From my perspective, and maybe this is heresy, but negotiations are lose/lose propositions. You’re both giving things up. If you’re lucky, you’ll give up what is least important to you and hold on to what’s most important. And that brings us to point two of this report: Know what your CounterPoint wants! This is great advice, however, when you’re dealing with a bully, you cannot predict what the bully wants. You can assume he/she wants power, control, to win, but that’s not always the case. Sometimes the bully’s aggression comes from fear of the unknown, fear of failure, frustration from poor communication skills, or the habit of making all priorities have the same weight so everything is urgent or important and therefore, the bully cannot determine where to give and where to hold firm. If the bully doesn’t know, you can’t predict. You can make some assumptions but you could easily miss the mark. 

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Ask yourself:

Do I Have a Trusted Advisor?

Do I take Advise from that Person?

One of the most important Truths I picked up in my years learning to be an executive coach came from an extremely successful coach with a multi-million dollar coaching practice filled with some of the most successful CEO’s and business leaders in the world.

Profoundly successful business leaders TAKE ADVICE from trusted advisors and implement that advice. They do not question the advice. They seek clarification and then they implement. After all, they hired that professional to advise them, to improve their performance, to guide them to greater success. The results are always greater satisfaction, success, and fulfillment; they have more time with their families, more money to spend, and more joy in their lives. 

However, mid-level successful business leaders QUESTION ADVICE they garner from their trusted advisor. They challenge the wisdom of the wise person they have hired. They argue about the wisdom and they come up with reasons why the advice is wrong, why it won’t work in their case, and why they cannot do it.

What does that mean? The most successful people understand what they do not know and rely on experts to help them. The less successful people are unsure of themselves and DO NOT understand what they don’t know. They have to be in control and they have to be right. They think they know better than the expert. The results are their progress is slower, they don’t achieve their goals, and they work harder.

The Lesson: When you spend your time trying to re-invent the wheel, do it your own way, believe you always know best, you are impeding your own progress toward success. If you find yourself objecting to this thesis, then look at your own success and see if you’re objecting because I’ve touched a sore spot!

Next Steps: When it comes to your business, or, for that matter, your life, your dreams, your goals, even your problems, who do you trust to advise you? Do you take that advise? What can you do right now to improve your chances for success? How can your advisor help you take your business and life to the next level?  Contact me today!

Building Self-Confidence: Distinguishing between Success and Fulfillment

As a professional coach, I am privileged to work with many clients from various walks of life, with differing skills and experiences.

What they all have in common is the presenting issue:

“I want a new path, new skills, new direction for my life or my career, I feel my success is slipping, I would like someone to help me sort it all out with me so I can be more fulfilled”.

This is the typical statement my clients bring to me when they begin coaching.

Sometimes this deep desire for fulfillment doesn’t ’show up’ at first. It is more like:

“Can you help me? I want to learn this new skill, change careers, work on my relationship with my family, make a change in my lifestyle, and move. I am seeking success so I can feel fulfilled.”

Underneath these desires is the desire to build or rebuild self-confidence so that they have the courage to find fulfillment.

What happens next is fascinating. We build a plan based on a combination of action and this deeper need for fulfillment.

Most often we start with the ‘Wheel of Life’ a tool that measures fulfillment in various areas of life-career, relationship, and personal growth, among other things. Once we see the results we can understand a whole life measured by degree of satisfaction in each area. It is a snapshot taken in the present moment and gives us a direction for the work. What happens next is fascinating. We build a plan based on a combination of action and values.

As we work to connect or re-connect to self-confidence, shifts take place for my clients and life moves forward toward fulfillment. Most people think fulfillment emerges from successes. What I know to be true is success emerges from fulfillment.

Here are some self-coaching questions for you to consider when you are seeking success!

• What does success mean to you?
• Do you consider yourself successful?
• How do you know you’re successful? What measures are you using?
• How about fulfilled? Have your successes fulfilled you?
• What would you uncover if you applied success & fulfillment in different categories — family, work, career, retirement, and relationship? Does each category have a different degree of success?
• Is there something you would like to do to increase your successes and fulfillment?
• What would you need to let go of to improve?
• If you have chased successes that now seem unimportant, can you let them go?
• Overall, are you satisfied with what you discover?
• Do you have any unfulfilled dreams? Can you follow them now and see if they become successes for you?
• What if you were seeking to be fulfilled? How would the answers to these questions change for you?

If you want to explore the questions of Success & Fulfillment further. Click here and access the Confidence Connections Wheel of Life and reconnect to your most confident self.