personal success

PersonalSuccess

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Expert tips, coaching advice, and much, much more!

Offi cial publication of The Academy Club and The Coaching Academy

Michael NeillFeel happy now

NO LIMITS NETWORKING

Dump The Emotional Baggage

HOW TO SPEAK WITH CONFIDENCE

Multiply Your Income

Jurgen Wolff: SEVEN SECRETS OF MARKETING SUCCESS

Free Yourself From

Dr Susan JeffersFear

Publisher: Jonathan Jay

Academy Publishing

Editor: Marie-Louise Cook

Graphic Designer: David Freshwater

Contributors: Dr Susan Jeffers

Michael NeillJudi Conner

Richard M. HighsmithTom StoneEd Peppitt

Jurgen WolffOriana Tickell de Castello

Production Manager: Lisa Snape, ALS Designs

Contact Address: The Academy Club

39-43 Putney High StreetLondon

SW15 1SP

Contact Email:[email protected]

Contact Telephone:0208 789 5676

22 THE SEVEN SECRETS OFMARKETING SUCCESS

20 MULTIPLY YOUR INCOME

10 FEEL HAPPY NOW

18

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Editor’s LetterThe lawns of a historic home were the last place I had expected to see visited by fear but it was there that early Spring morning. Like the people who sat at tables around me, I wasn’t looking at the building, as splendid as it

was, but at the peacock that was slowly making its way from table to table, its long train of iridescent feathers dragging across the grass. I wondered if like me, the other people there were hoping that the strange and beautiful bird would come closer. I picked up my camera, hoping to capture its image forever and that’s when I saw the fear.

It was there on the young woman’s face. She was sitting at a nearby table and until the peacock visited, she’d been laughing and talking with a man seated next to her. But as the peacock made its way to her side, I saw her shrink back in her chair, away from the bird. Curiously, the peacock wouldn’t leave the woman alone… it returned again and again to her table and each time, she would visibly flinch at its presence. It got worse… before I left, I saw it reach up and snatch a piece of cake from her plate.

Afterwards, I wondered what effect the fear of peacocks has on that woman’s life and especially whether that morning’s close encounter would make matters worse. Will she avoid visiting historic homes ever again? Will zoos be out too? Is she only scared of peacocks or all birds? I appreciated anew the limits that fear can place on our lives… and how it prevents us from appreciating the magnificence that surrounds us and stops us from reaching our full potential. I also saw how fear returns until we have the courage to face it and move on ourselves.

Dr Susan Jeffers, the author of Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway and this month’s cover story, says fear is not a barrier to be leapt over just the once but a constant companion. By overcoming a fear, we have the experience of courage that we can then use to overcome any new fears in the future.

Eleanor Roosevelt said something similar: “I believe that anyone can conquer fear by doing the things he fears to do, provided he keeps doing them until he gets a record of successful experiences behind him.”

On behalf of the Academy Club Team, may I wish you every courage to face any fear that may be stopping you from having the life you desire.

Marie-Louise CookEditor

Marie-Louise

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WHAT’S INSIDE

CONTENTS

PERSONAL SUCCESS - MAY 2007

16 SPEAK WITH CONFIDENCE

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COVER STORY4 FREE YOURSELF FROM FEARInternational best-selling author and the woman dubbed ‘The Queen of Self-Help’ Dr Susan Jeffers explains how to Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway®.

9 BOOK REVIEWS

10 COACHING SUCCESS – FEEL HAPPY NOWYou can feel happy whatever your circumstances, says Michael Neill, author, radio host, Master NLP Trainer and the man Paul McKenna describes as ‘the finest Success Coach in the world today’.

COACHING DEVELOPMENTS14 NO LIMITS NETWORKING Networking, according to Performance Coach Judi Conner, is a must-have skill if you want to expand your business. She shares her best networking tips that will help overcome any nerves.

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT16 HOW TO SPEAK WITH CONFIDENCEDoes an invitation to address a small gathering bring you out in a cold sweat? Make public

speaking terror a thing of the past by following the expert advice of Richard M. Highsmith, M.S., of The Leader’s Institute.

18 DUMP THE EMOTIONAL BAGGAGETom Stone explains how to create an enriched life, free of self-sabotaging emotions and fears.

BUSINESS BUILDING20 MULTIPLY YOUR INCOMEPublisher Edward Peppitt explains how you can easily create multiple streams of income from your coaching.

22 THE SEVEN SECRETS OF MARKETING SUCCESSAuthor Jurgen Wolff shares seven of his best marketing tips to help you get more business.

BACK PAGEMY (MEXICO) DAYWhen journalist Oriana Tickell de Castello trained as a coach with The Coaching Academy, and returned to Mexico, she was plagued by self-doubts. Would there be any demand for coaching? She explains what happened next.

with unsurpassed coach training skills and it continues to develop and deliver high quality courses to meet the changing needs of the market. To discover how your career can benefit from the Coaching Academy, please log on to www.the-coaching-academy.com or speak to one of our friendly qualified advisors at +44 (0)208 789 5676.

FREE WEEKEND COACHING COURSES

CONTENTS 3

MAY 2007 - PERSONAL SUCCESS

The woman dubbed the ‘Queen of Self-Help’ is at home in California the day I call. Unlike British royalty, it’s surprisingly easy to get hold of Dr Susan Jeffers – there are no minions, lackeys or gatekeepers to deal with – when I call, she answers the phone herself and laughs when I am surprised. Laughter is a big part of an interview with Susan Jeffers – another surprise – and in fact, when we finish talking, she urges me to go and see the musical Spamalot, insisting I will love it so much that I’ll call her and thank her for the suggestion. It’s just one of the many excellent recommendations she provides during the interview.

Personal Success: How did you come up with the phrase ‘Feel the Fear And Do It Anyway®’?

Dr Susan Jeffers: ‘For 10 years, I was the Executive Director of The Floating Hospital in Manhattan [which provides healthcare for the poor in New York]. During that same time, I attended workshop after workshop seeking ways to push through the many fears I had at the time. In those 10 years, I learned so much.

‘One day, I was sitting in my office and the thought came into my head “Go down to the New School for Social Research.” Where the thought came from, I really didn’t know. At the time, I was taking a workshop about intuition, which suggested I pay attention to and act upon the thoughts that came into my head.

‘I said to myself, “Okay, why should I be going down there? I have no idea – maybe they have a great workshop that I should be

attending.” So, I put on my coat, and told my secretary that I was going to the New School. She said, “Why?” and I said, “I haven’t a clue.” I didn’t even know where it was. I got into a cab, which took me there.

‘I looked at the bulletin board in the lobby and saw the Department of Human Resources and thought, “That feels right.” So, that’s where I went. Nobody was at the front desk but there was a woman in the office to the right and she said to me, “Can I help you?” I swear to you, I don’t know where the words came from but I said, “I’m here to teach a course on fear.”

‘Here’s the shock: she looked at me and said, “I can’t believe it! I have been searching for somebody to teach a course on fear and today is the last day to put it into the catalogue and I have to leave in 15 minutes.” Her name was Ruth Van Doren and both of us were in a state of shock. She asked for my credentials of course and then said, “Quick, write 75 words about this course that you’re going to teach,” which I did. And on the spot, I entitled it ‘Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway’.

‘It was then that I realised the power of following your intuition. First, I hadn’t set out to teach a course on fear. If I had set out to teach a course on fear, I would have gone to Hunter College where I got my undergraduate degree or Columbia University where I got my Doctorate – I wouldn’t have gone to an unfamiliar place, the New School. I didn’t even know where it was.

‘Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway’ was a 13-week course and I taped it. Again, intuition. I taped it with a little handheld recorder so I had the whole 13 weeks on tape.’

And did you then think, ‘Aha, this will be a good book’?

Dr Susan Jeffers: ‘Yes. Later, I tried to sell the book. Boy, that experience taught me

a lot about not letting rejection stop you. Nobody wanted to buy it. I had agents and publishers reject it and I guess my best rejection letter or worst, depending on how you look at it, was from an English publisher who said, “Lady Di could be bicycling nude, giving this book away and nobody would read it.”’ (Laughs)

And yet, you recovered from that!

Dr Susan Jeffers: ‘I recovered. I think it’s a great story for people who are worried about rejection. If you feel good about what you are doing and feel it can help the world in some way, then push on.’

Many people would have given up at that point.

Dr Susan Jeffers: ‘Actually, I did put the book away for a few years. It was in a drawer and one day I was cleaning out the drawer and I pulled it out – you can see how often I clean my drawers (laughs) – in any case, I looked over it and I thought, “This book has something important to say and will help the

Dr Susan Jeffers’ trademarked title Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway®* has become so much a part of our everyday language that it seems incredible it’s only 20 years since the earth-shaking life-affirming manual hit bookshelves. Like all classics, it’s as relevant today and tomorrow as it was when it was arrived on the self-help scene. No wonder that Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway® has become a mantra for those who want to lead better lives. By Marie-Louise Cook.

Free Yourself

Dr Susan Jeffers

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FREE YOURSELF FROM FEAR

COVER STORY


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The things we want the most are often the things we most fear approaching.

“ ”With the proper tools, we can push through all our fears.

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world so I am going to get it out there.”

‘That time I succeeded. I thought later that maybe it wasn’t that the world wasn’t ready for it. Maybe in the beginning, I wasn’t ready for it to get out there. When I finally did get it out there, I was ready.’

What was the reception to it?

Dr Susan Jeffers: ‘Oh very, very, very positive. People around the world just picked it up. It’s now in 100 countries, 36 languages and it’s celebrating its twentieth year. I get mail every single day from all over the world and I have to tell you, I sit here in tears. My husband [media entrepreneur and TV producer Mark Shelmerdine] says, “Oh, you got another fan letter!”

‘I’ve had people tell me that it saved their lives – they were contemplating suicide – and I go to the book and flick through it thinking, “What is in here that would do that?” I think the advice I give is very good. Obviously, it worked for me so well and I knew it worked for others but to say, “It

saved my life”… I think, “Wow, I don’t know what it is, but I feel blessed to have been able to help.”’

You survived divorce and later breast cancer and you flourished. What other fearful events have you faced and overcome in your life?

Dr Susan Jeffers: ‘I think all of us feel fear almost every day of our lives about something or other. Once you realise that fear isn’t something that will stop you and that there are tools to make you feel really better about yourself and that you can handle whatever life brings you, the fear really doesn’t matter. I’ve had fears about money, fears about losing people that I love, fears when I was raising my children … I’ve had fears about doing a talk, which was a big fear, and over the years, I have pushed through that one. What I’ve learned is the more you do something you are afraid of doing, the less you are afraid of doing it. That’s one of my five Fear Truths…the only way to get rid of the fear of doing something is to go out and do it.’

Are there still things in your life that you fear?

Dr Susan Jeffers: ‘When I was a little girl, my parents didn’t have much money. My mother was always telling me that money doesn’t grow on trees. (Laughs) I think I’ve always had a fear about not having money but I think that in my case, it’s been a very positive factor because it’s pushed me out there. I say to myself, “Okay, if I don’t feel the fear and keep pushing the manuscripts out there I’m not going to help people. Nor am I going to be able to earn money.” I’ve used fear in a positive way.

‘Fear is such a common thing. If we could just accept that fear is part of life and then collect the tools to help us push past all our fears, we can all become stronger, more loving people. That’s the key. With the proper tools, we can push through all our fears.

‘One of my own plunging-into-fear things is to take more time off. I’m a workaholic and I am learning to take more time off to relax and play. We’re coming to the UK this summer for a vacation, not to work.’ (Laughs)

It’s a nice fear to have to confront.

Dr Susan Jeffers: ‘Yes but it is fearful. When you are constantly working and you start pulling away, you feel, “Ah, got to get back, got to get back.” It’s just change, something new, that creates the fear.

‘My husband and I are now working together. It’s wonderful. We have started our own publishing company, Jeffers Press. We’re not only publishing my books but other people’s books too. Talk about “feeling the fear and doing it anyway” – it was fearful to plunge into a new business, but I’m so proud of the books by other people that we’ve published so far. I’ve written 18 books so that if a new book of mine comes out, I think, “That’s nice.” But when we published the wonderful Shortcut to a Miracle, which is a timely book about the Laws of the Universe, including the Law of Attraction, we went to Chicago for the book launch that the two authors had created. It was their first book and to be there watching their excitement filled my heart with joy. I thought, “That’s fabulous!”’


COVER STORY 5


“ ”The only way to get rid of the fear of doing something is to go out and do it.

What exercises would you recommend people do when they are confronted by fear, perhaps when they are about to deliver a presentation?

Dr Susan Jeffers: ‘On my website [www.susanjeffers.com], there’s a booklet I composed about affirmations that’s free to download. I love affirmations. People can use positive affirmations to overcome the negative talk in their heads – the “Chatterbox” I call it. Affirmations are really quite incredible. Someone going out on a stage can repeat the affirmation, “Whatever happens, I’ll handle it.”

‘They could also say “I’m giving my love away.” They are giving something away rather than expecting something back. That’s a very powerful one and it means if some people like you, great, if some people don’t, great. You’re just giving your love away.

‘I remember I had to give a talk at Madison Square Gardens and there were thousands and thousands of people in the audience. I was there with a number of other speakers and each of us was to speak for an hour and a half. As I was about to walk onto the stage, my husband gave me a big kiss and said, “You’re going to be the best.” That didn’t feel right so I whispered to him, “Thank you, honey, and I appreciate it, but the next time, just tell me I’ll be good enough.” And I felt relief. It’s the competition; the pushing to be the best rather than just giving away our love that makes us anxious and puts us at a disadvantage. If we could all be there just giving away our love, that would make us all feel wonderful.

‘I love the example of the Broadway actress, Mary Martin, who used to peek at her audience before she went out on to the stage and project the words, “I love you… I love you… I love you…” and it would take away all her fear. Compare that to another actress who hadn’t learned this wonderful tool and would throw up before every performance.’

That ties in with your idea of “embracing uncertainty”, of not having expectations about the outcome.

Dr Susan Jeffers: ‘I feel expectations for the most part create so much of our unhappiness. Because we’re not in control of what happens in the outside world.

We can do our very, very, very best but there is so much that we cannot control. One thing we can control is our reaction to whatever happens to us. That gives us incredible power. We have a choice: are we going to feel miserable about something that doesn’t go our way or are we going to say, “Okay, this happened. How can I learn from it? How can I grow from it? How can I make it a triumph?” Those three questions are very powerful. I’ve learned that if you change your thinking, you can change your experience of life.’

So it’s about changing your state of mind if you’re feeling worried or scared?

Dr Susan Jeffers: ‘Yes. It’s also important to “Let go of the outcome.” I don’t mean don’t work to do the best you can. First, it helps us to grow to do the very best that we can. If it doesn’t work out the way we want it to – that’s just life. We grow from it, move on and it’s part of what makes us strong. For example, my divorce from my first husband… it was very painful but oh, I learnt from it. It was probably one of the most enriching parts of my life because I decided, “Okay, this has happened. I’m going to become stronger.” And I certainly did become stronger.

‘In my books, I always combine the two words “power” and “love” and I think the more confidence we have in ourselves to handle whatever happens, the more loving we become and the less needy we are. In my love book, The Feel The Fear Guide To Lasting Love (Vermillion, 2005) I wrote that neediness is so destructive in love; it’s also so destructive in work and with friends. The more confidence that we have in ourselves to handle whatever happens, the more we can love. We can let go of the destructive emotions of anger, the need to control, jealousy, and so on. We can let go and say to ourselves, “Well, I’m going to love. No games. If this person doesn’t return my love, I know I can handle it all. There are so many beautiful people to love.”’

Surely, being detached from the results encourages a sense of helplessness or passiveness about your ability to achieve anything?

Dr Susan Jeffers: ‘I’m not talking about detachment. You have to allow your pain. When a relationship ends, it’s painful. Allow the tears knowing you will get to the other side. That’s what’s important. It’s not about denial. It’s not pseudo-positive thinking; it’s acknowledging the pain. It’s not the crying of, “No, how can this happen to me?” It’s the crying of, “Yes, this happened to me and I will make something wonderful out of it. I will ultimately get to the other side.”

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COVER STORY


“ ”Your fear is your workshop.

‘You have to learn that whatever happens is for your highest good. There’s a prayer in my latest newsletter which says, “No matter what happens in my life, I trust that it’s for my highest good and no matter what happens in the lives of those I love, I trust that it’s for their highest good.” You do your best and you let go. That’s not helplessness because you cannot control everything out there but you can absolutely control your reaction to it. You can appreciate and feel blessed with what you have or you can make yourself miserable.’

What have you learnt about courage and the most effective ways of instilling or unleashing that quality in other people?

Dr Susan Jeffers: ‘Courage to me is pushing through fear. There are so many tools to help us do that, many of which are included in my books. For example, expanding your comfort zone. Every day, just do a little something that you are a little uncomfortable doing because of fear. Do it because you then expand what you are comfortable with. That’s very important.

‘Also, never see yourself as a victim. We have to learn to take responsibility for our reactions to what happens to us in life. We have to use the tools to create a very rich life so that if something goes bad in one area there’s a whole other part of our lives that will sustain us. For example, when my daughter was in her twenties, she broke up with somebody and she called me and she was crying. She was very upset. All of a sudden, she stopped crying and said, “Oh I’ve got to go – I’m volunteering today at Habitat for Humanity. Bye Mom.” She had something meaningful in her life besides her relationship. So, her life wasn’t empty.

‘I have tools in all my books – I think in Embracing Uncertainty (Hodder Mobius, 2003), there are 42. They are all meant to give us strength and from that strength, there’s the love. I think that loving yourself is not about being selfish. It comes from understanding that you make a difference in the world. That helps us to love. I think that when people don’t do good things – certain politicians, for example – it’s because they don’t understand how important they are in this world. The point is the more we understand we make a difference, the better we behave. When you teach that to young

people, I think it helps them throughout their lives.

‘My friend, Donna Gradstein and I wrote a children’s book called I Can Handle It (Jeffers Press, 2006) and there are 50 stories about little kids facing various problems in their lives and handling them. On one page is the specific problem where the child in the story says, “But I can handle it.” On the opposite page, the child handles it and ends with the words “See, I can handle it. Whatever happens, I can handle it.” By the end of the book, the children will have heard or read the phrase “I can handle it” 150 times. If the parent is reading the book to the child, then the parent says the same affirmation “I can handle it” 150 times. Powerful for both parent and child!

‘Repetition is important. You can read a self-help book and get a lot out of it but unless you follow through and use the exercises in your daily life, it’s not going to make much of a difference.

‘I’ve been teaching this material for 25 years and I still have affirmations to remind me because the internal “Chatterbox” is always there. Negativity comes into our lives all the time, so we need reminders. I wish that they did teach confidence at a much earlier age by simply letting people know that they have an immense amount of power within them to handle whatever happens.’

What other techniques do you recommend to help people feel more joyful, happy or abundant?

Dr Susan Jeffers: ‘Humour is so important. On my desk, I have a statue of a laughing Buddha. I might be sitting there lamenting about something and I look at my laughing Buddha and realise that he doesn’t care that he’s fat (laughs), he doesn’t go to the gym, he doesn’t care that he’s alone or poor… he’s happy and he makes me laugh about my situation and put it in perspective. I think laughter is so important. I laugh a lot.

‘You have to learn to laugh, even about the serious things in life. For example, I had a mastectomy and I never had a breast reconstruction but I have a prostheses. I joke that my husband is the only one who can take his wife’s breasts with him wherever he goes. He can put one in his suitcase if he wants.’ (Laughs) ‘Humour is a very, very important thing.

‘I think commitment to learn the tools, to use them in your life every single day is important. Someone said to me, “You know, I read and I read and nothing takes.” I said, “Nothing takes until you take it. You have to take one exercise that you love and use it

until it becomes relatively automatic. Then learn some more. It’s a life-long process.

‘I was talking to my daughter one day and I was complaining about something and she said, “Mom, go and read your book.” (Laughs) Yes, it’s a lifelong process.

‘Learning the art of appreciation is also so important. Strangely, I learnt that when I worked with the poor in Manhattan. So many of them appreciated everything they had in their lives. They were remarkably giving and it was an amazing experience to be with them.

‘I also think it’s important to have “friendly” friends and what I mean by that is not to have “Moan and Groan Society” friends – if you are with people who are always complaining, you want to go home and take a shower. Quite honestly, I dropped the friends who were very negative. I used to be one of them but now that I tend to be a very positive person, I love to be with people who are also positive and who laugh a lot. There are certainly a lot of them out there and that is wonderful.

‘I also know that saying “thank you” a lot helps you focus on abundance because you constantly realise how much beauty is in your life.’

How do you suggest a coach best supports someone who is facing a fear?

Dr Susan Jeffers: ‘Don’t let them take the role of a victim. Show them that they can be the creator of their experience. That they can handle their reaction to whatever happens to them. In fact, I say in one of my books that if you seek counselling in any way and the counsellor supports the victim mentality and says, for example, “Oh you poor thing, if only your mother had stayed home instead of working” then run away as fast as you can. It’s important to be grateful that you were fed, you were dressed, and you went to school and then move on to create a beautiful life for yourself. Stop using other people as an excuse for living an unhappy life.’

You talk about creating a ‘wondering’ life instead of a ‘hoping’ life. Is there really a difference?

Dr Susan Jeffers: ‘Oh, yes. Hoping has an expectation behind it. “I hope I get married by the time I’m 30.” If you say, “I wonder if I’ll be married by the time I’m 30” you become the observer. You’re watching your life and you’re not caught up in the drama. You have the understanding that whatever happens, you’ll handle it. I see a huge difference between the two.’


COVER STORY 7


I call relationships the greatest workshops going.“ ”

That sounds like a Buddhist teaching. Is that something that has influenced your life?

Dr Susan Jeffers: ‘Yes, it has. I love the Buddhist philosophy among other philosophies. I’m not a religious person. I am a spiritual person and by that, I mean all the tools that I create or have learnt are about moving from the weakest part of who I am to the strongest, most loving part of who I am. That to me is a spiritual process. It’s to live as much as you can in the arena of the Higher Self, the best of who you are. I have a vision of a light, an energy that we can tune into which can guide us. What I believe so much about intuition is tuning into the energy that draws you to what is best for your life.’

When you confront fears, do you believe in jumping in headfirst or dipping your toe in the water?

Dr Susan Jeffers: ‘Whatever works for you as a human being. There are no rules. Whenever somebody says they have THE answer, I’m suspicious. In Embracing Uncertainty, I talk about the whole concept of “I don’t know”. We don’t know anything for sure – it is all based on our experience, our learning, but it could change. I talk about using the word “maybe” in Embracing Uncertainty. So you say, “This is the best way to do it… maybe.” Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t.

‘As a coach, it’s important to understand that. You give people tools and they move forward at their own pace. Before I divorced my first husband, it took me two years to have a readiness and I think unconsciously I was doing little things to prepare myself – making new friends, getting new interests – so by the time I decided I was going to get divorced, I was ready.

‘People say, “I don’t know why I can’t leave my husband/wife, it’s a bad relationship.” The answer is, “It’s because you’re not ready.” What you have to do as a coach is to provide more and more tools to help people become stronger. One day, they will be ready… maybe. (Laughs)

‘It took me years to decide to leave my job, which was such a wonderful, successful job, but I felt I wasn’t growing any more. I’d been there eight years and it was time to move on. It took me two years to become ready to do that. I remember they had given me a 10th anniversary party and I felt bad because I knew the day was going to come when I would leave. A couple of months later, I woke up one morning and I knew it was the day to do it.

‘You have to trust yourself, ask your subconscious mind what’s the best step to take and then forget about it. Automatically you seem to move into the right direction if you have trust in yourself.

‘I was fine when I did let go and I resigned from my job. I had saved a lot of money. I had met the man who would become my second husband and I moved to England to be with him. I was there for three years. That was where I originally tried to sell my first book. Nobody over there was into self-help at the time. I come and speak there now and I have to tell you there is such a dramatic difference in the openness of the people in the UK. When I was there originally, there were no self-help books, just psychology books by Freud, Jung and so on.

‘When I couldn’t sell my book, I said to my partner (now husband), “You know, I love you but I’m leaving. I have to go back to the United States where they’re more open to self-help books.” Thankfully, he moved with me – he was a television producer – he’d produced I Claudius and other wonderful television shows. So, we moved to Los Angeles. The book sold within the year. There was energy behind it. My new agent loved it.’ When you made a commitment to it then it sold?

Dr Susan Jeffers: ‘Exactly. Commitment and readiness. Afterwards, when Mark moved over to the US to be with me, we got married. Our relationship is phenomenal. I feel so blessed. My daughter came to me on her wedding day and she looked at Mark and me and said, “Thank you for showing us what love looks like.”’

Is fear a guide to someone’s life purpose?

Dr Susan Jeffers: ‘Very often. First, every time you try something new you’re going to experience fear. The things we want the most are often the things we most fear approaching. We just have to learn the tools for pushing through it.

‘Some people are very happy in a very laid back life and they don’t need to push through things. They must have some

form of contentment gene within them that allows them to do that and that’s beautiful. Everyone is different, just as with parenting: I know there are women who love it. I tease my son that he’s responsible for my Bachelor’s Degree, my Master’s Degree, and my Ph.D.… (laughing) anything to get out of the house. There are people who are content with it; I just wasn’t. It was fearful going back to school. But I did it anyway. It’s all about learning and growing – we’re all on a journey and we do our best to take what’s in our lives and do something creative and loving with it.’

What advice would you give someone who is struggling with fear? Is it worth ‘taking the plunge’?

Dr Susan Jeffers: ‘At your own pace. Your fear is your workshop. If you’re afraid of leaving the house and getting a job, that’s your workshop and so you have to learn the tools that help to do it.

‘Everything in our lives can teach us something. I think if we can see it that way it really helps: what lessons am I going to learn? For example, I call relationships the greatest workshops going. As I explain in The Feel the Fear Guide to Lasting Love, if a problem comes up in a relationship, don’t be upset. It’s a great opportunity! Say to yourself, “This is something I have to work on within me.” Pick up the mirror instead of the magnifying glass [to look at yourself rather than the other person]. “What is it about me that can be changed? Do I need to get out of the relationship? Do I need to react differently to certain things that are happening? Do I need to become more loving?”

‘If a problem comes up, it’s not bad: it’s just your clue that something needs to be learned. To me, that’s a powerful way to go through life.’

FURTHER INFORMATION

For more information about the work of Dr Susan Jeffers and to receive her monthly newsletter, please visit her website at www.susanjeffers.com. *Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway® by Susan Jeffers, 20th anniversary edition, published in 2007 by Vermillion.

If a problem comes up, it’s not bad: it’s just your clue that something needs to be learned.

8


COVER STORY


“”

You have to trust yourself.“ ”

The Trainer’s Toolkit – Bringing Brain-Friendly Learning To Life by Kimberley Hare and Larry Reynolds (Crown House Publishing, 2005)

If you are involved in training others and want to make your programmes, workshops or seminars more engaging and effective, then get this book. It explains in a lively, fun way how brain-friendly learning (accelerated learning) works and then provides practical advice on how to incorporate it into your training.

Brain-friendly learning, say the authors, is not about techniques and gimmicks and putting on a bit of baroque music or playing fun games. It’s a movement to recover the real joy of learning – combining sizzle with substance – and helping people become even more outstanding at the work they have chosen to do.

Excellence in Coaching – The Industry Guide Edited by John Passmore (Kogan Page, 2006)

Books and reports about ‘best practice’ run the danger of being bought but never read and whose real usefulness doesn’t extend beyond propping up wonky tables. Worthy but dull. Thankfully, this is NOT one of those dust-gatherers… it’s crammed with cutting-edge ideas in the field of workplace coaching that will be useful for student coaches and established practitioners alike.

It has contributions from coaching industry figures including Anthony Grant, John Whitmore, Ian McDermott, Graham Alexander, Cary Cooper, Katherine Tulpa, Peter Hawkins, Michael Neenan, Alex Szabo, Phillipe Rosinski, Carol Wilson, Allard de Jong, Hetty Einzig, Frank Bresser, Maria Alicia Pena and Geoffrey Abbot, and covers an overview of coaching, coaching within organisations, ethics, supervision and organisational issues as well as practical information on running a coaching practice. The book also contains information on behavioural coaching, solution-focused coaching, NLP coaching, transpersonal coaching, integrative coaching and inter-cultural coaching.

BOOK REVIEW BOOK REVIEW

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Have you read a personal development book, listened to an audio programme or attended a seminar and want to share your views on it? Tell us what you did or didn’t like and whether you’d recommend it. We can withhold your name and details if you prefer. Email: [email protected]

The One Moment Master (Stillness for People on the Go) by Martin Boroson (Rider, Random House Group, 2007). Reviewed by Diana Theodores, PhD.

Martin Boroson invites us on a step-by-step discovery about being in the moment and the profoundly empowering imprint for living this offers. The subtitle of the book, Stillness for People on the Go provides the clue to the heart of the content: this is a book about how to achieve the remarkable benefits of meditation in as short a time as possible.

He understands our plight – that because we are tyrannised by time and obsessed with time management we therefore imagine ourselves as time poor. He posits that meditation is not about how long we need to be still or to exercise transcendental prowess but rather, how short a time it can take us to be aware, receptive and fully alive to the moment.

With a constantly supportive, down to earth and witty voice, he eases us into the benefits of meditation (such as calmness, self-awareness, clarity of thought, compassion, radiance and energy) in just the time it takes to inhale and exhale – a moment.

So how can we be in the moment? Boroson takes us through a sequence of practical exercises, beginning with what he calls the ‘basic minute’ meditation and culminating in one ‘moment’. Along the way, we experience ‘the portable minute’, ‘the energising minute’, ‘the surprise minute’, and ‘the bonus minute’. I have started using some of the exercises and concepts from this book with clients in performance coaching sessions as well as in group programmes in communication, presenting and leading teams. The relaxed receptivity that results in ‘being present’ and being ‘in the moment’ transforms anxiety into curiosity and fears of being in the spotlight into a state of genuine dialogue and participation with others.

The beauty of this book is its simplicity and the premise that we have everything we need right here and right now to wake up.

I’ve read The One Moment Master a few times now and it delights and instructs me more with each reading. It is a cool, wise, and reassuring touch on our furrowed and effortful collective brow.

BOOK REVIEW

THE MIND GYM

Five ways to create your own luck by The Mind Gym

1. Be proactive. Don’t wait for things to happen. Go out and seize the opportunities.

2. Talk to people. The more information you gather the more likely you are to find that lucky break. People need to know what you are looking for in order to tell you where it is.

3. View failure as a way to learn – many great people have learnt through a range of mistakes.

4. Don’t dwell on past misfortunes. Engulf yourself in positive vibes – if you think of yourself as unlucky it is likely to come true. ‘Luckily’ this works the other way around too.

5. Share your good luck. Congratulate others who contributed. If people think they will gain from your good luck then they will be more inclined to make it happen again.

Give your mind a workout and visit The Mind Gym for tips, information and techniques at www.themindgym.com.

Talk to people. The more information you gather the more likely you are to find that lucky break. People need to know what you are looking for in order to tell

View failure as a way to learn – many great people

Don’t dwell on past misfortunes. Engulf yourself in positive vibes – if you think of yourself as unlucky it is likely to come true. ‘Luckily’ this works the other

Share your good luck. Congratulate others who contributed. If people think they will gain from your good luck then they

Give your mind a workout and visit The Mind Gym for tips,

BOOK REVIEWS

REVIEWS 9


To write books about how to ‘have what you want’ and how to ‘feel happy now’ is a bold move, especially when the author confesses he spent most of his teenage years on a manic-depressive rollercoaster ride that came close to an abrupt suicidal end on at least one occasion.

That he climbed unaided out of that morass of self-inflicted misery and is now a huge success – coach to a bunch of Hollywood stars and top CEOs, author of two best-selling books*, host of a weekly radio show with over 60,000 listeners, and the trainer of future NLP practitioners alongside Paul McKenna and NLP’s founder, Richard Bandler – is surely proof enough that the techniques he discovered in his quest for happiness do work.

As a miserable teenager, it would have been so easy to accept a chemical cocktail of prescribed happiness – the hospital staff were very willing to do the honours – but thankfully he made the decision to look for other ways to feel better.

The solutions he discovered he now shares with thousands of people around the world, through his books, radio show, teachings and private coaching.

‘I have refined these solutions with my students and clients over the past 16 years and tested each one of them in the laboratory of my experience. Over that time, I have become happier and happier,’ he says at the beginning of his latest book, Feel Happy Now (Hay House, 2007).

The reason many of us never get to experience happiness on a regular basis (or even at all) is that we’ve been looking in the wrong place, chasing a ‘thing’ that doesn’t actually exist.

‘Happiness is the process of creating and experiencing good feelings in your body and mind, moment by moment,’ he says. ‘When you recognise happiness as a process, not a thing, you realise you can do it or not do it, you can get better at it, and you can ultimately master it.’

His book is about ‘unreasonable happiness’, your ability to feel happy not only when something wonderful happens (you get a promotion, win the lottery, and fall in love with the man or woman of your dreams) but also when something not so great happens (you lose the job, have no money and are dumped by that special person). Its aim is to help you to become happier – to feel more good feelings and to be more comfortable with the bad ones.

One of the three great myths surrounding ‘happiness’ is that we will only experience

You can feel happy whatever your circumstances, so says Michael Neill, author, radio host, Master NLP Trainer and the man Paul McKenna describes as ‘the finest Success Coach in the world today’. He talks about happiness, success and coaching. By Marie-Louise Cook.

MichaelNeill

When you recognise happiness as a process... you realise you can do it or not do it, you can get better at it, and you can ultimately master it.

Feel Happy Nowhappiness when a particular condition or state is reached (when we have X amount in our savings account, are with the man or woman of our dreams, are a certain body weight, or our favourite sports team is at the top of the league or whatever else we decide must happen before we allow ourselves to feel ‘happy’).

‘If all there was to happiness was getting what you wanted, the richest and most outwardly successful people in our society would be the happiest,’ he says. ‘But it only takes a quick glance through the pages of today’s newspapers before you are reading about the latest miserable millionaire or celebrity scandal. The reality is simply this: your happiness does not depend on getting or having what you want.’

The second myth is that is impossible to be happy in certain circumstances. ‘While it may or may not be possible to be happy


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all the time, it is certainly possible to be happy at any time,’ says Michael. ‘In fact, each one of those situations you think of as ‘making’ you unhappy is simply an area of your life in which you think that it would be inappropriate to feel happy (for example, at a funeral) or that feeling happy would be in some way bad for you.’

The third myth is that unhappiness is good for us. ‘When we start to justify our bad feelings as being good for us (or worse still, our good feelings as being bad for us), we keep ourselves stuck in a self-fulfilling rut. Ironically, the state of discomfort most of us put ourselves into to better deal with our problems is the worst possible state in which to deal with them. Like pouring fuel on a fire, meeting difficulties with anger, fear and sadness tends to make things more, well difficult.’

The Formula For Happiness

To feel happy now and whenever you want for the rest of your life, you need to give yourself better feelings, tell yourself better stories and act on your inner knowing, he says. ‘The better you feel, the better stories you tend to tell yourself about your life. The better stories you tell yourself about your life, the easier it is to do what you know is right for you. The more you do what you know is right for you, the better you feel.

‘Whatever we do consistently, we get better at. If we practise anger, we get better at being angry. If we practise shutting down

our emotions, we get better at feeling depressed. And if we practise

giving ourselves better feelings, telling ourselves

better stories and acting on our inner knowing,

we will get better and better at feeling

happy.’

Question & Answer Session

Personal Success: How do you define coaching?

Michael Neill: ‘I can define coaching in the two questions I ask all my clients in a dozen different ways nearly every time we speak… Question One: What do you want? Question Two: What stops you?

‘If we want to be able to create more of what we want in our lives, it is incredibly important to begin by identifying what it is. As I say in my book, You Can Have What You Want, “When you get really clear and honest about what you want, everything in the Universe conspires to help you get it.”’

Do you have a coach?

Michael Neill: ‘I have three or four at all times. They change according to what I want to work on and what I want to develop. At the moment, I’m working with Steve Chandler, who is a best-selling author in his own right (The Story of You) and has done that whole circuit which is the world that I’m beginning to move into. I hired him because I want to work with somebody who’s gone through what I’m going through so there’s an element of mentorship as well as coaching. He’s also somebody who when I tell him what’s going on with me, doesn’t go, “Oh my God, really? That’s so cool. How do I get that?” He’s already a little further down that path from me.

‘I have a Spiritual Coach named Peter Fenner and a (for lack of a better word) Integrity Coach named Bill Cumming. It’s interesting not only for myself but how I can bring the essence of what they do – in non-threatening ways – into the work that I do with clients.

‘I also occasionally do one-on-one sessions with people who’ve proven to be useful as touchstones over the years – one’s a Happiness Coach named Mandy Evans and one is a Psychic Coach named Lynn Robinson.

‘It’s all grist for the mill. The more I learn, the more I can then share with clients.’

Why do you have a Happiness Coach? In your book, You Can Have What You Want, you say, ‘I’m in the business of having a wonderful life…’ From that, I would have thought you would already be happy.

Your happiness does not depend on getting or having what you want.

Michael Neill: ‘You’ve just hit on the fundamental myth of coaching. Coaching is not therapy. Coaching is not saying, “I’m broken, fix me.” Coaching is saying, “I want more.” So you’re saying I shouldn’t have a Happiness Coach because I’m already happy? If I never, ever, ever was stuck then maybe it wouldn’t make sense to have a coach but if there’s a situation where I’m stuck, to be able to have someone to coach me and half an hour later not be stuck that’s really cool. Sometimes somebody else is better suited to help than I am. That is trusting myself.

‘One of the misunderstandings of the coaching world is that you’re supposed to get to a point where you don’t need coaching any more. No, with therapy I think you should get to a point where you don’t need it any more because it’s about taking something that’s not working and making it work. I love having a team that’s there for me when I need it. When I don’t need them, I don’t use them.’

How long have you been coaching?

Michael Neill: ‘I started coaching in the sense that I called it ‘coaching’ in 1996. Before that, I was doing therapy, which I did from 1990. I have been acting since I was a kid. I came to England to go to drama school in 1987. I started acting professionally in 1990 and acted full-time actually.’

Did you do an NLP course?

Michael Neill: ‘I did every NLP course I could find. The thing is I wasn’t doing it to become a coach or therapist or anything. I did it because I was absolutely messed up in the head and NLP was the first thing I came across that really helped me – I was not a happy guy. I had no reason to be which made it worse. I used to beat myself up about it, “Oh you’ve got no reason. You should just get over it. Your life is fine.” But I was horribly, horribly depressed and paranoid.

‘I always thought of the teaching and therapy as a sort of filling in between acting jobs and then in 1995, I worked 365 days as an actor on stage, radio and television, and I really missed teaching and working with people. That was when I decided to become a coach. I still acted but it was no longer the day job – I do both now.

‘When I moved to the States [to pursue an acting career], I continued to do both – I did a TV pilot, I did some cartoons (Scooby Doo) – then I just hit a point where


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PEOPLE TO INSPIRE YOU 11

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I realised I wasn’t getting the same buzz off acting that I used to. By then I loved being in Hollywood, I loved working with Hollywood folk, so it made sense for me to be in LA in a different way. I still do voiceovers and act from time to time, I did some a couple of weeks ago, but I don’t chase it anymore. If it comes and if I’m interested, I’ll take it.’

Do you use NLP in your coaching?

Michael Neill: ‘Yes, funnily enough I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s even the dominant mode. Sometimes when people first talk to me and they know my background, there is a tendency for them to think, “Oh, he’s going to see inside my brain every time we speak.” If something’s up and that’s an appropriate thing to do then of course I’ll do that – everything I do is informed by that skillset but it’s not necessarily the primary technique I use.

‘I had a client this week who said, “Look, I know we normally talk about business but I’m scared to get in the car. I wound up driving to this business meeting at 30 miles an hour because I was so freaked. Can we work on that?” So, we did that so she could drive to her meetings. That’s fine – it’s just part of the service.’

Are the problems your famous clients have any different from those of ‘normal’ people?

Michael Neill: ‘Human beings are human beings, they want to be happy, they want great relationships, they want to have more than enough money, they want to feel successful, to be admired. When I was primarily working with business executives, it was the same set of

problems but as it happens, it was slightly less interesting to me because it wasn’t my world. This is my world – I remember driving through one of the canyons in Hollywood and a client phoning me and saying, “I’ve got a meeting with [film director Steven] Spielberg tomorrow, can you come and help me prep?” I was so happy whereas when I was mostly working with business clients, I’d get a call, “We’ve got a merger meeting with IBM tomorrow, come and help us prep” and I’d go, “Sure.” It’s the same thing but one of them was glamorous, exciting and fun and the other one was okay.

‘It still is – I still work with people in business. They’ve told me the thing they like about me is that I’m not impressed. I don’t work with anyone who at some point isn’t willing to face that. I don’t pretend – it doesn’t work. It’s less a moral stance than a practical one. Lying doesn’t get you very far and lying to your coach, which everyone does, is a great way to stay stuck.

‘I got two emails last night from clients – one from the States and one from Denmark just coming clean about stuff. All I had said on the phone was, “There’s clearly something else going on. If and when you’re ready to talk about it, it’s probably worth it.”

‘I had an idea what the problems were and as it happens, I was right but boom, they went there and now we can really start.

‘We get so used to putting the right face out but usually that’s what’s getting in the way of us getting anywhere.’ How long do your clients stay working with you?

Michael Neill: ‘I’ve been coaching some people for years and years and years, but on average it’s three months to a year. That’s because of the way that I work: in the short term, it’s more intensive with regularly scheduled calls but after that a lot of people like to keep me on their team the way they keep a lawyer on the team. They pay me a retainer and use me when they need me and it works for them and for me.

‘I’ve always had a couple of very simple criteria for whom I coach. I have to look forward to talking to them each week and they have to be able to pay me. The

‘wonderful life’ thing is the one thing that all of my clients want but they define that completely differently.’

What do you do when someone is stuck and refuses to move on?

Michael Neill: ‘If they already had it together, most of them wouldn’t have hired me. It’s like people shouldn’t run ‘Procrastination’ workshops and expect people to turn up on time; people shouldn’t run ‘From Poverty to Wealth’ workshops and expect people to not hassle them about payment.

‘Many of my clients are extremely comfortable and they want me because they want more or because they want me on their team. It’s not like a surprise if they are stuck.’

What would your client have to do or not do for you to fire them?

Michael Neill: ‘If they’re continuously saying one thing and doing another and I’ve called them on it and it hasn’t shifted, at that point, I say, “Okay, I’m not up for this.” It’s not even, “Call me when you get it together” – it’s that I have better things to do with my life. I really do.

‘Very few people can stay stuck if you’re willing to confront them. If I’m willing to say to somebody, “Look, clearly your husband is cheating on you and you’re not willing to look at that – I don’t care but it seems to be getting in the way of us talking about your relationship. Do you want to talk about this or not?” At that point, they either tell me to get lost or they tell me the truth or a little bit of the truth.

‘I think the worse advice coaches get is to not give advice. It amuses me no end because that’s like saying, “Okay, I want you to go in and fight but I want you to tie one arm behind your back.”

‘What I do think is great advice is this: don’t expect your clients to follow your advice. I don’t give advice because I think my clients should follow it – I give advice because I think it’s going to provoke a response – and that response may be to tell me to “f*** off” – which is great – or it may be, “That fits with what I’ve been thinking” or it may be to say, “What do you think about this?” To not be allowed to give advice, that’s weird.’

This idea of not giving advice comes from some bizarre idea that your clients are so pathetic and helpless that if you tell them what to do they have to do it.


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PEOPLE TO INSPIRE YOU12

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How much do you charge?

Michael Neill: ‘I charge US$7,500 a quarter (about £3,800). That’s for 12 weeks of coaching. Usually I’ll do some longer sessions in the first week or two so we can get to know each other and build momentum, and then go to a weekly half-hour session. I’m also available by email and for extra phone check-ins as needed. My point of view is that you hire me to be available when you need me. That’s not to say I’m going to be at your beck and call but if between sessions something comes up and you really need a chat, call me. If I can’t talk to you, I won’t. That’s the deal I have. It’s a retainer. If somebody abused that and started calling all the time, then I probably wouldn’t work with them anymore but none of my clients ever have. I want to be a part of their success and so being accessible is part of the fun of it.

‘I also do a yearly retainer at US$25,000 (£12,500) for ongoing clients and face-to-face breakthrough sessions for US$3,000/US$5,000 (£1,500/£2,500) depending on the amount of time and the number of people involved. Those tend to be more directly NLP-based, and have been proving extremely popular since I made them available.’

What advice do you have for other coaches?

Michael Neill: ‘Don’t treat your clients like little babies. This idea of not giving advice comes from some bizarre idea that your clients are so pathetic and helpless that if you tell them what to do they have

to do it. No they don’t. They’ll do exactly what the hell they want to do. And if you treat them like people who are capable and able, guess what, they are.

‘Don’t be afraid to love them. That’s a lot of what makes human interaction work. It’s okay. There’s nothing weird in that, there’s nothing wrong in that. If somebody loves you and you know it, and somebody believes in you and you know it, you’re going to walk through walls for them. So, do it. If you prefer being bullied – do it. I will bully the hell out of my clients but it’s in context of loving kindness and in a context of, I know they can do it. Do I ever get that wrong? I’m sure I do and they’ll usually say, “Ouch” and I’ll stop.

‘It’s not rocket science – let them be the expert on their own life but don’t deny your own expertise.

‘With a good coach, you can create something amazing. If you can keep those two things alive at the same time, that it’s all about the client and they’ve got all the resources, but if you’re good at what you do then they’re going to be able to do so much more with those resources when they work with you than before they worked with you. That to me is the perfect balance.’

In a way, you have the ultimate niche combining acting and coaching.

Michael Neill: ‘That’s how it looks from the outside. The problem with saying that is there’s going to be a whole load of people who will read that and go, “Okay, what’s the perfect niche for me? I must find one. Let me find a Niche-Finding Coach.” I just do what I love and it’s turned out that a lot of my clients work in the entertainment industry now. I never went looking for a perfect niche. I went following what was in my heart. That’s the thing, the difference, in the way I work.’

And that’s really the essence of your books, isn’t it?

Michael Neill: ‘Yeah. Don’t follow some abstract idea of what you’re supposed to want thinking it will get you what you really want.’

Is looking for a niche wrong then?

Michael Neill: ‘No, it’s a useful process

to help you clarify your thinking. Where it stops being useful is when you start staying up nights thinking, “I don’t know – is this person my niche? You know, I’d love to work with them but I can’t because they’re not in my niche.” It’s that point where it becomes the new rule. It would be a shame to not work with your perfect client because they didn’t fit your ‘perfect client profile’.

‘On our Coach Mastery Workshop, my friend Michele Lisenbury Christensen and I identified about 40 strategies that coaches can use to build a practice that are completely different depending on what the person’s skillset is. We say, “If you like doing these kinds of things, this is a good strategy for you. If you don’t, this is a crap strategy for you.”

‘Somebody will go, “Oh they did it that way, I have to do it that way. Oh, they networked. I hate networking but let me try and like it and become good at it because it works.” No, networking works for people who like networking. It’s a bloody nightmare for everyone else. I hate it. I was about to say, “I wouldn’t go to a network evening even if you paid me” – I probably would go if you paid me but I would never go if you didn’t. That’s not my thing. I love radio. I do a radio show. Is it marketing? Probably technically it is. Do I think of it as marketing? Heck no, I do a radio show. I write a tip. Is it marketing? Technically, sure. Do I do it because it’s marketing? No, I do it because I like to do it.’

So again, it’s not about following the rules but following your heart?

Michael Neill: ‘Absolutely but taking that out of the realm of, “Oh that’s pretty, American and twee” and into the realm of “No, it just works. I make a lot of money doing what I do because I follow my heart.” Don’t do it my way unless my way happens to perfectly work for you.’

FURTHER INFORMATION

Visit Michael Neill’s website at www.geniuscatalyst.com and listen to his radio programme by visiting www.hayhouseradio.com.

*You Can Have What You Want by Michael Neill (Hay House, 2006) and Feel Happy Now by Michael Neill (Hay House, 2007).

If we practise giving ourselves better feelings, telling ourselves better stories and acting on our inner knowing, we will get better and better at feeling happy.


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Some people are born networkers! They’re generally the ones with a permanent ‘Hey, party time!’ attitude to life. Take my friend Gloria. A chance conversation between her and a wannabe-back-at-work mum led to the mum being summoned to coffee at Gloria’s a week later to meet a friend who just happens to be a recruitment consultant specialising in women ‘returners’. Gloria will never miss a chance to make new connections and then match them all up. Then there’s Jeremy. If you want to meet a host of people working in radio and TV, you can’t afford to miss his parties. And a coffee with Jeremy will mean a highly informative hour catching up on all the latest news in his industry.

At the other end of the spectrum are the networking-averse. They regard networking with suspicion and fear. (‘Oh I don’t like to push myself forward.’ ‘I’m not into the politics – just let things happen!’). The reluctant networker would much rather be at home, engrossed in a good book or TV drama than making small talk with strangers at a drinks reception.

The majority of us probably come somewhere between the two extremes: eager to get out and meet new people but only when we feel like it and quick to find excuses when we don’t. I know my own personal gremlins can have a field day when it comes to avoidance tactics. ‘It won’t really be useful.’ ‘I won’t enjoy it.’ ‘I haven’t got anything new to say.’ Or even that persuasive old line, ‘I haven’t got a thing to wear’!

But if we’re honest, few working coaches can afford not to take networking very seriously

indeed. We should all have a networking strategy. After all, wherever we’re coming from and whatever our personality type, networking is something most coaches would agree is crucial to the building of our businesses. We are working in one of the most people-orientated professions of them all. Whether we’re just starting up, or already well-established, good networking is, theoretically at least, up there alongside the computer, phone, business cards and website on the list of professional essentials.

Furthermore, most coaches will also agree that good networking goes way beyond simply expanding our contacts book. It’s also about developing relationships, alliances and support, growing our knowledge of our specialist fields, and widening our experience. When all this happens, it’s not only our coaching practices that grow but ourselves too!

So, the big question we should all ask is, ‘How can I network more effectively?’ That is, with our limited time and energy focused in the right places. We must learn to be proactive, yet able to seize an unexpected opportunity too. We need to acknowledge the comfort zones and limits we can quietly slip into. We need to look for ways to make new contacts and to learn and stretch ourselves beyond the safety of what we already know. Ultimately, it’s all about making the most of life’s generous, multifaceted, “rich tapestry” that surrounds us.

It was with these challenging thoughts in mind that a group of coaches, six of us altogether,

got together early in 2004 and created the Q-dos Networking Forum for Professional Coaches, now an established part of the coaching scene in south-west London. We discussed how we could set up a meeting place for qualified, working coaches which would address the demanding criteria we had in mind: it needed to be companionable and enjoyable, inclusive and not cliquey. And it was to challenge us and push our professional standards higher. We decided the logo would be Q-dos: promoting excellence and growth. And we agreed that the group’s objectives were to promote personal and professional growth, to widen our horizons, to create a supportive and challenging network, and to provide a dynamic and progressive forum for the exchange of ideas.

Q-dos, which now has more than 130 coaches on its mailing list, was initiated by Patricia Caldwell, an executive and personal development coach. Patricia had been running a Circle for Coaching Academy trainees for some time, and realised that coaches were continuing to turn up, long after they had qualified and established their coaching practices. She

Performance Coach Judi Conner explains why networking is a must-have skill if you want to expand your business and she shares her best networking tips.

No LimitsNetworking

JudiConner

The Q-dos founding committee: (standing from left to right): Monika Key, Pam Harris, Judi Conner, and (seated) Julie Lawford, Emma Isaac and Patricia Caldwell.


COACHING DEVELOPMENTS14

NO LIMITS NETWORKING

“ ”So, the big question we should all ask is, ‘How can I network more effectively?

Q-d

os

Co

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un

ity

identified a need to bring together experienced coaches who were interested in meeting and development at a more senior level.

Looking back to her days facilitating the Kew Coaching Circle, Patricia remembers, ‘I was amazed by the response, and realised that as coaches, a networking forum was essential to our well being, our personal development and learning. From the success of the Circle it was obvious that there was a real gap in the market for a professional networking group for coaches who were qualified and experienced. It is a wonderful environment – non-competitive and nurturing and I have made some fantastic friends and business colleagues.’

At its regular venue, the appropriately-named Coach and Horses Hotel in Kew, Q-dos has attracted a wide range of coaches and speakers to its monthly meetings and workshops, and we welcome new contributors and members to keep us all on our toes!

There are of course many other excellent coaching groups across the country,

responding to the same needs for support and professional development. Joining such a circle can be an important part of a dynamic networking strategy. However, finding a good coaching group is merely a starting point! From then on, it’s up to each one of us to develop the connections that will get us out into the market place and bring in clients. If we feel our professional horizons need broadening or refreshing, a quick Google search will unleash a whole world of business networking groups, professional bodies, special interest clubs and organisations, mailing lists and newsletters to choose from.

The next step, beyond identifying ‘bespoke’ communities like these that feel right for us, is to actually get out there amongst the people we want to be working with. By keeping in tune with our own experience, values and interests, we can intuitively sense who these will be, and happily, there are no general blueprints for successful networking at this nitty gritty level. I say ‘happily’ because there can be a great deal of enjoyment to be had from exploring the possibilities. We all have to find our own personalised route.

Tips for success will be different for each one of us, but here are some pointers that I find work well for me:

• Enjoy the process! Ignore those gremlin voices that spread doubt and cynicism. If the path you’ve taken isn’t any fun, question whether you’re operating in the right area and find a better niche, one with people you’ll enjoy spending time with! People won’t be drawn to a coach who isn’t thoroughly enjoying himself or herself!

• Be bold, proactive, and set your sights high. Trying new avenues is always a bit of an adventure. We don’t know where we’ll end up. But if we step out boldly, and take a few risks, we’ll raise our game in the process.

• Keep focused. Be clear about your business purpose and targets. Have that ‘elevator speech’ ready – brief and interesting. Know what you’re doing and where you’re going. That way, you’ll develop an eye for an opportunity, and be ready when doors open for you.

• Keep balanced. Some people have a tendency to accept every invitation, join every group, and sign up for every workshop. Others join one professional body, or have a clearly defined group of friends they prefer to stay among. I reckon the ideal networker is somewhere in between: neither a burnt-out activist nor overly attached to the comfort of the known. Able to be spontaneous, or conserve energy, as required!

• Walk the talk! This is a terrible coaching cliché but it really does say it all! At networking events, we are presenting our personal brand and our professionalism through the way we are. Everything about us is important: the way we listen, express interest in others, contribute to a conversation, encourage people, and even how we are dressed. All of this will be noted, and (assuming it’s authentic of course!) will impact our credibility, and therefore people’s trust in us, and (very probably) bring in some clients.

• Find ways to offer support. That’s simple marketing advice, of course. But offering to support and solve problems will always be more appealing to a potential customer than a big sell. Talking about the practical benefits coaching can bring to his/her situation will be far more compelling than a monologue on how successful your coaching company is.

The Q-dos founding committee: (standing from left to right): Monika Key, Pam Harris, Judi Conner, and (seated) Julie Lawford, Emma Isaac and Patricia Caldwell.


COACHING DEVELOPMENTS 15

NO LIMITS NETWORKING“ ”

Few working coaches can afford not to take networking very seriously indeed. We should all have a networking strategy.

endingending

relaxrelax

audience audience

posturingposturing

entry

Speaking in public is often cited as the number one fear of adults. The Book of Lists* places death in fifth place while public speaking ranks first. Comedian Jerry Seinfeld said, ‘That would mean at a funeral, people are five times more likely to want to be in the casket than giving the eulogy.’

Let’s look at some techniques to deal with the anxiety and give an excellent presentation. The methods are divided into the acronym P.R.E.P.A.R.E.

PREPARATIONThe foundation of a good speech is built on the six ‘W’s’ of effective journalism: who, what, when, where, why, and hoW. You must determine:

1. Who is your audience?2. What are your key points?3. When are you speaking and for how

long?4. Where are you giving the speech? What

are the physical surroundings?5. Why should the audience listen to you?6. hoW are you going to present?

In an effective speech, you can only deliver three to four main ideas. Think about your audience, the amount of time you have, what media you are using to support your presentation and the physical surroundings. Decide on the essential ideas vital for understanding your topic. These are your key points. Make a comprehensive outline with supporting detail, quotes and graphics.

REHEARSEPractice is essential. Begin by reading through the detailed outline of your speech. Check your timing during this rehearsal. When you are comfortable with the material, move on to a key-word outline. Don’t attempt to memorise the entire speech. Keep practising with your key-word outline until you are familiar with the material and its sequence. Mark Twain said, ‘It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.’ Your delivery should be conversational, seemingly impromptu yet backed up with a thorough knowledge of the material.

Watch yourself in a mirror. Observe your facial expressions and gestures. Recheck the timing of your talk. If possible, videotape

With Confidence

• Seek out and follow-up like-minded people. Solid connections with potential business allies will be built on trust, shared values and approaches, and sometimes friendship. Occasionally this rapport is established instantly, but often it needs to be nurtured. Get into the habit of keeping in touch with contacts. But make sure there are helpful reasons for the contact (news of an forthcoming event of mutual interest, or the offer of a game of tennis). Having common interests is one thing. Contact for its own sake, without that shared understanding, could turn one into a pest!

• Make use of natural links you already have. This could mean college alumni, former employers and colleagues, friends, family, neighbours or local community networks. My initial inroads into companies in the City came via two separate neighbours and an old friend’s sister-in-law!

• Seize the moment! While cultivating contacts, always remember that the very best sort of networking is often that chance meeting at a friend’s Christmas party, or with the woman next-door who suddenly needs help with a troublesome board member at work. (Both genuine examples of how I gained some good clients). But if the networking habits haven’t been groomed at the point when opportunity knocks, we may miss out! (See Keep focused!)

In the end, we all have to try things out for ourselves. It’s trial and error – or, as coaches might say, trial and learning! We need to follow our hunches, get alongside the people we want to work with, and see what works best for us. It’s not rocket science. It’s simply the most natural and effective way for a coach to do business.

And is there any kind of personal measure to know when our networking is truly effective? I would venture a guess that if we’re really enjoying ourselves and finding life challenging (even scary sometimes), and the work’s coming in then we’re certainly getting it right!

FURTHER INFORMATION

Q-dos Networking Forum for Professional Coaches at www.qdosnetworking.com. Regular meetings and seminars on the last Tuesday of the month in Kew, south-west London at the Coach and Horses Hotel. Join the Coaching Academy’s new e-group at http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/theacademyclub/join.

Judi Conner is a performance coach working with media professionals and others in competitive environments. She is a committee member of the Q-dos Networking Forum for Professional Coaches. Contact her via her website www.judiconner.com or [email protected].

Richard M.Highsmith

With Confidence

How To

Speak

entry

rehearse rehearse

PREPARATION

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“”

Launching your presentation is as important as the takeoff of an airplane. If the lift-off fails, the rest of the trip becomes irrelevant.

FURTHER INFORAMTION

Richard Highsmith, [email protected], is a senior instructor for The Leader’s Institute. He has 25 years experience in training and coaching. To learn more about becoming a Fearless Presenter, visit www.leadersinstitute.com.

*The Book of Lists by David Wallechinsky and Amy Wallace, Lb Books, 1995.

With Confidence

Does an invitation to address a small gathering bring you out in a cold sweat? Make public speaking terror a thing of the past by following the expert advice of Richard M. Highsmith, M.S., of The Leader’s Institute.

yourself or have someone you trust listen to you practise. Ask them to tell you what you’re doing right as well as give suggestions for improvement. Accept their criticism gracefully, even if you don’t agree with them.

ENTRYLaunching your presentation is as important as the takeoff of an airplane. If the lift-off fails, the rest of the trip becomes irrelevant. Determine how you are going to start your speech and commit the first several lines to memory. An excellent beginning includes telling the audience why they want to listen. What is the benefit to them?

If you are particularly nervous, look for a sympathetic face and talk to that person for several moments. Do not begin with an apology… ‘I didn’t have much time to prepare this talk.’ Or ‘I’m not really very good at giving speeches.’ Starting with a negative makes the audience uncomfortable. Remember you feel more anxious than you look. Convert your nervous energy into enthusiasm and launch your speech positively.

POSTURINGYour body is a tool. Learn to use it effectively. Find your centre of balance. Your feet should be firmly planted about shoulder width apart. Hold your shoulders back and chin up. Stand calmly, being careful not to fidget or sway. Let your hands rest by your sides.

Make your movements purposeful. If you make a gesture with your hands, let them return to the resting position by your side.

Don’t wander around the room. If you want to go to a different location – go there and then stop. Speak to one person at a time and maintain eye contact.

Your voice has volume, tone and pace. Realise you will speak faster and at a higher pitch than you did when you were rehearsing. Be aware of this tendency. Talk lower and slower. Speak loudly enough so everyone in the room can hear you but not so loudly that the people in the front rows are covering their ears.

AUDIENCEKnow to whom you are talking. Don’t be like William Safire who asked, ‘Is sloppiness in speech caused by ignorance or apathy? I don’t know and I don’t care.’ What does your audience know about the topic? Try to anticipate their questions. During the presentation, seek reactions, questions and concerns. This makes you appear accessible

and allows you to move through the topic with your audience following closely along.

If possible, greet audience members as they arrive. Ask why they came or about their interests in the topic. Adjust your presentation plans to better meet their needs. Finally, keep in mind the audience is not your enemy – they want you to succeed. Nobody came to watch you flail or fail. Engage people and make them partners in your successful talk.

RELAXRemember the physical reactions you experience in front of a group are normal. When confronted with a stimulating situation the body resorts to the ‘fight or flight’ response. Your pulse increases. Adrenaline releases into your bloodstream. Your body prepares for a physical response but you have to stay put!

Sometimes your mind generates negative thoughts. Michael Pritchard said, ‘Fear is that little darkroom where negatives are developed.’ Deal with the fear by building a solid foundation (know your topic!) and feeling confident in your message. Take a few deep breaths. Mild exercise or stretching can disperse some of the anxious energy. Smile.

ENDINGLike the touchdown of an airplane, your presentation must be landed correctly. Begin the end by summarising your key points. Next, ask for audience questions and clarify any remaining issues. Then make your closing statement, which should encourage some action. What do you want the audience to do? Memorising the last few lines ensures a strong close. Finally, smile and nod your head.

If the thought of speaking in public makes you anxious, you probably will be. If you P.R.E.P.A.R.E. however, the level of your anxiety will be lower and you will deliver a better, more effective speech. Who knows, you may find you like giving the eulogy better than being in the casket!

With Confidence

How To

Speak

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENTHOW TO SPEAK WITH CONFIDENCE


17

Launching your presentation is as important as the takeoff of an airplane. If the lift-off fails, the rest of the trip becomes irrelevant.

The founder of Coachville, the late Thomas Leonard said Tom Stone ‘was nothing short of a genius, an expert in the field of dynamics’. Here, Tom Stone explains how to create an enriched life, free of self-sabotaging emotions and fears.

Dump the Emotional Baggage

Whether your fears have to do with marketing yourself as a coach, asking to get paid the big bucks you deserve, actually starting your business, being terrified to do public speaking or just that you can’t quite bring yourself to ask that cute redhead out on a date, there’s one thing that all of these fears have in common, and that is… we hate them!

Why? Because they’re sabotaging our life! What if there was a way to not only overcome these fears but also resolve them so thoroughly that they just aren’t triggered anymore? Wouldn’t that be wonderful?

Well, wait no further; just such a way has been discovered. It’s a great new technique called the CORE Technique and it works like magic to handle certain types of fears so that they are simply gone and they just don’t come up any more. All it involves is learning to do the opposite of what we have been conditioned to do. It is certainly one of the most profoundly useful techniques I have ever learned. It is a way to come out of the grip of emotions and to rapidly complete the incomplete experiences of emotions that are held in our bodies. But before I explain the CORE Technique, let’s look at why we have these fears in the first place.

The body, in its infinite wisdom, seems to have the innate intelligence to create the energy of emotions within us. For example, if we are standing on railway tracks and a train is coming towards us,

our body starts to generate the energy of the emotion of fear. The fear energy in our body motivates us to get off the tracks before we are crushed. We don’t consciously choose to create the energy of the fear; it just is created in us by the innate wisdom of the body itself.

This is fine for the kinds of emotions that are useful, like the fear of being crushed by the train or the fear that keeps us from stepping off the edge of a cliff. However, we live in a time in which there are a great many fears that we experience that are not useful to us, like all of the ones in the first paragraph of this article. So, what causes these fears and how can we get rid of these non-useful kinds of fears?

In order to understand the real origins of these non-useful fears we have to go back to our very early childhood. When we were very young, we all had many experiences of being emotionally overwhelmed. Everyone does. It just seems to come with the territory of being human.

We seem to universally interpret the experience of emotional overwhelm as something that’s really awful. As a result, we make a ‘feeling level decision’ that we will try to not feel things in an attempt to minimize the awful experience of emotional overwhelm.

TomStone

FURTHER INFORMATION

Tom Stone is pioneering the emerging field of Human Software Engineering. Core Dynamics Coaching is an important part of this new method of transforming human life. Tom has studied meditation, addiction recovery, holistic medicine and the physics of music. He now lives in Carlsbad, California with his lovely wife Lynda. If you’d like a free e-book all about the Core Dynamics Coaching techniques, visit http://greatlifetechnologies.com/PA/PureAwarenessEbook.htm.

For information about Core Dynamics Coach Training Options, visit http://greatlifetechnologies.com/CDCTraining/CDCTNewTrainingOptions.html.

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENTDUMP THE EMOTIONAL BAGGAGE

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Emotional BaggageThe interesting thing about this decision is that it is made at the level of feeling and not at the level of words and cognitive understanding. It is a pre-verbal or pre-cognitive decision. So what? This is important because as we grow up and develop cognitive and verbal skills we forget the non-verbal feeling level decision that we made to avoid feeling things so much. However, this decision continues to dominate the way that we operate in our lives. You could think of it as causing us to have a ‘bug’ in our inner human software that causes us to try to avoid being emotionally overwhelmed. This is truly universal and most people are completely unaware of this invisible influence in their life.

At the most basic level, it causes us to avoid feeling intense emotional energy in our bodies. That’s where emotions occur and we have learned by virtue of our early feeling-level decision to avoid them like the plague. So when we have an intense emotional experience, such as a fear of public speaking, or the fear or being rejected we do everything we can to avoid having to experience it.

We become good at going out to the outer edges of the fear, as far away from the epicentre of the intensity of it as we can get. The result is that we don’t complete the experience of the energy of the fear and therefore we don’t get the full experiential wisdom that our bodies are trying to bring us! Worse than that, we tend to ‘archive’ it, store it away in the hopes of not ever having to finish experiencing it. It’s known as ‘stuffing your feelings’.

This creates a very big problem called ‘accumulated emotional baggage’. Most people have suitcases filled with emotional baggage that they carry around inside themselves. Heavy stuff, that! Those unresolved emotions (not just fears by the way) are then repeatedly triggered by events and circumstances.

For example, if you are offered a professional speaking engagement but have a fear of being judged, rejected, unaccepted, or ridiculed, you might turn down the invitation.

If your fears relate to standing up for yourself, you might stay stuck in unsupportive situations, jobs or unhealthy relationships.

Unresolved emotional pain is also the foundation of all addictions. We use our ‘drug of choice’ (a behaviour or a substance)

in an attempt to self-medicate so that we can avoid feeling emotional pain.

Fortunately, there is a solution and although it is simple, it is not widely known. It requires learning to do something that is the opposite of what we have long been conditioned to do. Instead of running away from the intensity of the energy of fear in our bodies, we need to learn how to do the exact opposite. That is to dive right into the middle of the intensity of the fear and finish the incomplete experience that we are holding there.

OK, now I’ll tell you how to do the CORE Technique. CORE stands for Centre Of Remaining Energy.

It’s important to understand that to the two-year-old inside of us the idea of going right into the heart of the emotional energy in our body doesn’t sound like such a great idea. In addition, we have a lifetime of avoiding emotional overwhelm at all costs so although the CORE Technique is easy once you learn how to do it, it is unfamiliar and may take a little practise in order to get it.

So here’s what you do. (You may want to have someone read parts of this to you as you go through the exercise).

Start with an unresolved emotion that is easy to access. Think of a recent disappointment, rejection or upset, something you’re afraid of – almost anything will do. Find something that has a residual energy to it so that when you think about it you can feel its energy somewhere in your body.

Where do you feel it? It’s often in the belly or the chest or the throat but it could be anywhere. (This next part is best done with your eyes closed).

Simply allow yourself to go to where that feeling is in your body. You can feel that it is more intense in some places. Allow your awareness to drop down inside the heart of the most intense part of that energy. (If you

are reading this to someone or coaching someone who is trying it, wait for a couple of minutes to give them time to just experience the essence of the energy).

It may seem more intense at first then after a little while, it may start to fade away.

Now comes the real skill of doing this. Zoom in to whatever remains of the energy you’ve been feeling. Again find the centre of the intensity of whatever is left and then feel down into that so that you again are experiencing the essence of whatever is left of the energy there.

Keep zooming in, finding the core of the remaining energy and feeling down into it until there is absolutely nothing left to feel. Scan the whole area with your feeling awareness and make sure there is nothing left. The biggest mistake people make with the CORE Technique is not completing the experience of the energy. When it’s all gone open your eyes. (Don’t try to ‘make it go away’ which will only cause resistance. This exercise is about completing an incomplete experience not continuing to stuff it!)

Now test it by thinking about the original issue that upset you. If you’ve done the exercise effectively, you’ll find that the original emotional charge is no longer there. In most cases, it will have simply become a non-issue. It can’t sabotage your life any more.

That’s how it’s done.

The CORE Technique is one of five Core Dynamics Coaching techniques called the Pure Awareness Techniques. Once you do the Core Technique several times, you will begin to overcome your resistance to feeling things fully. Not only will this help you to clean out the suitcases filled with unresolved emotional pain that you’ve been carting around but it will also cultivate an amazing ability to stay present in challenging situations. It’s a very practical, powerful way to overcome the fears and other inappropriate emotions that stop you enjoying a fulfilling life. This is important and powerful self-development for your personal and business life, whatever it is that you do.

I wish you good hunting as you dig out your inappropriate fears and resolve them. May you have a life completely free from all inappropriate fears.

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENTDUMP THE EMOTIONAL BAGGAGE

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Don’t try to ‘make it go away’ which will only cause resistance.

“ ”We live in a time in which there are a great many fears that we experience that are not useful to us.

“ ”

In my experience, coaches tend to have one common fear: how can I keep the money coming in, even when I am not delivering to clients, or standing on a stage? It’s a natural enough fear, and one that applies to most self-employed trades. Whatever daily rate you charge, how well and how long would you survive financially if you broke a leg, or were unable to work for whatever reason? The returns are handsome for many in the coaching profession, but are usually strictly determined by the number of hours that the coach is able to put in.

So how can we conquer this fear? I have joined many conversations with coaches and trainers on this very subject, and the same answer often emerges: generate the magical ‘residual income’ by turning courses and coaching interventions into products that you can sell to new and existing clients. It’s easy to say, and yet so few actually go ahead and do it. Why is this?

I believe firmly that the answer is that most of us are fearful of the unknown. Most coaches simply do not know what is involved in turning their work into CDs, DVDs, books, e-books, podcasts and home-study courses. Their expertise is in delivering, not in publishing. It sounds like a daunting proposition, and most likely an expensive one.

Some coaches do take the initiative and release an audio newsletter, a CD or a DVD, which is fantastic. Indeed, some do a really great job. Peter Thomson’s regular tape

Your IncomePublisher Edward Peppitt explains how simple and cost-effective it is to transform your coaching programmes into residual income so that you too can earn multiple streams of income.

EdwardPeppitt

Multiply

programme is an example of a pioneering product that became the benchmark in the UK for many years. However, products are sometimes let down by their production values. They simply don’t look as if they are worth the cover price or, worse still, they fall short of the perceived qualities or values of the coaches themselves. With versatile software now within everyone’s reach, it is tempting to assume that anyone can typeset, design, print and bind a course themselves,

and then sell it as a product. This is almost always a mistake. Word processing and desktop publishing software is so universal, that potential customers tend to see such products for what they are – good material presented very cheaply.

It is hard to accept that packaging and presentation are as important as they are. After all, surely the words or materials themselves should be what count? That was

MULTIPLY YOUR INCOME

BUSINESS BUILDING


20

It is hard to accept that packaging and presentation are as important as they are. After all, surely the words or materials themselves should be what count?

Recording and editing a seminar or programme, and releasing it on DVD, is not as expensive as it sounds.“ ”

“

certainly my opinion when I was Sales and Marketing Director of Letts Educational, the publisher of the GCSE and A-Level revision guides that so many of us remember. As the market leader of printed revision books, we started to face stiff competition from Dorling Kindersley, who had released high quality, colourful exam preparation materials on CD-ROM. We needed to follow suit, but I was amazed at the advice we were given by Koch, then the leading distributor of educational software in the UK. We were advised that if we presented each CD-ROM in a conventional CD jewel case, we would not be able to charge more than £8.99 for each product. If we placed the CD-ROM in a cardboard box the size of a small breakfast cereal packet, we could probably charge £24.99 per title. Needless to say, we manufactured the boxes and we saw off the competition convincingly for the next five years. It’s interesting to see that, 12 years on, most software is still sold in the high street in the same boxed packaging.

So what should a coach’s product portfolio look like, and where should one begin? First, there are products that raise one’s professional profile and encourage new business. Writing and publishing a book is the obvious example. I am still asked to talk and give presentations about managing and motivating teams, just because I wrote a book on the subject almost a decade ago, published by Hodder & Stoughton! I have been a Publishing Consultant for many years, and potential clients always seem to look me up on Amazon before engaging me.

Whilst books raise credibility, they are rarely big income generators, particularly if they are published by one of the established publishing houses. The average business book might sell between 1-2,000 copies a year in the high street. A typical royalty deal would be 10% of net receipts, in other words, 10% of what the publisher sells your book for. Let’s take the example of a typical £10 book. The publisher is probably selling it to Waterstones for £5. Your royalty for that sale is therefore 50p. So your annual royalty might nudge £500, hardly reason to leap for joy. There are a number of ways to make a substantial income from publishing a book, but think of writing a book in terms of the business and credibility that will result from it.

Other products can be substantial fee earners in their own right, such as making a course or seminar available as an audio CD, or even

a home study DVD programme. Recording and editing a seminar or programme, and releasing it on DVD, is not as expensive as it sounds, especially if you use the recorded material to make other products at the same time. How about a sampler DVD that you can send out to potential clients? Or a section of live material on your website? Or a free download? Don’t forget the importance of packaging. A couple of DVDs in a slipcase might sell for £25. What can you add to raise the perceived value? Could you add a workbook, some reminder cards and a transcript and charge £50? It would be a lot more profitable if you could!

Whilst one or two individual products will provide valuable, additional income, I believe that a co-ordinated suite of products can help to recruit and build long-term, profitable customer relationships. Let me illustrate with reference to my own experience as a consumer. A couple of years ago, a friend gave me a battered copy of MindStore by Jack Black (HarperCollins, 1995). It lay unread on a shelf for several months until I was looking for something to read on a long train journey. By the time I reached Bristol Temple Meads, I was hooked. I found a cassette programme of Jack’s in the Birchanger services on the M11, and a second book of his in Waterstones in Trafalgar Square. I still craved more. I visited the MindStore website and signed up firstly for the email newsletter, and then for his ‘MindStore for Life’ weekend programme. All this from someone who hadn’t even heard of Jack Black three months earlier.

Since then I have come to know Jack personally, and I have learned that my experience is hardly unique. His books, tapes and newsletters are just some of the tools he uses to attract new business, and then turn these new customers into long-term relationships. For corporate enquiries, Jack sends out a sampler DVD showing extracts

from his business courses. It gives potential clients a feel for the energy and buzz that result from a ‘MindStore’ programme. And in the last six months, my own company has helped Jack to add a 12-CD audio course, a single CD relaxation programme and a new book to the MindStore product portfolio. These recent products have been highly profitable. Since last summer, more than 700 people have paid £99 for the 12-CD course which was created for an initial investment of under £10,000.

The principle is simple. Anyone attending a course, seminar or workshop that you run has demonstrated a commitment by spending their own, or their company’s money on you! If they feel any benefit at all from your programme, it is extremely likely that those same people will gladly buy other products from you. All it takes is a small table and a volunteer set up next to where the coffee is served. Look again at the example of Jack Black. If you had paid £350 to attend his two-day business course, would you be willing to pay an additional £99 to have the same course on CD that you could listen to again and again for ever? Experience shows that almost 25% of course attendees are willing, which provides Jack with a significant additional income stream.

So where should you begin? Start by thinking about your existing customers, and what they have been asking for. Could you turn any of your existing materials into products? Do you run courses or events that you could film and sell on DVD? Is it time to make a start on that book? How about recording a short programme with a microphone, and then turning it into a podcast for your website? If you are ready to face your fear, you could make a start straight away. But don’t worry: there are plenty of people out there to give you some help if you need it.

FURTHER INFORMATION

You can contact Edward Peppitt at 020 7544 8570 or email him at [email protected].

Whilst books raise credibility, they are rarely big income generators.

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BUSINESS BUILDING


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”It is hard to accept that packaging and presentation are as important as they are. After all, surely the words or materials themselves should be what count?

“ ”Do you run a course you could sell on DVD?“ ”

Some years ago, top TV producer Stephen Cannell shared this bit of wisdom about pitching: ‘A good idea, badly presented, sounds like a bad idea.’ I’ve since realised this applies equally to all kind of marketing: if you are not presenting yourself and your services well, no one will appreciate their full value. In this article, I’d like to share with you seven key marketing concepts that you can apply to make sure that your good services are well presented:

Keep this as simple as possible. Many coaches feel that they have three or four points of differentiation: ‘I work with creative people, and I combine principles of feng shui with dream analysis, and I’m very intuitive…’ Too much information! By the time you tell me the third point, I’m having a hard time picturing what my sessions as your client would be like. Of course, you should use as many tools as you find helpful but in your marketing, focus on the aspect that is most appealing and which sets you apart from others doing similar work.

If you’re not sure what to emphasise, a good strategy is to ask your existing clients what they like best about what you do. Initially, give this to them as an open-ended question and jot down their answers. If they are shy, let them write down the answer in an email to you. Probably a trend will emerge, and that may well be the point you want to use as your unique selling proposition.

Many coaches use NLP but there are still many people who are intimidated by

If your marketing attempts have so far floundered, it’s time to change your approach, urges author Jurgen Wolff in his aptly titled book, Do Something Different*. Here he shares seven of his best marketing tips to help you get more business.

the name. The fact that most of us have difficulty providing a catchy, succinct definition of it adds to the problem. One of the brilliant things Anthony Robbins did in order to establish his self-development empire was to appropriate many of the techniques of NLP but without ever labelling them as such. If you can describe what you offer in language that clients can understand and with which they feel comfortable, your marketing will be more successful.

Unfortunately, I see many ads that emphasise the qualifications of the coaches: what they studied, whom they studied with, their titles or the letters behind their names. These are much more likely to impress fellow coaches than clients! Naturally, it’s important to establish that you’re qualified but that should be done concisely, leaving lots of time (or ad space) to describe what you can do for the client and for testimonials that prove you’ve done it for other people.

It’s no accident that endorsements and quotes are plastered all over every book and have become a staple of web marketing as well. There are two kinds of endorsements: celebrity quotes and ordinary people quotes, and both can be effective.

Celebrity quotes work because we think, ‘If somebody that rich and famous uses this person’s services, they must be good.’ Sometimes it’s not the name of the person that has the celebrity element, but their title. For instance, Robert Cochran was kind enough to give me a great quote in support of my new book, Your Writing Coach. His name may not mean much to most people, but when I say he is the co-creator of the hit international series, 24, the endorsement is lifted to a different level.

In many instances, though, it’s more effective to have someone the potential client can identify with as the one being quoted, especially for common issues like losing weight or stopping smoking. When we

JurgenWolff

see a celebrity endorsing a diet, for instance, we may wonder what else they have done, like employing a personal trainer or having the latest in liposuction techniques – things we may not feel are part of our world. But if Mr or Mrs Bloggs, who look just like you and me, says a programme worked for them, we may feel, ‘If it can work for them, probably it can work for me.’

Specific endorsements, especially ones that refer to a ‘before’ and ‘after’ are much better than more general ones. For example, compare these two statements: ‘Marie Tompkins is a really good time management coach, I recommend her highly.’ Or: ‘Before I went to Marie, I was always behind with the bills, and I felt totally stressed at the end of each month. But since she taught me her easy financial systems, I am on top of all my money matters, even finishing my tax returns well before the due date.’

Obviously, the second quote is more powerful. First, it tells a little story of how the person was suffering, in a way that many people can probably relate to. Second, it suggests what actually happened: ‘she taught me her easy financial systems’. And then it has a specific, happy ending, one we wouldn’t mind having in our own lives.

Most clients will not state their experience this way without a bit of coaching. Of course, you don’t want to put words into their mouths, but you can ask them questions like, ‘What was your biggest challenge before we starting working together?’ ‘And what’s been the result of our working together?’ ‘And what do you think it was about our experience together that helped you reach this outcome?’ You can either take notes or tape this exchange, and then put together a quote that follows the problem-action-outcome pattern and ask the client whether this accurately reflects what they said and is permissible for you to quote. If not, let them amend it until they’re happy.

Finally, it’s always better to have a complete name for a quote, rather than ‘Mary’ or ‘Mary M.’ and a word or phrase to identify

you can apply to make sure that your good fellow coaches than clients! Naturally, it’s

It’s no accident that endorsements and

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them further: Mary Mathers, Accountant, or Joe Repetti, Musician, especially if these reflect the roles of the additional people you’re trying to attract as clients.

Your supporting materials include your business card, letterhead, website, all your advertising, your press releases, your compliments slips, brochures and any other marketing materials you use. If you have a logo or a catchphrase (and you should), be sure that it’s on all of your materials, and in the same colour scheme and design. Try to come up with something memorable and appropriate. Don’t underestimate the value of a name or symbol that really stands out. For instance, do you think Jamie Oliver would have had anywhere near the same level of success if he hadn’t had the moniker, ‘The Naked Chef’? I’m not suggesting that ‘The Naked Coach’ is a viable option. Clearly, your name, or logo, or symbol mustn’t be so goofy or strange that it undermines your credibility or professional standing. However, most people tend to err too far in the direction of blandness.

It’s a big decision but if the image you’ve had up to this point has not really worked for you, it may be time for a change. If you do choose a new business name or logo, be sure that it is something that can accommodate the directions you may want to go in at some point in the future. For example, I am now branding everything around the ‘Your writing coach’ name, not only because it’s the name of the book, but also because it’s broad enough to cover the other projects I have in mind, including

multi-media materials, additional workshops, and a limited amount of personal coaching. My new logo is a red and black bull’s-eye, which can be used with different lettering across it to identify different projects.

A couple of years ago, I wrote a book with that title. It documented 100 case studies of people who found creative and inexpensive ways to market themselves and their product or service. They were all following the general idea that if you want to stand out in today’s crowded marketplace, you have to do something different from what most of your competitors are doing. Here are a few examples:

• One attorney who felt that people tend to be intimidated by the law set up practice within a coffee shop. His prices were on a menu board next to the one listing the cost of various kinds of coffee.

• A B&Q Superstore found that teenage employees were often unreliable, so they went for the opposite and hired retired people who wanted to work part-time.

• An innkeeper who wanted more business in the dead time after Christmas started a ‘Romantic of the Year’ contest, in which the winner gets a free weekend around St. Valentine’s Day. The contest gets him lots of publicity.

Everybody can come up with creative ideas once they start looking for them. Try to be a bit different in every aspect of your business and marketing. Another personal example: publications always want a head shot along with articles or press releases. Instead of the normal man-in-suit shot, I send out the one you see here, with a little gremlin on my shoulder. This reflects the fact that as a writing coach, I help people deal with their writing blocks or fears about writing. I’ve just had a call today from one of the two biggest writing magazines in the UK, saying they may want to use this as a cover photo. I may or may not get it but certainly, it has already gone further than a normal head shot ever would.

Naturally, whatever you do has to be in line with the type of image you want to create. I work primarily with writers and other creative types, so I’m not afraid to come off as a bit eccentric myself; if I wanted mainly attorneys as my clients, I would probably not be parking gremlins on my shoulder.

We all know that generally the story of the overnight success is a myth. Most successful people only make it look easy. Usually there have been years of challenges before the event that pushed them into the success zone. This is true for just about every occupation even in fields like music or acting, where a chance break can actually suddenly catapult someone to the top. It then requires hard, consistent effort for them to stay there.

That’s certainly how it is with marketing yourself as well, and often the old cliché is true: it’s darkest just before the dawn. The media have a herd mentality: once a few people start writing about you, others will come flocking. But on those days when you’ve sent out 100 press releases and nothing has happened, or you’ve put out ads for a workshop and nobody wants to come, it can be tempting to think you’re on the wrong track. Yes, do analyse whether there are other strategies that could work better, but hang in there and keep going. Use as many tools as you can. You could include a blog and podcast, as well as a good website. Ideally, get a pro to help you with a site rather than constructing one yourself from a bland template. One web specialist I recommend is Steve Batcup at www.willwork4food.co.uk, where you’ll find a portfolio of some of the sites he’s designed (he designed mine as well).

And last but not least:

If you’re a good coach, you know how to help people achieve their dreams. Don’t forget that you can also be your own client – and it won’t cost you a penny.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Jurgen Wolff’s new book, Your Writing Coach is published this month by Nicholas Brealey at £9.99. His website, www.yourwritingcoach.com and his blog, www.timetowrite.blogs.com, offer writing tips, and his free monthly Brainstorm e-bulletin shows how to be more creative and productive (available by request to [email protected]).

*Do Something Different (Virgin Books, 2001).

you’re trying to attract as clients.

A couple of years ago, I wrote a book with

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“”

FURTHER INFORMATION

Oriana Tickell de Castello is married and lives in Mexico City. She met her husband on a plane when researching a guidebook to Mexico and has mainly lived in Mexico since then. Her children are Sofia, Jaime and Miguel who are 16, 15 and 12. Please visit www.corpxcoach.com (in English and Spanish), or email [email protected].

‘After completing my first weekend course with The Coaching Academy,

I remember getting on a train on that cold, rainy November evening, wondering how I was ever going to get started as a coach in Mexico, a country where coaching was almost unheard of. I really did wonder whether I had just committed an expensive mistake. By the time I got back to Mexico City, my inner doubting voice was getting louder, especially when I Googled “Coach Mexico” and came up with just two names.

‘I contacted both people on that short Google list. One never returned my calls or emails. The other one, Mercedes Jahn, became my business partner.

‘I had discovered coaching a couple of years earlier. There was a British coach called Kate Lanz living and working in Mexico, and she was the person who first introduced me to coaching as a concept. After she moved from Mexico to Amsterdam, I was left with a gap in my life, and the idea that if I was missing her, then probably other people were too. After some reflection, I decided to fill that gap myself by training as a coach in the UK and then returning to Mexico to try and open the market for coaching.

‘For the past four years, Mercedes and I have worked in executive and corporate coaching, training new executive coaches, and we also founded the local chapter of ICF. Since finishing The Coaching Academy course, I have also done an advanced course in Parent and Teen coaching, coaching for AD/HD Creative clients, Pathways to Leadership and this year took Marcia Weider’s Dream Coach University. Each of these learning experiences has widened my scope as a coach and at the

same time helped me to define my niche in Sustainable Leadership, which I find to be equally valid for corporate and individual coaching processes.

‘To my surprise, the change from journalism to coaching was less drastic than I expected, the major difference being that I could no longer arrive to see someone knowing what I wanted them to say and the way that the story would develop.

‘The market for coaching in Mexico has changed enormously since we started in 2003. Now we are rarely asked “Which baseball team?” when we tell people we coach. Another positive change is that people now seek out our services, including certain large multinational clients who want to create a coaching culture in the workplace by working on a rotating basis with their top leaders and the next level down in the organisation. It means that when one coaching process finishes, usually there is another one to start within the same company.

‘My day starts early as the school bus comes by for my children at 7.02 am. I often leave the house straight afterwards to meet clients for breakfast at 7.30. It seems to be the preferred time to meet, as coaching sessions need to be squeezed into busy working days, and if we agree to meet mid-morning the chances are that our appointment will be trimmed at both ends by starting late and interruptions from phone calls etc. This is also a good time to meet with groups for team coaching, before the start of the official workday. My aim is to finish work by 3pm to be home and have lunch with the children when they arrive back on the bus at 3.15, and I rarely make appointments in the afternoons.

‘One of the things that makes coaching in Mexico different from other places is that few clients like the idea of coaching appointments on the phone, so we mostly work face-to-face, with some phone calls when travel or time pressure make

it necessary. My partner Mercedes is Venezuelan, and we have found it to be to our advantage that we are both foreign women. A client once told us he had hired us because he thought we would be less threatening than a male Mexican coach to his executives. Of the coaches we have trained here in our CorpxCoach methodology, 25% are men, and we rely on them for the times when male coaches are specifically requested. In the world of executive coaching, there are probably more men than women working as coaches here in Mexico, which goes against the idea that coaching is more of a female profession.

‘There are certain things that add challenges to running a business in Mexico, the major one is that submitting an invoice can be very complicated, and it is safer to invoice before starting on any project. The learning curve of how the system works in each company is steep and involves a lot of wasted time – fortunately we do always get paid!

‘Coaching for me is the ideal way to combine being present as a mother with the intellectual and professional satisfaction that each coaching process brings, and that could be the same living anywhere in the world. The spice of working in Mexico is leveraging cultural differences and using them to create new perspectives for my clients, although perhaps for me one of the most important testimonials of coaching came from my daughter who when I graduated as a Parent Coach said, “All in all, I think that my mother has become a better parent since she became a coach.”’

Oriana Tickell de Castello

My (Mexico) Day When journalist Oriana Tickell de Castello trained as a coach with The Coaching Academy, and returned to Mexico, she was plagued by self-doubts. Would there be any demand for coaching? She explains what happened next.


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