coaching

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Wisdom on Wednesday

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Nowadays we have very few guidelines and an awful lot of options, and all these options are giving us quite a bit of uncertainty and self-doubt. We need leaders that can create big promises to customers, and help their organisations deliver on those promises. Leaders who master both strategy and execution start by building a bold but executable strategy. Next, they ensure that the company is investing behind the change. And last, they make sure the entire organisation is motivated to go the journey.

 

There are 4 parts of emotional intelligence (EQ):

1.         Self-awareness
2.         Self-management
3.         Empathising
4.         Social skills




Within each and every one of these domains are there specific learned and learnable abilities that will make sales executives outstanding performers. Within the self-management cluster there’s not only better managing of negative emotions, there’s also adaptability. Maintaining a positive outlook, no matter what happens in your life, keeping an eye on that long-term goal despite setbacks, obstacles, and distractions. Mindfulness doesn’t help you directly with any of these but if you want to look at all the EQ attributes and competencies then I’ll be willing to guide you through the process of additional learning. Contact me via e-mail for 1-on-1 executive coaching.

Pay attention

In this current climate, attention is not only a rare commodity and also a precious one. As humans we are getting better and better at staying focussed and keeping the attention on ourselves, as when I pay attention to you, I don’t have it anymore and in that moment is gone forever. We all have the capacity to improve our attention as it’s like building a muscle. The thing about awareness is that they are not making any more of it.  If you choose to focus your awareness and energy on things and people that bring you pleasure and satisfaction, you have a very good chance of being happy in a world full of unhappiness, uncertainty, and fear.

Have you ever noticed that when you need something, you start seeing this item anywhere you go? For example, a friend who asked you to buy yellow roses for an event and all of the sudden yellow roses are everywhere- in the supermarket, gardens, etc. It is the same thing with goals. Your attention is a limited thing, you only notice what you need. So, the trick is to position your goals in your head like it is something you truly need. We must apply this knowledge as it’s too important not to.

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We are very distracted

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We are living in environments with all kinds of competing information and we often work and live-in places that are also overloaded with information. The ability to selectively focus on certain things and ignore other things is part of our capacity as humans. There are distractions everywhere and this is the first time in human history where almost every on the planet has a mobile device. These devices have all kinds of attractions, amusements, and diversions, so we are constantly being pulled away from that one thing we need to do, and I think mindfulness can help.  

What is mindfulness?
Mindfulness is where you use your strength of concentration to become a witness to your own thoughts and feelings. I think mindfulness is a mental work out, every time you bring your mind back into focus you are strengthening your concentration. Instead of being fused by our experience, we can step back and still participate in the experience fully and have more control over our thoughts, feelings, and actions.

 

Your ability as a salesperson to fix your attention on what matters and ignore distractions is a valid predictor of positive financial outcomes. Mindfulness is a method of training your attention in bringing it where you want and keeping where you want it to be. Contact me via e-mail for 1:1 coaching cognitive control sessions.

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Embark on your journey now

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As a salesperson you already know there is a vast difference between understanding something well enough to buy it as opposed to understanding it well enough to sell it. Zig Ziglar described selling as a transference of feeling and I tend to agree with him. I think effective sales procedures work everywhere and you do not need to be a “natural born” salesperson in order to be a good one. Selling is an exciting profession and in many ways a complex one. There are many specialists in the field and no one person has a monopoly on all the information.

The reaction to success is different for different people. A common problem people experience, following success, is to go into an emotional dive or feel depressed. There may be a bit of an anti-climax afterwards due to the loss of focus and routine. I have never seen a spreadsheet that tells you how you should treat people. How do you react when you experience a dive in emotions? Contact me via e-mail for tolerance, understanding as well as solid actions.

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Stop and smell the roses

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Happiness is an inside job, you really should not assign anyone else that much power over your life. Most people operate on autopilot, doing the same things today that didn’t work yesterday. They rarely stop to measure the impact of their actions on themselves and others, and how those actions affect their total well-being. As you stop to literally smell the roses, you start to realise other areas in your life where you could slow down a little to enjoy the beauty that surrounds you.


Many people wait for something to happen or someone to help them live their best lives. They expect others to make them happy and they think they have lost the ability to improve their lives. I think there are three components of happiness - something to do, someone to love, and something to look forward to. Think about it, if we have useful work, sustaining relationships, and the promise of pleasure, it is hard to be unhappy. And I use the term “work” to encompass any activity, paid or unpaid, that gives us a feeling of personal significance. If your daily actions and choices are making you unhappy, contact me via e-mail and let's arrange a meeting.

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The nod of approval

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c/o Financial Times

c/o Financial Times

Life is short and you don’t have time to figure everything out by yourself. Now if you could just align your work with your why.

·      Have you taken full advantage of the opportunities offered to you?

·      Do you have habits that are destroying your health and well-being?

·      Are there things that you could do that would make things around you better?

·      Have you said what you need to say to your colleagues? 

Contact me via e-mail for mentoring or coaching sessions. Another voice, another opinion, this could be the catalyst for the change you have been seeking to make.

“Dependent people need others to get what they want. Independent people can get what they want through their own effort. Interdependent people combine their own efforts with the efforts of others to achieve their greatest success.”
— Stephen Covey in "The 7 Habits of Effective People"
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From talk to action

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Many people are lacking a connection to their purpose or creating fulfilment in their lives. I love telling stories and I’m passionate about the impact and the effects storytelling has on society. Getting clarity in my message so that I can share it with the right people in the right way, so it can help me grow my impact. I think the biggest communication problem is that we don't listen to understand, we listen to reply as you will never get what you love by attacking what you hate. 

As human beings we are moved by emotion, not by information and data. I help people build that emotional connection whether it's in a one to one conversation or if you have to give a presentation in front of many people. Being your true self and conveying the message in a way that is going to connect. Contact me via e-mail for training or workshops about: How to connect with people in ways that influences and moves them?

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You can figure it out by yourself

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I won the birthday lottery and have great parents who encouraged me to follow my dreams and do something of use. I think skills are far more important than talent, because we are all born with talent. Here are nine qualities I admire more than skills:

  1. Compassion

  2. Sympathy

  3. Empathy

  4. Kindness

  5. Gratitude

  6. Humility

  7. Patience

  8. Self awareness

  9. Sincerity

Contact me via e-mail as I will not tell you what to do, I will just guide and help you figure out how to best use the resources that are available.

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Things that rhyme show up

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It’s quite clear that the world needs more peace of mind and justice if we are to recover from the pandemic. I spent the weekend with some good friends in the Swedish countryside, this experience of fishing and hunting for mushrooms was amazing. We found both Karl Johan’s and chanterelles. We cooked them with garlic, onions, and cream, we ate them with French toast as a starter and they were delicious.

 

Millions of years ago on earth everyone was a hunter, nowadays, there are hunters and farmers. I think that being a hunter requires a different skillset than being a farmer. We have only had ca. 500 years’ experience of being farmers, and as a farmer you get really good at sitting still and focussing and making tiny incremental improvements. In a world that moves so fast with trends and habits, the old hunting skills of being able to notice just a little bit of movement in the bush are still valuable.

What do I do?
I help people to see where they are and what’s holding them back, and then I help them get to where they want to go. I try to educate, connect, and lead a small group of people who actually care. Contact me via e-mail to arrange a meeting.

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You do have a choice

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c/o BBC

c/o BBC

New technologies will always encourage different types of thinking, the symbiosis between humans, machines and nature has enabledI us to move forward in new ways. Some things never change, for example, relationships. You get what you pay for and this especially true in relationships, so if you truly want them to be great, then you are going to have to invest in them. I’m a believer in therapy and anything that makes you look at yourself in a constructive way. There are so many levels to life, I think it’s always beneficial to sit in front of someone who is not going to give you the answers you want. It’s also really important to maintain a student mindset and learn from relationships.

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The mental vs. The physical

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I can highly recommend the renowned sports psychologist and culture coach Dr. Pippa Grange’s book, “Fear Less: How to Win at Life Without Losing Yourself”. For over 20 years, Pippa has helped leaders and athletes (including the English football team) reach their true potential. Pippa has found that even the most successful people experience fears of inadequacy, what sets them apart is their ability to pinpoint their fears and “turn down the volume.”

I think that your results are just an outcome, they are not your worth. Contact me via e-mail for real world strategies, sales training and workshops opportunities.

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Business as usual

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Today marks the end of Copenhagen Fashion Week and I think that part of being an artist is about bringing more personality into the work we do. Let’s be clear here, I don’t need to know anything about your sexuality or where you live, all I need to know is how you open yourself up and put an emotion on the table. A good example is Apple, they don’t make cheap and replaceable products - Apple comes out with products that welcome personal criticism and when I say personal, I mean I made this and for someone else to say I hate that. Nowadays, we are too focussed on how to avoid criticism and not focussed enough on how I make a difference.

 

After visiting the trade fairs on Wednesday, I came home out with the feeling that safety was paramount this season. There were many beautiful collections, polished with no edge, it almost felt as though they had been designed by a committee. And the designers were saying, “It’s not my fault”, there’s no vulnerability there, I really missed the collections which said metaphorically, I can stand up against the system and I show vulnerability. This made me think about Brené Brown’s wonderful Ted Talk, “The Power of Vulnerability” which has now been viewed almost 55 million times. I also think that vulnerability means putting something into the world and being willing to let the world respond or react. Do you dare to be different? Contact me via e-mail for a deeper dive into how you can make a difference, but only if you dare.

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If not for you, then who?

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A few weeks ago my father said to me that I am much smarter than my bank balance indicates. My first question was why isn’t it bigger?
And he said, “You don’t have enough reasons, you have enough intelligence but you don’t have enough reasons.”
This made me stand up and go for a walk, and during my walk I realised that reasons can change your life - reasons come first and answers come second. You don’t get the answers to do well until you get the reasons. My father explained that reasons altered his whole life and sometimes it’s those little reasons that will alter your life.


Life has a mysterious way of hanging onto all the reasons and only gives them up to the people who are inspired by reasons. So, in other words reasons makes a difference as to how your life works out. What are some of the reasons for doing well? Personal, recognition, family, respect and the way it makes you feel. I love the feeling of being a winner and now I understand is all you need is a reason! Would you like to get yourself a list of reasons so that you never lack inspiration? You may not get all the answers straight away, but you will get the answers if you can get the reasons. I have some mentoring openings available from September, contact me via e-mail for an appointment.

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The science of possibility

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If you can’t explain it, it’s not wired in your brain but if you can build the model and explain it, you will be installing the neurological hardware into your brain in preparation for the experience. Therefore, the more you understand what you are doing and why - the how will get easier because you can assign meaning to it.


The people who get their intentions to match their behaviours, their actions equal to their thoughts and then get the mind and body to work together - are going to have a new experience. The experience is not only going to enrich the philosophical circuits in the brain, because experience does that, it will produce an emotion. So then they will begin to feel unlimited, they will  begin to feel free, they will start teaching their body chemically what the mind has always understood. Happy days! Contact me via e-mail for mentoring or coaching.

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The past is a good predictor of the future

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Deep thinkers always listen to what you have to say because it’s another opportunity to learn. I think everything we experience is the result of something we feel. Yet much of what we feel goes unnoticed, sometimes it is suppressed and at other times it is actively denied. When we are at constant war with ourselves we cannot make much headway in a world that is not really made for us. Contact me via e-mail and let me know what you think.

“Don’t seek the truth; just drop your opinions. Drop your theories; don’t seek the truth.”
— Anthony de Mello

The big five

Image via Inc. Magazine

Image via Inc. Magazine

COACH = Curiosity, Openness, Associations, Conscientiousness and Healthy practices. According to Tony Robbins, the definition of a life coach is someone professionally trained to help you maximise your full potential and reach your desired results. They hold you accountable and provide encouragement throughout your journey to become a better version of yourself. According to Thorbjörg, the definition of a health coach is a supportive mentor and wellness authority who helps others feel their best through individualised food and lifestyle changes that meet their unique needs and health goals.

What do they all these coaches have in common? I think that they all identifying needs, plan and implementing suitable programmes. Whether the coaching involves developing the individuals’ physical or psychological fitness, the coach will encourage them to maximise their performance. Contact me via e-mail in confidentiality and let’s arrange a coaching session.

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Life is good here

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c/o Getty Images

c/o Getty Images

There is an unstoppable movement towards greater consciousness about what our actions are doing in the world around us. And the younger generations are continuously searching for higher meaning and more sustainable behaviours. I think working together in flat, loosely connected networks, in a peer-to-peer fashion, is behind the most significant changes in human society over past 100 years.

Do you work in an organisation where decision making was clearly expressed and democratically distributed? I wonder what it would be like to work in an organisation where communicating your dreams and ambitions is encouraged. Where the decision making is led by a leader who collaborative and is interested in having feedback from outside of the C suite. Once the decisions have been agreed, no one in the group will have any remains objections and consent to implementation.

What does it cost us to make a decision that no one believes in or is willing to commit to? Are you trying to do too much with everyone involved? Contact me via e-mail for a meeting where we could take a deeper dive into your situation.

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Every generation is limited by what it knows

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"Actions speak louder than words." We've all heard it a thousand times, but the fact remains: Leading by influencing and inspiring others through your actions is far more effective than leading by pure authority. My parents and our Christian upbringing taught us to marry passion with reason. We do not get overly excited when life is going well, and to not get too down when it goes badly. I’ve trained myself to take the long term view, about how to stay focused on your goals rather than getting hung up on the daily ups and downs. My ability to maintain composure in the middle of a crisis is a superpower. Contact me via e-mail when you would like to tap into your superpowers.

“To have long term success . . . you have to be obsessed in some way.”
— Pat Riley