Words to live by…

Taking a cue from ICF guest blogger Laurie Lawson, we asked our Facebook fans the following question in September: “coaches, what is your favorite quote?”

The response was tremendous! If you are a collector of quotes, the below pool will serve as an excellent source.

“As long as you are going to be thinking anyway, think big.”—Donald Trump (Sinead Moffatt)

“Do, or do not. There is no try.”—Yoda (Vickie Gray)

“If you love what you do you will be successful.”—Albert Schweitzer (Jurgen Domacassee)

“I care not what the others do, but I care very much about what I think I do!”—Theodore Roosevelt (Elina Giachali)

“You can have anything you want if you want it desperately enough. You must want it with an exhuberance that erupts through the skin and joins the energy that created the world.”—Sheila Graham (Christa Lynn Colletti)

“Be where you are right now.” (Demyan Rossouw)

“Don’t ask yourself what the words needs. Ask what makes you come alive…and then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” (Robben Salyers)

“Whether you think you can, and if you think that you can’t, are correct.”—Henry Ford (Germán Portilla Vallejo)

“No individual has any right to come into the world and go out of it without leaving behind him distinct and legitimate reasons for having passed through it.”—George Washington Carver (Jeremy Flagg)

“The point is to understand, not judge.” (Cynthia Grinfield)

“Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.”—Jung (Mine Kobal Ok)

“If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.”—Lao Tzu (Susanne Cordes-Hoelterhoff)

“Screw it, let’s do it!”—Richard Branson (Katerina Kanelidou)

“A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.”—Albert Einstein (Gildardo Aguilar)

“Sometimes you have to lose your mind to come to your senses.” (Christel Seierø)

“Forget the failures. Keep the lessons.”—Dalaï Lama (Zohra Dali)

“A maior conquista do homem, é vencer a si mesmo.”—Platão (Joana Darc A. Silva)

“In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.”—Robert Frost (Karim Fayad)

“What you reap today is a result of what you sow yesterday. So what are you sowing today for tomorrow?” (Simon Yap)

“When you really want something, the whole universe conspires helping you achieve it.”—Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist (Christine Haugseth Andersen)

“Coaching begins with trusting that the coachee is ‘capable’.” (Bhaskar Bhattacharya)

“Live to make your lifetime a statement of who you are—not what you feared.” (Marcus Milukas)

“Spontaneity must be well planned!” (Wolfgang Spenke)

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”—Mary Oliver (Merle Rockwell)

“If you can dream it, you can do it!”—Walt Disney (Elisabeth Piene Espenes)

“Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care.” (Deborah Higgs)

“My fellow citizens of the world, ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of Man.”—John F. Kennedy (Mattia Rossi)

“Aerodynamically, the bumblebee shouldn’t be able to fly. But the bumblebee doesn’t know what, so it goes on flying anyway.”—Mary Kay Ash (Caroline Charron Stolzy)

“No regrets.”—S. Waugh (Wayne Timms)

“It is never too late to be what you should have become.”—George Eliot (Pierina Curties)

“Get the best people and train them well.”—Scott McNealy (Paul Morrall)

“A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd.”—Max Lucado (Paul Morrall)

“Leaders grasp nettles.”—David Oglivy (Paul Morrall)

“Use your life to change the world.”—Oprah Winfrey (Elvira Hopper)

“Accomplishment and success are often the result of commitment and perseverance rather than skill or talent.”—George V. Valkenburg (Elaine Tong)

“The harder you work and the more focused you are…the luckier you become.” (Paul Morrall)

“You can’t ask for a commitment greater than the size of your relationship.” (Clare Sauttner)

What about you? Do you have a favorite quote or words you live by? We’d love to know—share it with us on at Facebook.com/ICFHQ.

My recent ICF travels to Japan and South Korea

On October 7, ICF President Ed Modell, PCC, presented “what is coaching and the benefits of being an ICF member” at the American Chamber of Commerce Japan in Tokyo. His presentation included live coaching demonstrations and targeted human resource directors from large multi-national corporations and coaches in attendance.

On Saturday, the ICF Tokyo Chapter hosted a Global Coaching Forum in which Ed presented the value of ICF membership and the credential, ICF standards, the Global Coaching Study and Minimum Eligibility Requirements. Dr. Linda Semlitz addressed the psychological first aid in disaster recovery. The presentation included how coaches could provide appropriate support to people facing difficulties after the recent earthquake, tsunami and radiation.

A total of 70 coaches and personnel from coaching schools and human resource managers were in attendance. The forum ended with a party that went on through the evening celebrating coaching in Japan.

Finally, there was a meeting held that included myself and Ed, as well as key stakeholders from the coaching profession in Japan, including the ICF Tokyo Chapter, six coaching schools, a special interest group (SIG), and other groups. The conversation was around changes to the ICF Credential, membership eligibility requirements and other concerns affecting coaching.

Leaving Japan, we travelled to South Korea. The ICF Seoul Korea Chapter partnered with ICF Korea to host a one day coaching conference. Over 100 coaches, coaching school personnel, human resource managers and others attended a day coach learning. Ed Modell presented on “the value of ICF and the credential.”

Ed also did two coaching demonstrations to show the power of coaching. In addition, a panel of six PCC coaches told the audience why coaching was important in their lives and profession. Ed was also able to tell his life story about how he became a coach and his own personal transformation into coaching.

The coaching conference was a huge success. Members in both Japan and Korea were grateful that we came to visit them and honor them as members of the ICF global community of coaches.

Don Whittle is the ICF Director of Membership at ICF Global. He can be reached at don.whittle@coachfederation.org.  

Time is ticking…we still want to hear from you!

Your last chance to be a part of coaching research history is coming! The 2011 Global Coaching Study will officially close on November 15, after being open nearly six months collecting the viewpoints of coaching professionals from across the world.

As the greatly anticipated follow-up to the 2006 ICF Global Coaching Study, the 2011 study will bring the current global landscape of coaching into clearer focus. Independent research firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) is conducting the survey.

The study is open to all coaching professionals. To reach an even wider audience, the study has been offered in nine languages (English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Portuguese, and Spanish) and was compatible across several modes of mobile technology, including smart phones and tablet computers.

Once the study closes in mid-November, the data collected will lead to the creation of a robust “state of the industry” report that will provide coaches, organizations, and the media with an opportunity to learn more about today’s coaching industry. Final reports are expected to be available in early 2012.

PwC has advised that any country which delivers more than 100 survey respondents will be entitled to receive nation-specific data tables drawn from the study. To date, several countries have already surpassed this threshold! Do your part and participate so you too can benefit from more detailed findings about coaching in your country.

These findings will be beneficial when it comes to marketing your coaching practice in 2012 and beyond! You too can take advantage of these statistical findings by participating in this research.

If you haven’t already lent your voice to this research initiative—take a few minutes this weekend to do so! Participate in the study. Learn more about the study.

Evaluate Your Life

Today, some people will celebrate a lesser known “holiday” known as Evaluate Your Life day. October 19 is a day to STOP and really consider your life—where you are and where you’re headed.

The day can be as simple or as detailed as you want it to be. The entire point of acknowledging this “holiday” is to take an inventory of your life—and to make decisions and goals to supplement what you discover about yourself.

Some people will focus on a single aspect of their life. Be it work life, love life, family life, social life, etc. And others may focus on more tangible subjects, such as appearance, home, etc. Whatever area of your life you feel could use an inventory, take time today to stop and think. Find a quiet place where you can be alone with your thoughts. Pull out a journal and take a few notes. Determine those adjustments your own life can use. And put them to work!

If you need a nudge, a simple Internet search turned up a listing of these 35 questions that you could use to evaluate your life.

Other questions to get you started include:

• Where are you?
• Describe your current situation in three words.
• Think back to who you were five years ago. Are you (today) where you thought you would be?
• Where are you headed? Is it where you want to be? (If it isn’t, how can you get on the path you want to be on?)
• What adjustments must you make?

The bottom line? You have one chance at life. Make it the best you can while you can!

Keeping your own counsel

Last night I was flicking through a book of mine which discussed that people join groups as they have a need or a want to be lead. One thing that struck me in this book was that because humans have an unrelenting need to belong to a group, these very groups (like church, self help groups etc) can begin to act as cults. Cults typically have a negative connotation so I looked at its meaning on the trusty Webster’s Online Dictionary:
 
Cult - “Attentive care; homage; worship”, “A system of religious belief and worship”.

I don’t want to get into the whole cult debacle because that could be a subject for another day, but my book stated that essentially (and this is in my own words) groups become a cult when we stop seeing our own greatness or brilliance and rely on the person or thing we worship or pay homage to, to give us answers or direction. In other words, we choose to follow a leader rather than follow our own soul. It was at this moment in the book that I sat up and took notice – not because of cults and what they mean because I have certainly experienced them in my lifetime (my brother belonged to a cult along with a very close friend) – but because we can often seek out others to give us answers rather than rely on our own inherent wisdom.

So let me pose a question to you. When you have a decision to make, what’s the first thing you do? Do you discuss it with all your friends and family to get their opinion (and sometimes feel even more confused) and eventually make a decision after you have heard all their advice? Or do you keep your own counsel and go within for the answer with the belief that you know what feels true or right for you?

Women are always willing to help friends and love ones with decisions and it is usually done with the best intentions. However, this ‘advice’ can often be fraught with projection, judgment and a very personal take on the world. By asking everyone’s advice on a pressing decision we inadvertently end up giving away our own power, our own sense of worth, because we think they have the answer, or the wisdom, not us. We want to be told, or lead to the answer. As well, the more we discuss the decision or issue with our friends and family or work colleagues, the more entangled we become in the ‘drama’ of it rather than the solution.

A great deal of research has been done on ‘paralysis by analysis’ which means that the more choice we are given, the harder it is to make a decision. Supermarkets experiment with this all the time. When they offer customers too much choice, sales go down, but when the choice is more limited, sales go up. Malcolm Gladwell illustrates this point beautifully in his book 'Blink' and states that your first initial gut feeling, or intuitive feeling is often correct and that too much choice hinders that initial knowing.

Perhaps one of the greatest things I love about coaching is that as a coach my job is simply to extract the knowledge, the wisdom, the experience and the intuition which already resides within the client. And I can tell you, when the answer they need suddenly breaks forth, it ALWAYS feels true to them and they walk away with a greater sense of ownership.

So next time you have a pressing decision or are unsure which path to take, before you go anywhere near your girlfriends, your family, your work colleagues or whoever you go to, try and go within for your answer as that’s where it resides. You may well need to do research; you may need to speak to experts, but start getting used to using your own counsel and trusting your own inherent wisdom and knowledge. As you get used to trusting yourself, you will most likely find the decision making process a whole lot easier. And that can only be a good thing.

This blog post first appeared on Anne Loyd's Professional and Personal Coaching Blog.

Anne Loyd

About Anne Loyd: As a coach working specifically with women, I am committed to helping women define and create their vision of a life they would love - in and out of the workplace. Creating a vision is the most passionate and wondrous way to live life. I help women reveal what they want to be, to do, to create, without the limitations of time, education, background and money that we shackle ourselves with. As a New Zealander living in London, I work with women all around the world who have the courage to make a change and who want to be an ordinary woman like you and I, doing something extraordinary. Learn more at www.anneloyd.com.