One Size Fits All Coaching
More unbelievable promises from the One Size Fits all Land of Coaching Can Do…and unfortunately from some well respected people in the world of coaching. I opened up my email today and found the latest Coaching Insider. There was an offer for a free report in one of the columns, Coaching Any Owner in Any Business". I see way too much of this and it sends me right up on my soapbox.
C’mon, no exceptions? Any business? Any owner? No credibility right from the start. Then as I clicked on through the
program, I came to something that promised a little less, "How to Coach
Business Clients in Most Situations" 
Disorder is the New Order
David Wolfe wrote a post recently on Ageless Marketing headlined The Future is Disorder which sited Coca Cola, the beer business, the US auto industry, P&G, Network TV, Newspapers, Radio and the airlines as examples of disorder. That CocaCola has actually introduced a product called Coke ZERO may be all the evidence we need of the end of the world as we know it. Or maybe disorder is the new order? After all, small is the new big and the New York Times recently reported on a government-sponsored survey that found that more than half of all Americans will develop mental disorder in their lifetime under the headline, Ideas and Trends!
Yes, Criticism Hurts
Jane Genova had a great post today, Criticism, Way Over-rated. I agree. Criticism hurts…by its very nature it is judgmental: one judged by another. It is different than disagreement. Disagreement is a more level playing field. WE disagree versus I criticize you or you criticize me. In the criticism arena, one of us has or takes more power…to be the judge. To dish it out, but not to take it. That’s why we remember the sting of criticism….it is one sided and it is meant to hurt. Constructive criticism? An oxymoron. We can accomplish more by disagreeing, or as Jane Genova points out, by stating comments as a different point of view.
Headlines that Push Instead of Grab
The headline, Finding
Time to Exercise is the kind of headline that makes me not want to
read the article that follows. It makes me want to pretend I didn’t see it. I already know that I should exercise
more and I know why I should exercise more (Is there anyone out there
who doesn’t?)…but since this article was part of a series
of other things that we should find time for that I thought sounded more
interesting than exercise, I took note. I may not be obsessed with exercise but
I admit I am a little obsessed with completion…the
exercise article was part of the series so for me, it was all or nothing.
So, I read the article on exercise; after all, it was short and I did have a
little extra time. As it turned out, after all the usual shoulds and even President
Bush finds the time the bottom line was to lower the bar really low….start with 10 minutes per
day and you can count going up and down steps. Sounds like a winning plan to me!
As I read the other “Finding Times†I noticed that they really were not
about finding time but rather about
making better use of time. For instance the article on finding time to read
suggested essentially having something to read with you at all times so that no
idle moment goes unread. I concur
wholeheartedly with that one…I just thought that behavior on my part was more about ADD than time management.
I did notice that the Finding Time to Exercise article was the
#3 most emailed article in the WSJ today…I guess it did grab attention after all. Or, they just emailed it away.
Now, the #5 most emailed article did grab my attention, Why
Don’t Kids Do Chores Anymore. My kids tell me that this is an absolute fact, phrased like this: “Mom, none of our
friends have to do chores.†I suggest then
that perhaps we not look at them as chores but as opportunities to learn skills
that their friends do not possess.
Women Owned Business
Today’s WSJ StartupJournal notes that Sheri Redstone, 51 is expected to be named CEO of Viacom in an article entitled Biz Talent May Blossom After Kids Are Raised. Ms. Redstone was a stay at home Mom until she divorced and her father dissuaded her from getting a social work degree and convinced her to join the family business. The family business was Viacom, and Ms. Redstone’s father is of course Sumner Redstone. Although this isn’t the midlife career path most of us can count on, nonetheless the article is making the point that Ms. Redstone did not discover her business acumen until midlife.
The article notes that there are 10.6mm women owned businesses today employing 19mm women and that 2 out of 3 new businesses being launched are owned by women. There are a number of interesting blogs/blawgs being written by women business owners and work at home Moms such as, Build a Better Blog, Bad Mother, Midlife Mama, My Shingle with an interesting post here today, Shortcuts So You Can Benefit From Blogs, Deborah’s Proposal Writing Blog, Small Business Trends, who’s most recent post highlights another woman owned business owner at Small Biz Sense and notes her inspirational post about Finding Someone to Help when we are stuck. There are many many others. Do you have a favorite?
Life Imitating Art
My worst nightmare….Hitchcock’s The Birds comes true! According to a recent post from Dave Pollard on How to Save the World entitled, Increased Bird Aggressiveness: Is Something Ominous Going On? there has been an increase in aggressive behavior among birds that is especially noteworthy because the aggressors are smaller than the prey. All the more ominous perhaps is the recent story in the Christian Science Monitor that he references which reports an increase in bird attacks on humans. Oh, I just knew this could happen…been worrying for years.
Trivia from IMDb (The Internet Movie Database):
Rod Taylor claimed that the seagulls were fed a mixture of wheat and whiskey. It was the only way to get them to stand around so much.
The film does not finish with the usual "THE END" title because Alfred Hitchcock wanted to give the impression of unending terror. Like the swooping mockingbird in Raleigh, NC from the CSM story?
Childhood Depression
The New York Times reports of an Australian study of childhood depression that found that the factors usually associated with childhood depression such as dysfunctional families and poor communication styles had little effect on whether a child becomes depressed. Dr. Jake Najman, the lead
author and a professor of sociology at the University of Queensland says, "If what we have found is correct, then depression in children has a large constitutional component" that
is transmitted either genetically or by exposure to risks before or
during pregnancy.
Good Enough Started with Mom
Seth Godin posed the question "Is anything as good as it could be?" And then went on to say that the hypercompetitive marketplace is going in two directions: Not good enough, hyper cheap volume things and beyond good enough, what he calls RPB, the relentless pursuit of better.
He bases this on what he calls his 2 big ideas:
- Humans tend to work on a problem until they get a good enough solution, instead of a solution that’s right.
- The marketplace often rewards solutions that are cheaper and good enough instead of investing in the solution that promises to lead in the right answer.
As I read this post, the "good enough" terminology triggered the recall of the term "good enough" in a different context…parenting. Winnicott, Bowlby, Bettelheim and others talk about "good enough parenting" essentially saying that babies will form "good enough" attachments if the care they receive from mom is "good enough"…she just needs to come when they cry, feed them when they are hungry; not necessary to fullfill their every need, just meet their needs and they will thrive.
So….is it any wonder that there is so much truth in Seth Godin’s 2 big ideas. Humans are programmed to settle for good enough. It starts with Mom. Moms need to be more than good enough….we need to relentlessly pursue better. Babies should require more than good enough. Our kids need to demand more of us. I know my adolescent son would agree.
Divorce and Your Health
Todays Wall Street Journal reported a new study to be released at the upcoming Coalition for Marriage Conference showing that being divorced for long periods of time is related to increased liklihood of heart or lung disease, cancer, high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke and also to loss of mobility later in life. Also noteworthy: Don’t mistake re-marriage for a solution to the health problems of divorce. Researchers found that those in "low quality" remarriages are no better off health wise than those who remain divorced. In other words, take care with your choice of a new marriage partner.
But Even the NBA Blogs
Today’s WSJ features a story by Walter Mossberg that reviews
MSN Spaces, Blogger, and Yahoo’s 360. Duncan Riley of Blog Herald covered MSN
Spaces a few weeks ago noting that it had reached 10MM users. By the way, Duncan Riley did a great Q&A call last night with Andy Wibbels of
EasyBakeWeblogs.… EasyBakeWeblogs just won a 2005 Marketing Sherpa Best Blog Award.
Yahoo’s 360 was announced in March by bloggers in the know such as Corante and Forrester’s
Charlotte Li. Apparently Yahoo 360 ala GMail is by invitation only. Geez, another party I wasn’t invited to. Don’t fret though, fellow wannabes, there is a waiting list
Blogger? Well let’s just say its virtues and vices have been well documented everywhere. See dismissal from Alan Jenkens .
Now, the realty interesting part of Mossberg’s article? Mossberg
states. “The hottest phenomen on the internet is blogging…but a whopping
62% of Americans still don’t know a blog is." What are these 62% of Americans doing….or reading, or listening to, or watching. Didn’t I read somewhere besides a blog that the NBA players have a blog?
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