Barbara Sher's Book

Have you always wondered why you get bored easily, never stick to anything for long periods of time, quickly lose interest in things or change your mind about what you want to do and end up doing nothing? Good news: according to Barbara Sher’s book you might just be a ‘scanner’.

Summary

Barbara Sher brings us closer to a type of person who, just as described above, doesn’t follow the traditional ‘find out what you want, get a career and follow it with might and passion for the rest of your life’ scheme.

More in details

The subtitle of this book is ‘A Revolutionary Programme for Doing All That You Love’ and alludes to the fact that scanners often find themselves arguing about not being able to choose one thing and stick with it. Barbara suggests otherwise: Refuse to choose.

The author identifies seven types of scanners, divided into two groups: cyclical scanners and sequential scanners. The first 3 belong to the cyclical scanners:

• Double Agent: These are people who have fantasies of being two people, one who does the right thing and another who is free to live their dreams.
• Sybil: This is someone who has many areas of interest and they return to these over and over but rarely finish anything.
• Plate Spinner: They are energized by having many things going on at the same time, they love solving problems but all of this leaves little time for any of their own projects.

The cyclical scanners know what their interests are, unlike the sequential scanners who always discover a completely new interest. The following six types belong to the sequential scanners:

• Serial Specialist: They often excel at whatever field they are in, commit completely but then, often when on top of their game, quit and start something new.
• Serial Master: For these people, interests come and go, but the love of mastery always stays. Once they have mastered something, they go looking for a new project.
• Jack-of-all-Trades: Jacks enjoy learning for its own sake. They are usually not passionate about any one career but the love of learning something new and helping people.
• Wanderer: This is someone who loves random experiences and allow themselves to move toward whatever looks attractive and interesting.
• Sampler: These people look for a special kind of richness in their lives and find that there are very few ways to fill it.
• High-Speed Indecisive: They are maybe the most misunderstood of all Scanners as the get pulled away to something new sooner than any other, but not because they lost interest, rather because they see something more fascinating.

Besides the in-depth description of the different types of scanners, Barbara also shares many valuable tools and techniques that will make scanners lives easier.

About the author

Beside being an author of six self-help books Barbara Sher is also a motivational speaker, workshop leader, business owner and has collected much experience working as a counselor, working with many scanners. In addition to that she has appeared both on national and local radio and television, including shows like Oprah, Today, 60 Minutes and Good Morning America. She lives in New York City.

Recommendation

This is a great book if you feel that you might be a scanner, have lived your life wondering: Why is it that everyone finds their passion but I can’t seem to find it, start and stop many projects or never finish anything?

In my work with clients I have found it extremely valuable to assist people in finding their freedom and passion through the realization that they achieve by reading this book.

I wonder if by speeding up the pulse of life we fail to nurture the real values in life?

With your profile on Facebook it’s no longer just the clothes you wear or the clubs you belong to but the amount of friends and the profile picture you show. Internet dating allows us to choose a profile picture of ourselves 10 years ago when we were slimmer, sexier and on holiday with a previous partner. Words like ‘busy’ and ‘appointment’ helps us to get around the fact that we are not keen to help our in-laws fix the roof without having to hurt their feelings. What is happening to us?

Publishing improves transparency

WikiLeaks seems to be a popular topic currently and I agree with their philosophy of “Publishing improves transparency, and this transparency creates a better society for all people.” In day-to-day life, publishing means speaking up, sharing, expressing, communicating – wow, that’s what interpersonal relationships are about! Make your emotions and thoughts publish, before you need to store them up and they use up your energy before you let them explode.

Speaking the unspeakable

Recently I worked with a client who spoke about him blowing up in a meeting, telling the people what was overdue for a long while, some of them silently nodding in agreement happy for someone else to speak the unspeakable and point out the elephant in the room. He realized that this issue had been playing on his mind and partly creating stress and disharmony in the rest of his life and relationship. Blurting out his truth, uncovering the lies and deceit was physically challenging and left him shaky and tired. The group of people who were meeting however couldn’t simply go back to how things were before and pretend to be blissfully unaware; they had to and did rise to a new level of teamwork.

Rise to the occasion

What have you not said that is playing on your mind? Which of your relationships might need an authenticity upgrade? What is the fear that keeps you from being totally honest with yourself and with others around you? I fully agree with Arjuna Ardagh on practicing radical honesty. Not sure if it’s all fun though however it definitely has the power to shift relationships.

Start today with yourself. Practice tomorrow with something small and simple. Notice the shift inside of you.

Remember: Take small steps.

There are moments where it is appropriate to fight

And there are moments where all you need to do is surrender.

Anja

Coaching is a term used in many different ways and meaning many different things. Coaching in the context of working with clients as individuals, teams and organizations, supports the development of one’s self and our skills to make changes and reach goals. The objective is to focus on future potential and how it can be achieved.

Where to go?

What is Meta Coaching?

In Meta Coaching* the coach moves up a level above the content of a problem, issue, dream, belief, etc creating contexts and situations where the client is able to discover his or her own powers.

How does it work?

A Meta Coach works through coaching conversations, enabling the client to speak his or her truth and find his or her own answers. This is significantly different to mentoring, consulting, teaching or therapy and does not involve any advice giving, making suggestions or solving the client’s problem. At the heart of the coaching conversation are transformational questions!

And what happens?

The power of these questions is to invite the client to endeavor to reach new places and discover transformative possibilities. The questions are designed to empower people so they can take charge of their own life, make decisions about their direction in life and become their own expert on how to handle setbacks and how to move forward in the development process.

In the coaching conversation the client analyzes the truth of his or her reality, encouraged by the supporting and listening skills of the coach, the coaching relationship and a suitable environment. Transformation and growth happens naturally as revelations become self-evident to the client in this process.

Coaching at its best is Meta Coaching!

Coaching at its best enables clients to practice and embody methods to self-actualize themselves even after the coaching relationship has ended.

(* Meta Coaching is a term that has been coined and since used by Dr L. Michael Hall, who developed the Meta States Model in 1994 and has written well over 30 books in the field of Neuro Semanics.)

This article will explain the first of these criteria, Authenticity, in detail and describe specific steps you can implement to improve your own leadership.

What is Authenticity?

Authenticity is the quality or condition of being trustworthy or genuine. It can be described as being and acting from one’s true self without masks and personas.

Someone who is authentic will speak and act congruently and their words and gestures, tone, and volume will all match content of what they are saying. They will speak and act in ways that reveal their true beliefs, views, opinions and emotions even when this might conflict with those they are communicating with.

Key Questions for Authentic Leadership

The following key questions will help you to apply this criteria in practice to become a great leader.

What do you really want and believe in?

In order to lead authentically, you need to know what you want and what your beliefs are, so that you can act and speak congruently.

What is really important to you?

There will be some things you want in your life and some beliefs that take priority over everything else. It might be your health, your family, financial independence or your belief in the right of others to be, for example, respected or treated equally. By being clear about what is really important, you will be better placed to communicate this to others.

What makes for a meaningful and significant life?

Many of us would like our life to have some “meaning”, to leave behind a legacy, to have “left a footprint in the sand”. Do you know what legacy you would most like to leave? How do you want to be remembered by those closest to you?

What do you really think and feel about the things that are important to you?

When you are clear about what is most important in your life and the legacy you hope to leave, then you will be more willing to share your thoughts and feelings about these things with others. Sharing your views with energy, emotion, and enthusiasm engages those around you and lets them know that these topics are important to you.

How truly do you act on your beliefs and opinions?

If you often find yourself playing roles to protect yourself or satisfy others or going along with whatever is socially or politically correct even when you don’t agree with it, then you are failing to be true to yourself. People around you will sense this either consciously or on an unconscious level and find it difficult to trust you. If you speak or act in ways that are congruent, you will sound believable because your tone, volume and body-language will match the content of your words.

Confrontation may be unpleasant however if you believe in something that is important to you it is far better to be honest and risk disagreement than to oppress your true feelings. Others will respect your honesty and integrity and find it easier to trust and follow you if they know that you are willing to stand up for your principles.

What are your passions, talents, and vision?

If you are passionate about something. If you have a vision of the future that enthuses you or a particular skills or ability that fills you with joy and energy, then following that passion or vision will automatically inspire others.

If you find any of these questions difficult to answer then try this simple exercise: sit down in a quiet space with a blank piece of paper and write out, in as much detail as possible, how you would like your life to be in every aspect that is important to you. Use positive language and write as if you are already living this life. Make this a fun game and let your imagination soar.

Being an Authentic Leader

Truly great leaders throughout history have stood out from the crowd by living up to their highest values, pursuing their visions, challenging injustices and still being modest, humble and willing to be of service to others.

Are you willing and able to be authentic?

Do you find it challenging to respond to criticism without falling into the position of defending yourself? This article will introduce the use of interesting ways to respond to criticism.

Change Your Mind About Criticism

For the sake of this experiment, I am going to imagine that the criticism is the following sentence: ‘You have changed your mind again? Changing your mind means that you’re an insecure person!’

Here are some of my favorite ways to respond to that:

1. You’re feeling that way because you’re inflexible to change your mind.
2. What would it take for you to change your mind on what you just said?
3. In my family that is how we adapt to a new situation.
4. You must be pretty insecure not to change your mind ever.
5. That is a rather inflexible belief to hold – I’m sure you can’t change your mind on that, can you?
6. Do you think it’s more important to be secure than flexible?
7. So if I hadn’t changed my mind I would still be living with my mum at home and be safe.
8. The issue here is not whether I change my mind or how insecure I am but rather how flexible can you be in today’s world?
9. If a doctor changes his mind on how long a patient will survive, does that mean he is insecure about his prognosis?
10. I’m not insecure I’m just flexible.
11. Is it possible that you can be an indecisive or insecure person and not change your mind?
12. So do you mean that the most important thing is to make up your mind once and for all and stay like that for the rest of your life?
13. My intention is not to be indecisive but to find a more suitable view or attitude.
14. How specifically did I change my mind?
15. How specifically am I insecure?

If some of these alternatives made your head spin, that is specifically the purpose.

What is Criticism?

According to Wikipedia, the word critic comes from Greek ‘kritikos’ and means ‘able to discern’, which is a Greek derivation from the word ‘krites’ meaning a person who offers reasoned judgment or analysis, value judgment, interpretation, or observation.

Even though criticism does not need to be about finding fault, the word usually implies disapproval and therefore creates a sense of being at fault or wrong. The natural reactive pattern to receiving criticism is therefore explanation and defense.

Here are the details:

• Each week I will draw one winner for a 90 minutes coaching session.
• The sessions will be held via skype.
• The sessions will need to be scheduled for the week after the draw.
• Entries from the previous week will stay in the draw until the end.
• The winner will be notified via email (so make sure I have your details) and published on our Facebook fanpage.

How to enter into the draw? You enter by:

• Writing a comment on my blog – 1 entry
• Writing a comment on one of my articles on Ezine articles – 1 entry
• Referring a friend for coaching/counselling – 5 entries
• Forwarding this newsletter to a friend and have them sign up to receive the newsletter – 3 entries

For each comment you will receive 1 entry – so write as many as you like.
Important: In order for me to know which comments you’ve written and which friends you have referred, you have to send me an email with the link to the comment or the friend’s name.

GOOD LUCK! … and I’m looking forward to working with you!

Many people ask me this question – so I’ve written an article/blog post about it. Please feel free to leave your comments!

Nowadays most people take the advantage of supporting themselves with the help of a counsellor, coach or therapist through the challenges life throws at them at some stage. For people new to the field of self-development the question ‘What is the difference between a counsellor and coach?’ comes up often. Lets find some distinctions that might be helpful to you.

Helping you be the very best you!

Coaching

Coaching is the modality to go forward, to plan for the future you want to create, bring action to goal setting and eliminate any obstacles that might be in the way to reach you goals. Coaching involves full commitment to make the changes that will bring you closer to your desired outcome. A coach will also listen attentively and ask you powerful questions. Coaching is for people that have enough ego strength to take action. Coaching is mostly focused on creating a desired future outcome and is only involving past issues if they are important for the future outcome.

Counselling

Counselling is the modality to heal yourself, to find closure for things that happened in your past, to come to see things from a healthier perspective, to learn to let go of grudges and resentment and to build up ego strength. Counselling often works as a ‘talking therapy’ as research has found that expressing emotions helps to digest them. A counsellor acts as a professional friend in whom you can confide your innermost thoughts. They will listen attentively and hold no judgment over your opinions or ideas. Most counsellors will refrain from giving you advice but help you find your own way, clarify the issues, bring understanding and wider perspective and support you in making your own wise decisions. Counselling mostly focuses on clearing past issues.

What style of sessions do I need?

Ask yourself the following questions to find out whether you want to look for a counsellor or for a coach:

Are you…

1…. dealing with issues at work, including relationship issues with your boss and co-worker?

2…. wanting to change jobs and don’t know what to do next?

3…. looking for a new partner?

4…. searching for your passion in life and how to incorporate it into your life?

5…. unsure how to be a better communicator in work and private relationships?

6…. looking for the next step in your career and how to get there?

7…. planning to start working again after having been a ‘stay-at-home’ mum?

If you have answered yes to one or many of the questions 1 – 7, you are most likely looking for a coach.

Are you…

8…. getting over a separation or marriage break-down?

9…. still very angry or frustrated with your parents and want to get over those feeling to create better relationships with them?

10…. dealing with fear and anxiety that you think might stem from past trauma?

11…. working through grief due to loss of someone close, like your parent, partner or child?

12…. dealing with reoccurring relationship difficulties in your life?

13…. having a hard time with your teenage daughter or son?

14…. not sure whether you want to stay in a relationship or leave?

If you have answered yes to one or many of the questions 8 – 14 you are most likely looking for a counsellor.

Remember that whether you are seeing a counsellor or coach you need at least 2-3 sessions to get a sense of how they are working and to find out whether you feel comfortable with them and their approach.

Sharon & Kenneth Mauldin, who will run this weekend workshop, offer a safe space and loving guidance for couples and individuals to experience their sexuality as a sacred learning and healing ground while growing in trust and intimacy with themselves and others. We invite you to join us as ecstatic lovers of life.

Here is an ‘Introduction to SACRED LOVING’ written by Sharon Mauldin:

Our sexuality is core to how we interact with the ourselves, our lovers, our world.  When we open to the fullness of our enlivened sexuality we empower and enrich all parts of our life.   Unfortunately, many of us have been cut off from this natural  flow of essential creative life force.    We experience our sexuality through the veils of conditioning, beliefs and stories we’ve been told by society, our parents, churches, media etc.   When it comes to sex, shame, guilt and fear are the major emotions most of us have been imprinted with. Consequently; we’ve learned to cut ourselves off from our most abundant, powerful source of vitality and aliveness.

Where did you get your sex education?  Giggling chats with girlfriends or in the boys’ locker room?   Movies and TV shows?  Conversations or lack of conversations from embarrassed parents?   Trail and error with lovers who knew a little more or a little less than you did?  Most of us have had a pretty poor education in the area of sex; yet,  we’re expected to naturally know how to keep fun, healthy, intimate, passionate sex alive and flourishing in our intimate relationships.   Most of us haven’t been very successful at this. Over time sexual intimacy and connection often wanes and one or both partners end up feeling unfulfilled.

The Sacred Loving weekend is the sex education you never got.  It’s a safe, non-judgmental opportunity to explore and awaken to your birthright of joyful, ecstatic sexual life expression.

In a blend of conversation, simple techniques & practices, demonstrations, and fun homeplay we lead couples through a 4 day journey that will deepen the intimacy, love and connection between the two of you.

You’ll begin to unravel the conditioning and beliefs that no longer serve you and have gotten in the way of experiencing an enlivened, vital life expression.

We’ll explore the differences between men and women’s sexual makeup and desires and learn how to use these differences to compliment and deepen our love connection, passion and sexual bliss.  You and your lover will become partners and co-creators of your lovemaking.

You’ll be given the invitation to awaken to your unique expression of sensuality and sexuality as you expand your capacity to experience greater ecstatic blissful pleasure.

Not only will you learn to be the most exquisite lover for your partner;  you’ll also learn simple, sweet ways to cultivate juiciness and depth in all parts of your relationship by weaving magic moments of love and connection throughout your day.  And, when there is a disconnection (yes, they will still happen!), ways to quickly and lovingly come back into harmony.

We call this extraordinary journey  “Sacred Loving”  from our own experience of inviting God into our bedroom and transforming our lovemaking into the sweetest  sacrament.   Just imagine, how YOUR lovemaking might be different if you embraced intimate sexuality as spiritual practice and invited God into your bedroom?

I invite you to come find out for yourself.  Join us for Sacred Loving

Sharon & Kenneth

Agree to disagree

Conflict or disagreement is inevitable in any relationship, which I’m sure you have found out by now in your life. Relationships sooner or later brings out the differences in the two people involved and the higher the importance that the individual places on the issue, the more likely is conflict. In the following article I would like to give you some tips on how to manage the conflict by ‘agreeing to disagree’.

Conflict is necessary

The more important your standpoint is to you, the more likely you are willing to defend your point of view. Conflict is a way to discuss the differences mentioned above. Is it also a way to grow in a relationship and to ultimately reach the stage of relationship development that has been called ‘mutual interdependence’. When conflict is avoided, resentment might build up as one person is definitely denying their needs.

What is Agreeing to Disagree?

As we will sooner or later be confronted with differing opinions we need to learn to accept the other opinion. Accepting does not have to mean that you have to switch sides, let go of your point of view and adopt the other. Accepting means allowing the other to have theirs and allowing ourselves to keep ours. In the phrase ‘agreeing to disagree’ that is what is meant: accepting that we are not thinking in the same way, allowing their and our opinion to stand side by side, without needing to convince them that we are right and they are wrong.

Tip 1: Not right or wrong, just different

Think about the other person’s view as different as opposed to wrong, while yours is right. You have to let go of black and white thinking, if you truly want to agree to disagree with style.

Tip 2: I accept your opinion and I have a different one

Rather than using the word ‘but’, which semantically denies the first part of the statement, connect your sentences with ‘and’. This might sound simple however it is very powerful and allows true acceptance.

Tip 3: Validate the other person’s view

If you validate the other person’s view they feel heard. Again, this does not mean you have to agree and change your mind. It is simply a sign that you have heard what they have said.

Tip 4: Let go of the need to convince

Remember that you don’t have to convince anyone once you can truly accept other people’s view. It is much less stressful, once you have let go of ‘I am right and you are wrong and I will prove it to you’.

Tip 5: Compromise

If you have different opinions and need to find one way to deal with an issue you need to compromise. Compromising means letting go some of your position in favor of someone else’s position. Practice!