What happens if someone tells you “NO” upon a request? Are you understanding of others when they say “NO” to you? I sometimes compare this to asking someone for help: Asking someone for help could cause a feeling of disturbance, neediness and weakness. What happens if someone asks for your help? Do you really get irritated and perceive the other person as needy and weak?

The opposite often occurs, you feel a level of trust and would genuinely like to help if you can, or refer the person to somebody else. Along this parallel, when someone tells us “NO”, do we really get upset, hurt and see the other person as selfish? Or are we able to appreciate the clear and honest answer that allows us to move on?

It should be totally ok to say no if you have to sacrifice own needs to help someone else. Sometimes we may help, other times not.

I’ve searched the internet for good examples of saying “NO”, and here are a few lines that have proven helpful to me and might be helpful to you if you struggle sometimes as well:

1.I have a conflicting initiative.
2.I am not planning on doing this.
3.I have no intention of doing this.
4.This is not included as part of my priorities.
5.I am not available for this.
6.This is not interesting to me.
7.No.

I have to admit that the last one is the most challenging to me! What is your preferable way of saying “NO” to someone you want to nurture your relationship with? Where is your next opportunity to practice saying “NO” to others respectfully and learn how to keep your level of discomfort at a minimum level? If you are looking for a chance to get really close to your personal and unconscious values, you have a lot to look forward to when practicing your “NO”!

The post Mastering the art of saying NO 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.

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One of the most common questions I get from people who are considering hiring a coach is: “I just feel that I have something undone professionally. But, how can I start taking action if I don’t know exactly what I want to do?” Since early days, we are so drilled into goal orientation, that it almost seems impossible to start acting until we have a clearly defined goal and a master plan to bring us the results we are looking for.

When people are facing a major professional decision, it´s so easy to fall into procrastination mode and start using excuses for not taking action. I should know, as I did it for years.

What strikes me after looking back on my own professional journey and now benefiting from helping others play bigger professional games is that there are a few, key success factors characterizing those who start acting without knowing exactly what they want.

First of all, they are able to visualize what it feels like to be in professional role they are passionate about. Secondly, they are willing to learn new skills, to experiment outside of their comfort zone and to reflect about their insights. And finally, they are assuming an open attitude towards opportunities emerging as part of the process.

When I decided to enter into my current professional adventure as a small business owner, I knew what I wanted to do more of and less of when moving on. I had basically no knowledge nor any guaranties of business partners nor the supplementary services and tools I was about to discover. In fact, some of them did not even exist when I made my professional move, and today these partners, services and tools allow me to offer create my own, unique professional platform.

Which moves did I make? I decided to learn, explore and experiment with services in demand and stayed open to new opportunities coming my way. I made mistakes, I lost time and I stumbled to define my niche. Move-by-move, I started to align more and more with my professional intentions of becoming a business woman supporting my ideal clients no matter where they are located in the world.

I have mentioned it many times before: Everyone has an opportunity to attract professional opportunities in line with their area of passion, but sometimes we need to remind each other to play the BIGGER game. To learn, explore and experiment as part of the process. Nobody should have to feel checkmate in their professional opportunity game. So, which move is next for you?

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When did you last declare your professional ambition loudly to someone else? Or to yourself? Is it a secret well kept, only available during job interviews or performance reviews?

Or is it a topic shared only with friends when you discuss missed opportunities?

Looking back on my own experiences as an employee and manager, that was exactly what it looked like for me.

When I started my own business, I knew that I needed to become bolder in sharing my professional ambition with others. It took me a long time to feel confident in doing so. Why?

First of all, I was afraid. I was afraid of how others, both previous colleagues as well as new colleagues, would perceive me if I shared my ambition. Second, I was pending formal pieces of evidence, such as certifications and acknowledgement from role models, to feel more confident in involving others in my plan.

Finally, I was afraid of failure. How would I handle people around me, family, friends and colleagues, if I didn’t succeed in getting the results I had shared with them?
It was only after involving others in my plans, sharing vision boards and getting insights on how other professionals really perceived me, that I got more confident in sharing my ambition more openly. In fact, today it is a pre-requisite for attracting the right business opportunities.

Is there anything stopping you from sharing your ambitions, in real life and in social media, more fully? Maybe you are in a position to list your own top 3 reasons why your professional ambition is vague or totally missing on your daily schedule. If so, you are in a great place for professional expansion.

The post Bringing the professional ambition back on your schedule appeared first on Katy Caroan.

Today’s social media tools enable us to listen to the market and communicate with colleagues, potential employers, customers and business partners in a new way, and this gives you a chance to tell your story, demonstrate your ambition and build your network effectively for long term relationships. You will also find yourself in a position where you can start attracting professional opportunities which may not even exist yet!

Surprisingly, many seems to believe that it will be sufficient to create those opportunities simply by creating an account and proving that they are part of the community without a defined strategy nor adding the behavior required.

Let me be very clear: It is not enough to “show up” at the social media scene, you need to successfully ENGAGE with others to build a trustworthy presence to build and nurture long term relationships. These relationships can then result in real life business opportunities and significant business results.

I have personally experienced the power of social media for creating new business via tools such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, and now I’m in a position where I can help others do the same. Looking back on the early days of my business, I wish someone had told me that you need a strategy for this as well, like in any other major area of your business.

When people ask: “What would you have done differently now if you knew then what you know now”, my answer remains crystal clear: “I would have spent time initially to go on discovery. I would have loved to listen more carefully to where my target groups hang out, what they are preoccupied by and what they are struggling with. Then I should have investigated more carefully which social media preference I have, and where I should ask for help. And finally, I should have pulled together a simple 1 pager to spell out my social media strategy and STICK TO IT with patience.

I often hear people complain about the time spent on social media with unclear return on investment. It doesn’t have to be that way when you know by whom you want to be found and where you need to hang out to engage with your target market. You need to know what to ignore and what not to ignore, though.

The post Could you learn from other people’s mistakes in using social media to get results? appeared first on Katy Caroan.

“What do you mean, I never get any opportunities”, or “There is typically someone else who gets the opportunity”, or “I don’t know what to do to become visible to opportunities” are all perceptions I meet over and over again.

Then we explore some of the root causes for the perceptions. Maybe we are waiting for other people to step forward and ask us to take action, or maybe we believe there is a formal process or a code of unwritten rules that we don’t understand in order to become eligible for those making the decisions.

These patterns are common when analyzing both internal as well as external professional opportunities.

Sometimes, the professional opportunities are not even appearing to us because we don’t know how to recognize them. What is that you want more of in your professional life? And what do want less of? By looking more into the job content and degree of challenge, it becomes easier to broaden the “smorgasbord” of professional opportunities and get a glimpse of alternatives in totally different roles and industries.

The challenge and risk then mainly lie within 2 areas: How well you position yourself towards the broader selection of opportunities and how you manage expectations of yourself as well as expectations by others. In order to make progress, you need to become highly conscious about which type of opportunities you want to attract, you need a strategy to manage expectations and maybe learn some skills on how to position yourself where your stakeholders hang out.

Today’s social media tools enable us to listen to the market and communicate with colleagues, potential employers, customers and business partners in a new way, and this gives you a chance to tell your story, demonstrate your ambition and build your network effectively for long term relationships. And it gives you something else as well: An opportunity to start attracting professional opportunities which may not even exist yet!

So, are you ready to take on some risk and start identifying what you want more of and less of in your professional life?

The post How to embrace risk when the professional opportunity appears appeared first on Katy Caroan.

This seems like opposing principles until further investigation.

When people are facing a professional decision of  LEAP nature, it´s so easy to fall into procrastination mode and start using excuses for not taking action.

I should know, I did for years.

What strikes me after looking back on my own professional journey and now benefiting from helping others make professional leaps is that there are a few, key success factors characterizing those who start acting without knowing exactly what they want.

First of all, they are able to visualize what it feels like to be in professional role they are passionate about. Secondly, they are willing to learn new skills,  experiment outside of their comfort zone and reflect about their insights. And finally, they are assuming an open attitude towards opportunities emerging as part of the process.

When I decided to enter into my current professional adventure, I knew what I was passionate about. But I had no idea of the business partners nor the supplementary services and tools I would find out there to define my new professional platform. In fact, some of them did not even exist when I made my LEAP. I decided to learn, explore and experiment with services in demand and stayed open to new opportunities coming my way. I started to align with my professional intentions of becoming a business woman supporting my ideal clients no matter where they are located in the world.

Everyone has an opportunity to attract professional opportunities in line with their area of passion, but sometimes we need to remind each other to align more with our intentions. So, to which degree are you aligning with your professional intentions?

The post When you do not know what you want professionally appeared first on Katy Caroan.

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.

This one is different. I’m witnessing fabulous coaching of business owners who are willing to step up, but who need to go from information gathering into action in increasing leads, clients and sales. There is tremendous co-creation in the room, and one of the key ground rules is that nobody will make any attempt at selling anything to any other participant during the event.

In this climate, the brave ones are putting themselves in the hot seat for masterful coaching in front of 150 people.

“What do you want to achieve for your business this year”?

“What’s stopping you from achieving that?”

“What do you need to make this happen?”

All are examples of great coaching questions. But, the breakthroughs are coming when people are asked:

“Who do you want to become?”

“Which position are you claiming?”

The questions are relevant to anyone wanting to make significant transformation in their career of life in general. Thank you Bernadette Doyle for several memorable moments this weekend, one day, I hope to be able to inspire my clients the same way you do!

Coach Katy Caroan

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Just a few days ago, I was invited by a friend to an event hosted by a government sponsored organisation supporting upcoming entrepreneurs. The event marked “the grand finale”  of  a 6 weeks workshop, allowing entrepreneurs to present and sell their ideas to an audience in 5 minutes only, followed by 3 minutes feedback. It was indeed a diversified and interesting collection of people and ideas. At the end of the event, the entrepreneurs seemed happy about their performances and the takeaways from the audience.

Now, 5 days later, which ideas do I, as an observer remember…and why?

Another friend of mine is an expert in the field of rhetorics. She is constantly challenging me and others to ask ourselves:  “What is your key message? What does it accomplish? And what’s in it for me?” And then she reminds me that communicating is so much more than words, it’s how you present it, how you are perceived, how you build trust…and not at least, how you manage to create emotions among your listeners.

So the simple answer to the above question is the following:

I recall the ideas where the presenter managed to create emotions supporting the facts and standard selling points.

I remember the presenters who demonstrated passion about their ideas and used more than words and facts to support their presentation.

My first employer taught me that the most effective presentation was one visual…one visual only. It takes courage to actually do so, but I’m finally convinced: There is no stronger selling point than talking passionately from your heart about something that’s important to you without disturbing elements. As a receiver, you might not agree with the idea, but it’s almost impossible to not get affected. And…you’ll remember it longer.

You don’t have to be an entrepreneur to benefit from this. What do You do differently next time You want somebody else to like your idea? How well do You know your strengths as others perceive them and how do you leverage this when selling your idea? I’d like to inspire You to reflect more about this through an e-book issued by my partners Per Frykman & Karin Sandin: “You-a Brand”. By signing up for my newsletter at the bottom right corner, You will get Your own free copy and might dive into this topic further.

Imagine what You would be able to do if You actually had the knowledge about Your strengths and use this knowledge when selling Your ideas.  Let me know Your thoughts by commenting this post!

The post What makes other people remember Your idea among others? appeared first on Katy Caroan.