International Coach Institute Certification Testimonials

ICF Approved Coach Specific Training Hours (ACSTH - 125 hours) to begin your coaching journey. DREAM of your new beginning, DISCOVER your potential, REALIZE your coaching profession. Become an International Certified Coach with Dr. Carol A. Turner, ICF Master Certified Coach.

Testimonial: "I think our coaching session yesterday was amazing. I didn't expect to get a two fold return on this session, coaching experience AND personal support. I can not recall ever having anyone help me through tough situations and yesterday's interaction was truly something I have never even remotely come close to experiencing. Oh my goodness, I now have an even greater appreciation for the coaching profession. If I can, one day, have an impact on someone like you all had on me, WOW! what a gift." Pamela Nice Las Vegas, Nevada March 3, 2009

If you would like to sign up for our Leadership-Coaching Program,  please contact International Coach Institutehttp://internationalcoachinstitute.com.

Emotional Intelligence - What is Your Story?

The shocking news is that more and more depression is reported by younger people every year. Dr. Martin Seligman tells a story of being in his garden with his 8-year old daughter when his daughter asked, "Daddy, why are you so sad?" Dr. Seligman realized that he had spent his entire life researching the pathology of human beings. Until that moment, he didn't even think about researching the joy and happiness in people. That is when Positive Psychology came to the forefront of Psychology.

The truth is that we have a choice in life each day. A choice to respond negatively or positively. We can choose to be depressed or to find the silver lining in our circumstances with a positive outlook for the future. Human beings have access to hope, gratitude, appreciation, hope, love, and joy. For example, if we practice gratitude and show our appreciation, we can lower our stress levels.

Our heart reacts to positive or negative emotions. A scientific fact is that one angry thought will spike our heart rate to a high, unhealthy level and it will stay elevated for hours. Electrocardiograms show us the impact of anger, or depression, and our happiness. Our collective experiences and emotions will build a culture over time. The stories we tell reflect that culture.

When newly hired or promoted managers enter a new culture, they have a window of opportunity to make a difference in the culture. They can begin telling new stories, they can set new expectations and they can win the hearts and minds of the people they lead.

If they chose not to influence the culture, they will soon become absorbed in the old culture. Cultures are created by the stories people tell over time. It is from their experiences and their emotional reaction to those experiences.

Cultural change takes time, however, when the stories change, the cultures change. The stories change when people are treated with respect and appreciation. Culture is really the unconscious emotions of the collective. We talk about a culture of fear, of avoidance, of productivity, or even resilience. Often these are not talked about openly and yet, they are very present in the culture.

Reaching out in these difficult times feels good. Sharing our hope, our understanding, our time and our resources. Even those who have little right now feel good when helping others. Isn't life really about feeling good about ourselves through helping others? What else is there? Money doesn't bring happiness; love brings happiness.

Managers don't talk about love in the workplace, but why not? Loving, caring, kindness, are all about having a heart connection. Organizations are not built of machinery, they are built of people. People have experiences, emotions, and feelings. Why not create new stories, stories of hope, resilience, and gratitude.

Maybe, just maybe we will continue to be depressed until we choose to change our mindset. We choose to change the stories we tell.

What is your story?

Dr. Carol A. TurnerInternational Coach Institutehttp://internationalcoachinstitute.com

Eat that Frog

The 80/20 Rule is one of the most helpful of all concepts of time and life management. It is also called the "Pareto Principle" after its founder, the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who first wrote about it in 1895. Pareto noticed that people in his society seemed to divide naturally into what he called the "vital few", the top 20 percent in terms of money and influence, and the "trivial many", the bottom 80 percent.

He later discovered that virtually all economic activity was subject to this principle as well. For example, this principle says that 20 percent of your activities will account for 80 percent of your results, 20 percent of your customers will account for 80 percent of your sales, 20 percent of your products or services will account for 80 percent of your profits, 20 percent of your tasks will account for 80 percent of the value of what you do, and so on. This means that if you have a list of ten items to do, two of those items will turn out to be worth five or ten times or more than the other eight items put together.

Number of Tasks versus Importance of Tasks. Here is an interesting discovery. Each of the ten tasks may take the same amount of time to accomplish. But one or two of those tasks will contribute five or ten times the value of any of the others.

Often, one item on a list of ten tasks that you have to do can be worth more than all the other nine items put together. This task is invariably the frog that you should eat first.

Focus on Activities, Not Accomplishments. The most valuable tasks you can do each day are often the hardest and most complex. But the payoff and rewards for completing these tasks efficiently can be tremendous. For this reason, you must adamantly refuse to work on tasks in the bottom 80 percent while you still have tasks in the top 20 percent left to be done.

Before you begin work, always ask yourself, "Is this task in the top 20 percent of my activities or in the bottom 80 percent?"

The hardest part of any important task is getting started on it in the first place. Once you actually begin work on a valuable task, you will be naturally motivated to continue. A part of your mind loves to be busy working on significant tasks that can really make a difference. Your job is to feed this part of your mind continually.

Motivate Yourself. Just thinking about starting and finishing an important task motivates you and helps you to overcome procrastination. Time management is really life management, personal management. It is really taking control of the sequence of events. Time management is having control over what you do next. And you are always free to choose the task that you will do next. Your ability to choose between the important and the unimportant is the key determinant of your success in life and work.

Effective, productive people discipline themselves to start on the most important task that is before them. They force themselves to eat that frog, whatever it is. As a result, they accomplish vastly more than the average person and are much happier as a result. This should be your way of working as well.

Brian Tracy

Packing Our Parachutes

As a leader, do you honor and appreciate the power of WE? Do you stop to thank and recognize the members of your team? Do you consistently show an attitude of gratitude?

I recently read a great story about Captain Charles Plumb, a graduate from the Naval Academy, whose plane, after 74 successful combat missions over North Vietnam, was shot down.
He parachuted to safety, but was captured, tortured and spent 2,103 days in a small box-like cell.

After surviving the ordeal, Captain Plumb received the Silver Star, Bronze Star, the Legion of Merit and two Purple Hearts, and returned to America and spoke to many groups about his experience and how it compared to the challenges of every day life.

Shortly after coming home, Charlie and his wife were sitting in a restaurant. A man rose from a nearby table, walked over and said, "You're Plumb! You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. You were shot down!"
Surprised that he was recognized, Charlie responded, "How in the world did you know that?" The man replied, "I packed your parachute." Charlie looked up with surprise. The man pumped his hand, gave a thumbs-up, and said, "I guess it worked!" Charlie stood to shake the man's hand, and assured him, "It most certainly did work. If it had not worked, I would not be here today."

Charlie could not sleep that night, thinking about the man. He wondered if he might have seen him and not even said, "Good morning, how are you?" He thought of the many hours the sailor had spent bending over a long wooden table in the bottom of the ship, carefully folding the silks and weaving the shrouds of each chute, each time holding in his hands the fate of someone he didn't know.

Plumb then began to realize that along with the physical parachute, he needed mental, emotional and spiritual parachutes. He had called on all these supports during his long and painful ordeal.

As a leader, how many times a day, a week, a month, do we pass up the opportunity to thank those people in our organization who are "packing our parachutes?"

Tom Mathews