For the past few months, I’ve been sharing some of my personal productivity secrets in a series of articles to help you “Master Plan” your life so you can finally accomplish all your goals. Ultimately, it all boils down to how you spend your time. What you do and what you fail to do.
 
Setting goals is easy. Establishing priorities is pretty simple too. The tough part is following through. Fortunately, there are a few easy steps you can take to coach yourself through the process.
 
1. You must recognize that good intentions are not enough.
 
Writing up a list of yearly goals or New Year’s resolutions might make you feel great. It may even make you feel like you are on your way. But you can’t claim to be making any progress toward accomplishing anything until you start acting on your Master Plan.
 
2. Don’t spend too much time thinking about your future success.
 
Imagining what you want out of life – the big house, the luxury cars, the yacht – may give you pleasure. But despite what the think-and-be-rich gurus says, it won’t make you successful. You must spend most of your time taking action, not daydreaming about all the toys you will have “some day.”
 
Most of the most accomplished people I know – and in that group I include some success coaches who preach the think-and-get-rich philosophy – don’t waste their time thinking about success. What they think about is how to do a certain task or solve a specific problem. They know that wealth and success will come to them if they have a good plan and follow it.
 
3. Break up your busy day.
 
Once you begin to implement your Master Plan, you will find that you will want to keep working for hours and hours at a time. Because you will be making progress toward your goals, you will be energized by the work itself. (If this has not been your experience with work before, be prepared to start enjoying your days a whole lot more!)
 
The extra surge of motivation will be very useful in getting lots more important work done. You’ll be working more intensely, more intelligently, and just plain longer and harder than ever. But because you’ll be working longer and harder, you’ll need to force yourself to take little breaks – three- to five-minute breaks to reduce stress, recharge your batteries, and ensure that your body is not stuck in the same position too long.
 
It’s not easy to take breaks once you are in a groove. In fact, you may be amazed at how difficult it can be. Most of the successful businesspeople I know think nothing of sitting at a computer or being on the telephone for four to six hours at a stretch. This is a testament to the motivational power of having a Master Plan, but it still puts a lot of pressure on your body and brain.
 
To make sure you take the breaks you need, I recommend a very simple device: an old-fashioned egg timer. Gene Schwartz, the legendary copywriter who was instrumental in the success of Boardroom Reports and Rodale Publishing, never sat down to work without setting an egg timer for 33 minutes. When the buzzer went off, he walked away from his computer and did something else for five minutes. He said the habit made him more productive. He said it was an important part of the process that made him a success.
 
When I’m writing, I set my timer according to the writing objective I’ve set for myself. Since I’m currently working on many writing projects at once, my daily goal is usually between 300 and 1,200 words. It takes me, on average, about 10 minutes to write 100 words. Therefore, I can knock off 300 words in a half-hour, 600 words in an hour, and a full, 1,200-word ETR article in two hours.
 
That’s how I break up my time – in half-hour or hourly segments with an occasional two-hour sprint. Between segments, I usually stretch backward and forward over a Pilates barrel I keep outside my office. Sometimes I’ll go outside and just breathe in the fresh air.
 
My afternoons consist of meetings and phone calls, which have natural breaks so I don’t need my egg timer. (I schedule most of my meetings for 15 or 30 minutes. It is seldom necessary to have a meeting any longer than that.)
 
Like Gene Schwartz, I have found my mini-breaks to be very refreshing.
 
Sometimes, if I had a short night of sleep and an intense midday workout, I get very tired in the middle of the afternoon. When I feel that way, I lie down and try to nap for 15 minutes. I will do that anywhere and under any circumstances. I’m not embarrassed by it. I think people who don’t understand it should be embarrassed, not me.
 
Once, suffering from jet lag in London, I lay down on the floor underneath the conference table before a board meeting. Fifteen minutes before the meeting was to start, NR, a board member and multimillionaire German publisher, came in. Our eyes met. I thought he might say something. Instead, he took off his shoes, lay down next to me, and we both enjoyed a power nap.
 
To help alleviate the boredom of working in one place all day, I split my time between my home office above my garage (where I do my writing in the morning) and my office at ETR headquarters. I have outfitted both offices with efficient workstations and comfortable chairs. And I have pillows handy in case I need a nap.
 
In the late afternoon, after a good day’s work, I often reward myself by walking over to a cigar shop two blocks from ETR. I can do some additional writing there while enjoying an espresso and a fine Nicaraguan cigar.
 
I get home at 7:30, open a bottle of wine, and head to a favorite spot in the backyard where I do some light reading and/or solve a crossword puzzle. It gives me a chance to unwind and, if necessary, blow off a little steam. Sometimes, I’ll jump in the hot tub. The idea is to get into a good mood for dinner, which starts promptly at 8:00.
 
All these little breaks and naps and rewards enhance the pleasure of my day. No matter how much work I have on my task sheet, I’m never more than two hours away from some pleasurable experience.
 
If you find that your workday is one long trek down a dull road, try breaking it up the way I do and see if it doesn’t make you happier and more productive.
 
Author: Michael Masterson
 
This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, a free newsletter dedicated to making money, improving health and secrets to success. For a complimentary subscription, visit www.earlytorise.com.

Your business coaching client, who is thinking about starting their own business but is unsure about whether they should become partners with someone they know, asks your the following question: “A friend and I want to go into business together but I’m not sure if we can work together. How do I find out before we start?”
 
Here’s a response from LCI’s Master Coach Terry Neal…
 
This statement reflects an increasing occurrence in today’s work environment where more and more people want to start their own business so that they can be their own boss. This in itself requires great planning and organisation even for a sole operator of a proposed new business. However a far greater challenge can occur when two people who may not have worked together before or who may have been in the same industry and even in the same workplace, decide that they want to go into business together.
 
Your client has raised an important question which probably is underlined by concerns about how it will be to work together away from either their individual or collective current workplace situation (that possibly does provide stability for your client financially and socially), as well as how will it be to work closely with their friend.
 
Initially as the coach you would need to gather information about your client, the business that they are proposing to create with their friend, what their goal is for the business and what they see as their strengths and challenges in the proposed business.
 
From this investigation you and they will have a clearer picture of in relation to the intended business as well as their vision for the business. You could then ask questions to help them to start finding out how much they know about their friend and if they could feel comfortable about working with them.
 
Questions like: How long have you known your friend? How long have you worked together and/or worked in the same industry? What qualities do you like about them? What challenges do you have with them? Do you two mix socially? How did the idea of working together come about? Who approached who? Do you know why your friend wants to go into the proposed business in general and specifically with you?
 
There could be more questions that flow from this but the point is to assist your client to become more aware of aspects of how well they know their friend as well as becoming more aware about themselves in areas that they hadn’t realised or weren’t sure about before in relation to their friend as well as their proposed venture.
 
Your client needs to be made aware that the more honestly they look at how well they know both themselves and their friend, the more likely that the proposed business venture will start on a solid footing (if indeed it starts at all).
 
Following on from this information gathering exercise, you could set your client a task to be done between this and a subsequent session. In this case the task would be to set up a meeting with their friend to talk about some basic issues that have come to light as a result of the questions you asked of your client that may have changed some of your client’s perspectives around both working with their friend as well as the whole business proposal.
 
Remind your client that this could assist both them and their friend to obtain as clear a picture as possible of how each one of you sees both the working together and the business itself. All of this assists your client to acknowledge as far as it’s possible to do so about what it could be like to work together.
 
You could provide a list of questions for your client to assist the process with their friend. Questions that you might suggest could include:

1. If our proposed business were to have exactly the impact that you wanted it to have, what would this look like?
2. What’s your vision for the business?
3. Where do you see our individual and collective challenges being?
4. What do you think are our individual and collective strengths?
5. What do you think we’ll need to do to get started in our own business?

Your client needs to be encouraged to assist with the best possible outcome when asking these questions by reminding them to pick an appropriate time and place to talk over these questions; a situation where there will not be any interruptions or where the meeting could be overheard by anyone else; so not in the work place but in a relaxed “away from work” situation.
 
Encourage them also to model open and honest communication and answers with their friend in the same way that they have done with you.
 
Finally, your client needs to be reminded that the information gained for themselves from both your session with them and those with their friend will assist them to say what is true for them about starting a new business venture and to go with what they feel is right for them no matter how persuasive their friend may be.
 
You could also suggest another session with your client to allow for any other issues that may have arisen from their meeting with their friend and/or to deal with the result of that meeting which may or may not have gone according to plan.

“I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I’m not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.” ~ Robert McCloskey

“Seek first to understand and then be understood” is an instruction first delivered by Stephen Covey in his acclaimed book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Covey’s message is a simple but powerful one. Too often we enter into communications with others with pre-conceived assumptions or notions about what the other person’s expectations, ideas or judgements will be.
 
Rarely are communications entered into without a predetermined idea of the response we are seeking or expecting. This does little but make communication more complex and susceptible to misunderstanding.
 
Studies into interpersonal communication have continually discovered that three core qualities foster effective communication. These qualities are defined as: 

1. Genuineness;
2. Respect and
3. Empathy. 

By incorporating these qualities into your everyday interactions with others, you can ensure that your relationships and communications become increasingly authentic, valid and meaningful.
 
Genuineness
 
To be genuine in communication is to be open, honest and self-expressive. The degree to which you behave in this way is the degree to which you’ll be able to significantly relate to another. A conversation devoid of genuineness sees people conceal their thoughts, values or motives. Concealment can lead to defensive responses and ultimately minimal connection between people.
 
Of course, it is neither advisable nor appropriate to be completely self-expressive in all situations. Genuine communication means engaging in sincere, honest and responsible conversations. It means accepting yourself and expressing who that is.
 
Reflection:
 
Take a moment to reflect on the relationships in your life, both professional and personal.

• In which relationships do you feel the most genuine?
• In which relationships do you feel the least genuine?
• What is it about your most genuine relationships that encourage you to express more of who you are? 

Respect
 
Respectful communication is communication that values the other person. When you engage in respectful conversation you appreciate the other person’s separateness and self-identity. To facilitate respectful communication:
 
Show consideration for personal boundaries. Avoid asking questions that are overly personal or intrusive. We often show this respect to colleagues and acquaintances but can fail to do so with our children or other family members.
 
Don’t impose your personal values onto others. Appreciate differences in other’s values and beliefs.
 
Avoid making assumptions. Don’t assume someone is thinking or feeling a particular way simply because that would be your natural response or reaction. Always check with them.
 
Empathy
 
Empathy exists on a continuum between apathy and sympathy (see below):
 
APATHY                         EMPATHY                                           SYMPATHY
 
e.g. “I don’t care”            e.g. “Looks like you feel down today”   e.g. “You poor thing…”
 
Under-involvement                                 <>                              Over-involvement
 
Effective communication means showing genuine care and concern for somebody. It does not mean identifying so strongly with another’s situation that it becomes debilitating or difficult for you to manage. Empathy means viewing the world through another’s person’s eyes. It requires abandoning self-focused communication for authentic connection and understanding.
 
The more you develop your communication skills the greater the possibility for genuine conversations based on honesty and respect. It is these conversations that have the power to influence your life.
 
Interactions based on genuine connection and consideration lead to improved understanding. This, in turn maximises the likelihood of successful communication that is not only authentic but leads to results. Increase your professional effectiveness by using your communication skills to identify the expectations of others and express your needs clearly and succinctly.
 
Source: www.mentalhealthacademy.com.au

A client approaches you with the following question: “My visions and goals are great but they aren’t real. How can I start living them now?” Master Coach Zahava Starak answers this dilemma…

Wow! A dilemma of a question! How can one start living something that isn’t real? More likely the client in this case has goals and a vision that are very real - but perhaps not realistic or attainable in their view.

Or perhaps they feel that other people in their life might not appreciate their goal or that they are silly to have any aspirations. As a coach it is therefore a good idea to discuss with your client what is happening in their life at the present and what they want to see happening - and then whether there is any synchronicity between the two.

To this end you could follow the WDEP acronym.  Each letter of this acronym refers to a cluster of strategies that can be implemented by the coach to promote change and assist the client in living the life they want.

In this acronym the letter W stands for Wants and Needs.

The coach asks a number of questions that encourage their client to discover what their needs are. Clients are given the opportunity to explore every aspect of their life and determine what they want from family, work, friends and so on. 

Typical questions include: “What do you want that you don’t seem to be getting?” or “What would you be doing if you were living how you wanted to?” By answering such questions that client is painting a picture of their “quality world”.

Next, the coach addresses the letter D which stands for Direction and Doing. 

The coach now discusses with their client the overall direction of their life, including where they are going and where their behaviour is taking them. Once again, through questioning, the focus is on the client’s present reality.

Questions to be asked at this stage include: “What are you doing about this?” and “What did you actually do this past week?” As it is evident, these questions examine the behaviours of the client to determine whether they are helping them attain their quality world.

This then brings us to the letter E which stands for Evaluation. The coach now asks such questions as: “Is what you are doing helping you or hurting you?” or “Does your present behaviour have a reasonable chance of getting you what you want now?” These questions help the client evaluate their behaviour and to honestly look at the consequences of their actions. With this realistic appraisal the client is now ready to make effective choices that may lead to change and goal attainment.

So they can now address the letter P which stands for Planning and Commitment. Clients can now explore the behaviours which can satisfy their wants and help them live their vision. Questions to assist the client at this stage include: “What plans could you make that would result in a more satisfying life?” or “Are there any other ways you achieve this goal?”

By following this acronym the client is empowered to start making their goals real and attainable thereby enabling them to live the life they want. Let’s now see how this acronym works in a real situation.

Case Example

Our client in this case is Linda. She describes her life as one that should be ’satisfying’. She is happily married to an accountant and enjoys looking after her two children aged 5 and 7. Her husband earns enough money so that the family has all their basic needs met without Linda having to work.

Before the birth of her second child Linda worked in the hospitality industry and enjoyed the interaction with people. It is only recently that she began questioning her ‘quality world’ and talking about goals and visions. Linda wants to expand her world and says that she is probably ’silly’ and that she should abandon her ‘grand plans’ and take up a hobby instead.

Linda is basically saying that her goals and vision aren’t real - but asking - how can I start living them now.

Based on our model the first step is to determine what Linda’s wants and needs are, and so we can ask Linda “What do you want with your life that you don’t seem to be getting?” We can further this exploration by asking Lind to describe the world that she would like to wake up to if, while sleeping, a miracle happened and her needs were met (the Miracle question).

Linda does know what she wants and she explains that she would like to see the children off to school each morning and then work on her catering and special events business that she has dreamt of for the last two years. With enthusiasm she explains in detail her business concept and who she would have helping her run it. Her wants and needs would be met by the challenge of the business and by the social interaction it would offer.

Next we can ask Linda what she is doing to get her wants. More specifically we ask, “What did you actually do this past week to take steps to start your business?” and “What do you see for yourself now and in the future?”

Linda’s enthusiasm wanes and she indicates that all she has been doing is talking about her dream to both perspective employees and supporters. She has only briefly mentioned it to her husband. She owns up that she feels foolish to have such aspirations and so until now has chosen to dream but not to act.

This statement leads us into an evaluation and we ask Linda “Is what you want realistic?” and although Linda hesitates and stumbles in the discussion of her vision, it becomes evident that her dream is possible. She has the skills, the contacts, the finances and the passion - and so we now ask her “Does your present behaviour have a reasonable chance of getting you what you want now, and will it take you in the direction you want to go?”

Linda, as expected, answers ‘no’ but there is a smile on her face as she now realises that she can actually start doing something to make this goal come true. And we can now enter the Planning and Commitment Stage of the Model. Goals can be more specifically addressed using the SMART format and a vision can be described in more detail.

We can ask Linda to indicate how committed she is to attaining her goal and she answers that on a scale between 1and 10 where 1 is not committed and 10 is fully committed – she is a 10. We are now ready to formulate an action plan and initiate the first steps towards establishing Linda’s goal and having her live the life she wants. 

Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens. ~ Carl Jung

This post’s coaching question could come from someone who is already in a management or leadership position; someone who has recently been promoted within their company; or even someone who has been successful in gaining a position in a new company and it is a change from their previous role.
 
The question is: What’s the difference between leadership and management? Terry Neal answers…
 
You may already be coaching a client who presents you with this question to either help them set some personal goals which incorporate some appropriate leadership and/or management qualities in this new or existing role, and/or how they could include the activity of coaching in a team management or leadership situation.
 
Therefore they may also be keen to be both coached and to learn how they can apply coaching skills in their work environment in their specific management or leadership role.
 
You could begin your exploration of this question by asking your client about their role as it has been presented to them. Whether it is a new position and they have yet to start or how it is in practice, and for how long that have experienced it for.
 
You could then follow their description up with an activity you have already prepared, that lists some attributes and qualities of a manager and a leader and ask your client to indicate under which heading they would place each attribute.
 
These attributes could include: 

• systems focused person
• people focused person
• maintenance of current practices
• development of new practices
• control of practices
• trust & letting go
• short term perspective
• long term perspective
• imitators
• originators
• communicators
• inspirational
• delegates
• embodies confidence
• self motivation
• shows originality
• trail blazer
• etc.

Of course not each quality listed above is going to neatly fall under one or the other heading but the idea here is to assist your client to start thinking about their personal concept of management and leadership and then to add the qualities that they may have already used in previous roles that were headed as management or leadership (executive) roles and /or qualities that they feel they would like to include under either of these two headings.
 
The idea here is to not give your client your definition or description of management and leadership but to assist your client onto the path of self discovery around how others see the definition of these two roles.
 
You could assist your client in their deeper understanding of these two terms by asking them about others who are in either of these two roles that they have read about or whom they know personally and admire and to note the qualities that these people have used or are using in their management or leadership roles.
 
If this question is part of a larger coaching contract that you have with this client, then you could set this as an activity for them to do between sessions.
 
This information could help them form personal values that they could hold in being an effective manager or leader and could also be used by your client when planning the wording that states their vision of best management and/or leadership.