po10shall - Certified Personal Performance Coaching

Well there is left over bread sauce in the freezer and the decorations are all boxed up, we’ve lost and gained pounds  over the holiday - in money and weight (lucky you if it was the other way around!),  the ponies in the field are clamped against the hedge sheltering from the wind.  It is grey outside and there is a leak in the copper pipe under the concrete floor in the dining room. - Happy New Year!! 

 Ten days into 2008 and the pipe is fixed, the kids are back at school (shame - I love the holidays) but I am enjoying peace and quiet and looking forward to what the next few weeks will bring - working, playing - I am thinking of joining the local hockey club.   Apparently they aren’t adverse to gaining old fogeys like me.  A very tolerent crew!    What is next for you?  A client of mine has reached the top of his profession and is hitting  a mid-life crisis.  He says it is exactly the same feeling one feels if they haven’t achieved anything at all .  This reinforces our constant need for goal setting or enforcing resolutions and especially at this time of year, personally or within a business.  I don’t know who wrote this quote on Perspective but I thought I’d include it in the post  “Step back.  Imagine the possibilities.  Create the plan.  Enjoy the process.  Relish the outcome”  What’s next?  What outcome would you like?

I have just been flicking through the documents on my computer and found a self portrait that I wrote for a charity called the Oxford Muse.  When clients come to coaching often they have to divulge details about their lives - I thought  this very honest portrait will give a little insight into me. - it was written in April 2005  some things have changed -  my learning and more coaching!  ….. it is about 2500 words so if you are in for the long haul i’d go and grab a cup of coffee first…..

My surname originates from Belgium - my husband’s father came over at the age of 7 as a refugee from Brussels in 1939.    I was christened Fiona Carolyn Hair, the day after there was a disagreement between by parents and a compromise of Lyn was made from that day on.  Hair wasn’t the easiest of surnames to keep.  I gained the nickname of Pube for two years at “A” level college!  Terrible as it might sound I actually used to sign my Christmas cards with that name and those school friends still call me that now!    Wesemael, although more difficult to spell is deliciously unusual and a demands a different kind of attention!My parents moved from the borders of Scotland in 1963 to look for a job.  It is a pity I have no accent.  I feel honoured to have originated from S

cotland.  I love the northern attitude – pragmatism, sense of family, responsibility, unpretentiousness, simplicity. We finally settled in Gloucestershire - Stonehouse Nr Stroud. .  Wonderful to grow up like that - lots of ponies and animals but a little isolated.  Still I was a content child with two younger brothers that forced a cricket bat into my hand and bowled wickedly hard at my head until I managed to connect the bat earlier.   We had a privileged and wonderful time with a Dad who made a lot of money very quickly - at the age of 27   who was the most talented kind funny and generous man but whom emotionally had a tough time, and died in a car accident in 1992.   He was an enormous influence on my life.  The most enormous capacity to entertain, to bring joy, charisma and sometimes he gave so much that the family came second.  There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that he loved my mother and his three children.  No life insurance and everything owned by the bank meant complete clear out of property and possessions.  We learnt very quickly how to prioritise our lives! “A” levels were a time for me to grow up.  I had been successful at a girl’s school and was moved to my brother’s school.  My results fell; I developed a healthy social life and fell in love with the head boy.  Writing this takes me back to an amazing time in my life.   I still have friends from that school year that I see every year and keep in touch with.  We were The Incredibles!  At the end of the first year we lost one of our truest mates in an accident.  I think it brought us together.  We experienced loss aged 17 together.    I have had so many jobs since I left A level college, never on one area - always a ‘can do’ personality  I  worked in the financial sectors in Lloyds of London as an assistant underwriter  for 2 years – in the Albery theatre working for the most wonderful man putting shows on in 7 of the West End haunts.  I ended up suffocating in London so decided to disappear for a while…  Travel helped me to grow.  I travelled by myself which I knew meant that I would have to speak to more people which would extend me.  I travelled to Newport Rhode Island, Boston, rode horses in Virginia, strolled in museums in Washington DC, and stayed with an 86 yr old grandmother (who still holidayed in the Himalayas) in Los Angeles.  I taught her grandson to ski.  I then went to Australia and farmed cotton in Warren NSW, cooked for sheep shearers, rode quarter horses on a station South of Sidney, I slept in a log cabin, sold encyclopaedias.  It was the most amazing year of my life. If I was still there how would my life have changed? 

Sidney was one of the most amazing cities in the world for me.  I worked in the financial district there as a bookkeeper and swam in the sea every evening.   When I came back I spent 6 months as a chalet girl in Verbier, I lived and worked in a pub outside Cirencester and ran one my father’s hotels in S

cotland. I finally ended up moving back to Gloucestershire buying a tiny cottage in Tetbury and living there by myself. In my late teens and early twenties I had  bad relationships  with the wrong people.  So I stopped having or looking for a relationship.  I was 5 years on my own in a there.  Loving the people around me, enjoying a social life but not diluting myself.  Amazing way of explaining I just wanted to be me and find what I needed.  Settle my life.  Friends told me to be careful that I didn’t end up an old spinster!  There was that fear – but worse was the one that I end up in the wrong relationship.  My parents life together was never an easy one, perhaps that was the reason why.     I was sometimes lonely but not often – I enjoy my own company. A sense of unimportance and insignificance makes me feel lonely.  Whether I am in a group of people or on my own.  Our own thoughts can make us feel lonely just as effectively as if someone decided to criticise destructively.  What makes us feel important?   I always need to write things down – Dad always told me to see myself from 10,000 feet.  That objectivity has always helped me.I have faults – lots - I am impatient and get frustrated.  I tend to think out loud.  I am becoming a better listener.   I think in the present using the past to form the future.  I am a generalist – my curiosity has taken me to different countries to different places, meeting different people and my expectations have always always been met.  I believe that if your expectation is that you will be on your own for the rest of your life then that will happen.   I believe that if your expectation is that you are going to be someone great or achieve something great then that will happen – to the extent that you honestly truly believe that.  It is possible for me to make any choice that I want to. Within the constraints of the family!! My father died in August 1992 – in 1993 I met my husband and was engaged 3 months later.  It wasn’t love at first sight it was a sweet, stable, funny comfortable courtship.  Still is!  I find all relationships tend to go in waves.  Even my relationship with my husband, which has matured and nestled into its own little corner of delight, impatience, frustration, faithfulness and laughter, begs me to ask the question whether humans are meant to be monogamous? What is it about human nature that I find so absorbing?  That is what motivates me.  I love meeting people from different walks of life, colour, and class – boy I hate that distinction, mental capacities.  I love to make individuals feel important, capable, move them forward, able to achieve what they want free, bring joy.  I am an activist and I have hugely diverse open opinions but I don’t understand politicians.  My fears have definitely diminished with age.  I was incredibly sensitive – hugely fearful and that was seen as a very weak quality by my mother.   I needed acknowledgement – that I was worth something to her.   Maybe that is why I have such a distracted relationship with her.   A parent’s love is different to love for your partner I think.  I love excitement frivolity with my partner and seek stability for my children.   I tell them they are loved every day.   I was and still am a sensitive person but I spent too much time trying too hard to think my way out of a situation instead of just doing. I don’t think my tastes have changed that much over the years.  I would be hard put to write down what my tastes are because of the fluidity of my attitude to life.   I like a flexible life. Change doesn’t really bother me but I am always keen to have a stable roof over my head nowadays.  Perhaps that is why I get so exasperated when our beloved old house leaks!  I like to have a clean house but it is my husband that is fastidiously tidy.  I say I bring a little chaos into his life.   He agrees!  I love learning about everything, about people colour, food, anything that brings your senses alive.  As far as opinions I think I am intuitive enough to go with what feels right accept what I want to and leave the rest behind – whether that is spiritually, in friendships, relationships, or to help and heal people.  I would like to be more knowledgeable on history and politics.  I feel lonely when people are having a conversation that I cannot take part in - they are obviously delighting in the detail.  Me?  I might read the odd historical novel, beautifully written about a silk merchant’s daughter who was engaged to Napoleon and was ceremoniously dumped for Josephine.  Biographies fascinate me but why do I enjoy the life of the eccentric actress Tallulah Bankhead rather than George Elliot?   I would like to be more knowledgeable about how the world operates, human nature, animals, and the planet as a whole I think.  Where are we from?  I love learning about art, stories.  I don’t like having enemies – if I have any strong discussions then I become deliberately direct, keep open communication and listen.   My mother would be the person I would love to truly have an open conversation and find a deep bond with.   I can do that with my husband, my children and our extended families and my spaniel Stanley!  Trust and loyalty are so important to me that when that is lost I steer well clear.  I manage to free myself usually by letting go, forgiving.    I know that is hard to achieve.  I visualise any adversaries as little children- they cannot help what they do.  I have faith in my choice and way of being.  That is my way of breaking resentment.  Is that the right way?  I am compassionate and passionate but if I feel I have been taken for granted, or anyone else, then my thoughts turn inside out.    I do enjoy my own company.  Moments of quiet meditation are usually only found on first waking nowadays.  I feel at home wherever or whenever I can completely understand the person I am with.    Talking or not.  More languages would enable more communication.   Though, I have a Christian friend who goes to a silent retreat and says she understands everyone there totally by the end of a week without exchanging a word.  I am becoming more tolerant of difference as I get older.  I have mellowed, and look curiously rather than petulantly.  I have spent more time with people with mental disabilities mild and extreme as well as helping at my children’s primary school.  I am so lucky to have so much.    I have been lucky enough to have had some amazing conversations in my life from people from all walks of life.   One of the most amazing was with a couple from the east of London whose only son was very bright.  They had put no pressure on him – they both worked in an ice cream factory – but accepted that he should be put forward for a scholarship to a school that would extend him.  He at the age of 9 won the full fees Kings scholarship to Eton

College.  It was fascinating talking to these wonderful cockney parents whose love had supported and let go of their most precious being.  They told me he might speak differently and lives and works in Belgium but he’s a fantastic son and during all those years at

Eton they were treated with the utmost courtesy and respect.   Also how startling was it for my then 6 year old daughter to be told by a six foot tall broad 37 yr old man with learning difficulties that the reason he sucked his thumb was that “everyone needs comfort - some show it, some don’t – I do!”  She agreed readily and wouldn’t leave his side for the rest of the day.    The most difficult conversations I can ever have are with people who have experienced loss.  I seem to feel how emotionally tied up they are and it paralyses me.  I think about people, human nature and the way we sense, feel, and think.  I have no real interest in studying jargon but maybe a psychology degree would help me understand more – Talk of politicians, fighting, argument makes me melt and drains me of all energy.  I can’t sleep if I watch the news at night.  I know life interests and animates me also reading and absorbing knowledge but nothing makes me more fanatical than stories of people being taken advantage of or being taken for granted.  I know we all choose our own way.  Blame and guilt are the biggest waste of time.  Why judge?  If you have a problem with me, tell me……, gently.  I would hate for you to hear me say anything to someone else that I couldn’t say to your face.  Money – an endlessly absorbing topic of conversation for most people.    I have a healthy relationship with it.  If I have money I spend it.  If I don’t I stay in. It cannot bring things like trust or forgiveness.  Could money buy it?  My interest in life and people is endless…. I am comfortable with my own company but also have some very special friends.  My past has taught me many things, my present is wonderful.  I have never felt freer at any time in my life than now within my marriage.  Hugo was the first man who told me to cry if I wanted to, to feel and be me without a jealous bone in his body.  He allows me to be me within an extremely faithful marriage though it is good to go out dancing with the girls!!  My future? Who knows!  My friends bring mutual enjoyment, trust and laughter.   Humour is important to me.  It can dissolve tension. The uncertainties of the future I am rational about as I think it is all laid quietly out for us by a Higher Power, God or whoever we may choose to name as our creator.   We can make our own luck.  Trusting my own intuition maybe that is what I mean.  In my late teens, I felt suffocated I didn’t know which way to go and panicked over that.  I remained stuck.  Whereas I should have just remained fluid.  I wasted more time lost in self analyses rather than moving towards where I’d like to be then than at any time in my life.  Now, 20 years plus on I value every hour.  When my children awake and spontaneously tell me that they love me – that brings me pure joy.  If there was anything missing in my family life it would be the presence of my father.  I can just visualise him leading my young son astray but the amount of love he had to give was limitless.  There is no doubt I still miss him. To complete for now – I would love to feel secure about my children’s education and future.  Their choice or ours I truly hope it is the right one.  I have been extraordinarily lucky as far as health is concerned.  I aim to stay bright and aware and inquisitive.  I aim to still love, be passionate about sport of all kinds; reading, riding horses, and think of others.  I have given up on little – apart from winking with my left eye!  Now what is that meant to mean?Sometimes I’d like to hold time.  My children are growing up so quickly. 

I have just spoken to a 70+ friend who still lives life to the full.  He told me his philosophy is to always be a can do person and live by the quote”Yes - now What is the question?”   By saying “no” sometimes we worry about whether we have hurt feelings, we may feel guilty for not agreeing and wrestle with our decision for ages afterwards. - That may be the case for saying “yes” but it’d be fun to use that sentance without having any clue as to what you are being asked!  I am going to try it this week and see what happens.

I was thinking about this the other day.  We do forget to look after ourselves because of the day to day running of businesses and life per se.   We book our cars in for an MOT and have it serviced - treat the body of the car well  to carry us to every destination safely and efficiently - how come our mental and physical wellbeing is so easily forgotton?  Time to relax and be a little like the passenger in a taxi.  Tell the taxi driver where to go and sit back looking out of the window and have faith that he is going to get me there.  We should maybe do the same with our goals.  Make sure categorically we know where we want to go, relax, and have faith in ourselves. 

…A great question if you are not a child answering Mum for not having a bath.

 In a coaching context ….  a client this morning stated, “Lyn,  thank you so much!  I have been quoting you all this week.”

“Oh? and which words were they?”   I asked smiling momentarily flattered.

“So What?”  -  

“By asking myself those two little words  my entire outlook on chatterbox time consuming mind talk has changed.”  It has kept me out of the detail  and into my vision.”

It is amazing how those little words that we would have been cuffed for as children can be useful for a top salaried director.  Freeing our thinking can give us more control and time to focus on what is important. 

As  Christmas trees are advertised I am reflecting on 2007 and realising I have learnt so much.   I have successfully coached business start-ups and  individuals on career and life paths  - I have moved house twice - to rented and out again. Changed areas, kids schools,  lifestyle, filled and painted windows, volunteered for a local special needs teaching course, started a painting class      What have I learnt?  To slow down! I also gained much from a story Peter Thomson sent me about the Mexican Boatman………An American investment banker was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked.Inside the small boat were several large yellow-fin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.The Mexican replied, “Only a little while.”The American then asked why didn’t he stay out longer and catch more fish? The Mexican said he had enough to support his family’s immediate needsThe American then asked, “But what do you do with the rest of your time?”The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take a siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos, I have a full and busy life.”The American scoffed, “I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat. With the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery.You would control the product, processing and distributionYou would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually NYC where you will run your expanding enterprise.”The Mexican fisherman asked, “But, how long will this all take?”To which the American replied, “15-20 years.”“But what then?”The American laughed and said that’s the best part. “When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions.”“Millions. Then what?”The American said, “Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take a siesta with your wife, Maria, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos.”     

 Peter used this story to become more efficient with his time, he realised some of his goals had already been achieved and now challenges himself to earn the same amount but with  extra holiday each new year.  I used this story to realise that I am a little like the American.   As Ken Blanchard says in “putting the One minute Manager to work”  we spend all our time looking for another management concept and very little time following up the one we have just developed.

I have just listened to Peter Thomson’s  Best Kept Secrets of World’s Greatest Achievers Programme after driving through all the rain up north over the past two days.

I believe this is invaluable to anyone starting up in business, coaches, entrepreneurs alike.  I really enjoyed the interviews,  particularly on discussing attitude. 

It reminded me of a time when I was 17 and began helping my father in an engineering factory in Redditch in 1981.  Dad was having real trouble with the workers on the factory floor who historically had been chronically undervalued and were disgruntled over the  change in management and pay.   Communication had completely broken down.  You can imagine how I was received as the new Boss’ daughter who’d come to work for a couple of weeks in the accounts dept.  Dad, as a totally free thinker,  had tried speaking to the individuals, been seen on the factory floor, dealt with middle management but nothing had seemed to work.  We sat down and asked the question - how are we going to make these hard workers feel valued and start communicating?   My presence did not appear to be helping.  As far as they were concerned I had just walked into a better paid part-time “cushy” job in the accounts department.  How could I change this perception?  How could I help Dad best?  Suddenly the answer came to me.  I exchanged my skirt for a boiler suit,  bought some paint and brushes and started repainting the enormous ladies toilets on the factory floor.  Why?  The job needed doing.  It showed the boss’ daughter was willing to do a more demeaning job. They had to talk to me.  I joked that I would have to start on the men’s next!  The whole two weeks I painted.  Perception changed and new attitudes meant we all worked together to make the company successful, at every level.

I shall be using this programme often and you can be sure I will be recommending it to all the individuals and business start ups I work with. 

We had a BBQ at the weekend.  5 couples and their kids.  One couple who we hadn’t seen for ages are moving to America and currently living in a rented house.   After some conversation - One friend needed more space for their children and they think the rented house will be perfect for them and available at the right time and price.  I need a television, and fridge - they need to sell all their electrical equipment.  Obviously their car was to be advertised and another friend is looking for exactly the make and model of vehicle.  Amazing -  Our friends bound for America came to the party to say goodbye and sorted out half their logistical problems in one night as well as providing the answers to other peoples retail issues at the same time.   I love it when everything works out perfectly.  Or nearly perfect - the sausages were a little cremated.   Still who needs perfection?

Just trying to get to grips with my new blog

I come from Scotland where the communication is simple.    

It is business “jargon” I find so frustrating.  What is this “added value”? - used as an adjective I find particularly unusual.  Do I have to use my own vocal repertiore which might include “performance enhancement”, no “blobs” (inert employees) and in a great “customer surround” (environment to buy or sell)?  I had to buy a book to understand this new vocabulary -  Shoot the Puppy by Tony Thorne. It is excellent.   

 So I am off to knife and fork it as far as this blogette goes and feed the rat by going to see a few billies!    Let’s keep life simple.