A Force To Be Reckoned With!

Did you know there is a definite way to link up with best things life has to offer? Did you know that there are blessings ready to crawl all over you right now? Blessings are everywhere you turn. I can just hear someone right now; "Vegas, you're just a few grapes short of a fruit salad."

Consider this: does it seem strange that no one thinks it is abnormal to believe that bad things might happen to them? Consider this: If I say something like, "that's just my dumb luck" and you hear me say it, would you think it is strange? No! In general, most people would not.

Those words don't sound foreign to our hearing. We hear them all our lives. We don't even give it a second thought when we hear someone say something that would be detrimental to their well being. We just accept it as a part of life.

Consider this: If I say, "Everything in my life always goes perfect!" And, you hear me say it; would that sound strange to you? Sure it would. There seems to be something inside of us that resists saying something good about ourselves.

Believe In Yourself!

It may be fear that we will jinx ourselves if we say it, or that we don't want to sound like we are boasting or bragging. So, if you heard me say that, would you think I'm lying? Well, let me for record right here and now say; "Everything in my life always goes perfect!"

How you say? It is easy when you consider that it's not a matter of circumstances. The problem is; it's not easy to not consider circumstances! The circumstances are there; they're like bugs crawling all over us.

Everywhere we turn we feel like we have to figure out an answer to this and that. And, if we don't, we get as nervous as a pregnant possum; which just ads to feeling that we are going to end up like death warmed over.

A Bird's Eye View!

Even though circumstances are striking fear inside of us; real issue is not what is happening at moment. The circumstances can be bad, if we use traditional definition of bad circumstances. Yes, things can be bad. But, life is more than circumstances!

Life is about living. And, you're not living when you're being pushed around by bad circumstances. Consider this: When you are living under your circumstances, you are being pushed around by something that can't touch you.

The circumstances can't break your leg or eat you. All they can really do is to give you a good case of foot in mouth disease. And, all too frequently, that's exactly what happens.

The Burning Question!

Think about something! There can be biggest storm you have ever faced swirling all around you at any given moment. But, circumstances i.e.: storm, are not what is going to beat you. Do you know what only thing that can beat you is? You ready? Losing fire of desire!

While you’re looking for your Ideal Coach, Coach is looking for his or her Ideal Client.

Here are things I’m looking for in my clients, many of them Emotional Intelligence characteristics. However, since I coach EQ and teach these skills, I’m also looking for person with low EQ who is eager to learn, “trainable,” and ready to commit to do work.

1. Good Enough Manners

Being courteous on phone call, or in email, such as, “I was wondering if you have time to talk now,” or “Dear Susan” or some salutation. We are about to enter a relationship, and it needs be one of respect and dignity.

2.The ability to communicate with me in a common language.

At very minimum, a person must be able to realize she and I can’t communicate if she speaks Swahili, and I do not. It’s a bad sign when we both speak “English,” but they speak a dialect, such as Business-eze, or Psychiatry, and they don’t know everyone doesn’t speak it. This sort of blindness to social cues is a bad sign … unless of course they’ve come for Emotional Intelligence coaching, in which case, we have our work cut out for us.

Example 1: When your therapist says to you, “Okay. What part of ‘malignant regression and pathogenic reintrojection as a defense against psychic decompensation’ don’t you understand?” (Source: New Yorker cartoon)

Example 2: The client who thinks before he speaks –“ I want to ask her about minimizing census on QIW Ward. Now how can I put that in plain English?”

3.Empathy … enough

I received an email yesterday with “coaching” for subject line, and body of email contained this: “What do you do? Lillian.”

This is not a good prognosticator—oops, skip jargon—this is not promising. For one thing, it doesn’t pass Manners Muster.

For another, I do 3 large areas of coaching—Emotional Intelligence, Marketing, and what I call “Helping People.” I call it “helping people” because I like to speak vernacular (the language ‘us guys’ speak at water cooler) so I avoid terms like “Personal Life Coach” (does this exclude public life or professional life? There’s no such thing.), or “Ontological Coach” – say what?

Now, prospective client doesn’t have to know I work in 3 areas, or that I train EQ coaches, or that I run a Distance Learning School, and in fact in some cases couldn’t have known, but they need to know that asking me “What do you do?” is highly unlikely to elicit a response they can use, no matter how smart I am.

Call it a basic understanding of field., i.e., in seeking a lawyer to do your divorce, you don’t need to know what a Public Bonds attorney does, you just need to know a Divorce Attorney does divorces and a Public Bonds attorney does not. That’s way field “is”.

Yes, we coaches have our “elevator speeches” ready, but savvy client, one I want to work with, is one who knows how to ask a question. They write, “I want to XYZ. Can you help me? Is this kind of coaching you do?”

4.EQ is better than IQ, but IQ has to be there

I received an email from My Ideal Client-NOT! saying: “What’s difference between a Business Coach and an Emotional Intelligence Coach?” One tells who you serve, other tells what you do. Not being able to grasp that general concept is a clue they aren’t “conceptual” enough to be my Ideal Client-YES!

5.Papa Bear, Mama Bear, Baby Bear … this is “just right”

I like a client who’s already developed a good set of tools, i.e., on introvert/extravert scale, they test toward middle. On left-brain, right-brain scale, they test toward middle. If an individual is an extreme of anything, there will be more work to do. But of course that “balance,” is what Emotional Intelligence is all about.