Business Coaching

You have determined that your client needs some Business Coaching.
       
  - now it's time to help them find a good fit.

Some business owners need a technical style coach.

Other's need more of a emotionally  intelligent approach. 

Our focus is on building personal clarity, business goals, work/life balance and resilience in our business owner clients.
We believe that a business is only ever as good as the thinking at the top of the business - the business owner.

We help business owners:

• Create measurable and meaningful goals
• Maintain focus
• Retrieve and grow their business Mojo
• Develop regular habits of planning
• Create "Blue Oceans"

Let us help your client "be their success.".

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

How many coaches does it take to change a lightbulb?: Lesson 1:

The answer to this old chestnut is:

"One.  But the light bulb has to want to be changed!"

The promise of coaching is not:

"I will bring you a fish."

It's more like:

"I will help you figure out what kind of fish you really, really want.  I will help you structure your approach to catch that fish.  I will help you work through the emotional and physical hard work and struggle that it will take for you to learn to catch your fish. I will help you learn what it takes for you to catch that fish.  I will help you find the part of yourself that is an expert catcher of fishers.  I will help you find your greatness." 

That's what a coach does.

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

You don't have to Pander

(Thanks to Seth Godin)

Seth defines pandering as:  
"using your perception of your customer's wishes as an excuse to do work you're not proud of."

And this is exactly not what you need to do as a coach.

What kind of coach are you?

Are you the sort of coach who allows a client's fixed ideas to bulldoze you into agreement or do you take charge and help them think through a range of options and consequences?

Are there some questions you just won't ask, because you are scared of what the answer is?

Are you confident enough as a coach to not care if your client dissagrees with you?

Are you confident enough as a coach to ask the  tough questions and give the brutal feedback?

Are you scared of your client's ability to handle reality?  Are you rescuing them? Are you scared to help them face reality?

If you pander to your clients, then you are not coaching them.

You are doing them a terrible disservice, but also you are undermining yourself in this process and doing yourself a disservice.

A lot of coaches burn out this way.

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

The Emperor has no Clothes: :Lesson 1:

It's amazing when our experts get discredited,

our gurus get imprisoned, our theories outdated,

our leaders fall off their pedestal.

There follows such a time of confusion and disarray

 .....and then there comes a moment where you recognise your own inauthenticity,

(...you sometimes even realise why)

by giving your power away in that part of your life,

to someone, more qualified, more experienced, more persuasive, more certain of themselves than you.

It's like waking up.

And what happens then,

is you either look for someone else to hide out behind,

Or you take responsiblity and come up with your own path, your own way,

Your own methodology, ideology or even theology to get you the results you want and need.

This can be such a Moment of Truth.

....or it can be more of the same.

Your choice.

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

Insights and Change Based on Fear, are not Real Insights or Real Change

Being in your centre.

The Human and Being working as one.

That's what helps you make change based upon choice and personal power.

It's hard when you first realise you are tied to your Being.  You have to get the hang of coordinating your movements together.

But when you get it right...when you coordinate - you can stretch out and then you really sprint like the wind!

When you are one with your Being, you are Beyond Fear.

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

Most people have about 25,000 old recordings about their childhood conditioning.

Most of it is about "Shoulds" and "Shouldn'ts"

You don't have to obediently follow those thoughts.

You can rebuke them and create new positive thoughts in their place.

How good do you want things to be in your life and your business?

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

The Emperor has no clothes - a new ending and a new beginning:

....and the Stranger said:   
"Why, the Emperor has no clothes!"

The court was full of people, but they went silent so fast, that it was deafening.

The Emperor stood up, shaking with fury.

People were shrinking back in fear, the Stranger had no idea what he'd unleashed.

The Emperor looked down at his naked body, staring at his birthday suit.

Nobody said a word.

He looked up and beckoned to his man-in-waiting:  
"Ralph - go and get me my royal dressing gown!"

Then he addressed his court:

"Okay Everyone, listen to me." he announced.  "This time is over.  I can see the Truth now.

I had no clothes.  I was pretending to believe in a lie. But now I can see clearly.

And the reason I was listening to the lie, the reason I was buying into it, was that I had no answer to my problems.

I didn't know what to do about the Royal money problems, the affairs of the state and what to do about all the sabre rattling neighbors of our fine country.

I bought this lie because I was overwhelmed, I needed time to take it all in.

So I listened to my expert and I trusted her for this while, but now my time of reflection and retreat is over, I am back in charge of my kingdom and my life and my choices.  I'm strong enough to take it all back.


Thank you o stranger for simply telling the truth, that I might once again, take responsibility and reign over my land."

The Emperor had emerged from his dark forest, Snow Whites carriage turned back into a pumpkin and Sleeping Beauty had been awoken from her sleep.

The power to apprehend reality with their minds and make powerful choices based on personal power had returned.

That's how it works folks.

See it how it is, tell it how it is and then make a new choice for how you really want it to be - Simple!

We go to sleep at the wheel sometimes and rely on other

people's theories and ways of doing things.

Wake up from whatever you are sleeping through.

Admit where you are giving away your power. 

That truth will always allow you to stand on a platform that gives you freedom and choice.

........Enjoy yourself Emperor!

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

Economic Modelling - The Emperor has no clothes!

Economics lost it's credibility this week as a science.

Kenneth Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart wrote a paper in 2010 called "Growth in a Time of Debt" that has been widely adopted by global policy makers.

This paper has been the justification needed for the global economic movers and shakers to pound out a  simple message to governments with high debt:

"That if government debt becomes too high, 
then economic growth will always suffer."

This has been the basis of the "Austerity Measures" that have been washing around the world since 2010.

But the intellectual rigor behind the intellectual basis of the global austerity movement was severely weakened this week with another paper written by Thomas Herndon, a student in the University of Massachusetts Amherst's doctoral program in economics.  He published a paper exposing the basic errors that these two experts had made.  He was helped by his two teachers, Michael Ash and Robert Pollin.

The paper shows that Reinhart and Rogoff had ommited data, made a simple mistake in their Excel spreadsheet and used a bizarre statistical methodology, all of which skewed their results.

What has emerged is that Rogoff and Reinhart's theories have never been tested or checked in the three years since, even though economists like L. Randall Wray of the Levy Institute, say they have asked for the data in the past, but they have been rebuffed.

"They ignored our request. I have heard from several other researchers that Reinhart and Rogoff also ignored their repeated requests for the data." Wray wrote this week.

This is not how the scientific method is supposed to work.

But this has been used as a justification to bring several countries to their knees - perhaps there was another way?

My wife always demands to see the evidence for any theory.

You simply can't take things for granted.

Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman wrote in response to this situation:

"In this age of information, maths errors can lead to disaster.  NASA's Mars Orbiter crashed because engineers forgot to convert to metric measurements.  JP Morgan Chase's "London Whale" venture went bad because modellers divided a sum instead of an average. So, did an Excel coding error destroy the economies of the Western World?"

We have to question everything.

The Austerity method is not the only way for governments to work their way through this.  But big Banks and other vested interests think it is and found data to support their argument.

Just like any problem a business owner has, there are many way to work your way to success.

This story shows how theories can be based on unconfirmed data, so if you are basing your strategies on a theory, do your due diligence.

If my theories doesn't work in application, I'm not scared to try something else.

I'm not in the business of proving theories.  I'm in the business of making things work.

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

Intimacy and Connection are a daily choice.

It's a choice you have in your business...and your life - every day in so many ways.

You either have "polite" relationships,

where you hold people at arms length,

Where you don't let them see you,

and  you don't see anything of them past their role,

and the current transaction......

               or,

You can choose

to have "Into-me-see" in every transaction,

"Connection" with every person who comes your way,

you can let people know you and get to know the people

in your life and your business.

There's payofffs and costs to both choices.

You might feel exhausted just thinking about

what it could take for you to generate intimacy and connection 

with everyone in your life.

But this is precisely what some great leaders do.

Every interaction is an opportunity to connect.

and instead of being tired by this,

they are recharged, inspired and energised by this process.

(........and they have more fun than polite people)

So here's the challenge:

Spend a day connecting with and experieincing "Into-me-see" everyone who comes your way.

The person who serves you, the person you are doing business with,

the person who is your employee, the person who is your client,

The stranger who comes into your life, the person you share your life with.

Try it.  Take it for a spin. Just for a day.

Let me know what you learn.

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

What comes first? The right people on your team - or the Right Direction to head into?

 Jim Collins, author of "Good to Great" reckons that:

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"Before a good company can take its performance to the next level and become truly great, it needs to have the right staff in place,"

He explains:

"Many companies think that a cunning strategy or great performance will attract the right applicants but that’s backward," Collins said. "People must come first."

“You can’t start off by asking which direction you’re headed in … First you figure out if you’ve got all the right people on the bus, then you figure out where to drive,” said the author of such business classics as “Good to Great” and “How the Mighty Fall.”

Collins argued that making a clear-eyed assessment of key staff within an organization is one of the “brutal facts” leaders need to be willing to address as they look to set their company on the right path. 

"Sometimes more people need to be brought on board — and sometimes a longtime traveling companion needs to step off the bus before it can move forward" he noted.

Collins encourages business owners to make “filling the bus” one of their goals for the coming year.

Get to know clarity. Email me, Mike Kennedy...

Get out of here - I rebuke you!

 The other night I woke up and found

a very unfamiliar thought going in the background of my mind.

I knew it wasn't something I would think about.

Instead of accepting it blindly, I told it to:

"Get out of here!  What are you doing here?  Get away from me and my family!"

.....and I meant it!

I've seen healers and charismatic preachers rebuke before,

....but I've never done it.

I returned to bed and slept the sleep of peace,

and when I awoke, I felt fantastic!

Imagine treating your negative thinking like this.

Imagine treating your fears like this.

A no-tolerance zone.  A clear focus on what you want and a determination

not to let anything in your mind to get in the way.

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

The Hedgehog Concept.

When Michaleangelo was asked how he knew how to sculpt such beautiful figures out of marble, he said:

"The statue already exists, whole and complete, within the stone.  

All I do is chip away everything that is not the statue"

And your life's work, and your business's real business,

Already exist, whole and complete, out of your sight,

below the radar, somewhere you have never seen.

That's why processes like the Hedgehog concept are so useful.

They bring up your treasures, from the depths, up to the surface.

They name the intangible, articulate what lies in your being.

Based on an ancient Greek fable that distingushed between two animals:

The fox, who knew a lot of small things, who raced around using their energy up being busy pushing lots of small ideas ahead......

and the Hedgehog, who knew a lot about one big thing.  Who focused on that one thing and did that better than anyone else.

In any race, the Hedgehog would win from the fox.

The Hedgehog concept is something that is distilled from complexity

to something that is simple, but that reflects penetrating insight and understanding.

Here's Jim Collins to talk about what your Hedgehog Concept is. 

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

Looking for your Blue Ocean

It's a mugs game competing with your peers.

A big time waster, you can spend a career just producing CV's, proposals and applications.

In the end, these processes are designed to filter out the many & only admit the few.

Thats what's known as the "Red Ocean" - everyone fighting in a market place that's red with blood.

The "Blue Ocean" is created from smart thinking, a new approach and some clever combinations.

Circ de Soile did it. Circ de Symphonia is performing in Sydney this week.

You might want to explore this concept - aren't you sick of competing with everyone for a piece of the shrinking pie?

Here's some case studies to get your head around this.

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

Support Vs Rescuer: Lesson number 9:

There are Certain Clues that help you see you are being a Rescuer:

•  You think you are better than that person
• You have analysed their motives and you can see where they are going wrong and you are going to put them right
• You can see danger lurking around the corner and you start planning how you are going to save them from it
• You feel like you know that person better than they know themselves
• You describe that person as being "Clueless", "Incapable", you are exasperated at how they  just won't learn anything and how you just have to go in and put everything right.
• You are overwhelmed by work, doing all the work that all the "Idiots" around you aren't capable of doing
• You don't allow anyone to help you.

Hey - please let me know anymore clues you notice about being a Rescuer.  This is fun!

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

Support Vs Rescue: Lesson 7:

The Rescuers Hall of Fame:

The Glory Hound
This is your archetypal Knight in shining armor - they see the "damsel" in distress - (it doesn't have to ever be a damsel - just anyone who is looking like they aren't doing the job the way the Glory Hound thinks it should be done) and in they ride, typically saying "Stand Back!  Get out of my way.  Let someone who knows what they are doing get this job done!" or some version of that.

The job gets done, the actual standard isn't that important to the Glory Hound, it's all about how good they look coming in for the rescue.  The collateral damage is done to all the people around them, who get to feel helpless and are left wondering why they should bother in the first place.

The Information Hoarder
You can never win with this guy/gal.  They will give you just enough information to get you started and then when you get stuck and ask them for help, they will say: "What's the matter with you?  I gave you everything you needed, and you just cant get it done.  Stand back.  Get out of my way. Let someone who knows what they are doing get this job done!" or some version of that. 

Everyone around this person gets to feel incompetent and that they simply can't understand the task at hand. 

This always makes the Information Hoarder stand out and look extra valuable.  When in actual fact, they are holding back the team enormously.

The Agony Aunt with an Agenda
Look out for this one.  Just because she's an Aunt, doesn't mean she comes in the form of a woman.  This is someone who lulls you into a feeling of safety and gets you to share your weaknesses with her.

Then, when the time is right and you are working on your weakness, especially when you are in public view, the Aunt will let you know why she has Agony in her name.  And you will feel this.

Oftentimes with no real excuse to butt in, she will come into your space with a loud: "What's the matter with you? Stand back!  Get out of my way. Let someone who knows what they are doing get this job done!" or some version of that.

You will be publicly humiliated,  she will look like a hero and the undermining work of a rescuer will have been done.

The Toxic Coach
 What sad excuse of a coach would ever stoop to such low behavior?

This specimen is really the archetypal wolf in sheep's clothing.  They operate under the guise of empowering you and looking for your best solutions.  You trust them and start to trust yourself, feeling like if they can believe in you, anything is possible.

Then one day, you are entering into a task (most often this happens to be in an area of the coach's expertise), you make a little learning mistake, the gloves come off, the wolf leaps out from the sheep's skin and they yell "What's the matter with you? Stand back!  Get out of my way. Let someone who knows what they are doing get this job done!" or some version of that:

The job indeed gets done.  It usually gets done well.  The coach will be putting their gloves back on and their sheep skin back over their body, usually saying something trite like: "Now you know how it's done, doesn't that feel good?"

Your bruised and battered self looks up at this monster who had betrayed your trust and treated you like an idiot. You begin to feel a rage, pumping itself up through your veins.  You say:

"You've got to be kidding! What kind of coaching was that? You have just lost all credibility with me.  How dare you behave like that.  Get out of here!"

....and its true.  When you realise someone is trying to rescue you, you know it's always at your expense.  Know this and you can deal with it.


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

Support Vs Rescue: Lesson number two:

Why do we choose to either Support people or to Rescue them?

The archetypical Coach Analogy is:
Give someone a fish and you'll feed them for a day.
Show them how to fish and you'll feed them for a lifetime.

We Support people because:

• We want to see them succeed
• We want them to create a result for themselves
• We are encouraging them to be capable and take responsibility
• We want them to own a skill or learn some knowledge for themselves
• In that situation, we care about them more than ourselves

We Rescue people because:

•  We want them to see how skillful we are.  That is more important to us than to have them succeed. In fact, we don't really want them to succeed.  For them to succeed, somehow diminishes our own success and it might even threaten our own prestige and competitive edge.
• We want them to see how incapable, how inept and how clueless they are in being able to create a result for themselves.  This makes us feel important and indispensable. The only result we want to see is one that we create for them.  We take credit for it and make sure that important information to performing the result is missing or unobtainable.
• We don't want people to be capable and responsible around us.  That threatens our position and our competitive expertise. We actively resist giving responsibility.  We never, ever acknowledge capability when demonstrated. We are indispensable and we love it that way.  Even if it locks us into an empty life of a workaholic or binds us to limited profitability and growth.  We think it's worth it.
• We try and keep people around us with minimal skill, knowledge and responsibility as possible. We don't want people to be skillful and knowledgeable around us.
• In this situation, we care more about ourselves than them. 

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

You Can't Have It All.

It's not physically possible to have it all.

For a start, if you did have it all, would you have the time to appreciate any of it?

There are a lot of people who have a lot, who don't get to experience or enjoy much of it.

Think: "The Poor Rich Person"

And what about the people who have nothing, who appear to appreciate everything that comes their way?

When you are clarifying what's important to you, make sure it's a short list.

....otherwise, you might end up getting it, but not have the chance to experience or enjoy it.

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

Your Blind Spots.

They can really stuff you and your plans up.

They expose you to threats that can do serious damage.

They exclude you from recognising rewarding opportunities or strategies that bring you great success.

It’s all in the way you think.

All you need to do is to let someone help you see beyond your own personal blinkers

Someone who can see what you can’t see....

Simply because of the way you have always thought that's what causes your blind spots to come on.

Ironically, your blind spots are often created by your past success

Don’t let your blind spots get in the way of your present and future success.

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

The ones who regularly choose to enter the Dark Forest.

These are the fearless ones.

They are chasing their vision and their values so hard and with such focus, they enter the very same Dark Forest most of us fear and avoid.

And yet, what we fear and avoid is simply a mixture of pain and the unknown.

The entrepreneurial among us, accept this as part of the price to pay.  They have a completely different relationship to both pain and the unknown to most of the world.

They enter the forest with their eyes firmly on their vision of a fantastic outcome.

They usually emerge with something new to bring to the world.

If we find ourselves in the forest simply to learn a lesson we have been long avoiding learning....

.....we emerge looking like something the cat dragged in.

The entrepreneurs show us how to use the Dark Forest creatively and how to emerge, looking like a hero bringing home the bacon.

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

A Nelson Mandela Quote

  “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. 

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. 

It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. 

We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? 

Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world.

There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. 

We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. 

As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”  

 Nelson Mandela

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