Why Compassion is Good for Business

Without compassion,

you don't have empathy,

Without empathy, you can't find ways to relate to different markets

Without empathy, you can't understand your market enough to give your customers exactly what they want.

Without empathy, you can't relate to your staff's needs.

You can't recognise their strengths and weakness,

...and build on that.

And without compassion, you have no sense of justice,

Which compounds your conflicts with staff, suppliers and clients.

Compassion is good for business.

This is only the beginning. Get to know clarity. Email me, Mike Kennedy...

Measuring your client's Pain

Whenever I meet a person for the first time,

I am measuring a number of things when we are speaking.

One very important thing to measure at this time,

.....is their pain.

People only ever come to a coach if there is enough pain.

For someone to be able to work productively with a coach,

....there needs to be enough pain.

Search for the pain.  Measure it's size and intensity.

When someone is in enough pain,

They suddenly get very coachable.

This is only the beginning. Get to know clarity. Email me, Mike Kennedy...

The Rare Prayer

This one doesn’t happen very often  in my life.

They say that in sinking ships, there are no athiests.

The other day on Easter Monday, my son took off on his bike from us.

We lost sight of him, started searching for him,

Called the police after half an hour and he was only found three hours from then.

I was sitting in the police station, totally helpless, thinking the worst.

Then, out of pure despair and desperation, I cried out this prayer:

“God help me – I have done everything I can – he is yours now.  You take care of him and bring him home safe.”

 I immediately stopped thinking the worst.  I started to be able to make choices in my thinking.

I don’t make this prayer very often.  It has to be really tough for me to humble myself so much.

But the funny thing is….that it always works.

My son got tired and knocked on a random household door that just happened to be the home of some really amazing Dominican Nuns.

He ended up loved, safe and left with a bag of Easter eggs.

Our Easter Monday was elevated from a secular holiday to a modern day miracle.

This is a great business prayer too!

This is only the beginning. Get to know clarity. Email me, Mike Kennedy...

How to mentor your son or daughter..

Firstly, your skills as a mentor are nullified by your current role and relationship of being a mother or father.

No matter how good a mentor you are, you need to renounce one simple aspect of your relationship to your child before you can be an effective mentor to them.

(This insight comes from years of mentoring skilled coaches who weren't able to coach their children.

Time and time again, as soon as they renounced their own aspirations for their beloved children and embraced their child's aspirations, then they were able to be the amazing catalysts they wanted to be to enable their kids to fly and achieve great things.)

You simply have to renounce your aspirations for your child and embrace whatever their aspirations are. 

And, if they don't know what their aspirations are, you have to question them without bias to help them find what their aspirations are.

Simple? Yes.

Difficult? ....as much as you want to make it.

Are you willing to pay this price?

This is only the beginning. Get to know clarity. Email me, Mike Kennedy...

Wreckage of My Past - Ozzy Osborne

Last night we watched this compelling and brutally honest documentary about Ozzy, written by his son Jack.

Amazing to see a man who lived his life in apparent success, but whose will power was ziltch for most of his life.

His wife, Sharon, describes him as"spending years sniffing anything that came by his nose and having sex with anything with a pulse"  How would you feel if your spouse described you like that?

His children were filmed sharing how he was "not a good father" "Consistently smashed".  How would you like your kids to say something like that about you?

The whole thing was sad and looking a lot like a cautionary tale, until his son Jack took on "embracing Sobriety" and that, everyone agreed, shamed Ozzy into embracing Sobriety as well.

It's been 5 years of being clean of drugs, pills and alcohol and we now see a man who is fit, coherent and who is reflecting on his life in disbelief. You see him watching shows of him performing, off his face, and he storms out in disgust, saying: "how cliche - how crummy  - I can't bear it!"

Then came a classic answer to the question: "What would you change if you had your life over Ozzy?"

"I don't think I'd change anything.  It seems like it's all part of what I've come here to learn"

How great is it to see someone who has taken charge of their life, warts and all, who has forgiven themselves and everyone else and who is finally free!

This is only the beginning. Get to know clarity. Email me, Mike Kennedy...

Creative Goals are Rocket Fuel!

It never ceases to amaze me what effect a creative goal has on the life of any person.

It lights up and turns the ante up for any business goal.

It fires up any social contribution goal.

It powers career goals, clears away obstacles for all manner of goals.

Never underestimate the power of including a creative goal.

This is only the beginning. Get to know clarity. Email me, Mike Kennedy...

How can you Think Resourcefully when Under Pressure??

You know, when your physiology conspires against you.

When it's time to use your brain and keep your cool, what happens in your body?

Your blood drains from your brain, lessening your thinking power just when you need clarity.

Your muscles flood with blood ready for fighting or fleeing just when you need to be non-violently courageous.

Your body is flooded with adrenalin - you start looking to prove yourself right, attack the other person, do anything to get yourself off the hook -  your intentions are washed away by chemical thinking just when you need to have clear objectives in mind to work toward.

In short, you are in the worst possible state to think resourcefully.

- How do you turn this around?.

You ask some questions:

What is my Real Objective?

• What do I really want in this situation?
• What do I really want for others?
• What do I really want for this relationship?

  If I Really Wanted This, How Would I Behave?

• What would I say?
• What would I do
• Who would I be being?

 When you get the answers to these questions, you relax, physiologically change gear and start entering a state of resourcefulness.

 Remember: Practice makes Perfect.

This is only the beginning. Get to know clarity. Email me, Mike Kennedy...

Chet Holmes - a tall tree in the forest has fallen.

Chet Holmes, a great contributor to business owners wanting to grow their businesses has passed on and was buried on the 16th August 2012.

This quote from him moves me:

“Three months ago I Was diagnosed with Leukemia.

I have gone through an intensive period of detox, holistic health, massive prayer and sound therapies that are designed to stabilize the body to it’s most healthy self.

I  am surrendered to God’ wisdom on this journey, which is the most powerful place to come from. Nothing can hurt you if you are surrendered to God’s wisdom.

The 3-months-ago- me would’ve never surrendered to anything.”

-  Chet Holmes Unknown Date

It appears to me that Chet has surrendered to his greatness, not his smallness in all aspects of his life.

His son, Jordon, wrote this amazing poem below. If this doesn't inspire you to lead an amazing life, be an amazing parent and produce amazing works, I don't know what will.

One of the Strongest Men in the World

When I was younger my father had a Batman costume and he wore it for Halloween. Once he told me he was actually Batman and I believed him—after all he’s a fifth-degree black belt and he taught me martial arts. He taught me how to kick from the hip, he taught me how to punch because speed is power, he taught me how to break boards with my bare hands because it’s all in your mind. And sometimes during the middle of the night he would borrow my B.B. gun and go to battle with the raccoons that were constantly trying to get into the house. I used to think my dad was one of the strongest men in the world.

When I was younger we lived in a house with a pool. My father used to throw all the neighborhood kids from the shallow end all the way to the deep end. Kids would line up to be thrown—it was like being launched from a cannon. Sometimes my sister and I would grab onto his shoulders when he swam and he would just drag us all across the water in the pool. We have an old photo of him in the pool with six kids climbing up on him—three on each arm. I used to think my dad was the strongest man in the world.

Then when I went to college my dad got sick. I’m pretty sure we visited every wing on the hospital since that time. Today he was too weak to even stand up without help. I had to put his arm over my shoulder so I could pull him up to his feet. Later I sat by his hospital bed and thought back over his massive battle of the last ten months and I thought of something—my dad has to be one of the strongest men in the world.

This is only the beginning. Get to know clarity. Email me, Mike Kennedy...

Your children chose you

That's right,

so often as parents, we forget this simple truth,

in the overwhelming mix of daily changes, challenges, learning, not learning, cuts, sprains, dirty bums and faces that kids take you through.....

....you can forget that they are a discrete, separate and individual life of their own,

And that if you have lost yourself in this daily process of overwhelm,

and the time for them to leave you comes your way,

that you'd better have a part of you to crawl into - your own discrete, separate and individual life....

That often gets lost with the care of our children.

Beware the trap of living your life through your children.

This is only the beginning. Get to know clarity. Email me, Mike Kennedy...

Sharing my work with you

Firstly,  thank you for reading my blog.

Its all about the work I do in helping people get to clarity, my insights and sharing tools of coaching that come my way.

You are running along side of me as I grow and develop as a coach, a writer and a person..

You are hearing how these insights relate to running a business, parenting a child and chasing a goal.

You are also encouraging me to keep on pumping this stuff out!

Thank you!

I'd love to hear what you are about - drop me a line!

This is only the beginning. Get to know clarity. Email me, Mike Kennedy...

Hey – whats the difference between;

A fool who knows they are a fool,

…and a fool who doesn’t know they are a fool?

I know which one feels better (ignorance is after all, bliss)

But which one, given what’s at stake in your life,

….would you rather be?

This is only the beginning. Get to know clarity. Email me, Mike Kennedy...

Facing What's so

Can be a hard cold thing to do.

 

Looking reality in the eye, no frills or illusions,

Letting go of what you want to believe.

Standing cold and naked in a harsh, sometimes ugly environment.

.....not what you wanted (so badly) to see at all.

However, losing another piece of innocence is not a bad thing.

For a start, you get to build on something solid from here on in.

….and if you learn from your experience, you’ll never, make that never,

....make that mistake

….ever again.

This is only the beginning. Get to know clarity. Email me, Mike Kennedy...

Tell me what you want, tell me what you really, really want!

 This is a prime skill that a coach needs to master in order to start a client in a direction that the client  has chosen, with measurable criteria that the client wants, in goals that are clearly written down using words that are uniquely the clients.

Most of my professional practice and methodology in this area comes from a group of five eminent English philosophers.  I call this skill "The Spice Girl Question"

The Spice Girls had it right.  I mean, how many time in your life has anyone done anything except tell you what you should do or what they think you should do. No-one ever asks you what you really, really want.

Imagine you walking down the street and suddenly the incredible Spice Girls jump out demanding: "Tell me what you want, tell me what you really, really want!" - I mean - you probably would freeze wouldn't you?

So when a "Coach" comes up and asks you what you really, really want - and it's in an environment where you feel relaxed and ready to deal with a question like that , you would open up and say something that is unusually brilliant and appropriate to who you really are and where you are really going.

- So how do you develop this skill of extracting what people really, really want?

You get it by listening to what inspires them, what fascinates them and what is highly valued by them.

Parents can so easily miss this with their kids because they assume they know what's best for their kids - it blinds them to hearing anything their child wants.

Teachers can so easily miss this with their students because they get lost in the demands of pushing students successfully through the curriculum and they are blinded to each student's unique goals, needs and talents.

Bosses can so easily miss this with their staff because they have a fixed idea of how they think the job needs to be accomplished and they are blinded to the talents and ideas latent in their staff.

The funny thing about Parents, Teachers and Bosses is that the majority of these people have lost sight of what they really, really want.

The ironic thing about Parents, Teacher and Bosses who learn to coach their kids, students and staff, is that they become much, much more effective parents, teachers and bosses.

And if you want to be a brilliant coach for anyone and help them articulate what they really, really want, you need to have experienced a coach extract from you, what you really, really want.

So, tell me what you want - tell me what you want, tell me what you really, really want!

This is only the beginning. Get to know clarity. Email me, Mike Kennedy...

The Challenges and Joys of Parenthood....

Our friend Rosalie Ardarg started a conversation about parenthood the other day - one of her favorite conversations and one that she definitely makes a difference with.

She talked about the sacrifices parents make and how what initially looks unmanageable and just plain hard graft, ends up being a blessing in disguise.

Simply put - a parent's initial challenge, oftentimes turns into a joy!

When our son emerged from his mother, it was obvious that he had no muscle tone in his legs - the nurse who took him to the weighing machine said under her breath - "Frogs Legs" - it was the first sign that my son had Downes Syndrome.

Already on the roller coaster of the birthing process, I lurched into our little quiet room and listened numbly as the nurse told us he had Downes Syndrome - we were left there for a couple of minutes alone - it seemed like the end of the world for me - then suddenly the nurse burst back into the room with the results of his blood test and we were raced off to intensive care - I went from "poor me" to "Please God I'll do anything if you save our boy's life!!!"

He stayed in intensive care for 43 days. Mostly he was in a humidicrib as he was a week premature and pretty vulnerable....most of the time I spent with him living in hope, fear and desperation - it just became part of my life.

...and then suddenly, there we were, driving home with our new baby - just like nothing had happened, the only clue that something had was the daily traffic from specialist nurses and professionals visiting our home.

And in the process of this, in fact as soon as they walked in and told us our son's life was in danger, I fell deeply in love with my son.

I was bonded. My life had a new meaning.

My work was as an image and communication trainer. I helped people look good in the media, in job and television interviews, at parties and at social events. I helped people move forward in their careers, their businesses and their lives.

Suddenly, every time I was in public with my son, people stared. Suddenly when he behaved inappropriately, people stared and judged. I had to renounce dignity and looking good.....in the long run, this has been a great liberation for me!

I felt isolated and cut off from the world I knew. I had to get a job and I was scooped up for my training expertise, not my image and presentation skills. This influenced my career direction and I started to get serious about communication, goal setting and coaching.

And my son became my teacher. He taught me about acceptance, unconditional love and living in the moment.

I had much to learn and I have.

Now I know Rosalie and her husband Patrick and I see the work they are doing to help parents be great parents and how to help kids develop in a healthy environment of love and good values.

I've been lucky to have such a good teacher of a son....and such an amazing loving mother as my wife and a really knowledgeable and loving grandmother as my mother in law, and such a great grandmother as my mum and such a great aunty as my sister.

It really is a family affair.

These are some of the things I've learnt from my son......

Email Mike...