The Naked Couple Podcast

Who would have thought a running app and Lockdown would improve my life so much. But they have. I am so grateful for what I have and am achieving. 
I love my life right now and have learned a lot about myself recently.

In this episode, I talk about what I learned from a running app and the lockdown to improve me as a person.
  

I have always had limiting beliefs about money. I grew up in a poor council estate area where people didn't have much. I was taught money was the route of all evil and only the rich had money. 

Money seemed something only greedy people had and I was also told never to be greedy. It's no wonder that I always struggled to hold onto my money.

I would spend as soon as I had it, the more I earned the more I spent. I made a million and lost it twice. This is how I changed my limiting beliefs and how I have improved my relationship with money and wealth. 
 

Yesterday marked 2 years of me working with my life coach. At the time of working with my coach, I wanted to work on some limiting beliefs I had.

I thought I would have around 5-10 sessions but here I am 2 years later and I'm still working on improving myself.

During this time, I have discovered so much about myself and have been able to work out what I needed to change and implement in my life.

In this episode, I talk about where I come from and my journey. I talk about how coaching has helped me to succeed and accept the good things in life. 

Coaching has literally changed my life for the better and this is my journey.  

This is my 100th episode and I'm so excited to achieve this milestone. 
Here I talk about how my life has gone since I started Podcasting and what I plan for the future.  

Being social people, I can and still don’t understand the term social distancing - what is social about that. I need to be around people, see them close up and have fun.

When I do this life is better, I feel happier and more alive. I bet it improves my health as well.

Social distancing and mask-wearing, just depresses me, makes me sad and I bet as a consequence makes me unhealthy.

Covid has been here for a year, nothing has worked or is working. The UK has rolled out a massive vaccination programme yet still insist on weekly testing twice a week and banned travel.

What was the point of people getting vaccinated? I read the other day that a Californian firm founded by a Chinese businessman from Wuhan was paid 2.8 Billion to supply the lateral flow tests. Maybe that’s the point? It’s a big money-spinner. Now there’s a conspiracy theory for you.

On a less Rabit hole related theme, I’m up to 45 minutes of running now, 10 weeks in from my couch to 10K journey I have gone from struggling to run for 1 minute to running 3 x 15 mins with a 1 min break in between.

It won’t be long and I’ll hit 45 mins consecutive and be on target to reach the 10K goal.

Trading is going well, the crypto market is up and I have seen good gains on my Etherium portfolio. Gold hasn’t moved much which is surprising but that may be because people are looking more at Bitcoin for better gains. Either way, I’m happy to hold both and as these are long term strategies I Ok with wherever the price goes.

Weather-wise we have had a mixture of rain, snow, sun and wind all within a few hours. The weather has been crazy. Last night it snowed quite hard for a while and today It’s like a summers day in Spain. We will be out later with our girls. A long walk and playtime in the playground. 

I have been really busy with work, The gym is opening again and I’m excited about that. My book is coming on well, I’m getting into a routine for the editing which I hate. I will be sending it out to Beta readers soon for feedback. 

Then I’ll edit it again and send it to the publisher for more feedback.

I’ve also contacted a travel agent to seek advice on booking my wedding. I got engaged recently and I do not want to just sit on the engagement without setting a date. It’s hard to plan at the moment, I’d like to travel abroad and get married in a hot country, however, who knows what we will be able to do travel-wise.

But I’m not stopping going forward with plans. It’s important to keep looking forward to things. It helps me massively to have hope in my life.

I’ll be writing some courses soon for my clients and adding a new coaching programme to my website so all in all I have a lot to do.

This leads me to this Podcast. I have struggled recently to get a show out every day and haven’t felt like I put much effort into it. I love doing it and want to continue for the long term. However, I may cut it back to three times per week. Probably Monday Wednesday and Friday’s 

My aim is to think about what I want to say in between shows rather than make it up as I go along. 

As I speak I am nearly at 100 episodes so I haven’t done badly, I just want to add more value. It’s a shame with Podcast that there isn’t much interaction with listeners so I have no idea what the majority of people think. 

So maybe I’ll go three times a week and gauge the volume of listens and see how it goes. 

Make sure you listen for the remainder...

Giving Feedback to employees -

The first step is to think about if your employee needs appreciation, mentoring or evaluation.

Appreciation is very straightforward, who doesn’t like to be appreciated? The trick is to get in quick. If an employee does something well, notice and appreciate the act. Tell them quickly why the memory is fresh for both of you. 

This will reinforce their behaviour to do more of the same. Acting quickly and positively will build better relationships. New employees or employees working on a project for the first time will benefit greatly from feeling appreciated. 

When we mentor our employees we are trying to help them learn and grow. They may deliver a speech and struggle in some of the presentations. This would be a good time to mentor and show how they can improve. 

Finally, we have the evaluation - this is when we let our employees know where they stand. We can let them know if they are meeting expectations or not. 

When in any of the situations you need to remember one key thing - There are three aspects to consider - You, what you will say - your employee and either the problem or act you are appraising.

Many employers focus on the problem and not the employee. Do this and you will alienate the other person. If your employee feels unlistened to they will resent your advice. The last thing wanted is a meeting that ends in frustration and the employee feels attacked. 

The way forward is always to let your employees know your intentions. Side with them to work on the problem. You want them to do well, you are in their corner, let them know. 

If your employee expresses concerns, repeat what they tell you, this reinforces that you have listened. Loo at the concerns and ask for feedback on what the employee sees as a solution. Very often the employee has better ideas as they are on the ground floor seeing problems as they happen.

When you listen to your employee try to see their point of view. Do not judge, instead show you empathise with them. This will reduce stress and allow for a better understanding of each other.

Add praise whenever you can, people love to be praised. Obviously not for every little detail as people will start to block it out. In study’s, 80% of managers say they praise regularly however on 20% of employees say they hear the praise. 

Effective managers give way more praise than criticism. A study at the University of Michigan found the highest performing teams received 5.6 times more praise for every criticism. 

Praise is most effective when the recognition is because the act benefitted the team. When an employee works on something they are good at for part of their job, they get rewarded anyway for doing their job, when the task benefits the whole team, this is a great time to praise. 

Letting employees know how they benefit others creates awareness of how they impact the whole business. 

Praise your employees for benefitting the team and they will be hungry to do more. The more the team benefits the stronger the company grows as a unit. 

The hardest part of feedback is when the conversation starts with a negative and a difficult. Always give negative feedback on a 1-2-1 basis the only exception is when the issue concerns the whole team. 

When addressing a team, be careful not to single out just one person. 

When I coach my employees it is always with a growth mindset, this shows them that everything they need to improve can be learned. For instance, if an employee didn’t sell a product. I wouldn’t tell him he was terrible at sales and a bad negotiator.

Read more at www.taylormadecoaching.co.uk

My Little girl took her first steps today and I was there to see it. It was a wonderful experience that I will never forget.

Im so happy to have a life where I can switch off from work and enjoy being with my family.

In this episode, I talk about the importance of having a work-life balance and having fun in your life,   

Today I was supposed to plan out a new coaching programme for my coaching business. Unfortunately, our babysitter cancelled and we had to change plans. 

Luckily I have a life that is completely free and I can do what I want when I want, so I took most of the day off and hardly worked at all.

Coincidently having this type of life is how we will be coaching our clients to be able to live their lives. 

 In this episode, I talk a little about the changes we are making and why we will be making them. 

Last year has been a challenge for many, myself included. Recently I have seen some normality come back and people seem to be a bit more relaxed. 

Today I have been running, seen a Dinosaur and went on a very long walk. All because I wanted to use my time to get fit and start connecting with people again.