The Simplifier #23 - It worked for Charles Schwab!
Welcome to The Simplifier, brought to you by…
Contents:
1. A Note From Shawn
2. Our Featured Quote
3. Article: An Element of Success: Coaching
4. Your Simplification Tip
5. In the News
6. Featured at ProjectSimplify.com
7. Keep Smiling
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1. A Note From Shawn
Last night in meditation class, the teacher reminded me of the response Michelangelo had when asked how he had imagined the figure of David in that raw slab of marble. He allegedly replied that he just took away everything that wasn’t the figure of David. The result: a perfect figure that contains absolutely nothing more than David.
The quote this week by Socrates reminds me of how much I tend to carry around that isn’t me. What a beautiful reminder of the importance of simplifying! By focusing on my priorities, and planning to allow them to happen, I am also sloughing off the extra marble chips and chunks that I can do without. And if it isn’t obvious by the article, coaching is one of my tools to do this. Knowing what smoothes your marble is a wonderful awareness… Let it be easy!
Enjoy!
Shawn
2. Our Featured Quote
“How many things I can do without!”
-Socrates
3. Article: An Element of Success: Coaching
By Shawn Tuttle
What’s with all the talk about coaches lately? We have life coaches, executive coaches, business coaches, time efficiency coaches, and so on. You may have asked yourself, “Why do I need coaching? It seems like an unnecessary expense. What can coaching give me that I can’t get from my friends, colleagues or a book?”
In times of unprecedented activity addiction, overwhelm, and busy-schedule-as-status-symbol, trying to make it on your own is a recipe for failure. In my experience as a coach, clients call for simplification when they feel they are in a quagmire of sorts. However, it turns out that another set of benefits kick in when you work with someone before falling into that pit. While the people who lead prosperous lives with time for friends and family come from wildly different backgrounds, they have one dominant characteristic in common: they all have a relationship with someone who advises and encourages them to reach their full potential.
Not only is having a coach a key component of success, but business consultant Dana G. Mayer’s study of six-figure income earners (”6 Figure Success Stories”) proved a connection between the number of times a week that someone talked with their coach and the amount of money that person made. I.e. the more coaching, the more money they made. Every single one of the 100+ independent professionals interviewed had a formal or informal coach, meaning they had someone they spoke with at least once a week about their business.
So, do you need a coach?
Of course, you don’t necessarily need coaching—you will probably not die without it—so perhaps the better question may be, “Will it help more than it will cost?”
Let’s take a look at the ways coaching can help:
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Do more with less. Working with a coach helps you identify time and energy wasters and underutilized resources. Since you are deep in the middle of your situation, it can take quite a while to recognize that some belief, misperception, or situation has been holding you back—and then even more time to deal with it.
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Focus on pursuing what you want. Ms. Mayer’s report also discovered that successful professionals are the ones who actually do it, i.e. they follow through. In order to follow through, you must have focus. Focus is what guides the arrangement of your time, time for the things you are passionate about. Has anyone ever asked you, “Are you cramming 20 hours of work into an 8 hour period?” as if that is the ideal and natural way to be? It takes focus to integrate the demands of the Stress Generation, and not get side-tracked into a million directions. Coaches help you focus.
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Get support and accountability to make sustainable changes in your habits. The primary reason people call Project Simplify for coaching is they want to be more organized and efficient. They’ve read books, they’ve tried different methods, and then they’ve realized they want someone to bounce ideas around with who can bring in an objective perspective. They want someone to help them customize the cookie cutter to their situation, and then support them in sticking with it.
Finding a coach
So how do you find a coach? Ask around, you probably know someone who is or has worked with one. Coaches are often members of networking groups. Do ask questions–not all coaches are created equal.
Here are some pointers to help you find the right coach:
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Sit in on a workshop or teleclass.
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Read an article they’ve written.
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Ask them for the top 5 benefits their clients get from working with them, and then ask for referrals and see if those clients agree with the coach’s assertions.
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Look for certification in their area of specialty or a client list that is similar to your industry or lifestyle (i.e., specializing in coaching executives, solopreneurs, speaking, women, people with ADD, etc.).
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What is their background & working experience?
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You can also check at FindaCoach.com and the International Coach Federation (www.coachfederation.org).
Often, a coach has an intro session in which they explain how the work and what you can expect. It is also meant to get a sense as to whether you’d work well together. It is very important to work with someone you feel comfortable communicating with. If she doesn’t seem like the right fit, the coach should have some suggestions of others who may be. Keep in mind, they don’t have to be in your area. Many coaching relationships are over the phone.
And what about cost? Most coaches run from $200 - $500 per month which is typically broken up into weekly or bi-weekly sessions of 30-45 minutes with email support in between sessions.
Also consider the cost of not working with a coach. Without a coach, you are more likely to fall victim to stress, and we all know that stress is a major contributor to health-related problems. Plus lack of focus pushes your business goals further away. And every struggling business person has made mistakes that could have been avoided with the right advice beforehand.
Help can be hard to reach out for sometimes, but it sure is great to get! From our own testimonial page:
“My daily life has much more room for fun, since you helped me simplify so many areas of my life. You have a gift for personalizing the process and making it happen so swiftly. It’s empowering!” - H.A., Nevada City
And consistent with the findings in Ms. Mayer’s report, my growth has been greatly accelerated by working with a coach as well!
Perhaps coaching could be just the help you need to simplify your efforts at manifesting your dreams.
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Shawn Tuttle is founder of Project Simplify
4. Your Simplification Tip
Stop Freaking Out by Using These Three Steps
Spinning mind, shallow breath, feeling near paralysis—a bad case of overwhelm can lead to an acute case of “freaking out”. What is generally happening in the mind when we feel overwhelmed and stressed? Basically, there is a lack of focus… our attention is skimming the surface of an infinite number of possibilities, our thoughts are scattered, and either everything or nothing has priority.
While planning is the best prevention measure for overwhelm, sometimes emergency measures are in order.
Here are 3 steps to help you through those tough times.
1. Determine what should be done next.
Look at your schedule and your list of things to do. (If you don’t have a list, now is the time to get outstanding items out of your head—no ifs, ands, or buts about it! Need more proof than that? Check out the first two articles In the News and see what worked for Charles Schwab! Hint: it’s a system very similar to this one.) In times of freak out, it’s easy to forget to refer to these. If the next thing to do isn’t obvious, consider one or more of the following questions:
Which has the most pressing deadline?
Which has the greatest consequences?
Which has the highest benefit to reaching your goals?
Which do you like the least? (Just get it over with!)
2. If your chosen item is a single step action, then go to #3. If you’ve chosen a multi-step project, then determine the single next step for your chosen item. This should be a well-defined, doable action.
Example: Call to confirm appointment. Or, locate ToDo sheet in client file. Or, create article outline. Or, call for schedule times. Notice that these each start with an action verb.
3. Focus in and Do. This is an instance in which tunnel vision is a good thing. No multi-tasking, no gratuitous web surfing, no non-task emailing or phone calling. Put on blinders and complete the item.
When that item is complete, identify the very next step (#2) and do it (#3).
What often happens is that the mind relaxes once it sees progress towards goals made. Learning to deal with freak out should be an emergency measure, not a regular habit. Remember, planning is the best sustainable antidote to overwhelm!
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Spread simplicity - forward The Simplifier to your friends and colleagues!
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5. In the News
If you know of something in the news that should be featured here, let us know!
Harvey Mackay: Make the most of your time (Orange County Register)
URL: http://tinyurl.com/ydumhd
The best-selling inspirational business writer (”one of the greatest writers of our time”, according to Norman Vincent Peale) drops some time management truth bombs.
Prioritizing duties builds productivity (Star-Bulletin - Honolulu, HI)
URL: http://tinyurl.com/ykb7dc
This article focuses on one simple method for getting things done. It worked for Charles Schwab!
Family’s high-tech day has 43 hours (Toronto Star)
URL: http://tinyurl.com/ygbueo
“Technology has us multi-tasking to the point that if we add up all the hours we spend sleeping, working, commuting, watching TV, emailing, text messaging, spending time with family and using the Internet, the average person’s number will add up to more than 43.”
Falling victim to procrastination (The Spectrum - University of Buffalo)
URL: http://tinyurl.com/yav6qm
Advice for college students on combating a very common demon. A solution suggested by one student: Stay busy. “It’s hard to be a procrastinator when you have a lot of things going on,” she says. (Obviously, having the right things going on is key too.)
6. Featured at ProjectSimplify.com
The “Print this” feature
All of the blog posts and main pages of our site have a “Print this” link down on the lower right of the content area.
On blog posts, it’s part of the “meta” information area, just below the post, along with “E-mail this”, the category names, and the date of the post. On pages, it’s just hanging out by itself in the lower right of the page.
In either case, the “Print this” link will take you to a more-easily-printable version of that page or post–without the sidebar and the banner image, and with regular margins. It also has links translated into web addresses, since you can’t click on printed pages. ;-) And the links are treated like footnotes, so the URLs don’t bog down the page text.
All in all, it’s almost always better than the regular layout, when it comes to printing. Try it out and see for yourself!
7. Keep Smiling
The Free Hugs Campaign
The “Free Hugs Campaign” video is as corny as it sounds…in fact, it’s even more corny than it sounds! But it’s also more compelling and effective than it probably sounds, too. On the popular video-sharing site YouTube, the video has garnered over 11,000 comments, almost all of the “That was great - it made my day!” variety. And we can see why.
The video is about three and a half minutes long, and it tells the story - visually, without dialogue - of one man who decided to give out free hugs at a plaza in Sydney, Australia. You can read a little more about the background here, but we recommend just watching the video itself first.
It is accompanied by background music, but you can mute the sound and still get the effect of the video pretty well. (Though the music does add something worthwhile. In fact, the man who filmed and edited the video is also in the band whose song is playing in the background.)
Thanks to Viral Video Chart for highlighting this - it’s one of our favorite Keep Smiling items so far!
Here is the URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vr3x_RRJdd4
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See you next time!
Thanks for reading The Simplifier.
Publication Information
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The Simplifier is published by:
Project Simplify
P.O. Box 597
Nevada City, CA 95959
phone: 530.205.5775
web: www.projectsimplify.com
e-mail: (newsletter@projectsimplify.com) newsletter (at) projectsimplify (dot) com
