Kent Blumberg

Can you describe your ideal client?

Over on Career Hub, Billie Sucher wrote about what constitutes a good client for her. That got me thinking about the same question for me (answered below), and about you.  Who is a great client for you?  I'm not talking traditional market segmentation here.  Rather, the question is, "What client behaviors do you love, and which do you hate?"  Read my list, check out Billie's list, and then figure out your list.  Please share your list in the comments section, if you like.

Invest in all areas of your life for enhanced effectiveness

I work with business owners and entrepreneurs, helping them achieve their business goals.  Inevitably, that means we work on other areas of life, too.  You see, we bring all of ourselves to our work.  If we are dissatisfied with any other area of life, it will inevitably impact our ability to meet our business goals.

The Wheel of Life (see the picture to the left) is a great tool for exploring our level of satisfaction with eight areas of life and deciding where to increase our investment of time, energy and money.

Here's how you can use the wheel in your life.

What you tolerate can sap your energy and effectiveness

What are you tolerating?  What bugs you at home, at work, in your community?  Many of us spend much of our energy and time dealing with things, people, behavior and situations that we tolerate.

It doesn't have to be that way.

As we eliminate the things we tolerate, we will find more energy, we'll be more effective at work and at home, and we'll be easier to work with.

Here's how to do it.

Two models for coaching your direct reports

In recent reading about coaching I've come across two models that you might find useful in developing the folks on your team.  Both models represent personal change and growth as occurring at a number of levels, each one deeper than the last.  In both cases, you ask at which level you are hoping to see an employee grow, and then intervene appropriately.

Are you coachable?

Are you coachable?  Are you at the point where you can benefit when your boss tries to coach you toward better performance?  Are you ready to get maximum return from working with a professional coach?  Take the short assessment below, which is from Coach U's Essential Coaching Tools: Your Complete Practice Resource (Wiley, 2005, 518 pages), to find out.

15 reasons you don't need a coach

If these15 statements are true for you, you might not need a coach.  If, on the other hand, some of these are false for you, scroll to the bottom for links to coach directories.

Instructions:  Print this out.  Read each statement.  Black out the "[T]" if the statement is true for you.  Black out the "[F]" if the statement is not true for you.  Step back and sort out what it all means.  And then see the coaching directory links for help.

Dave Krueger on resisting change

Dave Krueger, in addition to being a friend, is an experienced and accomplished mentor coach, and Dean of Curriculum for Coach Training Alliance.  On this week's drive to Houston and back (four hours one-way), I listened to Dave's great set of CDs about coaching professionals.  One quote, among many, stood out as worth sharing with you:

"If we find our selves resisting change, it's already occurred."

What does that mean to you?