Videos

Success is a huge topic in executive coaching. Of course those who are interested in building a successful life often are those who reach out for coaching. They understand that work with a professional coach can help.

Success is a hot topic with my clients as well. Who doesn’t want success? It sounds great!

Yet, when you begin to dig into it, success can also be a painful subject. Painful because, as for all of us (myself included), success may have come with various setbacks and challenges that had to be overcome. These may have been difficult or painful.

My Story of Success

I’ll use my early life as an example. When I was 18, I was studying law and wanted (I thought) to become an attorney, which, as you can see, didn’t happen. (The only aspect of law I used eventually was negotiating corporate contracts.)

My life began with few things you might expect would lead to success. I was raised in a neighborhood that wasn’t great. Growth wasn’t fostered. There was little support for growth, such as counselors, to help us. Yet I was always curious and had good grades (except for one year where I almost dropped out of high school for a year, but I did come back and even went to  college).

At that time, I was working as a cashier. All my friends were skeptical that I could be a success. In fact, success for me at the time was looking pretty blurry. I knew I wanted to keep going where life would lead me. I would never settle for what I had and what others thought I should have.

My mom was a single mom who had no education and no idea how to support us or help us get into college. In school, we were told to aim for something but not to aim for the stars. Aim for something closer to us.

But my optimism led me to continue to work hard and keep searching. I really believed it would lead me somewhere. I began to work on my level of integrity and get connected with my own values, though I didn’t use those terms at the time.

There’s No Such Thing as Luck

That’s how it all started, a poorly paid part-time job as a cashier. Then I got to become a manager in that store and supervise 80 people. Then I got the opportunity to work for an American company that opened their doors in France and did business development for my other company.

Eventually that led to me to leave France after 30 years and take a job based in the United States, where I eventually came to live. Recently I ran into friends from my early life who remembered that the we were only expected to reach for the things that were right in front of us, under our noses. They were really impressed to see me living in the States, having had a career, being a full-time coach, and demonstrating what we all saw as a great deal of success!

Their reaction? “Oh, you’ve been lucky.”

There is no such thing as luck.

I’m here to tell you: you create your own luck. Things do not simply fall out of the sky. You need to work hard while believing even harder in what you feel you can accomplish. You have to set an intention to be very focused on your goals.

In 1999, I applied for my green card, and for years nothing happened. Everybody lost hope in my ever getting my green card, but one day it finally showed up. Suddenly, I was paralyzed for two months about making the decision to move forward with what I had wished for, for so long. But yes, I did decide to move to the states. I left my home, I took my fiance with me (who didn’t want to move at all), and we tested it out.

Where I am today was not luck at all. I took chances. I triggered these changes and moved here. I firmly believed that Jan, my fiance, would join me here. That happened four years later. Now it has been 17 years, sharing our lives and living these adventures together. It has been very powerful.

May You Have Success You Could Not Have Imagined

Success is a place where you find yourself connected to yourself and your values, interconnected with others. And success for me today is something I would not have been able to imagine when I was 18 years old. To live my passion for empowering people, and to share stories and space and a love and energy with people every day… this is so powerful.

This is how I define success for me. I’m so glad I didn’t listen to my friends or the school counselors of my early life.

You should define success the way you want to, too. If your dream today is to have the big house, a high-paying $200K job, and if thinking about this makes you feel happy, excited, connected with yourself, and interconnected with the world, that’s great!

Think about your own definition of success. Don’t believe what others are saying you should do or how they are measuring your actions against their definition of success. Build your own definition of success, then keep moving toward it. Keep dreaming about it. Keep putting the small pebbles in front of you to get exactly where you want to go.

There is no reason for you to settle for less, or to settle for things that are not making you feel happy and interconnected.

I hope this story has helped you to get to know me a little better and to get to know yourself. And to challenge yourself in your success.

This is so important for us as human beings: to define success on our own terms. And if you are a woman, it’s even more true in society today.

This is your life. Success should be yours. And it should not be the success of anybody else, but your version of success. Nobody else can tell you what success is for you.

How do you define success for you?

I’d like to share a lesson I learned from my very first job, in France. It is a lesson that taught me about integrity and bias, and about keeping a positive attitude and smile on my face in a difficult situation while treating people fairly.

I was a supermarket cashier, working for a large European grocery chain. My job was to assist customers and check them out. As part of my job, I often had to ask customers for ID. That was the procedure; I did it with every customer. Yet I remember one day when a lady became very upset with me for requesting her ID. She accused me of mistreating her and asking for the ID only because she was black.

I was totally stunned. Not because of what she was saying, but that she was accusing me. My dad is black, and, although I am clearly light-skinned, I never imagined someone would accuse me of being biased against a black person!

Emotions Managed

What I learned then, when I was 18, is that people have sometimes a defensive mindset. Sometimes we make assumptions where we think people will act the way we expect them to based on what we (think we) see.

And I also learned that emotions can be managed. I smiled, looked at her, and asked her, ”Who do you think my dad is, and where do you think I am coming from?”

She said, “I don’t care about whatever you are saying. I know that today you asked for my ID because of my color.”

I told her, “I don’t want to be disrespectful, but my dad is black.”

Then she looked at me and was really intrigued. At the same time, she also was very upset and had a hard time calming down. I understand her agitation if what she thought had happened actually did—if I had been prejudiced.

But that was not the case at all.

Seeing Beyond Bias to What Is Really Happening

The woman in my line had to really challenge herself to see what was actually happening.

I realized, too, that she had come to her assumptions about cashiers asking for her ID based on her life experiences and the environment she had lived in, which is totally understandable. I know many people of different backgrounds, religions, color and other appearances have been treated poorly in similar situations.

At some point, however, we all have to learn to challenge our beliefs and our assumptions. We must challenge our own, biased interpretations of a situation to make sure that we are truly accepting the current moment for what it is.

What a great learning situation. It was really uncomfortable for me because I didn’t know if I had actually done something wrong or said something that might have triggered this woman.

At the same time, I learned that assumptions and interpretations sometimes create conflicts or undesirable situations.

Another Lesson of Cultural Bias

How can we each take the opportunity  to really assess what’s going on, to put new lenses on instead of using the lenses of the defensive mode or aggressiveness?

I’m guilty of bias too. I noticed it when returning regularly to France to visit. We have a sort of pessimistic mindset in France where people will complain about many things and other people. In visiting from the US (where there is less of this attitude), I saw myself falling back into my culture of origin, back into this complaining mode. Complaining about people not smiling, about people not asking me how I was doing…

Finally I realized that I was biased. One time, I became aggressive and defensive with somebody based on a situation that happened to me in the past in France. I made the assumption that I would have the same experience, but it was not the same. I gained the gift of seeing my own distorted view.

Catch Yourself & Put on New Lenses

Happily, now, more and more, I can catch myself in my biases. Each time I go home I enjoy people so much, exactly as they are. Yes, some people complain, but more and more I see something other than whining.

Because of these experiences, I can erase the assumptions people have and the assumptions I have, to create a new experience. A more real, more positive experience.

And when you create experiences that are positive, what happens? You attract more of them!

I hope you enjoyed my story of learning as an 18-year-old about biases. I learned that we all have the opportunity in every experience to set our assumptions to the side and to re-examine the situation to see it in a new light.

Does this happen to you? Can you find biases in your life, perhaps lurking in your assumptions or past experiences?

 

If a situation of bias does happen, please just smile, catch yourself, and say, “OK, let me reset, change my lenses to new ones, and look again at this experience in a way that will be fulfilling for all the parties involved.”

After you practice this, it will come more easily until it comes automatically.

 

Have a great day!

What would you do if you were asked to do something wrong your job was on the line?

Back in 2005 I worked for a large corporation that I will not name. I was extremely successful at the time, with the largest numbers of my career. All was going very well and I had much to look forward to.

Then I was asked to do something that was illegal. My leader wanted me to align with them and back them up on something that was not right.

I made the decision to keep my integrity and to focus on my personal core values, even though I knew I would likely lose my job.

And indeed, the next day, I lost my job.

Plan for this Compromising SItuation in Advance

What would you do if, tomorrow, someone at work asked you to do something illegal, and your job was on the line?

Questions to consider include:

• How would you handle it? What would you do or say and to whom?
• What core values would you uphold?
• Whom would you reach out to?
• What is your plan, should this happen to you in the future?

I’d love to receive your comments below. Tell me what value you would bring to the table and what you would do about it.

There is no judgment here. My friends, of course, suggested I could have done things differently. Yes, I could have. But at the time, I was focused on my level of integrity, and even now, I wouldn’t change my choices.

Have you been compromised at work or in your personal life? What did you do?

Today I wanted to share a lesson I learned from my parents, though one I learned late in life.

My parents separated when I was just 7 years old, and I lived with my mom and four siblings after that. Of course life was difficult for my mom as a single parent raising 5 children!

As the oldest, I took on a lot of responsibility at home early on, both because I loved it and because it needed to happen. Today I believe that early responsibility gave me the drive and skills that helped me succeed in my corporate career, move to another country, and be who I am today.

I do believe all things happen for a reason.

Yes, I was angry at age 14 or 15 for my dad not being there, for him not being in our lives. Finally, at age 30 I contacted him and reconciled with him. In that process, I realized that both my parents had given me a great gift of multiple lessons.

I didn’t realize how powerful this situation had been for me and how much it had positively impacted my life until I was 30 years old. Then I began to see how much I was able to accomplish because of the opportunity my parents gave me.

In addition to seeing the gift in that situation for me personally, I learned that you can love your children whether or not you are in their lives. I saw that you can be empowering your children one way or another, whether you interact with them or not, whether you are present or not.

Wherever and however you are, you are impacting and empowering your children to be the people they are.

I’m so grateful to my parents for their making the decisions they had to make when they were young. Yes, it led to an unusual childhood for me, one that I loved and have no regrets about today.

Another lesson I gleaned from this situation is that people always do their best. The best, that is, that they can do in that moment. My parents each did the best they could then, based on their circumstances. Today, they might have made different choices based on the wisdom they accrued since then (now they are in their 60s).

But I might not have turned out to be the person I am.

With these and other lessons, I’m learning to appreciate every situation in life, even the most challenging ones. Every experience, I know, brings me value.

To my parents: I love you and thank you both.

For you: How can you take this story and reconcile with an event or person in your life?

Are there lessons you can learn from your difficult experiences? Is there wisdom to be found that can make you stronger?

Every one of your experiences contribute to making you the person you were meant to be. Are you resisting those lessons or assimilating them?

 

Today I’d like to share a testimonial that illustrates the benefit of executive coaching. These sorts of results are not uncommon in my work, yet they inspire me to do what I do. I hope they illustrate the life-changing impact that coaching can bring, and, frankly, encourage you to consider executive coaching either with me or someone else.

This testimonial is more about the client’s story than it is about me. Yes, I’m happy I was able to facilitate some of the changes she wanted to see in her work and in herself. But she did the work. Here is her story:

“Belinda has [helped] me to reconnect with my inner self, to remember my core values, and to use those as my guiding force in my life. She has helped me gain awareness [of] my weaknesses and, most importantly, how other people perceived my behavior.

“Some of the things people think about me are not who I am—at all. But it was all about how I was acting. Actually, I didn’t listen and I didn’t know about it. I was being too direct and too serious all the time.

“I learned active listening skills and to adjust my communication style to other people. I realized that I did not even need to really change myself. You just have to acknowledge and be aware of your own behavior or habits.

“I have also learned to have the courageous conversations that are imperative to being a successful leader.

“All in all, the experience of executive coaching has been a life-changer for me. And I have Belinda to thank for that. I highly recommend her to all my friends and leaders.

— <Chellie Gereaud>

This story, her success, is why I do what I do. I help people get to a place where they feel more connected to their true selves. Once this happens, they can focus and channel their energy more effectively towards things that they love and enjoy.

And there are additional benefits. Their relationships with employees and at home improve. They can integrate their work into their life–and vice versa. They stop wasting time chasing a concept of “balance” that, as I understand it, doesn’t even exist.

The integration and interconnection of who you are, what you do, and why you do it is what truly brings you fulfillment and satisfaction in life. Are you ready to work with a professional coach?

Today I wanted to share a little about myself personally, so you can get to know me better. I’d like to share a lesson that I learned from someone who had a very big impact in my life. This is <Vadruli/Vadrouille?>, my cat, who passed away about this time last year, so I have been thinking about him a lot.

I remember the day in August 2004, when I decided to adopt a cat and ended up taking home two brothers. They were adorable, not even 8 weeks old. After raising him as a kitten, we brought Vxxxxxx with us from France, while his brother stayed back home. I learned so much from the 20-year relationships that developed with both Vxxxxx and Valmont.

Last year, when we finally had to make the decision to let Vxxxxx go, he knew. For about two weeks, he had been unable to interact with us, staying in the corner of a room. We would bring him love and things to ease his pain. The day I went to see the veterinary specialist, our beautiful cat knew something would happen.

When we finally made the decision to let him go, let him ease out of his pain (a moment that still tears me up today), I was surprised to see how much he trusted us. He jumped up on my lap in that moment. For the last two weeks, he had not been able to jump or connect with us. But on this day, at that moment when we made the decision, he came and showed us love.

It was certainly one of the most beautiful moments I have ever experienced.

I wanted to share that moment with you because I feel we don’t often realize how much love we are receiving from those around us, including the pets who are part of our family. For me, and maybe for you too, they are more than mere pets. They are amazing, steadfast and unconditionally loving beings.

For years we had traveled with Vxxx, sometimes when it was uncomfortable for him. At other times we were traveling and unavailable for him. But when we returned, he was the always same. Same moods. Same way of looking at us. Same way of seeking affection.

And the same love for us. Unchanged.

What can you do with this gift from my past?  I would love if you could honor the memory of Vxxxx and your pets and look at the ones you love with the same kind of eyes they did.

In your life, whatever happens, whether people are not as available for you as you would like, whether they are traveling, busy or simply don’t seem to have the time for you, can you ask for the affection or attention you need?

Can you love them for who they are, whether or not they are perfect, whether or not they are exactly how you want them to be?

My sister’s dog Osborne showed me the same unconditional love. He was always available. Always jumping on our laps whether we were in the mood for it or not, whether the day was good or not. He was always the same. He loved all equally, even when we were late giving him his food.

Let’s honor the animals in our lives, especially those who have passed, by being a little more like them. Their roles have been so important, and they have been so steadfast that I sometimes feel pets are more human than human beings.

How can you help along a smooth change or transition in your life by thinking more like an animal?

How can you bring more unconditional love to the people in your life? To yourself?

How can you make sure you enjoy every single moment, even when you have conflict with others, when others may neglect or hurt you, or when they miss what is important to you?

Remember that these others, like pets, have always been there for you, and will be tomorrow, if you let them.

I love self-development as much as my high-achieving clients do. Recently I read a book in which a quote jumped out and grabbed me, and I thought I’d share it. It’s a pithy instruction for making smoother changes or transitions into your own dreams.

It comes from the book Elite Minds: How Winners Think Differently to Create a Competitive Edge and Maximize Success, by Dr. Stan Beecham.

The author states that, “Fear is keeping you from reaching your potential. Therefore, conquering fear should be your primary goal in life.”

Your primary goal.

Most of my clients are looking to set newer, higher goals in their lives and in their careers. They want to run for office. Or they look to set personal goals like finishing an ironman race.

These are wonderful goals to have, and the value of coaching is to get you there faster and smarter. Yet Beecham says the primary goal we should focus on is conquering our fear. He says this single factor holds us back from all our goals.

If we stay in fear, roadblocks or excuses may crop up. Someone will appear to tell us that we are not good enough, not strong enough, or not equipped enough to make our goals happen. Our internal fears often translate into seemingly external experiences.

Perhaps, at the same time that we chip away towards new goals, we should also work on our fears or resistance to those very goals.

Practice and Observe

How can we each find ways to conquer our biggest fear? Let’s do this exercise together, over the next few weeks. I feel that this could benefit all of us, myself included.

I am aware that this quote jumped out at me because I am still working on eliminating my fears. One of my personal fears, for instance, is of losing control. Thankfully, I’m not a control freak as much as when I was younger. But still, when I am feeling that I want to change things I can’t change, or that I have no say in some areas or topics of my life, my fears make me feel a little less capable, a little more stressed or worried.

How about you?

What’s interesting to me is this. If I was strictly focusing on conquering fear, I should be able to overcome it much more easily. More of my resources would be applied.

Test out this exercise and observe its effects. Try it as an experiment. Keep this quote as a mantra: “Fear is keeping me from reaching my potential, and conquering fear should be my primary goal in life.”

Post it where you will see it, to the mirror in your bathroom, and maybe on your car’s rear-view mirror. Say it out loud a few times each day. Vary how you say it. How does it feel?

“FEAR is keeping me from reaching my GOALS. Conquering my fear TODAY should be my PRIMARY goal.”

“Fear is keeping ME from reaching MY goals. Conquering MY fear today should be MY primary goal.”

Let’s all of us practice this mantra and watch its effects. I know it will have an impact. Even just rereading this quote several times recently has already deeply impacted me again. It reminded me not to chase my goals unless I have conquered my fear, because the fear will always be the thing that tells you to let your project go, or to feel distracted, or to procrastinate.

Do you know exactly what fears you should eliminate? Are you doing something about it? Self-awareness is step #1. From there, emotions, including fear, can be managed.

Again: Fear is keeping you from reaching your potential. Conquering fear should be your primary goal in life.

I hope you enjoy acting on this insight to make attaining your goals simpler or easier. I highly recommend you read the entire book, Elite Minds, by Dr. Stan Beecham. This tidbit was just one of the many insights I gleaned from his work.

How do you effectively chase your dreams and make a difference—without disempowering yourself? For many women in business, 2016 was a challenging year, both personally and professionally. So much so that many are inspired to create change in our lives in 2017.

Many of the women executives who call me want to change what is happening in the United states following the presidential election. Given the climate here in the US, they are voicing fears around how women are perceived and treated. What I hear is that women feel they have to fight again, now more than ever, to get the equality and what they want.

These executives are looking for help to reach their goals. They want to close the gap between the positives in their personal lives and at work, and what they see happening in the country today. They want to ensure they are well-equipped for what they expect to be a hard struggle ahead of them. They are asking how to manage their time and resources effectively so they can focus their energy on what is truly meaningful.

And for most of these women, the change they are looking for now is not about breaking the glass ceiling or feeling comfortable in the C-suite. Nor is it about making money. What it comes down to is making a difference out in the world.

Do You Really Need to Fight?

So they call, a little fearful yet full of conviction and energy to fight—to fight back. Often, when faced with what is easy to call “opposition,” we feel that the only way to reach our goals is to fight. When a situation is difficult, we feel we must struggle harder to be heard, to be seen, to make an impact.

Instead, what we choose to do together in those conversations is to decide to do something different. We choose a path that will help them reach their goals without unnecessary fight.

In my experience, these women can in fact get to the same place without feeling drained the way fighting can make them feel. The idea here is to make these changes not harder but smarter. To empower yourself as a capable woman, owning your skills, owning your emotions, so you can reach your dreams.

Those dreams ultimately involve changing your world in order to change the world. You can do this.

In the End, Creativity Wins

I invite you to evaluate how you want to spend your energy this year. How much of your energy do you truly want to dedicate to fighting? Or would you consider focusing on creating and manifesting positivity in your corporations, in your communities, and in politics? Which can be more productive in the end?

I encourage you to look at the options you might not have considered toward reaching your goals this year. I’m not just trying to make a point about fighting. I want you to look for ways to maintain your energy and power so that you can reach your goals while making a difference and having enough of you left over to engage others to do the same.

It’s true that fighters bring value to the table. I fight too, on occasion—but I choose my battles. The rest of the time, I choose to channel my energy towards making a difference right here, right now. Not hoping for someone else to make the change for me. Not hoping beyond hope that I will eventually recover from spending so much energy that my fight drains me to the point where I can’t even enjoy what I have accomplished.

Instead, I choose to focus on my strengths, my resources, and how I can put them together to make a positive difference.

What can you do to make the changes you long to make, without fighting? How can you reach your goals smarter going forward? How can you make this year (or the rest of it) the best one you have accomplished yet?

Today I’d like to dispel three myths about the coaching industry that may be holding you back from experiencing change more easily. I hear these myths from friends or people I’ve just met.

1. Myth: Anyone can be a coach, so you can’t trust coaches.

In a way, I agree. Anyone can call themselves a coach. The coaching industry today is unregulated. But two organizations are working to change that, to bring clarity and organize to the profession. They are: the International Coach Federation (ICF, at CoachFederation.org) and Center for Credentialing and Education (sorry, I stated it wrong in the video).

For the past 25 years, both bodies have been putting together such necessities as a code of ethics and training requirements. They are building a set of credentials to help both organizations and individuals select the right coach for them.

In 2011, I went back to school for a year to learn about coaching. Coaching is not a talent you are born with; you must learn the skills. It’s much more than asking empowering questions. A coach needs to understand how to avoid getting involved in the process of empowering clients for their own benefit.

For this reason, it’s crucial for coaches to get appropriate training. And it’s important that people who want to hire coaches to check the registry of the International Coach Federation, where they will find credentialed coaches that have actually had good training.

Does that mean that all coaches on this list are good? Not necessarily. But you will at least be guaranteed that they went through a proper training. They have been mentored for at least 10 hours by a mentor coach who has been certified for many years. You can be sure that they have the sorts of tools and training as well as feedback or testimonials that you can use to learn about them.

2. Myth: Coaching is basically the same as therapy.

Here I disagree. There is a huge difference between coaching and therapy, especially from the view of a practitioner. Therapists need to be licensed, yet I do not have any licenses. Nor am I even doing therapy. I am not interested in looking to my clients’ past. Of course, on occasion stories from the past arise, but I often refer out to licensed therapists if my client wants one.

Coaching is more about helping people to look forward. It’s not about understanding what happened on the past, even if a past event has an impact in your life or on the present. It’s much more about how you can look forward, take the next step and move forward towards what you want to see happening in your life.

Therapy is needed when people have trauma that holds them back, or when they are running in circles, and they want to break free of those patterns. When my clients raise such an issue, I definitely refer them to a therapist and may even work with that therapist to avoid overlap or to avoid touching on topics that are not beneficial for my client.

3.  Myth: Coaches tell you exactly what to do.

No, this is a misunderstanding. Coaches do not know what you must do. You know what you have to do. You just may need to be more empowered to take those steps. Or you may need to identify your core values and learn to make decisions that align with those values.

Coaches help you align with and act as the person that you want to be. Working with the person you were in the past falls into the realm of therapy.

Your coach’s goal is to facilitate changes in your life. It’s not at all the place for a coach to tell you what he or she would do if they were you. It’s not our role to tell you what we think you “should” do. Coaching is much more about helping you to find your own solutions.

Today, I’m Belinda Brown with my own background and personality. What works for me will definitely not work for others, for example for an introvert. Because of my personal background of living in another country and traveling internationally so much, I likely have a very different lens than someone who has been in the US for their entire life.

I hope you will educate yourself about executive coaching. I wanted to touch on these myths so that you better understand what coaches can genuinely do for you, what credentials you want to look for, and where you can find those resources to find a great coach for yourself, your team, your business, or your relationship.