Relocation & Expat Coach

New Year's eve is like every other night ...

'New Year's eve is like every other night; there is no pause in the march of the universe, no breathless moment of silence among created things that the passage of another twelve months may be noted; and yet no man has quite the same thoughts this evening that come with the coming of darkness on other nights.'  Hamilton Wright Mabie

Now that the Christmas celebrations are over and the New Year is approaching, I wonder how many of you are beginning to think about what 2011 will bring. 

Percentage wise a large number of people will have taken three days off this week (if you are working on the UK based public holiday calendar or maybe more if you are not), and will be spending that time with family and friends maybe ... catching up with chores around the house ... on holiday, away from home ... rushing around the sales ... whereas a smaller number will be working.  Whatever you are doing - as the new year is approaching, what thoughts are going through your mind?

What dreams have you had that you've never taken the time to think through?  What aspirations have you never admitted to yourself that you know what make the change in your life that you truly want to make?

Now is your time to spend a few moments and write down what dreams you've had ... what aspirations you've had ... what changes you would truly like to make to your life.

Follow Barbara on http://www.thepsychicweek.com/category/cormacks-capers-coaching/ and work through planning your year and achieving all those dreams and aspirations that you've never previously made the time to achieve.

... you will be more disappointed ...

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” Mark Twain

What a fabulous quote and so true.  Sometimes we look back on our lives and we wonder what would have happened if ...?  What would happen if you were to look back and appreciate the things that you did do realising that you tried to achieve every one of your dreams and that you successfully achieved most of them?

Follow Mark Twain's advice ... sail away now!

Want to make a success of your goals? Take this opportunity to work with someone who will not judge the reasons you want to make your move, who will not guide you down a specific path, who will motivate you to make the right decision! You have this opportunity to work with a qualified and accredited coach who has done it! Sign up to coaching with Barbara on http://nyasa.coachinginteractive.com - select 'click here for a free session - My Life'

Find Barbara's biog on http://www.internationalcoachinginstitute.org/coach_referral_service/display_detail.php?trf=91

Insanity ...

'Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.' Albert Einstein.

Since moving to the island my workload hasn't reduced to the level that I thought that it would, so generally I am found in the office on a Saturday morning; but today ... I am doing something different.  There are parts of this island that I haven't yet seen and places that I haven't yet been to, so I'm off out to 'explore'.

This opportunity came because of my delayed flight from Lisbon this week - read more in Cormack's Capers  in Monday's publication of The Psychic Week - and I was sitting next to a delegate coming to attend an EU conference.  As she was planning to spend Saturday on the island, I offered to drive her around ... yesterday, she accepted my offer.  So rather than doing the same thing as I always do and not really thinking about the results, today I'm off out ...!  What am I expecting - yes something different!

'Don't know the weather, ...

... nine-tenths of the people couldn't start a conversation if it didn't change once in a while.'  Kin Hubbard

When I saw this quote today I suddenly realised that moving to a sub-tropical island, the subject of weather doesn't come up in the conversation as often as it did when I was living in mainland Europe.  So I started to wonder ... if I don't have the weather to talk about, how do I start a conversation with someone new?

Yes I could always say 'bright sunny day again today', but what would their response be - 'yes, well it always is on the island'.  Not a really great conversation opener then ...

It's interesting, but one of the things we in mainland Europe (as in other parts of the world) all take for granted is the face that we can talk about the weather.  So when you meet that new person for the first time - business environment, personal - it doesn't really matter where; if the weather is changeable at least you can talk about it; but where on average the weather is the same year round, how do you start a conversation?

One of the advantages of living on the West Coast of Madeira is that we have the most spectacular sunsets.  So I'm now wondering ... should this be what I start my conversations with rather than the weather? 

Want to make a success of your goals?

Take this opportunity to work with someone who will not judge the reasons you want to make your move, who will not guide you down a specific path, who will motivate you to make the right decision!  You have this opportunity to work with a qualified and accredited coach who has done it!  Sign up to coaching with Barbara on http://nyasa.coachinginteractive.com - select 'click here for a free session - My Life'

Find Barbara's biog on http://www.internationalcoachinginstitute.org/coach_referral_service/display_detail.php?trf=91

In the infinity of life where I am,

In the infinity of life where I am,
all is perfect, whole, and complete.
Each one of us, myself included, experiences the richness
and fullness of life in ways that are meaningful to us.
I now look at the past with love and choose
to learn from my old experiences.
There is no right or wrong, nor good or bad.
The past is over and done.
There is only the experience of the moment.
I love myself for bringing myself
through this past into this present moment.
I share what and who I am,
for I know we are all one in Spirit.
All is well in my world.

Louise L. Hay - You Can Heal Your Life (pg230)

How we spend our days ...

"How we spend our days is of course how we spend our lives." Annie Dillard

I found this very interesting quote and it made me start to think about how I spend my days.  When I first started my own company in 2000 I didn't really know where it was going to take me.  I was aware that I didn't want to be tied down to working Monday to Friday 9am-5pm, but I didn't really know what I want to do either.

The year 2000 saw me stay in the IT professional world and work through agencies rather than as an employee of a company.  Over the next year or so I found a new career - it wasn't the first change in my working life, so it didn't worry me that I was going to return to studying and 'start again'.  This was a career in coaching.  It was an interesting transition from working by the day for a client to working by the hour with a coaching client ... and it took me some time to really understand the change I had made to my working life.  Once I did, I realised it was all for the better. 

As you'll know from this blog that I've also now moved my home and working environments away from the UK to the island of Madeira (Portugal) and when I saw this quote this morning I realised that over the last 10 years I've gradually been moving to understand how I spend my days; and today I realised that this is now how I am spending each moment of my life.  What would have happened in my life if I had realised this in 2000 and started the realisation and change of how I spend my time with a more conscious approach, rather than the unconscious approach I seem to have taken. 

Now that I've had this realisation I know that there are things that I need to put into place to really know how I am spending my days, and once I've done this then I know I'll be spending my life in the way I select to.

How can I help you do the same for your life?

Want to know how you spend every moment of your life?

Find Barbara's biog on http://www.internationalcoachinginstitute.org/coach_referral_service/display_detail.php?trf=91

Take this opportunity to work with someone who will not judge the reasons you want to make your move, who will not guide you down a specific path, who will motivate you to make the right decision!  You have this opportunity to work with a qualified and accredited coach who has done it!  Sign up to coaching with Barbara on http://nyasa.coachinginteractive.com - select 'click here for a free session - My Life'

'Stop acting ...

.. as if life is a rehearsal.  Live this day as if it were your last.  The past is over and gone.  The future is not guaranteed.' Wayne Dyer

I love this quote because it truly explains what I often feel when talking to clients, colleagues, friends, and family. 

As you know I have just moved to the most wonderful sub-tropical island of Madeira in the Atlantic Ocean.  I am sitting in my office and looking out over a drizzly day and an Atlantic that isn't as blue as it was yesterday.  One of the things I love about this island is that the colours change daily ... if not more regularly and today the colour of the Atlantic is silvery grey with a hint of violet and orange.

Reading this quote made me realise that I can choose to sit in my office and at my laptop and work ... or I can go out into the day and see what else I can observe.  Yes I work for myself ... yes I have a number of projects that need my attention ... yes colleagues and friends do expect me to be at the other end of the phone ... yes it's the expectation of others that is stopping me! 

This quote clearly says what us coaches know ... we have to live our lives for ourselves.  Does that make us a little selfish - I remember one of my clients asking me just that question and my answer was 'if you don't take responsibility for what you do in and with your life, who will?'

I have made a decision that I'm going out of the office today ... I'm going to spend a minimum of 1 hour in the weather - cooler than it has been and maybe a little wet - and observe what else I can see.  As someone who loves taking photographs, I'll be looking at the colours, the scenery and everything that is around me.  When did you last take some time out for you?

Thinking about this quote specifically, take a few moments and ask yourself 'what's stopping me living the life I dream I could live?'  If you are truly honest with yourself you'll find interesting responses coming to you - capture them.  You don't have to do anything with them at all .. but it will be interesting to see how often they come back to you now that you've spent some time pondering over this question.

It's interesting to see how our parents ... our friends ... our peers ... our colleagues ... our clients/customers ... our acquaintances ... in fact anyone we talk to can influence our life.  I remember being told that my future was in the world of finance and as an obedient daughter I joined an Accounting firm and trained as an Accountant.  Moving to the UK was eye-opening as there were so many opportunities and I started to take them - Financial Analyst in the City of London ... IT consultant ... IT project manager ... and so the opportunities rolled in and I took each one as it came along.  What would have happened if I had followed my dream as a teenager and become a hair-dresser?  My life would not have taken the path it has taken ... my experiences would not be so full and fun-filled maybe ... my friends - would be very different to the friends I have now in my life ... but would my life have been less fullfiling?  I honestly don't know, but what I do know is that I have tried to live each day as it comes ... not always taking advantage of the day and making the most of it ... but re-reading this quote, I'm going to print it out and stick it in places where I and others can see it.  Let's see what happens ... !

As a columnist on The Psychic Week you'll find that I'm writing a weekly article and in these am exploring with my readers what dreams we each have and how we can convert them into our aspirations ... our goals ... and our achievements/successes.  If you truly want to live each day to it's fullest capacity sign up and follow your own progress. 

Create your own future!

For those of you who have wondered where I’ve been, I’ve been working on a new project – The Psychic Week.  This is a weekly on-line magazine where you can for the first time ever read the news before it happens.

Today is ‘go-live’ and for anyone who has been involved in an IT project, you’ll know that I’ve worked the whole week-end through and have been at my desk since 6.30am!  Those last minute technical glitches always lurk around.

is written and published by an extraordinary team of people dedicated to providing a really honest and alternative insight into the human experience –it’s one that challenges the conventional but provides a refreshingly positive path for the future.  Working with a couple of my closest friends - Robert and Julie Wells - the project has taken them fifteen years of work to formulate and most of 2010 to bring it all together.  The Psychic Week has been designed to encourage you to think outside the box and for those of you who know me well, you will know that this is something that I advocate. 

Take this opportunity to follow my column - Cormack's Capers - and create your own future.  In this column I will be taking you through the coaching process while explaining my own story in relation to creating my future.

The Psychic Week has a minimal subscription, a percentage of the profits will go to develop a Trust Fund to assist talented disadvantaged children – so I hope that you will join me on our journey of exploration week-by-week into the positive of human potential.

To look at the site, just click on www.thepsychicweek.com and join us on this wonderful journey click on http://thepsychicweek.com/wp-login.php?action=register. 

As always with a new venture - please pass this on to your friends, family, colleagues, networks ...

With today’s technology, how can you share your exploring in real-time?

We sometimes go away with our friends and leave our partners, spouses and/or children at home.  I know that I’ve done this with girl-friends and my brother frequently does this with his motor-biking friends.  Being away for a couple of days isn’t really a problem when it comes to sharing what we did, but being away for a week or maybe longer means that those we have left behind at home don’t always know exactly what we are doing.  Sharing text messages and quick phone calls doesn’t really tell them what we are experiencing.

 

The good news is that sharing your holiday, your business trip, your experience, your exploring, and/or your fun with those back home has never been easier.  There is an ever growing number of ways that you can do this with the free blog, photo-sharing websites and social networking websites and I’d like to take this opportunity to share a few options with you.

 

Before you go ahead and create somewhere to share your holiday activities, experiences, exploring, excitements and those all important photographs; think about what you are trying to achieve.  Is this a one-off environment that you are creating just for this holiday or is this an environment that you would like to use for each holiday you go on?  Who will have access to the information and the photographs that you are going to publish – just close family, personal friends or the general public?  Whatever it is that you are trying to create the good news is that most social networking sites today are free to use and often simple to set-up and manage.

• Facebook (www.facebook.com) - Facebook allows you to upload your photographs into albums.  Facebook also allows you to make comments throughout your holiday.  Facebook allows you to decide who can see what are publishing - friends or friends of friends for example. 
• Travel Journals (www.traveljournals.net) - Does what is 'says on the tin'.  Travel journals is just that - it allows you to create a travel journal and publish both your stories and your pictures. 
• WordPress (www.wordpress.org) - WordPress is software that allows you to create either a blog or a website.  WordPress is free and allows you to design a blog to suit your own requirements, within the parameters of the software. 
• Typepad (www.typepad.com) - Typepad is also software that allows you to create either a blog or a website.  Unlike WordPress, Typepad is not free - it allows for a trial period, but does have monthly charges depending upon what you require from your blog. 
• Blog comparison (www.ojr.org) - This is a great website to give you the comparisons over the available blog software - free and chargeable. 
• Flickr (www.flickr.com) - A great online photograph album.  You can manage your photographs and who has viewing rights to see them.  
• Picasa (http://picasa.google.com) - Similar to Flickr, Picasa is free photo editing software from Google, which allows you to share your photographs with those you select to see them. 
• Windows Live Spaces (http://windowslive.com/online/spaces) - Windows Live spaces is blog software that allows you to publish up to 1,000 photographs a month.  Yes, there is Windows Live Mobile to allow you to share your antics, experiences, photographs, etc. from anywhere your mobile/cell phone connects.  Windows Live Spaces allows you to select who can see your blog and who can leave comments. 

This is just a short list of the available options on the web right now, and more appear regularly.  So thinking about what you are trying to achieve with your ‘publication’, what is it that you are trying to share – stories, photographs, text, comments or a range of or all of the above?

 

Now that you’ve understood what you are trying to achieve with your publication, before you choose the software you want to work with spend some time getting to know the website and the software offering before you go on holiday.  You may read all it says on the website about what the software does, but unless you actually try it you won’t really know how it works, what it offers, who has access until you publish your first text and/or photographs.  Reading all about a website may make it sound more difficult to use that it truly is – you don’t need to be a technical expert or website designer to be able to use them.  They are designed with you in mind.

 

Now that you’ve spent a few hours (and yes it may take that to work through and select the right website for you) you’ll know which site you are working with and what you need to take with you to make it work:

• Your digital camera
• Research to find out if there is a library, cyber cafe, etc. that you can access your site from
• Your mobile/cell phone, if the website you've selected to work from allows mobile updates
• Your laptop (unless the accommodation you are staying in has a business centre)
• An internet connection for your laptop if your accommodation doesn't offer one, or the internet connections from your accommodation are expensive.
• Your blackberry or iphone
• Your battery charges - digital camera, laptop, mobile/cell phone, blackberry, iphone, ...

How important is it for you to edit your photographs before you publish them?  Looking at the photographs published through some of these websites i.e. Facebook, blogs; the photographs published have not been edited – they are just published in some cases immediately they are taken.  What do you want to do – publish the photograph as it was taken? or modify it before you publish?  If you select to modify it before you publish, this is something that you need to consider when selecting the software you want to work with, unless you have photography software on your laptop.

 

There is a whole range of photo editing software starting with Windows Live Photo Gallery and working all the way through to Adobe Photoshop that is available for you to install on your laptop.  This type of software would allow you to lighten a dark photograph, sharpen a photograph, fix red-eye, crop photographs, change colour photographs from colour to sepia or black and white – often with just a click or a few clicks of your mouse.  There is also on-line editing software – for example, Phixr, GIFworks, Picnik, FotoFlexer, LunaPic, Online Photo Editor, Pixlr, Photoshop, piZap, Pixenate are a few sites that are available to you.  There is also opportunities like Photosynth which re-creates 3D scenes from your photographs.  Then you have AutoCollage which allows you to take your photographs and make collages of them.

Happy publishing!

“The test of any man's character is how he takes praise” anon

Since selling the UK house in February, 2010 I've been living in what feels like whirlpool.  Over the next few weeks I'll expand on what has happened - positive and negative; but the real unexpected surprise was an award that was delivered just before I left the UK. 

Cambridge Who's Who has
'recognised me as the 2010 Professional of the Year
representing the Relocation & Expat Coaching Industry'.

I arrived at the post office to collect the post on the day before I left the UK and collected this box.  Although it said 'glass' and 'fragile', I hadn't got the time to open it - so found a safe place for it in the car and drove off.

After a week of travelling through Europe and across the high seas to Madeira, I drove off the ferry and onto the island on Monday evening.  I arrived in the office on Tuesday morning and opened the box - imagine my surprise.

Recognition is always a fabulous thing, but often with recognition the recipient doesn't acknowledge it.  We always say thank you, put it away, and move on.  In the world of coaching as a coach we always try to work with our clients to ensure that they recognise their own achievements and as part of this, the awards that they might have received.  So I decided, rather than putting this award back in it's box (as I've done in the past) I would hang it on the office wall ... !

What achievements have you not recognised?  What awards have you received and put back in the box?  Take a moment out and write them down ... once you've done that what can you do to recognise your own achievements?

Want to convert your dreams/aspirations to achievable goals? 

Take this opportunity to work with someone who will not judge the reasons you want to make your move, who will not guide you down a specific path, who will motivate you to make the right decision!  You have this opportunity to work with a qualified and accredited coach who has done it!  Sign up to coaching with Barbara on http://nyasa.coachinginteractive.com - select 'click here for a free session - My Life'

Find Barbara's biog on http://www.internationalinstituteofcoaching.org/coach_referral_service/display_detail.php?trf=91