Photo by Anora McGaha

Moving from salaried to self-employment often takes some core behavioral changes.

In my business coaching practice over the years I noticed a pattern with very smart salaried professionals who left the corporate world and went into business for themselves.  They generally would not know where they had to have their work close to an exact fit and where they could fill in later, having a plan for refining that area when needed.

Carrying over corporate workplace “rules”

My observation was that there is a sort of unconscious legacy from the employer-employee brand of productivity. When you are an employee on a fixed salary, your employer does not mind if you work 40 hours on a project or 80 hours on it since it costs them the same. But when you are the business you can’t run a business that way and succeed.

Part two of this corporate carry-over is not realizing how much time in a “day job” is spent avoiding the possibility of criticism. I was working with a newly self-employed client who got their first very bad review on-line and was devastated by it. I told them this was the best thing that could happen to them because learning how to respond and learning how to stay centered in the presence of real criticism occurs to help us develop the muscle of recovering faster the next time.

These two examples are common challenges of someone transferring from working for someone else to working for oneself. Your time really is MONEY and if you want to have it all together you will miss the market. A mentor said to me once when I was reviewing my own shortcomings,” What do you have when you have your stuff all together? Tightly packed stuff ready to blow.” Look at history, the more you study famous people that made a real difference, the more you will find some aspect of their life that was just not all together. And chances are if they had it all together they may have never had the time to make the difference they did.

If you build it you’ll need mud

To build a log cabin in the 1800’s you had to use clay or mud to fill in the cracks, and you were always at risk of the elements destroying it. It took courage to build something like this that could be taken away quickly with a big enough storm. If you wanted the wood to fit perfectly without the need of mud it would take an infinite amount of time to find the perfect logs. Not to mention the rock foundation needed to make sure the logs were kept off the ground to keep them from rotting (very bad at the bottom of your log cabin).

Now I am not encouraging you to just be quick and sloppy; I simply want you to choose what level of precision is needed to move fast enough in your business to not lose all the competitive advantage of getting your offering or product out. One of the points that Bill Davis of Team Nimbus always promotes is that the biggest competitive advantage of a small business is speed of execution. If you want to change how you greet people on the phone, for example, you just do it. But if McDonalds wants to change their greeting it will take some time at a global level.

The secret recipe for guts

Many ex-corporate people damage their competitive advantage because they don’t understand how their corporate jobs may have taught them skills that are counter-productive to being self-employed.  Also, maneuvering through the new transparent social media-driven marketplace, they can be derailed by public criticism on the Web. This is where guts or courage will grow if you let it. Courage is developed in healthy people by taking thousands of micro risks, not just big reckless ones. You almost need to get some real criticism where you get knocked off your horse enough so you can develop the muscle to see what occurred, learn fast from it and get back on track.

Changing your vocabulary for success

So where are you trying to “get it just right” instead of getting it good enough so you can focus on the few key items that need to be very accurate?  Instead of saying I can never be “that expert”, ask yourself what smaller part of your field you can claim some expert knowledge in. (This does not mean I am encouraging more self-proclaimed experts, we seem to have plenty of them.)

Here are two questions to help recharge your goals. Where can you contribute a useful perspective from your own experience that may be of value to someone else instead of trying to be an all-knowing expert? Are you taking enough risk that someone might criticize you? if not, you are probably not playing big enough to make a business successful.

I’ve heard that people at the end of life do not say, ” I wish I did not do X. They say, ” I wish I had at least tried and even failed X, Y and Z”. My friend, Pat Howlett, has a gem of advice for new businesses:  fail fast and fail often. To that I’ll add, don’t be reckless, but alter your relationship to the word failure. This will make you more powerful than those who try to “admit failure”. Saying “ I failed” is different than ” I am a failure”. The former can be said with power: “I failed, what can I learn, let’s move on.”

Resource: http://www.ehow.com/how_2362278_build-log-cabin-home-from.html

by Martin Brossman – Success Coach - CoachingSupport.com Call for your coaching session (919) 847-4757

This experience helped tune me in to recognize what seems to be a trend in justifying a type of “tough love,” even from presenters and coaches. For example, asking questions in front of the room like, “Who STILL does not have a Facebook page?” in a tone that is showing those who raise their hands as stupid, like that presenter has the right to embarrass someone in front of the room.  If you are going to be tough you have to have earned enough trust to do it .And if it is in the room you have to make sure you leave them highly empowered. I truly have made this mistake before but now I watch that edge very carefully.  It is the line between being evocative and provocative.

For a coaching example, I remember one day where I had two very different clients (the details have been changed some to protect confidentiality).  The one in morning was a former line backer. Very big and tall, an intimidating guy and really smart. We were not making progress and I don’t take money from people I cannot make progress with. Most of the time I just come to an agreement to take a break and sometimes I see it is valuable for them to take a break to integrate what we have done, so they know they can do it on their own. Half way through our session in his office I just laid into him about the fact that I was going to fire him if his BS of manipulation did not stop right now. I then described in great detail the strategy I had figured out about how he manipulated people. He was almost pinned up against the wall with me letting him have it. He agreed to work, and I will never forget two things: the look in his secretary’s eyes when I left, and his walking me to my car with tears in his eyes when he said “Thanks, I really did not realize how I intimidate and manipulate to get my way, and how much life I have missed doing that.” Then that afternoon I worked with a women who said, “To figure out what I need to do next in my life I would have to bring a bunch of stuff to your office and show it to you.  We both sat on the floor with the things around us, and I had her take her time to explain each item and how it moved her. I asked questions and made sure I understood each item. Then I really came up with the core purpose of her life and how it tied to what she needed to do to feed herself. Clearly the same “tough love” approach I had used earlier with the linebacker would have been true violence to this gentle client.

Using the right level of engagement is what is required. My commitment in teaching and in coaching is to do my best to see through the eyes of every person in front of me and speak to that, even if it is 500 people. Listen to what really is needed, not simply applying one technique or another. If a little toughness is needed I make sure I have earned the right to use that by demonstrating compassion first. If I make a mistake, I also make the effort to clean it up–not try to justify it by making something wrong with them.  My commitment is to come from compassion and to be willing to do what it takes to make my clients’ and students’ goals a reality. Sometimes I do a great job with that and sometimes I need to learn something new.  At times advisers wanted me to move away from being a “coach” since almost every one calls themselves a coach today and  it really is not a profession like lawyer or doctor. To me coaching is what I do…being in the trenches with my clients as though it is my life at stake…not being a tough drill sergeant on the sidelines or just a cheerleader.

I welcome your honest views on this and if you would like to discuss coaching or training with you contact me.
Martin Brossman
Success coach, Trainer, Author
Be well,
Martin Brossman
Raleigh NC (919) 847-4757 – Washington DC (202) 362-3166

Martin@CoachingSupport.com
ProNetworkingOnLine.com
CoachingSupport.com

Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/martinbrossman

Groupon paints a rosy, idealized picture. You take no risks, they promote your products, and you get lots of great customers stampeding in your door. Everyone lives happily ever after. This is a fantasy if ever there was one. You know the adage: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying Groupon is a scam. I am saying, however, that there are real risks. Done incorrectly, a Groupon deal can do irreversible damage to your business.

Business owners have found out the hard way that a Groupon deal gone bad can not only cost you money, but it can generate a swath of negative online reviews which damage your business’s reputation. It can also alienate your good customers and burn out your employees. For example, I’ve personally talked to restaurant owners who said that Groupon brought in horrible customers who lied and tried to use the same coupon multiple times, then promptly wrote negative reviews online about the establishments who wouldn’t let them do it. In other words, they got upset about not being allowed to steal! I’ve also heard that Groupon customers tip poorly and don’t come back.

If you are going to do a Groupon deal, make sure to ask yourself the following questions:

• Can you handle a huge influx of customers at little or no profit? Can your business absorb the negative cash flow that comes with that? Posie’s Cafe, the shop in the example above, lost $8,000 on their Groupon deal.
• Do you have a strategy to retain the one-time customers you get from your Groupon deal? Do you have a way to bring them back into your store again and again?
• Have you received any negative online comments about your business that you have not addresssed? If so, a Groupon deal is likely to make that problem a lot worse.

If you can break even on the customers you get from your Groupon deal and be reasonably confident that some repeat business will result from the venture, Groupon may be a viable option. But proceed with caution, and remember that there is no silver bullet.

My honest take: wait. At this point, the future of Google+ is uncertain. They are competing directly with Facebook. Most people on Google+ are also on Facebook, so your time is probably better spent there. I might make an exception if you work for a social media or PR firm, if you’re a Virtual Assistant, or if you’re in any situation where your clients specifically expect you to stay up to date with Google+.

As with any social media network, I would strongly suggest that you formulate specific goals before signing up for another social network. Also, don’t buy another horse unless you have time to feed it.

To get things rolling, briefly, what is coaching?

It’s a tool to gain clarity and results in our business goals or in our personal life and to move forward faster than on our own. Coaching helps us to enjoy both the journey and the arrival.

How does coaching differ from therapy?

Therapy often deals with the past, resolving painful issues from childhood or youth. Coaching does not address these deep emotional traumas, but as client’s experience some of the life changes that coaching can cause, it is sometimes seen that many issues may drop away. Coaching is focused on finding tools and skills for creating a better future, reaching the goals you set. It is not by any means a replacement for therapy. Some clients work with coaching in conjunction with therapy. Some who seek coaching may actually need therapy, and a good coach should recognize this within a couple of sessions.

Likewise, some of the people who seek therapy may actually need coaching. In some cases the ideal sequence is for coaching to come after therapy, because a client has the emotional static out of the way and can really focus, which is vital in coaching. Also, whereas therapy sometimes needs to be open-ended, in coaching the client sets the priorities and the boundaries.

What would you say is the value of coaching, then?

The client says, “This is what I want to accomplish. This is where I would like to go, but I’m held back in some way.” If a client is not sure what goals or dreams s/he wants to pursue, which is a problem for a lot of people, then coaching helps come up with a clear and definite goal, a personal mission statement. Then the client is coached on a range of ways to take action on his or her mission. Without taking action, you see, the dream remains a dream, a fantasy, a wish. When we begin to take action on our dreams, then there is movement. It’s no longer a wish. There may be trial and error as part of that movement, but it’s a well-calculated risk. The coach’s job is to help the client take risks wisely. A champion athlete does not get the gold by taking one big risk but by a series of small ones. That’s what a good coach helps you do. Like the sports coach, a coach in the game of life gets behind the client a hundred percent, supporting him/her in achieving that dream, rooting all the way, bringing objective, constructive feedback geared to improve performance. It’s all geared to make you a winner in your life.

Okay, I’m a cynical guy who says, “Only losers need a coach.” What’s your response to that?

Well, if we stick to the sports coach analogy, the fact is that all winners have a coach, and those coaches are paid very, very well for their services. All the top league teams have coaches. I grant you there may be one or two top performers, like Federer, who may go far without a coach, but who’s to say that he couldn’t improve his with the help of an expert coach? Anyway, the exceptions prove the rule. Winners and would-be winners have coaches.  A life coach serves a similar function for us in the game of life.

Life is complex. We all lose direction from time to time. So this is not about being a “loser” but about getting your focus, amid all the stuff that life is throwing up at you. Before you know it, it’s all over, you’re on your deathbed full of regret. I want that the deathbed scenario is more like, “Well, I knocked a few good ones outta the park.” I deeply believe we are all entitled to that in the end.

It’s a good point. Let me add, that in life, as in love, it is better to have tried and failed than never to have tried at all. . .. I read somewhere that the coaching profession can be seen as an opportunity for regular citizens to take advantage of what has long been available to celebrities in sports, movies and politics. So it’s really not such a new thing.

Yes. Coaching has been around for a long time, under different names. We called them mentors or friends or advisors. Watson, the founder of IBM, made sure to keep advisors around that would “give it to him straight” versus “yes men.” These people served a very similar function to a life coach. Today coaching is a more formalized role. Having a good coach is a way of making sure I don’t settle for mediocrity or become a loser. Rather, I have someone on my side ready to push me to my fullest potential. We all can use that. As with the sports coach, it is worth paying good money for. Good coaching can be priceless.

The comparison to the sports coach really makes your point. What would you say is another value for the client?

The client is taught to draw on his or her environment in a way that supports the goal. By this I mean the client does not rely on the coach forever and ever. A coach does not coach us in dependency. A good coach’s aim is to develop the client to the point where the coach is not needed anymore.

Seems to me that if a person gets dynamic help to raise the bar in their life, they may find a coach such an asset that they want to keep it working with one, albeit for different goals.

Yes, some people will think it unwise to stop a good thing, but it is important to know that from the coach’s standpoint, it’s not about dragging out the relationship. It’s about giving value and getting results. If a client opts to stay on, it’s because of getting results, not coming under the spell of the coach’s personality.

Anyway, besides reaching set goals through the coaching experience, the client also learns to draw support from the environment in an ongoing way, long after coaching is over. Clients develop a greater awareness of their inner compass and learn to keep themselves motivated and proactive about their dreams. They learn to get the needed support from friends and family; they learn to avoid or minimize the company of those who don’t give them solid support; they learn to become attuned to the places and activities that give them the energy and support for attaining their dreams. As they learn to become single-minded about their dreams whatever is not supporting their dream naturally falls away from their lives,. 

“Life is what happens while we are making plans,” John Lennon observed, but you help us to get our plans to coincide with our lives. That’s what I’m hearing from you.

I get people to be in action on their dreams. If I fail to do that, my coaching has failed

I think a life or business coach, as opposed to talk therapy, is quite active in dispensing advice, too, isn’t it? They listen, but therapists don’t really get too committed about giving advice, seems a coach rolls up his sleeve and takes the wheel as far as that goes. Am I right?

You make a good point there. Of course, just listening has its value too, but a coach has a slightly different focus, even if there is some overlap with what I do and what the therapist does. My task is about getting tangible results. I collaborate with my client and like the sports coach, I am not hesitant to say “Consider this, try this, don’t do that one anymore, and what do you think about going this?” I’m not hesitant to get people to confront the lack of fulfillment in their lives and get involved with how to go from where they are to where they want to be. Generally, therapists don’t do that. They listen to you. And you may or may not achieve clarity about your purpose in life, but if you take action or not, that’s not the therapists responsibility.

I am aware that a lot of people don’t feel fulfilled in their lives. They are lucky to feel even a bit satisfied, usually. I used to be one of those people, but all that has changed for me. Now, I believe with a passion, that we are entitled to have a taste of fulfillment, a tasted of the extra-ordinary. I believe in the pursuit of real feelings of happiness, and not just shadow happiness.

Shadow happiness?

That’s what I call the sense of relief that we feel if we are not in serious trouble with creditors or the taxman and not going through a divorce. Many people mistake this for happiness; it’s only the absence of misery. Many people think that’s a big enough achievement, staying out of trouble, being “decent” folks. It’s really mediocrity, if you think about it.

We try not to think too hard about it, I’d say. And we get so good at not thinking about it, that we don’t even realize we are doing that to ourselves, settling for less.  And since most people around us are doing the same, we are comforted by that. “I am normal.” Erich Fromm had a name for that, the peril of normalcy, something like that. I forget his exact wording, but that’s close.

That’s really true; but on some level we know we are repressing, which is another way of saying “deceiving ourselves.”

Your point about the lack of fulfillment strikes a chord. According to polls, a solid 83% of the American people are dissatisfied with their jobs, which take up 8 hours of their day. That’s half our waking hours. And the divorce rate is 50% or more, so the rest of the day is not so great, either. We are trying to be normal and are pretty much unhappy campers, yet we tend to believe that the only alternative to normalcy is insanity.

I disagree. I think another alternative is extraordinary. Why be ‘normal’ when I can just as well script an extraordinary life for myself?

I like that. I never thought of it in those terms before. You have choices, right? You have nutty and normal, which is really mediocre, and you have extraordinary. You decide which one your life is about. That’s brilliant.

Thank you. It’s not a fact that if you are not going to be normal, then your only other choice is nutty. Extra-ordinary is available. It’s your call. Work it out. If you can’t pull it off, whatever the reason, then let a coach help you over the hurdles.

You make is sound, well, extra-ordinarily simple.

In a sense it is simple. Just as you can equate normal with mediocre, you can equate extraordinary with fulfillment. Normal people are getting by, but they are not fulfilled. A life coach or a business coach is for the person who wants more than normalcy, wants fulfillment, wants the extraordinary life.

We all have ways of not really confronting the lack of fulfillment gnawing at us. We opiate ourselves in various ways. We overeat, we overplay, we overspend, we have serial relationships that are hollow in the center, we do drugs or booze, or both. Most of all, we rationalize; we justify our mediocrity as a virtue.

Yes. Rationalizing is the way we keep our eyes averted from the reality. As a coach, I do my best to get my client to break through the rationalizations and face that lack of fulfillment. I do it compassionately. Then I work with him or her to develop strategies to move forward, to dust themselves off and get back in the race. And I do give advice, but I’m not authoritarian about that. We do something, it works, fine. It doesn’t, we discard it, take another approach.

That reminds me of Bruce Lee. The core of his martial arts philosophy was “Use whatever works: Discard whatever doesn’t.” Sounds like you teach this.

Without fail, I’m my client’s advocate for living a life he or she loves. We work together to keep on tweaking it and tweaking it until we discover the most workable strategy for my client and the particular situation he or she is in. As Tony Robbins is fond of saying, “People like to do what they always did, but then they keeping getting the same results they always got. So, don’t change your goals, change your strategy.”

One problem I have in my life, whenever I come across the question, “What do you want to do when you grow up? What’s your ultimate dream?” That kind of question, I usually go blank. I have a lot of desires, but none of them feel like ultimate dream stuff. I may come up with something, but after a few days, it’s just not something I feel sold out and convinced about. Do you get clients with that sort of problem?

Probably fifty percent of the time.

So, how do you handle that? I know you can help the person who already has an idea, has a goal, but may be sidestepping it for some reason. As you say, you get them to confront that, but what about a person like me, just unable to fix on a goal?

I have ways of questioning you to get you to sort yourself out. I have ways to examine your life to see if perhaps you are already living your purpose but didn’t recognize it.  When we get that big question answered, then I help you frame it into a “mission” statement. The next step is to come up with ways to get in action on your mission. Ways to get you living your mission. If you lose momentum, I’m there to get you back on track

I have to tell you, “Mission Statement” is another one of those overworked terms we get in our society about every six months. I dread a mission statement to my bones.

It’s a cliché, I know. If you come up with a replacement, fine, but let me say this: Philosophers have spent lifetimes on the question of life’s purpose; and will probably spend lifetimes more, but while they work that out, the most tangible purpose we have right now is, “What is my contribution? What do I feel passionate, more alive about?” Or another way to say it, “What is my gift to leave behind when I go? What do I want my life to be about?”

And I don’t think this has to be necessarily a big thing. It could be a small gift too. It could be that your purpose is to help another person to deliver their gift; but whatever it is, I believe it is personally fulfilling to you; it energizes you. You are entitled to make your life be about that and nothing else. The rest of stuff we do can be just necessary stuff. Like breathing. Like going to the bathroom, that’s not a purpose of life. That’s a necessity. Even eating is a necessity, not a purpose, but the purpose of your life, that’s the main event, the centerpiece.

It goes beyond that. I believe, passionately, that if more people were living their purpose, the nation would be less messed up; and if more people in the world were living their purpose, the world would be less messed up. The mess is owing to a lack of purpose on  an individual level, then a collective one. People that love their lives don’t blow things up. They are creative, not destructive.

Okay, new point. The way you stress purpose and fulfillment, it seems that some clients may find they have to move in an entirely new direction by your coaching.

Coaching with Martin Brossman could mean not necessarily making peace with what you already have going. It could mean doing something really radical.

That’s true. In some cases, the person discovers that “My life is really about this or that,” and to get it will require major change. It may be a new direction, yes, but it will be in the direction of your dream, which perhaps has been long denied, or just not in conscious awareness.

But for some people, change is a scary thing to contemplate. It’s a reason not to go near a coach. My life may get turned on its head, no?

Yes, and that’s understandable. Perhaps an up close look at your life will lead to major changes, especially if the question of fulfillment is the pivotal point. On the other hand, what’s to be said for a life that’s not fulfilling, which is really the whole point of all this effort to survive? Remember a coach is very compassionate about this discovery and the heavy lifting change may require. It’s not that it becomes like a poke in the eye or something. You get coached through the changes.

It’s the ages old story about how the unexamined life is not worth living. At least coaching is there for anyone willing to risk the change.

Yes. I have had people come to me and discover a whole different direction in life than anything they had going before, but they also find that they are supercharged about this new direction. I had people come to me only to discover confirmation about where they are already heading. But in almost every single case, we’d raise the bar, with my client’s participation in that process.

Any other value for the client?

I have mentioned this already, but it bears repeating. Having a coach means having a person on my side, who has an external or objective perspective and who only has my agenda in mind.  While I may be too immersed in some part of my life to see the overall picture my coach helps me stay focused by seeing the whole picture from a distance and helps me process all the data, not just take a narrow focus and keep my blind spots. He or she helps by keeping me real about my potential. This means I can have more access to my abilities, gifts, and achievements, the ones that I just don’t see in that light or don’t give myself credit for.  Also, my coach is a mechanism to make me think twice about my big decisions, rather than act hastily.

Would you agree, then, that a definition of a coach is a person whose only concern is to bring out the best in us?

Definitely. Same role as the sports coach. A coach gets to know you well enough for this purpose and only this purpose: to bring out the best in you. That is a coach’s greatness. A great man will impress you with what a great person he is, but a great coach impresses you with what a great person you are. It’s not that he does this by flattery and ego-stroking. A coach will guide you to reframe how you look at yourself, and will guide you to focus on your strengths, not your weaknesses. A coach will not try to get a rabbit to swim and a turtle to run. That’s a waste of time all around. An expert coach will get the rabbit to run faster and the turtle to swim faster. In the game of life we often lose this commonsense approach.

What inspired you to become a life and business coach?

After I graduated from St. Andrews College, I joined IBM. While technically oriented, I soon found that understanding clients’ issues and effectively dealing with them was much more important than solely technical issues. This also lead to informally coaching colleagues on their career paths. During this time I was also assisting in an NLP course. One of the students said, as he handed me an article clipping, “You’d really be good at this, Martin. You are a natural at bringing out the best in people and hearing who they really are.” I read it, but I didn’t buy it at the time. I couldn’t see coaching as a means of livelihood, but the door to my calling was opened; and events urged me through it because, suddenly nothing was working for me.

I wound up with a coach. I gave him a long list of things I wanted to do with my life. He wisely encouraged me to whittle it down to one or two things and make these the focal points of my life. “See if people will write you checks for doing these few things that you love,” he said. I focused on coaching because nothing else was really fulfilling to me.  In those days there were no coaching certification programs. So, to break into the field I set up a personal computer business to fund my developing coaching business.

I understand that you now have a coaching certification program. Can you comment on that?

I call it Ki Coaching. Ki is the Japanese word for chi, life force, the same vital energy that is the focus of Chinese medicine. The Japanese martial art, Aikido, is all about redirecting ki. As I practiced coaching, I realized that I used a good deal of the Aikido concepts, namely redirecting energy and resources, and that was highly effective, so I call my style Ki Coaching. At the insistence of one of the people I coached, I’ve developed a certification program for people who want to learn Ki Coaching.

So the persons who get certification through you, they can be coaches too?

Yes. But that’s not the only reason to take Ki Coaching. It’s training for an individual to have as part of their toolkit for life. The course is not designed for someone who has never experienced coaching, but for the professional with some credentials and life experience, as well. Perhaps he or she was already naturally following coaching or already trained in some other system. For instance a manager or supervisor, any kind of trainer or teacher, a religious minister or clergyman, they can all use Ki Coaching in their profession. I should also mention that I teach in such a way that each person discovers his or her own style of coaching. I help them to make Ki Coaching their own.

What do people fear about coaching?

I’ve come across a few concerns people have about coaching. First, some people feel it makes them look incompetent, otherwise why do they need pay someone for their success? Those people need to be reminded that all our champions have coaches.

Second, they worry about the cost. With a good coach, the client should see value right away. It should be readily apparent. And consider that if a coach successfully helps us to map our life’s purpose and gives us a few good strategies for getting there, perhaps shakes us loose from some things that were keeping us back, then the benefit is lifelong. That’s definitely worth the cost and the time for the sessions. A good coach is worth much more than his fee. You may even feel that you can never really repay him for the breakthroughs he caused you.

Third, people fear that a coach will hook them forever. This can happen. It could be the coach’s lack of scruples, or it could be the client wants a crutch. The coach should be able to pry the client out of needing a crutch. As for the coach hooking you indefinitely, you should be alert to see if the coach keeps finding new ways to keep you coming back. That would be a red flag. That’s why it’s important to work out in the very first session what would be the goal of your coaching.  When the goal is achieved, coaching is over.  If you require coaching again, it should be for a new goal you have set for yourself, not the coach’s goal for you. Throughout, you must feel that the choice to continue or to quit is in your hands.

Another fear is that people feel their ideas are not clear enough.  I hear fairly often, “I need coaching, but first I have to figure out what I want to do.” People don’t realize this is one of the main things to go to a coach for, to get help figuring out what you want out of your life, and to get clarity and focus. If you had clarity, and equally important, if you were acting on your goals consistently, coaching would not be necessary at all. The reality is that life is complicated; it helps to have someone in our corner, helping us sort the data.

I hear you saying it’s not enough to know where you want to go, but you must be working on your goal, if not you should get coaching. Does that sound right?

You must be in action on your dreams. This is the only real secret to success. An object in motion tends to stay in motion. An object at rest tends to stay at rest.  Coaching helps us to stay in motion, working towards our goal. And coaching should make that effort a mostly enjoyable experience. When you have the mission that is one with your heart, being in action makes you feel alive. If you are not feeling that, it means the whole idea of your mission needs an overhaul. Needs to be re-examined from top to bottom.

So, defining our mission or dream and our focus and going into action, a good life coach helps us with all these or any combination of them?

Yes, that would sum it up.

I imagine that there is a client/coach confidentiality code similar to that between lawyer and client or therapist and client, right?

Definitely. Confidentiality is a vital part of the profession.

What are some issues people have sought you for?

As mentioned before, someone finds himself unable to stay in action on his goal even though he has started for it before. Perhaps started many times before, so I coach him to get clarity and get on track again. I have had people come to me because of problems working with a partner in business or a co-worker or the boss. One of the most popular reasons, the person wants help answering the question “What do I want to do when I grow up?” And actually living from it. It could be something simple, too, like wanting to have better balance in their lives, between work and family, for example. Or it could be a case where things are going quite well, and the client wants coaching to take it to the next level, to a new peak of excellence and fulfillment.

Without transgressing confidentiality, could you give some specifics?

I had a client who wanted desperately to leave his high-paying corporate job, travel the world and make a living that way.  He was anxious, not knowing how it would work out. I suggested he take a leave of absence from work, travel for awhile and see if he could make an income from it, get up enough momentum to go all the way. He did. He found out that while he wanted to travel he preferred to keep his corporate income. So he found a satisfactory compromise: Keep his corporate job and make more time for travel. He was very pleased with this outcome. You see, in coaching, the initial goal we set is not always what’s attained. We discover sometimes a new consideration along the way; but the final outcome is always more fulfilling.

I had a client who was a tradesman, in business for himself, married for 20 years, but so laid back he was grossing about 500 a month. His marriage was going down the hole, I should mention, although I was not coaching him about how to save his marriage. He came to me about how to build his business. We turned it around inside of four months. He became much more productive and quadrupled his income. He was a changed man. I haven’t checked, but I can imagine this man kept increasing his gross for some months before he leveled off. He also turned around his marriage He called me to say “My wife told me that I’m now the man that she thought she had married 20 years ago.”

Another client, a very intelligent executive, used his superior intellect and his position to intimidate people, get them to do what he wanted.  He denied that such was the case and that his lack of interpersonal skills was where he was stuck. After I gained his trust, I asked him to imagine that he was a person who conned, intimidated, and manipulated people to do his will. How would he achieve that? This client discovered that what he thought was his leadership was just conning and intimidating and manipulating people. This opened him up to finding ways to deal in a more principled way.

One client had a successful business but she hadn’t had a date in four years. She came to me wanting both her business and her personal life to go to a new level. We got to the core of what her life was about and created a mission that had room for both a successful business and fulfilling relationship. Her business grew and an old friend finally asked her out on a date and they are still dating. Her verdict was  “I’ve discovered how to enjoy the beauty and the power of being a woman.”

It must be stimulating to you to have to deal with such a variety of situations.

Oh, yes. The range and variety of issues that I get to deal with is one of the pleasures of my work.  I truly love what I do and am living my own mission in life doing it. It never becomes mechanical, rote, routine.

We talked about value for the client, I want to bring it up again from a different angle. How do I get the most for my money from the coaching experience?

Every coach is not for every kind of person. Just as a coach will interview a prospective client to see if he or she wants to take on the job, the client must also interview a prospective coach to see if they “connect”.  It’s not enough to like the coach’s personality. You have to see if he or she offers the tools and manner you need. Perhaps the coach is animated, excitable and yells, and this may not be inspiring to you. On the other hand, perhaps the coach is too sedate, reserved, and doesn’t come across as sufficiently involved with you. The communication style must be inspiring, motivating to you, or you will not act on the coach’s advice, and without action, there cannot be movement. So talk to the coach. Ask questions. If possible, take the introductory free session, or request one even if it is not offered. The client must get the measure of the coach. The question to ask yourself about this coach is: would this person be an effective catalyst for my life?

Since I mentioned acting on the coach’s advice, let me add that a client should never agree to any course of action that she does not intend to do. It is better to speak up and if need be, renegotiate with your coach for another course of action. The key thing is to have a plan of action. This is another difference between therapy and coaching. In therapy we don’t necessarily have a committed course of action at the end of each session. In coaching, if it is the real thing, there is always a commitment to a particular plan of action until the next session. The client must learn to take action on his or her dreams. Even if there are mistakes. Mistakes can be very valuable. They teach us what does not work.

Other pointers for the client?

It’s a good idea for the client to make some notes of points and questions important to bring up during the session. Especially, note what you want to accomplish in the session. This helps to keep the session focused on your issues and benefits.

Another thing the client must share is if he or she feels there isn’t any forward movement in the coaching. Granted the momentum will not be always at the same speed, but there must be a sense of progress, sense of forward momentum. If there is stagnation, real or imagined, this needs to be addressed.

Suppose I’m not feeling very satisfied with the coach, how much time do you consider reasonable before I change coaches?

Of course, if it’s not working you don’t want to lose too much valuable time and money. On the other hand, you don’t want to be too hasty. Perhaps the next coach will be a marked improvement, perhaps not. I would say don’t rush to judgment, give it at least 2-3 sessions.  And discuss it with your coach as well, perhaps the coach needs your feedback to realize how to be more effective. There is no harm in the coach learning from the client, even as the client is getting so much from the coach.

I think I know the answer to this, but I’d like to hear your version, what’s the difference between coaching and consulting, in business?

A firm calls in a consultant to get advice how to streamline operations. A consultant observes the operations and gives a list of recommendations and moves on to the next consulting job. The advice may work, or not. The consultant is not usually involved in the ongoing trial and error to find out what really works in your company. And even if the advice works out, this does not result necessarily in you as a person moving to a higher level of personal excellence and fulfillment. It does not result in you touching the edge of extra-ordinary, which is your very life’s purpose and which is within you, but that’s what a coach is all about. A coach works with you to discover and bring out your gifts and your personal best and achieve your dream. The measure of satisfaction you get from being extra ordinary in your calling has no comparison from the consulting side. Your coach is your accountable partner throughout, continually making an objective assessment, looking for room for improvement.

But we know that consulting is all about enhancing the bottom line. In a small business, say, how does coaching increase profitability?

That’s a good question. A good coach will teach you that your main product is you Therefore, along with bringing you to your peak performance, your coach will help you to brand yourself in the most effective way. Having a coach means investing in, your main product—yourself. If the coach and client work together like they should, this surely leads to profitability and job satisfaction. What’s more, all that you develop from coaching is transferable. It is part of who you are. It goes with you wherever you go.

A consultant will tell you where to fish, what rod and line and lure is best for the kind of fish you want to catch, and so on, but a coach is all about bringing out the fisherman inside you, and training him to be an expert.  Ultimately, you learn to fish in all kinds of conditions.

Say I’m in real estate and I’m right on target with my year-end goals, I’m shaping up to be a success, should I consider getting a coach.

On the principle that there is always room for improvement, yes, you should. I welcome every challenge to help an already successful person take it to another level. Think of it like an athlete who strives to break his own record. The coach is right in there helping that champion to give all he’s got, reaching new level of extra-ordinary. That’s exactly what I mean when I talk about being fully engaged in our lives. Never mind competing against others; compete against yourself, keep raising the bar, and let your coach play a vital role in that process.

Okay, so tell me, what’s your own fulfillment dream, what do you want your own life to be about?

My fulfillment is that I have touched people’s lives and helped in some way to get them to live a life that they love. My life is about helping people to live lives they feel proud off. When they look back, they don’t feel, “Holy sheetrock, my life is over and I didn’t do anything but eat and sleep, have some kids, and pay the @#*%**# bills!”

Erich Fromm talks about living in the being or the having modes. Although most people are culturally trained to live in the grasping, having mode, being mode people live more creative and productive and more satisfying lives. I hear you saying pretty much the same thing.

Yes, creative, productive lives. That should be the standard for normalcy, but it is so rare, we see those people as extraordinary, and the mass of people, who are not in touch with their purpose in life are “normal.”  But I can’t complain, because it allows me to live my calling, my mission. My life is about helping people find fulfillment though living their own creative and productive lives, or “living lives they love.” My idea is that when someone is on the deathbed, and reflects on the life they lived, they are moved to tears, overwhelmed at the fulfillment.

Let’s talk about a coach’s skills. There must be some degree of primary and secondary skills that a good life or business coach should have, what would you say are some of the primary ones?

I consider that the number one skill is the perspective that the coach is listening from. As well as being fully present during the session, and listening with focused attention This kind of listening is not just listening to what’s being said, but listening to what is not being said, also. Listening to the tones of voice, to the cadences, to the emotion, or the lack of emotion, in the voice. And very, very important, is listening without judgment. It’s not enough that the coach’s face appears non-judgmental. The coach must really be non-judgmental. Psychologically, the life coach cannot put himself above the client They must meet on an equal footing, as two human beings, except that one is a professional, a life coach. There to help, not to judge. This brings in the element of compassion.  The term I like to use is “relentless compassion.”  This kind of compassion is possible when the coach really believes that he or she could have been that client, too. He or she could have said or done the same thing, made the same transgressions and errors of judgment.

Can you elaborate on that, relentless compassion?

It means unconditional and unlimited empathy for the client and the trials in his or her life. It means that as a coach I must open myself up to this human being and allow him or her to open themselves up in response to me. This is the way for me, as a coach, to get in touch with this person on a level that does not ordinarily happen in day to day life. But for me to bring out the best in this person, you see, it is necessary for me to get close to them. If I cause them to cringe, or shrink back on themselves, or shut down to me, even slightly, then I cannot do my best for them. I cannot perceive and connect fully with the authentic person, and to that extent I cannot bring him or her out in the fullest way possible.

This kind of listening takes compassion and empathy for the person. If I moralize or judge, the process is compromised. I cannot take that role. I must feel relentless compassion for this person, who may well have gifts to give to the world, for all I know. So my task is to help this person become proactive about giving those gifts with conviction and pleasure, be those gifts big or small. When I see a person find his or her calling, find his or her fulfillment, that is my fulfillment in my calling

So, two important skills a coach must have are a capacity for non-judgmental, active listening, and relentless compassion. What else?

A very important ability a good coach must have is that in order to get results he or she must have the courage to go into uncomfortable areas if the need arises.  Remember, the task is to bring out the best in that client, who is paying money and is taking time to work with you, so you have to be willing to do whatever it takes to hold up your end of the agreement. This is not always so easy. Sometimes it calls for delving into very sensitive feelings or secret thoughts and deeds that the client is hoping to avoid. The coach must be willing to open those areas and lay them bare before the client, if that’s what’s in the clients best interest for achieving the stated goals of coaching.  This must be done with compassion, of course, but even so, a client may resent the operation, may resent being vulnerable before the coach. The client may be embarrassed. Probably more significant, the client may resent having to face these things that were formally repressed somewhere in his or her psyche.  Sometimes a client hates herself for her shortcomings and will hate the person who makes it come to the surface; therefore a coach must have the courage to go into these places, if it is somehow a roadblock to the client’s forward momentum. This is also part of relentless compassion. The coach’s job is to create the space for the client to find the courage to move forward.

The other day we were talking and you explained to me the meaning of the tilted triangle you use for your logo or symbol. You described the three points of your triangle, your sequence of Being, Doing, and Achieving. Could you run it by me again?

In nutshell, people assume they have to achieve something to be someone. For instance, I may believe I need to become CEO of my company. This is considered a good thing. I have ambition, right?

Yes.

But in reality, what it means is that for me to be somebody, I have to be a CEO. But that’s just a title connected to my name. It’s not a state of being. It’s not who I am. And so when I finally get this post, after the initial satisfaction, I feel like no one again. When you get coached, in terms of my triangle. The first goal is to establish being—who you are at the core. We get rid of the idea that you have to do something, then achieve something, then you have an identity, then you can be.

So, how would you do that with the aspiring CEO?

I get him to understand that wanting to be a CEO means he really wants is to be a leader. And he can be a leader today. He can be a leader even if he never becomes CEO. Maybe someone else in the company wants it just as much or more than him. So if he does not get CEO, is he a failure?

That’s the usual way of the world, isn’t it?

If he got my coaching he will be a leader long before CEO and long after as well. My Aikido master used to say that no one can be a great leader unless first a great follower. So this future CEO would be encouraged to develop his leadership by following in his current position. That’s why instead of the normal sequence, doing, achieving, then being, my approach is know thy self, then do, then achieve.

Nice. Okay, now hit me with a non-business example of the being, then doing, then achieving sequence.

Well, a very realistic example is the person who is creating art, really enjoys creating art, but is somehow blocked to saying, “I’m an artist.” Perhaps thinking I’ll do, then achieve, then I’ll be an artist, perhaps when the world recognizes me and feeds that back. Somehow that person comes to me for coaching. Once I’m able to single out the person’s purpose, then I work with her to get her to let in the idea that she is an artist.

But Martin, that does not sound so remarkable. I can’t see a lot of people wanting to be coached so they can say, I’m an artist, I’m a writer, I’m a cook, or whatever.

I see your point, but you told me it took you years to accept that you were a writer and could do it professionally. So imagine someone really stuck in the doing, achieving, being sequence. It is very liberating to this person to rearrange it into being, doing, achieving, wouldn’t you agree?

I can see how it frees them creatively.

Yes, it does. If you were conflicted about how much time to put into writing versus delivering mail, you now know your priorities. So being, then doing, then achieving. Being means that whatever you are doing, it’s coming from the core of you, not an imposition from outside. Not my agenda for you, or some other person’s. It’s about who you are, getting in touch with that person, letting him out. Gifting it to the world, really.

Tell me, then, what do you consider your unique skills as a coach, your gift? What do you believe sets you apart from the majority in the coaching field?

Two things we have already discussed under primary skills of a coach, that’s the ability for non-judgmental listening and the practice of relentless compassion.  Over the years, my clients have often mentioned these two as my strong point. A number of those people had other coaches before me, so I’m inclined to accept their feedback. They have also said that they got results faster when working with me. Some have told me that they find I work on a deeper level than they have experienced with other coaches. I attribute this to the same two skills, listening without judging and relentless compassion.

Anything else?

There are a couple of things no client has ever pointed out, but I consider them major strengths that I have as a coach. I have a definite knack for working within the clients reality. By that I mean that I have an adaptable or flexible approach.  I have a system or procedure, of course, but it is not set in stone. The client sets the pace. I adapt myself accordingly. If things become stuck, however, I don’t hesitate to jump in and get it moving again.

The other thing I consider my major strength that sets me apart is that I don’t coach my clients to make them reasonable. I help them to become unreasonable.

I have hear you say that before. Could you explain what you mean, because it sounds like you encourage people to be irrational?

I mean “unreasonable” in a very specific context, in the sense that George Bernard Shaw used it when he said, “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. “  If I coach you to be reasonable, essentially I’m helping you to adapt and adjust yourself to your circumstances. In other words, I’m helping to you remain just were you are; but you’ve come to me to get my support in achieving a goal, perhaps your ultimate dream in life. This means the world has to adapt itself to you; and your progress depends on you becoming unreasonable in the sense that Shaw points out. As a life coach, I’m acutely aware of this and consider it one of my unique strengths.

I find this very interesting, the way you express it. Care to expand on it?

I consider it one of my major strengths in coaching that I support my clients to live a unique and individual life, as opposed to encouraging conformity to “reasonable” expectations of what they should and can do. At the same time, they don’t just become rebels. I help them to be unreasonable in a way that respects and honors the people in their lives and around them.

This brings back the sports coach metaphor. The coach will often see that you can do more than you think yourself capable of, able to run faster or jump higher than your own expectations.

Yes. And his task is to bring all this out of you. His job is to push you beyond your self-induced limits. He has to be “unreasonable” with you.  And if he is effective, he will make you unreasonable too. “Progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

Would you agree that just as you coach people to develop their strengths to the fullest and to discover their purpose or calling, similarly being a life coach is your own chief strength and chief calling?

Absolutely. B. B. King would play the blues whether he got rich and famous or barely making it. Coaching is like that for me. Of course I want to make a decent living by doing it, and if I got as rich as Oprah, that would be okay too. It means I can do even more to help people live lives they love. And for me that’s the real payoff. I often say that I’ve been a coach for the last ten years, but actually, I have been coaching people for years before that. Motivating them. Encouraging them. Getting them to focus on their dreams, whatever that may be. It has always been natural for me to do that and doing so has always been a source of fulfillment for me. Yes, I have to coach. In a world were the “reasonable” path is to “get by” and “hang in there,” my mission is to help people live “unreasonable” extraordinary lives.

What do you want your clients to be left with?

To be engaged fully with his or her life, in action on their goals, and enjoying the journey. I want them to be fulfilled by the gift of their own life.

Martin Brossman is a Life and Business Coach and can be reached at (919) 847-4757 or e-mail Martin@CoachingSupport.com . Conrad Joseph is a freelance writer and editor. He can be reached at (919) 465-5993 or clsj53@hotmail.com

It seems that nothing brings up long-ignored life issues like going out on your own in business.  Any unresolved issues are forced up to your consciousness to be worked out, resulting in  feelings like, ‘maybe I’m not in the right field, maybe I’m not supposed to be doing this’…Of course it does not occur at the same level for everyone, and the solution is unique for each person.

Remember, this is not a fake-it-til-you-make-it method. It is the art of recreating yourself into your next role, a process I designed that takes you through the following four steps:

1.   Creating a new role
Define your new direction. For example, say to yourself, “ I am taking full responsibility for my life; I am here and of value; who I am can make a difference”. Step into who you are meant to be instead of who you think you are. Remember only a prince or princess can dream of a castle.

2.  Stepping into and living out of the role
This is a chance to develop a fortitude you may not have developed in your former work life.  If other people speak more powerfully or enthusiastically about your business than you are able to do, that’s a sign that you have work to do to get to the level of speaking powerfully about the gifts you have to offer.  There will be both an element of fear and excitement present, as well as some anxiety as you move to the next level.
3. Collecting evidence of progress in the role
Keep an accomplishment journal to record your successes.  Record customer testimonials to apply in your promotional materials and to re-read when you need a boost!

4. Designing the environment to call you forward in the role
Get clarity on what motivates you and have a system to help you remember it. Realize        how unstructured time many affect you, and create a new time structure that will keep you in action, with sufficient down time for effectiveness. Set up support that keeps you on track with who you say you are and what you are up to.

Building your own mentor
A client attempting to start a fashion accessory business was facing negative family members who told her she was foolish to go for what she wanted.  I saw that support wasn’t going to come from her immediate environment, so I worked with her to create an imaginary mentor, created from a combination of super heroes and Oprah, to advise her in difficult times.  Her turning point came when she stood up to her overbearing older sister, telling her, “This is who I am now, and if you want to keep talking to me, you have to accept that.”  After that she started standing up for other things that were important—like herself—and built up her business one satisfied customer at a time.

Generating motivation
Another client who had previously done well with a large real estate group was not doing as well in the new agency he had started with a desire to offer greater customer service. We worked to build a mission for him and his partner and tightened up his work schedule. Since he was going to his office but wasn’t being productive there, I had him show up at his favorite coffee shop first thing in the morning for work. But his best motivation came from envisioning sitting down with his grown kids in the future, giving them advice on exploring their own business by telling them how he worked through his fears. Just one year later I gave a presentation to his team of employees in their new expanded office space.
Leaning into progress
People who have made progress on this describe moving from a state of mentally leaning back and occasionally moving forward to an experience that feels like steadily leaning forward into what they have to sell or offer, while realizing that if they don’t get it out there, either someone else will or the value that they have to offer people will be lost. They move from a state of diffused focus to clear focus, from disharmony to harmony.

What are you doing to lean into your goals? To create a sense of urgency?

When you put yourself out there, you will see the adventure as exhilaration.

So deeply engaged that you’re energized, you’ll feel confident that you’re absolutely in the right place.

Following our dreams is an ongoing and dynamic process, one we can restart at any age. A few of us know exactly what we want, but many of us don’t. Honestly admitting we don’t know is a powerful beginning. I remember being terrified at 33 that someone was going to find out I did not have a clue what I wanted to do. Although I had collected a long list of what I did NOT want to do, I did not realize that making peace with “not having a clue” was, in fact, part of the process. I was an artist who did not realize he had a blank canvas right in front of him, and all he needed to do was start painting.

Next I want to discuss several assumptions that stop us from developing our dreams:

If I am sure I am on the “right path,” I will be ready to take action. I will know the outcome ahead of time.

From my experience, it works like this: when you take the first steps in exploring your dreams, the path reveals a little of itself. You take more steps and more of the path appears.
I did a lot of high-quality personal suffering trying to figure out what the “Right Path” was for me. I knew if I could be sure of the right path, I would be motivated and take action. I was never able to get enough assurance to start. I gave up looking for just the “right path,” and I started taking action by exploring different things.

Working with my own personal coach, I started noticing what attracted me. At the time, I was servicing computers for a large corporation, and I felt completely in the wrong place. I noticed that I was more interested in my customers’ dreams than in their computers. I started talking to the co-op students working with me, and asking them what their dreams were. One of them wanted to own a radio station “one day.” I asked how he planned to get from this job to owning a radio station and he had no idea. So I convinced him to meet with me for lunch once a week, and we began exploring what was possible. The entire time I had conversations in my head like, “Who are you to try this?” and “This will never lead to a ‘real’ job,” and “Get real! You have a well-paying job in a ‘good field.’ ”

My coach kept me going, encouraging me to do my job and to continue to meet the co-op for lunch. As a result, he realized that he did not really want a radio station; instead, he wanted to be an expert in a field he enjoyed. He now has his own internet security company.

If I hope and wish hard enough, or have the right attitude, my dreams will come true.

Sometimes we wish, desire, and hope instead of pursuing our dream. I once attended a Feng Shui workshop. An attendee went into a long explanation of how she had done all the “right” Feng Shui things in her garage, but dark oily stuff still kept dripping from the car. The presenter paused for a moment and responded, “Have you considered a mechanic?” Replace wishing and hoping with anticipating, discovering, and creating. Dreams come true for those of us who are receptive and who actively pursue possibilities.

I am unrealistic, wrong, or selfish to want to follow my own dreams.

It is not unrealistic, not wrong, and not selfish to follow your dreams. If you really want to honor your family and yourself, pursue a life you love, filled with many actualized dreams.

I will have to give up everything that is important to me in my current life to follow my dreams.

The all or nothing, black and white mentality that to pursue your dreams you will have to give everything up is a very narrow and noncreative perspective. Although sometimes we do seem to lose everything, that can be a great catalyst to get us into action. In 1994, I belonged to a business support group. At one weekly meeting, I announced that in the previous 6 months I had lost my wife, my cat, my house, my car, and resigned from my job, and I was starting to feel a lot better. Someone with a big smile replied, “Martin has been busy busy!” You can pursue your dreams, and keep what’s important to you.

If I don’t know what I want by now, then I will never know.

It’s never too late to determine what you want out of life. It is only too late to pursue your dream if you think so. In strengthening your ability to dream and create new possibilities, consider some of the following questions:

What environment has best supported you in creating and dreaming?
What context keeps you in action on your dreams?
What would it take to create more of that environment now?
Are you around people who support you in exploring new possibilities in your life?
Do you provide an environment for your friends to pursue their dreams?
Be an advocate of others’ dreams. Remember, friends don’t let friends lead ordinary lives!