NCCA Meeting

12 September 2007

Attending: Laurie, Mandy, Pam, Judith, Chris, Mary, Diane, Bill, Susan, Denise, Hector, Lloyd, Carl, Rhonda

News

• Bixpo is coming up September 19th and 20th, Susan will be a keynote speaker and we will have an NCCA booth
• Carl will be giving a presentation at the ICF Australasia conference in Melbourne Australia on October 5th
• Chris Hutchinson will be speaking at our next meeting on October 3rd

Rhonda Britten

• Rhonda has had many challenges growing her business from a single-person coaching business to a large enterprise, the Fearless Living Institute, a TV show, and so on.
• "I believe Coaching needs to become whole as a profession"
• "Watching my clients unfold is my greatest inspiration"
• "When we inspire and challenge others, we give a message to ourself"
• "Don't focus on inspiring others. Lead by example."
• "Really great coaches can coach almost anybody"
• "When the client isn't moving forward, the coach isn't asking the right questions"
• "The problem the client brings to you isn't the real problem, it's a symptom of the real problem.  Instead the problem is below that, based on deep fears"
• "Never accept general answers from the client."
• "I want my clients to wake up excited about who they are able to be today!"
• She talked about helping clients to "lead the life their soul intended."
• Her goal as a coach is to help her clients reach a place where they wake up in the morning thinking "Oh my god, I get to be me for another whole day."
• In relation to income, she talked about money being like a muscle that needs to be trained used, toned, exercised - I think she was talking about the making of money.
• In her business she is striving fro inclusiveness, so she is opening her classes to coaches who have not trained with her.
• She described her definition of success as "full self expression"
• She asked member of the group to close their eyes, and while she read out a list of words (e.g. isolating, blaming, disappointment, etc.) she asked them to nod if they had experienced these. Afterwards, she pointed out that these were responses to expectations. And that thee fed into the wheel of fear (I think)
• The alternative, was the wheel of freedom, where one has true compassion for oneself, and accountability to self - that you are able to see your own innocence.
• In relation to a question about coaching someone who is not happy in their job, she commented that it would be irresponsible to coach them to leave it, but rather it was important to coach them to love their existing job, otherwise, you won't like the next one either - I concluded she was talking about the process of being responsible for one's own happiness.
• She talked about the wheel of freedom being a place where you could be "comfortable being uncomfortable"
• She posed the question of what "safe" meant - and answered it by talking about being comfortable, stuck, where fear is an alternative to growth. That one needs to have a relationship with fear, to understand and then master it.
• She talked about how you need to know how you process fear and freedom if you are to have real choice.
• She described the "Wheel of fear" as having a trigger - something we are individually sensitive to (for her "loser") - leading to a fear response, a symptom indicative of fear connected to the trigger (it might be a way of thinking or behaving such as complaining, getting loud,) - this leads to negative feelings (such as worthlessness) - which leads to self-destructive behaviors (because you "deserve it". Her coaching around this intends to help us create space between the fear Wheel (=shield) that has protected us and kept us safe so that we can, instead, become truly free (thus our essential nature can be expressed).
• She pooh poohed the idea of "fear of success", suggesting that it was a fear of the responsibilities that went with success that we might be afraid of. She pointed out that when we engage in the "If only I wasn't afraid of success .. I'd be fantastic" scenario, we are kidding ourselves, and we are probably not really that good, that we are in need of acquiring tools and skills to get there. She used coaching as an example and pointed out that if we are coaching people who "give it a go" and find they are not as good as they had assumed (blocked by the fear of success), we need to be there, ready to help them close the gap (skills and tools) between where they really are and where they want to be.