Students Of Success

I was talking to one of my coaching clients and she was talking about not being able to stay with a meditation practice, so she gave up meditating altogether. “I’m either gung ho all the way or I don’t show up at all,” she said in disgust. We were talking on an evening when she “hadn’t shown up at all.” She had washed dishes instead. You would have thought she had mutilated small children. And gauging the self-attack that followed, I don’t think that meditation would have helped. The Dalai Lama, himself would have had to have shown up and told her it was no big deal. And I bet he would have given her one of those big goofy, freedom-filled smiles.

I understand the desire to make changes in your life and I applaud them heartily. But I invite you to be inconsistent and unreliable. I dare you to break promises to yourself and I dare you to make new ones. This is the courageous path of learning to grow, love and trust yourself…and to keep dancing into the life you desire, no matter what.

To me, there’s beauty, intelligence and grace in showing up lopsided, showing up fitfully, showing up sporadically. Showing up is showing up. The dream-basher in you pushes you into airtight commitments. But real change is about breathing, coming in and going out. Daring to live your calling is a path of invitation, not interrogation.

My favorite poet Rumi, an absurdly free and brilliant spirit, writes:

“Come, come whoever you are, wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving

it doesn’t matter,

Ours is not a caravan of despair

Come, even if you have broken your vow a hundred times

Come, come again.”

A Course in Miracles echoes this same philosophy by telling us to “choose once again,” whenever we have made a choice that has felt painful. It doesn’t say beat yourself up bloody, give up, throw in the towel, recount how many other things you’ve given up on. It asks us to save time and just begin again, choose the new behavior or belief now, let go of the past, and give birth to a different experience this very minute.

When I first began writing, I had an awful time with myself. I’d come up with all kinds of perfectly devised writing schedules for myself and then avoid or blow every one of them. I’d be furious with myself, convinced I was never going to be able to accomplish anything. I’d feel miserable and pathetic. But finally I did make huge progress as a writer. Not by setting up a better writing program. But through learning to love, comfort, and coax myself into action. In This Time I Dance!, I wrote that “Only the tender can breed the fierce.” This was so opposite to my initial thinking. Like my non-meditating client, I thought that if I had “misbehaved,” I needed a bigger stick, not an extra chocolate bar. But my guidance then, as now, reflected, “Be even kinder to yourself when you feel fear. Love, not anger, inspires right action.” And it was true. Part of me avoided writing because I was afraid to face myself. And only gentleness inspired more encounters.

Sometimes, we have an ill-advised idea of what showing up looks like. In the creative life, many people confuse rigidity with purity. But remember the creative personality might have many loves and devotions. And this is not distraction or avoidance. This is self-expression. When I lived in the mountains and was writing my book, I came into the city all the time to teach classes and to hang out at coffeehouses and secretly relish urban noise and stimulus. One person in a writing group said “If you were serious about that book, you’d just stay in the mountains and write.” I anguished over this comment for a long time.

But his puritan approach would have sucked the life out of me. I needed to make a living in the city and I enjoyed my urban escapades. I wanted both lives. Likewise, I have clients who are parents–who are not only going to sculpt or work on a sales brochure for their business. Another part of their lives is going to soccer practice and picking up Cheerios and bananas. They are not abandoning their passions. They are claiming more of them.

Focus on the behaviors you wish to encourage, not the other choices. If you are trying to lose weight, don’t agitate over your failure of will on the third day of your program. Celebrate the 2 days of enthusiasm and motivation. Only the wins countif you want to win. In 12 step lingo, “It’s all about progress, not perfection.”

I know the sticklers will tell you that taking one exercise class won’t help or spending one hour with your camera, but I disagree. Every act of love for yourself–makes a difference. That one time can boost your self-esteem and increase the likelihood that you’ll return. Go ahead, stumble into grace. Start and stop a million times. Get there late and leave early. Whatever it takes. So what, if in a linear world they call you erratic? In this world you are a daring hopscotch queen, a creative explorer, a traveler on a caravan of joy, and that works just fine, because you’re moving in the right direction.

Tama J. Kieves, an honors graduate of Harvard Law School, left her law practice with a large corporate law firm to write and to embolden others to live and breathe their most meaningful self-expression. A leading alternative career coach and best-selling author of THIS TIME I DANCE! Trusting the Journey of Creating the Work You Love / How One Harvard Lawyer Left It All to Have It All! (©2003 Tarcher/Penguin), Tama devotes her dynamic energy to life/work coaching and to facilitating workshops and retreats throughout the country. For more than a decade, she has helped thousands of individuals unleash their creativity and their callings. Founder of Awakening Artistry, an organization dedicated to creating a global family of creative and visionary minds, her inspiring work has frequently been featured on T.V., radio, and in national publications. Learn more about Tama’s workshops and coaching or sign up to receive her free inspirational e-zine at http://www.AwakeningArtistry.com

Happiness is not living in a fool’s paradise. It is not living in oneself oblivious of outside world. Life is not a bed of roses. Here one has to struggle and fight for justice. All our actions are with a view to some results. But often we fail to achieve that result. Sometime we get even opposite results than our expectations. For example, when we do a good turn to somebody and instead of being grateful to use the person accuses us. Failure in achieving our goal often leads us to unhappiness.

What is the solution to it? Gita, the Hindu religious and philosophical text, which is perhaps the only religious book in the world that was delivered amidst battlefield, has a beautiful solution. It says,

‘You have right to action only, never to its results; never be attached to the results of your actions; but don’t take to inaction also.’ Gita (2.47)

How beautiful and unique!

In essence it teaches us that one should do one’s duty without being unduly concerned about its results. It does not mean that one should do whatever comes to one’s fancy without regard to its consequences. In fact, duty means prescribed duty. Its results cannot be undesirable. But the action may result in success or failure. We should not be unduly concerned with this. The cause of all unhappiness is thwarted desires. This does not teach us to be indifferent to the results of our actions and do them indifferently. It teaches us to do our best. If then the results are not as we had expected, we should have faith in God.

Mind you, all this preaching about detachment from the results of one’s action is being taught at the battle field of Mahabharat when a great war is just to be fought. This war is between cousin brothers, and near relatives are fighting on the opposing sides. Arjun has said that he did not want to fight a war in which he has to kill not only near relatives but elders and teachers. Krishna is trying to tell him that it is his duty to fight. The reward is a great kingdom. Yet Krishna is talking of fighting a war at the cost of dying or killing one’s near and dear, and yet doing so without attachment to its results!

Yet, if you come to think of it, it is the best theory about life. Attachment brings uncertainty, worry, and tension. In fact, this non-attachment to the results is very psychological too. Too much worry about the results of our actions affects the latter negatively.

BE HAPPY!

The author, and his wife, are working in the field of Happiness, Health, and Success, including Yoga and Naturopathy. Under their banner The Life Beautiful! they are propagating the message of how to Be Happy! Be Successful! and Be Healthy!

For Happiness, Health, and Success, please visit: www.thelifebeautiful.com

Life is a journey which means there are no straight roads but twists, turns, crossroads, hills and valleys for us all to experience. We have to have the lows in life to appreciate the highs, besides, the lows can teach us invaluable lessons and help us to grow. But what happens when we end up lost in the wilderness with no visible way out? It happens. All of us at one time or another will experience our own ‘walk in the wilderness’ and when it happens we fall and fall fast. We fall fast into chaos, confusion and despair. Everything we have ever thought solid melts, everything we have ever learnt gets forgotten and everything we have ever held onto disappears.

We stand alone as those around us can only sympathize but not help us get out of the darkness, we have to do it by ourselves because we have just encountered our biggest life lesson, our most intense test and yet our most heavenly gift. If life were a straight forward journey, what would we actually learn? As emotional and highly-intelligent creatures would we be bored, stifled or just dull?

When you are in the wilderness the one thing you crave is normality and a desire to go back to how things were, even if it wasn’t right just so you can feel ok again. It’s a very scary place to be. How many of us try to go back to how things were and how many stick it out to learn and move on? What would you do? What have you done in the past?

The truth is we only find ourselves in the wilderness because we were on the wrong path in the first place. Understanding that is the first stage to finding your way out. The next stage is to be ok with where you are. Sit it out, accept your feelings, and know that you are on a roller-coaster ride of emotions which can be uncomfortable and sometimes very painful. Go with it but never ever believe that all hope is gone.

Hope springs eternal is a true old saying. You can find it if you look for it. And of course there is always old father time which heals everything. So look for hope because the worst thing you can do in any emergency (like being in the wilderness) is panic. Panic makes us act like headless fools and we become blind and separated from our common sense, our intuition and self-love.

Talking of which, let’s revisit the reason why we have found ourselves in the wilderness. I said it is because we were on the wrong path to begin with which can only mean one thing - a lack of self-love. That’s right. The whole purpose of life is to learn to love yourself so you can love others and make the world a better place. If we our missing the point of life, then we will go off the rails as it were. No matter what got you in the wilderness, behind it will be self-neglect.

Commonly, this causes us to stay in unhealthy relationship with a person, a company or whatever because we fear the alternative. This lack of self-love is what makes us feel so bad.

If you put your faith into the fact you are deserving and that your life can and will be great, no matter what, then you will be out of the woods in no time at all. In the meantime, be courageous, love yourself and look forward to the future because no matter how grim it may seem right now, it will get better. I promise!

Alexandra Watson has helped countless women create happy and fulfilling lives through her happiness system. She has developed a fool-proof, easy-to-follow seven step system to happiness that any woman can use and see results fast. John Gray, author of Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus calls Alexandra’s book The Happiness System for Women ‘a vibrant and exciting journey to the centre of your soul’. Alexandra has featured internationally on TV, radio and in many publications. She can be contacted by email on: HappinessAuthor@aol.com or visit her website at http://www.AlexandraWatson.com

Just when you think you know it all, some 17-month old child comes along and teaches you another valuable life lesson.

Little Lady lost her favorite ball. There are few things that bring this 17-month-old more joy than playing with her favorite ball. And, of course, we want our daughter to have all the happiness she can get.

So we headed out to the store to replace the missing ball. Little Lady enjoyed the outing, since there were so many exciting things to pull off shelves. And when we reached the ball aisle, she nearly jumped for joy. (OK, more like raced to the bin and started covering the floor with her joy, one bounce at a time.)

As we left the aisle, Little Lady was happy and smiling. She held her replacement ball in her hands as we walked up to the cash. While waiting to pay, Little Lady caught sight of a red balloon that had obviously been used for some promotion, but was now wandering aimlessly around the floor like a lost puppy.

If you think a ball can bring happiness, wait ’til you see the sparkle in the eye of a toddler who has just found her very own red balloon. Pure joy! Of course, she adopted the balloon immediately and clung to it all the way back to the car. Did she want to hold the ball? No way. She had a balloon!

I couldn’t help but marvel at how she valued the free, fragile balloon more than the sturdy ball I for which had just paid good money. Is there a lesson we can learn for self-actualization? Here are the possible lessons that immediately occurred to me:

1. Why bother having a thick skin, if your daughter prefers thin skins?

2. If you drift aimlessly long enough, you might get adopted.

3. Money can’t buy the most important things in life (happiness, joy, smiles, balloons, etc.)

4. Your child can see value where you cannot, so listen to what she says.

I figure at least two of these are valuable lessons that can add happiness to a person’s life. Little Lady teaches me self-actualization lessons daily now, and I am learning to listen with head and heart.

How often do we value the wrong things? The things that cost the most? How hard to we work to earn all that extra income to buy things we simply do not need. Anyone reading this probably has more than she will ever need, and yet don’t we all want more anyway?

Suppose we chose to have less of the things money can buy, and instead chose to have more time? More time to spend with our family? More time to spend with ourselves? More time to just be? What if we are giving up the red balloon chasing after the ball?

My wife and I made a big decision a few months ago. We gave up the condo in the city for a big ol’ house in the country. Our red balloon was space to raise a family in a much less noisy and stressed-out environment. The ball we gave up was the “glamour” of city living and a fancy condo.

Assuming we can make a living from my book, my ezine, my web site and whatever other work-from-home projects I take on, we get to keep the red balloon.

I invite you to look carefully at your life. Ask what truly brings you meaning. Then ask yourself if you could have more of that if you spent less time and effort on activities that don’t bring you meaning but just fill your time.

Enjoy your red balloon.

About The Author

David Leonhardt is the Happy Guy, speaker, author, and publisher of “Your Daily Dose of Happiness” at http://www.TheHappyGuy.com/daily-happiness-free-ezine.html. Visit him at http://www.TheHappyGuy.com

amabaie@phastnet.com

1. Say “Yes” Only When You Want To

You want to please everyone, but you end up disappointed in yourself. Don’t say “Yes” unless you absolutely want to. If someone tries to make you feel bad about it, remember that they are more concerned about their own agenda.

2. Think Before You Speak

Before you communicate, think about what you are going to say. Make sure you communicate clearly so that the other person fully understands the information you want to share. It’s better to prevent an argument or disagreement than to try to retract what you have said.

3. Establish and Enforce Personal Boundaries

Make sure that friends and family are clear on what you will and will not accept from them. Be specific about your boundaries. Don’t assume people can read your mind. Speak up about anything that displeases or offends you.

4. Have a Sense of Humor

Some people use sarcasm to make other people feel bad intentionally and unintentionally. Be witty when someone uses sarcasm to make you feel bad. Laugh it off or make a joke about it. Have the upper hand in the situation.

5. Have Self Respect

Your opinion, time, and values are important. If you don’t let other know that you have respect for yourself, how can you expect them to respect you? If you don’t value what you have to offer, no one else will.

6. Keep Your Promises

Unless you have an emergency, do what you say you’ll do to avoid any conflicts later. Honor your promises. Be fully committed to the promise by prioritizing what is most important to you. If you promised to visit your grandmother, do it at a time that is convenient for you.

7. Take Care of Your Feelings First

Do you put other people’s feelings first? Each time you do, you give away a little of your personal power and self respect. By protecting someone’s fragile ego, you are neglecting your needs.

8. Don’t Make Assumptions

You don’t know for sure what someone else is feeling or thinking. The only way to know is to ask. Don’t be so sure that people are going to judge or condemn you.

9. Forgive Yourself

We all make mistakes. Give up blaming and berating yourself. If you hold on to them, it is difficult to move forward and let go of the past.

10. Do Your Best

You can’t please everyone. Sometimes you can’t win, no matter what choice you make. You don’t need to justify your choices. If you’ve done your best, that’s all that matters.

Marie Magdala Roker is a Personal Development Coach an Author of Successful Thinking for a Successful Life: How to Banish the Unhealthy Thoughts and Habits That Limit Your Success. Her Successful Thinking program is an affordable coaching resource that offers support and encouragement when there are roadblocks to success. You can find out more about the program at http://www.thinkandbesuccessful.com or sign up for her free Be Inspired newsletter at http://www.smartbeecoaching.com

When we think how to improve or increase our creativity, often we tend to look at the things we COULD DO.

But what if we think about this from a different perspective?

Instead of looking at the things we could add to our lives to enable us to be the creative people we want to be, consider what we could take away, the things that stop us from being creative.

Put simply, what are the enemies of your creativity?

And following on from this, what is the NUMBER ONE ENEMY OF YOUR CREATIVITY, the one single thing that prevents you from being as creative as you want to be and have the potential to be?

As you’ll discover, this can be any one of a number of different things.

Maybe it’s a repeating habit or behaviour you have that you feel continually prevents you from being more creative?

Maybe you don’t ever feel you have the time to devote to your creative pursuits? You feel if only you had an extra hour each day, then your creativity would flow freely and abundantly?

Maybe you feel it’s an issue of space and environment? You don’t have a room or area that is just yours, somewhere you can go to and feel comfortable in, and be inspired, relaxed, energised, whatever it is you need to help you get in the right frame of mind to be at your creative best?

Or does it actually come down to a single limiting belief? The one thing that stops you from unlocking the true creative potential within you is simply that you don’t believe you ever WILL unlock it.

Or maybe, deep down, you don’t actually believe that you can be as creative as you want to be anyway. Or you don’t believe you can be as creative as you used to be, so you hold back to spare yourself from disappointment?

Whichever of these resonate with you, don’t be too hard on yourself, we all have these kind of obstacles!

The aim of this is to look at how we can begin to remove the blockages, not to blame, criticise or punish ourselves for not being more creative.

So, being completely honest with yourself, sit down with a pen and some paper and write out all the things that you feel limit your creativity, however large or small they seem.

Once you’ve done this, again being totally honest with yourself, identify the biggest single factor that hinders your creativity, the NUMBER ONE ENEMY OF YOUR CREATIVITY.

Now comes the part where you can really begin to see how much it is holding you back, and what it’s costing you. Write in as much depth as you can your thoughts on the following -

What would you be without the number one enemy of your creativity? What would happen if it simply could not exist, it was totally eliminated? What kind of person would you be? How would your creative output be different? How would your life be different?

Write out every detail possible. Now compare this to your life currently. Don’t you think it’s worth beginning to take steps to reduce the negative impact of your number one enemy?

Just identifying and writing down the things that hold us back is often the most difficult part. Once we can see what we’re dealing with - written down on the page in simple words - their impact is already reduced.

It’s the equivalent of seeing our enemy out in the open with a huge spotlight beaming down. Without any camouflage or disguise, we can see what we’re really dealing with. And, reassuringly, we usually realise that once out in the open, it’s actually far less daunting than when darting elusively around in the shadows of our thoughts…

So, what is the first thing YOU could do, the first step you could take in reducing the restrictive effect the number one enemy of your creativity has?

The sooner you begin putting this in place, the sooner your creative life can be how you want to be. Take this action TODAY and move a little closer to fulfilling your creative potential…

© Copyright 2006 Dan Goodwin.

Creativity Coach Dan Goodwin is the author of “Create Create!”, a FREE twice monthly ezine for people who want simple and powerful articles, tips and exercises to help them unleash their creative talents. Sign up right now and get your FREE “Explode Your Creativity!” Action Workbook, at http://www.CoachCreative.com

In our daily lives as well as in our businesses, we typically operate from the perspective of doing the best we know how to do in dealing with life’s challenges and opportunities. If we knew what it would take to be more effective in our relationships, more productive in our activities or more successful in reaching our goals, we would surely alter our behavior to correspond with these insights. The only access we ordinarily have to impact our lives comes from the areas of “what we know” and “what we don’t know.” In our efforts to achieve more, we usually resort to increasing what we do know by learning to do things a little better, a little different or we simply do more of a behavior that produced a certain result for us in the past. This behavior can predictably result in small, incremental increases in our ability to impact our business and our world. Likewise, by educating ourselves in the arena of “what we don’t know,” this knowledge then becomes part of what we now do know. As an example, if you are computer illiterate and you apply yourself to learn how to adeptly operate a computer, you will have successfully taken something that you do not know and converted it into what you now know. More than 95% of our efforts are spent in these two arenas – what we know and what we don’t know.

However, our most extraordinary growth comes from outside the arena of what we know or don’t know. This composes the vast variety of ideas that we are blind to, not knowing that they even exist. It’s in this arena of “what we don’t know we don’t know” that breakthrough or ah-ha experiences occur.

So how do you gain access to this fertile territory if you don’t even know that it exists? The answer lies in recruiting the help of a coach who can support you to explore this rich domain that is outside of your customary way of viewing the world and acting upon its challenges. Your coaches should be individuals who themselves possess the key principles that make them powerful in the particular arena they offer coaching. A coach may be powerful in some arenas but not necessarily in others. The same person who is qualified to coach you in business matters may be totally unqualified to coach you in the area of relationships or spiritual matters. True coaches do not give advice or lend their opinions. They are value based, not ego based. They do not manipulate or exploit to carry out their own agenda. They are totally nonjudgmental. They are not the same as counselors or therapists. They do not try to protect, control or rescue those they are coaching. They instead listen for where one may be experiencing challenges or may be missing some key element that, if put into place, would impact a desired result. Coaches support us in seeing something that we may not be aware of by listening both to what we say and to what we leave out. They have empathy for the person being coached but are not emotionally attached to an outcome. They serve to champion people to have their lives work optimally. They do this by asking questions, exploring possibilities, making requests and, at times, confronting issues that may need to be examined. Skilled coaching is a fine art and a highly valuable service.

For a coaching relationship to be possible, there must exist an open willingness on the part of the person being coached to undergo the process. Of course, total confidentiality must exist to allow for the freedom necessary to explore any and all areas that may need to be explored. The absence of judging and advice creates the opening needed to fully examine any possibility.

Coaching is typically undertaken in any of six major areas of life: business/career, health, wealth, relationships, spirituality/personal development or recreation/passions. A good coach will clarify if his or her coaching client is open to explore any or all of these areas or if the coaching relationship is agreed to be limited to any one or more areas. True coaches are value-based and interact with honor and respect while, at the same time, they are not reluctant to call someone on their “stuff” out of a solid commitment to champion the person’s excellence and best interests.

Successful coaches:

· Listen for what may be missing to accomplish a result or honor a person’s values.

· Lead by example and champion others to step into leadership.

· Are committed to their client’s excellence and, at the same time, not attached to his or her responses.

· Are grounded in value-based personal development principles.

· Hold those they coach as totally capable and competent while looking for what might be missing for them to fully experience their magnificence.

· Source the person coached to be their best and live with passion while playing full out to accomplish their goals.

· Never make the person coached small or dependent.

· Champion the person coached to be the best they can be with the goal of ultimate invisibility for themselves as a coach. The coach’s ego must not be a factor in the relationship.

· Have permission to tell the truth and not step over uncomfortable topics or situations in order to avoid discomfort or look good.

· Create a safe atmosphere that allows for the client to be vulnerable and open to possibilities.

· Support their coaching clients in an accountability structure, ensuring that they follow through on what they say they will do.

· Support the free flow of ideas and conversations for possibilities through idea streaming.

It is helpful for any coaching relationship to begin by developing clarity with respect to the client’s overall vision. This vision should include every aspect of the person’s life and business. From this wide-ranging perspective, it is then possible to develop a plan to accomplish any goals. These goals would themselves comprise a component of the big picture by fulfilling or working toward one aspect of the vision’s realization.

A productive coaching relationship can focus on either a life or business project. In the realm of business or network marketing, a coaching relationship is often best undertaken within the context of a project or action plan that is grounded in time. By focusing on producing specific and measurable results, a coach can support a client to best work through any business stops or life challenges en route to the accomplishment of one’s goals. A coach can also assist in gaining clarity on all conditions of satisfaction that may be important to a project’s fulfillment. Such conditions might include those non-measurable items that would need to take place for a project to be considered a success. These might include developing stronger relationships with family members, spending quality time with children, devoting a minimum amount of time daily to meeting one’s own needs, taking a well deserved vacation, etc.

Many people mistakenly assume that they can be successful in business without being successful in other areas of their lives. Our businesses are an important component of our lives, but only one such component. If there is an imbalance in any of the six prominent areas of our lives, any business accomplishment will be somehow incomplete. For this reason, a good coach will support a client to adapt a whole-thinking perspective in which mastery of all areas of life is the ultimate goal. For this reason, personal development is an essential component of any business coaching relationship. As one undertakes the personal improvement process, increased business productivity will surely result.

Just as an Olympic athlete in pursuit of a gold medal would not think of undertaking such an accomplishment without the support of a coach, most people would likewise benefit from a coaching relationship. Coaching can add fun and excitement to every aspect of your life as you take on the challenge of reinventing yourself and your business, always in search of excellence. And of course, one of the major benefits of an ongoing coaching relationship is that you will develop the coaching skills yourself that will be necessary for you to impact the lives of others, who will likewise look to you for coaching. If you are in business and do not yet have a coach who is committed to championing your success, I strongly encourage you to look into how such a relationship might support your goals and move your business and life forward with velocity.

10Dr. Joe Rubino is North America’s Success Coach. He is an internationally acclaimed trainer, author, personal effectiveness coach and the co-founder of The Center For Personal Reinvention, http://www.CenterForPersonalReinvention.com. He has been published in more than 100 leading magazines and publications and is the author of 10 best selling books available in 19 languages worldwide. Joe is the cofounder of “Conversations For Success”, a 3-day course in personal and productivity development. For infomation on his books, courses and coaching programs, email drjrubino@email.com or visit http://www.cprsuccess.com.

That one guy at work that always has to be right; your buddy’s wife who can’t eat anywhere they serve burgers, or the monster-in-law, I mean mother-in-law, with too many opinions for your own good, difficult people, we all know them. So the question is, is there a right and a wrong way to deal with them? The answer is yes, if you want to avoid unnecessary confrontations.

First, keep in mind that it is very unlikely you will ever change the other person, so dealing with their difficult personality won’t be just a one time Incident, but an every time skill. Don’t sit back saying nothing until you absolutely can’t take it one more second. Your pent up frustration will only result in a catastrophic blowout. The best approach is to confront and handle the situation as it occurs.

Just Practice These 5 Steps

1. Decide what the exact problem is and face them alone and in person to discuss it.

- Keep your posture open and inviting, avoiding crossed arms or negative facial expressions.

2. Have a clear outcome in mind and strive continuously throughout the confrontation to reach it.

- May be as simple as getting the other person to listen to your viewpoint.

3. Organize your thoughts before you meet.

- Think of supporting arguments, specific instances, and any documents to build a solid case and avoid generalities.

4. Keep calm in your body language and tone of voice, but stand your ground.

- Remind yourself that this is a situation you are dealing with, so don’t turn it into a personal attack.

5. Listen to what the other person is saying and show them that you are taking their feelings into consideration, and then get them to do the same.

- Show them you are listening by keeping eye contact and repeating back what they have said in your rebuttal. Kindness, calm and rationality are your tools for getting them to do the same.

Most importantly, keep communicating! The more you practice these five steps, the easier confronting difficult people and situations will become. Taking the cool, calm and kind approach to handling the situation will throw them off guard leaving the door open for you to take control. Just as you must plan for success in all other areas, you must also plan in order to successfully derail the difficult people in your life.

Frank F. Lunn is an expert in leadership, marketing, and small business entrepreneurship. In his book, Stack the Logs! - Building a Success Framework to Reach Your Dreams, Frank outlines a simple 5-step strategy that will lead you to success in all areas. Find more useful article by Frank at http://www.stackthelogs.com

Stories develop themes. The themes chosen to illustrate the possibility of stories are:

Relationships, Choice, Creativity, Making a Difference, Celebration.

Speakers are ordinarily people, from teachers to grandparents, from mountain climbers to cancer survivors. The platform provides them with a privilege and awesome responsibility to share their stories in a way that helps the audience to “wake up.” Good stories make people say, “Wait a minute. I can think or act differently about everything than I did before.” Stories are everywhere. Speakers learn to retrieve them and retell them to audiences as a way to show their humanness to show they care; to open people to possibility thinking and how making mistakes will lead to the courage to finally help them succeed. Because most of us delineate our thoughts visually, great stories help to enhance and even transform our lives.

Be unique. Think funny thoughts. Live and re-live your story when you are telling a story. Words are critical so be sure to pause when necessary and BE IN THE NOW. Your words need to create an image in the audience’s mind so that they can remember your story. They may be a step away from their own story. This will strengthen the connection between you and them.

It’s a good idea to use props to enhance your humor. Remember most people have an attention span of six to eight minutes.

The Coach asks… what is your story?

Sandra Schrift 13 year speaker bureau owner and now career
coach to emerging and veteran public speakers who want to
“grow” a profitable speaking business. I also work with
business professionals and organizations who want to
master their presentations.
Get more speaking skills at our “Summer Sizzle” webpage:
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Coaching is a hot trend at a growing number of companies, from IBM and Dow Chemical to entrepreneurial start ups. According to a recent survey by The Hay Group, an international human resources consultancy, between 25 percent and 40 percent of Fortune 500 companies use executive coaches. A coach is defined as being “part advisory, part sounding board, part cheerleader, part manager and part strategist (Business Journal).”

Coaching can occur in one-on-one face-to-face meetings between the coach and the business person, over the telephone, in small groups, and even in group conference calls. Recently, a client of mine, who owns an acoustical tile cleaning franchise, was so pleased with the results of our coaching sessions, that she organized group telephone coaching sessions for her and other franchise owners. The benefits are enormous. Not only do the franchise owners save time and money conferring in a group telephone session, they all receive the same information at the same time, there are networking and sharing opportunities, and a spirit of teamwork has evolved.

Coaching does not only occur in the one hour session each week. I give my clients reading assignments and “homework” to do in between sessions. One exercise that I use frequently with clients is to have them look at their entire business and pick two things that would impact their business the most. Then, we determine one or two things in each area that would give them the biggest bang for their buck. After doing this exercise, one client picked getting back in touch with old clients and telling them all of the services her company offers. In one week, she had three new proposals to bid on.

John Russell, Managing Director, Harley-Davidson Europe Ltd, says, “I never cease to be amazed at the power of the coaching process to draw out the skills or talent that was previously hidden within an individual, and which invariably finds a way to solve a problem previously thought unsolvable.”

Coaching has not only helped my clients – it has also given me great satisfaction. I enjoy taking my experience working for organizations and owning my own business and helping others grow their businesses. You can almost hear people breathing a sigh of relief. It can absolutely make the difference between where a business person is now and where he/she truly wants to be.

About The Author

Marcie Hanhart is a certified business coach with ACTION International. ACTION International (http://www.action-international.com) is a business coaching and consulting firm founded in 1993. With a core of more than 400 business coaches in 19 countries, ACTION International has mentored more than 4,500 clients and 200,000 seminar attendees throughout the world. A highly sought-after speaker in both the U.S. and Europe, Marcie provides presentations and speeches on project management, business planning and human factors design. Her expertise includes sales and marketing, systems design and operations, new business development, business operations, organizational development and electronic media. Contact her at 908-696-9500 or marciehanhart@action-international.com