Social skills – today’s edge in a digital world.

The importance of social skills is crucial.

Never have social skills been as important. Human Capital is a major success factor in today’s corporate environment.

In the personal face to face meeting, the customer expects world-class treatment. All business, regardless of size and industry, takes place between people. Your social capability, i.e. the ability to understand how your behavior affects the group dynamics and other people’s behavior, as well as the ability to adapt will give you success. Become the best version of yourself and dare to go outside the box. Invest in your and your co-workers’ ability to be present, to listen genuinely, and confirm and convey a clear and professional response based on what the client tells you and ask for.

In today’s digital world that’s huge, and a winning strategy for a successful relationship with your clients.

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What is Mindful Solution-Focused Coaching?

Imagine your encounter a problem.

Imagine you are equipped with a flashlight.

Awareness (mindfulness) is a bit like the flashlight. Whatever you direct the beam towards becomes visible in the dark. Oftentime you direct its beam toward the problem you encounter – and all the rest is in darkness.

What’s important is to widen the beam of your flashlight. By doing so, coaching may shed light on new and useful areas of you, facets and details become visible that previously had been in the dark. The focus of your awareness (mindfulness) widens. You are able to perceive other parts of your reality, re-describe how you in the past dealt with a similar situation and thus generate more options.

You have become more Mindful about your actions, observing without being caught up in it, and by not identifying with your actions you have set the stage for re-describing your problem, and focusing in on a solution – you have become aware of your expanded choices, you are now Focused on a Solution.

One very central effect of Coaching, and the Transition Coaching I do, consists of your increased self-confidence in your own ability, and trust, to master a difficult situation. Confidence is a prerequisite for taking small steps for change. The coaching creates a framework in which you, my client, become aware of your competencies and resources and are able to access them – you become aware of the competencies you previously used to master situations that were as difficult as the one at hand, re-describe, re-discover, and if you trust in yourself, you will be able to try something new and different to reach your goals (and a solution to your problem).

This is what Mindful Solution-Focused Coaching is, and that’s my approach in my Transition Coaching service I offer.

Get Ready 4 Change. Have the Life you want! Get the support you need.

Visit CoachLars.com for more.

Feel the FEAR…& do it anyway.

 

Everybody feels fear when dealing with something totally new in life, yet many people are out there ‘doing it’ anyway.

This must mean that fear is not the problem.

It’s how we deal with fear. How we hold the fear.

For some, they hold their fear from a place of power (their fear gives them choice, energy, and action. For others, it creates a state of shut down and they hold their fear from a place of pain (their fear makes them feel helpless, depressed, and stuck).

The cure for our fear lies in saying ‘yes’.

The phrase ‘say yes’ means ‘to agree to’ those things that Life hands to us.

Saying yes means not struggling against, but letting in the opportunities of seeing the World in new ways. On the other hand, saying no means to be a victim. ‘How could this happen to me!’

Saying no means to block, to fight, to struggle against opportunities for growth and challenge. Saying no creates tension, tiredness, wasted energy, upset feelings, – or, worse, it creates a lack of caring.

Say yes to Life. Join in. Move. Act. Write. Read. Stand up. Take a stand. Or do whatever works for you. Get involved in the process.

Become what you want to attract.

Be the kind of person you want to surround yourself with.

Be the change you want to see in others…

…and embrace FEAR in the process.

Our Fear…to “fail” Life.

Are we prisoners of our own expectations?

Are we so occupied by adding new “things” in our lives, lose weight, improve our self, strenghten our relationships, find a new partner, become “succesful”, make more money, spend more money…that we lose sight of what really matters?

Or do we chose to be in the moment and to deal with each transition/change as it happens,  without feeling we have to be acknowledged by anyone for what we have, but rather for who we are?

To look inside…do soul searching…rather than focusing our efforts on “improving” our outside – looks, things, “status” measured in money and what others see and thinks.

Isn’t it how we act, what we do for ourselves AND others, that should determine our success? So look inward – do soul searching. Be in the moment. Be mindful. And stop fearing you will “fail” life. Fear not. LIVE!

There’s an angel in my room,

She lives in my head.

She keeps my calm

And she whispers to me everything I say.

There’s another me inside my head and

she has the most beautiful soul.

She is love and hope,

and she tells me

how much I care.

 

 

A Mindful Death

When darkness cover the northern hemisphere we become ever so mindful of the light we look for in everything and everyone.

The candles flicker in the windows. The fire sparks inside the warm and cozy place we like to call home. The decorations, making every town an inviting place to gather for residents, visitors and strangers alike.

My book A Mindful Death (www.amindfuldeath.com) is actually the perfect companion on a damp, cold winter day. So snuggle up in your favorite reading chair or sofa with a cup of cocoa or heated red wine (or “glögg” as the locals call it). Visit the wonderful towns of Cold Spring, New York and Perugia, Italy, together with Harry Anderson who uncovers secrets not known to anyone but one person who, now after all these years, tells his story of what happened… and why even death can be mindful and justified…

Selfishness…or self fullness?

get ready 4 change with Lars – your Transition Coach

Remember that when we talk about goal setting, your attitudes, values and behavior it’s really about making sure that you stay in line with and are being true to your needs, opinions and perception.The distinction between selfishness and self fullness is that self fullness is being true to your needs, opinions and perception without worrying what others think and understanding an important difference that when we disappoint some people we are actually allowing them to find their own strenght.

For more about having the life you want, and getting the support you need, based on your needs, interest and values, go to www.CoachLars.com for a free consulation and to sign up for my 5-step transition signature program – “get ready 4 change”.

The Power of Organizing Without Organizations

In today’s world we live a life in where we embrace change as not only something positive but more importantly a necessity of survival.

And where the future belongs to those who are able to take better advantage of social tools, extending their capabilities in ways that violate old models not because they know more useful things than we, the older generation do, but because they know fewer useless things than we do.

Our social tools are dramatically improving our ability to share, cooperate, and act together.

The power of organizing without organizations.

The power of getting things done by collaborating collectively without a hierarchical flow of decision makings. Malcom Gladwell in “What the Dog Saw” said; “If everyone had to think outside the box, maybe it was the box that needed fixing.” Seen in that light, social tools don’t create collective action – they merely remove the obstacles to it. Those obstacles have been so significant and pervasive, however, that as they are being removed, the world is becoming a different place.

Many of the changes we see are not based on the fanciest, newest bits of technology but on simple, easy-to-use tools like smartphones, apps, blogs and websites, because those are tools most people have access to and, critically, are comfortable using in their daily lives. Revolution doesn’t happen when society adopts new technologies – it happens when society adopts new behaviors.

So as more people adopt simple social tools, and as those tools allow increasingly rapid communication, the speed of group action also increases, and just as more is different, faster is different.

Holacracy  is a new way of running an organization. It removes power from a traditional management hierarchy and distributes it across clear roles without a micromanaging boss. The work is actually more structured than in a conventional company, just differently so. With Holacracy there is a clear set of rules and processes for how a team breaks up its work, and defines its roles with clear responsibilities and expectations.

It’s possible because of the rapid communication, the speed of which the group can act, taking advantage of social tools, adapting new behaviors faster than can be done in a traditional hierarchical environment and way of working.

The power of organizing without organizations are here to stay.

Here comes everybody, interconnected with social tools most people have access to, and not only to a few selected with their names in square boxes, interconnected with lines on a piece of paper.

 

Inspiration OR Motivation?

I feed off inspiration ALL the time. Everything I do is born out of inspiration. Is that bad?

It’s probably the reason why I am not always MOTIVATED… Inspiration is defined as the process of being mentally stimulated to do something, especially something creative. BUT it’s an EXTERNAL force…MOTIVATION is an INTERNAL drive…

SO I need to learn to ACT on everyday inspiration – MOTIVATION does that. It comes from within and propels me to ACT on the inspiration I can find anywhere – IF I choose and am willing to look for it…

I need to let the inspiration turn into motivation to act and allow it to be the accelerant to produce more of my “monster” ideas and plots when I write my stories; or when I help others excel and become more thoughtful, mindful and solution-focused; as a way of living, behaving, and working with others.

And YOU can do the same! Choose to let your inspiration feed your motivation to ACT!

Mindful Solution-Focused Coaching – what is Coaching…?

The word coaching is indeed widely used – from management support services, to a wellness coach in our fitness club. For clarity, let me explain what I mean by coaching.

For a moment, think about the arts and crafts of frame making…framing a picture in such a way that it can unfold its full expressivity is an art that few people have mastered. Rembrandt was quoted as saying that during his whole career it was more difficult for him to find an appropriate frame than to paint the picture!

Now, think about coaching as framing a piece of art…As a coach we create a frame (of thought) for the individual or team in which his or her goals, solutions, and first steps can shine. The frame constructed by the coach consists of goal-oriented questions, reinforcing feedback. present listening, and useful summary.

It is the task of coaching to ensure that the individual or team receive the appropriate frame. But just like the frame maker, the coach would never start actively creating the picture.

ThinkLARS – Life stress relieving Awareness and Resources for your Success 

A helping hand…coaching

Mindful Solution-Focused Coaching – what is Solution-Focused?

Being Focused on the Solution of a situation rather than the cause – the problem – is the driving force behind SF coaching.

The idea being that it’s more useful to focus attention on building solutions for problems than on analyzing causes of problems, trusting that any person is competent to solve his or her own problems, but may need help finding solutions that fit his or her unique circumstances; individualized solutions that are really owned by the coachee/performer/team. 

• Problem talk is negative, solution talk is positive and future focused.
• The future is both created and negotiable. People are not locked into a set of behaviors based on history and problems of the past.
• If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it. If it works, do more of it.
• The solution is not necessarily related to the problem. Talking about and acting upon what will be different is the focus, not uncovering why the problem occurred.
• No problem happens all the time; there are always exceptions that can be utilized. These exceptions can be used to create the solution.
• Small steps can lead to big changes. Being solution focused means using a series of small manageable steps to build the path to a Solution.
• Again, problem talk is negative, solution talk is positive and future focused.

ThinkLARS – Life stress relieving Awareness and Resources for your Success!

 

Being Solution Focused…