As many people know I have been on a quest to find the biggest/oldest trees in Minneapolis. So far the biggest I have found have been cottonwoods tucked away in the parks and trails in the older parts of the city. If you know of any grand old trees in the Minneapolis St. Paul area add a comment and/or drop me a line.
One of the rotating images I have atop my blog is of a pair of cottonwoods I found between Lake Harriet and Minnehaha Creek. There are several grand trees along the route, but this one I believe is the largest. I captured a 6 foot tall man in this photo to give it scale.
If you want to see the picture goto http://www.matthewsblog.com/wp-content/themes/connections/img/bigtrees.jpg
Curious About The Coaching Industry
Several Thoughts this month.
In May 2004 I received on my doorstep a book, The Radical Leap by Steve Farber.
This unexpected gift allowed for a great realization to appear in my life (see my review that I did for the July 2004 Catalyst on my blog http://www.matthewsblog.com/2004/06/15/radical-leap-book-review/ )
This epiphany being that while I truly love coaching, I love the coaching INDUSTRY even more.
This was a great awakening. It spurred me into action on the MCA board. It prompted me to bring Steve Farber to Minnesota last August. It drove my decision to become the president of Life Coach Alliance LLC. It shaped my leadership style and focus for the past year. It still is. Every action we have taken this year as a board has been to strengthen and build a strong coaching community and thereby create a strong coaching industry. The electronic elections last month and the engaging of a new Virtual Office (Peggy Bushee Services) are the latest tangible results of this energy. And we keep going.
Mark your calendars for the October MCA Meeting – It is going to be something special. Not only do we have a world class presenter coming to talk about PrimalBranding (wow, what a great visceral name) we, the MCA, will have our great reveal. Don’t miss it. Invite your colleagues, your friends, and your clients who might benefit from a powerful brand.
“A coach only has one item on his agenda – the client’s success”
I found this when reading a back issue of Choice in an article by Kelly O’Neil. This really strikes a chord in me. YES, we do have an agenda as a coach. YES, this agenda is what makes coaching powerful. And WOW, how often is that NOT our agenda when we are coaching. What does this bring up in you?
As part of my passion and love for the industry I read a lot about the industry. My favorite resource is a new online magazine/newsletter/blog about the coaching industry. Its called the Coaching Insider. It is a mix of NYTimes style reporting “with a healthy splash of Variety magazine.” II believe it was started by Susan Austin of Coachville fame and has contributors from all over the globe. Not only that, you, the reader can talk back to the articles, add your experience, offer your rebuttal, share your epiphany. It is free and wow – what great insights. View the current issue.
Lately I have been reading up on back issues of Choice Magazine. If you are like me, I was a little skittish about signing up for this magazine. I don’t know if was because of its price or sporadic printing, but I held off for quite some time. Well, I finally bit the bullet and bought all the back issues and signed up for a year. WOW! What a GREAT magazine for our industry. Insightful and professional and they bring in great authors to write and share their wisdom and tools. Our own Marcy Nelson Garrison, CPCC is a regular contributor on the latest coaching tools and toys. The ETHICS side of me really enjoys the “Sticky Situations” regular article. http://www.choice-online.com
- What about you?
- What are you reading?
- How are you keeping abreast of the Industry? - I want to know, drop me a line
