coaches for their most senior executives and even some of their middle managers in important roles. After all, the benefits of even a small improvement in divisional performance would render the cost of coaching quite trivial.

The rise of personal coaching

Until comparatively recently, personal coaching – or life coaching – was largely the domain of wealthy celebrities in the US. Nowadays, many people around the world are enjoying the benefits of having their own personal coach to assist them in achieving what might otherwise remain poorly defined and elusive goals and dreams.

How to choose?

The law of supply and demand dictates that as the demand for personal coaching services rises, so will the supply. The key question, then, for many individuals already convinced of the benefits of coaching, is: “How do I choose the coach that’s just right for me?”

My advice would be to make your choice in four simple steps, applying four ‘filters’ to ensure you get the best match for you.

1. Demographic matching

The first and relatively easy step is what I call “matching the demographics”.

If you’re set on face-to-face coaching then you’ll need someone who you can reach within a reasonable traveling distance. Now, before I move on, let me assure you that being coached by telephone (Skype is very popular for those with broadband internet because it is a free service) is an option that you should not discount lightly. Believe it or not there are actually a number of benefits to being coached by ‘phone – but that’s a topic for a separate article.

If you work best with people of your own – or the opposite – gender, then this too will influence your choice.

There are many excellent, vibrant and surprisingly wise young coaches around, but you may feel uncomfortable with having a coach who is half your age. Alternatively, as a young person, you might prefer to have a coach that has extensive life experience to draw on; someone who’s ‘been there and done that’!

Coaching fees come into the equation too, of course. But if possible, I would encourage you not to restrict the field by applying this filter right up front.

Look past the advertised fees, if you can. Find the ideal match using the steps I have outlined and then negotiate with your preferred coach if you need to, to fit your budget.

Many coaches are negotiable and some will offer substantial discounts if the client is prepared to pay for the entire coaching program in advance. My advice is to look at what you will pay over, say six months, and then consider how worthwhile that will be if you achieve one or two of your most desired goals.

2. Niche matching

The next step is more difficult. I call it “matching the niche”.

Let me ask you this: If you own a house that is built out of timber on the side of a steep hill and you decide to add an extension with an overhanging deck, who would you be more likely to contract with; a general builder – or a builder who specializes in timber homes and cantilevered decking?

When you hire a life coach, you generally do so with a knowledge of the key issues or areas of your life you specifically want to focus on improving. And it may well be that you’ll find a life coach whose specialist niche matches perfectly.

I recommend to all coaches who want to build substantial and self-sustaining practices that they choose a niche market based on their underlying skills and passionate interests.

I know of life coaches who have been very successful focusing on niches like ‘personal empowerment’, ‘intimate relationships’, ‘self-confidence’, ‘youth development’, ‘career building’, ‘retirement’, ‘financial freedom’, ‘childbirth’, and so on.

3. Skills matching

OK, so once you’ve decided on a rough demographic profile of your ideal coach and the niche (if any) that you fall into, you can move on to step 3. I call this “matching the skills”, although this is about more than just skills.

Remember that there is, at least currently, no form of regulation governing the coaching ‘profession’ in South Africa, or, for that matter, most developed countries.

To my mind this is a good thing in that there are no barriers to entry into an industry where having a passion for people and a gift for helping others achieve their dreams is far more important than a raft of high-falluting academic qualifications.

On the other hand it is also a bad thing in that any ‘Tom’, ‘Dick’ or ‘Harriet’ can write ‘coach’ on his or her business card and set up in practice without necessarily having the skills, techniques, experience and structure required to back up their coaching.

Now, I firmly believe that good quality life coaches are self-selecting. As a life coach you won’t survive long in business without good word-of-mouth endorsements and client testimonials. You’re either really effective at helping people transform their lives – or you’re not!

And this is my point. Always ask any prospective coach for testimonials or references – and check them out. Ask the coach where and in what method they have been trained. Ask to see their certification and do some research on the coach training provider to check their reputation.

How passionate are the coaches you are considering about the calling they have chosen? Are they registered with any body that promotes ongoing coach development? Do they subscribe to any relevant code of ethics?

4. Vibrational matching

The final step is, I think, the most important of all. I call it “matching the vibration”.

Choosing the ‘right’ (as opposed to ‘good’) coach is, arguably, a more important decision than choosing the ‘right’ doctor or dentist. Whereas a ‘good’ doctor will make the correct diagnosis and prescribe effective medication without necessarily doing it in a way that has you warming to him or her, a ‘good’ coach (i.e. a well trained, equipped and ethical coach) with whom you are unable to build a great rapport, will be unlikely to do much for you.

Rapport is vital to the coaching relationship. Establishing an emotional bond with your coach based on mutual liking and respect, trust, and belief in each other, is the foundation for the achievement of great things through coaching.

Great coaches will have that something special that allows them to empower their clients to go well beyond the normal and yet still be compassionate and caring in their approach.

How do you establish whether there’s a ‘vibrational match’ with your coach? Great coaches worth their salt will offer a free first session that may range from a basic introduction to a client assessment to a full blown goal-setting session in some cases. This is a great opportunity to see if you and your coach are an ideal match.

Coaches need coaches

A final thought. If you’ve ever doubted the power of coaching, think about this. Every great coach will tell you that the one thing crucial to their success is having their own personal coach!

So there you have it.

Bill Burridge is a South African entrepreneur with 27 years of corporate experience. His company, New Insights Africa, is dedicated to developing a network of high quality, independent life coaches, inspired to bring personal freedom, confidence and growth to people from all walks of life in South Africa. The company’s core product is a unique, high quality, home study certification program in life coaching. http://www.life-coach-training-sa.com

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Michael

To discuss what a life coach can do for you and your motivation, and to schedule a session with Michael, use the contact form below.

Michael is a certified Life Optimization coach as well as a Law of Attraction and Law of Attraction Wealth coach.

The Past and Future of Life Coaching

2015-03-17 ~ adminlife

“Too often, people get stuck in a state of over-thinking, the result is that they never reach a decision.” ― Steve Backley, The Champion in all of Us: 12 Rules for Success

If you have wondered about how and why people use a Life Coach, this article gives a bit of a history of Life Coaching and also some advice on choosing a Life Coach.

Life Coaching – Past, Present, and Future – By Tonia Boterf

If you have been searching the internet for something, you will usually end up with a life coach site popping up in your results at some point. Life Coaching has evolved over the years and continues to change and grow – but what is life coaching, how do you choose a life coach, and what should you be aware of?

Life Coaching Past:

Life Coaching really emerged, noticeably, about 10 years ago. Most life coaching was advertised as Executive Coaching or Leadership Coaching and they were usually hired by corporations for staff or individual training. With the onset of in-house corporate training teams, the need for Executive Coaches diminished and many sought other areas to continue coaching in. Since then, there are now life coaches that coach in every area of life you can think of and then some. Many life coaches specialize in one or two main life areas but many still coach in multiple life areas. Originally, life coaches were people who had some kind of previous work experience before going into coaching. Most Executive Coaches came out of the corporate business world and as an Executive Coach or Leadership Coach, were able to make great incomes. Many of these past Executive Coaches also have become Client Attraction or Marketing Coaches in today’s climate and their services are provided to corporations still but mostly to small or solo businesses or individuals.

Life Coaching Now:

Now life coaching is common, easy to find and is for businesses and individuals and can be called just about anything. Today, there are many life coach training schools but there are huge disparities between the qualities of education students receive from school to school. In fact, there are no required educational standards that a life coach school must follow/provide and there is no regulation of the life coach industry. Anyone can call themselves a Life Coach and open a practice – buyer beware becomes a very serious phrase to remember. There are now a couple of professional organizations, such as the International Coaching Federation, which as a professional membership organization, is working diligently to establish coaching standards, life coach school standards and looking at types of regulations that could benefit the industry and consumers.

There are now between 10,000 and 20,000 life coaches that are providing services to customers. There are an increasing number of people pursuing becoming a life coach. Many people want to help others but many think they can earn a tremendous amount of money while being able to work at home in their pjs, part-time. If only it was that easy. Today’s world of having a web based business and all it entails has become very complicated and it isn’t as cheap in start-up costs either. Most life coaches are earning much less than $20,000 a year because they don’t have enough clients. Many coaches fail because you have to be a person who can structure their own time while working from home. When you work in a business, it provides structure that you work within. At home, there is no structure except what a person creates and it is all too easy to not be structured. Marketing has become a huge part of daily life for life coaches, much more than ever before and many have taken marketing to an incredible level of hard selling. Those ‘coaches’ providing marketing or small business start-up coaching have created a huge income based industry but it has also gained tremendous competition over the last few years.

Niche Is In:

Niche in life coaching is the current theme – this means that a life coach ‘specializes’ in one or a few areas only. There are many life coaches though who still would be considered general life coaches and offer a much broader range of coaching services. The market is pushing life coaches to have specific niche’s quite hard and explain that the public prefers ‘specialists’ and are willing to pay more for them. It is rather like the medical profession, you have generalists, generalists with a smaller focus, specialists with a broad focus and specialists with very specific focus topics. So, everyone entering coaching is told to have a niche; it could be life coaching, client attraction, marketing, public relations, Christian, organization, health, financial and many, many more areas that ‘coaching’ is being offered in.

Buyer Beware:

Throughout my research, I was totally amazed at how few life coaches will post their prices but also, and perhaps even more importantly, they do not post their educational or work experience! I don’t know about you, but I’m not really interested in sharing my dreams and goals with someone unless they are qualified and that means having work, life and educational experience in their ‘niche’ or coaching areas. I’ve asked many other coaches, and some of them are very well known and successful, and been told that education and experience are not important! So, I guess from that, if someone worked at the local animal shelter and didn’t graduate from high school, they are just as well qualified to provide life coaching services as everyone else. NOT in my book. We check out loads of information before we buy a car, before we choose a doctor, and even before we purchase a mattress. Why wouldn’t it mean something about what education and work/life experiences a life coach has? So, buyer beware!

Marketing and using psychology to sell whether on the web or in ‘real’ life, is something every business uses. Unfortunately, the web is unregulated and you cannot check things out and be secure that the information you get is honest and truthful. There is no Consumer Reports or Better Business Bureau for the Internet. The science of selling is intense and is geared at: getting visitors to give e-mail address for a ‘free’ gift so they have you in the mailing data base; use words and colors to attract you and make you ‘trust’ them, offer free material to read and low priced items and then you’ll receive e-mails about tele-seminars, videos, guest speakers, and high cost products/memberships/mentorships and mastermind groups. Many coaches are genuine but how do you tell the difference without making many painful, expensive and time consuming mistakes. Also read the fine print, many web businesses do not have guarantees or refunds available. Look for coaches who belong to national organizations, who post their credentials (experience and education), and did they graduate from a life coaching or coaching program or school? You can’t trust testimonials often, due to a business may have provided services to hundreds but you will only see the few who wrote glowing testimonials, a site that has ratings on it is great but can be doctored, asking to speak to a former client is the best method of checking out a particular coach business, even many former clients is better. I hope there will be some type of review system devised someday, as in your community word gets around quickly about a company, but on the internet you don’t have that check and balance system available. So, buyer beware!

Why people should try Life Coaching:

Life Coaching is an awesome way for people to stay motivated, keep their focus, gain self-insights and strive to achieve their goals. Life Coaching deals with the here and now and goes forward from there, it is an action based co-active coaching style that is not like therapy which deals with past life events and more psychological issues. A life coach should have the educational/work/life experiences and tools necessary to meet the needs of their customers and if not, then say so and refer the customer to a life coach that does. I recently tried to get a referral network started at the life coach school I attended, so that I and others would know where to refer a customer if I felt their needs could be better met by another. Only two other coaches felt secure enough to put their strengths out there – no one else!

In today’s busy, fast-paced world, it is often filled with stress, little personal support and difficult to achieve your goals or solve problems. Life Coaching is a great means to help a person with achieving their goals, solving problems, getting the support they need so that life is less difficult and overall, improved.

What to look for in a Coach:

Tips for you, as a customer in choosing a life coach include: know ahead of time what you want to achieve with a life coach and be able to answer how a coach can best work with you and you with them. It is also helpful to have an idea on how long you are willing to be in coaching before you expect to achieve your results and how much you can afford; research different life coach websites and read their articles, newsletters and check out their education/work/life experience and training; interview 3 different coaches – include in the interview all your questions on experience, prices, examples of accomplishments related to your goal, how long do they think it would take to achieve your goal, explain how you prefer to work with a coach and ask what their style of coaching is; ask for two references that had goals similar to yours; and most importantly, make sure the life coach you choose is one that you ‘connect’ with or that ‘feels right’ to you. Other possible questions can be asking what the life coach feels are their strengths and weaknesses. Also be cautious if you get the impression that the life coach may end up ‘telling you what to do’ or pressuring you into goals or avenues that you do not want and they seem more the agenda of the coach than yours.

Life Coaching is supposed to be about the customer and what they want to achieve and their style of learning/growing/achieving through the process of reaching their goals. It is not about the life coach. In fact, every life coach’s goal should be to put themselves out of business. If coaching were done well, then eventually, fewer people would need it. As the saying goes, ‘teach them to fish rather than feeding them fish and they will never go hungry’. Costs for life coaching services can typically run $300-$600 a month and some will go to $300 or more an hour. Some coaches actually earn $18,000 hour. If the life coaches you check-out don’t publish their costs, ask.

What is the future of Life Coaching?

Where is Life Coaching going in the future? While the economy and the increasing stress of everyday life is severely hurting the quality of people’s lives, life coaching will continue to grow in the number of people it serves as well as the number of life coaches entering the field. The number of people utilizing the web and becoming web based businesses will continue to increase the number of coaches who provide marketing, client attraction and who start business types of services.

One of the newer life coaching waves coming is ‘Wellness Coaching’ which is similar to health coaching. Of concern to me is that many, who are entering this ‘niche’, receive only 20 hrs of training. Many life coaches practicing health or wellness coaching have not checked their state’s laws on what they can and cannot coach on in this ‘niche’. A life coach cannot treat, diagnose, cure, prescribe or provide counseling. As a Holistic Practitioner, Certified Life Coach and Licensed Social Worker, I fear for people receiving life coaching services on health related subjects from life coaches with so little background in health and thus the potential for harm of the customer may occur. This is my concern and opinion which is shared by some and not by others. The pressure for more specific specialization, ‘niching’, will likely increase as well.

Will social media change the face of coaching? That’s unknown at this time. There are many blogs and forums now that people can access for support for their specific needs, meet and get to know other people interested in the same things. The world has gotten smaller and it is much easier to find people to talk to on the web, yet we are more isolated in our ‘real’ lives than ever before.

I envision the complexities of marketing, which include free give aways, membership groups, increased administrative time (which means less time for coaching), hard selling and heavy marketing will continue to increase, as well. I envision there will be expanded Coaching Schools that provide coaching education that gives core basics for all types of coaching and then gives additional education in specific areas of specialty types of coaching. These will greatly lead to better qualified service providers. I found it amazing, how many coaches actually came out of the computer field from computer programming, IT support, web design and such. I do hope that something can be done to make sure the competency, skill, education, and experience of life coaches becomes more uniform and is not as much a ‘shooting in a barrel’ experience for customers to find truly skilled and dedicated coaches.

In conclusion, life coaching has gone from corporate America to mainstream. The benefits of life coaching are becoming better known and there are many gifted life coaches available – but you will have to do some weeding first. Life Coaching can improve the quality of your life and even your physical and mental health and thus, it is hoped, it may be covered by health insurance as pro-active services someday. In the mean time, life coaching is affordable and easy to find. If you are in search of life coaching for a very specific area of your life or goal, there is likely a life coach that covers it. But the bottom line is that it is up to the consumer to pick the ‘right’ life coach for them and if it doesn’t work for you, then stop and switch to a life coach that will ‘fit’ you better. Life coaching has evolved considerably and will continue to do so and in 6 years, we’ll write another article updating you on how things have, yet again, changed.

If you have Questions in your life, Tonia Boterf at http://www.thepracticalexpert.com has answers. A multi-tool approach of services and products for you to start getting Answers to your Questions is just a click away. Check out our series of books on caring for aging parents and decrease your stress too. Tonia Boterf is your Practical Expert to finding the tools and answers to get what you need and want out of life.

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Michael

To discuss what a life coach can do for you and your motivation, and to schedule a session with Michael, use the contact form below.

Michael is a certified Life Optimization coach as well as a Law of Attraction and Law of Attraction Wealth coach.

Coaches Can Help In Many Areas

2014-09-122014-09-12 ~ adminlife

“Life is like a ten-speed bicycle. Most of us have gears we never use.” – Charles Schulz

To discuss what a life coach can do for you and your motivation, and to schedule a session with Michael, use the contact form below.

Michael is a certified Life Optimization coach as well as a Law of Attraction and Law of Attraction Wealth coach.

Michael Wilkovesky

Working With a Life Coach

People seek to make their life better especially if they find something is not working right. It is hard to watch yourself losing ground but sometimes it is even harder to admit that you need some help.

When you know you want a better life but do not know how to make the necessary changes, you should look for someone with experience and expertise in the area you want to change to help you to make the difference in your life. This is what a life coach does. They use their professional training to help you change your life into something better.

Business Coach

There are many areas where a life coach can help, depending on your needs. To help you turn your business into a more profitable one, you can hire a business coach. If you are just starting out, this type of mentoring can help you to get up and running quicker and with less problems.

Career Coach

If you believe that your career has stalled or it is not moving in the direction that you would like it to be moving, you can hire a career coach. If you are constantly looking for job satisfaction, or you feel you have been in the job too long you may want a career coach to help you make things better.

Life Coach

A life coach will help with your personal life. This can be related to the relationships you have and how you handle conflicts with those people. If people have told you that you have an attitude problem or you know you have personal problems, getting help from a life coach can make a big difference.

Executive Coach

If you are looking for advancement in your corporate career, an executive coach can help. Maybe you are looking for a leadership position or you are in a leadership position and want to become a more effective leader. An executive coach can help you. Being a leader is important and having someone who can help you to become a better leader is something that that should be investigated.

A coach will make an improvement in your life and help you to realize that you can do more and achieve all of your goals.

Michael

Life Coaching Benefits

2014-01-20 ~ adminlife

“A life coach does for the rest of your life what a personal trainer does for your health and fitness.” – Elaine MacDonald

Why have a life coach? Many people think that they can overcome any and all obstacles by themselves, however, sometimes the ear of a life coach and the different perspective offered can help quicken the pace of overcoming obstacles in our lives.

The article below gives some benefits of using a life coach.

If you want more information on life coaching or to schedule a telephone conversation with Michael, contact him using the form below.

Michael is a certified Life Optimization Coach as well as a Law Of Attraction and Law Of Attraction Wealth coach

Michael Wilkovesky

Some Benefits of Life Coaching – Coach Guerci

It might sound funny at first to have a life coach. I mean, everyone lives their lives from day to day. Why on earth would you need a ‘coach’ to make it through? The point is not just making it through life. Rather, it has much more to do with actually getting something out of life, fulfilling yourself and enjoying every minute of life you get to experience

In order to make the most of your years here on earth, you should really consider the services of a life coach. Why, you may be asking? The following listing of benefits should help you understand just why life coaching is vital to your happiness and success in all that you pursue.

Life Coaches Listen

A life coach is much like a therapist, in a way, because they are hired to listen to you. However, a life coach is much more intent on actively helping you change your life for the better and moving forward, rather than dwelling on the past. A life coach is great because he or she is paid to listen to you. Unlike a friend, you do not have to reciprocate. This is a one-sided relationship all in your favor.

Life Coaches Keep You Focused

Life coaching can help you stay on the path you wish to stay on in life. For many people, it is difficult to actively pursue their goals. With a life coach, you will be pushed to complete the tasks you wish to complete. Rather than relying on your own gumption, you will have the external pressure of a life coach to push you in the direction you want to go. It’s an extremely helpful method of creating goals and sticking to them.

Life Coaches Always Tell the Truth

Unlike friends in your life, a life coach will always tell you the truth about yourself. Don’t expect to be pandered or to be told what you want to hear by a life coach. That’s what the other people in your life are for. A life coach can provide you with an objective view of yourself and your life. This is very beneficial when you are facing tough decisions or trying to make excuses to get out of a tough situation.

Life Coaches Help You Overcome Obstacles

If you are facing obstacles in your life, a life coach can help build you up and overcome them. Whether it is weaknesses, fears or bad habits, a life coach can teach you to reach down deep in order to harness the strength you didn’t know you had.

Source:

About the Author

For over 15 years, Coach Jim Guerci has focused his entire agenda around helping people create lush lives of peak performance, academic excellence, and spiritual awareness. Coach Jim Guerci is an acclaimed Master NLP Practitioner, Certified NLP Hypnotherapist, and life coach who has been helping individuals make effective life changes for over fifteen years. Visit Coach Guerci’s websites

http://www.peakperformanceguy.com
http://www.teacherguy.org
http://YUSinc.com
http://www.PeakPerformanceGuy.com for more information.

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We have not received any compensation for writing this post. We have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that we have mentioned.