According to Google CEO Eric Schmidt, everyone needs a coach.
Every famous athlete and performer has some who can watch them, see what they are doing and give them perspective.
Who’s helping you?
A village to raise a business
In my ongoing fascination about how much help I receive in business, I decided I’d write a post about how it takes a village…to raise a business. Don’t you know it. A like minded Canadian entrepreneur named Jude beat me to the punch. Good for her.
While I may be a solo-preneur, I have involved family, friends (and some of their spouses!), mentors, advisors, coaches, consultants and even tango partners in my business. They are my village. I am even dedicating a page on my soon to be revamped web site called “About We”.
Asking for what I want
Long ago, my dad taught me to ask people for what I need. His teaching came in the form of him demonstrating it repeatedly in his own life. Good going, dad.
Even so, asking remains uncomfortable for me. And it’s possible that my requests are not always welcome. Nonetheless, I have seen time and time again how much opens up when I simply ask.
[Being vulnerable + uncomfortable= great things]
It’s counter-intuitive math, I know. I put those square brackets around the equation to make it look official. Did it work?
Gratitude for the village people
This week alone I am grateful to:
- Claire M who supported my website revamp;
- Monica C who edited the copy
- Mary B who said “send me a summary of your coaching offerings so I can share it with 15 business owners and professionals who might consider doing a sample session”;
- Kathy F who is working on connecting me to speaking engagements;
- Guy V who encouraged me to keep blogging because I have found “my voice”;
- Italo M who offered himself up as a speech coach;
- Angelo P who is speaking to one of his clients about getting coaching.
Last week it was:
- Bruce M and his financial advice;
- Gail V, Pietro D, and Bonnie Jean M and their offers to make introductions.
These lists are not exhaustive and the only reason why last week’s list is shorter is because, well, it was last week already.
Clients are villagers too
Many of my coaching clients offer their support through word of mouth referrals, articles, ideas, and introductions. It’s inspiring to live among them.
A great place to grow up
In reality, my village is more like a small bustling city. Happily, the mini metropolis of human connections I have created is a safe and friendly place to raise my business. How about yours? Is it time to call a town hall meeting?
As published in the NY Times from The L Word
I am just back from the kitchen. I made a pan of date squares for my dear friend Milla who had to put her cat Felix down yesterday. In truth, while I would have made something to bring her anyway, I made the date squares to avoid screaming &*%#! because I wrote this entire post already this a.m. and lost it somehow when I went to add this image. So, you could say this post has some bad karma around it. Ironicallly, it is about good karma. So: Take 2.
What do dates squares have to do with my friend, her cat and this image? A lot. You see my original post was about “webs of indebteness”or reciprocity. I believe it is what makes the world go ’round. The concept has been on my mind for 2 weeks since Danny Iny got me hooked on Copyblogger and I read about the power of focussed generosity.
The past 2 weeks have been a perfect storm of ideas swirling in my head:
1) I recently read Seth Godin’s Linchpin (along with the rest of the world) and started looking around me to identify the Linchpins I know;
2) This reminded me of Gladwell’s Tipping Point and I started collapsing the notion of Linchpins with connectors. For me, Linchpins are often connectors;
3) I met up with a coaching colleague Britta Heintzen who is passionate about mind mapping; even her website is done in mind maps (I love it when people walk the talk);
4) I flew to PEI to surprize my mom on her 60th birthday and had some time on my hands to draw a map of all my connections. This entertained me for several hours and my really nice seatmate Mark (who hosts Friday night Kareoke in Kensington, PEI) seemed to be intrigued too. I am calling it my human map of connections (HMC). Mine is not scientific like the human genome but it took a good measure of geekiness to perservere.
5) I told my friend Jennifer about my HMC and her fascination prompted me to write this post. She sent me the image above as I was complaining that my laptop and camera have stopped talking to each other so I cannot show my own HMC; apparently a whole season of The L-Word was centred around The Chart. In this case, someone had “the chart” tatooed on her back. It chronicled who had slept with whom (does everyone want to be a The Girl with a Dragon Tatoo now?) My HMC didn’t do this but perhaps I could do this on an overseas flight sometime.
Part of my Human Map of Connections, if you could see it showed my friend Tessa introducing me to Liz before I ever thought of living in Montreal. A while after I made the move to Montreal, Liz took me to a special Laughter Yoga thingy that her friend Anita had organized for International Woman’s Day. At this event, I met Milla, Kathy and Tasha among others. Milla and Kathy started a book club and invited me. Jennifer was also invited and so on and so on …You see, I wouldn’t have had images for this post if it weren’t for Tessa’s generous introduction more than 4 years ago.
I have done the math. Based on the introduction to Anita, a natural connector, I know at least 40 people I may never have met. And knowing Anita, there are more to come.
Snce I moved to Montreal 4 years ago, I know 200+ more people. I have generated many of these connections myself through coaching, tango, volunteering and Toastmasters. And I am a connector too. Nevertheless, I am blown away by the impact connectors have had on my human map. May they continue their art and may we all continue to be indebted to each other.
P.S I am leaving now to take the date squares to Milla. This post has taken me entirely too long to write and I promise to never again be smug because I have written a good post early on Saturday morning when other people are sleeping. Never.
I have less than 30 minute to capture my thoughts in this post. This normally would not be enough time for me to write a post but I am inspired to go with good enough this time around. In fact, it is perfect as my topic today is about good enough.
This a.m. I got an email from my friend Bonnie Jean.
Email heading: Now are ya alive woman?
Email body: Just the one word answer is sufficient.
Bonnie Jean had left me a voice mail last week and I hadn’t yet returned it. The wonderful thing about our friendship (and my friendships in general), is that Bonnie Jean really did just want to sknow how I was. She wouldn’t be annoyed even if I didn’t call her back for several more weeks. She may have sent out an APB if I hadn’t managed to muster a one word email response though. We have that kind of friendship. Whatever we do for each other is always good enough.
And on the topic of good enough, Bonnie Jean has long supported the idea of living life in medium. She brought it up again today. I have heard it so many times over the years that I can’t remember today’s context. Her idea is that living your life in medium is the way to go. Her medium means even-keeled, balanced, or without drama or extremes. I think the concept first emerged years ago when I was lamenting over this relationship or that and was generally caught in some big drama to which she would say, “Medium, Lisa, think medium!”.
I am all for medium when I feel like medium. Of course, the whole concept flies in the face of coaching . I often work with my clients to help them expand their emotional range. It helps them find fulfillment in their lives and businesses.
Master Coach Deborah Coleman used the analogy of a piano keyboard in my very first coaching course and it has stuck with me ever since. Deborah helped me see that is only though being able to tickle the high notes and the low notes, that one can live fully. So living a life in medium, or let’s call it middle C, might not be all it’s cracked up to be (unless you have bi-polar disorder, in which case, medium would be a very desirable place to be).
In fairness, Bonnie Jean is the mother of 3 kids. From her perspective, medium is likely a delightful absence of vomit and middle of the night bed wetting.
Perspective aside, as much as I love Bonnie Jean and her truisms, I cannot support the theory of medium. What I can support is full keyboard living, purposely cooking up a distraction when you need to, and an ability to bring yourself to medium/ middle C whenever you need a rest.
P.S. I may write a future post on Bonnie Jean’s other main theme today: A woman cannot work, have kids, have a clean house, be sane AND be skinny.
I am somewhere in the middle: digitally dabbling. This is according to the results of this Online Identity Calculator I used earlier today to assess my online identity. This article by Meg Guiseppi, CPBS, MRW, CPRW of Executive Career Brand (as posted on www.workbabble.com) tells you why you too should find out how you rate, and do it regularly. And while Meg focusses on executives, when you are a business owner it is very important to test your company’s online rating regularly as well.
In executive job search, having accurate, brand-supporting search results associated with you is essential. Recruiters and hiring decision makers rely on online searches to uncover and qualify candidates like you.
If they can’t find you online, they may never find you, and you may miss the chance to be considered for those jobs.
Conversely, if they find anything to discredit you, you’re probably dead in the water, too. But don’t worry. You can work to build up positive results which will push those disreputable ones down to page 3, 4, or lower of results for your name, rendering them ineffectual. But remember that nothing on the Web is ever permanently deleted.
William Arruda and Kirsten Dixson, Reach Personal Branding founders, broke out 5 possible online profiles in their book Career Distinction: Stand Out By Building Your Brand:
Digitally disguised
Your vanity search does not match any web pages. There is absolutely nothing about you on the Web – you have no online identity. You’re hidden from those who may be looking for you.
Digitally dissed
There is little on the Web about you, and what is there is either negative or inconsistent with how you want to be known – your personal brand.
Digitally disastrous
You have plenty of search results, but they have little relevance to what you want to express about yourself. Results for others sharing your name may be in the mix, too.
Digitally dabbling
There are some on-brand results for you. Even though there aren’t many results, the information about you is relevant and on-brand – nothing negative. From here, you can easily move to the next level.
Digitally distinct
There are lots of results about you that reinforce your brand – the right message about you is out there. This is the nirvana of online identity! You’re among or approaching the superstars in the world of online identity. But your work isn’t done. Google results can (and do) change overnight. You need to keep an eye on your online identity and keep building up the good stuff. There’s always room for improvement.
To quickly run your own digital check-up, try the Reach Personal Branding’s Online Identity Calculator. It’s a nifty little tool to assess how strong your online presence is.
When you take the quiz, you’ll be asked to type “your name” in a Google search and note the total number of search results, how many are NOT about you, and how many accurate, on-brand results ARE about you in the first 3 pages.
Among the 7 questions provided, you’re asked which statement best describes the career level for which you are aiming:
■ University/College Student or Recent Graduate
■ Entry-level (1-5 years’ experience) or Individual Contributor
■ Manager with 5-10 years’ experience, Director, Consultant or Small Business Owner
■ VP, Highly-regarded Consultant or Acknowledged Thought Leader
■ C-level Executive, Partner, Board Member, Celebrity, Renowned Consultant or Expert
When you submit your answers, your digital ranking compared to the expected number of accurate results for the career level you chose is revealed – digitally disastrous, digitally distinct, or somewhere in between.
The quiz is free and takes about 5 minutes to complete. The results can be eye-opening and impel you to get busy. And if you “pass” the quiz, you’ll be given the code for the “I’m digitally distinct” badge shown above to place on your website or blog.
Need some help building your online brand identity and positioning your unique value proposition? Check out my posts:
The Personal Branding Worksheet: 10 Steps to Defining Your Authentic Personal Brand
Health Insurance for Your Personal Brand – The 3 Cs
2010 Top 10 Executive Personal Branding and Job Search Trends
© Copyright Meg Guiseppi, 2010. All rights reserved. Used with permission from www.workbabble.com
This past weekend Tanya and I created what I’ve dubbed our Business Experiments in the Test Kitchen of Life Challenge in which we gave ourselves $50 each to buy food in secret which we would then combine to cook up a menu and meal together.
| Tanya bought: | I bought: |
| Morbier cheese | Chocolate with pink peppercorns |
| Mussels | Oatmeal crisps |
| Red chilli peppers | French country farm sausage |
| Frisée lettuce | Cashews |
| Speck bacon | Dates |
| Papaya | Dried pineapple |
| Dried big ear mushrooms | Mango ginger Stilton |
| tomatillos | Green onions |
| Cilantro | |
| Blood oranges | |
| Pink grapefruit | |
| Papaya raisin chutney | |
| Limes |
I share the ingredient list simply to show you the choices we made and what we had to work with. It was like Christmas morning as we unveiled our lot; we were both impressed by the diversity of choices and the potential for the meal. Interestingly, our first take at a menu was a very safe pass. It was easy and predictable to group the oranges, grapefruit and limes as a great light dessert to accompany a bite of chocolate and to decide that the dates could be stuffed with the Stilton etc.
Quickly though, we realized we weren’t actually integrating our two sets of ingredients at all. So in the true spirit of the challenge, we threw out the idea of ”safe and proven” and moved to true innovation. It was really hard to let go of the idea of making a great tasting meal to focus instead on creating something new. Yikes, did we really have to risk good taste and use $100 worth of groceries just to prove our creativity? Yes, we did. The result of our more wild/ less safe meal was delight and pride:
Dates stuffed with Morbier, cashews and speck bacon- Frisee with Mango ginger Stilton, blood oranges, and curry vinaigrette
- Farmer sausage with pink peppercorn chocolate sauce and mushroom chilli slaw
- Mussels with papaya chutney, lemon grass, cilantro, and speck bacon
- Citrus chutney salad with oatmeal crisps
While we aren’t likely to be invited to Iron Chef anytime soon, I think we were punching above our weight this time around.
Before I get all heavy about what I learned from the challenge, let me state emphatically that the day was a blast…fun, fun, fun from start to Fimo finish. That’s right. As if we hadn’t made enough food in our five courses, we then moved to creating miniature Fimo quesadillas and PEI strawberry shortcake with Tanya’s daughter while Greg did the dishes.
And so, the learnings (according to me):
- We are most creative when we aren’t attached to a specific outcome
- When you think you are being creative already, step back, turn up the volume even more and take another pass; there is always room for more innovation
- When stuck, it is a great time to take an entirely different perspective/ approach that may seem totally unrelated to the problem at hand (i.e. this food challenge for a Coach Buffet problem)
- In a business partnership, making playing together as important as working together
- Have a support team; in our case, one husband (procurer of wine, food critique and dishwasher) one five-year old (who is fascinated by food made from Fimo) and two coaches (Tanya and me) who would have driven you crazy with all our “noticing” throughout the day!
And about that espionage….while shopping earlier in the day, one of us had a huge urge to look into the other’s bag while she had stepped away for a few minutes. If you do this challenge, don’t be suprized if it happens to you too. And if it does: stop yourself, get curious about what is going on for you, and tell on yourself the minute your partner is back. Your trust in each other will grow and you’ll have a good laugh too.
Tanya and I agreed to not read each others’ posts this week to avoid group think as we reflect on the learnings of our challenge. But if you are really curious about the almost espionage, I am betting her blog will tell you whether it was Ms. Morbier or Ms. Stilton who wanted to peak!
I am just back from a weekend in Toronto with my dear friend and business partner Tanya (hereto forward known as Tanya with no preamble about how we are both best friends and business partners!). The working weekend was set up about a week ago when we recognized that some face time was our answer to busting through the Seth Godin style resistance our lizard brains had been mounting at various times over the past month about next steps for our beloved Coach Buffet.
After a couple of successful Coach Buffet events in the fall and some demand for more, we found ourselves royally stuck. A new approach was the answer, we decided, so we spent several meetings in January designing a new virtual approach. And then, lizard brain again. It seemed that something was keeping us from moving forward to ship it out and make it happen.
As part of our weekend plans, we decided it was important to include some fun. We recognize that while all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, it makes us grumpy and grumpier! As coaches, we also know that inspiration can be found in funny places. Tanya challenged me to come up with something we could do during our visit that would be so memorable that I would write about it in my 2010 recap of what I am most proud of. No pressure.
You guessed it. Once again. Stuck. Zut, alors. What could we do? I help my coaching clients get unstuck on a daily basis and there I was stuck again.
Luckily, when you have a business partner who is also a coach, you don’t have to stay stuck for long. Together we brainstormed a challenge for ourselves that very well could make the ranks of things I am most proud of in 2010.
Our challenge:
Make a meal together for Saturday night. Big deal, right? Hold on.
The rules:
- Visit at least 3-4 foodie neighbourhoods in Toronto together
- Spend exactly $50 each and not a penny more (Tanya’s husband Greg sprang for the wine)
- Split up to make purchases
- Make no menu plans in advance
- Hide our purchases from each other for the entire day. In other words, NO discussion on what we were each buying independently for our joint meal
- Make a full meal together that would include every single ingredient we bought.
- Eat every dish.
- Insist that Greg eat every dish :)
The results? A pinch of stuck, a sprinkling of anxiety, heaping scoops of laughter, and five surprizing courses. All this and some almost espionage too. You will have to read my next post for that.
It is confirmed. My reputation is Golden. Retriever, that is! Yep. Ruff ruff.
In early January, I embarked on a journey to get information on how I am perceived by my current and past clients, colleagues, friends and family (well all the friends and family are current!). My motivation was curiosity. My intention:
- To gather information I could use in my marketing (i.e. where is the sweet spot between the small business owners’ needs and my character strengths, coaching skills, experience and offerings; and,
- To provide information for me own self development work with my business coach (i.e., how can I play to my strengths and accept/ modulate my weaknesses).
Like any tool, the Reach 360 would give me pieces to inform me but not the whole picture.
And so, as I hinted above, the bread of dog that comes to mind when people think of me is Golden Retriever. It don’t think they meant it in the Fido sense (as in, Lisa looks like a Golden Retreiver) but perhaps some did.
The question was worded something along the lines of “when you think of Lisa’s qualities, what dog breed comes to mind?”. Of the 31 respondents who filled out the anonymous electronic reach 360 questionnaire, more than half of them said Golden Retriever. And they weren’t picking from a drop down list. This was an open-ended question.
So why am I focussing on the dog question when I could be sharing with you what people’s perceptions of my strengths and weaknesses are or I could be listing the “brand attribute” words that were most often used to describe me? I guess it is because I find the dog section fun, funny, and pretty damn accurate.
Wikipedia says,
- The temperament of the Golden Retriever is a hallmark of the breed …”kindly, friendly and confident”. Check. Well, my confidence waxes and wanes but I am consistently kind and friendly.
- A Golden should not be unduly timid or nervous. Check
- The typical Golden Retriever is calm, naturally intelligent and biddable, with an exceptional eagerness to please. Check.
- Golden Retrievers are also noted for their intelligence. Ahem. All I will say here is that curiosity and learning are top values of mine.
- These dogs are also renowned for their patience. Ok. We might have reached the end of the “how Lisa is like a Golden Retreiver” exercise.
Lest you think I am all Golden, I also got shepard, collie, Alsatian, afghan hound and “Royal Puddle“. I decided that the later came from a francophone coach colleague who told me over coffee the other day that she thought I was most like a ”un caniche”.
If you, your employees, or your friends and family could benefit from knowing more about how they are perceived in the world by those who know them well, I do recommend the Reach 360 and the Via Strength finder (both are free).
Be prepared for some introspection as you read the information that comes in. If you know yourself well, there will be few suprizes and some great tidbits you can learn from. And remember, feedback is feedback. It is someone else’s opinion and it is golden as long as you take it in stride!
As a business coach, my niche is small business owners. Of course, all small business owners are not created equal so I continue to refine my focus. To help me do this, I find it very helpful to conduct 1:1 interviews. During these interviews I learn what keeps business owners up at night, what they typically do to address their “pain” and how they go about finding help.
I so appreciate the time these entrepreneurs give to me to help me build my business that I offer a complimentary “no strings attached and I mean it!” coaching session to them or another business owner they want to pass it on to. I also sometimes write blog posts (see sample) as a way to spread the word about their business and their story.
And so, what’s the point? Simply this: if you are a small business owner who fits this profile and you are willing to spend 20 min on the phone with me (or have coffee in person for those in Montreal), I would love to hear from you soon:
Criteria:
- Have been in business for 3-5 years++
- Have at least 5 employees or associates
- Work in any industry (though I have a preference for food, marketing, fashion, professoinal services/ consulting etc.)
Feel free to forward this link to someone who fits this profile. I look forward to hearing from you or someone in your network. Email me at lisa@chandlercoaches.com Thanks!
I haven’t been able to post anything since the earthquake in Haiti. I contemplated writing my response to the devastation . I thought of trying to make sense of it somehow or to write about it through different perspectives through the eyes of a coach . That all felt very contrived.
Today I am able to post something because the words of an 11 year old girl found their way to me. Johanna is the neice of my friend James. She says it so simply and eloquently. Goes to show that “through the eyes of a child” is a perspective we had better not forget.
Writing, images and arrangment by Johanna, Age 11
