I heard this F-O-C-U-S acronym mentioned on a free teleseminar by copywriting coach, Chris Marlow.

She’d invited her own coach, Gary Ryan Blair (The Goals Guy), to talk about his 100 days goal achieving challenge. Of course, this allows Gary to also pitch his product but I’m fine with that for two reasons:

a) Gary freely covered some good content on goals setting – enough for a student of copywriting to get and apply the basic idea to their own business / personal goals without having to buy anything. However, he also pre-sold his own program very effectively and that was a valid marketing lesson in itself!

b) Chris is sharing some of the resources she’s using to set and achieve goals. And since I’m ‘into’ copywriting, I make it a point to find out how the top people in that field are developing themselves. (Anyone can apply the same approach in a field that interests them.)

Here’s What I Got From This Call With The Goals Guy

I always aim to learn something from these calls (I listen to them on the train, when there’s not much else to do anyway), and this time I was reminded of two important ideas:

1) F-O-C-U-S

2) A ’sense of urgency’

The practicalities of implementing a ‘Follow-One-Course-Until-Successful’ approach can be debated endlessly (hello procrastination, my old friend…!) and, in my experience, they vary from person to person.

However, let’s assume you’re committed to making a mid-career change.

That goal’s become your ‘focus’ for the next one, two, however many years you believe it will take to: a) make the change and b) achieve and savor the tangible and intangible goals that go with this new lifestyle.

Combining the ‘focus goal’ with a ’sense of urgency’ is the tension that helps keep you moving forward. Sure, that tension will not always be present and there will be times where you may be ’slacking’.

But, in the unknown time period that we call ‘our life’, inspired tension can be both your own motivator and reward generator.

That’s what I took from this teleclass.

- Mark McClure

Pamela Skillings’ ‘Escape from Corporate America’ blog links to a great video interview of her by Devesh Dwivedi.

I’ve posted the 22 minute video link below and recommend it to anyone still in the corporate world who’s thinking about ‘career change’ but not sure what to do next.

This is the first time I’ve encountered Devesh and I was impressed with his interviewing skills. He asked each question and then kept quiet while Pamela got on with answering it!

Some of the interview highlights that resonated with my experience were:

a) What to do? (4m 24s)

b) What is it you’re escaping to? (8m 29s)

c) Ethical moonlighting and financial implications. (10m 1s)

d) Career transition doesn’t necessarily mean being an entrepreneur (14m 0s)

e) The reality of starting a business – how are you going to solve problems in the marketplace? (16m 0s)

f) (Solo) entrepreneurs, especially in the early stages of growing a business, spend a lot of time alone. Therefore, having a support network and not becoming isolated are things to think about. (17m 0s)

Interview With Pamela Skillings from Entrepreneur In Making on Vimeo.

Career change is about taking ‘calculated risks’ but with no firm guarantees of success. That said, I think Pamela and Devesh communicated a very important message about the joys and perils of escaping from cubicle celldom:

“hope for the best but plan for the worst.”

- Mark McClure

I’m pleased to announce that our ‘Coaches in Japan’ web site is now live.

The idea of having a place in cyberspace for Japan-based coaches has been bouncing around my cranium for a while.

It probably would have stayed in neural orbit but for the positive effects of meeting up and talking with other coaches here. (You can read more of the background in this post about ICA Coaches in Japan.)

The next steps for this project’ are:

• Get more Japan-based, ICA-trained coaches on board.
• Add a stream of articles based around a ‘coaching in Japan’ theme.
• Start spreading the word.
• Enjoy a celebration dinner. (Coaches love celebrating!)

As you might imagine, there’s a very large and vibrant Japanese coaching environment, in what is still the World’s second-largest economy. We are definitely not trying to compete with the Native Japanese coaching world.

Instead, our focus is on serving people interested in working with ICA-trained coaches who have had experience of living and working in this wonderful country.
In many cases these coaches are likely to be foreigners in Japan – though we do have at least one Japanese ICA student who has attended our events. The more, the merrier!

Finally, the following coaches deserve special mention for stepping up to the plate and helping get the site from idea to launch pad:

Business Coaching: Chaima Ben Hassine Bassem

Transition Coaching: Jacinta Hin

Leadership & Transition Coaching: Faiza Ikeda

Self-Esteem Coaching: Liv Miyagawa

If you have any suggestions for what you’d like to see from this new coaching site please leave a comment to this post or visit the ‘Coaches in Japan contact’ page.

- Mark McClure