Presenting Bootcamp STAR Graduate – Alexander McClean, Eagle Wind Coaching
Alexander is one of our Top 11 students in this past session—the “cum laude” of the bunch who launched her businesses with our support and who is now thriving!
Alexander offers coaching to people experiencing doubts about midlife.
How to avoid confusion
Can I hear you say, “You got that right!” if you feel midlife is a maze of confusion?
You’re frustrated with just about everything. You feel tired all the time and drained of energy. Your head has a never ending stream of questions. You don’t know where your life is going. You feel like your drowning in a sea of soul searching. Unfulfilled dreams have floated by. This burning desire wells up in you to lead a more meaningful life. Me too!
Well there’s good news! I found a way through and so can you.
The antidote to confusion is clarity.
So let me share with you what my business is about.
Coaching is a curious profession. For me it’s a magical process that’s why I’ve been coached, continue to be coached and qualified as a Certified Professional Coach. I trust in this process because it works.
I believe there are four key aspects present at varying degrees unique to each person during each coaching session, as well as throughout each coaching journey. So let’s have a quick look at them now.
Clarity is gained by what to focus on now
It’s about ensuring and creating a confidential space of trust where the sky is the limit. It’s about feeling free enough to share aspirations, fears, ideas, values, beliefs, feelings and expectations spontaneously. It’s somewhere safe enough to dare to dream.
This non-judgmental space recognizes the disparity between a current reality and the power to choose and create a new reality. Decisions determine destiny.
Clarity is found by finding harmony
This is where obstacles can be challenged, strengths can be built on, different perspectives can be gained and possibilities can expand. It’s about stimulating curiosity, creativity, confidence and choices which encourage finding deeper meaning and fulfillment.
Finding harmony is the power to probe and ponder all options so that inwardly and outwardly this connects to the flow of a meaningful and fulfilling life.
Clarity is gained by seeing the bigger picture
Seeing the bigger picture permits possibilities and potential to unify and fuel a passion for action to go to the next level. This is when a sincere commitment to change in realistic incremental steps is sealed.
Accountability at this point also encourages going deeper into the process to enable conscious choices to be made. Meaningful actions need to be embraced. It’s a way to engage in life, bridge gaps and gain momentum to keep moving onwards and upwards.
Clarity is gained by sharing
Choosing to be dedicated and determined to follow through on decisions encourages practical application of what has been learnt to filter into and become a natural and integral part of daily and on-going life.
Sharing can spark insights. Highlighting, recapping and acknowledging positive feelings and outcomes along the way is uplifting and motivating.
It’s about celebrating, honoring and loving all those little steps that transformed into cherished triumphs.
Last, but certainly not least, wherever you are in your own personal maze remember it’s an entrance. It’s an entrance where you will find your way to your goal. Below are some of the results that my clients experienced when they reached their goals:
being 100% themselves and being happier
being confident to live the life of their dreams
being zen and finding balance and peace of mind
being healthier and more active and excited about life
being clear on why they are here and what they are here to do
being in control and able to decide the direction they choose to go
What do you want to experience more of?
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Alexander McClean is a Professional Traininer & Coach. As a result of her revelations she was hungry to seek answers and she began to study personal development and she devoured everything. As she started to figure stuff out she got breakthroughs by implementing strategies, tools and habits that made my life take off. She decided she would not let her past define or dictate who she is. She started new routines, habits and ideas that helped her to change the way she looked at the world. She discovered that one of her greatest strengths is that she is vulnerable and that it is okay to be fully human. She knows how to cry, she knows how to grieve and she knows how to get back up again.
After 10 years in business with minimal success, she got crystal clear on how to talk with her prospects and clients and as a result she repositioned her entire business and is now realizing her full potential.
Presenting Bootcamp STAR Graduate – Kim Parrott, Sea Change Resources
Kim is one of our Top 10 students in this past session—the “cum laude” of the bunch who launched her businesses with our support and who is now thriving!
Kim offers executive and team coaching for senior leaders & emerging leaders.
Gratitude
I feel so fortunate to work as a coach and facilitator because it enables me to be my best self, while helping others realize their best selves. As a coach I get to help people identify what really matters to them at both a professional and personal level. As a facilitator I get to help groups achieve results beyond the sum of their individual efforts. That’s fun adventurous stuff, which I’ve always enjoyed.
Some background: I grew up overseas in a diplomatic family in East Africa, Soviet Union, England and Belgium. After college I went to sea for seven years as a coast guard licensed officer aboard square-rigged ships. Eventually my seafaring husband and I moved ashore to start a family. Soon thereafter I launched a consulting business with my mother, which has evolved into what is now SeaChange Resources. My mother continues to be a mentor, partner and inspiration.
Our Quest: Accelerated Wisdom
“The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.” –Isaac Asimov, Writer and Biochemistry Professor
This melancholy quote has been a motivating challenge for us at SeaChange—how do we accelerate the development of wisdom in leaders and teams? The commitment to that quest is embedded in our logo.
If the answers were self-evident, we’d all be enlightened by now. Clearly we’re not. IS there a way to fast-forward the acquisition of wisdom?
First of all, a distinction needs to be made between knowledge and wisdom. At its simplest, the former pertains to the information and skills that a person gains through experience and education. The latter is how well that knowledge is applied.
Wisdom is grown, not manufactured. It often originates from deeply personal experience, usually in the form of a challenge or hardship. It involves gaining a larger perspective that transcends the boundaries of self, in other words, a meta-awareness of awareness itself.
New Applications of Age-Old Wisdom
For the last five years we’ve been designing the Quest for Excellence framework–an intensive learning environment that naturally seeds and feeds wisdom. None of the ideas are new. Indeed most of the elements have ancient pedagogical roots.
The formula is simple: the pursuit of holistic excellence both in input and output.
Where we are breaking new ground is in the integrated application of these age-old modalities to the development of a modern leader.
The original Greek word for wisdom is sophia, which means clarity. Enabling society to gain wisdom apace with the surging knowledge of science is dependent on the clarity of our focus in evolving whole-minded and whole-hearted leaders.
A Lot to Ask
It’s a tall order, we know, and still aspirational at this point. However, that’s what coaching is about—encouraging our clients and ourselves to set beautiful and mighty goals that we can grow into.
There’s also serendipity involved. Several months ago I chanced upon the Coaches Console website while looking for an online calendar tool to share with my clients. I soon discovered that I had bumped into a whole system approach that would enable me to take my business to the next level. An Easy Breezy Bootcamp later I am much further along on my own business quest than I would have dreamed possible.
So I’ll end where I started—grateful to be surrounded by a community of coaches committed to bringing out the best in each other.
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Kim Parrott is the principal of SeaChange Resources, LLC. Kim has 20 years of experience of leadership development, executive coaching, strategic planning and facilitation for a broad range of organizations including corporations, colleges, government agencies and the non-profit sector. She also serves on the faculty of the Center for Creative Leadership, a globally ranked provider of leadership development and research, and is a Senior Consultant for The Cradlerock Group providing leadership training and coaching for multinational companies. Kim holds a in BA History from Yale, a MA in Teaching from Brown and is an ICF certified coach. Kim lives with her husband and two children in Blue Hill, Maine. Learn more about Kim.
“My [Bootcamp] coach helped me reach for [and complete] the missing pieces. You must AIM for success to reach it!”
Presenting Bootcamp STAR Graduate – Laura Harju, Love Coach
Laura is one of our Top 11 students in this past session—the “cum laude” of the bunch who launched her businesses with our support and who is now thriving!
Laura offers love coaching to single woman.
Get on your path towards your Mr. Right
For me love has always been the basic feeling that we want to have to be happy. From my very early ages I was all the time looking for that romantic love and most of the time I was too mature for the boys that I was interested in. At the age of 18 I finally found my True Love. It was magical. It was everything that I had ever dreamed of. At the beginning we were a match, but after a couple of years together I started to notice things where we weren’t a match anymore. In that relationship I learned my love language which is very physical. For my first True Love that wasn’t the way he expressed his love and that became a bigger and bigger issue in our relationship. During our time together we had taught each other valuable lessons but grown apart in the process. Not long after that realization we broke up.
After the breakup with my first True Love I experienced a long row of Mr. Wrongs. I got to the point where I thought that True Love is something one experiences only once in a lifetime. When surrendering to the fact that the only relationship that will last forever is the relationship with myself, I cultivated my self-love and focused on things that made me happy. By doing so I was effectively using the Law of Attraction and attracted my second True Love into my life, a relationship where the Love grows every day! These experiences with Mr. Wrongs, coupled with meeting my second True Love, Markus, is what has shown me my true calling, my purpose in life, which is to help as many people as possible to find True Love in their own life.
How do you feel about finding your True Love? Do you see it as an impossible dream? Do you often think that all the good ones are already taken? Are you tired of jumping from one bad relationship to the next? Have you started to think that you need to change in some way to find True Love? I want to reassure you, that you are perfect just the way you are and that there is a True Love waiting for you! The common mistakes single women make when looking for their True Love which keep them meeting the wrong guys are lack of clarity, inaction and negative thought patterns.
Lack of clarity means that you don’t have a clear picture about your True Love. To get what you want you need to know what it is that you want. When you know the qualities you are looking for in a person, it’s easier for you when meeting new people to notice which one of them are potential partners and which one will maybe become good friends. Every encounter with another human being will give you a clearer picture of what it is that you want. When you are using all life’s experiences in determining your preferences you will find out soon what pleases you and what doesn’t. You want to sit down and write on a piece of paper all the aspects that you want to have in your ideal partner and relationship. Use all your past experiences as a stepping stone to gain more clarity of your likings. When you do know what you want and you start to focus on those qualities in other people, you will start noticing them more and soon the person you are looking at is your True Love.
The inaction that I’m referring to is the thought that “when I meet the One then I will do this and that with him”. But when you want to attract your True Love into your life, the most important thing is to feel good. Then you will get into your life even more things that make you feel good. Other people will reflect back to you the feelings that you are feeling inside of you. And people want to be around happy people. So when you are clear on what it is you want, then it’s time to take action. Do things that bring you joy, make you happy and help you experience those feelings you wish your True Love will awaken in you. Make your dreams come true, do the things that you have always wanted to do, have fun with your friends, do pleasant things on your own, and really live your life and you will find the One who will make your life even more fun, joyful and magical.
With negative thought patterns I mean those unfavorable repetitive thoughts that go through your head when you think about True Love. Those thoughts can be “All the good ones are already taken”, “There’s no such thing as True Love” or “There’s something wrong with me”. If the thought of True Love fills you with negative feelings like loneliness, desperation, fear, unworthiness, jealousy, discouragement, worry, doubt or frustration, it’s a strong sign that there are negative thought patterns hiding behind those feelings. You are a spiritual being and your thoughts and feelings determine a lot of your outer reality. So when you have your list of your preferences ready, it’s important to think about your True Love and feel positive feelings like joy, love, appreciation, passion, enthusiasm, eagerness, happiness, positive expectation and belief, optimism and hopefulness. One easy way to give your desire positive attention is to form affirmations that arise those feelings inside of you when you read them out loud or silently to yourself. You want to keep those affirmations with you and come back to them as often as possible and especially when you aren’t feeling good to get yourself into a better mood. Focusing positively on your True Love will make your days more joyful and love-filled. You will soon notice the effects by encountering people who help you feel those positive feelings, one of them being your True Love.
The mistakes mentioned above are easy to avoid. It’s up to you to take the time and energy to learn and use the tips and tools to avoid them. So go to the Love Coach Laura Harju website and get your Free Special Report where you will get more strategies how to avoid these mistakes.
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Laura Harju is a certified Life Coach and a Love Coach. She assists her clients to identify their True Love, to experience more Love here and now, and to clear out the mind’s obstacles to finding True Love. Laura loves working as a Life Coach because it allows her to contribute to people’s lives in a much deeper way; and thanks to modern technology, Laura can serve clients worldwide! Through her coaching Laura helps single women find their True Love, so that they can share the big Love they have in their hearts.
“You MUST know your WHY to be able to stay the course and see great results. Bootcamp is a full blown Business Building Class set up in bite size pieces, not just learning a software.”
Presenting Bootcamp STAR Graduate – Victoria McCooey, The Divorce Course for Women
Victoria is one of our Top 11 students in this past session—the “cum laude” of the bunch who launched her businesses with our support and who is now thriving!
Victoria offers coaching to women who are going through divorce.
Finding Your Lemonade
When life gives you lemons, it may be hard to see how to make lemonade. But it’s there, if you just keep looking
When I was suffering through my own divorce, I didn’t see a bright side. All I could see was wounded children, a vengeful ex, insurmountable bills, isolation and fear, vacation days spent in courtrooms, guilt, fear and depression. I was in victim mode.
Can you relate? Are you feeling like a victim now? If you are, then you know what it’s like. You’re tired. You’re depressed. Everything hurts. You feel jealous. You believe that the universe is out to get you. You find no joy in anything. You say to yourself, over and over, “why me?”
Ugh. Who wants to live like that? No one. And no one wants to be around anyone like that. Not your friends. Not your family. Not your children. It’s hard to help someone who is feeling sorry
for herself. So you need to find a way to snap out of it. Fast.
One way is to look for the positive. “Impossible,” you say. “There is absolutely nothing positive about what’s happening here.” You may be surprised.
Why me?
It’s difficult to understand why bad things happen when they’re happening. But the reason always becomes clear in time. So you just have to trust that something good is going to come of
the heartache you are feeling now. And it will.
It wasn’t until many years later that I realized why I had to endure a decade-long divorce, suffer through endless court appearances, and begrudgingly spend what could have been college tuition for my three children. It was so that I would be more knowledgeable about more aspects of divorce and how it affects women, and be able to help more women who find themselves in the same situation.
I finally understood how to make lemonade out of my lemons.
I wouldn’t trade those experiences for anything. Every single obstacle I faced made me stronger and better able to support my clients. All of that negativity has been transformed into a
positive: a fulfilling career helping women face their own divorce drama and come out better than before. I want you to find your lemonade. I want you to one day take your experiences from this dark, scary time and realize the positive impact they’ve had on you. You will be stronger. You will be smarter. You will be a better parent. You will gain new perspective. You will be better equipped to handle unexpected challenges. You will be a better partner to some very lucky person.
Try to keep this in mind as you make your way through the process. Your lemonade is waiting.
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Victoria McCooey is founder, president and head coach at The Divorce Course for Women. She became a volunteer for the Coalition Against Domestic Violence, and she supported and encouraged the women she met by imparting what she’d learned on her journey. Learn more about Victoria.
“I didn’t get out there to reach my ideal clients because I didn’t feel like I had enough value to offer or know how to do it professionally. Now , after Bootcamp, I have a web site, a free gift to share and a professional manner in which to describe my ideal client and engage them.“
Presenting Bootcamp STAR Graduate – Angelique Beauregard, AB Transformations
Angelique is one of our Top 11 students in this past session—the “cum laude” of the bunch who launched her businesses with our support and who is now thriving!
Angelique offers coaching to overweight, overstressed, overtired midlife women.
7 Reasons Why You Should Make a Family Photobook, Even When You Hate Your Pictures Because You Think You’re Fat
This is the time of year I create my annual Family Photobook for the previous year. So far I have created 16 since 2000 when my second daughter was born. I always have two copies made, one for each of my girls. For now I keep a copy at my house and another at my mom’s, in case of fire.
On the cover of each photobook is my favorite photo of the kids. When I line them up side by side, I see how quickly they’re growing!
Unfortunately there aren’t a whole lot of pictures of me in them. I’ve always hated having my photo taken, always disappointed with how fat I look.
How sad to think that my daughters have so few images of me in their treasured books!
Fortunately, their 2017 book will be filled with photos of me (whether they like it or not!). Since I lost 50 lbs, I love having my photo taken, and I actually look as good in them as I feel.
Here are 7 reasons why you should create your own family photobook:
It creates a record of your family life for future generations (my main purpose). It’s not so much about the photos, but the moments and memories they represent.
It forces you to get your best photos out of your computer, so you can easily look at them over and over again.
A photobook is beautiful and fun to look through, much less bulky than a photo album (and easier than wading through thousands of forgotten photos on your computer).
It encourages you to take better pictures, because you know you’ll be putting them in your book the following year.
It is affordable and easy to do – just Google Search online photo shops for the best deals (Costco is a great one).
The photos they contain are laid out to tell a story. You can create a theme, add text, and change the image sizes. You can get really creative!
More importantly, a photobook builds a meaningful connection between you and the person you’re viewing it with.
So if you are avoiding the camera because you think you’re fat, I’m here to tell you that you CAN lose the weight and learn to love having your photo taken too! Your family will thank you – for generations to come!
You just need to take the first step.
I invite you to sign up for a complimentary “Love Your Mirror” consultation. You’ll have access to my online calendar, so you can choose a date and time that works best for you.
Your Biggest Supporter, Angelique
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Angelique Beauregard is the principal and owner of AB Transformations Inc. Through her one-on-one transformational nutrition coaching, she helps women who struggle with their weight create a simple personalized plan for permanent weight loss so they can finally wear cute clothes, move around freely, and love their bodies. Learn more about Anelique.
Grew her list by 300%!!! From 0 contacts to 300 in less than 10 weeks using the Free Gift she created in Bootcamp!
Presenting Bootcamp STAR Graduate Jenifer Horvath, Heart Lifted Coaching
Jenifer is one of our Top 11 students in this past session—the “cum laude” of the bunch who launched her businesses with our support and who is now thriving!
Jenifer offers whole life coaching for women with children who are tired of surviving and are ready to thrive.
Moving From Surviving to Thriving
As parents, it’s easy to fall into the rhythm of merely surviving. Doing what you need to do to exist and get the necessary tasks done on a daily basis, especially under hardship. We need this survival mode.
Problems begin to appear when we are in survival mode for too long. Survival mode is exhausting, stressful, and emotionally defeating. It causes wear on your mind and body. Signs of being in a state of survival are blaming and judging others. Perhaps we feel inferior, or not in control, so we gossip and have short tempers with our kids. We are overly critical of others and ourselves. Seeing the bad first. We see life as happening to us, instead of for us. We find it difficult to see different points of view and all the possibilities.
To help numb any feelings of disappointment, fear or guilt, we begin to turn to things that take our minds off our feelings. Some people turn to wine, food, Facebook and Netflix to zone out night after night. Others become workaholics or excessive cleaners to keep themselves busy. These coping mechanisms in excess become crutches, so we don’t deal with our emotions and reality.
We soldier on doing the things we think we must do to survive. Not giving ourselves permission to think about how our lives might not be what we want them to be. Planting smiles on our faces to hide that we feel lost. This is survival mode.
Is this all there is to life?
The beautiful thing is that you don’t need to stay in that state of surviving. You can reignite your spark, inspiration, and motivation. You can choose to see the positive and opportunities. You can find what you’re passionate about and uncover ways to enjoy it, while being a parent. You can thrive.
Thriving is an intentional state. Knowing what you really want and why you want it. Purposely planning and living your life, so it’s in alignment with your values.
Yes, it does take work to get there and effort to choose to be your best self every day. The benefits, however, of being in this state are greater energy, awareness, happiness, focus and an even more meaningful life. Thriving creates more thriving. Suddenly, the world opens up to you and ideas you never saw before are there.
As parents, it does mean blending all components of your life – yourself, your family, friends, work and other elements – into a delicious life smoothie that works for you. Everyone’s life smoothie is going to be different. What matters is if it’s working for you.
While our life will swing between surviving and thriving, choosing intentional and purposeful living and personal growth daily will bring you greater fulfillment.
Choosing to Thrive: How to begin
Awareness is the first step in moving into thriving. Specifically knowing where you are now and where you want to be.
Try this life satisfaction exercise to get more clarity on what’s working for you and what’s not:
Identify: Write down the different areas of your life: health, family, career, self-development, volunteering, hobbies, home, spiritual and other areas.
Rank: For each area, rank your satisfaction on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is a little bit satisfied and 10 is completely satisfied.
Observe: Try not to judge. Simply be honest with yourself and notice what’s sticking out from the ranking. What’s higher? What’s lower?
Consider: If you could change just one area to give your life more overall satisfaction, which one would it be?
Create: With that one area in mind, focus on creating one tiny action step you can take to improve that area. Keep it doable and enjoyable, so you get positive reinforcement when you achieve it.
Using this new awareness, be mindful of how your satisfaction begins to shift with this small step. When you’re comfortable and consistent with incorporating your first action step, ask yourself what might be your second action step.
Creating change takes time but it’s absolutely do-able. Working with a life coach can help you move to thriving faster and easier than doing it on your own. They are experts in getting results for their clients. They not only have the knowledge but most have been trained in the psychology of change and habit making. If you’re really committed to making a change, consider hiring an expert to give you the guidance, support, and accountability, especially for those days that you fall off the wagon. They’ll get you back going quickly.
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Jenifer Horvath is the founder of Heart Lifted Coaching, and a trained Life and Business Coach. Through weekly sessions, she helps moms reduce stress and guilt, in order to be happier, calmer and live a more meaningful life. She has two daughters and loves yoga, brain-science and sipping lattes with friends. Learn more about Jenifer.
