trueblisscoach

Resourcefulness: A learned skill

February 11, 2012 By trueblisscoach 4 Comments

Lately I have been pondering what it means to be resourceful. I mean truly resourceful. What I’ve discovered is how much we tend to overlook this very valuable skill. As an entrepreneur, I’m continuously asking myself questions like “how else might I be able to accomplish this?” The mere fact that it is a skill is great news. It’s not something we are born with but it is something we can develop if we practice. To be resourceful means that we are able to think of alternate ways to look at a situation, make connections, and come up with solutions. Often times, multiple solutions!

Coaching is extremely effective in facilitating this process because it provides us with an opportunity to think outside the box and to look at situations from multiple angles. It is through this process that we become more open and being open creates choice. We go from feeling stuck to having hope. No more of this “I can’t” mindset. Having hope gives us a sense of “I-can-ness” which is very powerful stuff. I mean, take a look at the cat above. Pretty clever I’d say!

In my blog post to kick off the new year, I referred to adopting a mindset of both/and rather than either/or. This simple shift can make a major difference in how we live our lives and recognize what is available to us. This is key. It is far too easy to forget what and who might be available to us as we focus on new ideas, solutions and connections. Sometimes the best solutions are when we combine old with new to create something even better! This is at the heart of collaboration and comes with being resourceful. This skill is available to each and every one of us if only we allow it.

Resourcefully yours, Glo

Filed Under: Coaching Services Tagged With: choice, coaching, collaboration, connections, hope, resourcefulness, solutions

Planting Seeds

January 20, 2012 By trueblisscoach 2 Comments

the wise gardener plants seeds of opportunity even when there is snow on the ground

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In life and in business, opportunities and possibilities are abundant. Laying the foundation for opportunity however, requires vision, discipline, commitment and often forgotten but very important, patience. A clear vision of what we want. A disciplined mind to keep us focused on achieving what we want. A commitment to strike a balance between taking action and pausing. And this is where patience comes into play. Often times when we are planting seeds for new possibilities, we need to take a pause. The pause can be as important as the action. The pause is a time of reflection. It is a time for questions. It is a time for learning. The pause requires patience. And patience, as we’ve often heard, is a virtue.

We are all gardeners. Gardeners in life and or in business. And as gardeners, we need to find that healthy balance so that we are planting seeds throughout the year rather than making it an annual event. If we have a vision for what we want to accomplish, we need only to plant the seeds. Take the time to create a plan, to determine the resources we have as well as the resources we need to acquire. We need to be open to questioning our plan and our motives as we continue. This only creates further clarity. Take a pause when needed. Take stock of the seeds. Do they align with our vision? How might they be even better aligned to support our overall goals?

And then watch. I invite you to sit in the bigscreen theatre of life. To believe. To watch as our seeds sprout. Our “ideas” and “hopes” and “dreams” come to fruition but first we must plant the seeds.

Best wishes for healthy sprouts!

Glo

Filed Under: Goals, Life Tagged With: Believe, Business, Commitment, Discipline, Goals, Life, Patience, Vision

Why Feelings Matter

January 9, 2012 By trueblisscoach 4 Comments

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou

I’ve heard this quote from Maya Angelou so many times and every time I hear it, it brings a different meaning and a different memory. It’s no big secret. Some people are comfortable openly discussing their feelings and expressing emotion and some people are not. I’m at work! I don’t want to talk about my feelings or emotions! Who cares how I feel or how you feel? I do. I care. And you may too.

Our feelings and our emotions play a big role in how we make decisions, whether we realize it or not. When we say something feels right or feels wrong, we are relying on our intuition to guide us. When we make decisions, we may look at the facts first but when it comes to the heart of the problem or the issue, we rely on our morals and ethics. Even for those who typically make decisions based on logic and reason, often there is also that inner voice telling you what is good or bad, true or false, honest or dishonest. Life is life. Business is business. It is rarely, if ever, made up of simple checks and balances. Sometimes, it’s just plain complicated. As author of Defining Moments, Joseph Badaracco Jr. says, sometimes we’re making decisions between right and right. We all experience these ”defining moments” at one time or another. These moments define who we are. They speak to our personal values and they show the world what we believe in. These moments bring emotions to the forefront and they shape our character.

As Maya Angelou says so well, “people will never forget how you made them feel.” When you think of the people who have played a positive role in your life, have you ever stopped to think exactly why these people made you feel good? Were they trustworthy? Loving? Supportive? Did they challenge you? Did they bring out the best in you? What have you learned from these experiences that shape who you are and how you treat people? Have you ever gone back to tell someone what a profound impact they had on you? How do you think that made them feel? Has someone ever done that for you? Wow, what a feeling that is!

Howard Gardner wrote a book in 2007 called Five Minds for the Future. He speaks of the disciplinary mind, the synthesizing mind, the creating mind, the respectful mind, and the ethical mind in leadership. If you are interested in learning how to stimulate your brain in a new way, it is a great read. It also speaks to the relationship between emotions, feelings, respect, and ethics. These combined, act as a guide for treating people well and help us when making important decisions.

Hopefully this post made you “feel good” and brought back memories of people who treated you with respect and made you feel good!

With gratitude, Glo

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Filed Under: Leadership Tagged With: Business, Ethics, Leadership, Life, Respect, values

2012 Growth. Learning. Opportunities. Diversifying.

December 31, 2011 By trueblisscoach 4 Comments

For some strange reason, WordPress is not allowing me to post the photo for this blog at the top of the page as I “usually” do. I’ve always used this format because I am a visual person and so I like the visual right up front. This has never happened in two years of having a blog. My initial reaction was frustration but it’s New Years Eve and my main goal for 2012 is to diversify in many key areas of my life. So, now I’m thinking there is a reason for this new look in my last blog post of the year.

Many seeds have been planted during 2011 and many major milestones have been achieved. It has been a great year! There is much to celebrate and so much to look forward to!

Growth. Learning. Opportunities. Diversifying.

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Often times it seems as though it is far too easy to be linear in our thoughts and actions. We use our existing skills and talents and map out our lives according to a straight line. But I must ask you, has your life to date represented a straight line? What might happen if we learn to diversify a little more? Branch out. True growth and learning happens when we learn new skills and challenge our existing patterns. Uh oh! This may cause our straight line to get kind of curvy with twists and turns. There is risk involved in this because we may fail. But there is always reward too, no matter the outcome. The reward is that just like this plant above, we are growing and with growth comes new opportunities.

2012 is the year to diversify and broaden my reach. I will coach and teach. I will be a student and a teacher. I will enjoy my existing relationships and develop new ones. I will read for fun and for knowledge. Most importantly, rather than choosing between either/or, I will be open to both/and.

“We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called “Opportunity” and its first chapter is New Year’s Day.” ~ Edith Lovejoy Pierce

Best wishes to you for an AMAZING 2012! When we openly share our goals, there is more liklihood to reach them because publicly sharing establishes a sense of accountability. It also provides us with the opportunity to receive support and encouragement from others, and to stay motivated to achieve. Care to share some of your goals? I’m very interested…please leave me a comment!

Glo

Filed Under: Goals, Life, Making Changes Tagged With: Coach, Diversify, Goals, Growth, Learning, Opportunities

Do you believe in miracles?

November 28, 2011 By trueblisscoach 2 Comments

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One could say that miracles are like magic. Some believe, some don’t, so what. Well, the so what factor happens to be very telling. It is telling of who we are as individuals. What our personal values are. What brings meaning to our lives. It is telling of how we make decisions.

Life today is complex yet simple. Business today is chaotic yet inspiring. Tiny miracles pop up out of nowhere it seems and surprise us. These miracles create small change and massive change in both individuals and in organizations. These tiny miracles create insights often leading to wisdom.

The laws of nature … describe the ways in which the world—including, of course, human beings—works when left to itself, when not interfered with. A miracle occurs when the world is not left to itself, when something distinct from the natural order as a whole intrudes into it. (Mackie 1982: 19–20)

But alas, you must believe. You must believe in what is possible. You must accept that it’s ok not to know the how part of the equasion. A difficult task no doubt. You must get comfortable with not being right. Easier for some than for others. Not everything in this world is a result of cause and effect. For instance, you must believe that what you say and do truly matter. And it matters because at the heart of what we say and do is our personal integrity. But to believe that anything is possible, that miracles do occur and often when we least expect them, because a butterfly flapped it’s wings in another part of the world, this is to believe in miracles.

“There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” Albert Einstein

Miracles are all around us. We just need to open our eyes and hearts in order to see and feel them.

Note: Many of the ideas from this post were generated through the work of Margaret J. Wheatley’s, Leadership and the New Science.

Cheers, Glo

C (2011) - True Bliss Coach Gloria Higdon

Filed Under: Life Tagged With: Believe, Business, change, Integrity, Life, Miracles, values

The value of continuous personal change…

November 5, 2011 By trueblisscoach 4 Comments

“One key to successful leadership is continuous personal change. Personal change is a reflection of our inner growth and empowerment.” — Robert E. Quinn

I came across this quote by Robert Quinn and it reminded me of a personal change that I’ve experienced over the last few years as a result of being coached and then becoming a coach. I’m sharing this story as it may help you too. This change came from a combination of focused effort and conscious choice. It relates to the contrast between ruminating and letting go. It is all about the power of freedom and finding inner peace.

Like many of us I suspect, I used to spend time ruminating…also known as the worry gene. Rather than looking back as part of the learning process, I would look back and worry about all sorts of things that I could not change no matter how much energy I put into it. Then one day a few years ago through my coach training, I did a values exercise that changed my view and opened my eyes to a few things. For one, I realized that I value freedom. Freedom has different meaning for each of us but for me it means having inner peace. Yet, I was worrying. About what I said, what I did, what I didn’t do or say. What happens in this situation is that you end up living in the past in many respects. And when we live in the past, we miss out on such awesome things about the present. Through coaching, I learned to live and breathe in the present. This has created space in my life and in my head. What a true gift.

Now, I’m not saying that I never worry about anything anymore. I do. And I do because I care. I care deeply about people. I don’t however, give as much energy to worrying than it deserves. You see, I think worrying is overrated. I give my energy to where I live and breathe which is in the present. I have learned that I can still care about what truly matters and live in the present. My husband and I have put into practice a new way to think and to live and it’s really working for us. We have truly learned to “let go” and it is wonderful. It is absolutely empowering in fact. The past is used to learn from and that is all. You want to talk about freedom? This is freedom. Not only is it freedom but it is living according to our values and with personal integrity.

This is just one example of how we can change and grow while remaining true to ourselves. Sometimes we need someone on the outside to help us look inside. This is the value of great coaching. Coaching provides us with the support to define and achieve our goals of personal change.

Wishing you a peaceful day. Glo

Filed Under: Leadership, Life Tagged With: Coach, Freedom, Integrity, Leadership, Personal Change, values

Frost on the pumpkin

October 29, 2011 By trueblisscoach Leave a Comment

First frost, brrrrr! Need to bundle up to take the dog for a walk in the morning. It’s no secret that summer is my favorite season but there is much to be said for curling up by the fire, wearing cozy fleece, that first blush of cool air as it hits your face when you open the door, crock pot dinners, and pumpkins. Yes, that’s right, I said pumpkins. Can anything make you feel like a kid again faster than Halloween and a pumpkin patch? Is this picture of my neice Jenna (many moons ago) not the cutest thing ever?

Halloween is kind of a cool time of year because wearing a costume allows us to become someone else, to try it out, try it on, and to see if we like it. Maybe we will like it more. Maybe others will notice too. Maybe this is when we believe we are at our best because we are open to growing, learning. changing behaviours, attitudes and actions to create better and more positive outcomes. This is the true value of coaching. It allows us to design our futures and to try things on for size.

When you think of all of the pumpkins in a pumpkin patch, what do you notice? I notice that they are all different sizes, shapes, colors and although there are a ton of them we seem to be able to pick out the one that is just perfect (for us). Well, just like picking out your pumpkin you have the inner wisdom to make choices that are perfect (for you) in all aspects of your life, personal and professional. It’s true that some choices are made for us but we also have choices to make about who we become as a result of those choices. Are we victims? Are we assigning blame or are we active participants in our own lives (thanks, Katie!) trying on different costumes while remaining true to ourselves and living with personal integrity? I vote for the latter. What about you? Looking to make a change? If so, remember that you have choices. Get inspired by your inner wisdom!

Cheers, Glo

Filed Under: Coach, coaching, Making Changes Tagged With: Career Change, change, choice, Inspired, Integrity, Life

Coaching and Creative Juices

October 11, 2011 By trueblisscoach Leave a Comment

This blog post was first published in March 2010 when I was still in training with Erickson College International to become a coach. I was just starting my practice. Looking back at old blog posts on the weekend, I thought this may be a good one to revisit. I hope you enjoy it!

I’ve been learning so many interesting things about our 3 part brain system through my learning as a coach. You may read this opening statement and say who cares about our brain system? As long as I have one I’m good to go. Or you may give in to your curious side and keep reading to see where this is going…

The reptilian-reticular brain is very useful for immediate action and senses things like danger and lets us know when to fight or flight. The emotional brain is named the limbic system. It is a group brain or team based mammalian brain and it is the one we share with our pets. It likes sameness and avoids change and is focused on present tense. It helps us to move into action through emotions (love, command, protect, teach etc). The cerebral cortex system, also called the neo-cortex is the third brain in development and occupies the majority of the brain cavity. It is the part of the brain that has future visioning capacity. It does our imagining for us and it is extremely flexible. It allows us to create movies in our minds through visualization.

I used to believe that only certain people had the ability to be creative and I most definitely never considered myself to be one of those people. I would focus on what I’m not instead of what I am. Afterall, I’m not an artist, an actor, an architect, a musician or any of the stereotype creative professions. I am me. A lover of life, people and all things business related. Ah ha! Business related. I think and see possibilities or opportunities where some people only see roadblocks but why is that?

Over the past few months through the process of becoming a coach, I’ve had the great fortune of working with some great coaches to increase my quantity and quality of creative thought. This is very exciting stuff especially for someone who didn’t realize it was even possible! What I’ve learned is that what I used to believe about creative thought process has gone out the window. In order to have creative thought and be able to vision, we need to engage the neo-cortex. All this time I have spent focusing on what I’m not instead of what I can be. What a breakthrough!

The coaching that I am training in is is solution focused and forward thinking. By engaging the neo-cortex more often through specific tools and exercises, we can use the whole brain system to create change. Once we have those visions we have more options or choices which can generate excitement. We may even experience those infamous “ah ha” moments. We no longer feel stuck. We have hope and hope helps to promote optimism. Suddenly, we see a path. We can get to our desired state through development, commitment and use of an action plan.

The brain plays such an important part in getting our creative juices flowing and sometimes we just need a little support to get there. What are some of the things that you do to get your creative juices flowing? What works best for you?

Cheers,

Glo

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Filed Under: Coaching Services Tagged With: Brain, coaching, Creative, Creative |Juices, Creativity, Vision

A wonderful weekend read

October 2, 2011 By trueblisscoach Leave a Comment

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It must be October. It is a chilly and overcast Sunday afternoon. The fireplace is on for the first time this season. Marc is making my favorite soup (mulligatawny). The dog is snoring away in front of the fire. And I am reading this most amazing book. The kind that you can’t put down. The kind that has you going back to re read a specific passage or jumping ahead to take a quick look at what is in store in the next chapter.

Ironically, I received Leadership and the New Science by author Margaret J. Wheatley for Christmas last year from our son, Tom. It has been sitting on my night table ever since, waiting patiently. Waiting for that right moment in time when reading oodles of new journal articles for my research paper would become less urgent. I had read one chapter of this book last fall during one of the courses in my program, Leadership of Organizational Change. It was on the list of recommended reading by our Professor, Dr. Jamie Gruman. I enjoyed that chapter so much, I wanted more…and more I got…

This isn’t a book review. I simply wanted to share with you a few quotes that have my mind churning with possibility, curiosity and hope. Not only as a leadership coach, but as a lover of life and people. If it inspires you to purchase the book and to read further, enjoy…I know I certainly have.

“I find pleasure in letting these new ideas swirl freely inside me. Like clouds, they begin as mist, then take form, then dissipate. Clouds themselves are self-organizing, taking new shape as thunderstorms, hurricanes, or rain fronts depending on changes in their environment. We are capable of similar transformations; new ideas can emerge as powerful insights if we allow them the freedom to self-organize. And there is much we can learn from clouds. They are spectacular examples of fluid and responsive systems, structured in ways we never imagined possible: ‘”After all, how do you hold a hundred tons of water in the air with no visible means of support? You build a cloud”‘ (Cole 1985, 38) (Wheatley, 2006, 90).

“In all types of organizations, too many filled with people exhausted, cynical, and burned-out, I have witnessed the incredible levels of energy and passion that can be evoked when leaders or colleagues take the time to recall people to the meaning of their work. It only takes a simple but powerful question: ‘”What called you here? What were you dreaming you might accomplish when you first came to work here?” This question always elicits a deep response because so few of us work for trivial purposes. Most people come to their organizations with a desire to do something meaningful, to contribute and serve…If we are asked to recall that inner belief, and if we hear our colleagues speak about their own yearnings to make a small difference, we feel new energy for the work and for each other. The call of meaning is unlike any other, and we would do well to spend more time together listening for the deep wells of purpose that nourish all of us” (Wheatley, 2006, 133).

Hoping these may have resonated with you and possibly elicited thoughts of learning, change and engagement. Back to my book…last chapter…this time around.

Happy Sunday.

Glo

Filed Under: Leadership, Life, Making Changes Tagged With: Coach, Creativity, Energy, Inspires, Leadership, Life, Organizational Change

Resourcefulness: A learned skill

Planting Seeds

the wise gardener plants seeds of opportunity even when there is snow on the ground

Why Feelings Matter

2012 Growth. Learning. Opportunities. Diversifying.

Do you believe in miracles?

The value of continuous personal change…

Frost on the pumpkin

Coaching and Creative Juices

A wonderful weekend read

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