Everyday Bliss For Women In Leadership

This just in from correspondent J.W.:

Hi J.W.,
Thanks for writing. The first question I’d ask you if you were my mentee is "why do you want a private practice"? You need to know the true answer to this before you can even begin to think about setting up shop. And btw, "to make money" is not a valid answer. That goes without saying. Now, why do you *really* want to have a private practice. This is something you should address with your coach.

I would also, personally, do a year of NLP coaching with a recognized master on your own issues if you find yourself so resistant to using NLP. You need to be a veteran of technique usage if you’re going to be selling sessions in that technique to your clients. If you’re not past your own resistance to the technique, you won’t be a good coach.

Also, if you lack motivation, then the goal isn’t juicy enough for you to pursue. Work with the goal in mind until you find one that fires you up so much you’re glowing, and you’ll have no trouble. Perhaps a special group of people really has your heart - Maybe single parents? Those preparing for exams? People who’ve just been through surgery? These are just a few "niches" you could mine - you’ll think of one special to you.

Confidence is gained through practice, so practice with anyone you can. I assign all my students coaching buddies for this reason - find a buddy who went through prac track with you and get going. 

And now some advice you didn’t ask for but desperately need: start right now to take as many service business marketing classes as you can. Your business is not "doing NLP", your business as such is "marketing yourself". And I mean that in the kindest, non-prurient sort of way. Marketing yourself as a provider of NLP of course, but no one knows what NLP is. Who cares, when all I want is to get rid of this headache I’ve had for ten years or motivate myself to finish my novel or whatever else your ideal clients want. EVEN MORE IMPORTANT than marketing the technique (forget it, it’s a waste of time) is marketing the many BENEFITS that working with you  can give to your clients.

We’ll be having a special class on Promoting and Filling Your Private Practice given by Energy Coach Institute trainers in the autumn. You can attend wherever you are in the world. Sign up for my newsletter (fill in the "Free Blisskit" form to the left of this post) and you’ll be in the know as soon as we announce the class.

Self-coaching -  floor anchors are the best way to process yourself using the basic "mother of NLP" process which works for anything: Present State + Necessary Resources = Desired State.

I’ll post this to my blog as it’s a really great question that might be of help to others.

Warm Blessings,
Maryam Webster
Director, The Energy Coach Institute
energycoachinstitute.org

My buddy Donna Steinhorn, of the Association of Coaching Excellence just tapped me to reply to a post she made over at her blog on what we do to give away our power and how we can get it back. I’m happy to oblige with a few thoughts on the matter…good question!

Hey Donna, Donna!  For giving away power, I’ll have to go with you and say it’s getting dragged *back* into things that I had already found support on…then found support staff wasn’t doing what I needed them to. I’ve made out reams of instructions, spent personal time, taught them how to teach/create/whatever, and even set up a support help desk.

Yet, when the salami hits the fan, my students and customers complain directly to me as the buck really does stop here, on my desk. Sometimes though, no matter how much I gently redirect their complaints to the help desk, or counsel with an employee how to deal with the complaint on their own, I still occasionally, find myself embroiled in the thick of things.

This is a liminal time. Liminal, in the sense that it represents both a challenge and an opportunity. An opportunity, that comes to me in the form of empowering others to deal with things on their own that I have told the Universe I do not wish to deal with anymore. And by golly, it’s working, and the staff do their jobs really well for the most part. A challenge though, to shape gently and minimally, letting others do their own work without the temptation to become re-involved.

I stand on the threshold of two doorways, a hallmark of liminality.

One doorway, holds the new life I have affirmed over and over and over (and over…) that I want to lead. Not doing the "busy" in my job, but handing it off to others who are so much better at it. Not doing the main bulk of teaching in the post-graduate program I created, but hiring brilliant and qualified teachers from my own pool of graduates. Not coding every webpage and shopping cart item in my online store, but jobbing it out to the nicest VA’s in the world, who also run my help desk with polish and elan.

Life is good through this beautiful doorway. Life is as I want it to be. With this support system in place, I now have the time to create again that I badly needed, to cause my business and life mission (the two are indivisible really) to take off and truly fly. And lo and behold, it has.

But annoyingly sometimes, there is that other doorway. Rimmed in flame, in my imagination. The doorway through which previously ingrained pattern behavior wants to pull me backwards into the mental maelstrom of "no one can do it as good as I can!"  and "it takes me as long to teach them to do it as it would be for me to do it myself!".  Cue energy and power flowing away and down the drain.

That way lies insanity. Here there be Dragons.

While I have strayed back through the Flaming Door a few times in the past few months, such jaunts are becoming rarer and rarer. And it’s really okay if some folks think I’m a bitch because I don’t continually give and give and give to them of my time, expertise and energy, asking them instead to deal with the appropriate staff member. That nearly always happens when you make a shift like this. (watch for it…) And it’s okay if the staff doesn’t do it perfect, doesn’t get it right the first time or makes a spelling mistake (aaaaggh!!! pet-peeve-o-rama!) in official correspondence. Really, it is.

How I’ve made trips to the past in terms of pattern behavior dwindle to nothing is first by doing energy work, such as NLP processes, EFT, ZPoint Process or others on the patterns I know sabotage and weaken me. That done, I focus entirely on feeling good, to quote Wayne Dyer and Abraham-Hicks. Taking a page from Dr. Andrew Weil, I eschew the news more and more for reading things that educate and make me feel better and take also his prescription of a deep belly-laugh at least one a day…but you never can chuckle just once, can you?

And I take a leaf out of my own book on Bliss in slowing down, way down, no matter what. It’s a lifesaving move, and one you’ll thank yourself for. I remember Kim George’s sage quote: that nothing which is meant for me can be lost, and I reflect that I have all the time in the world, all I’ll ever need. That is a richness of reserve that keeps me looking towards the beautiful door, that keeps me going through it every day when I wake up, with singleminded intensity. 

Andy Andrews said that to truly succeed at anything, we must persist without exception. I choose to be happy every day. I choose to go through the beautiful door and live in the life I am dreaming into being. I choose to persist without exception in these things. That’s how I do it. There’s no "Secret" to it, there’s no magic other than consistently persisting in making these pivotal choices.

So how about you, dear reader? How do YOU give your power away and what do you do about it when you notice your energy going down the tubes to a power drain?

Leave a comment and let Donna and I know! 

And…I’d like to tag Krishna De, Jasmine White, Tara Katchaturoff, Suzanne Falter-Barns, Andy Wibbels, Jennifer Louden and Ellen Britt! Tag, you’re it!

Thanks to Gina for a timely tip on the Mirasou Winery offering for Women Entrepreneurs:

Mirassou has been a longtime supporter of women-owned businesses over the past three years. Since obtaining capital is the No. 1 obstacle women face in starting their own businesses, Mirassou has created the "Make Your Dreams Come True with Mirassou" contest which provides $50,000 in seed money to help start a "Dream" business.

• Submit your application by December 15, 2007 for the chance to win $50,000 or a Talbots Shopping Spree!

The "Make Your Dreams Come True with Mirassou" contest is open to women who aspire to open a new business. To enter, applicants must submit a personal essay of 500 words or less describing themselves and why they think they would make a successful entrepreneur. A preliminary business plan will also be required and should include: 1) a description of the new business, 2) the consumer appeal to the new business, and 3) a plan to implement the new business.