Have you ever been to an event and got stuck next to someone that talked AT you? They might have a great story. They might be a riveting speaker with all kinds of unique information. You might WANT to engage with them. If after a while you suddenly realize they haven’t let you say a word and they haven’t asked you anything, it’s easy to get disheartened and think it wouldn’t matter if you weren’t there. So it is with Social Media.

The big take away from tonight’s event with Elena Sarasom, Social Media expert and co-founder of Rewild Your Life:

Social Media needs to be a two way communication.

When posting content and promoting, it’s all too easy to just focus on your information and getting it out there without stopping to initiate a conversation about it. The other big sin? Failing to respond when your followers do get involved and engaged. It makes sense. You wouldn’t ask your friend a question and then walk away!

As well as the many specific technical tips and great ideas for building genuine connection, the thing that stood out the most from Elena’s wonderful presentation was the idea that it can be more productive to specialize in one Social Media platform rather than spread yourself really thinly across many. Engagement is built from commitment and consistency.

So… not just in order to show Elena all the many notes I took are being put to use, but also because I would like to know….

…. What do YOU think? Is it better to put the majority of your focus on having conversations on one platform at a time?

There’s a whole lot of creative vision AND business planning involved. Shooting in Vancouver for example, you would think the last thing you would need is this:

However, even in Vancouver, it only rains sometimes. Turns out for continuity not even in the “Rain City” can you get away with not having the ability to create man-made rain effects on demand.

Online Note Taking:

An effective blog is like a movie. It begins with a creative idea, but requires great time management, organization and structured creative process to make it come alive. I am always on the lookout for tools to help with all of the above. If you want to structure your research better, you want more options to quickly share with others or like me are “on location” moving through lots of different places in your work day, then online note taking can be really helpful.

I’ve just started using Evernote. Here’s a fantastically comprehensive post from Marc and Angel Hack Life with many useful tips for research and online tools for writing and sharing notes. Which are your favorite?

“Walk with the dreamers, the believers, the courageous, the cheerful,

the planners, the doers, the successful people

with their heads in the clouds and their feet on the ground. 

Let their spirit ignite a fire within you

to leave this world better than when you found it.” 

Wilferd Peterson

How to Find the Right Coach for You

This information is based on my own good, and not so good, experiences of being coached and of course from the standards that I hold myself to. Although the process described is primarily geared towards finding the perfect writing or public speaking coach to empower the way you express yourself, it is also relevant when searching for other types of support from life coaching to business development… who knows, it may even help you find a great hairdresser!

I hope this helps you find the right person to walk with you on your journey!

Quick Overview: Take an Analytical and Intuitive Approach

Know what you want from coaching. Research coaches. Trust your gut. Experience several sample sessions. Evaluate. Mull it over.

Commit…  strap your rocket boots on!

BEFORE the Sample Session:

When looking for a coach, it’s extremely important to find the right fit so that both coach and client can work to their full potential. Ideally, talk to at least three coaches before you make your commitment. Having an idea of what you might like to ask them can help you during an introductory call. (Make sure you also have a chance to chat and do allow yourself to be coached!) The best question to ask yourself:

Why do I want a coach?

I know it sounds like a ridiculously obvious question, but it can be a great guideline to keep in mind. Take the time to write a brief paragraph about what you want to get from the experience. Your answer might change as you do research which is awesome as it means you are already opening to new ideas.

Look for clues. Trust your vibes

Notice the clues. For example, over the years, whenever I’ve needed to shop for a hairstylist, I’ve paid attention to the feel of their salon, how the stylist presents themselves, their willingness to answer my questions, their expertise with what I do need and their honesty about what I don’t. (I have doubly thick, often wonderful, curly hair that on its worst days can rival burst bed springs – not for the faint-hearted!) When I was first thinking of giving up my blonde highlighting ways and going short to give my hair a fresh start, a friend suggested I email a new stylist some styles I was considering. I wouldn’t have thought to do that! I was surprised that she willingly took the time to reply regarding why some wouldn’t work and prepare me for what would. She seemed genuinely knowledgeable and passionate about her work; I had a great experience when we finally met. On the other side of the spectrum, I once ignored my intuition and immediately regretted it when a new stylist answered his phone and entered into an irate call while still madly chopping away at my curls!

Is their own voice authentically shining?

Just as you can walk into a salon and know it’s not quite right for you, there is a lot to be found from walking into a coach’s online life. Look at the online presence of several coaches in the field. Consider: website, blog, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc. Listen to the voice and personality that comes through in their writing.

Do you feel you could really connect with them?

Are they able to offer a free introductory call or at least answer some questions via email?

Are their testimonials inspiring?

Do you think you would recommend them to a friend?

DURING the Sample Session:

Have they always been interested in personal development?

Whether they started coaching straight out of school or spent thirty years leading culinary cycling tours through the South of France first, the best coaches have a personal and professional back ground that shows a genuine life long fascination with personal growth, emotional intelligence and the learning process. They understand how and why when left to our own devices we sometimes do and sometimes don’t create change.

Do they understand the process of inner development on a theoretical and practical level?

How have they experienced it?

How have they raised their own awareness?

Do they know how to coach?

It sounds like a ridiculous question… but you would be surprised how many coaches don’t fully understand the learning process. A coach (indeed any expert) who spoon feeds knowldege basically fosters learned helplessness and two-way frustration. In my opinion, the best coaches have studied not only their area of expertise, but also the art of how to share it through skills such as non-directive questioning.

Many coaches also cause frustration by confusing the difference between coaching and consultancy. If I were to boil down the essence of both I would say that coaching is the art of helping someone find their answer from within while consultancy is the passing on of specific expert knowledge. Both are equally valuable, but everyone needs to be clear about which service or combination of services is being offered.

Do they have formal training in helping people change?

A great coach will have trained through a coaching course or through more formal academic schooling in a related field such as facilitation, counseling or education. (Be aware that coaching has only recently developed into a more independent discipline and so many coaching courses have wildly varying accreditation and training standards. For example, some courses involve a weekend’s worth of work, others several months or years. I even heard of a course that only required a DVD download!)

How open are they?

In order to be able to work with your coach, you are going to have to be open, honest and willing to receive feedback. Are they themselves able to be that? Here are some tough questions:

Are they willing to share examples of their “misses” as well as their successes?

Do they have systems in place to gather feedback and inform improvement?

What are their professional development plans?

Are they willing to share their personal growth plan?

How they respond to these challenging questions may be as revealing as the answers themselves.

Ask!

Most importantly of all, if you are not sure if they can help you…. ask them. You’d be surprised how they might be able to offer suggestions of areas you may benefit from support. They may also be able to offer referrals to other coaches who might be a better fit or resources for self-directed learning. A great coach will also be honest about the areas you don’t need support.

AFTER the Sample Session:

Is this someone I know I can trust?

Did we connect and on what levels?

Am I excited at the thought of working with them?

Do I believe in their ability to help me reach my goals?

Was this sample session a worthwhile time investment? What did I learn?

If you’ve done all your research and you still can’t bring yourself to sign up, ask yourself if progress in this area is more of a “should” for you. Are you pushing yourself too far and fast because you feel you SHOULD work on this area right now, rather than you NEED to? Eventually, we always make time and space for things our souls really need. Making a committment to nurture your deepest dreams should feel exhilarating and not exhausting.

The next step?

Make your decision. Follow up with the coaches you spoke to.

Commit to being coachable… commit to yourself and follow Julia Cameron’s wonderful advice from The Artist’s Way:

I have learned, as a rule of thumb, never to ask whether you can do something. Say instead, that you are doing it. Then fasten your seat belt. The most remarkable things follow. 

Feel free to connect with me if you would like to experience a free 30 minute Discovery Session.

You might want to consider the following information recently presented in this well-thought out infographic (used here with permission):

What struck me as significant was the fact that, “70% of consumers prefer getting to know a company via articles rather than ads.” It makes sense. Think about who you would rather have approach you:

1. Someone who walks up to you with, “Hey, look at what I’m selling! I have a great product.”

2. Someone who introduces themself, asks about you and shares a thoughtful and compelling story of their experience and expertise that helps you solve a problem.

Business blogs are less intrusive than adverts. They keep your website fresh and help you develop a strong brand identity. Most importantly, they provide opportunities to create great client relationships and give real value… more than worth it!

I love yoga! Sadly, I often get busy and forget that I love yoga. My friend dragged me along to his studio recently with promises of “we have the most unusual and interesting classes. You’ll learn loads.” Turns out he was right. I did learn a lot. None if it was related to back bends or downward dog though.

At the beginning of the class, the instructor asked if we would like to each share something personal. Everyone agreed that yes they would. There followed a sequence of sharing that still makes me smile. As a facilitator, I have used this type of warm up many times, so I was expecting the first person to share something they were hoping to accomplish or maybe how excited they were that their sister was flying in from Toronto for a visit in two days. It didn’t quite go like that:

Sharer #1: “I’d like to share that I feel awesome because I’ve been having the best sex of my life all week!”

I had to admire her. She was brave and funny… and evidently quite happy! Plus, she clearly didn’t care what anyone thought. There was a bit of a stunned silence followed by the laughter that myself and others couldn’t contain. Then more stunned silence. Finally, the girl next to her became more and more uncomfortable and felt it to be her turn to share.

Sharer #2: “I want to lower my standards and enjoy life a bit more without stopping myself so much.”

Wow! I was itching to say, “You should talk to the girl beside you.” I didn’t. It’s a funny thing about people that have been blessed (or inflicted) with a British upbringing and its exposure to Monty Python and other comedy classics. They often have both an overly developed sense of inappropriate comic innuendo AND a British sense of propriety that stops them sharing it. The later is definitely not a bad thing.

The second girl was on to something important. (The first girl was too, but this isn’t that kind of blog.) Her big want is also the key to developing a productive writing life:

Get out of your own way and you’ll gain momentum.

Tip #1: Lower your standards at the beginning of the creative process

As you sit down to work on the first draft, put those dreams of winning an award or blowing your reader away with insights that are so profound that maybe someone should call Oprah aside. Just start. Raise your standards higher later. Raise them to the highest possible during the revision stage. Raise them to Oprah heights, but do it later. I like to think of my writing at the initial stage as a doodle. No-one critiques doodles. They just doodle.

Tip #2: Lower your standards about what to create 

William Stafford, considered by some to be the most widely read poet in the US, used to tell his students,  “Lower your standards and keep going.” Pretty great advice! He apparently wrote a poem a day in the early hours of the morning.

Want to be a writer? Then write. It’s as simple as that. Commit to writing something each day be it three pages of a dream project, a blog post, an idea for a blog post, a poem, a post it note full of words that floated around your head and felt juicy to you from your day or a description of the people on the bus. It’s the act of original creation each day that’s important. It creates momentum. A.R.T.S has the motto, “Five minutes a day keeps the block away.” If you have enough of those five minute days, pretty soon you’ll discover you’ll also have days where five minutes can easily turn into hours of stress free creativity.

Only ever sitting down with the intention of brilliantly writing on what you consider to be the “big” project is kind of like walking. Sure you can get places, but when you stop walking you stop. Your commitment to writing anything daily and letting yourself enjoy your first drafts is like a bike. Even if you stop pedaling on the odd occasion, you will still keep rolling for a while. The ideas will still keep flowing as you’ve been used to asking them to.

Lowering your standards at the beginning can help you get started and keep going!

(P.S I wouldn’t necessarily recommend that approach to dating!)

According to some polls, the fear of public speaking ranks higher than the fear of death. Why do you think that is? I think it boils down to two things: what we don’t know and what we can’t control.

We cannot know everything

Think about how much you have to know these days to function day in and day out. It’s been said we are currently exposed to the same level of new information in one day that people 100 years ago received over a decade. It’s impossible for us to know everything!  Often people with great skill, knowledge, passion and insight choose to sit on the sidelines because the risk of coming up short and feeling exposed is too great.

Public speaking is the voice of change

The only constant we have in our world is change. Great leaders and speakers embrace this and have faith it will lead to something better. Judith Bardwick, author of several management books including Danger in the Comfort Zone and The Psychology of Women puts it best:

By definition, leaders lead change.

Public speaking often requires you to be at the forefront of change. After all, you want to inspire your audience to think about your subject in a new way.

Overcoming the dread

It can feel intimidating to promote your own opinion or be the first to voice a new thought. So next time the fears pop up, consider trying the following:

1) Let go of the fear of not knowing everything

Focus on what you do know. There are people waiting to be helped by the level of expertise that you have right now.

2) Embrace change

Focus on why you are speaking. What change do you want to lead? Be willing to continually step into a different view of yourself as you carry on improving your public speaking.

The good news… the more you recognize your fears, the more likely you are to overcome them and take more public speaking opportunities. A funny thing will happen when you practice. I promise! You will get better and it will get easier – a whole lot easier. You might even come to love it!

In my home country, it’s often considered inappropriate to openly acknowledge gifts and abilities.  There’s a fear of being what’s termed “too full of yourself.”

Recently, I saw a clip of a UK talent show where a young girl stunned the audience with a rare display of vocal talent that must have been channeled from another universe. Once everyone had finally sat down and stopped clapping, the camera cut to the presenter who was standing beside the girl’s family. When asked for his reaction, her younger brother smiled, gave a half hearted “meh!” and a quick thumbs up thumbs down as if to say “not bad.” It was abundantly clear from his body language that he was full of admiration and pride, but you couldn’t have paid him to express that in his words.

Who knows what the young girl was thinking. If she’s anything like I used to be she was probably struggling with thoughts such as, “That was good, but you were a little bit of a show off. You know you didn’t quite hit that high note and you shouldn’t have held the mike like that. People must have been thinking how goofy it looked.”

Kind inside and out

Most of us suffer from a bad case of the “mehs.” Worse we often lean towards a thumbs down opinion of ourselves. We have not trained our inner voice to express admiration often and easily. Don’t be fooled that it’s only yourself that you’re hurting either. Those negative thoughts that are floating around your head are affecting your body language and your energy. As we communicate most of our meaning through our bodies that means they are also affecting those around you. As Peter McWilliams states in his book of the same title: “You Can’t Afford the Luxury of a Negative Thought.” 

Life is a whole lot happier when you are kind inside and out. Life is a whole lot simpler when you are more congruent in your communication.

Set the inner kindness habit:

1) Catch  yourself. Celebrate what you want to see more of:

Did you just deliver a phenomenal presentation but you can’t stop thinking about the words you stumbled over at the beginning? Stop! Focus on three things you did really well. Run through the scene in your head and stop at those points. Really savor it. Practice positive self-discipline! You will be more likely to do again something that is positively rewarded.

2) Reframe your thoughts. Ask yourself:

“Would you say that to a small child?” or “How long would you be friends with  someone who always said that to you?”

3) Forgive yourself:

Let go of what wasn’t perfect. Acknowledge once what wasn’t great – if anything. Acknowledge what you did well as many times as possible. Write it down. Take the time to make it tangible.

4) Create  a mantra:

Be full of yourself in the most beautiful way possible. Affirm the best of who you are. These two by Louise Hay are wonderful:

I claim my own power and lovingly create my own reality. 

I, myself, am enough.

Learn to give yourself approval and you’ll be less concerned with how you stack up with others. That’s often easier said than done. I definitely know! I’m proud of my small steps in the right direction though. I hope you can be too!

Have you ever felt like the walls are closing in on you as you write?

Most of the time I love my home office. It serves me well. I have a bright green, top of the line, molds to your body, adjustable in every direction ergonomic chair that I splurged on. I like to think of it as my seat of creativity. It may or may not have magic creativity inducing powers, but I’ve never had a backache so it at least earns its keep that way. I have evidence of completed projects nearby to encourage me: finished writing, paintings etc. as well as framed quotations, affirmations and stacks of journals with cheesy but nonetheless inspiring things like “Dream it! Write it! Do it!” written on them. The “Sons of Granville” are ready to play at a moments notice.

Yup, it’s set up to be the best work space ever. Mostly it is. Only sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes, I feel like the walls are closing in on me and the words are coming slowly… Oh so s-l-o-w-l-y.

Change your space. Change your pace:

When you feel the cogs starting to grind a little too leisurely, changing where you write can give you a fresh perspective and pace. Here are some of my favorite places to switch to:

1. The kitchen or another room.

2. The library (some have bookable private spaces)

3. The staple of writer type folks everywhere: a good coffee shop

4. The beach (when it’s sunny)

5. A different page. Sometimes switching from tapping away on a keyboard to scribbling on paper can take the pressure off. There’s something more playful and whimsical about writing by hand, especially if you sit cross legged on the floor while you do it. It also allows you to highlight, underline and day-dream doodle a bit.

6. A fellow writer’s place. WARNING: writers are notorious for hosting writing get-togethers that become talking about writing get-togethers. Sometimes, that’s not a bad thing though. It might help you go back to your usual writing space refreshed and cabin fever recovered.

Where do you go to write when you need a change of space?

In 2009, I was lucky enough to be one of a handful of people trained in a program that works one on one with teens that have no functional literacy. Some as old as 18 were arriving in Canada with no English and no real experience of school. I met one on one with each student for half an hour of intervention each day. The radical changes those students made were inspiring. Watching those teens dare to think big and have the heart to take small steps each day towards dreams that were beyond lofty, taught me several essential elements of success that I will never forget:

• Clearly defined ambitious goals
• Positive mindset
• Celebration of minor progress
• Honest self-assessment and external support 
• Willingness to work on small changes with daily action

This was also when I fully realized what a privilege it is to work with people who are dedicated and committed to holding and realizing an expanded version of themselves.

My turning point

Then in 2010, I had a day that forever changed my life. I was asked to speak at the BCSTA Conference in front of several hundred school trustees on the topic of “What makes a student successful?” They also asked if I would bring one of my students along. What a request! Most adults who speak English as their first language would balk at the task, never mind a teenager who is still learning the language. I brought one of my beginner ESL students along. The speech she gave on her new life and new success in Canada since leaving Iraq was so inspiring, so honest and so powerfully delivered that it brought much of the room to tears. It also showed me exactly how powerful public speaking can be.

Taking the leap

Inspired by my truly amazing student, I decided that day that I needed to fully embrace my dream and take the leap to leave teaching. That decision felt terrifying. The transition has not been easy and in very many ways it is just beginning. However, when I think about the level of aliveness it has brought me and when I think about the community of like-minded inspiring people I am able to work with I know it is more than worth it!