The post How you grow personally and professionally when playing your game appeared first on Katy Caroan.
]]>
Have you ever caught yourself pushing through an activity, determined to do whatever it takes to be able to tick off your physical or mental TO DO list? Have you ever started your day planning to do what you have been avoiding for a long time, finding yourself having done something else by the end of the day? It happens to me all the time, and it was not until I learned about the Concept of Play by MCC Dave Buck back in 2010, that I fully understood how I could approach things differently and not only grow myself, but also support my clients in doing so. In short, the Concept of Play includes the definition of any challenge as a Game. It could be a business game, a career game, a health game, a relationship game or any other area where you want to accomplish results still to be recognized a such. In this Game, you assume the role as the Player. And as a Player, You are defining your objectives, your actions, your resources, your challenges and the skills you need to develop. As a Player, you will learn from your progress, your successes, your areas of improvement and you do this by involving other people. The Game starts now, not at any undecided point in the future, and you play until the Game is over. When the Game is over, you learn from your results and then you set up a new Game…
Sometimes I meet friends and clients who are very clear on what support they need for their Games and are able to mobilize their various environments to support their Game objectives. It happens that their Game even gets bigger because of the input and inspiration they get when involving others. More frequently though, people seem to be careful and reluctant in asking for support and sharing their ambitions with others as part of their belief system. So, how can the Concept of Play help?
When playing instead of pushing through, you want to improve, you want to become better at what you do, you want to go that extra mile and you want to experiment instead of just getting it done. You might even find it fun as you get expected and unexpected results along the way! You find it valuable to document your learning, and you want to open up to other ideas to see if your game can get even bigger. And, not at least, you may want to share your findings and insights with people around you. Suddenly you find yourself inspiring others to assume the role as a Player as well.
You may question the Concept of Play for many reasons. How likely is it that adults will see themselves as Players and define their challenges as Games? It sounds interesting, but may also be seen as very time consuming and difficult to put on top of everything that needs to happen on a daily basis. And, why should anyone else be interested in what my Game is? There are probably plenty of individual answers to these questions, but after having attended extensive coach training based on the Concept of Play as of 2010, I can refer to my personal experience as well as the feedback from my co-Players:
Playing is fun, but as adults, we need to get reminded of the reasons why it beats Doing. It is unfamiliar to describe a personal or a professional challenge as a Game, but when done, the focus is tremendous and the documentation of the Game strengthens the learning taking place. The Game becomes part of your every day life if you are playing big and involving others. I remain positively surprised by how often and warmly people around me want to support me in my Games. The main challenge seems to be my own ability in being bold on what I need and why.
Introducing the Professional Potential Gazette and launching YourVirtualArena were among the results from a Game I played earlier this year, the Global Reach Game, allowing me to interact with people no matter where they are located in the world. Are you ready to assume the role as a Player? If so, which Game are you up for?
If you found this topic interesting, stay tuned for the upcoming professional games on LifeVille, a web-based platform for people who want to challenge themselves as Players and play the real games of their lives supported by others. During 2011, I hosted 4 games supporting professionals looking to stand out and benefit from LinkedIn. Soon, there might be a new social media enabling game available in an arena near you…
The post How you grow personally and professionally when playing your game appeared first on Katy Caroan.
]]>The post Managing your most important professional asset appeared first on Katy Caroan.
]]>
One of my personal inspirational sources, Sir Richard Branson, has stated: “I think reputation is really all you have in life – and that´s something you’ve got to fight to protect”. What are the implications of his quote?
First of all, you need to have explicit knowledge about our professional reputation, what it consists of and how you are perceived by others. Then you need to find strategies to protect and develop it further. I believe this leaves you with both good and bad news.
The good news is that it is possible to analyze the main components of your professional reputation, such as skills that come with ease, your ambition level as well as your ability to inspire others. This will allow you to focus on your strengths, deselect what others to better and stand out beyond mediocrity.
The bad news are that there is a large number of assessments and tests available in the marketplace, claiming to present the correct analysis of your personality or professional potential, often encouraging you to assume a certain role, focus on specific behaviors to interact well with business stakeholders and improve your areas of weaknesses.
Wouldn’t it be great if it was possible to de-clutter the scene and understand how other professionals really perceive you and then build your strategy on how to embrace your professional potential more fully based upon your real strengths? Just think about what it would mean to you if you were confident in how others perceive you and used these insights to consciously develop your professional reputation further…
I saved the best news for the end: When trusting your professional reputation outcomes fully, you are in the best position to excel and claim your professional spot where you are or where you ought to be.
The post Managing your most important professional asset appeared first on Katy Caroan.
]]>The post The 3 secrets that make it profitable to be a savvy social media player appeared first on Katy Caroan.
]]>I must have read hundreds of articles about why I should spend time on social media. And I have spent time reading articles about new tools that makes me save time and maximize my presence in social media to make it profitable. One of the most common questions I get is: “What is the return on investment on this initiative?”
There is a tendency to compare apples to pears, so I believe it is important to define “profitable”. Is it the number of new clients, increased revenue and profit as well as conversion of leads beyond traditional marketing only? Or should we even add things like number of referrals, percentage of returning clients and idea generation for new products and services as well?
Could it even be defined as profitable to be perceived as an authority within your area of expertise, to become the GO-TO-PERSON attracting new business opportunities through more PULL than PUSH? I believe so, and the challenge lies in the traditional calculations of return on investment. It takes time to build a trustworthy social media presence, and to be seen as a savvy social media player, you need to make the media you select support your unique position as a professional.
I understand that people might be hesitant to start blogging or using social media when there is an expectation to come up with something new all the time. Is this really necessary to be perceived as a contributor and effective social media user? From my own experience after supporting more than 100 professionals in embracing social media for themselves, there are 3 main reasons why some succeed and others don’t:
First, savvy, successful social media players are brave enough to share personal information without being private. Second, they are confident in what they want to use social media for and communicating this consistently. Finally, the savviest, most successful ones are the ones who share and acknowledge other people’s content whilst adding their own perspective to it.
People appreciate sharing, acknowledgement and new perspectives. And they want to do business with other people, not brands. This is what makes your social media investment profitable or not. In which way can you apply this in your professional situation?
More hints and tips on this will be available as part of YourVirtualArena.
The post The 3 secrets that make it profitable to be a savvy social media player appeared first on Katy Caroan.
]]>The post Are You an Opportunity Magnet? appeared first on Katy Caroan.
]]>
To which degree are you attracting opportunities to grow professionally?
Are you among those waiting for other people to step forward and ask you to act, or are you positioning yourself towards opportunities on short as well as long term?
Today’s social media tools enable us to listen to the market and communicate with potential employers, customers and business partners in a new way:
You can tell your story, share your passion and demonstrate your professional reputation as perceived by others when leveraging social media effectively.
Social media, such as LinkedIn, is increasingly becoming your arena to attract your next professional opportunity. It takes some initial investment in time to shape up the profile and learn the specific DOs and DON’Ts with the various tools.
The investment pays off very quickly when other people start finding you and you may get introduced to opportunities you never knew existed.
So, by whom do you want to be found, and what is your next step to get started?
The post Are You an Opportunity Magnet? appeared first on Katy Caroan.
]]>The post Why Linking In matters for Boosting Your Personal Brand appeared first on Katy Caroan.
]]>
The majority of my clients are using social media such as Facebook and LinkedIn, and some of them are starting to embrace Twitter and YouTube as well.
When asked about their strategy and plan for using the tools as part of their pursuit of a new career or getting new clients to their business, very few can provide a crisp reply.
My next question reveals the truth: Most of them are just keeping their profile above water, staying in touch with people they already know and there seems to be little effort put into a solid description of who they are, what they love doing and whom they would like to interact with in the future when looking for a new career or new clients.
In summary, there seems to be a huge potential for boosting their personal brand and positioning themselves as a unique candidate for a job…or why not as the obvious service provider to future clients.
Reflecting back on 2010, I was astonished to see that in fact 20 out of my first 25 coaching clients were the results of my LinkedIn efforts. I had the best selling force available there is: My connections! They know me, they know their own connections, and this resulted in the numbers above over a period of 3 months. My effort? I built my LinkedIn network based on my own criteria and then carefully selected among my connections. I sent 1 mail to all of them, and told them what I was offering. That’s it! In fact, some of my connections returned themselves and hired me as their coach after listening to the experience of their connections.
The power of relationship building when leveraging social media such as LinkedIn is incredible, but in order to succeed You need a strategy and a plan. When listening to my clients, I know that the real challenge has little to do with understanding LinkedIn functionality. The real challenges lie within the area of visibility and limiting beliefs. I found that my clients’ challenges were so similar, that I decided to turn my experiences into a LifeVille group coaching game. In LifeVille, all participants are playing their game, supported by me as a coach as well as by their co-players. From playing other coaching games in the past myself, I know there will be excitement, resistance, insights…and FUN. All the typcial requirements of any great game in life.
What would it mean to You, if You could boost Your personal brand in 28 days?
The post Why Linking In matters for Boosting Your Personal Brand appeared first on Katy Caroan.
]]>The post What if your coach was available at your fingertips? appeared first on Katy Caroan.
]]>You believe it might be beneficial to have a coach pursuing the results you want.
You don’t want to pay for a coach unless you know there is a good fit.
You don’t have much time to meet a coach anyway……
My name is Katy Caroan and I am here to help you transform your thoughts into effective actions providing breakthrough results at YourVirtualArena, when convenient to you and in a climate of challenge and joy. So, how does it work, having a coach available at your fingertips?
All it takes for you is to invest a few minutes of your time to find out. Click here to get started.
I would love to hear from you about your experience afterwards via the survey included or just a quick comment below. Have fun!
The post What if your coach was available at your fingertips? appeared first on Katy Caroan.
]]>