ASHLEY GOOD accepted into Forbes Coaches Council

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Ashley Good, a Transpersonal and Executive Coach in Business, High Performance and Spiritual Leadership has been accepted into the Forbes Coaches Council, an invitation-only community for leading business and career coaches.

Ashley Good joins other Forbes Coaches Council members, who are hand-selected, to become part of a curated network of successful peers and get access to a variety of exclusive benefits and resources, including the opportunity to submit thought leadership articles and short tips on industry-related topics for publishing on Forbes.com.

Forbes Councils combines an innovative, high-touch approach to community management perfected by the team behind Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) with the extensive resources and global reach of Forbes. As a result, Forbes Council members get access to the people, benefits and expertise they need to grow their businesses — and a dedicated member concierge who acts as an extension of their own team, providing personalized one-on-one support.

“It is really exciting and significant to see a company like Forbes raising the bar and using objective criteria to select and recognize leading coaches who are making an impact,” says Ashley. “My mission is to work with High Achievers and businesses who recognize coaching as a highly effective and superior technology for deep and profound growth. Being part of this global community opens a door to merge and integrate different approaches to the same ultimate destination.”

Scott Gerber, founder of Forbes Councils, says, “We are honored to welcome Ashley into the community. Our mission with Forbes Councils is to curate successful professionals from every industry, creating a vetted, social capital-driven network that helps every member make an even greater impact on the business world.”

For more information about Forbes Coaches Council, visit https://forbescoachescouncil.com/. To learn more about Forbes Councils, visit forbescouncils.com.

Be a better coach

As High Performance coaches, we often coach our clients through limiting beliefs. Clients tell us what they want and then we ask them why they don’t already have ‘it.’ Most of the time, we need to ask several questions – go at least 5 levels deep – in order to find the underlying belief that is driving the thought driving the emotion driving the behaviour.

Once we have identified the underlying belief that is holding them back we can then work with our clients to change their belief into something that is aligned and congruent with what they say they want.

This type of coaching can produce transformational results. Sometimes. But there is a deeper style of coaching that is far more effective at the level of true growth and awareness. And that is coaching for insights instead of through beliefs.  

At its core, coaching for insights can be summed up as talking less, listening more and really holding the space to allow the client to arrive at his or her own distinctions. We claim this IS what we do but we don’t do it in practice. Not really. Or rarely. Most coaches rush in to solve ‘the problem’ at the first identifiable hurdle.

Rarely does the master coach ever provide a solution. Because at the core, there are no problems. Only insights and deeper levels of awareness. The master coach asks questions and then holds the space.

In terms of results, coaching through beliefs provides our clients with powerful tools and resources they can use with deliberate intention in order to create lasting change. The weakness of this is that it requires the client to consistently and persistently apply these tools day in and day out before that change is embedded. It works from the outside in. Coaching for insight on the other hand creates a space that allows a deep internal shift in awareness which initiates the process of deep transformation from the inside out.

Here are 7 tips to keep you in the coaching-for-insight space:

1.     Practice the 80/20 rule – as a coach, you should be listening 80% of the time and speaking 20% of the time.

2.     Get comfortable with uncomfortable silence.

3.     Be willing to ask dumb questions.

4.     Don’t be attached to your clients having a breakthrough.  Its always cool when your client has a breakthrough but when you’re attached to that as an outcome you’re setting an agenda that is more about you then them and you’ll be steering them (unconsciously or consciously) to an ‘A Ha’ that might not even be real for them. Many times the most dramatic breakthroughs come in the plainest packages.

5.     When you think the client is ‘there’, go even deeper. When a client says ‘thank you’ at the end of what feels like a massive insight, they are wanting you to stop. THAT is the perfect time to go even deeper because that “thank you” is often an indicator that the ego is uncomfortable and feeling vulnerable – and now you’re in the zone of the REAL truth.   

6.     When a client diverts attention from the topic (eg makes a quip, changes the subject, asks a question back, makes a joke, deflects etc) be courageous enough to hold them in the discomfort.

7.     It is not always necessary or appropriate to ‘close the loop’ at the end of a coaching session by asking a client to commit to action. When a client has a true insight, leaving that door open can help them deepen, further and anchor their insights.

Think of ‘The Princess and the Pea’ as a metaphor for coaching for insight. If you were coaching through beliefs, you’d immediately find ‘the issue’ within the stack of 100 mattresses. All those mattresses might be an ‘obvious’ conclusion. If you were coaching for insight, you’d ignore what is obvious and go deeper and deeper until the pea emerged.

Just remember, YOU as the coach don’t need to see the pea. Its not our job to solve the problem or find the solution. The greatest coaches in the world - just like the greatest writers in the world - keep it simple, sunshine.

Fairy Floss Thoughts - the Extreme Danger of the "sticky" factor

Have you ever seen how they spin Fairy Floss (otherwise known as 'cotton candy' to the Yanks) onto a stick? They put the cardboard stick (lets call it a 'confectionary conducting rod') into a vat of fine silky sugar threads spinning around in circles. One fine sugary thread sticks to the conducting rod, then another sticks onto that, then another sticks onto that one and pretty soon you have a snowball in an avalanche and you wind up with a big cumulus cloud of spun sugar on a stick.

We too have an internal fairy floss spinning machine that is activated by our emotionally charged thoughts.  Thoughts that produce emotion, like fine sugary threads, "stick" onto each other and pretty soon, you have a snowball in an avalanche ...  a big cloud of thoughts gaining power and momentum. When we then communicate our thoughts to others, we activate their internal fairy floss spinning machine as well.

For simplicity's sake, let's say that blue fairy floss is negative and pink fairy floss is positive. Forgive the stereotype.

Every emotional thought generates a frequency in our brain. Neuroscientists studying brainwaves can determine when a person is thinking positive or negative thoughts depending on what area of the brain lights up. So, every thought generates a frequency and every frequency sends out a call signal ... much like a mating call ... looking for its vibrational match, its partner.

As soon as you begin to linger on any negative thought - any thought that doesn't make you feel good - you activate your internal blue fairy floss machine. If you start hovering on thoughts that create any kind of internal suffering - anger, sadness, disappointment, pain, frustration, envy, rage, jealousy, disappointment etc etc etc - those 'blue' thoughts stick onto your conducting rod and attract other thoughts that produce the same negative emotion. Your thoughts are a snowball in an avalanche and the consequences are much more dangerous than you might imagine.

There are schools of thought that say negative entities - that are very much alive and real - gain energy through negative thoughts. 'Dark energies' are continually trying to bait us into feeding them and we feed them when we begin giving energy to negative thoughts. In other words, when you spin your blue fairy floss, you are feeding the devil.

When you then communicate these thoughts with external language to another person, you activate their internal fair floss machine as well and they start spinning blue onto their internal conductor rods.

Have you ever looked up at the sky and seen huge cumulous clouds that move from different directions to converge together until the whole sky becomes one giant cloud? This is exactly what happens when you communicate negativity of any form. Your blue fairy floss cloud activates someone else's blue fairy floss cloud and because they are 'sticky' they begin to converge instead of remaining separate. You then begin to create a critical mass that becomes more and more difficult to disperse. Just as Mother Nature shows us, huge dark clouds are a sign of impending weather and what starts out looking like a mild thunderstorm can quickly spiral into a catastrophic Force 5 Hurricane that demolishes life. Do not underestimate the power of your thoughts and how much force is behind them when you begin communicating them externally.

At the same time, pink fairy floss has the opposite effect. When you hover on thoughts that make you feel good - love, gratitude, appreciation, joy, laughter, compassion, acceptance, faith etc etc - they too are 'sticky' and soon, another silky pink thread of positivity sticks to the first one, and then another one and then one after that and pretty soon you have a big pink cumulous cloud of internal fairy floss.

When you communicate with positive intention and thoughts to another person, you activate their internal fairy floss machine and they also begin spinning pink. That then has a sticky factor and attracts other thoughts that are the same vibration. Where the blue fairy floss leads to abject and difficult-to-manage suffering, pink fairy floss leads to joy and abundance. So, any time you have a thought that is connected to an emotion you are either creating suffering or you are creating joy - what you must realise is that you are not just creating that experience for yourself but for those around you. We are all contributing to a critical mass - one that has the potential to lead us to cataclysmic suffering or peace and joy.

What if it really is true that you feed the devil when you linger on negativity? What if it really is true that you feed and empower the devil's army when you communicate any kind of negativity to others? What if there truly is a malevolent evil in our midst and it is alive, and it is solely dependant on our thoughts to give it power?  What if that evil exists for the purpose of creating a personal hell for each and every one of us? What if every time you spoke you were either feeding the devil or uplifting the angels? What if you were directly responsible for causing harm to others when you indulge in blue fairy floss?

Remember this - EVERY emotional thought and word is sticky. Every thought and word has a vibration. Next time you feel angry, upset or disappointed with another person, a situation or an event, be very careful in your decision to share those thoughts with another person and then HOW you choose to share. Reach for the pink fairy floss - spin your thoughts and words from a place of love and faith instead of anger and fear. Be vigilant in your thoughts and words. There is so much more at stake than you realise.