The Invisible Mentor

Posts Tagged ‘coach’

What kind of year would you like to have in 2011? Do you want to blaze some trail? Or are you comfortable with the same-old, same-old and want to stay the course? Sometimes it’s quite difficult to step outside our comfort zone and do extraordinary things, perhaps we do not want to draw attention to ourselves because of the way we were brought up. But it’s possible for ordinary people to accomplish extraordinary feats, look at some of the interviewees that I bring you.

I have had some very ambitious, stretch goals that I have been trying to achieve for a couple of years now, but I am not making as much progress as I’d like. So this coming year I’m doing something very different. I have hired a mentor-coach who has accomplished what I am trying to accomplish. On our preliminary phone conversations, he asked me what I was trying to achieve, he was interested in what I wanted. That’s very important, because sometimes mentors, and not many of them, want you to see their way, and they want to take you where they want you to go. The best mentors do not do that, they are interested in where you’d like to go and help you to get there.

The mentor-coach who I will be working with understands exactly what I am trying to do, and he knows exactly how to get me there. He has a system which he has been using for many years. And the icing on the cake is that his values and mission align perfectly with mine. What he has accomplished in life resonates with me. It has been taking me ages to get to where I would like to go, so I have sought help, and I begin my incredible journey on January 4, 2011. Are you ready for 2011; and what will you do differently? Is there a mentor who can take you where you’d like to go? My words for 2011 are “Achievement on Steroids,” what are yours?

If you cannot view this YouTube video of ABBA’s Happy New Year click here.

If you need help determining your goals refer to 10 Questions to Ask and Answer Before 2010. How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

This post was inspired by the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada. On Monday, a friend invited me over for dinner, Family Day, a holiday in a few Canadian provinces including Ontario where I reside. She has been glued to her television watching the competitions. I hadn’t watched any of the competitions so far and took the opportunity to do so.

We watched snowboarding and what an adrenaline rush, and I wasn’t even competing. Of course as a Jamaican-Canadian I was rooting for Mike Robertson, the Canadian who was a very close second behind the American competitor, Seth Wescott. For a while Robertson was leading, but Wescott took the lead at the last minute to win the gold medal. Both Mike Robertson and Seth Wescott are winners in my book.

There are times in life when we give it all we have and yet we do not win. There is no reason to feel badly because we did the best we could with what we had. Unlike the Olympics, in the absence of competition, how do you test yourself to ensure that you show up as your best self most of the time? What activities do you perform daily to ensure that you become better and do not stagnate in your field? How often do you Go for the Gold in life?

Who do you have in your support network to coach, mentor, motivate, inspire, challenge and question you, so that you reach deep within to draw on your reserves to eke out a little bit more even when you think you have nothing more to give?

WE all need a support network of people to help up show up as our best selves most of the time. In what ways are you similar to athletes? What leadership lessons can you learn from athletes?

P.S. I will be rooting for Errol Kerr who makes up the Jamaica Ski Team. Kerr a freestyle skier, is doing the unexpected. It doesn’t matter whether he wins or lose, the point is that he tried and the point is that he showed up, and the point is he went against the grain.

Keep the conversation flowing. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the left side) by email or RSS Feed. I created a Mini Learning Toolkit and you can grab a copy by clicking here.

For your research and writing needs, consider my firm Ambeck Enterprise for white papers, articles, fact sheets, anniversary booklets, you name it. Since I am the best kept secret you may not know this, but I have over 15 years research and writing experience. I KNOW content. And if you cannot figure out which books to read for professional development, I am your WOMAN, I can assist you with that too.

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Related articles by Zemanta

• Canada wins silver in snowboard cross (olympics.thestar.com)
• Wescott of U.S. wins snowboard cross gold (nbcsports.msnbc.com)
• Snowboarder Robertson says best expected (cbc.ca)