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How many times were we warned as children that we would get a reputation by hanging out with the wrong people? I know I heard that once or twice along the way, and I found that it was true. FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Jim Roan, a motivational speaker, once said

” You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with.”

So think about that. How high are your standards right now?

Do you spend a lot of time with people who drain you, always see the negative in things, and never lift you up? Or, do you tend to spend more time with people who support your success, are positive about their own success, and make you feel great just to be around them? If you find yourself  relating more to the 1st choice, then you need to do some weeding in your garden of life and get rid of those energy vampires. Here are 5 tips for raising the bar of your 5 person average.

1.  Get rid of the negative Nellies. You just don’t have time for them. This may mean that you need to fire friend as I’ve discussed before, or put boundaries on some relationships. Let people know that you are working on your own self-improvement and that you simply want to surround yourself with positive, growth minded people. You can’t be pulled into the dramas or issues of others, when they aren’t willing to work on their own solutions. This may sound harsh, but you’re not telling them anything that they really don’t already know.

2. Seek out one or two people that you admire and want to emulate.  Schedule a lunch or coffee with them, under the premise that you’d like to hear their story, find out more about their success, and learn more about them. Most people will be flattered to be asked, and be happy to spend some time with you. If you feel so inclined, ask them if they’d be willing to mentor you.

3. Find a network, or create your own, of people you know you can learn from. Research mastermind groups in your area, or ask  some of your favorite people for ideas in this area.

4.  Find an accountability partner. This should be someone that you trust completely, is unconditionally supportive of your success, and will be 100% honest with you. You will set goals, make commitments, and adjust behaviors, while relying on your partner to hold you accountable to the results. This can be done through weekly phone calls, e-mail check-ins, facebook messages,  or whatever tool you decide.

5.  Aim high. Find at least one person that has done what you want to do at the highest level.  Set the intention that you will meet them and make a connection. Put on your vision board, seek out where they will be speaking or having lunch, and look for opportunities to introduce yourself. I’m not talking about stalking by any means, but just having the intention of making a  meaningful connection.  You’ll be surprised at the opportunities that will arise.

Where would you be if you were 10 times bolder  and who would you be hanging out with?

www.lifeaction-coaching.com

www.your-personal-brand.com

I do a ton of networking.  In my business it’s necessary.  No one wakes up in the morning and says “I think I’ll hire a coach today”, and pulls open the yellow pages.  First–they’re more likely to google Personal or Life Coach and their location, like ‘Life Coach Indianapolis’ and see what pops up, rather than use the yellow pages.  One of these days, a young kid is not going to know what the yellow pages are .  I digress…..

My philosophy is–the more people who know about you and what you do–the more business that will come your way.

So let me just say it’s frustrating when I prepare to meet with someone, and the following occurs:

1.  I can’t find them on the internet—anywhere.  No social media, no website, not even a mention somewhere on the web.  I like to know a little bit about the person before I meet them.  It helps to make a better connection.

2.  I have to dig to find their website.  This is usually an investigative process, using LinkedIn, Google and whatever else I can get my hands on.  If I know the name of their company, I may just start trying to guess the url.

3.  It’s not obvious how to contact them.  I can’t find their e-mail address, or even a ‘contact us’ somewhere, let alone a phone number or a mailing address.  Now I know that we all want to maintain some privacy and we don’t want a ton of spam, but if you are in a business where people need to find you—you need to make it easy for them!

4.  Their LinkedIn profile is either non-existent or very light on content.  I understand if someone is just getting started, we all have to start somewhere.  However, at least put up whatever website links you can to your company, to a blog, or to your social media.  Again, make it easy for your potential clients.

5.  They don’t carry cards.  I may be old school, but cards still do it for me.  I like to be able to get their information and sit down later at my computer and connect on LinkedIn, put them in my contact list, write some notes on the back about the event where we met, etc.

All of these speak to your personal brand.  Are you elusive or easy to find?  What do you want to be?  See www.your-personal-brand.com for more.

When I tell my clients that they need to own their accomplishments, they tend to get a little uncomfortable. They automatically assume that they are tooting their own horn, lacking modesty, and appearing too big for their britches. I think that pretty much sums up the belief systems that  were deeply rooted in our childhood.  In addition, they always want to include other people who helped them along the way and never take credit alone. This is especially problematic when they are creating a resume and selling themselves.

We’ve all met the loud, boisterous, arrogant colleague who takes credit for everything and has no problem letting people know everything that they have done. These people never admit to working as part of the team and are only interested in promoting themselves and their accomplishments. They have no trouble creating a remarkable resume and maybe even over-promise  on their capabilities.

I’m convinced that the truth is really somewhere in between these two  polar opposites. Most people, in fact, undersell themselves on a regular basis.   We tend to downplay what we’ve done in the past, simply because now that we’ve accomplished it, it didn’t seem that hard  to do. Sure, now that you’ve got that book written, edited, and published, it seems like a piece of cake. But to someone who’s never undertaken such a project, this is a huge accomplishment.

I think the truth lies in the understanding of the difference between being obnoxious and being confident.

by Michal Marcol

Meeting people for the first time, telling them how great you are, and shoving your card in their hand = obnoxious.

I call this the

“I think I’m fabulous and you’re not”

syndrome.

photostock

On the other hand, meeting people with genuine interest, explaining your strengths while asking them about theirs = confident.

I call this the

“I think I’m fabulous and

so are you”

philosophy.

So the next  time you don’t want to ” toot your own horn”, blow on it as hard as you can with the belief that others will be playing right along with you.

www.lifeaction-coaching.com

www.your-personal-brand.com

When Tom Peters wrote the article “The Brand Called You” in Fast Company Magazine in 1997, he made us aware of the importance of differentiating ourselves from our ‘competitors’.   It was an excellent analogy showing how we all have something to sell, and in fact, that we are selling ourselves every day.

I agree and speak frequently on the topic, explaining that much like how Coke and Nike differentiate themselves, we need to think of ourselves as a brand and market ourselves in a big way.  I also believe there is a critical foundation for your personal brand that is deeply rooted in your personal power.  The FC article also refers to the power of you:

“What’s the real power of You?

If you want to grow your brand, you’ve got to come to terms with power — your own. The key lesson: power is not a dirty word!”

Power has definitely gotten a bad rap. Yet, stepping into your personal power is an absolute necessity for having a strong personal brand. Think about the strong personal brands that you recognize. What kinds of things come to mind when you think of Oprah? Successful, inspiring, real, integrity, wealthy, giving, compassionate? How about Ellen DeGeneres? Fun, dancing, joking, smiling, friendly, comfortable? These are just two examples of women with immensely strong personal brands. You would definitely know what to expect if you were going to have lunch with one of them.

Even though they are both well-known celebrities, I don’t think they always stood firmly in their personal power.  It’s a learning process.  Think about the history of these two women. Both have faced enormous obstacles and adversity. Yet they overcame them by stepping into their personal power.

I think sometimes we associate power with being obnoxious or a bully. I’d like to offer a different definition to illustrate the difference between being obnoxious and confident. When one is obnoxious, one has the tone of the following:

 “I think I am excellent and you’re not.”

 In contrast, when one is confident one has the tone of:

 ”I think I am excellent and so are you.”

 How do I step into my personal power you ask?  Believe in yourself and find ways to own it. Here are some simple suggestions that can help you step into and grow your personal power.

1. Feed yourself good positive mental food. Turn off the news and find ways to feed your mind more uplifting messages. You can do this through reading good books and articles, listening to books on tape, listening to music, meditation, etc. The more you feed yourself positive images and messages, the more positive you will be.

2. Talk to yourself in the mirror.  I know this sounds strange, but it really works. You might need to warn your loved ones that there’s nothing wrong with you, you’re just talking to yourself in the mirror. The key is that you need to give yourself your own pep talks about who you are and believe it for yourself. If you can’t believe that face or pair of eyes looking back at you, no one else will believe it either.

3. Use positive affirmations. You can find a lot of resources for positive affirmations. The key is to make sure they are present tense and that they pertain to who you are. I had one example from a client who created a positive affirmation like this, “I am going to reach Star Award status next month”. Now the only problem with that is that it’s future tense. I challenged her to change it to “I am a Star Award Superstar.”  See the difference?  Now use that to talk to yourself in the mirror!

4. Surround yourself with positive people. Sometimes I tell my clients that they need to fire their friends. That’s right, you haven’t misread it. One of my favorite quotes comes from  Jim Rohn which says:

 “You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with.”

 So if that’s the case, you might need to raise your game a little and make sure that you’re spending the most time with 5 positive, uplifting people who are supportive of your success. If you have friends that don’t fit that criteria and they drain you of energy on a regular basis, you may want to reevaluate the friendship.

5. Create a vision board. It’s true, everything we needed to know we learned in kindergarten, including cutting and pasting. Cutting out pictures and creating visions of what we want in our life experience is much more than a childhood exercise.  Think about the last car that you bought. Once you decided on the brand and the color, didn’t you start seeing it everywhere? You hadn’t actually seen it in the weeks prior, but now it seems like everyone has that car! That’s because we have a reticular activator in our brains that looks for patterns to make connections. Once you identify and connect with something, you start seeing more of it. So why not use that to our advantage and create the image of what you want to pull into your life? By seeing that image every day, you will recognize more opportunities that will take you in that direction, meet people that will help you, and attain it much faster.

You can find  more tips and marketing strategies for Your Personal Brand at www.your-personal-brand.com

by Stuart Miles

Mark and I were interviewed recently about our relationship. No, we weren’t in therapy and there’s nothing wrong, but that’s not to say that we didn’t learn a lot. One of the 1st questions that made me pause was “What evidence do you have that tells you that your relationship is thriving?”

Wow!  What evidence do we have?  Being scientists ourselves, we should be really comfortable with the term ‘evidence’. But this was a new way of looking at ourselves, both as individuals and as a couple in a relationship.

Articulating evidence forces you to be very succinct, clear and definitive.  You can’t get by with ‘things are great, or we’re just fine’.  That’s not evidence.  And we’re not talking about perceptions either.  We’re talking evidence.

The more I thought about that question, the more applications I found for it.

•  What evidence do you have that you are supported, or that you are not supported?

•  What evidence do you have that you are growing as a person?  As a professional?

•  What evidence do you have that your limiting beliefs about yourself are true?

•  What evidence do you have that you are a good parent, child, spouse, brother, sister, neighbor or friend?

•  What evidence do you have that your beliefs about others are true?

Having evidence brings it to a new level. You have to look deeper.  Sometimes looking deeper hurts, but no matter what it also strengthens connections.  And let’s face it.  We’ve gotten really lazy about ourselves and our relationships and looking deeper.  We are quick to judge based on what we see and what our experience has been.  I’m not sure that is evidence.

By the way, we both had evidence that we were thriving as individuals and as a couple.  Good to know.  And the interview was by Joan King, a neuroscientist in case you are interested in her work (www.cellular-wisdom.com)

www.lifeaction-coaching.com

by Ohmega1982

Friday nights are my favorite time of the week, and Sunday nights are my least favorite.  You can imagine why and maybe you share my preferences.  I’m trying to come up with a new belief so that I can appreciate each day for what it is, and not have that knot in my stomach develop over the 48 hours of the weekend.

A new week is another measurement of success or lack thereof for the small business owner.  Sunday night seems to be the trigger in preparation for the Monday bullet.  Doesn’t feel so good does it?

So I’m going to try a different view.  How about…………Each day holds it’s own successes.

That will now be my Sunday night focus.

What Tuesday successes have you had today?

www.lifeacton-coaching.com

by digitalart

Are you Board of Director material?

A newly formed 501(c) 3 organization “Women for Change Coaching Community” (Women4ChangeCC) is accepting applications for its’ Board of Directors.   We are looking for enthusiastic, positive minded, dedicated and passionate individuals who are interested in making a difference in the lives of others.  We are in particular need of individuals with an accounting background, fundraising background or interest, and communications background or interest.

Women4ChangeCC is an organization dedicated to bring together a community of support in order to make coaching accessible for all women who are seeking positive change in their lives.  The organization provides coaching for women who could not otherwise afford it, while also providing community programs for both coaches and clients.

Board Member Expectations Document

Program Description

In general, Board Members are expected to serve for a 2-year term, renewable for a maximum of 6 years, with Board Meetings held monthly, via teleconference from 7-9 pm ET on a Monday evening.

If you are interested in obtaining more information, please contact Lynn Zettler at lzettler@lifeaction-coaching.com.

by graur codrin

Spring has come early here in Indianapolis and the weeds are going crazy!  I couldn’t get my weed preventer down fast enough (and yes, I am a Roundup™ fan, though not a fan of Monsanto…..say no more).

At a recent event, I talked about how life is like a garden, and how we all get to decide for ourselves what we’ll grow in it.  There in the rich soil of our day to day existence lies the fruits of our health, our work, our relationships and whatever else you choose to grow in your garden (and make a meaningful part of your life).  Our job is to keep the watering can full and make sure we water the plants when appropriate so that they thrive.

But we all have some weeds.  Weeds are the plants that you really don’t want in your garden, but they are getting watered somehow and your watering can is now bone dry.  Yes, sometimes you need to fire a friend, resign from something or just say no,  whatever that weed is for you.

Spring is a good time for pulling weeds.

www.lifeaction-coaching.com