T is a lady who was born overseas and emigrated to Australia a number of years ago. She is very intelligent but has a number of failures behind her. Some of which are still ongoing and yet to be fully resolved satisfactorily. The degree of loss is known but the exact number is not, at this stage.
She is an attractive person, warm and friendly. She is also severely overweight but her health is not currently seriously affected. Her husband has been stricken with serious life threatening health issues and this has created a lot of unbalance in her life. She previously lived a life as a high flyer supping with the best in the land.
She has made a number of investments on the assumption that her husband will be with there to make them work but unfortunately his illness has forced her to fire sale some of the these investment at quite a substantial loss.
She is currently reeling because the bad investments are now coming home to roost and in essence she will be paying for these mistakes for many years to come with no underlying assets to show for it at the end of the futile repayments. In addition to the above T has also bought a new business which is in its infancy and yet to become profitable and no other employment at this stage.
What to do? Where to go from here?
A life coach assists with this emotional stock taking by purely facilitating the process. There is no need to provide answers just subtle changes in the right direction. Guide the client ship with tiny imperceptible movements. Only when you are comfortable with the client can you make sudden shifts in direction but even then it must seem and feel normal and logical.
Prepare a balance sheet and quantify the loss in monetary terms. Do not count opportunity cost loss just realisable losses. Have a sum that you can look at and get used to. Think of it as financial closure. Of course it is not closure as you still to fund the deficit but from a moving forward point of view it does provide closure because it is a number than cannot get any bigger and cause any more damage. Do not move to the next step until you have done this accounting work. Seek help from an accountant if you can't do it alone or dispassionately enough but you must have a number to work with.
Now that you have the number of your loss, is that amount funded or not? In other words can you fund this loss from your savings or will you need to borrow money to pay it? If you need to borrow, what are the repayments and can you fund those repayments? Will you need a job to meet the repayments?
After you have settled the financial side of things now comes the emotional fall-out and formation of future baggage. The failure to resolve this may have led T to neglect her weight problem. This latter can take you eye off the ball. Without fitness there is no possibility of platform and without platform there can be no success no matter how talented you are.
Now the hard part but it may have to wait just as a cut takes time to form a scar and heal. There may be a period of time between paying off the financial debts of a failure and beginning to count the emotional debts of failure. Prepare an emotional balance sheet. What are the pluses and minuses in this balance sheet. Preparing this balance sheet requires a crystal clear honesty. So this might take some time when (and if) you get around to it. But until such time as you get around to this, you cannot move forward. Here you should be thinking about what it took you in the first place to give this chance a go? When did it all begin to wrong? The cost of you admitting to yourself that it wasn't going to work and the emotional penalties that admission then imposed. This taking stock of the past might take you six months if you were to do it alone with a life coach perhaps 1 month.
The moment you realised you have made a mistake when you're still buried up to your ears in it is a moment never to be forgotten. In fact you will not let yourself forget it. You do this by inflicting excruciating pain on yourself. At that moment there seems no way out but there is even if the way out leaves you naked on the sea shore after the shipwreck. That moment plus perhaps 3 to 6 months is when those people who will seek help seek it. The others never do and they are in a perpetual purgatory, in life coaching limbo unable to go back (too painful) and unable to go forward (no way or technique of overcoming the negative emotions holding them back).
A perceptive life coach is able to clear the way forward by providing a direction in quite small steps. It is not even a technique at this stage, just tentative steps. Coaching the client to see what works and what doesn't. What unlocks and is a step forward, what brings back old memories and is a step backward. In a way this is a mystery to be unearthed, a secret to be uncovered and hidden country to be discovered. This is the meat of being a life coach.
When the client comes to you with this sort of background, everything you do in a session must be towards unlocking the keys to this mystery. Everything they say you must know in advance what it will be and have already worked out the response (not in terms of words back to them) but in terms of the overall direction you should the session. You must be thinking on your feet at 100 mph but without the client knowing.
Being nervous plays no part in being a life coach. If you are nervous working with strangers on an intimate basis, then life coaching is not for you. The point is that you must be as perceptive and sensitive as an artist but having a solid platform yourself that is analytical and results oriented. It must so you are being paid a lot of money by the client. They are paying for real direction and results not some fantastic or artistic exposition of their character or habits.
BTW T is not a real person but a composite used for the sake of exposition and teaching.
About Gilbert Labour
Mr Labour is a strategist, consultant, adviser, speaker and presenter on corporate restructuring, psychopathy in the workplace, life and executive coaching, project and program management, Six Sigma and Lean process improvement.
He combines all these skills in a unique combination, utilising Six Sigma and project management, to provide modern enlightened companies with truly innovative advice that will create a sustainable competitive advantage. Mr Labour exercises his skills and influence with compassion and deep understanding of the human condition especially where restructures result in overwhelming change and job loss.
He specialises in the following industries: legal and accountancy, telecommunications, transportation and aviation, banking and finance, insurance, government, IT and outsourcing and believes that his experience in these verticals is applicable across all industries, countries, languages, cultures and businesses generally. He has 30 years corporate experience in these industries.
Every single industry he specialises in (telcos, aviation, retail banking, insurance, outsourcing) faces fundamental challenges to continued survival and prosperity in the 21st Century and Mr Labour is well placed to provide a multi-disciplinary approach to uncovering insights for competitive advantage.
He sees the management of strategic, compliance and operational risk as one of the key issues facing executive managers on a daily basis. But not all companies can take advantage of formal Basel II and Sarbannes-Oxley (SOX) governance models.
For those companies that are not in the financial industry but still require strong governance around the management of operational risk, Mr Labour is an expert on creating strategies for managing operational risk supported by strong programme management structures to ensure compliance.
He has been extensively involved in process improvement initiatives within project and production environments. He has delivered Six Sigma Green and Black Belt process improvement programs that provide bottom line improvement whilst maintaining and enhancing employee morale.
He also owns and runs one of the world's most comprehensive web resources on the topic of life and executive coaching containing over 1500 pages of advice and more than 250 articles on life and executive coaching. He has also been quoted in learned papers, newspaper and magazine articles.
He has written a book on life coaching which provides an introduction to life coaching for the general public. He has also written a book on executive coaching, Executive Coaching for Process Improvement Excellence, that provides daily insights for top managers looking to succeed in today's fast paced environment.
He is also a pioneer in the field of coaching and project management having presented a landmark paper on this topic at PMISA 2004 (World Conference on Project Management) in South Africa in May, 04. His paper entitled Sane Project Management, a Life and Executive Coaching Approach has created both a new field in project management and a new area of interest and research for coaching and coaches around the world.
For PMISA 2006 (World Conference on Project Management) he is presenting a paper entitled Project Management and Six Sigma - a convergent and divergent model for solving business problems. He seeks to develop a theoretical and practical model to extract readily applicable business approaches from both divergence and convergence of these two disciplines.
He will explore whether coaching can facilitate the extraction of some of the benefits of this convergence? This will be continuing an exploration of the connection between coaching and project management that he first developed and presented at PMISA 2004.
Mr Labour acknowledges that in today's highly competitive and rapidly changing business environment, a busy consultant, life coach or executive coach must evince a compelling value proposition, as much for himself as for his product and service.
His unique value proposition is bringing to bear, on difficult even intractable business problems, a brilliant mix of both quantitative and qualitative approaches, embracing Six Sigma, Lean, project management, executive coaching, operational and line management.
He has a refreshing engaging and vibrant perspective on life and business in the corporate world. He is able to engage with any company in the world, within his industry expertise and beyond, and provide an assessment of the issues and problems that management suspects exists. He does this on a pro-active basis and confidentially.
He is also able to execute or be involved in the execution of any recommendations resulting from these engagements. He has previously managed large programs of work involving major restructuring, outsourcing and downsizing.
He forecasts a greater demand for people with his unique blend of skills in the future especially where established, staid inefficient companies in otherwise dynamic industries face head-on competition from more efficient home grown companies and those companies thriving in the tiger economies of China and India with their vast pool of cheap, educated and trained local talent.
Mr Labour will be holding an Executive Coaching Retreat in Mauritius between 29 May 06 and June 11 06. Please contact Mr Labour for further details on the retreat. There are places for only 10 executives at this retreat which will focus on the opportunities in China and India.
Life Coaching Tips and Techniques No. 10
Obesity and the roller coaster ride from nadir to zenith and back
There are five journeys in obesity, which one are you on now?
Why are there obese people when there are people starving in the world? Is obesity a medical problem rather than
one of lack of self-control or perhaps even one using food for sexual/sensual gratification for masking (?) the real problems?
How successful is someone who is 250 kilos at 'masking' or hiding the problem?
The five journeys is obesity are -
Getting there becoming obese, this is the easiest journey of all and happens almost without you knowing. This journey is on the road to death.
Staying there at a steady weight, this is a hard journey because the tendency is to put on more weight not less. This journey is a slow death.
The next journey is one into hell and that is on the road to putting on more and more weight. This is the last journey these people even embark on.
This journey ends in death.
The penultimate journey and the one with the most difficulty starting is the road back away from obesity. The enormous journey back is not the problem
but the first step back, the first gram lost. This journey is not a journey of weight loss but a journey to lose the fears and problems that the weight gain had
temporarily put on the back burner. This second last journey is the life coaching journey and has much less to do with weight loss, exercise and fitness and more to do with
facing problems in their real intensity and fury perhaps for the first time since the decision taken to embark on the first journey.
The last journey and that is to keep the weight at the target weight after the massive task of weight loss because again the tendency is to put the weight back on
even faster than before and much much faster than it was lost. For every gram lost a kilo is put on.
Work with a life coach who understands your weight problem is not a weight problem but a personal problem posing, impersonating a weight problem. Someone who knows which
journey you are on and can make sure you either move to the next healthy journey or stay at the healthy journey you're on.
New Life Coaching Service Model - All Inclusive Platinum Service
Product Features
One new low totally all inclusive monthly fee ($400 AUS) - currently this is $500 AUS. Saving $100 AUS per month.
No contracts whatsoever, pay as you go month by month. Start when you want, stop when you want. No questions asked.
No need to furnish more than your first name. No notes taken during any sessions and no personal identifying details asked for, required or noted down.
Coaching can take place exclusively by phone and/or internet but it is preferred that an initial one on one session take place but this is not essential.
All inclusive, no exclusions, all services available (as per below).
Paid once a month at the beginning of the month (non refundable if cancelled during month).
Entitled to the full range of services (one on one, SMS, Mobile, Phone, ICQ, MSN Messenger, MS Netmeeting) on an as required basis. But does not
include CD and video conferencing products.
Use as much of the service as you require but please note as coaching is a relationship which requires and places responsibility on you to complete
agreed upon tasks, there will be regular scheduled feedback and catchup sessions. These are usually by phone or ICQ.
Clearly articulated and set goals such as embarking on a new career, changing careers, developing new small business, creating small business growth,
preparation for retirement, developing additional income in/for retirement.
These services include small business development coaching, product development and promotion, and press release preparation.
Payment and services commences in the calendar month of first payment and lasts till the end of the next month, then regular monthy payments commence on the 1st of each month thereafter (for example) ---
Paid 1 month on 15th of July - $400
Payment due on 1st August - Nil
Payment due on 1st September - $400
Payment and services terminates at the end of the calendar month of the last payment as follows (for example) ---
Payment made on 1st October - $400
Decision to cancel made 4th October and notice to do so received on that day or any day within the month
No refund policy but services available until 31st October if required
No further payments then required due to cancellation
The Platinum Life Coaching Product is now the only life coaching product available aside from
tailored programs and the featured programs.
50% Discount for bona fide students. The fee for students is $200 per month.
You will receive an exceptional level of service and care from one of the best life coaches practicing today.
Coaching Programs
555 Program
The 555 Program is complementary to the 333 Program and is part of a family of programs called The Numbered Series, a simplification of a plethora of products, services and programs into
a number of specifically targeted set of programs that target a very specific audience with a limited amount of time and resources to devote to a life and executive coaching program. The programs
covers a set of goals over a set period for a specific (one time only) fee.
The key goals of the 555 Program is to be able to run 5k in 5 months, to solve 5 life coaching issues or problems in 5 months and to investigate and resolve 5 executive coaching problems
in 5 months.
Life Coaching Portal Programs
Beyond the existing Diamond program being run on the portal, a series of additional programs are being developed to be run for specific audiences and which have very clear targets and goals.
These include the following.
The 555 Program
Gilbert Labour, will personally run this program. It will probably take in the region of 10 suitable people and run for 5 months. The program is multi-faceted and covers three main streams a fitness stream, a life coaching stream
dealing with personal issues and an executive stream to supercharge your work, business and corporate environment.
The first stream is a fitness element. The goal is to be able to run 5k (non stop) in five months and be able to lose 5 kilos in the process. This is a modest achievement and is considered a healthy approach to fitness generally.
I am a former fitness instructor and dance teacher and can provide guidance in this area. You will need a clearance from your doctor if you're over 45.
The second stream is a life coaching element. The goal of the life coaching is to investigate a number of current personal issues and focus on 5 for resolution in 5 months. One to be resolved or at least worked on each month.
The third stream is an executive coaching element. The goal of this element is to come up with five goals or issues to be dealt with in the 5 months of the program. These could involve working towards a promotion, changing jobs, changing careers,
leaving the corporate environment and developing a small business. For the hard core executives and other corporate thrivers and survivors there will be a number of areas that include executive interview training and executive decision making that can be covered.
There are many others and these can be chosen based on your current goals. The aim of this stream is canvass all the possibilities and focus on only 5 and work through each one.
The cost of the program varies. To take part on a one-on-one basis with Gilbert Labour will cost $5000. To take part in a group setting will cost $2000. Individual programs can start at anytime considered suitable.
To provide this program on a company wide basis (more than 10 people), please call Gilbert Labour for a quote.
Please call Gilbert Labour on 0409 223 436 if you would like to take part. Further information on the 555 Program is available from the portal.
General Information
I also do a small amount of pro-bono work in the area of life coaching. I belong to the Life Coaching Pro Bono Group (LCPBG), a group of life coaches I am putting together to do this type of work for people in need but who may not be able to afford the services of a full fee life coach. We make allowances for your circumstances and also on the understanding that once you're back on your
feet, your capacity to contribute to your life coaching will also improve.
Generally speaking, we will set clear goals, we will put in place plans to attain those goals, we will execute the plan effectively. We will monitor and survey the results and ensure our goals are met. In most cases, we will envelope what we are trying to achieve into a coaching programme.
I operate flexibly taking into account the needs of the client as we progress with the programme.
Please call me on my mobile (0409 223 436) for a confidential discussion to begin the journey of self discovery.
Linking to My Site - send me details of your URL. Please note I will only link to your site if your site appears on the search engines already. When you send details of your site, please advise
which search engines the site appears on. If you do not follow this rule, I will delete your request immediately. Please also no "home business" or no content web sites or those that use those robotised
link lists.
