Toby Mildon Episode 2Last week I introduced a book I am reading by Steve Chandler. Here I continue my look at how our parents’ attitudes can affect our self-image. I believe it can be so easy to fall into the victim mentality and blame our problems as adults on our childhood past and even on our parents. I had a friend in school and college who was sexually abused by her father. I loved her to bits because she was so kind and caring amongst other attractive traits. She self-harmed, was in and out of psychiatric hospital and had dependency issues. My friend unfortunately adopted the story given to her by her father, which was that she is not strong and should accept abuse. I think about my friend often since we lost touch when I went off to university and hope she’s managed to create a new story for herself. Then there’s my friend Simon (not his real name so as to protect his identity: I may even have changed his gender). Simon has come from a difficult background with an abusive brother, his parents’ divorce, suffers from bi-polar disease, and is now homeless and sometimes doesn't have enough money to buy food. But what I love about Simon is that despite this he follows his passion of singing, has YouTube videos showing off his talent, is strong enough to take himself off to college to train as a hairdresser and is comfortable with his sexuality. The difference between my college friend and Simon is that he had decided to create another story for himself - one of triumph over adversity. When we go through the pain of struggling we learn the most. I’ve got a lot of faith in Simon, even though he’s not out of the woods, that one day soon he’ll see a clearing in the trees and run straight through it because of his ‘story’ and the power of his mindset. I have personal experience of this too and just to frame it all up in an article I wrote for this friend’s blog, I used the quote ‘the gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials’ (Confucius). Last year I fell seriously ill and ended up in a coma for two months with a bleed on the brain, multiple organ failure and on life support. The doctors told my parents not to be too hopeful that I’d survive. Now a year later I’m back to my full time job at the BBC, filmed my own TV show with a friend, run my own coaching business, published a book and travelled overseas more than ever (soon off again to NYC). When I first got out of hospital I had a new zest for life and lived with a ‘just do it’ attitude and to some extent still do! I could so easily be held down by my near death experience and let it defeat me, but I haven’t; I look on my experience as a turning point and something I am quite thankful for. Sometimes when I reflect back on last year I think to myself: “Oh gosh I really had it tough, didn’t I? Should I keep pushing myself to achieve as I do to this day?” Then I snap out of this thinking. I say to myself that it’s my mindset and story that got me back to work, creating a new exciting life for myself. Next week the final part of my introduction to me Toby Mildon Episode 1At the moment I am reading the fabulous book The Story of You (and how to create a new one) by Steve Chandler, one of the most inspiring books I’ve read for a while. I encourage you to get a copy of the book yourself. I’m not on commission and Steve and I have never met. I am so excited about the book and Steve’s messages that I want to share my insights and, some may say, wisdom, with you. As a life-coach my mission is to help people make life work for them, not against them. This mission is central to my own life experience where I could so easily have been defeated by my own circumstances (like having a disability as a result of an illness that caused me to spend two months in a coma and on life-support). As my recent Badass Interview testifies I am someone who doesn't ‘cope with their situation’ so much as transcend perceived obstacles and who makes them irrelevant.
The remainder of these three linked articles is very much my own personal story and how the book speaks to me. I’m writing this because I want to inspire people into personal success. I do not want to preach; I believe to inspire and lead by example is more influential. One way I can do this is to tell my story and hope it speaks to you. If the story doesn’t speak to you it doesn’t matter; I hope it’s a good read nonetheless. If it does, I hope it moves you into a positive direction/place and I’d love to hear how you get on. As I continue reading the book I’ll write more. Steve’s first chapter is: ‘Where did you learn your story?’ I doubt this is something Freud would argue with but we learn of ‘our story’ of ourselves in childhood from our parents or guardians. When we’re young we’re impressionable and can’t necessarily argue back with an adult who we look up to like the oracle. Some kids grow up in tough backgrounds with abusive parents, party to alcohol abuse and similar damaging experiences. Sometimes, when I am at the supermarket, I hear parents snarling at their children for no apparent reason and it saddens me. On one hand I hope the child doesn’t carry on harsh criticisms or knock downs from their parent as their own story: their own story in adolescence like ‘I’m a bad apple’ or ‘I don’t matter’. On the other hand I just wish the parent could see what impact they’re having on their child and then I wonder what their parents were like. Where did their story come from? How far up the family tree does this story go? When I see young people caught up on the wrong side of the law and in and out of detention I can’t help but feel compassion for them. These young people have got wrapped up in a story that’s not true to them, yet they take it on as being their truth. The other day I was talking to a young man who had been in prison because he hit another boy (a bully) over the head with a metal bar rendering him permanently disabled. Despite being with someone who had made another permanently disabled, I could only feel compassion for him. He was imprisoned, received psychological treatment and feels genuinely sorry for what he had done. Now it’s time to move on with his life and his passion is in producing music. But his story is now ‘people will never trust a criminal’ and ‘I am a no good bad boy’, which is holding him back. I tried hard getting him to see that this story isn’t helping him and even invited him into the BBC to meet some of my colleagues in Radio but his story was so strong it was holding him in an impossible situation: to stay at home and stew over his criminal act. He felt bad about the other boy’s life he had ruined. I too felt sorry for the other boy as I know having a disability is not easy but also that he himself must have been in pain to bully another kid. Next week I will continue with this introduction to myself, and to the ideas that Steve Chandler deals with in his book |
Mathias ReindlCoaching goes global – Challenges, risks and rewards of coaching international clients When a coach attends a client with different cultural background and language barriers in between, building rapport, listening to the client’s concerns and developing the maximum empathy becomes an even bigger challenge. The devil is in the detail and small things can mean big risks for the coach as a professional as well as for the coachee who is seeking the maximum outcome out of the investment. However, understanding the differences and acting in an appropriate way will make a coaching session with international and intercultural involvement a very rewarding experience broadening the coaches and the coachees mind and bringing cultures closer…a part of the positive outcomes that coaching offers by nature. Our readers will agree that coaching builds on three major pillars: rapport, listening and mutual empathy. For sure many will mention a lot more aspects that are important and for sure they are right. But in this essay I´d like to concentrate on these three as they determine the comfort of our coaching clients as well as our own during the coaching session. They are fundamental for our client’s engagement with the coaching process, ergo with the outcome of the coaching session. Modern communication tools such as telephone flat rates, Skype, voice over IP (VoIP) connections etc. allow coaches to be in business whenever and wherever it appears appropriate to the client and to us. Technology has broadened our circle of client acquisition. It´s now global! That is a great opportunity in a country – UK – where coaching as a profession becomes increasingly popular and where the number of coaches grows quicker than the number of coachees! Certain parts of Europe, particularly Germany, Scandinavia and the UK as well as the US are producing a great number of well qualified coaches with good language skills. English speaking coaches can coach in the whole world! That’s good news, isn´t it? Coaching is about fine-tuned communication. And communication is very subjective, very subtle and very cultural. It’s very different depending on the circumstances. International coaching takes usually place via online channels or telephone. That implies the spoken word, the voice and the speaking patterns are the only elements we have available to understand the coachee’s issues and to rephrase properly. And we know that this is already difficult in our own language, imagine if you coach somebody who´s English is only second or even third language. You see it already: It´s going to be very hard. The challenge we face is that we aim to deliver the same good quality as we are used to give in our own environment. The challenge is also that the client has to understand our approach, needs to follow our questions and must feel comfortable with what we say and the way we formulate. The risk is that the client doesn´t understand properly what we say. Let´s not forget that British English isn´t easy at all. It’s fast, it links together words and phrases, it´s very subtle and it´s polite (you say A meaning B). Imagine the Danish executive working in Singapore. This person may be potentially the ideal paying client for us but will he/she understand me? Will I – the coach – understand him/her? Will I say something that my client won´t understand, won´t take seriously or even might offend him/her? Attending these clients we knowingly and willingly face the challenges and take the risks when coaching people from abroad. The best way to minimize the risks is to inform ourselves about communication patterns before we start to coach someone abroad. We need to know in advance how to deal with a German, a Russian, an Indian, a Chinese etc. The other thing coaches can do is to apply the basic coaching rules: Listen to our coachee, switch off as much as possible emotions and follow strictly our GROW model or the model that most suits your working style. The coach needs to avoid the pitfalls that coaching clients from distant countries offer for him/her. There is no evidence that far-away cultures are more difficult to deal with than our neighbour countries. The opposite might happen. The fine nuances we face in our proximities can mean far bigger risks than the obvious cultural distance we feel with people from certain other countries. It´s not always obvious! This article is not meant to give recipes and instructions. The aim is to rattle the cage and open the eyes to prevent a coach from the risks he/she takes when wanting to help people from different cultures. In the end you have to find out for yourself if you feel comfortable to coach an executive from an Arab country or if you think the Dutch entrepreneur is more your cup of tea. Whatever your approach to cross-border coaching might be, you will find it challenging and very rewarding. You coach people in different time zones, people who may live in the tropics, persons from different religions, persons whose English might be limited etc. There is an infinite amount of variables in the international and intercultural coaching environment. If you can be part of this diverse world, feel comfortable and – more importantly – make your clients feel well attended and inspired by yourself and your coaching skills, then you will experience the satisfaction of having brought cultures together and of having helped an individual who probably feels respect and admiration for your skills and your culture. It´s all about rapport, listening and mutual empathy. Isn´t it? Mathias Reindl. German born coach with strong international background in executive and corporate coaching in the areas of customer care and communication. www.startupskills.co.uk, www.m-reindl.com, info@mathiasreindl.com.
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Lesley StopfordNew Year – an alternative approach This is the time of the year when many coaches talk about goal setting, helping their clients with resolutions and planning forward to the year ahead. It is a new year so it does make sense to use it as an opportunity to start afresh, to look at things from a different perspective and make some positive plans, but in reality how many people stick to these resolutions? From my own experience and from talking to clients and colleagues, many of us start off the year all fired up and motivated with the best of intentions but then in early January experience a slump in energy and disappointment in our perceived lack of success. But I don’t believe this is just a case of lack of willpower, vision or motivation, I think it’s about expectation - we are asking a lot of ourselves at this time of year. January is meant to be a time of reflection, recuperation and clearing the decks for something new. Save the resolutions till spring! January can be a challenging time, we may have physical or metaphorical ‘hangovers’ after the Christmas season with bills to pay and sometimes relationships issues to resolve. As coaches we know that actually Christmas is high up on the scale of stress inducing things in our lives. Whilst there may not be inches of snow outside, it is in fact still winter. Our modern life style with constant light, heating and other conveniences can cause us to forget our connection to nature and It is natural for us to be in a process of slowing down – almost like an animal would hibernate. Our energy dips as the weather can be bleak and the days are still short. Our body is working hard to keep ourselves well in this cold time of the year, our health is challenged as we are at our lowest ebb and our resistance to infection is lower. It is not a natural time for us to be taking a lot of physical action. This is a time to go inward, to look after ourselves, to rebuild our reserves and to gain strength in order to be ready for the harder work as the weather improves. If you are feeling fired up and energetic, raring to go and ready to take lots of action now, then great. But if you are struggling with energy, feeling challenged by all the things you ‘ought’ to be doing because it’s another year then my invitation is to just quieten for a moment. Use this time to take stock, do that clearing and sorting, filing and planning that you need to do. Put your systems in place and set dates in the diary. In the process of your sorting and planning, reflect on what you’ve done over the past year. Gather from your knowledge and capture your notes and learnings and refresh yourself, acknowledge what you’ve done and reward yourself. Connect with people, talk about your thoughts and plans. Take time for relaxation and meditation, being outdoors, gentle walks and time with friends. Yes - make plans, set things up, make simple, manageable, nurturing goals, this is useful time, not wasted time, but the main thing is be kind to yourself and come into the year gently with ease and grace, go with what you feel rather than what you ‘should’ be doing. Your ‘doing-work’ i.e. ‘action’ for now is just to ‘be’ – to listen, trust and follow your own advice, what you know deep inside. As soon as the spring flowers emerge, your energy will lift and you can take more rigorous actions. If you look after yourself in these early months of the year, you will be the stronger and healthier for it, with more wisdom and inner strength to support yourself and your clients. Happy New Year Lesley Stopford Coach, Occupational Therapist, Trainer Helping children & adults improve confidence, communication, health & wellbeing 020 8291 9689
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