My last Business Building Class… for now

Today I had my last required Business Building class at ICA. I am having a lot of “last” this or that, lately, since I am approaching the end of the graduation requirements. I notice that on some classes I am not paying as much attention as I may, perhaps because I am quite busy with the other requirements, and with getting my business off the ground. I feel at times that I am just checking off one class after another. Not somewhere I want to “be” often.

Today I asked a question to the class, and we used it as the issue for the class to coach, ask, etc. I have written a 4 page article for a magazine geared towards my niche (SME) and I am looking for how I can maximize or leverage the exposure I can get from it.

A lot of great ideas and coaching questions came up, with people asking clarifying questions, and powerful ones, and also some BIG thinking. So while a lot of the questions I had more or less thought of, or considered, there were a lot that I had not, and I now have a new take on some exciting possibilities:

• Send the article or a link to it to all my contacts (clients, friends, prospects, etc.)
• Use it as an excuse or reason to contact Industry Associations and offer a follow up free seminar on “how to…. ” related in some way to the talk — perhaps how to develop the Entrepreneur’s mind and stop letting your business run you. From the seminar, I would get contacts…
• Contact a radio Station with economic slant and see if they would be interested in having me on (coach and author). They need to fill their space
• See other periodicals?
• Contact the Spanish Coaching Association?
• Check out Internet-based Business Radio shows — Remember I am not limited to Spain!!!
• Check out Internet Article database, or similar, ehow was particularly mentioned
• Important to see that the problem of the client is clearly spelled out for him (do it now for the subhead). The idea is to engage the reader in a big way.

Additionally to this, someone mentioned that I should keep in mind that, even in Spanish, I am not limited to Spain, so I should modify my website metatags, etc., to be found by people from other Spanish-speaking countries Coaching in Spanish, or Spanish coaching, or something of the sort.

As an aftermath to the description of today’s class, I wanted to add that one of the things I am planning on doing is attending Business Building Classes and CoP classes whenever possible, since it is allowed by ICA. I think they are an incredibly rich resource.

I am also “better late than never”, starting to include pictures in my blog, and I will today try to include links…

Birthday

Cracked armor plate

Today it’s my birthday and it started as a gray and rainy day. And also a bit of a rainy and melancholy sensation inside. Time goes on and here we are, doing the best we can.

It’s interesting to see how the sensation of moving in a direction can, at times, alleviate the lack of meaning in our lives. It’s only when something invites us to stop and reflect that we can see it. No wonder that most of us try to avoid it at all costs!

I am reminded of Viktor Frankl and his book “Man in search of meaning”, and of the tenets of logotherapy. As I understand them they say that it’s important to give meaning to what we do. I think that this means that things do not have meaning: we have to give it to them. And activity can involve us in a sort of hypnotic trance that allows us to just go on.

Phone calls, and congratulations…The sun is coming out now, but inside it is still cloudy. Maybe my spirit is looking for some down-time…

Fall is here… on the way out of ICA?

Fall is here

I just got my marks for my Research Paper! and in spite of comments that I heard, it was very thoughtfully commented and marked. Thank you Dr. Vaughan!

I am on my last leg of preparing everything for my assessment and in order to try to graduate in December. I have the feeling that I am rushing a bit through some of the classes, and dedicating less time to the modules that I would like.

I have also done my first draft on my Power Tool, but I am working a bit without knowing what is expected from me in the way of length, structure, etc. I think that the most challenging thing left for me is the Coaching Model, with which I am stuck for quite a while.

In a previous post I mentioned “the listening place” which is become so important in my ICA coaching. From there, an intuition seems to build as to what should be done, asked, suggested. And I choose to believe that it is the client who is telling me this, throught the undercurrent of communication that exists between people.

Well, with regards to coming up with new ideas, there is a similar place. I would not call it a “listening” place, except that it would be listening for my own intution, my own storehouse of creativity. It’s just allowing it to come up, without forcing it, by just being open to hearing that voice. This is how the idea for the Research Paper came to me, and how the idea of the Power Tool surfaced. I am waiting for the Model, and I hope it comes in time!

I was listening again to the criteria for self-assessment of journalling, and I did not remember that there was an aspect of linking to other blogs, etc. that was so important. I have not done any of that, and will have a poor mark, but I take it as a learning step. I am beginning to be much fonder of blogging than I was.

All this brings me to the main thing that I am developing in ICA: finding that place from which I am in contact with a special kind of knowledge (dare I say wisdom?) that tells me what is appropropriate, that chooses what knowledge I should now use, what I should say, or what I should not say. The place of quiet, of being in the wave of being… how difficult to explain.