Tag Archives: personal coaching

Marketing yourself… your self!

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I’ve always felt uneasy with marketing tactics as the current trend aims to show anyone as experts in any fields, regardless of reality.

The gist is according to the current market criteria, you must pick a category  and stick to it, even if down the road you change course.  But why?  In the marketing logic, once people see you as an expert and specialist, you’re on your way up.  Why is that important?  Experts get all the attention.  However, the problem remains that when experts get it wrong, the card castle crumbles down.  A current example of this is why our so-called experts and leaders in the case of our global economy and their shoddy predictions. The problem with yesterday’s marketing tactic was to bring someone up into the limelight as quickly as possible without making sure that person, or system was the “real deal”.  Marketing managers and their companies have little professional pride in what they.  If they did, they wouldn’t leave such a mess behind.

Who Do I Attract?  The very first step before gearing up your marketing suit is to do serious soul searching.  Who am I in regards to my field and why do I do the things I do?  Starting from that, it will be easier to see if your marketing message and fervor is in alignment with your true self and purpose.

The Generalist Specialist.  Current marketing trends don’t want you to label yourself as a generalist.  But what about those generalist specialists?  Your household doctor is such a person and sends you to the right specialist after examining you.  So don’t beat yourself up if you are a general specialist.

Personally, I work with people who are not satisfied with business as-is and want to beyond learned methods.  They want to think outside the box and cement the foundations of that all new business 2.0.  It’s about time, business 1.0 is over…

Self Help, great but pople don’t think they need help…

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Self Help has been all the rage for the past few decades but a reality check still shows, most people don’t think they need help.

The gist is indeed, people understand something is amiss but the reaction is to work more, harder and earn more money.  Last I checked, money does not bring happiness automatically, you work on making money to make you happy.  A trick and feast onto itself.

Self Help, But What For?  And exactly what is meant by Self Help anyway?  We help ourselves by working and sustaining our lives on this planet, but that doesn’t offer a complete vision of what is meant by Self Help.  Self Help is really about answering those nagging life long questions that aim to answer the root core, who am I and what am I here for.

My Self Help.  We should have a phone app called My Self Help.  It would remind you to take time to meditate.  It would give you subtle cues when the day’s perpetual motions drags you down the road to more and more tasks to attend to and situations to solve.  It’s an abyss that drags us down the road to self denial.

My Self Help App would also give you something to ponder upon, such as: “Is what I am doing here and now conducive to my highest fulfillment?” but add to it, the answer doesn’t matter, awareness is key.

All in all, the greatest Self Help I know is to ask question with a constant curiosity about life, yourself and how you fit it in all.  Answers are deeply, deeply personal.

Not being number 1, but understanding the real power of number 2

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There is a lot of wisdom and maturity around when we grasp the idea that number is good, but the real trick is what happens with number.

The gist is everyone wants to be number.  In a goofy kind of way, if everyone was number one, nothing would get done and nothing would happen.  The real power in number one is not so much to have the idea, trend or leading thought, but to have people who understand the value and create a movement out of it.  Simply put, number is nothing without number two, the one who recognizes the inherent value and translates it into a concrete movement.

Derek Siver at the TedxSocal had a powerful message accompanied by one of those videos that really drives the point home.

In essence, being number is where the real power lies. Often times, number one gets hit of intuition that can from anywhere, literally.  The receiver of the brilliant idea doesn’t always know how to translate it into a sustainable movement.  Case in point, look at most entrepreneurs and their lack of understanding when it is time to go or surround themselves with the right people.  That is number’s position, to seek out, understand and act upon it. In many ways, number is the thinking behind any movement.

What does it mean to be a man today?

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Picture: Nick Zart

I was stomped when asked what does it mean to be a man in today’s society.

The gist is there is no manual.  It surely can’t be the stereotype weight lifter at the gym, nor the attitude guy driving his car hand on the other side of the steering wheel.  Being a man today is much dynamic, with fuller depth and surely much deeper than meets the eye.  It has to be that inner most wisdome we have neglected over the decades.

What It Means To Be A Man Today.  A man today should be many things, including something most aren’t used to, deep, in touch with their inner wisdom and feelings.  Ancient societies provided young men rites of passage, today we have no such things but to sit down and think it through.

so What Is A Man, Then?  A man who acknowledges when wrong, one who knows with quiet confidence when right, one who uses wisdom and compassion wisely.  Most of these attributes I realized were found in Dzogchen, the purest esoteric form of Tibetan Buddhism… of all place.

Here is a passage I was reading this morning on Gyalshen: “Dzogchen practice gives us a clarity that is powerful enough to recognize that whatever emotion we experience, be it anger, depression, fear, or joy is not separate from the true nature of the mind. This recognition is wisdom.  It gives us the strength to leave things as they are. Our ability to leave things as they are reduces our subconscious attachment to the conditioning that judges or manipulates our emotions. We are accepting our feelings. We are becoming aware of what we are feeling right now, and we stop right there. We don’t allow that emotion to take over our life. We do not allow it to obscure the true nature of the mind and to become an obstacle.  ”

In other word, shouldn’t a “man” be one who accepts who he is without judgement, looks at what is front of him without preconceived notions, accepting his moods and feelings as that present moment, not more, and holding that space sacred so that what is to come happens untainted from expectations?  I’m going off on a limb here but I felt a strange sense of finding a clue in an ancient esoteric tradition about what it means to be a man.  Something worth while exploring for all those young guys without guidance.  I should know…

Imagines of me

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I wake up, blink my eyes a few times as I try to recall where am I, who am I.  You see, my dreams are as vivid as what we call reality.

The gist is moving through life, we need a certain amount of self image if we are to interface and communicate with others.  The problem is that self image might not be accurate, nor are others, which can explain a lot of the current problems we run into.

Self Image As A Starting Block.  We need to start somewhere in the road to self discovery, the trick is to not take it at face value, nor take our embellished self image seriously.  We are born naked and often exit the same way, with ourselves.

While we it is equally possible to say that all is illusion, therefore nothing is real, we can always remind ourselves of this proven fact, an illusion hurting another still hurts.  The trick is maintaining that careful balance of putting one foot forward into the unknown, with a hefty amount of unknown and self illusion.  After all, we must start somewhere.

In many ways, we are like computers computing for an impossible answer with little to false data.  Ours is a strange quest and yet the answers as so simple once we fear not what lies within us.

The problem with advice is…

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Tap The Source

Tapping the source for better decision making

You pay the price…  whether success or failure follows, it’s really up to you.

The gist is friends and acquaintances are well meaning and everyone wants everyone to be happy.  Thus, finding advice is easy.  Following is not simple.  So, should you?

Choosing when and how to listen to advice, as well as when to discard it is an important skill that can bring you to the road of success, or complete failure.  Take for example these 5 advices given to Steve Jobs, head of the now very successful Apple computer company.  What would have happened had he followed them?

5. Invest heavily in Newton technology.

4. Apple should adopt Windows.

3. Apple should pull the plug on the iPhone.

2. Get out of the hardware game.

1. “What would I do? I’d shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.”

Apple has now more cash flow then the US government.  If are you facing an interesting situation and plenty of well meaning folks are ready to give you advice, should you follow them?  How about listening to everything but finding your own answers?  If you feel this paints an accurate portrait of who and where you are, then it’s time for a professionally trained coach to sift through the possibilities and unfold your potential… such as… well, Nick of course! :)

For more information: Business Insider.

The green guilt, victim of fashion?

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Tap The Source

Tapping the source for better decision making

I had a strange feeling creep up on me yesterday and realized I was feeling guilty for not being more green, or at least not outwardly pursuing the green dream.

The gist is that it’s easy to fall into the erroneous belief that everything we do must have a concrete absolute and tangible green output.  After all, everything we hear and see these days is around making our life healthier, greener and less polluted.  It’s easy to feel guilty about not consecrating your life to the green factor.  In my case, it made me smile once I scrutinized that creepy thought.

We have close to no chemicals in our household, so very little toxicity is flushed out our drains into our Oceans.  I walk or ride my bicycle pretty much every day instead of using my car.  The lights are turned off at night except when needed.  That much, we are consciously aware of our environment.  As to the thought I wasn’t directly contributing to the green movement, I realized that above all, I work with people so that they can become more aware.  The rest is up to them but my fundamental belief and hope is that once awareness sinks in, it becomes harder and harder to justify a counter-productive lifestyle.

What I got out of this little mind bend is the following.  We live in a society excessively geared towards instant gratification, tuned to outward signs of being green and tangible external actions, all making us feel good about ourselves.  While there are many people who are actively contributing to the “green movement”, I strive to raise awareness, hoping it will lead to a “greener” life in each and everyone.  Funny how thoughts creep in and how little they hold in the end.

Which wolf do you feed?

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Which wolf will you feed?

What to chose

An old Cherokee told his grandson, “My son, there is a battle between two wolves inside us all. One is evil. It is Anger, Jealousy, Greed, Resentment, Inferiority, Lies, & Ego. The other is good. It is Joy, Peace, Love, Hope, Humility, Kindness, Empathy, and Truth.” The boy thought & asked, “Grandfather, which wolf wins?” The old man quietly replied, “The one you feed.”

So which wolf will you feel?  Why would you chose one over the other?  Why go for joy, love, peace and happiness over its darker counterparts?

The wisdom is in the asking of questions and discovering your own mind.

When to say goodbye to your coach

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This is an interesting topic rarely covered in most fields, but when and how do you say goodbye to the professional you work with?

The gist is, we are conditioned to be polite, caring to one another and we rarely have been taught to end a professionally relationship, so we result to being evasive in order not to hurt the other’s feelings.  The only problem is, it isn’t the best way to go about it in the end.  So what’s to do?

Talk It Out.  When you feel you are not getting much out of a professional relationship, it’s best to bring it to the table.  When it came time to leave my coaches, I explained I enjoyed tremendously our growth together and was looking forward to sharing my endeavors in the future with them.  I also explained it was time for me to move on.

One of the conditions I am starting to put into any coaching client contracts is to make sure they understand the rules of the game.  I go out to bat for you 100% but in return I expect you to tell me what is going on.

In the end, it’s much better to say it’s over than letting a coaching relation linger without motivation.

A shopping mall on a Saturday, a glance at western society

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Picture, Nick Zart

Gasp… Horror!  A shopping mall experience on a Saturday afternoon getting back from India.

The gist is sometimes it sounds as if we live in isolation in the middle of a crowded society.  This incredible brain twister can be felt any tie we witness people rushing to be first in line, rummage through sales, drivers who have to be the first at a traffic light and then drive slowly.  Why?  Most of us live in seclusion, disconnected form others and share little sense of being part of a community.  So, here is my experience at a shopping mall.

We just got back from India where your sense of what is important seriously challenges your priorities.  We went off the beaten path and witnessed life in secondary cities.  What we saw were people living in conditions we would deplore back home, where their main worry was if they would have food on their plate tomorrow.  Yet, somehow, these people were incredibly warm, gentle, inviting, sincere, open to us with a small we rarely witnessed back in the West.  Now fast forward back in the west…

We went to Nordstrom the following Saturday feeling we needed some new clothes.  What we witnessed was so disturbing after coming from an environment so starch and harsh with reality.  We saw people elbowing each other in order to get to the best deals of the day.  We saw people who didn’t seem to have much spatial awareness, even less as to others around them.  It felt their endeavor to be the first one to get that deal trumped any other notions of life.  It was shocking, to say the least.

It’s not to diss our society.  We have everything we need to thrive and be happy, we are not educated to look within for happiness.  Their society, on the hand has little in terms of shared material wealth but have boat loads in terms of inner values and spiritual upbringing.  Would it be great finally using all that we have at our disposal?  Don’t we owe it to our parents who built our so-called modern and developed societies?  One of the best ways is to partner with a coach in order to dig deep within and have a better vantage view.