The Internal Guidance System
I’m certainly not the first person to think of feelings as an internal guidance system. When I was first introduced to the idea, it thrilled me to consider that I could trust myself. I loved the thought that I had an internal mechanism to guide me and wanted to...
Working with On-Air Personality, Angela Dodson
A few months back I got a call from an old friend, Clyde. In 1978 I was an assistant store manager for Rosauer’s, a local food store chain. I hired Clyde when he was 16 years old as a courtesy clerk. We’ve stayed in touch over the years. Today Clyde works for...
True Self Leadership
What is True Self Leadership? You, like many people, may be in the habit of attempting to manage and control aspects of yourself that you don’t like. This effort to minimize and control who we are creates an internal tension or pressure. From time to time, life...
Survival or Growth Mindset?
Life’s challenges can provide plenty of opportunity for growth or they can overwhelm us. If you have a growth mindset, challenges provide new opportunities to change and grow. Challenges can inspire innovation and courageous risk taking. Challenging circumstances...
The Source and Meaning of Emotional Pain
What causes emotional pain? A belief system is a system of thoughts that we have decided are true. For the most part, our beliefs are hidden from us. When we are introduced to a concept or idea, we compare that concept or idea to embedded and accepted thoughts...
What are Your Parts Telling You?
After completing a one-year coach training program, my confidence was at an all-time low and I seriously considered quitting my Life Coaching career. A part of me was convinced that I was a fool to think I could be a successful life coach. In 2011, while working as a...
Fear, Resistance and Action
No time to read this article? Listen to it instead. Fear. What do you do when you are feeling it? Does it stop you? Do you work around it? Does it limit you? Do you push your way past it? In the coaching world, one of our jobs as coaches is to help our...
Hope and Expectation
What do you expect your life to look like in a year? What do you hope your life will be like in a year? What we expect is based on what is happening now and what has happened in the past. For many of us, what is happening now is a version of what has happened in the...
I’m not trying hard enough
What are you trying hard to do? Today is day 25 of my 30 day thought diet. I was inspired to make this commitment after waking up at 5 AM in Kauai 25 days ago with anxiety and no present justification for it. I got out of bed and began listing all of my thoughts,...
How I Leveraged my Complaints to Create the Life I Wanted
I’m not proud of this. But I used to complain about my life. A lot. I’ve often wondered why I complained so much. Eventually, I realized that complaining is a leftover from my childhood when I was entirely and naturally dependent. You can read more about that in...
Seven Things I have Learned About Anxiety
About 25 years ago, I stepped away from the living of my life far enough to make a profound observation. I saw that my life consisted of a series of reactions to the circumstances in my life. Further, I realized that I was reacting to my interpretations of those...
What to do When it’s Hard to Decide
As a coach, when a client comes to me with a problem, I am tempted to try to resolve the problem for them. But this is rarely helpful. Solving the problem for a client is like feeding a man a fish. My clients think they want me to solve their problems. But what...
Getting Unstuck
True Self Recovery. A new Coaching Program for those who feel stuck. Inspired by the Internal Family Systems Therapy model, I have created a new coaching model to help discover and explore your Internal Team. Your Internal Team is made up of beliefs and attitudes...
Testimonial from Carly Cloer
I was hitting my head against a wall. I knew I was getting in my own way but I didn’t know how to change it. I knew I was meant to work on my own and not answer to anyone. I knew that my life’s calling was not what I was doing. I was constantly trying to fit a...
How can I help?
People ask me to help them when they recognize that how they show up in life automatically gets in the way of having the life that they want. Sometimes they don't even know what they want in life. They just know they aren't satisfied with the life they have now....
The Yes and No of Yes
When you say yes, what are you saying yes to? When you say yes, what are you saying no to? You may be asked to give your money, effort, attention or time. Money You may be asked to give your money. Each time you spend money, you are saying yes to what you are...
Harry’s Breakthrough Success Club Success Story
Harry was referred to me by the doctor who employed him. He joined Breakthrough Success Club when his boss offered to pay for his coaching. But when his children’s mother decided to move to another state, he quit his job and followed them there to be in their...
How Ya Doin?
How ya doin? It’s a greeting more than a question. But it’s still a question. Both the question and the answer are usually automatic. Want to create an awkward moment? Answer How ya doin? with a real answer. What’s your automatic answer to How ya doin? Fine....
5 Rs to Remember When Giving Feedback
When it comes to giving feedback, you probably fall into one of three categories: You have a lot of great advice for others but nobody seems interested in it. The thought of offering feedback is so terrifying that you might just fall to your death before asking...
The G.I.F.T. of Feedback
Giving feedback can feel vulnerable. It takes courage to offer feedback. Receiving feedback can also feel vulnerable. If, when you are receiving feedback you feel threatened, you may be more concerned with surviving the feedback than with hearing exactly what is being...
What’s In It For Your Client
What is the value of a reliable and loyal referral source? When receiving a warm referral, you have an overwhelming advantage over the competition. Unless a business already has a sufficient demand for their services, it is crucial to develop relationships with others...
8 Practices to Get More Referrals
Think about why you would give a referral to someone. Let’s face it. Giving a referral to a product or service provider puts your reputation on the line. So, unless you have had a great experience with the product, the service or the provider, you’re not likely to...
How Being a Problem Solver Blinds You of Opportunities
Life can often feel like the arcade game, Whack-a-Mole. A problem shows up, we whack it and then wait for the next one to show up so we can whack it before the next one shows up so we can… whack it! This is a game that cannot be won. But it’s the game most of us play...
What’s the gap between what you want and what you are settling for?
For most of us, there is a big gap between what we really want in life and what we are settling for. Why do we do this? What kind of breakthrough would help you begin living the life that you really want? Think of thoughts as the tip of the iceberg - the part that you...
How to Give and Receive 5-Star Referrals
The decision to refer usually happens in a moment. The decision to not refer happens just as quickly. But there is an internal process that usually goes undetected leading up to that moment. Why do you refer? Think about the last time you gave a referral. Why did you...
6 Steps to Get Past the Voice in Your Head
The appointment was set for 9:00 AM. First impressions are important. This was to be our first connection. I called the number the prospect provided but it was the wrong number. I was prepared for this call. I allowed plenty of time. Had the phone number in front of...
Is Fear Keeping You From Making a Change?
I spoke with a client last week whose current employer had made it difficult for her to stay. She had been working under increasing pressure to perform under impossible circumstances. Her well-being and family life had suffered and she was on her way to a major...
Get Off the Emotional Roller Coaster
Click here to listen to this article if you don't have the time to read it. I was inspired to write this article by an experience which lead to gaining a new and different perspective. Once a week, I facilitate The Work of Byron Katie for 90 minutes. This is a free...
Acting The Part
This morning, I was inspired with an idea and asked my wife, Kathy to help me. I asked her if she could think of a time when I was upset. She reminded me of trying to get technical help over the phone from someone in India. That reminded me of something that happened...
How 12 Steps Can Improve the Quality of Your Life
Surrender and Improve the Quality of Your Life What's been on my mind lately has been surrender, staying in the flow and the 12 Steps of recovery. Surrender and quality of life. Because of surrendering, I am experiencing the transformation of positive changes in my...
The Stages of Recovery
In the following article, The Stages of Recovery, I summarize the 3 stages of recovery as described in the book, Adult Children of Alcoholics. I work with many people who use the 12 steps to recover from trauma and addictions. Many of my clients have been on the...
5 Steps To Improve Self-Esteem and Increase Confidence
Do you ever feel like you’re not good enough? We’ve all been there at one point or another. Throughout life, your sense of self-worth or self-esteem shapes who you become. Believing you’re not good enough impacts your behaviors and decisions. If you had the...
How to Get Unstuck
Do you feel stuck? Maybe you believe your life is miserable. Nothing is going right and it never will. Or at the very least, your best-laid plans fail to achieve the desired results. I’ve been there. If it turns out there is a hell, I think it will look a lot like the...
How to Attract What you Want
You’ve probably heard of the Law of Attraction before. It’s the idea that you attract into your life what you are focused on. If you are focused on success, you will be successful. Do you want to lose weight? Then focus on having a lighter body. By focusing on being...
6 Questions to Improve Your Efficiency
Most of us have a list a mile long of things we feel like we HAVE to get done. You probably have tasks in different buckets; housework, business work, family work, extracurricular work, volunteer work, and the list goes on. Do you ever feel like your task list is...
How to Break the Complaint Habit
We all know those people who we sometimes dread talking to because all they do is complain. Maybe you are one of those people and don't even realize it. Complaining about things - whether it be life, another person, politics - whatever it is, may seem self-serving....
The Wisdom of The Body
Do you have persistent internal thoughts and questions running through your head at any given time? These thoughts could be about a person, a situation, a stress, a fear, a hope, or any number of things. The thoughts we have create feelings such as the nagging fear...
Get Present to Get Results
Have you ever taken a moment to think about how much the past and future affect the present when it comes to your thoughts, actions, and how you engage in life? Humans largely use their past experiences as an educational tool to take with them into the future. Perhaps...
How You Get What You Get (and how to start getting what you want)
When I am in a coaching session with a client, many influences come in to play. A couple of these include The Work of Byron Katie and Landmark Education, both of which I have written about in previous blog posts. Woven into these two influences has been what I have...
How to Get Back to Sleep
We all sometimes have struggles sleeping. Sometimes we can't fall asleep. Other times we wake up in the middle of the night and realize our mind is racing. This causes us to have trouble calming down again. This article gives you a little bit of my history with sleep....
10 Questions To Get You Into Action
You already have the solutions to your problems. If you stop to think about it – when it comes to business, what is that one thing that you know would work to give you more success? Perhaps it’s hiring an employee. Maybe you need a line of credit to invest in...
3 Steps to Success
I always start the coaching process by asking my clients to describe the future they would like to be living. Creating a future vision is a great first step toward achieving any goal. In this article, I give you 3 steps to success. Step 1. Get very clear about the...
Is Landmark Education Right For You?
An Introduction to Landmark Education My friends insisted that I join them for a trip to Seattle to experience Landmark Forum. I had heard of Landmark but had no first-hand experience until I traveled with them for the three-day event. I had already been on a path of...
The Work: How Byron Katie changed my life
If you had told me 20 years ago The Work of Byron Katie would have changed my life, I wouldn’t have believed you. Nonetheless, it did. Here’s my story. Some personal history Don (not his real name) had been my friend for years. I married his brother’s...
Emotometer: How to scale your emotions, empowerment
When I first began coaching, I noticed language can be a barrier to understanding when it comes to emotions. Some of my clients have a comfortable command of the vocabulary of emotions. Some tell me what they think when I ask them how they feel. Others...
Personal kindness: How to stop “shoulding” yourself
As a mindset coach, I listen for language that provides the clues about what drives a person or what stops them. For those of us who are building and running businesses, nothing is more important than the mindset behind our language. For example, the...
Personal empowerment: 6 steps to better mental well-being
Our thoughts can sometimes take us on a roller coaster ride we aren't prepared for. Let's evaluate those thoughts and dive into what questions you are asking yourself and what your answers are. We'll look more closely into disempowering thoughts and how...
