Coaching Chronicle by Gerard O’Donovan

It took me 7 1/2 hours to drive home from London yesterday, I arrived home at 10 minutes to midnight. It should have taken no more than three hours and I left at 3:30 PM in the afternoon.!!!

There was snow and ice everywhere and traffic was moving at about 5 mph. Lots of lorries had crashed into barriers and cars were stranded on the hard shoulder,and the snow was coming down thick and fast.

 To be honest I didn’t mind too much because it gave me some unexpected time to do some extra studying in my Mobile University.(my car)

I listened to quite a few new CD’s that I had recently purchased on the Power of the Mind and the Law of Attraction.

I also listened to some fascinating interviews on ” Group Coaching” something that I personally have been doing for quite some time and achieving a lot of success with some great clients.

It made me realise again just how incredibly effective it can be to coach small groups of five or six once a month for approximately one hour.

Perhaps I ought to do a lot more of this? Just need to work out where I can find the time??

 I had a meeting in London yesterday with our partner from Istanbul in Turkey, what a wonderful guy. I am so lucky to have attracted such wonderful people into my life. It is a real joy to work with such people.

At our meeting we started to put together plans to develop coach training more effectively throughout the whole of Turkey and also in countries like Azerbaijan Kazakhstan, Syria etc

I have to say I’m very excited about the thought of moving into that part of the world and seeing how we can change corporate cultures and give people true power through the use of coaching.

 Today I am back in the office working through a mountain of e-mails and trying to get all of the last-minute work done before we close the office for the holidays tomorrow.

I really am looking forward to this break, time to catch up on some sleep, also time to spend with my family ( if they remember who I am )

I also traditionally use the Christmas break as a time to review this year’s goals and to comprehensively plan all of my goals for the coming 12 months.that always gets me very excited.

Till the next time

Gerard

Writing this from my hotel in Warsaw in Poland.. Had a good meeting today with Lukasz our general manager in Poland.

 It was cold when I arrived at the airport this morning, -6° and has continually got colder throughout the day

.So I did what any good self-respecting life coach would do, I took myself off to my favourite café in Warsaw,

The Karma café just off Konstitution Square and had a couple of hot mulled wines while I read my latest book.

 Come to think of it my meeting today was spent in a nearby Thai restaurant. Does that mean that most of my business life revolves around restaurants and coffee ?? And if it does is that a bad thing ?

It’s snowing outside now, my first snow of the year, in fact it makes it feel just like Christmas. I’m looking out of my hotel room window down the length of Konstitution Square and it looks really lovely and festive with all the Christmas lights.

Tomorrow I’m doing a large introduction to coaching event here in Warsaw, looking forward to it very much.

Just got back yesterday from my two-week trip to Florida. I was there initially to attend a four-day coaching convention run by the ICF.

We usually take a booth there every year

It was held at the Convention centre at Rosen shingle Creek.what a huge magnificent place

I was there with my wife and two of my children who did the usual tourist things ( Disney World, universal studios etc) while I attended the conference.

At the conference when we first arrived it was interesting to see a whole group of SWAT people walking around all with their guns on their hips.

They were attending their own convention.

I found it very interesting that in a convention setting they were all wearing camouflage trousers and boots and carrying their guns, and so different to the UK.

 Later that evening we saw most of them wandering around in the bar drinking beer but still wearing their guns on their hips.( Only in the USA !!!!!)

Now, that’s an interesting combination, guns and beer.

One I don’t really want to see together.

 Coaches and SWAT teams, you really couldn’t get two more different types of people.having meetings in the same hotel.

I have to say the ICF ran a very well organised and structured convention,hats off to them.

 It was great to see a lot of old faces from last year in Montral and from the year before in Los Angeles.

Next year it is at Forth Worth in Texas,looking forward to that