Education Matters

The question of whether or not professional coaches SHOULD or SHOULD NOT give advice has been the subject of countless debates in recent years.

The Coaching Academy’s Kris Robertson provides an opinion.

Respected coaches such as US Coaching CEO Dave Buck of ‘Coachville’, a staunch supporter of coaches offering advice said ‘The client does not have all the answers.  If they did they wouldn’t need to hire you’, and Michael Neill, author, radio presenter, Master NLP Trainer and the man Paul McKenna describes as ‘the finest success coach in the world today’ said ‘This idea of not giving advice comes from some bizarre idea that your clients are so pathetic and helpless that if you tell them what to do they have to do it’.

On the other hand, The Coaching Academy, Europe’s leading Coach Training Organisation, teach their students that the purest form of coaching is often the most beneficial for the client and in this scenario, there is no room for advice.  Kris Robertson, Operations Director at The Coaching Academy explains:

The Coaching Academy is a keen advocate of the non-directive approach to coaching.  Myles Downey says that coaching is ‘the art of facilitating the performance, learning and development of others’, a definition which is supported internationally across the industry.

However many coaches differ on their definition of coaching and as a result, the services on offer can be very different.

Firstly it is important to differentiate between using coaching skills and working as a professional coach.  Coaching skills such as rapport building, listening, questioning, goal setting and belief challenging are, after all, fantastic skills to have in a variety of disciplines including mentoring, consulting, therapy, counselling etc.  Working as a professional coach however is about using these skills, working as a catalyst in helping a client move forward towards the goals they set for themselves – and by definition, a catalyst facilitates change without changing itself.    Through offering advice, suggestion or leading a client down a path the coach sees as beneficial, disempowers the client, takes away their ownership of the goal and action, implies that the coach is the expert on the clients’ topics and issues and denies the client the satisfaction of personal discovery and achievement.

Is it any wonder that there is a certain amount of ignorance, confusion and mixed messages in the coaching community around the definition of coaching when mentors, consultants and coaches are all offering the same service?  If professional mentors have been there, done that and got the t-shirt to be able to offer advice to those taken under their wing; how is the perception of this intervention different to a coach offering advice and solution?  It is akin to including a croissant as part of a Full English Breakfast or a footballer picking up the ball and running with it.

Empowering the client to approach their goals, obstacles, actions and personal discovery of the way forward that fits who they are, is what distinguishes coaching from other helping professions.

Happy Coaching!

Delivering a workshop for the first time can be a daunting experience to say the least. And like any other skill it can be learned easily, and the more you do it the better you get.

To deliver your workshop and know that you have made a lasting positive impact on someone’s life in just one day is one of the most rewarding things you can do. To kick start, all that is required is your passion for the topic of your workshop.

Passion creates motivation and with motivation comes mastery. Showing your enthusiasm in an area of your passion is positively infectious; inevitably this will shine through in your delivery and is essential to engage and win over the participants; and your confidence continually grows.

Over the past fourteen years I have developed and learned several ways to engage workshop participants and build confidence as a workshop leader; my top tips include:

1. Workshop preparation and design. Thorough preparation is essential to deliver with impact.

1. a. Know the purpose, objective and expected outcome of the workshop as a whole. This is critical when communicating the benefits of your workshop; and it also sets expectations for the participants. Designing a successful workshop is dependent on delivering on these expectations.
2. b. Prepare the outline of the day. List all the items/exercises that need to happen to deliver the overall expectation. Organise each item/exercise such that the learner experiences a logical progressive growth from beginning to end. This creates an agenda. For every item on the agenda, be clear on its description, purpose, and the learning it will provide to the participants.
3. c. Keep the participants in mind at all times. This is about sharing what you know and designing creative exercises that benefit those attending.
4. d. Prepare concise and precise workbooks based on your final agenda. Note that the purpose of the workbooks is for each participant to record their own personal learning as a result of each exercise.
5. e. Time all items on your agenda to keep on track and finish at the expected time.
6. f. Design your exercises to encourage interaction and movement. This keeps the energy flowing!

2. Know your content. Knowing what you are talking about in advance gives energy of competence. This enables you to focus on connecting with the participants and building rapport. Knowing your content is very different from reciting from notes, presentations or scripts, be careful with this as you can lose the attention of participants. On the other end of the scale, some people “blag” their way through, again this can be ineffective as the leader begins to focus on speaking opposed to communicating. As the workshop leader and messenger, your content should be short, brief and to the point, you deliver key impactful messages that drive the material deep with purpose, power and connection. Live and breathe your workshop content in the days leading up to the workshop to build your confidence.

3. Be comfortable in your own style of delivery. Your product is you, so it is important to develop and understand your own unique style of delivery. It is very beneficial to practise your delivery by attending presentation classes or workshops. This enables you to learn powerful presentation techniques, practise them in a safe environment and adopt them to make them your own. You will also understand your strengths as a workshop leader and the areas you need to develop. In addition, I recommend that in any workshops you attend as a participant you should observe carefully what the leader does and how they do it. Note everything that worked, and for those items that were not so effective ask yourself how you could do it better! Importantly, be authentic, open, and honest and show your humour in your delivery. Be who you are. This entices participants to open up also and encourages interaction building good positive energy.

4. Manage your state. Manage your self-talk in advance of delivering your workshop. Set yourself up for a powerful positive outcome. Allow yourself the flexibility that it is ok to make some mistakes. Know that your passion and preparation builds your confidence and overrides any fears. Know that it is ok if you do not know the answers to everything. Know that it is more than good enough to come across as the wonderful person you are.

5. Set frames for the day. As soon as you establish the acceptable pattern for the day, people will follow. As early as possible in the workshop set these frames, For example, one frame may include getting agreement from everyone to work with a positive mindset. By setting the frames effectively, you win cooperation from the participants and also these frames will come in very handy when you have to deal with a very negative person or a potential heckler. Using certain linguistic techniques you can refer back to these frames if faced with some obstruction. If you are unsure about what frames you should set, think of your top three worst scenarios and set frames at the outset to deal with these in advance.

6. Keep the participants engaged. The most important thing is what you do. Speak with passion and do what you want the participants to do. Lead by example; introduce each exercise by examples and/or demonstration.

The world’s leading authority on creativity and conceptual thinking, Edward de Bono has applied his thinking skills to subjects such as business, economics, foreign policy, health and education and has filled nearly 70 books with his ideas on his favourite subject. Now aged in his early 70s (the exact age remains a secret – from female enquirers at least), he paused between one of his many international engagements to share his thoughts on everything from coaching to creativity.

By Marie-Louise Cook.

You’ve said that a key underlying restraining force in the work of a coach or a consultant is the almost singular use of analysis and critique as a thinking methodology. What should coaches or consultants use?

Edward de Bono: ‘The point about the Greek thinking, the Greek gang of three, is that it is very useful just like the rear left wheel of a motorcar. It is very useful, nothing wrong with it at all. But it is not sufficient by itself. We need to add conceptual thinking, creative thinking and design thinking in addition to our analysis and judgement thinking. There’s nothing wrong with it; it’s just not sufficient.’

Are you familiar with coaches or consultants who have used parallel thinking?

Edward de Bono: ‘No, I’m familiar with corporations that have used it but not specifically coaches. I do have a network of 1200 trainers worldwide who do a lot of training. But they do more training than coaching.’

What is the simplest way to introduce creativity into an organisation?

Edward de Bono: ‘First of all you need to have someone who is responsible for that task, someone who is the greatest champion, if you like. And this would be the person who would organise training, the person who would put together what I call a ‘creative hit list’: defining certain focus areas which needed new thinking and creativity, and the person who would act as a collecting point for ideas which people generated. In other words, you’ve got to create someone outside the normal hierarchy who’s specifically there to encourage, receive and develop ideas because the normal hierarchy would rather not deal with ideas because it’s extra hassle, extra risk, extra trouble.’

When you say ‘someone outside the normal hierarchy’, do you mean a consultant or trainer?

Edward de Bono: ‘No, it can be a person within the organisation, but she or he has a specific role if you like as a ‘Chief Ideas Officer’ or something. And that person’s role is to help and encourage creativity within the organisation.’

Do you know of organisations that have a Creative Ideas Officer?

Edward de Bono: ‘Well, it happened with DuPont – I did a lot of work with them –
and the person who invited me in became that person. And he organised training, he organised meetings, he set up a network of people who did creative thinking. And set up in fact, in the end, a centre for creative thinking and innovation.’

What effect did that have on the organisation in terms of productivity, design etc?

Edward de Bono: ‘I do remember they opened this project, a big project, $30 million or $40 million dollar project, that sort of thing.’

When leaders encourage creativity, what qualities do they need to succeed?

‘Listen to good ideas, wherever they come from, and endorse them without feeling threatened by them. Leaders should be interested in two things. One is the survival of the organisation, and its effectiveness in carrying out its mission and values. The other is to get the best out of the people in their organisation. They should have a willingness to listen, and a willingness to innovate – or at least to encourage other people to innovate.’

Will people revert to their old way of thinking once the pressure is on them?

Edward de Bono: ‘Not necessarily, once you’ve learnt the skill. And the point really is, there are two aspects of the skill. One aspect is when you specifically say, right, now here is the focus, here is the subject, I want to be creative about it and you use the tools deliberately. And the second aspect is where some of the attitudes attached to the skill become part of your everyday thinking. Both of those have an effect. And when the pressure’s on, obviously you are going to try to find a way out of it, which is going to bring up your creative skills.’

What steps can be taken to improve the way the world thinks?

Edward de Bono: ‘I think the first point is, to really say, “Okay we are going to take creativity and innovation seriously.” A lot of people pay lipservice to it and say, “Yes, we are creative and from time to time ideas happen or someone else has a successful idea and we borrow it or copy it.” But they don’t really take it seriously. So, the first step is for corporations to take creativity seriously and then to do something about it, like having some training, and then set up some structure like the idea box I mentioned, perhaps the centre for creativity, to make it happen.’

You’ve chosen to focus a lot of your energy on improving the way that children think. Obviously, they are the future thinkers but is it possible to alter the way that adults think?

Edward de Bono: ‘Yes. I do a lot of work with adults. One corporation used to spend 30 days on their multi-national project discussions but using my method, they do it in two days. In the United States, juries have been trained in my method so successfully that they’ve altered the law and the Judge can now ask that the jury be trained in that thinking style. So, adults do use these things very effectively.

‘Another time in South Africa, a group of workshops using just one of my techniques generated 21,000 ideas at an afternoon for a steel corporation.’

You’ve set up the Centre for New Thinking in Malta. What areas will it tackle and what has the reception been to the Centre?

Edward de Bono: ‘The reception’s been good and there are some big projects that we have in mind, for example to set up a World Council for New Thinking because representative bodies like the United Nations are not in a position to put forward new ideas. I’ve set up a Council for New Thinking to generate, collect and test ideas with public opinion polls. So these things will add the dimension of creativity to our existing structures and government systems.’

What sort of areas will you tackle?

Edward de Bono: ‘It could be anything. It could be major conflicts, employment, trade, health, or education.’

How do you come up with new ideas for books?

Edward de Bono: ‘Let’s put it this way, thinking is the most important human activity. Nothing is more important than thinking. Now there are dozens of books on golf, on dieting, on fishing, on yachting, so it’s not surprising that there are many, many aspects on thinking. Different types of thinking: thinking for children; thinking for businesses; creative thinking; constructive thinking; value thinking – so it’s a vast subject.’

Normally if there are dozens of books on golf, it’s often by different authors – you seem to have been the most prolific….

Edward de Bono: ‘Yes, it’s a huge field.’

Do you have dozens more book ideas?

Edward de Bono: ‘Oh yes, absolutely. I’m just starting. Like Stephen King says in one of his interviews, “I’m just starting.” He’s only done 37,000 or something!’

And how old are you, now?

Edward de Bono: ‘I never tell ladies my age. That’s not good policy!’

Okay! Where do you live?

Edward de Bono: ‘ Technically, I am resident in Malta, where I was born. I spend some time of the year, less than three months, in London; sometime in Australia where I have an institute in Melbourne; some in New York, some in Italy where I have an apartment in Venice; some in France; so I move around a lot.’

Do you have any plans to slow down?

Edward de Bono: ‘Yes, I’m going to meet a fat, cross-eyed hunchback, who’s going to look after me, and then I will slow down.’

Why continue to give talks and travel so much when you could really retire?

Edward de Bono: ‘Yes, that’s true, I often think about that, and maybe one day I will do more than think about it.’

Are you pursuing a mission?

Edward de Bono: ‘When people show enthusiasm I tend to respond to it. But the time will come when I will have to say, “Well, I’d like to but I am not going to.”’

But that time is not close?

Edward de Bono: ‘No.’

What areas do you continue to work in?

Edward de Bono: ‘The whole area of thinking, interaction with people, and the area of design, value creation… there’s a lot more to be done.’

What are you working on now?

Edward de Bono: ‘There’s a book of mine coming out. That’s more training in creative thinking – there are 62 different exercises and so on. I’ve written a couple of books recently, in the last two weeks, and they will be coming out in due course. So there is a lot more to do. One book is on the rise of the East and the danger of the West being pushed aside.’

Do you feel your ideas for education are better accepted in developing countries?

Edward de Bono: ‘In some ways, yes. I mean, China is doing a pilot project. And they are thinking of putting my work into four million schools. In India, they’ve just introduced my ideas into 55,000 schools. So there’s a big use… in Venezuela by law every school has to do it; so it varies.’

Why are the developing countries more ready to accept your ideas?

Edward de Bono: ‘I think they know they have some distance to go, whereas the developed countries are very complacent. They think everything they have is just perfect, can’t be altered, can’t be improved.

‘It’s what mathematicians call a local equilibrium. In any self-organising system, you get local equilibria, which settle down and are very difficult to change. Complacency is a sort of overall word that covers the process in society.’

How did you come up with your 6 Thinking Hats method?

Edward de Bono: ‘That’s really by having started with lateral thinking and every time an idea came up everyone was just ready to attack it. It seemed to me there was more to thinking than just attack. And that argument was not a very good way of exploring a subject. That’s how the 6 Hats came about.’

Does it work in all business meetings?

Edward de Bono: ‘It works in all ages, from four year olds to 90 year olds, from Down’s Syndrome children to Nobel Prize winning people, from Japan, Korea, South America, North America, Europe, South Africa.’

What area of your work are you most proud of?

Edward de Bono: ‘Clearly the Lateral Thinking, based on what I described in The Mechanism of Mind, is a huge change, historically; for the first time in human history we can understand creativity as the behaviour of a certain type of information system. Now that is a huge step forward. Philosophers have been playing with words for centuries without getting very far. So, for the first time, we can relate to the behaviour of a certain type of information system in the human brain.’

Is there any person that you admire, in terms of their thinking?

Edward de Bono: ‘No one immediately comes to mind. The answer is no one particularly – I am sure there are a lot of people around that perhaps I don’t know them well or don’t know enough about them, but no one comes to mind.’

What values drive you in your work?

Edward de Bono: ‘In terms of my writing, it must be simplicity. In terms of value, it must be effectiveness – making things happen –
and practicality. It’s no use having some theory which a few people sitting in some corner say is marvellous, I’d much rather have a theory that millions of youngsters can use, and so on.’

Why do you believe that efficiency, new technology and problem-solving are no guarantee of success?

Edward de Bono: ‘I wouldn’t say they are no guarantee of success. They may be successful in certain areas but they are not enough. They don’t open up new markets. They don’t give any particular marketing concepts. They don’t give you any new products and so on. I’m not saying they are bad at all. They are just not enough. The rear left wheel on a motorcar is excellent, I’ve no problem with it at all. But if you believe that all you need on a motorcar is the rear left wheel, then I have a problem with that belief.’

What is needed for success?

Edward de Bono: ‘The ability to change concepts; the ability to find different ways of looking at things, different ways of doing things, considering all alternatives, examining values, creating new values – all these are part of it.’

Is there one question that you wished you’d been asked?

Edward de Bono: ‘That’s a good question. Maybe it’s that one. I think the simple question is, ‘If you know, why do you consider thinking to be the most important of all activity and human behaviour?

‘Because thinking is at the very bottom of how we appreciate our values, how we deliver our values, how we create things, how we look after other people, how we look after the world. In other words, without thinking or the limits of thinking we certainly can’t make progress.’

Why do you think it took so many hundreds of years…?

Edward de Bono: ‘That’s a very good question. Let’s look at one small aspect of it, why for 2,400 years were we happy with argument for exploring a subject when it is so extremely inefficient? Why did it take 2,400 years to develop Parallel Thinking and the 6 Hats? That is extraordinary because today it is a very simple system and there’s no magic about it. Understanding creativity is a little bit more difficult because we do need to understand more about how the brain works, which was not available in the past. So, it is extraordinary. And the reason is, well, there are three reasons.

‘Firstly, during the Renaissance, when Greek thinking came to Europe, the people running schools were Church people – and they were very interested in argument and critical thinking to prove heretics wrong. So that became the main interest of education: argument, critical thinking, and logic. They were not interested in creative thinking, constructive thinking, design thinking, conceptual thinking. That is one reason.

‘Secondly, we always believed that philosophy was dealing with thinking. And unfortunately, it was not. It was dealing with the analysis of language and the analysis of meaning. We thought that was looking after thinking.

‘Then we also considered that mathematics was all about thinking –
the answer is yes – but it has limited applications. So there are a number of reasons why we have not given attention to thinking.

‘Now in the schools where some of my thinking is used, research has shown that it improves performance in every other subject by between 30-100%.’

It’s been a few decades since you came up with lateral thinking. Did you think more progress would have been made?

Edward de Bono: ‘During the last 30 years, a great deal of progress has been made. If you compare 30, maybe 40 years, with 2,400 years, that’s a very short time.’

You’ve said, ‘Corporations hate new ideas.’ Do you believe that is still the case?

Edward de Bono: ‘Yes. I mean, corporations love ideas that work, but new ideas… you don’t know if they are going to work. And testing them, trying them, involves extra work, extra hassle, and extra risk and if they don’t work, then you get blamed for them. So, corporations love ideas that work. But, short of copying them from others, there’s no way that you can tell immediately that an idea is going to work. A new idea is a disruption. And most corporations like continuity of what they are doing, not disruptions.’

Is there any way around that?

Edward de Bono: ‘Only by, say, the new idea champion who I mentioned, as someone who keeps pushing the idea rather than just have it dismissed once. Then the corporation needs to say to itself, “We are going to put some effort, some thinking time, and some resources into trying new ideas from time to time.” You can’t prove an idea is going to work unless you’ve tried it.’

What qualities do you believe that leaders need when they are trying to encourage better thinking?

Edward de Bono: ‘The leader gets there because he or she, at the lower level, has been good at continuity and good at problem solving, which is fine – but when he gets to the top position, he could delegate all that. And what you are supposed to be in, new ideas, innovation and so on… but you are not chosen, you’re not there for that reason. So, it’s hard to see how suddenly a Chief Executive can acquire skills that he or she didn’t have on the way up.’

How can they acquire those skills?

Edward de Bono: ‘Firstly, they have to realise these are important skills. They have to take it seriously and perhaps realise it’s time to get some training in those areas.’

You’ve said that teaching people to be constructive rather than destructive is one of the keys to creativity. Is it possible to reverse the thinking traditions of 2,400 years?

Edward de Bono: ‘Yes. Once you lay out a way to think then people can switch into these ways, rather like ‘6 Hats’, which is now very widely used. I will just give you an example of how widely used. A Nobel Prize economist told me last year, “Last week I was in Washington, at a top economics meeting. They were using your 6 Hats.” Later in the year, a woman in New Zealand said, “I was teaching your 6 Hats in the highlands of Papua New Guinea, which is the most primitive place on Earth. It’s almost Stone Age culture. I went back a month later and they said, ‘That’s changed our lives”.’

‘So the same framework used by top economists in Washington is being used by people in Papua New Guinea.’

FURTHER INFORMATION
Edward de Bono is creator of 6 Thinking Hats, Lateral Thinking, and Management Thinking, and is widely regarded as the leading international authority on creative thinking and the direct teaching of thinking skills. He is the author of nearly 70 books. Born in Malta, Dr. de Bono was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford and has held faculty appointments at the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, London, and Harvard. He is an M.D. with a Ph.D. in psychology and physiology.

I firmly believe that you have to take action if you want to improve your confidence and self belief.  Just talking about it isn’t enough. I have worked with clients who use affirmations over and over again and then get despondent, because there is no lasting change and when I ask them, ”

People with poor confidence may attribute it to the build up of past negative experiences in life and find their inner voice constantly criticising, punishing and belittling every task or accomplishment they attempt. Whereas people with healthy confidence have an inner voice that conveys positive and reassuring messages, even when things go wrong.  These people choose to learn from their mistakes and use them to grow.  Someone with low confidence may use the failures to beat themselves up with. In order to move forward, the client with low self-esteem or confidence needs to believe that he or she can change it.

As coaches, we do a wonderful job supporting our clients’ belief that they can change. We, and they, may be aware that change doesn’t always happen quickly or easily, but armed with the tools and strategies that coaching provides, the desire to change through taking consistent and regular action, a client can start to transform their beliefs about themselves.

So how can we help our clients suffering with confidence issues?

I would like to suggest three steps, which I have used to great effect with clients.

Step 1: Challenge the Inner Voice
The first step is to start to challenge all those negative messages of the inner voice. For example, after being turned down for a date a person may feel rejected, embarrassed or humiliated. They tell themselves they are unattractive and that nobody will ever like or care about them, and that they will always be alone. To counteract those negative inner messages, a person could choose to reframe saying for example: “Never mind. It’s his or her loss that s/he doesn’t want to go out with me. I know I’m an attractive and good person. I will find someone else”. Help clients to catch themselves being negative and then practise reframing the problem.

When working with clients on their limiting beliefs, one exercise I might use is to get them to write down any negative inner thoughts around a goal or topic, and then write down their reframe to counteract them. For some individuals, this simple step, can work wonders at re-programming the mind to think more positively, for others it is a great first step even though they will require other interventions to support their change.  Try it!

Remember, you have to do something well to feel good about yourself. On my upcoming CD set – Breaking through Limiting Beliefs, there are two new exciting and different exercises that are particularly good for helping challenge limiting mind chatter as well as dealing with emotions such as embarrassment and rejection.

Step 2: Practice Self-Like
Depending on how your client responds to this, as a homework exercise, get them to write down 50 things they like about themselves between now and the next session – they may need some support with this from friends and family. If 50 really is too overwhelming for them, start them off listing 25.  It can be absolutely anything, from shape of their fingernails to the c

olour of their eyes.  Whatever figure you start with, when they have done it, encourage them to add at least one new thing they like about themselves EVERY day.  Do this for a month and see how it helps them to build up good feelings about themselves.

Some coaches encourage their clients to keep a Personal Success Journal which highlights all the successes, achievements and positive things they have ever done in their lives – however small. Included in this, could be reminders of accomplishments such as certificates and positive letters they have received in the past.   The great thing about this exercise is if they start to doubt themselves, they can go look at all their good points!. Clients have told me this simple exercise has really helped them take steps towards good self belief and greater confidence.

Step 3: Enlist the Support of Others
For some it can be very difficult to improve self-esteem or confidence without help from others, but this can be the most difficult step. People with low confidence or poor self image often won’t ask for help because they don’t think they deserve it.   Here are some simple things to try out:

Ask really trusted friends to tell you what you do well and get them to write it down

Ask them to tell you 5 things they like about you, again get them to write it down

Find a friend (or a coach) who will listen to you – without trying to fix things for you

Ask friends and family for more hugs (it’s reported we need 15 a day for good health!)

Remind those who love you to keep telling you that they do (tell them too!)

Look to pay other people genuine compliments – and if they pay them back….. just say Thank You!

Finally, I would encourage a client with low confidence to spend 5 minutes every day, sitting quietly, visualising and talking through how a life of peace, happiness and great confidence would feel to them. This is very powerful.  Then…. commit to 3 actions to start to make it happen.  On the CD’s there is a great visualisation that supports clients in shaking up their limiting beliefs about themselves, so they can start to take new actions.

Remember, in order to improve you confidence you have to be willing to try something new or different, even small things count, notice your progress and then start feeling good about yourself!

Preparation, moderation and communication are the ‘3 wise keys’ to surviving the financial and emotional stress and strains of Christmas during the economic downturn, says one of the UK’s leading life coaches today.

Rasheed Ogunlaru whose clients include pop stars and entrepreneurs says:

“We needlessly stretch our finances, family relations and waste-lines at Christmas. While it’s a season of good cheer for children, it often spells tears, stress, debt, break-up and unhappiness for adults. The secret to a Happy Christmas it is preparation, communication and moderation: Plan in advance, avoid arguments and spend, eat and drink in relation to your ability”, says Rasheed Ogunlaru, whose clients have included pop stars and entrepreneurs.

The Three Wise Keys of Christmas

1.    Preparation:

• Set a budget you can afford and stick to it: don’t give in all the ads, expectation and hype.
• Decide who you do and don’t want to spend time with over Xmas and for how long.
• Give everyone time and space to plan and to adjust/ overcome any disappointment.

2.    Moderation:

• Are times tough? Set a gift truce. Agree not to buy each other gifts, or only buy for kids.
• Know your limits when it comes to food and drink
• Partying? Have fun but be measured – work and social relationships can be harmed at Xmas

3.    Communication:

• Discuss sensitively: tell all concerned what you will / won’t be doing well in advance.
• Avoid arguments – everyone can be on edge so step back to safer ground.
• Bury the hatchet: use this time of peace and goodwill to end feuds and fights.

“The silver lining to the downturn, redundancies and tough times in 2009 is that thousands of people will turn from spending absurd amounts of money to spending lots of quality time with loved ones – and getting their values, life balance and priorities right. My Christmas wish is to see more fitter, happier people- and fewer with Christmas induced debt in 2010.” says Ogunlaru.

Rasheed Ogunlaru is one of the UK’s leading life / business coaches and motivational speakers. His clients include entertainers, entrepreneurs, politicians the public and organisations. He Author of The Gift of Inner Success is the partner Business Coach of British Library.