Now What?® Coaching

Category: Now What? Newsletter Articles

  • Do You Believe? [Video]

    I promised you the third installment and here it is: Video THREE is about the third block to clarity: BELIEFS

    “But I can’t make a change right now.”

    We’ve heard it all.

    You can’t make a change because of the money, the mortgage, the college, the debt, the _______________. We don’t doubt there’s truth to that, but we also know there’s a way to get past all those obstacles.

    Our third and final video walks you through the third block to clarity- beliefs.
    Watch to understand how to get to the other side of the blocks and then JOIN Laura for a chance to do the WHOLE Now What?® Program with her guidance at a fraction of the cost of one-on-one coaching.

    One lucky participant will also win a private coaching engagement with Laura. Your registration is your entry ticket to answers and to the GRAND PRIZE.

    Thank you for taking part in the 10th Anniversary celebration of Now What? 90 Days to a New Life Direction!

    Please comment below.

  • The “I Don’t Know Syndrome” [Video]

    Are you craving a radical change?……

    When you feel lost and unsure about everything except your own anxiety, it is hard to articulate anything positive or hopeful for your future. It’s at that point that people tell me:

    I don’t know what I want!

    I empathize with that feeling and the resonance of truth it has for the person who’s suffering but I also know it’s not true. Not really. The “I don’t know” syndrome is really just a reflection of deep fear that keeps us paralyzed.

    This video, the first in a three-part series, will walk you through the ‘first block to clarity’ that we encounter when we work with people on career transition issues.

    Watch to learn how to turn your list of complaints and problems into a clear list of what you want! Understand why you can’t name it now, but how you will be able to in just a couple of minutes post-viewing.

    Please comment on this blog or send me an email at lbf@nowwhatcoaching.com to let me know your thoughts.

    Name it! Get clear!

    All best
    LAURA SIGN 2014

  • Your Career: A Love Story

    Is it realistic to believe you can love what you do?lovemyworkmug_s

    I know that it is. There’s work destined for each of us the way people say there is a mate for everyone. We just have to find it.

    On the other hand, everything we love eventually gets tested and we must decide whether to reinvent it or us.
    Like any marriage or long term relationship, a career or job needs to be shaken up every now and then to keep it fresh, alive, fun, and engaging.

    Loving your work will morph over time. Whether you’re a corporate employee, business owner, or artist, the following stages seem to apply.

    First job – Like new love, the first job is exciting. Most exciting is that there is a paycheck! Your first significant income and everything is new. If it’s not a fit, you’ll find out fast and it’s possible you’ll outgrow it fast whether it was a mistake or not.

    Readying to Soar—You’ve gotten promoted a couple of times. If you’re progressing as you like, and the work is still a challenge, work can still be your sweetheart.

    Climbing—New challenges keep you growing but with more responsibility comes more headaches. The questioning may have already begun. Is this it? Can I really do this for the rest of my life? Can I find my way back to the love?

    Plateau— You may continue to climb or you may have hit the plateau—can’t leave now, you think. You want your full retirement benefit or you are not financially prepared to leave work. Loving may be replaced by settling into living out the commitment

    Legacy – At any age, you may have begun to think about what it is you want to leave behind. When you pull your head up from the daily grind and imagine creating something bigger than your immediate needs, the game changes.

    Whether what you are creating is publicly acknowledged or silently taking place, the love grows as the impact spreads. Like a long-term couple looking at each other and realizing how much they’ve done, seen, or created together, your work at the legacy stage gives you a platform of appreciation that you can pay forward.

    Post-Career Career—And then, there’s this unique opportunity to love your work. Trying something new or rekindling an old flame of work you love can bring an exciting rush.

    If money is not the biggest concern, this can be the sweetest of stages as you shed the burden and engage the joy.

    When your job becomes a ‘job’, it’s a call to get back to the love and find what will inspire you to re-engage. How will you re-connect? How do you build on the early love and bring it along as you evolve?

    Can you and your work grow together at about the same rate in the same direction? That’s what keeps a long term relationship alive. Keeping your work in the ‘I love my job’ sphere means constantly grooming it so it doesn’t die on the vine.

    Engage and grow. As we launch the 10th anniversary edition of Now What? 90 Days to A New Life Direction, we offer many ways to support just that. Check out www.nowwhatcoaching.com

     

     

  • New Year’s Done a New Way

    What if this year, we don’t start another 365-day cycle by pushing the marker of success further out? What if this year, we start the year looking at how far we’ve come instead of how farsuccess_journey we have to go? What would that do to your results?

    I just finished work with a Now What?® client who came to the process to find her way out of a restrictive work situation in a family business. She wanted to explore what else she might do with her life.

    In less than four months, she had identified three areas of interest and had made tremendous inroads educating herself in all three. She networked her way into these fields by not being afraid to ask people to connect her to others who could enlighten her.

    Not having that big of a network to begin with, this was an impressive feat.

    As we approached the end of our sessions, she voiced her disappointment in herself for not having a new job in hand yet. I asked her to look at how far she had come.

    Four months prior, she was miserable in her job, felt like a victim and could not see a way out. Now, she had grown a network in a very short period of time, had learned about the art world, the commercial real estate market, and start-up investing at a rapid pace.

    It was only when she recognized her progress that the answer to her query hit her.   In our final session, she had the epiphany that she didn’t want to work in any of the three! Instead, she wanted to use her current job in her family’s business to keep her steady as she built her desired net worth through the three areas she was exploring.

    There was no next job. It was just the next level of strategy on how to get where she wanted to go. She wants to reach a high personal net worth outside of her family business and she now sees she can do so without changing her job.

    In this case, discovering the way to financial freedom via three areas that were of interest and fun, suddenly made the job not only bearable, but ultimately, a blessing.

    The whole perspective shifted and yours can too. The key is to measure where you’ve come from.

    As we step into 2015:

    What can you give yourself credit for?, can you be grateful for?, can you celebrate?

    and What can you mark as a milestone lesson whether due to crisis or victory?

    Now, go to the gym and be grateful that you have a body that is healthy enough for exercise instead of beating yourself up for the five pounds you gained in the last two weeks.  Happy New Year!

  • H-O-L-I-D-A-Y 2014

    Another end to another year. I thank you all for you readership and patronage in 2014 and look forward to what we might create together next year.holiday lbf
    WISHING YOU A WONDERFUL HOLIDAY SEASON!

    LAURA SIGN 2014

     

     

     

    LBF and the Now What?® Authorized Facilitators

    H-Holiness
    O-Opulence
    L–Light
    I-Integrity
    D-Disappointments
    A-Attention
    Y- Year-end Crunch

    H is for Holiness
    The season where Christmas, Hannukah and Kwanza are observed, brings our hearts to a quieter place. As our pulse slows, our capacity to feel increases, and if we can fill our hearts with the meaning of these holidays. What these holidays ask us to remember allows us to tap that place we might define as holy. No matter what we call it, in all of us lies an essence of goodness that when felt, I think we can agree is holy. Meet the holy in yourself and everyone you come in contact with.

    O is for Opulence
    We buy gifts, put out our best house wares, put on nice clothes and enjoy festive food. It’s a time where we live like Kings in relative degrees across our socio economic landscape. We also remember our fellow citizens who can’t tap that richness on their own so we give as we can to share in the wealth. Feel the opulence whether yours in grand or small.

    L is for Light
    All the holidays of the season include lights—candles on the menorah and on the Kwanzaa kinara, candles in church and lights on the pagan symbols of the Xmas tree and in modern times, all over our homes. As our family lights the menorah, I ask my family to share what they see as the spark of light in each other. they roll their eyes and hate when I’m ‘coachy’ but to hear them tell each other once a year
    how they see the goodness in each other, goes a long way to making the holiday more than gift frenzy. Acknowledge the light.

    I is for Integrity
    Yes, integrity. As odd as it may sound, as we make decisions about spending during this season and whom we include on our card list or invitation roster, our integrity gets a workout. Are obligations out of integrity or in integrity? Just something to think about. Feel free to comment here to share your thoughts on this.

    D is for Disappointments
    The holidays are not all joy and laughter. It’s a time of sadness for a lot of people. It’s a time when we think about how we feel let down by family, friends or life in general. It’s a time where the longing for people who are passed or no longer a part of our lives can be acute. There may even be disappointments about people’s behavior as the gatherings increase and new flaws become apparent or old flaws flare up. Let’s face it, the holidays can be a bummer. That doesn’t mean they should be avoided, but simplifying them and making some changes about where and whom you gather with might help. And if you are one of the people who feels terribly alone I know only one antidote. Do something for someone who needs help more than you do.

    A is for Attention
    In our schizoid divided-attention world, the holidays give us a chance to put our attention on family and friends. Whether it’s for a short gathering or the holiday weekends, the non-workaholics can lay down their phones and care. Care. The people in your life just want you to care. Pay attention, listen, spend time together
    and elevate your connection above the ordinary.

    Y is for Year-End Crunch
    Tax planning, year-end giving, gift shopping, work completion, parties to add to your schedule, kids’ concerts and events, and holiday prep make this month a stress bomb. What can you do? Not care, not go, bow out. But if not, my best advice is put a note in your calendar for October 2015 to start next year’s year-end chores.
    Leave only what’s necessary for December. We know it’s coming every year . Why is it such a surprise?

    My Wish for You
    I hope you experience the best of what the holiday season can offer. May you use it to restore your soul and bring you into a New Year kinder and gentler with yourself and more aware of your ripple effect in the world.

    Namaste

  • Parents and College: How One Coach/Mom is Riding the BIG Decision

    by Now What?® Coaching Founder, Laura Berman Fortgang

    The time has come. My oldest child is applying to colleges. Ever since I was that age, I thought it terribly unfair that seventeen year olds feel forced to decide what they’ll be doing the rest of question_college_majortheir lives . As adults, we know they aren’t really deciding for life, but I still remember what that feels like as I relive it again with my son.

    The irony this time is that while my parents forbade a degree in the arts (theatre being my passion and interest), my husband and I are faced with convincing my son that studying the only thing that has been his heart and soul since fifth grade (music) would be a good idea. He is the one worried about how he would make a living and what his life would be like if he pursued a degree in music, even though we aren’t. It is mind boggling to me that it’s not the parents whining the classic “How will you make a living at that?” It’s HIM!!

    I had a feeling it was too good to be true….

    Since touring colleges in April, Eldest Son was certain that a dual degree in music and recording engineering was his course of study to be. I loved it. He is not a center-stage person by nature, so working the booth with a deep knowledge of music and playing his instruments if and when he pleased seemed a perfect fit. There are only a dozen or so schools nationwide that provide equally strong programs on both sides, he didn’t want to go further than four hours away, bada-bing, bada-boom, done deal. He just had to get in. We had no worries about that happening.

    Three weeks ago, he declared that after less than one full marking period of computer science class with the coolest teacher ever, he wants to be a computer science major. WHAT?! Applications are due December 1st!!!

    This meant changing out some of the schools he was looking at because they offered no computer science. His academic track has not been towards this goal so right now the plan is to get in for music and have room for the pre-requisites in computer science. He still agonizes over whether he should drop music altogether. The suffering I remember feeling so deeply at that age has begun. Just mildly, but now I can see signs on his face that the knots in his stomach are growing.

    It was time for the big guns to come out. Can Mom and Coach co-exist in the same body? It was time to find out. Coaches know the home should be a ‘coach free zone’ because it’s hard to be objective with your own flesh and blood. With that said, I am who I am. It’s going to come out, but the key for me has been to use it sparingly. I weave it in so they don’t even know it’s happening. Only once in seventeen years have I heard: “Don’t coach me.”

    As the words came out of my mouth, I noticed my husband sit up a little straighter and look at me somewhat in shock and maybe with a little awe. OK… maybe the awe was just wishful thinking.

    Anyway, I challenged Eldest. “Listen, you can go to school for whatever you want, but before you decide that music is not  your path of study, please take some time to think and come back to me with an answer. Tell me WHO music allows you to be. What calls you to that drum set? What puts you in the music room at school every free moment you have in the day? What happens to you when you play? What do you put out into the world because of this?

    I’m waiting for the answer.

    My desired outcome is to see is if this DNA-driven gift my kid has belongs in hobby mode or life’s work mode. I work with clients to discover these parts of what I call their Life Blueprint when we work on their life story*. The adults are usually brought back to this very moment my son is at trying to pick up a piece they left behind and integrate it back into their life. If not as a career, at least as an activity that brings them back to themselves, to wholeness, and to peace.

    Music will always be a part of my son’s life. We’ve explored many of the forms it can take. Last week, he sat in the orchestra pit of a Broadway show, and he’ll observe in another Broadway pit Thanksgiving weekend. He plays in the school musical pit every year and has been hired locally for professional pit gigs. He LOVES that.

    But here we teeter on the brink of the first decisions that will determine how music fits in his life and also reveal if I’m full of crap. His Dad and I did our arts-driven lives until we were thirty and then got ‘real’ jobs. No decision is forever and nothing is a waste.

    As a parent, it’s hard not to be attached to one outcome or another. As a coach, I want to see his gifts honored, and I believe each of us has to have faith that we can beat the odds to do so. As the parent, I don’t want to see him give up before even trying. As a coach, I don’t want him to make a decision based in fear.

    “Life will tell you if you’re wrong. You can’t figure it out 100%.” That’s what I tell my clients. That’s what I’ll tell my son.

    OY

    *Chapter Four of “Now What? 90 Days to a New Life Direction” instructs you on how to find the clues to your future direction based on your life story (not your resume).