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In This Issue: Dr. Matthew James, President, Kona University, Author

Foundation of Huna: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Times. Page 4

Jim Stovall, “One of the most extraordinary men of our era.” S. Forbes

The Ultimate Gift. Page 12

Dr. Sharon Melnick, Founder, Direct Path Process Helping talented and successful people get out of their own way. Page 22

Kathryn Troutman, President, The Resume Place, THE Federal Job Guru

Everything you need to know about the federal hiring process. Page 30

Schelli Whitehouse, Visionary behind The Next Highest Version of Yourself Take your life and business to the next highest level . Page 38

Andrea Feinberg, President of Coaching Insight, LLC, Author, Time Junkies 101 Ways For Business Owners to Break the Habit and Get More Free Time Now.

Page 44

Paulette Rao, Principal True North Resources and Conscious Coaching Institute Consciously market - awaken to your sense of how you’re showing up in the world.

Page 52

Insights Expert Directory, Events and Resources Pages 57-59

Special Invitation to You—The Coaches’ Edge Extravaganza: The coaching event of the year– October 27, 2010. Page 60

A special thank you to Coaches and Media Personalities, Stacey Chadwell, Toni Reece and Donna Amos

Dr. Matthew James,

President of Kona University, the former American Pacific University. His new book,

The Foundation of Huna: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Times details forgiveness and meditation techniques used in Hawaii for hundreds of years. He carries on the lineage

of the one of the last practicing Kahuna of mental health and well being.

I: Of all the systems you have studied, you said that Huna is the most complete. What does that mean?

MJ: I would definitely say that it is one of the most complete systems out there, and

the main reason why is that Huna fortunately has an unbroken lineage, meaning that we can trace the people that I've studied with and who they studied with, and it goes

directly back to the time that these studies were actually practiced. Unfortunately in some places, there's anywhere from a 100 to 400 to 1,000 year gap because of

Western influence and the dismantling of ancient teachings.

I got to teach a son of a native Canadian chief, and he said in his own tribe and his own

lineage, it had been about 400 years of break between when some of these things were actually practiced and the expression now. We‟re very fortunate to have had that in

this isolated area out there in the middle of the Pacific called Hawaii.

I: I see. What does it mean to become an independent self-transformer? How is this different from other spiritual and human potential teachings?

MJ: First of all, the word Huna is a modern label, but it‟s a label that is for a system of

empowerment of the mind-body-spirit. So from the Huna perspective, you are this ho-listic being that has the ability to create change and transformation inside. My Ph.D. is

in psychology, so after having learned this Huna lineage back from the age of 13 – this is something that was passed into my family and that I live every day – it truly be-

came important to me understand the Western mind as well.

What I found in Western thinking and psychology is we tend to put the responsibility for change and transformation outside of us. We put the responsibility on the medical es-

tablishment or the psychological establishment, and truly from a Huna perspective, you do sometimes need help. You do sometimes need someone outside you to say, “Here's

the path, here‟s the next steps, here‟s my advice.” Ultimately the responsibility for change is yours, and it‟s yours because you have the power to create that transforma-

tion.

I: Many people still shy away from the term “spiritual.” What does spiritual mean in Huna, and why is Huna not considered a religion?

MJ: First of all, I agree – having taught thousands of workshops now, and I‟m actually

in California right now teaching a workshop here in Newport Beach, and enjoying the

group here – you get a wide variety of people that come to these workshops, and they represent how the public views of these types of teachings. I‟ve had people sit in the

trainings and say, “I don‟t like that word spirituality.”

I remember there was one lady – this was last year here in California – I said, “Okay,

you don‟t like spirituality – how about higher self?” She said, “No.”

MJ: I said, “How about Aumakua? It‟s the

Hawaiian word.” She said, “Not really.”

I said, “How about God?” She said, “No!”

I thought, okay, wrong way – so I said, “How about collective unconscious?”

She said, “Yes. I like that term. Love

Jungian.” I said, “Me too. All of them are the same thing. In fact, throw in there

universal energy or just Mana, Prana, Chi – any word for energy.”

She said, “How can it all be the same?”

I said, “It‟s just like how I am in my life. I run a University. I am a trainer. I am a

father; I have two children. I‟m a hus-band. These people that are in the various

aspects of my life look at me in a different

way, and yet I am one individual. These teachings that are spiritual by nature or

study energy, they‟re all sharing the same information, and I think we‟ve spent too

long in our lives arguing over whether this path is right or that path is right, and we

do a lot of that in Western thinking.

Huna truly doesn't care which label you use. The question is, are you beginning to

learn what this energy, what these spiritual teachings carry? Are you beginning to

learn how to incorporate them into your life? Many people are at this point.

I: You teach ancient Huna using modern

techniques. What does that mean, and does it dilute the original teachings of

Huna?

MJ: No. First of all, I don't believe it di-lutes it at all. One of my teachers, the late

Uncle George Na‟ope, who passed away last year, designated Huna a “Living

Golden Treasure” by our State Senate in Hawaii. He was a person from the age of

three until he passed away who really was

a spiritual leader, founded the Merrie Mon-arch Hula Festival.

(Continued next page.)

Dr. Matthew James continued…

MJ: He was considered to be the master of masters in the culture there in Hawaii. He used to ask groups of hula students, “Have you heard the song I Want To Go Back To

My Little Grass Shack?” (It‟s an old Hawaii song.) The audience would usually say,

“Yes, we have.”

He said, “Well, I don‟t want to go back to my grass shack. We live in a modern world.

I love my microwave, I love my TV, I love my toilet. We have these modern technolo-gies.”

So many people have begun to wake up and learn about things like energy, learn about things that help them become empowered, and rather than doing this with information,

rather than taking and bringing it into the now, who they are and incorporating it into their lives, they think it‟s about going back. We have to enjoy our lives and really, truly

embrace what we have, and take these ancient teachings that we have and bring them into our modern lives.

I do use things like quantum physics to explain many of these ancient teachings, be-

cause we have a wonderful, modern expression of our lives and we just need to tap back into some of these ancient wisdoms.

I: I can see; that makes sense. Use the old and bring it into the

new and create further.

MJ: That‟s why I called my book The Foundation of Huna: Ancient

Wisdom for Modern Times, because it‟s not about shedding our-selves of our PDAs or i-Phones or Blackberrys or computers. It‟s

about, do you every day tap into that energy that you have in your life? Do you every day tap into that empowerment?

Growing up in Hawaii, there was no class in school – even though I lived in a wonderful

place – there was no class that talked about here‟s energy. I never got that in college. I never got that in any of my studies, and yet people so crave energy. Even the people

that don‟t really know what it is, they‟ll still be drinking their espresso or their 5-hour energy drinks, and we crave it at the deepest level. It is time to learn about what this

energy is, and how we incorporate into our lives.

I: When you say the foundation of four truths that we must experience in order to cre-ate lasting personal transformation, what are those four truths.

MJ: Of course. I‟m a big fan of the Law of Attraction, and I know a lot of people are.

At the same time, I‟ve met a lot of people for whom the Law of Attraction doesn‟t work, and the reason why is that from a Huna perspective – and the Law of Attraction is

taught in Huna – you need to know certain things first.

It‟s like a foundation; before you realize that you can with your thoughts alone attract those energies to you, you have to understand cause and effect, that everything that

you do, all the decisions that you‟ve made, all your goals in the future do create a re-sult in the now.

-6-

MJ: Cause and effect is really the law that teaches you that you are responsible for get-

ting the results in your life. You need understand the Law of “perception is projection” which is called the Law of Correspondence, which means that the world reflects what‟s

inside you more than actually what is outside.

What does that mean? If you've ever woken up in a bad mood, the world looks different than when you wake up in a good mood. You wake up in a good mood, and the entire

world … how the weather looks, how your friends look, how you experience conversa-tions … you have to understand that. You have to understand the Law of Cycles and

Rhythms, that between these things that we've created, that there is a flow of energy, and it's a very cyclical flow, moving from a creation to a transformation and then to a

completion.

Finally, you would look at the Law of Attraction. If you don't understand that the world is a reflection of what you carry inside, that you are in charge of your results, and that

there is a cyclical energy experience, the Law of Attraction sometimes does not work.

While I‟m a fan of it, I always emphasize to my students, you can't just think happy thoughts and expect that something is going to happen. You have to do more than that.

You need to take action and really make sure that you align your beliefs and your knowl-edge with these thoughts.

I: There‟s also an energy to this as well, because it‟s been my experience from people

I‟ve talked to or worked with that your life path is there, and you may not understand why you‟re going through certain things or why what you‟re hoping for, wishing for, or

trying to attract in your life isn't attracting to you, there‟s a reason. Usually you‟ll find out maybe in five or ten years … I‟ve had somebody not find out until they were in their

sixties.

MJ: That‟s a great point. You‟re absolutely right. I was in San Diego and teaching one of my Huna workshops, and this guy comes up me, a wonderful gentleman, and he‟s

talking to me about how tough the economy is, and that he‟s read all of these books. He

said, “I‟ve even read the books from your students.” Some of my students have been out there – they‟ve written books, they‟ve been in some of these movies. He said, “I

really want to find out. I wanted to come to the source. What can Huna do for me to help me create my job here?”

I said, “Well, first of all, what‟s the problem? Give me some insight.”

He said, “Because of the economy, of all the jobs have left San Diego. All of the compa-

nies that were here are gone, and there‟s no more jobs here in my specific technology.” I can't remember it exactly, but it was this really specific position.

He asked, “What can Huna do for me?”

I said, “Here‟s what Huna would say – you have to move.”

He said, “Why can't I just think positive thoughts that the job will be here?”

(Continued next page.)

Dr. Matthew James continued…

MJ: I said, “Because they‟re not here. Will they be here in a year or two? Possibility. Are they there now? Do you need a job now?” He said, “They‟re not here now. I need

a job now.”

I asked, “Where are they?” He said that it was about an hour-and-a-half north up in

Orange County. I said, “Look, here‟s what Huna would say – no amount of positive thinking is going to get the job to appear there. Who knows why they left; it could be

an economic reason, there could be a life lesson for you. Huna would say move.”

He did. Drove down to San Diego on the weekend because he loves it there, emailed me and said that he got this lesson sometimes you just have to take action. Some-

times you just have to say, “Here‟s what I have to do to get to where I need to go.”

I: I appreciate that example. It was wonderful. There seems to be so much in com-mon between the people of Huna and quantum physics, but how does all of that knowl-

edge apply to us in our daily lives?

MJ: I love quantum physics, first of all, because I think it was Fred Alan Wolf, a really

well-known quantum physicist, who said that quantum physics has brought us back full circle. That the ancient teachings were prevalent on the planet about 400 to 500 years

ago, 1000 years ago in some locations, and that science took us away from that. Phi-losophy and science took us far away from these ideas, and that quantum physics has

brought us back full circle and has proven that at the deepest level of everything, there's energy.

Physicists now say that our entire physical world is based on energy. We‟re beyond the

point of arguing over whether or not things like energy – and the ancients called them things like Mana in Hawaii, (the word Mana meant energy), or Prana, or Chi – is there.

It exists. It‟s been proven by science. To take that even a step further now, people like Dr. Bruce Lipton have validated that our physical body responds to two things –

chemicals and energy. He went out to prove that it was chemicals that were the bigger influence, and found that is was actually energy that was the bigger influence. It trans-

formed his life.

When students come to me and they say, “I don't believe in energy” I reframe them

and say, “We're beyond that now. Energy exists. It's proven; we don‟t get to argue over that. What you're actually saying is I don't understand it. I've never been taught

this." I am seeing more and more students who are craving this knowledge of, “Okay I get it, it exists, it‟s real – how do I tap into it and work with it?”

I: Why do you say that physical manifestation is critical to any spiritual path?

MJ: This is something that I've been saying now for a good 10 years. I remember I caught a little bit of heat one time on a radio show, when I basically said that the

physical world is a good thing. You can't be spiritual unless you're successful, and that

I know that there are some systems out there that teach we should shed ourselves of the physical world.

-8-

MJ: From a Huna perspective, the son of one last practicing Kahunas, Papa Bray, who

taught my father Huna, he said, “We have a physical body. We have a physical world. It flows from that energy that comes from spirit, and therefore it is an expression of

spirit, and that we are meant to learn to deal with it.”

If you‟re going to build a house, the first thing that you put down is a foundation. The physical world is our foundation. I teach people all the time, a spiritual path includes

learning how to get really good at manifestation. How do you manifest your money needs and resources in order to progress down the spiritual path? I believe that it is a

good thing to have that control, because it becomes your foun-dation and it allows you to then move up to spirit.

I: What is the benefit of exploring something ancient like

Huna, as opposed to modern psychology and science?

MJ: I do agree that we are moving to a more holistic model. I

was teaching Huna – I think I must have been in Toronto, and this was back in the nineties now – and a person said to me,

“How do you know any of this stuff is real?”

I had spent my entire life up until that point just delving into these ancient teachings and teaching them, and the question

that he asked really got me going on a path of self-discovery and going back to school, getting a Ph.D. in psychology. One of things that I did while I was going back to school

was I looked at all of the different things that are out there to see if there is something better to teach. What I found was that Huna is not better than psychology, and psy-

chology is not better than Huna. If anything, it's incorporating both these ancient teachings and modern teachings, bringing them together to create a holistic approach,

a holistic model. I do believe it‟s important to study these ancient concepts, because they do help you incorporate it into your modern life.

I: What would you say to those of us that have tried a number of personal growth sys-tems, or spiritual paths, yet can't seem to find or make the changes we desire?

MJ: I say one simple thing. Whatever path it is at some point, you need to pick a

path. We live in a world that perpetuates this idea that we need to master all of these different things, and in actuality that old saying of “jack of all trades and master of

none.” When you attempt to do too many things, when you attempt to delve into too many paths, what happens is you never really go down one far enough to get a power-

ful experience in it.

Huna teaches that if you want to have the things you want in life, and I think that‟s what a lot of people are seeking – to have happiness, to have even the physical things

that we want to have – you first have to be doing what you‟re meant to be doing. You have to really be fulfilling your path; the expression in your career, in your relationship,

in your health and fitness. From a Huna perspective, though – and I know a lot of peo-

ple are out there teaching, “Here's how you figure out what you're meant to be doing.” From a Huna perspective, you can't begin to figure out what you‟re meant to be doing

unless you know who you are. (Continued next page.)

Dr. Matthew James continued…

MJ: You have to first be in that state of knowing who you are before you can learn what it is that you‟re meant to do. It‟s truly finding a path that teaches you who you are, so

that you can become that person, then what you are meant to do flows from that, and

what you are truly deserving and having comes to you, like the Law of Attraction talks about. I‟ve seen that with my students and friends and family that have learned these

things, that it really does help in that expression of having those things that you want to have.

I: I appreciate your taking all the time to explain Huna to us. I‟d like to ask you a few

questions about yourself. What inspires you, Dr. James?

MJ: I have to tell you, the first thing that pops into my head is my children. I love my two kids. I have a three-year-old who is going on, well I want to say 15, but really four,

and an 11-year-old, and to see them learn. My students inspire me. One of my stu-dents, a doctor here who his entire life studied oncology, a surgeon now doing research

in it came up to me at the end of the Huna workshop and said this information has saved him. I tried to downplay it, and he looked at me, and he said, “No – I‟ve lived this life of

stress and not knowing if I‟m doing the right thing, and believing that I had to fit into these social ides of what I‟m supposed to achieve. You have this car. You have this

house. That means you‟ve accomplished something.” He said for the first time, he feels like he has achieved wholeness in his life.

Those sort of things inspire me. I continue to learn and delve into my own studies.

What keeps me going and doing what I do are those experiences with my students, and

seeing my kids growing up and desiring to learn these things too. I find inspiration from a lot of places; those are two really big ones for me.

I: How do you inspire others and change their lives?

MJ: I‟ve taught a lot of trainers, and some of them are out there in front of large

groups, and I‟ve taught in front of big groups. I limit my trainings – we cap them at about 50 people. With the larger workshops that we do, the Huna workshop, we do al-

low it to go up to 100, but the new students, we cap it at 50.

There‟s a reason why. I do my best to inspire people not with who I am, not with what I've accomplished, not with what other students have done. I like to share with students

knowledge that they then can incorporate immediately in their lives. They then in the workshops have an experience of this energy, of this connection, of how powerful they

are, and that wows them. They become inspired by who and what they are, and they then in turn are inspiring, and whether that‟s because of me or the teachings, ultimately

I hope they see the bigger picture and that is that they inspire themselves.

I think that's always been my approach. I learned that at an early age, that if I wow someone onstage, that‟s all they‟re going to be impressed by. If I share a story of what

I've gone through and they‟re impressed by it, they‟re only impressed by me. When

they leave the workshop then, if I'm not there, the impression is gone. To inspire some-one is to inspire them as to how powerful they are, how empowered they are, and that's

always my goal and focus in a workshop.

I: So your goal and focus is to empower others so they are able to take themselves to

the next step?

MJ: Exactly, and I applaud whatever that is. There was a lady who came to our last workshop in Kona, and we walk across a volcano; we do a nice, safe, comfortable hike.

We meditate out there on the crater, and in case anyone who is reading this thinks it‟s near the lava flow – no, we‟re very far from the lava flow. It‟s dry, comfortable, and

safe. She‟s out there meditating, and as we‟re leaving the crater, she came up to me and she said, “I got a moment of peace in my life where I realized I'm truly responsible

for my happiness.”

That was it. No big “I made a million dollars.” Some of my students are out there teaching in front of tens of thousands – nothing huge like that; just a moment of, “I‟m

in charge of my own happiness.” She had tears in her eyes, and she said that was an “ah-ha” for her. A simple story like that to me is just as inspirational as someone who

has created a relationship or a ton of wealth in their life. It is just as powerful because

it's a moment where they realize how empowered they are.

I: I know you mentioned this a little bit earlier, but what made you choose this arena

for your life work?

MJ: This is what I love to do. It resonates with my heart. It fits with who I am. When people ask me how did that happen, I‟m more interested in how do you discover that

for you? What resonates with you, that you know it is who you are meant to be, and that you could walk away from it if you wanted to, but that ultimately you realize that it

is something that is more of a dharma, a path that you chose earlier. I think truly the idea is at the end of the day that you pick something and say this is for me. You know

there are other paths, and you delve into it. Everything you learn then becomes a part

of that path.

I: Where you look in the mirror and you see you are right with this. What was the word you use for that, the Hawaiian word?

MJ: The Hawaiian word pono. There‟s no good translation, but it‟s a great word. It

means to have that unwavering congruency in yourself.

Learn more about Huna and Dr. Matthew James

http://www.huna.com/ind.php?id=what

Jim Stovall

is the President of the Emmy-award winning Narrative Tele-

vision Network and also has been a National Champion

Olympic weightlifter. He is the

author of over 15 books, one of which is the bestselling book,

The Ultimate Gift, which is now also a major motion picture.

Steve Forbes, president and

CEO of Forbes magazine, says, “Jim Stovall is one of the most

extraordinary men of our era.”

For his work in making televi-

sion accessible to our nation‟s

13 million blind and visually impaired people, The Presi-

dent‟s Committee on Equal Opportunity selected Jim

Stovall as the Entrepreneur of the Year. He was also chosen

as the International Humani-tarian of the Year, joining

Jimmy Carter, Nancy Reagan, and Mother Teresa as recipi-

ents of this honor.

I: We are trying to help read-ers realize their greatness; not

only realize their greatness, but visualize their greatness,

and overcome the challenges that are getting in the way of

their greatness. My first ques-tion to you is, how did you

overcome your own obstacles

to realize your greatness?

JS: Well, you know, I had a

plan for my life when I was in my teenage years or young

adult. As many of you will re-

member, or those of you have teenagers, when I was a teen-

ager I knew everything and I was the most brilliant person

on the planet at the time.

JS: Someday I‟m going to write another book called “Stuff I Learned After I Already

Knew Everything” and that will probably be about a three-volume set.

When I was a young man I had no goal any more or less than that I was going to be an All-American football player and then go into the NFL and play for the Dallas

Cowboys. That was the whole plan for my life, and I was well on my way to doing that, when in a routine physical to go play a season of ball, I was diagnosed with a

condition that would and did result in me losing my eyesight and becoming a blind person. It may interest you to know at that time and to this very day, there has

never been a blind guy play for the Dallas Cowboys, so I realized I‟m going to have to do something else.

I finished my athletic career as an Olympic weightlifter, enjoyed that experience,

and then started my business career. I had to learn other ways to do things. All ob-stacles are an opportunity to learn a new way to do something, and my obstacle is

no greater or lesser than yours or any of the people you work with. An obstacle is

nothing more or less than the biggest thing it takes to keep us from where we want to be. Getting over that is not a matter of dealing with the obstacle, it‟s getting to

the bigger goal on the other side.

If I were to ask you can you climb a two-story brick wall and crawl into a window, you‟d probably tell me, “Probably not.” If I told you your youngest child is in there

and you‟ve got five minutes before they perish in a fire, you‟d probably get it done. I haven't changed the obstacle; I changed the goal on the other side.

So, anytime someone is begin bogged down by an obstacle, don‟t mess with the ob-

stacle, don‟t tell them it‟s not that big a deal, don‟t tell them they‟ve got to be an „over-comer‟, don‟t tell them any of that stuff – just make the goal big enough and

they‟ll get over it. When the dream is big enough, the facts simply don‟t count any-more. That would be the short and simple answer to that question.

I: Jim, you have shared with me a small goal at that time, which was huge for you,

which was getting to the mailbox at the end of the road. Can you share that exam-ple with our readers?

JS: Sure. I remember that morning, I woke up … I was age

29 when I finally lost my sight. It took several years for me to

go through my eyesight getting worse and worse, and then there was that morning I woke up and I was totally blind, and I

didn‟t know what I was going to do. The doubts and the fears and the despair that came over me then would be almost

impossible to describe to you.

As I said, I was 29 years old. I had never met a blind person, and I did not have a clue what I was going to do with the rest

of my life. The only plan I could come up with at that point was I moved into this little 9 x 12‟ room in the back of my house.

In my little room I had my radio, my telephone, and my tape recorder, and that was my whole world at age 29.

-13- (Continued next

Jim Stovall continued…

JS: I really fully intended to never walk out of that room again. A more helpless,

hopeless person you will never meet than I was then.

I stayed in there month after month after month, and finally with a lot of support and encouragement, I decided to get out of my little room. I wasn‟t going to go build a

television network or write a bestselling book or make movies or speak to a million people a year in arena events or make millions of dollars; the first thing I decided to

do was I was going to walk 52 feet to my mailbox. That was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life thus far.

Once I got to the mailbox, covered, drenched with sweat, just the anxiety level would be difficult to describe to you. As I reached out my hand and touched that mailbox,

my foot touched the curb there right at the edge of my street. Even though I had lived in that particular house on that street for over a decade, I discovered something

right there that I had never realized all the years I‟d had my eyesight – I realized that if I could get to that curb and make those 52 feet, then maybe other things were pos-

sible in my life. I discovered right then that I lived on a magic street. I realized at this point that that magical street I lived on was connected to another street which in-

tersected with still another, which would take me anywhere in the world I ever wanted to go; and it did, and it has, and it still does.

Great things happen, and the obstacle has never changed. I‟m still as totally blind to-

day as I was those years ago, but my whole world changed because somehow in the process of losing my sight, I was able to capture a new vision of who I could be. I

had to go through blindness to get a new vision. Hopefully you and your clients can

get a new vision for your life without having to deal with something so traumatic, but even if that‟s what you‟ve got to go through to get the vision, it‟s worth it. I‟ve lived

my life without sight, and I‟ve lived my life without vision, and vision is certainly a more valuable commodity. As precious as sight is, vision is worth more.

I: What you just said was so powerful about the vision being more important than

your eyesight. Along the way, what kind of support did you need to help you realize your vision?

JS: As an author now, I am embarrassed to say that prior to losing my sight, I don‟t

know that I ever read a whole book cover-to-cover. I read enough to get through school, and you do what you‟ve got to do. After losing my sight 20 years ago, I dis-

covered the National Library for the Blind which makes recorded books, audio books, available to blind people on special recordings. I helped develop a high-speed tape

player that would play it faster, so I can listen to my books now at 700 or 800 words a minute and through that process I was able to read a book every day.

There has not been a day since 1988 I haven't read a whole book cover-to-cover in-

cluding today. That has literally altered my life in amazing ways, because I found out that while I didn‟t have a lot of powerful friends and mentors at that point in time, the

biggest thing is I found was that the best and brightest and most significant minds

that had ever lived on the face of this plant were available to me anytime, any day, any hour. All I had to do was read a book.

JS: Now as a bestselling author people always ask, “How do you become a writer?” I

always tell them that you have to become a reader before you become a writer; that‟s what changed my life.

I think first and foremost was to find that inspiration there, and then I started learn-

ing from everyone. I took that quote, that thought from Gandhi, who said, “Every man is my superior and there is something I can learn from him.” Everyone has

something to teach us. Sometimes it may be as simple as that‟s not what I want to do, but they‟ve got something to teach us. If Tiger Woods didn‟t teach us all some-

thing recently, we need to reconsider that.

I: That certainly is a lesson for all of us.

JS: It‟s ironic, because sometimes when we have a good example we can sit around and debate what are the powerful points there, but boy when you get a bad example,

it‟s real easy to tell. We can all agree on where‟s the takeaway here.

I: Jim, do you find that there seems to be a running theme of what people are look-ing for in order to get to their greatness? Do you think that people actually realize

they can get to their greatness?

JS: I think deep down most people don't believe it. They believe the big lie. The big lie of humanity since the begin-

ning of time is that there's two kinds of people in the world; there‟s healthy, happy, successful, wealthy people

that get everything they want out of life, and then there‟s people like you and me and we just struggle through, and

this is as good as it‟s going to get, and they believe that big lie. If you believe it, it becomes reality. The perception

becomes the reality, and you‟re stuck with that forever. So I think deep down, no matter what they say, they say the

words that they think they‟re supposed to say and they clap and they cheer and they say that they believe it and

they write down their goals, but deep down they really

don‟t believe it.

Then there‟s a group of people that go to events, read books and get coaches and

mentors and all of these things, because they believe there‟s some secret out there they don‟t know yet, and if they just knew the magic word, then they would get eve-

rything they want. They don‟t understand – they already have it. The biggest dream

you or I or anybody will ever work with, ever had is still alive and well inside of them, and we are equipped with everything it takes to get from where we are to where it is,

we‟re supposed to be. The biggest dream came with everything it needs to manifest itself in our lives. Unfortunately, they‟re looking for some big secret bullet magic

thing out there that‟s going to happen to change that, and it doesn‟t exist. They already know what to do.

You know, most people that are failing today, it‟s not because they don‟t know what

to do. We don‟t fail because we don‟t know what to do; we fail because we don‟t do what we know.

-15- (Continued next page.)

Jim Stovall continued…

JS: There‟s no one listening to me now or no one that any of us will ever work with that doesn‟t know enough to get from where they are to where they want to be, and

have the capacity to learn along the way. The information is there. Unfortunately,

we don‟t do what we know. When we fail, if we‟re really honest with ourselves we knew better than that. Most people are not victimized by someone else. It‟s suicide;

we kill ourselves in all kinds of endeavors in life, and if we‟re really honest with our-selves, we knew better than that.

I: I think you‟re absolutely right. There is sometimes this fear or … I don‟t know if

that‟s the right word, but something is stopping them. There‟s a hesitancy.

Jim: Yes, I think so. I think they don‟t really believe they‟re going to get there and they‟re not committed to the way to get there. I spent the first half of my life with a

coach, whether it was a football coach or an Olympic weightlifting coach, and I mean we lived together. It wasn‟t his job to force his will on me or make me do something.

We had already sat down and we had agreed to a plan, and all he was helping me do was keep my word and keep my integrity in place and step out in this plan we‟re go-

ing to do.

He was a great old gentleman and a tremendous coach for many, many champions.

One of the things he told me, “We‟re going to sit down and come up with your plan, and then you and I are going to walk out every step of that plan, and you can change

the plan anytime you want, but not in the middle of it. We‟re not going to change the plan in the middle of a workout. When we‟re done, when we‟re rested, then we‟ll talk

about it.”

Vince Lombardi, who was one of the great coaches of all time said, “Fatigue makes cowards of us all.” That‟s true. Those doubts, those fears, those things creep in

when we get tired, we get fatigued, we get frustrated. In the middle of the process is not the time to be making some kind of decision. We‟ve already made the decision

about what we‟re going to do. The only decision we have today is are we going to do this or not, and a great coach holds that up to you constantly,

that this is what we have decided we‟re going to do.

I: So, as a speaker, do you have any suggestions, advice for

somebody who is not seasoned?

JS: I never intended to be a speaker. I‟m in the television

business. I run a television network. We have over 1,000 stations. We do 100 hours of original programming a month,

and that‟s my business. I think the thing that has made me successful as a speaker and an author is the fact that I‟m not

a speaker and an author; I run a television business. I can tell my audiences this isn't a theory for me. I‟m not a guy

that wrote a book or read a book 20 years ago and I‟m out making speeches on it. I will be back at my desk tomorrow doing the things we‟re discussing today. This is

real information to me, and I think that is a really important point.

JS: When I first started my company 21 years ago, I was going out selling the con-

cept to other cable systems to carry my network, and it‟s a tough business. All of a sudden a guy heard that I was the blind guy that owns a cable television deal, and I

was the Olympic weightlifting champion, and would I come and speak to the National Association of Broadcasters?

My thinking was no more or less than instead of selling these guys one-on-one all

across the country, they‟ll all be in one room and I‟ll just tell them all about it all at once. That was the sum total of my thinking. Right after that speech, I started. Sev-

eral people came up to me afterwards and I got a number of calls and letters, and other people asked me to come to their corporate events to speak. Before I knew it, I

just told my staff here in the office that we‟ve either got to do this or start telling eve-rybody no, because this is taking over the landscape. I had a marketing director, and

it‟s her job to kind of coordinate these speeches, and we try to limit it to three a month. We continue to raise the price to keep the volume at about three a month,

because that‟s about all I want to be out of my office and that really works well for me.

I would really recommend two things if you really want to be a speaker.

Explore the National Speakers Association; they have meetings all across the coun-

try. I‟m a member. I‟ll be at my meeting Saturday. There‟s about 30 profes-

sional speakers that live in Oklahoma here and we get together once a month and it‟s a great way to really treat this like a business.

There are coaches I work with … you can find out if you want to go on my website,

I‟m one of the highest-paid speakers in the country. I get $35,000 for an hour speech. It‟s a fabulous business. I‟m one of the top probably 30 or 40 speakers

in America, and I have a coach. I have someone I work with regularly who will come in and say that you‟re getting lazy here; you‟re doing that instead of this

– because when you do the same thing day after day after day you start cutting corners, and you don‟t even realize it. Continue to push me, continue to stretch

the envelope.

Those are two things I think are important, and then if you‟re going to do it, do it. I mean, really make a business out of it. There are two kinds of people in the speaking

business; there‟s a whole lot of people that are broke and struggling and they aren‟t

doing anything, and then there‟s a lot of us making a million dollars a year doing something we absolutely love. I would do this for free – I do it for free. One of my

rules is I make one speech for free for every one I get paid for. I may be in an arena in front of 14,000 people tomorrow, and next week I‟ll be in a third grade class talking

to some kids. Being able to be at the top of the profession on one hand enables me to go places I want to go for absolutely nothing and I give away my books and movies

and all the other things I do.

I: I think you also have a natural affinity for being up in front of an audience .

JS: Scares me to death. Every time.

-17- (Continued next page.)

Jim Stovall continued…

JS: Imagine, close your eyes, it‟s totally dark and you walk out onto a stage that‟s 82 feet wide and 41 feet deep, and you have to stay in this certain area in the middle be-

cause you‟re on a big screen above everybody else and there‟s all these people out

there, and if you go too far forward, it‟s a 12-foot drop to the concrete floor. It is ter-rifying; it is like going down the scariest ski slope. It is terrifying, and then once you

get done, you can't wait to get up there and do that again.

I: So you‟re an adrenaline junkie?

JS: Yes, absolutely.

I: What has inspired you most?

JS: I am fascinated with people that look at the whole world as a smorgasbord and they can do anything they

want to do. They go from success to success to success. I think … I found myself sit-ting in that little 9 x 12‟ room I thought I would never leave, and when the fear of not

trying overcomes the fear of failure, then we get up and we move. I sat there day af-

ter day after day, and I realized if I don‟t do something, I‟m going to die in this little room, right here. Whatever it is out there in the big scary world that I‟m afraid of

can't be a whole lot worse than spending the rest of my life in this 9 x 12‟ room. People that commit crimes go to the penitentiary and they live in places like this –

why am I here?

So I walked out of there, and a little at a time the world opened up for me. It‟s still difficult. I don‟t ever want people to think that I jumped over this hurdle and life got

shady and downhill and wonderful all the time. There are still challenges and obsta-cles, and in a sense that‟s what makes it great, that‟s what makes it fun, and it‟s why

there‟s still always room at the top.

I: I‟m sitting here in awe, Jim, just because you have actually taken action on all of those things that a lot of us don‟t do.

JS: Well if you ever want me to talk about it, I could do a lot more than an hour and tell you all the failures I‟ve had. I just don‟t usually talk or write about them. It

doesn‟t matter. I‟m a huge baseball fan, and I am still convinced I could go to the World Series as a totally blind person and I could get a hit in a major league baseball

game if you‟ll let me have as many strikes as I want. You let me stand there until I finally hit it, eventually I‟ll get a hit.

Well, in baseball you only get three strikes; in life, it‟s not over until you say it‟s over,

and you can just keep doing anything you want to do. Failure to me doesn‟t matter. I‟ve had the tremendous advantage of seeing the bottom. I‟ve been broke and blind

and suicidal and stuck in a little room I thought I‟d never get out of. Everything‟s up-hill from there – it‟s all great and wonderful. What else is going to happen to me?

I: That‟s an incredible perspective.

JS: It‟s a tremendous advantage I wrote a line for The Ultimate Gift that James Gar-

ner delivered in the movie when he lost everything, and he‟s telling the young man, “I‟ve lost everything two or three times; it‟s the perfect place to start.” It‟s true –

what a great opportunity.

I love that quote from the general in World War II; he was totally surrounded, Patton was trying to relieve him and couldn‟t get there for a day or two, and they asked him

if he was going to surrender because he‟s totally surrounded, and his response was, “No, we‟re not going to surrender. We do have the tremendous advantage of being

able to address the enemy in any direction.”

That‟s the way life is; when you‟ve got nothing to lose, you‟ve got absolutely every-thing to gain. There‟s a whole lot of people holding on to mediocrity and they‟re

afraid to let go of it, because they‟re afraid they‟re going to lose what they have. The only thing they‟re risking is everything in the world they could gain.

I: Jim, you did mention that you use a coach to help you with your speaking engage-ments. What do you look for in a coach or a mentor?

JS: I don‟t take advice from anybody that doesn‟t already have what I want. They‟ve

got to prove to me they‟ve got the skills and the ability to do what I want to do. They have to have performed for someone else, or there‟s got to be some reason. When

it‟s all said and done in our world there‟s a lot said and very little done. There‟s a lot of people running around calling themselves a coach that can't even run their own life,

much less someone else‟s.

I‟ve got to be honest. Last year, the PGA hired me to come and speak at the United States Open tournament, and I talked to all the golfers and the caddies and the spon-

sors and everybody. I was amazed at how many of the players there introduced me to their coach. Their coach can't play nearly as well as they can, but that coach has a

proven ability to make someone better.

One of my best friends in the world was Coach John Wooden. There is not a finer

coach or mentor, and if you haven't, read his latest book. We were out there; me, Bill Walton, Bobby Knight, and Kareem Abdul Jabbar, and he released his book on his 99th

birthday, the Power of Mentoring. It‟s his sixth book he‟s written in his nineties, and he is the most winning coach ever. There will never be another one like him. He

coached Bill Walton, he coached Kareem Abdul Jabbar, he coached ten championship teams; no one else has even done half of that. He was a good player, but not a

player that could have played on one of his teams. He has a proven ability to coach people, to make them better than they are. So the first thing I look for in a coach is

someone that has the credentials, that has the ability to do that.

The second thing I look for is someone that‟s going to be totally honest with me. The young lady that helps me, that coaches me with my speaking...I‟m a far better

speaker and author than she is; she is a coach. I don‟t need someone to stroke my ego. I get all that stuff. I get that on a daily basis. What I need is real information.

-19- (Continued next page.)

Jim Stovall continued…

JS: Then the big thing is, I do a lot of on-camera work for our television network, and I always tell my directors, “I‟ll do it again and again and again as many times

as you want, but don‟t tell me to do it again if you don‟t tell me what you want.”

What I won't listen to is, “Jim, we need you to do that again.” Tell me what you want other than what I just did, or you‟re going to get it the same way again. I

want a coach that when they bring me a challenge, they also bring me a direction I should be moving. I don‟t need you to point out problems you don‟t have solutions

for.

I want to be part of the process. Mary Kay Ash, the founder of Mary Kay Corpora-tion, said that, “People will support what they help to create” People don‟t like some

plan or policy just shoved down their throat. What they really like is, “Let‟s sit down and let me be a part of the process, let me come up with the plan, then you coach

me in making that plan a reality.” That‟s something that I can get a hold of, be-cause then I‟m not following your plan – I‟m following mine. Those are the things …

that‟s when it becomes really vital.

I: Jim, in just a few short minutes we have learned so much from you. I think we learned about accountability. I think we learned about integrity . I think we learned

about walking the walk instead of just talking the talk, and I think that we learned about providing solutions.

JS: I think that‟s really powerful, because when you become someone‟s coach, you have a responsibility to them. They have a responsibility to you. It is a covenant

relationship. They agree to perform in certain ways, but you agree to bring certain things to the table to facilitate that, and then to hold them accountable. It‟s very,

very important. The honesty is really important. Every once in a while you‟ve got to catch them doing something right, too. I also need to know, “That‟s working for

you, let‟s keep that consistent and work over here.”

I think a lot of people in our society today are so worried. They look at coaching as

some remedial thing. How do we get this guy up to speed, or how do I get to where I want to be? It‟s interesting, the people I see most gravitating toward coaching are

the highest achieving people that want to go even higher, and they realize that they‟re not going to do that on their own. They need someone to come in and help

them tweak that a little bit, and that‟s what becomes really, really powerful.

A lot of coaches that I see, they‟re trying to start their clientele, they‟re looking at people that may not be performing at a high level and they‟re too intimated to go

out to the people that are performing at the highest level. If you want to build a great clientele, go out and call on the people that you admire the most and say,

“Man, I am really in tune with what you‟re doing and it would be a privilege for me to bring my skill set to the table to help you be even better than that. You have so

much to bring to the world, can you imagine where it would be if it was fine-tuned?” People are afraid to do that, and we don‟t have because we didn‟t ask.

-20-

JS: I just worked on a book project with Steve Forbes and Donald Trump. They

both have people that coach them in various areas and in various things they do. A lot of people would be afraid to get a hold of those guys and ask them. One of the

things I‟ve been grateful for in my TV business is I‟ve never been afraid to contact anybody. When I was working out of the basement of a condominium in downtown

Tulsa and my recording studio was an old broom closet, I wrote to Ted Turner in At-lanta and asked him to be on my board, and he has been from that day to this.

When I needed celebrities to come on the air to help me promote things in 1988 and I was doing classic movies, my first guest was Katherine Hepburn, followed by

Jimmy Stewart and Frank Sinatra. I got a fan site book and wrote letters and asked them. I‟ve been turned down by some of the best people in the industry; it doesn‟t

bother me a bit.

I: It‟s amazing what you get just by asking.

JS: Yes. It‟s amazing. The highest level people I find to be the most cooperative; basically, it‟s like when you‟re out and you‟re trying to date the most beautiful

woman or whatever the case may be; you think this person must get asked out 20 times a day, and when you finally do, you realize they don‟t because everybody else

is scared to death. They‟re sitting at home lonely. Nobody will ask them.

A Special Message from Jim Stovall—Just Ask!

It‟s in every one of my books – I‟ve got eight million books out there – it‟s in every

one of them, and every time I speak I give this gift.

Anytime you need encouragement, support, anytime you don‟t think your dreams are coming true, anytime you need a second opinion, it may not be right, but I am

still the world‟s leading authority in my opinion.

You pick up the nearest phone and dial 918-627-

1000 day or night. I have real live people an-

swer the phone, and I will call you back every time. There are millions of people that have the

number, and they all know that I will call them back.

There’s no cost. There’s no charge.

Or,

you can email me at

jim@jimstovall.com anytime.

Dr. Sharon Melnick

is a psychologist and coach who helps talented and successful people get out of their own way. She parlayed ten years of psychology research at Harvard Medical School

into a coaching practice that helps clients discover both why they have been ap-proaching their life in a way that limits potential, and how they can quickly build a

new effectiveness that accelerates success.

Her coaching practice is divided between executive coaching, which is helping emerg-

ing leaders become successful senior executives, and business coaching, which is helping business owners develop the confidence to make money. She is also a lead-

ing authority in teaching busy professionals techniques to manage themselves instead of managing time, so they can be highly productive despite the stresses of the new

economic climate. Sharon teaches clients her copyrighted Direct Path process, which shows how to go direct to the result they want, and to have an effective relationship

with themselves without wasting effort managing other‟s perceptions and other things they can't control. Clients develop what she calls the „emotional intelligence‟ needed

for financial independence.

Dr. Melnick serves as an expert for the American Management Association, National Association of Women Executives, Success Television and organizations such as Ora-

cle Corp., Deutsche Bank, Visiting Nurses Service, Northwest Mutual, IBM, Pitney

Bowes, and many others.

I: How did you start figuring out how people get in their own way, and turn your ca-

reer as research psychologist at Harvard Medical School into a coaching business?

SM: The best way to know a lot about my subject matter of people getting in their own way was to study myself. I have lots of experience of getting in my own way!

Actually when I was doing research at the Medical School and I was starting a coach-ing practice, I was helping other people grow their businesses. I was helping employ-

ees rise rapidly through the ranks of leadership. Yet inside, I was still doing things that were getting in my own way.

I would have ideas about things that I wanted to write or do, and I would sit on them

for days and weeks, sometimes even months before I would get them out the door. I would allow other people to steal my time. I would worry too much about what other

people thought about me and be really reactive to them. I would spin my wheels and

go in all kinds of directions, again, trying to be all things to all people because I didn‟t own my own value. That I think is really the basis of how people get in their own

way. In fact I have a story that I often tell where I was invited to share my research with the White House, and I declined the invitation. So how about that for really

qualifying as somebody who was getting in my own way, again because I didn‟t think that I had anything of value to bring to them.

It was really through observing myself, and then seeing this of course in lots of other

people. In terms of how I made that transition from the research, I will tell you this because people are sometimes interested . The research that I was doing was on int-

ergenerational issues; what it is that you bring with you from your own childhood into your parenting in the next generation.

SM: What I did for the research

is that I understood the proc-ess. I developed these methods

to help parents from difficult childhoods avoid repeating the

mistakes of their own parents; breaking that cycle. I was up in

Cambridge, Massachusetts at the Medical School, and I was

working with parents from all walks of life. Particularly the

ones from the business world would say to me at a certain

point in the process, “You know, I don‟t just do these things with

my kids. These things that

we‟re talking about, I do this with my clients, my business

partners, my boss, my direct reports – everywhere in my

life.”

It helped me to really appreci-ate that what I was working on

with them really wasn‟t about parenting at all. It‟s about what

it is that you bring with you. There‟s a way of dealing with

yourself and with other people, and that's what forms the foun-

dation for everything that you

do in your life.

It was right about that time, 10 or 15 years ago, when this

whole idea of corporate coach-ing and business coaching was

coming into consciousness, and a lot of people were saying to

me, “This is really what you do.” I got trained on coaching

techniques and then started talking about some more things

with people as it related to their career and fulfilling their poten-

tial, rather than about their par-

enting, and it has taken off ever since then.

(Continued next page.)

Dr. Sharon Melnick continued…

I: We‟re always joking, using the phrase, “get out of your own way” or “you are your worst enemy” – what does that mean to you?

SM: We all have our own meaning about that, but I guess what I mean by it is that all of us, we have an intention. We have a dream for our lives, what it is that you want or

really what you think you want, and you don‟t act in the service of it or you can't get yourself to act that way that you want, or you do things that end up causing you suffer-

ing.

It‟s like you‟re working really hard and you‟re cycling at 70 miles an hour, but you‟re cycling into a 90 mile an hour headwind. I think we‟ve all had that experience. I think

that the root of it is – and I could probably talk for many hours about what it is – but if I had to really boil it down, it‟s about that experience of trusting yourself and owning

your own value. Believing in yourself, whatever words people want to put on it. In fact, that‟s one of the things that I carried with me from the research is that when

we‟re growing up, we come to see ourselves through the eyes of other people. That‟s how we come to know who we are and what our worth is. We need to get a certain

amount of what I call “emotional oxygen.” Physical oxygen is what we need to breathe

in, and emotional oxygen is what we need to breathe in, in order to feel worthy and valuable as human beings.

As we‟re growing up, people who really become successful, they are able to make that

transition from getting that core experience of themselves from other people to getting it either from within, or let‟s say both from within and from the reward that they get

from their contribution. When you're not able to get that emotional oxygen from things that you can do on your own, then it sets you up to act in ways that will make you

other directed. That‟s often what we mean when we say that people are getting in their own way or that they are their own worst enemy, because so much energy and time

will go into managing other people and trying to get that from them instead of going directly into moving your life forward. Does that make sense?

I: Yes, it does, actually. Since you‟re a psychologist by trade, what is your philosophy

about coaching?

SM: Stemming from what I was just saying, I think that what I do is really more about helping a person to self-manage or deal with themselves so that they can become the

person that they need to be.

I think each of us is the instrument of our success. I think a lot of times as coaches, we‟re talking to people about what are your goals, what are the results that you want,

what are the behaviors that you need? That‟s how results get actualized, of course.

The way that I think about it is I start off more by asking the person who is it that you want to be. You look out at that horizon point for your life – what are the qualities and

the attributes? I consider that my mission is to help the person to become that person; that way of thinking, that way of feeling, that way of acting so that they can move for-

ward coaching themselves.

-24-

SM: I can't control the results. I can't control whether they‟re going to take the ac-

tion. I can only help them to build that relationship with themselves so that they can get themselves to take action in the moment.

I do best practices coaching, helping people to get their results, but I think I take it out

of „me versus the client.‟ I really put it much more into helping them become that per-son who they want to be. I find that once a person is consistently thinking and feeling

and acting like that person, then they kind of naturally take those actions. It‟s not a matter of “I‟m your accountability coach – what did you this week?” They just naturally

step into it.

I: Why do so many of us know what we should be doing to grow our business, but we‟re not really doing it?

SM: In terms of why we get in our own way, I‟ve just seen that there‟s so much great

advice out there. In fact, I read a lot of it through your interviews in this very maga-

zine. How I think about it is that we kind of know what we should be doing, or at least we‟re hearing all of these things that we should be doing. A lot of us have started off

our days with a well-intentioned to-do list; this is what the successful coaches are do-ing, and these are actions I‟m going to take. Then we end the day asking ourselves,

“Where did the day go?”

It‟s really not so much about scheduling the actions or putting the ac-tions down on paper; again, sort of coming back to this theme, I think

it‟s really about how you make that relationship with yourself and whether you‟re really able to get yourself to do those things in the mo-

ment. There‟s so many things that we do to get in our own way around our productivity, and maybe it would make sense to go into some of

those things, because I think it‟s some of those specific mindset matters that really interfere.

I: I see. What is the one thing that will distinguish someone who will be successful from one that won't be, and what does it take just in action?

SM: I think that this is a very important question. Of course you have to be moti-

vated, you have to have clarity about what the most important actions are, the best leveraged use of your time. All of those are at play. Let me speak to the time man-

agement issue, because it‟s something of course as business owners, we have to wear all the different hats, so of course it could be very easy to get overwhelmed.

What I find is that there are very helpful time management techniques out there. How

to organize your stuff, how to schedule your time, blocking your time. I think these are very helpful time management techniques. The idea that I‟m trying to get at is that

here‟s an example. If you have an email campaign that you‟re going to be putting out, a marketing campaign – you can schedule a block of time into your calendar from 2:00

to 4:00 in afternoon, but when 2:00 rolls around, it‟s not whether you‟ve scheduled it into your calendar that‟s going to determine whether you actually do it; it‟s all of these

things about how you deal with yourself. It‟s really more about whether you have a productively mindset. (Continued next page.)

Dr. Sharon Melnick continued…

For example, it‟s going to depend on whether you know how to deal with other people in your life to create undistracted times, and you know how to be proactive about let-

ting them know that you need that undistracted time. If they come to you with an ur-

gent request, how can you respectfully let them know that you‟ll be able to talk to them another time?

It‟s about whether you believe in that moment that what you have to say is really im-

portant and valuable, because if you don‟t believe that at a deeper level, the time can come for you to write it up, but you‟re not going to be willing to hit the send button,

right?

It‟s about whether you can stay in your own motivation and not be maybe bummed out if you sent out campaigns before and they haven't had the kind of response that

you would have wanted to have. It‟s about whether you can organize yourself, clearly in that moment and take all things that you might be excited to say, but really boil

them down to the one big idea that‟s really going to be a hook for people.

The way that I think about it is that these productivity tools or these time manage-

ment techniques are very important. They‟re certainly the structures that are going to help someone to take action, but that you have to also have a productivity mind-

set. You also have to have the ability to deal with yourself, like I was referring to, and that‟s really the equation for your successful result is both use time management

techniques or productivity tools plus the productivity mindset.

I: What is the productivity mindset?

SM: It‟s really thinking about the result that you want for your life and being able to focus yourself on that. Being able to deal with

yourself and being able to deal with other people so that no matter is going on, you can consistently get yourself to be taking actions to-

wards those things that are going to move your life forward. The mindset is really all the ways that you talk to yourself and you be-

lieve in yourself and that you can look at situations differently and change your perspective and change your emotional state, and all of

those … that self-management toolkit is how I think about it.

I: What are some of the ways that people get in the way of their own productivity?

SM: This is such a big question, and there‟s so many things that we can talk about

here. Let me just give you some examples, because I‟m actually coming out with this information product that is around this, and there‟s four modules. Let me give you an

example from each of the modules.

One of the ways that people get in their own way around their productivity like I was

just referring to is the way that they allow other people to interrupt and distract

them. I think that a common way of thinking about this is that we think to ourselves that it‟s the other person who distracts me, whether it‟s my assistant or a difficult cli-

ent or whoever; someone like that, a family member. They‟re the ones who distract me, so the belief is they need to be the one to stop doing that behavior.

SM: That‟s really giving away your power. Can you see that? That‟s not taking re-

sponsibility for your own 50% in the situation, not controlling what you can control. I think that that‟s one of the absolute foundations that people really need in order to

get out of their own way is to really be what I call impeccable for your own 50% in any situation.

There are so many things that we could do in that situation, even if others are knock-

ing at their door or calling at times that were unexpected for them. They can, for ex-ample, set up a voicemail or an email responder, letting people know when they are

having uninterrupted time, or they could create a frequently asked questions section on their website so they can minimize the number of people who were interrupting

them for things that they don‟t need to be spending their time on. They can really spend time on the inside work – owning their value, believing in the value of their

time so they‟ll respect their own time. Then have the words convincingly say it re-spectfully to the people who are infringing on their time.

You can see what I‟m saying here, that it‟s really a mindset. If you own the value of your own time, then you want to be thinking about how you can use that time to

really get your message out and help a lot of people and not let other people steal it away from you. That would be one example of how people get in their own way.

Another thing is for sure, confidence-related issues are definitely going to set

you up to get in your own way of your productivity. Let me give you a few ex-amples. I‟ve had students in my program who spent time following up with people

who were maybe lower revenue clients or may not have been as likely to come and work with them. Why would they do that? Because when they‟re able to talk with

those people, they‟re not as threatened. They feel like when they talk to those peo-ple, they get a feel-good. We had a good conversation, I felt like a great guy or a

great gal. I didn‟t actually get the sale at the rate that I think I deserve, but they told me they appreciated my time. Of course that‟s generous and that‟s good, but you see

how a person might be spending time on lower level prospects or things just in order

to get that feel-good, but it doesn‟t really advance their life.

Or, people who feel like they have to respond absolutely immediately to an email. Of course, I definitely encourage high quality service, but is that the best use of your

time, or are you doing that just because you‟re trying to show people, I‟m perfect, I‟m absolutely right on it? What‟s really the best use of your time? Are you second

guessing what clients want to hear, or are you selling yourself short? There‟s so many ways that we get in the way. The idea I‟m trying to get at here is that when

you don‟t own your own value, when you don‟t truly believe in yourself, then you‟re going to act towards people in all these ways.

You‟re going to allow your time and your energy and attention to become siphoned

away by other people, and you‟re not going to be putting your time, energy, and at-tention to the things that are going to truly allow you to bring your gifts in a way

that‟s going to serve you and other people.

-27- (Continued next page.)

Dr. Sharon Melnick continued…

People get in their own way without having a sense of clarity. Clarity is your best time management tool. So many of us are trying to grow our businesses and there‟s

so many different marketing approaches, the proverbial shiny new penny. I think that

the most successful have a really clear idea of the value that they bring. They have a very clear message, and most of all they have a clear business model and they spend

their time only on the efforts that are helping to grow that clear business model and not just, “I want to make X amount of money and however it comes in is great, so let me

spread myself thin all over the place.”

This is just a smattering of examples, and you can hear that in a lot of the things I was talking about, it had so much to do with that productivity mindset.

I: How can a we get out of our own way quickly to grow our business?

SM: Just continuing on this idea of when you‟re getting in your own way, it‟s because

you‟re oftentimes spending a lot of your time and your energy and attention trying to manage other people, particularly their perceptions of you. You‟re not really owning

your value at a deeper level. I think that that‟s the quickest way to get out of your own

way - there‟s two ways. One is really believing in yourself, and I think the other way is to do what I call “go direct.”

Going indirect is again having your attention go towards other people and managing

them, trying to get that emotional oxygen from other people, trying to hear from other people in order to own your value. “Going direct” is really not worrying so much about

whether you're enough or whether you‟re not enough, or what people think of you, but really just thinking about the contribution that you were put here to make. What is the

specific skill set, the specific kind of set of experiences, the specific transformation that you are uniquely qualified to help your clients make, and to just focus on the end use of

your work. Just focus your attention on how you can better and better help your clients make that transformation.

Putting your focus there is going to allow your time and your energy and attention to

be very clearly and effectively focused on building your business and getting a clear

message out there. “Go direct” is really the mantra. Don‟t worry about what other people are thinking about you. Worry about how you can provide even more effective

transformation to your clients, and you‟ll see that without even trying that all the kudos and the appreciation is going to come back to you that will help you to really grow that

owning your own value.

I think if you just try to sit there by your desk and ask, “Am I enough? Am I worth it? What will other people think I‟m worth paying me?” Get out of your own head about it.

Just take action and let the market help you to know what your value is. Don‟t do be-haviors that give you that short-term appreciation. I call it a sugar high, when someone

says, “I think you‟re a great person.” or, “I appreciate you doing that.” Don‟t necessar-ily put your efforts into that. Put your efforts into bringing your gifts to the world and

then you‟ll just get such a huge reward.

I: What about fear of failure? Procrastination? -28-

SM: Would we be hopeless if we went for it and it didn‟t work out? I think that we‟re

just trying to hold on to the hope, because as long as you don‟t go for it, you can say to yourself, “I just have to develop more confidence” or “Someday I‟m going to be really

successful in my business.” You get to live with yourself thinking, “I could still be that person” rather than going for it, it doesn‟t work out, and then you lose all hope.

Of course, the situation there, all you have to do is to be able to tell yourself a different

story about it, and just go by a mantra like, “Whoever makes the most mistakes wins.” If you know that you haven't dealt with yourself like that in the past, then you‟d be

holding onto hope and procrastinating.

I: There‟s a lot of talk is about beliefs. What do beliefs have to do with how we get in our own way?

SM: I don‟t disagree with that. I do think that at the root of how we get in our own

way is a deep conviction that we‟re – fill in the blank. Whatever variation it is for you – not enough or not deserving, etc. I think a lot of what I do in my work, or at least in

the first part of the process of getting out of your own way, is to help people make the connection between that belief that they have about themselves, and how it sets them

up to act.

I think even in a number of things that we have talked about, you can hear that there

are beliefs that are getting in the way; beliefs about, “It is up to other people to change their behavior if they‟re interrupting me”, or beliefs about, “My ideas aren‟t important”,

or, “People aren‟t going to be persuaded by me, so that‟s why I‟m not going to send out my work.” I do believe that beliefs are the foundation, and I have techniques that help

people to change their beliefs quickly.

I also believe that it‟s not only about changing one‟s belief, because it‟s hard for people to just go into their own mind and just change their belief. I think it has to come from

experience. That‟s why that whole idea of “going direct” is just putting your efforts into actions that will not necessarily get immediate feedback and help you feel differently

about yourself now, but just take actions every day that are going to lead to accom-plishments. Once you have those accomplishments, nobody can take that away from

you, and I think it leads to a different experience of yourself, and that‟s one of the most powerful and enduring ways of changing your beliefs.

Talented but getting in your own way?

Know what you should be doing, but procrastinating?

Stressed, overwhelmed, overworked, anxious? Still worried about what other people think?

Confused about what you really want?

http://www.sharonmelnick.com/#

Kathryn Troutman

is President of The Resume Place and author of federal career books, including the first book on federal resume writing, The Federal Resume Guidebook. Kathryn is a motivat-

ing and expert speaker and executive career coach for career professionals and indi-viduals who are seeking career advancement and first time careers in public service.

Kathryn is recognized as a federal resume guru by federal human resources specialists

and the media experts in federal employment.

I: What one thing happened to The Resume Place, Inc., in 1996 to turn your company

from a resume writing firm into the leading federal career consulting firm in the world?

KT: In 1996, President Clinton and Vice President Gore were in office, and one of the

initiatives that Vice President Gore came up with was called Reinvention Government. Part of that initiative was to eliminate a form called the 171 Form; that was the em-

ployment form that had been used for 40 years in the federal government to apply for a job. Vice President Gore said that the government should accept resumes like the

rest of the world.

I had my office on K Street, only four blocks from the White House, and I was very much in tune with what‟s going in government because I was in D.C. I thought to my-

self, “What? If the 171 is going away and they‟re going to accept resumes, and I‟ve got a resume company right here in D.C. on K Street and I also am an expert in those

terrible long 171 forms, I should take advantage of this new rule and law by the gov-ernment and create a resume format to switch that 171 into a resume like Al Gore

said.”

What I did was I went and saw my friends down at Office of Personnel Management. I had a lot of people that I knew in federal government, and I asked them, “What‟s this

new resume going to look like for government?” They all said, “Well, we don‟t know.” I said, “Well, since I‟m an expert in resumes and I'm in expert in 171‟s, I think I should

write a book on how to write the new federal resume.”

I mortgaged my house. At the time my kids were 12, 9, and 6, I was a single mom, and I mortgaged my house. I took $50,000 out of my house and I wrote the first book

on the new federal resume. It was called The Federal Resume Guidebook and it cost me $27,000 to print it alone. I just did it. That changed my business, because it made

me the leading expert and the pioneering designer in the industry, creator of an indus-try in federal resume writing.

I did take a really, really, really big risk even on my kids. I actually did have to sell the

house. I did have to get a cheaper one and a smaller one. But oh well, we all were and are just fine. That‟s what happened in 1996 when I decided that I would change

my whole business, my whole niche and write this book and take all my money and put it right into it. That‟s what I did.

I: What foresight you had, oh my goodness – and initiative. That‟s what it takes.

That really is what it takes.

KT: I sure did have it. I figured if I didn‟t, who was going to write a book on it? I was perfect to do it, and I‟m a risk taker.

KT: I saw an opportunity at that

time, as 1.8 million employees are working in the federal government

that needed to change their form from a 171 to a resume. That‟s a

nice lump of customers that need to change their format. They

could buy my book. The book is now on the fourth edition, and this

year it was one of the Top 20 books borrowed out of public li-

braries. It was a good idea.

I: It was an excellent idea. How did you develop your expertise

and brand – federal resume writ-

ing and federal career services?

KT: I kept going. I did that book in 1996, and I had a struggle with

that book. I did a self-publishing myself first to get it started. No-

body would have published it be-cause it was so new, so I turned

that book over and in 2000 I wrote another book on resumes.

There was a new system of re-sume writing for government, and

it was all about keywords, so I wrote another book. That one I

self-published also. It was really

hard, but doing the second book made me an expert in Resumix

because that was the newest, lat-est thing coming out.

In 2001, we had 9/11, which was

a horrible shock, but it made gov-ernment very popular, and I wrote

another book called Ten Steps to a Federal Job. It was for private

industry people to consider going government for the first time

ever.

The way that I developed my ex-pertise and my brand is that I just

keep producing products in the same area. (Continued next page)

-31-

Kathryn Troutman continued...

KT: The way that I developed my expertise and my brand is that I just keep producing products in the same area. I found federal careers, federal resumes was a niche, and I

kept at it. I kept my name out there. I kept ahead of everybody, and I kept produc-

ing. I wrote articles. I was a columnist on www.govexec.com for two years. I wrote an article every week on federal careers, and my name was everywhere. My website

went up in 1996, which was very much federal resume. I hit those keywords way early in my career. I just kept working on the brand and I kept working on the expertise. I

work a lot. I work a lot of days, a lot of hours, and I think all the time about what can I do to stay ahead of everybody?

There is a whole industry of federal resume writers in this

world today, and believe you me, I have got competition. I created the industry, so I have to keep ahead of my competi-

tion, which I‟m actually doing a very good job of, by the way.

I: As the owner of a federal career consulting business for so many years, how do you stay energized and enthusiastic?

KT: I stay energized because, basically, I listen to the news.

I listen to President Obama talk, I look at the world tragedies that occur, the wars. Right now, Iraq is big because they

really are going to send home these military personnel and the contractors for Halliburton and everybody else. I think there‟s

more contractors than military, so I just wrote a book for

them, Military to Federal Career Guide, and all the samples in the book are people from Iraq and Afghanistan, so I am very

much on top of helping the vets with writing down what they did in camps, logistics, human intelligence and every technical thing you can think of.

Another big market now is that private industry people can't get a job. There‟s no

place to go. There‟s nobody hiring, but the feds are hiring. Helping the American public to land these jobs, it makes me excited. I still want to help a Wal-Mart person get a

federal job. I think we may have. I get excited about industries; whole groups of peo-ple.

There‟s legislation – President Obama wrote this memorandum that came out on May

11th, that the hiring process will get easier. KSA‟s , (Knowledge, Skills and Abilities), will go away. I‟m behind that. I did a webinar today for 250 people talking about

KSA‟s going away. So whatever is hot in the industry is where I am. Then I start writ-

ing about it.

I do articles in newsletters and blogs and work on a book and then update. My speeches - I do a lot of talks in different places. I do free things, and I do paid things.

Basically, listening to government, listening to the news helps me to stay engaged. I know every time the government does something new and they have a new initiative,

my business is going to change.

. -32-

KT: There‟s another one too – DOD I heard is going to be actually on a freeze next year

because they spent too much money. Secretary Gates says there‟s going to be a freeze in DOD. I‟m getting ready right now for DOD to not spend any more at The Re-

sume Place. What I‟m going to do is just start trying to get money from the actual em-ployees instead of the government agencies, so I am so on top of what‟s happening,

and I‟m ready to act. I‟m ready to write. I‟m on top of it, and it gets me excited, and that‟s how I stay energized and thinking of new things every day.

I: Resume writing is very intimidating for a lot of people, especially if you‟ve never had

to do it and you have this career in the federal government, or you want to get into the federal government. That‟s hard to approach, and I could see where they would need

you.

KT: They do. They love our books and our services and it‟s a very complicated proc-ess. It‟s actually really shockingly complicated. Even though President Obama says

he‟s going to make it simpler, my webinar today that I taught was all about that hiring

reform and what Obama wants. I went on to USA Jobs and did a demo search on USA Jobs and how much easier it‟s supposed to get. Well, believe me, it‟s not easier. It‟s

still really complicated. Sometimes when I go into train at a federal agency like Na-tional Science Foundation or ETA or anywhere, my training coordinator will look at me

and say, “Well, you‟re going to be busy a long time.” I say, “Yes, I think so – the gov-ernment makes it so complicated, it‟s good for my business.”

I: How do you stay creative with your marketing ideas to build your business and

brand with the federal government consulting?

KT: Staying creative is hard. It‟s something that I think about all the time. I‟m al-ways looking for angles, and I‟m looking for ideas for partnerships with people. I was

at a conference a couple months ago, and there were two ladies sitting at a counter. They had a nice big logo that said “Homeland Security Careers” and I couldn‟t figure

out what it was, so I went over and talked to her and I asked, “What do you do, any-

way?” They‟re in Colorado and they‟re near this huge agency called USA Northcom, which is a brand new joint services intel something-or-other in Colorado, and I asked,

“What do you do?”

She said, “Well, I do career coaching.” I said, “Really? So do you help your clients write resumes to get jobs at Northcom?” She said, “No, we don‟t do that.” I said,

“Really? So who helps them write their resumes? If you do the consulting and coach-ing, then who helps with the resumes?” She said, “Well, nobody …”

I said, “Really? Okay, we should talk about being partners.”

That was one thing – wherever you see partnership and affiliation ideas of having matched services and matched clients, that‟s what you want to do. Another angle for

me with military is to stay friends with all the VA Offices, the Veterans Rehabilitation and Employment Offices – get to know people who work there. I have this lady in Little

Rock, Arkansas – her name is Jo Ellen Polite – she is like my sister. We are such good

friends. She‟s only been working for VR&E not that long, like a year, but she‟s got eve-rybody‟s email.

(Continued next page.)

Kathryn Troutman continued…

I had given away some books last year to the vets, and I said to Jo Ellen, “I want to give away these books – can you write to everybody on your list to see how many peo-

ple want to get 20 books. Tell them to send me an email and I‟m going to send them

20 books.” Half the world sent me an email for 20 books, but now those people are my best friends, and she is practically my partner. I‟m inviting her to my class now

that I teach. I teach a three-day class, and it‟s going to be in Little Rock, actually – isn't that amazing – and I invited her to come for free. We‟re going to do a pro bono

program for her.

For me, being creative is all about people. It‟s relationship development and partner-ships and affiliates and talking to people and being out there and spending time to de-

velop the affiliates, not just sending one quick email. You have to send this email and that email and share that article and collaborate with this article. I write a lot of arti-

cles. I work to write articles. I pitch myself to a number of career websites. I have a real hard time finding the time to write them – they drive me crazy – but I know it‟s

what I have to do. Those are some of my creative ideas that I use to keep my name out there.

I: You‟re absolutely right. It is about relationships and marketing predominantly. Once you understand that, you can do anything in marketing. People are so afraid of it, but

once you understand it‟s about people, it really changes everything.

KT: You have to make yourself do it. You have to go to these meetings. You have to go to conferences and you have to have your eyes open and walk up to people and

start talking and asking questions, and then you have to work it. It definitely doesn‟t come easy, but that‟s how my business is the way it is today - because of my relation-

ship development, even from the very first book in 1996. I didn‟t write that book all by myself – I walked around, I met every HR person that I knew that I helped with getting

jobs. I met them all, and I asked, “What do you want this federal resume to look like? What can I do? Where should I put the vet information and everything?” Those people

helped me write that book, every single time.

I: What are your methods as an executive coach for federal job seekers to help them

stay calm when pursuing a federal job, especially when the application process is so complicated, as you indicated?

KT: That‟s real challenging. My clients are everybody you can imagine. They are peo-

ple who have owned their own businesses for 20, 30 years and just can't make it any-more. There‟s a lot of mortgage brokers, and there‟s so many financial analysts –

they‟re still coming big time. They‟re all first timers. They practically don't even know anybody that works in the government.

The way that I help them stay calm, and I coach them, is that first of all, I talk about

them. I talk about what they like and what they've done and what they‟re proud of, and then I ask them this question: “What made you think to apply for a federal job?”

-34-

KT: They say, “Well, I‟ve been thinking about it for a long time, but I just didn‟t really

know what to do, and it just looks so overwhelming. Now, you know, the government is just about the only agency that is hiring and it‟s time for me to really, really bite the

bullet here. The only way that I felt like I could do it is if I could work with a consultant.” Then I get them to talk a little bit.

Then I ask, “Have you looked at USA Jobs yet at all?” That‟s the main

website for federal jobs. “Have you been looking around there to see what jobs are out there and where they are and what the pay is?”

They‟ll say, “Well, I did, but I can't find anything. I can't figure it out.”

I‟ll say, “All right, let‟s just go to USA Jobs.” What I do when I get to

USA Jobs, I try to make it simple – I type in let‟s say finance, financial manager, in the state where they live – let‟s say it‟s Colorado. I type financial manager, Colorado, and

they‟re either with me in person or I‟m on the phone with them. I type in “financial

manager, Colorado” and let's say $100,000 a year – that‟s my criteria – and click on send. Probably there‟s at least 10 to 15 jobs in that range just like that in Colorado.

There‟s always jobs everywhere that I look, because the government‟s got a lot of jobs.

They‟ll say, “Oh wow! This looks good! Oh my gosh – Fish and Wildlife Service – finan-cial manager, $120,000! Let‟s read about this!” Then I read the description and say,

“All right, you‟re going to be the CFO and you‟re going to be over this region, and the job entails strategic planning and policy.”

The answer to the question about how I get my clients to stay calm, is I get them ex-

cited about getting a job in the government, because then they say, “Wow, that sounds good – I can do that!” Then they can forget being intimidated and overwhelmed and

think that this awesome job that‟s going to pay pretty well that they know they can do. They have the skills. All we have to do is write the application, and I‟ve got people that

help them do that. They can just start talking and turn over the application process to one of my experts.

The way that I get them to handle it is that I don't talk about how complicated it is and

how long it might take. I know it‟s complicated and I know it might take 90 days, but in this market, that‟s not even long. My method of getting them inspired and then

working on the process and staying engaged is by getting them excited about the jobs.

That‟s how I do it.

I: Very interesting. Right now, what are you major federal career issues that are in-

spiring you to stay focused?

KT: The biggest thing, I think, is the Hiring Reform. I just am thrilled with President

Obama‟s Presidential Executive Order that all agencies will change the way they hire by November of 2010. I heard from an Air Force HR person just yesterday, who said the

Air Force will be eliminating the KSA narrative. The thing is, every agency is going to do it in their own time, so it‟s going to be a free for all, but it‟s really exciting because eve-

rybody wants to know what‟s happening with the Hiring Reform.

(Continued next page.)

Kathryn Troutman continued…

KT: President Obama says he wants everybody to submit a resume and a cover letter. Cover letters have been dead for government for 20 years. Oh boy, am I behind it – I

love cover letters. I think they‟re great. It‟s a chance to say, you‟re good at what you

do, why you should be hired, so I‟m totally behind cover letters. I‟m excited about writing cover letters for people.

Also, he says that the HR people are going to give more information to applicants who

they‟re hiring, so that‟s the one thing that‟s keeping me inspired now, plus the veter-ans. I‟m going to have to hire somebody to help me with the veterans, because that

market is so big, I don‟t think I can concentrate on Hiring Reform and veterans hiring at the same time. I‟m going to hire myself a couple of vets to help me with the veter-

ans initiative.

That‟s how I stay focused is new initiatives, new ideas, and it keeps me going.

I: As a highly successful federal career trainer for counselors and other jobs, what techniques do you use to inspire them to motivate their clients in a highly technical

content?

KT: I do inspire trainers and counselors as well. My program is called Certified Federal

Job Search Trainer Program. It‟s a three-day, 24 CEU program where I teach military transition counselors, one-stop counselors, human resources counselors, and EEO and

workforce one-stop; all those core people. I teach them how to work with job seekers. The way that I teach them is number one, I have a curriculum called 10 Steps to a Fed-

eral Job, and I teach them how to teach this class so that they can have a structure. They talk about 10 Steps to a Federal Job in a group or one-on-one, so my technique

for counselors is to try to make it simple.

Also, when I teach them, I teach them how to make it exciting, because if you don't make federal jobs look exciting to the applicants, they‟re just going to run away and

say “I can stand it.” They should not do that, because these jobs are amazing.

A new graduate from college can go into a job at a GS-5 or GS-7 at say $39,000 a year. The very next year, they may get promoted to a GS-9 if they get a career ladder

opportunity. The very next year, they could be promoted to a GS-11, the next year promoted to a GS-12 – that‟s a career ladder opportunity; GS-7 to GS-12. So they

went from GS-7 to GS-12 in four years; probably the salary went from $45,000 to let‟s say $75,000 in four years. That does not happen in private sector. That is what is ex-

citing for me to share with all of my career transition counselors that I work with is that

their jobs pay, the benefits are amazing, and people don‟t know it.

They do not know the federal jobs are this good, so I just have nothing but good news, and I share that with my counselors in an enthusiastic way. They go out of my classes

actually anxious to teach the class and anxious to talk to job seekers. It‟s really moti-vating to be able to help people land great jobs. I get a success story every day, prac-

tically twice a day from people in my classes, one-on-one services and my books. That‟s another reason why I stay excited. I have so much success that that helps me a

lot, too. -36-

I: What are the major strengths that you have that make you a great executive coach,

a coach that inspires your clients to pursue their dreams and stay focused and deter-mined?

KT: My major strength is of course, I‟m an expert in the industry and I share that ex-

pertise that I have. Another thing that helps me is that I care a lot about my clients – every single client that comes to me.

I think the very first trait that I have, that you must have, is flexibility. You have to be

able to take the ups and downs, and you have to still keep going, maybe not with a smile, but keep going. Go to work and find something to dig into, even if you are wor-

ried about something. Find something to get excited about; a client or a project or an article, or something that you‟re working on.

Enthusiasm for what you do is absolutely mandatory. If you‟re not totally engaged in

what you do, then it‟s over. Follow-up is a technical detail, but if you don‟t follow up on

everything in the whole world, nothing happens, and that goes for all your employees and your articles and your book reviews that you want. It drives me crazy, but follow-

up goes to success.

Listening skills are critical. When I teach my classes and people talk in a class and/or consulting, I‟m listening. I‟m taking notes actually. I type; that‟s a technique that I

use to remember in case I don‟t really listen is I type notes. I type really fast, like 100 words a minute, and I type notes whenever I‟m talking to people, and even in my

classes, so that I can speak right back to what they say. Empathy is high on my list. I‟m very emphatic for people.

I: You were very fortunate that you found your passion so young.

KT: It‟s exciting, and right now it‟s really exciting because it‟s the only employer in the

country that‟s really hiring, and the benefits … in fact, there‟s articles out there that the government pays too much – that‟s really interesting, and of course they‟re never going

to reduce the salaries – that will never happen.

Go get a government job!

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Schelli Whitehouse

the founding visionary behind The Next Highest Version of You and Your Business. She combines life-affirming spiritual abundance principles, and nuts-and-bolts practical

marketing to help her clients connect the soul of their business to the heart of their cli-ents. In this way, she is on the leading edge of the new world of client-centered pros-

perity marketing. Schelli is passionate about serving soul-o-preneurs, soulful service

providers who do what they do for a living because it is the extension of their spiritual passion, calling, and love for humanity. She believes that soul-o-preneurs are the con-

scious light bearers which transform the way business evolves in the rapidly changing more spiritually based world.

Schelli‟s programs include enlightening one-day workshops, practical VIP business in-

tensives, 14-week accelerated, powerfully transformative business building programs and extended group and private platinum coaching with three day equine assistance re-

treats, which beautifully alter consciousness and unconscious money and business phi-losophies. Certified as a Money, Marketing, and Soul Business Coach as well as an

Equine Assisted coach, Schelli skillfully incorporates the compassion, spirit and wisdom of the horse as an experiential learning component during her retreats. As only con-

templative experiences with nature can do, these retreats are designed to guide the student in to the evolutional release and expansion that takes life and business to the

next highest level of service and client attention.

I: What exactly is The Next Highest Version of You and Your Business, and how did you come up with this name?

SW: Years ago I was reading Neale Donald Walsch‟s book, Conversations With God,

and in that book he talks about how as conscious beings, we are here to continuously

expand. We don‟t just get our degree and learn how to do something and then okay, we‟re done, and now we just do that thing for the rest of our life. We are here to con-

tinually expand and grow and take ourselves to the next level, and as he put it, it‟s “The grandest version of the highest vision you can hold for yourself.”

The meaning behind The Next Highest Version of You and Your Business is that you will

continuously expand and grow your business as an entrepreneur for the rest of your life. You don‟t just clock in and do your thing and then you go home and pretend that

you‟re somebody else. It‟s an extension of who you are, so you‟re continually evolving.

I: How do you help people change the course of their lives and their businesses?

SW: My philosophy, Stacey, is that you are an entrepreneur and your business some-how helps lift people up or transforms people in some way. So whether you‟re a coach

or a consultant or a Feng Shui consultant or a designer, an artist, if anything in your

work helps to shift people in their environment, mentally or emotionally, then you‟re in the business of transformation.

My intention is to help those people who are in that service industry – I call them “soulful service providers” – to help them really get their message out to a bigger audi-

ence, because if people don‟t know who you are, you cannot help transform their life.

-38-

SW: In order to do that, you

have to grow yourself. In order to help other people on a continual

basis, you have to be able to feed your own soul, to continually grow

yourself, and then your business will grow along with you. Does

that answer your question?

I: It does, and I completely agree with you. Who is your perfect cli-

ent?

SW: My perfect client? I love that question, because I spend a

lot of time helping people deter-

mine who their perfect client is, and we talk a lot about niche, but

it‟s more than that. Your perfect client is someone who resonates

with you, with your unique bril-liance and who you really are, and

it‟s that person that you love to serve. You just enjoy who they

are, what they‟re up to in the world, and the fact that they‟re

open to receive, they‟re open to give. Your perfect client values

your service.

I look for people who have those

qualities. My perfect clients are soulful service providers, they‟re

up to big things in the world, they want to reach a large audience.

They understand that what they want to accomplish and their busi-

ness is bigger than who they are by themselves, and they want to

reach out. They‟re willing to ask for help and implement it when

they receive it. They take knowl-edge, and they turn it right

around and put it into their busi-ness and implement it. It‟s peo-

ple who are eager to grow, and

eager to reach a larger audience.

(Continued next page.)

Schelli Whitehouse continued…

I: You are very clear about your perfect clients. What kind of result do your clients get, and do you have any examples you could share with us?

SW: Yes. I have several examples. One in particular was a woman that I was working with just a couple of months ago who was putting together a coaching pro-

gram, and she had been following a model that didn‟t serve her. One of the things that I want my clients to get is how to design their businesses so that it‟s the busi-

ness you want to live in. It‟s your business. It should serve you while you are serv-ing your clients.

She had designed a coaching program that not only was not her

model. She had copied someone else‟s, and there‟s nothing wrong with that, but you have to make sure that it‟s a fit for

you as well. She was grossly undercharging for her service because she was just going along with what she saw out there

and what someone else was charging for something that she thought was similar.

What I did for her was to help her break down the value of what it was she was of-fering so that she could see it piece by piece. She was giving way more in service,

in knowledge, in her expertise, and a whole certification process than what she was modeling in the way she was charging and structuring her business. So we restruc-

tured it, re-priced it and sent it out so that her clients saw the value of it.

We increased the price of her program by 100%. She was charging $12,000 for her program, and we increased it to $24,000 because of the value she was offering.

She was then able to offer a discount for a full pay option of $6,000. She had sev-eral people take her up on that, and they paid her $18,000 for her 12-month certifi-

cation program, and they got a $6,000 discount, and she made $6,000 more per person because she understood the value of what she was offering, and so did the

clients. They were happy to pay it, and they got their money‟s worth.

I: That‟s very interesting.

SW: It‟s about helping people understand what it is they‟re offering and how they

might package it. She was offering that same program, so it‟s not like she was do-ing more work. It was restructuring how she presented it, and she did add a few

more simple things, some bonus things that she didn‟t have to deliver herself, things that she already had created. There‟s any number of ways you can add value to

what it is you‟re offering, and therefore, bump up your fee structure, and then your clients get more and so do you. It‟s very cool.

I: It sounds really incredible. I‟m sure that you‟re helping them see the value,

which is helping them overcome the fear, because I could see where they would bump up against the wall of fear.

SW: Not everybody‟s going to increase their fees like that.

-40-

SW: It may depend on your programs or your offerings, but most people are under-

charging, and sometimes the biggest obstacle that I see with soulful service providers is – this is huge – they don‟t know how to ask for compensation in a way that‟s com-

fortable for them, and there are so many reasons why.

I do a whole program on money and why we believe certain things in our lives about money and how it shows up or doesn‟t show up. Basically, people who have an innate

talent like this and really want to help other people, they almost feel guilty for asking for money around what they have to do, especially if it‟s something that comes easy

for them.

If coaching is really easy for you or maybe you are a healer of some sort or a mas-sage therapist and you really understand the body and how it works and it‟s easy for

you to help people alleviate their stress and get relief, you almost feel guilty taking money for something that you love to do, something that you would probably do any-

way, even if you didn‟t get paid for it.

The thing is, the person that you‟re serving can't get that relief for themselves by

themselves. They need your expertise, and they are happy to compensate you for it. Oftentimes, if you don‟t ask for the value of what it is you‟re giving to people, then

the people you‟re giving it to won't value it either. They won't appreciate it as much. Helping my clients get over that piece of it so that they can ask for what it is they de-

serve in a way that‟s comfortable and authentic for them is one of the biggest things.

I: That makes sense. You mentioned one, but what are the top three biggest obsta-cles people face when it comes to building their dreams or their business?

SW: The first one – not asking for the value of what you deserve.

The other one for this demographic of people is not having a specific market that

they want to serve. People get confused about market and niche, and they feel that

“I‟m a massage therapist, so I massage people.” I‟m just using massage therapist as an example because it‟s out there. Coaches are notorious for “Yes, but what I do

helps everybody.” Especially life coaches; they feel like, “I can help everybody!” That may be true to some extent, but if you‟re not being specific enough about who you

want to serve and how you serve them, then nobody will find you, because people look for specifics, and if you‟re not being specific, then nobody will find you. That‟s

number two.

Not asking for a value of what you have to offer, not having a specific niche, and then not asking for help. That‟s the other obstacle that soulful service providers or soul-

o-preneurs are often a solopreneurs, and they get in this mindset, this trap of doing everything all by themselves. They get bogged down with trying to grow their busi-

ness because they don‟t know to ask for help, or they don‟t know who to ask for help, or they don‟t know what kind of help they need. I highly recommend, if you‟re grow-

ing your business, you work with a business coach and somebody who can help you

assemble the team that you‟ll need to expand, whether it‟s a virtual assistant or even just your own web design or somebody who can help you write your marketing mate-

rials, that kind of thing. Those are the three biggest obstacles. (Continued next page.)

Schelli Whitehouse continued…

I: Being able to overcome, and being able to let it go; that‟s very hard to do is to say, “please write the copy” when you‟re used to doing it yourself.

SW: That‟s a great point, and it goes both ways. Those who are used to writing their own copy – copy is huge; that‟s a really big thing – and most people don‟t even know

it‟s a big deal until they get to it,. Then they‟re like, “Oh my God, this is a big deal!” People who are good at it and writing it themselves, letting that go can be really hard.

Sometimes it takes a while to find the right person that you trust to express your voice for you, but when you do, you always have the right to look it over and tweak it.

Sometimes what I do is I have my Director of Marketing – she writes really good copy –

I have her create the outline. She knows what the program is and I have her create the bones, and then I add Schelli. I go in and add my voice so that I‟m not doing every

piece of it, which is time consuming when you do it right.

I: That makes sense. That‟s really a great idea. Delegating can be a big deal. How do you help people overcome these obstacles?

SW: Many different ways. One of the things that I feel differentiates me from some other business coaches is the fact that I do incorporate actual coaching and not just

okay, here‟s information about business and what you need to do in your business, but I actually spend time with the person, because the person is the business.

Although you can get business building information and techniques and “coachsulting”

from many sources, great information, it‟s actually having someone that cares about you and your evolution, your business, and what your business means in the bigger

picture of the world. It‟s helping you overcome, getting out of your own way … just helping you get out of your own way. You know as a coach that sometimes it‟s just

helping people see another perspective around what it is they‟re trying to accomplish or they want to accomplish.

Sometimes, it‟s helping them reveal some blocks or beliefs that have been handed

down to them by their peers or their family or their religion or society that really don‟t

belong to them. It may not really be their own core value that they‟re trying to live their life by, and recognizing it and letting it go … it‟s huge! It‟s life changing. That‟s

what I mean about growing your business also means you need to be ready to grow yourself.

I: I think so, too. You‟re absolutely right. Can you tell us what you mean when you say soul-o-preneur?

SW: Yes. Like I said, that‟s the soulful service provider, and I often speak about the

conscious soul-o-preneur, and that‟s the entrepreneur who really understands again that the growth of their business involves the growth of themselves personally and

spiritually. They learn to set intentions based on their own best interest so that they may empower themselves to serve a larger audience.

-42-

SW: It takes a lot of courage when you are the sole proprietor of your business and

you do a lot of things on your own, and you don‟t have a team or a staff lifting you up or a business partner, and you have to stand up and tell the world, “Hey, I have some-

thing really important to offer here, and when you work with me, it‟s going to help transform your life.” That takes a lot of courage, and I believe that those people who

are stepping up, who are the light bearers, who are making a difference in the world need support, because they‟re consciously making an effort.

I don‟t mean to put anybody down who has a brick and mortar business by any stretch;

there‟s lots of conscious business owners out there – but it‟s not just, “Hey, I want to make some money and retire so I‟m going to start up a McDonald‟s franchise and hire

a bunch of people and sell burgers” without any intention of making a difference in other people‟s lives.

So to me, that‟s the conscious heart. Because they care so much about what they do

and what they do is an extension of who they are, they‟re soulful service providers.

That‟s how I mush all that together.

I: That brings up a critical question. How is soul-o-preneur different from an entrepre-

neur?

SW: They‟re not. They‟re just a soulful entrepreneur or a consciously soulful entrepre-

neur. The example that I used a minute ago of somebody starting a McDonald‟s fran-chise based on the intention that I just want to make some money and retire. There‟s

nothing wrong with that – we‟re all here for our own experience in this human form. The people who say, “I want to do this for a living because it makes a difference in the

world and it makes a difference for who I am in the world” it‟s connected to their unique brilliance and who they are and how they want to live their lives. It‟s different

from the entrepreneur. There‟s a service and it‟s important, but it‟s how you feel about your own service and what it is. People could have a dry cleaning business and of

course have a consciousness about them.

I: It‟s your view. How you view it.

SW: It‟s your view. It‟s your own perspective, your own point of view about your busi-ness.

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Andrea Feinberg

is the President of Coaching Insight, LLC, which identifies and leverages underused assets for small business owners. As a Wall Street executive, wholesale gift business

owner, marketing consultant, and coach, Andrea has 30 years experience helping clients articulate, achieve, and exceed their goals, whether for business or for their

professional lives.

The key to her business process is a simple yet powerful concept. How we respond to

the realities and circumstances of our businesses has a fundamental impact on what those realities and circumstances are. She is a graduate of Coach University‟s three-

year advanced coach training program, a founding member of CoachVille, and of the International Association of Coaching. A certified Strategic Business Leadership coach

and certified Emotional Intelligence mentor, Andrea received her Certified Business Be-havioral Analyst Designation from Target Training International.

I: Tell me a little bit more about your background and how you came to be interested

and involved in business coaching?

AF: Of course; and thank you so much. I really enjoy this opportunity to speak with you today. I come to business coaching after having spent, fortunately for me, a very

diverse business career – ten years on Wall Street and moved into my own business, which I owned for 11 years. I did it by taking advantage of all the smart thinking I had

learned being on Wall Street and getting that MBA. I thought a lot about what kind of business I wanted to be in and the competitive factors and the marketplace, and all the

smart things a businessperson looks at, and after a couple of years I discovered I really hated my business.

I didn‟t hate it because I was in business. I really enjoyed business ownership, but I realized that I simply did not like the business I was in, the industry I was in, which

was in the wholesale gift arena. Ironically, I came to realize that with all my smart questions about deciding what business do I want to be in, I had neglected to ask the

very important questions I now ask all my clients, which are: What are the kinds of things I really enjoy doing?

What are the strengths I have that move me forward every day? What are the kinds of people who bring out the best in me?

All these kinds of personal questions, which at the time never occurred to me, were vi-

able questions to ask when considering what business to go into, and turned out to be the reason I hated my business. So after a period of soul-searching and doing some

exploration, I was very fortunate to discover coaching, which at the time, in the late 1990s, was a fairly new concept as a unique profession. I explored it and discovered

this is right up my alley. This is exactly what I‟m suited to do.

I was able to sell my business to an employee, enrolled in Coach U, and never looked

back. I can happily say I am a model of what the happy business owner ought to look like, because I love what I do. I enjoy the content of the material I work with. I really

enjoy and learn from the people who I meet and work with as a coach, and I also have the opportunity to enjoy a very rich personal life as well.

-44-

I: You have quite a background. Thank you

for sharing it with us.

I understand you just published your first book, Time Junkie: 101 Ways For Business

Owners to Break the Habit and Get More Free Time Now.

AF: Yes, thank you. I literally just pub-

lished my own book. I published it myself. I designed it with the help of some really

smart outsourcing. I‟ve really learned how to take advantage of 21st Century business

tools, and I‟m really very excited. I literally just got cartons of the book earlier this

week, and it is truly a very practical book.

It is a tips book; 101 tips to help small busi-ness owners learn how to make time their

friend, and not the enemy that they‟re rac-ing against every day.

I: That sounds very interesting, on a much

needed topic. What brought you to take this book on?

AF: I always get welcome kits, the first in-

take bit of material from a new client that gives me a sense of where they are in their

lives and business and the context of the ob-stacle they want to pursue. I started to see

this remarkable consistency, whether I was

working with men or women or people ear-lier or later in the stages of the life cycle of

their business. Regardless of the industry they were in, every one of them was telling

me that they had an enormous desire to find more free time to spend with their family

and to pursue dreams that business owner-ship was sort of pushing aside and out of the

realm of possibility for them.

I found this very ironic, because so often wanting to be a business owner was the

dream at one time, and interestingly, as they got more and more into the ownership

of their business, that seemed to be the ob-

stacle preventing them from enjoying their dream. (Continued next page.)

Andrea Feinberg continued…

AF: In starting to get this sense of consistency, I wanted to see just how big this was, and last fall I distributed a survey to about 1,000 readers of my E-newsletter–

all business owners. I asked them how they defined success, and I gave them a few

elements that you might commonly hear someone say about what was important: Financial success.

Good health. Reputation for excellence in one’s industry.

Ability to enjoy free time.

When I got back the results, I was really surprised to see that nearly 80% of them said that having more free time was

absolutely key to their vision of success. I was really kind of blown away by those results.

Of course, everybody wants to have a nice pot of money, for what-

ever reason. At the very least, having money is a strong indicator of a successful business, a secure life, and obviously the ability to endow worthwhile endeavors, or

just to feel comfortable that we can live without worry. Yet a lot of the business owners who are both my clients and who responded to this survey seemed to find

that they are not able to get to the true moneymaking endeavors without having more access to free time to think.

So many business owners don‟t think that they have permission to just sit and think

and envision and strategize, that it‟s not an acceptable activity of business owner-ship. They don‟t feel they‟ve got the time to do those kinds of things that would al-

low them to develop the big ideas.

I can see how their thinking came to this, that having more free time is really a key to making more money to enjoying one‟s business and to loving life. Yet at the

same time, this is a bit of a puzzle, because as much as we love saying we have

more free time, there is no more to be had. We all get the same 24 hours every day. There‟s no do-overs. If we feel we‟ve wasted time, it‟s certainly not a renew-

able commodity. You can't take the last 20 minutes back to the library and say, “I‟d like to hold on to this last 20 minutes an extra couple of days.”

It‟s a really tough situation – where does more free time come from? I found that

all these people who responded to the survey, the business owners I work with, with whom I have opportunities to have very extensive conversations, they all want this

one thing. They want more free time to enjoy in ways they so far have not been able to find from business ownership, from working.

Of course, sometimes they want the free time simply to build the larger framework

for the growing business; something they don‟t seem able to do while they‟re so ac-tively engaged in the day-to-day running or crisis management of their current busi-

ness situation. What‟s sadly ironic about this is that many of them are about to dis-

cover a whole world of more free time because right now, the first group of baby boomers – and I‟m a baby boomer – the oldest of this demographic, is turning 65,

and there‟s a lot of business owners among that group. -46-

AF: It‟s estimated that between 2010 and 2011, between eight and ten million busi-

nesses are going to be put up for sale in the United States just from this age group. If those business owners are still intrinsically a part of their company‟s business proposi-

tion, if they are the key element that makes the business work every day, if they be-lieve, “I am the business” if they think that a day away would cripple operations, then

ironically they are literally diminishing the value of their enterprise. They are not pre-paring their businesses to be the enormous asset it should be that a potential buyer

will find very exciting and appealing to buy.

I: Do you mind going a little bit more into this? This is very interesting.

AF: Sure. Just think about this. When you sell a business, if you and your over-stuffed head full of all the relationships the business has, the processes that are nec-

essary to keep it going, the deals that are being made, the ability to make decisions, and the reputation, if all of that are the primary assets of the enterprise and they are

all in the business owner‟s head, what is being sold?

How will the business owner walk away from their business if she has to stick around

to transfer all of this value and fundamental knowledge to the new owner?

How will the potential buyer be able to envision her own success in that business if all she sees is a crazy person running around handling every element of the business,

and they really can't envision themselves being successful and happy and enjoying a lifestyle if they still have to rely on the former owner to make the business work?

It just doesn‟t make sense, and yet, so many business owners don‟t see this. They

think, “Without me, this place would fall apart.” They think this is almost a badge of honor or a point of pride that they are so important to their business, when the truth

is it‟s an enormous flaw. It‟s damning their business to the inability to have an asset that‟s easily sold and it almost flies in the face of why anyone chooses to devote so

much time to build the business – and that is to sell it one day.

Michael Gerber of the E-Myth says that the only reason to own a business is to sell that business one day and help it to finance the rest of your life or your next dream or

next enterprise. But what are you going to sell if the whole business is stuck inside your brain cells?

I think there are really two critical reasons for every business owner to want to find more free time, and probably more, if I were to add in every one of those business

owners‟ very personal reasons for wanting it. I think they are really important rea-sons, and I want to say it this way – these two reasons for desiring more free time

have become really intrinsic to every coaching conversation I have and every program I developed and sold, and it‟s these two points:

Without more free time to pursue the big picture needs of your business, your family,

your life, how will you ever do the work that no one else is capable of doing except you? Who is going to build the vision, the relationships, the alliances, the strategies,

the reputation if you as the owner don‟t have time to get them done because you‟re operating at street level? (Continued next page.)

Andrea Feinberg continued…

You‟re not up there on the tenth floor able to look down and see the big picture of what‟s going on, but you‟re down there among the masses every day, really involved

with the daily needs of getting the goods out the door. Who is going to be up there

on the roof of the building looking down and able to see all of the bigger elements that keep the business growing and thriving and competitive?

The second issue about needing more free time is this – if the business owner doesn‟t

let go of those daily responsibilities that can better be done by frankly, lesser paid employees, how are you going to truly maximize the value of your business and enjoy

its great rewards? Who is going to want to buy a business that, as I said before, just resides in the owner‟s head and not in the intrinsic processes and successes of the

business itself.

To me, it just doesn‟t make sense, and it often stems from what I consider is wrong-headed thinking from business owners who don‟t really give themselves permission to

do the work that only business owners can do. They feel that the best way to justify their ongoing participation in the business is by doing, talking, writing, participating,

making decisions, handling the money, hiring and firing, creating processes, when in

fact, that‟s not their role at all. The business owner‟s role is to be above all of that, and their only product is the totality of the business itself. If they don‟t give them-

selves time to focus on that big picture kind of thinking, they‟re missing out tremen-dously on the real value that they can create in their business and give themselves

the opportunity to enjoy in their lives.

I: So true. Do you mind giving us a couple of tips from your new book?

AF: Sure. The book has been divided organically, I think, into three sections that sort of flow into each other. The first group of tips are the kind of tips that could be

useful for anyone; business owner or not, because they pertain to day-to-day living. The second group of tips pertains to personal development; ways of thinking and ap-

proaching and reframing situations that expand our abilities to enjoy better outcomes. The last and really largest section of the book has to do with business and crafting a

business that responds to one‟s priorities and goals, because I am after all a business

coach, and that‟s really where my heart is.

I‟m going to give you one tip from each of the three sections. The first tip is actually the first one in the book, because I think it‟s really critical.

Learn how to say no.

Some people have been brought up to believe that “yes” is the most powerful word in the world. I think it‟s “no”, because we often get asked to do things, and it‟s very

flattering to be asked, to be recognized that we have some skill or access to resources that other people don‟t have. Very often as soon as we say, “Sure, I‟ll help you with

that”, we resent it because we discover it‟s really an imposition or it takes away time that we had allocated to something else.

-48-

AF: This first tip in the book is learn to just say no, and thank you for asking me, on a

regular basis. This is how we get out of accepting responsibilities that we‟ll soon re-sent. Just decide that having been asked is flattery enough, and delight in all the time

you don‟t need to divert to what could have become another respon-sibility for which you don‟t get paid.

After the tip, I provide a couple of questions to help make it personal

and immediately applicable to the reader‟s situation. I ask: “Who do you know is about to ask you to take on something that you

really don‟t want to do?” “What obligation did you accept recently that has become a burden,

and you need to let it go?”

This is something that people often don‟t do, because they feel guilty to say no, and they set aside their own needs in favor of someone

else who has asked for their assistance. That goes back to a point I want to make in a

moment about being selfish, which I personally feel is a good thing.

The second tip I want to relate to you comes from the personal development part of the book, and that is tip #16 in the book:

Learn how to ask for help.

Unfortunately, I often find people feel that if they ask for help, they‟re either afraid of imposing on someone or they‟re afraid it will reveal some flaw or weakness that they

possess. Instead they often struggle with something that they‟re having a hard time doing, and it creates even more stress for them. So this tip is learn how to ask for

help. Why struggle with tasks at which you don‟t excel? Presidents do it, why don‟t you? Get the help you need to complete work faster and with less stress.

I know that there are some people for whom asking for help is a sign of weakness, and

the way that I help people ask for help easily is this: Let me ask you – if someone

were to ask you for help with something and you‟re in a position to give the help, it‟s not going to be an imposition on you and it‟s not going to compromise other obliga-

tions, how does it make you feel to be asked?

I: As you had mentioned earlier, it is flattering.

AF: It is. It‟s flattering. It makes you feel good. Someone recognizes you as having a skill or a resource that they don‟t have, and it‟s nice to help someone, especially if you

like that person or if they‟ve done nice things for you. If you say, “Yes”, this is really a win-win situation. Not only does the person get the help they need, but you have been

given a gift of feeling good about yourself and knowing that someone else acknowl-edges the skills you have. So that when you ask someone for help, you‟re really giving

them a gift, presuming they‟re in a position to offer the help without it becoming an im-position on any other responsibilities or obligations they have.

That‟s how I counsel people to find it much easier to ask for help if this is something they generally don‟t like to do.

Andrea Feinberg continued…

Obviously, when you get help doing something that you‟re struggling with, it‟s a means to gain time as well as the assistance you want The last tip I want to mention comes from the business portion of the book, and this may sound a little surprising for people who feel they have to pack every day full of ac-

tivities in order to feel truly accomplished. My tip is: Don’t schedule more than 65% of every day.

You never know what opportunity or emergency will show up that needs your attention. Wouldn‟t it be terrific to know that with 35% of your day unscheduled, you‟re in a

position to attend to that opportunity or emergency without the stress that you

would otherwise have felt if every minute of your day was packed?

These are three tips that are designed to give anyone, especially the business owner, a means to respond to time in a way so that rather feeling that time is racing against

you, that instead you‟re learning how to make decisions through the flow of time that allows you to attend to your priorities and those decisions and events that will advance

yourself, so that at the end of the day rather than coming home thinking, “What did I get done today? It just ran away from me!” you feel good and accomplished in having

advanced yourself beyond the position you were in the previous day.

I: I like this. Very nice. Thank you for sharing.

AF: Thank you. There are 98 more where those came from!

I: Tell me. What is a uniquely Andrea coaching experience? What‟s the hallmark of

working with you versus other business coaches?

AF: I hope it‟s this – that every client who comes to work with me realizes that they truly own their business and that it doesn‟t own them. That‟s a big mind shift to make.

I find a lot of business owners believe that they are completely responsible to their en-terprise. I try to tell them, “No – your enterprise, your business, owes you everything,

so why not craft a business that‟s responsive to the bigger picture, goals, and purpose you have for your life?”

My clients come to see that owning a business is a tool. It‟s a means to crafting a full

life, and it is not an end in itself. Whether that big picture comes from the resources and ideas they get introduced to through their business, or whether that big picture

comes from the lifestyle that a successful business provides, or whether that big picture goal comes from the eventual sale of the business, ownership of a business is a won-

derful opportunity to achieve self-expression, to lead with strength, to grow, to expand

one‟s awareness of life‟s possibilities. Yet very often – and virtually this is why many clients come to work with me – there is an insidious ironic process that new business

owners who come to business ownership to serve their desire for freedom, for flexibil-ity, for money, often end up building an organization that Dave Buck of CoachVille used

to say, “has a lunatic for a boss” which is themselves.

I think that a business should exist within the context of your larger life.

AF: It‟s one of the elements of a successful life. Obviously, health, family, spirituality,

community – all the things that we consider part of a good life – that‟s the bigger con-text. Business ownership is a part of that, but too many business owners make the

mistake of believing the reverse is the case, and that the rest of their life has to fit into the context of them as business owners. As a result, they lose out on a treasure of ex-

perience, of wealth, of love, of personal abundance, of the opportunities to learn new ways to enjoy life, to experience an even bigger measure of success.

I think too many business owners believe they owe an obligation to their business that

supersedes the obligation they owe to themselves. As I mentioned briefly a little ear-lier, I‟m a very big believer in Thomas Leonard‟s first principle of attraction, and I don‟t

know if you or your readers are familiar with Thomas Leonard. He‟s my poster boy of coaching. Thomas Leonard in the mid and late 1980s really developed coaching as a

profession off the athletic field and really endowed it with a tremendous body of work with ethics, with tools, and so on. One of his books was The Portable Coach, in which

he lists 28 principles of attraction. The first one is my personal favorite.

Be incredibly selfish.

On first hearing, a lot of people are turned off by that, but it doesn‟t mean be incredi-bly self-focused. It means take good care of yourself. It means that without taking

good care of ourselves, first and foremost, we are running down our personal batter-ies, whether you‟re a business owner or not. If we don‟t take good care of ourselves,

we lose sleep, health, relationships, the opportunity to enjoy new points of view, and new life-expanding experiences, and as a result, we compromise our effectiveness to

our business.

I take vacations, get massages, go out and buy a new pair of shoes and enjoy an ice cream cone with a friend, because if you don‟t, you‟re not really being good to your

business. I think too many business owners have tried to cramp the rest of their lives around their business, and I don‟t think anyone should have to feel it‟s necessary to

alter their lives, their family, their friendship, their dreams, to conform to some run-away monster that you have to constantly feed or chain to a wall to make it do your

bidding. I really think the reverse is a much healthier, productive, and freeing way to run a business, and that‟s to tame it. Make it your servant. Make your business re-

spond to the needs you have for the rest of your life. Gaining the time to plan for just this is really part of what comes out of the tips in the book, and I hope comes out of

everything that I try to advocate on behalf of my clients who work with me.

Are You a Time Junkie?

Break the habit and get more free time now: http://www.timejunkiebook.com/

Coaches Corner with Paulette Rao, MCC

is the principal of True North Resources, her coaching and consulting firm where she helps executives and entrepreneurs advance their leadership skills. Her coaching is

founded on her twenty-eight years experience as a senior leader and marketing expert.

Paulette helps executives and entrepreneurs advance their leadership skills. She is also

the founder of Conscious Coaching Institute where she is dedicated to the training and development of coaches.

I: What does it mean to consciously market?

PR: To consciously market means to awaken to your sense of how you‟re showing up in

the world, and allowing your actions to flow from that place. It‟s having a clear under-standing of your thinking, your being, as well as your doing.

Marketing today is often thought of as a doing activity, so consciously marketing means

going inside, examining the thoughts and feelings, and then allowing the doing part to flow from that place. It‟s an inside out approach.

I: I see. Do you have an example of what that would look like?

PR: I work with coaches looking to build their practice, and they often tell me that they‟re struggling. There is a lot of effort, there‟s fear, and there‟s lack of revenue.

They are not making money doing what they love.

An example of helping someone bring more consciousness to their marketing starts NOT by looking at their marketing plan, strategies and tactics, but by asking “How are

you feeling about marketing? Let‟s take an inventory of your thinking and feelings around it.” More often then not, there‟s fear and discomfort, and it therefore makes

sense that their marketing efforts are not translating into new clients and revenue.

I: I can see that. So it‟s a kinesthetic approach.

PR: Yes, and organic.

I: That‟s a good word, I like that. So, how do you define “marketing”?

PR: I have a different definition than most and it stems from my holding a radically dif-

ferent view about marketing. For me, marketing is revealing who you are and what you offer, authentically and naturally, so as to attract the people you most want to work

with. I tell people, in order to be conscious with your marketing, you need to fall in love again with what it is that you‟re offering, and then enroll people in what you have to of-

fer.

I: So selling it from a position of passion?

PR: Exactly, from a place of passion and genuine connection. -52-

PR: Sitting in the middle

of your gift, the contribu-tion that you put out in

the world, and speaking from that place. Not

speaking from the place of products, features,

benefits, and rates, but rather from your commit-

ment to helping people facilitate positive change;

helping them develop and move forward in

their life and the work-place.

When you speak to peo-ple from that place, they

identify with you and connect to you. They get

who you are and what you stand for. They know

you‟re committed to them, and it becomes

easy for them to say, “Wow, I would love to

work with you.”

I: That makes sense. They don‟t feel like they

are being sold to.

PR: Right! There are so

many marketing books and programs out there

that teach you to sound like an infomercial.

Coaches enter this pro-fession because they

truly want to effect change in the world and

workplace, but some coaches fall into ways of

marketing that are simply incongruent with

their values.

(Continued next page.)

Paulette Rao, MCC continued... PR: They wind up creating an uncomfortable and unattractive connection to others where the client might think: “I‟m being sold to.” or, “I‟m not sure this person cares

about what I need but I see they have a service to sell.”

So this is about NOT selling anything, but rather sharing your purpose in an organic

way. Story-telling, for example, allows you to communicate the solutions you create and the return on investment for coaching without engaging in high pressure sales

tactics.

Perhaps, there was a high potential you worked with who was highly technically profi-cient, but had low EQ and sub-par communication skills, putting her promotion to VP at

risk. Sharing how you helped her identify her soft and blind spots, get clear about where she wanted to be, create goals and strategies to close that gap, and supported

her with resources and accountability allows you to demonstrate the value coaching im-parts. You can communicate your value through storytelling without coming from an in-

authentic, sales-y place.

I: Exactly. You talked about fear a few minutes ago, before. Can you expand a bit on

the parts of fear that mitigate our ability to grow?

PR: For the last five years I‟ve been working with life and leadership coaches who are struggling to fill their practice. In helping them identify their limiting beliefs and fears, I

have learned that there is a fear of failing. No surprise there. Another big fear is that of rejection, or the fear that if someone finds out that you‟re flawed, and don‟t live a per-

fect life, they won‟t want to work with you. There‟s the fear that you‟re annoying people by marketing. Thinking, “I can‟t put out a note through Constant Contact because that

might intrude on people.” They are also afraid they‟ll be disliked if they‟re wildly suc-cessful.

The problem with all of these fears is not whether they are true or not, it‟s that they

hold you back from going out there in the world, expressing yourself, and speaking to potential new clients! They stop you cold from marketing.

My feeling is that when people get clear as to the fears that mitigate their ability to cre-ate results they have a new awareness. You start noticing your little gremlins ramping

up every time you get into a networking situation, or when you‟ve just given a talk and now it‟s time to mingle with the crowd, and the gremlin is on your shoulder saying, “I

don‟t really want to bother them. I hope they don‟t think I‟m selling anything. The economy is really awful right now.” The gremlin has numerous scripts, and he is in our

ear, and if we‟re listening to those negative thoughts, what comes out of our mouth and our way of being, energetically, is tainted. And people feel it. They might now know

exactly what‟s happening, but they sure know, “Her energy doesn‟t feel right. I‟m not feeling okay with this conversation.”

This is the strategy for putting the fear aside. Notice it. Realize it‟s just FEAR--false evi-

dence appearing real. Put it aside as powerfully as you can and reconnect to why you chose this profession, and speak from that place.

-54-

PR: If you need to do that ten or twenty times, that‟s okay. You start getting quicker

at noticing the fear, better at putting it aside, and it becomes easier to reconnect with your gift and start speaking from that authentic place, where you are connected to the

fact that you know you can help people and you want to. You are the answer to their prayers, and they just need to spend a little bit of time with you to figure that out.

I: Well I have a question. Let‟s say that I do have one of these fears, or any of them.

How do I manage to get past them to build my practice?

PR: It boils down to three steps. Noticing the fear it is the first and most important step. Noticing it in and of itself has you realize, “This is not me speaking, it‟s my fear,”

because how could you notice it if it were you? So noticing it immediately reduces its impact. And then, put the feeling aside just for a moment, so that you can choose an-

other way to think and act.

I: Besides managing our fear, what else is key?

PR: Our mindset, the inside piece, is first and foremost. But once we get a handle on

that, we need to start creating messages that are impactful and powerful; messages that are concise and compelling that people want to hear. So the second piece is creat-

ing compelling messages. People like to talk a lot about what they do, and the results that they create, but there is a marketing syntax, and many people don‟t know it.

There‟s a way to speak about what we do that really has impact.

The third piece is creating an action plan, where you can take all your messages, your new mindset, go out there in the world, and meet up with the people that you consider

to be your target markets.

And the very last piece, and this is really critical, is that when people finally get to that place, and they‟ve done those three things, accountability is key, because, over time,

the fear ramps up again. If we have accountability, if we‟re part of a mastermind group,

if we‟re working with a mentor, we really get the support, the inspiration, and the re-minder to keep checking in about the fears, and to keep staying centered and grounded

in who we are and what we offer, and to keep working on our plan.

I: Well that makes sense. What is the first step that you would recommend someone to do in order to get more conscious about their marketing?

PR: The first step is taking an honest inventory of how you feel about marketing. Really

ask yourself, “What are the thoughts that come up when I think about stepping into a room of people, whether it‟s a conference or to do a keynote speech or networking?

What am I truly feeling? What are the self-limiting beliefs that start to swirl in my head?” That is step one.

Once you identify that for yourself, then start asking “How well equipped am I? What is

in my toolkit? Do I have my messages prepared? Do I have my client success stories?

Can I speak about my value and my credibility? Do I know what makes me different? Do I feel comfortable speaking about all these things?” And if you see any shortfalls

here, get a marketing mentor to work with. (Continued next page.)

Paulette Rao, MCC continued... PR: I notice that many coaches spend significant amounts of money getting skilled up and credentialed. Personally, I went to two coaching programs, and then I got

credentialed by the ICF. I invested an enormous amount of time and money in doing

that. It was worthwhile!

However, these same coaches tell me they read one marketing book, or took one marketing class. It‟s preposterous if you think about it because marketing is more

than fifty percent of what we‟re doing as coaches, especially when we start out, it can be up to eighty percent of our day. And to think that we‟d spend thousands of

dollars and hundreds of hours getting skilled at coaching and we might buy one book or take one class in marketing really doesn‟t make sense, when we understand how

critical marketing is to our success.

I say use some of the CCEU hours you need anyway to get marketing mentoring. Find someone you respect, with values that are aligned with yours, who has a suc-

cessful practice and ask them if you can learn from them.

I: Excellent. Do you have any other advice for anyone that is maybe starting out in

the coaching field?

PR: Right out of the gate, take a class in marketing! This way you start out well-armed, with tools and skills and ready to go. I often find coaches start seriously

looking at their marketing one or two years into their practice when they‟re having a hard time. Instead, make it part of your primary education as a coach.

Dedicated to the training and development of coaches Conscious Coaching Institute’s mission is to provide coaches

with structure, accountability and support.

We provide face-to- face programs and distance learning teleclasses

to help coaches develop mastery, get credentialed, and create sustainable revenue doing what they love.

Master certified coach Paulette Rao brings her depth of experience as a coach, business leader, and entrepreneur to create and deliver powerful and

dynamic programs that produce results. http://consciouscoachinginstitute.com/

Insights Directory of Experts

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