Beryl's Blog

Well Being Road Show Milton Keynes

I have recently met an interesting and dynamic Coach called Karrin Lawrence.  Karrin attended my yoga class in Milton Keynes and then asked me if I would be interested in working with her on a Well Being Road Show (website coming soon.)  The theme of the event would be to offer bite size one hour sessions of ways to improve your emotional and physical well being.  I loved the idea of the Road Show.  Holistic, fun, informative and way to meeting others who are interested in taking their lives to the next step.  We are still in the planning stages, but I will tell you more as things move along.

In the meantime let me tell you a bit more about my new coaching friend.

Karrin has created an expert (Audio) Coaching CD series.  Each CD is written and recorded by a Coaching in their field, which for me is the exciting part.  The CDs cover the areas of spirituality, family, educatin, work and career, relationships, personal development, health and fitness and fun and recreation.  The titles include:

The Be Happy Coach; The Coaching Children for Parents Coach; The Public Speaking Coach; The Self Belief Coach; The New Managers Coach; The Revision Coach; The Birthing Coach; The Discover your Excellence Coach and The Dating Coach. 

Take a look at Karrin's website www.thecoachcollection.com to find out how you can buy the CD to change your life!

Negotiating a win-win solution

Suppose you are going to enter into an important negotiation in your life.  Perhaps you've spotted the home of your dreams.  How can NLP help you to get the best deal when you're confronted by an estate agent pushing you to buy the new house at the highest rate while selling your current one as low as possible?  By giving you principles and strategies you can use to everybody's advantage.  Those same principles apply if you're negotiating for a job, buying a car, hiring contract staff at work or allocating jobs to your teenage sons (that's me again!).

• Go for the positive outcome - begin with your desired result in mind.  Talk in positive language.  Always focus on what you want rather than what you don't want. 
• Engage your senses - make your outcome more specific by noticing what it will look like, sound like, and feel like when you have achieved a successful negotiation. 
• Note down your criteria or hot buttons - focus on five key elements that are important to you in making the move.  Put them in order of priority and keep returning to them to check you are getting what you want.

Creating Rapport

Rapport is important in every sphere of our lives.  Pretty much whatever we want to achieve is going to need us being able to gain co-operation from others.  Anything from negogiating with your teenage sons (that's where I'm at right now!) to finding yourself business partners; clients; the best seat in a restaurant; you name it and you will be more successful with good rapport building skills!  I personally think communication skills can be more important than a list of qualifications in gaining career success.

3 quick ways to sharpen your rapport:

1.  Take a genuine interest in getting know what's important to the other person.  Start to understand them rather than expecting them to understand you first.

2.  Pick up on the key words, favourite phrases, and way of speaking that someone uses and build these subtly into your own conversation.

3.  Notice how someone likes to handle infomration.  Do they like lots of details or just the big picture?  As you speak, feed back information in this same portion size.

Taking Control of your mind

Taking control of how you feel is so so much easier said than done, that is for most of us mere mortals!  I can remember times when my mind would be whizzing about in all directions, trying to get stuff down and never getting everything done that I wanted to.  Notice the language there, that I 'wanted' to.  Not that I 'needed' to.  How many of us fall into that trap?  We create lists of stuff that we think we 'should' do.  So what would happen if it didn't get done, or at least if we just put it on tomorrow's list?  Probably the world would not end.  So that busy busy mind, how do we take control? How do we stop creating manic lists, piling jobs onto us? How do we 'stop' the mind?

Well some of you will know that I wear another hat, that of a Yoga Instructor. In yoga, we believe that the mind is totally connected to the body, in that memory can be in every cell of your body. You know that because when you just think a very fearful thought, your tummy can churn, your palms go clammy, you break out in a sweat.  However, there are ways to 'still' the mind and the body will respond by being calm and in balance. The label meditation can be attached to this process.  But I have lost count of the number of people who tell me that they can't meditate. So again,  the language we use can trigger strong feelings and reaction. Anyway, it is amazing how many 'illnesses' in the shape of aches and pain can be eliminated by letting go of that busy mind.  When the mind is in a relaxed state then the body will be too.  Of course the key is regular practice but you can experience a wonderful feeling of peace after just one session of a few minutes.  Please don't take my word for it! You will only find out for sure if it works if you do it...  To find out exactly how I teach this go to www.yoga4healthyliving.com.  and read more on this subject at http://lifecoachesblog.com/2008/01/24/the-simplest-way-to-take-back-control-of-your-mind/.

Making decisions

The more decisions you make, the better you'll become at making them.  Muscles get stronger with use, and so it is with your decision making muscles. Coaching is great for helping you to make decisions.  It can assist you in working out what stops you from making those decisions and then ease you into taking that first step giving you support all along the way.

Today, make two decisions you've been putting off: one easy decision and one that's a bit more far-reaching.  Immediately take the first action toward fulfilling each of them - and follow through with the next step tomorrow.  By doing this, you'll be building the muscles that can change your entire life.  Go get building!

Rapport - NLP

Building rapport is a really useful lesson for life. Whatever you want out there the chances are you will need help from someone else in getting it.  This is true if you are a salesperon, a teacher or a carpenter.  No matter what you do, the ability to develop and maintain rapport with the large numbers of people of varying backgrounds will allow you to achieve what you want in every area of your life.

Of course the basis of rapport is when people like are like each other, they like each other.  When people are not like each other, they don't like each other.  When you like someone, you are willing to assist them in having whatever they want.  Rmember that 38% of all communication is tone of voice, and 55% is physiology. So staggeringly, only 7% is what you actually say...food for thought.

Coaching

It is always gratifying when you see a client whom you have been coaching moving forwards and achieving their goals.  I have one client at the moment who is looking to transfer her excellent senior management skills to the leisure industry.   She has an incredible CV, is passionate about her interests in spas and the luxury leisure industry.  If you know anyone who could benefit from this lady's valuable skill set and commitment, please feel free to email me on hello@berylwhiting.com and I will put you in touch with her.  Thank you.