Setting up a small business?

The last couple of months I was away... setting up my new blog/website and my coaching practice along with it...

I have learned a lot in the process, was supported by some amazing friends (you know who you are ;), and I would love to share... so if you happen to pass by my website and have questions on setting yourself up with something simmilar... let me know (p.s. this is a friendly offer here and not part of my services...)

enjoy,

ruba

Why we DIG!

Trying to translate to a client/friend on an early friday morning ... why is it that our results in life are the great grandchildren of our unrealized thoughts... and why do we really need to go there... (mind you, she was not buying into my simplistic like attracts like story that was out with THE SECRET and could have made our lives... and conversation much more amicable... just kidding here of course!)

Translation... we start making "emotional" decisions about life, as soon as we come to the world...problem is they are too much to handle then... thus, we decide to forget the related memories and are left with the unconscious impressions that we made... and that start directing our lives through directing our actions and reactions to what and who we deal with, and as actions do get external reactions... yes we do get results... seemingly unwanted... but completely directed by 80% of our being (the unconscious mind)...

Another way of seeing it, is what our NLP masters have been preaching about, the RAS (it is in the head and its a real accronym for a really long name so lets just keep it at that), works like a sieve of information (as we recieve what they claim to be more than 2M bits per second)... makes sense to have to be picky on what we want to register... so yes we pick and choose to see, hear, touch, feel... basically EXPERIENCE life... based on the sieves that we apply in our RAS...

hmm... so HOW do we change our EXPERIENCE of life... by changing the sieve... the believes and perspectives through which we see life, and that are born from ideas, thoughts and impressions that have been given enough "food for growth" whether real or imagined.... and have become the lense through which we are able to see life...

So... going DIGGING anyone!

What do you mean by Faith!

You might have probably heard "anonymous" say... that when the student is ready, the teacher arrives...and when the teacher is ready... the student arrives... hmmm... aren't we all though... perpetually... students-in-progress...

It is also said, the teacher is there "within us"...or... maybe this teacher is actually WITH us... incarnated in the faces of "people" we meet in our thought-juxtapositions!

I still find this "synchronicity" or the way that life reveals its "scripted" sequence of events, magnificent in its perfection (even though this process has been triggered for me a few years ago, sometime after I started at MNSHS)...

In a discussion with my amazing peer client the other day... he proposed that the coaching relationship is a dance... the beauty of which comes from the involvement and skill... of both people involved... but again... isn't it also a solo performance... where you "as a coach" are allowed within the safe space of its creation...

But to "DO" what exactly... to answer this, it was AB again last night with her BEing...replying to my un-aritculated wondering..."it is but the pure old FAITH... trusting the process while it unfolds to perfection"...

And what this meant, to my step by step mind is:

The issue: An attachment to a specific outcome that massages our ego "I" CAN help!

The unwanted result: "I", is focused on performance, rather than on the process (insecurites, fears, perfectionism, competitiveness... all come in the way)

Solution: Replace the habit, give your busy mind something to do! "LISTEN" with all your senses to your teacher at the moment (yes you are the coach but to you, he/she IS the teacher at that moment... )

and till we meet again...

Count to ...a hundred!

In life... generally... a virtue of patience is either a gift, or a costly purchase acquired through set-backs along the hurried road to accomplishment... either way, its an acquirement and a requirement...to wade through the -rather awkward- waters of change...

In one of ABs classes this week, we have been invited into yet another tool... a "skill assessment matrix", that is used to rate an ability, based on a number of skill evaluation criteria... (e.g if we are evaluating our skill of active listening, one of the evaluation criterias would be the ability to summarize and paraphrase what is being said), the different levels of competency will show as follows:

• Knowledge (I know I can demonstrate my listening through paraphrasing what I hear in proper intervals),
• the ability to implement the knowledge (I am able to paraphrase...) moving on to
• the ability to assimilate and transfer this knowledge (through educating, coaching) and finally
• reaching a level of integration that requires no conscious awareness while doing a certain skill... as the skill becomes part of who you are...

So what does this have to do, with patience... its the fact that I realized, that knowledge transference (through reading, coaching, teaching...) does not factor the time necessary to allow me (or others) to move into the next level of implementing this information in my life, no matter how willing I might be to do so or how much it sounded convincing at the time...

The secret of the...Magic bullet!

Intrinsicly Corporate (yours truly!), the phrase "goal setting" is exhausted with over-use and under-performance, suggesting inflexibile and misinformed paperwork, prepared and argued upon once a year, then shelved till its time to "explain"...variances that is!

Re-learning how to approach "goal-getting" from the point of view of where we are in our "stages of change" , re-introduced me to an extremely useful concept, and answered a nagging question that was brought up in an earlier post regarding the "source" of our ambitions!

In short, the act of "writing down our plans" can only be effective "AFTER" the build-up of a certain level of "commitment" and "feelings" around the outcome.

And, as "commitment" is the thermo-indicator of the "relevance" that a certain GOAL has to our "values", finding ourselves constantly snuggled between "wanting to change" and "preparing for it", questions not just the level of such a commitment, but also the relevance that those goals have to our motivational system...

My Inner Game of....FEAR

So this week, I flunked my driving test...I didn't receive it lightly at the time if you're wondering...I have a tendency to take my self too seriously (you know that by now ;)

But as God presents us with challenges to our self-esteem, he provides us with intelligent books that seem to de-code the reason for why we appear to uncover the "stupidity gene" at exactly the wrong time...

Tim Gallwey, in his book "The Inner Game of Tennis", says: "with minds filled with self-criticism, hesitation, and over-analysis, our actions are awkward, mis-timed, and ineffective", thank you Mr. Gallwey. The tennis coach who was reknowned for teaching tennis to complete amateurs in less than 30 minutes (watch it)!, realized early on, that the key to better learning was less instruction.... basically, the less we engage the logical step by step left brain in a type of activity that requires a "multi-sensory" approach, the more the body will realize its innate potential to do almost "anything" and will produce amazing results...

So, while we believe that our minds give us necessary instruction, it is rather chattering away at our self confidence, "I can't do this", "this is confusing", "I must do this well", messages that come from an innate "fear of failure" springing off from a "judging" attitude that we seem to otherwise keep hidden in our subconscious, and the more we seem to "fail", the less we are inclined to do something challenging and are yet left in our "comfort zones"... wondering...what is it that is wrong with us!

I "help" young couples....FIGHT MORE!

When I read Elizabeth Gilbert's book "Eat Pray Love" there was this story about the Italian/American-couple that have a wall decorated with "SWEARS" from the time the wife used it as a "venting" platform, amidst an "argument" with her Italian husband... who (not surprisingly) found it a rather "mild" expression of feelings... displaying different perspectives on "fighting" backed by each partys' cultural "seasoning"!

The moral of this story was brought back to my mind in this weeks' midnight "date" with Angela Bird while we were discussing a coachs' confidence-levels this time... so how come I want to be a "relationship" coach for instance, when I might have a quarrel with my husband over breakfast the morning right before I meet a client of mine, will I have to "fake" it as a professional and make it sound that I have the solutions to life "in my mind screaming..CROOK"!...

To the contrary "and to the relief of my perfectionist self who was struggling with its own egotistical needs", my beloved mentor thinks this might be exactly where one may "need" to be to end up more "curious and demure" towards the answers that the clients' wisdom will provide (which basically means he is going to ask marvellous questions and allow the client more freedom to explore his/her creativity rather than fall into the trap of relaying advice), its a bonus apparently that gives our clients a safe place knowing you "have been there yourself" sometime...

So gathering my "skeletons" and throwing them out of my closet feels so refreshing, I love my relationship, glitches, fights, make-ups and all... its the place where I safely wander within myself, exploring my "archetypes"..."shadows" and all possibilities of my "BEING" with my dearest "soul-mate", "rival", or anything that he wishes to be at that exact moment of time... kisses to you dear!