A response to my Email

I must be on a bit of a roll at the moment. Its Monday, its the first day back after a week's holiday in the Lakes and I have a pressing deadline that not only has to be met but has just been brought forward. I shrug my shoulders and tackle the some 80+ emails in my inbox.

There was of course the usual rubbish that I deleted without reading, an array of work tasks to do and a handful of replies to my plea for volunteer coachees.

In amongst all that was an email from one of the senior managers in my Function. He'd responded to the email I sent out on Personnel lady's suggestion. He suggested we chatted, it had been sent last week, however he just happened to wander into the office today - we've not met before.

So I straightened my hair (well that's what us girls do) and my shoulders and introduced myself. He was very interested in what I was doing and had given my proposal serious consideration. SO much so that he's considered each and every member of his team before settling on one person.

He is the same level as my Boss' Boss' Boss and equally supportive. He is going away to chat with the person's line manager and we'll take it from there.

Just 5 days to go

I get increasingly more excited as the week goes on. My training course is now only 5 days away.

I went to meet CR (volunteer coachee) today to have a get to know you chat and make sure that we are mutually right together to have a coaching relationship.

She was concerned that she has too many issues and I want to dice right in and start working on them with her, so yes, I believe it will work. I feel as excited about the prospect of coaching her as I did about coaching Special Friend.

I went to the meeting prepared and had considered what I might need to say to her but she came along and asked all the right questions.

Needless to say, we are going to go for it.

Two down, one to go!

Coaching High

..........Now!

Had a coaching session with one of my volunteer coachees today. I was able to go into the session, not worrying about whether or not I'd done enough prep. And the session was so much better because I allowed it to flow naturally.

I can't go into details because my coachee has a right to privacy, but I do know that they have taken some pretty big steps in facing the obstacles that are in the way of progress and will be able to continue to use what they have learnt in the future too.

This person's enthusiasm for what they are doing is amazing and it makes my job very easy. See, I can't simply accept that I might actually be a natural at this!

From my point of view, I know I push a little too hard at times, I need to take a step back and allow my coachees a little more time to identify their own solutions.

I guess the real buzz of it came when my coachee rang me back to say they'd actually done what they'd been putting off. I'd say that's a really big well done to both of us.

Business Action Plan

Well, it actually wasn't a bad first day back. On a positive note, my Boss valued my opinion enough to ask me what I thought the new team structures should look like (although it may just be because with everyone leaving - I am the team!).

I've taken some time out to draw up a new business action plan, taking me through all the steps I need to take from taking my training course with specifics around finding my volunteer coachees to settling finally on a name for my business and getting business cards printed and a web site set up.

It takes me right the way up to the end of the year and although I will have completed my training by then, I may not yet have my final accreditation - I need to check how long this takes with Barefoot.

Also today, I met with NLP Trainer again. He has some fantastic plans of his own which involves publishing books. His ideas are fantastic and I wish I'd come up with them and I am sure that when he finally leaves my company he will be successful and I am sure there are similar ideas out there I just need a way of coming up with some.

For me, just chatting to him was truly inspirational, motivational and exciting. It spurs me on along my own journey. I am now considering creating mini-books in PDF format around career changes for sale through my web - when I set it up.

Volunteer Coachees

The lady from personnel emailed me today following my request for help around volunteer coachees. She's taken it up with someone in Training Department who would like to add me to the list of accredited coaches for the business.

This would be fabulous, except that ALL the accredited coaches at work, have all had their training funded by the company! The same company that won't pay for me to do my training - so I'm having to fund my own course. Grrrrrrrr!

Still, I can play their game and get my practice coaching supplied by them. I can make a decision later whether I want to be added to their list. At the moment its good practice which is what I need.

What a fabulous weekend

Best Man Friend (BMF) and Special friend are here and its been a great weekend. Firstly its been fabulous to see them both, chill with them and walk with them. I love the entertaining side of it too. BMF has always paid me the compliment of coming back for seconds.

But the best part was having a brainstorm around what my business name could be. You may have read in previous posts that I'm struggling a little in getting the name to feel right and be something that no one else is using. Now I have 4 very string contenders. All of which I would feel pretty good about using and aren't registered at companies house and seem like safe internet bets too.

Special Friend and I had a face-to-face coaching session, following on from our telephone one a couple of weeks ago. The men had gone down the pub and two hours had passed before we knew where we were. Again I find it reassuring to see results happening. I CAN do this! It was good also to see some powerful emotions come to play around her goal. I know she will not struggle in realising her ambitions and I am honoured to be her coach.