Which Coach Fits You?

Written by Cathy Goodwin, Ph.D.


Karen hired a "mentor" coach to help her business grow. The coach applauded Karen's efforts to design her website. On a slow week,repparttar coach said, "Clear clutter and learn to dance." After three months, Karen had a big coaching bill, a multicolored website, an empty house and a sad little business. Karen wasn't uncoachable. She choserepparttar 102039 wrong coach. For instance, Western medicine treatsrepparttar 102040 body as a machine to be repaired; Chinese medicine believes sickness is caused by imbalance that can be corrected by herbs and diet. Both models have limits. If you break your leg,repparttar 102041 Western model makes most sense; if you suffer from insomnia, you might favorrepparttar 102042 Chinese model. John's business is hitting a rough patch. Coach X says, "Clear your life of clutter energing-draining relationships." Coach Y says, "I will teach you mental techniques to attract new business." Coach Z says, "Maybe your business does not reflect your life purpose." Coach Q offers, "I will teach you networking and sales techniques." Only John knows what he needs. If your website needs an overhaul, you can clear clutter till your house is bare and nothing will happen. But if everyday hassles are draining your energies, you can't focus clearly onrepparttar 102043 website. Let's compare four best-selling books. Cheryl Richardson's Take Time for Your Life exemplifiesrepparttar 102044 "life space" model: people know what they want and how to get there; they grow by self-care and personal empowerment. Choose Coach X.

Should You Use Rhetorical Questions?

Written by Ron Sathoff


Rhetorical questions are probably as old as public speaking itself. Like anything else, this technique has its uses, but can be very tiresome if used overmuch or inrepparttar wrong circumstances.

Remember that a rhetorical question is simply a question asked that doesn't require an answer from another person. So think about it, when would such a question be asked? In my opinion, there are two different times when this kind of question is asked. First, you ask it when you wantrepparttar 102038 audience to THINK aboutrepparttar 102039 answer, but you don't need to hear those thoughts. The second time is when you are in a situation where getting an answer is impossible -- when speaking to a large, distant audience, for instance.

The problem with rhetorical questions is that they can sometimes be confusing. I've heard speeches where someone has rhetorically asked "Think about it; when wasrepparttar 102040 last time you were TRULY happy?" only to have an audience member say out loud, "Yesterday!" Needless to say,repparttar 102041 speaker was a little disoriented by this unexpected answer.

Because rhetorical questions can be hard to handle and because they have a tendency to sound stiff and formal, I recommend that you ask TRUE questions (ones that require an answer) whenever you can. This is especially true if you are in a normal speaking situation, where you can communicate back-and-forth freely with your audience.

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