Monday 10 January 2011

How to be a courageous professional? Be vulnerable!

It seemed a good idea at the time.

New Year and I was looking to get things back on track with mind and body this weekend. Covering the later I attempted running home from my office in South Kensington to Embankment underground- for none UK/London based readers its a long enough run for the month of January, if you follow my drift!

(Top tip - if you ever do it is to always be on the opposite side of the road to Harrods in Knightsbridge. I have collapsing on tourists in a wheezing, exhausted heap is not what they expected from their trip to London and not what you want from a pleasant Friday night jog)

Harrods, Knightsbridge, LondonYou do not want to be on this side of the street. Unless you have a small fortune to spend - and do not fear knackered runners (Image via Wikipedia)

As for my mind I am attending The Coaching Academy's free introductory course this weekend. If any one is interested how I get on with it give me a shout next week but I am hopeful to get something from it from the anecdotal reports I have had. The three areas they seem to offer being life, executive and NLP coaching, the last which seems to keep cropping up in texts and books I have been reading up on recently.

The most recent of these, Robbie Steinhouse's 'How to Coach with NLP', is proving to be an interesting read for this relative new comer to the field. I love his summing up at the end of the section on Mapping the Client's Inner World - essentially it is saying don't expect to have all of the skills and techniques nailed when you first step up to coach clients. Everything requires practice and development but you need to get amongst it, get involved so to speak.

It made me think about the value there is some times to being vulnerable or, at least, being able to admit when you are coming up short in terms of skills or experience. Sure.you need skills to get hired to help any client/department/organisation move forward, but don't be afraid to put your hand up to admit when you are going out on a limb and perhaps need to draw on the resources of others.

Don't want to take my word for it? No worries - perhaps its a reflection of my vulnerability to writing unconvincing blog posts!

But before you do dismiss it, check out this TED talk from Neil Pasricha in September 2010.

I was staggered at his honesty when talking about his personal life near the beginning of the presentation and felt it immediately drew you in to listen to him talk further about his 1,000 Awesome Things blog/book etc.

Why? I think because he revealed elements of his life which would have been difficult for any one to deal with, let alone speak about on such a stage and it gave an authenticity to what he had to say.

One could argue that in showing a certain vulnerability he showed real courage - who would not want to be a little bit more like that in their approach to either their professional or personal life? 


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