Consultants: What About You?

If you’re a consultant (or a coach, facilitator, or speaker), I’m willing to bet that you’re thinking about your work with clients as you read these pages. How do you get them to dream more boldly and act with more energy? How do you facilitate their moving forward with confidence, so they can make their largest contribution to the world?

But hold on a minute. What about you?

Time and again, I’ve seen consultants give their clients everything they’ve got … to the point that there’s nothing left for themselves, for the development of their practice, for their own aspirations. So much work to do, no time to think.

(Or so worried where the next gig’s coming from, no time to think. And no time to market or figure out if you’re really headed in the best direction.)

Over the long haul, that’s a recipe for burnout — and for a life less rewarding than might have been.

I want to tell you that you deserve more. Much more. You’ve got great work to do … and the world wants your best now more than ever. You deserve the same wide-open possibilities that you strive to create for your clients. And you’ll find the path in these pages, if you read them with yourself in mind.

So I invite you to take the time, right now, to treat yourself at least as well as you treat your clients. Open the space to reflect, to inventory your assets, to expand your thinking about what your contribution to the world might be. (After all, that’s why you became a consultant, right?)

Start by taking a look at these few items — and consider how they can expand what’s possible for you.

  • See Yourself as a Beacon of Hope
    Today, if you and your practice can shine brightly when so many see darkness, you will attract people. And what they’ll do may surprise you.
  • Your Contribution Comes from Who You Are
    Letting your distinctive self shine through will make your work more significant — to you and to others.
  • How Do We Break Through the Noise?
    How to turn off the default tapes — about needs, problems, lacks, limits — that can sabotage your ability to inspire and attract people, and keep moving forward on your big dreams for the world.
  • Meaning and Immortality
    At the age where “mortality” has started to mean something? Please read this.
  • Beyond Strategic Planning
    Martin Luther King, Jr., did not say, “I have a strategic plan.” Instead, he shouted, “I have a dream!” Is your planning designed to generate bold dreams and the energy to bring them to life?
  • Accepting “the Way Things Are” (Not!)
    What happens when we question assumptions (and break out of the boxes we’ve built for ourselves)?

P.S. I’ve just gotta tell you: I wish someone had told me some of this back when I began (40 years ago, wet-behind-the-ears, I was the youngest consultant hired by the oldest and largest firm in capital campaigning).

When is the Right Time to Launch Something New?

Is there a “right” time to launch into what you really want to do? To step out (and up)?

Quest alum Kerry Judd landed in the papers last week for what she calls a “leap of faith” when she stepped out to create her own business. She’d decided her dreams were more important than the condition of the economy, and her independence could be put off no longer.

And she’s willing to do whatever it takes to realize the life she’d envisioned. In fact, she says,

There were no constraints because I didn’t want my next decision to be made based on income.

I’m honored that she gives the Quest workshop some credit for shaping her bold move. When she came to her first workshop in Minneapolis/St. Paul four years ago she had an energy about her, but who knew?

She built a strong foundation in that first exposure, then came to a second workshop at Ferncliff and dug into writing her action plan for this next chapter in her life. It’s great to see that plan starting to unfold.

Congratulations, Kerry!

Here’s a write-up about Kerry in Bermuda’s newspaper, The Royal Gazette: Judd opts to go it alone to build up her own business.

Your Contribution Comes From Who You Are

The ever-smart Seth Godin just wrote about how who you are can fuel your passion for your work. (I love the way he thinks.)

He got me to thinking …

I realized that whenever I’ve allowed “who I am” to be more clear in my life — when I’ve let myself be the distinctive, idiosyncratic me — my work has become more significant (to me and to others).

And more fun and inspiring.

The way I show up inspires (breathes life into) others to do the same. That’s not an accident, it’s something I’ve worked on, consciously and intentionally — by turning up the volume on who I am.

Something else happens, too …

who-what

When you pay attention to the power of your presence, you begin to create the world you want. (That’s one of the themes of our brand-new “2010 Manifesto.”)

I’m also reminded of when a grad student told me of a big, powerful idea. When I asked him if he felt the power of it, he sheepishly said to me, “Not really. My mother always told me not to get too big for my britches.”

Maybe Seth would agree with me: “Get bigger britches.”

Best,
Jim

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