Welcome!

Welcome to the first posting of “Conversations With a Coach".  The inspiration for this blog stems from my daily interactions with a team of professional business coaches whom I started working with in September 2011. 

Daily, I find myself both inspired and intrigued by the wisdom, encouragement, and general brilliance of the ActionCOACH Spokane team. 

Who are these people? 

I’ll get to that later. First, I want to share with you some examples of the valuable learnings I have garnered throughout the past six months. Mind you, I am not a business owner.  I am currently a “business dreamer”; I have a vision.  This vision includes lots of art and champaign all in a brick and mortar boutique.  My mission statement, albeit still floating around like a dust particle I can’t quite catch yet, includes something to effect “paint lots of pictures and get paid for it.” 

When I interviewed for this position as Team Support Specialist, I was one of 14 candidates.  I had also survived four-whole months as a full-time artist. It turned out, painting pictures was the easy part.  Being a business woman and owner was completely different.  

Was it divine intervention or sweet serendipity that I would just happen to find a job at, are you ready for this, a business coaching firm?

I have to say a bit of both. 

I have witnessed first-hand, a client who approached our firm with pink slip in hand, an impossible quota, and little hope for success with his current employer.  Fast forward five months…not only has he hit end of year quota at 300% of current year targets (1^st qtr.), he recently received a call from his employer’s competitor….trying to recruit him! 

Now, that is what business coaching is about. It’s about above and below the line behavior. It’s about accountability, responsibility, and sometimes, a good ole’ plain ass kicking. Trust me, I’ve had plenty since accepting this position. 

What have I learned?

Yes, business coaching is about eliminating the “head trash” and the “I knows”.  Beyond that, ActionCOACH Spokane offers affordable (how about free…that’s affordable right?) workshops full of amazing, implementable strategies and business techniques.  I consider it a major perk that I get paid to attend all the training sessions.  Although I am not a “business owner” yet, I’ve come to realize life is like a business in many aspects; therefore, I just replace the word “business” with “life” sometimes in my workshop notes.  I am confident that in the future, I’ll be able to scratch out that word “life” and replace it with “business” while sipping fine wine in my glorious art gallery and boutique. 

What is the purpose of this blog? 

It’s unfortunate that ActionCOACH Spokane and it’s amazing team, may in fact be, Spokane’s best-kept secret. The purpose of this blog is to share with you valuable highlights from our workshops, suggested readings, valuable insights…and yes, the occasional epiphany too….so that both business owners and business visionaries have a resource to which they can turn for support and answers

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So I welcome you along on my journey, and perhaps in a few years we’ll be sipping champaign together and remembering when our thriving businesses were nothing more than glimmers in our eyes. 

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