John's Blog

 Coaching Toolbox - Similar effort produces similar results. People want an instant "change-now" wand so that they don't have to put in extra effort to get the results they long for. They want hacks and tricks to change their habits to something that will bring them never-ending success and wealth without the sweat of changing their behaviours, mindsets or attitudes. They want to put in the same effort and actions but get better results. This expectation defies the natural laws of the universe, but people still expect it to happen. Read the whole article here:  https://www.mindmuttermatters.com/post/similar-effort-produces-similar-effort

Walking along a desolate sandbar on the shores of an Indian river, Payeng's heart broke as he wept aloud for the death he witnessed.  All forms of reptiles and birds had died of exposure to a terrible storm on the river banks just days before. The cruel sandbank offered the animals no protection from the elements.    Fourteen year old Payeng went home and devised a plan. It was simple, he would plant and nurture saplings on the desolate sandbank until there was enough habitat to offer protection to all the animals. This plan would also prevent soil erosion on the largest river island, Majuli.  Thirty years later, Mr. Payeng has planted enough trees to create a forest covering 550 hectors, the equivalent of fifteen football stadiums. The Molai forest, created by Payeng, is now home to deer, tigers, rabbits, birds and more. How is this possible?  The dedication of one person to do something each day that may only make a small difference in the moment,...

Looking around, you will witness a lot of polarity in this world.  Polarity means: for every up there is a down, For every inside there is an outside, For every high there is a low.  Sometimes, these opposite are obvious, but sometimes, these opposites are harder to spot.  Many a therapy session I conduct is with people battling deep lows, unaware that these troubles are not demons, but rather self inflicted balance to their pursuit of frequent highs.  The most common polarity I witness, invisible to most, results in people easily embracing mediocrity, and missing success. This seeming oxymoron is fuelled, I'm told by the average, by the paralysing fear of failure.  Oh sausage! Failure isn't the polarity of success. Failure is an inherent part of the process to success. One simply must fail in order to learn, grow, and win.  What is keeping you from the success you so desire is fear itself. The fear has got you labelling failure negatively,...

As part of accredited training, each person on course gets one-on-one feedback. In this feedback, I usually ask people at the start if they think they are competent in the skills learned. Normally, the response falls in one of two categories. Some people are confidant of their ability and say yes. Some people are hesitant, and squeeze a yes or a maybe out.  

Personal Development Skill: Team Work There is no doubt that the single most important skill to define a leader; to will make or break his or her reputation is their ability to work with a team. This important skill quickly separates true leaders from the “wannabe” that wants to gloat in their own self importance. You may fool fans, but you will never fool the team.

Personal & Leadership Skill: Cultural Awareness Sadly, polarisation seems to be the current trend in the world at the moment. This is a dangerous attitude to own in the “global village” of our modern world. Our workplaces, neighbourhoods and public areas are filled with people from various culture groups and backgrounds. We are exposed to all sorts of age groups, religious persuasions and life attitudes each and every minute. This cosmopolitan environment requires each of us to be able to demonstrate some awareness and sensitivity to other culture groups.   

Personal & Leadership Skill: Collect, Organise, Analyse and Critically Evaluate Information Regardless of the position we hold at work, we all deal with information daily. A massive amount of information is passed back and forward on a moment by moment basis. Information and its assimilation is big business. If you are in business, if you work or even as a student, you will constantly deal with this skill. Efficiently collecting, organising, analysing and critically evaluating information can mean the difference of starting a new trend in your industry or being a tail-end trend follower.

Staying Relevant In A Rapid Changing World The pace of change is fierce and constant. A leader, a manager and even an employee has to develop a serious passion for change in order to remain current and relevant over the lifespan of their personal career. As simple as this may seem at first, it requires a mindset that is focused on development. Random and haphazard development is not sufficient to keep you up-to-date. The development should be specific and purposeful.

What is “Life Average?” Each of us has a list of responsibilities and roles that we perform every day. The number of roles will vary from person to person depending on age, ambition and personality traits. For example: you could be a child, a parent, an employee or an employer. Maybe you are sporty and hold some activity roles too. Perhaps you are a spouse, or maybe you are single. All these roles work together to form our own identity, who we are, and will shape our personalities.

Sitting in a meeting about culture, the Logistics Manager blurted out: I hate it when employees say ‘The Company should’, or ‘you should’, never taking ownership of their jobs or showing loyalty towards the company.   The manager had moved herself up in a medium sized pharmaceutical company, a family business, from receptionist to Logistics Manager in a few short years. She didn’t get the sympathetic and understanding response she was hoping for.

An ‘Us’ vs. ‘Them’ culture is more than just a un-resourceful state for a team to be in, it is a team culture that can leave a trail of failed goals and broken dreams in its wake. The ‘we’ team appears greater than the sum of its individual parts, producing results that are bigger than the collective effort. The individual’s sense of belonging to the team is the culture every leader should strive to accomplish.

Business is a cold hard world of facts, calculations and evaluations with little tolerance for esoteric philosophies. Life Coaching and leadership, on the other hand, fundamentally believe in the unseen. Potential, beliefs and attitude are un-measurable forces that drive the existence of Life Coaching and leadership. As a Life Coach, we owe it to the business community to make the process and principles less ‘up in the air’, and a little more ‘concrete’. Dealing with Potential is just such one area that needs to be reviewed in Life Coaching. The Business World believes that Track Record is what determines someone’s worth, and not their latent Potential. This article serves not to evaluate the ‘truth’ within the statement, but rather to pose a question: If that was true, how would a Life Coach deal with this ‘reality’?

Life and Business coaching became an international “buzzword” concept in the early 90’s. As a psychologist, counsellor and pastor, I spent much of my time educating people on the concept of what is a life coach. Today coaching is common in the workplace, yet the need to define what coaching is has now come full circle. Sports coaching is well understood and an easy example for us to investigate. A sports coach passes on specific techniques, designs and oversees the athlete’s training schedule and confronts un-resourceful mindsets to replace it with motivated attitudes.

Life coaching should be a collaborative experience, a shared responsibility between the coach and coachee. The responsibility of the coach is to identify weaknesses in mental process, and change them for to the strong processes, allowing the coachee to actively pursue and achieve their dreams. The coach/coachee relationship is a delicate dance of outcomes, observation, trust and curiosity that could last from just one project to a life time of achievement.