Savor the moment

Do you remember your birthdays when you were a kid?

What I remember best was the cake!

My mother would make something very simple, yet it was a cake fit for a queen! 

It was a round and chocolate with rich, sweet icing and Smarties (the Irish equivalent of M&Ms) decorating the top. 

It was always the same special birthday cake.

I remember that most times I would eat the cake, carefully leaving the icing and the sweets for the last.  Then this gooey, sweet treat awaited and became the last perfect, mouth-watering taste.

As I write this I can feel the Pavlovian effect, my taste buds peaked, my mouth watering!

Yesterday I thought about this birthday treat and how I still do the same thing, savoring the very best bits of life.

Let me explain.

Every morning I walk my dog to this really special place.  There is a spectacular view across the valley and each day it looks different; the light changes, the sun is in a slightly different position, sometimes it's hazy and each season brings different colors and light.

Well, I noticed that yesterday I walked with my head bowed for most of the way.  Then as I got to that very special place where I stand each morning, that spot where the view is most beautiful, I lifted my head.  It was breath-taking. 

I had savored the special moment until I could practically taste it.  I didn't look around me at all during the walk.  I waited until I got to the place with the landscape would be most stunning.  It was just like the chocolate icing and sweets that the end of the cake.  Until that moment I hadn't noticed that this is so often what I do, I simply savor the best bit!

We have so many moments to savor in life.  So many special places and amazing people, so many everyday experiences that are truly wonderful!

Lisa Bloom, PCC

How do you savor them?

Lisa Bloom, PCC is founder of Story Coach Inc. and the Certified Story Coach Program.  Download her ebook ‘Using Stories to Get Great Clients’ at http://www.story-coach.com.

Flash Mob Coaching

The below message is from a participant of the Flash Mob Coaching activity with Shivani Mair that took place at ICF Global 2012.    

Flash Mob Coaching in action!

How would you feel, if you had to go in the street to offer people a 10 minutes coaching session? Well, I tested it for you. And I’ve been…positively surprised! Despite the bright Smurf-colored T-shirt and the sheet to sign which were together strangely close to the perfect Fund raising kit, despite the horrified – but understandable – reaction most of the people had to this first image, some of them were curious and open-minded enough to give it a chance. And as the outcome was something like “Whoa, thank you, I was sincerely not expecting this at all,” I spontaneously answered that “Me neither!”.

On this fast-everything planet, I strongly believe in the “take your time” approach. Therefore, is it technically possible to have an efficient session of 10 minutes only? And could a flash mob coaching really make a difference in someone’s life? The answer might definitely be yes, if we refer to the feedback given by most of the 35 people’s coaches loose in London’s streets as flash mob guinea pigs.

In conclusion, flash mob coaching could be an innovative and powerful way to allow people to get to know by experience what the coaching is: isn’t it an awesome option? Only the frame of the session could be improved, in my opinion: why not, for example, being dressed as usual and holding a sign with a “Free coaching” mention on it? Zero obligation, only proposition: I bet free hugs and free coaching have the same genes, haven’t they?

Submitted by Martine Corthésy

Test Kitchen: Serving up new recipes for coaching

Below is part of an occasional blog series highlighting the Catalysts and sessions of ICF Global 2012.

Belma González, PCC

Johnny Manzon-Santos, ACC

Innovation: something new or different introduced.  Test Kitchen: a place used for the process of developing new kinds of food and to develop new recipes - a learning community!

That’s what Johnny Manzon-Santos and I (Belma González) are up to: bringing together coaching innovators to create new ways coaching can be used.

Johnny and I are longtime social justice activists in the USA. We worked with coaches when we were Executive Directors of NGO’s, and eventually decided to become coaches ourselves.

In our practices, we’ve worked 1:1 with social justice/NGO leaders. We work together through Prism Coaching to look at the importance of and value in ‘culturally aware’ coaching as essential to supporting social justice efforts.

In the last few years, we’ve worked with projects around the US utilizing coaching to strengthen communication, build relationship, and encourage innovative responses to issues stemming from social injustice. 

Johnny and I, together with our colleagues involved with these projects, have been meeting in our “Test Kitchen” - where we share ideas, discuss new “recipes”, and identify essential “ingredients” needed for success. The ICF Conference presents an ideal opportunity to invite more people into the Test Kitchen learning community, and to further enhance the ways coaching can support social justice efforts.

Know of projects utilizing coaching in innovative ways? Have ideas of how coaching can be used to further social justice efforts? Come to the Test Kitchen eager to meet other “chefs,” curious to learn, prepped with ideas to discuss and information about innovative projects in your community to share, and ready to commit to utilizing coaching in ways that further social justice!
The Test Kitchen: Serving Up New Recipes for Coaching, Friday October 5, 2:30-4:00 p.m.!

Belma González, PCC, and Johnny Manzon-Santos, ACC, are Catalysts at ICF Global 2012, October 3-6 in London, UK, where they will be presenting “Test Kitchen: Serving up new recipes for coaching." Learn more.

Recovery in Executive Coaching -- What it is, and How It Makes you Unique

ICF  Global Executive Practice Community of Practice on 3 October, 2012, 12:00 p.m. (New York)

Recovery in Executive Coaching -- What it is, and How It Makes you Unique

Ram Ramanathan

Deborah Huisken and a panel will discuss 'Recovery in Executive Coaching and Uniqueness -- What's the Connection?' on 3 October First Wednesday at NOON ET USA.  Pl join 1-212-457-9879  PIN: 622186# 

There is a growing international body of coaches helping executives understand what misuse is, how that turns into addiction (or not), what recovery is, and why they should know about it, both for themselves and for the people around them. The recent International Recovery Coaching Conference (IRCC – Oct. 1 & 2) in London is one among many demonstrations of the worldwide interest in this topic.

This panel session will be moderated by UK-based business coach and consultant Deborah Huisken of Dancing Star International ("one must embrace the chaos within to give birth to a dancing star"), and will include UK/Italian-based Executive Recovery Coach / Trainer and Chair of the IRCC Anthony Eldredge-Rogers, as well as US-based sobriety and career coach Jess Dods. They will discuss:

1. What is addiction, and how useful is this label?
2. What does recovery coaching look like?
3. Does spirituality play a role in the process, and if so, what is that role?
4. Why should you as a coach understand these issues and how will learning about them increase your edge – your uniqueness – both as a coach and as a human being?

Deborah has participated in recovery-oriented initiatives since 1989.  She brings recovery principles into all of her work, as a way to help business clients deepen their understanding of themselves and their choices.  She founded her business coaching and consulting company, Dancing Star International (DSI) in 1994, in part to find a way to weave this experience into her work.  She serves as a thinking partner to small to medium-sized enterprises, helping leaders and their teams develop their businesses and themselves.  Her clients have held mid- to senior-level roles in consumer, business-to-business, science, and arts organizations, including Apple Computer, General Dynamics, Hewlett Packard, London School of Economics, SunTory, Philips, Pfizer, the British Government, and the United States Federal Government.  Deborah focuses on what makes her clients unique (e.g. giftedness, high sensitivity, eccentricity, being highly-talented or multi-talented, recovering from addiction or surviving trauma, being a right-brained engineer) to help them understand how to leverage that uniqueness in the work they do; work that their organizations and the world needs from them. Born in the United States, Deborah lived in the UK for most of the 1990s.  She returned to the UK in 2009 and currently divides her time between the southwestern USA, northeastern USA, and England.  In her corporate roles she has worked across Europe and in Israel; in addition she has worked with individual coaching and consulting clients from around the world including Canada, Europe, England, Japan, Sweden, Trinidad, Israel, Ghana, Korea, and the US.

Anthony Eldridge-Rogers has a lifetime of experience in recovery. He has spent over 30 years and thousands of hours learning about recovery and assisting people to achieve it. He is a trained coach, taking certification with CTI (the Coaches Training Institute), an ICF-accredited training organisation.  He has developed and presented workshops on Mastering Recovery from Addiction as well as developing Recovery Coach Training Programmes and approaches. He is also a recovery coaching programme design consultant. 2012 will see the publication of  his first book, An Introduction to Recovery Coaching, for coaches and others interested in the recovery field.  Anthony runs a private recovery coaching practice and consultancy covering the field of recovery coaching and works with clients across the world from the US, EU and Africa.  In 2010 he was invited to become a fellow of the RSA where he has recently founded the RSA Coaching & Mentoring Initiative.  He is a board member of RCI, (Recovery Coaches International), and founded the FRC (Foundation for Recovery Coaching) UK in 2011.  The primary objective of the FRC is to remove the economic barriers to entry for anyone wishing to become a recovery coach.  He lives in the UK and Italy with his wife Lehla and has three children, twin daughters Olive and Amari and son Jahli.

Jess Dods brings 26 years of continuous sobriety to his career coaching work. He holds an MBA from the Thunderbird School of Global Management.  He has held operations, business development and management positions with global energy companies and banks, as well as senior management consulting positions with Arthur D Little and Navigant Consulting.  Jess has lived in several countries around the world.  He began career transformation coaching full time in 2003, having added coaching training to his grounding in domestic and international business realities.   His clients include executives, managers and professionals from business, not-for-profits, academia, attorneys, government, international development, banking, finance, consultants, physical and social sciences.   Jess trained with the Coaches Training Institute and with Lee Hecht Harrison as Certified Career Transition Consultant. He is a Member of the Harvard Maclean Institute of Coaching Professional Association (ICPA).  He is experienced in a range of assessment tools and the application of positive psychology tools in coaching.

Ram S Ramanathan
Mentor Coach, PCC , BCC
Bangalore, India
+919845691920

Customers first

Customer Service Week is internationally recognized the first full week of October. For coaches, this is an opportune time to revisit your customer service strategies. Here are two specific ways you can commemorate Customer Service Week:

• Revisit your customer service policies. How do you handle potential clients? Your current clients? Future clients?
• Show gratitude to all existing clients. How do you show your appreciation?

 Next week, consider what you can do to make customers first!