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Conveying Understanding through Paraphrasing and Assertive, Aggressive, or Passive Communication?
Conveying Understanding through Paraphrasing One of the most powerful communication skills you can learn is the art of paraphrasing. When someone tells you something, make sure that you understand him or her correctly by using paraphrasing. You let the...
The Importance of Asking Great Questions and Non-Verbal Messages
How to Ask Great Questions Asking questions can be one of the best ways to enhance a conversation, but the wrong questions can actually hinder conversation. Not all questions are created equal! Open-ended questions are friendlier and more effective than...
Vision – Goals – Action: A Practical Guide to Achieving Your Goals
Goal-setting is a powerful process for envisioning our ideal future. And for finding the motivation we need to turn this vision into reality. Without goals we are adrift in the world and rarely will we experience a sense of achievement. As a coach and...
Learn This Skill to Improve all of Your Relationships
If you want to improve your relationship with your children, your spouse, your coworkers, or anyone else, learn to acknowledge their feelings before you seek to fix their problem. Sometimes we hear someone’s problem and immediately respond with, “You should . . .” or...
Achieving your Goals: Part 4 – Take Action
Let’s face it – creating a vision and developing a strategy does not assure that anything is going to change. Change is going to come about by taking very specific ACTIONS on a routine basis. Taking action moves you forward. In other words, you have to do something...
Achieving your Goals: Part 3 – Strategies / Goals
The second step towards a fulfilling life is to develop the strategies that you will need to put into place in order to reach your vision. Strategies – or goals – are broad action statements that help you reach this vision. They can include things like, for example:...
Achieving your Goals: Part 2 – Visioning
Visioning is the process of creating a picture in your mind of what you want for your life in the future. This includes all aspects of your life – health, finances, relationship, career and more. The most successful people in the world are people who create and fulfil...
2021 is The Year to Make a Fresh Start, Learn New Skills and Celebrate!
Now is the time to recover from last year’s challenges, do a life audit, get back on track, look to the New Year with optimism and excitement, set new goals and celebrate your life! To celebrate the New Year 2021, at Ithaca Global Coaching Academy, I am excited...
Achieving your Goals: Part 1 – Vision, Strategies, Action
During the “Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration” in the early 20th century, two men – the Norwegian explorer, Roald Amundsen, and the British, Robert Falcon Scott – both planned separate expeditions to be the first explorers to reach the South Pole. They had the same...
Leadership: It’s All in Your Mind
Do you think of yourself as a leader? Do you enjoy leading? As you were growing up, did people tell you that you had natural leadership qualities? If you don’t see yourself as a leader, know that you are leading and probably not even knowing it. Why? Because we are...
The Impact of Assumptions on Relationships
According to the Oxford Learner’s Dictionary, an assumption is ‘a belief or feeling that something is true or that something will happen, although there is no proof.’ We all make assumptions. We naturally fill in gaps in what we think and perceive so that we can make...
Giving an ‘A’: Possibility, Not Measurement
In sculpting his masterpiece David, Michelangelo said that he was “setting free the angel that was inside the rock” (Chris Widener, The Angel Inside), that he was merely chipping away from the marble everything that was not David. In other words, one needs only remove...
Confidence and You
Think of a recent social or business gathering you attended. Who were the people that projected confidence? You probably remember them well because confident people radiate a warmth and enthusiasm that draws people toward them. They approach these occasions as...
Tomorrow May Never Come
One year after Alexandra Scott was born in 1996, doctors diagnosed her with Neuroblastoma, a crippling, yet common form of childhood cancer. On her 4th birthday, she told her mother she wanted to start a lemonade stand to help other kids with similar conditions. ...
The Clock is Ticking
Jim was eating his sandwich when the call came in. The alarm bells startled him, and he dropped a dollop of mustard onto his starched white uniform. Bill ran into the locker room and said “Hurry Jim, this is our call!” Jim stopped munching long enough to tell his...
Taking Immediate Action
During the Vietnam War, the Viet Cong soldiers were especially adept at ambushes. Their most successful ambushes utilised an “L” shaped design, because it allowed for maximum coverage of the space inside of the “L.” This was a HUGE problem, and American soldiers fell...
Teamwork Makes the Dream Work
“I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make when they go by.” ~ Douglas Adams Douglas Adams authored the literary cult classic, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, among numerous other novels. He was also an outrageously chronic procrastinator. His failure...
Embracing Imperfect Action
General George McLellan was well known for his ability to train and prepare troops for war. He put his soldiers through rigorous training scenarios over and over until they were able to work as a cohesive unit, and he meticulously strategized battle plans until they...
Run Your Way
Keelan Glass from Abilene, Texas laces on her shoes before the race, warms up a little, and stretches before heading out to the starting line with the other runners. About 2 years ago she ran her first 5k, and she stepped up to the 10k level last year. This will be...
Strategies for Success for Chronic Procrastinators
Herman Melville wrote Moby Dick, one of the most well-known stories of all time. He also suffered from chronic procrastination for the entirety of his career. However, he knew how to get a handle on his bad habit…he had his wife chain him to his writing desk so he...