• What is Business Coaching

• Industry News: Michael Angiers, Action Speaks Louder Than Words

• Review - Book: The Magicians Way by William Whitecloud

• The Spotlight- Characteristics of Leadership

• Feedback from visitors

• Healthy Lifestyle: Quick Fit Tip by Doris Mattei

• How to Be Featured as our Guest Columnist

• Sponsorship Notice 

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Coaching is a process of transformation. It is no quick fix. It is about you learning skills that you apply. It is not about someone teaching you how to do something. Let me explain…

Many of you are probably familiar with business or management consultants. Some of you have probably engaged them on various occasions. I am not denigrating their value as, having been a management consultant myself for many years I recognise that they have a valuable role to play in certain circumstances. Typically you engage such a consultant for a specific job. In the end they leave after you have paid a huge fee and they have hopefully achieved a positive outcome for your business. They may have even taught you something that you can take away and use yourself in the future. Very soon you have forgotten what they may have taught you. Why? Because there was no process to enable you to learn for yourself and to have this learning reinforced through a process of awareness, application, encouragement and validation. Herein lays the big difference. Generally speaking this is not the function of consultants.

Coaching is a method of skills training that is delivered via a proven model supported by rigorous processes, techniques and tools. Coaching is about teaching rather than learning. It is about retention of skills for future application.

It is important that if you wish to engage a business coach (I will take the liberty of grouping business and executive coaches under this one banner for simplicity’s sake) you are not only comfortable with that person as an individual, but they also carry the appropriate business skills and experience to support your requirements and their coaching methods. It is important that you check their qualifications as a business coach. Have they been trained by a recognised body or coaching school? What sort of accreditations do they have? What other training have they received? What formal qualifications do they have in business? Most importantly, what business skills and experience do they bring to the table?

I will be frank - there are as yet no formally recognised accreditations or qualifications for business coaches by industry or government either here in Australia or overseas. There are two organisations within Australia who do offer accredited certification in Life Coaching but this is all. The best you can do is to check out where they received their coaching from. They should be able to tell you and you should be able to find the web site of the coaching institute or school from where they received their qualifications. Peruse this carefully and form your own opinion as to the suitability of the school. Was the training they received provided on a formal basis or was it self taught? Also look into the coach’s business background and consider whether the supporting training or courses they have attended are appropriate to your needs. Is the additional training relevant to their role as a business coach?

The results of coaching are largely up to you as the coachee. Yes, a lot does depend on the quality and skills of your coach however at the end of the day it is you that makes the difference.

Let me share with you a very simple but also very powerful concept — if I may.

“Everything that occurs in your life is the direct result of a decision that you, and only you, have made. It is never the fault or result of anyone else but you”

At the end of the day it is the role of the coach to work with their client to enable them to be a more effective person as an individual in the achievement of valuable and sustainable changes. This will enable you to become more effective in your business than you competitors. The spin-off of all this is that you will also be more effective in your personal life. This is where, as I said earlier, the principals of life coaching apply. We can not separate the individual from the job. They are interwoven and together make up the whole.

Is coaching for everyone? No it isn’t. You must be ready for coaching yourself and until you are truly in this space coaching will not succeed for you. Some people are in fact quite in control of their destinies and manage themselves quite well. They have vision, they are driven by goals and work to their action plans. They prioritise their lives in such a way that they have achieved balance and control.

Real success in coaching comes most effectively to those who recognise that it is for them and they have a desire to follow the process. You must be ready for it within yourself.

It is action that makes the difference. Good things may start from ideas and from the verbalization of those ideas, but action is what's needed to accomplish anything.

This would have to be the best investment in oneself that could ever be made. This is short book written as a story - the journey taken by Mark Vale along the Magicians Way. Interwoven into the story is a very powerful message about how we can improve ourselves in focusing on what is important in our lives.

It is a story that tells us the 7 magical secrets to personal success that take us out of our "swing" circle (also referred to as our "victim" state) where we live with our limiting beliefs. The story shows us how through living the 7 Magic Secrets we can experience a paradigm shift to a position of confidence.

The book is only 204 pages long and simple to read. This is a must read for everyone of all ages. If ever there was a book that challenged our assumptions on life and showed us how we can improve ourselves then this one has to be on the list of MUST READS.

Visit the web site at www.magiciansway.com where you can also download the first chapter of the book.

This was part of a presentation given by Rod Redenbach.

There are 4 characteristics of Leadership

1. A leader fills space
   Their presence fills a room – they are the centre of attention and dominate everyone’s attention without trying.
    

2. A leader has courage
   To stand up to their convictions, their belief. They believe in themselves above all else.
    

3. Compassion
   Being interested in other people while there is nothing in it for themselves - perform Random Acts of Kindness.
    

4. Sense of history
   ”Learn from the past, create the future and live in the now”

Leadership is a choice

Leaders move forward and become better.

Rod is a great motivational speaker, lives on the Gold Coast and runs a training business in leadership and security.

Being the first issue, there are no comments from our readers this month.

QUICK FIT TIP

Every movement and every activity you do is an abdominal exercise if you draw your belly button in and brace your abdominal muscles!!

Great posture can make you look thinner!  Pull your shoulders back, draw in your belly button, walk tall & get an abdominal workout too!!!!!

Doris is the principal of Superb Lifestyle providing remedial massage therapy and healthy lifestyle coaching based on the Gold Coast. For an appointment you can contact her on (0419) 784 078.

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Superb Coaching provides behavioural coaching to individuals in order to bring about personal transformation leading to a more balanced approach to their personal and business lives.

Greg is also works as a coach for Shirlaws where he works at bringing about business transformation within small and medium organisations.

The business models and coaching methods are each valid but each address separate needs for different styles of clients.

All views expressed in this newsletter be they direct or implied are solely those of the Editor and should not be construed as advice or representative of any other party referred to elsewhere in this newsletter. The information provided in this newsletter has been compiled for your convenience. Superb Coaching makes no warranties about the accuracy or completeness of any information herein contained.