I am in the final stages of revamping the layout of my web sites. Please take a look this month to see the new format. Try navigating from http://www.robertahill.com/ and clicking on the Tool Kit button at the top. This is a whole new section for me. You will note that I now have protected directories set up for clients and subscribers.

This month is the International Coaching Federation Conference in Chicago. I will be attending and am very excited about it. If you are going, make sure to drop me a line.

Roberta

       =============== TELECLASSES ==============

Two free teleclasses are scheduled this month as follows:

Class Title: Understanding Learning Styles to Enhance Your Business Results
Dates/Times: One Wednesday, August 22, 2001, from 5-6pm Eastern
Tuition: Free

Class Title: Making a Fantastic First Impression: The Power of Positive Body Language
Dates/Times: One Tuesday, August 28, 2001, from 4-5pm Eastern
Tuition: Free

You can get more information at: http://www.coachingoption.com/trends.htm

LEARNING OPPORTUNTIES (AFGO)

Life is good, but life is also hard work. I don’t think that a day has gone by recently when there hasn’t been a great learning opportunity presented to me. Now I don’t mean the type of learning such as – a great new restaurant in town, or another word to add to my vocabulary or some other piece of trivia. I mean AFGO – another fricking growth opportunity!

Last month I wrote about being aware of my self-righteous behaviour in a specific situation that I really could have handled more maturely. I figure that should have been good enough for a month at least. But OH NO. I must have been given unsolicited feedback on three separate occasions. If you have been a subscriber for awhile, you know just how I feel about feedback. I hate it. So I looked at the source, reviewed my actions and decided it was an AFGO for the other person more than for me. What a relief to be able to let it go. That being said, I did do some more self-analysis.

It is as if in our life journey we go through phases of growth experiences, just as in our teen years we have physical grow spurts. As adolescents, we have little control over what is happening and are not always sure how to handle things. Everything is a little more awkward. I think it is the same for us in the other stages of life. Once you allow the possibilities for change and new directions, you don’t know where it will take you. It can be a little scary as well. At times you feel like you have opened up Pandora’s Box. The exciting part is meeting new people on your journey. The sad part is having to say goodbye to others who are going off in different directions. There is a lonely part as well. Some of the paths are narrow and rocky and must be traveled on your own without visible support.

There is a saying that you come into this world on your own and you leave the same way. I don’t agree. Life is often lonely but you are never alone unless you choose to be. Life is a wonderful adventure, full of AFGOs and I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Castles in the air -- they're so easy to take refuge in. So easy to build, too.
~ Henrik Ibsen

A coach is someone who tells you what you don't want to hear, who has you see what you don't want to see, so you can be who you have always known you could be.
~ Tom Landry

Believe in the best, think your best, study your best, have a goal for your best, never be satisfied with less than your best, try your best, and in the long run things will turn out for the best.
~ Henry Ford

================ TECHNICAL TIP ===============

ANTI VIRUS SOFTWARE

Once again we are faced with a high-risk virus as announced in all of the media. It isn’t a hoax. I received three e-mails with the virus. Fortunately besides that fact that I do not use the operating system Window2000 or a server, which it attacks, I knew my virus software and data files were UP TO DATE. If you don't have anti-virus software on your computer, then immediately purchase and install a product. Now! Any work on a computer that has contact with the outside world (e.g. Internet connection, floppy disks,) is like not practicing safe sex.

This month’s book is - Who Moved My cheese? By Spencer Johnson and Ken Blanchard

http://www.coachingoption.com/bookreview.htm

If 99.9% is good enough, then in the USA alone:..

• 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents daily
• 114,500 mismatched pairs of shoes will be shipped/year
• 18,322 pieces of mail will be mishandled/hour
• 2,000,000 documents will be lost by the IRS this year
• 2.5 million books will be shipped with the wrong covers
• Two planes landing at Chicago's O'Hare airport will be unsafe every day
• 315 entries in Webster's Dictionary will be misspelled
• 20,000 incorrect drug prescriptions will be written this year
• 880,000 credit cards in circulation will turn out to have incorrect cardholder information on their magnetic strips
• 103,260 income tax returns will be processed incorrectly during the year
• 5.5 million cases of soft drinks produced will be flat
• 291 pacemaker operations will be performed incorrectly
• 3,056 copies of tomorrow's Wall Street Journal will be missing one of the three sections
• A typical day would be 24 hours long (give or take 86.4 seconds)

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Copyright (c) 2001 by Ward-Green and Hill Associates Ltd.
All rights reserved. ISSN 1496-7529
Reproduction for publication is encouraged,
with the following attribution: From "The Coaching Option," by
Roberta F. Hill, http://www.coachingoption.com

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The Coaching Option Newsletter is published monthly.
Comments are encouraged.
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