Wednesday night I had the very special honor of guest moderating the Resource Group call for students in the Foundations Coaching class through MentorCoach. Kevyn Malloy, the very warm and gracious woman who taught my Foundations class, was the special guest that night. Kevyn shared the story of her path to Coaching and things she learned along the way.
It was especially important for me because Kevyn told us not to get too fixed on a path or a goal, but to stay open to opportunities that appear. She talked a lot about serendipity, the idea of purposeful chance intervening to bring things into our lives when we need them.
Kevyn discovered Coaching during a time when she was taking a break from being a therapist and trying to restore balance to her life. Sounds kind of like my twisting road. She started the training and began Coaching part-time, not sure what role Coaching would ultimately play in her life. I’m feeling pretty comfortable hearing about her twisting road.
As she worked longer in Coaching, she found areas of specialty where she enjoyed her clients and offered her most inspired Coaching. These areas weren’t the ones she would ever have guessed before she got there. She discovered them because she was willing to try new areas and see how it went. She was willing to accept opportunities that colleagues presented to her.
It was an important time in my life for that message. I’ve been sketching my “ideal client” and trying to decide how much of my business I will dedicate to individual coaching and how much will be group coaching, training, writing, and producing information products. Any answers I come up with are completely guessing and I don’t have a clear direction. But that can be okay—or so I’ve been told.
A friend I knew many years ago told me, when I was early in my therapy career and trying to figure out some long-term goals, that sometimes we don’t see that far ahead. Sometimes we just see the next step. Actually, he was finishing a divinity degree, so he was talking about God revealing only the next step and not the whole path. I’ve never fully embraced that message, even though I keep hearing it when I’m trying to see farther down the road.
This week I moved forward in little steps, writing more articles for my Blog-Zine and sketching out some ideas for topics next year. I’ve spent some creative planning time looking more closely at what characteristics in clients will bring out my best work and what ways of interacting and serving I’ll do best. I’ve started planning ways to keep creative ideas flowing and try out new things.
Little steps are all I can see right now because the distant path is too cloudy. I still don’t like not knowing! But not-knowing is the path to discovering, so I have to embrace not-knowing and look forward to the discoveries.
Clear direction is the end of possibility. When you choose something, you choose not to do something else, at least for a time. I think I’m so enthralled with possibility that choosing feels limiting.
In this coming year, I will choose to try new ideas and explore new directions, always staying open to new opportunities. Man! I sound like a Coach!
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
Friday, December 21, 2007
Friday, December 14, 2007
Resistance???
Lately on the Fast Track Your Dream forum there have been discussions about the idea of resistance. We’re trying to figure out what it is and what it isn’t.
Here goes. Resistance refers to an internal inertia, that inner ball and chain that keeps you stuck in a rut and away from taking on risks. Risks can be too--risky. According to Barbara Sher, this rut-resisting urge is a very primitive form of fear. It keeps us from venturing into dangerous territory so we won’t be harmed. It’s a survival thing going back to primitive man. It’s also about as dumb as primitive man, and doesn’t distinguish between risks like dying and risks like being confused and embarrassed while learning to do something new.
I’m not sure myself if it’s a primitive man thing, but I do like to think of resistance as a primal response that keeps us afraid of change and comfortable with the known. But the known gets boring, so we decide we’re going to jump out of the rut and make some changes! Then resistance says things like, “It’s kind of cold. Wouldn’t you rather stay inside where it’s warm?” and “Who do you know at that group you want to visit? You’ll probably be lonely and you won’t fit in.” It also says, “You should probably organize those files before you try something wild and crazy like writing an article.”
The twist that we’re bouncing around in discussions at Fast Track is that sometimes we resist doing things for perfectly good reasons. We might resist taking a step because we know it’s something we’re not very good at it. The ideal solution would be to ask for help or pay someone to do it for us, but we don’t think that’s reasonable so we try to make ourselves do it. Sometimes we resist a step because it truly is too risky, such as quitting a job and then looking for something more interesting to do. The group also realized we might resist change because something about the direction isn’t right. Maybe it’s a little off course, maybe the timing’s not right, or maybe we sense we’re doing things out of order. It’s a gut feeling, our intuition holding us back without us understanding why.
That’s my theme this week. I finally bought Book Yourself Solid by Michael Port. Early in the book he talks about figuring out who your ideal client is. Pardon my mirth. This was a big stumbling block for me during my Coaching course. I don’t know who my ideal client is. I haven’t even believed it’s reasonable to think about it and to limit my business to those people. I’ve always believed I have to find a way to work with whoever is willing to pay for my services, with my only limits being highly offensive people and those who won’t pay or keep appointments.
I discovered I don’t have a lot of enthusiasm for getting clients. I worry I’ll have to work with people who drain my energy and frustrate me. I don’t want to “book myself solid” yet because I’m afraid I won’t enjoy it very much. So I’m finally going to define my ideal client. I’ve never given myself that freedom, never believed I could choose. It’s about time I figure out who I can do my best work for and get excited about meeting them.
I’ve also been worried I’ll have to spend so much time on individual Coaching that I won’t have time to explore lots of other ideas I have for my business. I had planned to focus first on getting Coaching clients and then on other ideas. I’ve decided to change my plan. I’m going to spend some time each day thinking about other, future areas of my business. And I’m going to dream big.
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
Here goes. Resistance refers to an internal inertia, that inner ball and chain that keeps you stuck in a rut and away from taking on risks. Risks can be too--risky. According to Barbara Sher, this rut-resisting urge is a very primitive form of fear. It keeps us from venturing into dangerous territory so we won’t be harmed. It’s a survival thing going back to primitive man. It’s also about as dumb as primitive man, and doesn’t distinguish between risks like dying and risks like being confused and embarrassed while learning to do something new.
I’m not sure myself if it’s a primitive man thing, but I do like to think of resistance as a primal response that keeps us afraid of change and comfortable with the known. But the known gets boring, so we decide we’re going to jump out of the rut and make some changes! Then resistance says things like, “It’s kind of cold. Wouldn’t you rather stay inside where it’s warm?” and “Who do you know at that group you want to visit? You’ll probably be lonely and you won’t fit in.” It also says, “You should probably organize those files before you try something wild and crazy like writing an article.”
The twist that we’re bouncing around in discussions at Fast Track is that sometimes we resist doing things for perfectly good reasons. We might resist taking a step because we know it’s something we’re not very good at it. The ideal solution would be to ask for help or pay someone to do it for us, but we don’t think that’s reasonable so we try to make ourselves do it. Sometimes we resist a step because it truly is too risky, such as quitting a job and then looking for something more interesting to do. The group also realized we might resist change because something about the direction isn’t right. Maybe it’s a little off course, maybe the timing’s not right, or maybe we sense we’re doing things out of order. It’s a gut feeling, our intuition holding us back without us understanding why.
That’s my theme this week. I finally bought Book Yourself Solid by Michael Port. Early in the book he talks about figuring out who your ideal client is. Pardon my mirth. This was a big stumbling block for me during my Coaching course. I don’t know who my ideal client is. I haven’t even believed it’s reasonable to think about it and to limit my business to those people. I’ve always believed I have to find a way to work with whoever is willing to pay for my services, with my only limits being highly offensive people and those who won’t pay or keep appointments.
I discovered I don’t have a lot of enthusiasm for getting clients. I worry I’ll have to work with people who drain my energy and frustrate me. I don’t want to “book myself solid” yet because I’m afraid I won’t enjoy it very much. So I’m finally going to define my ideal client. I’ve never given myself that freedom, never believed I could choose. It’s about time I figure out who I can do my best work for and get excited about meeting them.
I’ve also been worried I’ll have to spend so much time on individual Coaching that I won’t have time to explore lots of other ideas I have for my business. I had planned to focus first on getting Coaching clients and then on other ideas. I’ve decided to change my plan. I’m going to spend some time each day thinking about other, future areas of my business. And I’m going to dream big.
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
Friday, December 7, 2007
Twisting Or Roundabouts?
This week I spent a little bit of time writing for my Blog-Zine, more time planning the rest of this month’s and next month’s Blog-Zine articles, a lot of time reading and watching training DVDs, and a whole lot more time doing things that have nothing to do with my business.
In the “Design your life first, then design your career” model, you start with the kind of life you want to have and the priorities you should honor. From there you find interesting and creative work that complements your life. High up on my list right now is time for my sons’ activities, since my wife is gone from dawn to dusk or later four or five days a week. This week, even though I don’t have my new business up and running at full speed, I was still able to make their activities my priority.
It’s a blessing to know I can give them the extra time once in a while. But I still get anxious when I realize that nothing I did specifically generated new money this week, and my “productive” hours were spent planning, learning, and contemplating.
I still haven’t figured out how to get paid for that. I need to focus on helping other people plan, learn, and contemplate. That’s a paid service!
It didn’t feel like much forward progress. It felt like a lot of waiting. I’m waiting for my web site to be updated when my web master has time. I’m waiting to have more content developed and written so I can offer something—anything—to entice people to sign up to my list and maybe buy a workbook from me.
One of my ideas, which involves packaging training and time-limited Coaching around specific goals and life areas, got me a little excited. When I have been thinking about ways to market Coaching and training to some target groups, it’s felt unclear and I have lacked direction. Having a specific, focused approach for a set amount of time helps me see how to present it. Training and Coaching packages may not produce any more results than offering open-ended Coaching, but it sure helps me “get” the way to start telling the story about what I do!
So maybe it just looked like I was going in circles. Maybe I was seeing a similar view from a slightly different perspective. Maybe there’s a little progress on this journey in there somewhere.
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
In the “Design your life first, then design your career” model, you start with the kind of life you want to have and the priorities you should honor. From there you find interesting and creative work that complements your life. High up on my list right now is time for my sons’ activities, since my wife is gone from dawn to dusk or later four or five days a week. This week, even though I don’t have my new business up and running at full speed, I was still able to make their activities my priority.
It’s a blessing to know I can give them the extra time once in a while. But I still get anxious when I realize that nothing I did specifically generated new money this week, and my “productive” hours were spent planning, learning, and contemplating.
I still haven’t figured out how to get paid for that. I need to focus on helping other people plan, learn, and contemplate. That’s a paid service!
It didn’t feel like much forward progress. It felt like a lot of waiting. I’m waiting for my web site to be updated when my web master has time. I’m waiting to have more content developed and written so I can offer something—anything—to entice people to sign up to my list and maybe buy a workbook from me.
One of my ideas, which involves packaging training and time-limited Coaching around specific goals and life areas, got me a little excited. When I have been thinking about ways to market Coaching and training to some target groups, it’s felt unclear and I have lacked direction. Having a specific, focused approach for a set amount of time helps me see how to present it. Training and Coaching packages may not produce any more results than offering open-ended Coaching, but it sure helps me “get” the way to start telling the story about what I do!
So maybe it just looked like I was going in circles. Maybe I was seeing a similar view from a slightly different perspective. Maybe there’s a little progress on this journey in there somewhere.
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
Friday, November 30, 2007
First Things First
I took my sons to a fast food (in name only) restaurant for fried chicken on Wednesday after soccer practice. The wait was long and we had to remind the people we were waiting for our food, but there was a silver lining.
My younger son’s meal came packaged in a box with puzzles and games on it. One had three panels of cartoon scenes that we had to put in the right order. His older brother and I got to show him how to decide what comes first—cause and effect. We helped him see that some things can’t happen on their own or without a set-up. You can’t trip over the roller skate until someone has left it carelessly on the floor. You can’t walk into a surprise party until people have shown up. First things first.
I had a similar experience this week when I was checking out some web sites for Coaches and career change consultants. I found at least three sites that had a sidebar button for newsletter archives and there were only two or three issues of the newsletter, stopping several months ago. But there was still a “Sign up for my newsletter” box on the site.
One guy I know, Ken Robert, started a newsletter based on helping people with creative ideas for career change. He refocused and started posting on creative thinking, brainstorming, and mind mapping for all sorts of problem solving. But he told his list he was making the change in focus and format and invited us along. These others just left people hanging.
Or did they? That’s probably the problem. They heard the normal mantra: “You have to have a newsletter.” They started one. They asked people to sign up. Maybe three or four did, but after three months of writing content and sending it out there didn’t seem to be a point.
This week I’ve heard and been reminded of about a dozen ideas for getting my message out to people. All these ideas have started with the presumed list. I heard ideas on what to tell my list and how to use creative new ways to package the information or make special offers. But I don’t have a big list yet.
First things first. I’m building a list, very slowly. I have all sorts of plans I can put into place once I have a larger list, but we’re not to that panel yet. I have to build my list or I’ll be wasting my time implementing to no audience.
I’ve had to remind myself that in the meantime I can still be working on things to have ready when the list starts growing. I can plan time-limited groups that combine training and coaching for parents. I can plan telecourses on creative career change ideas. I can put together workbooks to complement someone else’s book and sell them together in a package. But I can’t roll out any of these things without a list.
So I’m feeling a little bit like Noah—yes, delusions of grandeur and all! Noah built that danged boat for decades, with everyone asking him when it was going to rain. I’m not getting teased and no more people think I’m crazy than thought it before, but it’s causing a lot of self-questioning. I don’t have a history of designing programs or products that brought in money and satisfied customers to motivate me. I have to work completely on faith that what I’m doing now will bring revenue in the future. It leaves me feeling like I’m drifting sometimes. I’m pretty sure that’s what happens to a lot of Coaches when they try to get their story in front of potential clients but don’t get many nibbles.
And there’s a problem to be solved that can become a great business model. Hmmm…..
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
My younger son’s meal came packaged in a box with puzzles and games on it. One had three panels of cartoon scenes that we had to put in the right order. His older brother and I got to show him how to decide what comes first—cause and effect. We helped him see that some things can’t happen on their own or without a set-up. You can’t trip over the roller skate until someone has left it carelessly on the floor. You can’t walk into a surprise party until people have shown up. First things first.
I had a similar experience this week when I was checking out some web sites for Coaches and career change consultants. I found at least three sites that had a sidebar button for newsletter archives and there were only two or three issues of the newsletter, stopping several months ago. But there was still a “Sign up for my newsletter” box on the site.
One guy I know, Ken Robert, started a newsletter based on helping people with creative ideas for career change. He refocused and started posting on creative thinking, brainstorming, and mind mapping for all sorts of problem solving. But he told his list he was making the change in focus and format and invited us along. These others just left people hanging.
Or did they? That’s probably the problem. They heard the normal mantra: “You have to have a newsletter.” They started one. They asked people to sign up. Maybe three or four did, but after three months of writing content and sending it out there didn’t seem to be a point.
This week I’ve heard and been reminded of about a dozen ideas for getting my message out to people. All these ideas have started with the presumed list. I heard ideas on what to tell my list and how to use creative new ways to package the information or make special offers. But I don’t have a big list yet.
First things first. I’m building a list, very slowly. I have all sorts of plans I can put into place once I have a larger list, but we’re not to that panel yet. I have to build my list or I’ll be wasting my time implementing to no audience.
I’ve had to remind myself that in the meantime I can still be working on things to have ready when the list starts growing. I can plan time-limited groups that combine training and coaching for parents. I can plan telecourses on creative career change ideas. I can put together workbooks to complement someone else’s book and sell them together in a package. But I can’t roll out any of these things without a list.
So I’m feeling a little bit like Noah—yes, delusions of grandeur and all! Noah built that danged boat for decades, with everyone asking him when it was going to rain. I’m not getting teased and no more people think I’m crazy than thought it before, but it’s causing a lot of self-questioning. I don’t have a history of designing programs or products that brought in money and satisfied customers to motivate me. I have to work completely on faith that what I’m doing now will bring revenue in the future. It leaves me feeling like I’m drifting sometimes. I’m pretty sure that’s what happens to a lot of Coaches when they try to get their story in front of potential clients but don’t get many nibbles.
And there’s a problem to be solved that can become a great business model. Hmmm…..
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
Friday, November 23, 2007
Virtual Hiccups
Technology “dead-legged” me again this week. For those of you who didn’t go to junior high, “dead-leg” is one of the many phrases for the trick of coming up behind someone and pushing—okay, kicking—the back of their leg as they take a step. If you hit the right spot (Hey, come one! Like I would even know where that is? ;-) the person stumbles. It’s similar to, but not as elegant as, gently tapping the ankle as it’s moving forward, just before it moves in front of the other leg, so it winds up crossed behind the other leg. You can get someone to trip nearly every time with that one (from comments I’ve heard).
I had my three final articles for November loaded into my Blog-Zine site and ready to be published. My plan was to go click-click-click and have everything finished in a couple of minutes. But I posted the first one and noticed it looked odd. The formatting was mixed up. Same for numbers two and three.
I went into the edit mode of WordPress and the appearance of my article was different. It wasn’t simple font with some HTML code saying “strong” for bold or “em” for italics or things like that. It looked just like a Word document in Times New Roman with bolded letters and italicized letters. But the spacing was completely messed up, as in gone. It was one long paragraph.
I had to find the originals, copy and paste, and then re-format them so they would look right.
I’m pretty sure WordPress didn’t change, because I have to ask my site to upgrade or it won’t get a new version. My browser updated recently, but it was before I posted the new articles. I have NO CLUE what happened between me uploading the articles and being ready to post them. But they look fine now. Check it out.
I realized a while back that I need a little more technological savvy to get comfortable building a Coaching business. Now I post to this blog and occasionally my Evil Twin Blog in Blogger, I participate in a group blog in TypePad, and my Blog-Zine is in WordPress. I’m gonna’ be so confused!
I even volunteered to be part of the small committee for the Parenting Coaches’ group that will focus on marketing in general and blogging and web sites specifically. Who am I fooling? Apparently, that group! Actually, I’ve learned a few things that put me a step or two ahead of the crowd so they think I’m knowledgeable. Poor things. See how we’re doing so far. The blog is called Parenting By Strengths.
I added a little more confusion this week. I finally chose a theme for my own TypePad blog. I’m going to post about the struggles and finds of doing personal professional service marketing. I know! I can hardly wait, too!
Check out my Anything But Marketing! Blog. Post taunting or commiserating comments as you see fit. There are a lot of us who want to work with people but get completely stuck by the idea of having to market ourselves, which feels insincere and even cheap. Hopefully we’ll come up with some approaches we can at least tolerate and maybe even some we can enjoy.
Onward! Into the technological void! (no bathroom humor intended)
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
I had my three final articles for November loaded into my Blog-Zine site and ready to be published. My plan was to go click-click-click and have everything finished in a couple of minutes. But I posted the first one and noticed it looked odd. The formatting was mixed up. Same for numbers two and three.
I went into the edit mode of WordPress and the appearance of my article was different. It wasn’t simple font with some HTML code saying “strong” for bold or “em” for italics or things like that. It looked just like a Word document in Times New Roman with bolded letters and italicized letters. But the spacing was completely messed up, as in gone. It was one long paragraph.
I had to find the originals, copy and paste, and then re-format them so they would look right.
I’m pretty sure WordPress didn’t change, because I have to ask my site to upgrade or it won’t get a new version. My browser updated recently, but it was before I posted the new articles. I have NO CLUE what happened between me uploading the articles and being ready to post them. But they look fine now. Check it out.
I realized a while back that I need a little more technological savvy to get comfortable building a Coaching business. Now I post to this blog and occasionally my Evil Twin Blog in Blogger, I participate in a group blog in TypePad, and my Blog-Zine is in WordPress. I’m gonna’ be so confused!
I even volunteered to be part of the small committee for the Parenting Coaches’ group that will focus on marketing in general and blogging and web sites specifically. Who am I fooling? Apparently, that group! Actually, I’ve learned a few things that put me a step or two ahead of the crowd so they think I’m knowledgeable. Poor things. See how we’re doing so far. The blog is called Parenting By Strengths.
I added a little more confusion this week. I finally chose a theme for my own TypePad blog. I’m going to post about the struggles and finds of doing personal professional service marketing. I know! I can hardly wait, too!
Check out my Anything But Marketing! Blog. Post taunting or commiserating comments as you see fit. There are a lot of us who want to work with people but get completely stuck by the idea of having to market ourselves, which feels insincere and even cheap. Hopefully we’ll come up with some approaches we can at least tolerate and maybe even some we can enjoy.
Onward! Into the technological void! (no bathroom humor intended)
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
Friday, November 16, 2007
The Graduate
This past Wednesday was the final class for the eleven students in the Coaching Foundations course titled MCP 103. We had our final hour-long tele-class where we focused on planning our future Coaching businesses. This included a demonstration by our instructor, Dr. Kevyn Malloy, of a visualization exercise to help create a vision for the future.
We each also brought a “virtual dish” to share in the feast. Coaches use a lot of imagination, creativity, analogies, and metaphors. Our dishes were in that spirit. Some class members compared the comfortable feeling and the warmth of the seven-month experience to a favorite comfort food. Others talked about ingredients representing the way individual class members had touched and changed their lives. Others talked about a special beverage that was festive and celebratory to focus on our shared accomplishments.
If you’ve been Coached, if you’re a writer or into other creative arts, or if you have a background in psychology that includes imagery or the use of symbols, you can probably appreciate the experience we had. If not, it might sound totally bonkers!
The language of Coaching is forward moving, action-oriented, and positively slanted. As a result it can sound falsely optimistic or insincere at times. But having been trained, and having Coached people, I understand better now that the experiences of Coaching can touch the core of a person. The images and thoughts resonate with your strongest feelings and deepest sense of identity. That’s is surprisingly energizing and exciting. The words are festive and upbeat. But often the experience can be profound, bringing awareness that seems like it “should” be uncomfortable or unsettling to realize, but which is actually very comforting.
Living our lives with the general notion of “fitting in” we tend to downplay our passions and strong interests and deep values. We think it can cause conflict to express them so we don’t speak them often, and when we do we try to be moderate. Coaching turns that around. Coaching celebrates the uniqueness of each person. It helps you find long-forgotten interests and claim important values—out loud! That brings power and clarity that are missing in most of our daily lives.
You’ll get a chance to meet some of my classmates in the future. I’ll keep up with them and share stories of their successes and let you know about tele-courses and e-books and other things they will do.
Right now you can start with one of them. Sarah Sharp wrote an article for my Chasing Wisdom Blog-Zine about using your personal mission to focus and simplify your schedule. I think you’ll enjoy it.
I’m a complete fan of MentorCoach because of the courses, the student support, and the close and supportive community. Our instructor, Kevyn Malloy, is warm and thoughtful and very wise. Gayle Scroggs who runs the weekly student resource group is shade on a sunny day. With all the extras MentorCoach offers alumni, they create exceptional value. These include free interviews with leading researchers and pioneers in Positive Psychology and Coaching demonstration calls. I can listen live and also download them afterwards to my iPod.
If you’re even toying with the idea of learning to be a Coach, check out MentorCoach.
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
We each also brought a “virtual dish” to share in the feast. Coaches use a lot of imagination, creativity, analogies, and metaphors. Our dishes were in that spirit. Some class members compared the comfortable feeling and the warmth of the seven-month experience to a favorite comfort food. Others talked about ingredients representing the way individual class members had touched and changed their lives. Others talked about a special beverage that was festive and celebratory to focus on our shared accomplishments.
If you’ve been Coached, if you’re a writer or into other creative arts, or if you have a background in psychology that includes imagery or the use of symbols, you can probably appreciate the experience we had. If not, it might sound totally bonkers!
The language of Coaching is forward moving, action-oriented, and positively slanted. As a result it can sound falsely optimistic or insincere at times. But having been trained, and having Coached people, I understand better now that the experiences of Coaching can touch the core of a person. The images and thoughts resonate with your strongest feelings and deepest sense of identity. That’s is surprisingly energizing and exciting. The words are festive and upbeat. But often the experience can be profound, bringing awareness that seems like it “should” be uncomfortable or unsettling to realize, but which is actually very comforting.
Living our lives with the general notion of “fitting in” we tend to downplay our passions and strong interests and deep values. We think it can cause conflict to express them so we don’t speak them often, and when we do we try to be moderate. Coaching turns that around. Coaching celebrates the uniqueness of each person. It helps you find long-forgotten interests and claim important values—out loud! That brings power and clarity that are missing in most of our daily lives.
You’ll get a chance to meet some of my classmates in the future. I’ll keep up with them and share stories of their successes and let you know about tele-courses and e-books and other things they will do.
Right now you can start with one of them. Sarah Sharp wrote an article for my Chasing Wisdom Blog-Zine about using your personal mission to focus and simplify your schedule. I think you’ll enjoy it.
I’m a complete fan of MentorCoach because of the courses, the student support, and the close and supportive community. Our instructor, Kevyn Malloy, is warm and thoughtful and very wise. Gayle Scroggs who runs the weekly student resource group is shade on a sunny day. With all the extras MentorCoach offers alumni, they create exceptional value. These include free interviews with leading researchers and pioneers in Positive Psychology and Coaching demonstration calls. I can listen live and also download them afterwards to my iPod.
If you’re even toying with the idea of learning to be a Coach, check out MentorCoach.
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
Friday, November 9, 2007
Autoresponders and HTML
This past week I signed up for an autoresponder. For those of you who don’t know or haven’t even heard of autoresponders, it’s an online software program that lets me capture e-mail addresses and names when people sign up to receive my newsletter. When I send out my newsletter (at least once a month) it will go to everyone on the list.
Autoresponders have other uses, too. For example, you can set up a brief e-mail training course on a particular topic. When a person signs up the autoresponder sends out the e-mails in a sequence. You can set it up to send the first one right away, a second one two days later, a third after two more days, and so forth. This would be great if you wrote a “5 Tips” or “5 Steps” kind of article. Each e-mail could contain one of your tips or steps and explain how to apply it.
Autoresponders can send out weekly e-mails for a year-long series, like steps to gaining freedom from consumer debt or motivational ideas or a series of spiritual devotionals. They can send out daily tips or quotes. You can set them up to send out as many things as you want in a series, at any interval you decide. They’re pretty cool.
They can also be set up as a follow-up to an online order. The first in a series might be “thank you” for ordering. The next, a few days later, might be to remind the person a package is coming and point out some extra features and benefits of the product. The third might be meant to arrive after the package to ask for feedback. The fourth might contain an unexpected extra bonus or further uses for the product. After that, maybe the customer gets an e-mail every two or three weeks for a short while, letting him or her know about other products available. Then the interval might go up to every four to six weeks, just to keep you in their thoughts.
Since I integrated my autoresponder with my Blog-Zine, I got to learn a little more about HTML. At least, I think that’s what I was doing. I had to go into the template for the blog site and add the code that put the sign-up form on my site. Then I had to configure the sign-up form and set up web pages on the blog to thank people for signing up. So far, it seems to be working. Check it out at Chasing Wisdom.
It’s meant I spent a lot of time on technical and specific skills and less on creative and long-term vision skills. It was a nice break, and I enjoy learning about some computer things—some. I hope to be able to make minor changes to my site by myself over time. But I don’t want to have to spend a lot of my time every week learning the programming stuff. I’m glad to learn a little and move on.
And I’m glad to ask for help when I need it. My webmaster will be helping me update my main site over the next few weeks. I’ll let you know when it’s up and ready to debut.
Do not fear web sites. Do not fear blog sites. Start with something simple, get comfortable with it, and then keep learning. You will enjoy the ability a web site gives you to get your message to people, and the creative energy that starts flowing when you get your own blog.
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
Autoresponders have other uses, too. For example, you can set up a brief e-mail training course on a particular topic. When a person signs up the autoresponder sends out the e-mails in a sequence. You can set it up to send the first one right away, a second one two days later, a third after two more days, and so forth. This would be great if you wrote a “5 Tips” or “5 Steps” kind of article. Each e-mail could contain one of your tips or steps and explain how to apply it.
Autoresponders can send out weekly e-mails for a year-long series, like steps to gaining freedom from consumer debt or motivational ideas or a series of spiritual devotionals. They can send out daily tips or quotes. You can set them up to send out as many things as you want in a series, at any interval you decide. They’re pretty cool.
They can also be set up as a follow-up to an online order. The first in a series might be “thank you” for ordering. The next, a few days later, might be to remind the person a package is coming and point out some extra features and benefits of the product. The third might be meant to arrive after the package to ask for feedback. The fourth might contain an unexpected extra bonus or further uses for the product. After that, maybe the customer gets an e-mail every two or three weeks for a short while, letting him or her know about other products available. Then the interval might go up to every four to six weeks, just to keep you in their thoughts.
Since I integrated my autoresponder with my Blog-Zine, I got to learn a little more about HTML. At least, I think that’s what I was doing. I had to go into the template for the blog site and add the code that put the sign-up form on my site. Then I had to configure the sign-up form and set up web pages on the blog to thank people for signing up. So far, it seems to be working. Check it out at Chasing Wisdom.
It’s meant I spent a lot of time on technical and specific skills and less on creative and long-term vision skills. It was a nice break, and I enjoy learning about some computer things—some. I hope to be able to make minor changes to my site by myself over time. But I don’t want to have to spend a lot of my time every week learning the programming stuff. I’m glad to learn a little and move on.
And I’m glad to ask for help when I need it. My webmaster will be helping me update my main site over the next few weeks. I’ll let you know when it’s up and ready to debut.
Do not fear web sites. Do not fear blog sites. Start with something simple, get comfortable with it, and then keep learning. You will enjoy the ability a web site gives you to get your message to people, and the creative energy that starts flowing when you get your own blog.
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
Friday, November 2, 2007
On The Twisting Road
Last week I was grousing about marketing—complaining that it’s unpleasant. And then I had an idea.
In My Discovery Day, a post on my Blog-Zine, I wrote about a long bike ride with a friend when I was not in shape for it. My friend rode his bike for exercise regularly. I rode mine for fun occasionally.
Marketing can be a large, involved task. You can’t hop on your bike and take on the hills and the many miles without some preparation. The best preparation is to ride on a regular basis for a comfortable amount of time, then go further and add more hills. If you’re regularly riding four miles on level roads and occasionally taking paths with hills, it’s not that big a step to take on seven miles with hills along the way.
I realized I am already marketing. I set up a Blog-Zine and completed a month of posts. I need to keep that pace and add a hill—setting up an auto-responder for people to sign up and be notified when my Blog-Zine is posted.
I have my business cards ready and people in my social network know I’m starting a coaching business. It’s time to talk more openly about it. That’s not a huge change or a big step, just a small one.
The owner of my son’s Tae Kwon Do studio asked me to do training on managing children’s behavior for the instructors. I can build on that experience and train other instructors or seek out similar opportunities at child care centers and private schools. With free or low-free training, I’ll give people a chance to get to know me and understand how I can be of help.
Coaches help people set goals then break them down into manageable steps. With help and guidance from friends training to be coaches, I had planned comfortable steps to start marketing my business. I hadn’t talked with anyone about marketing in a while, so I forgot my next step is—well, just a step, not a leap. I don’t need to build a comprehensive marketing system in a month. I need to keep doing the steps I’ve started and add the next one.
One step is choosing a focus for this blog. I started it when Barbara Sher challenged her list to begin a blog tracking the steps we’re making on changing careers. I used it along the way to try out some ideas for articles about coaching topics as preparation for writing my Blog-Zine. Going forward, I want to keep the focus on creative career choices and career change.
This will be a blog about discovering a career path and how that is revealed little by little over time. I’ll track my own steps and things I’ve learned, and I’ll write about other people’s struggles and discoveries.
Since I titled my Blog-Zine Chasing Wisdom, I am going to change the name of this blog. My friend Stella helped me see that rambling along unexplored roads takes you to new towns and more new roads. She helped me see that the journey is often the point, because you have to create your future instead of driving straight to it.
With many thanks to Stella, I am re-naming this blog Twisting Road. Pack your bags and come along.
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
In My Discovery Day, a post on my Blog-Zine, I wrote about a long bike ride with a friend when I was not in shape for it. My friend rode his bike for exercise regularly. I rode mine for fun occasionally.
Marketing can be a large, involved task. You can’t hop on your bike and take on the hills and the many miles without some preparation. The best preparation is to ride on a regular basis for a comfortable amount of time, then go further and add more hills. If you’re regularly riding four miles on level roads and occasionally taking paths with hills, it’s not that big a step to take on seven miles with hills along the way.
I realized I am already marketing. I set up a Blog-Zine and completed a month of posts. I need to keep that pace and add a hill—setting up an auto-responder for people to sign up and be notified when my Blog-Zine is posted.
I have my business cards ready and people in my social network know I’m starting a coaching business. It’s time to talk more openly about it. That’s not a huge change or a big step, just a small one.
The owner of my son’s Tae Kwon Do studio asked me to do training on managing children’s behavior for the instructors. I can build on that experience and train other instructors or seek out similar opportunities at child care centers and private schools. With free or low-free training, I’ll give people a chance to get to know me and understand how I can be of help.
Coaches help people set goals then break them down into manageable steps. With help and guidance from friends training to be coaches, I had planned comfortable steps to start marketing my business. I hadn’t talked with anyone about marketing in a while, so I forgot my next step is—well, just a step, not a leap. I don’t need to build a comprehensive marketing system in a month. I need to keep doing the steps I’ve started and add the next one.
One step is choosing a focus for this blog. I started it when Barbara Sher challenged her list to begin a blog tracking the steps we’re making on changing careers. I used it along the way to try out some ideas for articles about coaching topics as preparation for writing my Blog-Zine. Going forward, I want to keep the focus on creative career choices and career change.
This will be a blog about discovering a career path and how that is revealed little by little over time. I’ll track my own steps and things I’ve learned, and I’ll write about other people’s struggles and discoveries.
Since I titled my Blog-Zine Chasing Wisdom, I am going to change the name of this blog. My friend Stella helped me see that rambling along unexplored roads takes you to new towns and more new roads. She helped me see that the journey is often the point, because you have to create your future instead of driving straight to it.
With many thanks to Stella, I am re-naming this blog Twisting Road. Pack your bags and come along.
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
Friday, October 26, 2007
Running Low On Distractions—Any Suggestions?
This week I got my scheduled posts onto my Blog-Zine, got my business name reserved and the paperwork in progress to make it official, and picked up my new business cards.
Well, I’m on my way, so I can stop posting here. I’ve arrived….
I know, I know, but when will I have arrived? When will this blog I use to track my transition to a new career become obsolete? Maybe when I have certification as a coach, as many clients as I want, and success with my first information product. It’s hard to say.
I may just keep going, since having your own business is not a stagnant and predictable thing. Maybe I’ll continue to post what I learn about trying to have a business that comes from my deepest interests and passions and way of understanding things.
I expect a change of title is coming. Since I’m using “Chasing Wisdom” for the Blog-Zine I’ll think of something to reflect the specific focus of this blog.
My next big step is to go from practice clients (the free ones who have successfully moved on) to paying clients. This blog may become a tale of marketing efforts, flops, and hopefully a few successes. Marketing is, after all, the key to a successful business.
I wanted to settle on a business name. That’s done. I wanted to get a plan for my Blog-Zine and get started. That’s done. I wanted to get different business cards I could hand out that fit my planned work as a coach and mentorship trainer. That’s done. I felt like I needed to complete these tasks so I could focus hard on finding clients.
Now those distractions are gone. I found some new ones, trying to learn about formatting on different blog services. I now have sites with Blogger, WordPress, and TypePad. I’ve spent many hours finding out how to do simple things. It feels like wasted time. I have to focus on creating and posting content instead of obsessing over format. That can become my new distraction that keeps me from focusing on getting clients.
It’s time to face the marketing beast. I hope he’s one of those Scooby Doo monsters, just some manageable worry in a freaky costume. I dread marketing more than cleaning bathrooms. I’ve got to find some new approaches, new perspectives, and a new attitude.
As soon as I have money coming in, I need to get a coach!
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
Well, I’m on my way, so I can stop posting here. I’ve arrived….
I know, I know, but when will I have arrived? When will this blog I use to track my transition to a new career become obsolete? Maybe when I have certification as a coach, as many clients as I want, and success with my first information product. It’s hard to say.
I may just keep going, since having your own business is not a stagnant and predictable thing. Maybe I’ll continue to post what I learn about trying to have a business that comes from my deepest interests and passions and way of understanding things.
I expect a change of title is coming. Since I’m using “Chasing Wisdom” for the Blog-Zine I’ll think of something to reflect the specific focus of this blog.
My next big step is to go from practice clients (the free ones who have successfully moved on) to paying clients. This blog may become a tale of marketing efforts, flops, and hopefully a few successes. Marketing is, after all, the key to a successful business.
I wanted to settle on a business name. That’s done. I wanted to get a plan for my Blog-Zine and get started. That’s done. I wanted to get different business cards I could hand out that fit my planned work as a coach and mentorship trainer. That’s done. I felt like I needed to complete these tasks so I could focus hard on finding clients.
Now those distractions are gone. I found some new ones, trying to learn about formatting on different blog services. I now have sites with Blogger, WordPress, and TypePad. I’ve spent many hours finding out how to do simple things. It feels like wasted time. I have to focus on creating and posting content instead of obsessing over format. That can become my new distraction that keeps me from focusing on getting clients.
It’s time to face the marketing beast. I hope he’s one of those Scooby Doo monsters, just some manageable worry in a freaky costume. I dread marketing more than cleaning bathrooms. I’ve got to find some new approaches, new perspectives, and a new attitude.
As soon as I have money coming in, I need to get a coach!
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
Friday, October 19, 2007
Blog-Zine Launched! Business Named! Business Cards Ordered!
I have put up my first article at my Chasing Wisdom Blog-Zine!
I have the month of October planned out. The tricky part is planning the order I want to have my blog-zine appear when each article is posted, then posting them in reverse so they line up correctly.
I have half the articles written and a couple more sketched out so they’ll all be up by the end of October.
Once I get my rhythm down my plan is to post the first through fourth weeks of each month. I’ll either post two shorter items or one lengthier item each week.
The business now has a name and a web address, although nothing is up at the site yet. I chose Discovery Lookout. The word Discovery wouldn’t let go of me. The word is about trying new things and personal insight and discussions where creative ideas are formed. It’s about getting out of ruts and challenging yourself and having fun. It’s about personal growth.
Lookout is the image of being on a trail in the mountains and coming to a point where you can see across the landscape. You see things below in scale and in relation to each other, and you see far into the distance. It’s the metaphor for seeing your past experiences, your current goals, and your future vision from the point of view of a Mentor.
Discovery Lookout is a metaphor for Mentorship. A Mentor walks with you on the trail and helps you find the place where you can get that magnificent view. You see your goals and your obstacles and find a path to get where you want to go. You see your vision for the future and get inspired to do the work of getting organized, learning new skills, blazing new trails, and overcoming those obstacles.
Once the business was named I settled into the task of updating my business cards. Having the right name seemed like it was the thing holding me back.
But as I worked I realized I don’t want or need to have the business name on my card. My card has my mission at the top, which I rewrote just a little: Be a Catalyst for Personal Growth Through Genuine Relationships That Expand to Transform Families, Groups, and Organizations. It has my name and contact information. And it lists my Chasing Wisdom Blog-Zine web address. Simple, clear, and focused on marketing.
Once they’re ready I’ll see if I still like them, and how long it takes until I’m ready to change them. I keep hearing to order a small number so I can make changes and updates without wasting cards. I only ordered 100. I think I can give out that many before I need to make any more changes!
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
I have the month of October planned out. The tricky part is planning the order I want to have my blog-zine appear when each article is posted, then posting them in reverse so they line up correctly.
I have half the articles written and a couple more sketched out so they’ll all be up by the end of October.
Once I get my rhythm down my plan is to post the first through fourth weeks of each month. I’ll either post two shorter items or one lengthier item each week.
The business now has a name and a web address, although nothing is up at the site yet. I chose Discovery Lookout. The word Discovery wouldn’t let go of me. The word is about trying new things and personal insight and discussions where creative ideas are formed. It’s about getting out of ruts and challenging yourself and having fun. It’s about personal growth.
Lookout is the image of being on a trail in the mountains and coming to a point where you can see across the landscape. You see things below in scale and in relation to each other, and you see far into the distance. It’s the metaphor for seeing your past experiences, your current goals, and your future vision from the point of view of a Mentor.
Discovery Lookout is a metaphor for Mentorship. A Mentor walks with you on the trail and helps you find the place where you can get that magnificent view. You see your goals and your obstacles and find a path to get where you want to go. You see your vision for the future and get inspired to do the work of getting organized, learning new skills, blazing new trails, and overcoming those obstacles.
Once the business was named I settled into the task of updating my business cards. Having the right name seemed like it was the thing holding me back.
But as I worked I realized I don’t want or need to have the business name on my card. My card has my mission at the top, which I rewrote just a little: Be a Catalyst for Personal Growth Through Genuine Relationships That Expand to Transform Families, Groups, and Organizations. It has my name and contact information. And it lists my Chasing Wisdom Blog-Zine web address. Simple, clear, and focused on marketing.
Once they’re ready I’ll see if I still like them, and how long it takes until I’m ready to change them. I keep hearing to order a small number so I can make changes and updates without wasting cards. I only ordered 100. I think I can give out that many before I need to make any more changes!
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
Friday, October 12, 2007
Telecourses Complete! Marketing Looms Ahead
This week on Tuesday evening my coaching classmate Henry Packer and I presented our telcourse on Creative Career Choice. Actually, that was the subtitle. It was called “The Ferris Bueller Approach to Career Choice.” That stirred up a lot of interest. We had a lot of people sign up and most of them actually called in to participate on the call.
I’ve been reading and studying and talking about creative paths to career choice and ways to make a living that are in line with a fulfilled life for several years. I’ve heard lots of creative and powerful techniques for discovering gifts and passions and answering the question: What do I really want to do with my life?
But when Henry first mentioned his idea to me I was blown away. He started years ago by marking a day on his planner with “FB” for the movie. It was the day after his wife left town for a business trip and he had been very busy helping with preparations. He watched the movie, then went out and had a real-life, toned down version of an adventurous day off. He left it open so he could follow his whims and enjoy whatever came up. He’s been doing it on an infrequent but sort of regular basis ever since.
Henry’s understanding is that we have to be alone sometimes to hear our own hearts speaking. We have to take away the hectic demands and the compulsion to be accomplishing and engage the rest of our brains, and our hearts.
I love the idea of taking a day off, not a weekend but a work day, to go have fun and play. It’s a real-life version of thought exercises that ask people to imagine their Perfect Day, or a Day From Heaven. The thought exercise is fun and opens up a lot of wishes and desires, but getting out and actually living it helped me see which wishes and desires were important enough for me to use my time and energy to pursue.
I have now finished both the free telecourses I committed to presenting with partners and am at the end of introductory coaching training. We’re talking a lot about marketing now. I know, I know. I have to get out and tell people about coaching. I have to think of ways to bring some positive new ideas to their lives so they see the value of coaching and will be interested in paying for regular coaching in the future.
I need to finish drafting out my web site and get it published. I need to continue sketching ideas for e-books and presentations and turning outlines into finished material. I need to start making regular posts to my blog-zine.
Now, when was it I was going to start posting to my blog-zine? I’m pretty sure my goal was October—this October, 2007. Am I going to get to it soon, or will I put it off?
In the timeless words of President George H. W. Bush (41, the first), when asked what he was going to do after Iraq under Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, “Let’s just see what I do.”
I can’t wait to find out!
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
I’ve been reading and studying and talking about creative paths to career choice and ways to make a living that are in line with a fulfilled life for several years. I’ve heard lots of creative and powerful techniques for discovering gifts and passions and answering the question: What do I really want to do with my life?
But when Henry first mentioned his idea to me I was blown away. He started years ago by marking a day on his planner with “FB” for the movie. It was the day after his wife left town for a business trip and he had been very busy helping with preparations. He watched the movie, then went out and had a real-life, toned down version of an adventurous day off. He left it open so he could follow his whims and enjoy whatever came up. He’s been doing it on an infrequent but sort of regular basis ever since.
Henry’s understanding is that we have to be alone sometimes to hear our own hearts speaking. We have to take away the hectic demands and the compulsion to be accomplishing and engage the rest of our brains, and our hearts.
I love the idea of taking a day off, not a weekend but a work day, to go have fun and play. It’s a real-life version of thought exercises that ask people to imagine their Perfect Day, or a Day From Heaven. The thought exercise is fun and opens up a lot of wishes and desires, but getting out and actually living it helped me see which wishes and desires were important enough for me to use my time and energy to pursue.
I have now finished both the free telecourses I committed to presenting with partners and am at the end of introductory coaching training. We’re talking a lot about marketing now. I know, I know. I have to get out and tell people about coaching. I have to think of ways to bring some positive new ideas to their lives so they see the value of coaching and will be interested in paying for regular coaching in the future.
I need to finish drafting out my web site and get it published. I need to continue sketching ideas for e-books and presentations and turning outlines into finished material. I need to start making regular posts to my blog-zine.
Now, when was it I was going to start posting to my blog-zine? I’m pretty sure my goal was October—this October, 2007. Am I going to get to it soon, or will I put it off?
In the timeless words of President George H. W. Bush (41, the first), when asked what he was going to do after Iraq under Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, “Let’s just see what I do.”
I can’t wait to find out!
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
Sunday, October 7, 2007
One Down, One to Go!
On Wednesday evening Sarah Sharp and I presented a telecourse on Cultivating Community. It was my first time to be presenting on a telecourse but I wasn't very nervous, just a little excited and kind of anxious.
Sarah had a good story as an example of people choosing to develop community. She told about a fish market where the employees decided to have fun in spite of whatever personal frustrations or hassles they had going on. As they had fun, it started a sense of connection. When they decided on a goal, to become “world famous,” the common goal plus the decision to focus on enjoying work pulled them together into a more cohesive group. Everyday people doing work that could seem boring and repetitious, but they found a way to make it more. They transcended their circumstances through a common goal and mutual commitment.
Our participants joined in the conversation and shared a lot of ideas and thoughts on ways that individuals can help bring more connection and common purpose into groups so community connections are strengthened. We discussed values like compassion and mutual respect that we think are necessary to strengthening community, plus common goals and a willingness for group members to take time once in a while to see how the group is doing at meeting its goals and functioning as a community.
Sarah is a polished presenter whose enthusiasm and warmth come across clearly. It was great to have her as a partner because she was memorable and took the pressure off of me. I knew people would have a good experience based on what she shared and the conversations she led. I was able to be very comfortable when I was giving information and leading discussions.
This Tuesday I have my second telecourse. This one will be on Creative Career Choice. I hope it goes as smoothly as the first one did. Since a telecourse is a “live” event with group participation and technology is involved, unplanned things can happen.
I’m ready for the expected and think I can navigate most of the unexpected. If Henry and I wind up with things we can’t handle—well, then, we’re gonna’ have some great stories to tell!
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
Sarah had a good story as an example of people choosing to develop community. She told about a fish market where the employees decided to have fun in spite of whatever personal frustrations or hassles they had going on. As they had fun, it started a sense of connection. When they decided on a goal, to become “world famous,” the common goal plus the decision to focus on enjoying work pulled them together into a more cohesive group. Everyday people doing work that could seem boring and repetitious, but they found a way to make it more. They transcended their circumstances through a common goal and mutual commitment.
Our participants joined in the conversation and shared a lot of ideas and thoughts on ways that individuals can help bring more connection and common purpose into groups so community connections are strengthened. We discussed values like compassion and mutual respect that we think are necessary to strengthening community, plus common goals and a willingness for group members to take time once in a while to see how the group is doing at meeting its goals and functioning as a community.
Sarah is a polished presenter whose enthusiasm and warmth come across clearly. It was great to have her as a partner because she was memorable and took the pressure off of me. I knew people would have a good experience based on what she shared and the conversations she led. I was able to be very comfortable when I was giving information and leading discussions.
This Tuesday I have my second telecourse. This one will be on Creative Career Choice. I hope it goes as smoothly as the first one did. Since a telecourse is a “live” event with group participation and technology is involved, unplanned things can happen.
I’m ready for the expected and think I can navigate most of the unexpected. If Henry and I wind up with things we can’t handle—well, then, we’re gonna’ have some great stories to tell!
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Blog, Blog, Blog, Telecourse!
I’ve added links to other blogs where I will be posting. They’re on the left, the top list, if I arranged things correctly.
I have been participating in weekly discussions with a group of Parenting Coaches who have decided to use a group blog to post articles by different coaches on topics helpful to parents. Please check it out. It’s called Parenting By Our Strengths.
I went for the first time this month to the meeting of the North Texas chapter of ICF, the International Coach Federation. At the meeting I met a couple of people who said a group were gathering after the luncheon to talk about faith-based coaching. I had not thought about coaching from a faith perspective but realized it’s a powerful idea. I have tried to keep up with Christian Counseling over the years to understand reasons some Christians are reluctant to seek mental health services, why they might distrust therapists, and how to talk about emotional healing in the language of faith. I am Christian and have always connected the healing work of a therapist with Christ’s message of forgiveness and restoration and hope, so I never experienced that resistance.
The group was coincidentally meeting for the first time and one of the members started a blog, posted to it, and invited others to join and post. I jumped in and wrote a short article. Check it out at Faith Based Coaching.
I also wrote a lengthy first draft of my Discovery Day to shape into an article for the premiere of my Chasing Wisdom Blog-Zine. I will be learning through writing it and formatting it and intend to make it interesting and useful. Check it out and let me know your thoughts.
My first telecourse will be Wednesday of this coming week so I’ve been working to get ready for it. My second telecourse will be Tuesday of the following week. Thank you to those of you who have signed up and those of you who have wished me well and encouraged me. I look forward to what we’re going to learn.
My neurotic thought of recent weeks: Do I have a coaching business that will include e-books, audio recorded presentations, and maybe a membership community? Or do I have a personal mentorship business with a variety of products and media which includes coaching as one of the services offered? It may be an insignificant distinction but it’s on my mind a lot as I develop a business plan and a marketing plan!
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
I have been participating in weekly discussions with a group of Parenting Coaches who have decided to use a group blog to post articles by different coaches on topics helpful to parents. Please check it out. It’s called Parenting By Our Strengths.
I went for the first time this month to the meeting of the North Texas chapter of ICF, the International Coach Federation. At the meeting I met a couple of people who said a group were gathering after the luncheon to talk about faith-based coaching. I had not thought about coaching from a faith perspective but realized it’s a powerful idea. I have tried to keep up with Christian Counseling over the years to understand reasons some Christians are reluctant to seek mental health services, why they might distrust therapists, and how to talk about emotional healing in the language of faith. I am Christian and have always connected the healing work of a therapist with Christ’s message of forgiveness and restoration and hope, so I never experienced that resistance.
The group was coincidentally meeting for the first time and one of the members started a blog, posted to it, and invited others to join and post. I jumped in and wrote a short article. Check it out at Faith Based Coaching.
I also wrote a lengthy first draft of my Discovery Day to shape into an article for the premiere of my Chasing Wisdom Blog-Zine. I will be learning through writing it and formatting it and intend to make it interesting and useful. Check it out and let me know your thoughts.
My first telecourse will be Wednesday of this coming week so I’ve been working to get ready for it. My second telecourse will be Tuesday of the following week. Thank you to those of you who have signed up and those of you who have wished me well and encouraged me. I look forward to what we’re going to learn.
My neurotic thought of recent weeks: Do I have a coaching business that will include e-books, audio recorded presentations, and maybe a membership community? Or do I have a personal mentorship business with a variety of products and media which includes coaching as one of the services offered? It may be an insignificant distinction but it’s on my mind a lot as I develop a business plan and a marketing plan!
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
Friday, September 21, 2007
Brief and Cryptic
I was planning the creative career choice telecourse with my classmate Henry and he said he was planning to take a “Ferris Bueller” day off before we present the course. The concept was something he had told me about and became the main theme of our presentation so it sounded like a good idea to have fresh information to share.
Then he asked me if I was planning to have a Ferris Bueller day off.
I hadn’t planned to—until he asked me. Of course it made sense, and it sounded like a blast.
I spent today having my day off. I called it my “Discovery Day.” I experienced some fun and interesting things and learned more about my interests and what I need to include in my life. No details yet, since I’m still thinking about it and planning to write a blog-zine article based on my experience and what we will present in the course.
At this point I encourage everyone to remember to take time for fun, for whimsy, for whatever is missing in your daily life that you really enjoy and value. Heck, if you can take time off to go to the dentist, you can take time off to go to the beach.
I didn’t go to the beach, because we don’t have one close, but I probably would have if it could have been done within a single day!
I’ve been carrying a thesaurus and dictionary around, thinking about words that describe the work of coaching and the ideas of personal mentorship and personal growth and improvement through the synergy of relationships. It’s been fun—I’m weird like that, but I know people who read dictionaries for fun. Thinking about the words that describe my work and my business has helped me think of new ways to help people as a coach, new ideas for information products, and new metaphors for explaining what I do.
But I still don’t have a name I like that is available as a URL and for a business entity in Texas! I’ll keep at it.
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
Then he asked me if I was planning to have a Ferris Bueller day off.
I hadn’t planned to—until he asked me. Of course it made sense, and it sounded like a blast.
I spent today having my day off. I called it my “Discovery Day.” I experienced some fun and interesting things and learned more about my interests and what I need to include in my life. No details yet, since I’m still thinking about it and planning to write a blog-zine article based on my experience and what we will present in the course.
At this point I encourage everyone to remember to take time for fun, for whimsy, for whatever is missing in your daily life that you really enjoy and value. Heck, if you can take time off to go to the dentist, you can take time off to go to the beach.
I didn’t go to the beach, because we don’t have one close, but I probably would have if it could have been done within a single day!
I’ve been carrying a thesaurus and dictionary around, thinking about words that describe the work of coaching and the ideas of personal mentorship and personal growth and improvement through the synergy of relationships. It’s been fun—I’m weird like that, but I know people who read dictionaries for fun. Thinking about the words that describe my work and my business has helped me think of new ways to help people as a coach, new ideas for information products, and new metaphors for explaining what I do.
But I still don’t have a name I like that is available as a URL and for a business entity in Texas! I’ll keep at it.
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
Monday, September 17, 2007
Cultivating Community Telecourse
CULTIVATING COMMUNITY
Practical Steps and Spiritual Principles
Wednesday, October 3rd at 8:00PM (Eastern)
Presenters: Sarah Sharp and Steve Coxsey
Contact: steve@stevecoxsey.com
TELECOURSE DESCRIPTION:
Do You Ever Feel Lonely When You’re In A Group?
Like you don’t really connect? Like things are pleasant on the surface but there’s not much underneath?
Do you hear stories about people long ago having close connections to each other and wish it were still possible? Do you wonder if it ever really existed?
************************************************************
There’s a growing disconnect in the world. Larger and larger populations live in closer and smaller spaces, but people seem to be forgetting that anyone else exists!
In this workshop we will explore ways you can encourage connection and community within the various groups of people you interact with on a regular basis. We’ll discuss the values of a functioning community and ways to promote them whenever you’re with other people.
************************************************************
You will learn:
• A model of community at a deep level of connection and cooperation
• The values of a functioning community
• The stages of development for a functioning community
• Many of the challenges to maintaining a thriving community and how to resolve them
• A model for sustainable group leadership through community based on collaboration and consensus among servant leaders
• Specific steps you can take to promote community in groups where you are a member
• An approach to finding an optimum balance between individual and group identity using the dependence continuum
• Ways that participation in community energizes your personal growth
************************************************************
This won’t be a philosophical discussion of some unattainable ideal. We’re not yearning for Shangri La. This will be a real life, present day, roll-up-your-sleeves interactive workshop to help you find ways to build a foothold for community in the immediate circle of people around you—beginning with you. You will be challenged to plan real steps you can take to start bringing people together into community in your own life.
************************************************************
LEADERS:
Sarah Sharp has made it her mission to help unite people with their fullest potential, and then teach them to teach others to do the same. She has spent the past five years coordinating training events on topics such as Communication Skills, Conflict Resolution, and Generational Differences. She spent time as an advocate for her employees, planning team-building and morale-boosting events. Working for a decade in healthcare administration, she was also an advocate for patients, helping to build systems and protocols to ensure good customer service, building a sense of importance as an individual as well as a place within the larger healthcare community. She has merged her attention to detail and her love of people into a budding career as a highly entertaining and intensive speaker. Sarah believes that as each person works toward their own good potential, everyone benefits and community is fostered and flourishes.
Steve Coxsey is passionate about the power of mentorship to promote personal growth and strengthen groups into community. He spent three years working in schools helping teachers brainstorm behavior management and individualized instruction for students, along with planning ways to promote cooperation in the classroom. He worked as a therapist at a treatment center for two years and then in private practice for six years before becoming co-owner of a childcare center and preschool. As a supervisor of programs for children, he was concerned daily about the children having a sense of belonging and connection. As a supervisor of several employees, he was always looking for ways to promote a sense of cooperation and shared purpose. Early on he thought of that as a sense of “family” or “teamwork” but has come to realize he was actually working to develop and maintain a thriving community for all the children and staff.
************************************************************
TUITION: This telecourse is free. You pay only any long distance charges to access our bridge line.
TO REGISTER: E-mail your registration to steve@stevecoxsey.com. Place the words “Genuine Community” in the subject line. In the body of the e-mail please include: 1) Your full name; 2) Your e-mail address to receive confirmation and other information on the course; and 3) Your daytime and evening phone numbers. In response you will receive confirmation of your registration and access numbers for the bridge line.
ALL REGISTRATION INFORMATION IS CONFIDENTIAL AND WILL NOT BE SHARED. We will not sell, rent, share, or exchange your contact information with anyone.
QUESTIONS?
Contact Steve at steve@stevecoxsey.com or Sarah at scandelon@aol.com.
Become the catalyst to build the connections you’ve been missing. Take a stand for community!
************************************************************
Practical Steps and Spiritual Principles
Wednesday, October 3rd at 8:00PM (Eastern)
Presenters: Sarah Sharp and Steve Coxsey
Contact: steve@stevecoxsey.com
TELECOURSE DESCRIPTION:
Do You Ever Feel Lonely When You’re In A Group?
Like you don’t really connect? Like things are pleasant on the surface but there’s not much underneath?
Do you hear stories about people long ago having close connections to each other and wish it were still possible? Do you wonder if it ever really existed?
************************************************************
There’s a growing disconnect in the world. Larger and larger populations live in closer and smaller spaces, but people seem to be forgetting that anyone else exists!
In this workshop we will explore ways you can encourage connection and community within the various groups of people you interact with on a regular basis. We’ll discuss the values of a functioning community and ways to promote them whenever you’re with other people.
************************************************************
You will learn:
• A model of community at a deep level of connection and cooperation
• The values of a functioning community
• The stages of development for a functioning community
• Many of the challenges to maintaining a thriving community and how to resolve them
• A model for sustainable group leadership through community based on collaboration and consensus among servant leaders
• Specific steps you can take to promote community in groups where you are a member
• An approach to finding an optimum balance between individual and group identity using the dependence continuum
• Ways that participation in community energizes your personal growth
************************************************************
This won’t be a philosophical discussion of some unattainable ideal. We’re not yearning for Shangri La. This will be a real life, present day, roll-up-your-sleeves interactive workshop to help you find ways to build a foothold for community in the immediate circle of people around you—beginning with you. You will be challenged to plan real steps you can take to start bringing people together into community in your own life.
************************************************************
LEADERS:
Sarah Sharp has made it her mission to help unite people with their fullest potential, and then teach them to teach others to do the same. She has spent the past five years coordinating training events on topics such as Communication Skills, Conflict Resolution, and Generational Differences. She spent time as an advocate for her employees, planning team-building and morale-boosting events. Working for a decade in healthcare administration, she was also an advocate for patients, helping to build systems and protocols to ensure good customer service, building a sense of importance as an individual as well as a place within the larger healthcare community. She has merged her attention to detail and her love of people into a budding career as a highly entertaining and intensive speaker. Sarah believes that as each person works toward their own good potential, everyone benefits and community is fostered and flourishes.
Steve Coxsey is passionate about the power of mentorship to promote personal growth and strengthen groups into community. He spent three years working in schools helping teachers brainstorm behavior management and individualized instruction for students, along with planning ways to promote cooperation in the classroom. He worked as a therapist at a treatment center for two years and then in private practice for six years before becoming co-owner of a childcare center and preschool. As a supervisor of programs for children, he was concerned daily about the children having a sense of belonging and connection. As a supervisor of several employees, he was always looking for ways to promote a sense of cooperation and shared purpose. Early on he thought of that as a sense of “family” or “teamwork” but has come to realize he was actually working to develop and maintain a thriving community for all the children and staff.
************************************************************
TUITION: This telecourse is free. You pay only any long distance charges to access our bridge line.
TO REGISTER: E-mail your registration to steve@stevecoxsey.com. Place the words “Genuine Community” in the subject line. In the body of the e-mail please include: 1) Your full name; 2) Your e-mail address to receive confirmation and other information on the course; and 3) Your daytime and evening phone numbers. In response you will receive confirmation of your registration and access numbers for the bridge line.
ALL REGISTRATION INFORMATION IS CONFIDENTIAL AND WILL NOT BE SHARED. We will not sell, rent, share, or exchange your contact information with anyone.
QUESTIONS?
Contact Steve at steve@stevecoxsey.com or Sarah at scandelon@aol.com.
Become the catalyst to build the connections you’ve been missing. Take a stand for community!
************************************************************
Creative Career Choice Telecourse
The Ferris Bueller Approach to Career Choice
Freeing Yourself to Choose Work You Love
Life isn't about finding yourself.
Life is about creating yourself.
~ George Bernard Shaw
DATE AND TIME: Tuesday, October 9, 2007 at 8:00p (Eastern)
PRESENTERS: Henry Packer and Steve Coxsey
CONTACT: steve@stevecoxsey.com
******************************************************************************
TELECOURSE DESCRIPTON:
Do You Feel Stuck In A Career That Doesn’t Suit You?
Did You Pick The Practical Path for Security?
Did You Choose What You Were Supposed To Do Over What You Wanted To Do?
Can You Remember What You Wanted To Do?
******************************************************************************
More than at any time in history, we have the freedom to choose work that we can enjoy. The technology of the information age makes it possible to consult, train, teach, and sell across great distances. It’s getting easier and easier to find clients and customers who want what we can offer through work based on our unique abilities. It’s possible to find work we enjoy, work that brings fulfillment and contentment, work that feeds our souls as well as pays the bills.
But a lot of us have lost track of what we want to do. We chose things we were good at doing. We chose things we stumbled into and thought, Why not? We chose what our parents had done, or always wanted to do. We set aside our wants and dreams, thinking they were childish and impractical, and settled into a rut.
It’s time to remember what you want to do, because it comes from the deepest part of you. It’s time to embrace your dreams. It’s time to climb out of that rut!
This telecourse is designed to give you some exercises you can use to rediscover what you want to do when you grow up. We will show you ways to listen to your heart’s desire, your soul’s call, that part of yourself that has a unique way of seeing things and a unique combination of gifts and talents. This points you to work that engages your mind and your emotions. This is the work you were born to do, and it brings you the highest level of contentment and personal success.
******************************************************************************
You Will Learn:
• Common reasons for choosing a career don’t hold up over time
• Alternatives to having a job that people are really doing successfully
• How Multiple Profit Centers can be greater security than a job and more connected to your deepest nature
• A Career Choice model for planning work around your life
• Exercises you can use to hear your heart’s desire and discover your gifts and passions
• Practical steps to take to bring more happiness and enjoyment into your life—even at work!
******************************************************************************
LEADERS:
Henry Packer is journeyman life coach, professional computer geek, aspiring actor/author, and recovering malcontent. Raised in the theater and later a literature major, he found his true callings early in life. As an alumnus of Woodstock (the first one) he valued the ideal of dropping out, but he took the responsible path and became a systems analyst, work that kept him fed, housed, and unsatisfied. In years of quiet pragmatism, he knew that dropping out needs to be an occasional activity, and he has become an authority on the art and science of the Day Off. A recreation, a diversion, and an extraordinary method of regaining oneself.
Steve Coxsey is passionate about personal growth and development. He was a consultant for teachers before working as a therapist at a treatment center and then in private practice. He spent ten years as co-owner of a childcare center and preschool, where he put into practice the power of mentorship to promote personal growth. As a supervisor of programs for children, he was able to collaborate with teachers and caregivers on ways to help children learn new skills and approach challenges with confidence. As a supervisor of several employees, he got to help them set personal goals for professional growth and reach outside their comfort zones to learn new things. He helped many develop long-term career plans that honored their dreams. Steve has been on a journey to discover his next calling and loves helping people discover their passions and gifts and find ways to design work around them.
******************************************************************************
TUITION: This telecourse is free. You pay only any long distance charges to access our bridge line.
TO REGISTER: E-mail your registration to steve@stevecoxsey.com. Place the words “Genuine Community” in the subject line. In the body of the e-mail please include: 1) Your full name; 2) Your e-mail address to receive confirmation and other information on the course; and 3) Your daytime and evening phone numbers. In response you will receive confirmation of your registration and access numbers for the bridge line.
ALL REGISTRATION INFORMATION IS CONFIDENTIAL AND WILL NOT BE SHARED. We will not sell, rent, share, or exchange your contact information with anyone.
QUESTIONS?
Contact Steve at steve@stevecoxsey.com.
Get out of the rut! Discover what you love to do and plan your life around it!
******************************************************************************
Freeing Yourself to Choose Work You Love
Life isn't about finding yourself.
Life is about creating yourself.
~ George Bernard Shaw
DATE AND TIME: Tuesday, October 9, 2007 at 8:00p (Eastern)
PRESENTERS: Henry Packer and Steve Coxsey
CONTACT: steve@stevecoxsey.com
******************************************************************************
TELECOURSE DESCRIPTON:
Do You Feel Stuck In A Career That Doesn’t Suit You?
Did You Pick The Practical Path for Security?
Did You Choose What You Were Supposed To Do Over What You Wanted To Do?
Can You Remember What You Wanted To Do?
******************************************************************************
More than at any time in history, we have the freedom to choose work that we can enjoy. The technology of the information age makes it possible to consult, train, teach, and sell across great distances. It’s getting easier and easier to find clients and customers who want what we can offer through work based on our unique abilities. It’s possible to find work we enjoy, work that brings fulfillment and contentment, work that feeds our souls as well as pays the bills.
But a lot of us have lost track of what we want to do. We chose things we were good at doing. We chose things we stumbled into and thought, Why not? We chose what our parents had done, or always wanted to do. We set aside our wants and dreams, thinking they were childish and impractical, and settled into a rut.
It’s time to remember what you want to do, because it comes from the deepest part of you. It’s time to embrace your dreams. It’s time to climb out of that rut!
This telecourse is designed to give you some exercises you can use to rediscover what you want to do when you grow up. We will show you ways to listen to your heart’s desire, your soul’s call, that part of yourself that has a unique way of seeing things and a unique combination of gifts and talents. This points you to work that engages your mind and your emotions. This is the work you were born to do, and it brings you the highest level of contentment and personal success.
******************************************************************************
You Will Learn:
• Common reasons for choosing a career don’t hold up over time
• Alternatives to having a job that people are really doing successfully
• How Multiple Profit Centers can be greater security than a job and more connected to your deepest nature
• A Career Choice model for planning work around your life
• Exercises you can use to hear your heart’s desire and discover your gifts and passions
• Practical steps to take to bring more happiness and enjoyment into your life—even at work!
******************************************************************************
LEADERS:
Henry Packer is journeyman life coach, professional computer geek, aspiring actor/author, and recovering malcontent. Raised in the theater and later a literature major, he found his true callings early in life. As an alumnus of Woodstock (the first one) he valued the ideal of dropping out, but he took the responsible path and became a systems analyst, work that kept him fed, housed, and unsatisfied. In years of quiet pragmatism, he knew that dropping out needs to be an occasional activity, and he has become an authority on the art and science of the Day Off. A recreation, a diversion, and an extraordinary method of regaining oneself.
Steve Coxsey is passionate about personal growth and development. He was a consultant for teachers before working as a therapist at a treatment center and then in private practice. He spent ten years as co-owner of a childcare center and preschool, where he put into practice the power of mentorship to promote personal growth. As a supervisor of programs for children, he was able to collaborate with teachers and caregivers on ways to help children learn new skills and approach challenges with confidence. As a supervisor of several employees, he got to help them set personal goals for professional growth and reach outside their comfort zones to learn new things. He helped many develop long-term career plans that honored their dreams. Steve has been on a journey to discover his next calling and loves helping people discover their passions and gifts and find ways to design work around them.
******************************************************************************
TUITION: This telecourse is free. You pay only any long distance charges to access our bridge line.
TO REGISTER: E-mail your registration to steve@stevecoxsey.com. Place the words “Genuine Community” in the subject line. In the body of the e-mail please include: 1) Your full name; 2) Your e-mail address to receive confirmation and other information on the course; and 3) Your daytime and evening phone numbers. In response you will receive confirmation of your registration and access numbers for the bridge line.
ALL REGISTRATION INFORMATION IS CONFIDENTIAL AND WILL NOT BE SHARED. We will not sell, rent, share, or exchange your contact information with anyone.
QUESTIONS?
Contact Steve at steve@stevecoxsey.com.
Get out of the rut! Discover what you love to do and plan your life around it!
******************************************************************************
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Looking Forward To Figuring Out What I Learned—Once My Head Clears
I was pretty sure this post would be about my experience at the local chapter meeting of the ICF (International Coach Federation). Friday was my first opportunity to attend a group meeting during lunch at a very nice restaurant in Dallas called Popolo’s.
I thought I would compare what was going on with that group with my experiences with my MentorCoach class. I thought I would have some ideas about moving my business forward.
Nah. A little bit of itchy-nose allergies became a stuffy head cold by Friday afternoon and wiped me out. I got the headache and cough today, Saturday. Insight doesn’t come through very clear when your head and ears are stuffed up!
I enjoyed meeting new people at the luncheon and will attend again and probably join the local group. They have a training session during the monthly meeting and that will be an opportunity to learn more about variety in the world of coaching.
The training this time was on group coaching, with a live demonstration. Having just completed training modules on group coaching through MentorCoach I thought it was a good way to see a real experience to compare with the guidelines and recommendations.
But that’s about all I figured out. My nose was itchy during the training, and by the time I got my sons from school I was feeling crummy. I probably won’t know what else I learned until I feel better.
There was another snag during the week. I can’t have a business entity named Discovery Partners in the state of Texas because there’s a limited partnership with that name. It throws another wrench in my plans so I have to back up, find a name that represents my business, and make sure the name is available for a corporation and a URL. At least having this annoying cold is distracting me from the frustration of trying to get a name that brings together a business entity, a URL, and my mission.
I think I’ll seriously consider calling it “Stick” again. I need to see if that’s already taken.
May Your Nose Be Clear and
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
I thought I would compare what was going on with that group with my experiences with my MentorCoach class. I thought I would have some ideas about moving my business forward.
Nah. A little bit of itchy-nose allergies became a stuffy head cold by Friday afternoon and wiped me out. I got the headache and cough today, Saturday. Insight doesn’t come through very clear when your head and ears are stuffed up!
I enjoyed meeting new people at the luncheon and will attend again and probably join the local group. They have a training session during the monthly meeting and that will be an opportunity to learn more about variety in the world of coaching.
The training this time was on group coaching, with a live demonstration. Having just completed training modules on group coaching through MentorCoach I thought it was a good way to see a real experience to compare with the guidelines and recommendations.
But that’s about all I figured out. My nose was itchy during the training, and by the time I got my sons from school I was feeling crummy. I probably won’t know what else I learned until I feel better.
There was another snag during the week. I can’t have a business entity named Discovery Partners in the state of Texas because there’s a limited partnership with that name. It throws another wrench in my plans so I have to back up, find a name that represents my business, and make sure the name is available for a corporation and a URL. At least having this annoying cold is distracting me from the frustration of trying to get a name that brings together a business entity, a URL, and my mission.
I think I’ll seriously consider calling it “Stick” again. I need to see if that’s already taken.
May Your Nose Be Clear and
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
Friday, September 7, 2007
Forward! V-Groups are Near
This past week I have done a few things to move me closer to a thriving coaching practice.
I got telecourse titles and times decided and planned with my partners (see below).
I helped draft the outlines for each of the telecourses.
I worked on some of the marketing copy for one of the v-groups with one of my partners.
I used newly learned skills in basic mind-mapping to help look at different ways to structure my blog-zine.
I listened to a call on executive coaching and got the chance to hear it compared to small business coaching to help me decide I will probably take small business coaching first, maybe early next year.
I wrapped up three successful months of coaching with my first “practice” client, who felt like she accomplished many of her goals and has great new skills and ways of approaching important decisions in her life.
In keeping with the original spirit of this blog—Barbara Sher encouraging people to post our successes and steps forward—I will not detail the areas where I didn’t make the progress I wanted or didn’t do anything at all!
Below is a list of all the v-groups being offered by members of my introductory coaching class:
V-Groups for MCP103
CREATING COMMUNITY
Wednesday, October 3rd at 8:00PM (Eastern)
Presenters: Sarah Sharp and Steve Coxsey
Contact: steve@stevecoxsey.com
THE SPIRITUAL LAWS OF PARENTING
Monday, October 8th at 1:00PM (Eastern)
Presenters: Donna Allen and Irma Best
Contact: igbest@bellsouth.net
THE FERRIS BUELLER APPROACH TO CAREER CHOICE:
Freeing Yourself To Choose The Work You Love
Tuesday, October 9th at 8:00PM (Eastern)
Presenters: Steve Coxsey and Henry Packer
Contact: steve@stevecoxsey.com
SIMPLIFY YOUR LIFE: Shaping Your Day-To-Day Around Your Personal Vision
Wednesday, October 10th at 8:00PM (Eastern)
Presenter: Sarah Sharp
Contact: scandelon@aol.com
NAVIGATING THE GENERATIONAL DIVIDE WITH YOUR CLIENTS
Thursday, October 11th at 8:00PM (Eastern)
Presenters: Dee Covey and Kyle Kinder
Contact: deecovey@dsprinc.com
LEARNED OPTIMISM: An Introduction To The Basics of Positive Psychology
Friday, October 19th at 12:00PM
Presenters: Betty Reinsch and David Litton
Contact: david@davidlitton.com
CHANGING CAREERS
Friday, October 19th at 1:00PM
Presenter: Doris Muniz
Contact: dmuniz@sbcglobal.net
Please sign up if you are able! They are free but on bridge lines that require a PIN to access so e-mail the presenter for more information or to enroll.
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
I got telecourse titles and times decided and planned with my partners (see below).
I helped draft the outlines for each of the telecourses.
I worked on some of the marketing copy for one of the v-groups with one of my partners.
I used newly learned skills in basic mind-mapping to help look at different ways to structure my blog-zine.
I listened to a call on executive coaching and got the chance to hear it compared to small business coaching to help me decide I will probably take small business coaching first, maybe early next year.
I wrapped up three successful months of coaching with my first “practice” client, who felt like she accomplished many of her goals and has great new skills and ways of approaching important decisions in her life.
In keeping with the original spirit of this blog—Barbara Sher encouraging people to post our successes and steps forward—I will not detail the areas where I didn’t make the progress I wanted or didn’t do anything at all!
Below is a list of all the v-groups being offered by members of my introductory coaching class:
V-Groups for MCP103
CREATING COMMUNITY
Wednesday, October 3rd at 8:00PM (Eastern)
Presenters: Sarah Sharp and Steve Coxsey
Contact: steve@stevecoxsey.com
THE SPIRITUAL LAWS OF PARENTING
Monday, October 8th at 1:00PM (Eastern)
Presenters: Donna Allen and Irma Best
Contact: igbest@bellsouth.net
THE FERRIS BUELLER APPROACH TO CAREER CHOICE:
Freeing Yourself To Choose The Work You Love
Tuesday, October 9th at 8:00PM (Eastern)
Presenters: Steve Coxsey and Henry Packer
Contact: steve@stevecoxsey.com
SIMPLIFY YOUR LIFE: Shaping Your Day-To-Day Around Your Personal Vision
Wednesday, October 10th at 8:00PM (Eastern)
Presenter: Sarah Sharp
Contact: scandelon@aol.com
NAVIGATING THE GENERATIONAL DIVIDE WITH YOUR CLIENTS
Thursday, October 11th at 8:00PM (Eastern)
Presenters: Dee Covey and Kyle Kinder
Contact: deecovey@dsprinc.com
LEARNED OPTIMISM: An Introduction To The Basics of Positive Psychology
Friday, October 19th at 12:00PM
Presenters: Betty Reinsch and David Litton
Contact: david@davidlitton.com
CHANGING CAREERS
Friday, October 19th at 1:00PM
Presenter: Doris Muniz
Contact: dmuniz@sbcglobal.net
Please sign up if you are able! They are free but on bridge lines that require a PIN to access so e-mail the presenter for more information or to enroll.
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
Friday, August 31, 2007
V-Groups Are In My Future
As we approach the end of our personal coaching introductory course, our class is learning about doing virtual groups for training and for ongoing coaching. As a project we are encouraged to plan and present a one-hour telecourse alone or with a partner, which will be announced to students and alumni of the training organization.
After I had a partner for one v-group (virtual group) I had another classmate ask if I wanted to partner for a group. I decided to do two groups to get more experience and move me closer to a thriving coaching practice.
One partner has a great idea for doing a presentation on finding enjoyable work in a creative way. He calls it the “Ferris Bueller” approach to career choice and it’s a fantastic idea. I’ll be able to bring along things I’ve learned in my career change group at Fast Track Your Dream, plus books I’ve read and telecourses I’ve attended or heard by recording that focus on finding your true calling and designing work around your passions and gifts. It’s going to be exciting pulling the information together and coming up with some interactive exercises to get participants involved. This topic is one of my great passions and has been for about three years.
My other partner was eager to do a presentation on building true community and connection in groups. Another one of my great passions! It prompted me to buy Scott Peck’s The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace all over again. I read it first many years ago but wound up giving it away and not replacing it. It’s helped me remember that I had plans for a career built around bringing people into genuine, cooperative community while I was working as a therapist. It’s also helping me remember that for a time I was very energized by books from people who brought together psychology or psychiatry, philosophy, and spirituality to inspire and transform people.
Man, it’s frustrating! I spent a lot of time doing thought exercises and thinking about my interests in childhood and young adulthood to reconnect to what I really want to do in my life—and now I remember I was thinking about this same path a few years ago! I didn’t have the idea of coaching people back then. I could only see the path the authors of books had taken—have a lengthy career as a therapist, then write inspirational and wise books based in those experiences. I didn’t have the foundation to think I could pursue that career and be successful at that point in my life.
Now I’m back to pursuing those goals but in ways that are more comfortable and natural to me. It’s a little strange—I had therapists as role models who transformed themselves into inspirational writers and speakers on life transformation above and beyond emotional healing. I thought I had to follow them through the therapy path until I had “earned” enough wisdom and clout. Now I see I want to teach and inspire and mentor people on personal growth, and I don’t want it to flow from or be based on being a therapist. I had to let go of being a therapist and find a different identity more aligned with my gifts and my calling. Now the new identity and the old vision are going to intersect. Wow!
The v-groups will each be a one-hour telecourse offered in October. I’ll post the information when we have them planned. The v-groups will be free but registration will be necessary. Participants will be welcomed heartily!
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
After I had a partner for one v-group (virtual group) I had another classmate ask if I wanted to partner for a group. I decided to do two groups to get more experience and move me closer to a thriving coaching practice.
One partner has a great idea for doing a presentation on finding enjoyable work in a creative way. He calls it the “Ferris Bueller” approach to career choice and it’s a fantastic idea. I’ll be able to bring along things I’ve learned in my career change group at Fast Track Your Dream, plus books I’ve read and telecourses I’ve attended or heard by recording that focus on finding your true calling and designing work around your passions and gifts. It’s going to be exciting pulling the information together and coming up with some interactive exercises to get participants involved. This topic is one of my great passions and has been for about three years.
My other partner was eager to do a presentation on building true community and connection in groups. Another one of my great passions! It prompted me to buy Scott Peck’s The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace all over again. I read it first many years ago but wound up giving it away and not replacing it. It’s helped me remember that I had plans for a career built around bringing people into genuine, cooperative community while I was working as a therapist. It’s also helping me remember that for a time I was very energized by books from people who brought together psychology or psychiatry, philosophy, and spirituality to inspire and transform people.
Man, it’s frustrating! I spent a lot of time doing thought exercises and thinking about my interests in childhood and young adulthood to reconnect to what I really want to do in my life—and now I remember I was thinking about this same path a few years ago! I didn’t have the idea of coaching people back then. I could only see the path the authors of books had taken—have a lengthy career as a therapist, then write inspirational and wise books based in those experiences. I didn’t have the foundation to think I could pursue that career and be successful at that point in my life.
Now I’m back to pursuing those goals but in ways that are more comfortable and natural to me. It’s a little strange—I had therapists as role models who transformed themselves into inspirational writers and speakers on life transformation above and beyond emotional healing. I thought I had to follow them through the therapy path until I had “earned” enough wisdom and clout. Now I see I want to teach and inspire and mentor people on personal growth, and I don’t want it to flow from or be based on being a therapist. I had to let go of being a therapist and find a different identity more aligned with my gifts and my calling. Now the new identity and the old vision are going to intersect. Wow!
The v-groups will each be a one-hour telecourse offered in October. I’ll post the information when we have them planned. The v-groups will be free but registration will be necessary. Participants will be welcomed heartily!
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
Friday, August 24, 2007
If You Want to Be It, You Must Become It
I took a leap this past week, and anyone reading this post shortly after it goes up will know what I mean. I had been redirecting my ChasingWisdom.com URL to this blog. I decided to purchase hosting for the site and upload WordPress so I can use it to start building an e-zine. Right now, there’s nothing there but a post telling people to find my blog here. By September, I hope to be putting up an informative post from time to time. Click here to see how I’m doing.
Things seem to be coming together for my mentorship and coaching business. Mostly that’s because I seem to be coming together. I’m working on the text for my coaching website and I expect to have it ready to update in September. In my coaching course we’re learning about the logistics of running virtual groups by doing an exercise to develop and present a free one-hour teleclass with a partner. I’ve decided to do two different groups with two different partners—and I’m excited! I hope to be able to use the research, the writing, and the presentation experience to help me develop teleclasses I can offer for a fee in the future. I’ll certainly have the template and the experience to develop and present other topics.
I accepted a coaching challenge during practice coaching with a classmate, Sarah. She asked me on August 6 if I would commit to having my marketing message for a coaching website outlined and in rough draft form in two weeks. That was last Monday, the 20th, and I spent a lot of time working on it. I wound up pulling out old notes and ideas I’ve collected for a long time, including marketing consultant ideas I’d drafted for similar businesses, and everything I could find that I had written down over the past couple of years for marketing my therapy practice (which I ended), my consultant practice (which is on hold but not forgotten), and my coaching practice.
I have a clear vision of what I want my business, Discovery Partners, to be. I see how training and personal growth coaching fit into my model, and have an idea for a support community themed around mentorship and encouragement.
I have a good draft of the changes I will be making to my general website, www.SteveCoxsey.com, and how that will integrate with my coaching website and later my training and resources websites.
My remaining “practice” coaching client has accomplished some important goals and transitioned to maintenance for a few more weeks. This means I will be focusing some of my time on adding a few more clients and spending the rest of my time developing my virtual group presentations and finishing and editing the text for my website updates.
My current coaching course will end in November. My plan for next year is to focus on creative ideas to build my coaching practice and to take one or two courses to advance my coaching skills. A year from the end of this initial coaching course, Foundations, I expect to have a small but growing business focused on mentorship for personal growth and developing community.
To pull it all together, today I received a wonderful quote from Fast Track Your Dream:
Life isn't about finding yourself.
Life is about creating yourself.
~ George Bernard Shaw
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
Things seem to be coming together for my mentorship and coaching business. Mostly that’s because I seem to be coming together. I’m working on the text for my coaching website and I expect to have it ready to update in September. In my coaching course we’re learning about the logistics of running virtual groups by doing an exercise to develop and present a free one-hour teleclass with a partner. I’ve decided to do two different groups with two different partners—and I’m excited! I hope to be able to use the research, the writing, and the presentation experience to help me develop teleclasses I can offer for a fee in the future. I’ll certainly have the template and the experience to develop and present other topics.
I accepted a coaching challenge during practice coaching with a classmate, Sarah. She asked me on August 6 if I would commit to having my marketing message for a coaching website outlined and in rough draft form in two weeks. That was last Monday, the 20th, and I spent a lot of time working on it. I wound up pulling out old notes and ideas I’ve collected for a long time, including marketing consultant ideas I’d drafted for similar businesses, and everything I could find that I had written down over the past couple of years for marketing my therapy practice (which I ended), my consultant practice (which is on hold but not forgotten), and my coaching practice.
I have a clear vision of what I want my business, Discovery Partners, to be. I see how training and personal growth coaching fit into my model, and have an idea for a support community themed around mentorship and encouragement.
I have a good draft of the changes I will be making to my general website, www.SteveCoxsey.com, and how that will integrate with my coaching website and later my training and resources websites.
My remaining “practice” coaching client has accomplished some important goals and transitioned to maintenance for a few more weeks. This means I will be focusing some of my time on adding a few more clients and spending the rest of my time developing my virtual group presentations and finishing and editing the text for my website updates.
My current coaching course will end in November. My plan for next year is to focus on creative ideas to build my coaching practice and to take one or two courses to advance my coaching skills. A year from the end of this initial coaching course, Foundations, I expect to have a small but growing business focused on mentorship for personal growth and developing community.
To pull it all together, today I received a wonderful quote from Fast Track Your Dream:
Life isn't about finding yourself.
Life is about creating yourself.
~ George Bernard Shaw
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
Friday, August 17, 2007
Homage Revisited
On July 8 I posted an entry I titled “Homage.” It was a showcase of people who are in different stages of career transition and are blogging their progress. All of them were women. I wrote:
“All of these women are changing their lives and taking steps towards work that reflects their deepest, truest nature. I honor them and encourage them.
And I’m going to look EVEN HARDER for men who are doing the same.”
I met all these women through a creative career change forum through FastTrack Your Dream at Changing Course. There are many men who are FTYD members, but few post on the forum and usually just ask for information on a specific topic, get some answers, and then fade away for a while.
But I overlooked one FTYD member who has posted several helpful ideas, useful pieces of information, and words of encouragement, especially in the spring. He’s been working on his new career and so is not on the forum very often these days. I think that’s why I overlooked him in my list.
His name is Ken Robert, and he trained to become a certified Creative Career Consultant through Changing Course. He wrote a dynamic article called “Are You on the Wrong Bus?” Click on the title and you can read the article at his web site dedicated to creative career change.
Lately, Ken’s been focusing on an additional direction. Because he love’s brainstorming and creative thinking he’s developed a site called Creativity Man. The format he uses has me very interested. It’s basically a blog where he posts articles related to creativity, puzzles, and processes for organizing thoughts like mind mapping. It’s like an e-zine archive that gets regular updates.
I’m planning to find a way to utilize this format when I start “Chasing Wisdom” as an e-zine. I had thought previously about writing an article at a time and sending a teaser or an overview to my list, then sending the complete e-zine monthly. I also thought about sending one article a week to my list and then posting a complete newsletter to an archive page monthly. Now I’m thinking about using a blog format similar to Ken’s and building a monthly newsletter as I go, adding an article every few days.
One of the most appealing aspects of Ken’s format is that when you get an e-mail, it’s about one article only, his latest blog post. Instead of scanning through 3 or 4 titles and finding time to read them all, you just have one entry to consider. With some e-zines and newsletters I skip parts if I don’t feel I have time to read it all, saving it in my inbox for a few days before losing track or deleting it. With Ken’s newsletter there is less time required to read one article so I’m more likely to read each one.
I encourage you to check out Creativity Man and sign up for the articles. You’ll get a feel for the rhythm (regular but not at regimented intervals) and the chance to see how easy it is to ready a lower-demand format—one article at a time.
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
“All of these women are changing their lives and taking steps towards work that reflects their deepest, truest nature. I honor them and encourage them.
And I’m going to look EVEN HARDER for men who are doing the same.”
I met all these women through a creative career change forum through FastTrack Your Dream at Changing Course. There are many men who are FTYD members, but few post on the forum and usually just ask for information on a specific topic, get some answers, and then fade away for a while.
But I overlooked one FTYD member who has posted several helpful ideas, useful pieces of information, and words of encouragement, especially in the spring. He’s been working on his new career and so is not on the forum very often these days. I think that’s why I overlooked him in my list.
His name is Ken Robert, and he trained to become a certified Creative Career Consultant through Changing Course. He wrote a dynamic article called “Are You on the Wrong Bus?” Click on the title and you can read the article at his web site dedicated to creative career change.
Lately, Ken’s been focusing on an additional direction. Because he love’s brainstorming and creative thinking he’s developed a site called Creativity Man. The format he uses has me very interested. It’s basically a blog where he posts articles related to creativity, puzzles, and processes for organizing thoughts like mind mapping. It’s like an e-zine archive that gets regular updates.
I’m planning to find a way to utilize this format when I start “Chasing Wisdom” as an e-zine. I had thought previously about writing an article at a time and sending a teaser or an overview to my list, then sending the complete e-zine monthly. I also thought about sending one article a week to my list and then posting a complete newsletter to an archive page monthly. Now I’m thinking about using a blog format similar to Ken’s and building a monthly newsletter as I go, adding an article every few days.
One of the most appealing aspects of Ken’s format is that when you get an e-mail, it’s about one article only, his latest blog post. Instead of scanning through 3 or 4 titles and finding time to read them all, you just have one entry to consider. With some e-zines and newsletters I skip parts if I don’t feel I have time to read it all, saving it in my inbox for a few days before losing track or deleting it. With Ken’s newsletter there is less time required to read one article so I’m more likely to read each one.
I encourage you to check out Creativity Man and sign up for the articles. You’ll get a feel for the rhythm (regular but not at regimented intervals) and the chance to see how easy it is to ready a lower-demand format—one article at a time.
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
Friday, August 10, 2007
Changes Are Coming—Will I Be Ready?
Thursday I was at a meeting for The Parenting Center in Fort Worth. I’ve just joined the Client Services Committee and I’m slowly learning the details of what the organization accomplishes as different programs are reviewed at each meeting. Lots of information was shared, but I was having a hard time concentrating because I walked in the door almost late from driving around trying to find a parking space.
A huge piece of construction equipment was blocking most of one parking lot. It was like an oversized forklift and cherry picker combined. I walked in the door and was overpowered by the smell of glue, maybe epoxy. A new air conditioning system was being installed. Bangs and clangs interrupted our conversations at times, and the glue smell followed anyone in the door who came to give a report. Change is sometimes noisy and messy even though it’s necessary.
That evening driving home I passed what used to be a couple of older homes and open pasture land. It’s been graded and partly paved for a while and a lot of work has been going on with a bridge and two ponds. One house has been built and landscaped very quickly, taking just a couple of days. As I drove by I saw cars parked all the way around the curving road around the center pond and rows of people headed to the house. It was apparently a grand opening for the housing addition, which will have a total of 20 houses within a year or two. They’re building a stone and wrought iron fence around the property, which is the very odd but consistent choice of people who say they love this town because of the “open feel of the land.” Sometimes change is the loss of the old and the comfortable and rightly brings skepticism of the new.
Today coming back from lunch at my favorite Vietnamese restaurant I drove by a church that looked like a tornado had hit. Then I saw the sign and realized the sanctuary was left intact on purpose and the office and classroom building attached to it looked blown apart because it is being demolished for renovation and expansion. Sometimes change is ugly and disruptive and needs a lot of hope and vision to make it tolerable.
Change is coming here. I started this blog in January accepting Barbara Sher’s challenge to her newsletter subscribers to keep a record of the career change steps we are taking and put it out for others to see. I used the name Chasing Wisdom which I had already chosen as the name of a newsletter or e-zine. I knew a time would come when I needed to start building my archive of articles and creating the Chasing Wisdom newsletter/e-zine, and I knew that would mean having an additional writing project and separating the blog from the newsletter.
I’m pretty sure that time is coming. I will continue to post my weekly update of my progress and plans here, mostly to keep myself accountable and moving forward, and also to share my journey with other people who are thinking about career change. When I have the newsletter ready to launch, I will keep a link to this blog on that site.
That means some day hopefully soon, when you click on www.ChasingWisdom.com you will go to the site for the newsletter. When I get closer to ready (and have more certainty and courage) I will set a date for that change and let you know.
One small but significant change I made already. Last week I closed my post with my mission statement. I kept coming back to it over the week and decided to revise it to be clearer:
To be a catalyst for personal growth and development through genuine relationships that expand to create welcoming and supportive communites
May You Know the Joys of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
A huge piece of construction equipment was blocking most of one parking lot. It was like an oversized forklift and cherry picker combined. I walked in the door and was overpowered by the smell of glue, maybe epoxy. A new air conditioning system was being installed. Bangs and clangs interrupted our conversations at times, and the glue smell followed anyone in the door who came to give a report. Change is sometimes noisy and messy even though it’s necessary.
That evening driving home I passed what used to be a couple of older homes and open pasture land. It’s been graded and partly paved for a while and a lot of work has been going on with a bridge and two ponds. One house has been built and landscaped very quickly, taking just a couple of days. As I drove by I saw cars parked all the way around the curving road around the center pond and rows of people headed to the house. It was apparently a grand opening for the housing addition, which will have a total of 20 houses within a year or two. They’re building a stone and wrought iron fence around the property, which is the very odd but consistent choice of people who say they love this town because of the “open feel of the land.” Sometimes change is the loss of the old and the comfortable and rightly brings skepticism of the new.
Today coming back from lunch at my favorite Vietnamese restaurant I drove by a church that looked like a tornado had hit. Then I saw the sign and realized the sanctuary was left intact on purpose and the office and classroom building attached to it looked blown apart because it is being demolished for renovation and expansion. Sometimes change is ugly and disruptive and needs a lot of hope and vision to make it tolerable.
Change is coming here. I started this blog in January accepting Barbara Sher’s challenge to her newsletter subscribers to keep a record of the career change steps we are taking and put it out for others to see. I used the name Chasing Wisdom which I had already chosen as the name of a newsletter or e-zine. I knew a time would come when I needed to start building my archive of articles and creating the Chasing Wisdom newsletter/e-zine, and I knew that would mean having an additional writing project and separating the blog from the newsletter.
I’m pretty sure that time is coming. I will continue to post my weekly update of my progress and plans here, mostly to keep myself accountable and moving forward, and also to share my journey with other people who are thinking about career change. When I have the newsletter ready to launch, I will keep a link to this blog on that site.
That means some day hopefully soon, when you click on www.ChasingWisdom.com you will go to the site for the newsletter. When I get closer to ready (and have more certainty and courage) I will set a date for that change and let you know.
One small but significant change I made already. Last week I closed my post with my mission statement. I kept coming back to it over the week and decided to revise it to be clearer:
To be a catalyst for personal growth and development through genuine relationships that expand to create welcoming and supportive communites
May You Know the Joys of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
Friday, August 3, 2007
Little Steps in the Hero’s Journey
I’m a difficult coaching client. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’m a pain in the butt. Fortunately for the coaches, right now I rotate every couple of weeks as we do coaching exercises in my class through MentorCoach.
I don’t get stuck on the “how to” part. I can help anyone breakdown a goal into small steps that are easy to accomplish—one of the reasons I really enjoying coaching others. For myself, I get stuck on the “what to,” which usually boils down to “why to.” Or more fluidly: “To what end?”
It’s the underlying philosophy, the ideology, that I keep returning to with these questions. I think about starting a free-subscription newsletter with articles on personal growth and goal achievement. I know “how to.” But I stop and think, “Why would I start that now? What will it accomplish? How does it serve my ultimate mission and purpose? To what end?”
Thank goodness I’m making progress in building a philosophical foundation. And thank goodness I started reading Deep Change by Robert E. Quinn.
The book is about coaching leaders on the idea that greatly transforming the business or organization requires personal transformation of the leaders. Quinn brings in Joseph Campbell’s writings on the Hero’s journey, which flow in part from Carl Jung’s study of the archetypes of mythology, one of my favorite “mind candies.”
Quinn uses the Hero’s journey as a template for personal growth, not just radical transformation through developmental stages. In his model, whenever a person has to test his or her abilities and tackle new challenges, some self-discovery occurs and understanding of the self changes with increased abilities.
Previously I had used the Hero’s journey as a myth for great change—including leaving the familiar world for the unfamiliar, the idea of the new land as undiscovered parts of the self and the collective unconscious (I’m a bit of a psychology nerd so that’s delightful to me), and the idea of the cave or lair of the “enemy” as a place of shadow where one learns one’s power and abilities and gains new understanding that frees and empowers.
I just hadn’t scaled the Hero’s journey down to a point where it is a mythological template for the kind of incremental personal growth people experience more often than once or twice in a lifetime.
This idea bridges a gap for me. Before I would struggle with ideas like, If a coaching client needs help organizing a goal into steps and overcoming some fear or worry in order to take action, how does that relate to deeper personal growth? Deeper personal growth is a more important mission to me than accomplishing tasks.
Quinn’s model shows me how. Learning skills of goal-setting and time management ARE quest objects for some people. Facing a fear or worry, like the fear of failure or of success or worrying that focusing on one goal will be consuming and mean the loss of other goals, has elements of a heroic quest. Taking steps towards goals that seem a little out of reach extend a person’s understanding of the self. Accomplishing things that always seemed difficult before, and learning the way to do that with future goals, is transformative, although in a smaller way.
I understand now that being coached through one goal or series of actions may not be as big as a villain-vanquishing journey to the underworld with a “dark night of the soul” and complete transformation in understanding of the self, but it’s easily an important task along the way.
My work with coaching clients will usually be helping with a smaller quest that prepares for a Great Quest down the road. Some of the quests will be straightforward and simple at the time, but will help a client learn something that may be applied to a future quest in a hugely transformative way. It may even be one of the pieces of information that help the client be successful with the Great Quest.
In great tales of the Hero’s journey, the Hero (male or female) gathers helpers for portions of the journey and learns skills, adds understanding, picks up useful tools or weapons (connecting with the collective unconscious), and grows the self until the idea of facing the Villain has changed from outrageous and impossible to necessary but overwhelming. The Hero has grown to the point of being prepared for the Showdown of the Great Quest, but the Showdown itself is the ultimate transformation, requiring the Hero to use all of his or her skills, learning, and wisdom (secret learning, special weapons, and ancient lore) to come up with a way to victory.
Often the way to victory requires that the Hero combine all the prior accomplishments and discoveries in one great moment of realization of humility and submission. The Hero understands that transcendant needs matter more than personal goals and is willing to give up the personal for the communal, the temporal for the eternal. In so choosing the Hero discovers the weakness of the Villain, who is the embodiment of elevating personal goals and wants at the expense of the needs of others.
If I help my client gather one piece of “ancient lore” that helps make sense of challenges, one bit of understanding that leads to the discovery of a “magical weapon” the client carries with the blessing of a community, or one set of skills that make the Great Quest seem just a little less impossible, my work will tie in with my mission:
To be a catalyst for personal growth and development through genuine relationships in welcoming and supportive communites
May You Know the Joys of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
I don’t get stuck on the “how to” part. I can help anyone breakdown a goal into small steps that are easy to accomplish—one of the reasons I really enjoying coaching others. For myself, I get stuck on the “what to,” which usually boils down to “why to.” Or more fluidly: “To what end?”
It’s the underlying philosophy, the ideology, that I keep returning to with these questions. I think about starting a free-subscription newsletter with articles on personal growth and goal achievement. I know “how to.” But I stop and think, “Why would I start that now? What will it accomplish? How does it serve my ultimate mission and purpose? To what end?”
Thank goodness I’m making progress in building a philosophical foundation. And thank goodness I started reading Deep Change by Robert E. Quinn.
The book is about coaching leaders on the idea that greatly transforming the business or organization requires personal transformation of the leaders. Quinn brings in Joseph Campbell’s writings on the Hero’s journey, which flow in part from Carl Jung’s study of the archetypes of mythology, one of my favorite “mind candies.”
Quinn uses the Hero’s journey as a template for personal growth, not just radical transformation through developmental stages. In his model, whenever a person has to test his or her abilities and tackle new challenges, some self-discovery occurs and understanding of the self changes with increased abilities.
Previously I had used the Hero’s journey as a myth for great change—including leaving the familiar world for the unfamiliar, the idea of the new land as undiscovered parts of the self and the collective unconscious (I’m a bit of a psychology nerd so that’s delightful to me), and the idea of the cave or lair of the “enemy” as a place of shadow where one learns one’s power and abilities and gains new understanding that frees and empowers.
I just hadn’t scaled the Hero’s journey down to a point where it is a mythological template for the kind of incremental personal growth people experience more often than once or twice in a lifetime.
This idea bridges a gap for me. Before I would struggle with ideas like, If a coaching client needs help organizing a goal into steps and overcoming some fear or worry in order to take action, how does that relate to deeper personal growth? Deeper personal growth is a more important mission to me than accomplishing tasks.
Quinn’s model shows me how. Learning skills of goal-setting and time management ARE quest objects for some people. Facing a fear or worry, like the fear of failure or of success or worrying that focusing on one goal will be consuming and mean the loss of other goals, has elements of a heroic quest. Taking steps towards goals that seem a little out of reach extend a person’s understanding of the self. Accomplishing things that always seemed difficult before, and learning the way to do that with future goals, is transformative, although in a smaller way.
I understand now that being coached through one goal or series of actions may not be as big as a villain-vanquishing journey to the underworld with a “dark night of the soul” and complete transformation in understanding of the self, but it’s easily an important task along the way.
My work with coaching clients will usually be helping with a smaller quest that prepares for a Great Quest down the road. Some of the quests will be straightforward and simple at the time, but will help a client learn something that may be applied to a future quest in a hugely transformative way. It may even be one of the pieces of information that help the client be successful with the Great Quest.
In great tales of the Hero’s journey, the Hero (male or female) gathers helpers for portions of the journey and learns skills, adds understanding, picks up useful tools or weapons (connecting with the collective unconscious), and grows the self until the idea of facing the Villain has changed from outrageous and impossible to necessary but overwhelming. The Hero has grown to the point of being prepared for the Showdown of the Great Quest, but the Showdown itself is the ultimate transformation, requiring the Hero to use all of his or her skills, learning, and wisdom (secret learning, special weapons, and ancient lore) to come up with a way to victory.
Often the way to victory requires that the Hero combine all the prior accomplishments and discoveries in one great moment of realization of humility and submission. The Hero understands that transcendant needs matter more than personal goals and is willing to give up the personal for the communal, the temporal for the eternal. In so choosing the Hero discovers the weakness of the Villain, who is the embodiment of elevating personal goals and wants at the expense of the needs of others.
If I help my client gather one piece of “ancient lore” that helps make sense of challenges, one bit of understanding that leads to the discovery of a “magical weapon” the client carries with the blessing of a community, or one set of skills that make the Great Quest seem just a little less impossible, my work will tie in with my mission:
To be a catalyst for personal growth and development through genuine relationships in welcoming and supportive communites
May You Know the Joys of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
Friday, July 27, 2007
Deathly Hallows Quest Successful; Mowing Accomplished; On with My Mission!
I stood in line for about 20 minutes at a grocery store to get the new Harry Potter book last Friday midnight, and people were on their cell phones with friends in lines at Barnes & Noble and Wal-Mart hearing about much longer waits. It only set my mowing back one day—I was done by 10:30 pm on Saturday, slept late on Sunday, and got back on track mowing. Distractions resolved (and horcruxes revealed), I focus again on my new business.
I've discovered something important during coaching homework assignments with a couple of classmates. For the lasts three weeks, our class has specifically been asked to focus our practice sessions with classmates on our progress at setting up a coaching practice.
I was working with Dee, a classmate, when I realized that I wanted to pick one thing, individual coaching, from my many ideas for a possible business and focus on it. However, my next session with Dee I realized I was resisting and starting to feel “trapped” by the idea of having a set number of coaching clients and coaching sessions each week. Dee helped me understand that I want a more open structure so I can give clients more time when they need it and less when that’s enough, without parsing the minutes. Her coaching prompted me to think in terms of how much time I wanted to set aside for a coaching practice, and how much of that time would be for things like a group call for community support, time for additional brief follow-up calls and e-mail, and managing an online forum.
So I thought I was making some headway when I started talking with Sarah. The assignment for her as my coach was to help move me forward in setting short-term goals. I wound up completely lost again.
I keep returning to a different kind of vision for the service I want to provide. It’s not a straightforward coaching practice, where someone can buy a certain amount of my time for a set fee (4 sessions a month for 30 minutes each). It’s a broader view that provides information and comfortably paced conversation (maybe virtually, such as through e-mail and forums) for people who are starting to look at ways to bring personal growth and meaningful community into their own lives. It’s a view that includes providing information through books or training sessions. It’s a view that includes individual and group coaching for people who are ready to commit some time and effort to planning and implementing changes. And it’s a view of an ongoing community for people who have been through some targeted changes but still want company and connection as they continue to grow and learn things at a slower pace.
Here’s where it gets pretty silly, and humbling to admit. I set a goal to build my individual coaching practice and then felt like that would trap me—because it seemed like I would be abandoning all my other plans. Pretty goofy, isn’t it? But that’s the way reactions tend to be when they’re preconscious, or unconscious. They aren’t logical. They just point to our deeper values in a protective way.
Talking with Sarah, I realized two things: 1) I don’t have to choose one thing to commit to right now, to the exclusion of others, so I can give time and energy to adding coaching clients without “forsaking” my other plans; and 2) focusing on one thing felt like leaving behind the other things, like I was choosing “either/or.” It wasn’t rational and it wasn’t correct, but it was what my unconscious mind was thinking. And that was holding me back from committing to it.
As long as I remember to give some time each week to considering and planning those other goals, I feel free to focus time and energy on adding coaching clients. I’ve also realized that I’ll still have the freedom to plan my time, even if I have a few coaching clients. If I discover something about the idea of teaching or building a support community that grabs my attention and calls for my time, I can transition more time to it by not adding new coaching clients. As a client reaches his or her goals and moves on, I can allot that time to developing the other ideas. I can keep adding time to working on the other goals instead of adding new coaching clients for as long as I need to, eventually focusing all my time if I decide to. And I can add more coaching clients again after I develop those other ideas.
Thank you, Dee, for helping me realize I don’t have to format my practice in a traditional way. Dee told me, “Ironically, if you want to get out of the box, just build your own. And paint it however you want to.” She helped me embrace a vision that will serve more people at different levels of need.
And thank you, Sarah, for helping me see that my resistance to a traditionally formatted coaching practice comes from my sense that I don’t want my service to be narrowly defined and time-limited. I want ongoing and recurring interactions with people at different stages of change. I want to be able to follow them through focused episodes of bigger change, and also through the slow, deliberative, thoughtful transformations of spirit that occur when dynamic communities of people welcome and nurture each other.
May You Know the Joys of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
I've discovered something important during coaching homework assignments with a couple of classmates. For the lasts three weeks, our class has specifically been asked to focus our practice sessions with classmates on our progress at setting up a coaching practice.
I was working with Dee, a classmate, when I realized that I wanted to pick one thing, individual coaching, from my many ideas for a possible business and focus on it. However, my next session with Dee I realized I was resisting and starting to feel “trapped” by the idea of having a set number of coaching clients and coaching sessions each week. Dee helped me understand that I want a more open structure so I can give clients more time when they need it and less when that’s enough, without parsing the minutes. Her coaching prompted me to think in terms of how much time I wanted to set aside for a coaching practice, and how much of that time would be for things like a group call for community support, time for additional brief follow-up calls and e-mail, and managing an online forum.
So I thought I was making some headway when I started talking with Sarah. The assignment for her as my coach was to help move me forward in setting short-term goals. I wound up completely lost again.
I keep returning to a different kind of vision for the service I want to provide. It’s not a straightforward coaching practice, where someone can buy a certain amount of my time for a set fee (4 sessions a month for 30 minutes each). It’s a broader view that provides information and comfortably paced conversation (maybe virtually, such as through e-mail and forums) for people who are starting to look at ways to bring personal growth and meaningful community into their own lives. It’s a view that includes providing information through books or training sessions. It’s a view that includes individual and group coaching for people who are ready to commit some time and effort to planning and implementing changes. And it’s a view of an ongoing community for people who have been through some targeted changes but still want company and connection as they continue to grow and learn things at a slower pace.
Here’s where it gets pretty silly, and humbling to admit. I set a goal to build my individual coaching practice and then felt like that would trap me—because it seemed like I would be abandoning all my other plans. Pretty goofy, isn’t it? But that’s the way reactions tend to be when they’re preconscious, or unconscious. They aren’t logical. They just point to our deeper values in a protective way.
Talking with Sarah, I realized two things: 1) I don’t have to choose one thing to commit to right now, to the exclusion of others, so I can give time and energy to adding coaching clients without “forsaking” my other plans; and 2) focusing on one thing felt like leaving behind the other things, like I was choosing “either/or.” It wasn’t rational and it wasn’t correct, but it was what my unconscious mind was thinking. And that was holding me back from committing to it.
As long as I remember to give some time each week to considering and planning those other goals, I feel free to focus time and energy on adding coaching clients. I’ve also realized that I’ll still have the freedom to plan my time, even if I have a few coaching clients. If I discover something about the idea of teaching or building a support community that grabs my attention and calls for my time, I can transition more time to it by not adding new coaching clients. As a client reaches his or her goals and moves on, I can allot that time to developing the other ideas. I can keep adding time to working on the other goals instead of adding new coaching clients for as long as I need to, eventually focusing all my time if I decide to. And I can add more coaching clients again after I develop those other ideas.
Thank you, Dee, for helping me realize I don’t have to format my practice in a traditional way. Dee told me, “Ironically, if you want to get out of the box, just build your own. And paint it however you want to.” She helped me embrace a vision that will serve more people at different levels of need.
And thank you, Sarah, for helping me see that my resistance to a traditionally formatted coaching practice comes from my sense that I don’t want my service to be narrowly defined and time-limited. I want ongoing and recurring interactions with people at different stages of change. I want to be able to follow them through focused episodes of bigger change, and also through the slow, deliberative, thoughtful transformations of spirit that occur when dynamic communities of people welcome and nurture each other.
May You Know the Joys of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
Friday, July 20, 2007
Mowing the Hours Away Until The Deathly Hallows
We live on a parcel of land in what once was rural countryside. Slowly suburbia creeps closer, and occasionally sends out runners like an aggressive vine, adding a cluster of mini mansions crammed so closely there’s no sunlight for grass to grow in between. There’s plenty of “green space” around the perimeter of the cluster of houses, and often an ornamental pond or two with concrete walkways twisting so much they look like they were poured by drunken men chasing each other. Usually they throw a stone wall around the “subdivision” to set it apart and give it the feeling of exclusivity. It’s odd to hear people say they want to move to this area because of the open feel of the land, and then build stone walls to block it off.
But we have open land! Open land means trees here and there, a pond to the north and a pond to the south, and cows to the west. Open land also means a lot of mowing. I have a zero radius mower to mow my parcel. Taking out the areas we leave wild and the pond, I probably mow about 4 acres. Here in Texas we had a lengthy drought followed by months of ongoing rains, so mowing has been tricky. I was able to get everything adequately mowed between rainfalls so I could take my mower in for its annual service. It took more than a week and the rains have been intermittent since I got it back. That means that the area outside our fenced yard is very tall, so parts of the grass rise above my knees when I drive the mower through.
Because of this I had to plan 2 levels of mowing. I cut with the mower set very high to shear off the top part of the grass, still leaving it lengthy and rough looking. I will have to go back over it at a lower setting to get a nice clean cut. If the rain holds off. I got a cool breeze and then a chilly wind with sprinkles of rain from some very dark clouds while I was making my first run through half the pasture.
Having to mow, and then mow again, seemed frustrating at first. But when I thought it through it sounded a lot like my career path lately. I have to take steps of preparation in order to take the next steps for the next level of preparation. I can’t just walk through a door and have a thriving coaching/personal growth counseling practice. I have to complete the coursework, I have to have a couple of practice clients, and then I have to build up a paying clientele one client at a time.
It’s the same with the mowing. I can’t just set the mower on “nice low even cut” and zip around for a few hours and be done. I have to mow the wild pasture down to a manageable level. Then I have to wait a few days and mow it at a lower level, which will leave clumps of cut grass that will turn brown and ugly. Then I have to wait until the grass has grown back a little and mow it evenly to get everything to look right.
Mowing has to be done on a regular basis. Around here, that’s from some time in March until maybe October or November. Then there’s a break. But when the grass starts growing again, I have to try to stay on schedule or it gets out of hand and grows taller than my knees. Sometimes the schedule gets messed up because of rain. Sometimes the schedule gets messed up because I’m out of town for a while. But usually the schedule with the mower gets messed up because I forget to respect the regular cycle of the grass when I get busy doing other things. I’ll miss my regular time to mow and look out a couple of days later and realize I need to get it done soon. And then I’ll start trying to figure out when, in my crowded schedule, I can get to it without waiting until my next regular mowing time.
Grass doesn’t reschedule. It doesn’t agree to postpone the project because things came up. It doesn’t wait for a time that’s convenient for both of us. It just grows when it’s supposed to grow and really doesn’t care if I stay caught up!
My pasture teaches me lots of lessons when I’m willing to pay attention. Some of them I even remember! This one I’m slow to act on, though. The new Harry Potter book comes out tonight and I’m heading to Kroger or Wal-Mart to buy it. The back half of the pasture may wind up as tall as my shoulders before I take time to do the first rough cut. Maybe I’ll finish the book over the weekend and find a couple of hours on Monday to go out and learn some more things from my pasture.
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
But we have open land! Open land means trees here and there, a pond to the north and a pond to the south, and cows to the west. Open land also means a lot of mowing. I have a zero radius mower to mow my parcel. Taking out the areas we leave wild and the pond, I probably mow about 4 acres. Here in Texas we had a lengthy drought followed by months of ongoing rains, so mowing has been tricky. I was able to get everything adequately mowed between rainfalls so I could take my mower in for its annual service. It took more than a week and the rains have been intermittent since I got it back. That means that the area outside our fenced yard is very tall, so parts of the grass rise above my knees when I drive the mower through.
Because of this I had to plan 2 levels of mowing. I cut with the mower set very high to shear off the top part of the grass, still leaving it lengthy and rough looking. I will have to go back over it at a lower setting to get a nice clean cut. If the rain holds off. I got a cool breeze and then a chilly wind with sprinkles of rain from some very dark clouds while I was making my first run through half the pasture.
Having to mow, and then mow again, seemed frustrating at first. But when I thought it through it sounded a lot like my career path lately. I have to take steps of preparation in order to take the next steps for the next level of preparation. I can’t just walk through a door and have a thriving coaching/personal growth counseling practice. I have to complete the coursework, I have to have a couple of practice clients, and then I have to build up a paying clientele one client at a time.
It’s the same with the mowing. I can’t just set the mower on “nice low even cut” and zip around for a few hours and be done. I have to mow the wild pasture down to a manageable level. Then I have to wait a few days and mow it at a lower level, which will leave clumps of cut grass that will turn brown and ugly. Then I have to wait until the grass has grown back a little and mow it evenly to get everything to look right.
Mowing has to be done on a regular basis. Around here, that’s from some time in March until maybe October or November. Then there’s a break. But when the grass starts growing again, I have to try to stay on schedule or it gets out of hand and grows taller than my knees. Sometimes the schedule gets messed up because of rain. Sometimes the schedule gets messed up because I’m out of town for a while. But usually the schedule with the mower gets messed up because I forget to respect the regular cycle of the grass when I get busy doing other things. I’ll miss my regular time to mow and look out a couple of days later and realize I need to get it done soon. And then I’ll start trying to figure out when, in my crowded schedule, I can get to it without waiting until my next regular mowing time.
Grass doesn’t reschedule. It doesn’t agree to postpone the project because things came up. It doesn’t wait for a time that’s convenient for both of us. It just grows when it’s supposed to grow and really doesn’t care if I stay caught up!
My pasture teaches me lots of lessons when I’m willing to pay attention. Some of them I even remember! This one I’m slow to act on, though. The new Harry Potter book comes out tonight and I’m heading to Kroger or Wal-Mart to buy it. The back half of the pasture may wind up as tall as my shoulders before I take time to do the first rough cut. Maybe I’ll finish the book over the weekend and find a couple of hours on Monday to go out and learn some more things from my pasture.
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
Monday, July 16, 2007
Time to Focus
I’ve had a lot of ideas brainflooding me in the past few weeks about ways to incorporate e-books, seminars, videos, audios, group coaching, individual coaching, and a membership site for online community and support in my business model.
It’s freakin’ me out!
I have a large vision of where I can eventually take my business and how I can have multiple profit centers and a lot of variety in my work but stay focused on the themes of community building, mentorship, and advocating personal growth.
It’s such a big vision it has stunned me, like a deer in the headlights.
I procrastinated writing this blog entry because I felt completely adrift, not knowing what to do next.
Which is a pretty sad thing, since coaching, more than anything else, is about finding direction and taking practical steps. But I was lost!
I never quite understand the nuances of the saying, “he couldn’t see the forest for the trees.” But I think it means the overwhelming details are blinding you to the big picture. Well, I got that reversed. I couldn’t see the trees for the forest.
My next step is to build my coaching practice. I don’t have to build a web site yet that includes products and seminars and a membership site. I just need something focused on helping potential clients get to know me.
The other things I can add in the future, but my focus now is on telling people I have a coaching practice and learning about getting referrals.
I love working with people exploring their calling. I love working with creative people. I love working with people who want to mentor and guide others. The message has to get a little more focused and specific to be useful in helping people learn how I can help them.
So that’s my goal: focus the message and start letting people know I have slots available for coaching clients. Until I get to a steady level (I have no idea how many that will be yet) I won’t worry about classes or group coaching or e-books. One purpose, until it’s established and fairly consistent. One goal. One focus.
It’s time to act.
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
It’s freakin’ me out!
I have a large vision of where I can eventually take my business and how I can have multiple profit centers and a lot of variety in my work but stay focused on the themes of community building, mentorship, and advocating personal growth.
It’s such a big vision it has stunned me, like a deer in the headlights.
I procrastinated writing this blog entry because I felt completely adrift, not knowing what to do next.
Which is a pretty sad thing, since coaching, more than anything else, is about finding direction and taking practical steps. But I was lost!
I never quite understand the nuances of the saying, “he couldn’t see the forest for the trees.” But I think it means the overwhelming details are blinding you to the big picture. Well, I got that reversed. I couldn’t see the trees for the forest.
My next step is to build my coaching practice. I don’t have to build a web site yet that includes products and seminars and a membership site. I just need something focused on helping potential clients get to know me.
The other things I can add in the future, but my focus now is on telling people I have a coaching practice and learning about getting referrals.
I love working with people exploring their calling. I love working with creative people. I love working with people who want to mentor and guide others. The message has to get a little more focused and specific to be useful in helping people learn how I can help them.
So that’s my goal: focus the message and start letting people know I have slots available for coaching clients. Until I get to a steady level (I have no idea how many that will be yet) I won’t worry about classes or group coaching or e-books. One purpose, until it’s established and fairly consistent. One goal. One focus.
It’s time to act.
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Homage
When you look to the left at the top of my blog page you see “Blogs from Friends Custom Designing Their Own Lives.” I included those a while back because they reflect the purpose of this blog when I started it: to track my journey to meaningful and enjoyable work and the discoveries along the way.
Today I want to celebrate these people and encourage everyone to click the links and see their blogs.
Arts, Tiles, and Mosaics is a blog by RMW about her zealous, joyful passion for painted tiles. She loves making them, she loves teaching about making them, and she loves studying ancient tiles. She’s trying to shift her life a little bit so tiles can be a bigger part, incorporated in her work and not just something for free time. See her work and you will know she can do it.
Della’s New Look Designs is by Della P. She has a knack for home staging, organizing, and decorating but is just beginning to explore those options. The excitement on her blog is she has discovered gifts and passions by doing volunteer work with a special youth ministry through her church and it is giving her confidence and joy. She is changing and growing, not sure where she will end up, but thrilled to be moving forward.
New Moon Angel’s blog is by Armelle, a French woman who until recently lived and worked in Ireland. She left that position to pursue more creative work and moved back to France as part of her journey. But she returned in time to join a pilgrimage walking through Spain and just spent about a month doing that. She is a writer by nature and looking for ways to include that in her new life. Her blog is full of the richness of her craft and amazing discoveries she has made by having the courage to make changes and take risks.
Rambling and Writing is by Stella, who loves to head out on weekends and drive the back roads and discover places. She is thinking of ways to use her unique perspective on discovering places to incorporate into weekend travel recommendations. Stella helped me realize that my own road will be twisty and uncertain sometimes, but the discovery of the new town can be more exciting than rushing straight for a distant goal and missing the journey along the way.
Storytellers and Writers is by Jane VerDow. She is author of Dear Daisy and started a small publishing company. Her prose is lyrical and she also puts poetry on her blog at times. She has a great deal of wisdom and insight and shares her own journey in a courageous and transparent way.
Travel with the Kids is a happy idea by Travel Cat (Catherine). Cat is using her blog to practice putting together great ideas for weekend outings or sites to see in different towns for people traveling with children. She includes reviews of places showing how children will experience and enjoy them and usually has price and contact information. This is a window on the development of a creative business idea, since in the future she may have a published guide or on-line resource with many listings. It’s fun to see the process of building up lots of information by writing one piece at a time.
Wendy V’s Ponderings is from Wendy, who recently moved from St. Paul, Minnesota to Nashville, Tennessee. She is a fan and advocate of musicians and has made guiding and coaching new musicians part of her career. She moved to Nashville to be closer to the music and the musicians. It’s a bumpy ride! She has taken a risk and made a big move. She is having new experience and learning a lot, but also struggling with learning a new place and getting a steady survival income. Hers is a story of courage and dedication to a passion.
What if you believe? is a blog from Kamin Bell, who works as a life coach while maintaining a demanding corporate job. She records her insights and philosophy here. It’s inspirational and spiritual, giving good balance to anyone with a life full of errands and tasks and corporate guidelines.
All of these women are changing their lives and taking steps towards work that reflects their deepest, truest nature. I honor them and encourage them.
And I’m going to look EVEN HARDER for men who are doing the same.
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
Today I want to celebrate these people and encourage everyone to click the links and see their blogs.
Arts, Tiles, and Mosaics is a blog by RMW about her zealous, joyful passion for painted tiles. She loves making them, she loves teaching about making them, and she loves studying ancient tiles. She’s trying to shift her life a little bit so tiles can be a bigger part, incorporated in her work and not just something for free time. See her work and you will know she can do it.
Della’s New Look Designs is by Della P. She has a knack for home staging, organizing, and decorating but is just beginning to explore those options. The excitement on her blog is she has discovered gifts and passions by doing volunteer work with a special youth ministry through her church and it is giving her confidence and joy. She is changing and growing, not sure where she will end up, but thrilled to be moving forward.
New Moon Angel’s blog is by Armelle, a French woman who until recently lived and worked in Ireland. She left that position to pursue more creative work and moved back to France as part of her journey. But she returned in time to join a pilgrimage walking through Spain and just spent about a month doing that. She is a writer by nature and looking for ways to include that in her new life. Her blog is full of the richness of her craft and amazing discoveries she has made by having the courage to make changes and take risks.
Rambling and Writing is by Stella, who loves to head out on weekends and drive the back roads and discover places. She is thinking of ways to use her unique perspective on discovering places to incorporate into weekend travel recommendations. Stella helped me realize that my own road will be twisty and uncertain sometimes, but the discovery of the new town can be more exciting than rushing straight for a distant goal and missing the journey along the way.
Storytellers and Writers is by Jane VerDow. She is author of Dear Daisy and started a small publishing company. Her prose is lyrical and she also puts poetry on her blog at times. She has a great deal of wisdom and insight and shares her own journey in a courageous and transparent way.
Travel with the Kids is a happy idea by Travel Cat (Catherine). Cat is using her blog to practice putting together great ideas for weekend outings or sites to see in different towns for people traveling with children. She includes reviews of places showing how children will experience and enjoy them and usually has price and contact information. This is a window on the development of a creative business idea, since in the future she may have a published guide or on-line resource with many listings. It’s fun to see the process of building up lots of information by writing one piece at a time.
Wendy V’s Ponderings is from Wendy, who recently moved from St. Paul, Minnesota to Nashville, Tennessee. She is a fan and advocate of musicians and has made guiding and coaching new musicians part of her career. She moved to Nashville to be closer to the music and the musicians. It’s a bumpy ride! She has taken a risk and made a big move. She is having new experience and learning a lot, but also struggling with learning a new place and getting a steady survival income. Hers is a story of courage and dedication to a passion.
What if you believe? is a blog from Kamin Bell, who works as a life coach while maintaining a demanding corporate job. She records her insights and philosophy here. It’s inspirational and spiritual, giving good balance to anyone with a life full of errands and tasks and corporate guidelines.
All of these women are changing their lives and taking steps towards work that reflects their deepest, truest nature. I honor them and encourage them.
And I’m going to look EVEN HARDER for men who are doing the same.
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Independence
I’ve been blogging weekly since I started “Chasing Wisdom” a few months back. This is my first time to miss my weekly deadline, but it was planned. I will be out of town over the 4th of July week so I decided to put this post in the middle of a 3-week span and another at the end when I get back.
The Independence Day theme is transformative for aspiring entrepreneurs and self-bossers. Our nation was founded on the basis of personal liberty of thought and expression, ending formalized categories of class, and market freedom through capitalism. Until the late 19th to early 20th century, nearly every person in the United States was self-employed or a small business owner. That included farmers, craftsmen, and small-scale merchants.
When I hear talks about employees transitioning to self-employment and business ownership, the reasons I hear resonate with all the great lessons I learned as a child about the ideals and values of this country: freedom of expression, the liberty to choose our own paths and design our futures, freedom to participate in the economy and take responsibility for our own income and wealth, and the freedom to learn and try new things unbound by class.
Some of you may be surprised that these were some of the lessons I learned about my country, since there are so many negative messages about the history of the nation and a focus on mistakes and flaws taught in public school today. I went to school in rural Oklahoma and suburban Texas, so that might explain why I learned the good stuff.
I also learned about the flaws, especially the fact that it’s taken centuries to get closer to allowing all the freedoms of the United States to all citizens of any race, color, or creed. I learned about the wars against Native Americans and a string of broken promises.
But I believed these were flaws of people, not flaws of the design. The values and principles of American liberty transform people and transform society over time, generally expanding freedom in spite of the ups and downs at particular points in history.
Independence was initially won to have freedom from a social class system and a closed economic system where most people were at the mercy of the nobility and a few wealthy merchants. Today the typical message about work is, “Get a good job at a big company and work your way up.” That message says put yourself at the mercy of a new nobility, corporations, who are also the wealthiest of the merchants. We’re running from the freedoms gained.
The message of self-employment, self-bossing, small business, and multiple income streams flies in the face of that message. It says, “Reclaim your independence! Take the liberty that is within your grasp! Exercise your freedom!”
What a way to celebrate and honor the spirit of independence in America.
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
The Independence Day theme is transformative for aspiring entrepreneurs and self-bossers. Our nation was founded on the basis of personal liberty of thought and expression, ending formalized categories of class, and market freedom through capitalism. Until the late 19th to early 20th century, nearly every person in the United States was self-employed or a small business owner. That included farmers, craftsmen, and small-scale merchants.
When I hear talks about employees transitioning to self-employment and business ownership, the reasons I hear resonate with all the great lessons I learned as a child about the ideals and values of this country: freedom of expression, the liberty to choose our own paths and design our futures, freedom to participate in the economy and take responsibility for our own income and wealth, and the freedom to learn and try new things unbound by class.
Some of you may be surprised that these were some of the lessons I learned about my country, since there are so many negative messages about the history of the nation and a focus on mistakes and flaws taught in public school today. I went to school in rural Oklahoma and suburban Texas, so that might explain why I learned the good stuff.
I also learned about the flaws, especially the fact that it’s taken centuries to get closer to allowing all the freedoms of the United States to all citizens of any race, color, or creed. I learned about the wars against Native Americans and a string of broken promises.
But I believed these were flaws of people, not flaws of the design. The values and principles of American liberty transform people and transform society over time, generally expanding freedom in spite of the ups and downs at particular points in history.
Independence was initially won to have freedom from a social class system and a closed economic system where most people were at the mercy of the nobility and a few wealthy merchants. Today the typical message about work is, “Get a good job at a big company and work your way up.” That message says put yourself at the mercy of a new nobility, corporations, who are also the wealthiest of the merchants. We’re running from the freedoms gained.
The message of self-employment, self-bossing, small business, and multiple income streams flies in the face of that message. It says, “Reclaim your independence! Take the liberty that is within your grasp! Exercise your freedom!”
What a way to celebrate and honor the spirit of independence in America.
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
Friday, June 15, 2007
The Highwire Excitement of…Teleseminars!
Barbara Sher is one of my favorite virtual mentors. I got an e-mail notice the other day that she was doing some more teleseminars on “Resistance.” She’s been doing a few on that topic on a voluntary basis. The money paid benefits either her Kilim Women Project or the Coming Home Animal Sanctuary. Me, I’ve got resistance! And I like helping a good cause, so I signed up for this past Thursday’s call.
One of the participants must have been calling from The Twilight Zone. Barbara said at one point it was the noisiest teleseminar she’d ever been on. We had crying babies and screaming kids, off and on. We had a rhythmic grating like someone washing dishes, or sanding something, or sharpening a tool (Yikes!). We had people coughing or clearing their throat LOUDLY into the phone. We even heard “You’ve got mail” from someone’s computer.
Three people had volunteered to work with Barbara on the call. The volunteer would present the situation related to changing work or moving towards a new career or advancing their business, and Barbara would help them see the next steps and figure out what was keeping them from moving forward. It was a lot like coaching. Each participant got some great ideas. But none of them was struggling with the specific kind of resistance Barbara teaches about. When you resist making sales call because it’s not your personality, that’s understandable. When you resist balancing your checkbook because it’s taxing and boring, that’s normal. When you love to paint and you finally have time and a studio set up, but you wind up dusting the bookshelves instead of painting—that’s resistance. And, as a person who’s tried dusting bookshelves, I can say it’s just not normal, either!
After the call Barbara invited us to her public discussion groups at her web site. It was interesting that many people who have read her books and understand her concepts could list all the tips and ideas and techniques she had suggested during the discussion. Others, newer to the ideas or with minds organized in a different way, hadn’t caught on to all that was shared and were amazed when they realized all that was covered in the call. Even though none of the participants was actually talking about the kind of resistance that involves avoiding what you really want to be doing, she taught a lot of techniques for overcoming obstacles. She did her part and did it really well, but with all the interruptions and distractions and confused expectations, I’m sure it was a challenging experience.
There was a teleseminar a couple of weeks back that I heard as a member of Fast Track Your Dream, a career change support community. There was a glitch with recording the call so some of us had a “re-enactment” call to share our notes and memories of the examples and recommendations. Fast Track creator Valerie Young came up with a couple of extra recordings for us to download, so we wound up with much more information than recording the call alone would have given us. But, boy, was she in a tough spot trying to find ways to provide that information after the recording process fell apart.
It’s gotten me to think that there can be high drama in offering teleseminars. I had thought I could learn the simple technical aspects, put together some interesting content, and have a low-risk way to offer information for a fee. Before these calls, my biggest worry was remembering to be on my own teleseminar. I’ve already missed one I signed up for because I forgot what day it was on. Fortunately, there was a nice recording waiting for me to download to my iPod afterwards. I’ve already heard that call and can listen to it again. But if I forgot to call in for my own teleseminar, I don’t think I’d be as excited to listen to what people recorded for me to hear afterwards!
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
One of the participants must have been calling from The Twilight Zone. Barbara said at one point it was the noisiest teleseminar she’d ever been on. We had crying babies and screaming kids, off and on. We had a rhythmic grating like someone washing dishes, or sanding something, or sharpening a tool (Yikes!). We had people coughing or clearing their throat LOUDLY into the phone. We even heard “You’ve got mail” from someone’s computer.
Three people had volunteered to work with Barbara on the call. The volunteer would present the situation related to changing work or moving towards a new career or advancing their business, and Barbara would help them see the next steps and figure out what was keeping them from moving forward. It was a lot like coaching. Each participant got some great ideas. But none of them was struggling with the specific kind of resistance Barbara teaches about. When you resist making sales call because it’s not your personality, that’s understandable. When you resist balancing your checkbook because it’s taxing and boring, that’s normal. When you love to paint and you finally have time and a studio set up, but you wind up dusting the bookshelves instead of painting—that’s resistance. And, as a person who’s tried dusting bookshelves, I can say it’s just not normal, either!
After the call Barbara invited us to her public discussion groups at her web site. It was interesting that many people who have read her books and understand her concepts could list all the tips and ideas and techniques she had suggested during the discussion. Others, newer to the ideas or with minds organized in a different way, hadn’t caught on to all that was shared and were amazed when they realized all that was covered in the call. Even though none of the participants was actually talking about the kind of resistance that involves avoiding what you really want to be doing, she taught a lot of techniques for overcoming obstacles. She did her part and did it really well, but with all the interruptions and distractions and confused expectations, I’m sure it was a challenging experience.
There was a teleseminar a couple of weeks back that I heard as a member of Fast Track Your Dream, a career change support community. There was a glitch with recording the call so some of us had a “re-enactment” call to share our notes and memories of the examples and recommendations. Fast Track creator Valerie Young came up with a couple of extra recordings for us to download, so we wound up with much more information than recording the call alone would have given us. But, boy, was she in a tough spot trying to find ways to provide that information after the recording process fell apart.
It’s gotten me to think that there can be high drama in offering teleseminars. I had thought I could learn the simple technical aspects, put together some interesting content, and have a low-risk way to offer information for a fee. Before these calls, my biggest worry was remembering to be on my own teleseminar. I’ve already missed one I signed up for because I forgot what day it was on. Fortunately, there was a nice recording waiting for me to download to my iPod afterwards. I’ve already heard that call and can listen to it again. But if I forgot to call in for my own teleseminar, I don’t think I’d be as excited to listen to what people recorded for me to hear afterwards!
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
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