A Fireside Chat with Dr. Patrick Williams

Sometimes we complicate the original intent.

If you haven’t heard me mention, I am a long-term, proud member of Rotary International.

The wisdom of this 100-year old service club with millions of members worldwide is worth considering and embodying in your life and your business as a coach.

For example, The Rotary International, offers their members guidelines for conduct, they call it The Four Way Test. 

A simple list that the coaching community may use to understand and implement the ICF Standards of Ethical Conduct…an easy reminder of the intent of all the ethical guidelines of our coaching profession.
The Four Way Test of the things we say and do (Rotary International):

• Is it the TRUTH?
• Is it FAIR to all concerned?
• Will it build GOOD WILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?
• Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?

Like many things in life, we sometimes complicate the original intent. Of course, we need ethical standards and systematized procedures for our profession of coaching. And yet, using the Four Way Test provides a great shortcut and reminder that can help all of us avoid most ethical dilemmas.

I invite you to write the Four Way Test on a note card and place it near your phone or computer (along with a copy of the ICF ethical standards). Observe how these simple criteria assist in the application of coaching ethics and can greatly positively affect your coaching.

Coaching the Global Village

Coaching the Global Village ™ ©:    A THOUGHT paper on powerful possibilities

Proposal:  To utilize the power of the coach approach as exemplified today with the evolution of the profession of Life Coaching for personal and professional growth, I am proposing that a Coaching the Global Village program/project be developed to create positive social change for the underserved, undervalued, underfed, undereducated, and underappreciated in many of the villages and towns of the world, especially in places like Africa, South America and Mexico amongst others.

My big vision is for a coaching initiative I am calling "Coaching the Global Village" in partnership with Rotary International, use the coach approach to combat hunger, poverty, and education in the poorer regions of the world.
Rotary of which I was a member for 15 years  is already in almost all countries...So i hope to propose a joint effort with them and then get coaches to volunteer their skills in third world countries.  Just as the medical profession has DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS, we surely have many highly skilled coaches who would volunteer their skills to provide coaching to village leaders and men and women who want to improve their lives economically, socially, spiritually and live more purposefully and in a way of thriving rather than surviving.  Yes, there are many services they need, but coaching as a conversation of empowerment, will evoke their own wisdom, and guidance to make a collaborative and creative effort to change their living situation. If more food is needed, what are the pathways? If better education is needed, what can be done creatively?  All of this can be accomplished in conjunction with existing governmental and international programs, and it can be magnified in ways outside of governmental bureaucracy just as Rotary International has done with eradicating polio throughout the world.  Or the model of micro banking that has been shown to be effective in small villages in third world countries.
And through these efforts, this initiative would win the Nobel peace prize!!!!!
Patrick Williams, EdD
Master Certified Coach and Psychologist
Author, Speaker, Trainer, Coach and
Ambassador of Life Coaching

Dear Fellow Coaches:

I just returned from my second National Wellness Conference in Stevens Point on the University of Wisconsin campus. I love this conference. I went last year for the first time and delivered two presentations on coaching. My colleague and the director of our wellness coaching classes at ILCT, Dr. Michael Arloski, also presented on coaching. Michael has been going to this conference for 25 years and encouraged me to go and I am so glad he did. Coaching is becoming a hot topic at the wellness conference and they now give continuing education credits for ICF certified coaches!!!

I encourage you to attend next year, and even submit a proposal to present. This is a conference (www.nationalwellness.org) where everyone wears shorts and t-shirts all week, does Tai Chi, yoga, NIA classes and more in the morning, noon and evening and the presentations and keynotes are very good. So if you want to learn, and make new friends in a college atmosphere come to Stevens Point, Wisconsin the week of July 15, 2006...and stay in the college dorms for a real campus experience (but bring your own pillow!!!)

Happy Coaching,

Pat

SMart Marriages conference and RElationship Coaching

Lisa Kramer and I (Pat Williams) just completed a very successful introduction to relationship coaching at the Smart Marriages conference in Dallas Texas  ( see this link for info http://www.smartmarriages.com/williams.html) Lisa is on the faculty at ILCT (www.lifecoachtraining.com) and teaches the foundational training as well as an advanced relationship coaching course.

This was very well recieved as a new powerful approach to take good marriages to great marriages.  Lisa was a fabulous partner in this all day clinic and she will likely be presenting next year in ATlanta.  Check out Lisa's website at www.livingwithintention.com and read her comments on this blog every week

Happy Coaching!

Dr. Pat