intuitive Archives - Page 9 of 10 - Smart Coaching and Training | Business Support, Consultancy, Mentoring

09/01/2023 By David Rigby

Productivity and Wellness: Confidence, Communication, and Motivation

Productivity + Wellness = money

I am a great fan of the podcasts and programmes broadcast by BBC Radio 4 in UK. on these programmes I have noticed a great interest in the Productivity industry and the Wellness industry and how they are interconnected. To succeed in both of these, prerequisites are Confidence, Communication and Motivation. And together they can lead to collective effervescence.

Collective Effervescence

I have worked in 22 countries and accordingly the norms of behaviour are very different. Likewise I am aware that learning to communicate with people in a language is not their native one (or my native one) requires special skills. It helps to understand the constructs of their native language. Don’t assume that because someone comes from or lives in a particular country will be have in the stereotypical way. The majority of people in any country do not conform to national stereotypes and the best way of building relationships with anyone is by building cognitive diversity skills as well as intercultural skills.

Motivation is the first step

Unless you are motivated you won’t do anything. Getting motivated to get up in the morning is the first step to doing anything. Motivation leads to action and that’s the only way to get to results. Motivation can help get you better at something. Personally I struggled all my life with not speaking clearly and when I started my first job I was too shy to talk to people. I became motivated to improve my communication skills. Understanding my Cognitive Communication Profile helped me recognise that people prefer to communicate differently. I took the plunge to take public speaking classes. My confidence in speaking gradually improved, one baby step at a time.

unlease your motivation click to see more

ace your communication click to see more

confidence: strut your stuff click to see more

Confidence to speak to strangers

If you talk to a stranger at a meeting or party – what’s the worst thing that can happen? They ignore you. And you would be no worse off than if you did nothing . At best you can get a new friend, lover or work. Having the confidence to try new things, the confidence to fail and learn are skills on the road to success.

Motivation, Confidence, Communication – two ways to learn

Confidence, Communication and Motivation are fundamentals to success, to be productive and be well. We are running one day courses on all three in Morocco in March. Why not join us in the sun. See more here or click through on the icons above right. Or if not, the courses are available on line. here

At Smart Coaching & Training we have a diverse team of 20 associates in four continents speaking 11 languages. We pass the tests on diversity for sex/gender, race/ethnicity, sexuality, education, class, generation. and fail on the boring-interesting spectrum. See our associates here

10/11/2022 By David Rigby

Cognitive: the most important type of Diversity

Are you dancing? Are you asking?

What’s the difference between being asked to the dance and being asked to dance ? This is a well established and good example of explaining the difference between Diversity and Inclusion.

Go sort these women’s issues

Typically, the pale, male and stale brigade announce they have a woman or an LGBT person on the board and they are tasked with dealing with HR or other soft topics and never get asked their opinion let alone to manage with anything else as that’s straight man’s work. And it ticks all the boxes of their Diversity policy. None of the ticks in the Inclusion box.

People like me, people like us

Most organisations typically like to recruit ‘people like us’ so they wont challenge the status quo. Most individuals (and many organisations) have cognitive dissidence – not even realising that have biases let alone doing something to counter it.

You are black – therefore your politics are…

The furore about a recent ex UK prime minister’s non-white chancellor demonstrated that colour is immaterial to diversity if all about you were also educated at Eton. Another politician said , in effect , “All black people think like this (or should)”- unless they are from a privileged group and are not, or much less, oppressed. Some people think “All Spanish people behave like this”- but depending on social status or location may not. – ‘some’ Spanish people may, most probably don’t .

How many stereotypes do you belong to?

Stereotypes are the biggest disaster – for any category the majority just don’t fit because they also belong to many other types which may be more prevalent.

*David Rigby will be presenting at PSAx talks 26 November 2022 in Barcelona (see below)*

*David Rigby was an expert speaker in Jersey (UK) in Otober*

*Hear SCT associates David Rigby, Jessica Breitenfeld, Caroline Dreami, and Ian Gibbs and many other experts at this Barcelona event. – details below*

Gender and Sexuality – sorted – so we are diverse.

There are other types of diversity except gender and sexuality. And yet most of the talk is about these two. The woman’s lobby and the LGBT+etc lobbies have ensured that. And coming up a good third is Race/Ethnicity and country of origin. Is dealing with these enough ? – many organisations dont know any better.

Class, education type and education level, country of residence, age (generation), religion, culture, organisation all are different spectrums of diversity.

Neurodiversity and Worldview

And worthy of inclusion are NeuroDiversity and Worldview. Neurodiversity is used to explain the diverse ways of thinking, learning, processing and behaving. People who think differently can come up with different ideas. ADHD, Autism, Dyspraxia, Dyslexia, Dyscalculia, Dysgraphia, and Tourette’s syndrome are all examples of neurodiverse conditions.

Worldview is about values and cultural behaviours. The concept worldview usually refers to an interpretation of reality that provides an overarching framework for the constitution of the world or the cosmos. Various belief systems, religions, ideologies, and science itself are examples of worldviews that contain differing pictures of the world. All of us have different pictures – the more the pictures differ the more diverse the team. For example, the family is more important than the individual. Power is more important than doing the right thing.

Looking at different perspectives and listening to others – to make more money

The point about having a diverse and fully included team is that it looks at things from different perspectives. And research shows over and over that organisations with the most diverse teams are the most successful and profitable. Many people think they are diverse until someone challenges them with a different opinion.

Those who think logically typically take a different perspective compared with those who think emotionally. The extravert thinks differently from the introvert. Having a team or organisation with all these categories in various of the four combinations are the most powerful diverse teams you can have. This is called cognitive diversity.

Cognitive : Introvert or Extravert ? Logical or Emotional

Working with people who think and communicate the same way as you, regardless of their other diverse characteristics, will not get you the benefits of a diverse team. To get the benefits, above all, you need a team that is cognitively diverse. Just invite all the combinations both to the dance and also to dance . Read more here

At Smart Coaching & Training we have a diverse team of 20 associates in four continents speaking 11 languages. We pass the tests on diversity for sex/gender, race/ethicity, sexuality, education, class, generation. and fail on the boring-interesting spectrum. See our associates here

To attend the Professional Speakers Association (Spain) ‘s PSAx event in Barcelona on November 26th click here

09/05/2022 By David Rigby

LEGO®Serious Play®in practice

How can I build my team?

The serious business of play can be used to help individuals and organisations resolve issues and find a way forward. Techniques such as Team Coaching and Constellations have been used for many years to enable innovative thinking to be creative outside of the conventional box. Now, you can take a box of Lego and, under guidance, use the bricks to help find a way forwards.

How can I resolve team issues?

In LEGO®Serious Play® sessions, individuals construct their own models for specific topics and learn from translating their 3D creation into words, a surprisingly insightful process, noting how different people interpret the same instructions. Many people find it easier to express their emotions through a third party or vehicle rather than talk about them directly, and having a model facilitates this. There are also opportunities to model a future by building co-operatively, to allow the quieter ones to contribute at equal level as their more assertive counterparts.

*Ian Gibbs: simple models tell great stories . Barcelona April 2022*

*One of the groups at Jessica Breitenfeld’s H2BU studio Barcelona*

How can I plan my company’s future?

In April in Barcelona, Spain, Smart Coaching & Training ran a successful event with LEGO®Serious Play Certified Practitioners, Marta Odriozola and Ian Gibbs to demonstrate how Lego Serious Play works. Participants learnt how simple small pieces of coloured plastic can be transformed into a powerful way of thinking that can cross conventional boundaries and act as a catalyst for producing ideas that were buried inside them waiting to be discovered. You can see photos of how the individuals bonded and confidently told their stories to their team members.

LEGO®Serious Play® Workshops

SCT are now proud to offer a series of three five hour workshops to complete your understanding.

You can see them here

https://www.smartcoachingtraining.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/LSP-Team-Strategy.pdf

https://www.smartcoachingtraining.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/LSP-Company-Strategy.pdf

https://www.smartcoachingtraining.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/LSP-Identity.pdf

See all our workshops and short courses: https://www.smartcoachingtraining.com/what_we_offer/workshops-and-short-courses

And our longer Signature Corporate Training Courses: https://www.smartcoachingtraining.com/what_we_offer/signature-corporate-training-longer-courses-and-retreats

At Smart Coaching & Training we coach and mentor according to client’s need, matching the client to appropriate associate based on needs including location and language.

01/03/2022 By Ian Gibbs

Why I’m passionate about PLS

I wasn’t the ‘brightest’ of kids at school. I was good at Art. I could keep my head above water with Maths and Science. But everything else was pretty grim and I wasn’t happy about it.

Given that my home was at the bottom of the valley and my school at the top, it’s fair to say that my educational progress was an uphill struggle every day.

Focus on what you are good at

But in spite of my academic failings, I was persuaded, for better or worse, to drop Art and continue Maths and Science at ‘A’ level, a decision helped by the fact that Close Encounters and Star Wars came out that year and the idea of working for NASA seemed like a dream worth pursuing. And that’s when something remarkable happened. I suddenly became intelligent. All those numbers, formulas and laws started to click into place. I started to get it. My capability for learning grew.

Swimming pool full of mud

My confidence grew with it so much I practically ran up that hill each day. I left school with grades good enough to get into St. Andrews (the 3rd top university at the time) to study Astrophysics. I started university with the confidence of someone who was going to devour astrophysics and graduate with a glorious first class honours.

Unfortunately it was not to be. My newfound intelligence disappeared in first term. I went through university like Usain Bolt trying to sprint through a swimming pool full of mud. It was incredibly tough and I felt I had to study twice as hard just to keep up with everyone else. I did get my degree but not what I felt reflected my efforts.

The remarkable point of this story though, isn’t about the change of my academic abilities. The remarkable point is that nobody, not my teachers, not my parents, not even myself asked the question why? Why was I intelligent during ‘A’ levels and why not before or after?’. In fact it was only 30 years later on that it occurred to me to finally ask and answer it.

Are You Intelligent or do you just have a good teacher?

The answer was to do with something that few in education talk about.

When someone does well in a subject, we either justify it by saying they have a good teacher (school, coach etc) or they’re intelligent (bright, talented etc). Few people consider the third option: their learning techniques. Or in other words the way they learn – the strategy they use to combine the resources at their disposal to learn in a way that suits them. When done correctly, a Personal Learning Strategy can make a world of difference. Yet it too often gets overlooked.

And this is a pity because whereas we can’t genetically modify our intelligence or feasibly change teachers, we can easily change our learning techniques. During A levels I inadvertently stumbled across some great learning techniques. But because I didn’t recognise them for what they were I failed to maintain them through university and thus my university studies were much more of a struggle than they needed to be. I could have sailed through my degree, but I didn’t.

This missed opportunity has left me feeling frustrated, partly for my disappointing grades, but mostly for all other students, young or not so young, who could be reaching their potential if only they knew how to put together the techniques which suit them best. Trying to change this by raising awareness of the options we have and how to develop our own personal learning strategies to become better more quickly at whatever we choose has become my driving force.

When I see the difference it can produce, it makes me feel that getting out of bed each day is worth it. It makes them feel good and it makes me feel good, too.

That is why I’m passionate about personal learning strategies.

Still Not Convinced You need to learn how to learn?

At Smart Coaching & Training we coach and mentor according to client’s need, matching the client to appropriate associate including location and language.

17 associates; 4 continents; 8 languages.

06/01/2022 By Jessica Breitenfeld

Sell Yourself Authentically

How Can You Sell Yourself Authentically within the First Five Seconds of Your Video?

Potential clients want to know quickly if you are a good fit for their needs, so you need an emotional hook to keep them listening. In the coaching industry you are your product; you need to know your strengths, what your ideal client wants and be engaging enough to get them interested in listening to your video, hiring you and recommending you.

Grab Their Attention

Your first sentence must show that you understand your clients. Start with a fascinating fact or a surprising statistic, mention their problem, offer a solution, ask a question or hint at a story.

People hire coaches based on a feeling much more than on certificates or qualifications. They need to be vulnerable with you in their process and if they don’t like or trust you they will not progress. So, the big questions is: How do you get people to like and trust you in a short amount of time?

*Jessica Breitenfeld Smart Coaching & Training Associate*

*Feedback from Jessica’s remote training in Saudi Arabia for SCT*

Building Trust Has a Formula

Credibility + Reliability + Intimacy = Trustworthiness

As a Gestalt therapist, I have seen many situations where women have put up a wall to protect themselves from getting hurt emotionally. Yet this same wall keeps intimacy, love and deep relationships on the outside knocking to get in. The door cannot open without intimacy, honesty and being oneself. I have come to understand that the best way for you to be yourself is to be brave. How2BeYou was founded with the vision of helping women get their ideas heard. To do that, you need to have the confidence to be yourself in three areas.

Understanding what you offer gives you credibility. Once you become confident in who you are and what you are offering, getting your ideal client is easier online than it is at your local networking event. You don’t need seven billion clients; you need people who like you, relate to you and trust you to help them with their goals.

Building reliability comes from repeated exposure. One example is building a Facebook group. It’s easier and more comfortable to sell to your community than it is to your family and friends. You could give a workshop to build your YouTube library. People need to see you seven times before they buy from you, so video is the cheapest, easiest way to gain clients´ trust.

Intimacy is developed through being authentic.You have strengths and weaknesses and you are unique. What is it about you that your ideal client will relate to? Once you can show them that you have overcome the problem they are facing they will trust you and want to work with you.

Three tips on how to be visible and comfortable on camera:

Always be clear and know your audience so you know what to talk about.
Focus your topics on their pain points and their outcomes.
Have a solid structure that offers tips and a call to action.

Are You Ready to Really Connect with Your People?

I know you want to do it. It can be scary, but ultimately, it is the play button to success. Your business has the potential to take off when you use video content properly. Once you step outside your comfort zone, your comfort in that zone grows and naturally your confidence grows! When potential clients see you putting yourself out there, being you in all your “you-ness” they come to trust you.

Remember, you are your brand. You are selling a transformation that comes from working with you and only you. Being open and sharing more of yourself helps build credibility and authority in your specialty. It shows who you are and: the expert- having overcome the thing they are struggling with. Allow your personality to radiate through your videos, creating connections as you go.

Still Not Convinced You Are Ready?

Are you worried about that mean girl from high school commenting on your video?

There are three typical problems that were stopping my clients from making videos to get clients:

Imposter syndrome.
Uncertain about how to structure content.
Uncomfortable on camera with no real faces to connect to.

I felt like old friends might challenge me on who I grew into. How could I claim to be a motivational speaker? I used my techniques on myself. I overcame my imposter syndrome by applying the legendary LAB approach to my fears. I heard my doubts floating in my head, then trained myself to speak. I took courses, gave more than 50 workshops on Zoom this year, won contests in Europe and ta-da—the confidence and authority which I now have comes from being voted Best Speaker in Barcelona and second Best Speaker in the Professional Speakers Association London, UK. Having trained professionals like you for thousands of hours on five continents, I can confidently claim that I can get you heard on camera, in your relationships and in your career. I’m looking forward to hearing your ideas!

At Smart Coaching & Training we coach and mentor according to client’s need, matching the client to appropriate associate including location and language.

17 associates; 4 continents; 8 languages.

This article was originally published in Metropolitan Barcelona

Productivity + Wellness = money

Collective Effervescence

Motivation is the first step

Confidence to speak to strangers

Motivation, Confidence, Communication – two ways to learn

At Smart Coaching & Training we have a diverse team of 20 associates in four continents speaking 11 languages. We pass the tests on diversity for sex/gender, race/ethnicity, sexuality, education, class, generation. and fail on the boring-interesting spectrum. See our associates here

Are you dancing? Are you asking?

Go sort these women’s issues

People like me, people like us

You are black – therefore your politics are…

How many stereotypes do you belong to?

Gender and Sexuality – sorted – so we are diverse.

Neurodiversity and Worldview

Looking at different perspectives and listening to others – to make more money

Cognitive : Introvert or Extravert ? Logical or Emotional

At Smart Coaching & Training we have a diverse team of 20 associates in four continents speaking 11 languages. We pass the tests on diversity for sex/gender, race/ethicity, sexuality, education, class, generation. and fail on the boring-interesting spectrum. See our associates here

To attend the Professional Speakers Association (Spain) ‘s PSAx event in Barcelona on November 26th click here

How can I build my team?

How can I resolve team issues?

How can I plan my company’s future?

LEGO®Serious Play® Workshops

At Smart Coaching & Training we coach and mentor according to client’s need, matching the client to appropriate associate based on needs including location and language.

Focus on what you are good at

Swimming pool full of mud

Are You Intelligent or do you just have a good teacher?

Still Not Convinced You need to learn how to learn?

At Smart Coaching & Training we coach and mentor according to client’s need, matching the client to appropriate associate including location and language.

17 associates; 4 continents; 8 languages.

How Can You Sell Yourself Authentically within the First Five Seconds of Your Video?

Grab Their Attention

Building Trust Has a Formula

Are You Ready to Really Connect with Your People?

Still Not Convinced You Are Ready?

At Smart Coaching & Training we coach and mentor according to client’s need, matching the client to appropriate associate including location and language.

17 associates; 4 continents; 8 languages.

Contact Info

Recent Featured Posts click on pic to see title and connect to article

Social Media

We mostly post to David Rigby’s Linked In and Facebook

Instagram

Facebook