Launching a Practice...

The practice of Life Coaching that is! 

It's been nearly a year since completing a Life Coaching course, and one year of study with Argosy University towards a Bachelors degree in Psychology. I gained a passion for working with people during my time as a Sales and Business Development manager where simple practices of setting goals, working plans and writing out goals and dreams were foundational to lives changing for the better both personally and business wise.

During the last years of employment I had the honor of mentorship by a very wise manager who being immersed in Stephen Covey's "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" guided me into a realm of self actualization. The focus on was coaching others to realize the same seven principles by practice and education and all without judgement. He clued me into all the puzzle pieces of unlocking other peoples potential in ways that were meaningful to them. It was not normal management using methods of telling but of asking. Lots of questions. Asking questions at levels which brought about insight and revelation to the one giving answers.

All those experiences opened my eyes to a new calling and ultimately gave cause to leave the corporate world of sales into this new vocation of Life Coaching. My aim is to become an Art Therapist when I finally finish my Master's but in the meantime, it's a goal to practice the art of Life Coaching - a life ANew!

Here's the website just made this week: 
ANew Life Coaching and the facebook page as well: ANew Life Coaching - Facebook

Ranting on Craigslist Want Ads

It's become clear that finding jobs or employing people is not as simple as before. Searching is exhausting and employers demand far more from one person then should be. I posted this 6 days ago in the Arts | Media | Design category of jobs on Craigslist.

To Artists and company who seek to employ Artists: 

Everyday I read the various job posting from businesses and companies who want artists/graphics/web designers to work for them. You give an extensive grocery list of numerous, sometimes exotic ingredients needed to fulfill the tasks needed to run your business. You require degrees, experience of so many years, credentials, and proof of artistic ability.  

Really? You obviously don't know anything about how creative people live, move and breathe.  

Did you ever once think that artistic and creative people don't fit in your tidy little boxed jobs that pay a pittance for the things you ask for? First of all you are asking far too much of one person to do your print design, multi-media projects and web design and programming.  

You want ONE person to perform the work of at least THREE creative souls, and then pay them peanuts to jump and dance for their supper.
Seriously, are you stuck in the middle age thinking that you are the Lord of the Manor and we are your subjective surfs?  

As for all the graphic designers, artist, web people and anyone creative, you are selling yourself short by taking jobs from these JOB IN A BOX thinking companies. I know we all need income and work to stay afloat in this world especially with the economic challenges that our dear crumbling government has bestowed on us.  

We sell ourselves short by being the square peg pushed into the convenient round circle of the corporate American dream to be an artist or designer. Then it chips away our creativity until we are just rats on a wheel. Really? Is this what you signed up for when you paid for your expensive degree - $10 - $20 an hour grinding away at a job where you are under appreciated and under paid?
Viewing the job search in the creative ads in Craigslist is like lending yourself for a torture chamber experiment.  

I would rather work on a farm, in a grocery store or garden shop then to slave myself out to a company or business who wants to kill the Golden Goose -- the creativity inside me to create works they get paid extraordinary dollars for.
I am tired of sending out resumes and never hearing back from these businesses that simply don't get people at all, especially creative people. It's not just the pay I am asking for its recognition for a gift that can't be licensed, degreed or used without the utmost respect and appreciation. So this being said, I don't want your job offers unless you can give that in return.  

If you are likeminded, let me know! Perhaps we can educate the general public to the beauty of our gifts to this world that actually are meant to bring that giftedness out in everyone we meet, have contact with and know!  

"Art is an act of the soul, not the intellect. When we are dealing with people's dreams - their visions, really - we are in the realm of the sacred. We are involved with forces and energies larger than our own. We are engaged in a sacred transaction of which we know only a little: the shadow, not the shape." ― Julia Cameron