Coaching

A Soloprenuer Coaching Retreat

Posted by scott on Apr 23, 2011 in Coaching, Fun, Marketing, Productivity | 0 comments

I just returned home from facilitating a wonderful day-and-a-half, one-on-one coaching “retreat” that I arranged with a good friend of mine who is wanting to start his own consulting business!  It’s incredible how a focused series of conversations can help a person zero in on aspects of a plan or “roadmap” to a future endeavor.  What’s more, I think our time together helped him move forward a bit, through his own insights, ambitions, and desires.

Within this mini retreat, we explored not only timelines, business focuses, and goals, but we uncovered a lot of surprises too.

“What do you really want, and why is that important?”
“What could move you forward faster to what you REALLY want?”
“What are you doing now that helps this process?”
“How do you separate what you feel you ‘should’ do from what you ‘want’ to do?”

Throughout this process we also took time to take breaks, prepare and eat meals, and my friend/client got to fix some plumbing issues while I composed a document of all of the notes, impressions, and insights we came up with throughout the retreat (I’m glad I didn’t have to do plumbing work!).

I really enjoy the coaching process.  As a coach, I don’t set agendas and I don’t “solve” problems for other people. Rather, through deep listening, positive inquiry, encouragement, and asking what I call “questions that matter” – a coach is a partner who engages another person to find their own solutions and “draw out” those aspects of thoughts or passions that really make a person “come alive.”

Even moreso, through a conversation, or a series of conversations built upon positive energy and insightful questions – coaching can move people (often very quickly) into those “a-ha!” moments of clarity and focus.

Many thanks to my friend Chris for allowing me to engage this process for him!  I’m very excited and privileged to assist in the process of what’s growing and coming to fruition with his consulting business!  All I can say is “Look out for him in the future!”

Sharing your heart is the best business practice!

Posted by scott on Mar 13, 2011 in Coaching, Marketing, Networking | 0 comments

I’ve been very active lately in the realms of Facebook and Twitter, even though I’ve not posted on my business blog since December. I took an experimental departure from the blog to think about a very controversial question:

In business, should you blog or tweet about your personal life, passions, politics, or deeper belief systems?

Throughout the last 3 months, I’ve been logging my workouts with MapMyRide.com. I shared a three-part blog series on one of my other sites on my 2-year anniversary of becoming Car-Free. Finally, more recently, I’ve been reading and posting a lot of information on Facebook and Twitter about the protests in Madison, WI at the capitol building (I even traveled to Madison in the early stages of the protest to stand with others in solidarity).

I Passed my coaching exam!

Posted by scott on Dec 22, 2010 in Coaching, Fun, Uncategorized | 0 comments

Just wanting to share the good news that I finished the course with the School of Coaching Mastery, and passed the exam! Many thanks to Julia Stewart for offering the course!

I’m a Guest Blogger at The School of Coaching Mastery!

Posted by scott on Dec 10, 2010 in Coaching, Fun, Networking | 0 comments

Most of you know that I’ve been taking the Free Coach Training Program from Julia Stewart and the School of Coaching Mastery. It’s been a wonderfully great learning journey for me! The test opens this weekend (in the midst of the busiest time I’ve ever seen in my business! When to study..? hmmm..), and hopefully soon I’ll have a nice certificate for this 28-hour coach training program!

A few weeks ago I gave Julia some free tips and tricks on how to maximize her links for search engine optimization, and in turn, she offered me a spot as a guest blogger on the SCM site!

Take a look at my guest blog post at The School of Coaching Mastery. I talk about the quality of this training program, what I learned, and also what I found out about myself in the process.

Many thanks to Julia Stewart for this great opportunity to guest blog!

New Global Paradigms for Soloprenuers

Posted by scott on Oct 14, 2010 in Coaching, Fun, Marketing, WordPress | 0 comments

I’ve been blogging quite a bit over at my other site, NorthernDruid.net, while I’m taking Julia Stewart and the School of Coaching Mastery’s Free Coach Training Program.  Today I thought I’d blog primarily about one of the topics here at HolisticGeek.com, as it completely applies to the way I do business, and the way I strive to work with my clients.

Julia Stewart speaks about a Paradigm being a kind of organized structural framework or “system” of thinking.  Using different paradigms of thought can actually help our clients and ourselves when we get “stuck” to think in different ways and approach a problem or situation from a different perspective.

I believe that many of the new “Global Paradigms” are impacting businesses and soloprenuers now at a very accelerated rate!  We live in an age now of fast-progressing technology, social networking, “the world at our fingertips”, and infinitely expanding knowledge and content is being shared day by day – minute by minute.  It seems like every year even for me, I have to take a step back to look at my business and what I’m learning – then determine what my clients might need now, and if I’m learning enough to be a good resource for them.