Archive for November, 2011

Being ethical, professional and a confidential coach

Sunday, November 27th, 2011

 

Being ethical, professional and a confidential coach can work against you in business. We are unable to ask our clients, fellow colleagues for testimonials and most feel so vulnerable in terms of abuse or bullying they are unlikely to step forward to recommend you. Another problem as I see it on Ecademy is that Black Stars can add comments and there are many who are known coach ‘knockers’ and there are numerous Power Networkers who either feel unable or prevented from adding their comments or likes. So a catch 22 here I feel. Now there is one very capable Power Networker I introduced here ~ Are you a builder or a blitzer? I would highly recommend her to fellow members.

Then Andrew posted a brilliant and timely Business : Do company directors need a coach? to re address this imbalance. We coaches are getting a raw deal from the self made and inexperienced coaches on here and out there.

Here repeated is my comment on Andrew’s post
“Personally, I cannot begin to count the so called ‘unqualified ‘self made’ and in experienced personal or professional coaches’ here in Ecademy. The Coach ‘knocking shop’ has gone on since I joined in 2008. And what is more… you also have biased prejudice within the qualified ranks of coaches”.

Even during training and post qualifications you will find bad coaches, so it’s wise to post up some guidelines. Common sense goes a long way here.

Working together for a better tomorrow.

It’s about TIME there was true recognition for the true and valid practitioners who work ‘behind the scenes’ to help fellow members and their clients, either corporate, as in my case or ‘one to one’ business coaching.  No one likes to feel vulnerable or inadequate, even those whose eyesight  (focus changes) symptoms that are age related. Many of my clients cannot spell, can’t count or have stress related problems. The list is endless.

Do you feel that someone who is both qualified and a professional business coach should work for free?. Most of us during our personal and working business lives will need a coach at some point. So come on members, if you have come across someone on Ecademy or on other social networks who has truly helped, please step forward.

Being confidential can work against us.

 

 

Carolyn Williams, helping you to re-energise for your business.

Breathing for business. I mentor business people and help them improve their focus, energy and clarity for new business.

http://www.scoop.it/t/breathing-for-business

 

www.lifestyle-online.co.uk/
www.cardiffboardroom.co.uk

 

 

 

 

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Food is Medicine and Fuel (Gut Instinct Part Two)

Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011
When we call food bad we make it even more exciting by excluding it from what we allow ourselves to eat. Or we attach conditions to when we can and can’t eat it. But these strategies don’t work. We feel so guilty that we don’t even enjoy this forbidden food when it is in our mouths’

 

Gut Instinct Part Two
How you can transform your attitude to food and restore nourishment and pleasure to your life. (continued)

Eat the food your body is hungry for.
It is easy to get stressed about the wholesomeness of our foods; so many foods today are made with excessive chemicals.

Distinguish between foods that can harm you because they are made up of chemicals and flavourings and aren’t really food, and foods you designate bad – such as ice cream, puddings, chips – because they are highly calorific or associated with treats. We can be tempted to call categories of foods bad as a way of putting them off limits, when what is really going on is that we don’t know how to handle them. When we call food bad we make it even more exciting by excluding it from what we allow ourselves to eat. Or we attach conditions to when we can and can’t eat it. But these strategies don’t work. We feel so guilty that we don’t even enjoy this forbidden food when it is in our mouths.Denying yourself particular foods is a recipe for bingeing.

To find out what you are hungry for, imagine yourself eating the food you want. It might be the food you don’t usually let yourself have. Take a minute to taste it, smell it, to imagine it in your mouth. If you’re still hungry for it, eat it. See how it tastes and whether you enjoy it as you hoped you would. If you find you no longer want that food, imagine tasting, smelling something else. If it is as wonderful as you imagine it to be treat it as such. Let it be worthy of your attention, not something to sneak in your mouth because you aren’t meant to be having it.

Find out why you eat when you aren’t hungry

Lonely
If you are lonely and you eat, you will have given yourself a reason why you are lonely – ‘I’m too fat and therefore I am lonely. You wont have addressed your loneliness; rather you will have taken a step away from solving it. You will have taken yourself a step a way from solving it. You will have given yourself without meaning to: a food problem.

Sad
If you eat when you need to cry, your tears will always be there, waiting to be shed.

Angry
If you eat when you’re angry, you’re swallowing a feeling that needs to come out. Food cannot satisfy other hungers. It can quieten them temporarily, but when you have finished eating they are still there.

So smell the red grapes, the organic honey. Look at the colour of foods and drinks Taste the medicine and nourish/fuel don’t fool your body

Recognise any of these addictive traits and habits?

Why not start to exercise?  

 

 

Carolyn Williams, helping you find ways to re-energise yourself for your business?

@LifestyleOnline

Breathing new life into business. I provide social media campaigns for small business owners & entrepreneurs to help increase their followers, advocates and leads using social media.

Swansea
cardiffboardroom.co.uk

 

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Gut Instinct

Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011

Talking to so many stressed, whizzy business gurus as I do through the course of my consultancy and networking, I wanted to post a few useful extracts from various experts on Stomach Health. Stress is felt in the Gut! So it makes sense for us to respect our Gut and nurture it. I agree with Pierre Pallardy that the stomach is our second brain. If we all connect with our stomachs and truly listen to the signals, I reckon we are half way to an improved digestive system and a flatter tummy.

Book extract…
How you can transform your attitude to food and restore nourishment and pleasure to your life.
Learning to recognise why you want to eat when you are not hungry, to eat only when you are hungry and to stop when you are full isn’t magic; it takes work. But once you have the knack, it feels magically different from the way you’ve eaten before. It will mean an end to diets, binges, special schemes to control your food, and an end to denying yourself the food you would like to eat. There are five key principles that will help you eat in a new way and to be able to be the size that is right for you. They allow you to trust yourself around food. No diet, no doctor, no trainer, no scheme can know better than you what suits your body.

Eat when your’e hungry
Learning to rediscover your hunger signals can take a bit of practice and a lot of attention. If you are not used to recognising hunger, don’t despair. Perhaps you don’t know when your hungry because:

You eat before you are hungry
You eat because everyone else is eating
You eat because your miserable, weepy, angry
You eat because you are so happy
You eat because you passed a bakery with wonderful smells
You eat because it’s a meal time
You eat because your mother told you to
You eat because you feel fat and helpless
You eat the food your child left over

Sometime we can be afraid to feel hunger. The very sensation frightens us, so we eat in advance of it. That can happen because as children we didn’t have enough food; we had to clear our plates whether we wanted to or not; We sensed our mother’s disapproval if we said weren’t hungry; eating was a shared family activity. Knowing and facing these reasons clears the way for you to use your hunger to guide your eating.

Wouldn’t it be nice to enjoy food and eat well? Then we can all relax and have a great weekend

Extracts from Gut Instinct written by Pierre Pallardy coming next…

 

Carolyn Williams, helping you find ways to re-energise yourself for your business?

@LifestyleOnline

Breathing new life into business. I provide social media campaigns for small business owners & entrepreneurs to help increase their followers, advocates and leads using social media.

Swansea
cardiffboardroom.co.uk

 

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Your ‘Secret’ Guilty Ambition

Monday, November 21st, 2011

Photo courtesy of Flickr Your ‘Secret’ Guilty Ambition ~ Creative Distractions. Updating this Blog 21-11-2011 and dedicating it to Louisa Miles after such an insightful coaching ‘exchange’ during this mornings Skype, followed by another creative phone chitchat with Ian Moncrieff MacmillanOriginal

My thanks to the peppy Cornelis, for his ongoing pep chats.

One Monday I was home ‘office less’ while Gas engineers ( plus a cherry picker outside my kitchen window) took over my 3rd floor pad for a week. This was one of the most testing weeks for me indoors.  So ‘walking the talk’, I decided to make the best of a ‘ being ousted’ and took off to Gower for a hike. Before I went, I left you my network to chitchat about your own daring ambitions in life. This followed on from  Just Be, a blog I wrote on a Sunday.

Yes, this was me being me ‘titch’ a few years ago, achieving one of my life’s ‘secret’ ambition’s that of ‘wanting to drive a Fire Engine!!’. No, never ever again mention air brakes!!!

 

Go on, add your story or picture that tells us something about your secret ‘guilty’ ambition?

 

Carolyn Williams, helping you find ways to re-energise yourself for your business?

@LifestyleOnline

Breathing new life into business. I provide social media campaigns for small business owners & entrepreneurs to help increase their followers, advocates and leads using social media.

Swansea
cardiffboardroom.co.uk

 

 

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Attracting New Clients

Wednesday, November 16th, 2011

Action

I have just posted this message on my status bar giving the opportunity to my connections ( on all my social media platforms to engage – Shock Horror)

The Reason

I want participation. I want to find out more about my contacts. I am genuinely interested.

The Tool ~ The Phone

A fellow social media connection Ty Tyson, rang me ‘out of the blue’ on Monday and for that half hour I really heard Ty’s accent, voice quality and learnt about his hopes for the future and what really matters to him. Go ….on what are you waiting for? Do It!  “Pick up the (Cannon and Ball phrase) pigging phone”

You never know what you might learn. You never know, you might even learn how you can help one another to move forward.  I hope I have, in this instance?.

Now  surprise, surprise I also want to attract new clients. So my here’s my question for you: ‘How do you ‘up your game’ when attracting new clients?’

 

Carolyn Williams,  helping you find ways to re-energise you for your business?

@LifestyleOnline

Breathing new life into business. I provide social media campaigns for small business owners & entrepreneurs to help increase their followers, advocates and leads using social media.

Swansea
cardiffboardroom.co.uk

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Can’t start a fire without a Spark!

Wednesday, November 9th, 2011

Last Thursday evening,  I tore myself away from my desktop to attend a TLO – Turn Lights On – this is happening event in Swansea, hosted by Georgina Jones.

Those of you who follow me on the social media networks will have read my tips on how to breathe and sparkle for business. I campaign for busy entrepreneurs and talented humans who want to increase their followers and leads online. Attracting new clients is the aim of my campaigns for brand owners who are busy mentoring their courses, services and products out there in the real world.

Great Marketing

During the grey and frosty weeks that follow the glitz and glamour of Christmas can make even the hyperactive among us feel like shrivelling up on the sofa. So I heard my inner voice shout out ‘ put your face on and heels and join an event that promises to turn lights on’. Now that is just the right marketing for this time of year. I wasn’t disappointed and met up with some beautiful and talented singers and a sociable male Chiropractor from Carmarthen.

Georgina was highly engaging as the host and asked us to chink one anothers glasses before sharing with each other what turned our lights on. Now I am entering a new and scary phase where I am moving away from my professional health and fitness service, which I’ve loved for over twenty six years work and entering into a new chapter that of mentoring busy humans, who want to follow their dream career and business.

Knowing who you are first before following your dream career or business takes steps and in some cases lot’s of steps given the magic opportunity that comes your way when you’re seeking it. Motivation is the driving force and intrinsic motivation comes from within. It’s an internal striving to be good at something. Research shows that those who undertake activities or exercise for their own satisfaction are happier, because intrinsic motivation is about passion and love for what we do. Extrinsic motivation is about being motivated due to a reward, a prize or recognition and praise. We are born to be intrinsically motivated with an innate drive to be physically active (some more than others).

Intrinsic motivation will normally see the greatest results long term, says Rhonda Cohen. Luckily, I have bags of both. So don’t let the grey, wet weather dampen your style!

Go on, what are you waiting for take action and take your first steps.

 

“What you seek is seeking you” – Rumi

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If you, or someone you know has a light that needs turning on, please get in touch with me here: carolyn@lifestyle-online.co.uk

 

Carolyn Williams, helping you find ways to re-energise yourself for your business?

@LifestyleOnline

Breathing new life into business. I provide social media campaigns for small business owners & entrepreneurs to help increase their followers, advocates and leads using social media.

Swansea
cardiffboardroom.co.uk

 

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Join me for a conversation please?

Saturday, November 5th, 2011

Making It Happen by just one CLICK!

 

 

Chit chatting ~ Engaging with friends on different social networks I have found that images work well to gain attention. Sometimes these images lead to a conversation. Depending on the platform and image, I frequently learn something quite extraordinary about them as individuals. Milton explained he loved Koh Samui in Thailand ~ Island Paradise.   This meant I wanted to learn more about Koh Samui, so did a little bit of homework and posted this image. What followed (this is only one example) was an interactive chit chat about travelling, countries, culture leading onto work projects.

 

Andrew wrote on Ty’s teeth whitening blog about African twig brushes offer all-day dental care.  These twigs help Africans naturally whiten their teeth and then Andrew kindly linked us up to the information about these plants.

Learning so much from connections who are living and working the other side of the globe or who travel extensively. I have another awesome male interest that travels the globe gathering more and mores skills, friends and conversations. These conversations no doubt, turn into more opportunities and more revenue back in this country. For my part, living in Swansea, providing a family base for my daughter and currently my son in Colchester, I like to think I attract people who have that ‘get up and go’. Connections and friends who love to travel, share their passions, whether it is about sport, food, family life or new opportunities.

Being a counselor is not unlike a pilot, you learn to pick up on good energy or bad energy and if your energy is strong and your confidence is good, you see clearly where it is you want to go.  I have made certain decisions about what I want and where I’d like to be in Life and written them down. I have come to accept that there are times when turbulence can throw me ‘off course’  but with determination and the help of friends and fellow professionals I can get quickly back ‘on course’.

I have been fortunate in making so many wonderful new connections through business memberships like ecademy and professional sport that I can tap into conversations that are on the move….

How about you?

 

Carolyn, moving minds, helping you to focus doing business.


www.cardiffboardroom.co.uk
www.lifestyle-online.co.uk

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Help Me? What Really MATTERS To You Right Now?

Thursday, November 3rd, 2011

 

Thomas’s excellent blog about lurking versus active comments statistics provoked a great debate. Then Charlie blogged his Here’s to the lurkers….bless them all!

I particularly enjoyed this line from Charlie:

“Sometimes they just lack confidence and a period of time lurking could be followed by the odd comment, leading to a blog, leading to genuinely top class contributions”.

I would agree that lurking over a blog is great but acting on a thought, opinion or topic for me is DOING something for us all. The lurkers are sharing something valuable. When we do get the opportunity to be seen and then heard we allow ourselves to be validated. The important exchange in this transaction is trust. When you can trust your opinion does really MATTER and is not violated or trashed then we feel worthy.

For years we Fitness Professionals and Business Presenters hand out evaluation forms at the end of every session. Penny does this after her Digital workshops. Yes, I have attended one at Adam Street, contributed and filled one in for her as I value both her and Thomas’s contribution, namely bringing the Digital era into businesses.

My ‘now’ has been hectic for some months both at home and work and so I hope to re ignite energies that excite me and more importantly to have your comments roll in to add colour again. I have always loved adventure.

I joined Black Star to discover where that journey would actually take me, it’s certainly given me the opportunity to meet many of my ecademy connections. I started the Cardiff Boardroom in April.

I love conversations and debate and I make sure I follow up on your all important feedback on topics that MATTER. When you sit back to look at the bigger picture you realise we have been given the opportunity to voice our opinion on this Ecademy platform. It is for us to do something with that social media networth opportunity.

So my sparkle nudge to you all is .What excites you? What really matters to you right Now?
Already in from Geoffrey in reply to my question ~ What subject excites you? …

“Food, Drink, Family, Friends, virtually anything but at the appropriate moment..Christmas sounds exciting..pies..curries..pineapple jam tarts..single malts..good football…it goes on and on and on..why dont you surprise us”.

And another one in from Milton ~ “Cricket. Chelsea – Man City – Balotelli. £££$$$ !” – Milt.

 

I am really looking forward to your surprise replies.

 

Carolyn, moving monds, helping you focus on doing business

 


www.cardiffboardroom.co.uk
www.lifestyle-online.co.uk

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