21st Century Coaching

David Burrell

2010-04-22T16:12:00.000-07:00

Driving on the left!

Very early on in our business we had an unusual request from an American wanting to hire a car in Ireland.

He contacted us and explained that this would be his first trip to Europe. He appreciated that in Ireland they drive on the “wrong” side of the road and that, therefore, he was prepared for the steering wheel to be on the right hand side of the car.

However, he requested that we provide him with a car where the gearshift had also been moved to the right hand side of the car - so that he could change gear with his right hand as he was used to doing it this way!

Note: For those of us who are old enough (and I am!) and if my memory serves me correctly, the Riley Pathfinder of the late fifties or early sixties was configured in precisely the way our customer requested!

Expectation how it can make or break your life!

2009-07-23T07:40:00.001-07:00

Expectation can really make a difference!

From the most delicate of scientific experiments to being lucky in life, expectation plays a very important role. Just think about how you feel if you expect good things to happen, then contrast that feeling with how you feel when you expect the worst!

Those feelings determine to a great degree how you will interact with the world and that will effect how the world (and the people in it) react to you. So why expect the worst?

Positive Thinking

2009-07-12T05:15:00.000-07:00

Positive Thinking Seminar
Held at Goryukan Stafford Dojo (Yoshinkan Aikido) on Saturday 12th July

Many thanks to the people who attended the positive thinking seminar we held on Saturday 12th July in Stafford. It was well attended and I like to think the delegates both enjoyed it and learned some interesting things about how to think more positively.

It was a 3 hour seminar, which of course is just not enough time to go into all the ways in which we can boost our positive thinking, nor all the reasons there are for doing so.

The main areas we covered in this session were -

Keeping a Happiness Journal
Priming the Mind
Expectation
Heart Breathing
Perfect Drop of Water Visualisation

In the next session we'll be looking at Goal Setting and Self Confidence and we'll be using EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) to improve our confidence and help us to achieve our goals.

We'll also be looking at just how you can decide what you want to do in your life, so that you can actually have some goals to aim for!

Priming the mind

2009-06-17T07:37:00.000-07:00

Do you ever think about how our minds are primed? What does that even mean anyway? As an example, have you ever bought a new car thinking there were not too many about, then the next thing you know is that nearly everyone seems to have your car now?

This is a classic example of 'priming' because, let's face it, the number of similar cars is the same, it's just your mind that's different, now your mind is primed to notice those other similar cars. It doesn't matter what 'thing' you pick to demonstrate this phenomenon the mechanism is the same.

Once your mind is 'primed' to look for and notice a particular thing it will do just that, then it seems as if the numbers of that particular 'thing' have increased, they haven't of course, you just notice more.

How can you apply this to your life? If you decide that you're going to look for all the bad things that happen, guess what? You'll notice more and more of them, so why not instead, focus on all the good things that happen? Do that and you'll be amazed at how different your life will look!

For more on positive thinking and the laws of attraction visit my web site www.jacqui-cooper.net

Body Language

2009-03-03T04:38:00.000-08:00

Body Language

Do you know what your body language says about you? Do you understand what body language expresses? It's probably one of the most important areas of communication and yet is not something we are ever taught about formally.

Because we have verbal language which expresses abstract thoughts and ideas as well as factual data and our interpretation of what we're feeling, it dominates the more subtle function of body language. Yet we lie every day with words, that's when our body language can 'leak' our true feelings, it makes us uncomfortable to lie and our bodies show this.

So perhaps we can say that words express our thoughts and body language expresses what we feel about those thoughts. Have you ever smiled at someone you didn't like? Did it feel the same as smiling at someone you really do like?

The difference is in how you feel and it's very difficult to smile genuinely at someone you dislike, of course it can be done, after all, actors do it all the time, so do con men but they all practice this deceit, do you?

Body language is rich in content but must be viewed in context, after all even words change their meaning depending on the context in which you find them. So do body language gestures, take crossed arms for example, many experts will tell you that crossed arms means the person is 'closed' and non-receptive to you and/or your ideas.

But is their skin blue? Are they shivering? They may have their arms crossed because they're cold! So in the context of them feeling cold, crossed arms are a way of generating heat and may not have any bearing on their mindset.

However, if you're trying to persuade them of something, you'd probably do better to get them somewhere warm first. Why? Because the way we hold our bodies and our facial expressions alter the way we think, so even though a cold person with their arms crossed may not start out resistant to you and/or your ideas, the way they hold themselves can create a barrier between you.

The real lesson here is that you need the context to know how and why you can change their posture to change their thoughts.

Try it on yourself, stand with arms crossed as if they were a barrier when next you talk to someone and notice how you feel, then pay attention to how your body language causes them to react. Begin to watch how people interact and you will soon notice a whole silent subtext to any conversation.

You are miraclous!

2009-02-23T12:49:00.001-08:00

I ask this question in my seminars..... do you know how miraculous you really are?

Most people will pay lip service to this and say 'yes' without really thinking about it, so the response is lukewarm at best.

But think about this, you have an average of 100 billion cells in your body and each cell undergoes around 100,000 chemical processes each second whether you're awake or asleep! Don't you think that's pretty miraculous?

But that's not all, imagine walking down a busy street, as you walk you automatically calculate where everyone is going to be, so you predict their future movements, you calculate trajectories and distances.

If you were to see a birds eye view of that street, you'd see a flowing dance going on as everyone does the same thing and the result? Everyone weaves and moves in time and very rarely do you keep bumping into people.

Did you realise that you were so good at such complicated math??