Coaching Blog
The Coaching Group Of Switzerland

By Marcel Schwantes
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Does a high IQ contribute to success? Certainly. But not without hard work, experimentation, failing forward, and an undying devotion to self-improvement.

Take Elon Musk, one of the smartest people on the planet. The driving force behind Tesla, SpaceX, and OpenAI is never satisfied with where he is, and he knows that there's always room for improvement -- whatever the challenge he's tackling at the moment. But he takes the cake with this quote from a 2014 interview:
You should take the approach that you're wrong. Your goal is to be less wrong.

To Musk, being wrong (and failing) is always an option because if you're not, he says,  you're not innovating enough.
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This is what we call a growth mindset -- the ability to fail, learn something new, and then approach the problem from a different angle until you find a solution that works. 

by Suzie Doscher, Life and Executive Coach - The Coaching Group of Switzerland

Learning how to respond to a situation rather than reacting brings huge rewards. Needless to say, it is one of those behaviour changes that are easier said than done. However it can be achieved.
Being able to respond to /act upon means you are in a mindful place - a place where you are aware of your thoughts and feelings. This means you have considered the situation and the response that best suits you.
'Responding' rather than 'reacting' means you are  choosing your behaviour. To 'react' indicates that a button has been pushed – something triggered you not to take the time to think and consider your response. This can often leave you in a position at the mercy of others.
Some of the benefits by stopping the knee-jerk type reactions are:

• Sense of strength,
• Sense of achievement
• Power to influence – yourself and the situation
• Calmness
• An increase in your self-esteem

The rewards will be felt not only in your private life, but also at work. 

By Judith E. Glaser
I have yet to meet an executive who joins a company to be ‘minimized,’ marginalized or to be intentionally held back from making a contribution.

We join a company to make a difference, to make a contribution, to be praised and rewarded.  We join a company to bring our voice to the table, and ‘lean into conversations’ so our voices join in the spirit of partnering with others to shape, create and co-create the future.

Neuroscience is teaching us that ‘self-expression’ might be one – if not the most important way for people to connect, navigate and grow with each other.

by Cayla Vidmar posted on Thrive Global

I lay in bed in the middle of the night, looking at the ceiling when my chest seized up in excruciating pain. This chest pain was something that had been going on for some time, but this was next level. At that moment I realized something was wrong: I hated my job, the one I had worked so hard to get.

My job itself wasn’t overly stressful, but I couldn’t shake the thought that my life still wasn’t what I thought it should be, and it was quickly ticking by, with every year being the same as the last.
The work I was doing wasn’t changing people’s lives, I wasn’t helping anyone, I didn’t feel like there was any meaning in my day to day life.
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On top of that, I couldn’t figure out what my purpose was, or what I’d rather be doing. I was running in circles, consuming as much information as I could about starting businesses and flip-flopping from one passion to the next.

by Suzie Doscher

Emotional Intelligence can be defined as having: 

• Self-awareness
• Self-regulation
• Motivation

• Empathy
• Social Skills
  
  

I like to think in terms of feeling a sense of power - Personal Power means you have the soft skills that make up Emotional Intelligence.

I believe your Personal Power is intact when you:

by Suzie Doscher

Addressing the issue would bring clarity and awareness. And yet it is fascinating how quickly talking about a topic that, in fact, is hurting everybody in some way or another is avoided. The problem could be dealt with and a sense of clarity, peace, and calm could return. Yet the elephant, the sometimes very large elephant, is ignored and walked around, everyone trying to pretend that athe elephant does not actually exist.
 
Imagine you are in a situation with an elephant in the room. For example, let us say the issue is a miscommunication.:

BY MALISSA CLARK - 3 MINUTE READ

When I tell people that I study workaholism for a living, I’m usually bombarded by suggestions of subjects I could do a case study on. It seems that everyone can think of at least one person in their lives that they’d label a workaholic–or, perhaps, they identify as a workaholic themselves.
The definition of workaholism has expanded over the years to include motivational, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral components–but understanding why you’re overworking can help you unlock ways to deal with it.

A BRIEF TAXONOMY OF WORKAHOLISM
These are a few of the leading causes of overwork:

• Motivational: Workaholics are different from people who are simply highly engaged in their jobs. They don’t enjoy their work; they feel compelled to work because of internal pressures. In other words, they work because they feel like they should or ought to be working.
• Cognitive: Workaholics have persistent thoughts about work when they’re not working, and they find it difficult to mentally disengage from work.
• Emotional: Workaholics experience negative emotions like anxiety and guilt when they aren’t working.
• Behavioral: Workaholics tend to work beyond what is reasonably expected of them by their organization.

As this breakdown makes clear, all these forms of workaholism can be triggered and exacerbated by different factors: internal needs, external factors, underlying personality traits, and more.

posted by Suzie Doscher

The Rules for Being Human

1. You will receive a body.
   You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours for the entire period of this time around.
2. You will learn lessons.
   You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called LIFE.  Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons.  You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant and stupid.
3. There are no mistakes, only lessons.
   Growth is a process of trial and error…experimentation.  The ‘failed’ experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiment that ultimately ‘works’.
4. A lesson is repeated until learned.
   A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can then go on to the next lesson.
5. Learning lessons does not end.
   There is no part of life that does not contain its lessons.  If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned.
6. ‘There’ is not better than ‘Here’
   When your ‘there’ has become a ‘here’, you will simply obtain another ‘there’ that will again look better than ‘here’.
7. Others are merely mirrors of you.
   You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects something you love or hate about yourself.
8. What you make of your life is up to you.
   You have all the tools and resources you need.  What you do with them is up to you.  The choice is yours.
9. Your answers lie inside of you.
   The answer to Life’s questions lie inside you.  All you need to do is look, listen and trust.
10. You will forget all of this. 
    
11. You can remember it whenever you want. 

 
By Cherie Scott Carter
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