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The Business and Practice of Coaching by Lynn Grodzki, & Wendy Allen
February 7, 2012 By Leave a Comment
The Business and Practice of Coaching is a good resource for anybody who is considering the profession of coaching or is taking the first steps in this field. Grodki and Allen provide a good road map that can help newcomers to make better choices, avoid pitfalls and stay focused and motivated to establish themselves as coaches.
This book is divided into four parts: Positioning (clarification about what is the coaching profession); Differentiation (how to explore your strengths and define your uniqueness as a coach so you stand out in the marketplace); Entrepreneurship (how to increase the chances of success of your business venture); Profiles in Coaching (examples of coaches who make a good living doing what they love). It also has an Appendix with some helpful resources.
Part I (Positioning) has three chapters that go over the short but rich history of coaching. How it emerged in the 1980s, to its media hypes and lows, and its maturation as a recognized profession. Also how coaching is different from therapy and consulting, and what elements are essential to become a masterful coach.
Part II (Differentiation) with three chapters, starts by coaching you through 4 questions designed to define your coaching specialty – what is your expertise (e.g., executive, business, life coaching). Then, it goes on to help you identify your client base or target market (who you want to serve with your coaching practice), and helps you define a business plan around your vision, purpose and mission. The authors also clarify the top eight marketing strategies that can help you attract ideal clients.
Part III (Entrepreneurship) from chapter 7 to 10 takes you through a reflection about the importance of developing an entrepreneurial mind-set, how to nurture your business persona, avoiding pitfalls and developing wise practices such as budgeting, how to establish coaching fees, service packages and revenue streams. Grodki and Allen also advise on how to stay safe and legal in our litigious society.
Finally, part IV (Profiles in Coaching) illustrates different coaching specialities, giving concrete examples of successful coaches (executive and leadership coaches, business and career coaches, life and wellness coaches, creativity and relationship coaches, etc.).
The authors give a sober and realistic review about the business of coaching. They speak about the potentialities of this field and also about the hard work implied in starting an entrepreneurial venture. Grodki and Allen provide useful material for helping new coaches to establish themselves. Masterfully through the book, they maintain a coaching approach providing many exercises for readers to find their own way through the journey of initiating their business of a coaching practice.
The Business and Practice of Coaching:
Finding Your Niche, Making Money, & Attracting Ideal Clients
Lynn Grodzki, LCSW, PCC
Wendy Allen, PhD
W. W. Norton & Company
www.wwnorton.com
2005, 299 pages
ISBN: 978-0-393-70462-4
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Creators of Our Lives
December 13, 2011 By Leave a Comment
“Between stimulus and response there is a space.
In that space is our power to choose our response.
In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
- Viktor E. Frankl
This is one of my favorite quotes.
Viktor Frankl was an Austrian psychiatrist who survived 3 years in Nazi concentration camps. There he lost his wife, his unborn child, his parents, and most of his friends, and in spite of all these terrible life circumstances, he rebuilt his life, remarried, had a child, developed a great psychotherapy model and wrote many books including the famous “Man’s Search for Meaning.”
He must have had a great genetic set point for positivity and happiness, but he also worked a great deal on his mindset.
I love this quote because, we usually see a stimulus as something that activates a response almost automatically.
There Frankl sees a space.
A brief space where we have the power to choose our response.
A brief space where we can learn to be creators of our lives and not just be reactors.
Ready for a practical exercise?
Write down on a piece of paper the word “reactivity.”
Do you see the letter “c” between the “a” and the “t”?
If you take this letter out, the “c”, and put it at the beginning of the word -
what word do you read now?
Quite amazing!
We have to remember that:
Small changes can produce big changes.
How to Increase Your Positivity
August 3, 2011 By 1 Comment
Take a minute to do this exercise:
- Look around the room and count how many red objects you see.
- Do it now before reading further.
- Now that you know how many red objects you saw, do you have any idea how many blue objects were there?
If you are like most of us, you didn’t notice the blue objects.
So look around one more time and count the blue objects around you.
Quite amazing!
It’s similar to when we buy a new car and suddenly we are more aware of a particular brand or color of another car. If our mind is focused in on one thing, we often will see more of it around us.
Think about this. Is your mind more focused on negative or positive emotions?
It’s difficult to ignore the negative, it screams at us like the colored pen which our teachers used to correct our essays. It’s more difficult to see the positive, it’s the way most of us are and also the way we train ourselves.
As Sonja Lyubomirsky, in her book, The How of Happiness, shares that our happiness and well-being are determined by the following:
- 50% Genetic set point. We are born with a set baseline or potential to which we tend to return, even after a major setback or triumph (death of a spouse, winning the lottery).
- 10% Life circumstances: being poor or rich, healthy or unhealthy, beautiful or plain, married, or divorced, etc.
- 40% Thought patterns, behavior, and intentions.
Scientific research shows that 40% of what determines our happiness has to do with our mindset, that is, what we think and do on a daily basis.
So this means that we can train ourselves to see more positivity around us.
Focus on what bring us:
- joy,
- gratitude,
- serenity,
- interest,
- hope,
- pride,
- amusement,
- inspiration,
- awe, and of course,
- love.
This reminds of the old story (adapted by B. Fredrickson):
One evening, an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside all people.
He said:
- My son, the battle is between two “wolves” inside us all.
One is Negativity. It’s anger, sadness, stress, contempt, disgust, fear, embarrassment, guilt, shame and hate.
The other is Positivity. It’s joy, gratitude, serenity, interest, hope, pride, amusement, inspirations, awe, and above all, love.
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather:
- Which wolf wins?
The old Cherokee simply replied:
- The one you feed.
In sum, everyday, every moment we have to decide what wolf to feed – negativity or positivity.
If you enjoyed this post, probably you would like to read The Three Good Things Exercise, too.
http://www.amazecoaching.com/2010/01/03/the-three-good-things-exercise/
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonmcgovern/3199154697/ -
