What is Business Coaching?

Business coaching can help you improve yourself and your business by helping you focus your energy and talent on things that will help you take your business to the next level. I help executives, managers and companies improve staff morale, increase productivity, build stronger teams and practice excellent workplace communications. I help managers to help them delegate more effectively and give their staff the opportunity to grow and excel. I help business owners focus their vision and take action on their goals.

Successful business owners know that when their employees feel their skills and abilities are being recognized and utilized the business benefits from a more productive workforce. Skilled managers understand that a happy workforce reduces turnover and hiring costs. I enjoy working with businesses to help them identify their employees strengths and use their talents.

Coaching services I provide include:

Individual Coaching: Targeted support for staff to help improve specific situations. Coaching helps individuals clarify what is happening in the situation and develop strategies to meet the challenge. Individuals build on their own strengths and devise their own plans of action with the support and encouragement of a coach.

Group Coaching: Working intensively with staff to build a shared culture and purpose. Build stronger interpersonal connections through ongoing skill building. Coach monitors participant progress and promotes accountability by encouraging participants to meet their goals and plan for the present and future.

Success Coaching: Supportive partnering to identify areas of interest, barriers to achievement and areas of strength. Build clearer goals and devise specific strategies to reach those goals. Develop a clearer vision of where you are going and how you will get there.

Businesses benefit from having an impartial outside person coach staff individually and in small groups to build skills and achieve goals. Coaching is an ongoing process that helps the individual clarify what she wants to accomplish and helps her achieve it through strategic support and accountability. Coaching is individualized and focuses on promoting successful behaviors that create change over time.

Have a successful business day,

Guy
Business Coaching

Talking without Defensiveness

A skill that will help you evaluate almost any relationship issue it to learn how to have a conversation without defensiveness. I often hear from my clients that it is very difficult to not take things personally. It is natural for us to think that everything another person says has to do with us but, in reality, what other people tell us is simply their perception.

Take for example a couple where one person says to the other that he can't stand the way the other person treats him. Let's examine the statement in a brand new way. The natural inclination for many people is to get upset and feel threatened or hurt. Try these ideas next time someone says something that you normally would fight back about or that gets you defensive:

1. Examine the statement only as words. In this case the person said they can't stand the way we treat them. Look at this as simply a statement by the other person that reflects how they think. Take yourself out of the picture by making the statement about them and not you. In this way, you have just created an opportunity to take what the other person has said and learn something about how they think.

2. Think of the statement as window into the other person's thoughts and take the opportunity to learn about the other person. After all, they're only telling you about their perception.

3. Ask open ended questions to gather more information. For example: What are the reasons you think that? Gather information only. Don't judge, don't get upset and don't fight. Ask open ended questions until the tone of the conversation changes from tension to calm.

4. Listen, listen, listen. Try not to comment, rebut, challenge or change the other person's point of view no matter how much you disagree. Don't interrupt. Hang in there until the conversation goes from being confrontational to calming down. You will know when you have listened enough because the other person will be calmer.

5. When the other person is finished, repeat what they have said. Thank them for the information and tell them you will consider it. You don't need to do anything else at this point.

What you have just done is given the other person the chance to tell you about themselves. You have also shown them what it is like to be listened to in a relationship and to have your point of view accepted for what it is: your point of view. This sets up a very important dynamic because it introduces the possibility that both people can actually express themselves without always getting mad.

Try this approach the next time you find yourself in a situation where someone is telling you something that sets you off. If you practice this approach, the other person will notice that you are giving them the chance to speak and will be more likely to do the same for you.

Even if the other person is saying things to try to upset you, if you use this approach, you will be able to get information directly from the other person to clarify what's going on. Often people say things they don't mean because they don't feel heard or don't think it will matter to the other person. I hope you will use this approach to help defuse the amount of defensiveness in your relationship.

Take care,

Guy
Life Coach in Reno

The Meaning of Life and Relationships

Abraham Lincoln once said, "And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years."

Life is what we make of it and I always strive to help people recognize what it is they want to do with their lives. In relationships we often settle for situations that repeat patterns established by our parents or approaches we learned from our friends.

I suggest to people. "Why not try something different if what you are doing is not working?" The reason I ask that question is that we often invest huge amounts of time and energy in situations that don't make us feel great rather than doing some work to move in a different direction.

I've had many people tell me the meaning of life is finding one's own balance point and living a life of fulfillment and peace. People who are successful in relationships understand this concept because they are always striving to do the work necessary to work toward peace and balance.

Take care,

Guy
Life Coach in Reno

How to Attract Great Relationships

Attracting the Right People People often ask me why they keep dating the wrong people. The answer that they most often come up with after some self-exploration is that they are looking for people based on mistaken assumptions.

Most of us look for people that create a spark, that excite us into wanting to get to know them better. This method creates an initial euphoria that blinds us to understanding clearly what we want from relationships. We become so intoxicated with romance that we are unable to make rational decisions.

What I try to help people with is building self-awareness. When we understand who we are and what we love and need we tend to make better choices regarding relationships. If we don't know ourselves very well or don't like ourselves we tend to attract people that reinforce that. When we understand ourselves better and are healthier we tend to attract more positive people.

There really is no magic to this process. What's been shown to work time after time is that people who are healthy attract other healthy people. All it takes is some work first on getting ourselves as healthy mentally and physically as possible. Then we attract people who admire us for the wonderful, healthy people we are.

Take care,

Guy
Life Coach in Reno

Life Coach Help Advice Life Coaching

If you have ever encountered a challenge in your life you're aware that we don't always have the answers to the issues in our lives. A supportive and motivational life coach helps you find a solution that works for you based on your skills and abilities. Life coaching provides you help and advice to meet the challenges in your life head on and develop a plan to move forward successfully.

A life coach can help you:
1. Figure out what is the issue you are facing.
2. Develop a plan to fix a problem you face.
3. Build on your strengths and abilities.
4. Achieve your goals and dreams.
5. Feel good about yourself.
6. Build your self esteem.
7. Celebrate the great things about you.
8. Live the life you want to live.
9. Share your talents with the world.
10. Find excitement in your life.
11. Build fulfilling relationships.
12. Fix the problems that have been nagging you.
13. Move forward in life.
14. Actually plan your success.

There are so many ways that life coaching can help you because coaching is based on clarifying what you want to do. You call the shots and you get to decide what kind of life you want to live. Coaching gives you the control of your life back by giving you the power to pursue your dreams and achieve happiness.

Think of a life coach as a person who will listen to you unconditionally and support you with whatever you want to achieve in life. It's like having a success partner that only has your interests in mind.

Please feel free to contact me if you would like to find out how life coaching can help you live the life you want. I look forward to hearing from you.

Have a purposeful day,

Guy
Life Coach Reno

Are You Living a Creative Life?

Creativity is one of the most effective ways to overcome any challenges in our lives. Moving in a different direction is often a matter of thinking creatively and doing something differently. Here's what some smart people say about creativity:

Albert Einstein:

The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.

Arthur Koestler:

Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.

Beatrix Potter:

Thank goodness I was never sent to school; it would have rubbed off some of the originality.

Have a creative day,

Guy
Life Coach in Reno