David J Salmon “The Coach that Cycles”

How to Be A Great Boss

When you’re an employee, it’s always the boss who is the difficult one. As soon as you get to be a manager and someone else’s boss, you discover that it’s a two way street. People can be difficult. As the boss it is up to you to find a way that works best to manage each person.

Not everybody responds to things in the same way. If you treat everybody exactly the same, you are bound to encounter problems with some of your team. A manager has to figure out what works for each person and treat them accordingly. I’m not saying that you have different rules for different people, just that different personalities need different approaches. One person accepts rules without question. Another will need to know the reason why they are there, before he’ll follow them. As a manager you have to be flexible in your approach when you are dealing with the members of your team.

A good manager is open and honest with their team. If he doesn’t know something he says so. He doesn’t conceal information that is relevant to the team. If there is information that cannot be shared he explains why. Your team needs to know that you are in control. Once they trust you they will follow your leadership.

Avoid favouritism. If you let some people get away with lateness and then penalise others for it, then you are creating problems for yourself. The same rules must apply to everyone or else resentment will build up and you’ll lose the loyalty of your team.

As boss your job is not to be liked. Be fair and honest with your team, but don’t feel you have to be everyone’s best friend. It is respect not liking that you need to earn.

Keep track of everything. Document what your team is doing and any support or disciplinary action you give to individual members. This becomes very important if you have to fire an employee, so that you have detailed records of your processes.

Getting fired is hard, but doing the firing is worse. It is often the most challenging situation you have to face as a boss. Your responsibility is to your team as a whole and if one person is performing poorly this damages the whole team’s performance. Look at it as a way of letting that person find work that is better suited to their abilities.

Make sure that you have a support system separate from the company you work in. Use a coach to help build your leadership skills. Find a group of managers outside your company that can give objective feedback on issues that are troubling you. Sharing common problems helps vent frustration and keep things in perspective.

Coaching

Managing other people is one of the most challenging jobs there is. Keeping an open mind and a positive attitude turns it into a challenge that is fun.

Look clearly at yourself and be honest about your strengths and weaknesses as a manager. Develop those strengths and delegate the weaknesses. Get others to support you in the areas that you are not good at. The essence of good management is creating a team that works well together, no one person has to be good at everything.

Even if you don’t manage a team at work, you are the manager of your own life. What one thing can you do today to improve your management skills?

Quotes
“A good manager doesn’t try to eliminate conflict; he tries to keep it from wasting the energies of his people. If you’re the boss and your people fight you openly when they think that you are wrong, that’s healthy.” Robert Townsend
“By working faithfully eight hours a day, you may eventually get to be boss and work twelve hours a day.” Robert Frost
“I’ve always found that the speed of the boss is the speed of the team.” Lee Iacocca
“No man goes before his time — unless the boss leaves early.” Groucho Marx

Make The Most Of The Gaps

The in-between times of life are just as important to our growth as the times when we are busy doing. We tend to dismiss them as contributing nothing, but in actual fact they can be even more important than the times when we are deeply involved in doing things.

The gap is this in-between time. It could be time between jobs, between relationships, or a lull in the middle of life changes. The in-between time gives us time and space to explore ideas and reflect. We can explore inside ourselves and discover where our priorities lie. The gaps give us important time to work out the direction we want to go in next and find out who we really want to be.

In Chapters: Create a Life of Exhilaration and Accomplishment in the Face of Change, Candice Carpenter tells us, “This new century is going to be about mastering the gaps in our lives. It’s going to be about fluidity and about the courage to imagine life not as constant but as a constant process of creation.” The old century’s ideal of working in a stable job with one company for your whole life no longer applies. We now know that nothing lasts for ever. If we find ourselves unemployed or a relationship ends the fact that change is a constant can be reassuring . This stage won’t last for ever. This gap is just one step, which will also pass, on the varied journey of our lives.

Often, once a gap is over and we are back in the busy flow again, we wish that it had lasted longer. When I had a gap between employment and starting out on my own I found it uncomfortable, but once I started working again I realised how refreshing and inspiring that time had been, and was even a bit disappointed that it was over.

Coaching
It isn’t easy to relax and make the most of the gaps. We are too busy pushing towards the next thing to happen. Try and remember that it won’t last forever. Use the time as space to relax and unwind, to learn things you’ve always wanted to have time for.

Do you make the most of the gaps in your life?

Quotes
“I want to go out at the top, but the secret is knowing when you’re at the top, it’s so difficult in this business, your career fluctuates all the time, up and down, like a pair of trousers.” Rod Stewart
“Never cut a tree down in the wintertime. Never make a negative decision in the low time. Never make your most important decisions when you are in your worst moods. Wait. Be patient. The storm will pass. The spring will come.” Robert Schuller
“Overcoming fear and worry can be accomplished by living a day at a time or even a moment at a time. Your worries will be cut down to nothing.” Robert Anthony
“Sometimes you’ve got to let everything go, purge yourself. If you are unhappy with anything . . . whatever is bringing you down, get rid of it. Because you’ll find that when you’re free, your true creativity, your true self comes out.” Tina Turner

There Is Life After 40

I used to think that once you reached 40, you knew everything. In a way I was right.
Now that I’m past 40 I know that it is impossible to know everything, and it wouldn’t be much fun either.
The older I get and the more I learn, the more I discover there is to learn.
Since I turned 40 I’ve learned many things, among them:
You can act young however old you are.
When you stop worrying about what other people think, you gain a huge freedom.
There is an art to doing what you want and still being respectful of other people’s opinions.
Looks fade but life stays beautiful
There are fewer best friends in number, but they are better friends than ever.
There is still so much more to learn.

Since I passed 40, I worry less and enjoy life more. The moments of fear and insecurity are shorter lived than they used to be.
Being liked is less important than when I was younger, but making a difference to the world and the people I meet is more important than ever.
Mortality becomes a reality, as there begin to be people close to me who die. In my 20s I thought life would go on for ever. Now I know that it doesn’t and I have to make the most of my time. There are limits to the amount that I can achieve physically but no limits to my dreams.

Coaching
Life is about living and learning. Each day is a gift to look forward to and enjoy. We are all here for a reason and have been given this opportunity to help shape and influence the world in our own ways. We can become the change that we want to see. Sharing the best of ourselves with the world has more impact that we could possibly know.

Each day can be a ‘birth’ day, as we can wake each day anew with a new opportunity to begin to be ourselves and share it with the world.

Quotes
“It was on my fifth birthday that Papa put his hand on my shoulder and said, ‘Remember, my son, if you ever need a helping hand, you’ll find one at the end of your arm.’” Sam Levenson
“People are always asking me when I’m going to retire. Why should I? I’ve got it two ways — I’m still making movies, and I’m a senior citizen, so I can see myself at half price.” George Burns
“To me, old age is always fifteen years older than I am.” Bernard Baruch
“Turning one hundred was the worst birthday of my life. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. Turning 101 was not so bad. Once you’re past that century mark, it’s just not as shocking.” Annie Elizabeth Delany
“We have no permanent brains until we are forty. Then they begin to harden, presently they petrify, then business begins. Since forty I have been regular about going to bed and getting up — and that is one of the main things.” Mark Twain

. Let Your Brain Join The Gym

We go to the gym for a workout, to keep our bodies fit and exercised. It is not just our bodies that need a workout, our brains do too. Research has established that our brain cells regenerate even as we get older, they don’t die off as was previously thought. Katz and Manning wrote Keep your brain alive and say that “in 1998 a team of American and Swedish scientist demonstrated for the first time that new brain cells are generated in adult humans.”

The memory loss and brain power challenges that many people experience as they age is not due to getting older, but to using their brains less. If we don’t use our brains, the branches of nerve cells that receive information and process it, begin to thin out. To keep them active and healthy we need to use them.

You don’t need to do a formal exercise regime to keep your brain in shape, though Katz did come up with the phrase “Neurobics”. All you need to do is keep learning new things, play memory games, read, expose yourself to new stimuli. All those things exercise the brain.

Coaching
Things you already know don’t build brain power, so to keep your brain active you have to keep learning new things. You don’t have to resign yourself to losing your memory as you age. When our brains are flexible we can keep our memories functioning as well as ever.

Suggestions for keeping your brain active are:
• Learn one new thing every day and keep a journal so that you can keep track of them
• Find different ways of doing everyday things. Something as simple as changing the hand you hold your toothbrush with, keeps your brain on its toes. Vary your routines randomly so that your brain has to pay attention and you can’t just go along in auto mode.
• Close your eyes and do things like talking on the phone, or eating. This pushes you to use your other senses and notice new things.
• Play games. Card games, crossword puzzles, memory games and games of strategy are all good to keep the brain active.

How can you get your brain active today?

Quotes
“A good memory is one trained to forget the trivial.” Clifton Fadiman
“A man of great memory without learning hath a rock and a spindle and no staff to spin.” George Herbert
“Curiosity is as much the parent of attention, as attention is of memory.” Richard Whately

The Goal That Got Away
New Year already seems a long time ago. New Year’s resolutions have faded slightly, since we made them with such determination that this year it would be different. Whatever happened to the goal you had, to make those changes in your life?

How did that goal slip away? How did it get put aside so soon? The thing about goals is that it’s easy to make them, not so easy to stick to them. Goals generally need us to make changes in our lives. Change is challenging even when it’s for the better.

The realisation of a goal demands that we change our thinking. We have to change from the inside out. This is why goals can be so hard to achieve, but so rewarding when we do.

If your goal got away this year, it could be that the goal is fine in itself, but that you were not ready to start changing your thinking about the goal. Ask yourself if you are ready to change inside as much as is necessary to reach that goal. It’s best to be totally honest about this, as until you are ready in yourself, you won’t get anywhere with the goal itself.

If your goal got away from you and you don’t feel ready to pursue it, let it go for now. Stop being hard on yourself for letting it get away. When the time is right you can pursue that goal once more. For now find a goal that you are ready to tackle. One success begets another. Once you’ve achieved a more accessible goal you could feel ready inside to go after the one that got away.

Coaching
The trouble with goals that get away is that we can feel that we’ve failed. Don’t. Let that goal go for now. Instead find other more achievable goals and use that energy in a positive way. Success with one goal will start the ball rolling and give you more energy and commitment to take on more.

It is OK not to be ready to take on a goal. Stop worrying and focus on what you are ready for. You’ll find that your confidence grows with success and your goals can too. Or perhaps you’ll discover that the goal that got away is no longer a priority. Get on with living your life and don’t waste energy worrying about goals that haven’t yet been achieved.

Quotes
“It may be said with a degree of assurance that not everything that meets the eye is as it appears.” Rod Serling
“No matter what we want of life we have to give up something in order to get it.” Raymond Holliwell
“People are where they are because that is exactly where they really want to be, whether they will admit that or not.” Earl Nightingale

Live the Biggest Life You Can

Would you prefer to live a small safe life or one that is huge and full of joy and new discoveries? We all have a choice and we can choose anew every single day. We can choose to play safe and stay small, or to put ourselves out there and live the biggest life we can.

Living our biggest life means to be the real you, however outrageous, ambitious or crazy, and stop following the herd. It means that you dream big and then follow those dreams. You feel the fear but do it anyway. You stick up for your beliefs and speak your truth, even if the crowd disagrees. You step into your own power and are the person that you came on earth to be.

It may not be easy, but it is a whole lot more exciting and empowering than staying small. We each have our own unique talents, which we are supposed to use here on earth. But if we live in fear of what others think of us, we often neglect those talents. The more we use those talents regardless of what other people think, the bigger and better our life grows. The people around you, once they’ve got used to your new larger life are likely to be inspired to find their own authentic life too.

Staying as you are may feel safer, but living big and expanding your boundaries is far more exciting and fulfilling.

Coaching
None of us were put here to live small lives. We are supposed to be living the biggest lives we can. To do that, we need to stop hiding in the crowd and take ownership of our own power. You have to take risks to live big, to become who you were meant to be. It’s a challenge but well worth it to create a life that we enjoy and the one that we were meant to live.

It can sometimes feel lonely living the big life as others try to bring you down to size, their size. Don’t let them. They are free to choose the size of life that they want to live, but you are free to take as big a slice of life as you can manage.

Quotes
“All my life I have gone out on a limb, but I have turned the limb into a bridge, and there is cool, clear water flowing under.” Holly Near
“I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center.” Kurt Vonnegut
“If you play it safe in life you’ve decided that you don’t want to grow any more.” Shirley Hufstedler
“Adhere to your own act, and congratulate yourself if you have done something strange and extravagant, and broken the monotony of a decorous age.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

Learn From A Situation And Then Let Go

The other day I was carrying a heavy load of presentation materials into an office block. My mind was running on the presentation ahead and though I registered someone kindly holding the door open for me as I walked in, I didn’t acknowledge it with a Thank you, as I should have done. I was snapped out of my reverie by a peeved voice snapping “Well don’t say thank you then.” I hurriedly thanked her and carried on to the presentation. But I couldn’t help feeling uncomfortable and then annoyed about the small incident. I could feel my mood shifting towards retorts I could have made, rather than concentrating on the task ahead of me.

I took a breath and tried to analyze my reaction. I was angry with myself for not having been conscious and acknowledging a kindness done to me. But I was angry with the woman too, for though she had been kind to hold the door for me, it was attached to an expectation, which resulted in anger towards me when I didn’t meet it.

To drag myself out of the negative mind space, I looked for a lesson to learn from this situation. The first was to pay more attention to the present moment, instead of being wholly immersed in my future presentation. From her behaviour I learned that if you do something kind for someone, you should do it without expectations of their reaction attached. Such expectations only lead to frustration or disappointment and spoil the kindness of the action itself. Plus I learned not to take things personally. The woman’s anger wasn’t to do with me, it was to do with the space she was in at the time.

Coaching

There is a lesson in any situation however small if we look for it. Something as small as this could have spoiled my mood and my day if I’d let it. By choosing to find a positive lesson in it I was able to keep my equilibrium and grow from it. Once I’d found the lesson, I was able to take responsibility for my part and forgive the woman her part and then let go of the whole thing. I felt better, the presentation went smoothly and I was able to put positive energy out there. If I’d clung to irritation, annoyance and self-justification instead, my day would probably have been completely different and I would have passed on a very different energy in my presentation.

We can’t control what happens to us, but we can control how we react. Even if we don’t react well at first we can still choose to learn from it a bit later and let go.

Often a small event can happen just once, but we then go over it again and again in our minds pouring precious time and energy into it and blowing up its importance in our lives. If you can rather think it over once, find the lesson and learn from it, then you can let it go. Don’t waste your energy on past events that cannot be changed, save it for what is happening right now in the present.

Look for lesson in something negative that happened recently. Can you let it go once you’ve learned from it?

Quotes

“Man is the only animal that learns by being hypocritical. He pretends to be polite and then, eventually, he becomes polite.” Jean Kerr

“Life is a succession of lessons enforced by immediate reward, or, more often, by immediate chastisement.” Ernest Dimnet

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Seize The Day Before It Seizes You

We all have occasional days when the day seems to get away from us and we find it is over before we’ve even got going. If we let it, the day can just slip by and we feel like we’re in the passenger seat with no-one at the wheel. Our tasks and goals for the day are left standing and the time has just disappeared.

When the day seizes us, we are not just helpless bystanders. The day can only control us in this way, if we don’t take control ourselves. If we seize the day with intention and purpose, then there is no way that the day can seize us and take us on one of its crazy joyrides.

To seize the day, we must first have a plan for our day. Every minute does not need to be accounted for, but we do need to identify two or three main priorities. We may want to get more than that on our list, but two or three is a realistic number of things to fit into a day.

Use the first ten minutes of your day to plan it out. Create your plan and then work through it. This sets your intention and creates a strong focus. If something comes along that isn’t in your plan you then have a clear choice. You can be flexible with your plan, fit it in and still be in control. This way you aren’t overwhelmed by an out of control momentum, as you are at the wheel and in control.

Coaching

The key to seizing the day is planning. Don’t just go with the flow and let the day happen to you. Create a plan of action and then you are in control. It’s much easier to stay on track when you know exactly what you need to accomplish.

The day will only run away with you, if you let it. Don’t give it your permission. If you feel that the day is in charge, stop it. Take charge and decide what you want to do with it.

Have you seized your day?

Quotes

“Seize the day.” Horace

“Don’t wait for extraordinary opportunities. Seize common occasions and make them great. Weak men wait for opportunities; strong men make them.” Orison Swett Marden

First major ride of the year of 45 miles
Woke early at 6.30 to great weather and drove to Salisbury arrived after about an hour and a half at the start. Not many cyclists and no queuing therefore quick and easy start (I was one of the last to leave). the first part of the ride was though a number of small villages along the Wyle Valley , here’s just a few names Upper Woodford , Hang Langford , Donhead St Andrews , then a few steep hills to get great views over the Salisbury Downs , then in the latter half of the ride some very usual names villages (Berwick St John , Broad Chalke , Stratford Tony ,) along the valley great to see the new lambs in the fields along with the primroses and bluebells . In to the final part of the ride along part the Cathedral and though the historic town to the finish
Replenish some calories and chatted to a few fellow cyclists about the ride and the excellent weather
This was a good ride and would recommend to anyone on has easy access to Salisbury
Recommendation make sure you bring enough food and during as not much open on the way , the scenery and route planning on the cycle friendly county road excellent
Ready for the next one

Click Here!

Go Below The Surface

As humans we are multi-dimensional beings. There is more to life than just the surface of things. We can experience it on many levels, in different ways. However when we get overwhelmed by all the things we have to do, we can lose our ability to look beyond the surface of things and enjoy life on all levels.

To go deeper into life we need to open all our senses to what is happening around us. Don’t just observe people’s actions, look more closely and notice the subtle nuances of how they do things. When we are really conscious we see things that would pass by unnoticed most of the time when we are preoccupied by other things.

Listen with more than just your ears to what people say. Use your heart and soul to pick up meanings that their words may not express. Listen at a deeper level without distractions and your will hear what they are really saying. Watch the person as they speak and pick up the nuances of their body language to find clues to their real meaning and what they’re not saying.

Connect fully with the world by raising your awareness of the people around you and the surroundings. Experience what is happening and explore the complexity of all the different levels in which your connection takes place. If we are not aware we miss much of what is going on and lose the chance to relate to people on a deeper, more meaningful level.

Coaching

Most people only operate at the first or second level of awareness when interacting with others. They skim the surface and never penetrate the real meanings of things. If we are willing to be more aware, we can connect in a much deeper way. We can observe not just what is happening, but how it is happening. We can pick up the energy in the room, the things people aren’t saying, the hidden meanings. Those who stay on the surface miss most of the real meaning of an interaction.

Observe and open your awareness to your surroundings. Tune in to the energy of what is happening. Use all your senses, your heart and your soul to connect with life in a meaningful way and go below the surface to true understanding.

Quotes

“Everyone hears what you say. Friends listen to what you say. Best friends listen to what you don’t say.” Anonymous

“Once you learn to see, not just look and to actually hear, not just listen, you are destined to visualize your dreams.” Anonymous

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