Coaching

When you hear “brand,” what do you think? What conjures up in your mind? I bet it’s something like: brand name, logo, color scheme and maybe fonts and tag lines. But that’s the problem…

Those are just the surface-level (mostly visual) aspects of a brand.

The meaning of a brand – it’s identity and strategy – is what creates a real business advantage.  

After creating a visual representation of their brand, most small business owners stop and switch focus. They may think, “OK, I have my brand n…

I'm a big fan of assessments. It's not that I believe assessment tools are 100% true or because I'm certified in the DISC assessment. I like them because they provide us with a framework for discussing things we normally don't talk about. Things like: 

• How are you being perceived? 
  
• What stresses you out?  
• What matters to you the most?

Assessment tools don't make us more intelligent in terms of I.Q but they do make us more aware and that awareness helps us deal with people more effective…

I thought owning my own business would be like making a cake. Being the systematic thinker that I am, my mindset was: I just need to find the right ingredients to business, put them together in the right order with the right quantity, the right conditions… and I’ll end up with a cake that everyone wants.

Right?

Not really.

Instead, my solopreneur journey thus far has felt more like a sugar rush with a recipe that wouldn’t rise into what I thought it should be.  

But as the end of 2021 arrive…

It’s all too common for me to hear, “ugh, I don’t like marketing myself.” Why is this so common among solopreneurs, consultants or business owners?  

It reminds me of that scene in Jerry Maguire where the newly-solo sports agent is desperately trying to sign a big football star, Cushman. They’re in a hotel room and Cushman sees himself on the jumbotron and says, “I’m sick of me already, I’ve got Cush-lash.” 

Sometimes we as business owners can get tired of touting our own business. Maybe it fe…

What is influence? Today we may think of an “online influencer” when we hear the word. That’s not the type of influence I’m talking about.

I’m talking about becoming a person of influence – someone who has 360-degrees of communication confidence, is thought of as powerful (in the best light) and has a strong personal brand. Being a person of influence is someone who:

• Motivates people to take action
• Inspires people to join a cause or movement
• Is listened to, heard, respected
• Ensures accoun…

As they say in business it’s all about who you know. Do you have the right connections to get the job? Do you know anyone to help secure the project? Can so-and-so introduce you to the next deal? 

If the answer is no, what do you do? You network. You hand out business cards, send the LinkedIn InMail, and set up the 1-on-1 coffee meetings. Basically, you get the word out to as many people as possible to see if there are any mutual synergies. After all, we all strive to get ahead and be leaders i…

We have lost the ability to talk with each other. We no longer know the flow of conversation. If disagreement were a class in school, most adults today would fail. We don’t converse, we speak from a soapbox. When we find disagreement, many avoid, silence or “unfriend.” We don’t create a dialogue, instead we write emoji-filled one-liners back and forth. 

We are failing at human connection and certainly suck at disagreement. Specifically, we fail at moving through disagreement into stronger relat…

You can’t outrun them. You can’t escape. You can’t deny them… but you still try to at work and in business. Why are we so reluctant to combine emotions with work? It’s like we’ve defined “professionalism” with a non-expressive, cold, almost-robotic stoicism. But we are human, and emotions are part of the human experience. 

One key factor that sets us apart from machines and makes us irreplaceable at work are our emotions. Emotions are as much a part of the persuasive communication model created…

The word “coach” on its own may conjure up images of a whistle-wearing leader in gym clothes carrying a clipboard but coaching today is much more than that. There are executive coaches, accountability coaches, health coaches and many more. Coaching is different than mentoring, separate from therapy and distinct from training and consulting. So, what is coaching?  

During my certification as a coach I adopted this definition, “coaching is a growth-promoting relationship that elicits autonomous m…