Jeremiah Anderson — like many people these days — was out of work.
He found help, direction and ultimately a job by consulting a coach, a profession that is currently getting a boost from the downturn in employment.

Anderson, of Castro Valley, had been out of work as an IT project manager since November 2007. After testing the waters in the real estate industry, he decided to return to IT project management in June 2008. But with the recession, he felt he needed help to stay ahead of the competition, he said.

Anderson enrolled in a workshop led by coaches Chani Pangali and Dan Rink, who consulted him on his resume, guided him in preparing for interviews, and honed his job-hunting skills. Anderson credits the workshop and consultations in large part with finding him the job he ultimately landed in his field in November 2008.

Having nothing to do with athletics, coaching is a fairly new profession that gained ground in the 1990s.

According to Vikki Brock, a certified coach who has been researching the industry’s history and development, there are more than 275 coaching schools across the country today. In 1990, there were only three worldwide. The largest is the International Coach Federation, which has certified almost 4,000 professionals to date.  Read story.

NOTE: Vikki Brock is the team lead for the Coaching Hall of Fame and the Virtual Museum of Coaching at the Coaching Commons.

Get advice from a business coach on how to start or expand a business by calling 866-584-2344. You can get advice on business management, lining up financing and laws that require federal agencies to increase business opportunities for veterans by setting aside a certain portion of their purchasing dollars for veterans and service-disabled veterans

To find information on starting a business and entering the federal marketplace, visit www.vetbiz.gov. 

Read about other benefits.

Tell me if this sounds familiar:

You come up with a great idea that will help your company save money. You do some research and legwork. Yep, this is a golden idea. You mention it to coworker Bob.

Bob casually mentions the idea to the boss. The boss loves it. Success! This will certainly be good for your career. This winning idea will be associated with your name for years to come. Life is good.

You can’t wait to read the office memo that’s sure to come, the one singing your praises.

“Thanks to the hard work and innovation of Bob, we’re going to save millions,” the boss’ memo reads. “Great idea, Bob. We’re lucky to have you.”
Huh? Bob’s idea? There must be some mistake. Surely Bob will make things right.

Not a chance.

It’s a classic case of workplace idea theft.
And it’s something that’s happened to roughly a third of U.S. office workers, according to a recent survey by the staffing firm OfficeTeam. The firm surveyed nearly 450 workers and found that 29 percent reported having a coworker take credit for an idea.

But here’s a more telling statistic: Of those who said they’d had an idea stolen, more than half (51 percent) said they did nothing in response. Just 26 percent said they spoke up to let coworkers know, and just 13 percent said they confronted the idea thief.

So how do you prevent this? I asked Lee Richardson, a certified business coach in Fort Mill, for some advice. What it comes down to, he said, is documentation.

“When you have a great idea, the first thing you should do is get it written down and dated. That way, you established some type of claim that you had a good idea,” said Richardson, owner of Focal Point Business Coaching. Read story.  http://www.heraldonline.com/106/story/1732084.html

In the 20 years since Rocco Santorufo opened his performing arts school, Broadway Bound Dance Center Inc. in Dumont, his career has evolved from dancer to teacher to a growth-oriented business owner.
He’s thinking like an entrepreneur and channeling his creativity to marketing, advertising and incentives because of his involvement with a Canadian business coaching organization that focuses on dance school owners.

“My goal this year is to not just work in my business, but on my business,” he said.

Because of the coaching, he said, he’s “much more confident with how to work on” his business.  Read more.

During his keynote on Friday, Nov. 6, Verne Harnish, author and business consultant, managed to pack so much information into an hour and half that I can’t possibly share it all. What I can share with you is a couple tips from Harnish.

1. Everyone needs a coach (or to read a lot of books) to continue the learning curve well past the point where you think you know it all. Harnish used examples from Bill Gates, who to this day devotes a full week a couple times a year to consuming books, papers, trade mags, all those resources in that pile on your side desk (you know you have one). The goal, to learn. Harnish stresses that no one every achieved peak performance without a coach, and IT business owners are no different. Now maybe your “coach” is a book, or a vendor partner, or a hired business coach or peer-to-peer group, but get one. Read story.

Q: I am looking for a full-time job that uses my writing, people and information-gathering talents from 25 years as a Los Angeles Times staff writer. My concern, validated by the coach at the retraining corporation, is that I am over 40. That coach actually told me to leave the dates of college attendance, etc., off my resume.

My brother, president of a publicly-traded company, said this advice was nonsense, although he did say age is an issue (and he’s older than I am).Can you address this issue of inferiority complex for those of us competing with candidates 20 years our junior?

How do we address it? How can we compensate for the potential perception that we are burn-outs or tired when we might — in my case — just be bored because we know the job so well?  Read answer.

Ewan McGregor gets his meatiest role in years as Bob Wilton, the journalist looking for a story about the New Earth Army. McGregor drives the film. Unfortunately the character feels completely misconceived. Instead of focusing on Wilton’s journalistic quest for a story, the script is more concerned with his desperate search for meaning in his life. This makes Wilton become an active participant in the craziness he is encounters instead of a lens through which the audience can enter such a bizarre and zany world.

Wilton turns to Lyn Cassady (George Clooney) — a former New Earth Army member who he encounters in Iraq — to act as his source and life coach. Clooney dives into the part with relish. With his mustache, sun-baked skin, and movie star good looks, Clooney resembles an enthusiastic and crazed Clark Gable. He clearly has a ball playing off-type. Clooney’s enthusiasm and pure star power almost make the whole thing work.  Read review.

As health care reform heads into the next phase, Congress will miss the boat if it ends up perpetuating a system that reacts to illness rather than preventing it. Chronic diseases such as obesity, hypertension, and diabetes wreck our quality of life and cost a fortune. For obesity alone, according to The Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the annual medical price tag in the United States is $147 billion.

In recent years there has been debate about whether preventive services would actually lower health costs.

Preventive medicine must become an integral part of health care reform. Counseling and other lifestyle interventions are effective in the treatment of diabetes, hypertension, and smoking. And in recent years, a new and intriguing concept has emerged in the prevention and treatment of chronic illness: the health coach.

I learned about health coaching during a trip to Duke Integrative Medicine, which has pioneered its use. Dr. Tracy Gaudet, Executive Director of Duke Integrative Medicine, explained, “There is currently no one in the healthcare system who has the job or the expertise to actually help people make the lifestyle and behavior changes that they want to make. It is hard to change engrained behaviors. The Integrative Health Coach is trained to help people clarify their personal health goals and achieve them.” I saw an example when I interviewed health coach Linda Duda and her patient, Nasera Hassan, a woman with type II diabetes who was having trouble sticking to her doctor’s prescribed regimen of exercise, diet, and medication. Hassan told me, “I think when you’re so busy with life in general you forget to take medication. You forget to make your appointments for exercise. You don’t really think about how you’re eating or what you’re eating.”

Read story.

Posus, recently named Coach of the Year by the Australian New Zealand Coaching Institute, has been a coach for two decades, and spoke with the Coaching Commons on a wide range of issues facing coaching, including the debate over the ICF’s proposed changes in certification and the need to address what Posus believes are widespread misperceptions about coaching among the public at large.

And then there’s this: Noel Posus thinks YOU ought to have a lifetime achievement award. Why?
Listen to the podcast here:

Powered by Podbean.com

Mark Fryer knows what it takes to get you hired. After all, he has spent more than three decades helping companies find qualified employees.

For 35 years, Fryer worked in human resource management in the manufacturing, distribution and service sectors, including stints as vice president of human resources for Tom’s Foods Inc. in Columbus and VP of global human resources for Dresser Inc. in Milwaukee.

In May, Fryer and his family moved back to Columbus. He set up shop as an independent human resources consultant with Lawrence, Allen & Kolbe the next month.

Fryer specializes in outplacement services, in which he helps executives and upper-level managers find a job after being laid off. He also offers executive coaching, partner relocation and organizational development services.

Read story.