The Coach Toolkit » Thought Starter

Powerful Questions: Passion and Purpose

Neil Phillips — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 11:00:39 +0000

Lyn and I earn our living through coaching. The power tools we reach for daily are Active Listening and Powerful Questioning.

For today, if you allow this blog entry to be your self-coach, we have just one question:

Is there purpose in your passion beyond the energy?

About the Author: Neil Phillips is an internationally known network marketing and direct selling coach. Get more from Neil on his Direct Selling Notebook , the DSWA Coaching Center and Twitter. You may contact him directly through neil@thecoachtoolkit.com.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Powerful Questions: Conflict Management

Neil Phillips — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 11:00:59 +0000

Lyn and I earn our living through coaching. The power tools we reach for daily are Active Listening and Powerful Questioning.

For today, if you allow this blog entry to be your self-coach, we have just one question:

Are you seeking resolution or restitution?

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Powerful Questions: Creating a Both/And Business

Neil Phillips — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 11:00:19 +0000

Lyn and I earn our living through coaching. The power tools we reach for daily are Active Listening and Powerful Questioning.

For today, if you allow this blog entry to be your self-coach, we have just one question:

How will you go from “sizzle or substance” to “sizzle and substance”?

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Powerful Questions: Seizing the Day

Neil Phillips — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 11:00:48 +0000

Lyn and I earn our living through coaching. The power tools we reach for daily are Active Listening and Powerful Questioning.

For today, if you allow this blog entry to be your self-coach, we have just one question:

Are you seizing the day or designing your tomorrow?

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Powerful Question: Re-inventing

Neil Phillips — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 11:00:36 +0000

Lyn and I earn our living through coaching. The power tools we reach for daily are Active Listening and Powerful Questioning.

For today, if you allow this blog entry to be your self-coach, we have just one question:

Are you reinventing your business or repairing it?

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

The Perfect Entrepreneurial Mantra

Neil Phillips — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 09:30:41 +0000

As I was driving to the airport last week, I had the opportunity to listen to NPR’s recap on the Mideast talks at the White House. The excerpt from President Obama was incredible! A couple of sentences hit me as the perfect mantra for just about any business. He said, “Neither success nor failure is inevitable. But this much we know: If we do not make the attempt, then failure is guaranteed.”

Think about. Doing nothing guarantees failure. I’m sure there are some entrepreneurs just hitting the top of their success curve and they wake up every day saying “Don’t rock the boat. Stay the course. Keep doing what you’re doing.” That sounds pretty good when you are chalking up the wins.

It doesn’t last. The executives at IBM were saying the same thing in the early 80’s about personal computers. Eastman Kodak felt the same way about film. You know somebody who said the same thing. That only works when the world around us doesn’t change. As entrepreneurs, one of our challenges is to predict the future and to prepare for it. Will you succeed or will you fail? There is only one way to know for sure, and that is doing nothing.

About the Author: Neil Phillips is an internationally known network marketing and direct selling coach. Get more from Neil on his Direct Selling Notebook , the DSWA Coaching Center and Twitter. You may contact him directly through neil@thecoachtoolkit.com.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Powerful Question: Seeking Mastery

Neil Phillips — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 09:00:23 +0000

Lyn and I earn our living through coaching. The power tools we reach for daily are Active Listening and Powerful Questioning.

For today, if you allow this blog entry to be your self-coach, we have just one question:

Are you managing your business or mastering it?

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Ten Entrepreneurial Lessons from a Fishing Trip

Neil Phillips — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 09:00:19 +0000

I don’t know of any hard working person who doesn’t want—and need—some time off to recharge their mental batteries. Steven Covey referred to this as “sharpening the saw.” Lyn Christian challenged us to take some breaks to avoid a meltdown. I agree wholeheartedly. That’s part of the reason I was on my annual sojourn to northern Canada to go fishing. For me, a week without electronics and a human deluge is very refreshing.

I don’t go on this trip looking for life or business lessons. They were hard to avoid. Here is the short list.

You have to fish where the fish are biting, and you have to do it when they want to bite.
No one is more patient than a good fisherman.
The person who says, “that beaver slapping his tail on the water sounds like a gunshot” sees the world much differently from the person who says “that gunshot sounds like a beaver slapping his tail on the water.” [I was surprised that the words are identical in these two phrases but the meanings are radically different.]
One is humbled by a golden eagle, who stares haughtily at us as we inch closer for a picture. One is even more humbled when he raises his tail, defecates in our direction, and flies off.
Silence is very comfortable after eight hours a day for six days in a fourteen foot boat.
The purpose of a fishing trip is to fish. Everything else is secondary.
You can’t catch fish sitting in a cabin talking about it.
The fish is never at fault. A fish is just being a fish. Its job is not biting your hook.
Fish always win a staring contest.
There are a lot more things that we can’t control than we can. This is the inevitable conclusion as you come around the bend in a river and see how the setting sun has turned a million shades of green into a million shades of gold.

What did you learn on your summer vacation? I’d love to hear your insights.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Powerful Question: Prioritizing

Neil Phillips — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 09:00:01 +0000

Lyn and I earn our living through coaching. The power tools we reach for daily are Active Listening and Powerful Questioning.

For today, if you allow this blog entry to be your self-coach, we have just one question:

Do you say, “I don’t have time to do X” or “I don’t do X because it’s not a priority”?

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Powerful Question: Half Full or Half Empty

Neil Phillips — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 09:00:30 +0000

Lyn and I earn our living through coaching. The power tools we reach for daily are Active Listening and Powerful Questioning.

For today, if you allow this blog entry to be your self-coach, we have just one question:

Are you as young as you’ll ever be or as old as you’ve ever been?

About the Author: Neil Phillips is an internationally known network marketing and direct selling coach. Get more from Neil on his Direct Selling Notebook , the DSWA Coaching Center and Twitter. You may contact him directly through neil@thecoachtoolkit.com.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites