Coach Andrea

Coach Andrea’s Intro

Inspiration, insight, intuition? Are you the type of leader who regularly listens to information that comes to you in this manner?  This week’s Tip by Simon Tyler reminds us that there is a wealth of guidance that can be gleaned by tapping into your own wisdom.

Quote of the Week

“Success is really about being ready for the good opportunities that come before you. It’s not to have a detailed plan of everything that you’re going to do. You can’t plan innovation or inspiration, but you can be ready for it, and when you see it, you can jump on it.”

~ Eric Schmidt

The Perfect Consultant

By Simon Tyler

Whatever your life, career or business situation, input from a valued, experienced, knowledgeable consultant will always be welcomed.

But who is that consultant, where do they reside, how can you contact them, and would they be willing to consult on your situation?

The answers to these questions lie closer than you would think.

The potential perfect consultant to you and your circumstance is… you!

Potentially.

Inspiration comes from within. Insight, from within. Investigation, introspection, inklings, invention, influence, incentive, and most pertinently, intuition, all from within.

Warning – a consultant who is negative, asks poor questions, or simply spouts opinions is soon ignored and their advice given little or no consideration. If this is your current version of personal consulting then it is no wonder you find yourself unfulfilled, searching the world for better, more accurate and reliable advice.

The Perfect Consultant (you) may well require some skill evolution. Here’s one upgrade idea that will have incredible impact on the consultant’s performance:

Upgrade the consultant’s question

Many of our self-posed questions begin with “Why…”. This provokes a “…because…” response, and rarely leads to new or creative input. Stop whying!

Actively begin your self-posed questions with “What…” or “How could…”. These questions create space for your brain to source its own answers (i.e. inspirationally, intuitively – from within).

For example, after any encounter, event or situation that went well or badly, ask:

• “What could this teach me?”
• “What do I want to do with this outcome?”
• “How could I use this event to help me?”

Ask the questions and allow the ‘in-consultant’ to respond. For best effect, make notes of his or her suggestions and review later.

Good luck and keep it simple.

Simon Tyler is one of the world’s leading business coaches. His work simplifies the lives of business leaders and owners. He is an incisive consultant, inspirational writer, provocative public speaker and master facilitator. To learn more about Simon, visit http://simontyler.com.

Coaching Call To Action

What will you do this week to develop your inner guidance? I am reading the book The Art of Intuition: Cultivating your Inner Wisdom by Sophy Burnham.  She gives exercises and step-by-step instructions to guide you to develop your own intuitive powers.

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Coach Andrea’s Intro

Your mind is very powerful. You know how when buy a new car you start seeing that same car and color everywhere?  Were those cars all hiding in their garage a week ago or has your perception changed?  You have expanded your awareness, changed the way you look at things, and the things you look at have changed. This week Simon Tyler applies this concept to the areas of your life where you don’t like what you see.

Quote of the Week

“Only in quiet waters do things mirror themselves undistorted. Only in a quiet mind is there adequate perception of the world.”

~ Hans Margolius

If You Change the Way You Look at Things… the Things You Look at Change.

By Simon Tyler

One of my favorite Wayne Dyer quotes and often astoundingly true.

Most of us have convinced ourselves that our perception is like a torch that reveals a truth, when in actual fact perception does most of the work to create a truth, rather than shine on what is there already.

The lesson in this has struck me over and over again in recent weeks and months.  I have also been able to be inspired by it and change the way I look at things and no surprise, the picture began to shift and reveal itself differently (much more pleasantly too).

Are there situations, relationships, places in your world that don’t match up with what you really want? Maybe they have even led you to become disappointed, frustrated, tense, anxious, and angry about them.

Once you are in this place the Reticular Activating System (RAS) in your brain gets to work to only focus (the torch) on evidence that whatever you have set to be true is true. You will brilliantly find more and more fuel for you fire, grinding you ever more deeply into an unhelpful and even damaging state and attitude.

Immediately review all the areas in which you do not like what you see. Ask yourself the question (and write down your answers for maximum effect):

• How else could I view this situation?
• What else might be true?
• How would I really want to view this situation?

Work to find evidence that your alternate viewpoints are partially true, too.

Repeat this every hour for a day, then 3 times a day thereafter.

Things WILL begin to change, people begin to surprise you, situations become easier, clearer and a way ahead opens up.

For an even deeper fix put yourself in situations, conversations, places where the alternate view is more likely to come into focus.

Simon Tyler is one of the world’s leading business coaches. His work simplifies the lives of business leaders and owners. He is an incisive consultant, inspirational writer, provocative public speaker and master facilitator. To learn more about Simon, visit http://simontyler.com.

Coaching Call To Action

Last weekend I found myself caught in the area where I didn’t like what I saw.  I was cleaning up from the Nor’easter that dumped inches of wet snow on my leaf covered trees.  There were many downed branches and trees.  And did I mention there was no power?  The conversation I was having with myself was not pretty.  I wish I had read Simon’s article earlier and could have used his questions to shift my thinking.  Are there places in your life where you are seeing things like I did this weekend?   Take some time to shift your perception this week.  It’s worth the effort!

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Coach Andrea’s Intro

I loved this week’s Tip by Steve Straus!  It’s short and sweet and gets the point across quickly about the connection between laughter and inspiration and creativity.

Quote of the Week

“Laughter is inner jogging.”

~ Norman Cousins

Ha-Ha’s and Ah-Ha’s

By Steve Straus

Laughter has many benefits. One of them is that when you’re laughing you’re breaking through your mental barriers, the barriers to inspiration and creativity.

It’s easy to stay in your head and try to figure everything out, but having ha-ha’s opens you up beyond thinking and the limitations of your mind.

One ah-ha can be worth countless logical thoughts.

If you’re not having enough ah-ha’s, maybe you’re not having enough ha-ha’s either.

Coaching Point: Do you think there might be a reason why they’re spelled similarly?

Copyright 2011 Steve Straus. All rights reserved. Steve Straus can be contacted at http://www.StrausUSA.com

Coaching Call To Action

This week if you are experiencing writer’s block, or your team is stuck for a solution, try bringing laughter into the room and see what new ideas come forth.  Have fun!

What’s New?

Thursday, September 29, 2011 – 9 am to noon ET
Pounce on a Project II

Last weekend I spent time outside cleaning up from Hurricane Irene – - raking leaves, picking up sticks, and cutting trees – to get ready for the next season.  What project would you like to get on top of and accomplish this month that will help get ready for the fourth quarter of 2011? Come to Pounce on a Project II — 2011.

Join Coach Andrea on Thursday, September 29th, from 9:00 a.m. to noon Eastern. We will join as a group by phone and declare what you want to accomplish: marketing calls to hit your numbers, adding a shopping cart to your website, or cleaning your office so you can find the goals you created in January.

During the morning, the group will gather by phone a few times to check progress and get any support needed to finish with a bang. At noon, the group will celebrate their accomplishments. Who says projects have to be boring and tedious? Bring your lightness and fun and join us for the energization.

To sign up or learn more, call or e-mail me by noon on Wednesday, September 28th. Feel free to share this with friends and co-workers, the more the merrier. (Cost of the program is only the cost of long distance phone calls.)

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Coach Andrea’s Intro

As we are getting close to the half-way mark for 2011, I thought it was a good time to check in on your goal progress.  Michael Neill’s article this week gives us permission to put aside the “loaded” goals on your list. You know those goals that you’ve given so much significance and meaning? Just put them aside for now.  Read on to learn more.

Quote of the Week

” Achievable goals are the first step to self improvement.” ~ J.K. Rowling

The Loaded Goal

by Michael Neill

Creating results in the world is fairly straightforward.  If I want to lose weight, I take in less calories than I burn up, regardless of which diet, eating plan, or “lifestyle choices” I make in order to do it.  If I want to accumulate wealth, I spend less money than I create (regardless of how much I create or what I do to create it) and keep the rest.  If I want to write a book, I put words on a page repeatedly until they tell some semblance of a story or create the opportunity for the reader to learn and transform.

These formulas are common sense, fool-proof, time-tested, and will work for every single person that uses them.  So if you’re consistently not achieving something you say you want to achieve, it’s probably not because you don’t know how.

It’s because that goal, whatever it is, has become loaded with so much extra significance and meaning that you can barely face it, let alone achieve it.

The loaded goal is that goal which seems to be your most important and longest standing one – it’s the one that “for some reason, I don’t seem to be able to make any real progress on” and “this year, I’m finally going to handle”.

What makes the loaded goal so frustrating is that it seems as though it should be easy.  “After all”, we tell ourselves, “other people are able to lose weight, make more money, find a partner, write a novel, get fit, etc – why can’t I?”

The reason why it’s so much harder to reach a “loaded” goal than a regular one is that your focus isn’t really on the result you want to create – it’s on you.

When your goal is loaded…

• Getting fit isn’t about being fit and losing weight is no longer about weighing less (if indeed it ever was) – it’s about “overcoming your essentially lazy, good for nothing nature and proving that you CAN do it” or “if I lose weight, that will show that I’m ‘good enough’ to attract a man”.
• You don’t just want to have more money (though that would be nice too) – you want to prove to your spouse/parents/colleagues/self that YOU do have what it takes and YOU will triumph in the end.
• Writing a novel isn’t about telling a story, it’s about “being an author” or “fulfilling your potential”

As a coach, my clients consistently try to convince me that what we should really be focusing on is their loaded goal, whether it’s winning an Oscar, losing weight, or becoming the first non-Asian leader of China.  (Yes, those are all real examples!)

But what I know is that in order to create results, we need to stop talking about what’s wrong with you (your issues) OR about what’s right with you (your self-esteem) and put our attention where it will make the biggest difference – on the results you most want to create in your life and in the world.

And the simplest way to do that is to literally “take a load off” your mind and put that loaded goal off to the side.  Take a few weeks, months, or even a whole year off from trying to deal with it.  Enjoy your life.  Have some fun.  Stop working on yourself and that particular goal for awhile.

What will happen, counter-intuitive though it may seem, is that everything else in your life will start working better and better. Oh, you’ll still be able to work yourself up into a lather about your loaded goal – after all, it’s loaded up with all your favorite hot-button toppings.  But if you’re willing to keep putting it back down and get on with something else you actually want to create for its own sake, at some point, you’ll look at your once-loaded goal in the context of your increasingly wonderful life and wonder what all the fuss was about.

This is our psychological immune system in action – when we let our problems sit for a bit, they are as likely to dis-solve as be solved. When they don’t, chances are we never actually put it down long enough for it to heal, picking at it in our minds like a really yummy scab.

So that’s today’s experiment, and if you like, it’s one of the best experiments I can suggest for 2011:

Make this year the year you DON’T achieve your loaded goal.

That doesn’t mean you can’t go out and create all sorts of wonderful other things in your life.  Just let that one go (for now), and we’ll check back in later and see if it still matters to you.  The only thing you have to lose is a lifetime of stress, angst, and struggle.

What you stand to gain is beyond measure or compare…

Have fun, learn heaps, and enjoy your life!

Copyright 2011 Michael Neill, author of Supercoach: 10 Secrets to Transform Anyone’s Life.  All rights reserved – Read more tips at www.Supercoach.com.

Coaching Call To Action

Summer is here! This week assess your 2011 goals.  Which one is “loaded” for you? Will you put it aside or reframe it and commit to it?

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Coach Andrea’s Intro

In coaching we are trained to ask powerful questions.  The purpose is to help you know what you want and for you to access your inner wisdom.  Often we use “What” questions.  I love this week’s Tip by Art Sobczak because it’s about a very specific question – “What if?” I hope it prompts your thinking as it did mine.

Quote of the Week

“Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.”

~ Voltaire

Ask “What if” for Better Results in All Areas of Sales, and Life

by Art Sobczak

Over the past 28 years, in delivering over 1200 training sessions and workshops, I have fielded lots of questions. Many of the same ones about parts of the sales call, some good, others not so much. But some of the toughest ones I ever received were from my kids years ago when they were younger.

“Dad, what if cars had wings and jet engines?”
“Dad, what would happen if people would sit on TOP of domed stadiums instead of in them?”
“Dad, what if ice cream came out of water faucets instead of water?”

Often I’d patiently give the logical answer that those things really weren’t reasonable to consider.

Other times I’d become frustrated in trying to explain how those situations weren’t possible.

I learned a very important lesson from my kids as it relates to sales, business, and life in general:

We too often think practically, logically, and in terms of what we think is acceptable or the way things are done. We don’t imagine enough, nor do our prospects and customers.

HP had a marketing slogan several years ago? It was “What if …?”

Same thing. It was designed to prompt people to think about possibilities. By doing so, you open up a whole new level of ideas, opportunities, and strategies. The imagination stretches.

Creativity expert Roger von Oech writes in his book, “A WHACK ON THE SIDE OF THE HEAD” (Warner Books), that playful speculation can yield positive results.

Albert Einstein developed some of his early relativity concepts by asking himself, “What if I were an elevator falling through space at the speed of light. What if there was a hole in the side of it? What if a shaft of light came through this hole?”

Ask Yourself
Why not “What if?” with yourself and your fellow sales reps?

What if you did a few things differently?
What if you decided you were going to beat all sales records next month?

Ask Your Customers
You can do this on the phone with your prospects and customers, too.
For example,

“Mr. Prospect, let’s set the money issue aside here for a moment and get crazy. What if you did have this plan in place. What are all the positive effects you would notice?”

Picasso said that every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist after growing up.

It would be cool if ice cream came out of water faucets, wouldn’t it?

Art Sobczak, Business By Phone Inc., provides how-to ideas and tips for rejectionless prospecting, selling, and servicing by phone. Get the free ebook, “29 Sales Tips You Can Use Right Now” at http://www.BusinessByPhone.com.

Coaching Call To Action

Take the following categories: prospects, customers, things you want, your career, people you care about. Come up with “What if?” questions to get you and them thinking in terms of possibilities. You’ll like the results.

Insights

Last week’s Tip, Your Most Enjoyable Year Yet! recommended you create your own ABCD list.  I spent some time over vacation creating mine.  I found that after 14 years in business, there were a number of things I no longer needed to do (Ds).  For instance, tasks that are connected to “should” – I should go to this meeting, I should contact this or that person.  If there is a “should” attached to it, my energy is not coming from the right place and I will stop doing it.  Another task is all of the monthly reports I used to run to look at my business.  I can tell how I’m doing without the reports.  Why spend the time running them?

Would love to hear from you, what you found out.  Click here and let me know.

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Coach Andrea’s Intro

Putting together this week’s Coaching Tip was an activity on my to do list before I went on vacation for the week.  My process is to scan articles and see what jumps out at me.  At first I thought this Tip should be shared at the beginning of the year in January, but as I read on, listened to the birds singing outside my window, felt the fresh breeze on my face, and the sense of Spring, I became more and more inspired by Michael Neill’s words. I hope you will be, too!

Quote of the Week

“It does not seem to be true that work necessarily needs to be unpleasant. It may always have to be hard, or at least harder than doing nothing at all. But there is ample evidence that work can be enjoyable, and that indeed, it is often the most enjoyable part of life.”
~  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Your Most Enjoyable Year Yet!

by Michael Neill

Since 1994, I have begun each year by going through a wonderful process developed by Jinny Ditzler called Your Best Year Yet.  I would review my achievements and failures from the year before, look for any limiting beliefs that might be holding me back, check in with my values and set my goals for the year ahead.  And year after year, I have had my best year yet.

Which is why it was such a surprise to me when my friend Robert Holden asked us a simple question during his weekend at Supercoach Academy last June:

Imagine it’s one year from today and you’ve had your most enjoyable year yet… What’s happened?  What have you done?  What’s different in your life now?

Somehow, that tiny shift from looking at my “best” year yet to my most enjoyable one shifted something fundamental.  My most enjoyable year yet would be filled with things I stopped doing, not new ones that I started. Instead of a new list of achievements to pursue, I found myself with a list of things to let go of. And so I began to look at the activities of my life in a new way.

I created an ABCD grid for myself:

• “A”s were things I wanted to do regardless of whether or not they paid well or worked out the way I hoped.
• “B”s were things I enjoyed doing and would happily say “yes” to if they fell into my lap, but had no desire to try and “make” happen.
• “C”s were things I was only doing for the money
• “D”s were things I just flat out needed to stop doing

Once I had my list, I didn’t really know what to do with it, but I had a sense that I’d glimpsed something significant, so I just sat with it for a week or so, taking it out from time to time and reading back through it, waiting for inspiration to strike.  And strike it did…

Suddenly it dawned on me that if I only did my “A” activities, but I did them really, really well, I could actually make as much or more money than I had been making running myself ragged trying to do the whole alphabet. And in that moment, a plan was hatched.

My business manager flew out and we redesigned the business, streamlining things that would no longer be needed and building in structures to support the successful implementation of a straight “A” life.  I eliminated the “D”s, started saying no to the “C”s, but left enough time in my schedule to say yes to any “B”s that came along which appealed to me.

And over the past 9 months, as if by design, I have had my most enjoyable year yet. By miles and miles and miles. That’s why I wound up turning down the shot at a national radio show that would have upped my profile but taken all the free time out of my schedule.

And why I’ve created the new retreat, Learning How to Thrive, where people can come together and learn the principles behind creating a wonderful life for themselves. It’s why Supercoach Academy 2012 will be the last one for at least two years, and I’m currently designing advanced programs to support the transformative coaches we’ve already created instead of plowing ahead to create more and more.

It’s also why the thing I’m most looking forward to in the coming months is a road trip with my son, driving down the west coast of America in a Mustang convertible and stopping in at Universities he might want to attend.  I do love my work – but even more than that, I love my life.

Earlier this year, I came across a story about the Reverend Fred Craddock, who was visiting family when he struck up an unlikely conversation with an old greyhound dog his niece had recently adopted…

I said to the dog “Are you still racing?”

“No,” he replied

“Well, what was the matter?  Did you get too old to race?”

“No, I still had some race in me.”

“Well, what then?  Did you not win?”

“I won over a million dollars for my owner.”

“Well, what was it?  Bad treatment?”

“Oh, no,” the dog said.  “They treated us royally when we were racing.”

“Did you get crippled?”

“No.”

“Then why?” I pressed.  “Why?”

The dog answered, “I quit.”

“You quit?”

“Yes,” he said.  “I quit.”

“Why did you quit?”

“I just quit because after all that running and running and running, I found out that the rabbit I was chasing wasn’t even real.”

The true joy in life is not in achievement, though achievement certainly can be fun.  It is not in fame or fortune, both of which open some doors while closing off others.  But if you’re willing to slow down and create a little bit of space, you might find it inside you right now.

And wouldn’t it be a shame to have a wonderful life and not notice?

Copyright 2011 Michael Neill, author of Supercoach: 10 Secrets to Transform Anyone’s Life.  All rights reserved – Read more tips at www.Supercoach.com.

Coaching Call To Action

Periodically, we need to stop and assess how we are spending our time and what we are doing with our lives.  We get into the habit of doing activities that may no longer serve us.  By the time you read this, I will have created my ABCD list.   Next week, I’ll share some insights from what I learned.  Will you commit to doing the same?

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Coach Andrea’s Intro

As I mentioned last week, many of my clients are receiving and delivering performance reviews. This can be a stressful time where people might be on the defensive about what they are saying or hearing. What if you entered the review with an open manner, used Steve Straus’s question and really meant it?

Quote of the Week

“Take the attitude of a student, never be too big to ask questions, never know too much to learn something new.”
~Og Mandino

Feedback (great questions lead to great answers; weak questions, weak ones.)

by Steve Straus

“How am I doing?”

Feedback is one of the great “secrets” to having a successful life — seeking it, hearing it, acting on it, then looking for more feedback to see if what you added/changed/stopped really worked. It works in business, with your family, and with friends. Asking “How am I doing?” is a simple way to get feedback. At first glance, the question may seem an exercise in egotism, but if you really want feedback, you will be communicating so at a non-verbal level which is disarming rather than off-putting. How are you doing at getting feedback?

Copyright 2011 Steve Straus. All rights reserved. Steve Straus can be contacted at http://www.StrausUSA.com

Coaching Call To Action

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Coach Andrea’s Intro

The PaperRoom Process that I offer to my clients is about gaining access to your perceptions, beliefs, habits, expectations and assumptions, which leads to greater awareness. This week’s Tip by John McGuire and Gary Rhodes reminds us what is possible when we “get a bigger mind”.

Quote of the Week

“Let us not look back in anger, or forward in fear, but around us in awareness.”
~James Thurber

Getting a Bigger Mind

by John McGuire and Gary Rhodes

By increasingly opening up your awareness and beliefs, you can be more conscious of and about the decisions you are making and the impact of those decisions on your behaviors and practices. We call this process “getting a bigger mind.” It expands your awareness of what’s really going on and enables you to perceive more complex interconnections and respond with both long-term strategic acuity and elevated knowledge of how your next decision brings the environment you want to create more fully into existence (McGuire & Rhodes, p. 48).

McGuire, J. B. & Rhodes, G. B. (2009). Transforming Your Leadership Culture. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass

Reprinted with permission from the OSU Leadership Center, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, (614) 292-3114, http://leadershipcenter.osu.edu.

Coaching Call To Action

What process do you use to step back and “get a bigger mind”? Do you brainstorm with your business partner, go for a run, sleep on it?

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Coach Andrea’s Intro

My clients often ask, “How do I get from where I am to where I want to be? How do I accomplish what I want to accomplish in this life? Where do I start?” This week’s Tip by Chris Widener outlines 7 steps for achieving your dreams. First, you dream!

Here in the U.S. next week is Thanksgiving. A very Happy Thanksgiving to you all! Thank you for sharing your ideas, thoughts, feedback, challenges and successes with me. I am honored to be included in your life.

There will be no Coaching Tip of the Week on November 26, 2010 due to the Thanksgiving Holiday. Enjoy this time of thanks and gratitude. Our next Tip will be issued on December 3, 2010.

Quote of the Week

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.”
~ Melody Beattie

Steps to Achievement

by Chris Widener

Since this is a time of adjustment for me and a time for me to renew my dreams of what I want to accomplish in life and business, I want to share a few thoughts on achieving your dreams. It is never too late to dream or renew your dream for a better life. The real question though, is how do we achieve a dream? Well, here are some thoughts that will help you answer that question!

Can achievement be broken down into steps? Well, it isn’t always that clean and easy, but I do know that those who achieve great things usually go through much of the same process, with many of the steps listed below as part of that process. So if you have been struggling with achieving your dreams, look through the following, and internalize the thoughts presented. Then begin to apply them. If you do that, you will be on the road to achieving your dream!

1. Dream it – Everything begins in the heart and mind. Every great achievement began in the mind of one person. They dared to dream, to believe that it was possible. Take some time to allow yourself to ask “What if?” Think big. Don’t let negative thinking discourage you. You want to be a “dreamer.” Dream of the possibilities for yourself, your family, and for others. If you had a dream that you let grow cold, re-ignite the dream! Fan the flames. Life is too short to let it go.
2. Believe it – Yes, your dream needs to be big. It needs to be something that is seemingly beyond your capabilities. But it also must be believable. You must be able to say that if certain things take place, if others help, if you work hard enough, though it is a big dream, it can still be done. Good example: A person with no college education can dream that he will build a 50 million-dollar a year company. That is big, but believable. Bad example: That a 90 year-old woman with arthritis will someday run a marathon in under 3 hours. It is big alright, but also impossible. Your dream must be believable.
   
3. See it – The great achievers have a habit. They “see” things. They picture themselves walking around their CEO office in their new 25 million-dollar corporate headquarters, even while they are sitting on a folding chair in their garage “headquarters.” Great free-throw shooters in the NBA picture the ball going through the basket. PGA golfers picture the ball going straight down the fairway. World-class speakers picture themselves speaking with energy and emotion. All of this grooms the mind to control the body to carry out the dream. You have to see it in your mind before you can see it in reality.
   
4. Tell it – One reason many dreams never go anywhere is because the dreamer keeps it all to himself. It is a quiet dream that only lives inside of his mind. The one who wants to achieve their dream must tell that dream to many people. One reason: As we continually say it, we begin to believe it more and more. If we are talking about it then it must be possible. Another reason: It holds us accountable. When we have told others, it spurs us on to actually do it so we don’t look foolish.
5. Plan it – Every dream must take the form of a plan. The old saying that you “get what you plan for” is so true. Your dream won’t just happen. You need to sit down, on a regular basis, and plan out your strategy for achieving the dream. Think through all of the details. Break the whole plan down into small, workable parts. Then set a time frame for accomplishing each task on your “dream plan.”
6. Work it – Boy, wouldn’t life be grand if we could quit before this one! Unfortunately for the lazy folks, the successful are usually the hardest workers. While the rest of the world is sitting on their couch watching re-runs of their favorite television shows, achievers are working on their goal – achieving their dream. I have an equation that I work with: Your short-term tasks, multiplied by time, equal your long-term accomplishments. If you work on it each day, eventually you will achieve your dream. War and Peace was written, in longhand, page by page.
7. Enjoy it – When you have reached your goal and you are living your dream, be sure to enjoy it. In fact, enjoy the trip, too. Give yourself some rewards along the way. Give yourself a huge reward when you get there. Help others enjoy it. Be gracious and generous. Use your dream to better others.

When you have become successful and achieved your dreams circle around and go back to number one. And dream a little bigger this time!

Chris Widener is the Co-Founder of Made for Success, www.MadeForSuccess.net, a wealth of ongoing motivation and leadership skills training.

Coaching Call To Action

Do you have a dream? If so identify where you are on Chris’s steps and what comes next? If you don’t have a dream, each day this week take some time and wonder “what if”? See what ideas come to mind and record them in your journal. And that’s all it takes to start achieving your dreams!

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Coach Andrea’s Intro

What do you do to get back on track when you are feeling out of control and pulled in multiple directions? Today’s Tip by Simon Tyler provides a very simple question to ask yourself each day to put yourself back in the driver’s seat, “What do I want?”

Quote of the Week
“Decide what you want, decide what you are willing to exchange for it. Establish your priorities and go to work.”
~ H.L. Hunt

The Big Question – What Do You Want?

by Simon Tyler

In going about my work I have noticed how many senior executives and leaders carry complex decisions with them and task themselves with solving alone. We are never alone.

I, and I’m sure you too, often read phrases like ‘you get what you think about’ or ‘be careful what you wish for’ (see Thought management 101). Well here I am reminding you of the principle again; with intent to simplify what it means so you can use it to shift your results soon.

The principle is that of attraction – what you are thinking about, talking about, acting out tends to magnetically attract more of the same.

My focus over the summer has been awry to say the least, children at home, holidays, frequent self-created chaos-storms and so on. When you are in that place your thoughts tend to follow the situation. Unbeknown to your consciousness you are saying things such as ‘I’m so busy’, ‘I’m not moving forward’, or simply not giving any time to review what’s going on and reset your attraction magnets.

After several weeks of this state I was really feeling groggy, dulled, inspiration low. A kick start was needed.

Now here’s the simple part, and it is so simple there is a high likelihood you either won’t believe it or you just won’t take action it because it’s too simple!

I asked myself, “What Do I Want?”

And kept asking myself this simple question until I refined and refined the answer and got clear on the situations I wanted to be in and the results I wanted to create.

For a few days I would ask the question again or briefly think about the situations I desired, that’s it.

So that’s it, my challenge to you this week. Book a 10 minute meeting with yourself and ask yourself the coach’s big question. Repeat every day for a week. For enhanced results make notes, or even get someone else to ask you the question.

Good luck and keep it simple!

Simon Tyler is one of the world’s leading business coaches. His work simplifies the lives of business leaders and owners. He is an incisive consultant, inspirational writer, provocative public speaker and master facilitator. To learn more about Simon, visit http://simontyler.com.

Coaching Call To Action

Simon’s advice for the week is worth repeating. Book a 10 minute meeting with yourself and ask yourself, “What Do I Want?”. Repeat every day for a week. Simple and sure to produce results.

A Warm Welcome to ACRP Program Attendees for Being Resourceful

A warm welcome to our new Coaching Tip of the Week subscribers who I met last week at the New England Chapter of the Association of Clinical Research Professionals (ACRP) during my program “Being Resourceful”. I enjoyed sharing my coaching tools and experiences and learning from you. What a wonderfully resourceful group! Thank you for attending and sharing!

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